Politics
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JAMES MORLEY. The idea that conservatives are better economic managers simply does not stand up.
Conventional wisdom holds that conservative politicians are more prudent stewards of the economy. These politicians are often happy to reinforce this view by citing their business acumen and denigrating the experience – or lack thereof – of their opponents. Think of Mitt Romney as multi-millionaire businessman versus Barack Obama, former community leader. Donald Trump also Continue reading »
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JOHN MENADUE. People have been rude to the Queen – again.
According to press reports, the Queen believes that some Chinese were rude during President Xi Jinping’s visit to Britain last year. Apparently the Queen told Metropolitan Police Commander, Lucy d’Orsi that she had ‘bad luck’ in being responsible for security for the visit and that ‘they were very rude to the (UK) ambassador’. ‘Rude’ seems Continue reading »
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EVAN WILLIAMS. Who do you trust to speak plain English?
“Who do you trust to keep the economy strong and protect family living standards? Who do you trust to keep interest rates low? Who do you trust in the fight against international terrorism?” Familiar words? Malcolm Turnbull’s opening pitch for the July 2 election? Actually, no. These were John Howard’s words, launching his campaign against Continue reading »
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National Foundation for Australian Women. Budget 2016-17: A gender lens.
The National Foundation for Australian Women has prepared an analysis of the Budget 2016-17 with what it calls a ‘gender lens’. An executive summary of this analysis follows. A link to the full document can be found on ‘the budget’ button: www.nfaw.org. Budget 2016-17 fails to bring Australian women into the centre of the economy Continue reading »
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JOHN MENADUE. Health principles and policies for the next parliament.
Thanks to Medicare introduced over 40 years ago, despite bitter conservative opposition, we have one of the best health systems in the world. It is sustainable but we waste over $20 b per annum. There are threats and problems that we must face. What are they? Continue reading »
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Bruce Wearne. Political questions that can’t be answered by our publicly funded public relations firms.
Last week, four days before the election was called, I received a “pre-election” letter from my “Parliamentary representative”. It began with the following disclaimer: Dear Fellow Corangamite Resident: Soon there will be another election and I write to apologise for the fact that your letter boxes will be swamped with election material. However, it will be Continue reading »
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Richard Farmer. Controlling the Senate.
There a couple of reasons to take little notice of what Labor, Liberals, Nationals, Greens and other assorted politicians say between now and 2 July. The first is that election politics is rarely about telling the truth. Normally it is about telling people things that they think people want to hear. The skilful politician monitors Continue reading »
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Chris Bonnor. My Gonski is bigger than yours
We should have known it would come to this. For years both Labor and the Coalition have ducked and weaved while the education sector battled to ensure that at least the Gonski funding hope was kept alive. Labor recast Gonski’s recommendations into a form that the Gonski panel would hardly recognize, and the Coalition was Continue reading »
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Mungo MacCallum. Turnbull/Morrison mantra: jobs and growth.
Our economic plan for jobs and growth … jobs and growth…jobs and growth… jobs and growth … sobs of mirth … Hobson’s Choice … blobs and froth .. … The trouble with endlessly repeating slogans is that they become meaningless babble. Just what the Turnbull/Morrison mantra will sound like in another eight weeks beggars Continue reading »
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Warwick Elsche. If words were deeds.
If words were deeds – or even credible policies – Malcolm Turnbull might already have joined the company of Australia’s pre-eminent Prime Ministers. All three of Malcolm’s pre-politics callings, journalism, law and banking, have involved the extensive used of the words medium. But none of these also involved the commitment, the enduring exposure, or the Continue reading »
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Are conservatives better economic managers?
Are conservatives better economic managers? Part 1 In my blog of 3 May 2016, I queried the claim by Malcolm Turnbull and apparently supported by many media commentators and also by the public, that conservatives are better economic managers. The evidence and the record do not show that. In last week’s budget and in the Continue reading »
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Ian Webster. Is community medicine dead?
John Menadue said in the NSW Health Council Report of 2000, “Services should be based where patients and consumers live. The autonomy and dignity of each patient is best serviced by providing services wherever possible outside hospital. So a shift to community multi-disciplinary health teams is a major issue still ahead of us.” He returned Continue reading »
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Bruce Duncan. Julie Bishop cuts Overseas Development Aid to record low.
Despite lobbying from many groups, the May federal budget for 2016-2017 is hacking another $224 million from Australia’s overseas aid, reducing our aid to $3.8 billion, and as a percentage of our national income to just 0.23%, our lowest level ever. The Coalition had already cut $1.1 billion off our aid, reducing spending in Africa Continue reading »
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John Austen and Luke Fraser. Urbane transport policy. Part 1 of 3.
Prime Minister Turnbull made a splash on urban transport recently. He sketched a vision of ‘30 minute cities’ where residents spend on average just one hour a day travelling to regular activities like work and shopping. He also considered mass transit solutions rather than just more motorways. This article is the first of three raising Continue reading »
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Julianne Schultz. Australia must act now to preserve its culture in the face of global tech giants. Brian Johns Annual Lecture
At the first Brian Johns Annual Lecture, Julianne Schultz spoke of the challenge to Australian culture by the global tech giants. In the summary of ‘what can be done’ she said: So what can be done to join the dots in the Age of Fang? We need to become better advocates of the value Continue reading »
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Bruce Duncan. Budget ignores growing inequality
Scott Morrison’s Commonwealth budget aims to be politically balanced but, like the Hockey budgets, neglects struggle street. The budget still labours under the neoliberal belief in minimal taxes, small government and maximum freedom for private enterprise. Morrison’s mantra is that cutting taxes on businesses and the wealthy will increase investment, growth and jobs. The trouble Continue reading »
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‘Refugees don’t self-harm because of me, Peter Dutton, they self-harm because of you.’
One of the many disappointments of Malcolm Turnbull’s prime ministership is that he reappointed Peter Dutton as Minister for Immigration and Border Protection. This disappointment is reinforced by his attempt to blame refugee advocates rather than his own policies for the self-harm of asylum seekers. Sarah Smith, a supporter of refugees, tells of the heartbreak Continue reading »
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Evan Williams. Will the real Malcolm Turnbull please stand up?
My friend Evan Hughes, art historian and former law student is standing for Parliament at the next election. And in many ways he’s the model of a modern Labor candidate – clean-cut good looks, easy charm, natural speaking skills and a first-rate mind vouchsafed by a Cambridge University degree. At a fund-raising dinner in Sydney Continue reading »
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Kerry Murphy. Blaming refugees.
Blaming instances of self-harm by refugees and asylum seekers on ‘refugee advocates’ or the undeserving asylum seekers is not a new political tactic. Back in 2001 then Minister Ruddock was interviewed by Four Corners about the problems of self-harm by asylum seekers in detention, especially in Curtain, Woomera and Port Hedland detention centres. Journalist Debbie Continue reading »
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John Zaw. No end in sight to Rohingya suppression in Myanmar.
The hardline Buddhist Arakan National Party (ANP) that holds a majority of seats in Myanmar’s religiously divided Rakhine State has promised to fight any attempts to grant up to 1 million stateless ethic Rohingya citizenship. For the new National League for Democracy (NLD) government in Myanmar, the first civilian administration in the country in more Continue reading »
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Douglas Newton. The Centenary of the Great War – and Anzac
The Great War. What we fought for and why were peace initiatives resisted for so long. Many of those promoting the Anzac Centenary appear to believe that there are certain essentials the Australian people must learn about the Great War: that Australians fought exceedingly well; that they fought even better when led by Australians; that Continue reading »
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John Thompson. Surgeon’s report shows the ineffectiveness of private health insurers to control health costs
Private health insurer Medibank has worked with the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons to produce a report that shows enormous variation in fees charged by surgeons for similar procedures. The Surgical Variance Report for General Surgery reviewed thousands of procedures performed on Medibank members in eight common operations – gallbladder removal, gastric band procedures, bowel Continue reading »
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Greg Wilesmith. Guantanomo Bay: Obama’s big failure.
Good news on Gitmo. There are just 80 prisoners left in their cramped, high security cells in a small, far off, scrubby peninsula on Cuba. That’s about 160 fewer than when Barack Obama became president in early 2009 promising to close Guantanomo within a year. So not exactly Mission Accomplished! as President Bush trumpeted after Continue reading »
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Michael Keating. The 2016-17 Budget. Part 1 of 2.
The Turnbull Government’s Budget for 2016-17 reflects an essentially ‘steady as she goes’ fiscal strategy. Not that that is a fault – indeed it can be a virtue, especially when matched against the give-aways in other previous pre-election budgets. Furthermore, we could not have realistically expected any other sort of Budget, given the extent to Continue reading »
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Michael Keating. The Government’s Plan for Jobs and Growth. Part 2 of 2.
On Tuesday night the Treasurer announced that this year’s Budget was like none other – this Budget represents the Government’s Plan for Jobs and Growth. Presumably the Government hopes that its Plan will represent such a compelling narrative that it can then sail to victory in the forthcoming election. Accordingly, in this article I propose Continue reading »
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Jon Stanford. French submarines and the East and South China Seas. – why?
A response to Richard Broinowski. While the government might emphasise the roles for the new submarine that may be regarded as defensive – “intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance” – Richard Broinowski ignores perhaps the most important role, namely power projection in the East and South China Seas. This role was perhaps most graphically illustrated the Rudd Continue reading »
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Alison Broinowski. Who decides when we go to war?
Setbacks for democratic reform of war powers. Having taken one step forward, Australia’s major allies have now taken two steps back from reform of their war powers. In the UK, the Defence Minister has set aside years of bipartisan promises of legislation that would require British governments to consult the Parliament before committing forces to Continue reading »
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Alison Broinowski. Losing ‘our’ Uruzgan.
Most Australians live in cities where the only newspapers are owned by Murdoch. So unless they found Fairfax on line, they were spared the sorrowful report on 3 May that Afghan government troops have pulled out of more ‘strongholds’ in Uruzgan province. http://www.smh.com.au/world/australian-troops-fought-and-died-in-uruzgan-now-afghan-troops-are-pulling-back-20160302-gn7z1i.html To the surprise of no-one who read it, Taliban are back. The Continue reading »
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Richard Broinowski. French submarines for RAN – Why?
The 2016 Defence White paper asserts that Australia’s future acquisition of 12 French submarines costing around $50 billion is the largest defence procurement program in Australia’s history. The first vessel is to be delivered ‘in the early 2030s’, the twelfth in ‘the 2040s or 2050s’. They are said to be for intelligence, surveillance and Continue reading »
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