REASONS FOR OPTIMISM IN THE FEDERATION DEBATE Stone the crows! The feds want to fix federalism, at least in principle. On Friday, the Commonwealth government released a brief for the federation white paper process, due at the end of 2015. One of the key ideas on the agenda is “the practicalities of limiting Commonwealth policies [...]
THE NET NEUTRALITY FIGHT: OLD TECH IN THE UNITED STATES BUT WIRELESS IS THE WORRY HERE In the United States the Federal Communications Commission is under pressure to intervene in the market to create a level playing field so giant Internet Service Providers (ISPs) cannot charge giant media companies more for distribution. The problem [...]
HEALTH PRICE SIGNALS ESSENTIAL – OTHERWISE LIVING LONGER REQUIRES HIGHER TAXES STONE the crows! The US budget is fitter than diagnosed because the Yanks are spending less on health. The New York Times reports, “Health care, which has eaten into salary gains for years and driven up debt and bankruptcies, may be starting to [...]
DEFENCE - THE UNITED STATES/CHINA/AUSTRALIA Stone the crows! Last week Clive Palmer dug his own political grave with the commentariat in an extraordinary outburst on Q&A: The Chinese Government wants to bring workers here to destroy our wage system … they want to take over our ports and get our resources for free. … they're communists, [...]
INNOVATION BY GOVERNMENT – CAN IT WORK? Stone the crows! Why do we think government can engineer innovation? NSW Minister for Finance Dominic Perrottet is very keen on the collaboration economy, the idea of short term sharing between peers, demonstrated by service providers like Uber and AirBnB. The NSW Finance Minister, the way things are [...]
Why we need more professionals than plumbers Stone the crows! The backlash against ever-more undergraduates has begun. Last week, Business Council of Australia chief Catherine Livingstone announced there were too many young people at university who would be better off in vocational education.[i] Fair enough, except VOC.ED isn’t exactly empty. There are around two million [...]
THE CASE FOR A FEDERAL ANTI-CORRUPTION COMMISSION Stone the crows! A FAC (Fraud and Anti-Corruption) doth not an ICAC make. The feds announced a fraud and anti-corruption centre the other day – run by the Australian Federal Police and including people from DFAT, the ATO and sundry other agencies.[i] The timing was predictable [...]
Productivity Commission Report More Important than Joe Hockey Biography Stone the crows, could somebody explain the difference between politics and policy to Anthony Albanese. Labor frontbencher Anthony Albanese had a piece in The Australian on Saturday bemoaning the decline of political coverage in the papers. “In my 18 years in parliament I have never see [...]
Complementary Medicine; Much Loved But Not What The Doctor Ordered Stone the crows! Keep taking the tablets. There are few compliments for complementary medicine - except from the millions who use them, and the people who sell them. In Saturday’s The Australian the excellent Cassandra Wilkinson scoffed at complementary medicine in pharmacies.[i] But she [...]
Christopher Pyne's Universities Plan: The Challenge Crows July 14 Number 213 STONE the crows there’s a debt and deficit disaster. But it isn’t in education, at least not yet. While it is not much noticed outside education, the big budget proposal is to hike the cost of university. Education Minister Christopher Pyne proposes [...]
