Writer
Jack Waterford
John Waterford AM, better known as Jack Waterford, is an Australian journalist and commentator.
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JACK WATERFORD. Are our leaders morally fit for purpose?
Sports rorts, scandals, climate inaction and contempt for public interest show a robber mentality. Continue reading »
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JACK WATERFORD. How rorting sporting grants became a bipartisan game.
The winner-takes-all approach to grants involves corrupt ideas of government, even if no crime occurred. It is an abuse of power Continue reading »
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JACK WATERFORD.-Pot shots prove poor policy
Must we follow Trump down his Iranian rabbit burrow? Continue reading »
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JACK WATERFORD.- Coalition burning up its electoral credit.
PM can’t find the fitting gesture or demonstrate our solidarity with bushfire victims. Continue reading »
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JACK WATERFORD.-Is Morrison really on the bridge?
Australia can’t much influence Trump, or Hong Kong or Boris. The more reason he should be working on what he can change Continue reading »
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JACK WATERFORD.-Even a PM needs time to chill – and think
Time for detailing how conservative policies could improve the nation Continue reading »
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JACK WATERFORD. Morrison resists the salvation temptation
Pressure to be seen to be doing something immediately about results of bad policy. Continue reading »
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JACK WATERFORD. Chinese checkers in the great game
Active spying need not mean an invasion, or war, is imminent Continue reading »
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JACK WATERFORD. Sexing up the charges for PR purposes
Austrac’s record on remittance scrutiny looks as lamentable as Westpac’s Continue reading »
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Porter’s selective concern for fairness and justice
If integrity commissions shouldn’t ask nasty questions in public, why can, and do, royal commissions? Continue reading »
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JACK WATERFORD. Now is not the time for keeping mum about Scott
The Canberra bushfire of January 2003 burnt, in an afternoon, nearly three times as many houses as have been consumed in NSW in this terrible week of 2019 as fires have raged in north-eastern NSW. Continue reading »
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JACK WATERFORD. Labor could fall further yet
Did Morrison win that election? Or did Labor simply blow it? Continue reading »
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JACK WATERFORD. Do harrowing inquiries deliver bang for the bucks?
The onion juice sometimes obscures the inconvenient, or unspeakable truths Continue reading »
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JACK WATERFORD. Soon we won’t recognise the face of Australia.
National government is becoming more authoritarian and much less accountable Continue reading »
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JACK WATERFORD. ACT closes the books on how cops and lawyers failed David Eastman, and us.
The courts, DPP and justice officials agree to deny FOI access to trial transcripts. Criticism of their roles can thus be called ill-informed. Continue reading »
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JACK WATERFORD. If you break it, you own it.
A president owns his nation’s history and its honour … the luxury of being able to make history, but not of repudiating it. Continue reading »
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JACK WATERFORD. Thin pickings from big bikkies
Britain’s ‘war’ on organised crime is failing, and it’s probably the same here Some fresh and depressing evidence for those who, like me, fear that federal law enforcement is a good deal less effective and efficient than it could be, because of the way its resources are configured, led, and under the close and very Continue reading »
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JACK WATERFORD. The judiciary is a part of government too (Canberra Times 27-9-19)
Australian politicians given to complaining that unelected judges are usurping the functions of ministers and of parliament would do very well to study this week’s British Supreme Court ruling holding the prorogation of the British Parliament by the Queen at the prime minister’s request to be null and void. Continue reading »
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JACK WATERFORD. Albanese’s race against time (Canberra Times 20-9-19)
On paper, Anthony Albanese has all the time in the world. The electorate is not paying any attention to defeated Labor at the moment, and won’t probably for at least another year. That’s time enough for a comprehensive review of how Labor snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in May. It’s time enough to Continue reading »
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JACK WATERFORD. Politics and the rustle of folding money (Canberra Times 13-9-19)
I wouldn’t hang a dog on the evidence so far assembled in support of the proposition that Gladys Liu, Liberal MP for Chisholm, is an active agent of the Chinese government, engaged in nefarious and illegal activities against Australia. On the other hand, one cannot help cynically feeling that were Ms Liu to be accused, Continue reading »
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JACK WATERFORD. Bullshit and hypocrisy cannot hide behind a Secret stamp (Canberra Times 6 Sep 2019)
50 years of public disclosure has never harmed the national security interest Brian Toohey is a great Australian journalist who, over 50 years, has mostly rated the public’s right to know as being more important than what politicians and public servants have thought the national security interests of the state. He has often embarrassed governments Continue reading »
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JACK WATERFORD. Labor’s turn with the brown paper bag. Integrity bodies should have power to check corruption inside political parties.
NSW Labor’s little embarrassment in front of its Independent Commission Against Corruption has a bad look, temporarily takes attention away from problems festering the Berejiklian government and had led to the fall of yet another NSW Labor General Secretary in murky circumstances. AS is usual in NSW, whichever party is involved, brown paper bags come Continue reading »
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High Court should leave Pell alone. There’s no unresolved point of law, and no mere judicial disagreement on facts invites special leave
George Pell will be doing very well if he succeeds in getting the High Court to grant him leave to appeal after the Victorian Court of Appeal threw out his appeal against his conviction for child sex offences. Pell was convicted by a well- instructed jury; neither side had the slightest complaint about the judge’s Continue reading »
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Can Knut Morrison hold back the tides?
We’ve lost influence over China and the US, and over Hong Kong and Kashmir and the world may be slipping into recession. It is beginning to look as if we are drifting, more or less without a pilot, into the interesting times of the old Chinese curse. As one might expect, given our luck, the Continue reading »
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Broken government: it’s the engine as well as the drivers
Ministers and bureaucrats seem only able to manage spot fires, not policy review beyond three-word-slogans. Ken Hayne, the former High Court judge who conducted the banking royal commission is quite right in suggesting that the political and bureaucratic system is broken, and in need of fundamental reconstruction. But some of those wisely nodding their heads, Continue reading »
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JACK WATERFORD. Half-hearted inquiries into casino crime
Where were the former politicians and apparatchiks who became Packer lobbyists when the spotlight focused on Crown? Continue reading »
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JACK WATERFORD. When loyalty and duty are in conflict
How the new AFP chief juggled his role during an investigation that compromised his own superior Reece Kershaw, the new Australian Federal Police Commissioner deserved to get the appointment via an open and independent appeal process. He might well have won it, and, assuming that he did, would be walking into the job in a Continue reading »
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JACK WATERFORD. AFP needs a leader who is a character with character, not a bureaucrat with opinions (Canberra Times 20.7.2019)
The ‘old-fashioned cop’ type Dutton is said to want are mostly known for preferring their prejudices to the facts. Continue reading »
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JACK WATERFORD. Have Australians the heart for the Uluru statement? Losing the referendum would set back indigenous affairs by decades
There are many good reasons to support the latest plans to find a constitutional referendum question to encapsulate the principles of the Uluru statement from the heart. There’s the fact that it represents a good idea and good ideal – perhaps one, as some say, that is essential to a mature nationality for Australia and Continue reading »
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JACK WATERFORD. Not quite Custer’s last stand, yet
Australia must have an independent defence policy as American power in Asia and the Pacific wanes. But there’s no reason to think us friendless. Hugh White is travelling the nation’s highways and byways trying to scare Australians out of their complacency about the nation’s security — not least by raising again the prospect of Australia’s Continue reading »
