Jack Waterford

John Waterford AM, better known as Jack Waterford, is an Australian journalist and commentator.

Jack's recent articles

With a booby-trapped White House, many Americans will want the nightmare to end

Biden's task of restoring unity is not merely a matter of being statesmanlike or breaking down the hyper-partisanship of recent years. It is a matter of restoring faith in democratic institutions, the media, and in facts as a basis for debate.

Morrison, the man with no abiding beliefs, also lacks agenda, map or destination

Assuming that the Morrison government goes more or less to full term -- and some senate obstruction should not be enough to persuade a governor-general, even one in a witness support scheme -- to grant an early dissolution -- Morrison has probably about 15 months of economic recovery, ordinary economic management, and general steering of the ship of state before he must face the electors.

Labor could beat Morrison with a bit more mongrel

Some observers think that if the Morrison government were to fall apart over the next year, it would more likely be from bad luck, an own goal, or a resumption of internal Liberal bastardries than by a hostile act of the federal Labor Party.

How Morrison repeatedly baulks at the vision thing and the moral thing

The unwillingness of the Morrison government to see the 2019-20 bushfire disaster as some sort of turning point was deliberate. That refusal to provide any sort of lead, or leadership, or to show some imagination about a new economy, and a new society, was again evident during the Covid-19 crisis.

Fire and viruses did not cleanse bad government

The past year was a terrible year for Australia and Australians and in many ways the worst globally since World War II. And at least for Australians, a terrible year for good, decent and honest government.

Morrison pitching babies into hot bathwater

Scott Morrison is a naturally cautious, if ruthless, politician who is not prime minister by accident. Almost every significant step in his career has been carefully -- mostly successfully -- gamed with close political colleagues.

Playing to the local gallery on crimes in Afghanistan

Its hard to escape the feeling that most of the heat and light generated by Scott Morrisons fury at a cartoon by a middle-level Chinese tiger cub was designed for Australian, rather than Chinese, consumption. Regardless, it could be a dangerous strategy.

Australia no longer an apostle, or exemplar, of good government

The OECD is also an academy and apostle of good government and good public administration. Clean public administration, open and accountable and subject to checks and balances, including integrity commissions. These are all things that the Morrison government, with the particular support of the hard-right Western Australian faction that Mathias Cormann has led, is opposed to, in both principle and practice.

A bridge too far for Cormann?

For the OECD, improved world health is as important an outcome as an improved world economy. Managing that, or contributing to that debate, is not, as with climate change action, Cormanns long suit.

Investigating ADF murder is not an AFP core competency

The path to court for SAS murder suspects wont be smooth, quick, certain or inevitable. Justice Brereton had a power federal police investigators will not have: he could compel soldiers to give answers, promising them that nothing they said could be used in cases against them. [Though they could be required to give evidence against others.]

SAS officers failed their men and Australia

The Australian Defence Force is one of the most secretive forces in the world. If our experience with Afghanistan is any guide, such secrecy produces moral failure. And while the much-despised media long ago blew the whistle on the behaviour of some SAS soldiers, the reward was the prosecution of the leaker.

A mad King twitters from his fortress

When Gough Whitlam had his commission as prime minister withdrawn by Sir John Kerr 45 years ago last week, one of his many immediate tactical mistakes was to drive to the Lodge, rather than (old) parliament house. There he tucked into lunch with a number of his senior colleagues, though not, fatally, Ken Wreidt, the leader of the Labor Party in the senate. Another present was John Menadue, then secretary of the department of prime minister and cabinet.

Will the toughest Trumpites be willing to bear arms?

Donald Trump seems rather more anxious than his die-hard supporters to replenish his election war-chest for legal expenses rather than that they gather for a last-ditch defence of the guns they will need to defend themselves from the socialism -- and perhaps enforced abortion -- which Biden seems to threaten.

Bringing the Trumps, and Trumpism, to a fair accounting

Donald Trump has often spoken the language of retribution -- and intention to use the processes of government to lock up his political enemies. He could hardly be surprised that his own administrations malfeasances will come under close scrutiny once his power to frustrate them lapses.

More drainage for a more polluted Washington swamp

President-elect Joe Biden has a golden opportunity over the next 10 weeks to reduce the handicap of a bad campaign that cost him a senate majority, and a mandate against Trumpism.

Virus a political vaccine for the incumbent premiers?

Most of the commentators seem to expect that Annastacia Palaszczuk, the Labor premier of Queensland will be comfortably returned to power on Saturday night.

Unaccountable national cabinet not a natural model for economic recovery

As premiers and chief ministers have worked to contain their pandemics, in the national cabinet as much as with their own administrations there have been no noticeable alliances of the Labor leaders against the conservatives, or the other way around.

We, and ASIO, should fear our own agents of influence

The Director General of ASIO, Mike Burgess, is proposing to write a letter to all parliamentarians warning them of the risk that some of the people blowing in their ear may be agents of a foreign power (ASIO code for China) or acting at the direction of spymasters in a foreign government (ditto).

Corruption undermines national security far more than spying

[The Director-general of ASIO,] Mike Burgess said this week, correctly, that the biggest risk of Chinese money and influence subverting the Australian system is at the local government level. Then at state and territory level, then at national level.

Will our Glad have a chair when the music stops?

Spare a thought for the personal tragedy of Gladys Berejiklian, a genuinely hard-working and on the face of it a decent premier of NSW. Brought low because she formed a long-term personal relationship with a spiv, one whose general dishonesty and abuse of power seems to have extended to trading on her credit.

The Gladys and Daryl Show. Having to squirm in open hearings acts as a disincentive to venality

If Gladys Berejiklian, and her ludicrous consort, have to take one for the team, let it not be for tiny misdemeanours but for being parties to a corrupted mindset of the spoils of public office.

ACT Election: Tired and complacent versus hidebound and headstrong

The biggest argument in favour of showing the ACT Barr Labor government the door next Saturday is that it has become tired and corrupted by too many years of continuous power.

We need jobs which improve the Australian quality of life

The past week has seen yet another report from the royal commission into aged care, against pointing out the sub-standard services provided at Rolls-Royce prices by entrepreneurs making enormous profits, as well as the low standards being set for the non-profit sector.

See if budget creates a future, and beware of dirty tricks!

Close observers of Tuesday's federal Budget will no doubt have their eyes out for evidence of the usual political chicanery towards political donors, lobbyists and friendly interests, as well as mates, cronies and relatives of senior members of government, this time in the alleged cause of stimulating demand and picking winners in the post-Covid economy.

Porter - the political law officer who will not protect the public interest

It is of the essence of the idea of the Law Officer that he is, at least in advising, detached and independent, and that the advice represents a statement of the law rather than of some clever way of getting around it.

Corporate Covid giveaways wide-open for mega-rorting

History would suggest that conservative politicians, of all folk, would be the ones who were cautious about uncontrolled public spending programs. But it sometimes seems that the apparent moral collapse and decline of social responsibility in Australian business has also affected politics.

ADF and government stage-managing release of war crimes report

We need a fair-dinkum inquiry, by properly independent experts, not only of how and why we went to a useless war, but also into serious shortcomings of leadership, both at the top level and in command of troops on the ground.

Soon we must admit defeat in Afghanistan, and war crimes

I doubt we can fashion much of a narrative of which Australians could be proud when we consider what will be happening soon with Afghanistan. What will probably be good for Afghanistan -- a measure of peace -- will be a result of our defeat, not our participation.

ASIO is a Mickey Mouse outfit compromising 50 years of diplomacy with China

When head of the Australian Signals Directorate, Mike Burgess was the main adviser recommending against Huawei being allowed into the 5G network. There is no doubt about his intelligence background, or his technical talents. He has, however, yet to demonstrate in public that he has that first quality of the counter-intelligence officer and adviser -- judgment.

Secrecy covers up abuse of power and poor performance by security services

One would have to go back to the 1970s to find the nation so ill-served. All the more so as politicians have politicised national security, and reverted to 1960s games of gathering and using secret information for political purposes. It would not be strictly correct to describe the agencies themselves, or their leaders, as politically compromised -- at least in a party-partisan way -- but each now operates in a far from detached environment.

Federal and State blame game won't shift the burden of economic revival

Initially, Scott Morrison was imaginative in trying to co-opt the premiers and chief ministers into a united response. However, as the premiers have gone their own way he has become more willing to criticise and more exasperated about their standing in the way of economic revival.

How governments made economic medicine less potent, more insipid

I expect the premiers will suffer little political pain if recovery doesn't happen, is patchy or too slow. It will be Morrison and Frydenberg who are blamed.

Cowardly Labor won't fight Morrison over China policy

Enemies, foreign and domestic, appear to be preoccupying the minds of our foreign minister, Marise Payne, and our Defence Minister, Linda Reynolds as they maintain their lonely patrols in the diplomatic cocktail circuit and the officers' messes.

Who's repelling boarders at our internal borders?

The emergency border controls are not doing much, if anything, to drive the virus from our shores.

War defined the scope of emergency powers, but now we may discriminate

Would some of the coercive powers under the pandemic response survive a High Court challenge?

Bad habits must be unlearned before they bring down governments and society

Morrison has never been one for secrecy, refusal to acknowledge error or bad judgment, and willingness to use his prerogatives to avoid being pinned on detail. Perhaps his impulses on the pandemic or reviving the economy are worthy -- methinks they devote too much focus on culture wars.

Morrison's government has tried ditch the rules... to no avail

The problem with this government is that it doesn't seem to learn from its mistakes. Perhaps that is because it fears that any change in approach will be seen as an admission of wrongdoing -- even maladministration, as with the sports rorts affair.

Child sex victims being bent to national security agenda

We are all against cyber-crime - criminal offences done with the aid of a computer - are we not? And cyber-terrorism - bad guys, and not only jihadist terrorists, using the internet to recruit, propagandise, communicate and, probably transfer money to each other?

Cyber-war: building more empires than it destroys

Cyber disruption is an unpleasant fact, but not the end of the world. But the sort of bad, unexamined and unaccountable thinking our planning involves, presents every risk of making our bullets land in the wrong places, when or if we reach the disaster on which our hawks are so bent.

The courage deficit: Will Albanese die wondering?

Scott Morrison may have done Anthony Albanese a big favour by taking some time from his paterfamilial labours saving the nation from Coronavirus to engage instead in a little discreet fundraising and rallying of the coalition's troops.

Forget the trench battles. There's a war to be won

Scott Morrison has never been so vulnerable to fundamental attack. It is about time the Albanese army began seriously probe his defences.

Liberals throw out their Doctrines and Dogma

The Prime Minister, the head of Treasury and the present or former Chief Medical Officer may each be experts within their fields, but none of their guesses about when Coronavirus will loosen its grip on the nation's economic throat are any better than yours or mine, or the throwing of a dice.

Corona-crisis calls for imagination, not panic, parsimony and punishment.

Tertiary education, including universities, was badly hit (to complete government indifference, even delight.) The cultural sector was punished -- and a good deal more than sport. Lobbyists for pubs and clubs have had a field day with compliant governments.

Are we but twiddling thumbs while waiting for a vaccine?

Spare a thought for Scott Morrison during these still early days of the struggle to rescue Australia, and Australians, from the effects ofCoronavirus.

Deliberately missing theopportunities

There were - are - people who have seen great social and philosophical opportunities in the disruption caused by the pandemic, quarantine, closures of business, and mass unemployment rendered somewhat less painful by massive government spending and new income maintenance schemes.

Australia's courts and senators are not of an accountability mind

What would happen if an Australian senate committee, dominated by Labor and the Greens and an independent, decided by majority to demand the tax return of a coalition minister, perhaps in pursuit of allegations of abuse of power for some personal gain?

One cannot say that the law is above our politicians

The US Supreme Court has many things in common with the Australian High Court, including some reputation for containing the odd sexual harasser, but most Australians are thankful that they have not come to be regarded as pawns of the president or party which put them on the court for life.

China won't care what we think or do about Hong Kong

One can look at the future of the seven million people of Hong Kong only with the deepest foreboding.

Our lapdogs yap from a safe distance

The western world will probably see the absorption of Hong Kong, or Taiwan, as something that affects its national interests, in a way that the fate of Tibetans and Uighars does not.

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