Blog

  • RAMESH THAKUR. Nuclear powers and umbrella states must engage with, not obstruct, the international community.

    It is time for the so-called realists to get real about the existential dangers of a world brimming with nuclear weapons.  (more…)

  • MICHAEL D. BREEN. Bullying Documentary on ABC Television March 14 & 21

    Bullying is an epidemic. Bullying is a complex social matter. Systemic problems need systemic remedies. There is a wealth of international research available. Good will and enthusiasm are insufficient treatment qualifications; even if the presenter is a national good guy. Is it acceptable to test drive a dubious procedural treatment on T.V.? Would it be acceptable for an unproven surgical procedure?

    If the ABC is to ask vulnerable individuals to be interviewed about personal and family sufferings, producers need to be able to justify that the repeated pain is worth it. Otherwise suffering is increased and informed viewers squirm.   (more…)

  • MAX HAYTON. Kiwibank – lessons for Australia.

    It’s not unusual for big banks to be accused of greed, unfairness, poor service and corruption. The answer often proposed is to create a government owned bank. This has been suggested as a solution in Australia. New Zealand has already built one, but its experience shows public ownership doesn’t necessarily fix all the problems.   (more…)

  • JAMES O’NEILL. The London Attack: What We Fail to Acknowledge

    “The idea”, …  “that you can set fire to countries in the Middle East, collapse their societies, and traumatize entire populations sowing carnage on a biblical scale, and not expect any reaction in the form of blowback is utterly insane.”   (more…)

  • GILES PARKINSON. How AEMO’s new boss will reform Australia’s energy vision.

    Audrey Zibelman, the new chief executive of the Australian Energy Market Operator, has been in the job for little over a week, but is already making her mark, signalling the biggest shift in energy management philosophy in a generation.   (more…)

  • The Australian does it again, and again, and again.

    Media Watch on 27 March 2017 described the unprofessional behaviour of the Australian and journalist Graham Lloyd  over the reporting of the bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef. The Media Watch story follows.   (more…)

  • KELLIE TRANTER. Unreasonable silence

    So what are we left with? The burial of truth. A closed bloc hunkered down in Canberra who conceal information and who fail to condemn the loss of life of innocents at the hands of either our country or our allies, and who are cut off from the consequences of their own cruelty, stupidity and collaboration. Defence personnel who no longer fight for a better future for Australians.  
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  • Saul Eslake’s well timed warnings help inform the housing affordability debate

    Saul Eslake, one of Australia’s most highly respected independent economists, has sounded some sobering warnings about the impact of declining rates of home ownership (and rising levels of mortgage debt) on Australia’s retirement income system. He has also once again stressed the need for reform of the demand side of the supply and demand equation affecting housing affordability.   (more…)

  • PAT POWER. Nuclear disarmament.

    I find it incredible that Australia is refusing to be part of the UN negotiations on a new treaty to outlaw nuclear weapons. 
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  • TONY SMITH. Hope in diversity and real cases, not ideological claptrap

    Self-righteous people, believing themselves to be ‘self-made’ are prepared to punish children along with single mothers and so entrench disadvantage for generations. 
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  • KIERAN TAPSELL. The Royal Commission, Religious Liberty and the Jehovah’s Witnesses

    A more difficult issue is the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ practice of “shunning” those who decide to leave the organisation as adults because of sexual abuse. It may be that the Commission is left with no other alternative but to condemn it as cruel. Quite apart from Church/State separation issues, legislation can be effective to overrule Jehovah’s Witnesses wishes that their children not have blood transfusions, but it is a blunt and useless tool to make them love their neighbour.   (more…)

  • Disadvantaged Students Denied Adequate Funding by Massive Tax Concessions for the Wealthy

    The latest Tax Expenditures Statement shows that Australia can easily afford the Gonski funding plan to bring under-resourced public schools up to the national standard and reduce the large proportion of disadvantaged students not achieving expected benchmarks. It is simply a matter of reducing the tax privileges of the wealthy to support increased learning opportunities for the disadvantaged.   (more…)

  • JOHN TULLOH. The NBN – Another Inconvenient Truth

    ‘The nbn network is Australia’s exciting new landline phone and internet network. It’s designed to give you access to fast, reliable phone and internet services, no matter where you live’. NBN Connect Kit.   (more…)

  • MUNGO MacCALLUM. Can Turnbull learn from Trump?

    It may have been one of the few rational things Trump has done since moving into the White House, but it was considerably more decisive than the endless procrastination of our own leader, who seems determined to hang on to the great National Economic Plan of 2016, the plan for massive across-the-board cuts to company tax.   (more…)

  • ANDREW FARRAN. Stirring a Witch’s Brew – Selling military equipment to Saudi Arabia.

    Australia is busily involved in selling military equipment to Saudi Arabia which is engaged in the civil war in the Yemen whose features exceed in brutality and crimes against humanity those in Syria. Has the government clearly thought through where this might lead, and does the risk of adverse consequences outweigh a few commercial contracts regardless of where Australia might end up in relation to the wider conflict now well underway in the Middle East?   (more…)

  • FRANK BRENNAN SJ. Let’s amend 18C to say what it means

    The debate over section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act (18C) has gone on for far too long. I welcome the Turnbull government’s attempt to amend the provision, while being disappointed yet again at the petty politics played on both sides in Canberra in relation to a matter of principle which needs to be handled sensitively for the good of all citizens in our multicultural Australia.   (more…)

  • SPENCER ZIFCAK. From Imbroglio to Fiasco: Malcolm Turnbull Loses the Plot on S.18C

    The argument about the terms of Sections 18C and 18D of the Commonwealth Racial Discrimination Act (RDA) began with the case brought against the journalist, Andrew Bolt, now some six years ago. The temperature of the debate has risen and fallen during that time, but one aspect of it has remained constant.   (more…)

  • BOB BIRRELL and BOB KINNAIRD. Migration policy; All about numbers

    The permanent skilled migration program should be cut by nearly half, from 128,000 (primary and secondary applicants) to around 70,000. This includes migrants granted visas under the points test and those sponsored by employers.   (more…)

  • JAMES O’NEILL. A tale of two cities: Aleppo and Mosul.

    The double standards of the western media are clearly demonstrated in the different treatment accorded the liberation of Aleppo by Syrian and Russian forces and the ongoing battle for the liberation of Mosul by ‘coalition’ (i.e. US) forces in northern Iraq.

    Also completely missing from western accounts is the fact that prior to the March 2003 invasion of Iraq by the US, UK, Australia and others, there was no al Qaeda or ISIS in either Iraq or Syria. That illegal invasion was based on a series of massive lies and has caused the deaths of well over one million Iraqis and plunged the region into chaos and destruction.   (more…)

  • PETER WHITEFORD. ‘Them’ and ‘us’: the enduring power of welfare myths.

    Despite the evidence that deliberate fraud is a tiny fraction of social security spending, it remains a mainstay of much reporting of welfare in the Australian media. The Daily Telegraph is a repeat offender.   (more…)

  • RICHARD BUTLER. The many risks we run – Trump and the US. (Part 2 of 2)

    The deep-seated argument taking place within the US polity, partly but not only because of the mess being presided over by President Trump, makes even more urgent the need for a thorough-going review of Australia’s foreign policy, including how we conduct ourselves within the alliance.   (more…)

  • LAURIE PATTON and ROBIN ECKERMANN. Time for rational, informed debate about the NBN

    We believe it’s time for the Government and the Opposition, and their respective sword carriers, to put down their weapons and strive to agree on a bipartisan NBN strategy that will deliver all Australians fast and affordable broadband – using modern technologies and an investment strategy that balances deployment costs with the demonstrable socio-economic benefits achievable through advanced fixed broadband.   (more…)

  • RICHARD BUTLER. The many risks we run – United Nations (Part 1 of 2)

    The United Nations continues to be vital in the humanitarian field, but is failing in its role of maintaining international peace and security. The continuing abuse of their veto power, by the permanent five members of the Security Council, is jeopardizing the UN itself. This must be resisted.   (more…)

  • JOHN MENADUE. The terrorism threat here is because our troops are over there.

    Compared to other risks, we have little to fear from terrorism. In the last two decades only three people in Australia have died from terrorism. But there is a ‘vividness’ bias in terrorism because it stands out in our minds. Importantly, a lot of politicians, businesses, stand to gain from exaggerating the terrorist threat. It is also easy news for our failing and lazy media.  This is a repost from 14 February 2017. (more…)

  • ERIC HODGENS. Back to following The Way.

    Power is still the Church’s stumbling block. Mind you, Jesus warned us: The gentiles lord it over their subjects – not so with you. The Church’s power to “lord it over” society has been curtailed by today’s pluralism but is still jealously guarded within the institution. And ideas and laws are the instruments by which power is exercised. Doctrine and law are sacralised as the teaching of the Church – or even the teaching of God.  
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  • JOHN DALEY and BRENDAN COATES. The latest ideas to use super to buy homes are still bad ideas.

    Treasurer Scott Morrison wants to use the May budget to ease growing community anxiety about housing affordability. Lots of ideas are being thrown about: the test for the Treasurer is to sort the good from the bad. Reports that the government was again considering using superannuation to help first homebuyers won’t inspire confidence. (more…)

  • JOHN MENADUE. Pauline Hanson sides with the powerful while pretending to speak for the weak.

    Pauline Hanson talks a great deal about battlers and people who are left behind and are fed up with the major parties . But she invariably sides with the wealthy and powerful.   (more…)

  • CAMERON MURRAY. Affordable housing reform.

    While the decline of our economic diversity, has failed the average worker, it has been a boon for the landlord class. Those who already own land and housing benefit at the expense of those who want access to housing for their own household security.  Those who own the banks benefit too. And we have seen the enormous lengths to which government will go to support the way things are. Every “affordable housing” policy, … is designed not to let housing prices fall, and housing become genuinely more affordable.  (more…)

  • DAVID JAMES. Penalty rate cuts are the result of thinking small

     Australia is showing signs of contracting the American disease of rising inequality, which will ultimately spill over into low growth, especially when the effect of high household indebtedness has its inevitable dampening effect. In the last quarter of 2016 GDP growth was strong and corporate profits jumped 20.1 per cent. But wages and salaries actually went down 0.5 per cent on a seasonally adjusted basis.  

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  • ALBERT MISPEL. 1938-2017

    Pearls & Irritations advises the sad news that Albert Mispel, who was instrumental in getting this blog started (and indeed, suggested its name) has passed away. Albert had an exciting life during which he taught school in New Guinea, was a core member of the Glebe Society fighting expressways during the 1970s and, later in life, became a computer programmer/web designer. He was enthusiastic about all progressive causes. He provided the technical know-how to get this blog up and running five years ago, and supported it thereafter. He believed in the ‘cause’. The first blog password was ‘November 1975’. With many others, he would never forget the Whitlam dismissal. Albert’s death is mourned by his wife, Kathy, two daughters, Jo and Madeleine, and his grandchildren. He will be sadly missed. Vale Albert.