Crispin Hull

Senate unfixed 50 years on

In a couple of weeks it will be the 50 th anniversary of the dismissal of the elected Labor Government of Prime Minister Whitlam Gough by the unelected representative of the hereditary monarchy Governor-General John Kerr.

In those years, nothing has been done to rectify the Constitution to ensure there is no repetition and nothing has been done to rectify the anomalous position the Senate has in our democracy.

Super backflipping media

“Backflip” is a lazy journalistic cliché. Looking at every policy decision through the lens of imagined leadership tensions is equally unhelpful to the media-consuming public. Both are news of little consequence.

The news of consequence about last week’s superannuation announcement, on the other hand, was: what was done; how was it done; why it needed doing; and what was not done.

Appeasing authoritarians

You can do what you like unless there is a law to stop you. This might sound like a radical, right-wing, libertarian catch cry. But it is, in fact, the bedrock of a rule-of-law democratic society. It is the bedrock of freedom.

In a rule-of-law democracy, laws are made by elected representatives of the people. They are administered by a directly or indirectly elected executive which also has to obey the law. Any disputes about how the law is to be applied to individuals or circumstances are resolved by an independent judiciary.

Truth goes, but science stays

It makes sense, in a way. Since the re-election of Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, the fossil fuel industry; its News Ltd backers; the National Party; and the right fringe of the Liberal Party (the fossil quartet) have become maniacally more active.

It makes sense, because, if a hitherto very profitable industry is facing extinction, it fights back as vigorously as it can.

Causes of world ‘going mad’

“Has the world gone mad?” No doubt, you, like me, have heard this expression a lot more often in the past couple of weeks. This is because of President Donald Trump’s baseless connection between autism and paracetamol; his imposition on five days’ notice of tariffs against drug companies that do not build plants in America; and Optus’s failure on the emergency network causing death; among other things.

Govt’s climate target too costly

The Coalition is right. Last week’s carbon-emissions target will be costly for the economy. That is because it is far too low, not because it is too high.

The Government is not spending anywhere near enough to transition to renewables. There is money in this for Australia. And the quicker the transition the less vulnerable our economy will be.

Progressives should support lower immigration

The far-right obviously hijacked the recent Marches for Australia in an attempt to garner support for a sinister racist and anti-progressive agenda on other things such as climate change, guns, employment, gender policies and so on.

But equally, the selfish property-retail-employer group seized on the threat from the far right to beguile progressives into thinking that the only way to counter the racism and the far-right agenda is to support high immigration.

40 years of not learning

The final bonus for former Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce of shares worth $3.8 million was made public last week in the company’s annual report. It was just another example of incidents that should raise questions about the whole 40-year history of privatisation in Australia.

The aim of sweeping away bloated, inefficient, unaccountable, publicly owned organisations to be replaced by the discipline of the market to the benefit of customers seemed laudable at the time.

Speech: at what cost

Official portrait of Hon. Linda Reynolds, Senator for Western Australia. Liberal Party of Australia.

According to a couple of informed legal sources, it costs about $100,000 a day for a Supreme Court civil hearing, including all the work needed in the lead up to a trial.

It varies a bit from state to state and the complexity of the trial, but it is a good starting point.

Productivity: big items left out

The great Australian dream used to be to own your own home. Now it is more like to own somebody else’s home, or more. And last week’s productivity roundtable doesn’t look like doing much about it.

There are two reasons. The first was the sort of the people in the room. And the second was what they did not discuss.

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