Issue 54 : 22 to 28 July 2021
Partisan shibboleths and popularity contests: Why we’re stuck in policy gridlock
Ross Gittins | Nine Newspapers
You don’t have to agree we owe big business a living to know that our public policies are far from perfect and that every government’s job is to beaver away at improving them. Nor to know recent governments have tired of doing that.
Why Study Economics?
Evan Jones | Arena
Economics students should be exposed to big-picture issues. Why so much brutality in the growth of material ‘prosperity’, and was/is it inevitable? Why do economic systems vary across ‘capitalist’ countries? Whence came the welfare state and why the decades of attacks on it?
Labor’s capitulation on tax cuts shows the price it will pay to win power
Greg Jericho | The Guardian
What is the point of a progressive party if not to reduce inequality? This is madness.
Stage 3 tax cuts to cost $184 billion as decade of deficits looms
Shane Wright | Nine Newspapers
Covid, demonstrations and the claim for rights
Dennis Altman | Pears and Irritations
Like many others, I was angered by the anti-lockdown protests last weekend. I was surprised at the enthusiasm with which I cheered on the police and wanted people to dob in anyone they recognised in the mobs gathered in Sydney and Melbourne streets.
Lockdown protests: Australia divided between the selfish and unselfish
Madonna King | Crikey
The pandemic is increasingly dividing Australians into two groups — and none is more important than the divide between those fighting the pandemic and those who wish to see us give up.
“Freedom Day”: Thatcherism’s Last Gasp?
Guy Rundle | Arena
UK news reports say that many, perhaps a majority, will continue to avoid crowded venues even after ‘Freedom Day’. But of course that is of little use; a minority of 5 to 10 per cent letting rip is sufficient to turn these places into spreader hubs.
Far-right anti-lockdown protests held amid Australian COVID crisis
Oscar Grenfell | World Socialist Web Site
The protesters, including members of the extreme-right, advanced anti-lockdown positions almost indistinguishable from those of the political and media establishment.
Restoring our lives to normality after Covid is not the solution, it’s the problem
Jeff Sparrow | The Guardian
As Australians have been preoccupied by coronavirus, a wider environmental calamity has unfurled. The emergency isn’t over, it’s only just beginning
To fight the pandemic, we have to fight the Liberals
Editorial | Red Flag
To defeat COVID-19 workers need income support
Sarah Hathway, Alex Bainbridge | Green Left
The militarisation of the public service: Frewen’s appointment highlights a genuine capability gap
Karen Middleton | The Saturday Paper
As the world collapses into a COVID nightmare, Australia offers limited help
Amber Schultz | Crikey
Welcome to the heat dome
Max Opray | The Saturday Paper
A slow-moving heat dome is bringing record-breaking temperatures to the northern hemisphere. Climate scientists are alarmed by how bad it is – and what might follow in Australia.
Scientists demand urgent action after Covid-19 did little to slow climate emergency
Michael Mazengarb | Renew Economy
Toxic Waste Rebranded: Australia bans Third World dumping, leaves giant toxic loophole
Luke Stacey | Michael West Media
Elders’ Voice to lay solid foundation for Victorian Treaty
Rachael Knowles | National Indigenous TImes
The First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria has announced an interim Elders’ Voice which will provide a “solid cultural base” for Treaty.
Kicked to the kerb: The crisis of older women becoming homeless
Suzanne James | Green Left