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The Write Stuff- not wrong- But not quite enough ‘The Write Stuff’, a collection of essays from the Labor Party’s right-wing, has been promoted as a book that ‘plot’s the Party’s return to power’. It doesn’t do this. A few central things are missing. The book covers a wide range of policy topics including the importance of unions, addressing of casualisation and job insecurity, digital inclusion, ...
Low Interest Rates- An Opportunity for Federal Labor Australia’s net debt was A$174.5 billion in September 2013, when the Coalition took office. The debt is forecast to grow to $872 billion in 2020-21 (44.8 percent of GDP). Then it is forecast to hit $1 trillion in 2021-22 (50.5 percent of GDP). Then, $1.1 trillion in 2022-23 (51.6 percent of GDP). Yet, as a proportion of GDP, our debt ...
Biden’s Bind President-elect Joe Biden will likely find himself in a bind. Let me explain. An important difference with Donald Trump is that he was not ONLY a President. He also leads a social movement. Trump’s support base is a coalition of different forces- not very well educated white working-class folk, some white supremacist extremists (some of whom are armed), ...
Labor’s Consultation Draft Platform The ALP’s National Policy Forum (NPF) is responsible for producing the draft platform for the Party which goes for consideration by Labor’s National Conference. The NPF, in consultation with the relevant shadow ministers, has released a consultation draft of the National Platform for input from ALP constituent units. It is, on the whole, a very progressive ...
Religion, almo y el sentido de uno mismo No todos pensamos como personas religiosas. Pero hay un sentido en el que los ateos todavía “sentimos” lo mismo que las personas religiosas. ¿Cómo? Bueno, todas las religiones abrahámicas sostienen que tenemos un alma, un yo interior, un “yo” que está separado de nuestro cuerpo y cerebro en funcionamiento. Los no creyentes no están de ...
Keating shows Federal Labor a way out Paul Keating has called on the Reserve Bank to help the Federal Government with fiscal spending. Normally governments offset their spending through either taxation or borrowing. But taxation is deflationary so is not an appealing option at the moment and there is a concern (largely exaggerated) about increasing government debt. Keating has essentially called for the federal ...
Religion, the soul and the sense of self We do not all think like religious people. But there is a sense in which we atheists still “feel” the same as religious people do. How? Well, all the Abrahamic religions hold that we have a soul- an inner self, a “me” that is separate from our having a functioning body and brain. Non-believers disagree. They hold ...
Financialization of Capitalism Financialization means that today’s capitalism is fundamentally different from the capitalism that governments had to regulate 40 years ago. The financial sector has always been important to capitalism. And the work of French economist Tomas Piketty shows capitalism has always had a general tendency to increase inequality absent corrective government interventions. This is simply because the rate ...
Anger (by Mischa Merz) Every day during the pandemic, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has updated us on the state of play with the Corona Virus. Case numbers, deaths, numbers tested, mystery cases, clusters and hotspots. It’s not a soapbox occasion by any means. He’s not trying to win anyone over to any political agenda. He mostly pleads with people to ...
ACTU Jobs Plan In May 2020, the ACTU released a document on rebuilding the economy and jobs beyond the COVID crisis. it urges the adoption of 2 million additional secure jobs by the end of 2021. By secure jobs, it means “jobs where permanent roles are the norm. Employees are entitled to at least a living wage, paid leave, ...
Secret Ballots and ALP Democracy Secret ballots may certainly be necessary to ensure democracy in certain situations. But everything depends on the context. In some contexts, a secret ballot is clearly regarded as anti-democratic. We insist on open voting in Parliament and on Local Councils. In these contexts, a secret ballot would be regarded as anti-democratic. We hold that members of Parliament and ...
On Factions (Part 2) (See part 1 of this article here) Some people seem to imagine that if factions did not exist debates in the Labor Party would be more open and democratic. If not for factions, the issues could be worked through debates on the Conference floor and then voted upon democratically. Maybe the policy supported by the best ...
THE USA- Wall Street v Main Street The COVID-19 pandemic induced an economic panic in March 2020. Share prices declined by 30%. The Federal Reserve Bank responded to the panic by again expanding its balance sheet assets by a whopping 66%. It went from US$4.2 trillion on March 4, 2020, to in excess of US$7 trillion on May 20, 2020: Not surprisingly, the ...
On Factions (Part 1) Kevin Rudd has called for factions within the ALP to be “abolished”. What are we to make of this? At the outset, I should declare for transparency that I am a long-standing member of the Socialist Left faction of the ALP and a former long-standing member of its executive. To start I think Kevin Rudd’s call is ...
Danger, Danger- Pearson support for Job Guarantee spells potential disaster for Labor Two remarkable opinion pieces appeared in ‘The Australian’ over the weekend. One was by Noel Pearson, the other was by economist William Mitchell. Pearson is well known for his connections to the Liberal Party. In 2009 he lobbied Rob Oakshot to support the formation of an Abbott Government. In 2011 he gave the Sir Robert Menzies Lecture ...