Writer
Jack Waterford
John Waterford AM, better known as Jack Waterford, is an Australian journalist and commentator.
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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When Gough Whitlam had his commission as prime minister withdrawn by Sir John Kerr 45 years ago last week, one of his many immediate tactical mistakes was to drive to the Lodge, rather than (old) parliament house.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 »
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ACT Election: Tired and complacent versus hidebound and headstrong
The biggest argument in favour of showing the ACT Barr Labor government the door next Saturday is that it has become tired and corrupted by too many years of continuous power. Continue reading »
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We need jobs which improve the Australian quality of life
The past week has seen yet another report from the royal commission into aged care, against pointing out the sub-standard services provided at Rolls-Royce prices by entrepreneurs making enormous profits, as well as the low standards being set for the non-profit sector. Continue reading »
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See if budget creates a future, and beware of dirty tricks!
Close observers of Tuesday’s federal Budget will no doubt have their eyes out for evidence of the usual political chicanery towards political donors, lobbyists and friendly interests, as well as mates, cronies and relatives of senior members of government, this time in the alleged cause of stimulating demand and picking winners in the post-Covid economy. Continue reading »
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Porter – the political law officer who will not protect the public interest
It is of the essence of the idea of the Law Officer that he is, at least in advising, detached and independent, and that the advice represents a statement of the law rather than of some clever way of getting around it. Continue reading »
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Corporate Covid giveaways wide-open for mega-rorting
History would suggest that conservative politicians, of all folk, would be the ones who were cautious about uncontrolled public spending programs. But it sometimes seems that the apparent moral collapse and decline of social responsibility in Australian business has also affected politics. Continue reading »
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ADF and government stage-managing release of war crimes report
We need a fair-dinkum inquiry, by properly independent experts, not only of how and why we went to a useless war, but also into serious shortcomings of leadership, both at the top level and in command of troops on the ground. Continue reading »
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Soon we must admit defeat in Afghanistan, and war crimes
I doubt we can fashion much of a narrative of which Australians could be proud when we consider what will be happening soon with Afghanistan. What will probably be good for Afghanistan — a measure of peace — will be a result of our defeat, not our participation. Continue reading »
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ASIO is a Mickey Mouse outfit compromising 50 years of diplomacy with China
When head of the Australian Signals Directorate, Mike Burgess was the main adviser recommending against Huawei being allowed into the 5G network. There is no doubt about his intelligence background, or his technical talents. He has, however, yet to demonstrate in public that he has that first quality of the counter-intelligence officer and adviser — Continue reading »
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Secrecy covers up abuse of power and poor performance by security services
One would have to go back to the 1970s to find the nation so ill-served. All the more so as politicians have politicised national security, and reverted to 1960s games of gathering and using secret information for political purposes. It would not be strictly correct to describe the agencies themselves, or their leaders, as politically Continue reading »
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Federal and State blame game won’t shift the burden of economic revival
Initially, Scott Morrison was imaginative in trying to co-opt the premiers and chief ministers into a united response. However, as the premiers have gone their own way he has become more willing to criticise and more exasperated about their standing in the way of economic revival. Continue reading »
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How governments made economic medicine less potent, more insipid
I expect the premiers will suffer little political pain if recovery doesn’t happen, is patchy or too slow. It will be Morrison and Frydenberg who are blamed. Continue reading »
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Cowardly Labor won’t fight Morrison over China policy
Enemies, foreign and domestic, appear to be preoccupying the minds of our foreign minister, Marise Payne, and our Defence Minister, Linda Reynolds as they maintain their lonely patrols in the diplomatic cocktail circuit and the officers’ messes. Continue reading »
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Who’s repelling boarders at our internal borders?
The emergency border controls are not doing much, if anything, to drive the virus from our shores. Continue reading »
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War defined the scope of emergency powers, but now we may discriminate
Would some of the coercive powers under the pandemic response survive a High Court challenge? Continue reading »
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Bad habits must be unlearned before they bring down governments and society
Morrison has never been one for secrecy, refusal to acknowledge error or bad judgment, and willingness to use his prerogatives to avoid being pinned on detail. Perhaps his impulses on the pandemic or reviving the economy are worthy — methinks they devote too much focus on culture wars. Continue reading »
