Economy
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Paul Budde. The NBN – from bad to worse.
I am sure that I am just as frustrated as most Australians – especially as month after month, year after year, it becomes clearer that what I, along with others, have been saying since 2011 – that a cheaper and faster NBN such as the Coalition Government is trying to install by retrofitting ageing copper Continue reading »
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Bob Kinnaird. China FTA and binding trade treaties are undemocratic.
The China FTA and all international trade agreements are essentially undemocratic because they are ‘binding’ on all future Australian governments. They provide incumbent governments with the opportunity permanently to limit the options open to the Australian people and to tie the hands of their political opponents when they take office. Most Australians and probably some Continue reading »
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Alex Wodak. Incarcerating Nations
In the 18th C Britain struggled to accommodate a growing prison population incarcerated for social reasons, mainly poverty. After the America revolution in 1776, Britain became unable to keep sending its excess prisoners to America. The solution was to establish a prison colony in Australia in 1788. Britain never learnt that incarceration is not a Continue reading »
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Luke Fraser. Rail infrastructure failure.
RAIL: FEWER SPENDING CHEERLEADERS, MORE JIMMY CARTER. In June the Australian Financial Review hosted an Infrastructure Summit of the great and good in Sydney. It heard about the need for much more infrastructure: Australia was ‘well behind’ other countries in such matters. Nobody dwelt on the possibility that in transport at least, Australia might suffer Continue reading »
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Bob Kinnaird. China FTA truth still elusive
Two months after releasing the China FTA text the Coalition government has still not told the Australian people the truth about the labour mobility provisions in ChAFTA. The result is confusion even among usually well-informed commentators. Greg Sheridan Foreign Affairs Editor for The Australian says ‘the clause in the FTA that says there is no Continue reading »
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Stephen Harper. The closing of the Canadian mind.
Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, has no greater foreign admirer than Tony Abbott who gushed about him when he visited Ottawa a year ago. Like Tony Abbott, Stephen Harper has attacked science and the media. He has weakened citizenship laws and supports polluters. It sounds very familiar. For an article in the International New York Continue reading »
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Clive Hamilton. Damned Lies, Minister Hunt and Climate Models.
If you believe what you read in the Daily Telegraph saving the planet must mean trashing the economy. That’s their story and they’re sticking to it, no matter what the evidence shows. If the numbers show the opposite, well, they have ways. And so last week the Murdoch tabloid took a bunch of numbers concocted Continue reading »
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Naval shipbuilding in South Australia is a waste of money.
In this blog on 19 August, I reposted an earlier blog from Jon Stanford on ‘The government’s new naval shipbuilding policy’. Hugh White, a columnist at The Age and Professor of Strategic Studies at the Strategic and Defence Study Centre, ANU, has written a recent article on the same subject. The article is consistent with Continue reading »
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Jon Stanford. The government’s new naval shipbuilding policy
I think this is an outstanding article on naval shipbuilding, industry policy and economic prospects in South Australia. Jon Staford suggests that in terms of industry policy, ‘continuing to prop up the car industry … would probably have been a much cheaper way of [creating jobs]’. In case you have missed it, I have Continue reading »
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A tribute to Hugh Stretton
Hugh Stretton, one of the greatest social scientists and public intellectuals that Australia has produced, passed away in late July after a long illness. His legacy as a thinker, writer, activist, advisor, teacher, mentor and friend is vast. Those of us who have had the honour of his advice and support can only marvel at Continue reading »
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Michael Keating. Is there a trade-off between equality and efficiency?
A critical policy issue has always been whether greater equality inevitably comes at a cost to the economic growth. For example, historically economists have typically believed that there is a trade-off between increased equality and efficiency. Even those economists who favour policies to improve equality have generally acknowledged that the transfers involved could reduce incentives Continue reading »
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Peter Day. “Sally’s worth it.”
Harry Anslinger’s dream to rid the world of drugs was given legs in 1930 when he was appointed the first commissioner of the U.S. Treasury Department‘s Federal Bureau of Narcotics. He was a brilliant bureaucrat with a grand vision underpinned by prohibition; a man who single-handedly turned a marginalised, underfunded Bureau into an uncompromising and Continue reading »
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Ian Dunlop and Rob Sturrock. As the tide comes in, Australia chooses to remain the climate laggard
Amidst growing pressure and heightening expectations, on Tuesday Australia announced its intended nationally determined contribution (INDC) target to take to the Conference of Parties in Paris in December. It reinforces the notion of Australia as climate laggard going against the tide of science, action and opinion. Tuesday’s announcement provides a meek objective of 26% emissions Continue reading »
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Trans Pacific Partnership and consumer rights.
The consumer magazine Choice has recently carried articles by Sarah Agar about the TPP and what might be traded away in terms of cheaper medicines, public interest laws and food labelling. This report was updated on 29 July, about a fortnight before Trade Minister Andrew Robb decided that he would walk away from the TPP Continue reading »
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John Menadue. The Senate saves the day on the Trans Pacific Partnership.
The Senate saves the day on the Trans Pacific Partnership. Often the Senate is seen as obstructive or worse. But it has performed a very useful purpose in helping to derail the Trans Pacific Partnership. Hopefully the TPP will not be put back on track. According to the New York Times, our Trade Minister Andrew Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Parliamentary reform and the new Speaker.
In my post of 12 May this year ‘Democratic renewal and our loss of trust in institutions’, I wrote about our loss of trust in so many institutions including our parliament and political parties. If Tony Abbott and Bill Shorten want to improve public debate and restore some faith in our public institutions the election Continue reading »
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Focus on tax avoidance, not GST hike.
Michael West, in the SMH continues his many articles on tax avoidance by major international companies who operate in Australia. He mentions many of them, including Big Pharma, Google, Paypal, Newscorp. He comments ‘How long can [these companies] continue to treat Australians as fools. While multinational tax avoidance remains so rife, how can governments possibly Continue reading »
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Wilful blindness over climate change.
The former head of NAB, Cameron Clyne, has published an opinion piece in the SMH about the failure of political and business leaders to address the issue of climate change. He said that business leaders overwhelmingly support the need for a market based carbon trading system. In respect of Maurice Newman, he said that he Continue reading »
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Mack Madahar. Nurse Practitioners: Challenges and Opportunities.
Nurse Practitioners were provided access to the MBS in November 2010. Besides limited access to pathology/radiology, nurse practitioners were provided with four time-tiered MBS item numbers for professional attendances. While most nurse practitioners have established themselves in public hospitals, primarily because of the relative financial certainty it provides, there are a handful of NPs trying Continue reading »
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Cathy Alexander. On climate change, the states may yet save the day.
Climate campaigner Al Gore has been in Australia again – but this time he didn’t share a stage with a beaming Clive Palmer. He didn’t go anywhere near Canberra. And he had good reason. Gore, the former US vice-president who travels the world spruiking action on climate change, wanted to meet with state governments and Continue reading »
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Jon Stanford. Climate Change Policy: a wedging opportunity for the ALP?
For those who believe that Australian elections should be based on a contest of ideas about public policy, developments at the national conference of the ALP in July 2015 will provide some basis for optimism. In contrast to some previous Opposition leaders who have been content to maintain a small target strategy, Bill Shorten is Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Our health system is sustainable.
To justify an increase in the GST, Premier Baird has joined the long list of conservatives who keep telling us that our health system is unsustainable. Earlier the Treasurer, Ministers for Health and the Commission of Audit warned us in one way or another that the Australian health service is unsustainable, particularly with an ageing Continue reading »
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David Holmes. Tony Abbott, Rupert Murdoch and coal.
As the latest State of the Climate report reaffirms 2014 to be “the hottest on record”, the NSW Liberal Party is pressing ahead with plans for a “Carnival of Coal” in August. The party’s upper house whip, Peter Phelps, has appealed to members to download a sticker for MP office doors in support of the Continue reading »
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Shiro Armstrong. A risky Trans-Pacific Partnership deal.
The largest hurdle for the 12-member Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement — the US president’s ability to get Trade Promotion Authority, or fast track — has been cleared. Many people think that the TPP can be wrapped up in a few months. There are still difficult issues to resolve, but they are trivial compared to the Continue reading »
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Bob Kinnaird. More government dishonesty on China FTA
Now that Federal Labor Leader Bill Shorten has publicly stated his opposition to the China FTA labour mobility provisions, the Coalition is ramping up its attack on union and political critics of the deal. Trade Minister Robb lead the charge this week, with allegations of union ‘falsehoods’ and a ‘racist scare campaign’ over the China Continue reading »
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John Menadue. What a dreadful week.
Last week an important public debate on key issues facing Australia was sabotaged by Tony Abbott, Joe Hockey and News Corp. The old scare campaigns were back again. Bill Shorten’s timidity did not help. Paul Keating commented ‘We have a political culture that has the ambition of a gnat’. He is right. Instead of a Continue reading »
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Peter Blackrock. Germany in control.
What is happening in the European Union and Eurozone? Clearly, there is a seismic shift underway. Here is one interpretation of what is happening. The key driving force behind the shift is the German Finance Minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble. He is the number two in the right-wing Christian Democratic Union, behind Chancellor Angela Merkel, although many Continue reading »
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Bruce Duncan. Pope Francis calls for a global economy with a conscience
In his July trip to Ecuador, Bolivia and Paraguay, some of the poorest countries in Latin America, Pope Francis has voiced the anguish and concerns of millions of people struggling to rise out of severe poverty and marginalisation, yet are “exploited like slaves”. Speaking to a crowd of two million people in Santa Cruz on Continue reading »
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Miriam Lyons. On inequality of opportunity
The myth of meritocracy is today’s version of the divine right of kings, and it is playing much the same political function. Call it the divine right of King’s School alumni. Another week, another report on the growing gap between rich and poor. The latest, from ACOSS, reminds us that the top 10% of households Continue reading »
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John Menadue. London Postcard-some impressions.
We have just spent three weeks in the UK in Bath and London. But I kept the blog going with the help of friends. For years I have largely avoided the UK. When I first visited London in 1963, I was very conscious of social and economic class. It seemed quite unhealthy. Most people knew Continue reading »