The Policy Post

A nine-year fight against a government’s inhumanity. In 2013, when Hugh de Kretser became CEO of the Human Rights Law Centre, Labor was still in power.

Why Labor failed in Tasmania. Two weeks before the federal election, there was another vote that was little noticed in Tasmania and ignored entirely everywhere else. As omens go, though, this one was a doozy.

Don’t expect Nirvana; or, how to avoid being disappointed by a Labor government.     Whenever a Labor government is elected, its supporters expect the world to change. They are always disappointed.

A colossal all-party health FAIL ! Every element of the Australian health system is in deep dysfunction. Hospitals in every state are in greater disarray than ever before. Emergency department overcrowding alone is killing as many people as the road toll.

There’s only one way to save private hospitals.   Neither party wants to talk about it, but the crisis facing private hospitals – which provide one bed in every three in this country – is a time-bomb waiting to explode under the next government.

Wages from Howard to Morrison (and the $80 billion a year deficit).   Since the Howard government was elected in 1996, there has been a massive transfer of wealth from wage-earners to the owners and managers of capital.

Will an Albanese government fix the mess in health? Or not? Some things we know. We know the whole health system has moved beyond crisis to an apparently permanent state of declining function.

Nuclear submarines. A Labor government. Cherbourg, here we come! When Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton tore up the contract to buy conventional submarines from France, Emmanuel Macron’s wasn’t the only disapproving voice.

Banning Tchaikovsky won’t hurt Putin or help Ukraine. In Wales, the Cardiff Philharmonic Orchestra had scheduled a performance of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture . Tchaikovsky? He’s Russian, isn’t he? Can’t have that!

WA’s dodgy GST deal looks safe – unless the states finally go to the High Court.   There is now only one way Western Australia’s lucrative GST deal can now be overturned – and that is by the High Court, which has never ruled on the matter.