The Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s announcement of a 30 per cent limited resource rent tax to replace the Rudd Government’s all-embracing 40 per cent resources super profits tax (RSPT), will confirm widespread concern over the Government’s attack on the profitability of Australia’s resource industries, push up the price of electricity and gas, and put at…
The political execution of the former Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, has been followed by hagiographic accounts of the rise and rise of Julia Gillard, whom the Canberra press gallery have apparently anointed as the messiah who will lead Australia into the promised land, as they did for Kevin Rudd until a few months ago. Whether…
Recent events in relation to Taiwan and Hong Kong show that the Chinese Communist Party is showing increasing sophistication in dealing with ethnic Chinese societies overseas in a way which protects its interests. After Mao Zedong seized control of China in October 1949, at the end of over 20 years of civil war, the defeated…
With tightly-fought elections due to be held nationally and in various states over the next 12 months, voters are being inundated with political advertising masquerading as government information. Although governments employ an army of researchers and media spokesmen, and taxpayers directly fund the major parties’ election campaigns, it seems that for governments, the temptation of…