Government
A little support instead of billions on toxic cruelty
We must speak to people who require assistance and listen to their needs instead of speaking over them. In the case of Australia’s refugee policy, we wasted billions on toxic cruelty when we could have done much better by cooperating internationally and supporting people humanely. One of the “greatest pre-resettlement programs in the world” for Continue reading »
Jewish Council of Australia urges the Australian government to reject racism against Palestinian people fleeing persecution in Gaza
This week Sky News reported it had a list with the personal details of 500 Palestinian people who had obtained visas to flee overwhelming violence in Gaza, 81 of whom are in Australia. The Jewish Council of Australia is concerned for the safety of the Palestinian people who have had their identities exposed to Sky Continue reading »
How the Australian government has betrayed the nation
The Australian people have been betrayed by their own Government, morally, legally, economically, financially, militarily and politically. Betrayed morally Australia’s moral standing in the world has been betrayed by the government providing political and military support to Israel as it carries out the wholesale slaughter of the Palestinians and the destruction of their living environment. Continue reading »
What does Dutton stand for?
Dutton regularly proclaims what he opposes, but what he will do in terms of new policies mostly remains a mystery or alternatively will not work. We are now not much more than a year from the next election. Furthermore, following next Saturday’s by-election for the seat of Dunkley no doubt the political pundits will wax Continue reading »
West Australia and the art of state capture
The idea of state capture is usually associated with the global south, but Australia, and Western Australia in particular, demonstrates that established democracies are far from immune. As the Australian Democracy Network explains, ‘a key element of state capture is the management of political parties both in government and opposition…a range of techniques are brought Continue reading »
Australia’s First Nations still looking over the 1788 chasm
More than four months after a crushing defeat in the Voice referendum, and soon after the Closing the Gap report confirmed that there was almost no progress in improving Aboriginal lives last year, Aboriginal players in the yes case are moving towards an inquest into how their case went so terribly wrong. Marcia Langton, for Continue reading »
Medicare is bleeding to death. Will Labor ever do anything about it?
GP visits are down 37% since the government took office. But all we get is spin. Decades of inadequate funding and poor policy has driven Medicare to the point of crisis and beyond — and the crunch-point coincided with the election of the Albanese government. It looks as if GP clinics had held out in Continue reading »
Australia’s India bet: Not a lay down misère yet
When do shared values become shared interests? Australia’s relations with India have accelerated exponentially. The nearly century-long pattern of discovery and rediscovery of India by the Australian polity is now history. Durable knots are being tied across the spectrum of political, economic, and social issues. No one-night stands anymore. It is all so reminiscent of Continue reading »
Curing Australia’s dependent personality disorder
I arrived in Australia with my family at the time when Malcolm Fraser was the Prime Minister of Australia. He was preceded by Gough Whitlam and succeeded by Bob Hawke and Paul Keating. They were all intellectual, individualistic and humane leaders. I had never felt more secure and proud to be Australian. However, the subsequent Continue reading »
The despoiling of public life: Scott Morrison and authoritarian paranoia
There are few surprises regarding the final episode of Nemesis, the three-part account on how the Liberal Party, in partnership with the Nationals, psychotically and convulsively disembowel itself from the time Tony Abbott won office in 2013. Over the gore and violence concluding the tenures of Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull, one plotter rose, knife bloodied Continue reading »