Politics
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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 »
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GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND …
“Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive. But to be young was very heaven” — that’s how many older Australians, with the distorted hindsight of nostalgia, look back on the turmoil of 1968. ABC Radio National has devoted a series of its regular programs to the events around 1968. The most concise is Continue reading »
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MICHAEL PASCOE. Profit-rich private health insurers burning billions on non-health costs
Australian capitalism’s sheltered workshop, the private health insurance industry, is burning billions of dollars a year unrelated to Australians’ health. Continue reading »
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The Vicar of Bray
The Vicar of Bray has become a cultural byword for political expediency, hypocrisy, and insincerity. He changed his allegiances time and time again. Can you think of an Australian Minister who reminds you of the Vicar of Bray? Continue reading »
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TIM WOODRUFF. A budget for inequality, worsening health outcomes and decreased productivity.
As a financially comfortable part-time medical specialist, I will be in the group receiving the highest tax cut immediately, whilst my daughters working full time at much lower income will receive about one third of that. It’s of even more concern that, in seven years’ time, the major beneficiaries of the government plan will be Continue reading »
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ROGER SCOTT. The prominence of women in Queensland politics.
Until this week, JANE PRENTICE was not on the roll of women prominent in Queensland politics, a short list which includes two ALP Premiers but also a number of women of alternative political persuasions, starting with Lady Flo and including two current party leaders. Continue reading »
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KIM WINGEREI. Cultural Appropriation: Political Correctness gone bad – it is all about respect!
The debate on Cultural Appropriation needs to be put into perspective, and the hoary old chestnut of Political Correctness derails proper debate – it is all about respect! Continue reading »
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JOHN MENADUE. The scourge of lobbyists.
There are many key public issues that we must address such as climate change, growing inequality, tax avoidance, budget repair, an ageing population, lifting our productivity and our treatment of asylum seekers. But our capacity to address these and other important issues is becoming very difficult because of vested interests with their lobbying power to influence Continue reading »
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DAVID COWARD. The man who did for Mao – a review of a biography of Simon Leys by Philippe Paquet
In 1932, Malcolm Muggeridge, then based in Moscow for the Manchester Guardian, filed reports of what he had found out about Soviet Russia, from the food shortages and forced labour to the deaths of 3 million people following the collectivization of agriculture in the Ukraine. His copy was censored and he was ridiculed by the Continue reading »
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JOHN MENADUE. Are pharmacists professionals or shop keepers?
Pharmacists are the most under-utilised health professionals in the country. The Australian Pharmacy Guild is happy to keep it that way. Continue reading »
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STEPHEN DUCKETT. Turnbull government backs pharmacies over consumers, yet again.
The government has totally squibbed the latest pharmacy regulation review, and consumers will be the losers. Every five to 10 years in Australia, the government establishes a review of the regulations governing pharmacies. Those reviews invariably come to the same conclusion: community pharmacy is over-regulated, and a reduction in regulation would benefit consumers. Just as invariably, Continue reading »
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TIM COSTELLO. The Budget and aid.
The Coalition Government’s fifth budget last week was carefully calibrated to offer just enough to a discontented electorate to restart the political contest ahead of the poll expected early next year. Yet again Australia’s battered aid program took a hit, this time in the form of a multi-year cut, combined with an extended freeze on Continue reading »
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ROBIN DERRICOURT. Inside the belly of the monster (and a Cold War mind).
A 1960s British student leftist did not expect to find himself on a tour inside the Pentagon, or briefed by a US Army Colonel on his role there, tracking US radicals, with a distorted Cold War model of who they were – but, well, it happened. Continue reading »
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GREG HAMILTON. No stomach or mind for democracy.
Australians have a flaw in their character that shows up in their acceptance of a defective political system no decent reform can come close to changing. When their democratic system is attacked by minority anti-democratic forces, they’ll back the attackers, not their system. And, having done so, they choose to believe their system is still Continue reading »
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MUNGO MACCALLUM. Progress taxation or a flat tax
Scott Morrison’s budget has been greeted as underwhelming, which is probably the way he likes it. The goodies are unnecessarily complex — the tax cuts aren’t really tax cuts, they are built in to your 2018-19 return as an offset, which means they will appear in your kick only if and when you are entitled Continue reading »
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GEOFF RABY. China relations can only be unfrozen with Julie Bishop’s sacking
Once again Australian foreign policy seems to be missing in action. As events unfold at remarkable speed in our area of most strategic interest – north-east Asia – Australia finds itself unable to engage with the key participant at the centre of those events: namely China. Continue reading »
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Classes & politics.
The return of the concept of ‘class’ to mainstream public debate is an unanticipated feature of the second decade of the new century. Whether defined by people’s relationship to production or distribution, or as a hybrid of economic and cultural identities, a consciousness of class is crystallising once again within democratic countries, and notably in Continue reading »
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MICHAEL LESTER. Political Culture and the Limits of the APS Independent Inquiry.
There is an old saw that cautions politicians never to establish an enquiry unless they know the outcome beforehand. The Prime Minister appears to have learnt that lesson from the ‘can of worms’ exposed in his Royal Commission on Banking. Turnbull has announced an ‘independent inquiry’ into the future of the Australian Public Service (APS). Continue reading »
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MUNGO MacCALLUM. Nicknames
Treasurer Scott Morrison got very excited last week, bouncing and bubbling all over the place. And it wasn’t just because of his pretty ordinary budget: building a stronger economy may be a worthy slogan, but it is hardly inspiring. What was really turning him on was that he (or someone talking to him) had invented a Continue reading »
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RICHARD BUTLER. US and the Iran Agreement: True Lies and Chaos.
In explaining his decision on the US leaving the Iran nuclear agreement (JCPOA), President Trump told a number of true lies. His National Security Advisor, John Bolton, then told the truth: it was to conform with Israel’s wishes. Israel and Iran commenced hostilities in Syria, immediately. Continue reading »
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LINDA SIMON. TAFE upfront in Shorten’s Budget speech in reply.
Whilst the Government’s 2018 Federal Budget failed to recognise the importance of TAFE and skills development to Australia’s economy, TAFE and funding were upfront in the Labor Opposition’s speech in reply. Labor has put TAFE back as the centrepiece of national skills training, promising to scrap upfront fees for 100,000 TAFE students as part of its Continue reading »
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JOHN MENADUE. How and why corporate regulators have failed us.
The failure of corporate regulation and regulators is in plain sight for all to see. And it is not just in banking. Political ideology and corporate conceit has enabled the powerful to tilt the ‘market’ in their favour at the expense of the less privileged. The result is growing inequality and insecurity. The Liberal Party Continue reading »
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MICHAEL KEATING. Budget commentary, Part 2: Sustainable tax cuts for low-income households
Part 1 of this series of Budget comments criticised the credibility of the Government’s projected return to a budget surplus and argued that the proposed tax cuts were therefore not in fact sustainable. In this second part I will argue that nevertheless some tax relief targeted at low-income households should be supported, and other alternative Continue reading »