More than three years after Boris Johnson got Brexit done with his ‘excellent’ and ‘oven-ready’ deal, his second successor Rishi Sunak may have actually baked it, but only after changing the recipe from cake to fudge. But is there enough fudge to go around? In my previous article, I examined the background to the Windsor Continue reading »
Government
Many Australians have turned to non-mainstream sources of news. They are often more reliable, and cheaper. Without them, the Nordstream pipeline sabotage of September 2022 would still be unexplained. Even before Pearls & Irritations’ timely publication of Seymour Hersh’s (literally) explosive expose of the Biden administration’s long-planned operation to prevent Russian gas reaching Germany, online Continue reading »
A week a long time in politics? How about 28 years? Believe it or not the last time the Labor Party displaced a Coalition Government in New South Wales was in 1995. The Opposition Leader soon to be Premier in 1995 was Bob Carr. Carr was apparently a reluctant leader but performed well in 1991 Continue reading »
From our Minister for Foreign Affairs Australians must expect ever more duplicity, more smoothing the path to war orchestrated by America, for America’s ends. It’s a struggle for words to convey the enormity of what we face. It is beyond our politicians. Australia is being dragged into war. No doubt. The full horror of the Continue reading »
Surveys reveal concerns that Aukus won’t make Australia safer, while fears grow of ‘secretive policymaking and little government accountability’. Some observers have also questioned the high cost of Aukus to taxpayers, suggesting there are other, less expensive ways to ‘deter China’. Is Australia becoming “more dependent” on the United States following the signing of the Continue reading »
With excess corporate profits accounting for 69% of additional inflation beyond the RBA’s target, current anti-inflation policy blames the victims of inflation, while ignoring its perpetrators. Workers in Australia have suffered considerable economic losses as a result of accelerating inflation since the onset of the COVID pandemic. Reaching a year-over-year rate of 7.8% by end-2022, Continue reading »
The AUKUS submarine fetish has colonised the minds of the Labor ministers and ejected practical commonsense. It’s too late now. There’s nought to be done but to stand by and witness Australia’s slide into vassalage. The near unanimity of the political class over AUKUS has obviated the need for a mature public debate. Australia’s AUKUS Continue reading »
The epidemic of silicosis amongst tradespeople working with manufactured stone was predictable, preventable, and an illustration of a broken OHS system across NSW and the rest of Australia. Until 2011, NSW had a workplace health and safety regulator whose statutory role was to “promote the prevention of injuries and diseases at the workplace and the Continue reading »
The Minister for Home Affairs, Clare O’Neil, has declared Australia’s migration system is “broken. It is unstrategic. It is complex, expensive and slow. It is not delivering for business, for migrants, or for our population”. While no one is to be held accountable for this, not even the guy who has been in charge for Continue reading »
Now that China is opening up, it’s a good time to reflect on their pandemic response. The first-ever COVID-19 strain detected in Wuhan, China in December 2019 was the L strain. From the pandemic beginning to the end of last November the Chinese reported that only 6000 Chinese had died of Covid. This is reasonable Continue reading »