Against the background of reconciliatory legal and political gestures from Canberra over the past 30 years, and in view of the Voice being proposed as an organic instrument ‘from the heart’ of Aboriginal Australia (rather than a top-down ‘advice’ – device of bureaucratic convenience), it may well be the game-changer everyone yearns for. I was Continue reading »
politics
The convergence of the NATO Summit in Lithuania, and trade talks with the European Union in Brussels, saw Prime Minister Albanese and Trade Minister Don Farrell head to Europe. The former should not have gone, and the latter should be prepared to walk away without agreement. Asia is also represented at the NATO meeting by Continue reading »
The Robodebt Royal Commission makes clear that the APS Value, ‘accountability’, is not just aspirational: individual public servants have duties and failing to meet them should have serious consequences. It is possible to detect in the Commission’s Report two strategies for promoting public service integrity: The support in Chapter 23 for Thodey Review recommendations aimed Continue reading »
Lord Ismay, NATO’s first secretary-general (SG), famously said the purpose of NATO was to ‘keep the Americans in, the Russians out, and the Germans down’. The end of the Cold War raised hopes of significant changes to the basis of international relations and world order. Yet the idea and possibility of war were not eliminated Continue reading »
New documents show a scientist calling a lab leak “highly likely” — after drafting a paper claiming the opposite.
The post House Republicans Accidentally Released a Trove of Damning Covid Documents appeared first on The Intercept.
Geo-politics is played on a world chessboard often by sad oldies in sober suits. To keep membership exclusive the polymath gamers use polysyllables and foreign tongues. Clearly not the place for a perky American doll. Yet Barbie has made it to the top without studying at the Sorbonne. She’s getting into the space of Xi Continue reading »
The Australian Defence Department’s new Frigates project is a jobs merry-go-round for former military officers, bureaucrats, and weapons makers. Integrity concerns with Australia’s $46 billion procurement from BAE Systems of nine warships were examined in Part One of Declassified Australia’s special ‘Sinking Billions’. The Defence contract management process was revealed to be flawed and suffering what the Australian Continue reading »
Governments around the world are promoting and subsidising carbon capture and storage (CCUS) to facilitate an increase in fossil gas mining. This will dash any hope of controlling world emissions at a time when there are deep concerns for climate change becoming uncontrollable. Yet the Australian government and the fossil gas industry are driving huge Continue reading »
Defeat for the Voice referendum will reverberate internationally. Surviving suspicions about our racist past will be refreshed. It will come at the same time as our renewed embrace of our ‘forever friends’ in Britain and the United States and our growing enthusiasm for closer ties with NATO. Race is constantly referred to by both sides Continue reading »