Public Policy
-
Environment: IPCC lays out the gruesome climate facts
Three years to turn the carbon supertanker around. ‘Fortress conservation’ of forests is killing local communities. Cats and foxes destroy 3 billion Australian native fauna every year. Continue reading »
-
None of us is safe until all of us are safe: Australia and global vaccine equity
Ending COVID public health restrictions reflects community sentiment. People are tired of COVID and want to move on. But the only way to protect our own citizens is to protect other countries. Continue reading »
-
In Asian media: Sri Lanka crisis gets worse by the day
Sri Lanka crisis gets worse by the day Plus: Assault scandal unfolds in Thailand; moral leadership on Ukraine; Singapore to get new leader – sometime; the greying nation. Continue reading »
-
Immigration of Nurses and Doctors
Australia must fix the design of employer sponsored visas to make them easier, faster and cheaper to use while increasing penalties for employers who misuse these visas. Continue reading »
-
A Federal ICAC is needed to protect the environment and climate change laws
The survival of democracy depends on checks and balances, the possibility of corruption being exposed through an Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) which will provide a vital check on rorting of the environment. Continue reading »
-
Western media have failed dismally in reporting the Ukraine war
While Western news agencies and media have been falling over each other in the rush to cover the Ukrainian side of the story the Russian side of the story has been ignored. Continue reading »
-
The repeated lie that Morrison stopped the boats. An updated repost from March 11, 2021
Our corporate media will not acknowledge that Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison did not stop the boats. Despite clear evidence, the Canberra Press Gallery fell for the spin. With a tame media and cooperation by the military, the big lie was repeated time and time again and became accepted as fact. This was all before Donald Trump Continue reading »
-
Privatisation and the hollowing out of Medicare by the Morrison Government
The Coalition has for years been undermining Medicare. Bob Hawke was correct at the last election when he said that the Coalition was aiming to privatise Medicare. It was not a scare tactic as some unthinking journalists keep saying. The Coalition has been privatising by stealth for years our universal health care system. Continue reading »
-
Morrison government to over-fund NSW private schools by nearly $1 billion
NSW private schools are massively over-funded by the Commonwealth Government. Estimates based on official figures presented to Senate Estimate show that the NSW Catholic education system and nearly 40% of Independent schools will be over-funded by $865 million by the Commonwealth Government from 2022 to 2028. Continue reading »
-
Kenny Stancil: Copycat Cruelty – The Australian solution – Britain to send refugees to Rwanda
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s move to deport asylum-seekers to another country thousands of miles away will “only lead to more human suffering, chaos, and at huge expense to the U.K.,” said one refugee advocate Continue reading »
-
We can be friends of the US without being vassals
A manifesto for a new incoming foreign minister. Continue reading »
-
Citizen Murdoch and Albanese
First came the puff piece in ‘The Australian Women’s Weekly’ and then the softball profile on ‘Sixty Minutes.’ One could sense Citizen Murdoch and his editors would be observing that Albanese was beginning to look a winner, and Morrison more clueless by the day. Continue reading »
-
Brett Wilkins: The US arms industry, Ukraine and the media
“The people who have the most interest in influencing the direction of the media coverage of the Ukraine War are weapons-makers.” Continue reading »
-
Environment: Colonialism, chocolate, Krugman and climate change
The IPCC has accepted that colonialism causes climate change. Options for reducing beef-related emissions. Vastly different population trajectories around the world. Continue reading »
-
Election 2022: The journalists’ delight and the avoidance of policy
Now that the election has been called journalists-and not just those locked in the Canberra bubble–will be salivating with anticipation over what will happen over the next six weeks: all the gotcha moments, all the dirt, the denials, the photographic moments. Everything but the detailed policy statements. Continue reading »
-
A sociology of Q&A: what is addressed, what is missed?
Branded as the occasion when the public asks questions and a panel of experts give answers, ABC televisions’ Q&A misses an opportunity to inform let alone inspire their audience. Continue reading »
-
This should be a climate change election
Anthony Albanese and his colleagues could surely storm to victory if they enthusiastically acted on the arguments presented by climate experts.They would certainly attract the support of the millions of Australians who understandably fear the consequences of our current, disastrously inadequate approach to this topic. Continue reading »
-
The need for a department of climate change is now self-evident
The time has come for a powerful government Climate Department to allow strong action on legislating, regulating, and coordinating mitigation, adaptation, and transition. Continue reading »
-
Labor will never appease Murdoch, and should stop trying
News.com is never shy about claiming all of the power and influence that its mortal enemies fear it has. Continue reading »
-
Labor scared of the shadow of a Murdoch paper tiger
I think the power of the ranting media – News.com in particular – is on the decline. Continue reading »
-
We still have a chaotic VET system
The Federal Budget has identified the need for increased skilled workers as a critical area. In analysing some of the Budget’s promises and what commentators had to say, it appears there is a lot more to be done. Continue reading »
-
Children overboard
Despite accumulated evidence published in this journal and more broadly of gross and growing inequality in Australia’s schools funding arrangements, this did not rate a mention in the Coalition’s Budget nor feature in responses to it from Labor. Continue reading »
-
The cry of refugees
The Coalition remains committed to detaining asylum seekers in Australia if they have arrived by boat without a visa. The Labor Party has not made any commitment to cease such detention. Continue reading »
-
Environment: Terrestrial and coastal ecosystems destroyed by human activities
Seagrasses are the forgotten but valuable cousins of our coasts. Powerful ‘farmers’ pay lots and lobby hard to avoid regulation, but methane emissions can be reduced. Continue reading »
-
Margaret Beavis: What really makes Australians more secure?
We are assured nuclear powered submarines and missiles will make us more secure, but with hospitals chronically underfunded and poverty and homelessness on the rise, are they the actually the right choice? Continue reading »
-
Jonathan Holmes: In real terms the ABC is still going backwards
Dave Sharma, the Liberal federal member for Wentworth in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs, is fighting for his political survival against independent candidate Allegra Spender, who supports a well-funded ABC. Continue reading »
-
Climate change: Scott Morrison’s achilles heel
Scott Morrison has a problem with climate change which reflects his style of governing. Continue reading »
-
International mission to decide on Morrison Government’s climate and reef policies
So, is the Morrison Government doing enough to secure the protection of the Great Barrier Reef? The question is almost absurd. The answer is a deafening no. Continue reading »
-
Children suffer the most in war
The nightly television coverage of the war in Ukraine is increasingly bleak. We see a distraught mother who has lost all her possessions. The camera moves to her three-year-old daughter in a pink coat, playing while her mother speaks. She seems happy enough. We are tempted to think ‘At least the children are OK’. But Continue reading »
-
Let them eat cake
In closing the gap between First Nations peoples and their fellow non-Indigenous Australians, this budget has nothing worthwhile. Continue reading »
Top 5 most read
- The United States-the Pacific bully
The US dominates the Pacific Islands to an extent China… - Stepping back already from the integrity election?
Labor won government promising more accountability, so why disempower the… - If growing US-China rivalry leads to ‘the worst war…
Should Australia join the United States in a war against… - Strategists admit West is goading China into war
US military experts say a war over Taiwan is desirable,… - Ukraine is the latest neocon disaster
The war in Ukraine is the culmination of a 30-year…
