

Partner visas – another Dutton scandal
Under Dutton, the Department of Home Affairs just ignored the law.
Under Dutton, the Department of Home Affairs just ignored the law.
With a new Government it is time for Health System Reform. In fact reform is long over due. Continue reading »
Australia’s employment services system is about to have a major shake-up commencing on July 4th. The lamentable ‘jobactive’ (no capital ‘j’) is being replaced by a new program ‘Workforce Australia’. Will Workforce Australia be any better than previous designs? Continue reading »
Australia’s Catholic bishops seem to think they own the franchise of the Holy Spirit and are prepared to manipulate the Plenary process to back their foolish claim. Continue reading »
The war in Ukraine is the culmination of a 30-year project of the American neoconservative movement. The Biden Administration is packed with the same neocons who championed the US wars of choice in Serbia (1999), Afghanistan (2001), Iraq (2003), Syria (2011), Libya (2011), and who did so much to provoke Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The Continue reading »
Professor Hugh White argues, in an essay, ’If growing US-China rivalry leads to ‘the worst war ever’, what should Australia do?’ published in Pearls and Irritations on 26 June, that, ‘..the very real possibility that a war with China launched to preserve the US’s position in Asia might end up destroying it, just as the Continue reading »
How did it come to this? Australia’s defence policy has been baldly sacrificed to US interests via AUKUS with little public discourse. Continue reading »
Less than three years ago President Macron said NATO was afflicted with ‘brain death’. Continue reading »
Many Catholics are concerned that the current Plenary Council is overly focused on internal Church matters and neglecting Pope Francis’s call to engage more vigorously with pressing social issues in dialogue and collaboration with all people of good will. Continue reading »
NSW Liberals have a bit of a thing about ICAC. It was, more or less, a Liberal Party brainchild – seen as a counter to seemingly obvious corruption in the Labor government of the day, three decades ago. Perversely, some thought, incoming Liberal Premier, Nick Greiner, popularly regarded as a cleanskin was its first victim. Continue reading »
Inflation is outside the target zone in all developed economies. Central banks are responding by increasing interest rates. But the critical question is whether monetary policy can bring inflation down without causing a recession. Continue reading »
Spare a thought for Michael Coutts-Trotter, the Secretary of the NSW Premiers Department. He has been asked, in effect, to decide which of several versions of how John Barilaro was appointed “on merit” to a cushy $500,000 trade commissioner job in New York most closely approximates the truth. Continue reading »