Writer
Jack Waterford
John Waterford AM, better known as Jack Waterford, is an Australian journalist and commentator.
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Unaccountable leaders set the tone for all in public service
The decline of good government has not been an accident. Those in public service are probably of much the same calibre, idealism and intellectual capacity as ever. What they are not getting is leadership – by words or by deeds. Continue reading »
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The Morrison government: increasingly an ethical vacuum
Almost weekly, the person behind Anthony Albanese’s Twitter feed puts out a short statement, hanging off a recent event, calling for powerful corruption commission. A Labor Party seriously interested in winning government ought to be doing much more. Continue reading »
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Polls will narrow, especially as Morrison is open to attack on issues of probity
However, the position of deputy Labor leader requires a heavyweight. Richard Marles may be treasured by his faction, but he is virtually unknown and lacks the clout to make things happen. In Defence he couldn’t make an impression on a soft silk cushion. Continue reading »
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Labor’s dissembling and ducking won’t win climate votes
On climate change, voters want clarity, not obfuscation; honesty, not slogans. At the last election, voters saw through Labor’s mixed messaging and slapped the party down accordingly. Continue reading »
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‘Australians all let us forget that we are not all free’
Until recently, Australia Day for most was just a long weekend to do nothing. I yearn for such a return. Who wants immigration ministers feeling they can decide what we should wear, and what we should be doing? That official bossiness is a precursor to a national security state and social exclusion. Continue reading »
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Patriotic ins and outs at the Australian unity jamboree
It wouldn’t be late January if Australians were not being drawn into pointless “national conversations” about Australia Day, its occurrence on the anniversary of British settlement and the beginning of Aboriginal displacement, and what it means to be Australian. Continue reading »
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Forget the insurrection as ‘a teaching opportunity’
Here’s to betting that impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump prove a political disaster for the US and the Democrats; that Trumpism emerges more popular than ever; and that the drift towards the disintegration of the republic continues. Continue reading »
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Trump, and Trumpism, at no disadvantage in the senate trial
No one should stress about whether Donald Trump has received or will receive all of his legal rights, or whether the triumph of his opponents is unfairly depriving him of the bully pulpit that his office has given him. Nor should they be concerned about the freedom of his speech. But they should be concerned Continue reading »
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After Georgia, Biden has no excuses but it’s a long road ahead
While on paper Joe Biden has the power to force his agenda through Congress, the reality is a little different. He will need to take action on many fronts, not just the pandemic. A critical first task will be the dismantling and discrediting of Trumpism. Continue reading »
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With a booby-trapped White House, many Americans will want the nightmare to end
Biden’s task of restoring unity is not merely a matter of being statesmanlike or breaking down the hyper-partisanship of recent years. It is a matter of restoring faith in democratic institutions, the media, and in facts as a basis for debate. Continue reading »
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Morrison, the man with no abiding beliefs, also lacks agenda, map or destination
Assuming that the Morrison government goes more or less to full term — and some senate obstruction should not be enough to persuade a governor-general, even one in a witness support scheme — to grant an early dissolution — Morrison has probably about 15 months of economic recovery, ordinary economic management, and general steering of Continue reading »
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Labor could beat Morrison with a bit more mongrel
Some observers think that if the Morrison government were to fall apart over the next year, it would more likely be from bad luck, an own goal, or a resumption of internal Liberal bastardries than by a hostile act of the federal Labor Party. Continue reading »
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How Morrison repeatedly baulks at the vision thing and the moral thing
The unwillingness of the Morrison government to see the 2019-20 bushfire disaster as some sort of turning point was deliberate. That refusal to provide any sort of lead, or leadership, or to show some imagination about a new economy, and a new society, was again evident during the Covid-19 crisis. Continue reading »
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Fire and viruses did not cleanse bad government
The past year was a terrible year for Australia and Australians and in many ways the worst globally since World War II. And at least for Australians, a terrible year for good, decent and honest government. Continue reading »
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Morrison pitching babies into hot bathwater
Scott Morrison is a naturally cautious, if ruthless, politician who is not prime minister by accident. Almost every significant step in his career has been carefully — mostly successfully — gamed with close political colleagues. Continue reading »
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Playing to the local gallery on crimes in Afghanistan
It’s hard to escape the feeling that most of the heat and light generated by Scott Morrison’s fury at a cartoon by a middle-level Chinese tiger cub was designed for Australian, rather than Chinese, consumption. Regardless, it could be a dangerous strategy. Continue reading »
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Australia no longer an apostle, or exemplar, of good government
The OECD is also an academy and apostle of good government and good public administration. Clean public administration, open and accountable and subject to checks and balances, including integrity commissions. These are all things that the Morrison government, with the particular support of the hard-right Western Australian faction that Mathias Cormann has led, is opposed Continue reading »
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A bridge too far for Cormann?
For the OECD, improved world health is as important an outcome as an improved world economy. Managing that, or contributing to that debate, is not, as with climate change action, Cormann’s long suit. Continue reading »
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Investigating ADF murder is not an AFP core competency
The path to court for SAS murder suspects won’t be smooth, quick, certain or inevitable. Justice Brereton had a power federal police investigators will not have: he could compel soldiers to give answers, promising them that nothing they said could be used in cases against them. [Though they could be required to give evidence against Continue reading »
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SAS officers failed their men and Australia
The Australian Defence Force is one of the most secretive forces in the world. If our experience with Afghanistan is any guide, such secrecy produces moral failure. And while the much-despised media long ago blew the whistle on the behaviour of some SAS soldiers, the reward was the prosecution of the leaker. Continue reading »
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A mad King twitters from his fortress
When Gough Whitlam had his commission as prime minister withdrawn by Sir John Kerr 45 years ago last week, one of his many immediate tactical mistakes was to drive to the Lodge, rather than (old) parliament house. There he tucked into lunch with a number of his senior colleagues, though not, fatally, Ken Wreidt, the Continue reading »
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Will the toughest Trumpites be willing to bear arms?
Donald Trump seems rather more anxious than his die-hard supporters to replenish his election war-chest for legal expenses rather than that they gather for a last-ditch defence of the guns they will need to defend themselves from the socialism — and perhaps enforced abortion — which Biden seems to threaten. Continue reading »
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Bringing the Trumps, and Trumpism, to a fair accounting
Donald Trump has often spoken the language of retribution — and intention to use the processes of government to lock up his political enemies. He could hardly be surprised that his own administration’s malfeasances will come under close scrutiny once his power to frustrate them lapses. Continue reading »
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More drainage for a more polluted Washington swamp
President-elect Joe Biden has a golden opportunity over the next 10 weeks to reduce the handicap of a bad campaign that cost him a senate majority, and a mandate against Trumpism. Continue reading »
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Virus a political vaccine for the incumbent premiers?
Most of the commentators seem to expect that Annastacia Palaszczuk, the Labor premier of Queensland will be comfortably returned to power on Saturday night. Continue reading »
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Unaccountable national cabinet not a natural model for economic recovery
As premiers and chief ministers have worked to contain their pandemics, in the national cabinet as much as with their own administrations there have been no noticeable alliances of the Labor leaders against the conservatives, or the other way around. Continue reading »
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We, and ASIO, should fear our own agents of influence
The Director General of ASIO, Mike Burgess, is proposing to write a letter to all parliamentarians warning them of the risk that some of the people blowing in their ear may be agents of a foreign power (ASIO code for China) or acting at the direction of spymasters in a foreign government (ditto). Continue reading »
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Corruption undermines national security far more than spying
[The Director-general of ASIO,] Mike Burgess said this week, correctly, that the biggest risk of Chinese money and influence subverting the Australian system is at the local government level. Then at state and territory level, then at national level. Continue reading »
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Will our Glad have a chair when the music stops?
Spare a thought for the personal tragedy of Gladys Berejiklian, a genuinely hard-working and on the face of it a decent premier of NSW. Brought low because she formed a long-term personal relationship with a spiv, one whose general dishonesty and abuse of power seems to have extended to trading on her credit. Continue reading »
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The Gladys and Daryl Show. Having to squirm in open hearings acts as a disincentive to venality
If Gladys Berejiklian, and her ludicrous consort, have to take one for the team, let it not be for tiny misdemeanours but for being parties to a corrupted mindset of the spoils of public office. Continue reading »
