MANY people complained that Malcolm Turnbull was running scared by cancelling next week’s sitting of the Parliament. But that was a political reaction. The more important constitutional question, and its implications for democracy, went unanswered: how is it that a Prime Minister without a majority in the House of Representatives can prevent that House from sitting? Continue reading “Five questions about democratic power”
Month: November 2017
Backfire: plebiscite shows appetite for action
JUST as the postal plebiscite has blown up in the faces of the conservatives who promoted it, let us hope that any subsequent rearguard sabotage attempt under the guise of freedom of religion does the same thing. Continue reading “Backfire: plebiscite shows appetite for action”
Upheaval likely when oppressed pushed too far
THE release of the Paradise Papers in the week of the centenary of the Russian Revolution and in a week when the peaceful leaders Catalonian independence were branded criminals should warn us that history did not end with the coming down of the Berlin Wall in the 1989. The clash between the forces of capitalism-individualism-rentiers vs the forces of communism-socialism-collectivism-labour is alive and just as destructive as it has ever been.
THE release of the Paradise Papers in the week of the centenary of the Russian Revolution and in a week when the peaceful leaders Catalonian independence were branded criminals should warn us that history did not end with the coming down of the Berlin Wall in the 1989. The clash between the forces of capitalism-individualism-rentiers vs the forces of communism-socialism-collectivism-labour is alive and just as destructive as it has ever been. Continue reading “Upheaval likely when oppressed pushed too far”
Medibank attack’s collateral damage on private health
THE Howard-Abbott-Turnbull attempts to bury Medicare while publicly praising it and its attempt to boost the bottom line of the private health providers are now proving to be corrosive not only of the public health system, but of the private system as well. Continue reading “Medibank attack’s collateral damage on private health”