Improving housing affordability is the key to resolving the cost-of-living crisis, but the policy options are limited and will inevitably take time to have their desired effect. Yesterday’s article showed that the cost-of-living crisis mainly reflects a decline in housing affordability. Accordingly, any government response to the cost-of-living crisis needs to focus on what can Continue reading »
politics
It is hard to know whether the bleatings of the major media outlets about losing the Meta $70 million payments under the media bargaining code are pathetic or laughable. Indeed, perhaps both. Now whatever you think of the mainstream media in Australia, and the deleterious impact of Meta and other social media outlets on our Continue reading »
A silent consequence of the horrifying hostilities taking place in Gaza is the long-term behavioural impairments for the children who, the United Nations estimate, make up 40% of the casualties. The Save the Children organisation estimates, as of June 2024, that 14,000 have been killed and 21,000 are missing, disappeared, detained or buried in the Continue reading »
The Opposition’s shadow minister for home and foreign affairs, Barnaby Joyce, was seen storming around parliament house ranting and raving after learning that the Government planned to ban Tutti Fruitti flavoured vapes, his personal favourite. ”Bloody Government, they need to... Read More ›
Julian Assange is expected to be in Australia late tomorrow, a free man. Footage tweeted by Wikileaks hours ago showed Assange walking up the stairs onto an aircraft bound for Saipan in the US-administered Mariana Islands, Monday afternoon UK time. Sources have told Pearls and Irritations Assange is accompanied on the flight by Australian High Continue reading »
In 1969, then-Prime Minister Gough Whitlam stated, “We are all diminished when any of us are denied proper education. The nation is the poorer—a poorer economy, a poorer civilisation, because of this human and national waste.” Although Whitlam was talking about tertiary education—this was part of his policy speech when his government abolished university fees, Continue reading »
The announcement last week of an impending Royal Tour provokes many considerations. Both international and domestic developments need to be taken into account. The global reconsideration of the legacy of centuries of European imperialism, of slavery, indigenous dispossession and economic exploitation represents the latest manifestation of the long process of de-colonisation. As a consequence Britain, Continue reading »
Like Gaza, Ukraine is one of the great tragedies of the post-Cold War period. Like Gaza, it is the result of a deadly game pursued by great powers intent on inflicting maximum damage on each other, seemingly oblivious of the costs. The war is now well into its third year and with no end in Continue reading »
Sino-Australian ties show signs of great resilience, stability as leaders take positive approach. There is a prominent view in the Australian commentariat that bilateral ties between Australia and China are fragile. Or put more dimly, the differences in political systems and strategic preferences between Canberra and Beijing mean that “stabilisation” is simply “not possible”. According Continue reading »
Peter Dutton is a charlatan – an inveterate climate change denialist. A denialist now seeking to camouflage his long held denialism in an industrial fantasy – resort to the most dangerous and expensive energy source on the face of the earth – nuclear power. In advocating this, Dutton continues his party’s manic denialism, first articulated Continue reading »