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As China’s President Xi Jinping came closer this week to becoming the next Emperor of China for Life, western leaders wrung their hands and worried about China’s military power; cyber power and soft power – meanwhile naively surrendering, without a scintilla of opposition, primacy the one field that made the British and then the American empires world dominant – energy. Continue reading “Beware the green dragon, not the red one”

AFTER the Florida shootings, Australia was again mentioned sporadically as an example of how to do gun control. Buy back the guns and destroy them. Ban a huge range of high-powered guns. And strictly control purchases of weapons and how they are stored. Too easy, you would think. The vast majority of Americans know what is needed. But getting there is far more difficult in the US than in Australia. Nonetheless there is another aspect of Australian political life which could be quite helpful in the US. Continue reading “Money not argument is the answer to NRA”

NOW that the banking Royal Commission is under way, it is a good time to reflect on the Australian financial system over the past decade and be grateful that we are kicking the banks while they are up, not down. Far better to have obscenely profitable banks than grotesquely bankrupt ones. Continue reading “Better to kick banks while they are up”

THE Australian Government should consider setting up, or at least subsidise, a major domestic and exporting cigarette industry in Australia, even if the subsidies go to foreign companies or that the domestic industry is run by foreign companies. It would create jobs and promote exports. If the demand for the product can be boosted both here and abroad, the jobs created would outweigh any downsides. Continue reading “Cigarettes, weapons – anything for jobs and exports”

WE WERE out of internet range, anchored on No Name Reef, when the Federal Government announced its too-little-too-late $60 million package “to secure the viability of the Great Barrier Reef”. No Name Reef, sometimes called Cormorant Reef, 200km north east of Cairns, had a reputation for spectacular coral. Continue reading “Great Barrier Reef needs more than denial or despair”

THIS is the fourth in our four-part January series on how our politicians have not done a good job in adapting policy to changing circumstances or when policies do not work. This week we look at the related topics of infrastructure, population and environment, and briefly at defence. Continue reading “Australia marking time IV: population”

WHAT is the difference between “governance” and “government”? Some say nothing and that “governance” is just affectation, but political scientists usually make the distinction. Governance, they say is the overarching architecture of government – the constitution, broad electoral rules, rules on disclosure, and the institutional set-up. Government, on the other hand is the nitty gritty of everyday revenue-raising and spending and the myriad pieces of legislation and regulation dealing with everyday matters.
Continue reading “Australia marking time III: governance”

THIS is the second in a four-part January series on how our politicians have not done a good job in adapting policy to changing circumstances or when policies do not work. This week it is education and health policies, both of which suffer from flaws which had their genesis in the Howard years and which successive governments have not fixed. Continue reading “Australia marking time II. Education and health”

ONE of the aims of good government is to change law and policy as circumstances change and even to make sensible predictions about how they may change in the future and prepare for those changes. Australia appears to have marked time recently. January is a good time to reflect and look forward. In the next few weeks I will look at some major policy areas and suggest how circumstances have changed and what is needed for us to deal with those changes. Continue reading “Australia marking time Part I: tax”

MUCH is made of how the 24-hour media cycle is having a disturbing influence on politics in Australia and elsewhere, but perhaps it is not so much the change to the timing of publication, but the change to the nature of the sources that is causing the disruption. In the pre-internet model, news and opinion was presented to the public by organisations which were highly hierarchical. Media corporations had a CEO, an editor, news directors, various section heads, sub-editors, a chief of reporting staff down to the lowly reporters. Continue reading “New info networks v old political hierarchy”