Media
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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 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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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 »
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ALISON BROINOWSKI. Your laptop is watching you: ‘Snowden’ the movie.
Before Snowden comes on, there’s a short film of Oliver Stone, the director, warning cinema audiences that they can be surveilled, so please turn off their devices. Even as a humourless joke for geeks, it sets the sombre tone of the movie to follow. This is a feature version of Linda Poitras’ Citizenfour (2014), that Continue reading »
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MUNGO MacCALLUM. ALP Ambush.
When Sam Dastyari was promoted to the shadow ministry earlier this year, Bill Shorten was unable, because of the opposition’s salary cap rules, to give him a pay rise. But now Dastyari can surely apply for a lavish bonus from Malcolm Turnbull, because his stuff up in accepting money from a Chinese firm was Continue reading »
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WALTER HAMILTON. What’s in it for Putin?
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is pursuing a ‘fresh approach’ with Russia’s Vladimir Putin for resolving the territorial dispute that has prevented the two countries signing a peace treaty since World War Two. It is easy to see what Abe might hope to gain from a settlement, but no breakthrough can be expected unless Continue reading »
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PAUL BUDDE. The financial future of NBN?
By late 2016 – seven years after the launch of the NBN – over two million premises were able to connect to the NBN. So far three-quarters have access to FttH (fibre to the home), the remainder to wireless and satellite networks. The revised rollout of the so-called MTM (multi-technology mix) based on FttN and Continue reading »
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JULIANNE SCHULTZ. You’ll miss it when it’s gone: why public broadcasting is worth saving.
In an age of global media abundance, the notion that public broadcasting is a mechanism to address “market failure” is beguiling. It is also fundamentally wrong. Public broadcasters have a unique national responsibility to provide a public good to citizens, rather than the more narrowly defined and easily measured mission of commercial broadcasters, to engage Continue reading »
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BRIAN TOOHEY. The quality of intelligence advice.
A former top US intelligence official David Gompert has issued a sober warning to those who want to lock Australia into any future war with China. Speaking on Monday, Gompert said a war between the US and China could be so ruinous for both countries and the world that it might seem unthinkable, yet Continue reading »
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JOHN TULLOH. Malaysia – the wolf of Kuala Lumpur.
There was much mirth in Malaysia the other day when the US Justice Department filed civil lawsuits alleging a $3.5bn embezzlement of a Kuala Lumpur fund and diplomatically referred to one of the alleged villains as ‘Malaysia Official 1’. Everyone knew who that was – their prime minister, Najib Razak. It concerns the long-running Continue reading »
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JEFF WATERS. ABC journalists and business.
Yeah, sure, let’s ’embed’ ABC journalists in businesses, but don’t forget the unions, or Nauru. The recent review of ABC business coverage may have come down in favour of the National Broadcaster, but, as has been suggested in the media, any move to “job swap” or “embed” ABC journalists within private corporations is nonsensical. Continue reading »
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WALTER HAMILTON. Corruption by Prediction
It is a modern-day impatience: we want to eat dessert first. In election campaigns, therefore, we seek to ‘taste’ the result through opinion polls, vox pops, electoral maps (with winners already allocated), predictive analogies or psephological cephalopods. So it was during the recent Australian elections; so it is again as Americans wait (redundantly?) for Continue reading »
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JOHN MENADUE. Road funding – what is going on.
Road funding is becoming a mess with quite serious misunderstandings of what is being spent and how much is being wasted. The benefits are of increasing doubt. In this blog I carried a post by John Austen ‘Road spending incurs billion dollar new debts annually‘. He pointed out that in 2013-14, we spent $5 billion Continue reading »
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SPENCER ZIFCAK. Chilcot: The War and the Law
As is now well known, the Chilcot Report on the British Government’s planning, execution and aftermath of the Iraq war provided a scathing critique of almost every aspect of the Prime Minister’s and government’s conduct. There is one facet of this deplorable episode that has not yet received any adequate consideration in the Australian Continue reading »
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WALTER HAMILTON. Japan’s drift towards constitutional change.
Last weekend’s Upper House election result has armed the ruling Liberal Democratic Party with the parliamentary numbers needed to bring about controversial changes to the Japanese constitution. It does not mean the dropping of the constitution’s war-renouncing Article 9 is imminent or inevitable, but in parliamentary terms for the first time it has become Continue reading »
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John Tulloh. The Defence Department prepares for war.
The release of the Chilcot report revives a memory from late 2002 or early 2003. Washington, London and Canberra were abuzz with talk of military action against the Iraqi regime of President Saddam Hussein. President George W. Bush accused him of having weapons of mass destruction and aiding al-Qaeda, the 9/11 terrorists. The war Continue reading »
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ROBERT MANNE. Murdoch’s war.
In July 2005, Robert Manne in The Monthly Essays, outlined Rupert Murdoch’s role and that of some of his senior journalists in support of the invasion of Iraq. Robert Manne notes that ‘of the 175 Murdoch owned newspapers worldwide, all supported the invasion’. The opponents of the war were described in Murdoch’s newspapers as ‘the Continue reading »
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JOHN MENADUE. How about a spill of the Canberra Press Gallery?
After the election the media is telling us how ‘Malcolm Turnbull’s authority has been shattered’; ‘Turnbull faces big Senate hurdle’; ‘numbers don’t stack up in the Senate for a joint sitting on union crackdown’; ‘Turnbull faces angry back bench’; ‘double dissolution throws up wild mix in Senate’; ‘Turnbull is now a lame duck of Continue reading »
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JOHN MENADUE. Conservatives have set the gold standard in scare campaigns.
After following politics and elections for over 60 years, it is quite extraordinary to see the Liberal party complaining about the Medicare scare campaign. In a downcast and confusing speech on election night Malcolm Turnbull spoke of the ‘well funded lie campaign on Medicare.’ In fact, I think the ALP is right on the threat Continue reading »
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JENNY HOCKING. Parakeelia and Political Trust
If trust is at the centre of this election campaign, then journalists are looking for it in the strangest places. The 7.30’s Leigh Sales finds it in the ‘knifing’ by both leaders, Bill Shorten and Malcolm Turnbull, of a former Prime Minister or, put more prosaically, that both supported a change of leadership and Continue reading »
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KAITLIN WALSH. Don’t trust anyone over 30. The division that transcends race, gender and religion – and why a #SSM plebiscite could become our #Brexit
The increasing vitriol between the Boomers and (mostly) Gen Y has singed more than a few nose hairs in recent years. You’d be well advised to approach any discussion between active combatants with full hazmat gear. And now the #Brexit has brought matters to a head. Continue reading »
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MARTIN WOLF. Brexit is probably the most disastrous single event in British history since WWII.
In the Financial Times, Martin Wolf says that the fearmongering and outright lies of Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Nigel Farage, The Sun and the Daily Mail have won. Continue reading »
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SIMON SCHAMA. Brexit vote a choice between the past and the future.
In this article from the Financial Times, Simon Schama (BBC’s ‘A History of Britain’) provides an historical and relevant background as to why the UK should remain as part of Europe. He highlights the narrow mindedness and divisiveness of those who favour leaving the EU. His comments also have relevance for Australia in the divisive Continue reading »
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QUENTIN DEMPSTER. Michelle Guthrie’s strategic plan for the ABC.
New ABC managing director Michelle Guthrie now faces a choice. She can simply manage the ABC’s government-decreed decline or reorganise its resources to make distinctive, original and quality content the institution’s strategic priority. The choice she (and the ABC board which appointed her) make will become apparent when the ABC publishes its updated corporate plan. Continue reading »
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JOHN MENADUE. Julie Bishop – Foreign Minister or Senior Consular Officer
Foreign ministers can hide their failures more easily than other ministers because ‘foreign affairs’ has no serious domestic constituency. Appearances on the public and world stage can also hide a lack of substance – for a while. But the failures of Julie Bishop are now clear. Most of her media appearances are now about ‘consular’ Continue reading »
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ROD TUCKER. How do Labor and the Coalition differ on NBN policy?
As hinted in earlier announcements by Shadow Communications Minister, Jason Clare, Labor’s much-anticipated policy for the National Broadband Network released Monday commits the party – if elected – to move away from the Coalition’s fibre to the node (FTTN) network and transition back to a roll-out of fibre to the premises (FTTP). This was the Continue reading »
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EVAN WILLIAMS. Who do the Liberals hate most in this election?
In our brave new world of digital gadgetry, awash with empty slogans and blighted by ever-shrinking attention spans, is there any prospect of rational political debate in this election? A pervading mood of paranoia seems to be the new norm. Who do the Liberals hate most in this campaign? Bill Shorten? The unions? The Greens? Continue reading »
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KAITLIN WALSH. The conundrum of engagement and ending the blame game. Any takers?
Political “outsider” Kaitlin Walsh, self-proclaimed “ordinary person”, rakes over the pallid entrails of our body politic. And considers what might shut Mathias Cormann up. Continue reading »
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TIM SOUTPHOMMASANE. Bamboo ceiling and race relations.
Many of us have good reason for thinking that the state of our race relations is under challenge. We frequently see stories about people being racially vilified on public transport, and our recent public debates are punctuated by controversies about race. We know racism is a reality in contemporary Australian society. About 20 per cent Continue reading »
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EVAN WILLIAMS. Chasing Asylum. Film Review.
I rate it among the best Australian documentaries ever made If you want to see Chasing Asylum, Eva Orner’s brilliant new Australian documentary, my advice is to hurry along. At last count it was showing on just two screens in Sydney, and when I went along to the Dendy in Newtown on a recent Sunday Continue reading »
