Wes Mountain/The Conversation, CC BY-ND
If you told someone a year ago unemployment was about to dive below 5%, to just above 4%, they wouldn’t have believed you.
If that person was an expert, and you said it would happen despite a Delta outbreak and lockdowns in our two biggest states, they might have said you had little idea of how the economy worked.
Sometimes the best things you can do are invisible.
Such as fighting cholera by ensuring drinking water wasn’t contaminated by sewage, as happened in London in the 1840s.
What’s the boldest thing the Morrison government could do in next month’s budget?
It would be to forecast an unemployment rate below 4% (a rate of three-point-something), then to pledge to go further, to two-point-something.
The events over the next week in NSW could have massive ramifications for the whole country.
There is a lot going on the NSW at the moment, however, I fear worse may be yet to come.
Now that ‘Back In Black’ has transformed into ‘I See Red’ Australia is waking up to the fact that after years of Coalition mismanagement ‘The Honeymoon Is Over’.
Although many of us would like to think so, elections are not won from the left or the right, they are won from the centre. At the end of election day, it is the swinging voters that will decide the immediate future direction of the country.
And so it went in 2013 when as a nation we were afflicted with this Coalition government.
I don't need to know about that bit.
- Gladys Berejiklian to Daryl Maguire
An earlier version of this post focused on the fact that the budget was announced last week, and right now there are compromises and horse-trading underway to get it passed into law, and that any member of the federal parliamentary press gallery worth their salt should be onto this and what it might mean for our country in these uncertain times.
I don't need to know about that bit.
- Gladys Berejiklian to Daryl Maguire
An earlier version of this post focused on the fact that the budget was announced last week, and right now there are compromises and horse-trading underway to get it passed into law, and that any member of the federal parliamentary press gallery worth their salt should be onto this and what it might mean for our country in these uncertain times.
Sad news to wake up to this morning. My first iteration of this blog had banners that were all images from Diana Rigg’s stunning era as style icon Emma Peel. Of course Ms Rigg did so much more in the many decades since then. It’s sad to see her go. I plan to update this post later with all the images I ever posted of her but I’ll have to ferret out some backups first.
When one major party is in government in Australia, the most significant figure of the opposing party is usually the opposition leader.
When one major party is in government in Australia, the most significant figure of the opposing party is usually the opposition leader.
Building a network of safe cycling routes in our major cities isn’t a post-pandemic ‘nice to have’; it’s a necessity. The immediate priority is putting it together very, very quickly Is this the hour of the two-wheeler?
Yet again politicians reach for the High Speed Rail elixir – this time as a prescription for national economic recovery from the pandemic. But it’s snake oil Is High Speed Rail the game-changer we need now?
*Waving from an appropriate distance*
Hi everyone! How are you? How is everyone you know, and those you care about most?
Since Mary posted at the end of February about the effects on mothers of the string of closures we were seeing, things have obviously got a lot more extreme. Here in Australia we had just got through the worst bushfire season of all time, before we were driven indoors once again. This year has really turned into a game of choose-your-apocalypse.
Some wonderful poetry by David Byrne of Talking Heads: