Politics
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NOEL TURNBULL. They did what they were trained to
They did what they were trained to do, a friend and fellow Vietnam veteran said about the new film, Danger Close, when we caught up this week. This was not to denigrate in any way the sacrifice and bravery of 108 infantrymen with supporting artillery, helicopters and ultimately Armoured Personnel Carriers. Rather he meant to Continue reading »
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Raising the racist flag
The ironies were stark and troubling. On 17 August most Indonesians joyfully commemorated their nation’s proclamation of independence from the Netherlands 74 years ago. A few weren’t having fun. Next afternoon young Papuans studying in East Java and who are suspected of wanting self rule, were brutally bashed and teargassed on the pretext they’d ‘slandered’ Continue reading »
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Sow the wind and reap the whirlwind
“They that sow the wind, shall reap the whirlwind”, according to the Book of Hosea in the Old Testament. Not in the Australian federal system of government, they shan’t. Not when it comes to education policy. Continue reading »
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JIM COOMBS. Crime is down,Gaols are bursting. Why?
It is essentially a failure of administration.The nation’s foremost collector of information on this, the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics (BOCSAR) recently reported that nearly a third of the NSW prison population is on remand, i.e., awaiting trial. Continue reading »
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Capital punishment will not stop gun violence
It is perhaps understandable that in their anger and grief, people who have lost loved ones in gun violence call for the perpetrators to be executed. It is however, inappropriate for political leaders to pretend that capital punishment is an effective way to deal with the issue. It is little more than a diversionary tactic Continue reading »
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Conservatives in Australia
A friend of mine asked me the other day why I seem to only criticise the Liberals. My answer was that they have been in power for six years now, so if anything is conspicuously wrong with the country, it is probably their fault. And also they appear to be generally a callous lot. I Continue reading »
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TONY WRIGHT. Spy versus spy: in Canberra, cover is where you find it. (SMH 16.8.2019)
I have wondered occasionally whether ASIO has a few grainy pictures of me sauntering to the front door of the forbidding embassy of the USSR in Canberra. Continue reading »
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Tuvalu, climate change and Westminster
The conventional wisdom is that Morrison’s intransigence on climate change, which has badly damaged our relations in the Pacific, is due to the arithmetic of his slim parliamentary majority. But why do we have to assume that our two-party “Westminster” system with its rigid party loyalties is immutable? Continue reading »
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Can Knut Morrison hold back the tides?
We’ve lost influence over China and the US, and over Hong Kong and Kashmir and the world may be slipping into recession. It is beginning to look as if we are drifting, more or less without a pilot, into the interesting times of the old Chinese curse. As one might expect, given our luck, the Continue reading »
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A conference of moaners in Sydney
The Conservative Political Action Conference held in Sydney last weekend should not be dismissed lightly. It must be dismissed heavily, so here goes. The elite reactionaries gathered in their luxury hotel not to celebrate, but to moan. The parade of paranoid plutocrats complained that their traditional privileges were being challenged – their hitherto untrammelled power Continue reading »
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Will the last PM of the UK please put out the lights?
The dissolution of the United Kingdom is now bruited abroad on a daily basis as a likely outcome of a No Deal Brexit. This applies not just to Scotland, the likeliest candidate to be first to leave, but also to the possibility of Northern Ireland joining with the Republic, and even tiny Wales rethinking its Continue reading »
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TREVOR WATSON. Hong Kong Chaos – Beijing weighs its options.
As Hong Kong’s anti-administration protests grow stronger and increasingly violent, fears of a Tiananmen Square style response by Beijing also mount. Trevor Watson looks at the difficulty faced by China watchers as they attempt to predict the next move by one of the world’s unpredictable regimes. Continue reading »
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Things haven’t been this bad between Australia and China in 30 years (Crikey, 14 August 2019)
The Morrison government’s increasing ties to the Trump administration is, by consequence, achieving quite the opposite of its previous goal of “resetting” Australia’s relationship with China. Continue reading »
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GRACE BLAKELY. Why the rise of Boris Johnson is the last laugh of a decaying elite (New Statesman America 14-8-19)
Right-wing populism is a symptom of a crumbling capitalist order that no longer promises a better future for most people. Continue reading »
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Sunday environmental round up, 18 August 2019
A new report from the IPCC focusing on land and climate change draws together many threads from the environmental and social crises facing the world. CO2 emissions from fossil fuels are of course the major cause of global warming but methane from fracking and tipping points in earth systems also magnify the problem. Victorians send Continue reading »
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SATURDAY’s GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND
A regular collection of links to writings and broadcasts in other media Continue reading »
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‘Australia’s Authoritarian Future? CPAC & The High Court’
In early August, two events cast a shadow over Australia’s democracy. The US Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) met in Sydney to fight to ‘protect the future.’ The High Court ruled that the government may restrict the right of public servants to express political views, and in this way supported the sacking of a public Continue reading »
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Are “moderates” failing to keep us safe?
Could it be “moderates” – through lack of vigilance, or is it apathy? – who most threaten our safety and existence? Yes, this seems a ridiculous, even immoderate assertion. But let’s think about it. The US, the UK and Australia are currently “led” – though there’s precious little leading – by men unembarrassed to flaunt Continue reading »
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Brexit in the Antipodes
There is a growing air of desperation in the cross-party efforts to stymie British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s threat to by-pass parliament, and even to ignore a motion of no confidence against him and his government by the House of Commons, in order to force through a no-deal Brexit. It is remarkable that in all Continue reading »
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TONY BROWN. Who calls the shots? Don’t mention the ‘C’ word
It should come as no surprise that those who trivialise our nation’s deadly alcohol toll or seek to inculcate and normalise alcohol into every aspect of Australia’s culture, regardless of the true cost, are the very same who profit from its promotion and consumption. Continue reading »
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Julian Assange One case dismissed: one to go
From the Australian mainstream media most readers won’t know it, but on 29 July a Federal Court in New York dismissed the Democratic National Committee’s case against Julian Assange for publishing leaked internal emails in 2016. Continue reading »
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The US-China trade relationship: Why Trump’s policies are doomed to fail
Donald Trump is deluded if he thinks that raising tariffs will reduce the US trade deficit. That deficit represents the fact that the US is spending more than it earns. Unless this fact is altered – and Trump has increased the fiscal deficit – the increase in US tariffs will automatically be offset by an Continue reading »
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‘Australia agrees to everything’
Australia and the United States see the world through the same eyes, Scott Morrison told sailors on USS Ronald Reagan during the Talisman Sabre war games on 12 July.But after hearing what Mike Pompeo and John Joseph Mearsheimer had to say in Australia in recent days, we might conclude that if our eyes are the Continue reading »
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Morrison prepares for war
Scott Morrison is not too keen on history.When it comes to politics – or at least the politics of the Liberal Party, which to him is all that matters – history began with his election as Prime Minister. Everything that happened before then, and especially in the three years before then, is utterly irrelevant – Continue reading »
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Broken government: it’s the engine as well as the drivers
Ministers and bureaucrats seem only able to manage spot fires, not policy review beyond three-word-slogans. Ken Hayne, the former High Court judge who conducted the banking royal commission is quite right in suggesting that the political and bureaucratic system is broken, and in need of fundamental reconstruction. But some of those wisely nodding their heads, Continue reading »
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The Fascinating Christian Story.
We all have our personal story. And it is just one part of the bigger story of our family, our tribe, our nation – the things that have shaped us. Institutions, too, have a life of their own – and their own story. Where did they come from? What made them as they are? Religions Continue reading »
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Time to stop this marginal madness
The reputation of the New South Wales Coalition Government in the area of environmental management has taken yet another tumble. Along with decimation of National Parks, poor management of Murray-Darling water, failure to act on carbon emissions and ignorance of species extinction, it has decided to allow wilful destruction of habitat through deforestation. Continue reading »
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Cambodia – a breakout from US encirclement
The encirclement of China with US and allies bases, has its roots in preventing the spread of Communism in SE Asia after WW2. At the height of the Cold War the host countries had no objections as it provided protection and income. With the emergence of China as an economic power, the bases are now Continue reading »
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The changing face of planet Earth
With atmospheric CO2-equivalent greenhouse gas concentrations now above 500 ppm and average global warming approaching 1.5oC, there is a clear shift in the world’s climate zones, displayed for example on maps of the expanding wet tropical zones, drying sub-tropical latitudes and polar-ward migration of temperate climate zones. Large parts of southern Europe are suffering from droughts, heat Continue reading »
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MARTA KWASNICKA. Habits of the heart: the problems facing Polish Catholicism
“Really, there is nothing to talk about,” my mother said when I asked her about her conversion to Catholicism. When I did persuade her to tell her story, it had none of the tumult and drama of English nineteenth-century converts such as John Henry Newman or Gerard Manley Hopkins, who entered the Church in defiance Continue reading »