The passing of the Early Childhood Education and Care (Three-Day Guarantee) Bill 2025 marks a major shift in Australia’s early childhood education and care system. For the first time, tens of thousands of children who were previously excluded from early learning will have access to at least three days of subsidised care each week (72 Continue reading »
policy
Our recent research raises an important and challenging question: Are our well-intentioned management interventions like thinning in high conservation value forests truly serving nature, or are they inadvertently accelerating the degradation of these critical ecosystems? These interventions are part of what has been termed Active Management and they include thinning, post-disturbance salvage logging, prescribed burning, Continue reading »
Governments and corporations have been tricking the public by focusing emissions reduction attention on net, rather than real, zero. Reducing methane emissions would reduce global warming quickly and cheaply. Bring back our swamps. Climate bureaucracy salad You are perhaps aware that Australia has a Climate Change Authority (CCA) if only because our federal Labor Government Continue reading »
In 2024, in a context of declining R&D and productivity, the government appointed an independent expert panel to lead a “strategic examination” of Australia’s R&D system. In February the first discussion paper was released along with invitations to make submissions. Unfortunately, the discussion paper is poor, bereft of insight, a-historical, a-theoretical and a-political (in the Continue reading »
I don’t intend to move these round-ups into international relations. There are excellent Australian sources with a foreign policy orientation – Pearls and Irritations, the Lowy Institute and Australian Foreign Affairs. But events around Trump’s betrayal of Ukraine should have repercussions not only for our foreign policy, but also for our domestic policy, particularly in the way we Continue reading »
The priestly pundit caste in the media is well into their election coverage rituals while the political parties are busy adjusting their strategies to tailor their offerings to these ritual needs. For a start, the pundits have already looked intensely at the runes on when the election will be held, although the little matter of Continue reading »
Defence of the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to self-determination is a collective responsibility fuelled by commitments to theory and ideology inherent in universalism. In domestic and foreign policies and in the conduct of personal relations, the values associated with universalism concern altruism and inclusiveness, each goal delivered in a spirit of generosity. In Continue reading »
Donald Trump has resorted to tariffs, imposed against friend and foe alike. There are no compromises or special deals because it’s not about favours for friends, or compliance, or punishment. Tariffs are part of a desperate bid to stave off insolvency. Presidential adviser Elon Musk has provided an important insight into the slew of seemingly Continue reading »
After the election Australia is likely to have a minority government with the independents, who will hold the balance of power, negotiating each issue on its merits. But democracy is best served if each independent states before the election which party they will support to form a government by guaranteeing supply. For months now, the Continue reading »
When power oppresses, civil society must hold it to account. Like media and the arts, university campuses in Australia have become sites of censorship and suppression of free speech on the question of Palestine. In fact, the level of repression faced by pro-Palestine staff and students, and the stifling atmosphere, have led to the establishment Continue reading »