Public Policy
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Weatherill: Why state election will be a referendum on renewables
South Australia Premier Jay Weatherill might not be able to see much daylight between his Labor Party and the rival Liberals and SA Best, but he’s certainly making sure there is a big difference between his energy policy and those of the Opposition and the upstart party of Nick Xenophon. Continue reading »
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JOHN DWYER. The curse of political mediocrity; The informed, bold, courageous policies that Australia needs in health are nowhere to be seen. (Part 3 of 3)
This “fair go mate” country of ours is wealthy but in reality ever less egalitarian. Increasing Inequity is palpable and most notable in the problems we have with housing, education and health. Health outcomes for Individuals are increasingly dependent on personal financial wellbeing. Australians are spending about 30 billion dollars a year to supplement the Continue reading »
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Emma Alberici’s now more critical tax cuts ‘analysis’ reposted by ABC
After a bitter dispute between ABC management and their star chief economics correspondent, Emma Alberici, the ABC today reposted her ‘analysis’ of the Turnbull government’s plan for big corporate tax cuts. Continue reading »
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SA Labor shoots for 75% renewables, 25% storage target
South Australia’s Labor government has doubled down on its commitment to renewable energy, promising to increase the share of renewables to 75 per cent by 2025 if re-elected at next month’s state poll, and announcing plans to install 750MW of “renewable storage” to go with it. Continue reading »
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RANALD MACDONALD. Stop the presses.
Well, they have almost stopped running around this country with so few papers being sold nowadays, but let us stop them anyway. Continue reading »
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COLIN STEELE. Who Owns Australian Research?
Who owns the results of Australian research? Certainly, not Australian researchers, as they, and their institutions, continue to give away publicly funded research to multinational publishers. As a result, Australian research is largely locked up behind expensive multinational publishing firewalls, constituting a form of information feudalism. Continue reading »
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BERNARD KEANE. Amid denialism on company tax cuts, the ABC lets us down.
The ABC’s censorship of Emma Alberici in response to pressure from Malcolm Turnbull comes at a time when the national broadcaster’s mainstream media competitors are also increasingly failing to properly inform Australians. Continue reading »
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Indigenous education: closing – and opening – the gaps
The reports and narratives around the strategy to close the gap between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians are quite well-known, if only because they don’t change much from year to year. With the possible exception of education, not many targets are being reached. The gains in education in numeracy, reading and school retention will be welcomed by Continue reading »
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JOHN WATKINS. An ode to nurses: hospital stay highlights immense compassion and skill
In hospital this week after surgery, I learnt some things I already half knew. That I don’t cope well with pain, that time slows down in the middle of the night, (I swear I saw the hands of the clock in ICU move backwards sometime after 3am) and that nurses are a most precious resource, Continue reading »
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MARC HUDSON. It’s 20 years since privatisation lit the spark under South Australia’s livewire energy politics
February 17, 2018, marks the 20th anniversary of a momentous day in South Australian energy politics. The then premier, John Olsen, announced that, despite repeated promises during the previous year’s state election campaign, his Liberal government would be putting the Electricity Trust of South Australia (ETSA) up for sale. Continue reading »
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MICHAEL MULLINS. Joyce’s schooling is the real scandal
It is unhelpful to judge Barnaby in the way the prime minister Malcolm Turnbull did on Thursday. It’s better to focus on a critique of the culture. His leadership of the Nationals may be no longer tenable, but the best thing our political class can do for the long term is to make laws that Continue reading »
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Has the ABC buckled to PM Malcolm Turnbull by removing critical ‘analysis’ of the claimed benefits of corporate tax cuts?
The ABC’s chief economics correspondent Emma Alberici stands by her ‘analysis’. Significantly the ABC, through Ms Alberici’s editorial superiors Gaven Morris, the director of ABC News, and Alan Sunderland, director of editorial policies, do not.In a promoted article posted on February 14 after the broadcast of an ABC News item reporting that many Australian companies did Continue reading »
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KEN HILLMAN. Patient safety, a new perspective.
Patient safety in acute hospitals is often described in limited terms such as infection rates and pressure areas without considering that many people gain little or no benefit from being admitted there in the first place. We also ignore the impact on patient safety when management make decisions such as closing hospital wards, prolonging waiting Continue reading »
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Closing the health gap – ten years on
Warning signs were emerging many decades before, but by the early part of this century it was obvious that the health of indigenous Australians was much worse than that of other citizens. Indicators such as high infant mortality, widespread malnutrition and infections in children, much shortened life expectancy, high rates of chronic diseases and disabilities, Continue reading »
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Battery storage leaves fossil fuels and regulators in state of intertia
The brain cells are working overtime at the headquarters of network owners, grid operators, generators, and regulators. Australia’s electricity grid is about to make the leap from analogue to digital, and everyone is scrambling to keep up. Continue reading »
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EMMA ALBERICI. There’s no case for a corporate tax cut when one in five of Australia’s top companies don’t pay it.
There is no compelling evidence that giving the country’s biggest companies a tax cut sees that money passed on to workers in the form of higher wages. Continue reading »
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Private health insurance is a con job
You won’t believe it, but my birthday was on Tuesday and I got a present from the federal government. I also got a card from my state member, sending his “very best wishes” for reaching such an “important milestone” in my life. Continue reading »
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The media, the Iraq war and Fallujah
The Australian media continues to fail us badly over its coverage of the Middle East wars, terrorism and the continuing disaster of ISIS. That failure began with the invasion of Iraq . Unlike important overseas media, no Australian media has admitted or apologized for its failure in the coverage of the Iraq war and its Continue reading »
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The apology ten years on
Today we mark the tenth anniversary of the National Apology. All of us remember where we were that day when Prime Minister Kevin Rudd read the words of the parliamentary motion moved by him and seconded by Brendan Nelson, the Leader of the Opposition: ‘The time has now come for the nation to turn a Continue reading »
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Closing the gap between the science and politics of progress (Part 1 of 2)
Global politics is based on an outmoded and increasingly destructive model of human progress and development. In the first of two parts, RICHARD ECKERSLEY examines what is wrong with the model with respect to sustainability and quality of life. Continue reading »
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RICHARD KINGSFORD. The Darling River – up the creek without a political paddle.
Once again, the Senate is poised this week to decide the future policy course of the rivers of the Murray-Darling Basin. The critical decision for senators is whether or not to accede to the recommendation by the Murray-Darling Basin Authority that environmental flows in the Darling Rivers’ catchments be cut by seventy billion litres a Continue reading »
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PETER BUCKSKIN. Closing the gap on Indigenous education must start with commitment and respect.
There were angry rumblings at last week’s meeting of Indigenous leaders and the Prime Minister and in the Close the Gap Campaign Steering Committee Report. They will get significantly louder with today’s release of the 10th Annual Closing the Gap Report. Continue reading »
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The curse of political mediocrity; the informed, bold, courageous policies that Australia needs in health are nowhere to be seen (Part 1 of 3).
This “fair go mate” country of ours is wealthy but in reality ever less egalitarian. Increasing Inequity is palpable and most notable in the problems we have with housing, education and health. Health outcomes for Individuals are increasingly dependent on personal financial wellbeing. Australians are spending about 30 billion dollars a year to supplement the Continue reading »
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JOSHUA GILBERT- Partnerships in Agriculture- the time for mutual collaboration and respect
Farmers have a natural affinity with their land. The farm is the home of their family’s dreams and aspirations; the page upon which they write their stories of passion and love; their life; their livelihood; their heart. Continue reading »
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RAY MOYNIHAN. Beware the hype on genomics and precision medicine.
Last week’s landmark report on personalised medicine plays down potential for harm and oversells uncertain benefits. Continue reading »
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Restoring integrity in nature conservation. Part 2 of 2
‘There is a limit to what laws can achieve, but they are an essential part of any robust system of environmental governance. Environmental laws should effectively enable the protection, conservation, management and, where needed, restoration of our national heritage. The effectiveness of our environmental laws must be founded on the values of integrity, transparency and Continue reading »
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PAUL RODAN. Colleges of Advanced Education.
Roger Scott’s trilogy on the state of higher education raised a number of important issues, several of which might have led me to the keyboard, but his observations about the former colleges of advanced education (CAEs) seem particularly worthy of further comment. Continue reading »
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PETER DRYSDALE AND JOHN DENTON. Australia must move beyond Cold War thinking
Searching for evidence of ‘Chinese influence’ in Australia? Look no further than the census. Around 1.2 million people declared themselves of Chinese heritage. About 600,000 were born in mainland China. And while recent coverage of alleged Chinese ‘influence’ in Australian politics might suggest otherwise, the Australian-Chinese community is not a dagger pointed at the heart Continue reading »
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DON AITKIN. Whose universities are they, anyway?
Roger Scott’s extended rebuttal of Ross Gittins’s excoriation of ‘money-grubbing’ universities, and the publication of three books about the recent past and possible future of higher education, suggest that all is not well in academe. While all has never, at least since the end of the second world war, been well in academe (the AVCC Continue reading »
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Australia’s curious neglect of citizens of Asian origin
Last year, I commented on the puzzling neglect of Asian-Australians in the country’s public life, in particular Parliament. Published in Pearls and Irritations on 3 October, the article seemed to resonate among many readers and generated more messages in response than usual with blog posts on this site. It also caught the attention of ABC Continue reading »