Blockade Australia’s return this week, in larger numbers and across three locations, represents a victory over ‘Strategic incapacitation’, a policing technique that aims to smash the organising ability of a group of people, such that the group can no longer function. “Like the hydra, we are back threefold. You cannot decapitate the climate movement,” they Continue reading »
politics
Last Thursday (14 June), the Government tabled its Public Service Act Amendment Bill 2023 in the House of Representatives. The Bill is almost exactly the same as the exposure draft which was released by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet on 22 May with consultation ending on 31 May. Because there have been no Continue reading »
There were celebrations and high expectations when Prime Minister Albanese and his talented front bench formed the government in May 2022. The language and style of the national agenda appealed to Australians wanting realistic policies and a two-way conversation about what is in the best interests of our community. There were inspiring speeches and commitments Continue reading »
Delegates at Labor’s National Conference in August will have to pay more attention than usual to foreign and defence policy. Dissent on AUKUS is spreading, while Palestine is a promise to keep. The United Nations General Assembly in 1947 called for establishment of a Jewish state, which had been anticipated by the League of Nations Continue reading »
Following the award of the Korean “Jeju 4:3 Peace Prize” to former Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans, it is good to note that Pearls and Irritations has taken up cudgels on the long-neglected question of the Jeju Island massacre of 1948 (articles by Heo Ho-joon and Alison Broinowski). And it is good to see Evans Continue reading »
Ten years ago, I wrote a book titled In Praise of Ageing. I found there is strong evidence that our attitude to life influences our longevity. But the obstacles we face today make slouching towards Bethlehem seem like a walk in the park. The old I wrote about, shared several characteristics. They are not just Continue reading »
The ABC is in trouble again as it abandons its cultural role to become “fully digital” by 2028. On Thursday last the ABC told a “pretty flabbergasted” political editor Andrew Probyn that he’d been made redundant along with 120 others, 41 of them in news, in a major cost-cutting measure. The purpose: so that the Continue reading »
The parliament wisely gave a treasurer the power to reign in the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) when it was not acting in the best interests of the Australians. Jim Chalmers should use it. Reserve Bank governors in Australia have never achieved the same mystique as Montague Norman, the Governor of the Bank of England Continue reading »
Near on a decade of neglect has left Australia’s national innovation system in a lamentable state, as the Academy of Science has observed. The most recent science funding tables show that government expenditure on Research and Development (R & D) as a percentage of GDP are at the lowest levels since records began. Further, that Continue reading »