The Canberra Press Gallery is not a homogenous group although its members do seem to suffer from a fair amount of groupthink; preference for gotchas and speculation about what might happen next in politics; and heavy dependence on leaks and drops for copy. One part of it – the Murdoch part – subsumes this into Continue reading »
Government
When I think of Australia, the first things that pop into my mind are koalas and kangaroos. Those adorable marsupials are wooing travellers worldwide every year to the beautiful land. But travellers can also say hello to Giant Pandas in Australia. It is the only country in the Southern Hemisphere that hosts those cuddly animals Continue reading »
Australia is the only western liberal democracy without a mandated charter of human rights. It’s now closer than at any time in 40 years. There are certain basic rights that are essential in any liberal democracy and, without them, a country is neither liberal nor a democracy. They include habeas corpus, free speech, the right Continue reading »
Primary school students learn in their early days that accountability is a keystone of democracy. Not far into secondary school that reassuring notion is tempered as schoolies get to appreciate that for governments accountability equals political risk. It’s a pain in ministerial necks and should be kept within bounds sufficient to minimise electoral discomfort. These Continue reading »
It hasn’t even finished its first year of operations, but those who were hoping for big things from the National Anti-Corruption Commission and its chair, Justice Paul Brereton would be wise to temper mightily their hopes and expectations of what it might achieve. An indicator, if only one of them, came on June 6 when Continue reading »
660 000 Australians are participants in the National Disability Insurance Scheme, and 400 000 work in NDIS-related jobs. Our country needs the NDIS, but it’s expanded too quickly in recent years, as state-based services have withered on the vine. 11% of five- to seven-year-old Australian boys, and 5% of five- to seven-year-old girls, are now Continue reading »
The Census is important because it tells us so much about ourselves. But the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) is complicating the data we collect on religion. The Australian public service is positively benign compared its US counterpart. I know how Kafkaesque the US is because I’ve had several years dealing with them in terms Continue reading »
The latest Budget in New Zealand appeared to have been driven by the old idea that small government is the best government. Thousands of public service jobs have been slashed while the government reduced its own revenue by cutting taxes. The tax cuts were an election pledge. The National Party’s view was that as incomes Continue reading »
Pro-Israel forces in Washington are trying to derail Karim Khan’s request for Israeli and Hamas arrest warrants. U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham was bursting with contempt for the International Criminal Court (ICC) when he grilled U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken at a May 21 congressional hearing. Wagging his finger, he warned that, if the ICC gets Continue reading »
Home Affairs Minister James Paterson has recently been extolling Peter Dutton’s record on immigration integrity and dealing with foreign criminals. So let’s just test those claims. Labour trafficking abusing the asylum system A key responsibility of any immigration minister is to prevent the system being exploited by labour traffickers. Attempts by labour traffickers to exploit Continue reading »