The APS Commissioner, Gordon de Brouwer, included some surprising comments when speaking at The Mandarin’s ‘Rebuilding Trust and Integrity in the APS’ conference last week. His call for a debate about the effectiveness of FoI law and whether the way it has been operating is counterproductive to the Parliament’s intent was not in itself inappropriate. Continue reading »
Government
Last year the head of the ASIO, Mr Mike Burgess’s annual threat assessment was blighted by errors of fact. This year he’s enlarged his repertoire to errors of judgment. In a speech which: rambles to the point of incoherence is self-congratulatory and self-serving is bulked up with pointless historical nostalgia, and contains more corn than Continue reading »
The mass media got itself into a flap this week (28, 29 Feb & 1 March) over ASIO Director, Mike Burgess’ claim that a former Australian politician “sold out their country, party and former colleagues” after being recruited by spies of a foreign regime. “Name the traitor,” former Treasurer and former Ambassador to the US, Continue reading »
The Albanese government is about to free the Reserve Bank of Australia from a rarely used constraint allowing a Treasurer to override a decision of the central bank, such as a policy to push interest-rates so high they cause a severe recession. The Treasury has no such freedom. Nor should it. It can’t slash taxes Continue reading »
With the scalp of poor Mr Mike Pezzullo dangling from his belt, The Age/Sydney Morning Herald journalist Michael Bachelard continues to take a terrier-like interest in the Department of Home Affairs. That’s not a bad idea for the Department, constructed as it is to fail and fail continuously, deserves as much scrutiny as it can Continue reading »
If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they don’t want to hear. ― George Orwell (Eric Blair) Later this year it’s unlikely you’ll be reading columns like this unless keyboarded outside Indonesia. Ex-pat writers will fear deportation for lese majeste aka ‘subversion’ and ‘against our culture’ while local journalists Continue reading »
Leaving aside the issue of whether ASIO’s announcement that there is a ‘traitor in our midst’ is simply a ploy to get more funds in this year’s Federal Budget (something you can never rule out) why hasn’t ASIO and other security and law enforcement agencies in this country pursued the two greatest practitioners of so Continue reading »
We must speak to people who require assistance and listen to their needs instead of speaking over them. In the case of Australia’s refugee policy, we wasted billions on toxic cruelty when we could have done much better by cooperating internationally and supporting people humanely. One of the “greatest pre-resettlement programs in the world” for Continue reading »
It must be regarded as one of the most despicable and morally repugnant actions ever taken by an Australian parliament since 1901 when, in the first week of February this year, it refused by a huge majority to demand a ceasefire in Gaza as Israel prepared for a military assault on Rafah, where they had Continue reading »
This week Sky News reported it had a list with the personal details of 500 Palestinian people who had obtained visas to flee overwhelming violence in Gaza, 81 of whom are in Australia. The Jewish Council of Australia is concerned for the safety of the Palestinian people who have had their identities exposed to Sky Continue reading »