Crispin Hull

Noalition invites Labor action

The NSW election and the Ashton by-election make it clear that Australians are fed up with ideology, donor-pandering, and political point-scoring and want their governments to do stuff and fix stuff.

The federal government should do itself a couple of favours. One, make the transition to electric vehicles a top economic and national-security matter and the other is to take the obvious steps to reverse the housing crisis.

Why renters are being done over

Australia’s rental and property market in general are in a dreadful mess, according to a research paper published last week by property companies PEXA and Longview.

Their prognosis is that it can only get worse unless something is done. The system is certainly not working for tenants, but, they argue, it is not very good for owners either.

We must ask: where’s the money coming from

The appropriately named RN nuclear sub, HMS Ambush

Not far from the beautiful yachts and powered gin palaces on the Cairns Marina are a number of boat broker’s offices. In the back room of one, away from the glazed eyes of the clientele, is a sign put up for the eyes of the staff only. It reads: We Sell Nightmares to Dreamers.

I wonder if there is such a sign, or if not, the thought behind it, at the shipbuilders yards that construct nuclear submarines in in the US and Britain.

We’re a target. What to do?

Australians should take special heed of the analysis of the noted defence strategist Peter Jennings and then draw the exact opposite conclusion from his about what should be done.

New wars different results

Journalists fall into the same trap as generals and politicians: they view the present war with blinkers imposed by the experience of past wars.

This has coloured the reaction to the Albanese Government daring to change tax arrangements on superannuation. There would be a major voter backlash, virtually every commentator argued. The horses would be frightened. Where would the slippery slope end, argued the Opposition – Labor will tax ordinary Australians to the hilt.

Estate planning should not be a super idea

True story. How a millionaire avoided $10,000 in tax by a simple accounting transaction which is perfectly legal.

Follow this true case carefully and you will be as astonished as I was that Australia’s superannuation rules could allow such a thing.

Lowe’s weak weaponry

Reserve Bank Governor Philip Lowe is like a passenger in a racing car with both hands on the handbrake. Meanwhile, the real driver (the Government) has feet on the accelerator and foot brake and hands on the gears and steering wheel.

Yet it is Lowe who is expected to ensure the car circumnavigates the track, does not crash or break down, and glides to the chequered flag to the applause of one and all. But if he applies the handbrake (as he has done) and the car sways erratically, he is pilloried.

A big race: fossil profits v transition

The race is on. And the stakes could not be higher.

The race is between competing interests. On one hand we have the broad mass of the world’s people who do not want to experience the catastrophes associated with global heating: floods, fires, food and water scarcity and so on. On the other hand, we have big fossil energy corporations and the policy-makers in nations that have large reserves of fossil energy.

That essay: Stalin not at the gates

Australians should be hoping that the members of the Reserve Bank board have read the 6000-word essay written by Treasurer Jim Chalmers for the latest edition of The Monthly before today’s board meeting.

But they probably haven’t or, if they have, won’t alter their static thinking and rates will rise – recklessly and riskily.

It’s broke we need to fix it

What an unseemly, messy “debate” we had in the Australia Day week over the Voice.

To put it crudely, it seems that the whitefellas opposing the Voice are concerned that it might give the blackfellas too much, and that the blackfellas opposing the Voice are concerned that it will not give them enough.

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