Uncategorized | Crispin Hull

Removing the policy impasses

The Independent Member for Wentworth, Allegra Spender, argued this week that the best result for Australia at the next election would be a hung Parliament.

Hear, hear. Spender argued at the National Press Club that a hung Parliament would break the paralysis that has overcome Australian politics and that a crossbench could and would demand serious attention to major problems in Australia’s society and economy that have been ignored for more than two decades.

Is politics about to tip?

Last Saturday’s election results in the ACT and in the NSW by-elections together with federal polling suggest that Australian politics is approaching a tipping point.

“The Tipping Point” is the title of a 2000 book by Malcolm Gladwell. It is replete with examples of how a few small things can cause a critical mass to build up with large consequences. He returned to the theme in a book this year called “Revenge of the Tipping Point”.

Warning about ‘Exhibit A’

Last week, Tony Schwartz, the ghostwriter of Donald Trump’s “Art of the Deal”, joined a long list of people who have worked with Trump and concluded that he is not fit to be President. Schwartz’s memoir is perhaps the most damning.

“A lack of conscience can be a huge advantage when it comes to accruing power, attention and wealth in a society where most other human beings abide by a social contract,” he writes in the New York Times. And Trump is “Exhibit A”.

Albo: govern do not react

It should have been surprising if Treasury were NOT modelling negative gearing, rather than that they were modelling it. It is basic house-keeping. And right now, we have a dead possum in the roof. Or worse, two live possums trashing the whole housing industry.

A Peter Dutton idea applied

Over the weekend, I had a Peter Dutton moment. It started with working out whether to get a storage battery for the house rather than sending excess electricity from the solar array to the grid.

The evidence should be in

There are evidence-based policies that provide the greatest good for the greatest number. And there are policies based on lobbyists’ and interest groups’ desires which provide large profits for a small number of people at the expense of everyone else or at the huge expense of a segment of people.

On health and population

Gosh, fertility in Australia is down. Should we be concerned? No. Should Australian Governments be moved to spend vast amounts of scarce health money on IVF programs to turn the trend around? No.

Last week, the Fertility Society of Australia and New Zealand rang the alarm bells at its annual conference in Perth.

Wherefore art thou Albo?

Last week’s national accounts figures suggest that we are now midway through Act IV and it may be too late to save King Albo from his Shakespearean fate.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has, but for one crucial back-firing moment (the Voice), always been looking over his shoulder fearful and worrying about how what he proposes to do or not do could be used by his opposition (both political and in the media) to be played against him.

CFMEU and the rule of law

What would have been the reaction if the Federal Government had responded to the banking and child-sexual-abuse royal commissions by legislating to put the offending banks and churches into administration?

After all, the allegations against the banks and churches were of similar seriousness as those against the Construction, Forestry and Maritime Employees Union.

Breaking the ice with China

The icebreakers illustrate the story. This month China sent its third icebreaker, the new Ji Di, into the Arctic, following Xue Long (pictured) and Zhong Shan. One of them is in waters north of Alaska.

Meanwhile, the US Coast Guard icebreaker Healy abandoned its Arctic mission after an electrical fire and limped home on one engine to Seattle. The only other US Coast Guard sea-going icebreaker, the 55-year-old Polar Star, is undergoing a refit.

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