Government
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What gets some whitefellas angry and anxious
There is nothing that agitates some whitefellas more than an intelligent, articulate and charismatic blackfella. Continue reading »
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An American system of “state sanctioned forced births”?
Labels have power. They shape the way we know the world. They allow people to see actions with greater clarity or distort our understanding to make things unrecognisable. Continue reading »
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Indonesia and Australia: Missed opportunities and unfinished business
A lot of opportunities have been missed to engage more closely with Indonesia over the last few decades, a period when Australian government enthusiasm and funding for engagement with Indonesia declined significantly. Correcting that is getting harder as time goes on and Indonesia grows in economic and political influence. Continue reading »
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Don’t count on much post-Robodebt ‘reform’
The Holmes report into the Robodebt scandal gives the Albanese government all the authority and mandate it needs for root and branch reform of the public service, including a spill of its senior leadership. Continue reading »
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The AWM, from behind the Pool of Reflection
As one of the pipers for the Australian War Memorial, I get a unique view of the crowds around the Pool of Reflection during the daily ritual that is the Last Post Ceremony. Continue reading »
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New age policy for sole parents
At the heart of setting the age of the qualifying child for Parenting Payment (PP) is the question: when should a sole parent cease to be treated as a person whose primary responsibility is to care for children and more like a person seeking paid work? Sole parents are, due to the absence of a Continue reading »
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Fact-checking claims on how best to expand access to dental services
The Federal Government has been urged to ignore advice from Private Healthcare Australia (PHA) suggesting that private health insurance funds have an important role in increasing access to dental services. Continue reading »
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Very modern Major General
The Australian War Memorial Council believes it’s a strength that Council members can campaign against Council decisions – a far sighted and enlightened view in many ways but also one that could allow a minority to undermine the AWM’s mission. Continue reading »
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AUKUS: A US device to lock Australia into the anti-China coalition
Around a week ago the Financial Review confirmed what many observers had taken for granted: the US offered nuclear propulsion technology to Australia under the AUKUS arrangements in order to lock it into the anti-China coalition. Continue reading »
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Lack of tenure “core driver” of Robodebt disaster
It’s to be hoped that as much as possible can be squeezed from the Robodebt disaster not only to avoid a repeat but more generally to improve the working of the Australian government and its public service. Continue reading »
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The Voice: the game-changer everyone yearns for?
Against the background of reconciliatory legal and political gestures from Canberra over the past 30 years, and in view of the Voice being proposed as an organic instrument ‘from the heart’ of Aboriginal Australia (rather than a top-down ‘advice’ – device of bureaucratic convenience), it may well be the game-changer everyone yearns for. Continue reading »
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Climate Change: Australia’s fashion industry needs urgent, transformative action
How many times does Australia need to be told that national actions by all stakeholders across industries or sectors are urgently needed to address climate change challenges and to avoid the destructive impacts of GHG emissions? Continue reading »
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The Albanese Government’s craven desire to bolster the alliance with Washington
When will Australians realise, as Paul Keating has been unerringly consistent in arguing, that they are part of the cosmopolitanism and complexity of Asia, and not a Western imagined community presided over by a fast declining America? Continue reading »
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Robodebt and the APS
The Robodebt scandal reflects badly on the Australian Public Service generally, and not just on those immediately responsible. Continue reading »
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Con job: Australian Sea Dumping Bill facilitates fossil fuel mining
Governments around the world are promoting and subsidising carbon capture and storage (CCUS) to facilitate an increase in fossil gas mining. This will dash any hope of controlling world emissions at a time when there are deep concerns for climate change becoming uncontrollable. Continue reading »
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Good news on nukes: US can’t sell Australia nuclear subs
The good news is the US can’t sell Australia the three to five used Virginia class nuclear subs that the Albanese government has announced it will buy. Nor will it sell us any new ones. Continue reading »
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Hong Kong and the rose garden promise: Thoughts on the “Fugitive Eight”
Eight Hong Kong dissidents now living abroad are subject to arrest warrants, including Kevin Yam, a Melbourne-based lawyer, and Ted Hui, a former politician who now lives in Adelaide. Continue reading »
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Why is Australia so scared?
The world has just spent two decades paralysed by fear. Ever since 11 September 2001, the ‘war on terror’ has changed the lives of most people for the worse. Millions have been killed, either by terrorists or by militarists fighting them. Fearing violence, many people have fled their homelands as refugees. Others have absorbed repeated Continue reading »
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Donald Trump Junior vs Novak Djokovic: A tale of two visas
While both Donald Trump Junior and Novak Djokovic were granted visas to enter Australia, the stark difference in how the two cases were managed highlight the difference in approaches of the Albanese and Morrison Governments to controversial visitors. Continue reading »
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The AWM, children, and war crimes
What do we make of our own national war memorial inviting children to have a go at planning attacks on civilian infrastructure which amount to war crimes? Continue reading »
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Making Voice a referendum on the Labor government
By the time of the referendum on the Voice, No campaigners look likely to have turned it into a referendum on the Albanese government, and, probably into “wokeness.” It may be a tragedy if they do, whether for First Australians or the nation generally, because it will inevitably exacerbate divisions in the community. Continue reading »
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Profit-making from government funded community services should be banned
Why the new ALP government’s new Child Care funds should restore its social benefits and stop funding the failing profit/market model. Continue reading »
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De-risking Australia: separating our vital interests from America’s
Does it really matter that Australia’s defence policy has no moorings, and is created unaware of past pain, lessons and policy responses? By agents with unknown interests. And that American influence has been ushered into this void, most recently by Minister Marles? Continue reading »
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Careful what you wish for: Why a double dissolution over housing could spell trouble for the Greens
They can’t say they weren’t warned. Shortly before coming to office Anthony Albanese said, ‘I’ve been underestimated my whole life’. Continue reading »
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Simon Crean: Advocate against war
He was a creature of workmanlike officialdom, a unionist, a federal Labor opposition leader never allowed to contest an election by the machinations of his own party, but still clear on one gloriously sane point. It takes a lot to oppose the squealing and hollering for war, and the late Simon Crean did that in Continue reading »
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War service did not stop the racism
Noel Turnbull’s article about the treatment of black warriors who wore the Australian uniform make for some uncomfortable reading for those Australians who think Indigenous peoples have no need to control their own destinies. Historically, we have applied the claim that veterans are heroes very selectively. Continue reading »
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Voice needs a serious rattle of spears
The biggest risk to the success of the referendum on Aboriginal recognition is the Albanese government’s lack of resolution. It has strongly promoted the voice, successfully in parliament, but far less effectively within the broader community. There is a serious prospect that the various proponents of the No case will win by default, mostly because Continue reading »
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The future of Australia’s universities under the AUKUS regime
In one of his last posts on this site Dennis Argall contributed an extraordinary insight which needs to be kept, explicitly and unapologetically, at the forefront of all discussions about AUKUS and its bastard child, the Defence Strategic Review. The title of his piece was: “The Defence Strategic Review is a claim to command civil Continue reading »
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Asylum seekers – Labor’s Achillies heel
While the boom in unsuccessful on-shore (ie non-boat) asylum applications started in 2015 when Peter Dutton was Home Affairs Minister, as time goes by it will be Dutton and the Murdoch press that will try to make it Labor’s Achillies heel. Continue reading »
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The parasite state of consultants
The vices exposed by the consulting firm, PWC, allegedly leaking confidential tax information, are not limited to one firm’s malpractice. The scandal is not merely the overuse of consultants or the misuse of the public service. The scandal has exposed a loose thread in how we are governed. Continue reading »
