This election is one of the worst I've seen

How are you going with the election? Are you getting a lot out of the debate, seeing the big issues canvassed and making up your mind who’ll win your vote?It’s not as if the choice isn’t clear: do you want to wait 15 months for a permanent tax cut of $5 a week, rising to $10 a week a year later, or would you be eligible for a $1200 once-only tax cut in July 2026, plus an immediate one-year cut of 25c a litre in the price of petrol?If...

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How the budget was hijacked by a $300 cherry on the top

Talk about small things amusing small minds. It looked like a textbook-perfect exercise in budget media management by Anthony Albanese’s spin doctors. Until it blew up in the boss’s face. Trouble is, it wasn’t just the tabloid minds that got side-tracked. So did the supposed financial experts.Budget nights are highly stage-managed affairs, as the spinners ensure all the mainstream media are focused on the bit the boss has decided...

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My speech at Sydney University's Great Hall

I’m too old to suffer from impostor syndrome, but the thought has occurred to me that, had the University of Sydney’s officials taken a look at my academic transcript at Newcastle University, and seen how much trouble I had persuading that uni to give me a pass degree, we’d be holding this gathering down at Ralph’s cafe in the women’s gym.The truth is that I had a lot of trouble passing a subject called economics, which I couldn’t...

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Speech in the Great Hall of Sydney University

I’m too old to suffer from impostor syndrome, but the thought has occurred to me that, had the University of Sydney’s officials taken a look at my academic transcript at Newcastle University, and seen how much trouble I had persuading that uni to give me a pass degree, we’d be holding this gathering down at Ralph’s cafe in the women’s gym.The truth is that I had a lot of trouble passing a subject called economics, which I couldn’t...

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Fifty years ago, I found my dream job – and I’m not done yet

If a genie ever sprang from a bottle and offered me one wish, it would be to have a job as a columnist on the biggest and best newspaper in the country, The Sydney Morning Herald. If he offered me a second wish, it would be to have my columns also published in the country’s other great newspaper, The Age.For the first seven years after I left school, I worked to achieve my dream of becoming a chartered accountant. Not any old...

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How budget spin doctors manipulate our first impressions

These days, federal budgets are just as much marketing and media management exercises as they are financial and economic documents. That’s because the spin doctors’ role has become central to the way Canberra works. This is just as true under Labor as the Coalition. Media management is a characteristic of government by the two-party duopoly.Budgets are actually the management plan for controling the government’s spending and...

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This isn't America, so please stop acting like a Yank

If there’s one thing that annoyed me about 2021, it’s the way people have been aping all things American. Our financial markets copped a bad dose of it, the media got carried away, we looked to the Yanks – the smart ones and the crazies - to know what we should think and do about the coronavirus, and many on the Right of politics took their lead from Trump’s Republicans.One on one, I like the Americans I know. But put them together...

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My love letter to The Sydney Morning Herald

It’s not something any hard-bitten journalist should admit, but I’m in love with The Sydney Morning Herald. Have been since, at the age of 26, I quit chartered accounting in disillusionment and stumbled into a cadetship at the Herald. I quickly realised I’d found the only place I wanted to be.After four years they gave me the title of economics editor and sat me in an armchair with a licence to air my opinions about...

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Who pays for Google and Facebook's free lunch?

There may be banks that are too big to be allowed to fail, but don’t fear that the behemoths of the digital revolution are too big to be regulated. It won’t be long before Google and Facebook cease to be laws unto themselves. It’s the old story: the lawmakers always take a while to catch up with the innovators. But there are growing signs that governments around the developed world – particularly in Europe and Britain - are...

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Our bulldust detectors are on the blink

The world has always been full of bulldust, which is why everyone should come equipped with a bulldust detector. Trouble is, we're living in a time of bulldust inflation. Some of the things we're being told are harder and harder to believe. But a lot of people's detectors seem to be on the blink. Part of the reason for the step-up may be that there are so many people shouting that anyone else hoping to be heard has to start...

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How to unspin the budget

You can't look hard at the budget and its glitzy packaging without being reminded of Rob Sitch's highly educational TV show, Utopia. My colleague Peter Martin has detected that the Turnbull government, as distinct from its Coalition predecessor, is less ideological and more evidence-based in its policy making. Its reforms to superannuation and Work for the Dole are prime examples. That's good news. Even so, the more intelligent...

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Blame pollies and media for low political standards

As intensified personal ambition has heightened competition between the parties, unwritten rules that certain subjects were off limits to the political contest have gone by the board. The obvious example is immigration, Asian immigration in particular, and boat people. For many years, both sides knew there was an ugly, xenophobic side of the Australian character and tacitly agreed not to do or say anything that would give it...

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