Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. The Medical Benefits Schedule (MBS) Review Advisory Committee (MRAC) has been tasked with supporting “a continuous review framework that ensures the MBS is contemporary, sustainable, evidence- based, and supports universal access to high value care for all Australians. Good about time. Action to address the inequity relating Continue reading »
politics
Former Australian Trade Minister Andrew Robb, in an exclusive interview with People’s Daily Online, said he viewed the upcoming visit of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to China as another step toward normalising political relations. Albanese is scheduled to visit China from November 4 to 7, 2023, during which he will participate in the sixth China Continue reading »
The UN is calling the Israel-Hamas war a ‘graveyard of children’…. an adult conflict, in which the young are suffering most. What we see on our TV screens every night is impossible to watch. Did Netanyahu see the young lad who had just carried the decapitated body of his friend from the rubble. If so, Continue reading »
The system of fixed term contracts for department heads is not in itself the cause of the recent debacles of Robodebt and Home Affairs. Restoring permanent appointments for departmental heads is unthinkable, not least because the former system rested upon powerful public service boards, now abolished everywhere. We could not restore such bodies even if Continue reading »
Israel’s strategic choices, as Israelis see it, are rather like those sometimes argued for Australia. It wants powerful friends but cannot take them for granted. Ultimately it must depend on itself, if needs be alone. Surrounded by deadly enemies, it must make the cost of conquest so high, and so uncertain, that invaders are deterred. Continue reading »
The global warming problem seems increasingly insoluble. The past record shows growing gaps between ambition and achievement, decreasing time in which to act, and governments, including Australia’s, stubbornly sticking to policies that have failed to stop emissions growth. Clues to the reasons behind this can be found in the Treasurer’s address to the Economic and Continue reading »
Lots of good reasons to plant trees but stopping climate change isn’t one. Krill – abundant but not for long unless we change our ways. Fossil fuels cause conflict and always have. Plantation problems Whether it’s kids, politicians, investors, carbon emitters or fraudsters, and whether it’s one or two in your back garden, hundreds across Continue reading »
It is journalistic malpractice for the media to still be repeating so credulously the Israeli military’s account of that day. The BBC’s Lucy Williamson was taken once again this week to view the terrible destruction at a kibbutz community just outside Gaza attacked on October 7. As we have been shown so many times before, Continue reading »
It’s not a good start to any media article when the sub headline contains an editorial error, but this headline which reads “Chinese minister invited to AI summit helped create cyborg rats: Wu Zhaohui has also been decribed [sic] as man ‘whose fingerprints are all over the Uyghur genocide” indicates that the once world-renowned Daily Continue reading »
Victoria’s leading Neo Nazi left the County Court in Melbourne on Friday with the judge’s message, “Good luck with the future, Gentlemen” ringing in his ears, laughing at the judge’s assertion that he and his co-offender have good prospects for rehabilitation. They greeted reporters outside the court with the observation that they were innocent, followed Continue reading »