Along with a new scheme for first home buyer assistance, Federally-led rental reform is now on the PM’s agenda. But this week’s National Cabinet and Party Conference housing announcements need to be integrated into a coherent and ambitious long-term strategy. Anthony Albanese has signalled backing for ‘harmonising’ tenants’ rights, country-wide, importantly including enhanced security of Continue reading »
politics
Pearls and Irritations is a unique source of independent comment and analysis. Readers know that they will learn more and have a better and different understanding of important policy issues than is available from the mass media. It is therefore gratifying that readership has grown tenfold over the last six years, with monthly ‘views’ now Continue reading »
For the first time since the US achieved global domination economically and militarily after WWII, the military industrial complex and Biden administration fear the rise of China. They have decided that it must be crushed. The US, NATO and its compliant states have whipped up a frenzy of fear and loathing for the Chinese. This Continue reading »
By entering the AUKUS Partnership in 2021, Australia has undertaken to co-operate with the United States and the United Kingdom, two nuclear-weapon states, with objectives that include acquiring nuclear-powered submarines that would be armed with conventional weapons. This has the potential to weaken both the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), by setting a Continue reading »
Since the Labor government endorsed Scott Morrison’s AUKUS Defence Policy, many former Labor leaders, diplomats and academics have questioned whether there has been adequate assessment of the many risks associated with this secret deal that has not been formally assessed for its impact on Australians. Open Letter to all ALP members at the ALP National Continue reading »
The United States has been going all-out to sanction and isolate Russia ever since the Russia-Ukraine conflict broke out in February last year. This, however, did not deter 49 of the 54 African countries from attending the Russia-Africa Summit on July 27. Russia is barely attractive to Africa if only economic factors are considered: Russia Continue reading »
The bail reform bill tabled in the Victorian parliament this week seeks to undo some of the worst parts of the Bail Act, which was condemned as a “complete and unmitigated disaster” in the coronial inquest into the passing of Gunditjmara, Dja Dja Wurrung, Wiradjuri and Yorta Yorta woman Veronica Nelson in 2020. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers Continue reading »
Nine former Attorneys-General, both State and Federal, have voiced their concern about the treatment of Australian citizen, journalist and publisher Julian Assange saying that enough is enough and his on-going detention must come to an end. Former Victorian State Attorney-General Rob Hulls has joined with former Tasmanian Premier and Attorney-General Lara Giddings, another former Tasmanian Continue reading »
The outcome of the Voice referendum will affect Australia’s reputation – a fact voters should consider, writes John McCarthy. Sometime towards the end of the year, we will vote on a referendum about whether to change our Constitution to establish an independent Indigenous voice to our parliament and government on matters which affect the lives Continue reading »
Last month, news emerged that two Indian women belonging to the minority Kuki tribe in Manipur had been raped and then paraded naked in public. The rapes were said to have taken place in May in what is claimed to be the world’s biggest democracy, but which nowadays looks more like a dictatorship. It took Continue reading »