Economy
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Australia needs to think beyond China about data security
The discussion on TikTok and Hikvision infiltration in Australian government departments has centred inarticulately and dogmatically on the country of origin. But there are other more realistic and probable security threats lurking in plain sight. Continue reading »
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Preventing civilisation collapse: Australia should lead the way
Can we avoid, what a growing number of researchers and writers, consider, will be the likely collapse of human civilisation in the not-too-distant future, if we do not quickly and radically change direction? Continue reading »
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The “little Americans” that populate Australia
Greg Sheridan, in his opinion piece of Tuesday 21 February, provides yet another display of his spiteful, vacuous journalism – his erroneous claims that I am not the progenitor of the APEC Leaders’ Meeting, and that my views on Australian strategic policy are eccentric and at odds with the US alliance. Continue reading »
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Thinking differently about sovereignty and economy
While Governments often promote consensus views that disguise racism, domination of the less fortunate and an ages old acceptance that violence can sustain dominant interests, recent articles in P&I have begun to challenge this conformity. Continue reading »
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Lowe’s secret inflation fear: big companies’ price-setting power
Despite the grilling he got in two separate parliamentary hearings last week, Reserve Bank governor Dr Philip Lowe’s explanation of why he was preparing mortgage borrowers for yet further interest rate increases didn’t quite add up. There seemed to be something he wasn’t telling us – and I think I know what it was. Continue reading »
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Australia condemns brazen US blockade of Cuba in UNGA vote
Australia should be proud of its vote in the General Assembly in November last year to condemn the ongoing US blockade of Cuba. Continue reading »
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Infrastructure policy ‘Pearl Harboured’
The Government’s response to the ‘independent’ review of Infrastructure Australia involves a surprise attack on public policy which should be rebuffed. Continue reading »
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Don’t ask the government about the next war
This is war protest month, with more to follow. Will efforts against the Iraq war, that failed twenty years ago this week, succeed in heading off the next one? Continue reading »
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Neurofeedback works for trauma – let’s use it!!!
Everyone who has suffered abuse as a child deserves the opportunity to live free of its detrimental effects. Continue reading »
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Subjectivity: the overlooked dimension of the debate about economic growth
The continuing debate in Pearls and Irritations about economic growth and sustainability has largely ignored a critical dimension: the role of human subjectivity. Continue reading »
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By law, 50% of political candidates in Tunisia must be women
But is the Arab country’s pioneering gender parity laws and the ‘State Feminism’ introduced in the 1950s by Habib Bourguiba under threat from President Kaîs Saïed’s new electoral law? Continue reading »
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Child poverty, $3.5 billion for tanks, and a government that does not care
The child’s face in the Smith Family ad sums up all that is wrong with Australia. In this rich, first world nation, the Smith Family call us to sponsor a child so that she might go to school. A basic human right is being denied and in that denial our state and government stands condemned. Continue reading »
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An insurance mindset is vital for the future of the welfare state
“Lifters” and “leaners”; “makers” vs “takers”; “strivers” and the “skivers”. The language may be different but the pejorative sentiment around the welfare state is similar, be it in Australia, the United States or the United Kingdom. Continue reading »
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Valuable or valued: implications for employment policy
If the COVID-19 pandemic is teaching us anything it is the important contribution of doctors, nurses, pharmacists, allied health professionals, hospital workers and teachers. Health, people, and communities are precious. Continue reading »
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Jim Chalmers’ value-added capitalism requires upheaval of old age paradigm
Treasury, along with all economic institutions, must replace their ageist definitions and assumptions about older people and become part of the solution, not the assault. Quelle surprise! We finally have a Treasurer who is an independent thinker, and more surprisingly he is thinking out loud. Jim Chalmers is rethinking capitalism to restore some basic values. Continue reading »
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China formulates its own future
Despite countless Western bossy-boots beavering away in the media and beyond, generating worst-case projections as they strain to create a collective storyboard for “China: The Disaster Movie”, China, exasperatingly, keeps successfully pressing on towards its own clearly considered, affirmative future. Continue reading »
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Jim Chalmers’ new economics: a frontal assault on capitalism?
It’s no surprise that Jim Chalmers’ gentle challenge to neoliberal economics has generated an often rabid and intensely hostile response from the Murdoch media. To be hoped for is a more reasoned, informed national debate which focusses on, as Chalmers points to, fundamental changes to our economic environment. Continue reading »
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Reforms and more funding needed to save Medicare
The release of the Strengthening Medicare Taskforce report has re-ignited discussions about reform of Australia’s primary healthcare system. Continue reading »
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Fixing APS remuneration will be a long journey
Katy Gallagher’s recent rejection of an ATO supported pay increase was entirely justified if the Government is to move away from agency-based remuneration to an APS-wide approach. Continue reading »
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Inherent tensions: alcohol, poverty, and the role of governments in remote Australia
A week or so ago, on a visit to the ICU ward in the Alice Springs hospital, the Federal Minister for Indigenous Australians, Linda Burney was shocked to discover that of the 16 beds in the ICU, 14 were occupied by Indigenous women who had been subjected to violent assaults. Alcohol is widely acknowledged to Continue reading »
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“Values capitalism” Good luck with that Jim
Jim Chalmer’s Monthly essay is an attempt to prepare us for a shift in the coming budget, from the era of neoliberal domination to giving more attention to non-economic factors. But we need far more than that given we are headed for catastrophic global breakdown. Continue reading »
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Overseas student policy: too important to get wrong
Overseas students are a key source of export income and a tool of Australia’s soft diplomacy. Whether for good or bad, they have also become a major funding source for university research. Continue reading »
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Syria under the American whip: sanctions that kill
The western sanctions weapon is not new to Syria, but since 2019 it has become a lethal one, destroying entire Syrian sectors and killing its people. Continue reading »
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An economy that shrinks quantity and grows quality
Recent debate on this site about economic growth and environmental protection highlights the very narrow and limiting framing of mainstream economics, and points to the far more positive prospect that is available to us if we can broaden our vision. Continue reading »
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The Whitlam government and Modern Monetary Theory: a new perspective
Hindsight is a wonderful thing and it particularly applies to the Whitlam government’s ‘loans affair’. Continue reading »
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Peruvian coup: the Australian connection
Pedro Castillo, the Peruvian president, overthrown in a coup 7th December 2022, and then sentenced to 18 months imprisonment, clearly represented a threat to some significant forces. Continue reading »
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Far from dying, a new globalisation is emerging – driven by China and the digital economy
An important feature of the new globalisation is China’s Global Development Initiative and a renewed, non-exploitative focus on the Global South. The other is the growth of the digital economy and non-dollar-denominated digital currencies that enable cross-border trade. Continue reading »
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Belling the cat in NSW private schools
NSW needs a government prepared to bell the cat when it comes to the ongoing provision of public funding to grossly over-resourced private schools. Funds provided on the grounds of assumed entitlement are funds diverted from distribution according to demonstrated need. Continue reading »
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Population, growth and the environment: a response to Michael Keating
Michael Keating’s response to the P&I article series on growth – GDP and population – is very welcome as it provides a condensed summary of what has befuddled Australian political economy in recent decades. Continue reading »
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Jim Chalmers’ manifesto in favour of values-based capitalism
The Treasurer, Jim Chalmers’, recent essay in The Monthly explores the relationship between the state and the private sector, and how that matters for the problems of our time. Continue reading »
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