Plans to commit an extra 500 gigalitres of water for environmental flows in the Murray River should be postponed, a House of Representatives Committee has recommended. Committee chair Kay Elson said the Committee had received a “considerable amount of evidence” questioning the science underpinning the Living Murray initiative of the Murray Darling Basin Commission (MDBC).…
There are those who have been blinded by the continuing rhetoric of many of our State politicians, the official position of the Federal Opposition and the extreme ‘Greens’ that the Murray River is in decline and dying. The rhetoric is being peddled, in defiance of the facts, by the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF), World Wildlife…
Despite the apparent prosperity of the 1990s, a growing underclass of single low income males (SLIMS), not in full-time work and lacking the economic resources to hold a family together, is the major reason for the decline in the marriage and fertility rate since the mid-1980s. This is the key finding of a major study,…
Less than two weeks after both the Queensland election and the announcement of a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the US, the Federal Agriculture Department released three Biosecurity Australia reports recommending imports of New Zealand apples, Philippines bananas and foreign pork. The immediate question raised by agricultural groups is whether Biosecurity Australia and/or the Federal…
As a middle-sized trading nation which is dependent on its export industries to maintain Australians’ standard of living, blind opposition to international trade agreements is clearly against Australia’s national interests. Equally, however, a policy which endorses the Australia-US Free Trade Agreement – or any other international agreement – without a careful cost-benefit analysis is foolish.…
At the time of writing, the final outcome of the negotiations between the US and Australia was still uncertain; even though the deadline for negotiations had passed. Such a situation is perfectly normal in trade negotiations. Indeed, critical, stand or fall issues are rarely discussed until after the nominal deadline has passed. If that were…