Government
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Wong surrenders to Canberra hawks, rejects war powers reform
Australia’s Foreign Minister, who advocates international law and better relations with Asian countries, has surrendered to the hawks in Canberra. Continue reading »
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The myth of meritocracy: Resisting the Strengthening Medicare Taskforce Report
The vehemence with which the medical profession opposes any moves on behalf of nurses and other health professionals to move legitimately into Primary Health Care in their own right is telling. A system in which some professional groups spend an inordinate amount of time propping up the work of another is not to be abandoned Continue reading »
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A sovereign SSN capability and Australia’s national security strategy
There is no way that the UK or the US would ever contemplate surrendering sovereignty over the control of its military operations to any other power. Australia should not either. If Australia is to acquire a fleet of SSNs, the government needs to negotiate an agreement that avoids counter-productive short cuts and ensures sovereign control Continue reading »
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Australia, Penny Wong and the UK: shades of empire?
Foreign Minister Penny Wong invoked the power of shared colonial histories in a speech during her recent visit to the United Kingdom. Continue reading »
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Hard power and Australia’s national security strategy
The previous two parts in this series addressed soft power and Australia’s alliances respectively. The focus of Part 3 is hard power and a discussion of self-reliance and Australia’s evolving military strategy. Continue reading »
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The Medicare Review: how will its aspirations be achieved?
The Medicare Review contains welcome aspirations, but the instruments to achieve them are poorly delineated. Continue reading »
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Nuclear submarines: from “optimal” to “the best they can get”
The announcement of the Australian Government’s decision on the purchase of nuclear powered submarines is looming and it is timely to take a cold hard look at the “facts” rather than the inevitable spin. The more Prime Minister Albanese maintains this will be a momentous decision for Australia the more it should have been the 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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Australia’s future in Asia: bridge or spear?
The perceptive Singaporian diplomat Kishore Mahbubani remarked recently that: ‘Australia’s strategic dilemma in the twenty-first century is simple: it can choose to be a bridge between East and West in the Asian Century—or the tip of the spear projecting Western power into Asia.’ He clearly believed that it was a matter of deliberate choice, a Continue reading »
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An AUKUS ménage à trois
As the government offers new hints at the ‘optimal path’ for the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarines, the questions about the viability of the project mount. The political pressure to out-muscle the Coalition on ‘national security’, if that’s what is driving the Labor government’s enthusiasm for this impending car-crash, should not be allowed to undermine the national 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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Perrottet best throw of the dice is gambling reform
NSW goes to the polls at the end of next month, and Labor must be regarded as a very clear favourite. Recent polls have put Labor 12 points ahead — 56 to 44 –of the coalition. Even allowing that the Opposition leader, Chris Minns must win back seats before he builds a majority, it suggests Continue reading »
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Commonwealth-State cooperation is essential for healthcare reform
The recommendations of the Strengthening Medicare Taskforce released last week, like almost any serious health reform in Australia, require joint Commonwealth and state action. Continue reading »
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Disaster management: The lessons of 2022
As we start a new year, it is a good time to reflect on the lessons of 2022 – not just from the Covid pandemic but also the floods that wreaked havoc on communities all down the east coast of Australia. Continue reading »
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Chalmers places indefinitely growing productivity at heart of economic strategy
Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ essay in The Monthly, Capitalism after the Crisis, was the first real opportunity we have had to get a glimpse of his philosophy as an economist rather than a politician. I sometimes forget how academic Chalmers is, being a PhD, when we rarely see him in such academic settings. Continue reading »
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Australia needs a royal commission into immigration detention
Australia needs a Royal Commission into its heinous, wasteful, privatised immigration detention policy. This is imperative in order to uncover immigration detention’s secrets, racism and appalling costs, to change public attitudes and to explore humane alternatives. Continue reading »
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Anticipating the Defence Strategic Review through ministerspeak
In anticipation of the Defence Strategic Review (DSR) it would be advisable to stock up on a numbing agent. Continue reading »
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The impact of the housing crisis on the mental and physical health of children
In Australia, we pride ourselves on our egalitarianism, yet now cannot even provide security of accommodation for everyone. How can this be, when older women who have lost their financial security from family break-up and illness, and even young women with small children, end up couch-surfing or sleeping in a car? Continue reading »
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Lessons for UK Labour from Australia
Anthony Albanese’s electoral success and the quiet competence of Labor’s administration has not gone unnoticed by the commentariat and political analysts here in the UK. A sea change from the noisy and brash Morrison days. Continue reading »
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Legal but not in reach: The state of abortion in Australia
Australia’s position as America-lite, a little sibling stumbling along the line between voracious neoliberalism and violent abnegation of its own history, comes into distinct relief every so often. Continue reading »
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Leak confirms U.S. agents created massive ‘Kremlin web-bots’ scam
A group of top US agents, mostly Democrats, pumped hundreds of fake news stories into the mainstream media, it was revealed at the weekend. Continue reading »
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Voice vote may demand blood in the water
It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that the referendum on the Voice will be won not as a virtually unanimous offering to First Nations Australians but narrowly in an ugly, bitter and divisive brawl between older and younger Australians. Even a win will have the capacity to leave divisions in the nation, and Continue reading »
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Timor-Leste shaping up for legislative elections
The Timor-Leste March 2022 Presidential elections gave a resounding win in the second round to Nobel Laureate Jose Ramos Horta, and this provided leverage for Xanana Gusmão in his efforts to wrest back the executive power he apologetically relinquished in February 2015. Continue reading »
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The missing piece in the school reform debate
Student outcomes in literacy and numeracy continue to go backwards. Why? Missing from the list of causes for poor learning outcomes, as it is from every such list, is the ineffectiveness of the Learning Assistance Program. Continue reading »
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Australia’s racist Constitution and the Voice
Australia has a racist constitution. It gives the Federal Parliament power to make laws for ‘The people of any race, for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws’. Deemed necessary, that is, by the Parliament itself. Continue reading »
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The sound of silence on school education in NSW
The failure of this country’s school system to give many students a fair go and a fair share of resources did not feature on the last Federal election agenda. Nor has it surfaced to date as a key issue in the NSW state election. What does this silence mean? Continue reading »
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What’s in a name? Ardern’s pledge
In the applause showered on Jacinda Ardern at the close of her term there’s one credit missing: The NZ PM swore to never mention the name of the 2019 Christchurch mass murderer. Continue reading »
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An Australia Day worth celebrating – how might we do it?
As is now usual around Australia Day, commentators from all sides of the argument weigh in to suggest new dates on which we might celebrate the founding of the nation. Henry Reynolds, for instance, has made a case for not celebrating on 26 January and in response in these pages David Havyatt has wondered whether Continue reading »
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Albanese Government makes good start for the dispossessed, but much more to be done
In 1996 Paul Keating said, “when you change the Government, you change the country”. Continue reading »
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Nuclear deterrence: a dangerous gamble we must not rely on
Nuclear weapons are deadly, indiscriminate, and have the potential to wipe out life on earth. But they are still held by a handful of states who believe that they bring security and who are so wedded to them that they cannot see what is in front of their noses. Continue reading »
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