politicalowl

Business Council of Australia to ramp up role in politics https://t.co/trC5ZJ1w94 — ABC News (@abcnews) April 30, 2018 PHOTO: Jennifer Westacott says the Business Council felt it had "no choice" but to get more involved in political campaigning. (ABC News) It would be difficult to think of a more difficult environment than that in Australia today for an employer group like the Business Council of Australia to be mounting a bid to persuade people to vote for the federal Coalition government. The banks and other financial institutions are giving the free enterprise system a bad name. Labor has successfully been plugging the idea that tax cuts for "the big end of town" will come at the expense of services for the rank-and-file. The collection of advisers recruited by the BCA to run its campaign would be wise to be getting their fees upfront rather than relying on success fees. There was one aspect of Laura Tingle's debut performance as a 7.30 pundit that

Treating children as collateral damage - Washington Post INFANTS, TODDLERS, tweens, teens — Trump administration officials are less interested in the age of an unauthorized child migrant than they are in removing the child from his or her parents as a means of deterring illegal border-crossers. ... The United States has a legitimate interest in deterring illegal border-crossing. It is within its rights to detain and deport individuals and families who fail to make a persuasive case for asylum. But to splinter families and traumatize children in the name of frightening away migrants, many of whom may have a legitimate asylum claim, is not just heartless. It is beyond the pale for a civilized country. Please Stay, Justice Kennedy. America Needs You. - New York Times Dear Justice Kennedy, As you have no doubt heard, rumors of your impending retirement are, for the second year in a row, echoing around Washington and across America. While you and your colleagues on the Supreme Cour

An intriguing case that hinges on a push and shove so singalong with: The Owl wonders what Sophie's current employer Gina Rinehart thinks of Sophie's practice of secretly recording conversations like she did when talking with Ken Wyatt.

Economics: the view from below  - Marion Foucade in theSwiss Journal of Economics and Statistics In the course of the twentieth century, economists have been able to establish a remarkable position for themselves, as experts in local and national governmental organizations, in independent agencies and central banks, in international institutions, in business and finance, and in the media. They supplanted lawyers in government and historians in the public sphere. As such, they have been involved with some of the most consequential decisions that societies make—decisions having to do, for instance, with the level of unemployment that might be left unattended, because it should be considered “natural”; with whether or not to authorize the purchase and sale of untested financial products or with how to organize the delivery of clean water, vaccines or electricity. This involvement has come at a cost. As Robert Chernomas and Ian Hudson put it, “economics has the awkward distinction of bei

Politicians with hopeless legislation will not fix the obesity epidemic - London Sunday Telegraph ($) In the eyes of many politicians, it isn’t important that regulations deliver results so long as it feels like a good idea and authorities are seen to be doing something. ... Even the most apparently obvious policy solution to a problem – introduced in good faith and with the best intentions– creates ripples impacting on people’s lives in ways politicians may well have been unable to predict, particularly when it comes to lifestyle issues. It is therefore of paramount importance to exercise caution when legislating, and to proceed only when there is overwhelming evidence to suggest the measure will deliver. The problem is that politicians are increasingly expected to provide a solution for every problem under the sun as we look to the state to replace the influence of other institutions – family or religion, for example – in our lives. It requires a significant amount of self-awarene

Abba: the debate rages - London Sunday Telegraph ABBA have announced they are reforming to record new material, and fans are deliriously happy. So they should be. The Swedish pop group was one of the greatest bands of the 20th century, and only snobbery stops them being ranked with The Beatles. The harmonies were exquisite, the music innovative and the lyrics mostly comprehensible. Debate still rages, however, over whether in a verse of Super Trouper, Anni-Frid Lyngstad sings “All I do is eat and sleep and sing” or “All I do is eat and sweep and sing”. The mystery deepens when instead of calling her lover from Glasgow, she appears to say, “I was sick and tired of everything/ When I called you last night from Tesco.” Some believe the song is the lament of a pop singer exhausted by life on the road, prefiguring Abba’s split in 1983. Others say it’s about a bored shelf-stacker. The answer is found in the chorus: “Super Trouper/ Beans are gonna blind me.” If one stacks tins of baked be

It seems mighty strange to the Owl that Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was not at Saturday's annual conference of the Victorian Liberal Party. Federal parliamentary leaders normally give a major speech at such a gathering. This time it was Mr Turnbull's Liberal Party deputy Julie Bishop who did the honours. And, if the tweet by former Tony Abbott staffer Terry Barnes is true, Ms Bishop in 30 minutes managed to avoid mentioning the name of her boss. That's even stranger. Something is very much amiss in the Victorian Liberal ranks.

AFL should show it cares - The Mercury, Hobart WE have said it before, and we will say it again and again: every time an AFL game is played in Tasmania it is a reminder that as a state we should never rest until we have our own team in the “national” competition. The State Government’s estimated $7 million annual investment in North Melbourne and Hawthorn is a worthwhile one, in that it ensures a good number of elite-level footy games are being played in Tasmania each year. But that cash should be considered as nothing more than a down payment on a team that actually calls Tasmania home. ...     Tonight at UTAS Stadium in Launceston, Tasmanians will again turn out in big numbers to demonstrate their love for footy. It really is time the AFL responded in kind, and demonstrated in a meaningful way its love for Tassie. The US President trumps his critics - The Daily Telegraph, London Asked to account for the detente that led to yesterday’s meeting of Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in

Jokowi Turns to Populist Policies Ahead of Tough 2019 Election  - Jakarta Globe President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo still enjoys high public approval, with recent surveys giving him a double digit lead over his main rival, former general Prabowo Subianto. ... Now, less than a year from an expected hard-fought 2019 election, Jokowi has made a "strategic policy shift," say senior government officials, dropping nearly $20 billion of infrastructure projects to focus on social welfare. The government has also slapped price controls on staple goods such as fuel, power, rice and sugar — moves that will surely be welcomed by voters. Dear Barnaby, it's time to shut your mouth - Sydney Morning Herald China opposes U.S. resolution on Tibet issue - Xinhua China on Friday expressed opposition to a U.S. Senate resolution on the reincarnation of Dalai Lama, saying it has interfering in China's internal affairs. ... The U.S. Senate on Thursday agreed to a resolution wh

Paula Matthewson in The New Daily has joined the chorus. Pay no attention to those who claim the next federal election is still 12 months away. All the signs point to the election being held in August or September this year. The Owl recommends to Ms Matthewson that she hops in and takes the $3.40 being offered at Sportsbet about the election being in 2018. A 2019 election is the $1.25 favourite.

Turnbull’s cash top-up is a welcome boost for WA’s needs - The West Australian The penny has dropped. Or in this case, the dollars and cents. For what seems like an eternity, this newspaper, and to be fair, WA politicians of both Liberal and Labor stripes in Canberra and in the house on the hill here, have been making the point that WA is being ripped off when it comes to our share of the GST kitty. And while we do not want to count our chickens just yet, it seems that at long last, the message has got through to Canberra. It would be nice if the recognition that WA has been missing out on its fair share was based purely on what is fair and right — and indeed, of benefit to the nation. But there can be no escaping the reality that some of the attention we are getting is to do with the Federal Government and Opposition getting their houses in order ahead of the next election. US' investment policies target China's tech drive: China Daily editorial - China Daily The

Getting in early for my federal election date pick. October 27, 2018. If they don't go around then...get set for a long funereal parade till April. #auspol #youknowitmakessense — Chris Kenny (@chriskkenny) April 27, 2018 Good to see the brass of The Australian joining in the game. Now, they wouldn't have an angle to promote would they?

Sharri Markson in this morning's Daily Telegraph : Australians are among the highest-taxed citizens of any country in the world. We pay more personal income tax as a share of all tax revenue than any other OECD country except for Denmark. A report from the OECD released over Night:

Workers in OECD countries pay one quarter of wages in taxes  - OECD Workers in OECD countries paid just over a quarter of their gross wages in tax on average in 2017, with just over half of countries seeing small increases in the personal average tax rate, according to a new OECD report. Taxing Wages 2018 shows that the “net personal average tax rate” – income tax and social security contributions paid by employees, minus any family benefits received, as a share of gross wages – was 25.5% across the OECD. This OECD-wide average rate, calculated for a single person with no children earning an average wage, has remained stable in recent years, but it covers country averages that range from below 15% in Chile, Korea and Mexico to over 35% in Belgium, Denmark and Germany.  Electric motors will soon offer freedom and convenience more cheaply and cleanly than internal combustion engines https://t.co/tktyrXz5AE — The Economist (@TheEconomist) April 26, 2018 A look at everythin

US-french bromance blossoms - The Scotsman Macron has found a way to become Trump’s biggest critic and best friend on the world stage Emmanuel Macron has crushed Donald Trump’s hand in a vice-like grip, publicly snubbed him by swerving away to greet Angela Merkel first, cheekily repurposed the US president’s favourite slogan in the cause of climate change, and even made a public appeal to US scientists to move to France because of the Republican tycoon’s antiscience rhetoric. And yet, there the French president was, giving a speech to the US Congress in Washington, on the first official state visit of the Trump presidency. In a tweet before the address, Trump said this was “a great honour and seldom allowed to be done … he will be GREAT!” Somehow Macron seems to have managed to become Trump’s greatest critic, but also perhaps his greatest friend on the global stage and certainly within the European Union. Somehow, he’s become the world’s “Trump whisperer”. A tempest in an oil

Keen viewers of The Project   would have noticed this view of Tony Abbott in France: But why is it so? Why does the former PM so often get captured in photos with his tongue out? Photos like these: For an answer the Owl has turned to S cience Focus - the Online Home of BBC Focus Magazine. Why do I stick out my tongue when I concentrate? The answer won't surprise you when you find out how much brain power that muscle uses Much of your brain is devoted to your tongue. It is a huge muscle, constantly moving, that has to keep out of the way of your teeth, help you swallow and avoid choking you. It’s covered with densely packed touch receptors that constantly update the mental map of the shape of your mouth. And your tongue is connected to the brain’s language centres so it often moves to partly form word shapes as you think. All this sends a huge stream of data to your brain. Sticking your tongue out or biting it, reduces its movement and cuts down on thi

The appearances are getting more and more frequent. Kevin Rudd was back on the ABC again tonight giving us all the benefit of his great wisdom. 'Australia, from President Trump's perspective, is a second-class ally.' @MrKRudd says the US decision to reassign Admiral Harry Harris to South Korea shows that @realDonaldTrump is in danger of taking Australia for granted. #abc730 #auspol pic.twitter.com/dYXjdlgedN — abc730 (@abc730) April 25, 2018 This time he was big noting about his friendship with Harry Harris who was going to be, and now isn't going to be, the US Ambassador in Canberra. Kevvie thinks that the US decision to reassign the Admiral to South Korea shows that @realDonaldTrump is in danger of taking Australia for granted. Time for a song.

A very small minded effort by Malcolm Turnbull in France for the opening of the Villers-Bretonneux memorial. A bigger man than our current Prime Minister would have allowed his predecessor to say a word or two. It was, after all, Tony Abbott's idea. But no. Our Tony was left to skulk around on the outskirts wearing his plastic poncho. The hostility in the Liberal Party is clearly too great for even a semblance of civility.

Why do banks always put customers last? - Daily Mail, London ON its website, TSB boasts: ‘We’re always open and honest, with no nasty surprises.’ Paul Pester, the bank’s £2million-a-year boss, should try telling that to the 1.9million of his customers who’ve been suffering some of the nastiest surprises of their lives since the weekend. Many have lost all access to their money, unable to pay bills or employees’ wages or shop for essentials. Others have seen unexplained sums withdrawn or credited to their accounts. In a glaring threat to security, hundreds report logging on to TSB, only to see strangers’ accounts. Now we’re told some problems won’t be fixed until the end of April. Indeed, this is an IT meltdown on a mammoth scale – caused, it appears, by pressure from the bank’s Spanish owners to save money by switching to a new system before it was ready. Why, in the financial sector, do customers always come last? Of those affected, many were with Lloyds before they were told o

Why Democracy Fails to Reduce Inequality: Blame the Brahmin Left  - Pro Market A new paper by Thomas Piketty finds that major parties on both sides of the political spectrum have been captured by elites and warns of a future political system that pits “globalists” against “nativists.” Piketty tracks electoral trends across three countries—the US, Britain, and France—from 1948 to 2017. Despite their vastly different electoral systems and political histories, he finds, a similar trend can be found in all three countries: left and center-left parties no longer represent the working- and lower-middle-class voters they were traditionally associated with. Instead, both the left- and right-wing parties have come to represent two distinct elites whose interests diverge from the rest of the electorate: the intellectual elite (“Brahmin Left”) and the business elite (“Merchant Right”). Piketty calls this a “multiple-elite party system”: the highly educated elite votes one way, and the high-i

Celebrating 28 Years of the Hubble Space Telescope - NASA This colorful image, taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, celebrates the Earth-orbiting observatory’s 28th anniversary of viewing the heavens, giving us a window seat to the universe’s extraordinary stellar tapestry of birth and destruction. Let’s Stop the Hysterical Rhetoric about the Opioid Crisis  - Cato Institute The point is, millions of Americans have genuine, medically necessary reasons to be taking opioids. They make up the vast majority of opioid users and it doesn’t make sense to lump them into the opioid crisis. ... If policy makers in the Trump administration want to effectively address the problem, there are other ways to do it. They should promote “harm reduction” programs, including pilot “heroin maintenance” programs, such as those that have worked successfully in Switzerland, the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, and Canada. They should also take note of recent evidence from Johns Hopkins University, t

Secret recording reveals Michael Sukkar believes socialists are trying to take over the the Liberal Party: "like termites, they’ll get in and they’ll eat us from the inside out unless we do something... We are the vanguard that are going to stop it." https://t.co/VPUzJRiRAa — James Campbell (@J_C_Campbell) April 23, 2018 An exclusive recording of Mr Sukkar eradicating termites on the Liberal streets of Kooyong And some extracts from the Herald Sun report of that secret recording: ON THE LEFT: “The last bastion, the last vestige of conservatism which is the Liberal Party is the last institution that they’re trying to get their way into. And like termites, they’ll get in and they’ll eat us from the inside out unless we do something. And we are the vanguard, we are the ones that are going to stop it..... We’ve halted the charge — now I think it’s about time we turned the screws on and start reimposing our will over the party.” ON THE VICTORIAN LIBS: “We’re trying t

One for Christopher Pyne: On tour in Oz, Elvis Costello wrote these lyrics for the music of Clive Langer, who hoped Robert Wyatt would record it: Shipbuilding [Old Grey Whistle Test 83] https://t.co/LGzf2Wtgah via @YouTube — philip white (@whiteswine) April 23, 2018

Royal Commission response, not who deserves the credit, is the important issue - The Canberra Times The man who should get the credit - Senator John "Wacka" Williams This week has seen much sound and fury over who should have instigated the Royal Commission into banking and when, and whether or not Malcolm Turnbull owes Bill Shorten - or the rest of the country - an apology for not acting earlier. These sound bites are irrelevant red herrings that direct attention away from the main issue. That is to ensure the excellent work of the commission is not wasted. ... We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to put matters right. It would be a national tragedy if it was wasted in a vain dispute over who should get the credit. That battle was won a long time ago by Inverell-based Nationals, Senator John "Wacka" Williams, in any case. Senator Williams, who threatened to cross the floor on this issue last year, first called for a Royal Commission into white collar

The learned professor must have tired of scrapping with Peta Credlin so desperately needed a new subject for that weekly column. Well, not a new subject really. Rather a variation on that mainstream media standard the leadership challenge. Give the sub enough to justify the catchy headline  Speculate on how "even small indicators can have profound impacts on otherwise long term trends." Then gild the lily with the thought that the latest Newspoll may turn out to be such a moment in time before adding: To be sure, the odds are that it won’t. More likely this government’s goose is cooked and the size of the defeat is the only contested point worth debating between now and the next election. But if Labor loses momentum it won’t take long for Bill Shorten to come under substantial pressure. So for the sake of trying to make a comment column different to the mass of irrelevant others on the significance of Newspoll, let's forget about that size of the Coalition def

Former PM @MrKRudd says that because the prime minister is working on better ties with Western nations, he thinks it's automatically a ‘smart thing to publicly punch the Chinese in the face.’ MORE: https://t.co/ZGwEyOa2Yd #amagenda pic.twitter.com/3jd5jxkNFv — Sky News Australia (@SkyNewsAust) April 23, 2018 Every time I see MrKRudd this doggerel comes into me mind: Yesterday upon the stair I met a man who wasn’t there He wasn’t there again today I wish, I wish he’d go away When I came home last night at three The man was waiting there for me But when I looked around the hall I couldn’t see him there at all! Go away, go away, don’t you come back any more! Go away, go away, and please don’t slam the door Last night I saw upon the stair A little man who wasn’t there He wasn’t there again today Oh, how I wish he’d go away "Antigonish" (1899) by William Hughes Mearns

Stop our oceans choking on a plastic overdose. Governments and companies must act globally to clean up the seas - Financial Times, London Rarely has a global environmental issue aroused public and political concern more rapidly than plastic pollution of the oceans. ... This initial drive for action must not only be maintained but intensified in the years ahead. The threat to our oceans is too great to release the political pressure even if plastic pollution falls out of the news. ... purifying the oceans on a global scale is an unrealistic technical challenge. Policymakers should therefore focus their efforts on rapidly reducing the flow of fresh material into the ocean, by increasing recycling and restricting non-essential uses of plastics. This will require a huge change in behaviour by the world’s consumers, pushed by government regulations Arrogance on ‘sanctuary cities’ - Washington Post, USA Republican-appointed judges are rightly pushing back against President Trump’s braz