Writer
Michael Pascoe
Michael is the contributing editor for The New Daily. Journalist, commentator, speaker, rugby follower, would prefer to be skiing.
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Please support Pearls and Irritations: It operates on the faint memory of the smell of an oily rag
On the faint memory of the smell of an oily rag, John Menadue’s Pearls and Irritations public policy journal daily publishes a range of opinion and insights that shames the lack of diversity in our much bigger and better resourced media. Continue reading »
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America the great? How the decline of the US will affect Australian policy
Courtesy of the Financial Times early last year, we ran what I regarded as the graph of the first two decades of this century. Continue reading »
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The Summertime of Our Dreams
P&I 220807 :The interviewer interviewed: what really counts. Continue reading »
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Michael Pascoe: Forget the ‘Daz and Glad Show’, this is the real political scandal (The New Daily Oct 15, 2020)
It’s the secret sexual relationship that sells the ‘Daz and Glad Show’ and elevates it from being merely yet another corrupt NSW politician before the ICAC, but it also distracts punters from the much bigger scandal. Continue reading »
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A China spy story? Abandon perspective all ye who enter here (The New Daily Sep 15, 2020)
’Twas pure coincidence that as I was writing Monday’s story on the local spook/defence/media industries having little faith in Australia but lots of self-interest in promoting Sinophobia, journalists at the ABC and Australian Financial Review were belting their keyboards over another alleged Chinese spying outrage. Continue reading »
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MICHAEL PASCOE. The CEOs, MBAs and private equiteers undermining our resilience (THE NEW DAILY 08.04.20)
Corporate Australia is in serious trouble thanks to COVID-19, but it’s trouble that has been made worse by a generation of CEOs, directors, MBA-badged management consultants and private equiteers undermining our resilience – grabbing short-term profits and ramping up share prices at the cost of sustainability. Continue reading »
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MICHAEL PASCOE.- How Murdoch’s Myrmidons Murdered Climate Policy(TND2.1.2020)
“The Murdoch media, determined to remove the Labor government at any cost, mounted a savage war on the science of climate change and the structural reforms that needed to be undertaken,” wrote former Labor Treasurer Wayne Swan in a 2017 article and reprised this week on Twitter. Continue reading »
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MICHAEL PASCOE -Angus Taylor spotted fiddling more figures
The Minister for the Environment and Energy, Angus Taylor, seems to have a problem with numbers, whether it’s the Sydney City Council’s travel budget or what year Naomi Wolf was at Oxford. Continue reading »
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While Canberra ignores the RBA, the world pays attention (The New Daily 27-8-19)
The federal government is increasingly giving Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe the cold shoulder while the world’s central banks are paying him serious attention. Continue reading »
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All the way with Trump’s USA … this time into the Strait of Hormuz (New Daily, 21 August 2019)
Here we go again – joining an American military adventure created by Donald Trump, an adventure that has no end in sight.Nobody with a sense of history and Liberal Party politics can be surprised that Prime Minister Scott Morrison is donating Royal Australian Navy and Royal Australian Air Force personnel and assets to a flashpoint Continue reading »
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MICHAEL PASCOE. War with Iran could break the American alliance and force Australia to become independent (The New Daily, 23 June 2019)
I’m writing this at 10,000 metres, a dangerous place to write. There’s something about thin air on a plane and a couple of glasses of wine that moves the bladder closer to the eye. Continue reading »
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MICHAEL PASCOE. Bridging visas soar by 147 per cent under Coalition (New Daily, 31.05.19)
Other than claims that people smugglers wanted Labor to win, immigration and population issues flew under the radar during the election campaign – which may have been fortunate for the government. Continue reading »
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MICHAEL PASCOE. Government integrity test: A genuine retirement system inquiry or a political stunt? (New Daily, 30.05.19)
If Treasurer Josh Frydenberg wants a genuine “review of the retirement income system”, the little matter of franking credit refunds will have to be back on the table – and that would be only one of the political challenges. Continue reading »
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MICHAEL PASCOE. Hey PM, you’re either lying or ignorant about the RBA’s forecasts. (New Daily, 12.5.2019)
Prime Minister Scott Morrison is either desperately lying or ignorant about the Reserve Bank seriously downgrading Australia’s economic outlook – a downgrade that could easily wipe out the government’s “back in black” surplus claim. Continue reading »
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MICHAEL PASCOE. Frydenberg makes emergency direct deposits. (New Daily 3.4.2019)
The headlines might look pretty, but there’s little substance behind the government’s core budget spends. Continue reading »
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MICHAEL PASCOE. Australia’s ‘pussycat’ superannuation regulators aren’t doing their jobs.( A repost from August 25 2018)
The list of failures continues to grow, the list of official bodies too weak, too chummy, too lacking fire-in-the-belly to help the millions of Australians unknowingly stuck in under-performing superannuation funds. Continue reading »
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MICHAEL PASCOE. And the winner is … the big banks (New Daily)
Who would have guessed? The banks have emerged as relative winners from the royal commission’s final report. Continue reading »
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MICHAEL PASCOE. Irony: Record number of asylum seekers arrive on Dutton’s watch (The New Daily, 09.12.18)
For all the government’s tough-on-asylum-seekers rhetoric, protection visa applications have blown out to record numbers on Peter Dutton’s watch. Continue reading »
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MICHAEL PASCOE. Victorian election: Tell me, Mr Drug Warrior, how many votes is a human life worth? (New Daily)
Would you be willing to kill people to win a state election, to be Premier of Victoria? Such a large price to pay for such a small prize. Continue reading »
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MICHAEL PASCOE. Leaderless Australian government outsources all responsibility (New Daily, 20.11.18)
It has come to this for the Australian government: With no leadership, no mettle and no political capital to spend, difficult decisions are outsourced, and responsibility for decisions that might offend is spread far and wide. Continue reading »
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MICHAEL PASCOE. Fairfax joins the Murdoch sectarian beat-up brigade (The New Daily).
The first law of journalism is that bad news is good news – bad news sells. On Monday, Fairfax’s Sydney Morning Herald and The Age newspapers had a choice between a “good news” story and twisting the facts to make a “bad news” story. No prize for guessing which way the decision went. Continue reading »
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MICHAEL PASCOE. Scott Morrison’s Australia resembles the 51st American state (the New Daily, 17.10.18)
“We’re a sovereign nation,” said Scott Morrison. And then proceeded to act as if we were not, as if Australia was not merely an American vassal, but a Donald Trump toy. Continue reading »
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MICHAEL PASCOE. ‘Not pretty, but riveting’: Royal commission interim report due (the New Daily, 27.09.18)
Here comes the first of Kenneth Hayne’s large hobnailed boots up the backside of Australian banking, superannuation, financial advice, wealth management, insurance and regulation. It’s not going to be pretty, but it’s certainly going to be riveting. Most obviously the Big End of Town’s CEOs and chairmen were mostly spared embarrassing questioning about what they Continue reading »
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MICHAEL PASCOE. Why now is definitely not the time to scrap negative gearing (The New Daily, 21.09.18)
Conventional and entirely reasonable wisdom holds that the middle of a drought is not the time to develop drought policy – but that is what we appear to be headed for with Scott Morrison’s “drought summit”. Continue reading »
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MICHAEL PASCOE. For-profit funds take a hit off back of royal commission (11.09.18)
Never mind the fines and compensation building up, what about retail fund managers losing more than $20 billion of assets in the June quarter? Continue reading »
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MICHAEL PASCOE. Billions wasted on drought aid that’s not helping those who need it most.
Wealthy people are stuffing their kitchen cupboards with donated goods and their sheds with free hay while animal welfare is being ignored and low-paid rural workers go without favours. Continue reading »
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MICHAEL PASCOE. PM Dutton would abandon what has made Australia great (The New Daily, 22.08.18)
There’s a big hint in the job title – “leader”. It means the job is to lead, not to follow, not to merely manage a disparate group by appeasement, compromise and bribery. Continue reading »
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MICHAEL PASCOE. Why Australia’s latest wages figures are worse than they look (the New Daily 16.08.18)
The June quarter wages index headlined a slight lift of 0.6 per cent for the quarter, making 2.1 per cent for the year. Don’t be fooled – the numbers are worse than they look. Continue reading »
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MICHAEL PASCOE. Don’t believe in climate change? Then come over to Europe.
Just how hot does it have to get before the global frog understands he’s cooking? Continue reading »
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MICHAEL PASCOE. Electricity – driving towards the coal cliff
How bad, how dumb, how driven by internal political stupidities, how simply nonsensically odd are the electricity troglodytes pushing to keep the old Liddell coal-fired power station open for a few more years? Their case is destroyed by a single graph. Continue reading »
