Politics
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GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND …
In an article in the Fairfax Press, Clancy Yeates points out that Australia’s big banks have “slashed loans to fossil fuel companies by almost a fifth in 2017, including a 50 per cent drop in their coal mining exposure”. On last weekend’s Saturday Extra, Geraldine Doogue interviewed Laura Dassow Wallis, author of Henry David Thoreau: Continue reading »
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JOHN MENADUE. We are joined at the hip to a country perpetually at war. Part 5
Next week I will be posting articles asserting that we are running great risks in being tied to what Malcolm Fraser called “our dangerous ally”, an ally almost always at war. The risks pre-date Donald Trump. Think Vietnam and Iraq. In recent issues of P & I I have posted many articles about the US Continue reading »
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GEORGE RENNIE. The Revolving Door at the Infrastructure Club
The revolving door of politics represents a particularly difficult problem for modern democracies. And when senior public servants leave their positions to work as lobbyists for the infrastructure industry – an industry that takes a lion’s share of government spending, and is afforded substantive protection from scrutiny by “commercial confidentiality” – that problem grows substantially. Continue reading »
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JOHN MENADUE. We are joined at the hip to a country perpetually at war. Part 3
Next week I will be posting articles asserting that we are running great risks in being tied to what Malcolm Fraser called “our dangerous ally”, an ally almost always at war. The risks, disasters and dangers pre-date Donald Trump. Think Vietnam and Iraq. In recent issues of P & I, I have posted many articles Continue reading »
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MUNGO MacCALLUM. Trans-Pacific Partnership.
The TPP was never all about the economic gains, even for the most dedicated rent seekers. The strategic planners – especially in Australia, Japan and South Korea – saw the original TPP as a means of locking America involved in Asia as a permanent bulwark against the dominance of China, whose government was pointedly excluded. Continue reading »
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MUNGO MacCALLUM. Do we really need an honours system?
The hard fact is that the lists which bulk up the morning papers each year are far from representative of our diverse population, and suggest that there is at least a vestige of the despised British class system still lingering at the edges of the cultural cringe. Continue reading »
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BOB DEBUS. Restoring integrity in nature conservation Part 1 of 2
The Australian Government’s short and pointless document, published just before Xmas and entitled Strategy For Nature 2018-2030, has been accurately described as a ‘global embarrassment’. It is useful only insofar as it reminds us that Australian government policies for nature conservation have, in the last five years, easily matched the destructive irrationality of polices directed Continue reading »
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ANDREW FARRAN. A hard or soft Brexit. More likely Black and White
Letter from London Britain finds itself trapped like a fish with no way out other than capitulation to the best terms it can get – in relation to which the remaining 27 EU members have the upper hand. Continue reading »
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LEANNE SMITH. When did Australians stop caring about our national identity?
In 1998 I was a freshly minted law grad who felt great purpose in joining the Harbour Bridge march for the first ‘Sorry Day’. I had just begun my first real job with the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, and my country was grappling with the Stolen Generation Report. It seemed the time Continue reading »
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GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND …
On Saturday Extra this 27th January Geraldine Doogue is discussing the cost of government consultants with Julian Hill, ALP member for Bruce and businessman Tony Shepherd; Changes to gambling laws with Charles Livingstone from Monash University and Sam Duncan from the Holmesglen Institute in Victoria; Supreme Court judge and author Michael Pembroke on his book Continue reading »
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FRANCESCA BEDDIE. What do we mean by Australia Day?
All the talk about Australia Day – what it symbolises, for whom and when we should celebrate – prompted me to delve into the history of the date, which has long been contentious. Before we lock in the date, we need to decide what we want our national day to commemorate. Continue reading »
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STEPHEN LEEDER. Forget the Dog: make 2018 the Year of the Sceptic.
Much medical research is incomplete or wrong. The participation of drug companies in sponsored research and continuing education for doctors whereby the results of research are communicated to them demands healthy scepticism. Continue reading »
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GRAHAM FREUDENBERG. Ode to Australia Day.
Ode to Australia Day (In tribute to the late John Hirst and his masterpieces Freedom on the Fatal Shore) The heroes of famed Waterloo Or great Nelson’s mighty crew, If chance had gone a different way, Might well have peopled Botany Bay. The Duke himself, he called them “scum” Kept under by the lash and Continue reading »
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MICHAEL KEATING. The Trump Tax Cuts and Economic Growth
The forecast positive impact of the Trump tax package mainly results from a temporary incentive to bring forward business investment. This is irrelevant to the cuts in company tax rates proposed by the Turnbull Government, and cannot be used as vindication for their policies. Furthermore, the Trump tax package fails to address the fundamental flaws Continue reading »
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ALLAN PATIENCE. Australia Day and all that.
The moral basis of contemporary Australian society is being squeezed dry by political opportunism and contempt for civic virtue among our political leaders. The ignorance those leaders demonstrate about the insult Australia Day has become for many Indigenous people is evidence that Australia has become a morally backward society. Continue reading »
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MUNGO MacCALLUM. Captain Goodvibes Turnbull and political correctness.
So even if we ignore the bunyip in the room – the invasion, the stealing of the land and the children, the destruction of the culture, the systematic trampling of the many nations which once made up the continent – there are copious reasons to question whether our national festival of nationalism and booze is, Continue reading »
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JERRY ROBERTS. Change the date of the day by all means and change Australia
Let’s change the date of Australia Day, not just for Aboriginal public relations, but to prove that we can do something – anything – to cast off the chains of our pusillanimous politicians and their little mates, the boofhead media commentators. Continue reading »
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ARTHUR STOCKWIN. Explaining one-party dominance in Japanese politics.
In 1990 US scholar TJ Pempel edited a book titled Uncommon Democracies, which wrote about parliamentary democracies where a single party had been unusually dominant. These included Sweden, Italy, Israel, West Germany and Japan. Australia was also a candidate for entry to this group. Of the original members, Japan alone is left. Continue reading »
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GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND …
Canberra Times journalist Crispin Hull writes about the harm of growing inequality, particularly where it results from government policies to opt out of shared health and education services, through financial support for private schools and private health insurance, rendering public services as residual services for the poor and indigent. Esther Rajadurai of the McKell Institute Continue reading »
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GRAHAM FREUDENBERG. His speech at the Graham Freudenberg Tribute Dinner- A REPOST from June 19 2017
On 2 June, the NSW Branch of the Labor Party hosted a dinner for Graham Freudenberg, former speechwriter for federal and state Labor leaders, including Arthur Calwell, Gough Whitlam, Bob Hawke, Neville Wran, Barrie Unsworth, Bob Carr and Simon Crean. This is a transcript of his speech at that dinner – personal reflections and recollections Continue reading »
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JOHN MENADUE. A Commonwealth Hospital Benefit to replace the $11b private health insurance subsidy.- A REPOST from October 18 2117
The wasteful and unfair $ 11b per annum cost to taxpayers of the subsidy to Private Health Insurance should be abolished and the savings used in two possible ways – part funding a Medicare dental scheme and/or part funding private hospital care through a Hospital Benefit Scheme. In that Hospital Benefit Scheme, individuals could choose Continue reading »
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TIM HOLLO. Democracy is in crisis. Long live democracy!
The consensus around liberal democracy is collapsing, in Australia and around the world, as citizens are being systematically disenfranchised and disconnected from our democratic role. Unless we radically reinvent and re-embrace much deeper forms of democracy, we stand to lose it altogether. Continue reading »
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BOB DOUGLAS. Towards social and political transformation.
British writer and columnist, George Monbiot, has recently published an important book about national and global politics and the need for radical, cultural and political transformation. Entitled “Out of the wreckage: a new politics for an age of crisis”, the book boldly tackles economics, environmental threats, widespread voter alienation and the political corruption that pervades Continue reading »
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TED TRAINER. The Catalan integral cooperative … the Simpler Way revolution is well under way!
Many would agree it is now abundantly clear that a just and sustainable world cannot be achieved unless consumer-capitalist society is basically scrapped. It involves levels of resource use and environmental impact that are already grossly unsustainable, yet growth is its supreme goal. The basic form the alternative must take is mostly small, highly self-sufficient Continue reading »
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John Menadue. The Coalition, Barnaby Joyce rural poverty and rural health. (Repost from 16 January 2016)
It is not surprising that independents are making headway in country electorates. But what is the ALP doing? Continue reading »
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MICHAEL WEST. Treasury hides corporate welfare data.
There it was right on cue, at the cusp of the New Year weekend, a government press release about the cost of welfare bludgers trumpeted loudly across the press and the TV news bulletins. Continue reading »
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MICHAEL KEATING. Trickle-Down Economics and a Company Tax Cut
Despite the evidence of the last few decades that ‘trickle-down’ economics doesn’t work, big business and its apologists in the media are calling for a company tax cut to stimulate investment. The reality, however, is that increased investment is principally in response to increasing aggregate demand. The required increase in aggregate demand in turn requires Continue reading »
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GEOFF RABY. Where have all the grown-ups gone on China policy?- A REPOST from June 23 2017
Malcolm Turnbull’s glib talk of ‘‘frenemies’’ does nothing to help the urgent debate over how we handle the rising power of China. Continue reading »
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PETER BRENT. Peter Dutton for Prime Minister!
Peter Dutton is a household name. Most Australians would see the inaugural home affairs minister as tough and politically incorrect — proudly so — tolerating no nonsense from do-gooders and bleeding hearts. He doesn’t take a backward step; his often bellicose pronouncements about asylum seekers and migrants delight fans and incense opponents. Dutton has run Continue reading »
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JERRY ROBERTS. The Real World
A streak of idealism runs across the pages of Pearls and Irritations. That is good. Political comment without idealism is mere gossip but what are the chances of fulfilling ideals in the real world? Continue reading »
