Search Results
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JUDITH WHITE. Culture wars and the climate catastrophe.
This summer’s Australian bushfires, says Sir David Attenborough, signal a crisis point for Earth. They also signal a crisis point in the ideological struggle within Australia over the future of the country and the world we live in. … Continue reading »
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JON BLACKWELL and KERRY GOULSTON. Aspects of Australian healthcare reform (part 1 of 3) – Some history
This is the first of three papers. It deals with the history of some healthcare reforms in NSW in 2001, their scope and outcomes. The second will comment on similar but in many ways different and more successful healthcare reforms in Denmark, which has a similar population to the Greater Metropolitan Sydney Area. The third… Continue reading »
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DAVID MARR. Blood, brains and foul murder: evidence of Australia’s massacres is in its newspapers (The Guardian, 17 November 2019)
We’re only human. We hang on to lies that comfort us. A big consoling lie that still hangs around this history of slaughter and dispossession is that we can’t apply the outlook of the 21st century to killings on the frontier. Tell that to those who denounced the crimes as they were being committed. Theirs… Continue reading »
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TONY SMITH. Time to revisit Agent Orange
The recently deceased former Nationals Leader Tim Fischer was widely respected for his sincerity and integrity, two qualities in short supply in parliament today. He always behaved with dignity and self-control. While some of that self-discipline might be attributable to his time in the military, his service in Vietnam could have shortened his life…. Continue reading »
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BRUCE ROBERTSON. Federal government needs to stop the magical gas merry go round (Renew Economy 19-8-19)
Hearing the New South Wales government rush through two import gas terminals approvals is like revisiting the fantasy world of Mary Poppins…. Continue reading »
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IAN DUNLOP. Time for the Coal Industry to Face Reality
The first priority of any government is the security of its people. The greatest threat to that security today is human-induced climate change. Because of the refusal of political and corporate leaders over the last two decades to take climate change seriously, it now represents a threat which will wipe out civilisation as we know… Continue reading »
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TONY BROWN. Who calls the shots? Don’t mention the ‘C’ word
It should come as no surprise that those who trivialise our nation’s deadly alcohol toll or seek to inculcate and normalise alcohol into every aspect of Australia’s culture, regardless of the true cost, are the very same who profit from its promotion and consumption…. Continue reading »
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MICHAEL THORN. Alcohol industry calling the shots on Australian health policy
Shocking scandals continue to roll through the media cycle, featuring abuse of power and influence by the addictive industries, and alleging corruption and worse. Who hasn’t read or heard about Crown Casino’s high roller operation or the ABC’s investigation into the National Alcohol Strategy (NAS), which broke on Friday 26 July…. Continue reading »
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PETER SAINSBURY. Sunday environmental round up, 23 June 2019
Poor planning seems to be endemic in the gas industry. Despite clear evidence that gas is not low in emissions, not needed for grid reliability, not a viable transition fuel and not cheap, governments and gas producers continue to peddle the myths and develop more gas production facilities. Michael Mann argues that system-wide changes, not… Continue reading »
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GAY ALCORN. Call to arms: how can Australia avoid a slow and painful decline? (The Guardian)
Australia has been warned it risks ‘drifting into the future’ if it fails to respond to challenges in a fast-changing world… Continue reading »
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MARGARET REYNOLDS. Queensland – A Special Place?
I lived in Queensland for three decades and represented the sunshine state as a Labor Senator for sixteen years. I spent much of my time trying to convince my parliamentary colleagues and the media that Queenslanders are very much like the rest of us. They too are concerned about job prospects for themselves and their… Continue reading »
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JOHN AUSTEN. Post-election infrastructure review
The NSW and Federal 2019 elections saw the return of Coalition Governments. My perspective – from western Sydney – is: Coalition infrastructure policies have been dreadful, Labor’s offerings weren’t any better…. Continue reading »
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DIRK VAN DER KLEY. What should Australia do about… the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)?
The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has grown so large that it has become difficult to separate from the international economic and technology policies of the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC). Policies crafted in the name of BRI are reshaping the economic order and technological landscape in Australia’s neighbourhood – Southeast Asia and the Pacific… Continue reading »
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QUENTIN DEMPSTER. Why the Libs cannot be trusted with the ABC..
2 March 1996. Journalist: The commitment to maintain (ABC) funding in real terms … does that stand?Senator Alston (on behalf of incoming Prime Minister John Howard): Absolutely. 6 September 2013. Incoming Prime Minister Tony Abbott: .. and no cuts to the ABC and SBS. These reassuring public commitments were soon exposed as lies. … Continue reading »
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MELISSA SWEET. What might Greta Thunberg tell the Australian Parliament? (Croakey)
This week, 16-year-old Greta Thunberg, who must surely go down in history as one of the great champions for global health, addressed the British Parliament…. Continue reading »
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JOHN AUSTEN. Fast rail – apologies please from perpetrators.
A recent post said politicians should not ‘bite the bullet’ on high speed rail – but apologise for money wasted; unrealistic expectations fanned; incompetence. It suggested a start with Newcastle – a city dudded by bureaucrats. Better still would be policy that doesn’t just provide fodder for TV satires; instead infrastructure proposals should be examined in… Continue reading »
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JACK WATERFORD. Can Thodey, or Shorten, stop bleeding in the public service? (Canberra Times online 30.3.2019)
It was hard to avoid the feeling this week that Terry Moran has a much better take on the problems of modern government and public administration than the review of the public service commissioned by Malcolm Turnbull last year. And Pearls and Irritations is “ Australia’s best website focused on policy issues’ !… Continue reading »
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JOHN AUSTEN. NSW infrastructure: who is fit to govern?
Readers of Pearls and Irritations may have followed the transport infrastructure fiasco in NSW under conservative governments led first by Mr O’Farrell, then Mr Baird and now by one-time Transport Minister and Treasurer, Ms Berejiklian. Several reports last week put an exclamation mark to the debacle and raised questions about the fitness of either side to… Continue reading »
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JOHN AUSTEN. High speed rail – Please don’t bite the bullet.
The Federal Opposition recently got media attention for high speed rail by exhorting Australia to ‘bite the bullet’. Australians should indeed ‘bite the bullet’ on high speed rail – by demanding public apologies for failures: large amounts of public money wasted; false expectations fanned; bureaucratic misbehaviour rewarded and aversion to a reasonable approach urged by… Continue reading »
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LORENA ALLAM AND NICK EVERSHED. The Killing Times: the massacres of Aboriginal people Australia must confront.
The truth of Australia’s history has long been hiding in plain sight. The stories of “the killing times” are the ones we have heard in secret, or told in hushed tones. They are not the stories that appear in our history books yet they refuse to go away…. Continue reading »
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JOHN AUSTEN. Transport for an incoming NSW Government.
NSW faces an election in March. This note – to help an incoming government – draws on transport matters identified in Pearls etc. It won’t be in the incoming government’s briefs. Never mind – people who matter read Pearls! … Continue reading »
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QUENTIN DEMPSTER. The ABC is now fighting for its survival (Speech delivered on 7 February 2019)
In trying to defend the ABC as an institutional pillar of a fearless free media in Australia’s robust democracy, first, we have to confront paranoia.It comes in the form of constant Murdoch Press complaints that the ABC is biased and a force for “left wing” ideology.“All the ABC’s presenters are left wing!” columnists and ABC… Continue reading »
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PETER SAINSBURY. Sunday’s environmental round up, 27 January 2019
The Australian Energy Market Operator’s report (summarised here by Sophie Vorrath) into the power failure (caused by a lightning strike) that affected Victoria, NSW and Tasmania in August 2018 illustrates the complexity of maintaining reliable electricity supplies across Australia’s east coast … whatever the power sources. However, the reporting of the AEMO’s findings by The… Continue reading »
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JOHN MENADUE. Newcastle Port – another botched privatisation -A repost from 5 September 2016
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has taken legal action over the terms on which the NSW Coalition Government in 2013 privatised Port Botany and Port Kembla and imposed severe restrictions on Newcastle Port. Our mainstream media has shown scant interest in this episode of ‘crony capitalism’ which lessened competition, disadvantaged the Hunter region and… Continue reading »
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JOHN AUSTEN. NSW farce rail
NSW Premier Berejiklian says her Government will ‘deliver a fast rail network slashing travel times across the State.’ Work will commence in the next term of Government and won’t wait for the Commonwealth – NSW will go it alone! … Continue reading »
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ROY GREEN. Pricking the balloon of crony capitalism
The Queensland Supreme Court has dismissed Aurizon Network’s application for judicial review of a draft decision by the Queensland Competition Authority on rail access, with costs awarded in favour of the QCA. Former QCA Chair and now Chair of the Port of Newcastle Professor Roy Green comments…. Continue reading »
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JOHN MENADUE. Privatisation is a clear example of the failure of neoliberalism.
Neoliberalism puts markets and companies before society and the public interest. That is why after 23 successive years of economic growth there is a widespread sense that the economy is working for a privileged few and at the expense of the many. The growing popular sense of resentment and unfairness is not at all surprising…. Continue reading »
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DAVID BOOTH, JOHN TURNBULL. The backflip over Sydney’s marine park is a defiance of science.
The New South Wales government’s decision to back away from establishing no-fishing zones in waters around Sydney leaves significant question marks over the plan, which is open for public consultation until September 27…. Continue reading »
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LYNLEY WALLIS, BRYCE BARKER, HEATHER BURKE. How unearthing Queensland’s ‘native police’ camps gives us a window onto colonial violence.
In 19th century Queensland, the Native Mounted Police were responsible for “dispersing” (a euphemism for systematic killing) Aboriginal people…. Continue reading »
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JERRY ROBERTS. What was the plan?
Peter Dutton was set up to lose the next election and to lose it badly. That would have left the Liberals in an even more chaotic mess than they are in today. To whom should they turn for salvation? Why, of course, to Captain Chaos himself – Tony Abbot. That was the plan. … Continue reading »
