Politics
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MUNGO MacCALLUM. Wishful thinking.
It may be sheer fantasy, wishful thinking. But in the last week the torpor of politics appeared to lift a little; there were signs that progress might not be stalled forever in the coalition party room in Canberra. Not that anything much has changed within the gaffe-prone cabinet of Malcolm Turnbull – at least not Continue reading »
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KIM WINGEREI. The longevity vacuum.
Short term thinking has taken hold of our society at all levels – our political leaders rarely see beyond the next poll or the next election, and in many ways they are responding to a populace that is equally sucked into the demands of the moment – resulting in ‘the longevity vacuum’ – putting us Continue reading »
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MUNGO MacCALLUM. The end of Western Civilisation!
It was, declared The Australian’s resident theologian Greg Sheridan, a pivotal moment in modern Australian history. Well, modern Australian history begins with white settlement. So was Pope Greg referring to the arrival of the first fleet, perhaps? The end of transportation? The celebration of federation? The landing at Gallipoli? The victory in the Coral Sea? Continue reading »
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The missed opportunity, nine years ago, to curb foreign interference in Australian politics.
In 2009, Senator John Faulkner introduced legislation in the Senate which would have prohibited foreign political donations. The legislation was defeated by the Coalition in the Senate. A lot of ‘foreign interference’ in Australian political life could have been nipped in the bud if the Coalition had been serious about curbing political donations. Unfortunately, Anti-Chinese Continue reading »
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ROSS GITTINS. The threat of terrorism in Australia is a scam that costs us dearly (SMH 25/7/2017)
This article by Ross Gittins was published on 25 July 2017 in the SMH. Since then, the government has continued to ratchet up fear of terrorism. This is a particular stock in trade of conservatives – promoting fear- fear of Communists, fear of Asians, fear of Muslims, fear of terrorists and now, unfortunately fear of Continue reading »
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MICHAEL PASCOE. The Australian government’s hypocritical stance on PNG corruption.
It’s illegal for Australian entities to bribe foreign entities, but apparently we’re perfectly happy to take dirty money from bribed foreigners and consort with corrupt leaders. Malaysia’s prime-minister-in-waiting, Anwar Ibrahim, called us out on Friday, expressing a view that Australia has been “completely dishonest” about ousted leader Najib Razak, and “complicit” in Malaysian corruption. Continue reading »
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LAURIE PATTON. Community tv – needed now more than ever.
Last week the Government announced a further two year extension on its deadline for community television stations to vacate their free-to-air spectrum. The death knell first rang back in September 2014 when then communications minister Malcolm Turnbull announced that all CTV licences would end in December 2015. Since then the sector has limped on courtesy Continue reading »
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MUNGO MacCALLUM. One Nation and the fabled Enterprise Tax Plan
Like the leaves of a diseased and dying tree, the One Nation senators continue to fall. Continue reading »
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MUNGO MacCALLUM. The Barnaby Joyce slapstick soap opera.
We have had enough of Barnaby, and it is obvious that his own colleagues have too. The sooner he retires to his fractured love nest the better. Continue reading »
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MICHAEL PASCOE. Fear and loathing in superannuation – Liberal and industry fund conspiracy theories
The Productivity Commission’s recommendation that all superannuation funds have an independent chairman and board seems reasonable, yet industry funds are vehemently opposed to it. Meanwhile the industry funds, on average, clearly outperform their retail opposition, but the Liberal Party has been explicit in its desire to undermine them and lift the retail funds’ market share. Continue reading »
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WAYNE SWAN. Foreign influence and foreign donations in Australia.
The debate over foreign influence in our domestic politics and policymaking is an important one for our country – too important for political point-scoring and manipulation by vested interests and political vendettas. Continue reading »
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YANIS VAROUFAKIS. Merkel reaps with Quitaly what she sowed with Greek austerity
By crushing us Europeanist Greeks in 2015, Germany sowed the seeds of a bitter harvest: an Italy that might leave the EU. One of the most common mistakes European leaders make in interpreting US President Donald Trump’s hostility toward America’s traditional allies, or the alacrity of his administration’s efforts to blow up the international order, is Continue reading »
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JOHN STAPLETON: Surveillance in Australia; Part Three.
The democratic contract is broken. The freedom of Australians to go about their daily lives without being watched by their government has vanished with barely a whisper of protest. Continue reading »
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LAURA TINGLE. Here’s what Peter Dutton’s Home Affairs super-department looks like.
When Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced the creation of the massive new Home Affairs portfolio in July last year, he called it “the most significant reform of Australia’s national intelligence and domestic security arrangements — and their oversight — in more than forty years”. Continue reading »
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JOHN STAPLETON: Surveillance in Australia: Part Two: A Parallel Secret Police Force
This is a government run on announceables. Even without the Budget blizzard, so far in 2018 we have had major announcements on everything from the so-called Gonski 2.0 education reforms, the establishment of an Australian arms industry to compete internationally, and an investigation into the practices of Public Service. Continue reading »
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GREG BAILEY. John Lloyd and the IPA: Friends of the Public Service?
As if the Public Service did not have enough pressure placed on it – over the past three decades it has been politicized, it has been continually downsized and its professionalism has been called into question by an homogenous collection of party hacks, consultants and lobbyists, perhaps picking up on a long-standing public disdain for Continue reading »
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RICHARD TANTER. Pine Gap electricity supply and the Ausgrid controversy
The giant Pine Gap intelligence and military base outside Alice Springs consumes a great deal of electricity to operate its intelligence-gathering and analysis operations. It now appears that the Turnbull government’s rejection of a $25 bn. bid for the NSW-government owned Ausgrid electricity distribution company on national security grounds from the Cheung Kong Consortium (CKI), Continue reading »
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ALLAN N. HALL. The problems of dual citizenship.
With roughly half the Australian population either born overseas or having parents or grandparents born overseas, it is little wonder that dual citizenship has increasingly emerged as a problem for some Australian citizens seeking election to the Federal Parliament. This is especially so for second generation Australians who were born in Australia, but who may Continue reading »
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JOHN MENADUE Our security agencies are not accountable.
The performance and integrity of our security services is a serious national problem. These are particular problems for agencies which operate in secret and with few public checks. We have seen that they are prepared to upstage ministers and undermine governments on key public issues like relations with China at the moment. There is no Continue reading »
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MUNGO MacCALLUM. After all the promises, dithering, the backflips and the bullshit, the unemployment rate has not actually fallen
There can be no real doubt that the timing of the by-elections for July 28 was mean and tricky. But who was the mean trickster? Continue reading »
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JOHN MENADUE. Who is in charge of Australia’s relations with China? The Australian Prime Minister or ASIO?
ASIO is on a roll in co-ordinating the attack on China and its alleged covert operations in Australia. Only last Friday we learnt that super patriot Andrew Hastie, formerly an officer in SAS and currently Chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, cleared his parliamentary speech with ASIO but not his own Continue reading »
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FRANK BRENNAN. Close the camps now and stop the posturing.
Both the Turnbull government and the Shorten opposition are committed to ‘stopping the boats’. Tony Abbott’s mantra is now the political orthodoxy on both sides of the political aisle in Canberra. Labor knows it has no chance of winning an election unless its commitment to keeping the boats stopped is as firm as the government’s. Continue reading »
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MUNGO MacCALLUM. For Hastie to drop the bomb without warning his leader was unpardonable.
Andrew Hastie’s use of parliamentary privilege to out the billionaire political donor Chau Chak Wing for being an unindicted (and thus uncharged) “co-conspirator” in the United States was always going to be controversial. Continue reading »
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QUENTIN DEMPSTER. Australia’s sledge hammer to crack foreign influence pedlars.
New laws to protect Australia’s democratic governance and economy are about to be determined, now with heightened fear about Chinese influence. Draft bills before federal parliament cover electoral funding, cybersecurity and espionage and a new enforceable regime of self-registration for transparency of foreign influence. Continue reading »
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JIM COOMBS. Best Things In Life.
“The stars belong to everyone: The best things in life are free.” Or they ought to be. The last week of Budget Hysteria, made me think, “Is money all there is to life?” That seems to be what the government and opposition believe is all we care about. Continue reading »
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GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND …
Because our Reserve Bank has given every indication that it has no intention to raise official interest rates, a degree of complacency about Australia’s high levels of household debt has set in. But in an article on the ABC’s website, business reporter David Taylor shows how rising US bond yields could flow through to Australian Continue reading »
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SUE WAREHAM. How the Australian War Memorial has lost its way.
In a submission to the Joint Standing Committee on the National Capital and External Territories inquiry into Canberra’s national institutions Sue Wareham ,on behalf of the Medical Association for Prevention of War (MAPW) calls for major changes at the AWM The submission notes that the inquiry’s purpose is to report on strategies that Canberra’s national Continue reading »
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MUNGO MACCALLUM. Liberals have a bloke problem.
Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison were determinedly hitting the hustings last week as they tried to persuade the sceptical that their Enterprise Tax Plan was not only viable, but is actually a good idea. Continue reading »
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ANDREW FARRAN. Parliamentary report on Section 44: Despite serious democratic deficit, referendum can wait!
There could be no clearer case for an early referendum than the fact that over half of all Australians today have barriers to nomination under s.44. In practice, the Report states, some may never be able to overcome these barriers and nominate. Indeed, 10,779,230 people (46% of the population) were born overseas or have one Continue reading »
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SUSAN RYAN. The impact of the 2018 Budget on women. It is most notable for its omissions.
The National Foundation for Australian Women (NFAW) each year prepares an analysis of the impacts of the federal budget on women. Since the Coalition government abandoned the practice of including a Women’s Budget Statement in the official Budget documents, a policy-oriented women’s NGO, the NFAW, has prepared this work. This extract gives an overview of the Continue reading »