Category: Uncategorized

SPARE us another “free trade” deal with the United States. At APEC this week, leaders were agog with talk of windfalls gains all round and more jobs in Australia (or insert your favourite APEC nation as appropriate). Prime Minister Julia Gillard was among the most effusive. Continue reading “Dysfunctional Congress damns free trade”

UNITED States President Barack Obama might well express some envy of Australia’s political, social and economic systems when he visits next week. We have only some of the maladies of the US. Continue reading “Obama will look with some envy”

THIS week Rupert Murdoch’s News Ltd took The Australian behind the paywall. The interesting point is that the paywall is not very high – just $2.95 a week, say $12 a month. If you do not pay for a login you no longer get the full suite of articles. The big question is will the other News Ltd capital city papers in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane, Hobart, Darwin follow, and what will Fairfax do with its papers in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Newcastle and elsewhere. Continue reading “Australian’s paywall may hurt right-wing views”

NOW would be a good time to put an end to two things inherited from the Howard Government: the likely-to-be ruled-unconstitutional school-chaplains scheme and the human-rights-infringing anti-terrorism laws. Last week the Government announced the next round of funding applications for the school-chaplains program – a bit cheeky seeing that the High Court has reserved judgment in a case challenging its the constitutional validity. Continue reading “No faith in “anti-terrorism” laws”

DON’T you hate it when your computer suddenly changes its behaviour without asking? Something that has worked for months or even years suddenly stops behaving that way.
In an office you can usually rely on the resident nerd to come and fix it. In a home office it is a different story. Continue reading “Internet excelling in publicness”

HOW nice to see Prime Minister Julia Gillard so concerned with child welfare that she put a telephone call in to the teenager jailed in Indonesia for allegedly breaking that country’s drug laws. And in the same week that her government put before Parliament legislation that would have enabled the Minister for Immigration to bundle refugee children to a foreign country and wash his hands of them. Continue reading “Regugee move right deed for wrong reason”

THEY have lined up in an utterly predictable way in the week since the Federal Court brought down its judgment that Andrew Bolt breached the Racial Discrimination Act. The Murdoch punditocracy and the Federal Opposition to a man and a woman declared it to be an outrageous infringement of freedom of speech. The left, including Fairfax’s usually sound and always funny Mike Carlton, declared it a victory against racism and bigoted journalism. Continue reading “Race bar too low for free speech”

THE former Prime Minister Paul Keating once said you should always back self-interest because at least you know the jockey is trying. Continue reading “Selfish clubs and spineless MPs”

WE HAVE such short memories. One wet, cool summer and an Opposition scare campaign takes 20 per cent off support for action on climate change. Two years after the Montara oil spill and 17 months after the Deep Water Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the Government continues to hand out exploration and drilling licences for oil off-shore. Continue reading “Foolish tax breaks for dangerous oil drilling”

IT LOOKS as if the Government is about to give the tobacco companies a leg to stand on in their objections to plain packaging.

If the Government cops another hiding in the High Court it will be entirely of its own making. The successful refugee challenge, remember, related to Howard-era legislation. If the tobacco companies have a win, or a partial win, it will be in relation to Gillard Government legislation. Continue reading “Plain packaging could go up in constitutional smoke”