Uncategorized | Crispin Hull

A right to be misinformed?

This weekend’s Dunkley by-election is bringing misleading political advertising down to a new low.

It is part of a two-decade trend of allowing self-interested publishers get away with lying and misleading, while truth-seeking publishers continue to be hampered by the legal system at every turn. Can the trend – which essentially coincided with the rise of easy self-publication on the internet – be reversed?

Australians’ well-being is falling

Australia is turning into a nation of mean, bad, tax-deducting landlords, and if this month’s publication of MPs’ pecuniary interests is any guide, nothing will ever be done about it.

Only three of the 151 Members of the House of Representatives are renters who own no residential property, less than 2 per cent, compared to 30 per cent nationwide.

China, terrorism and the rule of law

Most governments, especially western democratic ones, say they will not deal with terrorists. It only encourages further violence, they argue. There are occasional exceptions, of course, for some terrorists who do not wield AK47s nor carry suicide bombs.

If the terrorist is dressed in a suit and tie and his name is Xi Jinping, dialogue and trade continue.

Intrinstically corrupting

After the Australian Electoral Commission released the 2022-23 political-donation data various think tanks and media commentators painted a picture of corporate Australia sloshing vast amounts of money into the coffers of the major parties to make sure that the bidding of big business is done.

And further that much of it is opaque; cannot be traced; and is only made public months after the money has been handed over.

Can we bet on PM doing something

The week that sees Australia’s biggest lottery jackpot in history on offer is perhaps the wrong time to talk about gambling. But Prime Minister Albanese’s determination with the cost of living and tax to “do something about it”, should augur well for the Government’s response to the parliamentary committee’s gambling report.

The case for major reform

If Prime Minister Anthony Albanese wants a second term, he will have fix the causes of the cost-of-living crisis, rather than throw a bit of direct relief at the bottom of the income ladder.

It is a bit like giving people walking sticks when they need joint replacements. It might increase their mobility a bit but it will not remove the pain.

The not-so-irrational conspiracy

How do we know that the outer Melbourne seat of Dunkley, held for Labor by the late Peta Murphy, is very winnable by the Liberal Party in the up-coming by-election?

Answer: Because the Liberal Party chose a bloke over two women to be its candidate.

Lessons from Howard autocracy

Never in the 40-year history of releasing Cabinet documents after 20 years have we learnt so much about the value of proper Cabinet Government and the catastrophic consequences of departing from it as we learnt with this month’s release of the 2003 Cabinet papers.

Among the worst government decisions in Australia’s history, two were made that year by the Howard Cabinet – the decision to go to war in Iraq and the decision not to put a price on carbon or do anything much about reducing greenhouse gases.

Psephological bomb awaits PM

Unless things change this year, the Albanese Government will not deserve to win the next election. That said, neither will the Peter Dutton-led Opposition.

The Government’s slow decline in the polls, however, should not be ascribed to the loss of the Voice referendum, which many see as the main political event of 2023.

No, the 2023 event which will have the most significant political fallout was the Albanese Government’s loss of control of Australia’s borders.

Lessons from Cyclone Jasper

Powerlines downed by Jasper in Port Douglas

Cyclone Jasper wasn’t supposed to hover there, right next to the coastline dumping a metre of rain (two and half times Canberra’s annual rainfall) in just a few days.

Blame the Bureau of Meteorology, of course. The same scientists who have been warning us for decades that the climate has changed because we have pumped too much carbon into the air and that the weather will get more extreme and more unpredictable.

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