Galapagos of fear
The other day, my old blogging friends from the Manhattan Institute have asked me to explain to their American readers what the heck is happening in Australia. This is what …
Read MoreTag: government
If it’s up to health experts, we will never leave COVID restrictions
If it’s up to our health experts – doctors, scientists and researchers, administrators and bureaucrats – we will never return to the “old normal”. If it’s up to our health …
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7 reasons why ScoMo is likely to lose the next election
Hello August. Of 2021; that disappointing sequel to 2020. Or perhaps we’re actually in the 20th month of 2020 – Augustember. Whatever’s the case, there’s no longer any talk in …
Read More A Brief History of the Near Future
Australia will go to a federal election sometime over the next twelve months. If asked last year, my gut would have inclined to an early election, say around August ’21, particularly …
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Eight trends to watch in 2021
Twenty-twenty, the year of the “cool number” previously associated with the positive (perfect vision), had been anything but cool and positive itself. A lot had gone wrong; most related to the …
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Australian Ballot 2: A modest proposal for learning from Down Under (again)
What a mess. You know what I mean, so I’m not going to list all the problems and alleged irregularities that have plagued the presidential election; there’s plenty about it …
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2000 – a few early take-aways
1. Democrats, buoyed by the media and the public research industry support chorus, were expecting a Blue Wave. A lot of Republicans, buoyed by the enthusiasm of the base as …
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Trump’s agenda – a little bit nationalistic, a little bit fantastic
Donald Trump has released the agenda for his second term: A few random thoughts in response: 1) The biggest missing piece – as it has been from Trump’s agenda over …
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The Great Unrepayable
The perfect storm of more than a decade of fiscal mismanagement and a “once-in-a-century shock” (Treasurer Josh Frydenberg) – God helps if there is ever a real shock like a …
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Tie me a kangaroo down
Firstly, a solution in search of a non-existent problem; not surprisingly a brain fart of the most immaterial Prime Ministership of Malcolm Turnbull: The Brand Advisory Council, set up two …
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America is bad for democracy, say allies
Dalia Research, the Alliance for Democracies and Rasmussen International have released the results of the Democracy Perception Index, the largest study of its kind, based on interviews with 124,000 people in …
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Don’t flatten Turnbull, we need to acquire the herd immunity
Don’t end him, don’t mend him, transcend him. It’s rare, but I agree with the NSW Energy and Environment Minister Matt Kean: Malcolm Turnbull should not be expelled from the …
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COVID killed the radio star: the winners and the losers of the viralmageddon
Joel Kotkin, a sensible urbanist (rare, I know), has been sounding an alarm about the hollowing out of our economy and our society for a while now. His news book, The …
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The world after Corona
As the current pandemic crisis continues to unfold across the globe, more and more important people are heard making pronouncements that our world and our lives will not be the …
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5 ways the Corona crisis is conditioning us for authoritarianism
A word of clarification: I don’t believe that Coronavirus is some sort of One World Government plot to take over the planet by stealth and institute a permanent dictatorship. Nor …
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Election in the time of a pandemic
Today, the state of Queensland went to the polls to vote in local government elections and two state by-elections. It has been a rather unprecedented exercise of democracy at a …
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The Left’s hard-on for crisis
“Never let a good crisis go to waste”. This short and catchy dictum was articulated by Rahm Emanuel, former Clinton White House chief of staff and mayor of Chicago, at …
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Public service is revolting and it’s not Priti
There is an undeclared war going on, waged by the left establishment in Great Britain on Priti Patel, the British-Indian Home Secretary under Boris Johnson. Ostensibly, the bureaucrats in her department …
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How everyone pays for Bernie
In the magical socialist world of Bernie Sanders, everything is free – which means that someone else is paying for it. Usually it’s the billionaires or the rich or the …
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18 chihuahuas or 14 cavoodles
So we have the long expected reform of the federal public service in Australia. Sort of. There are fewer departments, but they are bigger. They will most likely still employ …
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