Refugee advocates can never summon the courage to answer the question of how many is too many. Instead, they hide behind the particular instance, always ignoring the big picture. Governments, on behalf of all Australians, cannot ignore the big picture. The morality of the few is not the same as the morality of the many.

Read more...

The challenge for the Abbott government is different to that faced by the Hawke and Keating governments. Their task was to sell government assets into private hands. What was not so apparent then is becoming more so. As with Holden (assuming the brand fades), what will the Australian industrial landscape look like without familiar brands as well as Australian ownership?

In the late 1980s senator John Button, then industry minister in the Hawke government, walked into an ALP centre-left caucus meeting, my then home team, at Parliament House, Canberra, and asked the question, “What is the government doing owning an airline?”

Read more...

One of Bill Shorten’s last acts as workplace relations minister in the Gillard government was to allow a worker who had been bullied to apply to the Fair Work Commission for an order to stop the bullying. The act comes into effect tomorrow. What are the chances of it stopping bullying?

Read more...

Queensland and other Australian police have been tracking bikies forever. If, after all this time, and with all of the arrest powers, intelligence and surveillance available, they cannot find enough evidence to charge bikies with offences they want to charge them for, then maybe the bikies don’t do those crimes?

Read more...

Anyway, there is my poor old homeland on the rack, thinking of breaking from mother England. The Scots have a rare moment to reflect on their good fortune and why it came to be so. The white paper, Scotland’s Future, opens with the silken words: “The central purpose of independence is to make life better for people living in Scotland. Only a Scottish parliament and government will always be able to put the interests of the people of Scotland first.” Apparently, being well off has something to do with ruling oneself.

Read more...

The new Labor member for Scullin, Andrew Giles, in his first speech, restated an old adage: “We wish to live in a society rather than simply fit into an economy.” He reiterated: “Let me be clear: I wish to live in a society.” Such is the romantic thinking that has locked workers into jobs that their neighbours have to support through taxation and out of jobs where they could support their neighbours.

Read more...

Fortunately, the majority of the High Court (4-2) would not grant his claim. The High Court knocked back a similar case recently, but it was a close-run thing and may well be revisited. The reasons are intriguing. The majority had to pull a rabbit from the hat to stop the case from succeeding. Indeed, the High Court had only six judges out of the usual seven decide the case because the seventh, Keane J., had decided the matter in the Full Federal Court in favour of the worker. Keane J. was recently appointed to the High Court and could not hear the matter. The decision is, in effect, 4-3.

Read more...

The World Health Organisation has convinced many governments worldwide that “social determinants of health are the genesis of many health problems”.

In a submission to a Senate committee earlier this year, established to respond to the WHO report, an enthusiast explained: “Take as an example two people growing up in different communities. One is from the north shore of Sydney, who has educational opportunities, is encouraged by his or her parents, has adequate food and has parents who are not alcoholics.

“Compare that person to the extreme case of somebody growing up in the community of Yuendumu, just out of Alice Springs, where there are not the educational opportunities and encouragement.”

In a stunning insight, our enthusiast concludes “their health outcomes would be very different”.

Health, it appears is not about addressing individual choices any more. Poor dumb fatties are powerless, and only social engineers, posing as the medical profession, can solve this one. Except, of course, they cannot.

Read more...

The taxpayer funded an appeal to the High Court that his sentence was too harsh. He claimed that the Court of Appeal of Western Australia failed to have “proper regard” to his personal circumstances as a “traditional” Aboriginal man. In particular, “an environment in which the abuse of alcohol is endemic in indigenous communities”, was not taken into account.

The High Court knocked him back. The court reiterated that while a person’s background could play a part in mitigation, it needed to be “weighed by the sentencing judge”. At present, judges have discretion, but in future, if Aboriginal culture is recognised in the Constitution, do not be surprised if the likes of Ernest Munda get lighter sentences.

Read more...

What to do, if there is a problem, is especially contentious. How does a government frame policy in response to uncertainties of man-made climate change and its impact? What should the Abbott government do?

Read more...