The decision by the Federal Treasurer, Peter Costello, to block the hostile $10 billion Shell takeover of Woodside Petroleum followed concerted pressure on the Treasurer by the Prime Minister, John Howard, WA Liberal MPs who saw that the takeover would decimate the party in the next Federal Election, and Woodside itself. The Treasurer agonised over…
Since the release of the Defence White Paper last December foreshadowed a reorientation of Australia’s defences towards the arc of instability, stretching from Indonesia, Timor, Papua New Guinea and the Pacific Islands to New Zealand, there has been little evidence that the Government has accepted the logic of its own position. Perhaps the retirement of…
It was a remarkable conjunction of events that at the moment when the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was praising the Federal Government’s economic performance, the value of the Australian dollar plunged through the US49 cents barrier, on its way to a historic low! The IMF’s comments appeared in its annual report on Australia, its Australia…
Even before the downturn in the Australian economy was recorded in the National Accounts figures for the December 2000 quarter, the Federal Government was in deep trouble, following the Coalition’s defeat in the WA and Queensland state elections, due to the disenchantment of voters in rural and regional Australia. The economic downturn which took place…