worst

In the past 50 years, Australia has had 23 health ministers. But who is the worst?

Two of them, Lance Barnard and Arthur Sinodinos get passes, because Barnard and Whitlam were Ministers for everything in 1972 and Sinodinos merely filled in temporarily.

Neal Blewett, Brian Howe and Nicola Roxon would be among the best mainly because they focused on major policy reform; expanded preventative medical programs; and tried to integrate health policy into broader policy perspectives.

buffett

IT’S ONLY WHEN the tide goes out that you learn who’s been swimming naked,” the billionaire investor Warren Buffett has famously said.

During the crash of 2008, the whole world learned just how dangerously nude Wall Street was. Now evidence is accumulating that suggests that many financial institutions are skinny-dipping once more — via similar types of lending that could lead to similar disasters as the water recedes again due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

distancing

White House distances itself from Maxine Waters’ ‘confrontational’ comments

The White House on Monday appeared to distance itself from House Financial Services Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters for telling racial justice protesters to “get more confrontational” if Derek Chauvin is acquitted in George Floyd’s murder trial.

President Biden believes “protests must be peaceful,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said when asked about the comments by Waters (D-Calif.).

scottmo

Scott Morrison has bowed to mounting political pressure by launching a royal commission into suicide among Australian defence force members and veterans.

smoko

With the emissions reduction targets pledged in Kyoto, Japan, in the 1990s fading into distant memory, 2050—safely distant in time—has become the new favoured target date for the people making money from fossil fuels. As the Arctic permafrost melts and biodiversity collapses, “net zero by 2050” promises are an attempt to bullshit the public while allowing business as usual to continue undisturbed. 

peacock

Mr Howard said his former colleague and rival was a "quite outstanding foreign minister" who forged important relationships with countries in the region and deepened the US alliance.

He is known for taking a stance against the Khmer Rouge genocide. In his earlier position as minister for territories, Mr Peacock played a key role in the path to Papua New Guinea's independence.

avril

morelleak

Thirty years after the Aboriginal Deaths in Custody Royal Commission, is it time we admit that reconciliation is failing?

By Stan Grant

cane toads

 Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull says the NSW government has capitulated to a "ferocious campaign" from the media after his appointment to a clean energy board was overturned.

Last week, NSW Environment Minister Matt Kean had backed Mr Turnbull to lead the Net Zero Emissions and Clean Economy board, adding he was a great friend.

On Tuesday morning, however, Mr Kean released a statement saying Mr Turnbull could "distract" from the board's goal of creating jobs in low carbon industries and reducing state emissions while growing the economy.

sanctions

 Biden Says US Could Have Gone Further on Anti-Russia Sanctions, Chose to Be Proportionate

Earlier, the Biden administration imposed multiple sanctions on a variety of Russian entities and individuals over their alleged interference in the 2020 presidential election, as well as their purported involvement in the SolarWinds hack that infiltrated government networks.

checkmate

In this cartoon, February 1998, Bill Leak exposed the way "Heeez Back!" (as written by Doug Anderson), or the way John Howard snookered a hapless (still hapless apparently...) Malcolm Turnbull in the game of Royals versus the Republic on the political chessboard. It should have been a given that this fair and sunny (too sunny and unfair sometimes) country became a republic on 1/1/2001. Actually, as I have expressed many times before, it is my belief (I have no clue) that Turnbull snookered himself with the rest of the "republicans elites" by insisting on "his" model of a presidential appointment by government decree.

madoff