First we have Wayne Swan promising a Robin Hood budget which will take from the rich and give to the poor. Then, almost simultaneously we have elite sportsmen in Australian football, rugby league, rugby union, cricket, swimming, netball and basketball demanding a tax break. I don’t like their chances. Talk about bad timing. According to […]

I heard Cardinal George Pell speak at the Brisbane Institute last night and Jack Waterford in the Canberra Times has a pretty good precis of what he said. The Brisbane Institute billed it as: Cardinal Pell considers questions such as: Is democracy only secular? What role can the Catholic Church and its moral vision play, […]

Robyn Williams’ misuse of a Spectator review gets a run in today’s Australian – Cut and Paste. They also add some cautionary remarks about peer review from Terence Kealey who is VC of The University of Buckingham. The full text of Kealey’s piece is at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article3827719.ece, and that of the Spectator review at http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/books/598831/no-need-to-panic-probably.thtml.

Last July the Queensland Government instituted the “Urban Land Development Authority” which amongst other things would have the right to compulsorily acquire land from private land holders and sell it to developers who could then make a profit from it. The idea has spread to New South Wales, as this report in the Sydney Morning […]

I’m sceptical of the “booze epidemic”, particularly as I’ve been unable to find anything justifying the claim. But now something authoritative has come to light. According to AAP: The NSW auditor-general’s report found there were 20,475 alcohol-related assaults (ARAs) statewide in the 2006-07 financial year. The figure has risen steadily through the early 2000s from […]

The Hatfield Dodds, Lin and Steve, were about the only power couple that I could spot who both got a guernsey to the 2020 Summit. Lin’s now topped that to make herself a household name by withdrawing from the Olympic torch relay. It’s raised some interesting posts from some ethnic Chinese. On Line Opinion isn’t […]

John Howard told a joke against himself at a Liberal Party function in Brisbane (as reported by the SMH). “The other was that his diplomacy needed work. Asked at a function at the George H. W. Bush presidential library in Texas to name his top three achievements, he started with gun control. No-one in the […]

Despite my pessimism, it appears that the Governance stream came up with a worthwhile eDemocracy Big Idea – a government portal to be called www.your.gov.au (or maybe www.yourgov.gov.au, but that looks clumsy when you write it down). According to Kate Crawford, who apparently submitted the idea, the portal will give access to all government documents […]

You really can’t ignore the 2020 Summit, so here goes. But first a declaration. Not only did I nominate for the summit, but we also tendered to provide an online collaborative workspace for it, as well as lobbying for a website for the summit where the rest of Australia could be involved in the collaboration. […]

When it comes to government inquiries, Terence Cole QC has to be the current heavyweight. He inquired into the building industry and then into AWB. In the process he was criticised heavily by prominent ALP members. Now the Rudd government has appointed him to head an inquiry into the sinking of the HMAS Sydney. I […]