It should have been surprising if Treasury were NOT modelling negative gearing, rather than that they were modelling it. It is basic house-keeping. And right now, we have a dead possum in the roof. Or worse, two live possums trashing the whole housing industry.
Continue reading “Albo: govern do not react”A Peter Dutton idea applied
Over the weekend, I had a Peter Dutton moment. It started with working out whether to get a storage battery for the house rather than sending excess electricity from the solar array to the grid.
Continue reading “A Peter Dutton idea applied”The evidence should be in
There are evidence-based policies that provide the greatest good for the greatest number. And there are policies based on lobbyists’ and interest groups’ desires which provide large profits for a small number of people at the expense of everyone else or at the huge expense of a segment of people.
Continue reading “The evidence should be in”On health and population
Gosh, fertility in Australia is down. Should we be concerned? No. Should Australian Governments be moved to spend vast amounts of scarce health money on IVF programs to turn the trend around? No.
Last week, the Fertility Society of Australia and New Zealand rang the alarm bells at its annual conference in Perth.
Continue reading “On health and population”Wherefore art thou Albo?
Last week’s national accounts figures suggest that we are now midway through Act IV and it may be too late to save King Albo from his Shakespearean fate.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has, but for one crucial back-firing moment (the Voice), always been looking over his shoulder fearful and worrying about how what he proposes to do or not do could be used by his opposition (both political and in the media) to be played against him.
Continue reading “Wherefore art thou Albo?”CFMEU and the rule of law
What would have been the reaction if the Federal Government had responded to the banking and child-sexual-abuse royal commissions by legislating to put the offending banks and churches into administration?
After all, the allegations against the banks and churches were of similar seriousness as those against the Construction, Forestry and Maritime Employees Union.
Continue reading “CFMEU and the rule of law”Breaking the ice with China
The icebreakers illustrate the story. This month China sent its third icebreaker, the new Ji Di, into the Arctic, following Xue Long (pictured) and Zhong Shan. One of them is in waters north of Alaska.
Meanwhile, the US Coast Guard icebreaker Healy abandoned its Arctic mission after an electrical fire and limped home on one engine to Seattle. The only other US Coast Guard sea-going icebreaker, the 55-year-old Polar Star, is undergoing a refit.
Continue reading “Breaking the ice with China”Bad report card on education is in
The national report card came in last week and it is not good. Indeed, if your child brought it home, you would have to seriously consider taking the child out of school.
Indeed, metaphorically, that would be a good solution.
Continue reading “Bad report card on education is in”Harris and waning populism
Are we seeing the end of the rise of populism as Kamala Harris takes the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination and stops Republican Donald Trump’s return to the White House?
Continue reading “Harris and waning populism”Bringing the corporates to heel
Far too many economists, commentators (me included), policy advisers, politicians of all stripes, and voters were taken in by the intellectual appeal of economic rationalism in the 1980s and 1990s.
We failed to see how the selfish, the charlatans, and the opportunists in the corporate world would grasp the whole Thatcher-Reagan (and in Australia Hawke, Keating and Hewson) philosophy and turn it into a massive enterprise to grab public money and stuff it into their private pockets.
Continue reading “Bringing the corporates to heel”