There is a spectre haunting the world. It is the spectre of economic crisis. How the world responds will shape all of our futures. To borrow from Carl Clausewitz; war is the continuation of politics by other means. The famous military theorist might have added that economics is politics which is war by other means. Continue reading »
politics
“For me, indigenous recognition won’t be changing our constitution so much as completing it.” – Tony Abbot, 2015. When on the 7th of February 1788 the British claimed the eastern half of Australia they left us with two abiding problems. They assumed that the First Nations were not in actual possession of their own homelands Continue reading »
It is hard to gauge the importance of the Trumpist Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) event that took place in Sydney this weekend. There were more high-profile figures speaking than previously, and several currently serving politicians alongside white supremacists and antisemites. CPAC’s budget did not allow the recreation of the Nazi “odal” rune stage shape Continue reading »
The accepted norm of Western dominance of the global order is now over. The difficult matter for those in the West to accept is that the mantle of leadership is not being passed from one Anglo-Western power to another of the same ilk, but rather one neither Anglo, nor Western, and dare I say it, Continue reading »
Australian governments are now amongst the biggest users of external consultants on the planet. Our country has seen the privatisation of core government tasks at an extraordinary level over the past decade along with an increase in spending on private service providers that is hard to believe. While decent public sector jobs have languished in Continue reading »
“Extensive media coverage has suggested… that Mr [Shaoquett] Moselmane was a suspect in serious criminality. This was incorrect. … The committee does not form a view on the propriety or otherwise of the conduct of the AFP or sections of the media. However, in these circumstances, the committee urges the AFP to ensure sufficient resources Continue reading »
In the early 1960s, the then USSR started building missile sites in Cuba, near enough to Florida for endurance swimmers. This almost led to the Cold War turning flaming hot. Now Australia is to buy more than 200 US missiles and stage them close to Indonesia. The Arafura Sea is too wide to swim, but the Continue reading »
Richard Marles said the quiet bit out loud ahead of the ALP conference AUKUS debate while Prime Minister Anthony Albanese seems to have been, er, “economical with the truth”. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that the Defence Minister had been “urging colleagues to back the statement and prove to Australians that Labor is the better party Continue reading »
The morning of the ALP National Conference on 18 August, ABC online news led with two ‘Bad China’ stories. One about whether China is building an airstrip on a contested island, the other likely to cause great discomfort and anxiety to Australians because it showed the level of China’s spying on Australia via hundreds of Continue reading »
The sexual connotation of support for AUKUS should be obvious. An apparent fascination with phallic symbols as large as nuclear submarines, plus language describing how to dominate and penetrate enemies shows notions of security which reflect a top down, masculine interpretation of power. The AUKUS fanning of an us and them idea of opposing forces, Continue reading »