The Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) recently ruled that national cabinet was not a sub-committee of the federal government. This meant that its deliberations could be subjected to Freedom of Information (FoI) requests. Prime Minister Scott Morrison had previously used the ‘sub-committee of the federal government’ argument to defeat the efforts of independent senator Rex Patrick
I’ve got a few quick thoughts on Victorian vaccine targets because I would love to get out of lockdown a few weeks early, and I think we have the wrong vaccine policy settings to do that. Now, don’t get me wrong. We are only talking a few weeks either way, but the policy changes are
According to a quarterly analysis of Newspoll surveys conducted between July and September, the Morrison Government stands to lose between six to 10 seats on the back of significant swings against the Coalition in Victoria, Western Australia and NSW if current trends persist. The swing to Labor is roughly 4% in NSW, 5% in Vic,
Some readers will recall the hubristic note penned by George Megalogenis in 2012 called The Australian moment which claimed “Australia has been able to weather recent world economic problems relatively unscathed”: He examines how we developed from a closed economy racked by the oil shocks, toughed it out during the sometimes devastating growing pains of
Heterodox economist Professor Steve Keen has announced that he will run for the Senate in the upcoming federal election: . @BloombergAU covers my Senate candidacy for @The_NewLiberals @victorklineTNL. Vote #TNL to put citizens not politicians into Parliament, advised by experts not ideologues https://t.co/46tB4f0a6H — Steve Keen (@ProfSteveKeen) September 23, 2021 Details from Bloomberg: Keen will
Finally, somebody in Labor has used their brain. Gareth Evans, a former foreign minister of Australia, is President Emeritus of the International Crisis Group, co-chairman of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, founding convener of the Asia-Pacific Leadership Network for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, and an honorary professor at Australian National University at
Should you throw away your Chinese phone? Consumers should throw away their Chinese phones and avoid buying new ones, Lithuania’s Defence Ministry has warned. A report by its National Cyber Security Centre tested 5G mobiles from Chinese manufacturers. It claimed that one Xiaomi phone had built-in censorship tools while another Huawei model had security flaws.
Paul Monk via Sky: Former defence head of China analysis Paul Monk says Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews’ secret deal with China was part of the Chinese government’s strategy to operate in Australia “without federal oversight”. On Monday, the Victorian parliament forced the Andrews government to release the document detailing promises made with China, which had
Silly old coot: Former prime minister Paul Keating has escalated his attack on the new AUKUS security partnership unveiled by the Morrison government, unleashing fury on his own side for supporting the deal and characterising it as the “surrender” of Australia’s control of its military. In a no-holds-barred statement, the former Labor leader said Prime
Transparency International Australia (TIA) has lodged a submission to the Senate Inquiry into the adequacy and efficiency of Australia’s AML-CTF regime, which claims Australia property is a haven for money laundering: The FATF has said Australia is seen as an “attractive destination for foreign proceeds, particularly corruption-related proceeds flowing into real estate, from the Asia-Pacific”. Our
Finally, the Morrison Government gets it: Health Minister Greg Hunt has urged pharmaceutical giant Pfizer to seek approval for its COVID-19 vaccine to be given to children as young as five in Australia as soon as possible. Hours after the company announced plans to seek approval from US regulators for its vaccine to be given
Via The Economist today: Just occasionally, you can see the tectonic plates of geopolitics shifting in front of your eyes. Suez in 1956, Nixon going to China in 1972 and the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 are among the examples in living memory. The unveiling last week of a trilateral defence pact between Australia, the
100 days out from the 2018 Victorian election, Premier Daniel Andrews claimed that privatisation had failed and that further asset sales were off the agenda: Premier Daniel Andrews will warn against privatisation, austerity and what he calls a “free market free-for-all” in Victoria in a speech laying out Labor’s agenda 100 days from a state election…
Endless China fanboi, High White, penned a great piece at The Saturday Paper that summarised the nuclear debates over the weekend: If Australia’s submarines were intended primarily to defend Australia and our closer neighbours, then there is no way we’d consider nuclear propulsion. But the navy decided many years ago that the primary role for
The latest Newspoll survey shows a profound shift away from the Lib-Lab political duopoly towards minor parties. As shown in the next chart, primary support for Labor has fallen to 38%, whereas it is tracking at only 37% for the Coalition. By contrast, support for minor parties other than One Nation (denoted as ‘Other’) has
So says China Development Bank advisor, Paul Keating: “If the United States military with all its might could not beat a bunch of Taliban rebels with AK47 rifles in pick-up trucks, what chance would it have a in a full blown war against China, not only the biggest state in the world but the commander
A snap opinion poll from Roy Morgan Research suggests the majority of Aussies back the federal government’s nuclear submarines deal with the US and UK: A majority of 57% of Australians approve of the Federal Government’s agreement to buy nuclear-powered submarines from the United States, 43% disapprove according to a special Roy Morgan Snap SMS
Michael Pascoe has done a terrific job exposing the widespread corruption flowing through the Morrison Government’s veins: There’s pork barrelling, then rorting, then corruption and bare-faced corruption, and now a new low: Inviting the public to rejoice in looting. In just half a week, the Morrison government has managed to plumb two new lows. Most
Twice over the past two days, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has pointed the finger at the federal government for Australia’s housing affordability problems. Speaking in an address to the Anika Foundation on Tuesday, governor Phil Lowe pointed to a number of public policy issues, which are the responsibility of the Government, that need
NSW planning minister Rob Stokes is the latest to call out the federal government’s bogus housing affordability inquiry: Federal politicians, developers, economists and large sections of the media are quick to blame all our housing affordability woes on slow supply, slow state planning systems and stringent controls. But the idea that the planning system alone
Be careful what you protest for: A TikTok comedian who shot to fame after he correctly predicted the daily Covid case numbers in NSW has joined his father fighting for life in hospital with the virus. Jon-Bernard Kairouz, 24, is in a Covid-19 ward at St George Hospital in Kogarah, Sydney’s south, multiple sources told
Back in April, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg neutered ASIC by appointing former banking lawyer Joseph Longo as chairman of ASIC and directing him to support the economic recovery from the pandemic rather than enforcing financial system conduct: Frydenberg made it clear the direction of ASIC would be changing dramatically from the tougher stance foisted on it
Yesterday, the Australian Treasury’s Macroeconomic Division head Crystal Ossolinski told the parliamentary committee into housing affordability that housing supply had not kept pace with rapid population growth in the early 2000s, which caused house prices to surge: “We’ve had some periods of strong population growth in Australia, particularly in the early 2000s, where population growth
From Roy Morgan Research: ALP support has dropped to 52.5% (down 2% points since late August) cf. L-NP on 47.5% (up 2% points) on a two-party preferred basis. This was the first increase in support for the L-NP since mid-June, before the current Sydney lockdown began according to the latest Roy Morgan Poll on Federal
The AFR’s Joe Aston has continued his full fledged assault against the Morrison Government’s JobKeeper waste, which saw more than 150,000 companies that weren’t in trouble – many of them actually thriving – receive $13 billion worth of subsidies from taxpayers. On 12 September, Aston highlighted Treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s hypocrisy and contradictions in defending these
Coalition MP Jason Falinski, who will chair the parliamentary inquiry into Housing Affordability and Supply, penned an article in The AFR lamenting the destruction of housing affordability across Australia and the need to boost housing supply: The Tax and Revenue Committee’s inquiry is our last and best chance to understand why in 1985, growth in
Don’t blame me, I’m just the messenger: Modelling by a new scientific lobby group projects that NSW’s road map to reopening may lead to all the state’s intensive care unit beds being full for five weeks over Christmas and almost 1000 people dying from COVID-19. The modelling is the first release from OzSAGE, a group
Friendly Jordies (Jordan Shanks) has launched an all out assault on the NSW planning system, claiming “property developers are the shadow government of NSW”. Shanks claims Sydney is being destroyed by mass overdevelopment as thousands of ugly, tacky high-rise apartments mushroom across the city. In turn, Shanks blames the NSW Government, which he claims has
I live in the Melbourne suburb of Ashburton near the apex of Glen Iris and East Malvern. Last week, concrete barriers were erected at the local BMX/skate park in Glen Iris to stop children riding in the name of “public safety”: Basketball hoops have also been removed from several public parks, also in the name
The nihilistic pragmatism that drives the Australian political economy is as much ironic as it is useless. Our political discussion can lurch from “black is white” to “white is black” in the blink of an eye. In the absence of context, memory and values beyond political tribalism, no truth has adhesive properties. And so, as
