Politics
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MUNGO MacCALLUM. Royal Commissions for Labor prime ministers and trade union officials, but not bankers.
So the great inquisition is over, and the tycoons have laughed all the way back to their respective banks. As the gleeful business spruikers pointed out, the politicians did not lay a glove on them – they were lashed with a feather, flogged with a limp lettuce leaf. But did anyone seriously expect that Continue reading »
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Gough Whitlam and Blue Poles.
Blue Poles is in the news again. It was purchased for $1.3 million and is now valued at $350 million. The disparaging nature of the campaign against the purchase is reflected in Molnar’s cartoon (below) of 5 April 1974. Mungo would be chuffed! Continue reading »
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MUNGO MacCALLUM. Honorary doctorate for John Howard.
Let me join in the chorus deploring the honorary doctorate conferred on John Howard by Sydney University. And it’s not because I’m a Howard hater per se – although there was plenty to detest about the policies of our 25th Prime Minister. Iraq, Tampa, kids overboard, the Pacific Solution, the refusal to apologise to Continue reading »
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LAURIE PATTON. Essentially, our NBN is just not good enough (but please don’t say so!)
… And don’t tell Malcolm Turnbull, who was Minister in charge of the NBN. This week’s Essential poll found that dissatisfaction with the National Broadband Network is both widespread and pretty even across the political spectrum. Only 22 percent of respondents believe the NBN will adequately meet our future Internet requirements [http://www.essentialvision.com.au/future-internet-requirements]. For those of Continue reading »
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JOHN MENADUE. Dental Care – Medicare – Private Health Insurance.
Funding a Medicare dental scheme instead of the subsidy to PHI. The PHI subsidy of over $10 billion p.a. would be much better spent on a Medicare dental scheme. In the following article Jennifer Doggett in Croakey, reports that about one third of Australians put off going to a dentist because of costs. Continue reading »
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ROSS GARNAUT. The economics of the future energy system.
How can we provide a high degree of energy security in Australia at the lowest possible cost, while contributing our fair share to the global effort to contain the costs of climate change? I take as my starting point Prime Minister Turnbull’s admonition that we put ideology aside as we seek answers to this Continue reading »
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ROBERT MANNE. Rescuing 1700 marooned people.
At present the chief priority of those concerned about the refugee situation in which Australia is directly implicated is to save the lives of the 1500 or so on Manus Island and Nauru and the 250 or so at present in Australia on medical grounds. When this is achieved the next priority will be Continue reading »
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HUGH MACKAY. A policy that diminishes us all
Occasionally in a nation’s history, horror over past events triggers a kind of national shame. Germany went through it – is still going through it – in the wake of the Third Reich. South Africa has not yet healed the wounds of apartheid. The US continues to struggle with the evil legacy of white Continue reading »
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GILES PARKINSON. Coalition’s stunning hypocrisy – and ignorance – on renewable energy.
The Coalition appears to have abandoned all pretence that it supports renewable energy, now contradicting assurances by the grid owner and market operator – and now the biggest generator in the country – that the source of energy was not at fault for the massive blackout in South Australia last week. After Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull Continue reading »
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The French submarine boondoggle
Is DCNS’s imaginary Shortfin Barracuda submarine Australia’s biggest defence blunder? The Turnbull government’s decision on the future submarine (FSM) represents bad policy. It is bad for the Navy, bad for the taxpayer and bad for the future defence of Australia. Given the key role the FSM is meant to play in the future of the Continue reading »
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GRAEME ORR. Party Over? Reforming Australian Political Finance
After decades of halting debate, the momentum for political finance reform has never been greater. At a national level, this comes off a low base. Australia has the laxest political finance system of all our common law cousins: Canada, UK, US, New Zealand. But don’t hold your breath. Any systemic reform faces two hurdles: Continue reading »
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MUNGO MacCALLUM. Malcolm Turnbull’s low road.
So much for Malcolm Turnbull’s great fortnight in parliament, followed by his triumphant march through the marbled halls of New York and Washington. His claque of supporters raved, of course, but the paying customers – the voters – remained resolutely unimpressed. Newspoll, the bible on which our Prime Minister relied on when he made Continue reading »
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CHRIS BONNOR. School funding ‘overs’ and ‘unders’
Last week was one to remember: one school funding revelation after another. It began the previous Friday at the Education Minister’s COAG gathering in Adelaide. One big problem, as Bernie Shepherd and I pointed out, was that the gathering wouldn’t begin to tackle the hard issues. They walked out at the end of the Continue reading »
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MUNGO MacCALLUM. Cheering for East Timor.
It may sound unpatriotic, but I could not help cheering when the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague brought down its decision last week, and it was against Australia. After more than 12 festering years, this finally brings to a head a shameful and shameless exhibition of browbeating and exploiting our newest and Continue reading »
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TONY KEVIN. Shipwreck tragedy raises broad issues of duty of care in border protection
Last week saw three days of hearings (reported in The Guardian by Ben Doherty),adjourned on Wednesday 28 September until Tuesday 4 October as plaintiffs await key documents from the 2012 WA Coroners’ Court inquest into the disaster which drowned 50 people on 21 December 2010, when a SIEV boat crashed in heavy seas into Continue reading »
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JOHN MENADUE. Cruelty and evil have become banal
Malcolm Turnbull told the UN that our treatment of refugees is world’s best practice. Only a guilty conscience could allow such self deception. In her book ‘Eichmann in Jerusalem’, published in 1963, Hannah Arendt refers to the ‘banality of evil’. Her thesis was that Eichmann was not a fanatic or sociopath, but an extremely Continue reading »
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GILES PARKINSON. Dumb politics means we may be stuck with an even dumber grid
It was just six years ago when Malcolm Turnbull, then deposed Liberal Party leader, attended the launch of the Beyond Zero Emissions Zero Carbon plan for 2020, which suggested Australia should and could attain 100 per cent renewable energy by 2020. Turnbull, by all accounts, was an enthusiastic participant, and was particularly excited by solar towers Continue reading »
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GILES PARKINSON. Uhlmann’s bizarre prediction of “national blackout” if we pursue wind and solar
The ABC is supposed to have a ban on advertising. But even if it was allowed, money couldn’t buy the sort of advocacy the fossil fuel industry and incumbent energy interests are receiving this week from the network’s chief political correspondent, Chris Uhlmann. On Thursday, we took Uhlmann to task for the way he reported the Continue reading »
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Is there finally light at the end of the fibre-optic cable?
Over the past two weeks we’ve seen what many of us have been longing for – signs the Government has realised its national broadband network strategy is not working out as planned. Continue reading »
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JOHN AUSTEN. Urban rail projects: property developers should be servants not masters
There is plenty of advice on how to plug the supposed infrastructure gap in Australia’s big cities. One popular idea is for passenger rail projects to be led and funded by property development. [1] The idea has intuitive appeal. The origins of some railways many years ago was land development. Land use has been put Continue reading »
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JOHN MENADUE. Malcolm Turnbull – the last straw on climate change and renewables.
Let’s be clear. All the experts tell us that the power blackout in SA had nothing to do with the energy mix – coal, gas, solar or wind. They all tell us that the blackout was due to the collapse of the key distribution towers and lines. Yesterday, Malcolm Turnbull blamed the blackout on Continue reading »
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China’s deepening engagement in Australian society: is it a concern?
The PRC government’s influence in domestic Australia – long active but not altogether visible or much remarked – is now emerging as a big, contentious and potentially disruptive issue in the relationship, and a thorny one for policy-makers. In some respects, it may be more challenging and more pressing than other more prominent issues like Continue reading »
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GILES PARKINSON. Coalition launches fierce attack against wind and solar after blackout.
The Coalition government launched a ferocious attack against wind and solar energy after the major South Australian blackout, even though energy minister Josh Frydenberg and the grid operators admit that the source of energy had nothing to do with catastrophic outage. Frydenberg, however, lined up with prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce, Continue reading »
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BOB KINNAIRD. The Coalition’s Backpacker tax and work rights package
The Coalition’s backpacker policy announcement yesterday focussed on tax rates but also includes a significant expansion of work rights under Australia’s working holiday maker program (WHM or 417 and 462 visas). …. The Coalition’s main aim is to provide an increased supply of cheap and captive foreign labour to the agricultural sector on a Continue reading »
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FRANK BRENNAN SJ. Another win for ‘David’ Timor against ‘Goliath’ Australia
David Timor has once again scored a win against Goliath Australia in the international legal forum. Last time it was in the International Court of Justice which took strong exception to Australia’s raiding of the office of a lawyer involved in the preparation of Timor Leste’s case, though admittedly Australia’s one ad hoc judge did Continue reading »
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JAMES GERRAND. Cambodia Crackdown. Part 2 of 2.
Part 2 Hun Sen’s Red Brotherhood Hanoi cannot be seen to be interfering in Cambodian affairs but the Vietnamese military has cemented close ties with the Hun Sen regime – none closer than with the Prime Minister’s personal Bodyguard Unit (BHQ), their go-to-man being the Deputy Commander Dieng Sarun. General Sarun’s shadowy Senaneak Youth League Continue reading »
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ANDREW FARRAN. ‘We must get out of Syria’
A comment in support of Richard Woolcott’s blog: “Australia’s Shambolic Policy on Syria – Up Shi’ite Creek Without a Paddle. – We must get out of Syria” Richard Woolcott has stated with clear reasons why we should get out of the Middle East conflict which threatens to broaden and involve us in an expanded Continue reading »
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JOHN MENADUE. ‘Faster economic growth demands better chief executives’.
There was a revealing heading in a recent article by Ross Gittins, the economics editor of the SMH, ‘Faster growth demands better chief executives’. He concluded his article by pointing to the need for business leadership to seize the economic opportunities .‘ Our overpaid and underperforming chief executive officers are getting (it) wrong’. He Continue reading »
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JAMES GERRAND. Cambodia Crackdown – part 1 of 2
Part 1 ‘Kill a Chicken to Scare the Monkeys’ Around my regular haunts in Phnom Penh are daily reminders of Cambodia’s enduring capacity for political violence: in Kabko market my favourite street restaurant was the scene where political adviser Om Radsady was shot dead in 2003; in a similarly blatant daylight execution, trade union Continue reading »
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LINDA JAKOBSON. Beware the China alarmists out there
The quandary over what to do about People’s Republic of China government influence in Australia has burst on to the political scene. For the past months there has been ongoing media commentary about the consequences of political donations by businessmen with Chinese connections; and a piece in The Australian Financial Review claimed that hundreds, if not Continue reading »
