A Royal Commission under the best leadership could shine an enormously powerful spotlight on the fact that NewsCorp grossly breaches our foreign interference laws on a daily basis. (more…)
Tag: mw
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Can macroeconomic policy ensure the inflation target?
If Australian wages do not increase sufficiently in line with economic capacity, it risks a shortfall in aggregate demand that will make the achievement of an inflation target very difficult, or even impossible. (more…)
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Reflections on the economic record of the Trump Administration
It no doubt came as a shock to many (non-American) observers of the recent US election that almost 74 million Americans (more than 47% of those who voted) would have preferred Donald Trump to remain in the White House for another four years. Like many among America’s academic, media, and corporate elites, outside observers have long struggled to understand the reasons for Trump’s ongoing popularity with such a large proportion of the American population. (more…)
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Why the Biden victory is not the answer to our prayers
Much of America is breathing a sigh of relief that, gracefully or otherwise, Trump will soon vacate the White House. Allies of the United States – not just governments but much of the commentariat – are expecting a less turbulent and more predictable international environment. That may be wishful thinking. (more…)
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How can we best ensure that retirement incomes are adequate?
The present superannuation contribution (SG) rate of 9.5 percent can finance an adequate retirement income for most middle-income people, provided they fully draw down their savings. Logically, therefore, any action to stop further increases in the SG rate should be contingent on accompanying policies to remove the present impediments to using retirement savings efficiently. (more…)
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Lieutenant-General Burr, can you stand up. We can’t see you!
In Burr’s regiment were many of Justice Brereton’s bad boys. That so many of them were able to mask their incubating psychopathology reflects badly on the psychological assessment tools Burr’s people were administering. (more…)
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Don’t tar all our soldiers with the same brush
War in all its forms is awful, so let’s support those who conduct it on our behalf and, when they come back, go easy on them. They were only doing our bidding.
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‘Power and pain’: an Australian citizens’ encounter with the SAS
Outside of Defence circles not many Australians would have had a close physical confrontation with members of the SAS. Four peace activists did in 2014 when their trespass on the Swan Island military base was dealt with by two enraged SAS members. (more…)
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It’s a man’s world: we need to call out News Corp’s hostility to women leaders (The Conversation, 18.11.2020)
Julia Gillard did not simply threaten the political status quo as Australia’s first woman prime minister. As an unmarried, child-free, atheist woman from the left of the ALP, she also threatened Murdoch’s conservative ideology.
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Ministerial war crimes
Those who will not be put on trial as a result of investigations into Australian operations in Afghanistan will be those most responsible – the ministers who committed Australian troops to a protracted war where our forces could not readily distinguish friend from foe. (more…)
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Tamed Estate: stop the presses; the Prime Minister took a barre class!
No holds barred? Kid-glove treatment for the Prime Minister, climate change denial, Murdoch media appears desperate and breaches of hotel quarantine.
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Brace for impact: Back to wearing seat belts in relationship with China
China continues to bamboozle us every step of the way. But how we respond to the latest escalation is important. We must remember that our bipartisan position on China has served Australia well and that a political split is exactly what China wants. (more…)
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Sermons beginning again in Melbourne
It’s easy and cheap to insult sermons and sermon-givers, which of course makes it utterly irresistible to me.
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George Orwell, are you listening? Truth warping about Afghanistan war crimes
We are being asked to believe that a cosy coterie of retired public servants and academics are going to drive Army change and make things all wonderfully transparent for us. What rubbish. Where do I get my tickets for that show?
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Can it get worse after Trump?
When Joe Biden is in the White House and Donald Trump is back in his tower or at his resort, some things about the Trump years will be missed.
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Joel Fitzgibbon and Labor’s environment policy
Joel Fitzgibbon’s resignation from the front bench does not change the policy of the Labor Party. nor its leadership. But it does change the mechanics. (more…)
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Let’s face it, Australia goes to war far too easily (Canberra Times Nov 15, 2020)
The soon-to-be-released Brereton Report will shine a light on alleged war crimes committed by Australian forces in Afghanistan. It is expected that a culture of impunity within the special forces will be highlighted as a significant factor in perpetuating crimes against Afghan civilians
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Tamed estate: “And on the second day, he said: ‘Let it be forgotten,’ and it was.”
The federal Coalition’s PR team clearly forgot the Streisand effect: the phenomenon whereby attempts to suppress information lead to far greater exposure than the information would have generated intrinsically.
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Uneasy lies the head: Crown casinos is falling
Shakespeare recognised centuries ago that ‘uneasy lies the head that wears a crown’. Certainly, the individual and collective heads of the members of the board of Crown Resorts Ltd should be very very uneasy. Their Crown is falling, almost fallen.
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Media moguls versus elites
Members of the Murdoch media have once again used the US election as an opportunity to pursue elites. Chris Kenny suggested in The Australian (5 November) that the election had been a win for the mainstream, against elites who treated the choices and preferences of the people with disdain. Who are these elites? (more…)
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ASPI’s guide to submarines leaves the biggest strategic questions unanswered
The interested reader would see much of this report as a public relations exercise, talking down to the public, and attempting to divert questions away from the burning one. Is this submarine intended primarily as a contribution by Australia to a possible conflict in the South China Sea? If it is, the Minister and the submarine cheer squad should tell the public. The, by now, sceptical interested reader might conclude that this diversionary effort is in itself an inadvertent admission. (more…)
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Porter’s integrity commission is designed to trick the public into thinking the Coalition is serious about tackling corruption
Mr Porter’s proposed Commonwealth Integrity Commission, in the public sector division, will not be able to investigate supposed corruption, won’t discover any corruption, and will certainly not expose any. (more…)
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Tamed estate: Australian media conservatives applaud Trump’s ‘victory’
Two former Australian prime ministers have joined forces to speak out against the power of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, calling for a royal commission. But why do they have so much power anyway, when they get it so spectacularly wrong, so often. Michael Tanner explores the bizarre antics of Murdoch’s pundits during the US election.
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The US under Biden will be an awkward ally for Morrison on climate warming
Even if Joe Biden becomes President, which seems increasingly likely, this does not mean a return to the world we knew before Trump. (more…)
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Abetz committee shuts down critics
A top Chinese community leader Dr Tony Pun, who was highly critical of Eric Abetz was silenced by the Senate committee looking into diaspora communities, while a pro-Trump Chinese media outlet was welcomed to make public comment.
Editor’s note:
After publication of this article on the APAC.News website yesterday, the Senate released a transcript of evidence provided by Dr Pun. Following his testimony on 2 November 2020, the Committee Secretariat indicated evidence was taken in camera and there was no decision as to whether it would be released. Senator Abetz excused himself from the meeting and did not participate in proceedings during that time; he returned to the committee immediately after Dr Pun’s departure. The transcript can be accessed here. -
Dissident Liberal senators poised to allow Whitlam’s budget to pass when Sir John Kerr struck
In this extract from her new book, The Palace Letters, Professor Jenny Hocking reveals key entries from dissident Liberal Senator Alan Missen’s ‘highly confidential diary on the 1975 constitutional crisis’. Five Liberal senators had resolved to abstain from a direct vote on the government’s supply bills, which would have enabled the bills to pass, just days before the dismissal of the Whitlam government. (more…)
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Trump. The mendacious wheeler-dealer
A crunch day for Australia on Tuesday – and not just for the Melbourne Cup, vital as that is for the nation’s well-being. November 4 will determine whether the United States of America regains its sanity or embarks on another quadrennium of demented Trumpery. (more…)
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Unaccountable national cabinet not a natural model for economic recovery
As premiers and chief ministers have worked to contain their pandemics, in the national cabinet as much as with their own administrations there have been no noticeable alliances of the Labor leaders against the conservatives, or the other way around.
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There is a crisis in Australian democracy. Corruption is rampant.
While a number of institutions exist to scrutinise federal government and MPs, calls for establishment of a federal corruption watchdog like the Independent Commission Against Corruption in New South Wales or the Criminal Justice Commission in Queensland have never been louder or more justified.
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Watches and wages
It’s easy for the public to understand and get enraged about executive gifts of Cartier watches but the far more important issue is the steady shift of wealth to a privileged minority. (more…)