The elephant can only be ignored for so long: we need to talk about academics. Rather like journalists, academics exhibit a profound mismatch between self-image and reality. Everybody has heard by now that British higher education is in a parlous state. Indebted students. Overworked staff on squeezed pay. Misery all round. The question is who Continue reading »
politics
Any talk about disability in Australia is very likely to quickly lead to mention of ‘the System,’ which controls everything in the lives of People With Disability. This phrase comes from Australia having started its European settlement period as a British penal colony, so we inherited ‘the System’ as a foundation stone of our society. Continue reading »
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare released its latest health expenditure data last week showing the Commonwealth share of government public hospital funding has declined to 41%. This will fuel state anger and make negotiations for a new funding agreement, to take effect in mid-2025, that much harder. A constant of Australian health policy Continue reading »
It is now the case that Australia’s alliance with the United States is best described as the Great Harmonisation. On all principal matters of strategic interest – especially in all fundamental aspects of China as the “pacing threat” – the overwhelming impression is that, though Washington and Canberra are spatially separated, they nevertheless speak and Continue reading »
Industrial transformation has accelerated China’s rise as a global power. In the New Era, which was officially recognised in the Chinese national constitution in 2017, the narrative of national rejuvenation is writ large: it underpins the Community of Shared Future, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and China’s various soft power campaigns. Cultural and media Continue reading »
Today’s Melbourne Herald Sun carries a story that, along with other former Australian Prime Ministers, I will be a signature to a statement drafted by The Zionist Federation of Australia, condemning the attack by Hamas on Israel. This report is without foundation and is untrue. Mark Leibler contacted me earlier last week proposing the prospective Continue reading »
The US is the ‘essential nation’, the ‘indispensable nation’, its leadership ‘holds the world together’. This is the boastful humbug that President Biden gave us on his return from Israel, where he again affirmed his complicity with Israel in its decades of occupation, ethnic cleansing and genocide in Palestine. The US assumes a moral superiority Continue reading »
With your last breath you can exalt those fearsome prophets. As you die again and again. The million deaths they promised you. With what’s unfolding in Israel-Gaza right now, I would normally be prompted to ponder the politics, weigh up the geostrategic implications and offer a considered analysis. This is something I have done countless Continue reading »
The most pressing challenge for the Catholic Church remains addressing women’s inequality in its ranks. The current Synod on Synodality offers some hope, but there are huge roadblocks. The likelihood of equality for women in the Church requires a leap of faith, extremely long-term thinking, and hoping against hope. I cannot see it happening in Continue reading »
The prolonged debate about the Voice to Parliament was dominated by the question about what rights should be accorded to our First Nations communities. It was, without doubt, the most potent argument advanced by proponents of the no case. By enshrining the Voice in the constitution, it was said, Aborigines and Islanders were to be Continue reading »