Major General Kathryn Campbell, currently sitting in a fairly empty office in the Department of Defence on a miserly $900,000 plus a year, seems set to become, by acclamation as much as by the weight of the evidence so far available the chief bureaucratic victim of the Robodebt affair. Indeed, apart from the several hundred Continue reading »
Government
The march to maintain hegemony is pursued with a sense of ‘exceptional America’. But it is now taking place in a world without elbow room. The planet is imperilled. We have to call out folly, not run with it. I cannot see how, without regime change in Washington, trust in high level relations can be Continue reading »
After nine successive increases in the Reserve Bank’s cash rate, this article argues that it is time to pause. In addition, given the sources of increased inflation, more targeted measures are called for rather than the blunt instrument of further interest rate increases. Over the course of 2022 consumer prices increased by 7.8 per cent, Continue reading »
A recent US Chamber of Commerce InSTEP program hosted three empire managers to talk about Washington’s top three enemies, with the US ambassador to China Nicholas Burns discussing the PRC, the odious Victoria Nuland discussing Russia, and the US ambassador to Israel Tom Nides talking about Iran. Toward the end of the hour-long discussion, Burns Continue reading »
Jon Stanford’s response to Brian Toohey’s criticism of his promotion of nuclear submarines for Australia deserves a response. Firstly, Stanford claims that Australian submarines must prowl off the coast of China. This begs the question: Why? Answer: To do the intelligence gathering bidding of the US. As Toohey rightly says this task could be done Continue reading »
Defence’s defeat on the French Submarine was an extraordinary victory for a small group of dedicated professionals. Defence’s counterattack with the nuclear submarines under the aegis of AUKUS reeks of the same old problems. It has been my privilege over the last five years to sit on the periphery of a small group of friends Continue reading »
Will Australian athletes face a similar ban on participation in the Olympics for their government’s wars of aggression? Anthony Albanese’s government is violating the Olympic Charter by supporting bans on Russian and Belarusian athletes attending the Paris games in 2024. Since 2015, the Olympic Charter’s Article Six states, The Olympic Games are competitions between athletes in individual Continue reading »
What appears to be absent from the politicians and public servants appearing in the Robodebt Royal Commission is an understanding that it was a moral failure – a sin. Finding the sinners to punish in atonement might make us feel better for a moment, but it might not fix the sin. One of the recurring Continue reading »
The Brexit saga has played itself to death with much relief all round except perhaps at Britain’s political margins. The just agreed ‘Windsor Framework’ resolving the remaining issues between the UK and the EU following Brexit provides a real opportunity to restore something of normality in the European space. A transcending factor driving this change Continue reading »
The very modest superannuation changes have been well received by most people, but the worry is the unwillingness of the Government to acknowledge, let alone tackle, the much bigger fiscal challenges that lie ahead. On Tuesday, the Government announced what it termed a “modest change” where from 2025-26 the earnings on superannuation balances above $3 Continue reading »