Politics
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Tony Kevin. Cuts to ABC Classic FM strike at Australia’s cultural heritage’
Limelight, ABC Classic FM’s online magazine, reported on 24 November ‘The number of concerts recorded will be slashed by a massive 50%, with just 300 performances due to be recorded over the next two years verses the 600 concerts recorded during the previous two years. Broadcasts of live performances currently account for 17 hours of Continue reading »
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Eric Walsh. A ‘ragged’ year not a ‘ragged’ week.
Nobody laughed – things must be different in the press gallery these days. Prime Minister Tony Abbott in one of his longest press conferences was trying desperately to erase the hangover from the setbacks which have dogged him and his government since his dismal performance at the G20 meeting which he had hoped – forlornly Continue reading »
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Ian McAuley. Pyne on education funding.
A good friend is someone who, when you’ve had too much to drink at a Christmas party, ignores your protests and takes your car keys to prevent you driving home sozzled. You’re surely grateful the next morning. When he gets back to the Adelaide’s leafy eastern suburbs and has regained his composure, Christopher Pyne might Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Why the ABC is unique and important.
The BBC is the most successful public broadcaster in the world. It is a good model, not to copy but to adapt to our own needs and circumstances. Lord Reith who was Director General of the BBC 1927-38 pithily described the BBC’s purpose in three words…educate, inform and entertain. He was famously determined that the Continue reading »
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John Menadue. The smoko continues.
In April 2012 Greg Dodds and I posted an article on this blog ‘The Australian Century and the Australian smoko’. We argued that while we responded well to the opportunities in Asia for over a decade in the 1980s, we went on ‘smoko’ from the mid-1990s. There was widespread complacency and fear of Asia was Continue reading »
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Kerry Brown. Australia’s vanishing China policy.
One of the side effects of the visit by Chinese president Xi Jinping to Australia, New Zealand and the region in mid November was to raise questions about whether each of these countries has what might be called a strategic vision of their relationship with a country that has quickly become their largest trading ally. Continue reading »
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John Menadue. The scholarship is the real issue.
Freya Newman has been placed on a two year good behaviour bond with no conviction recorded for accessing the computer system of the Whitehouse Institute of Design concerning a ‘scholarship’ awarded to Francis Abbott. Overwhelmingly the media coverage has been about Freya Newman and very little about the substantial issue, the ‘scholarship’. The substantial issues Continue reading »
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Rethinking the cost of Western intervention in Ukraine.
In the Washington Post on November 25, Katrina vanden Heuvel had a very interesting article on the mistakes that Europe, NATO, and the US have made in their approach to Russia over the Ukraine and Crimea. She quotes Henry Kissinger as saying ‘Nobody in the West has offered a concrete program to restore Crimea. Nobody Continue reading »
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Michael Keating. Capitalism and the Economy.
As both John Menadue and Ian McAuley have argued in recent posts there are good social reasons for governments to intervene to modify the outcomes from a purely capitalist economy. Right now rising inequality and taxation avoidance by companies and wealthy people are priority issues that should be addressed. It is also possible that the Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Our ‘best friend’ in Asia is in trouble.
Japan now faces its fourth recession since 2008. The Japanese economy has contracted in 13 of the last 27 quarters. In effect, there has been no growth for six years. The Japanese economy has been moribund for two decade. So far Abenomics is not delivering as Prime Minister Abe had hoped. His attempt at money-creation Continue reading »
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Lifters and leaners in tax.
In the SMH today (27 November 2014), Michael West has a very interesting story about the leaners and lifters in the business community and the unfairness of tax avoidance by some companies. It clearly works to the disadvantage of many Australian companies who are paying fair rates of taxation. For the link to this story, Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Move over Joe Hockey
The Julie Bishop media blitz continues. But will it flame out like the media blitz of her namesake, Bronwyn Bishop who was also touted by the media as a possible Liberal leader over a decade ago. Like Julie Bishop now and Bronwyn Bishop then, they had amazing free runs in the media. But in the Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Capitalism, inequality and taxation.
In his challenging series last week on ‘Is capitalism redeemable’ Ian McAuley drew attention to how growing inequality is the cause not only of serious social concerns, but it is also presenting us with some quite serious economic problems. There is not much doubt that in the US, the growing tax concessions for the wealthy Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Murdoch and Abbott vs ABC.
This is a repost of a blog which I initially posted on December 19 last year. Tony Abbott has a debt to repay to Rupert Murdoch for the extremely biased support he received in the last election. With the help of Senator Cory Bernadi, Tony Abbott is now following the Murdoch Media line in attacking Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Undiplomatic, politically partisan – and wrong!
Julie Bishop has decided to take on the President of the United States over his comments to an audience at the University of Queensland on the state of the Great Barrier Reef. It shows immaturity to jump in so quickly to defend what I think is the indefensible by attacking others without any real basis. Continue reading »
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Is capitalism redeemable? Part 9: Restoring a moral voice
It is easy to allocate blame for our apparent entrapment in bad public policy. Tony Abbott’s truculence, disregard for reason, inflexibility and broken promises all come to mind. As does the blatant partisan stance of the Murdoch media. Those who look for more general causes draw attention to dysfunctional party structures, an adversarial parliamentary system Continue reading »
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Ian McAuley. Is capitalism redeemable? Part 8: Inequality’s downward economic spiral
Let’s start with what looks like a self-evident proposition. “Countries with right-wing or neoliberal governments spend less on social security than countries with more left-inclined governments.” It’s a proposition university lecturers put to students of public economics, and the smarter students usually recognize that there’s a trick in it. Harvard economists Dani Rodrik and Alberto Continue reading »
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Ian McAuley. Is capitalism redeemable? Part 7: Inequality – a shameful waste
“Australia’s program to increase world growth seems to be to cut social security benefits from the poor.” When Geraldine Doogue asked Malcolm Fraser to comment on Abbott’s G20 agenda, that was his summary of the present Government’s economic policy Unfortunately, ministers such as Hockey and Cormann may not understand the sarcasm in his comment, because Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Julie Bishop – substance and style
According to opinion polls, Julie Bishop’s standing has climbed. In Harper’s Bazaar she has been described as the Woman of the Year. It is suggested that she could be a leadership contender… But how much substance and how much achievement has there really been. How has Australia’s foreign policy interests been advanced? Before looking at Continue reading »
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Michael Kelly and Michael Sainsbury on The Pope and the President.
When the Chinese government confirmed Xi Jingpin as the country’s president in March 2013, among the congratulatory letters received in Beijing was one from the newly elected Pope Francis. It was a nice touch from the leader of one “regime” to another, since the two have been at odds for decades over religious freedom. Over Continue reading »
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Renewable energy investment.
A key feature of the President Obama/President Xi communique is their commitment to substantially reduce carbon pollution. There was little mention of an emissions trading scheme or putting a price on carbon. The emphasis was on developing renewable energy as an alternative source of energy to fossil fuels. Emphasis was given to development of solar, Continue reading »
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Is capitalism redeemable? Part 6: Inequality – it ain’t fair
We get a laugh out of the Monty Python sketch of four Yorkshiremen competing with one another to tell stories of the hardship they endured when they were children, 30 years earlier – “you think you had it tough …”. Without going into Pythonesque exaggeration, four older Australians could easily recount similar stories. If they Continue reading »
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Today’s World – Democracy, capitalism and Islam.
Mauricio García Villegas, El Espectador, Colombia, http://www.elespectador.com/opinion/elmundo-actual-columna-526496 The anniversary of two events that have marked out the course of our world has just been commemorated. The first is the taking of the United States embassy in Teheran on 4 November 1979. Iran at the time was governed by the Shah, a monarch who wanted to Continue reading »
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Tony Abbott and the G20
In the media in the past few days we have been overwhelmed by stories and photo opportunities from the G20 in Brisbane. It will take some time to sort out fact from spin. I have set out below some comments and opinions from observers. It provides a useful but only partial account by observers of the Continue reading »
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Steve FitzGerald on Gough Whitlam, Chairman Mao and Premier Zhou
Of the many things I admired and loved about Gough, one of the most delicious, next to our shared liking for food, was that he was the best person I’ve ever been privileged to brief. It wasn’t just that he soaked it up like blotting paper and asked for more and never forgot. It was Continue reading »
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Bruce Duncan. Pope runs moral template over G20.
Pope France outlined a sharp moral template for world leaders at the G20 meeting in Brisbane. In a letter on 6 November to the current chair of the G20, Prime Minister Tony Abbott, the Pope warned that “many lives are at stake”, including from “severe malnutrition”, as he highlighted the values and policy priorities needed Continue reading »
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Ian McAuley. Is capitalism redeemable? Part 5: When finance goes its own way
One of the world’s most useful social institutions is money, but it’s hard to think of it in its social context. To understand the social value of money, think of a world without money, or a country where, through recklessness the currency has been debased, as happened in the hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic in Continue reading »
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John Tulloh. Innocents abroad at the ABC.
INNOCENTS ABROAD AT THE ABC LOOK INWARDS AS AUSTRALIA LOOKS OUTWARDS ‘Now we cross to an ABC correspondent in Beijing for the latest on the Japanese crisis…’ The Guardian the other day carried a report that the ABC planned to emasculate its foreign news presence as part of its budget cuts. While the ABC has Continue reading »
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The G20 economies.
The link to The Conversation below, provides a useful summary of the G20 and its member economies, e.g. The G20 economies represent 65% of the world’s population, 79% of world trade, 84% of the world economy and 77% of world carbon emissions. Australia rates number 3 in GDP per capita based on purchasing power parity. Continue reading »
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Ian McAuley. Is capitalism redeemable? Part 4: Moral conflicts
Luxembourg (more properly the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg) is one of Europe’s smallest sovereign nations, both in population (about the same as Tasmania’s) and area (about one thirtieth of Tasmania’s). Many Australians might have driven right through it, not realizing that in a half hour or so they had crossed a whole nation. If corporate Continue reading »
