…our list is a genuine plea for you to bring us a greatly improved integrity-related system that addresses all the shortcomings in the current arrangements. Dear Santa, I am writing this wish list on behalf of the vast majority of Victorians. Please don’t think we are being greedy as that is not our intention. Rather, Continue reading »
Government
A recent submission to a Senate inquiry by the Centre for Public Integrity claimed that in the decade to 2023 companies making political donations “were 2.49 times more likely to win procurement contracts than non-donors”, and that the value of contracts won by donor companies was on average 4.4 times the value of contracts won Continue reading »
When the Howard government privatised Australia’s Employment Services system it promised more innovative, effective and efficient services. Almost 25 years later, it’s clear that the giant experiment of full privatisation has failed. And the most vulnerable Australians pay the price. It’s harsh but true to say that Australia no longer has an effective, coherent national Continue reading »
West Australia’s council elections seem a strange place to pinpoint a warning about American radicalising political games infiltrating the Australian landscape. While it is strange, it is nonetheless important. American conservative and commentator Andrew Breitbart declared a (contested) doctrine that “politics is downstream from culture.” According to his institutional heir, Steve Bannon, this means strategists Continue reading »
The 2000 residents of Diego Garcia were forcibly removed to make way for a giant US military base. Will the same happen to the Australian residents on the Cocos Islands that lies south of Sumatra in the Indian ocean? When Julia Gillard allowed US marines to be rotated/based in Darwin there was speculation that this was just Continue reading »
Ahead of its elections, Taiwan needs to be forewarned of putting too many eggs into the USA basket. A significant body of evidence warns that the people of Taiwan may find themselves nothing but pawns, to be sacrificed in the USA’s geopolitical game. Duplicitous US policies make their Administration very good at accusations but very Continue reading »
In order to understand what is happening in China now and predict what may happen over the following years we must draw on Chinese history and philosophy to guide us. Relying on the western experience to guide our thinking about China may be more comforting and accessible but it leaves us in a very poor Continue reading »
The Federal Government has announced a review of current policies and programs that aim to promote a more equitable distribution of the health workforce. The Working Better for Medicare Review, to be led by nurse, advocate and remote health expert Professor Sabina Knight and former senior health bureaucrat and academic Mick Reid, is expected to consult Continue reading »
“Gough Whitlam was an Australian democrat. He passionately believed in our institutions; the supremacy of parliament, the independence and integrity of the judiciary and the separation of powers to curb possible abuses by the executive government. In the dismissal these institutions failed us. Those with responsibility deceived us. Tradition and conventions built over centuries were Continue reading »
17 November 2023 will go down in history as the day when planet Earth reached its first two degree plus temperature anomaly relative to the preindustrial baseline. It was also the day that I was carted off to hospital in an ambulance after spending over two weeks on a climate hunger strike on the lawns Continue reading »