But did he get the message? (more…)
Tag: mw
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The JobSeeker rise – back to 2007 payment levels
Lowering the overall level of unemployment benefits that job seekers are going to receive in the middle of a recession is likely to cost jobs.
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The Morrison method – if you don’t ask, you can’t tell
Some prime ministers are more practised liars than others. Some can confuse, distract and prevaricate in such a way as to strangle the truth. Morrison, however, is a special case. He does not seem to recognise any obligation to account. He resists any scrutiny and while using words such as “transparency” almost everything he does is opaque.
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Helen Coonan saw no evil and heard no evil over nine long years
For more than nine years, Helen Coonan has been a non-executive director of Crown. More than enough time to get wise about this criminal organisation, one would have thought.
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The frightening cost of Morrison’s climate inaction
Scott Morrison loves saying he won’t take action on climate change without knowing what it will cost. Joel Fitzgibbon takes the same tack when defending his coal mining constituents. But now we have a clear idea of the cost of not taking action. (more…)
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I have never seen, over 50 years, a more slippery customer than Morrison
How Prime Minister Scott Morrison ‘feels’ the pain of others. For him, almost everything is a public relations problem.
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Even a brown paper bag filled with cash may not be enough to start an investigation
The recent release of Australian Electoral Commission political donation figures has put the lack of transparency back in the spotlight. This issue is also behind the push for a federal integrity commission. But the Coalition government, which is by far the largest recipient of political donations, has no intention of reforming the system and is pushing for a toothless integrity commission on purpose.
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Trial by media, politicians or social media does not serve justice
The mindset that says that all persons who make claims of sexual abuse are to be believed and therefore they are “survivors” or “victims” is problematic to say the least.
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For the Prime Minister, sovereignty is reduced to possessing 70 fighter jets
Prime Minister Scott Morrison appears to be suffering from the neurological condition visual agnosia – the inability to recognise certain objects for what they are. It is a condition popularised the neurologist, Oliver Sacks, is his book on the condition, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales.
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Brexit fallout: How London lost its place as the world’s financial capital
The Amsterdam stock market, which traded the first-ever equity in the Dutch East India company, has regained its position as the top European stock market after more than three centuries of trailing London.
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Feminism, Tanya and the ALP
As a long-term feminist I’m concerned that Second Wave radical goals of real gender equity, not just equality on masculine-established criteria, have still not been achieved. One area that requires serious change is to the criteria for leadership. (more…)
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Santos changes tack: rugby charm offensive replaces lobbying efforts
The issue of gas extraction in the Pilliga, in north-west NSW, has caused conflict. Early this month, mining company Santos tried to win hearts and minds in the town of Narrabri by sponsoring a rugby carnival. This charm offensive was a change in tack from lobbying governments and enlisting police and courts against protestors.
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Eddie Maguire stumbled badly, but it was an organisational failure
The Collingwood CEO’s response was a textbook case of what not to do. Here are some pointers for what an organisation faced with having to report bad news should do.
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Expert denialism: federal Covid advisory committee slow to accept airborne evidence
Why the official reluctance in Australia to recognise aerosol transmission?
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Albanese has touched a nerve on IR policy and should be encouraged by the response
The release of the ALP’s industrial relations policy is another reminder of the erosion of employment rights and benefits, the degree to which that is attributable to the decline in union membership, and how Labor should approach its relationship with trade unions. (more…)
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Tamed estate: the PM has to ask his wife how to feel empathy yet Labor is on the hook?
Gladys’ cheerleader in chief at the Sydney Morning Herald finally comes out swinging – at the NSW Opposition Leader. And editorials from The Australian get oh-so-close to touching on the failures of the federal government in aged care and vaccine rollout.
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Did the Apology make a difference? The consequences of the past still haunt the present
The true horror of the crime committed against Aboriginal Australians remains a difficult subject for many Australians to even contemplate. A major hurdle of reconciliation continues to be that Aboriginal people themselves are being held responsible for ‘closing the gap’ by amending their cultural practices.
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Numbers don’t lie: Public schools underfunded by $60bn; private overfunded by $6bn
The Morrison Government has abandoned all pretence at funding private schools according to need and has washed its hands of ensuring that public schools are fully funded.
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A grubby and corrupting traffic in misery
Commissioner Bergin’s report did not devote a word to the sleazy and improper way James Packer was effectively given Barangaroo by a new Liberal Premier, Barry O’Farrell. And not a word about the slew of former Labor and Liberal Party apparatchiks who moved on to make their fortunes prostituting their inside knowledge and their access to politicians.
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Move over neoliberalism; rentier capitalism is now king
Because the average person’s prosperity is shrinking, they can’t buy so much stuff. Companies are instead generating profits by getting hold of assets to rent out, such as housing and roads. This financial capitalism has huge political ramifications for the Left, but it is not listening. (more…)
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Forgive them for they know not what they do: stop putting kids in jail
There are more than 600 children aged 10 to 13 in prison in Australia, 65% of whom are of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander heritage. A private members’ bill has been introduced to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 14, yet it is opposed by Attorney-General Christian Porter. Surely Australia is ready to stop locking up children?
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What are the casino regulators in Victoria and WA doing right now?
Underneath all the glitz and tizz of flashy casinos, many serious issues arise from former NSW Supreme Court Justice Patricia Bergin’s report into Crown Casinos. The common thread is the power of money, especially but not only in Sydney.
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Trump writes the rule book for future demagogues
What a cop out. The respectable Republican operatives who have used Trump’s populist appeal to maintain their position and privileges are more dangerous than the supporters of Trump who stormed the Capitol.
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Boyos banished when Barangaroo boomerangs back
But the fact is that a reformed Crown board will be sailing full steam ahead to take up the licence from an unresisting NSW government.
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National water policy: outdated, unfair and not fit for climate challenges
The findings of a report by the Productivity Commission National Water Reform 2020 matter to all Australians, whether you live in a city or a drought-ravaged town. If governments don’t manage water better then entire communities may disappear. Agriculture will suffer and nature will continue to degrade. (more…)
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US government changes hands but Assange approach will stay the same
The Australian government’s unwillingness to protect one of its own, coupled with Biden’s contradictory remarks about WikiLeaks, means nothing is likely to stop the wheels of British and American justice grinding towards the predictable result. (more…)
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Preferential lobbying: the rich get richer, the poor get poorer (Part 1 of 4)
In this four-part series, we investigate preferential lobbying – what it is, why it matters, how and why it happens and how to stop it. Preferential lobbying is primarily wealth appropriation and rarely wealth creation. Every time a decision goes in favour of the wealthy it is to the cost of the less well off, which means preferential lobbying is a driver of inequality.
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Not knowing one’s enemy: fundamental intelligence failures in Australia’s Afghanistan and Vietnam
There are disturbing parallels between what occurred in Afghanistan and what occurred 50 years earlier in Vietnam. The accidental killing of innocents is one link. So, too, is the intelligence vacuum into which our expeditionary military tradition sucked us in both countries.
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Unruly scenes as removalists arrive for Premier Gladys
Recent actions from NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottet would suggest an imminent reshuffle aimed squarely at the Premier’s office. Despite asserting she is not leaving in March, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has been elbowed out of the way by her current Treasurer, who is behaving as if he has been sworn in as the State’s 46th Premier.
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Morrison can barely hide his disdain for China; Labor fears being wedged
Until there is more positive signalling out of Washington, the Australia–China relationship will remain frozen. Neither Morrison nor Albanese has the grace, courage, or diplomatic skills to challenge the status quo.
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