Uncategorized | Crispin Hull

Transport policy takes us on Argentine road

Transport should not be a hostage to politics and ideology, but in Australia it has been since before the rival colonies of NSW and Victoria decided to have different railway gauges in the 19 th century and it is likely to continue and get worse with the re-election of the Coalition Government.

It goes well beyond the usual sod-turning and ribbon-cutting of wasteful new roads in marginal seats. Now questions are arising which will determine whether Australia remains among the top economically prosperous nations or, whether like Argentina a century ago, we squander our advantages and drop on the scales of international performance.

Freedom opens a pandora’s box

Freedom of religion is firmly back on the agenda. But it is a Pandora’s box. Oddly enough, Barnaby Joyce got it almost right this week when he said that Rugby Australia’s sacking of Israel Folau “got a lot of people annoyed. People were a little bit shocked that someone could lose their job because of what they believe. It made everyone feel a bit awkward and uneasy.”

And the winner is . . . bread and circuses

Two thousand years ago, the satirist Juvenal said of Romans whom he thought had abandoned the moral and noble: “Two things only the people anxiously desire – bread and circuses.”

Not much has changed. Except we might translate “bread” as “the hip pocket nerve” and the “circuses” are the showmanship so brilliantly displayed in the election campaign by Scott Morrison wearing a baseball hat and kicking footballs.

Senate to cause Shorten woe

If, as is very likely, Labor wins with a small but workable majority today, Bill Shorten will be in similar territory as Gough Whitlam in 1972: half a decade of Opposition leadership; a clear mandate for reforms laid out before the election; a hostile Senate; and chilly economic winds on the way.

Loony right’s foot-shooting exercise

Clive Palmer has done Australia a big favour in entering this election. He, along with the National Rifle Association of the US, will most likely deny One Nation any Senate seats.

Palmer’s United Australia Party’s Senate how-to-vote-card has six preferences on it in each state. None are for One Nation in any state. Similarly, One Nation has not put UAP in any spot on its Senate how-to-votes cards.

The two strongest loony right party’s have shot each other in the foot.

Answer questions or vote Coalition

There are two questions in this election campaign – one on climate and one on tax – which you should be able to answer yourself or be satisfied that Labor can, otherwise you should vote for the Coalition.

Population woes: left right and centre

Presentation to Sustainable Population Australia. Brisbane. 27 April 2019.

Nearly everyone at this Sustainable Population Australia* event is most likely utterly perplexed as to why far more people are not seeing the obvious: that Australia’s population trajectory spells worsening lives for most Australians; extinction for many of our species; a falling capacity to help feed the world’s people; and a lot of other adverse consequences.

Having worked in and observed the Australian media for more than 40 years I might be able to shed some insight as to why.

Death, here is thy sting

There is a corollary to the refrain: “I have paid taxes all my life and I am entitled to an old-age pension.” It is this: “I have enjoyed roads, education, health, police, defence and a myriad other things provided by the government all my life, so shouldn’t I pay a little tax when I die?”

Similarly, there is a corollary to the refrain: “I have worked hard all my life to build up some wealth so I am entitled to leave it to my kids or whomever I want?” It is this: “Why should some people get a richly undeserved windfall just because they are lucky enough to have wealthy parents?”

Going to hell over free speech

Rugby Australia is doing more damage to its own reputation by the bullying and intimidation of its employee-contractor Israel Folau over the expression of his religious beliefs than Folau’s original over-the-top expression of those beliefs.

Ireland may save Britain from Brexit

For the first time in more than 300 years, England has not been able to bully Ireland to get its own way. This week, the old divide-and-rule tactics of the British Empire fell flat because Ireland is no longer on its own. It has 26 rock-solid friends in the European Union who have vowed not to drop the Irish backstop in any arrangement with Britain to leave the European Union.

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