game...

There are about 800 politicians in Australia’s parliaments. According to their assessments of each other, that quite small group includes role models for lying, cheating, deceiving, ‘rorting’, bullying, rumour-mongering, back-stabbing, slander, ‘leaking’, ‘dog-whistling’, nepotism and corruption.

A recent editorial valiantly suggested that ‘toxic debates test ideas, policy and character’, but a more orthodox view is that ethics, tolerance and civility are intrinsic elements of democratic society and that the politicians’ mutual contempt and aggressive, ‘end justifies the means’ amorality erodes respect for authority and public institutions and compromises social cohesion.

By Tony Fitzgerald
December 08, 2012

on the fairway

Evidence emerging from Gladys Berejiklian’s ICAC inquiry shows alarming similarities to the way in which senior MPs in the NSW Coalition government are pushing for the Sydney Catholic Archdiocese to be given control over Sydney’s vast cemetery network. 

The cemeteries are set to run out of space in under a decade, and its operators are about $300 million in debt. In 2020, the NSW government developed a proposal to amalgamate Sydney’s five cemetery operators into a single efficient operator: OneCrown.

scomocchio

New evidence shows the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) interfered in denying a Freedom of Information (FOI) request by Michael West Media (MWM) into Scott Morrison’s sacking from Tourism Australia in 2006. 

duttonic

Has Peter Dutton just committed Australia to a future war against China? His latest comments seem to suggest so.

The contingency that the world increasingly worries about is Taiwan. The Economist magazine calls it “the world’s most dangerous place”. Why? It’s the most likely point of armed clash between China and the US.

Beijing is increasingly bellicose in word and deed in its stated intent to take control of Taiwan; Washington is increasingly inclined to protect Taiwan from any attack.

Three days after Paul Keating said that Australia should stand aloof from any such war, Defence Minister Peter Dutton on Saturday said: “It would be inconceivable that we wouldn’t support the US in an action if the US chose to take that action,” he told The Australian.

liar

The popular wisdom seems to be that Labor leader Anthony Albanese is hanging back on revealing his climate change ambitions because he is afraid Scott Morrison will immediately frame anything he promises as job destroying and economy wrecking.

This view is only half right.

There is no doubt whatever Mr Albanese comes up with, the Prime Minister won’t hesitate to make those claims.

Furthermore he will surely value add by inventing policies Labor has not embraced or entertained.

Why wouldn’t he? It worked a treat in 2019.

This is where we need a reality check.

Labor did not lose the last election because of its climate policies.

target

Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce added that Australia was “satisfied with our goals,” and the Nationals did not sign the final communiqué of the Glasgow Climate Summit.

Joyce, who was campaigning in the coal town of Singleton, New South Wales on Monday, said the government had already set emission reduction targets for 2030 and the public Cop26 Agreement signed by the Australian Government on Sunday.

hypocrite

The Prime Minister has defended a government senator's move to investigate the ABC's complaints handling process, saying no government agency is above scrutiny.

space... 

Billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has a vision for humanity beyond Earth, predicting that one day humans will be born in space and take holidays to their former home.

Mr Bezos said people would build colonies in space as Earth was too small to sustain humanity’s current growth and energy usage.

“Over centuries, many people will be born in space. It will be their first home,” Mr Bezos said.

“They will be born on these colonies, live on these colonies, then they’ll visit Earth the way you would visit, you know, Yellowstone National Park.”

end...

GLASGOW, SCOTLAND – Only two of the 35 stalls lauding countries’ green credentials at the COP26 UN climate summit mention the need to cut fossil fuel production — the chief cause of the carbon emissions driving climate change. 

The summit’s official “blue zone” includes large corporate-style pavilions run by some of the world’s leading producers of oil, gas, and coal, including the United States, Australia, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Russia, United Arab Emirates, Germany, and Qatar. They highlight the countries’ environmental efforts while failing to mention their massive and ongoing trade in fossil fuels.

wild dogs 

Forget Globull Warming: Instead, Save the Endangered African Wild Dog

Science  » Planet Earth 

Regarding my choice for the first part of my titular line, it is what it is: The weather. Nothing more. All else, is buell sheet. Let us leave it at that.

BY Montresor Montresor

mirror

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has spectacularly claimed he has never told a lie in public life, and no sir, we have the receipts.

In an interview with 3AW’s Neil Mitchell on Friday morning, Morrison was asked if he has ever told a lie in public life, to which he replied: “I don’t believe I have, no. No.”

china

On ABC Radio this week I was reminded of another time, another Australia. We were discussing Australia's place in the world after former prime minister Paul Keating's National Press Club appearance criticising our handling of the rise of China.

Many of the callers were lamenting Australia's recent record on climate change, refugees and racism. We were on the wrong track. We were alienating other nations like France. One man said he had returned to Australia after living abroad to find we had, in his opinion, gone backwards.

BY STAN GRANT

sinodinos

While the nuclear-powered submarines envisioned under the AUKUS pact are at least years away from being built, Australia has already envisioned how it will use the vessels.

taiwan

Modern-day gunboat diplomacy largely ignores the historical circumstances and emotive aspects of the divide of Taiwan and China.

The issue of Taiwan and China reunification has been narrated from a geopolitical perspective, and most arguments do not adequately address the sensitivities of the issue.

China’s intractable stand on reunification, which it considers an internal affair, cannot be fully comprehended without an attempt to see it from the emotive aspects of a divided country.

jake

President Joe Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan has declared the US is a resident power in the Indo-Pacific, telling Australians he rejects claims it doesn’t have the staying power to remain in Asia in the face of a rising China.

Mr Sullivan’s declaration that America is “not going anywhere” is in stark contrast to former Australian prime minister Paul Keating, who on Wednesday said while the US should remain in East Asia as a “balancing and conciliating” military power it would be significantly eclipsed by China over the coming years.