Donald Trump and the MAGA gang point to the ‘massive mandate’ he obtained to justify any policy he may implement. There is, of course, a lot of debate about so-called mandates which seem to be less about some enduring principle and more about a flexible justification for what you want to do. Looking at the Continue reading »
policy
The buzz around Xiaohongshu and then DeepSeek has had an unusually high volume of westerners speaking positively about China for the last couple of weeks, which of course means we’re also seeing many westerners falling all over themselves to say “Well actually China is actually quite bad actually” in response. Western liberals who fancy themselves Continue reading »
The new year in Australian politics, an all-important election year, began on a high with a host of initiatives taking effect from January 1, 2025. Among these, and there are many, are pay rises of up to 13 per cent for aged care workers, an increase in the Medicare safety net threshold, multinational corporation anti-tax Continue reading »
Land rights now! By a strange quirk of fate, I was working in the Minister’s Office in 1976 when Parliament passed the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act. Great was our pride, and our expectations. In terms of securing title to land and sea the Act has been highly effective. But in terms of creating Continue reading »
The ABC should be the voice of reason in Australia’s society, and that reason should loudly proclaim that Australia is in the middle of Asia and it is in its self interest to act in accordance with that geographical fact. The crucial element regarding that geographical fact is that Australia not only should but must Continue reading »
Food waste collection services have dominated the discussion around landfill emissions recently. With a lot of things happening in the organic waste sector, I have recently mapped and met with many small-scale composters around Australia, to get an idea of the contribution that decentralised organic waste processing could make towards landfill reduction targets. The pattern Continue reading »
Prudent public policy seeks to protect us against black swan events. Black Swan Theory (BST) is a metaphor that describes a rare, unexpected event that has a huge impact and is difficult to predict. These events are considered outliers because there is no past data to indicate when they could occur. Governments already invest in Continue reading »
On November 5, Donald J. Trump was widely reported to have won a big U.S. presidential election victory. A key factor was his success in attracting more of American minority voters than usual: Latinos and Blacks. Indeed, this made a difference. However, little was said about another minority—Asian Americans. They, of course, are a much Continue reading »
Australia is often celebrated as a wealthy nation, with a prosperity that is purportedly shared across its population. However, such assertions crumble under scrutiny. According to the 2021 census, 122,494 Australians were denied the basic right of shelter due to their inability to afford housing. This stark reality reveals the vast and growing chasm between Continue reading »
As Francis Hodgson Burnett said more than a century ago “at first people refuse to believe that strange new thing can be done, then they begin to hope it can be done, then they see it can be done – then it is done and all the world wonders why it was not done centuries Continue reading »