Month: September 2018

IT IS difficult to work out the degree of Australia’s growing inequality in income and wealth, simply because a lot of high-wealth, high-income people disguise it. But in the past week or so a couple of publications show inequality is higher than officially recognised. Continue reading “Inequality rising, threatening capitalism and markets”

IN A week in which the ABC exposed yet another scandal resulting from corporatisation, privatisation and deregulation of public services – this time aged care – forcing the Government to launch an inquiry without admitting any blame and in which the ABC continues to play promos on the esteem it is held in the eyes of the famous and not so famous, I must relate this story which links them all. Continue reading “Aged care, the ABC and the important things in life”

IN A perverse way, we may all come to be grateful for China’s military build-up in the South China Sea and its increased meddling in Pacific island nations. China has spent billions of dollars turning rocks and atolls in the South China Sea into full-scale islands complete with runways and re-supply facilities. Continue reading “South China Sea build-up and Pacific meddling may help us”

The sharp fall in the Coalition’s primary vote in the Longman by-election and in the polls after Malcolm Turnbull lost the Liberal leadership may well be the harbinger of politics in which majority government becomes the exception rather than the rule. This is because we are reaching a tipping point where the primary vote splits more evenly into the three boxes: Labor, the Coalition and Minors. Continue reading “The curse of interesting times”

SNIPING at the Liberal Prime Minister will no doubt continue. The difference now will be that the sniping will come from the left or progressive side of the Liberal Party. The other difference is that Prime Minister Scott Morrison will not take any notice of it, unlike his predecessor who made endless concessions to the far right. The main policy discord will be over refugees and climate change. Continue reading “Sniping will continue with no good effect”