The Medicare Review contains welcome aspirations, but the instruments to achieve them are poorly delineated. An early statement in the Medicare Review report is challengeable. “Most Australians enjoy ready access to quality Primary Care services and with that good health outcomes”. That is certainly not true for the 33% of Australians who live in rural Continue reading »
Government
The previous two parts in this series addressed soft power and Australia’s alliances respectively. The focus of Part 3 is hard power and a discussion of self-reliance and Australia’s evolving military strategy. Hard power: Australia’s military strategy In an offensive sense, hard power represents the ability of a nation to coerce another country and bend Continue reading »
Foreign Minister Penny Wong invoked the power of shared colonial histories in a speech during her recent visit to the United Kingdom. The statement was clearly carefully prepared and framed but, judging from her recorded comments, it seems that she has not thought through the implications of the adoption of radical post-colonial diplomacy. Rather, she Continue reading »
NSW needs a government prepared to bell the cat when it comes to the ongoing provision of public funding to grossly over-resourced private schools. Funds provided on the grounds of assumed entitlement are funds diverted from distribution according to demonstrated need. Political pressure forced the Whitlam government to include high-fee, high-resource schools in its 1970s Continue reading »
The announcement of the Australian Government’s decision on the purchase of nuclear powered submarines is looming and it is timely to take a cold hard look at the “facts” rather than the inevitable spin. The more Prime Minister Albanese maintains this will be a momentous decision for Australia the more it should have been the Continue reading »
As the government offers new hints at the ‘optimal path’ for the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarines, the questions about the viability of the project mount. The political pressure to out-muscle the Coalition on ‘national security’, if that’s what is driving the Labor government’s enthusiasm for this impending car-crash, should not be allowed to undermine the national Continue reading »
The perceptive Singaporian diplomat Kishore Mahbubani remarked recently that: ‘Australia’s strategic dilemma in the twenty-first century is simple: it can choose to be a bridge between East and West in the Asian Century—or the tip of the spear projecting Western power into Asia.’ He clearly believed that it was a matter of deliberate choice, a Continue reading »
The recommendations of the Strengthening Medicare Taskforce released last week, like almost any serious health reform in Australia, require joint Commonwealth and state action. Unfortunately, going into last Friday’s National Cabinet meeting state responses were at the juvenile end of the spectrum – the Commonwealth should give them and doctors more money – with no Continue reading »
As we start a new year, it is a good time to reflect on the lessons of 2022 – not just from the Covid pandemic but also the floods that wreaked havoc on communities all down the east coast of Australia. That Australia needs to be better prepared for the next crisis is a key Continue reading »
NSW goes to the polls at the end of next month, and Labor must be regarded as a very clear favourite. Recent polls have put Labor 12 points ahead — 56 to 44 –of the coalition. Even allowing that the Opposition leader, Chris Minns must win back seats before he builds a majority, it suggests Continue reading »