Federal governments have been winding back administrative law reforms for 30 years, largely ignoring serious commitments (as signatory to Open Government Partnership (OGP) since 2015), to more open government. Secrecy has become the fallback in Australia with over 800 secrecy and non-disclosure laws. Commercial in confidence is overused, as is legal and professional privilege, national Continue reading »
Government
Orchestrated components are coming together to enable the US to recruit Australia in future wars of choice. Our media must begin to ask questions about the crude but successful ways the Australian people are being groomed to provide passive or enthusiastic consent. A version of the long awaited Defence Strategic Review for public consumption will Continue reading »
The Albanese Government’s flagship housing legislation has stalled in the Senate, with the PM alarmingly flagging a risk that the package might be abandoned until the next election. To understand what’s going on here we need to wind the clock back to the ALP’s platform taken to the 2022 election. Let’s remember that, when it Continue reading »
‘I believe the time for the Voice has come’. With those words from the Liberal MP Julian Leeser announcing his resignation as shadow minister for Indigenous Affairs, the path to a successful referendum on an Indigenous Voice to parliament just got a lot clearer, as did Peter Dutton’s dire miscalculation in opposing it. Leeser is Continue reading »
April 5, in Jerusalem, Israeli police using stun grenades and firing rubber coated steel bullets invade the Al Aqsa Mosque. Hundreds of worshippers are arrested. Fourteen Palestinians are wounded by bullets, beatings and tear gas inhalation. While the world looks on, how do we explain, how might this latest example of violence as policy be Continue reading »
Instead of thinking through and independently acting in Australia’s best interests, Prime Minister Albanese has followed in the footsteps of his discredited predecessors and outsourced defence and foreign policy to the US. A repost from January 15, 2023 The Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, is a provincial man with a strong social conscience. He understands issues Continue reading »
Historically, it used to be clear when one country was at war with another. Not so today. Indeed, that is one of the Department of Defence’s objections to war powers reform, where it stated in its submission to the Armed Overseas Conflict Inquiry that “the growth of grey-zone activities and offensive operations in the space Continue reading »
Australia is an advanced parliamentary democracy, but the Prime Minister and cabinet members decide whether Australia is to go to war. Parliament is like the ghost of Cinderella with no formal voice in it. This is a historical hangover, a part of the “royal prerogative,” passed on from the monarch to the government of the Continue reading »
When the ALP Government led by Anthony Albanese came to power in 2022 it was confronted by the AUKUS minefield laid by its predecessor, the LNC Government led by Scott Morrison. It did, however, have options, one of which was to reject outright the Babylonian extravagance and complexity of arrangements consequent to a process marked Continue reading »