HalfEarthMedic

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese wrote to state and territory leaders in September saying they must slash growth in hospital spending if they want a public hospital funding commitment implemented.

Somewhere around 2085, give or take a few years, the last baby boomer will die. But their story is not, in the end, a story about age.

Data released by the Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre and the Valuing Children Initiative on Monday found 950,000 children will live in poverty in 2025 — more than 15 per cent of all kids in Australia. That's up from 713,000 four years ago.

Regulations make it hard to introduce organisms that quash invasive species. Some experts see missed opportunities.

Interesting and somewhat compelling. I'm torn between the value of using biological control to reduce the burden of invasive species without chemicals and the fear of runaway unintended consequences.

I guess the current system of tight regulation means I'm on the same page as the regulators:/

Documents obtained by Declassified Australia show that following the June 2019 Federal Police raids on the ABC and News Corp, the Department of Home Affairs began secret efforts to revive a four-decade dead system to censor the Australian media.

The Australian Federal Police had raided the offices of the ABC and News Corp journalist Annika Smethurst on 4 and 5 June 2019, in response to their reporting on alleged war crimes and a proposed domestic spying plan. Following the raids, Mike Pezzullo, then secretary of the Department of Home Affairs — a portfolio that included ASIO and the AFP — texted a close adviser to then Liberal prime minister Scott Morrison, Scott Briggs, with plans to censor the media. These texts had been brought to light in a 2023 report in The Age.

The documents show that, following Pezzullo’s proposal, Home Affairs officials looked to Britain’s Defence and Security Media Advisory Committee for assistance in reinstating D-Notices in Australia.

British D-Notices often seek to censor reporting on UK state crimes and other malfeasance.

A very interesting, take on the past and present of the ALP from John Menadue.

What can Australia learn from Norway's approach to taxing resources?

New Australia Institute polling research shows most Australians, regardless of who they vote for, think cash-for access payments represent corrupt conduct. Cash-for-access describes exclusive fundraising events where companies and lobbyists pay to meet with senior party leaders.

The new Support at Home Program for older people is introducing a ‘free market’ transactional aged care system. It’s a retrograde step

Is this further evidence that the current federal Labor government is the least Labor-like government in the history of Labor governments?

The ministerial override power at the centre of Labor’s proposed reforms to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act would not merely give politicians a completely unfettered power to ignore environmental laws in the name of the “national interest”, but enable them to do so in total secrecy.

Watt tried to downplay the national interest override power in his address, describing it as “a specific power, in rare circumstances that are in the national interest, for the minister to make a decision that is inconsistent with the National Environmental Standards. Such a decision would be accompanied by a statement of reasons, which includes the environmental implications of the decision. To demonstrate the rare nature of these decisions, the bill refers to defence, security and national emergencies as the types of situations this power might be used.” But the actual text of the bill demonstrates no such thing, beyond Watt’s casuistry in suggesting that the override power could only be rarely used. New section 157 of the reformed act would enable project proponents to write to the minister for the environment asking for a national interest exemption — correspondence that will rapidly become pro forma for every major project — that would enable the project to be approved even if it comprehensively breaches the environmental safeguards of the act. The minister must respond to such requests within 20 working days.

Better yet, the “statement of reasons” that Watt claims will accompany a decision that waves through a damaging project can be kept secret. After awarding a project national interest status, the decision must be published “together with the minister’s reasons for granting the exemption on the department’s website”. Except, the minister must not publish anything that’s a trade secret, business documents “to which access would, on balance, be contrary to the public interest” or anything “the minister believes it is in Australia’s national interest not to provide”.