Category: Uncategorized

ONE OF of the most significant broken promises of the Abbott Government has had little attention. But this week things started hotting up. Continue reading “Of roads, railways and water money”

PRIME Minister Tony Abbott says that economic management is in the Coalition’s DNA. That may be true if you view economic management as merely being on the right side of Micawber’s equation. Continue reading “Coalition’s Micawber-like economics is out of date.”

IN A week when the navel gazing in the Liberal Party over leadership has now descended into lint picking, maybe we should have a closer look, not at leadership, but at followership. Continue reading “‘Strong’ leadership lacks followership”

SOMETIMES it takes an act of unadulterated idiocy to expose the weakness in a system. Thanks to Prime Minister Tony Abbott, Australians are looking again at our constitutional arrangements and the remnant ties to the British Crown. Continue reading “Unadulterated idiocy reveals constitutional flaws”

IN AN ideal world, the old joke goes, you would have French cuisine, Italian romance, British humour and German administration. But pity help you if you get British cuisine, German romance, French humour and Italian administration. The joke was brought to mind as Australia Day approaches. Are there such things as national characteristics? Or is such talk dangerous stereotyping at worse or harmless, illogical twaddle at best? Continue reading “Does Australia have a national character?”

THE Australia Institute did a splendid job this week at calling the bluff of business groups, conservative politicians, economists and think tanks that pretend to be independent while taking swags of money from the big end of town. Continue reading “Business’s GST bluff called”

AMONG the things blocked in the Senate in 2014 was the Government’s asset-recycling scheme. The scheme has a certain logic to it, but also a big ideological contradiction for the government. The scheme is based on the premise that state governments are struggling to keep up with demands for infrastructure. Continue reading “Public needs better reward for asset sales”

IT WAS was not even Page 1. On 24 September 1961, The Sydney Morning Herald reported on an inside page in just 250 words the ghastly murder-suicide of Mrs Mary Robinson and her four children. She stood atop the 35-metre cliff at Woolshed Falls near Beechworth in Victoria, swept two children in each arm and the five of them fell to their deaths – Mary 32, Lynette 10, Trevor 7, Graeme 4, and Dianna 3. Continue reading “Australian way of death has changed”

WELL, was it an act of terrorism, or wasn’t it? Was Man Haron Monis a terrorist? Or as Brian’s mother in Monty Python’s Life of Brian said: “He’s not a messiah. He’s just a naughty boy.” That is being brutally irreverent, but Brian’s Mum had a point. We need to see through religious delusion. Continue reading “Religious tolerance important because religion is intolerant”

YES, price signals are a well-known economic phenomenon. You put up the price and demand falls. People are discouraged. This government has imposed, in the words of Prime Minister Tony Abbott this week, a price signal on visiting the doctor. It also wants to impose a price signal on university degrees through higher fees. Continue reading “Price signals work, but in a dumb way”