With last week’s announcements from the Coalition and Australian Greens, the contours of next year’s election housing debate have begun to take shape. It’s pretty clear that, as in four of the past six national polls, this policy area will be a flashpoint of the coming contest. While not laying out any policy measures, as Continue reading »
Government
The Albanese ALP (Australian Labor Party) has become a true people’s government in the sense that its timidity restricts it from doing just about anything that might cause a political ripple. When George Galloway of the new Workers’ Party recently won a by-election for a seat in the UK Parliament he said “We crushed Labour” Continue reading »
Making the news in the mainstream western media around the world, but not in Australia which is hosting the ASEAN-Australia Special Summit 2024, was the forthright response from Malaysia PM Anwar Ibrahim during his press conference to a question from Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) journalist Stephen Dziedzic. The transcript of this conversation is reproduced here Continue reading »
Prime Ministers are too often monopolised by people telling them what they want to hear. Most political advisers can’t see beyond the latest opinion poll and the Australian bureaucracy has become equally reluctant to offer frank and fearless advice. It appears that the Attorney General, Defence and Foreign Affairs and Trade Departments have each failed Continue reading »
On Thursday Feb 29, 2024, Sussan Ley, deputy leader of the Opposition, released the following statement on X: “If you live in Frankston and you’ve got a problem with Victorian women being assaulted by foreign criminals, vote against Labor. If you do not want to see Australian women being assaulted by foreign criminals, vote against Continue reading »
Some of my best friends are Chinese. This is entirely unsurprising given my frequent visits to the PRC, the Chinese students I have supervised and the colleagues I have collaborated with over the years. I used to think such relationships were unambiguously a good thing and the possible basis for a better understanding between our Continue reading »
At the height of the argument about western conviction that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction in 2002, Tony Blair’s minder, Alastair Campbell was accused of asking intelligence agencies to “sex up” what passed for evidence. The satirical magazine Private Eye published a cover with Alastair Campbell’s child asking, “What did you do in Continue reading »
The relaunch of legislation to implement Article 23 of the Basic Law to prohibit national security offences, after a pause of more than 21 years, has sparked remarkably few controversies in the local community in Hong Kong. In the light of the political upheaval in 2019, and evidence of dangerous activities emerging from cases currently Continue reading »
ASEAN has been around for so long media outlets rarely spell the full name – Association of Southeast Asian Nations. That sounds significant and grand. It’s not. A better title for the acronym would be Association of Supercilious Egoists and Nationalists. Even that snide put down wouldn’t do enough injustice to a ten-member group that Continue reading »
“When Australia looks out to the world, the first thing we see is the countries of ASEAN.” – Australian Foreign Minister, Penny Wong. Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s recent statement of endearment for Asean must be taken with a pinch of salt. In a recent interview with a group of South-East Asian journalists during the Asean-Australia Continue reading »