Issue 86: 14 April to 20 April

## Election

This election is a vacuum of ideas. That’s bad news for Labor
Osman Faruqi | The Age
The ALP needs to remember how it won a federal election last time – it wasn’t by being small target.

Wage rises need to become a critical federal election issue
Graham Matthews | Green Left 

Readers, a warning: Pauline Hanson has ‘got her crap together’
Guy Rundle | Crikey
To some people’s surprise, it’s hard to now deny that the One Nation leader has a big joined-up argument, especially on the economy.

Katherine Deves wasn’t chosen in spite of her views on trans people. She was chosen because of them
Cam Wilson | Crikey

The truth about how much politicians can ‘manage’ the economy
Jessica Irvine | SMHAge
Truth is, politicians of the modern era are severely limited in their ability to “manage” economies at all.

Scott Morrison, Angus Taylor stack clean energy agencies with fossil fuel mates
Callum Foote | Michael West

Insecure work isn’t a made-up problem. It isn’t normal. And it isn’t inevitable
Jim Stanford, Mark Dean | The New Daily

This economic model tipped the last two elections – and it’s now pointing to a Coalition win
Peter Martin | The Conversation

Election Coverage in the Passive Voice
Tim Dunlop | Meanjin
The gaffes, baby, the gaffes. Let’s talk about the gaffes. The gaffes, the gaffes, the gaffes!

Politicians should be on a worker’s wage
Belle Gibson | Red Flag
Unlike wages, politicians’ salaries do not go backwards due to inflation. Instead, they get a pay rise every year through the Remuneration Tribunal. Workers, on the other hand, have to fight for their pay rises and usually get one only every three or four years—if they’re lucky.

‘Voices of’ independents are just wealthy liberal
Diane Fieldes | Red Flag
With so little difference between what’s on offer from Liberal and Labor, it’s not surprising that independents can seem like a progressive alternative.

‘Climate refugee’ risk as Torres Strait Islanders take sea level concerns to candidates
Tom Zaunmayr | National Indigenous Times

## Solomon Islands / Pacific

The other Chinese threat in the Solomon Islands
Clinton Fernandes | Crikey
Australia’s response to China’s agreement with the Solomon Islands overlooks the benefits to the locals, who are far down the ladder of economic development.

Pine Gap’s role in China–US arms race makes Australia a target
Brian Toohey | The Saturday Paper
The Pine Gap base near Alice Springs is expanding, and so is its importance to the US military. It also means Australia is becoming a more obvious global target, whether we realise it or not

Solomon Islands’ security pact with China raises the question is Australia the partner for the Pacific it thinks it is 
Kate Lyons | The Guardian
There may not be a direct link between climate policy and the agreement, but it has contributed to the dimming of Australia’s reputation in region

Timor-Leste’s presidential election pushes Asia’s youngest democracy closer to China
Michael Sainsbury | Crikey

The psychic terror wrought by palm-oil production: How oil-palm plantations have uprooted the lives and dreams of a Papuan community
Sophie Chao | The Monthly

Does the Kishida cabinet mean the death of neoliberalism in Japan?
Luciano Carment | Progress in Political Economy

## Ukraine

The US arms industry, Ukraine and the media
Brett Wilkins | Pearls and Irritations
The people who have the most interest in influencing the direction of the media coverage of the Ukraine War are weapons-makers.

Reporting about Ukraine: peace difficult, war easy
Stuart Rees | Pearls and Irritation

## MiscSydney Uni staff and students reject corporatisation push 
Rachel Evans  | Green Left
Jen Hutch, a professional staff member, told the rally that the NTEU had “uncovered an average of $19,000 a year in wage theft for staff”.

How Neoliberalism Swallowed Arts Policy
Lauren Carroll Harris | Kill Your Darlings
In the wake of another disastrous budget, advocates for the arts sector remain trapped in the cursed logic of the free market economy. As an election approaches, we must not settle for crumbs but rethink what we value as a society.

The campaign to destroy the arts

Alison Croggon | The Saturday Paper
For state and religious authorities, art has often been the enemy. It’s easy to see why. Art tends to be anti-authoritarian. It argues against the simplistic. It opens possibilities. It values freedom. It imagines. Worst of all, it destabilises the idea of authority itself.

Heroes of the Fourth Turning: how theatre can serve as a mode of inquiry into right wing ideas
Julian Meyrick | The Conversation

COVID-19 infection spread in Australian schools exacerbates staffing crisis
Erika Zimmer, Carolyn Kennett | World Socialist Web Site

NSW public sector workers stand up
John G. | Vanguard
Lots of NSW workers have been up in arms about their wages, about short staffing They have realised just how important they are to keeping the community going and keeping people safe. 

Digital revolution is leaving economists scratching their heads
Ross Gittins | SMHAge
The new economy of digital production has put scale economies on steroids.

The Disability Pandemic
El Gibbs | Meanjin
In Britain, 60 per cent of those who died from COVID were disabled people. Here in Australia that data isn’t collected—we aren’t counted.

Woodside to receive $40 million for CCS
Callum Foote | Michael West Media

Loving Machines: Mental Health by Algorithm Is Reshaping Care and Sociality
Mark Furlong | Arena Quarterly
In the rapidly changing field of mental health care, emerging technologies are of special interest to cash-strapped state-funded mental health services, non-government agencies and private health companies alike.