Our Democracy Needs Serious Reform
The Australian Government may be right to express concerns about China’s recent domestic and international behaviour under President Xi Jinping. But claims of having superior democratic values might have more credibility if the Government understood and genuinely upheld them.... Continue reading »
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President Biden, Chinese Communists and a very old division in the Church
The knives are out for President Joe Biden as a Catholic. Some commentators have drawn the comparison between how some (most?) US bishops are reacting to the President for his approach to legislation on abortion in their country and the controversy in the early Church called the Donatist controversy.... Continue reading »
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Privatise for efficiency, or not at all
Privatising assets without allowing for competition or regulation creates private monopolies that raise prices, reduce efficiency and harm the economy.... Continue reading »
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Jeffrey Sachs speech on the state of the world’s “food system” that is rigged against the poor.
We have a world food system but we need a different system, one based on human rights and national sovereignty. The US won’t allow that. Consider the United Fruit Company in Honduras that was backed by the US government and the military and exploited the local population.The US doesn’t even care about it’s own poor.... Continue reading »
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Palestinians: The Final Victims of the Holocaust
When we discuss the Holocaust and Hitler’s slaughter of six million European Jews, we often forget the fact that the Holocaust had other victims as well, namely the Palestinians, whose country was taken from them. They were innocent victims as the world sought to make a place for Jews who had been displaced by the... Continue reading »
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Australia and the White Man’s Media. A repost from 2015
I have said many times that a person from Mars who read and listened to Australian media would conclude that we are an island parked off London or New York with little relationship to Asia. Our news and media coverage is so derivative, relying heavily on the BBC, CNN and other news and entertainment houses... Continue reading »
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Premiers, not Albanese, are throwing Morrison out the window
It has long been a fundamental article of Labor belief that the federal structure of the Australian nation, along with bicameral legislatures, were put into Australian constitutions to slow or frustrate radical change and Labor agendas.The Commonwealth system is increasingly sclerotic, the politicians less brave, or less focused on good policy, good government and the... Continue reading »
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What does Labor offer? Part 2
Part 1 of this article discussed the implications for equity and inequality resulting from Labor’s recanting its previous opposition to the Government’s Stage 3 income tax cuts, as well as dropping its policies to reform the taxation provisions covering capital gains and negative gearing. Part 2 discusses the other major concern; the ability of a... Continue reading »
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ASPI outsourcing our defence policy to the gun runners!
Australia’s strategic policy discourse takes place in a fog of claims about risk and the warning time, while the key issues are the balance and trajectory of military forces in the Asia Pacific and the strategic interests of the regional states. Recent exhortations to urgent actions and radical defence reforms are alarmist and confused, and... Continue reading »
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Foreign sanctions: Beijing counters Biden’s bullying of Hong Kong
Although China’s anti-foreign-sanctions law is novel, it is a vivid demonstration that the days when the US could bully others with impunity are gone.... Continue reading »
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Fibre in the Coral Sea or message in a bottle? Who’s interests are we serving?
Many have been preoccupied with the geopolitical tensions exposed by the Coral Sea Cable, continuing a longstanding – and problematic – tradition of treating the islands of the South Pacific as an empty stage on which to play out Great Power conflict.... Continue reading »
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The Climate Emergency: a need for radical honesty – laced with courage and compassion: Part 2
The sight of an ice-free Arctic or Siberia on fire is tantamount to the discovery of cancer spreading to the brain. Some mitigation is possible but the prognosis is bad.... Continue reading »
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When Scott Morrison became prime minister, two dimensions of his…
