Jack Waterford
John Waterford AM, better known as Jack Waterford, is an Australian journalist and commentator.
Jack's recent articles
17 October 2022
Is Albanese up to the job of public service reform?
I have a terrible foreboding about public service reform under the Albanese government and am beginning to wonder whether it should set itself a simpler task and leave serious improvement to some future government more up to the job. My pick for the simpler tasks would be abolishing 1300 phone lines for Centrelink, all customer or client service agencies, the restoration of a printed Commonwealth Gazette whereby the contact number of all SES officers were published to journalists, fellow public servants, and, most particularly to clients and customers. Why should junior Centrelink staff have to bear the brunt of popular...
10 October 2022
No place for AFP in anti-corruption teams
The national secretary of the Australian Federal Police Association, Alex Karuana, may have had empires and AFP pay increases in mind when he sounded a caution about the national anti-corruption commission, about which he is generally enthusiastic. Yet theres the risk, he warns, that staffing the NACC may strip the AFP of critical expertise and operational capacity, thus weakening the AFP capacity to fight crime and win.
5 October 2022
Non-believers, the timid and party rorters have got at corruption bill
Citizens who want an effective agency to weed out corruption and maladministration from Australian public life would do well to get involved in the National Anti-Corruption Commission debate. It is never going to be any better than the first model that goes through the parliament over the next few months. If history in state and territory jurisdictions is any guide, only whittling down of any powers granted now is in prospect.
27 September 2022
Time to get fair dinkum, or the Voice proposal will lose momentum and support
Many of the proponents of the Voice referendum already agree that the referendum should go forward only if a Yes vote is a virtual certainty. Some expect that the effect of a rejection of the proposal would be catastrophic for First Nations people.
26 September 2022
No guts, no glory in deposing the King
Right thinking Australians ought to want their nation to be a republic led by a president rather than by a protestant King or Queen of England. Even the local self-effacing should want it if only for international and national self-respect.
20 September 2022
Republican Albanese imprisoned by royal protocol
I was arrested at a visit by then Prince Charles to Alice Springs in 1977 for handing out press statements on Aboriginal living standards. I avoided jail, but the less fortunate Albanese government has been imprisoned by royal protocol and constitutional custom.
13 September 2022
Labor must pro-actively manage potential conflicts of interest
The Liberal Partys attack on the Attorney-General, Mark Dreyfus, over an alleged conflict of interest in his share ownership was an unimpressive flop. It did not establish a case that Dreyfus had failed to meet the technical standard of disclosure of interests set by the prime minister a standard far higher than that set down by any prime minister before. It also failed to make any case that conflict of interest was involved, by any other standard, including the pub test.
12 September 2022
Albanese wont rescue the Governor General from his impossible position
The Governor-General (GG), David Hurley, is in an increasingly invidious position, and sooner rather than later will feel impelled to resign. He may not yet see it this way and will in any event be preoccupied with the Queens funeral and the transition of the King. But the prime ministers intervention on Wednesday night to kill off a $24 million plus leadership scheme was designed to protect both Hurley and his office from the ignominy of being a subject of debate in both houses of parliament. How long he can, or will avoid this, has to be open to question.
6 September 2022
Marketing an economic plan must appeal to the heart as much as the head
Waiting until almost the last minute to decide what to do about the tax cuts serves another political purpose. Albanese and Chalmers have done a good job of making each of the present priorities seem part of an integrated economic plan.
5 September 2022
Albanese can afford to seem firm about tax cuts
Newly elected as prime minister Anthony Albanese promised voters he would not lose a second in getting down to the tasks for which he had been elected. In the period leading up to the election, he had been criticised by followers for having a narrow agenda. But that included some big-ticket items in child-care, NDIS repair and wage increases for aged care workers, as well as a primary task of budget repair. Affording much in the way of extras was going to be difficult and lobbying for it much discouraged.
29 August 2022
Super Scott and the coup vaccine
The powers vested in prime minister Scott Morrison by the Governor-General David Hurley during the five-ministries affair represented both a sword and a shield against any coup against Morrison himself. They also gave Morrison unparalleled capacity to seize power for himself, casting aside some of his most powerful ministerial colleagues without being held to account by important constitutional protections against tyranny implicit in the concept of responsible government.
22 August 2022
The stench of Morrisons dormant constitutional coup
The great unravelling of Scott Morrisons pseudo-constitutional coup deserves a comprehensive inquiry. Perhaps a royal commission. Its a commission that could also embrace other improper, illegal or general style of secretive unaccountable government, and also take in the connivance, or learned ignorance of other ministers and senior bureaucrats.
15 August 2022
The voice implies a change of heart
The Governments proposal for a referendum on a Voice is a bold idea whose time has come. But it is being asked to carry a lot of weight weight that might easily sink it.
8 August 2022
Does the US know what it is doing, and mean what it says, over Taiwan?
The Chairman of the US Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, seemed quietly confident this week that Australia would be standing side-by-side with the US and Taiwan if China attempted to retrieve its errant and rebellious province by force of arms. Perhaps he knows something I dont.
1 August 2022
Wardens of secrecy discredit their own system
Retired ACT Supreme Court Justice John Burns has copped a severe caning from the independent National Security legislation monitor this week. Its over his handling of a case in which a man we cannot name was secretly charged with serious criminal offences, which cannot really be itemised other than in the most general way, who was tried in secret in a closed court with evidence we are not allowed to know about. He was found guilty and given a 31-month jail term in the ACT prison without the public or even the ACT Attorney-General being allowed to know...
25 July 2022
It's the teals who are the most representative on integrity issues
Although the activities of politicians from minor parties and independents should fall under integrity legislation, we should mostly be grateful that they contain more enthusiasts for a tough and expansive system than within the government.
18 July 2022
Abbott chickens come home to roost
Tony Abbott, as prime minister nearly a decade ago, had more than a few bees under his bonnet. He thought his election had redeemed the nation from an intolerable scourge of a government of criminals. Other opposition leaders have engaged in this sort of hyperbole, but scarcely ever with the zeal and lack of restraint, of Abbott.
5 July 2022
The unlimited, and unaccountable powers weve given police
The US Supreme Courts decision to overrule the Roe v Wade principle that the right to an abortion is a privacy right guaranteed by the American constitution has magnified the fears of pro-choice citizens. They are worried that in the red states that have already criminalised abortion, right-to-life zealots, including those in law enforcement, will be anxious to search out and punish those breaching these state-based laws. The text of some of these laws, and the rhetoric of some of their proponents, suggest that the concern is by no means simply paranoid.
4 July 2022
Governments losing their way
Professor Peter Coaldrakes review of a Queensland public administration which has been losing its way since the Fitzgerald reforms of thirty years ago should be compulsory reading for politicians, for public servants, particularly senior executives, and for citizens sick of the way that modern government has let accountability and integrity slip by the wayside.
28 June 2022
Liberals have ICAC on their conscience
NSW Liberals have a bit of a thing about ICAC. It was, more or less, a Liberal Party brainchild seen as a counter to seemingly obvious corruption in the Labor government of the day, three decades ago. Perversely, some thought, incoming Liberal Premier, Nick Greiner, popularly regarded as a cleanskin was its first victim. Later he could claim that he was exonerated from a corruption finding by the NSW court system, but, whether that is true or not, it was too late. He was right out of politics.
27 June 2022
Public servants judge and jury over next-up political bosses
Spare a thought for Michael Coutts-Trotter, the Secretary of the NSW Premiers Department. He has been asked, in effect, to decide which of several versions of how John Barilaro was appointed on merit to a cushy $500,000 trade commissioner job in New York most closely approximates the truth.
21 June 2022
Attorney-Generals has not been a recent friend of real law reform
Those in favour of a strong and effective integrity commission, including the retired judges who have done so much to outline the need, should be very suspicious of the central role being accorded the Attorney-Generals department.
20 June 2022
Can Albanese maintain the honeymoon mood?
Anthony Albanese is not the first prime minister whose taking of office has been greeted with widespread relief and a sense or at least a hope those years of acrimony, squabbling and ineffectual government and unpopular policies might be over, at least for a reasonable period. That is in fact the norm a part of the reason indeed that a different party has captured a majority of the seats.
14 June 2022
Sooner or later, the integrity commission will take out a Labor minister
One of the reasons why some of Labors old hands, particularly on the right, regard the prospect of integrity legislation with less than complete enthusiasm is that sooner or later probably sooner than expected and maybe even before the next election it will be the instrument of the downfall of a Labor minister.
7 June 2022
The whole idea of Home Affairs and its constituent parts needs revisiting
A government wanting to get rid of Pezzullo or determined to undo his expensive and not very efficient empire, would not necessarily have to be involved in a public argument about human rights for refugees. Home Affairs has been repeatedly criticised by bodies such as the Australian National Audit Office for waste and mismanagement of contracts, running into the billions, whether over computer purchases, facilities in Nauru and Manus Island.
6 June 2022
Public service chiefs need trials before executions
Anthony Albanese needs some new departmental and agency leaders. The limitations of some of the existing ones are obvious. But the prime minister need not order some summary executions, as Tony Abbott, John Howard, Malcolm Fraser and Gough Whitlam did. Nights of the long knives often seem personal, sometimes vindictive, or in breach of the tradition of secure jobs. A patient, cautious Albanese can be moving with all deliberate speed on his primary agenda, leaving it to the new head of the service to visit the battlefield, shooting the terminally wounded, and applying balm to those of continuing value. Perhaps...
31 May 2022
Albanese should share the map and the driving with the teals
One has almost to go back to World War II to find the Australian Labor Party in a more theoretically advantageous position in seeking to pursue its legislative and executive government agenda. But if Anthony Albanese and Labor are to capitalise on their luck in times almost as difficult, they must take great care in managing their relationships with those with whom they have interests in common. Too close, too intimate, will be nearly as bad as being too careless of each others sensibilities.
17 May 2022
Has Labor timidity hobbled its right to exercise power?
One of the more amazing elections of the past 50 years was in 1974, less than 18 months after the Whitlam government took power at least in the House of Representatives. It did not have a majority in the senate and was often frustrated there, in part because of the crossbench numbers of Democratic Labor Party foes of Labor since the 1956 Split. The DLP was led by Vince Gair, a former Labor Queensland premier, a fairly good one really who had been expelled from Labor with some of his ministers, including Bob Katters dad, for daring to...
9 May 2022
Can Morrison cash any pandemic, or economic recovery cheques?
Once Morrison was in an advantageous position to exploit Australias apparently successful management of the coronavirus pandemic and the economic shutdown it involved. He lost much of his advantage by his conflicts with the states over pandemic management, local responses and his determination to restart the economy before the pandemic was under control, as well as by a host of failures over vaccine ordering and distribution.
2 May 2022
Teals assault the thin blue line
If there is one thing worse than losing office to the other major party in politics, it is losing strength in the factional balances within ones own party. On both sides of politics, even in mid-election there are some working for the defeat of politicians on their own team, even at the risk indeed likelihood that the loss of a seat may be the difference between government and opposition.
16 April 2022
Campaign needs a touch of the spiritual
Australia is calling out for leadership, for ideas, for enduring values and for decisive choices.
12 April 2022
Labor will never appease Murdoch, and should stop trying
News.com is never shy about claiming all of the power and influence that its mortal enemies fear it has.
11 April 2022
Labor scared of the shadow of a Murdoch paper tiger
I think the power of the ranting media News.com in particular is on the decline.
4 April 2022
Concetta tips bucket over Morrison, a leader she despises
Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells must resign herself to being dropped from Scott Morrisons Christmas card list for a long time.
29 March 2022
Some urgent tasks for a new government
New governments should hit the ground running, even as they are exhausted by the election campaign, and nearly three dreary years of disaster and pandemic.
28 March 2022
This is now one for Albo to lose
The history of unreliable opinion polls in Australiais such that it would be a brave punter who would call the election result on the evidence of polls alone. Right now, however, it would be an even more courageous one, who would be betting against the definite trend of polls indicating a decisive change of government.
22 March 2022
Governments, labor or liberal should get the boot after two or three terms
The AFP has never once in its history launched a prosecution that was inconvenient to the government of the day.
21 March 2022
A noose fashioned from one's own words
One of the habits I have always urged on young political journalists is of jotting down, and remembering statements made by politicians on general principles of accountability, responsibility and personal and public morality.
15 March 2022
ADF deserves better leadership in disasters, especially from politicians
The less than stellar task of deploying the ADF to Queensland and NSW floods this week brought to mind a much more difficult job of 48 years ago in Darwin.
14 March 2022
Morrison awaits his miracle
The faith that has sustained the morale of Scott Morrison through many a dark period of his life is in for some further testing over the few months that will bring an end to this term of government.
7 March 2022
Defeat of Ukraine may leave Australia like a shag on a rock
If Japan attacked, the grandees agreed, the best policy would involve an initial primary focus on the defeat of Germany.
28 February 2022
Russia should shrink from Morrison's dressing down!!
When Vladimir Putin braved the risk of being shirtfronted by Tony Abbott to come to Australia for the G20 summit, a journalist asked him What do you think of Australia?
22 February 2022
Why wont Australia promote its own interests, not Americas
Dutton is not merely promoting his own personal interests here; he is trying to save a government, not least given Morrisons ineptness with most of the planned campaign points.
21 February 2022
The Chinese dead cat in the ring
If I were a major superpower wondering which political party of an unfriendly country I would prefer won an election, I doubt that I would choose the one most likely to be friendly or nice.
15 February 2022
Albanese leaves supporters wondering: is there a line he won't cross?
Labor played party games when it should have been making a clear stand against bigotry.
14 February 2022
Morrison left empty-handed by botched attempt to appease bigots
The Prime Minister's abject defeat spotlighted the decline of his moral authority and standing in his party.
8 February 2022
Losing control: Morrison out on his own on campaign trail
Scott Morrison will be on another one-man campaign none of his colleagues are much help and those who could be are focused on their own survival.
7 February 2022
PM bogged and vulnerable in the face of the enemys guns
Scott Morrison's press club address did the opposite of what he intended, leaving open the question of whether he's fit to lead Australia..
1 February 2022
Out of touch, and out of time? Another 2019 looks impossible for Morrison
No matter how he has tried to escape responsibility, including blaming the states, the public has seen through his bluster.