Politics
Tough law and order policies aren't working
GINO VUMBACA 11:01am At this time of the year, when cards and emails inundate us with messages of goodwill to all, wouldn't it be pleasing if it wasn't just all talk. This Christmas there will literally be thousands of children in Australia destined to spend the day filled with the pain and shame of having one, and in some cases, both of their parents in prison.
Activists should stop talking about global warming and start acting
JOHN HUMPHREYS If climate activists had spent the past 10 years acting instead of wasting time at talkfests such as the one at Copenhagen, we would already have a price signal on greenhouse gas emissions.
Public eject button rare but increasing
JOSHUA SPIVAK The debate over whether to adopt a recall mechanism in NSW is almost guaranteed to involve overheated rhetoric on both sides.
Nuclear economics just don't add up
MICHAEL R. JAMES 7:40am The fall-out from Copenhagen has left the world's biggest "carbon criminals", among them Australia, exposed on climate change. With the overthrow of Malcolm Turnbull in the Liberal party along with the proposed ETS, the ascension of Tony Abbot and his emphasis on "direct action" it was inevitable that the federal Opposition would revisit nuclear power as an option for a low-carbon future in Australia. Given the recent sobering Government report on carbon capture and storage, "clean coal" seems less and less as the likely saviour.
The big cop out
ELLEN SANDELL Some people said that Obama was always going to fly in and seal the deal in Copenhagen. Having postponed his visit to coincide with other world leaders, he flew in for 24 short hours, brokered a private deal with China, India and South Africa, and left.
Labor's good intentions fail to guarantee jobs for youth
GERARD HENDERSON This festive season has witnessed the return of the once cyclical Christmas strike, with disruptions in the postal and transport sectors. Pre-Christmas strikes
Obama Accord a good thing amid Copenhagen fiasco
ROSS GARNAUT The United Nations meeting on climate change at Copenhagen was a fiasco. The several months of intense discussion among leading economies that culminated in the Obama Accord in Copenhagen last weekend was not.
Another bastard for the colonies
ELIZABETH FARRELLY History will cast them as foes, but in fact the two designs make exactly the same mistake. Philip Thalis's competition-winning design, expunged from the official website as if it never existed, split the huge Barangaroo site lengthwise, giving the public a flat-as-a-pancake park along the water and putting private (built) uses inland.
Burma travel boycott hypocritical and usless
JUSTIN WASTNAGE Rangoon could be Asia's Havana. Crumbling colonial architecture quietly decays in the tropical heat while patched-up automotive relics lumber around pot-holed streets. But the former Burmese capital is resolutely off most travellers' itineraries.
Christmas denied to island detainees
BRUCE HAIGH There will be no Christmas on Christmas Island this year. Government fear and stubbornness has resulted in the detention centre on the island being over capacity; crowded with desperate, unhappy and traumatised asylum seekers.
Copenhagen: The moment of truth
FIDEL CASTRO News arriving from the Danish capital paints a picture of chaos. After planning an event in which about 40,000 people were to participate, the hosts have no way of keeping their promise. Bolivian President Evo Morales, who was the first of the presidents from the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas to arrive there, expressed certain profound truths emanating from the millenary culture of his people.
Universities should not pander to disadvantaged students
KEVIN DONNELLY Given her roles as minister for education and social inclusion, it should not surprise that Julia Gillard is re-engineering the way universities select students according to her Fabian desire for equality of outcomes.
The self-proclaimed heir can't recapture Howard's appeal
LINDY EDWARDS Tony Abbott looks to have made his version of John McCain's "Sarah Palin blunder", but that is not his greatest challenge as he endeavours to create a new conservative party. McCain made a fatal blunder in the US presidential election when he appointed Palin as his running mate. At first blush the decision was heralded as a strategic masterstroke as she could energise the party's base.
Picking through the curate's egg laid in Copenhagen
TIM COLEBATCH It was Christmas drinks at the Economists' Club. Bill the barman had just topped up our glasses when Pangloss rose to propose a toast to the outcomes of the Copenhagen climate change summit.
Moti case highlights pitfalls of global policing
SHAHAR HAMEIRI The decision to permanently stay sex charges against former Solomon Islands attorney-general Julian Moti has important implications for the way Australia conducts its relations, particularly with the so-called fragile states in the Southwest Pacific.
A grid too far?
MARGARET PULS A quarter of a century after Apple's iconic Macintosh computers advert premiered during the Super Bowl in the US, General Electric launched a Super Bowl ad it hoped would symbolise another technological revolution – the smart grid.
Rudd's green credentials a lot of hot air
PAUL SHEEHAN Kevin Rudd, frenetic in Copenhagen, would have us believe he is an environmental statesman. He is certainly trying. But he risks appearing to be an environmental blowhard. Sydney's desalination plant, built at a cost of $400 million, and commencing operating this week, is the perfect monument to Labor's idea of environmentalism.
Cool heads needed now the heat is on
PHILLIP COOREY The next time the Environment Minister, Peter Garrett, is accused of being an environmental sell-out, spare a thought for Greg Hunt. The Opposition environment spokesman could be considered Parliament's foremost authority on, and one-time greatest advocate for, a market-based mechanism to reduce carbon emissions.
Weak outcome a boost for Abbott
MICHELLE GRATTAN Copenhagen wishy-washy outcome is a boost for Opposition Leader Tony Abbott and a setback for the Prime Minister, as they look to an election year in which climate policy will be a core issue.
In NSW, scandal fatigue has set in
ANDREW STONER It seemed a good idea at the time but irrevocably fixed four-year terms have had their day.
2009 - From Canberra to Copenhagen: A Christmas Odyssey
KATHARINE MURPHY Copenhagen. Wind turbines with Christmas decorations whir ostentatiously in the harbour. UN officials stagger on cobblestone streets clutching their booze stuffed duty free bags. Greenies whir by on Segways, Tweeting censoriously. In a luxury hotel suite, the Prince of the Chair, a nobleman with more than passing resemblance to the Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, reclines on a designer poof, exhausted and dejected. Curiously, he is wearing a hard hat. In his hand is a portrait of a German theologian.
Kennneth Davidson
We're dudded on water but no one rebels
KENNETH DAVIDSON It is tempting for governments to reward most the people who can keep them in power. They do it with tax cuts and subsidies. It is clear that this has increasingly become the modus operandi of the Brumby Government. The question now is whether the Government is, in effect, becoming a kleptocracy with the passive co-operation of the Opposition, as all sides of politics refuse to justify or criticise my calculation that the cost of the Wonthaggi desalination plant will be $650 million a year over the next 30 years or $225 million a year more than if the project was financed with public debt.
Poorest of the poor ask why Copenhagen failed to listen
ANDREW HEWETT Shorbanu Khatun of Bangladesh stood out among the thousands of suited negotiators in Copenhagen. Khatun's husband was killed by a tiger when their land was parched by extended dry seasons and flooded with salt water, forcing him to venture into the jungle to feed his family.
To preserve democracy, political donations must be limited
JOSH GORDON Public funding of elections would stop the campaigns arms race.
We need a rational debate on MPs' pay
LISA CARTY It's a tough job but someone has to do it, so maybe politicians' salaries should reflect that.
Light-bulb moments
STEPHANIE PEATLING A straightforward campaign will help people switch on to an emissions trading scheme.
Another year of living dangerously
PAUL DALEY The past 12 months have had their fair share of conflict, upheaval, and man's continuing inhumanity to man.
It's time McKew outgrew ministerial L-plates
MICHELLE GRATTAN Parliamentary secretaries, even high-profile rising stars, can find themselves in a political no man's land.
Holiday largesse
KATHARINE MURPHY If you want a break from politics over the summer, may I suggest in the politest possible terms that you consider lining up a holiday rental on the moon. They're just getting warmed up.
Why 2010 won't be such a good year
DANIEL FLITTON Just when you thought things were improving, there's trouble looming.
