People & associates
Chris Berg
Big business in full flight is the clarion cry of democracy
Is big business running rings around the government? That's the view of an increasing number of commentators convinced the era of economic reform...
Morality and humanity in the gambling debate
Opposition to gambling has always been somewhat aesthetic and moralistic. The character of that moralising has, however, changed over time. During...
Why bad policy can be good politics
Why would the Gillard government want to cut an unambiguously popular area of government spending - medical research? Because, perversely, it may...
Plain packs pointless when smoke gets in our eyes
When the Rudd government's National Preventative Health Taskforce released a position paper on anti-tobacco measures, they titled it "Making...
Learning from public policy mistakes of the GFC
In the Financial Times at the end of March, the former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan wrote "With notably rare exceptions (2008, for...
Multiculturalism is a useless word
Multiculturalism is one of the least useful words in Australian politics. It owes all its power to ambiguity. It is divisive because it is vague....
Deregulation can save the taxi industry from itself
The regulation of Melbourne's taxi industry was a mess from the beginning. Taxis were new, smart and efficient when they were introduced in 1908,...
Climate change can't be stopped, but we will adapt
Julia Gillard is half-right. The world is acting on climate change. But not acting to stop it - to adapt to it. In the 1920s, an average of 240...
Media Watch: Everyone loves it until they advocate censorship
On last week's Media Watch, host Jonathan Holmes called for the government to use a practically defunct regulation to restrict free speech because...
West's history not complete without reference to Christianity
Julia Gillard's declaration over the weekend that she would like the Bible taught in schools seems odd, given she's Australia's most prominent...