Category: Uncategorized

ANGUS Houston’s basic decency and humanity were obvious every time, as head of the Australian Defence Force, he had to announce the death of another soldier in Afghanistan. His fundamental integrity was apparent when he refused to economise with the truth during the inquiry into the children overboard affair. Continue reading “Military mindset mars refugee plans”

THE controversial elevation of ACT barrister Stuart Pilkinton to the ranks of Senior Counsel invites questioning of the whole process. The public has a strong interest in the regulation of the professions, particularly law and medicine. Continue reading “More open system for SCs needed”

THE slow washing out of the Health Services Union affair reminds us of the pivitol role industrial relations has played in Australia’s politics. (Hooray for the Olympic slump is below.) Continue reading “IR’s ugly head; hooray for Olympic slump”

THERE comes a time – like reaching the big six zero – when you should do something completely different. As a result, I am learning to sail. Not taking a dinghy around Lake Burley Griffin, but rather taking a 14-metre yacht from Brisbane to Port Douglas, north of Cairns – about 1800km — with my brother, Greg, and his son Timothy. Continue reading “Learning after 60 — the big sail”

IN THE holidays between school and university I had a job at a soft-drink factory in Beechworth, Victoria. On Day One I began the task of sorting used empty bottles – crown tops, screw tops, bottles with ceramic labels, bottles with paper labels, large bottles, small bottles, medium bottles and so on. Continue reading “Deposits on containers work”

A CASE decided in the Family Court last week has revealed a quirk in Australia’s native title law and highlights once again some of the difficulties in native title. One of the biggest objections to native title in Australia is that it ties up the land.

The theory goes that Indigenous people cannot deal with their land. Native title vests in groups of people or trusts who hold it on their behalf. Continue reading “Native title — benefit or burden?”

YOU CAN see it any day at Canberra Airport – a great contest between the owners who want to gouge as much as they can get away with from anyone coming near the place and those determined not to pay one cent more than they absolutely must. Continue reading “Airport gouging and shock jocks”

SO, AFTER tomorrow we will see who is right: Aesop or Goebbels. Aesop wrote The Boy who Cried Wolf – the fable whose moral was that liars are not rewarded. If you try to trick people by crying wolf when there is not one, they will not believe you when you cry wolf and there really is one. Continue reading “Propaganda will continue despite no meltdown”

WE SEEM to have a two-stream commentary interpreting our two-speed economy. One expresses puzzlement that Australia’s comparatively stellar economic performance is yielding nothing but whingeing from the voters and undeserved poor marks for a good government. The other asserts the Government is bungling and if only it would move out of the way the private sector would bring prosperity to all. Continue reading “Two wrong commentary streams on Oz economy”

THERE is no god-given right for The Newcastle Herald, the Illawarra Mercury, or indeed The Canberra Times, to come out every day. Running a newspaper has to be a business, albeit a public-spirited one, not a charity. Continue reading “Newspapers’ painful transmogrification”