Writer
Jack Waterford
John Waterford AM, better known as Jack Waterford, is an Australian journalist and commentator.
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Premiers, not Albanese, are throwing Morrison out the window
It has long been a fundamental article of Labor belief that the federal structure of the Australian nation, along with bicameral legislatures, were put into Australian constitutions to slow or frustrate radical change and Labor agendas.The Commonwealth system is increasingly sclerotic, the politicians less brave, or less focused on good policy, good government and the Continue reading »
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PM’s focus on short-term fixes and politicisation of every conflict
Increasingly people realise that Morrison is full of bullshit, even (or especially) when he is being sincere. Continue reading »
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Did we all over-estimate what Scott Morrison had to offer?
The prime minister is acquiring a reputation as a liar and a deceiver. Worse, his agenda is usually suspect. Continue reading »
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Let’s re-imagine Anzac Day and phase out ADF and RSL’s ownership
More than a million Australians wore military uniform in World War II, and nearly 40,000 died. In the 76 years since, around 110,00 Australians have served in military operations abroad, with fewer than 1000 dying on active service. The greatest proportion of these was in Vietnam more than 50 years ago. There, as in Afghanistan Continue reading »
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Patriotism needs more active, more suspicious citizenship
“Whose side are you on?” prime minister Tony Abbott once publicly asked the ABC when he felt that it was not sufficiently representing Australian propaganda, not to mention his own point of view, in some dispute with other nations. Continue reading »
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It’s time for Labor to capitalise on Morrison’s inadequacies
We are not yet in election mode and can assume that both parties are reserving their campaign strategies and tactics for the end. But at the moment, Morrison and the coalition will have defeated themselves. Continue reading »
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We have seen Morrison’s best, and it wasn’t much
The prime minister Scott Morrison is in a lot of trouble again. He will probably get out of it, with just a few more bruises and scratches, but the clock is running down on his leadership. Continue reading »
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Rot starts from the top
Scott Morrison encapsulates the retreat from values, the lack of regard for truth, for decency and the long-term public interest. Those he leads or those in the public service obliged to do his will can hardly be blamed for using his example as their inspiration. Continue reading »
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National Party greed was once restrained by Liberals
We ought to be asking questions about the mysterious failure of public service systems to hold any senior public official to account for anything, let alone to punish or dismiss. Continue reading »
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After the pandemic war, no political point in refighting the battles
Anthony Albanese has become too fond of saying that Scott Morrison had two big jobs this year – to roll out the vaccine, and to fix quarantine, and that he’s failed with both. The next election will not be a report card on how the coalition managed the pandemic, but about the future. Continue reading »
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What has Australia gained from the crisis the pandemic represented?
This time last year, I was arguing that Morrison would be judged at the next election not by his success in managing the pandemic, but by his success in reviving the economy. I think it is largely his fault that he is now about six months behind schedule in leading Australia out of the pandemic, Continue reading »
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Housing politics dominated by the interests of the already-housed
The housing market is not effectively closed to most young women and men by accident. House prices keep growing not so much by excess demand but because of the rewards we give investor buyers, the advantages in place for those already in the market and the tax and other advantages of owning a house, whether Continue reading »
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Old Canberra a model of cheap land and government housing
Canberra was once in a position to show how ordinary working Australians could get into the housing market at a fair price. That fair price, in today’s terms, was about a third of current prices. Continue reading »
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Government rorting is now the Australian way of doing business
Australia has moved to a deeply corrupted system of doling out consultancy contracts to mates by pure discretion, in circumstances which in the classic Morrison style are compulsively secretive, and vague in sums and contract terms. Continue reading »
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Public servants as courtiers rather than stewards
Phil Gaetjens, former Treasury official, former boss of Scott Morrison’s private office and now head of the Prime Minister’s Department is an unusual public servant who seems to have accepted that he is never going to be regarded as any sort of detached public servant independent of the government of the day. Continue reading »
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The probity standards public servants walk past are the ones they accept
Phil Gaetjens is not the only senior public servant who can be relied upon to see things in the government’s eyes, even when being asked for an objective opinion. There’s all too much advice coming to government which is masquerading as independent judgment but has merely been pre-arranged to appease, to the point where some Continue reading »
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Advice being tailored for political, not medical, need
Scott Morrison has repeatedly reiterated that all decisions in relation to Coronavirus public health measures have been taken in accordance with medical advice. But the advice itself has frequently been considerably less than transparent, even as he has had medical officials standing alongside him, giving every appearance of having crafted his words and drafted his Continue reading »
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All too convenient to blame the Health bureaucrats
Caroline Edwards, Associate secretary of the Commonwealth Health Department may have seemed churlish in refusing to accept that her department’s efforts in organising coronavirus vaccinations, essentially under her control, had been an abject failure. Continue reading »
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The path to petty tyranny and public poverty
The new style of government, and the growth of spending by unaccountable discretion, owes as much to the pandemic as to the personality and secretiveness of Scott Morrison. We are on a path to petty tyranny and public poverty. Continue reading »
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The way, the truth and the life of Reilly
A few weeks after the First Fleet stopped at Port Jackson and disgorged a representative collection of thieves, cheats and vagabonds, the British House of Lords began the impeachment trial of Warren Hastings, the recent Governor-General of India for the East India Company, accused of looting the wealth of India on an epic scale — Continue reading »
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No room for the poor at the Pentecostal table
To the core coalition supporters, any call for higher taxes for richer people is invariably “exciting the politics of envy.” Any undue stress on the sufferings or disadvantage of the poor involves identity politics. Any sustained attack on established ideas — including racist, sexist or ageist ones — often involves “political correctness gone mad”. Radical Continue reading »
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The devil in the detail of identity politics
If anyone was in any doubt about whether Australian politicians speak the same language, or swim in the same ocean, it would be worth thinking about labels of “identity politics.” Or “political correctness’’. Continue reading »
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Morrison’s miracle appointment
Scott Morrison took a risk – no doubt a calculated one – in talking frankly and personally at a conference of fellow Pentecostals – but I am not going to criticise him for doing so. The risk was that he would be criticised for mixing matters of church and state – perhaps in some way Continue reading »
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Morrison’s day of reckoning may bring down his temples
It’s all very well to have a prime minister who believes that he has been anointed by God for his task, and is thus above some of the checks and balances imposed by law and by custom on the mere mortals who have preceded him. Experience and the career so far of Donald Trump suggest, Continue reading »
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What have our governments done to tackle rates of Indigenous custody?
From one perspective one could see the conviction of Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd as a triumph of the American justice system – a proof, somehow, that American police are accountable to the law, that bad police practice, having its roots in racism will be found out, and that the jury system Continue reading »
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America needs to re-invent its police
The George Floyd case triggered a new wave of protests in the American Black Lives Matter movement, but the cause and the protests have been there for years. Continue reading »
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Will secrecy trump justice for murdered Afghans?
Thousands of Australian men and women fought in Afghanistan and Iraq without being in breach of any of the rules of warfare, but one can imagine that whatever pride they have in their personal and military accomplishment is muted by their knowledge that a small minority face credible charges of murdering civilians and other war Continue reading »
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Our MPs and Generals hope we forget the foolish Afghanistan war and the wounds it left on our honour
The aftermath of the Brereton inquiry into war crimes committed by SAS soldiers involves much more than continuing efforts to prosecute. It also involves findings of the degree of culpability of officers at all levels above the non-commissioned soldiers accused, as well as the whole culture of the SAS, perhaps of the whole army. Continue reading »
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Morrison’s minders at the heart of his doldrums
Perhaps a day will come when the champion rorters, liars, and conscious mis-managers of public resources are before a serious corruption commission and out on their ears. Continue reading »
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Ministerial staff can’t be strangled but they can be leashed
It is probably too late to throw partisans out of ministerial offices, or even to strangle the triennial increase in the number of ministerial staff, whether or not they are to be subjected to ordinary rules of civility and respect for each other. But it is not too late to set some enforceable public standards Continue reading »
