Writer

Jack Waterford
John Waterford AM, better known as Jack Waterford, is an Australian journalist and commentator.
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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 »
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Can Labor remain a winner simply by being less worse?
It would be a fatal mistake for Labor to think that it represents the values and aspirations of its primary constituencies. It doesn’t. It is just that it misrepresents them slightly less than the coalition. Continue reading »
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Ex-politicians who go over to the enemy
It has been only in recent times that we have had former prime ministers taking up positions in foreign countries, even working for foreign governments. It ought to be regarded as deeply shameful, and more than somewhat disloyal. If our public stewards cannot be trusted to do the right thing, it becomes necessary to control Continue reading »
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Budget must show what we are invested in
In three weeks or so, a little after the second Labor budget, the Albanese government will mark its first year in office. Continue reading »
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Dutton gives voice to Jacinta Price
Peter Dutton has staked his political future on Jacinta Price, his new shadow minister for Aboriginal Affairs, a woman of less than 10 months experience in Parliament, none of which have been spent in government. Continue reading »
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Home Affairs’ culture of getting things wrong
The minister for Home Affairs and the department have been given extraordinary powers, including significant power to hurt and oppress others. For good or ill, the legislature has authorised and permitted their determined cruelty to asylum seekers over many years, their beliefs about stripping citizenship from our nationals, deporting our home-grown criminals and establishing the Continue reading »
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Albanese should take the Voice to the people
The gutsy thing for Anthony Albanese to do in the wake of the coalition’s decision to vote “no” in the Voice referendum would be to carry on virtuously with the ballot, taking such advantage as he can from the Liberals’ decision to break the heart of more than half the country. But the inspired response Continue reading »
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Public servants contemplating abolition of the people
For a public servant of my acquaintance, the new and emerging problem of public administration is dealing with what she called activists and advocates. Continue reading »
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The shame of missing a national mood
At least until the 1964 Freedom Rides, Australia had a Jim Crow system every bit as bad as in the American South. Continue reading »
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Albanese a pale shadow of Keating, even on subs
Paul Keating did all Australians, and all the world, an important favour over the past week. Continue reading »
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We don’t need subs or war with China
The pussies in Labor are reluctant to differ by a millimetre from the coalition on defence, foreign affairs and national security lest they be accused of treason. Continue reading »
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It’s the bureaucracy that enabled the Robodebt shame
Major General Kathryn Campbell, currently sitting in a fairly empty office in the Department of Defence on a miserly $900,000 plus a year, seems set to become, by acclamation as much as by the weight of the evidence so far available the chief bureaucratic victim of the Robodebt affair. Continue reading »
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Be alert but not very alarmed as ASIO rediscovers bad, as opposed to friendly, foreign spies
The Director General of the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), Mike Burgess, is an intelligence professional whose views about threats to national security should be considered carefully, and on their merits. Continue reading »
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Fighting to the last Ukrainian
On Tuesday, General Mark Milley, chair of the American joint chiefs of staff declared, in effect, that Russian had been militarily defeated in Ukraine. Russia, he said, was now a global pariah, and the world remained inspired by Ukrainian bravery and resilience. Continue reading »
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Pearls and Irritations has never been more necessary
Pearls and Irritations is essential reading for anyone interested in public policy analysis. Continue reading »
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Not every liberal wants Dutton to win in Aston
Peter Dutton faces a stern test of his leadership and his strategies in preparing for a by-election in the Melbourne outer suburban seat of Aston. It’s in Victoria, where the Liberal Party has been on the nose, as most recently demonstrated in November by the swingeing repudiation of the party in favour of “Dictator” Dan Continue reading »
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Perrottet best throw of the dice is gambling reform
NSW goes to the polls at the end of next month, and Labor must be regarded as a very clear favourite. Recent polls have put Labor 12 points ahead — 56 to 44 –of the coalition. Even allowing that the Opposition leader, Chris Minns must win back seats before he builds a majority, it suggests Continue reading »
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Voice vote may demand blood in the water
It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that the referendum on the Voice will be won not as a virtually unanimous offering to First Nations Australians but narrowly in an ugly, bitter and divisive brawl between older and younger Australians. Even a win will have the capacity to leave divisions in the nation, and Continue reading »
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Jacinda Ardern, the ultimate accolade, and Jim Molan
The least well-developed political sense is the feel for when it is time to move on. Continue reading »
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George Pell leaves a diminished church, to successors hardly better
George Pell was, by temperament and personality, about the worst possible choice to be made a bishop, then an archbishop, and ultimately a cardinal — one of the inner circle of the church entrusted with central church administration and the selection of new Popes. Continue reading »
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MPs shilling for private interests
I have long been a fan of the British parliament’s system of having independent commissioners for standards who review complaints that MPs have breached their Code of Conduct or the Nolan Committee’s set of standards of public life. Continue reading »
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How 20 ratbag Republicans could Trump 200 party loyalists
The farce occurring in the US House of Representatives, where a small group of far-right Republicans are seeking to veto the overwhelming choice of their colleagues for the party’s congressional leadership, may well be resolved by the weekend in the traditional American parliamentary way, with bribes, deals, committee placements and stiff-arming. Continue reading »
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Decaying Liberals oblivious to the abyss
The state of decline of the Federal Liberal Party revealed by its 2022 election review is so serious that even people who hope it never achieves power again should ask themselves whether it is in Australia’s interest that it be allowed to continue in its death spiral. Continue reading »
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Please don’t mention guilt or innocence while asking if there was a case to answer
Strictly speaking the various inquiries into the case against Bruce Lehrmann for the alleged rape of a colleague do not involve a review of his guilt or innocence. Continue reading »
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Labor lets its moral mandate wither away
A bare six months after being elected, the Albanese government has surrendered almost all of the moral advantage it held over the public administration, and most of the moral advantage it held over the coalition. Continue reading »
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Alleged police sabotage of the Bruce Lehrmann rape prosecution demands proper investigation
The inquiry into alleged police sabotage of the Bruce Lehrmann rape prosecution has the capacity to bring the Australian Federal Police into the biggest crisis of its 43 years, with impacts spreading beyond the contract arrangements by which it delivers policing services to the ACT. Continue reading »