Make no mistake, had the Australian Government not changed last year, Chen Lei would still be languishing in her miserable detention cell, denied access to her children, relatives, and friends. From the outset, the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister made it clear that they would change the tone of the relationship with China which, by Continue reading »
Economy
As the shock waves from last weekend’s Voice referendum reverberate, a deeper reality is beginning to more fully reveal itself. The ‘division’ that Voice opponents claimed the proposition would create already exists among non-indigenous Australians and it is reshaping how politics is done in this country. We are moving ever closer towards a politics of Continue reading »
‘Growth is one of the stupidest purposes ever invented by any culture. We’ve got to have an ‘enough’. Always ask growth of what, and why, and for whom, and who …
The post Humanity sits at a crossroads as politicians re-sell the politics of public austerity appeared first on The Gower Initiative for Modern Money Studies.
Glyn Davis may have been ‘shocked’ by the Pezzullo revelations but, as several other observers have noted, many other people inside and outside the public service were not really surprised. Pezzullo has always been a divisive character with a management style that takes no prisoners. His has never been the collaborative leadership approach long espoused Continue reading »
Last week was China’s “Golden Week”. It is so called because it is the longest holiday of the year, with the period of Spring Festival and the National Day fused into one marathon stint. During this time, millions of Chinese pursue leisure and travel activities throughout the country in trips that amount to hundreds of Continue reading »
Rent controls may be off the immediate political agenda, but they are very much an issue for the nearly 30% of voters who rent. As more and more people face deep poverty and homelessness, the ethical imperative for revisiting rent controls is impelling. And yet, the recent negotiations between the government and the Greens revealed Continue reading »
The challenges of engagement when international tensions rise go beyond defence and security considerations. The benefits, however, are vitally important and deserve continued investment. It is essential therefore to consider carefully the terms of engagement – the sometimes conflicting principles that should guide engagement. Senior public servants, past and present, together with eminent scholars, gathered Continue reading »
The Voice campaign has revealed how much Dark Money is distorting our political debates. But will proposed reforms of money in politics crush the independents? One of the most crucial decisions about the shape of our democracy is about to be resolved. The Coalition and the ALP appear to have reached a decision to block Continue reading »
The recently concluded summit of the five member states of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) agreed to expand membership to include from next January Saudi Arabia, Iran, Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the UAE. Western media and commentators’ responses have been a farrago of sneering at the unlikely hodgepodge of countries that Continue reading »
One of the most important developments in economics is something in which economists had no hand: the identification of the environmental limits which humans, busily producing and consuming, cross at their peril. Earth has existed for about 4 billion years and humans have lived on Earth for about 200,000 years. For almost all of that Continue reading »