All Articles
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Beyond climate tipping points: greenhouse gas levels exceed the stability limit of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets
The pace of global warming has been grossly underestimated. As the world keeps increasing its carbon emissions, rising in 2018 to a record 33.1 billion ton CO2 per year, the atmospheric greenhouse gas level has now exceeded 560 ppm (parts per million) CO2–equivalent, namely when methane and nitric oxide are included. This level surpasses the Continue reading »
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BOB DOUGLAS, Australia Should be Leading The Extinction Rebellion
Prime Minister Morrison is now in a very strong position to lead the way on radical policy reform. I am arguing here that we should help him to develop and promote a strategy for human survival in the face of the ten interacting, mega-threats that seriously threaten the extinction of humanity in the lifetime of Continue reading »
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MARK BUCKLEY. Peter Dutton Brings Us All Down (To His Level)
Just when you thought that Tony Abbott’s being dumped from the nation’s parliament was going to necessarily lift standards, Peter Dutton picked up his baton and ran with it. Continue reading »
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WILLIAM GRIMM MM. What’s under the miter? Legal systems and media exposure are the chief tools to deal with corruption among church leaders
When I was a boy, I watched a narrow clamshell bucket dipping into a sewer up the street from our home to clear muck. I was still too young and too inexperienced in the ways of the Church to be aware of the irony of it, but I found it amusing that the muck-filled bucket Continue reading »
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MARY-LOUISE O’CALLAGHAN. Stepping out – and up – in the hot mess of the Pacific (Lowy Institute)
Personal connections matter, and Scott Morrison’s ties to the Pacific run deeper than many realise. Continue reading »
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GEORGE BROWNING Former Middle East diplomats urge PM to reject Trump Middle East plan.
In response to the Kushner announcement about an economic plan for Palestine, 18 former Australian diplomats have written to Prime Minister Scott Morrison calling on him not to support the plan. The signatories include two former Australian Ambassadors to Israel and many Ambassadors to other Middle Eastern countries. Continue reading »
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SHIRO ARMSTRONG. The PM must step up if WTO is to return from the brink (Financial Review)
The G20 will meet in Osaka with world trade in crisis. The time has come to chose between our volatile ally and the multilateral trading system. Continue reading »
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IAN McAULEY. Why do we trust our economy to this mob?
The Australian economy is in recession. Rather than heeding sound advice from the Reserve Bank the Coalition’s response is to sacrifice responsible economic management for an opportunity to embarrass Labor and to bully the Senate. Continue reading »
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ANDREW PODGER. More Carefully Designed, a Stage Three Tax Measure Could Be a Responsible and Genuine Reform
At the time of last year’s budget, I wrote a [1] revealing how neither the Government’s nor the Labor Party’s then proposed tax changes would simplify the personal income tax system or offer genuine long-term reform. This was largely because of continuing misrepresentation of the tax scale and failure to take into account how the Continue reading »
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MICHAEL KEATING. Australian National Outlook
A very significant new report was released last week on the Australian National Outlook. In this article, I summarise the report’s discussion of the key challenges and policy choices that Australia faces, which will affect our future over the next fifty years. Continue reading »
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GEOFF RABY. Hong Kong’s relationship with Beijing has been changed for ever
Hong Kong’s relationship with Beijing has been changed for ever Whatever the precise figure, the demonstrations in Hong Kong were the biggest ever in the city and possibly the biggest in Chinese history against a government. Confident in the power of their unstoppable numbers a bloody catastrophe was just avoided by the good sense of Continue reading »
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ANDREW FARRAN. War games – more than burnt fingers
“Are policy makers driving policy or is it the country’s spooks and their ideological soulmates in the so-called security establishment whose views are amplified in the conservative media?” (Tony Walker, The Age) Continue reading »
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DAMIEN CAVE. She’s 83 and a Famous Nun. Australia’s Catholic Leaders Want Her to Stay Away
Sister Joan Chittister, a well-known American nun, feminist and scholar, was looking forward to speaking at a Catholic education conference in Australia next year, figuring there would be plenty to discuss in a country where Catholic schools educate roughly one in five children. Continue reading »
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We must not join Trump’s cold war (AFR 25.6.2019)
Scott Morrison should spell out Australia’s opposition to Washington’s futile attempts to contain China. Continue reading »
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ANDREW BACEVICH. Bret Stephens, Warmonger (The American Conservative)
In fact, some people do want war, including a certain New York Times columnist. Continue reading »
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GEORGE GRUNDY. Greed in the game made in heaven.
I couldn’t sleep last night. All the bigotry, hatred and stupidity in the news gets to me sometimes. For some reason, Israel Folau’s story has really bothered me. It’s not just that old Izzy likes to stand at a pulpit and tell people they’re going to hell, it’s that when called out for it he’s Continue reading »
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MUNGO MacCALLUM. The Peak Crazy of Morrison and Dutton.
It took just a month after the election for the miraculous Morrison mob to dial back up to peak crazy. Continue reading »
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JOHN WILLOUGHBY. Reflections on the average health of average people
I’m writing this, in the concluding years of a career in neurology and neuroscience, concerned for humanity. What do I conclude about the human condition at this time? In a nutshell: we are what we are: overbreeding mammals headed for a population crash as we over-consume the world we live in. Continue reading »
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JACK WATERFORD. Morrison should move before his enemies organise( Canberra Times 22 June 2019)
Right now Labor is preoccupied with its defeat and is not the major obstacle to coalition survival. Continue reading »
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KELSEY CHALMERS and LESLEY RUSSELL. The National Strategy to Reduce OOP costs: will price transparency work?
Reducing patients’ out of pocket (OOP) costs is a major issue for the health policy agenda. But what are the chances that solutions to provide real relief for patients will emerge? Continue reading »
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MICHAEL LIFFMAN: do our universities need more clear thinking?
The election result and the increasingly intolerant divisions in public discussion over recent years have led to the overdue recognition that Australia is indeed seeing a growing polarization in debate and policy development, and a disturbing tendency for people to think within their own ‘bubble’ and to fail to respect or even seek to Continue reading »
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MICHAEL PASCOE. War with Iran could break the American alliance and force Australia to become independent (The New Daily, 23 June 2019)
I’m writing this at 10,000 metres, a dangerous place to write. There’s something about thin air on a plane and a couple of glasses of wine that moves the bladder closer to the eye. Continue reading »
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MAX HASTINGS. Boris Johnson: brilliant, warm, funny – and totally unfit to be PM (Daily Mail 11.10.2012)
For 20 years I have known London’s mayor as a god-medal egomaniac. If he gets into No. 10, I’m on the first plane out. Continue reading »
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JO KHAN. We still have time to act on climate change — but records will tumble for next 20 years regardless of emissions: study (ABC News)
Our last summer was the hottest on record in Australia, and we can expect the record breaking weather to continue for at least the next 20 years, new climate change research has found. Continue reading »
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BHIM BHURTEL. The threat to Christianity is from within. (Asia Times 21.6.2019)
Christianity is an indispensable cog in the idea of “Western civilization” along with other core values of “the West” supposedly based on the moral and ethical foundations of Christianity. Perhaps no one can imagine “Western civilization” secluding Christianity as depicted by Samuel P Huntington in his famous 1993 Foreign Affairs essay, “The Clash of Civilizations.” Continue reading »
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MICHAEL KEATING. Lies, Damned Lies and [tax] statistics.
Last Saturday the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) published an article, which purported to show that “Middle and high-income earners will face some of the highest tax rates in the English-speaking developed world unless the Morrison government’s $158 billion tax plan is passed in full when the Parliament returns next month”. Unfortunately, I consider this article Continue reading »
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RICHARD WOOLCOTT. If the US treats China like an enemy, then it will become one.
It is time for Australia to accept the reality of the rise of China and a resurgence of Russia. Continue reading »
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MUNGO MacCALLUM. Flat earthers and ‘The Australian’.
About sixty years ago, as an undergraduate of Sydney University, I met a flat earther on the campus. Continue reading »
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PAUL COLLINS. A badly governed Church needs a new model. Catholicism continues to wrestle with the unrealized vision of the Second Vatican Council.
It is an understatement to say that Catholicism is in deep trouble. The sexual abuse tragedy and the secrecy and denial surrounding are obvious symptoms. A key element in the broader Church crisis is governance. Continue reading »
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JACK WATERFORD. Morrison faces the climate storm( Canberra Times 15 June 2019)
Climate change is no longer a matter of dry debate: it’s already a bigger threat to our national security than war and trade tension in our region. Continue reading »