November 8, 2021

Fixation on climate change has blinded us to a deadly chemical tsunami

Humanity’s chemical emissions are poisoning the earth and killing 25,000 people a day and pose as much of an existential threat as global warming.

October 5, 2021

Morrison repeats his Macron trick on Pelosi

Trumps coal spruiker down under, campaigner for Trump at every opportunity, has transitioned with narcissistic chameleon aplomb into a new role, helping Australia become an unincorporated territory of the US.

September 25, 2021

Review: The shock, horror and rage of Mark Willacy's Rogue Forces

Respected journalist Mark WillacysRogue Forcesis imperative reading for its detonatingexpos of Australian SASwar crimes inAfghanistanand the systematic cover-ups at varying levels of the Australian Defence Force operations.

February 24, 2022

The best of times, the worst of times

The best of times, the worst of times. Few words better describe the contradictions of our world precariously poised between noble aspirations and sordid politics. Three questions immediately arise: Are the contradictions deepening? If so, why? Can anything be done about it?

October 21, 2021

The debate about our ABC needs grown-ups in the room

_The national broadcaster requires structural and funding reform but these changes must follow informed discussion and cannot be decided on a tribal battleground.

February 19, 2022

Eve Ottenberg. Bigotry Unbound: the US media's anti-China propaganda blitz

Hate crimes against Asian Americans mushroomed over the past two years. According to the Guardian, they jumped 567 percent in San Francisco since 2021, and you dont have to look far to find out why. The main reason is, quite simply, incessant China-bashing in the mainstream media. The anti-China hysteria has spread like measles.

March 18, 2021

Radical people, not technology, are needed for a sustainable revolution

Michael Keatings summary and review of Ross Garnauts latest book Reset:Restoring Australia after the Pandemic Recession is stimulating and important. While massive sustainable transformations in Australias economy and society are required, the emphasis on macroeconomic policies and the faith shown in technology is concerning.

March 16, 2022

Russia, Ukraine and trade sanctions. What role for Australia?

To have maximum effect, measures taken to address the widely condemned actions of President Putin in Ukraine should be coordinated with the support of the largest number of countries possible. One key question is how trade penalties can best be applied to achieve this goal. In addressing this question Australia has a key role to play.

November 7, 2021

Vaccination plus: A safe ticket to the great Aussie summer

For true freedom this summer, we’ll need more than vaccinations alone public health safety is always a story of multiples.

June 15, 2018

ALISSA J. RUBIN. An era of French strikes is ending (AFR 13/6/2018)

_Nowadays, we have people who are too rich," he said. “In the United States you do not care so much about equality, but we care about it,” says Bodiou, a retired civil engineer.__“It does not mean we all have to have the same amount of money, but we all should get the same respect.”_But, he adds, summing up a feeling that seems to be shared by many on the street around him: “Macron does not speak to those who are poor, who sleep on the ground; he speaks to the people in the digital world, to the entrepreneurs, to the educated.”

January 18, 2018

MICHAEL KEATING. Tax Reform and the Need to Raise More Revenue- A REPOST from August 2017

This article considers the future Budget outlook and argues that the key issue for tax reform is how best to raise the additional revenue that will be needed. The article builds on Ian McAuleys recent post arguing that well-designed taxes can actually improve economic resource allocation, and this article further argues that if the additional revenue is spent on tackling inequality this can increase economic growth.

February 11, 2022

The drums of war that are heard so loudly in Canberra beat rather more softly in Asia.

As the Winter Olympics started, China and Russia spelled out how close they have come and Australian media slipped into their default attack mode. But not so in Asia, where the media response was more varied and more muted.

April 1, 2021

Proposed English language testing of Australian sponsors and partners

In the 2020 Budget, former Acting Immigration Minister Tudge announced the Government would introduce English language testing for partner visas that is when an Australian sponsors their non-Australian partner to become an Australian permanent resident.

April 3, 2021

China Needs to Show More Restraint in the Region

China’s aggressivenessin the region isprovoking a US-led backlash that could contain or constrain it. To achieve what it considers its rightful destiny, China needs to exercise more restraint. Slow and steady will win the race.

March 10, 2021

Chinese Australians, forever to be condemned as 'fresh off the boat'

Our group wears the cloak of invisibility where everyone looks the same. And when you cannot hear us speak, we will be equally marginalized in your eyes.

March 16, 2022

Rodney Lewis -The Morrison Government is proposing astounding discrimination against vulnerable aged care residents

When our Parliament is presented with a Bill which removes fundamental rights and liberties of a discrete cohort of Australians only, a cacophony of objections may be expected. In this case however, the victims have no voice.

June 19, 2021

Biden's hopes fall short in G7 communique

The results of the G7 summit in Cornwall have received considerable criticism. For many, it was simply a staged production involving smoke and mirrors. Behind the thoroughly estimable objectives littered throughout the communique can be seen the inherent weakness of the G7 grouping. Once mighty, now best at papering over its growing irrelevance.

February 18, 2018

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 lists and reducing front line health care delivery.

December 26, 2021

Democracy in decline: Australia's slide into 'competitive authoritarianism'

Australia is at a critical point. A government that would cling to power to impose unpopular policy threatens the very nature of our democracy.

December 9, 2021

Partisanship undermines another opportunity for APS reform

A Senate committee’s report on public service capability is not without merit, but the prospect of significant progress is hampered by political motivations.

December 16, 2021

How to avoid security crises in Ukraine and Taiwan

To peacefully resolve the brewing crises over Ukraine and Taiwan the major powers will need to consider the strategic perspectives of the other side.

March 16, 2021

Canberra: the nation's capital in progress

One gets used to people suggesting that the whole idea of Canberra was a terrible mistake. A waste of good grazing country. A folly, an expensive indulgence, which ultimately and inevitably produced self-reproducing bureaucrats and a governing class out of touch with the lot of ordinary Australians. Perhaps they are right.

July 17, 2021

The CCPs greatest strength is Self-Reinvention

An advocate for China argues the party’s capacity for renewal has kept it at the vanguard of the nation’s youth.

December 19, 2021

Russia and China sit together to watch the decline of the West

The main global game now is Russia-China relations: the ability of the United States to control or influence the world order is fading fast.

March 23, 2021

Is technology the only way to solve technology-driven misinformation?

Technology-driven misinformation has become so powerful that it is impossible to reply on individuals to sift through the ‘facts’. Is technology-driven truth detection our only way out?

January 13, 2019

JOHN MENADUE. We dont have a coherent health workforce. We have highly trained and professional people working in silos.

In the blue-collar area where there have been very substantial workforce reform and improvements which have helped transform the Australian economy. It was begun under the Hawke/Keating governments and continued under the Howard governments.

But the health sector the largest and fastest growing in the economy has not been seriously reformed. I guesstimate that there is a potential productivity dividend of at least 40% in health workforce reform over the next decade. That 40% may be on the low side.

October 19, 2021

Barnaby Joyce fills Scott Morrisons climate policy vacuum

The responsibility for Australia’s climate and energy policies have effectively been handed over to a group of Nationals MPs. It’s a travesty, but it shouldn’t be a surprise.

December 8, 2021

Education left behind in the corporatisation of our universities

The rise of middle management and the non-democratic nature of university governance are undermining Australia’s higher education system.

March 21, 2021

Why do Australian universities have an obsession with rankings?

Australia has the highest percentage of globally ranked universities in the world. Why? What are the implications?

December 27, 2021

History repeats: Billy Hughes on Japan and now Scott Morrison on China

Our leaders are uneducated on history. They’re repeating mistakes that had catastrophic consequences for Australia in the Pacific in the 20th century.

March 24, 2021

Will Packer bow out of Crown?

The US private equity firm Blackstone has made a conditional non-binding offer for Crown Resorts Ltd, valuing the casino operator at over $8 billion.

December 17, 2021

Economic planners do not reckon with climate crisis bearing down on us

The current population of 25 million may be Australia’s limit, unless we are prepared to reduce our lifestyle footprint.

December 20, 2021

Finding meaning in Christmas for all Australians

The overriding emotion of Christmas should be awe and wonder it’s a time to reflect and put life into perspective.

February 18, 2022

Australians quick to forget terrible wartime price paid by Timorese saviours

_The current government has shed every vestige of honour to conceal the truth about the espionage against the Timorese, venting its guilty fury on the spy with a conscience, Witness K, and his lawyer Bernard Collaery.

December 12, 2021

Richest 1% takes 38% of global wealth while bottom half gets 2%

Global inequities in wealth and income are as great today as they were at the peak of Western imperialism in the early 20th century.

December 23, 2021

Will the media wake up to the danger to American democracy?

Asymmetric polarisation is a poor way to describe America’s descent into madness, propelled by the Republican voting base..

December 21, 2021

Christmas, Jesus, and the promise of a new way of being human

The revolutionary vision of a free, equal and inclusive society that Jesus preached as an adult has survived in tact.

January 8, 2022

What Scott Morrison's really saying by aligning with Pentecostals

We have every reason to expect that Scott Morrison should exemplify the moral teachings of Jesus, but thats not the way the church game is played.

December 14, 2021

Kids and teachers deserve better than this crisis in the public school system

The first strike in a decade by public school teachers in NSW demands an answer to the question of how much a teacher is worth

December 13, 2021

Christmas spirit missing in Israeli variants of cruelty

In the spirit of Christmas and with a touch of courage, the Israel lobby should be shunned and the malicious treatment of Palestinians condemned.

December 4, 2021

One word can sum up our government today: kakistocracy

Kakistocracy is government by the least competent its hallmarks are ineptitude and corruption. This will ring true for many Australian voters.

April 4, 2021

How the big end of town turned Jobkeeper into profit keeper

The most rampant era of welfare rorting in Australias history drew to a close when the Jobkeeper subsidy came to an end. Luke StaceyandMichael West investigated how the big grifters turned Jobkeeper into profit keeper.

December 30, 2021

Paul Keating responds to Peter Hartcher's 'King Canute' column

Peter Hartcher has a lot to answer for, writes Paul Keating in a response to the Nine columnist that did not make it to print.

May 22, 2021

Will India's Covid wave hit Indonesia? Stand by and stand back

The next fortnight should show whether the nation with the worlds fourth-largest population will tumble into the plague pit where the second place holder currently writhes.

December 10, 2021

Why Australia was not better prepared for the Covid pandemic

There was a significant shift in government thinking on border closures and quarantine between earlier outbreaks and the arrival of COVID-19.

December 6, 2021

Why does Australia still sell weapons to human-rights abuser Saudi Arabia?

As the kingdom wages war in Yemen, Canberra continues to supply arms, making us complicit in the deaths of innocent civilians, writes Dechlan Brennan.

December 15, 2021

Why the West must tread carefully in assessing China

By downplaying China’s strength, commentator Paul Dibb ignores contemporary realities and underlines the subjectivity of strategic assessments.

March 17, 2021

Police drug busts divert our attention from policy failure

Harm reduction is used in many policy areas and found to be generally effective, safe, cost-effective and well accepted. But when pragmatic harm reduction is applied to psychoactive drugs, it is often fiercely resisted by those preferring prohibition. The war on drugs provides media with attractive eye candy in the form of mounds of recently intercepted illicit drugs.

December 7, 2021

Indonesias haphazard pandemic response is no holiday

While the president has banned Christmas holidays in a bid to prevent COVID transmission, the enforcement of decrees has been fitful at best.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal