While many have described the 2020 budget as designed for men (Ross Gittins, Blokey budget reflects core values, SMH, 21 October 2020), it goes deeper than that. This budget was not crafted from thoughtlessness; its intimidating outcomes were intended. (more…)
Tag: mw
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Pope Francis on just wars, capital punishment and voluntary assisted dying
Pope Francis and his Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith have recently made pronouncements on these life and death issues. The Church’s teaching on the taking of human life has never been particularly coherent. (more…)
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Who runs Crown? Packer’s enablers
The latest revelation is that Crown is being formally investigated by AUSTRAC for breaches of money laundering regulations. But these are the tip of what is becoming a fairly substantial iceberg.
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Exorbitant cost of the Coalition’s renewed interest in manufacturing
Before the budget Scott Morrison announced through Michelle Grattan a $1.5 billion plan to boost manufacturing in six priority areas – resources technology and critical minerals processing, food and beverage, medical products, recycling and clean energy, defence and space. Not surprisingly there was no critical examination by the mainstream media.
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China is not the urgent threat; climate change is
Spending priorities by the federal government are increasingly questionable, if not indefensible; they raise fundamental questions about the competence and intelligence of our policymaking elites. (more…)
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The renaissance of nuclear energy is a myth
Nuclear energy is often abused to secure power political and geopolitical strength. Renewable energy, on the other hand, strengthens democracy, participation and prosperity. (more…)
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Will our Glad have a chair when the music stops?
Spare a thought for the personal tragedy of Gladys Berejiklian, a genuinely hard-working and on the face of it a decent premier of NSW. Brought low because she formed a long-term personal relationship with a spiv, one whose general dishonesty and abuse of power seems to have extended to trading on her credit.
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Abetz fearlessly proclaims he is not a Fascist by birth
Likely, none of the three distinguished Australians of Chinese ethnicity appearing a Senate committee hearing expected to be comprehensively done over by two ideologues from the Australian right – Senators Eric Abetz and Concetta Fierravanti-Wells.
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Adding complexity, taxes the issue of equity – Part 1
More sensible than the Government’s Stage 3 tax cuts would be the approach put forward by the Henry Tax Review of an explicit and high tax threshold and no means-tested ‘tax offsets’. (more…)
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Jacinda Arden wins in an unprecedented landslide
It is sometimes said that New Zealand is a young country that boxes above its weight. The same might be said for its Prime Minister Jacinda Arden. In the triennial election bout she defeated the woman who seems pleased to be nicknamed “Crusher” Collins (because as a minister she ordered hoons’ cars to be crushed). (more…)
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The Victorian lockdown is not just about health and lives!
Recently we have had Peter Singer, WHO envoys and Chris Uhlmann seemingly critical of the Covid-19 lockdown in Victoria. However, have they failed to recognise the significance of Victoria not being a country but one of eight states and territories? (more…)
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Why the resistance to a national anti-corruption commission?
Scott Morrison and Christian Porter are insisting that a new federal integrity body could not look at old corruption. What is that about? Is it because there are skeletons in too many people’s closet? Is it the extent to which Alexander Downer and other senior officials benefitted financially from their activities during the Australian Government’s shenanigans on behalf of Woodside and others over oil and helium, which should always have been Timor-Leste’s, in the Timor Sea? (more…)
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Morrison Government is running scared of a federal integrity body
This week’s trials of Gladys Berejiklian only confirm the Morrison Government’s largely unspoken fears that a federal ICAC would do the government a lot more harm than good. (more…)
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Gillard’s discrimination against people with a disability aged over 65 must be put right – Part 1
It is a truth universally acknowledged – our aged care system is in a tragic mess. It has become a badly regulated, provider-centric system focused more on limiting Commonwealth budget exposure than supporting the dignity and independence of older Australians. (more…)
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The aged care Royal Commission’s Covid-19 report is superficial, misleading and unhelpful
The report by the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety on the impact of Covid-19 is superficial and adds little to what is already being done to prevent and manage Covid in aged care. The Commission’s conclusion regarding Australia’s performance on COVID-19 in residential aged care is misleading and obscures the truth. (more…)
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Why Was Immigration Compliance Activity Tanking Pre-Covid?
Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton and his Department Secretary Mike Pezzullo are well known for their gratuitous cruelty. But does that mean they have been effective at maintaining immigration compliance and control?
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LobbyLand. The politics of fossil fuels – the pits!
Fossil fuel lobbying is a cancer inflicting death, illness and misery on Australian society. How does it operate, what are its impacts and how can society allow this disabling condition to continue without treatment? (more…)
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Charity regulator is failing us.
Charity scams are on a rocket trajectory. Since 2019 they have risen by a massive 70%. There have been more than 1000 charity scam reports since the beginning of this year. (more…)
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Private school funding model is deeply flawed
The Morrison Government’s funding model for private schools introduced earlier this year is littered with flaws and will result in massive over-funding of schools. It should be replaced by a new approach. (more…)
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Sports rorts and muddy waters
Last summer, just like much of the country, the federal political landscape was ablaze. Scott Morrison was caught out taking a secret holiday in Hawaii; and those who weren’t evacuating from bushfires were very angry about sports rorts.
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LobbyLand: Unhealthy Business? Health sector lobbyists
In contrast to the United States, where businesses spend billions lobbying, we have weak civil society oversight of what businesses are up to and independent policy development. It’s time for our entrepreneurs to give back to society by funding civil society bodies. We need a Soros and a Gates or two.
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The pandemic, unemployment, skills shortages and a forgotten group of students
Even low-skilled jobs are going to be hotly contested in the next few years. We can’t let a large group of school leavers drift into the labour market with no real chance of getting a job. But offering more of the same is not going to be the answer. (more…)
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Scotty from marketing: A fact check
Trump is notorious for his lies, but it is time that a fact check was applied to Scotty from Marketing, too. Without it I doubt we can elevate the political debate from its present populism. (more…)
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Porter – the political law officer who will not protect the public interest
It is of the essence of the idea of the Law Officer that he is, at least in advising, detached and independent, and that the advice represents a statement of the law rather than of some clever way of getting around it.
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What is unforgivable about the Victorian shut down policies is that they are working
The indefatigable freedom fighters crusading to liberate the shut-down in Victoria are quite right. The restrictions are stultifying, draconian, totalitarian. They are intolerable in a democracy, an affront to Australia as we know it.
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Remember the Stasi who ran East Germany’s government
The question taxing many, and one to be answered, is why are our security services and not the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade running our relationship with China?
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Downer on Palestine: to the Manor Born
The powerful prey mercilessly on the vulnerable and the mainstream media let them get away with it.
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European disarray pushes Iran, Turkey into China camp (Asia Times Sep 17, 2020)
If Tehran and Ankara were to fall out of Europe’s orbit it would be a strategically costly error for the West.
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The Foreign Interference law is more a political stunt. But what about Rupert Murdoch’s foreign interference?
Rupert Murdoch and NewsCorp are currently campaigning to have the ABC neutered. Murdoch is a foreigner, as NewsCorp would seem to be. Australians and others are allegedly doing Murdoch’s bidding, with the intention to “influence a political or governmental process”; or “to influence the exercise … of an Australian democratic or political right or duty”. (more…)
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A white flag moment on the NBN was inevitable.
This week’s capitulation – that’s what it is – by communications minister Paul Fletcher sets us on a course that hopefully will see Australia start moving in the right direction again as we head further into a digitally-enabled future. It’s a welcomed move, but we’d be wise to take a close look at the detail in his National Press Club address before getting too excited. (more…)