Crispin Hull

Medicare exposes political hearts

Some months ago, I wrote that the original design of Medicare had a fundamental defect. Alas, Labor’s $8.5 billion injection – instantly matched by the Coalition – does not fully address it. A good start but not visionary enough. It is another example of Medicare telling us a great deal about Australian politics and Australian politicians, and it will do so again this election.

‘Forming’ or electing governments

We are racing headlong into an election that will almost inevitably result in a hung Parliament. And many would say we are going to an election far too quickly – hardly time for a government get its feet under the desk.

It is nearly half a century since an unelected representative of the British Crown sacked a government and Prime Minister (Gough Whitlam) elected by the people less than two years before and installed the Leader of the Opposition (Malcolm Fraser) as Prime Minister.

Major parties deepening the hole they are in

Hey, major parties, if you are in a hole – with your primary vote with a 3 in front of it, or even a 2 – why keep digging?

If the electorate thinks you are a lot of self-serving, bums-on-seats obsessives, what better way to validate the electorate’s view of you than by stitching up an electoral funding deal which is totally skewed in favour of the major parties?

American or Trump’s values, or are they the same

Australia can now either grimace and bear it for four years pretending nothing has happened; or face reality and question whether AUKUS and the US alliance more generally are worth it.

ANZUS and AUKUS were, from the start, purportedly based on “shared values”. Less than a month into the Donald Trump presidency can we put our hands on our hearts and say, “We share values with the US, and we will spill blood and treasure for those values”?

The acid question now is: to what extent are Trump’s values American values?

The paradox of recent politics

Hinkley nuclear power station in the UK – In 2007 estimated cost 9 billion pounds and construction time of 10 years. Cost now at 49 billion pounds and completion in 2031.

A paradoxical realignment is under way in Australian and US politics.

Until recently, the Republican Party in the US and the Liberal Party in Australia were the parties of business, entrepreneurs, the professions, and the relatively wealthy. And the Democrats and Labor were the parties of the worker. The Democrats and Labor were always wary of new technology because it invariably costs jobs.

Ukraine: expect the unexpected again

Expect the unexpected in Ukraine. Events on the ground and, more importantly, on and below the surface of the sea suggest as much.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, then a comedian who played a fictional Ukrainian president in a TV series, unexpectedly ran in the 2019 election and unexpectedly won in a landslide against the political establishment.

Dine out on this pathetic tax policy

“I can’t go to work to earn an income unless I pay for childcare.”

This was a woman taxpayer’s plea at an Australian Administrative Appeals Tribunal hearing I was reporting on in the early 1980s. No, no, said the tribunal, that is a personal expense.

Forty years later, childcare is still not tax deductible.

Numbers stack up for Dutton’s hard right push

The notion that Opposition Leader Peter Dutton cannot win this year’s election unless he moves more to the centre to recapture the seats lost last election to the teals, independents, and Greens is misguided because it defies electoral arithmetic.

In fact, Dutton’s divisive, polarising, attention-grabbing politics provides a more likely path to victory for him than moving to the centre. It is unfortunate, but true.

Democracy, liberty and capitalism

At the end of World War I, everyone thought it was the war to end all wars. Not so. Along came Hitler. At the end of World War II everyone thought hostilities would be over. Not so. Along came Stalin.

At the end of the Cold War everyone thought that the triumph of free-market capitalism and democracy meant the whole world would progress that way. Not so. Along came Putin and Trump.

Why didn’t free-market capitalism and democracy spread to the peoples of the world who were so obviously desirous of it? That is a good question to ask at the beginning of 2025 and at the beginning of the second Trump presidency.

Scientists should break the ice

The 2024 award for the biggest disjoin between the importance of a story and the coverage it got must surely go to the science briefing on Antarctica and Sea-Level Rise published by the Australian Antarctic Program Partnership and the ARC Australian Centre for Excellence in Antarctic Science.

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