Politics
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Nicholas Reece. Falling behind in the innovation stakes
Malcolm Turnbull has promised a new innovation policy for Australia by Christmas. Bill Shorten has pledged to be a “jobs prime minister for the new economy”. For the first time in a long while, the political rhetoric matches a genuinely huge national policy challenge. In the past 15 years, there have been more than 60 Continue reading »
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Luke Fraser. Shorten, Infrastructure Australia and boldness.
Infrastructure Australia (IA) has truly become something to conjure with; it has even spawned a comedy series. Where is it headed? Last week Federal Opposition Leader Bill Shorten outlined Labor’s vision. This involved: a new $10 billion IA financing facility to encourage spending; putting trillions of Australian superannuant money to work in infrastructure investments; IA Continue reading »
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John Menadue. The infrastructure mess and wasteful road spending.
Former prime minister Tony Abbott said that he planned to be the infrastructure prime minister. There was little to show for it apart from wasteful spending on roads. He said that the Commonwealth should ‘stick to its knitting’ and not get involved in funding public infrastructure. His focus was on roads. Our new prime minister, Continue reading »
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Misha Coleman. Open Letter to Julie Bishop on Sri Lankan war crimes.
8 October 2015. Dear Ms Bishop Thank you for co-sponsoring the UN Human Rights Committee resolution negotiated by the Sri Lankan Government, which will hopefully provide some answers and finality to the mothers of 146,679 missing people, through the establishment of a domestic war crimes panel. You’ll know that these Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim and Christian Continue reading »
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Bob Kinnaird. 750,000 temporary residents with work rights.
The recent Fairfax/ABC Four Corners reports exposing widespread exploitation and wage abuse of overseas students and other visa workers in 7-11 stores, horticulture and other sectors have been justly applauded as outstanding examples of investigative journalism. Their impact has been immediate, forcing 7-11 to set up an independent investigation panel chaired by Alan Fels and Continue reading »
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Nauru and the Philippines
Three days ago, on 6 October, I posted a story ‘Nauru and the Philippines‘. That story carried an unconfirmed report that the Australian government was negotiating with the Philippines government for the transfer of 600 asylum seekers in Nauru to the Philippines. Since then there have been several reports confirming the thrust of this story, Continue reading »
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Nicholas Rowley. Cleaning up the mess on climate policy.
It is one of the rarely considered consequences of the sad story of Australia’s national policy response to climate change, that many of our finest public servants have sadly wasted years of analysis and effort to dutifully serve the demands of their political masters. More than ten years ago analysis by Ken Henry under then Continue reading »
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Cavan Hogue. Russia in Syria and Australian implications.
What are Australia’s objectives in the Middle East imbroglio? The simple answer is that it is about the American Alliance. We see ourselves as part of a global alliance led by the USA and generally supported by European powers: countries that “share our values”. We are there because they are. Therefore the fact that our Continue reading »
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Wasteful costs in health.
Following the ABC Four Corners program on health costs in Australia, there have been a number of very good follow up articles. The first, in The Conversation on 29 September is by Ray Moynihan ‘Costly and harmful: we need to tame the tsunami of too much medicine’. https://theconversation.com/costly-and-harmful-we-need-to-tame-the-tsunami-of-too-much-medicine-48239 The second, in the AFR on 5 Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Nauru and the Philippines!
The Nauru government has announced that the remaining 600 asylum seekers in the island’s immigration detention centre will be processed over the next week. This comes after a delay of two years and remarkably slow processing. Why this welcome change? What is afoot? We know that the Australian government is engaged in bilateral negotiations with Continue reading »
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Richard Butler. Russia and Syria: The continuation of politics by other means.
In their addresses to the UN General assembly, last week, Presidents Obama and Putin focused on the civil war in Syria. Both emphasized the need for the war, now in its 5th year, to be brought to an end. They both said that a political solution needed to be found, but they differed on a Continue reading »
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Ranald Macdonald. The ABC and a Call to Arms.
A CALL TO ARMS –Why this Country needs you to act. That is the title to my talk today and my exhortation to you all. The latest figures show over 400 ABC staff already “removed” from the ABC, as we edge towards its 500 target. The recent change in Prime Minister-ship has NOT changed expectations Continue reading »
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Mark Carney and climate change – an historic speech
The following are extracts from a speech given by Mark Carney, The Governor of the Bank of England at a Lloyd’s of London dinner on 29 September 2015 He outlines how climate change is a huge financial risk, particularly for investments in unburnable fossil fuel assets. He points out that the vast majority of these Continue reading »
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Frank Brennan. Border control gulags have had their time
What are the chances of Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten agreeing by Christmas that it’s time to close the refugee processing centres on Nauru and Manus Island? Turnbull and Shorten already agree that the boats coming from Indonesia should be stopped. The boats are now being stopped, if need be, with turnbacks, which neither side of Continue reading »
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Libby Lloyd. Coming to grips with our domestic war
For many reasons there is currently a much greater interest in the issue of domestic and family violence. This derives from increased media attention, the significant increase in intimate partner homicides (64 so far this year), the vastly improved police and legal response, constant revision and improvement of state and federal laws, as well as Continue reading »
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John Menadue. The government just does not get it on Free Trade Agreements.
I hope readers are not getting tired that I have said many times that the government continues to exaggerate the benefits of bilateral FTAs, most recently with Japan, Korea and China. With so little to show after two wasted years – increased debt, increased deficits, and not ‘stopping the boats’ despite telling us of success Continue reading »
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Why the Rich are so much Richer in the US
Nobel Prizewinner Joseph E. Stiglitz has been at the forefront of the debate in the US and elsewhere about growing inequality. In a recent review in the New York Review of Books, James Surowiecki comments on three recent books by Stiglitz. He says: “The numbers are, at this point, woefully familiar: the top 1% of Continue reading »
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Ian McAuley. Economic Management, Lobbyists and the Coalition Government.
On Abbott’s political departure David Marr wrote in The Guardian “Within days of his fall he’s looking like a prime minister Australia once had a long time ago”. Most people and organisations who have given him unwavering support ever since his narrow win as Opposition Leader in 2009 were remarkably quick in endorsing Turnbull’s judgement Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Murdoch is losing his touch.
Two weeks before the fall of Tony Abbott, Rupert Murdoch tweeted “Abbott, far the best alternative”. The Liberal Party ignored his tweet and chose Malcolm Turnbull. Rupert Murdoch’s declining influence is becoming plain to see. At the last SA state election, the Adelaide Advertiser backed the Liberal Party. The Liberal Party lost. At the last Continue reading »
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Why fighters are quitting ISIS.
The International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence at Kings College London points to the ways that many thousands of recruits who journeyed to Iraq and Syria may now be regretting their decisions. The more defectors speak out, the more the ISIS cause will suffer. The ICSR Report Executive Summary follows. John Continue reading »
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Climate Change and Refugees.
We have had a wake-up call about how Western and particularly US policies have destabilised the Middle East with the resulting exodus of refugees. Half of the Syrian population has either fled or been displaced within their own country. Climate change in the Middle East is adding to the problem. This is examined in a Continue reading »
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David Charles. Innovation, Disruption, Growth and Jobs of the Future
What a difference a day makes to so many things including innovation. Immediately prior to the replacement of Tony Abbott by Malcolm Turnbull the Commonwealth Government barely had innovation, to say nothing of digital disruption and start ups, on its radar. Its major achievements in the area of funding for innovation were mostly notable for Continue reading »
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Refugee Diary.
It is one thing to endure the terror of barrel-bombing by the Assad regime and the barbarism of ISIS in Syria. But this is only the beginning of a harrowing trek by Syrians in their journey to safety and freedom in Germany and elsewhere. Verica Jokic, an ABC journalist gave a compelling account on Radio National on Continue reading »
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Michael Keating. Fiscal Repair – both Revenue and Expenditure.
With Federal Budget deficits projected to continue indefinitely, the one thing that is generally agreed is that fiscal repair and consolidation is absolutely necessary. Where there is debate, however, is about how much of the repair job must be achieved by expenditure savings and how much by increasing revenue. In this regard, the new Treasurer Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Transfield, Manus and Nauru
Transfield and its subcontractors are profiteering from lucrative contracts to run detention centres on behalf of the Australian government on Manus and Nauru. All the indications are that there is widespread abuse and oppression particularly on Nauru. It is a disgrace. Present policies on Manus and Nauru are unsustainable yet Minister Dutton remains as Minister Continue reading »
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Dean Ashenden. Could Turnbull give a Gonski?
Until last week, Gonski’s last hope – and an increasingly promising one – was a Labor victory in 2016. Now, that hope has dimmed, but another has appeared. It would make political, ideological and policy sense for the Turnbull government and its new education minister, Simon Birmingham, to go back to Gonski. The story so Continue reading »
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Kieran Tapsell. The Royal Commission – Damning with faint understatement.
The reports issued by the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse at times seem quietly understated. The Commission seems to invite readers to draw their own conclusions – damning or otherwise – from the facts the Commission has found. This is particularly true of its report into its Case Study No Continue reading »
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Bob Kinnaird. China FTA and a diplomatic appointment.
As the government’s exaggerated claims of economic benefit and job creation from ChAFTA are increasingly exposed, the lead DFAT negotiator on the China FTA is set to be appointed the next Australian Ambassador to China. According to reports in the Australian Financial Review and Crikey, Ms Jan Adams DFAT Deputy Secretary was nominated before the Continue reading »
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Harold Levien. Solving our Housing Problem.
The new Turnbull Coalition has the opportunity to rewrite the economic policy, or lack of it, of the previous Abbott-Hockey Government. This greatly exacerbated Australia’s housing problem and was pushing Australia into recession. The Reserve Bank’s Governor Stevens recently explained that repeated interest rate reductions were attempting to stimulate the depressed economy. He suggested the Continue reading »
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Michael McKinley. Disorder in the Australian National Security Mind
Strategy is difficulty to practice and even more difficult to master. Its components – knowledge leavened by wisdom and imagination – cohabit with military science only in the most tense and difficult of relationships. That said, there are three nearly invariable rules that should govern the thinking and acting of a strategic actor – nation Continue reading »
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