Writer
Jack Waterford
John Waterford AM, better known as Jack Waterford, is an Australian journalist and commentator.
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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 »
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Morrison’s over-hyping of vaccine delivery
If the mass vaccination of Australians against the severe effects of Covid-19 proves to be a complete political debacle for the government, it seems likely at this moment that it will be more a consequence of its being over-hyped by the prime minister than of serious mismanagement of the program, or even the incompetence which Continue reading »
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The usual suspects and mates, making a killing from vaccinations
Australia has the right to whinge about Europe’s withholding of solid vaccines orders. We have done that, even as we have accepted the decision with reasonably good grace. We have to, more or less, because there is no immediate hope of reversing the decision through law courts or military invasion, and because our moral, as Continue reading »
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Sexual assault policies fit pattern of abuse of power
Three decades ago, Bob Hawke seized on Joh Bjeke-Petersen’s revolt against John Howard’s leadership of the Liberal Party with a campaign slogan which said of the coalition, “If you can’t govern yourselves, you can’t govern the country.” Obvious party disunity tends to have that effect. Continue reading »
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Women’s passion and anger isn’t enough to force lasting change
It is said that early in the catalogue of Morrison’s mismanagement of recent issues that some of his advisers asserted the matters that had come to the fore – alleged rape, the safety of women in parliament and in the wider world – was a “doctor’s wife” sort of issue, of intense interest only to Continue reading »
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The AFP clearing-house: more political than useful
Some of the AFP commissioners have entrenched the AFP’s reputation as the most politicised force in the country. When one considers the NSW and Victoria Police, that is really saying something. Continue reading »
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Sexual violence makes a farce of the rule of law
One should always take great care in assuming the reliability of statistics or the factual basis of arguments and prejudices promoted by the NSW Police Commissioner, Mick Fuller. But he may have made the argument for fundamental reform of sexual violence and sexual harassment laws in suggesting, defensively this week, that only a small proportion Continue reading »
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Canberra: the nation’s capital in progress
One gets used to people suggesting that the whole idea of Canberra was a terrible mistake. A waste of good grazing country. A folly, an expensive indulgence, which ultimately and inevitably produced self-reproducing bureaucrats and a governing class out of touch with the lot of ordinary Australians. Perhaps they are right. Continue reading »
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Is Christian Porter fit to hold public office?
Any proper assessment of Christian Porter’s fitness for office would not only properly assess the sexual assault allegations but would his performance as a politician and as a minister. It would appear his personal failings mirror his abuse of political principle. Continue reading »
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Does Morrison need Porter more than the votes of 50% of the population?
An inquest is not usually well placed to settle matters in contest. In the case of an alleged suicide, for example, the Coroner’s remit is to find the cause of death, not to conduct a wide-ranging inquiry. One the other hand, in cases before professional tribunals, lawyers, doctors, nurses and others have been struck off Continue reading »
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The AFP is a political tool of government.
Parliamentarians and the public already know enough about the handling of the alleged sexual assault case in the office of the Minister for Defence to make judgments about how the political system treats victims. Continue reading »
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The abuse culture comes from entitled boys from almost all the most expensive and privileged private schools – the germ of Australia’s ruling class.
Is anyone surprised that in this environment of contempt for the public, the disadvantaged, and for principles of public stewardship, that disrespect for women rages, and that abuse of women is seen more through the lens of political damage? Continue reading »
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The Morrison method – if you don’t ask, you can’t tell
Some prime ministers are more practised liars than others. Some can confuse, distract and prevaricate in such a way as to strangle the truth. Morrison, however, is a special case. He does not seem to recognise any obligation to account. He resists any scrutiny and while using words such as “transparency” almost everything he does Continue reading »
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I have never seen, over 50 years, a more slippery customer than Morrison
How Prime Minister Scott Morrison ‘feels’ the pain of others. For him, almost everything is a public relations problem. Continue reading »
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A grubby and corrupting traffic in misery
Commissioner Bergin’s report did not devote a word to the sleazy and improper way James Packer was effectively given Barangaroo by a new Liberal Premier, Barry O’Farrell. And not a word about the slew of former Labor and Liberal Party apparatchiks who moved on to make their fortunes prostituting their inside knowledge and their access Continue reading »
