ABC gives selected politicians licence to spread fear - Weekly Roundup
December 8, 2023
Why the RBA Board should enjoy the break on a houseboat ride, the ABC gives selected politicians licence to spread fear, bullshit, lies and division just because they are called the opposition, sex and the cost of living, immigrants kids do better at school than Australian-born kids, cleaning up the mess of another failed privatisation. Read on for the weekly roundup of links to articles, podcasts, reports and other media on current economic and political issues.
Real progress towards renewable energy goals for electricity, but were still waiting for initiatives in transport. The oppositions nuclear push a stalling tactic. Hydrogen overhyped perhaps but it can de-carbonise industrial processes.
Why the Reserve Bank Board should take a holiday on a big houseboat. Our GDP figures show that as were getting past the Covid-19 disruption were back to our sluggish low-productivity-low-growth economy. How households experience the cost of living its largely about gender. We need to re-establish the Commonwealth Employment Service to replace the mess of privatised and ineffective services, but is our politicised and weakened public service up to the task? The case for reasonably fast rail.
Our PISA results are really good, so long as you dont compare them with Singapores or Koreas. Teaching kids science with half the curriculum missing. The emerging education class division. The Productivity Commission demonstrates that it cares about children.
How Medicare, in slipping from universalism to a residual charity system, lets down the least well-off. The person at your local supermarkets checkout may be a dentist who cannot afford to have her qualifications recognised. Covid-19 hasnt gone away, but we have let our vaccination guard down.
The High Courts direction on immigration detainees stimulated the worst of journalism, including in the ABC, and exposed the cost of designating a political party as the opposition. How some young Europeans are warming to far-right populists.
There was a time when America provided a stronger model of social democracy than Scandinavia: what happened? More on the trial of David McBride: are our soldiers bound by something as tight as the Wehrmachts oath to Hitler? The joys of inflation.