Journalism and other writing
DR LYLE Vail says coral is very resilient, but it can only take so much. Vail is director of the Lizard Island Research Station 220km north of Cairns where he has been for 24 years.
“Coral has ways of flicking off sediment,” he said this week. “But if there is too much sediment, the coral gets tired, cannot keep up and gets buried.” Continue reading “The coral can take only so much”
AS WE inch closer to another referendum — this time it is to recognise the place of indigenous Australians – there is the usual talk about the dismal record of 44 failed referendums and only 8 successful ones. However, few look at how spectacularly unsuccessful the “successful” ones were. Continue reading “Failure of “successful” referendums”
WE ARE about 10km north-west of Endeavour Reef. These days with electronic navigation, GPS, EPIRB and the like, it is no big deal. I am even writing this aboard SV Biringari and will send it back to The Canberra Times by internet from an aerial 15m up the mast. Continue reading “Climate policy foundering on a reef”
SOME economists and analysts have been saying for a decade or more that we are going to have a major slump in housing prices, and they have, according to real-estate commentators and others, been proved wrong. Continue reading “Housing bubble about to burst?”
WHAT are we to do with this “unrepresentative swill”, as Paul Keating called the Senate in 1989. The question arose again a week ago when WA Labor Senator Mark Bishop said that Labor should pass the whole of the Abbott-Hockey Budget in the Senate so the public would see how mean it was and flock back to Labor. Continue reading “The Senate — reviewer or wrecker?”
I HAVE finally waded through Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century.
When I say “waded through”, I do not mean “read”, rather the book was read to me from the iphone as I went on my morning cycle ride, because I downloaded the audio version. Continue reading “Rich worse off for being richer”
THE TWO dumb Prime Ministers, Canada’s Stephen Harper and Australia’s Tony Abbott are on their own. The so-called conservative alliance against action on climate change died from its own contradictions in under a fortnight. Continue reading “Why Abbott’s conservative climate pact collapsed”
LABOR could now stop the evolution towards paralysis in Australian politics — with a bit of courage and boldness. It could go beyond merely saying we will oppose the nasties. It could lay out its vision and state now, early in the electoral cycle, the way it is going to pay for it. Continue reading “Labor should increase the GST to pay for science, welfare”
HE DID not have to do it — the Oxford 10-quid MA and Pommy 10-quid immigrant. But there we were, second-year students at Bill Mandle’s place in Downer, or should I say Upper Downer, crowded under a Hills Hoist with a mass-produced cut-canvas hood for just these circumstances – an autumnal downpour in Canberra in March.
HE DID not have to do it — the Oxford 10-quid MA and Pommy 10-quid immigrant. But there we were, second-year students at Bill Mandle’s place in Downer, or should I say Upper Downer, crowded under a Hills Hoist with a mass-produced cut-canvas hood for just these circumstances – an autumnal downpour in Canberra in March. Continue reading “Glad to be part of Mandle’s history”
I HAVE just returned from my first sailing race. Well, I say “I” advisedly, because I did not take the helm. The man who did gave me a lesson in ageing.
I HAVE just returned from my first sailing race. Well, I say “I” advisedly, because I did not take the helm. As readers of this column might recall that I bought a 46ft (14.3-metre) Beneteau yacht about two years ago when partially retiring to Port Douglas. Continue reading “Beware the aged scare”