All Articles
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JOHN MENADUE. Private Health Insurance is a con job. Is Labor being conned again?
The ALP does not seem to understand its own creation- Medicare- and that the $11 b taxpayer subsidy to PHI is like a Damocles sword that hangs over Medicare. Ian McAuley in Medicare under threat from Labor points out that Labor in its”consultation document’ on a proposed reference of PHI to the Productivity Commission suggests Continue reading »
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STUART REES Saudi Teenager and Australian Due Process
The human rights of Saudi Arabian teenager Rahaf Aqunun received fast recognition by Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau and subsequent welcome refuge in Canada. By contrast, Australian Ministers insisted that in assessing claims for asylum in Australia, the government would follow its usual adherence to due process. Continue reading »
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GEOFFREY MILLER. Intelligence and the function of government. (Australian Outlook 9.1.2019)
“Intelligence and the Function of Government”, edited by Daniel Baldino and Rhys Crawley, contains a great deal of useful material on the Australian Intelligence Community (AIC), intelligence issues and intelligence in relation to government. It consists of 12 chapters, covering topics such as the history of the AIC, intelligence as an academic discipline and, very Continue reading »
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PATSY MCGARRY. Church response to modern abuse scandals ‘same as 30 years ago.’
Marie Collins claims lessons of abuse in Ireland not being used to change policy elsewhere ‘The church reaction is a mirror image of what we were hearing here in Ireland 30 years ago.’ Continue reading »
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ANDREW FARRAN. Brexit: Running out of time or anticipating a delay?
What explains an unprecedented, disastrous political defeat ever of a government on the floor of the British Parliament (432/202, a loss by 230 votes), followed within a day by its reaffirmation in government – prevailing over a no-confidence motion by a healthy margin of 19 votes? Essentially the Tories still cannot agree on an outcome Continue reading »
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Sunday’s environment round up
Environmental issues, particularly but not only climate change, are once again prominent in the public eye and their importance has been reflected in frequent posts over the years in Pearls & Irritations. We can also be certain that a range of environmental issues will feature strongly in the forthcoming Federal election, particularly for instance climate Continue reading »
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MICHELLE PINI. Something stinks in the Coalition and it’s not just dead fish (Independent Australia 17.01.2019)
The sight of close to a million dead fish in one of Australia’s most important waterways may herald the end for the Morrison Government. For this is hardly the first time this Coalition Government, under its various iterations, has spat in the face of Australia’s precious resources. For now, however, let’s look at the Murray-Darling disaster Continue reading »
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JOHN KERIN. ‘Free Trade’ (sic), Some Fundamentals (Part 1).
Australian trade policy has dramatically changed over the last fifty years. What we now face is nothing like the situation we have been used to. The general public has little idea of the complexity and importance of trade negotiations, the reality of what we now face and the current implications of the US/China imbroglio and Continue reading »
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MICHAEL NIMAN. Five Forces Driving the Rise of Fascism in 2019 (Truthout).
Immigration has become a weapon in the arsenal of fascists who work to sow fear of the “other” in populations they wish to control.There are four other forces behind the rise of fascism Continue reading »
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ANTONY GREEN. Why independents won’t matter so much at the next election (ABC News).
Despite predictions that independents will be an important factor in the result of the coming federal election, two important factors suggest otherwise. Continue reading »
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JOHN MENADUE. We are paying to protect an industry that no longer exists.
We see it almost every day in the media; rent-seekers extracting benefits for themselves through political influence and lobbying at the expense of the broader community. It has very little to do with markets. It is about political favours for the powerful. No wonder that more and more people around the world are concluding that Continue reading »
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MASSIMO FAGGIOLI. A Church within the Church. Behind the new integralism is the old intransigentism. (La Croix International, 9.1 2019)
“They build a Church within the Church … while making of their views a dogma. I am not defending myself against them, but against what I would call their schismatic spirit.” John Henry Newman on integralism. Continue reading »
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GRACE BLAKELEY. The Latest Incarnation of Capitalism (Jacobin, September 2018)
Financialization isn’t a perversion of an otherwise well-functioning system. It’s just capitalism’s latest survival mechanism. Continue reading »
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JOHN MENADUE. The myth that Liberals are better economic managers. A repost from 25 July 2018
Malcolm Turnbull has made it clear that his mantra of ‘Jobs-and-Growth’ will be at the forefront of his campaign in the next election. This week he will be talking about the growth of a million jobs in 5 years, but there is nothing really remarkable in that on average over the last 15 years about Continue reading »
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IAN McAULEY. Medicare under threat – from Labor!
Last year Labor announced that if elected it would refer health funding, particularly private health insurance, to the Productivity Commission, it being 50 years since the value of PHI was last examined by government. It appears, however, that Labor is squibbing on its promise to subject PHI to economic scrutiny, abandoning its historical commitment to Continue reading »
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KAREN ELPHICK. United States Senate shows President a red light on war powers as Labor promises a war powers inquiry in Australia (Australia Parliamentary Blog 21.12.2018)
For several years, Yemen has been in a state of civil war between a Saudi-led coalition supporting the Yemeni Government and Houthi forces. The US armed forces are not directly engaged in Yemen but have been supporting Saudi military efforts with aerial targeting and intelligence sharing. On 13 December 2018, the United States (US) Senate passed Resolution Continue reading »
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FINTAN O’TOOLE. Today Britain discovers it cannot escape history. (Irish Times 16.1.2019)
Today is supposed to be historic, one of the most epic moments in the long life of the Westminster parliament. So why does it not feel like that? The tabling by a British prime minister of an agreement on the terms of withdrawal from the European Union ought to feel much bigger than this. Some Continue reading »
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JOHN AUSTEN. WestConnex inquiry report.
The Parliamentary inquiry into WestConnex is the type of thing that should happen before any major infrastructure project starts. However, it let the project off too lightly. Continue reading »
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JOHN MENADUE. Our intelligence agencies are out of control -An edited repost
It seems likely that the prosecution by the Commonwealth Government of former spy (Witness K ) and his lawyer Bernard Collaery will be heard in closed court. What a travesty of justice this is. Those who authorised the illegal bugging of the East Timorese Cabinet for the commercial benefit of Woodside Petroleum and those who Continue reading »
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SANG JIEJA. Tibetans get home decor order: Hang Xi, Mao portrait
Dalai Lama images removed from temples, monasteries as Party reinforces iconography of its ‘heroes’; households next Continue reading »
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JOANNE SIMON-DAVIES. Community attitudes towards violence against women. (Commonwealth Parliamentary Blog 5.12.2018)
The National Community Attitudes toward Violence against Women Survey (NCAS) is the world’s longest-running survey of community attitudes towards violence against women. Results from the latest survey are mixed; levels of awareness have generally risen but there are still areas of concern. Continue reading »
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KIM WINGEREI. Brexit chaos – the failures of Westminster
As the Brexit chaos continues, it is worth reflecting on the background that led Britain to where it is today – with no ending in sight. The root cause lays in how the Westminster system is failing to serve the people. Continue reading »
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RICHARD KINGSFORD. The catastrophic fish kill on the Darling River– decades in the making
The plight of the Darling River shocked the nation last week, when up to a million fish were killed by lack of oxygen, accompanying the disruption of a blue-green algal bloom on a forty kilometre stretch of the river near Menindee, southeast of Broken Hill. This followed a similar kill of tens of thousands of Continue reading »
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ABUL RIZVI. Is The Australian making excuses for incompetent immigration administration?
Nick Cater writing in The Australian (see here if you can get past the Paywall) seems to think people trying to manipulate the visa system is news. Has he been as asleep to this while our intrepid government has allowed a world class visa system to deteriorate into chaos (see here)? It is the chaos Continue reading »
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JON FINER and ROBERT MALLEY. Trump is right to seek an end to America’s wars (The New York Times International Edition).
The president’s desire to disentangle the country from costly overseas conflicts must be encouraged. Continue reading »
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MICHAEL McKINLEY. The unsettling reality if Five Eyes is the guardian against Huawei, Part 2: A survey audit concerning prudence, integrity, law and ethics.
In the frequent denunciations of Huawei and ZTE the inference is that these Chinese corporations are existing, or potential espionage agents of the Beijing Government and a threat to all who have been foolish enough to acquire their products. These threats, moreover, are held to be of a type that are politically, legally and ethically Continue reading »
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Nuclear arms: A year of living dangerously
Last January, the Doomsday Clock was moved to two minutes to midnight — the closest it has ever been, matching the acute sense of crisis of 1953. The primary explanation for the heightened threat alert was disturbing developments in the nuclear realm. Continue reading »
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STUART REES. Redefining anti-Semitism erodes freedom of speech.
Claims about western values usually include praise for the freedom enjoyed through governments’ respect for freedom of speech. Yet, even in democratic states, those principles are being treated as outmoded, not least in regard to criticism of Israeli policies towards Palestinians. Other countries also ride roughshod over freedom of speech. Control of the media and suppression Continue reading »
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MUNGO MacCALLUM. The pugnacious potato has done it again.
Having unleashed his innumerate megalomania to destroy Malcolm Turnbull, with the unintended consequence of almost certainly scuttling his government as collateral damage, Peter Dutton has now derailed Scott Morrison’s attempt to mend the fractured relationship with the Pacific. Continue reading »
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MICHAEL McKINLEY. The unsettling reality if Five Eyes is the guardian against Huawei, Part 1: Questions of Honesty and Loyalty.
According to a recent assessment Australia is the world’s 11th most vulnerable country in terms of its exposure to internet security threat. This is the general case. The particular case, articulated by the Five Eyes signals intelligence agencies, is that China is to be feared the most because Huawei, the world’s largest manufacturer of telecommunications equipment, and ZTE, Continue reading »