April 29, 2020

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Apr292020

A national disgrace: Our great land sale

Rural AffairsApril 29, 2020

Foreign purchases of prime agricultural land up 180 per cent in three years Foreign-owned land equates to eight times the size of Tasmania Foreign non-tax paying entities out-bid locals for land by 10-25 per cent To what extent have foreign buyers made inroads into purchasing Australia’s prime agricultural land? Head of the NSW Farmers’ Federation Water Taskforce Xavier Martin shed light on this at the NCC National Conference on February 8. Citing data from the Farm Weekly newspaper, Martin revealed that only 1-2 per cent of Australia’s land mass is “Grade A”, or highly productive land. Between 2016 and 2018, foreign land ownership grew nearly 1 per cent overall. However, it was the areas of highly productive land in Victoria and Western Australia that were being targeted by foreign interests.…

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Apr292020

The very young can still be ‘taken care of’ during the covid19 outbreak

Life Marriage & FamilyApril 29, 2020

As the covid19 pandemic cripples the world economy and causes unprecedented social dislocation and disruption, opportunistic bureaucrats and politicians are using the crisis to ram through pet policies. Freedoms are being removed; new laws being introduced with little or no debate; and officials make up their own rules imposing them on citizens without any mandate. Some actions by over-zealous police and officials have been absurd but in the long term relatively harmless, such as incidents in Australia where police have fined a man for eating a kebab in a park or a young woman for taking a driving lesson with her mother. Others are more sinister, particularly seemingly internationally coordinated efforts to secure the greatest number of ongoing abortions and even to widen the practice during the pandemic. Of course,…

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Apr292020

Australia needs an economic reset after covid19 crisis

Economics, PoliticsApril 29, 2020

by Patrick J. Byrne As the first responsibility of government is to protect citizens from harm, the Prime Minister’s $130 billion wages package – to help feed families and keep people in their homes and jobs – is an important move in the right direction. However, the covid19 crisis has highlighted Australia’s vulnerability to fragile global supply chains, after four decades of privatisation and deregulation of trade, finance and industries. These policies have left the country heavily dependent on imported manufactures. This vulnerability stems from what economist Dani Rodrik calls “deep globalisation” (or deep global integration), which followed the breakdown of the post-World War II international arrangements that were based on shallow global integration (or “shallow globalisation”). Shallow globalisation had allowed each government to exercise controls on capital flows in…

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Apr292020

Justice at last: Cardinal Pell set free

Cover Story, Justice Law & CrimeApril 29, 2020

by Peter Westmore As News Weekly goes to press, the High Court of Australia has unanimously upheld the appeal by Cardinal George Pell against a majority decision of the Victorian Court of Appeal, reversing a terrible injustice suffered by the Cardinal last year. Cardinal Pell, pictured, had been convicted of sexually abusing two choir boys…

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