Crispin Hull

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.

Fix tax, fix society’s growing inequality

Peter Costello, as Australian Treasurer, did a splendid thing when in 1998 he steered trough the Charter of Budget Honesty Act. The aim was to inform Parliament and the nation about the cost of policy proposals from politicians from left, right and centre and to produce reports which show how much various tax and spending policies cost the Budget each year.

6m have solar and will vote

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s announcement on nuclear energy last week contained a welcome development. For the first time since about 1989, the Coalition has acknowledged that only governments can do some of the really big-ticket items.

Since about 1990, the Coalition has said, Private Sector Good, Public Sector Bad. But with the program to build seven nuclear power stations, the Coalition acknowledges that only the public sector can do it.

Penalty for defending the indefensible

A big key to what has been happening in Australian politics recently is respect.

The major parties have become so hopelessly beholden to corporate interests that they have to defend the indefensible.

Unstoppable march of autocracy?

As Bob Dylan sang: “The Germans now, too, have God on their side.” More obscurely, unionist activist Florence Reece wrote the song “Which Side Are You On?” – made less obscure by Pete Seeger.

Well, yes, the people and nations on each side change from time to time, but more pertinently this century the nature of the sides themselves has changed. No longer do we have left v right; labour v capitalists; communist v the west; US v China.

Stop playing into anti-vaxxers’ hands

Ian Lees, father of Katie Lees, one of the bereaved litigants, with his daughter’s story at Hyde Park after an interlocutory hearing in the Federal Court last month. Photo courtesy Alison Bevege.

Next month the Federal Court is to hear an application to strike out a class action against the Federal Government and its health authorities that seeks compensation for injury and death caused by Covid vaccines.

Let me say at the outset, I am not an anti-vaxxer – far from it. The science is sound. Vaccinations have saved millions of lives and vaccination programs should continue as sound, scientifically proven public-health measures.

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