Politics
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Torturing Assange: An Interview with Andrew Fowler
Andrew Fowler is an Australian award-winning investigative journalist and a former reporter for the ABC’s Foreign Correspondent and Four Corners programs. and the author of The Most Dangerous Man in the World: Julian Assange and WikiLeaks’ Fight for Freedom. Continue reading »
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China: are we asserting Australia’s independence or America’s?
The recent determination to make an enemy of our important trading partner China is the most egregious foreign policy blunder since John Howard’s reckless decision to join George Bush’s invasion of Iraq. Continue reading »
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Dear Labor
Has anyone among your parliamentary cohort noticed that neoliberalism is a failure? Has it occurred to anyone that promoting selfishness and making people insecure is a recipe for people to turn on each other and shred the social fabric? Does anyone think it might be time to stop being Liberal-lite? Time to champion the battlers Continue reading »
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Judicial independence: the Nazi or the Australian way?
In an age when the Parliament nearly always does the bidding of the elected government and in a country which, uniquely amongst democratic nations, has no Bill of Rights, the courts are vitally important as a protection against arbitrary power. Continue reading »
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Privatisation – who’s it good for?
Privatisation is one of those terms which politicians avoid using. That is because the public does not like the idea, or its outcomes. It can be used in a number of ways, but most of us regard it as meaning “selling off a publicly owned asset, usually to the detriment of good government”. Continue reading »
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Scott Morrison’s marketing of a vaccine is true to form
Morrison is offering not a solution but a thought bubble, something to keep us going until some other rabbit can be pulled out of his well worn hat of illusions. But the fact that it has already been dismissed as so much puffery by both AstraZeneca itself and by the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories who are Continue reading »
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The military-industrial-intelligence-security complex
In 1961 President Eisenhower warned that a vast and permanent ‘military-industrial complex’ could produce ‘the disastrous rise of misplaced power’. Earlier, US Senators Robert La Follette and J. William Fulbright also foresaw the dangers of militarisation. Now we have a military/industrial/security/intelligence complex, and it is dangerous. Continue reading »
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War defined the scope of emergency powers, but now we may discriminate
Would some of the coercive powers under the pandemic response survive a High Court challenge? Continue reading »
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The 1953 Iranian coup d’état Neoliberal Doctrine
The CIA sponsored 1953 Iranian coup d’état has become the blueprint for the neoliberal doctrine of colour revolutions, and the primary cause of world tensions today. Continue reading »
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COVID-19’s lessons for Australia’s post-pandemic governance
The notion that government is the problem not the solution for the political failures of the late twentieth century was the most devious and destructive attack on representative government, ever. It’s time to bring government back to centre stage. Continue reading »
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We have the least worst Minister in charge of Aged Care
Depending on your choice of cliche the aged care portfolio may be seen as a minefield, a poisoned chalice or a suicide mission – a high risk activity best avoided. Continue reading »
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The perils of privatisation and outsourcing.
Waste of government money is the inevitable consequence of government’s funding the private sector to deliver a public good. Continue reading »
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Sinking billions of taxpayer dollars into gas would make Australia an international pariah (The Guardian, August 21 2020)
The Morrison government’s post-Covid recovery commission has called for an astonishing level of support for a declining carbon fuel. Continue reading »
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What about the security companies? Don’t they have corporate ethical responsibility?
We are in stage 4 of the lock-down in Melbourne and that has great implications for personal and social life as well as the economy. As a result of the lock-down, listeners have contacted radio stations, approving of it because it would finally bring about the end of the spreading of Covid-19. Continue reading »
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Sunday environmental round up, 23 August 2020
A rich man takes some lessons from COVID and a businessman tells us how to correct the failings of the EPBC Act. Scotty has a heatwave named after him. Canada loses an ice shelf and the French say ‘Non’ to a bicycle ad. But, bad news … Continue reading »
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Kerr’s media hacks (Justinian August 17, 2020)
Leading hacks at The Australian have waged war on Professor Jenny Hocking and her research into the 1975 dismissal of the Whitlam government by governor-general Kerr … The archived letters clearly confirm the Palace’s involvement … It is The Australian’s version that is in need of repair … Michael White dismantles the claims about Hocking’s “conspiracy theory” Continue reading »
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The Palace Letters – in conversation with Jenny Hocking (video)
What do The Palace Letters tell us about our history, Gough Whitlam’s dismissal and our system of Government? Continue reading »
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The inconsistent responses to Covid-19
The bag of Covid-19 policy responses bulges with inconsistencies. The first people to admit they knew the least about this virus strain were epidemiologists who knew the most. But how frustrating when politicians shift positions in pretence they know (anything). Continue reading »
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We’ve been electing governments that damage our children’s future (SMH August 19, 2020)
One of the most dismal ideas for our youth to entertain is that their lives won’t be as comfortable as their parents’. Everyone in the older generation knows how much their lives have improved over the decades, and how much better off we are than our parents were. Continue reading »
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The Decline in Power of the Oil States (Counter Punch August 17, 2020)
President Donald Trump is cock-a-hoop over the United Arab Emirates becoming the first Arab Gulf state to normalise its relations with Israel. He needs all the good news he can get in the months before the US presidential election. Continue reading »
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Saturday’s good reading and listening for the weekend
What people in other forums are saying about public policy Continue reading »
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Attorney General Christian Porter breaches law over three years, claims it was a mistake
Since taking the top legal job in Australia in 2017, Christian Porter has been in breach of Commonwealth safeguard legislation by neglecting to table crucial reports documenting his use of secretive national security (NSI) orders. Kieran Adair reports. Continue reading »
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The Coal Curse – A Review
Governments are abrogating their first responsibility, which is to safeguard the people and their future well-being. The first part of historian Judith Brett’s Quarterly Essay, The Coal Curse – Resources, Climate and Australia’s Future, is a masterly dissection of Australian economic history since WW2. Continue reading »
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TAFE has been drained of funds for poorly performing and dodgy private providers
What a difference there is between the public vocational education and training provider, TAFE, and private for-profit training providers. Continue reading »
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NSW Treasurer being white-anted
Two weeks ago Dominic Perrottet was set to take an elevator ride to the Premiership. Now he’s assailed on all sides by the icare workers’ compensation scandal. Continue reading »
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Thailand’s students revive their tradition of protest
Thailand’s authorities so far are responding relatively calmly to the latest political protests. They need to: like all nations, Thailand has had enough shocks in 2020. Continue reading »
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Biden’s Foreign Policy: Make America the leader again
In an essay in the prestigious US publication “Foreign Affairs”, the Democratic candidate, Joe Biden, sets out a broad set of his foreign policy objectives should he win the US presidency in November. The title – “Why America Must Lead Again – Rescuing US Foreign Policy after Trump” – is hauntingly close to that used Continue reading »
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Bernard Collaery, East Timor and Governmental Duplicity
The extent of the outrage and the reason the government is desperate to keep hidden its unlawful behaviour through the prosecution of Bernard Collaery and Witness K has now had a little further light shone upon it. Continue reading »
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Unmaking socio-economic cohesion Part 2
The neoliberalist ethos has been a long time in gestation and cultivation. Society, social order and the role of the state in such are alien to it. Economists are a large part of the story – indeed the centrepiece? Continue reading »
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ABC News Should Fight Back
The ABC News and Current Affairs division is a shadow of its former self, but the public doesn’t know. It’s time to fight back. Continue reading »
