Crispin Hull

Causes of world ‘going mad’

“Has the world gone mad?” No doubt, you, like me, have heard this expression a lot more often in the past couple of weeks. This is because of President Donald Trump’s baseless connection between autism and paracetamol; his imposition on five days’ notice of tariffs against drug companies that do not build plants in America; and Optus’s failure on the emergency network causing death; among other things.

Govt’s climate target too costly

The Coalition is right. Last week’s carbon-emissions target will be costly for the economy. That is because it is far too low, not because it is too high.

The Government is not spending anywhere near enough to transition to renewables. There is money in this for Australia. And the quicker the transition the less vulnerable our economy will be.

Progressives should support lower immigration

The far-right obviously hijacked the recent Marches for Australia in an attempt to garner support for a sinister racist and anti-progressive agenda on other things such as climate change, guns, employment, gender policies and so on.

But equally, the selfish property-retail-employer group seized on the threat from the far right to beguile progressives into thinking that the only way to counter the racism and the far-right agenda is to support high immigration.

40 years of not learning

The final bonus for former Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce of shares worth $3.8 million was made public last week in the company’s annual report. It was just another example of incidents that should raise questions about the whole 40-year history of privatisation in Australia.

The aim of sweeping away bloated, inefficient, unaccountable, publicly owned organisations to be replaced by the discipline of the market to the benefit of customers seemed laudable at the time.

Speech: at what cost

Official portrait of Hon. Linda Reynolds, Senator for Western Australia. Liberal Party of Australia.

According to a couple of informed legal sources, it costs about $100,000 a day for a Supreme Court civil hearing, including all the work needed in the lead up to a trial.

It varies a bit from state to state and the complexity of the trial, but it is a good starting point.

Productivity: big items left out

The great Australian dream used to be to own your own home. Now it is more like to own somebody else’s home, or more. And last week’s productivity roundtable doesn’t look like doing much about it.

There are two reasons. The first was the sort of the people in the room. And the second was what they did not discuss.

Lehrmann’s lawyer let down by the system

The immediate prurient interest in the latest episode of a case laden with prurient interest was the way Bruce Lehrmann’s legal representative, solicitor Zali Burrows, argued his appeal before the full Federal Court this week.

We must decide what weapons we use where

Over the past week, several security experts in the US have been revealing that the US Administration wants Australia to speak out more clearly about supposed threats posed by China.

That is clearly the view of the Trump Administration, even though it has not declared it.

A powerful subsidy scheme

I have been pushed over the edge – by the Government and the energy companies. The first monthly electricity bill for the new financial year has arrived. After months of zero bills, this one was for $200.

Taxing time for the political system

The Australian political system is about to be stress-tested. The test will not be on some visceral, emotionally charged issue. Rather it will come with a complex and prosaic matter that usually does not excite much attention: company tax.

The test will come with how the system responds to last week’s Productivity Commission report which recommends a change to company tax that so far has only excited accountants and policy nerds.

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