Will the Albanese government restore Medicare as a universal system? Covid is still killing about 500 Australians a month; and crazies in the Liberal Party branches try to undermine their few remaining sound parliamentarians. Read on for the weekly roundup of links to articles, reports, podcasts and other media on current political and economic issues Continue reading »
Public policy
Indigenous owned forests in the Amazon absorb carbon; non-Indigenous forests produce carbon. Chicken and pig factories are bad for the animals and bad for the climate. Indigenous held forests capture more carbon The importance of natural forests as carbon sinks is well recognised – each year between 2001 and 2021 the world’s forests absorbed about Continue reading »
AEMO warns Australia could be plunged into darkness; Don’t blame Lowe: he has a lousy job; and the Murdoch media’s internal culture: it isn’t pretty. Read on for the weekly roundup of links to articles, reports, podcasts, and other media on current political and economic issues in public policy. Inflation, wages and profits There must Continue reading »
How best to reduce greenhouse gas emissions: stop burning coal, eat less meat or block out the sun? The first and second look preferable to the third to me. How many reports do we need? Every organisation with an interest in climate change seems to produce at least one report a year that analyses countries’ Continue reading »
House prices are falling, a by-election in Aston, and 12 000 asylum-seekers are still in limbo. Read on for the Weekly roundup of links to articles, reports, podcasts and other media on current political and economic issues in public policy. Economics How the Reserve Bank’s statements have spooked the market and caused unnecessary pain: perhaps Continue reading »
Hindsight is a wonderful thing and it particularly applies to the Whitlam government’s ‘loans affair’. The events leading up to the dismissal of the Whitlam government in 1975 were complex, fascinating and ultimately tragic, especially for Australian society. I will not reprise the key facts here as they are readily available, especially if one reads Continue reading »
All countries are failing to look after their environments and their people. Long haul flights will continue to generate most CO2. The world’s youth are not happy. Biophysical boundaries and social thresholds This piece requires familiarity with two concepts: planetary boundaries and doughnut economics. The first posits that there are nine environmental factors that must Continue reading »
Bipartisanship on the wrong issue – asylum-seeker policy; Chalmers’ essay – is it really just mainstream economics?; and, after 50 years, Medicare needs resuscitating. Read on for the weekly roundup of links to articles, reports, podcasts and other media on current political and economic issues in public policy. Australian politics More on the Voice, including Continue reading »
Michael Keating’s response to the P&I article series on growth – GDP and population – is very welcome as it provides a condensed summary of what has befuddled Australian political economy in recent decades. Problem one is his seeming complete unfamiliarity with post-growth scholarship: the problems it identifies, the causes of the problems, and the Continue reading »
Australia’s oceans, Greenland’s Ice Sheet and Antarctica’s sea ice are all feeling the heat. One million species are on the edge of extinction. No wonder life scientists are taking to the streets. Australia is in hot water Although the global warming that has occurred over the oceans is lower than the warming over land, about Continue reading »