Category: Uncategorized

NEARLY all major reforms in Australia are done by Labor Governments. From aged and widows pensions and the PBS in the 1940s, through to Medicare and racial-discrimination laws in the 1970s, economic liberalisation and universal superannuation in the 1980s and now the National Disability Insurance Scheme. Continue reading “Diability scheme has economic benefit”

This article was published in the CT in March and did not make the web page till now.

I AM a Tony Abbott groupie. I love the Liberal Party. Economically, I think everyone should be allowed to do what they like – to be rich and stay rich. Socially, I think women should be barefoot and pregnant and do what they are told. And refos and gays should be put in their place and George Pell should be Pope. Continue reading “Who will I vote for — just ask”

THE Grattan Institute is the latest in a long line of conservative or independent think tanks to warble on about public debt. Well, yes, it is higher than it has been for a while. But government debt (federal, state and local) is historically low at the moment. Private debt is historically high. Continue reading “Debt OK if spent well — ask a home-owner”

AUSTRALIA’S madly over-priced housing market seems to be holding up despite various economists’ analyses that dwellings in Australia are 30 to 40 per cent over-priced. Continue reading “Do not dwell on bursting housing bubble”

THERE is more than a technological difference between the Coalition’s new broadband policy and Labor’s National Broadband Network.
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STEPHEN Conroy and Malcolm Turnbull have something in common. The Communications Minister and his Opposition counterpart are each responsible for destroying worthwhile changes in Australian society by adopting the crash-or-crash through approach. Continue reading “Why media change and republic crashed”

MAJOR Ting Li has created a disturbance. Well, that is at least according to three of five Federal Court judges. Continue reading “Disturbance in the ranks”

DEPUTY ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr has asked rhetorically, “Is it really necessary for the government to maintain a register of real estate agents?” Well yes, and I’ll tell you why it is, Mr Barr. It is because ACT real estate agents handle an enormous amount of the public’s money in the form of deposits on houses pending settlement. Continue reading “Watch estate agents, for charity’s sake”

(This article did not make it to the web sitr when it was published in The Canberra Times last January)

I HAVE just finished reading Our Father, my sister’s wonderful biography of our father, Robert Edward Davison Hull, who was, among other things Anglican Rector of Beechworth, Victoria, from 1959 to 1977 — our formative years. Continue reading “Genealogy becomes an internet industry”

UNTIL the late 19th century, pharmacists made up their own medicines – in powders with pestle and mortar and with liquids. Then an invention to compress graphite to make better pencils was applied to medicines and little pills resulted. Pharmacists called them tabloids. Continue reading “Read all about it — going tabloid”