Distinct absence of strategy in Middle East actions

Michelle Grattan writes in The Conversation about the nexus between refugee, foreign and defence policy. She highlights the lack of accountability for Australia's offshore detention centres and an absence of strategy in Australia's intervention in the Middle East.

Keating, reform and the difficult notion of ‘political capital’

Writing in The Conversation, Natalie Mast (University of WA) and Nicholas Barry (La Trobe University) provide a nice explanation of political capital (the electorate’s level of “trust” in a politician or political party), how this trust can be used to instigate significant legislative reform, and a brief history of its use since Paul Keating's Government.

Should the federal government take over vocational training?

Peter Noonan (Victoria University) argues in The Conversation that there is little to be gained in just transferring VET funding to the Commonwealth under current policy settings. New policies are required so that VET and higher education work more effectively together, and to make sure that VET most effectively contributes to the Commonwealth’s economic and labour market objectives.

The NBN: why it’s slow, expensive and obsolete

Rod Tucker (University of Melbourne) explains why the Government's fibre-to-the-node NBN will be so slow that it is obsolete by the time it’s in place, it will cost about the same as Labor’s fibre-to-the-premises NBN, and it won’t arrive on our doorsteps much sooner.

What’s really at stake if the China FTA falls through

This is an insightful analysis from Peter Dixon and Maureen Rimmer (University of Victoria) from The Conversation, explaining that using the Government's own analysis the free trade agreement with China is expected to produce very modest economic benefits for Australia, and will likely only be noticeable in a few agricultural and downstream industries. Readers might also be interested in Peter Martin's analysis in The Sydney Morning Herald on how the apparent chasm between the Government and Opposition over labour provision might be resolved with a minor legislative amendment.

Things to remember when you hear politicians take credit for ‘job creation’

Ben Phillips (University of Canberra) provides a nice little summary in The Conversation of the labour force statistics and why it is disingenuous for the Government to claim credit for "jobs creation" in any given month or, conversely, for the Opposition to blame the Government for increases in unemployment in any given month.

Australia’s banks are safe, so deposit levy is looking like a revenue grab

Andrew Schmulow (University of Melbourne) and Pat McConnell (Macquarie University) write in The Conversation that deposit accounts are already appropriately protected by regulation and the capital adequacy of Australia's banks, so the Government's Financial Stability Fund has little meaningful role in banking stability and can therefore only be viewed as a tax on banks (which is likely to be passed on to depositors).