This is war protest month, with more to follow. Will efforts against the Iraq war, that failed twenty years ago this week, succeed in heading off the next one? On Sunday 19 February thousands protested at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC against US militarism, proxy warfare, and the threat of nuclear conflict. The ANSWER Continue reading »
Economy
But is the Arab country’s pioneering gender parity laws and the ‘State Feminism’ introduced in the 1950s by Habib Bourguiba under threat from President Kaîs Saïed’s new electoral law? The new Tunisian electoral law drops parity in a disastrous political and economic situation. While the old electoral law enshrined gender parity among candidates by obliging Continue reading »
The continuing debate in Pearls and Irritations about economic growth and sustainability has largely ignored a critical dimension: the role of human subjectivity. The debate has focused on the interactions between economic growth and environmental impacts. There has been some mention of living standards, wellbeing and quality of life, but little consideration of how what Continue reading »
“Lifters” and “leaners”; “makers” vs “takers”; “strivers” and the “skivers”. The language may be different but the pejorative sentiment around the welfare state is similar, be it in Australia, the United States or the United Kingdom. However, it is highly misleading. Government payments to people who are unemployed are a fraction of the spending on Continue reading »
The child’s face in the Smith Family ad sums up all that is wrong with Australia. In this rich, first world nation, the Smith Family call us to sponsor a child so that she might go to school. A basic human right is being denied and in that denial our state and government stands condemned. Continue reading »
If the COVID-19 pandemic is teaching us anything it is the important contribution of doctors, nurses, pharmacists, allied health professionals, hospital workers and teachers. Health, people, and communities are precious. My research (2015-2020) considered the dichotomies of regarding employees as assets with utility (valuable) or as people with dignity (valued). The policy implications for employers Continue reading »
Treasury, along with all economic institutions, must replace their ageist definitions and assumptions about older people and become part of the solution, not the assault. Quelle surprise! We finally have a Treasurer who is an independent thinker, and more surprisingly he is thinking out loud. Jim Chalmers is rethinking capitalism to restore some basic values. Continue reading »
The release of the Strengthening Medicare Taskforce report has re-ignited discussions about reform of Australia’s primary healthcare system. The report and options for reform were discussed on the 8 February at the National Press Club in Canberra where health economist Dr Stephen Duckett appeared on a panel with Dr Kerrie Aust GP AMA President ACT and Dr Continue reading »
It’s no surprise that Jim Chalmers’ gentle challenge to neoliberal economics has generated an often rabid and intensely hostile response from the Murdoch media. To be hoped for is a more reasoned, informed national debate which focusses on, as Chalmers points to, fundamental changes to our economic environment. Some digging is needed to extract from Continue reading »
Despite countless Western bossy-boots beavering away in the media and beyond, generating worst-case projections as they strain to create a collective storyboard for “China: The Disaster Movie”, China, exasperatingly, keeps successfully pressing on towards its own clearly considered, affirmative future. The American Plan A for reforming China was firmly in place by the 1990s. The Continue reading »