I mentioned in a recent post about election forums I’ve helped organise with various migrant communities in Brisbane, Logan and Toowoomba. I’ve enjoyed being a (mostly) disinterested observer, seeing the different styles and angles the various candidates have taken at each event. I’ve been going to all of them as part of one of the jobs I am doing at the moment. For the same reasons, I went along ...
The headlines after COAG focused on health and education and the overall size of the money handed out (with the usual uncertainty about how much was ‘new’ money and how much had already been promised or committed). Jon Altman from ANU has written a good rundown on the various COAG agreements which relate to Indigenous Australians (or at least those in discrete remote communities, who seem to have ...
Everyone knows that billions of dollars are needed to address the third world conditions many Indigenous Australians live in, including horrendously overcrowded housing, poor road access and other infrastructure problems. But I haven’t seen any mention so far of spending money to address these problems in the flurry of bidding that has started following the federal government’s announcement they are looking at spending $20 billion on infrastructure to ...
While it won’t be enough to get the measure through the Senate, it’s good to see the Greens negotiate a reasonable agreement with the federal government regarding the planned tax increase on higher priced cars. (UPDATE 4/9 - The legislation was voted down in the Senate this morning without any opporutnity for amendments to be moved, when the Family First Senator voted with the Coalition). Under the Greens' agreement, ...
It is disappointing, but sadly not surprising, to see this report in the Canberra Times suggesting the Coalition is planning to adopt a more explicitly anti-migrant position. Despite all the evidence about the demographic inevitability of a shrinking labour force, growing international mobility (including record emigration from Australia) and the latest research showing the significant net economic benefit migrants create for Australia, the political temptation for the ‘Liberals’ is ...
I am pleased to see the federal government has formally announced a trial allowing up to 2500 people from neighbouring countries of Tonga, Vanuatu, Kiribati and Papua New Guinea to do seasonal work in Australia. In doing so, they have shown up the failure of courage and policy integrity of the previous government. The Opposition’s complaint that this proposal is “rushed” is simply false. The idea has been debated ...
Very interesting suggestion reportedly made yesterday by federal Superannuation Minister, Nick Sherry – floating the removal of the 15 per cent super contributions tax for women as one way of bringing their retirement savings into line with men. “Women spend significant more time out of the workforce than men and super splitting is not a solution, it's just playing around the edges,” he said. Senator Sherry was referring to a ...
This morning I attended the launch of the Brisbane Social Enterprise Hubs’ accelerator program. Social enterprises build economically sustainable businesses specifically aimed at providing employment, income and business experience to people from more disadvantaged backgrounds. The focus is on building social capital alongside the financial returns, rather than being driven by wealth creation and (maybe) using that to address social issues. Cheryl Kernot worked in the area of social business ...
Due to the way the government wanted to order Senate business in the final week, the formal Valedictory speeches of departing Senators were not actually the last speech for many of us. Below is the text of what was my actual final speech (and the final words spoken by a Democrat in the Senate). I took the chance to make one more (probably futile) call for some accuracy ...
There is heaps of commentary on the Budget on a myriad of different websites - a couple I found of interest are here, here and here. Rather than write my views about it in detail here, I'll just reproduce a speech I made in the Senate today during a debate (of sorts) about the Budget. I won't add more to it now, beyond saying that I think that a ...
Two years ago I did a series of posts on possible options for tax reform. There was quite a deal of debate around the country in the lead up to the 2006 Budget about ways we could improve the fairness and efficiency of our tax system – all of which basically went nowhere. The major parties instead shrunk the issue down into the usual pre-election tax cut auction. It ...
There seems to be a very widespread view amongst economic and other commentators that it will be a bad thing for the economy, and particularly for efforts to contain further growth in inflation, if the government goes ahead with its election promise to implement a further 31 billion dollars in income tax cuts. It should be remembered that this is on top of another 26 billion dollars in ...
Most of the major party focus in the last week has been on interest rates and economic management. The battle for bragging rights about which party is supposedly the best economic manager is faintly ludicrous, given that both sides at various times have made a point of emphasising how similar their basic tax and economic policies are to the other – with the partial exception of workplace relations. ...
It seems a long time ago now, but in the months leading up to the 2006 Budget, there was a whole lot of people, including many members of the Coalition, engaging in debate about possible tax reforms. I did a series of blog posts on it at the time. When Budget time came, the Treasurer squibbed it as usual and went with vote buying instead. The momentum behind the ...
The latest official unemployment figures show a national total of 4.2 per cent, which is reportedly the lowest level since 1974. Reports on unemployment figures inevitably bring questions about just how accurate they are, and how much underemployment is ignored. There have certainly been comments left on this blog a number of times to that effect. For anyone who wonders about such things, I recommend reading this short ...
As noted in this comment from a reader, I had another go at pushing the issue of housing affordability in the Senate last week. This time I put up the following motion in what is known as a matter of urgency debate: The need for a national affordable housing strategy to be developed, involving all levels of government and all political parties, to address the serious and ongoing crisis ...
Yesterday I attended a Harmony Day function at the Brolga Theatre in the town of Maryborough. It was great to get away, even briefly, from the Senate and all its Santo shenanigans, and get back out into the real world – particularly a part of it lovely as Maryborough. If you've never been there, I'd recommend a visit, even if only to stroll around a ...
A few months ago I wrote a piece on a discussion paper put out by The Australia Institue which raised the issue of the sexualising of children in advertising and marketing - a concern which I believe definitely merits debate. The major Australian retailer David Jones was named as one of those who engaged in this practice. It has now been reported that David Jones is now suing ...
Following on from my previous post, there were some stories in the weekend papers about the housing affordability crisis – such as this one in The Courier Mail saying "housing affordability in southeast Queensland could be squeezed to crushing point", and this in The Australian saying "Sydney and the boom states of Queensland and West Australia facing crippling house and land shortages that could make it impossible for ...
Eighty government amendments ended up being made to the Copyright Bill, which in broad terms made some worthwhile improvements. The government should get some credit for taking on board at least some of the concerns expressed and fixing up the workability of some sections. However, they also still deserve criticism for such an unnecessarily rushed process. My effort to enable Australian musicians to be able to earn market ...
Next,
This line from David Marr is one of the best descriptions I’ve ever read of the farcical sound and fury which is Question Time in the House of Representatives:
It’s a bit like an RSPCA pound: never free of the spectre of being put down, the dogs bark and howl to attract attention.(0)
For those interested in basic facts about temperature trends in Australia and globally over recent decades, there is a great post over at Lavartus Prodeo by Brian Banisch, who has been following the data and the various scientific reports on this issue for a long time. Very much worth having a read of for those who are just wanting some facts.
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Many not for profit and charity groups have got a lot smarter over the years in tapping into some of the large amounts of money that get spent over Christmas. Christmas catalogues full of gifts for good cause groups have become widespread. In recent times, that has extended to bypassing a present all together, and giving someone a donation which actually goes direct to the good cause. This form of fundraising is now also tapping into social media, so much so that even my humble blog gets occasional requests to promote a cause from people who specifically target the avenues of social media to widen their reach. Here’s one example I recently received on behalf of World Vision.
More... (4)I’ve posted a piece over at The Stump about the links between global hunger and climate change, and the unfortunate parallels between the less than successful climate change summit in Copenhagen and an even more dismal outcome at the recent Hunger Summit in Rome, which received far less attention.
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Following are links to some items I’ve had published on other sites
More... (0)Disclaimer: The inclusion of a blog or website in this list should not be taken as an endorsement of its contents by me.
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