The national report on Australia’s COVID response is long, at 877 pages (depending upon the format), with 4,647 footnotes. But long is not synonymous with comprehensive, and there are significant gaps in the report’s analysis and conclusions. Some of these problems are not of the panel’s making, I suspect, but others, related both to methodology Continue reading »
Health
From the day the war began, 15-year old Ghazal’s life was irreversibly changed. “They destroyed what was inside us,” she said. Her story is a window into the larger tragedy of how war has devastated children, especially those with disabilities. The unimaginable cost of war Ghazal, a 15-year-old girl with cerebral palsy, has lost her Continue reading »
My Dutch friend chose to die a peaceful, painless death at the time of his choosing. Everyone else should be free to make that same choice
My recent review of the book, Australia’s Pandemic Exceptionalism, by Steven Hamilton and Richard Holden (H&H) highlighted its ‘convincing, frank and honest account’ in just over 200 pages, and encouraged the Health Department in particular to listen to its lessons. The official COVID-19 Response Inquiry Report by Robyn Kruk, Catherine Bennett and Angela Jackson ( Continue reading »
The death of cricketer Phillip Hughes ten years ago to-day (November 27) was one of several hundred workplace fatalities in 2014. The manner of his death raises a key concern for occupational health and safety. Best practice is to remove the source of danger. Second or third best is to minimise its ill-effects. School cricket Continue reading »
A review of Steven Hamilton and Richard Holden, Australia’s Pandemic Exceptionalism: How we crushed the curve but lost the race, UNSW Press I started reading the latest offering by economists Hamilton and Holden on Australia’s COVID-19 experience while I was nursing a deep disappointment that the Albanese Government decided not to establish a Royal Commission Continue reading »
Hundreds of millions were wasted on contracts with zombie companies which vanished before any taxpayers' cash could be recovered
It is time to think more broadly about security than the narrow military concept about which there is endless debate. Security for individuals and communities does not depend on a nuclear powered and nuclear armed submarine. We are humans and human security is about many things including health, and it is health which our organisation, Continue reading »
Any law to help people die is the beginning of a slippery slope for disabled people whose lives are already devalued, writes Penny Pepper in her monthly column
'I don’t fully understand why so many people would faint from horror at the thought of hearing a dog screaming in agony but have no real issue with the idea of a human doing that'