Government
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The Electoral Reform Bill is stalled but the party is far from over
The Australian Uniparty— also known as the cosy ALP/LNP coalition of self-interest—is jockeying for electoral reform. Talks between Labor and the LNP have broken down so those reforms are not coming in any time soon but, as former New South Wales Labor premier Jack Lang was fond of saying, “Always back the horse named ‘self-interest’, Continue reading »
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Decency and dignity generate and earn respect
While Bob Menzies pumped the political scare campaign to the max, to help ensure his newly formed Liberal Party’s ongoing popularity between 1949-66, locals were often more relaxed about sharing community life with those they battled on election day. Continue reading »
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Can Australian political leaders enjoy their holiday season while Palestinians starve?
How much longer can the Australian Government hide from the horrific atrocities that continue in Gaza? Continue reading »
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Survival of a people: Threats to Palestine’s existence as Israel kills 45,000
Israeli leaders insist that all the people of Gaza are Hamas. In the same breath, Prime Minister Netanyahu boasts that victory in his war depends on the complete annihilation of Hamas, by which he presumably means a whole people? Continue reading »
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If you want peace, don’t prepare for war
In a series of baby but not blindfolded steps, our Government is making Australia ready for war. The latest of these appeared in the small print of a memorandum on 27 November. Continue reading »
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Why the Productivity Commission is kidding itself on childcare
A more robust analysis by the commission might have yielded different priorities or recommendations for childcare. Continue reading »
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Absent justice: Australia’s Afghanistan war crimes investigations thin out
Small to middle-sized states often crow at undertaking what are vulgarly described as “world firsts”. Australia is certainly one of them, with governments and news outlets keen to announce on a weekly basis that something never previously done has been initiated, implemented, or discovered. A closer inspection shows such declarations to be premature. Continue reading »
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Politicking wins, vulnerable people lose out
Isn’t it better to hold on to integrity, uplift the lives of the most vulnerable in our society and risk losing an election, rather than win an election through the brutal treatment of society’s most vulnerable people? Continue reading »
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Dógè Vu: Deregulation on a massive scale. What could go wrong?
The selection of Elon Musk as a government efficiency bureaucrat (in DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency) is heralded as an innovative disruption to improve public service. Continue reading »
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Are you better off? If not, why not? Productivity, income distribution and the cost of living crisis
While lifting the rate of productivity growth is the obvious solution to the cost of living crisis, judging by the experience of most developed economies, it is not obvious how to restore productivity growth. Continue reading »
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The Future Fund must be a fund for the future
Like all policy instruments, the Future Fund was created to manage the challenges the country was facing at the time. The government has every right and reason to adjust and adapt the mandate to manage very different political and economic challenges today. Continue reading »
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Will Joe Biden pardon Julian Assange?
Julian Assange may no longer be behind bars, but his conviction casts a shadow over press freedom and the safety of journalists everywhere—a wrong Assange and his supporters world-wide are determined to set right by overturning his wrongful conviction via a presidential pardon from Joe Biden. Continue reading »
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War powers reform: no ticker for a no-brainer
Worst of Friends by Suzanne Tripp Jurmain is a simply wonderful book, aimed at “pre-schoolers and up”. Continue reading »
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Australia’s school system: winners and losers?
In a school system so deeply segregated along class and cultural lines it is not hard to identify the losers. But the question is whether there are any real winners? Continue reading »
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Women missing from strategic decision-making: A call for inclusive leadership
As conflicts rage across the world, one painful truth remains: women are still missing from the decision-making table. Decisions that shape the futures of millions continue to exclude half the population. Continue reading »
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Anti-Palestinian discrimination in NSW public schools
Over 4000 people have signed a petition in three days, calling for an apology for a student who was reported by the Sydney Morning Herald to have been banned from attending his Year 12 formal for wearing a keffiyeh (Palestinian scarf) at his graduation. The student is from a Palestinian background, and the scarf is Continue reading »
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Biden’s last hurrah against Russia and Putin
Frustration escalates for the lame duck president. Continue reading »
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The politics of ignoring genocide
Jews in Germany, Bosnians in former Yugoslavia, Tutsis in Rwanda, and now Palestinians in Gaza. In a recent interview, Francesca Albanese posed a rhetorical question: What kind of monsters have we become to see the live-streamed genocide of Palestinians and not act? Continue reading »
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COVID 19 Response Inquiry Report: A comprehensive review despite its limited terms of reference
My recent review of the book, Australia’s Pandemic Exceptionalism, by Steven Hamilton and Richard Holden (H&H) highlighted its ‘convincing, frank and honest account’ in just over 200 pages, and encouraged the Health Department in particular to listen to its lessons. The official COVID-19 Response Inquiry Report by Robyn Kruk, Catherine Bennett and Angela Jackson ( Continue reading »
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High impact submitters weigh up porn codes
At least one group of experts is asking why proposed online porn regulation lacks natural justice, damages sexual expression and promotes risky technology. Continue reading »
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Distorting elections: Australia’s professional politicians feather their own nests
The ALP is full of legends – of which many old party folk are defiantly proud – of political skullduggery. There have been stuffed ballot boxes, and mysteriously disappearing ones, and forged minutes of branch meetings. Continue reading »
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Tragedy followed by farce in Future Fund dispute
When Marx wrote “Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce” he might as well have been talking about the recent spat between former Treasurer Peter Costello and the Albanese Government Treasurer, Jim Chalmers. Continue reading »
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Why oppose the latest deportation and surveillance Bill proposal
The imminent bill must not be passed. Continue reading »
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Health Department: Listen to these lessons from our COVID 19 experience
A review of Steven Hamilton and Richard Holden, Australia’s Pandemic Exceptionalism: How we crushed the curve but lost the race, UNSW Press Continue reading »
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In defence of public education
Over the last 10,000 years or so societies have evolved from relatively simple and loosely structured groups of people to the complex entities of the present nation-states (and even a nascent world society), but in this time period the human being, as an organism, has not changed significantly. So, what has changed? Continue reading »
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Will the Prime Minister now assert Australia’s independence and review his foreign and defence policies?
For some time now a considerable number of well-informed Australians have been warning Anthony Albanese and his government not to allow personal flattery and uncertain commitments to allow the United States to gain control of Australian foreign policy and defence policies. Continue reading »
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Defying settler colonialism
Far from the killing grounds of Gaza, an incredible display of defiance to settler colonialism has broken out in, of all places, New Zealand. The two projects – Israel and New Zealand’s – are linked more than many would like to think. Palestinian leaders raise their voices in support of New Zealand’s Māori people at Continue reading »
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Are you better off than 2020?
The question draws from what Trump effectively used in the closing weeks of the recent USA elections. Liberal-National Party (LNP) leader Peter Dutton is exploring a similar approach to winning government in the approaching Australian election. Employer groups are preparing to help him. Will Labor’s messaging on living standards satisfy the Australian working class? Continue reading »
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When the system fails
As someone who has spent most of my life working with people for whom the system is profoundly broken, I wrestle with the same question that many middle-class people do: Why do so many disenfranchised people support figures like Donald Trump, whose policies often seem designed to further entrench inequality? The answer, I’ve come to Continue reading »
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Should the Commonwealth get out of schooling?
Lyndsay Connors (Pearls and Irritations, 14 November 2024) takes issue with my argument that the Commonwealth should get out or be pushed out of schooling. Continue reading »
