In The Australian today:
There is a fundamental defect in the government’s superannuation proposals that has been entirely overlooked. Instead of growing in line with average earnings, the $1.6 million “transfer balance” cap, which limits the amount that can be held in the withdrawal phase, is only indexed to consumer prices.
05 Sep2016
Special banking tribunal is a financial regulator too many
Today in The Australian:
Finding anything good to say about Labor’s proposed royal commission on banking is a challenge. But no matter how ill-conceived it might be, at least it will eventually fade away.
Finding anything good to say about Labor’s proposed royal commission on banking is a challenge. But no matter how ill-conceived it might be, at least it will eventually fade away.
29 Aug2016
Burkini re-energises discussion of public virtues, private vices
Today in The Australian
To Australians, who are regularly told by the Cancer Council not to venture into the sun without being covered from head to toe, the ban on the burkini always seemed far-fetched. We may have to fight the terrorists on the beaches, but only the Gallic mind could believe that replacing liberte, egalite, fraternite by liberte, egalite, nudite would drive the Islamists, repelled by serried ranks of scantily clad women and men in budgie smugglers, into the sea.
To Australians, who are regularly told by the Cancer Council not to venture into the sun without being covered from head to toe, the ban on the burkini always seemed far-fetched. We may have to fight the terrorists on the beaches, but only the Gallic mind could believe that replacing liberte, egalite, fraternite by liberte, egalite, nudite would drive the Islamists, repelled by serried ranks of scantily clad women and men in budgie smugglers, into the sea.
15 Aug2016
Census-taking in Australia has never followed accepted patterns
Today in The Australian
As you ponder the census fiasco, take a moment to remember Matthew Gregson, Australia’s first statistician, whose story seems even more relevant today than when I recounted it five years ago. Transported for “feloniously embezzling Bills of Exchange and other Money”, Gregson, on arriving in 1824, promptly found work in the Colonial Secretary’s office, where his skills with numbers were desperately needed to compile the badly overdue Blue Book.
As you ponder the census fiasco, take a moment to remember Matthew Gregson, Australia’s first statistician, whose story seems even more relevant today than when I recounted it five years ago. Transported for “feloniously embezzling Bills of Exchange and other Money”, Gregson, on arriving in 1824, promptly found work in the Colonial Secretary’s office, where his skills with numbers were desperately needed to compile the badly overdue Blue Book.
08 Aug2016
Banks’ response to RBA rate cut doesn’t warrant inquisition
Today in The Australian
Perhaps the best that can be said for hauling the banks before the House of Representatives’ Standing Committee on Economics is that it is unlikely to do much harm. But rather than being dragged behind Labor’s populism, isn’t it time the government moved to reset the economic agenda?
Perhaps the best that can be said for hauling the banks before the House of Representatives’ Standing Committee on Economics is that it is unlikely to do much harm. But rather than being dragged behind Labor’s populism, isn’t it time the government moved to reset the economic agenda?
01 Aug2016
Modern politics has reached a sorry state with Rudd UN affair
Today in The Australian
If Labor has an ethical standard that guides its conduct it is no better than this: hurt your enemies, help your friends. Now, with the government’s refusal to nominate Kevin Rudd as a candidate for secretary-general of the UN, the Coalition risks sinking to its opponent’s level.
If Labor has an ethical standard that guides its conduct it is no better than this: hurt your enemies, help your friends. Now, with the government’s refusal to nominate Kevin Rudd as a candidate for secretary-general of the UN, the Coalition risks sinking to its opponent’s level.