Blog

  • TONY MAHER. Energy future debate needs to put people first

    Without bipartisan support for the key planks of energy policy, we will continue to have electricity shortages, higher than necessary prices and investment decisions being made by governments based on populism. Workers shouldn’t be used as a pawn in a political game by politicians. Workers should be centre stage – changes to the energy system should make sure workers and their communities don’t continue to bear a disproportionate share of the burden of this unholy mess. (more…)

  • DOUBTFUL OPTIMIST. The violent and dangerous religion in New Zealand

    It is perhaps time to inquire whether the violence, both actual and ritual, the injuries and the cheating  in rugby in any way help, lift or inspire the families, children and society in general in New Zealand. (more…)

  • MICHAEL LIFFMAN. The Real Roots of Populism

    (If we are really to understand and respond to populism, we need to go deep into the human psyche. Perhaps Jung is as relevant as Marx to this inquiry, and those of us who are committed to social progress need to reassess our approach…) (more…)

  • MUNGO MacCALLUM. The Greens remain political amateurs.

    Lee Rhiannon is undoubtedly the disrupter, but in a sense the public fracturing of the Greens is largely the fault of her leader, Richard di Natale.   (more…)

  • RICHARD BUTLER. Dangerous Dysfunction

    US foreign policy is being conducted in an incoherent and dysfunctional manner and key military decisions have been delegated by the President to the Pentagon. Trump, however, is threatening further military action against Syria based on the charges that, in the last similar instance, were deemed to be false, including by his own intelligence agencies. The possibility of conflict with Russia over Syria is growing. What role does the Australian government see for us in such a circumstance?

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  • Moral hazard in modern democratic politics

    While all Western democracies accept the need for social safety nets, conservative governments point to moral hazard to justify less generous public provisions, while progressive parties prioritize more assistance to the needy over additional minor inconvenience to the better off (more…)

  • MICHAEL MULLINS. Cardinal Pell’s preference for spin doctors over truth tellers

    Cardinal Pell’s actions and attitudes towards the media over the years have demonstrated a lack of appreciation of its role in truth telling. If, as he stated , he is innocent of the ‘false’ charges laid against him, it is in his interest not to condemn the truth telling media but to trust and embrace it. (more…)

  • STEPHEN LONG. Reserve Bank boss Philip Lowe urges workers to push for pay rises

    It wasn’t quite Karl Marx, but, for a central bank boss, it was heady stuff: The Reserve Bank governor, no less, exhorting workers to demand higher pay rises.  (more…)

  • GERALDINE DOOGUE. Flawed Catholic Church a test for the true believers

    The other day a visiting Israeli man bluntly asked me during a small dinner: was I religious? Well, yes, I replied, though not quite in the way I once would have ­answered. But Cardinal ­George Pell is not to blame for that.

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  • JOHN MENADUE. By accepting funding from weapons suppliers the Australian War Memorial demeans Australia’s war dead.

    I asked the director of the Australian War Memorial, Brendan Nelson, why the Memorial is accepting funding from weapons manufacturers like BAE Systems, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman.  In response, Brendan Nelson, wrote back that “We regard it as entirely appropriate that defence contractors support the Memorial in its mission.” (more…)

  • KIERAN TAPSELL. A Different Scorecard on Pope Francis

    Pope Francis has rightly been acclaimed for his stand on climate change, poverty, inequality and refugees, but on these issues he can only encourage others to act. When it comes to the role of the laity in Church governance and the cover up of child sexual abuse, Pope Francis’ rhetoric does not match his actions. He will never have the moral authority of a Nelson Mandela while he refuses to initiate changes to canon law that would bring them into line. (more…)

  • MICHAEL KEATING. Why Blame Neo-Liberal Economics?

    The claim is frequently made that neo-liberal economic policies are responsible for an increase in inequality. However, no supporting analysis is ever offered to sustain such claims; the obvious reason being because they reflect the author’s imagination and prejudices. (more…)

  • STEVE LEEDER. A welcome review of the Medicare Benefits Schedule

    In 2015 Sussan Ley, then the Minister for Health, established a review of the schedule of fees for medical benefits. The review of the schedule’s 5700 items, involving a rigorous evidence-based process, is now around half way through. When completed it will provide an opportunity for more cost-effective health care and a saving of public revenue. (more…)

  • ROD TIFFEN.  The UK Election’s Second Biggest Loser – Rupert Murdoch

    A widely circulated tweet claimed that on election night in Britain, Rupert Murdoch stalked out of the Times’s party when the exit polls suggested the Tories were in trouble.  As we know, Teresa May’s opportunistic calling of an early election backfired on her, and the Conservatives went from a parliamentary majority to a minority government, and her political authority and latitude are now much diminished.  The second biggest loser from the election though is less obvious – Rupert Murdoch.  (more…)

  • John Menadue talks to Jon Faine about Rupert Murdoch, the great rent-seeker (Repost)

    The interview with Jon Faine was reported in The Guardian on 29 June 2017.  News Corp is a ‘disgrace’ and should not get hands on Ten, former manager says.

    Repost:  In an interview on 22 June 2017 with Jon Faine of 774 ABC Melbourne Radio, John Menadue highlights how the Murdoch media attacks people like single mothers and dole ‘bludgers’ for wanting handouts from government, yet the Murdoch organisation depends heavily on  government handouts and political favours. Right now it is seeking government favours for Sky television in the UK and Channel 10 in Australia. This has always been the Murdoch way.  (See link to interview) (more…)

  • CHRIS BONNOR. Has the Gonski dust settled?

    Many claims have been made about the Turnbull Government’s Gonski breakthrough. It seemed to grant the wishes of advocates for greater equity and efficacy in the funding of schools – so much so that I had to re-cast the recommendations in the recent CPD report, Losing the Game, written with Bernie Shepherd. We had always stressed an urgency to support the most needy schools and the importance of a Schooling Resourcing body. At the penultimate hour both priorities were thrown into the legislation. (more…)

  • JOHN MENADUE. Our white man’s media coverage of chemical weapons attacks in Syria

    In this blog on  12 May 2017  I wrote:   “Our media have accepted without examination the US/Intelligence view that President Assad was responsible for the awful gas attacks in Syria.  He may have been responsible.  But no independent evidence has been produced. I have not seen any of our media attempt to examine this issue’.

    Pulitzer Prize winning author, Seymour Hersh has now written that there was no evidence that the Assad regime had initiated the chemical weapons attack in April this year.”   (more…)

  • RANALD MACDONALD. Defending the ABC

    The ABC is not perfect but this country desperately needs an ABC able financially and committed to fulfilling its Charter requirements for all Australians. And for it to be free of political interference. (more…)

  • DAVID MENERE. Don’t mention the War — the latest on what isn’t being reported on Syria

    Reporting on the Syrian conflict by Australia’s media is practically non-existent. Only when events impinge directly on Australia, or involve a major incident, do they gain local coverage. Overseas mainstream reporting is little better. Where does the distinction lie between disinterest and self-censorship? (more…)

  • PETER RODGERS. Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the US: the conniving and the confused

    Saudi Arabia’s ultimatum to Qatar says much about the Kingdom’s dreams of regional hegemony, its proxy war with Iran, and its glaring double-standards over ‘interventionism’. It amounts to a demand for Qatar’s total surrender. Qatar faces meaningful pain from the Saudi-led economic boycott but the chances of it acceding to the ultimatum are zero. Meanwhile, the Trump Administration struggles to develop a coherent approach.
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  • MUNGO MacCALLUM. With his Gonski II win, Malcolm Turnbull has something to smile about at last.

    Turnbull can chalk up a rare and vitally important win before the winter recess closes in. It came just in time for the longest night of the year; our Prime Minister, if not all his colleagues, will hope that this is a sign that increasing hours of daylight, if not actual sunshine, will follow.  (more…)

  • JIM COOMBS. Three Government Ministers in Contempt

    For a start what the three Federal ministers did was attack the judiciary in Victoria, for which they got a right bollocking from the Chief Justice of Victoria. Some sagely assert that they breached the doctrine of the separation of powers suggested by the Constitution. It is pretty clear that, insofar as their comments prejudiced a matter still to be determined, they had gone way too far. They attacked judges who by convention do not engage in political controversy, although sometimes having to decide matters which have varying degrees of political effect – that is, they were kicking someone who can’t really kick back. Others might say they were interfering with the independence of the judiciary, a cornerstone of the “checks and balances” enshrined in the Constitution. (more…)

  • SPENCER ZIFCAK. Three Ministers vs. Three Judges: Executive Government gets Flattened

    In Victoria’s Court of Appeal last Friday, an encounter unprecedented in Australian legal and political history played itself out. Through the Commonwealth Solicitor-General (SG) three Commonwealth Government Ministers made an abject apology to the Court. (more…)

  • ALISON BROINOWSKI. Our mission creeps into Southeast Asia

    We should not have to resort to speculation about what our troops are doing either in Syria or in the Philippines. But the mere mention of Islamist terrorism now generates an armed response. (more…)

  • STEVE DOVERS. Australia as world leader in conservation?

    With the environment a low political priority and few significant environmental initiatives in recent years, maybe Australia just isn’t up to being the world leader in conservation it once was. But an analysis of our past achievements shows that we could indeed show the way internationally, and a recent report identifies the many initiatives we can implement.  (more…)

  • ALLAN PATIENCE. Anyone for disruption?

    The ugly chickens of the neoliberal era in Australian public policy are relentlessly coming home to roost: stagnating wages, high unemployment (especially among young people), declining standards in public hospitals, schools, universities, and TAFE institutes, homelessness on the increase, more beggars on the streets, increased social conflict (crime, racist violence, domestic violence, home invasions, road rage, car-jackings, sexual harassment), the death of manufacturing, more and more people experiencing anger, despair, anxiety and depression, unprecedented growth in socio-economic inequality, big corporations bullying governments and the general public (big banks, mining companies, media organisations) … (more…)

  • MUNGO MacCALLUM. We are in dreadful peril.

    You might not have known it, but Australia is in deadly peril. National security is endangered on all fronts, the most obvious indicator the imminent arrival of fleets of boats poised to descend on our sacred shores, ready to wreak havoc and despair among the populace. Terrorism is just the start of it; who can tell what horrors to which the lucky country will be subjugated.   (more…)

  • BRUCE THOM. Disaster preparedness and climate change: a national conundrum

    Australia’s  policies on climate adaptation and disaster preparedness are not being brought together across jurisdictions to make the nation more resilient to inevitable shocks, let alone the insidious effects of reduced rainfall and water supplies. Professor Bruce Thom suggests how the imbalance between  emission control and adaptation can be addressed with three related policy suggestions. (more…)

  • Chris Bonnor Vale Bernie Shepherd

    Every profession has them: those people with an extraordinary range of interests and talents who change the lives of others and sometimes the profession itself. Bernie Shepherd, who has just lost his battle against cancer, was one of these. He was a science teacher with great interest and ability in English and the arts, a school principal who established a different type of school, a consultant who carried a new method of assessing students across NSW – and a retiree who pioneered analysis of our school system by tapping into the data behind the My School website. (more…)

  • BRUCE DUNCAN. A scorecard on Pope Francis

    Unexpectedly, Pope Francis has emerged as one of the most significant world leaders. Largely unknown before his election, Jorge Bergoglio as Pope Francis has assumed the moral stature of a new Mandela, and not just among Catholics. (more…)