Politics
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JOHN MENADUE. Beyond the political rhetoric,hard hats and akubras what do our political ‘leaders’ really believe.
Power does reveal substance. It tells us quite quickly about the values that drive political parties and political leaders. Scare tactics are always a sure sign that the values and policy cupboard is bare. Continue reading »
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MELISSA PARKE. Conflict in Yemen
‘I don’t want to live any more’ said the man standing in the rubble of his destroyed home. His teenage daughter beside him burst into tears and the younger daughter looked up at him, not understanding. The airstrike, in the UNESCO World heritage old city of Sana’a, had come without warning in the middle of Continue reading »
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JOSEPH NYE. The two sides of American exceptionalism (Project Syndicate, 5.09.18)
In July, I joined 43 other scholars of international relations in paying for a newspaper advertisement arguing that the US should preserve the current international order. The institutions that make up this order have contributed to “unprecedented levels of prosperity and the longest period in modern history without war between major powers. US leadership helped Continue reading »
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JERRY ROBERTS Whither Labor?
Stan Grant in his interesting post of 10 September asks which kind of conservatism our Prime Minister will practise. Since we are about to commence a decade of Labor in office in Canberra a more pertinent question is what type of Labor Government will it be? Continue reading »
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GEOFF RABY. Prometheus bound: How China’s power is constrained
The more Australia positions itself as if there is only a binary choice between US or Chinese hegemonic influence in the region, the more likely conflict becomes. Continue reading »
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GARRY WILLS. Resistance Means More Than Voting (New York Review of Books Daily, 10.09.18)
When former president Barack Obama called on the nation to oppose Donald Trump at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign last week, he said there was only one way to do it, by voting. This was a criticism of the internal resistance supported by the anonymous op-ed writer in The New York Times. Obama said Continue reading »
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NICK DEANE Invictus and the arms manufacturers connection.
The Invictus Games will be familiar to all who watch the ABC, their promoter and sponsor. The Games will be taking place in Sydney in October, the participants being injured service personnel from 18 countries.But why are major arms manufactures ‘official supporters’? Continue reading »
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ROSS GITTINS. How we could revive faith in democracy (SMH 6 June 2018)
How much is our disillusionment with politicians, governments and even democracy the result of our pollies’ 30-year love affair with that newly recognised mega-evil “neoliberalism”? To a considerable extent, according to Dr Richard Denniss, of the Australia Institute, in the latest Quarterly Essay, Dead Right. Continue reading »
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MICHAEL SAINSBURY Can a woman save Wentworth for the Libs? (Crikey, 12.09.18)
Liberal candidate Andrew Bragg has bowed out of the race for Wentworth, citing a need for women candidates. But will it be enough? Continue reading »
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MICHAEL PASCOE. For-profit funds take a hit off back of royal commission (11.09.18)
Never mind the fines and compensation building up, what about retail fund managers losing more than $20 billion of assets in the June quarter? Continue reading »
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MUNGO MACCALLUM. Appealing to Menzies and religion – worth a try
When the world falls apart, when all those carefully plans collapse in smouldering ruins, when the present seems desolate and the future seems hopeless, there is only one recourse: invoke the ghost of Robert Menzies. Continue reading »
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MICHAEL D BREEN. Head, Heart and future Hope.
Now there is talk about a new generation in Australian Politics. So what is new? Not the players. Not the structures, nor the rules of engagement. Could it be a more basic factor is needed? Could it be, for want of a better term, the ‘moral infrastructure’? Is this the bedrock foundation, the sine qua Continue reading »
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ADAM HUGHES HENRY. Unresolved questions of “Independence”.
One of the core areas of interest for Gough Whitlam and his government in the realm of international affairs was a process of modernisation in Australia’s engagement with international law and its impact on the domestic scene. Some of this related to imperial practices that continued to play a central role in national civic life Continue reading »
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MUNGO MACCALLUM. Dutton’s double standards.
Powerful and sensitive weapons need to be handled with extreme care if they are not to harm the user as well as the intended victim. Ministerial intervention is a powerful and sensitive weapon. Continue reading »
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STAN GRANT. Which idea of conservatism will Prime Minister Scott Morrison embrace?
Conservatives in Australia are up for a fight. They are determined to recapture their heartland, reclaim the political right from the progressive interlopers: they are marking out their territory and it is as much about identity as ideology. Continue reading »
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JERRY ROBERTS. What is the issue?
Young Australian families are living in brand new suburbs on the outskirts of our cities. They now constitute a significant proportion of the nation’s population. A few years ago, these suburbs were sandhills and bush. They have no post-settlement history. Do they have a culture? What interests these young couples? In political terms, what is Continue reading »
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GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND
A regular collection of links to writings and broadcasts covered in other media. Continue reading »
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GEOFF GALLOP. What does it mean to be educated?
In the Campion Lecture at St Aloysius College, Sydney, on 15 August 2018, Geoff Gallop, former Premier of WA, spoke about the post-truth world and the importance of understanding the role of education in our society. He said in conclusion: Over the centuries human beings have learnt much about nature and society, how to co-exist Continue reading »
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DAVID FRUM. This Is a Constitutional Crisis (The Atlantic 5/9/2018)
A cowardly coup from within the administration threatens to enflame the president’s paranoia and further endanger American security. Impeachment is a constitutional mechanism. The Twenty-Fifth Amendment is a constitutional mechanism. Mass resignations followed by voluntary testimony to congressional committees are a constitutional mechanism. Overt defiance of presidential authority by the president’s own appointees—now that’s a Continue reading »
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MARTIN WOLF. Why so little has changed since the financial crash (Financial Times)
“Here I am back again in the Treasury . . . but with one great difference. In 1918 most people’s only idea was to get back to pre-1914. No one today feels like that about 1939. That will make an enormous difference when we get down to it.” The financial crisis was a devastating failure of the free market Continue reading »
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RAMESH THAKUR. India’s VIP culture: Forget Lincoln’s definition of democracy. India’s government is of VIPs, by VIPs and for VIPs (Times of India, 04.090.18)
Last week, the Madras high court ordered the National Highways Authority of India to separate ordinary citizens from VIPs at toll gates, with a dedicated lane for the latter. Of course, high court judges are included in the list of VIPs. The court held it to be ‘disheartening’ and ‘very unfortunate’ that judges are ‘compelled Continue reading »
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I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration — New York Times 5 September 2018
I work for the president but like-minded colleagues and I have vowed to thwart parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations. The Times today is taking the rare step of publishing an anonymous Op-Ed essay. We have done so at the request of the author, a senior official in the Trump administration whose identity Continue reading »
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ABUL RIZVI. Playing God.
Did Peter Dutton breach his own guidelines for ministerial intervention? Continue reading »
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RAMESH THAKUR. Importing private sector efficiency or infecting the public service with the ‘greed is good’ disease
There has never been a more exciting time to be a critic of the ‘greed is good’ philosophy of the corporate sector. The revelations from the banking and finance royal commission have been gobsmacking. There was also the beat up of my university for having the temerity to weigh the attraction, of substantial funding from Continue reading »
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BRUCE WEARNE. Thinking About Our Political Blurring of Parliamentary Boundaries!
The first time I voted in a federal election was in December 1972. I had just graduated from university. In three undergraduate years, as a member of the turbulent Monash Association of Students, I had learned that there was deep artificiality in a political view that reduces debate to two sides. I cast my inaugural Continue reading »
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KIM WINGEREI. Au dair – it may be legal, but it ain’t right.
From waving Au Pairs through the immigration queue, throwing money at unsuspecting charities and denying medical treatments for children – to ignoring climate change and the bullying culture that is endemic to party politics; what the last few weeks of politics have shown above all, is that our political leaders just don’t know the difference Continue reading »
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PETER WHITEFORD. Don’t believe what they say about inequality. Some of us are worse off (The Conversation)
If you were going to reduce a 150-page Productivity Commission examination of trends in Australian inequality to a few words, it would be nice if they weren’t “ALP inequality claims sunk”, or “Progressive article of faith blown up” or “Labor inequality myths busted by commission”. Continue reading »
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MICHAEL SAINSBURY. Tim Murray, Labor’s best chance in Wentworth since Jessie Street?
If you thought that Australian politics could not get more bizarre, it’s time to think again. The race is on for one of the Liberal Party’s blue chip seats with the official retirement of Malcolm Turnbull, the Member for Wentworth. Continue reading »
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PAUL BONGIORNO. The spectre of Tony Abbott hangs over Scott Morrison (New Daily, 04.09.18)
Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s desperate attempts to draw a line under the leadership coup that brought him to power are doomed to failure. Continue reading »
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GARY P SAMPSON. BREXIT: A Pandora’s Box awaits the UK at the WTO
Whether the U.K. crashes out from the E.U. or retains some residual connections with the Customs Union it will need to negotiate ab initio its position as an independent, free-standing member of the WTO. Indeed the U.K. is placing much reliance on the WTO for facilitating its future global trading arrangements. What difficulties will face Continue reading »