Politics
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Spencer Zifcak. UN Human Rights Council Weighs in on Australia
On 21st of March 2000, an Australian delegation appeared before the UN Committee on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) in Geneva. The Hon Philip Ruddock, then Minister for Immigration in the Howard Government, led the delegation. The meeting did not go well. Confronted by exceptionally well-informed and assertive questioning by the Continue reading »
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Victoria Rollison. Couples counselling for Labor and Unions
When I saw the news that the Electrical Trades Union invited the Greens’ Adam Bandt to address their National Officers conference, and didn’t invite a speaker from the Labor Party, the lyrics of Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” came to mind: ‘I’m not that chained up little person still in love with you, and so Continue reading »
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Arja Keski-Nummi Andaman Disaster – Regional Cooperation on Refugees
Too often in Australia we go cap in hand to the region when we have an asylum seeker or refugee problem. When our problems pass, we lose interest in regional cooperation. No wonder the region often see us as fair-weather friends. But our region faces refugee problems alongside ours. As a good neighbour we should Continue reading »
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Victoria Rollison. The Future of Australia’s Trade Unions
A strong trade union movement is crucial to combating growing wealth inequality in the Australian economy. When asked in 2014 what Australia ‘had done right’ to defend the economy against the chronic wealth inequality experienced in the US, Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz answered: ‘unions’. He explained that Australia has ‘been able to maintain Continue reading »
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Cavan Hogue. Turkey shoots down Russian aircraft.
Russia supports the (Shia) Assad regime backed by Iran and others while Turkey supports the Sunni backed bySaudi Arabia, the USA and others. The Turks claim the Shia are terrorists while Russia supports them as allies of the Shia, (i.e. Assad) who support Russian strategic interests.. This is an oversimplified picture but it is relevant Continue reading »
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Rob Nicholls. Ziggy’s stardust: The NBN, net neutrality and competitive neutrality
The sound of an incumbent lobbying has the grating element of petulant mewling. When the incumbent is a state owned enterprise that is evoking arguments about net neutrality, then it’s time to ask the “cui bono?” or “to whose profit?” question. After all, the term “network neutrality” can be best summed up as a line Continue reading »
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An Open Letter to the Minister for Health concerning Private Health Insurance.
19 November 2015 Hon Sussan Ley M.P., Minister for Health, Parliament House, ACT 2600 Dear Minister (I have signed this letter on my behalf and also on behalf of the people listed below. I will be posting this ‘open letter’ on my blog early next week.) We are pleased to see that you are canvassing Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Minimising IS will take a while.
We have had a lot of apocalyptic talk about IS – we are at war, it is a death cult, it threatens civilisation. Unfortunately these exaggerations don’t help a measured and holistic response. These exaggerations play into the hands of terrorists who hope for our over-reaction and the promotion of fear. We know from experience Continue reading »
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Royal Commissions for some.
The Abbott government established a Royal Commission to harass trade unions and in the process to damage the ALP. But what we are hearing in this Royal Commission is really small beer by some union hacks. It is small scale compared with the massive tax avoidance by multinational companies in Australia that is being revealed. Continue reading »
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Lesley Russell Too high: the impact of specialists’ fees on patients’ health
In today’s health care debates around the centrality of primary care, moving towards patient-centred medical homes, improving care coordination for people with chronic illnesses and whether private health insurance provides value for money, there is one element that is almost always missing – the role and the costs of specialist services. In 2014 over 28 Continue reading »
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Prince Charles and John Kerr – an odd pair
Prince Charles has been mobbed by regal enthusiasts in his recent visit to Australia. Opinion polls tell us a different story. The latest poll conducted by Essential Research tells us that if Prince Charles became King Charles, 51% would prefer a republic. Only 27% would support King Charles being our head of state. There seems Continue reading »
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John Tulloh. Europe: The political impact of a dead Syrian.
Ahmed al Mohammad may have a greater impact on Europe than his evil terrorist deeds did in Paris last week. It appears he was a Syrian asylum-seeker who, according to Greek records, passed through Greece last month and made his way through the Balkans to join his cohorts in France. He satisfied whatever checks there Continue reading »
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Bruce Wearne. Politics for Government or Politics for Politics?
At the election of December 1975, the Australian electorate confirmed the sacking of the Whitlam Government. It was an implicit “thumbs up!” to Malcolm Fraser and those on his “side” of politics. Whatever the actual cause of the constitutional crisis that engulfed Australian politics, the result of that election meant an implicit electoral endorsement of Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Why Cayman Islands?
I must confess I was surprised to learn that Malcolm Turnbull uses a hedge fund domiciled in the Cayman Islands. The story has come and gone without much examination. Conflicts of interest In the SMH of 24/25 October 2015, the veteran journalist Alan Ramsey highlighted what Malcolm Turnbull told the parliament about his hedge fund Continue reading »
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Jon Stanford. The Pathway to Two Degrees: Should we ban New Coal Mines?
Leading up to this month’s major climate change conference in Paris, there has been a welcome increase worldwide in the commitment to address climate change generally and, in particular, to restrict global warming to two degrees Celsius. Although they are still insufficient to meet the two degree target, the initial national commitments to be taken Continue reading »
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John Dwyer. Wasting precious health dollars.
In the last eighteen months our coalition government has repeatedly warned that the rate at which we are increasing health related expenditure is unsustainable. The attempt to extract a co-payment from Australians visiting their GP was justified using this concern. However it is the better use of the currently available health dollars that should Continue reading »
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Richard Butler. After Paris
The attacks in Paris were textbook in terms of the philosophy of terrorism: hit publicly, indiscriminately, affecting as large a group of innocent people as possible, attract maximum publicity, generate widespread fear. They also represented a continuation of terrorist actions within metropolitan Europe: Madrid 2004, 191 dead; London 2005, 56 dead; Paris January 2015, Continue reading »
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Greg Smith- Tax Reform and Change Leadership
If we look at the tax reforms of the past we can observe a few clear problems that are accumulating from design compromises. We replaced narrow indirect taxes with a broader GST, but the GST base is narrower than consumption and the trend over the past 15 years is for a relative decline in GST Continue reading »
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Cavan Hogue. Russian airliner and ISIS.
The almost gleeful attacks by columnists and cartoonists on Vladimir Putin when the Russian plane went down were in very bad taste. The difference between this and MH17 is clear. MH17 was shot down by accident in Ukrainian territory probably by rebels who thought they were shooting down a warplane from Kiev. It was not Continue reading »
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Ian Richards. Australia’s new submarine.
Jon Stanford’s article ‘Australia’s new submarine: what is its mission?’ is spot on. The trouble with Defence planning and White Papers is that they all start off with what in my early days in the Navy was called a “Staff Requirement”. This thing, this equipment or ship is what we “require”. The first chapter of Continue reading »
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Malcolm Turnbull’s NBN is off the rails.
Paul Budde comments in his BuddeBlog on 6 November 2015 ‘If you abandon national FttH (fibre to the home) you also undermine the infrastructure required by the new economy. … The MTM [multi technology mix] leads to the Balkanisation of infrastructure in Australia and will favour companies such as Telstra and TPG. … The NBN Co Continue reading »
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John Taylor. Investing in Hedge Funds in Tax Havens: Legal? Ethical?
If the aim of Labor’s attack on Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and his wife Lucy for using hedge funds domiciled in the Cayman Islands was to damage his credibility with the public, it appears to have missed the political mark. This article considers whether investing in hedge funds in tax havens is both legal and Continue reading »
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Bob Kinnaird. The high price of Labor’s capitulation on ChAFTA
Labor’s capitulation in supporting the treaty-status ChAFTA has profound ramifications that go far beyond the China deal. Labor’s support for ChAFTA has all but guaranteed the permanent surrender of Australian sovereignty over key parts of our migration program and laws, and the permanent loss of rights of Australian citizens and permanent residents to jobs in Continue reading »
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Tony Kevin. Time for review of our foreign policy.
Why Australia need to get its head around great power multipolarity. Most Australians think of foreign policy as an esoteric, wonky field. Beyond special-cause activists, few Australians give much thought to our foreign policy choices. One who does is Professor Ramesh Thakur at the Australian National University. He does serious academic work on issues like UN Continue reading »
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Ross Gittins. Launch of book by Menadue and Keating.
Sydney, Thursday, November 5, 2015 Paul Samuelson, the famous American economist, is said to have remarked that the stockmarket has predicted nine of the past five recessions. I thought of that this week and decided the Canberra press gallery could top it: the gallery has predicted nine of the past two early elections. They Continue reading »
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Peter Gibilisco. Friendship and Service Provision Ethos for People with Disabilities
In this article I want to discuss an aspect of the standardised procedures set by service providers in facilities that serve people with disabilities. More to the point, I am keen to explore how this affects the ethos of service delivery for people with severe or profound physical disabilities within such shared supportive accommodation. Let Continue reading »
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John Menadue. The ‘third man’ in the sacking of Gough Whitlam
In a series of books and articles, Professor Jenny Hocking has provided conclusive evidence that Sir Anthony Mason was even more important than Sir Garfield Barwick in assisting John Kerr in the sacking of Gough Whitlam. It is scandalous and almost beyond belief that two senior members of our High Court were secretly collaborating with Continue reading »
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Allan Patience. Now is the Time for All Good Men and Women to Come to the Aid of the Party
Richard Di Natale has called on the Greens to get ready for government. Well and good. The direction in which he is prodding his party is a rare glimmer of hope in an otherwise bleak Australian political landscape. Whether in a coalition (likely with Labor), or in its own right (unlikely), what sort of public Continue reading »
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Race Mathews. A cancerous corruption is eating the ALP
Bill Shorten is to be congratulated on telling the Victorian ALP to investigate and eliminate its membership rorts, as exemplified by the latest branch-stacking scandal that has again humiliated the party and exposed it to public ignominy and disrepute. There may never be a better opportunity to clean up once and for all the morass Continue reading »
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John Menadue. The new squatters are taking over more public land.
On a wide front developers and other commercial interests are moving into our public parks, gardens and beaches. They are our new squatters and the community is feeling powerless in the face of this invasion. In earlier blogs I outlined the historic encroachment of private interests on our ‘public commons’ – the land and facilities Continue reading »
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