Government
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Australia – the last colonial power?
It’s time to take a closer look at how the origins of Australia’s relationship with its three island territories is structured by past centuries of colonialism. Continue reading »
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A story of how the market gods failed TAFE and what needs to be done
At both federal and state levels, the Market Gods Cult has failed to deliver. It’s been a tragic waste of human and economic potential. It’s time to resort to rationality in our TAFE arrangements. Continue reading »
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Listening to Chinese whispers shielded Beijing from COVID-19 blame
China was wracked with unprecedented anti-zero-COVID protests in late November 2022. They started with a fire in Urumqi city, Xinjiang. Continue reading »
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The crisis in youth justice?
If ever we need a federal government to intervene in a human rights crisis in this nation, then it is now. There are almost daily headlines about the appalling abuse of children in detention centres and the preparedness of state governments, and the Northern Territory to cynically and callously play the ‘law and order’ card Continue reading »
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A chief advisor on higher education?
Australia has a Chief Scientist (as well as a Chief Economist, and Chief Meteorologist), why not something similar for higher education? Continue reading »
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“Opening the Australian mind”: 50 years of Australia-China relations
I’d like to offer a reflection on where we started out, Australia with China, and what I think we need to do now. Continue reading »
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Xi Jinping’s visit to Saudi Arabia and the overthrow of Atlanticism
The historic China-Arab Summit currently underway in Riyadh symbolises the emerging Eurasianism in the Persian Gulf. Continue reading »
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Indonesia bans sex outside marriage amid sweeping law changes
Lock your bedroom: The state is perving. The G20 in Bali last month was a splendid success – and not just because world leaders talked to each other proving differences can sometimes be understood, if not always accepted. Continue reading »
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Challenging the “Uyghur genocide narrative”
The “Uyghur genocide narrative” is falling apart and Jaq James, an Australian socio-legal research consultant is one of the main architects of the collapse. Continue reading »
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Medicare reform must not just be about more money to do the same things the same way
Medicare must now focus on how health services are delivered. When it was established in 1974, Medicare funded the way health services were delivered at that time. That delivery system has not been changed much at all since then. After fifty years the way we deliver health care needs substantial reform and updating. Our health Continue reading »
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The US is focussed on its own interests, not the people of Taiwan
Taiwan’s politics is tied to that of mainland China because of the unfinished business of the Chinese civil war between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Kuomintang (KMT). Continue reading »
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Facing a global economic slowdown, the Labor government will need a new strategy to rise to the economic challenges ahead
The Albanese Labor Government has had a very good first six months, however the challenges that lie ahead will be much more demanding. The Government needs to articulate its vision of how our social cohesion depends upon creating an Australian society that is caring and with reasonable equality of opportunity as the foundation for why Continue reading »
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Australia excoriated over refusal to allow UN torture committee to visit places of detention
Australia is a party to the United Nations Convention Against Torture. Pursuant to the terms of the Convention, the UN has established a Sub-Committee for the Prevention of Torture (SPT). The Committee’s mandate is to prevent torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. It pursues that mandate through visits to member states. Member states are obliged Continue reading »
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Pentagon fails another audit, yet congress poised to approve $847 billion budget
“This isn’t using our taxpayer dollars wisely,” said the National Priorities Project. “It’s robbing programs that we need, like the discontinued child tax credit that cut child poverty by half.” Continue reading »
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The War Memorial is again running away from the Frontier Wars
The Australian War Memorial has passed from then Council Chair Brendan Nelson’s 29 September announcement of a “much broader, much deeper” treatment of Australian frontier violence to today’s buzzwords of “proportionate” and “modest”. The people who welcomed what looked like a change in direction at the Memorial have the right to feel dudded. Continue reading »
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New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is heading for a gloomy election year
While Ardern is a success overseas, events occurring both in the domestic market and overseas have been working against her government. The Covid Pandemic, the Ukraine war and the high cost of fuels, inflation, high interest rates and a likely year long recession combine to create concerns for New Zealand families and a night-mare scenario Continue reading »
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We are overdue for a hybrid Aboriginal-Western map of juvenile justice
Highly troubled Aboriginal youth offenders are rolling down the road of Western justice at everyone’s peril and which Four Corners has exposed as perpetrating great harm. It’s about time we followed a different hybrid Aboriginal-Western map – one that is relevant, properly funded, and respected. Continue reading »
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Modular nuclear reactors: snake oil from the nuclear lobby propagandists
Nuclear lobby propaganda in favour of small modular reactors ignores Australia’s terrible nuclear history and plays fast and loose with the facts. Many forensic enquiries have already recommended against the introduction of nuclear power into Australia on the grounds of proliferation risk, cost, safety, and the environment. Continue reading »
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Overseas students visa criteria – a new approach needed
One of the most important issues the Migration System Review must address is the overseas student visa system and associated pathways to permanent residence. Continue reading »
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The Bell report: another mark against the APS leadership
The APS needs leadership that acknowledges the failures of recent years and reminds everyone, from top to bottom, that it is there to serve not only the Government but also the Parliament and the Australian public. Continue reading »
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Dutton will find sudden enthusiasm for the NACC when Labor is questioned
Imagine the day when an NACC investigation reaches the point where it becomes known, perhaps from a leak, that a Labor minister and her office are under investigation. Maybe selling access to the minister for clients with interests to press with the minister. Continue reading »
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Will the Dreyfus-Dutton NACC blow up in Labor’s face?
Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus knows he has deliberately put in place a weaker commission than he and Albanese promised at the election. His dirty deal serves Labor’s long-term interests. An ongoing activist commission might prove over-powerful, out of control, and a problem for a Labor administration. Continue reading »
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Personalised politics: the Liberals meet their Jonestown in Victoria
The Victorian Liberal and National parties’ political strategy of targeting premier Daniel Andrews was a dismal failure, underpinned by policies that seemed to fall into a heap of vacuity. Their failure means that Victoria has no credible or viable opposition. Continue reading »
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Media go for drama on Victorian election – and miss the story
For the best part of two weeks, Victorian voters were told by the media that the election on November 26 might result in either a hung parliament or a minority Labor government. Continue reading »
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US officials concern about world press freedoms while assaulting them
I will never get used to living in a world where our rulers will openly imprison a journalist for telling the truth and then self-righteously pontificate about the need to stop authoritarian regimes from persecuting journalists. Continue reading »
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Matching pay and responsibilities: are secretaries paid too much?
As the Government begins the difficult task of repairing the Australian Public Service (APS) pay and classification system, it also needs to change the membership of the Remuneration Tribunal then ask it to review secretaries’ pay having greater regard for their public sector roles and responsibilities. For too long the Tribunal has relied upon private Continue reading »
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Anwar new PM – but how long will new Malaysian Government survive?
“Yah, man … but how long laaa?” A Malaysian friend told me yesterday when I asked him about the news that Anwar Ibrahim had been sworn in as Malaysia’s 10th Prime Minister. Continue reading »
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Housing crisis: Can a universal basic income solve homelessness?
Chalmer’s first budget critiqued; Why does Australia have a rental crisis?; and Razzhigaeva explores whether a universal basic income can help address homelessness. Read on for the latest monthly digest of articles on housing affordability and homelessness. Continue reading »
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‘Strike Force Guard’: suppression of climate protest threatens us all
“The totalising control that [NSW police] have on my life is crushing and it is clearly designed to be so,” writes an activist in this collection of first-hand accounts of the suppression of climate protest by NSW police ‘Strike Force Guard’. Continue reading »
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Robodebt: can you recall a greater failure of public administration?
Federal Court Justice Bernard Murphy described Robodebt as “a massive failure of public administration”. So far the Royal Commission has made little progress is establishing how it happened, given contrary legal advice and warnings from mid-level public servants of the policy dangers. Continue reading »
