Writer
Jack Waterford
John Waterford AM, better known as Jack Waterford, is an Australian journalist and commentator.
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Was Pezzullo recording leak from a federal agency monitoring his communications?
The sacking of Mike Pezzullo was inevitable once Nine media published his email correspondence with a Liberal party lobbyist and powerbroker. So far, however, the Public Service Commission and the government is doing altogether too much to avoid detailing the circumstances that provide chapter and verse of the numerous improprieties that covered the correspondence, or Continue reading »
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The Attorney who chooses his battles, too rarely
Mark Dreyfus is one of those who gives every appearance of being intimidated by the national security state. Continue reading »
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Gutless leaders without faith, hope or charity
People often say that we get the politicians we deserve, but I am not sure that even the Australians who voted no at the recent referendum deserve what passed for political leadership and quality representation that has been on recent display. Continue reading »
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Judicial activism overturns years of inhumane cruelty on immigration detention
It is, alas, far too early to proclaim the end of Australia’s barbarous and inhumane refugee management system. But a series of recent High Court decisions cutting back, on constitutional grounds, the arbitrary powers of immigration ministers and bureaucrats may well be later seen as the moment that the tide turned on a nightmare that Continue reading »
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Israel’s moral power ebbing away in a human rights catastrophe
Israel’s strategic choices, as Israelis see it, are rather like those sometimes argued for Australia. It wants powerful friends but cannot take them for granted. Ultimately it must depend on itself, if needs be alone. Surrounded by deadly enemies, it must make the cost of conquest so high, and so uncertain, that invaders are deterred. Continue reading »
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Hamas has set a trap. It depends on Israel’s brutal response
In the 75 years since it won nationhood in a field of blood, Israel has fought many wars against its neighbours and its indigenous population. Each has been an existential struggle, because its enemies wanted – still do – to annihilate it altogether. Continue reading »
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Israel will never be safe until Palestine is free
No attempt to “explain”, rationalise, find some counter-“equivalence” for, nor any attempt to see matters through the eyes and the experiences of the murderers rather than the immediate victims can justify or forgive the barbaric massacre of Israeli children, women and men by Hamas warriors after they broke out of Gaza. It does not forgive Continue reading »
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The Voice has been silenced, but now we must listen
As vanquished Australians, white and black, fell back in ruin, defeat and humiliation on Saturday, the most galling prospect they must face is that for many of the victorious, the Voice battle was but the first engagement in a longer war. They do not want to give their enemies time for regrouping, or even for Continue reading »
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Will referendum defeat foretell doom for Albanese?
There’s no spin or ex-post facto interpretation of the likely defeat of the Aboriginal Voice referendum able to disguise a resounding setback for Aboriginal Australians. Continue reading »
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PwC: $1 Billion in penalties would be a fair settlement
Sooner or later – many hope sooner – people will decide that the scourging and self-flagellation of PriceWaterhouseCoopers and the big consultancies has gone far enough. A few penances – perhaps if the AFP are up to it, a few prosecutions – and government departments can resume the business of outsourcing most of its thinking Continue reading »
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Did unlamented Pezzullo dream of taking the Chinese surrender in Beijing?
I have never had much regard for Mike Pezzullo, and my regard is lower for the disclosures this week of Nine and Fairfax journalists of his secret email correspondence with politicians he thought he might be able to influence. As any number of people have said, his position is untenable, and he must look forward Continue reading »
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Let’s avoid more Covid disasters. The public already knows who to blame
During Australia’s Covid-19 pandemic response, some companies received billions in contracts made without tender, sometimes by ministerial intervention. It would be too much, of course, to hope that anything the inquiry into the pandemic response does to address this issue will be taken up with any enthusiasm by the Albanese government. It seems to have Continue reading »
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Australia’s secretive defence establishment: the real enemies of truth and freedom
Australia, with fewer secrets to hide, is more compulsively secretive than the US, China or NATO. Continue reading »
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Dutton has made himself the Voice target
It may be too late for supporters of the Yes cause at the referendum to retrieve their initially majority support among the population. Continue reading »
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Labor’s weakness for little rorts
When Labor next loses state office in NSW, it will almost certainly be entirely its own fault. One might have expected that the party’s twelve years in the wilderness would have taught it something about restraint, and about the risks of reverting to its ancient, and traditional ways. Not a bit of it. Continue reading »
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Climate and housing left on the 2063 agenda
The Albanese government is tiptoeing as if it has all the time in the world. Continue reading »
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Anthony Albanese is paralysed and failing to grasp the moment
A good many people who worked hard for a Labor government are now astonished at its lack of ambition. More nagging for those who have dreamed of Labor in action has been the complete refusal to countenance any shift in national security policy, in human rights law, in planning aggression against China, and in a Continue reading »
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Sofronoff endorses the status quo on rape cases
Recently we have heard the alleged victim in the Bruce Lehrmann case discuss how she felt herself, in effect, defiled again by her treatment by the justice system. Nothing Walter Sofronoff has written in his inquiry into the case could cheer her. Nor would it engender any confidence in future better treatment for any other Continue reading »
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Shane Drumgold, despite his alleged sins, is an unlikely master villain
In the Sofronoff inquiry, Counsel Assisting, Ms Erin Longbottom went straight for the jugular of Shane Drumgold, prosecutor in the Bruce Lehrmann rape trial. She made mincemeat of him. By the end of her display of complete dominance, he was a shattered wreck. He had withdrawn his suggestions of political interference, softened his criticism of Continue reading »
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Flesh and bones on the corruption menu
Spare a thought for the National Anti-Corruption Committee which has so many juicy cases before it that there is a substantial chance that it might have to pass on investigating some of the serious sources of potential corruption around the nation. Continue reading »
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Integrity is what they do, not what they pretend
Integrity, accountability and stewardship are, post the Robodebt royal commission, to be the watchwords of the hour. The cynic will note that the agencies to oversee changing the culture are those which did most, in word and deed, to create, foster and promote the old culture, and that not one of them has publicly examined Continue reading »
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Don’t count on much post-Robodebt ‘reform’
The Holmes report into the Robodebt scandal gives the Albanese government all the authority and mandate it needs for root and branch reform of the public service, including a spill of its senior leadership. Continue reading »
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Making Voice a referendum on the Labor government
By the time of the referendum on the Voice, No campaigners look likely to have turned it into a referendum on the Albanese government, and, probably into “wokeness.” It may be a tragedy if they do, whether for First Australians or the nation generally, because it will inevitably exacerbate divisions in the community. Continue reading »
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NSW ICAC findings sound warning to federal ministers
As the National Anti-Corruption Commission is opening for business, some ministers tend to believe that the mere fact of winning government gives them an unlimited licence to distribute public loot to their friends, constituents and major donors. The silence and complicity of senior public servants in response to such misgovernment is one of the great Continue reading »
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Voice needs a serious rattle of spears
The biggest risk to the success of the referendum on Aboriginal recognition is the Albanese government’s lack of resolution. It has strongly promoted the voice, successfully in parliament, but far less effectively within the broader community. There is a serious prospect that the various proponents of the No case will win by default, mostly because Continue reading »
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Our law and order violate women
Every woman in Australia, and not a few men, should experience a shiver of apprehension about the Bruce Lehrmann case. Continue reading »
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An inquiry of self-limited curiosity
Senator Linda Reynolds is suggesting that she might seek to take her complaints of ill-treatment during the controversy of the Bruce Lehrman rape allegation to the new National Anti-Corruption Commission. That would include, we gather, allegations that Senator Katy Gallagher was briefed by the alleged victim and her boyfriend before the allegations had been made Continue reading »
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Catholics should go where the government isn’t
I do hope that the Catholic Church remains closely involved in providing health care to Canberra citizens, particularly the poorer ones, after the takeover by the government of Calvary public hospital. Indeed I suspect it could be making for itself, and Canberra citizens, greater treasure in heaven if it got entirely out of the provision Continue reading »
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Sending the cops into PwC is the tamest possible response to fraud on the taxpayer
The idea of sending the PriceWaterhouseCoopers scandal off for criminal investigation by the Australian Federal Police is such a thoroughly bad idea that one might imagine that it had been recommended by one of the major consultancies, perhaps PwC itself. Continue reading »
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How PwC monetises its insider secrets
The crisis in which PricewaterhouseCoopers finds itself is a useful illustration that the problem of politicians and bureaucrats becoming lobbyists, and of the revolving door syndrome are far from the only ones besetting integrity in public administration. The widespread use of supposedly independent consultants, many with deep and intractable conflicts of interest, is undermining good Continue reading »
