Crispin Hull

THE brass plaques are everywhere. On bridges, hospitals, schools, highways and also on additions and extensions to them. They are on telecommunications towers, railway stations, bus interchanges, airports, ports, fire stations, police stations and sport stadiums. On virtually every bit of infrastructure that any drop of public money helped build. Continue reading “Infrastructure self-promotion by government not needed”

AN ASSERTION of judicial power to protect rights in Australia would not go amiss after a decade of onslaught by the legislature and executive against ordinary liberal-democratic principles.

An analysis by constitutional lawyer George Williams tallies 350 Australian laws that now infringe those basic democratic standards. The laws cover not just anti-terror and defence, but also general crime, discrimination, consumer law, migration, industrial relations, intellectual property, evidence, shipping, environment, education and health. Continue reading “Powerful Australian legislature stepping into judicial sphere”

IN THE 2016 election year we will hear a lot more about one of Australia’s hitherto practically unsung federal-state imbalances.

The much sung one, of course, is the fact that the Federal Government raises the bulk of the taxes, but the states are the ones with the responsibility for spending them – schools, hospitals, police, most roads and so on. It goes by the rather ugly name of vertical fiscal imbalance. Continue reading “Population now likely to be bigger election issue”

THE average financial adviser will not tell you this, but one investment beats virtually anything else. Its effective rate of return is about 27 per cent. Yes 27 per cent. It is achieved by making sure you pay your credit card off by the due date every month. Continue reading “Nation in hock should wean off credit cards”

US Republican candidate Donald Trump’s call to prevent all Muslims from entering the United States gives rise to the question: what are the limits of toleration in a liberal democracy? To what extent can a liberal democracy tolerate religious bigotry? It is a double-edged question. To what extent can a liberal democracy tolerate the bigotry espoused by Trump? Equally to what extent can a liberal democracy tolerate a religion (or sect of a religion) that espouses repression of women and homosexuals; the death for adultery and apostasy; and amputation for thieves. Continue reading “How much intolerance can we tolerate”

THE Paris climate conference should give us greater cause for optimism about preventing catastrophic climate change than all the talks and conferences before it. Continue reading “Paris — economics makes climate pledges easy”

THE word “kludge” has been around since the 1960s. Then, in 2013, political scientist Steven Teles introduced the word “kludgeocracy” – rule by “kludges”. A kludge is a collection of parts that clumsily but effectively provides a temporary solution to a fault or problem, especially in computer systems. Continue reading “Super way to fix a kludge, or should a kludge fix super?”

WHAT else is there to say? Continue reading “Half measures no good against ISIS”

THIS week, the 40th anniversary of the dismissal, was an interesting one for Opposition Leader Bill Shorten to renew his call for an Australian Republic. In the same week, Prime Minister and former Australian Republican Movement leader Malcolm Turnbull was in Canberra meeting Charles Windsor, who if nothing changes will become Australia’s next monarch, by dint of birth alone. Continue reading “No reserve powers needed in a democracy”

YES there is a trickle down effect in the field of tax. Not in the Ronald Reagan sense whereby tax breaks for the rich allegedly result in more employment. That effect was often likened to a trickle down from the bladder whereby those at the bottom got worse than nothing. Continue reading “Trickle down of ideas, not money”