The “Neo-liberal” language speaks of arms sales as just good business, notwithstanding the concomitant death and destruction. (more…)
Blog
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From the Nuclear Non-proliferation to the UN Prohibition Treaty
There are currently no negotiations or discussions on arms control being conducted at all between any of the countries that possess nuclear weapons (China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, UK, USA)
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Australia’s Desperate Refugee Obstinacy
[An article by Roger Cohen reposted from the New York Times]
BYRON BAY, Australia — Now we know how desperate Australia is to close the shameful chapter in its history that has seen about 2,000 asylum-seekers and refugees — some now dead, most suffering from depressive disorders — dumped on two remote Pacific islands for four years. (more…)
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RANALD MACDONALD. ABC deal comes back to haunt Government.
Make a deal for political expediency and then unforseen consequences usually follow. (more…)
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DAVID KING AND PETER BROOKS. Coal is the new tobacco.
Coal is the new tobacco in terms of the harms it has on our health. No hospital would think of lending its logo to support the marketing of cigarettes or allowing any of its key decision makers to have strong links to cigarette companies. Yet, such an extraordinary situation has arisen around the Mater Hospital in Brisbane. (more…)
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MICHAEL LIFFMAN. Is it time for National Civic Youth Service Program?
Perhaps the time has come to consider a notion, at which most progressives’ immediate reaction is to recoil, that a compulsory non-military youth civic service program be introduced in Australia? (more…)
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BOB CARR. The Case for Recognition of Palestine
A speech given by the Honourable Bob Carr at the NSW ALP Conference on 30 July 2017 (more…)
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John Menadue. Rent-seekers and the hollowing out of democracy (Repost 12/2015)
‘Rent-seeking’ is a term understood by most economists. It refers to the ability of powerful groups to extract special concessions and favours at the expense of the wider community. (more…)
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RICHARD BUTLER. The Myths of Australian Foreign Policy. (Reposted from 31 March 2017)
The review of Australian foreign policy needs to be freed from the myths of our dependency and take serious account of the current and likely state of US foreign and military policy. (more…)
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MUNGO MacCALLUM. Malcolm Turnbull and Eric Abetz in furious agreement on same sex marriage.
The recalcitrants will call it a backdown and it will certainly be a change: but, as John Maynard Keynes memorably said: “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” But then, for much of his life Keynes was gay. Abetz can and will ignore that kind of dangerous advice. (more…)
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LAURIE PATTON. The broadband debacle: NBN Co needs to eat its own dog food.
Whoever is in office three years from now will have the biggest ever infrastructure debacle on their hands if we don’t do something soon, writes Internet Australia’s Laurie Patton. (more…)
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IAN VERRENDER. How the Commonwealth Bank laid the groundwork for a royal commission
Where do you start? A total clean-out of the board and management of the Commonwealth Bank, a complete rethink of the role of our financial institutions, or a subjective investigation on the impact of new technology and whether it can replace human involvement? (more…)
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LYNDSAY CONNORS. The Coalition applauds most queue jumpers.
The sound of transactional businessmen – Trump and Turnbull-brokering a Faustian bargain was never going to be edifying. The question is how Australians want to deal and to be seen to deal with the world as it is, while working out how we would like it to be. (more…)
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RICHARD BUTLER. Trump: A Sideshow? (This is a repost from 27 January 2017)
It is not only Trump that has assumed power in the US but also a set of deeply ideological and introverted Republicans. Both will shape US policy and actions. Australia should now review the conduct of its relationship with the US, and develop an independent foreign policy, freed from the dictates of internal US politics. (more…)
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MUNGO MacCALLUM. A $30 million gift to the great rent seeker, News Corp.
Inevitably a scandal over $30 million of taxpayers money to Foxtel tended to get lost in the rush. But it remains a scandal nonetheless, especially when the government admits – no, boasts – that there is no record of the transaction; apparently the cash was simply handed over in a brown paper bag with a wink and a nudge. (more…)
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KIM OATES. The health gap.
“The problem is ………. that we have been pursuing economic policy that benefits the one per cent. Trickle-down economics is defunct and does not work”.
“Politics quickly departs from evidence into the realm of ideology ….. But evidence must be a key part of the conversation.”
“One senior Conservative politician in Britain put it to me that my agenda is closer to Social Democrat than to Conservative thinking …… I make my case on the evidence, not on prior political beliefs.”
These quotes are from Michael Marmot’s book, The Health Gap. Some may find them controversial, or at least provocative. (more…)
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CHRIS BONNOR. NAPLAN has just turned ten. So what?
NAPLAN is not unlike some kids I have known: conceived in haste as a result of a rush of blood, a bit of an erratic upbringing (from a variety of guardians), confusion as to purpose in life and fervent hopes that he/she/it will turn out right in the end. Each year there is a birthday, accompanied by a mixture of hand wringing, pious hopes and future plans that might show it was all worthwhile. (more…)
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John Menadue. Murdoch’s Media Tax. (Reposted from 29/12/2015)
Rupert Murdoch complains that he faces unfair competition from a taxpayer funded public broadcaster like the ABC and SBS. Yet in effect, he imposes his own consumption taxes on consumers. (more…)
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JOHN MENADUE. Conservatives set the rules but they keep breaking them. (Repost from 7 February 2017)
Many people around the world are concluding that the system is rigged in favour of powerful insiders who bend the rules. The populists – Trump, Farage, Le Pen and Hanson are adept at tapping into that disempowerment and the sense that the system is rigged against them. (more…)
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MICHAEL KEATING. Electricity Prices.
Electricity prices are a hot topic at present. Amidst the welter of claim and counter-claim as to what is the cause of higher electricity prices, there has been remarkably little use of the available evidence. (more…)
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JOHN MENADUE. Australian business in Asia – ‘pale, male and stale’. (Repost from 8 August 2016)
A recent report on ‘Australia’s Diaspora Advantage: Realising the potential for building transnational business networks with Asia’ reveals that social class and racism, either conscious or unconscious, still excludes many Australians of Asian origin from many Australian institutions and particularly business institutions. The bamboo ceiling is still in place. It limits opportunities for people in Australia with Asian ‘talent’. It also limits the effectiveness of Australian business in Asia. (more…)
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CHARLES LIVINGSTONE. Pokies, sport and racing harm 41% of monthly gamblers: survey
For the first time, the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey has turned its attention to gambling, revealing that around 1.4 million Australians are directly harmed by the activity. (more…)
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ANDREW FARRAN. Afghanistan in the wake of the Pakistan Prime Minister’s dismissal
President Trump must decide soon whether the US should remain in a holding pattern in Afghanistan. As Trump has little personal skin in the war to this point he may decide that enough is enough leaving everyone to ponder what it was all about. Is the recent dismissal of the Pakistani Prime Minister a further complication? (more…)
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ALISON BROINOWSKI. Still losing the last Afghan war.
President Trump’s many current distractions did not prevent him telling his military advisers the simple truth about Afghanistan on 19 July: ‘We aren’t winning. We are losing.’ (more…)
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China’s Maritime Provocations Are Nothing Next To America’s Adventurism A Century Ago
The message from the U.S. is that China should be more like us. But Americans should be careful what they wish for. (more…)
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How Trump is trashing the US Department of State.
In the New York Times International Edition of 29 July 2017, Roger Cohen writes – Why is Trump hollowing out the State Department? Is it punishment for Hillary Clinton’s department? Or an extreme iteration of the “deconstruction of the administrative state” sought by Trump’s chief strategist, Steve Bannon? Roger Cohen writes… (more…)
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It’s high noon on the roof of the world
The territorial standoff in the Himalayas is a lose-lose proposition for both India and China. (more…)
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DAVID CHARLES. The Australian media’s emphasis on the downsides of technological change has implications for innovation, growth and living standards.
There is systematic tendency in Australia compared to many countries in Asia for the mainstream media to place greater emphasis on the potential downsides of technological change rather than the upsides. (more…)
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JULIAN CRIBB: When optimism spells disaster…
One of the most dangerous threats to the human future in this, the Age of Perils, is … optimism. (more…)
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JIM COOMBS. What Economic Policy should be about
The idea that government economic policy should only be about making capitalist enterprise easier is just plain wrong. It should be trying to make it better for the nation. (more…)