The Policy Post

  The meandering mess of Tasmania’s politics. Tasmania’s three Lambie-ist MPs, now propping up an unpopular and inept state government, are getting cold feet. When will the plug be finally pulled?

  The budget that forgot health. Every element of Australia’s health system is in trouble. But you’d never know it from looking at this year’s budget.

  Jacqui Lambie’s imperial ambitions take a tumble. She tried to turn her idiosyncratic brand into a sort-of party. But, as with so many of those arrangements before, it’s quickly falling apart.

  In their last redoubt, the Liberals lurch further to the right – and oblivion. The Tasmanian election was a disaster for both major parties, but only Labor has a path back.

  The campaign to destroy the GST. Australia’s GST system – despite some serious mutilation by WA – remains one of the most effective and fairest in the world. That’s why the NSW government wants to blow it up.

  How not to run a government. There’s a reason Tasmania’s hospitals and essential services are the nation’s worst. It’s because the state government underspends its own infrastructure budget by 27%.

Medicare is bleeding to death. Will Labor ever do anything about it? GP visits are down 37% since the government took office. But all we get is spin.

We need to talk about Gina and Andrew. Natural resources are owned by the people of Australia, but mining companies don’t like paying us for the resources they take out of the ground. And when they look like having to pay more, their response is swift and brutal .

  Populism and the fight for democracy. Liberal democracy is facing its most perilous time since the rise of fascism a century ago. Between the GFC and now, their number has fallen by a third. Populist authoritarians thrive. What’s happening? And why?

  WA’s $40 billion fraud on the rest of us. Jim Chalmers has just added $11 billion to the cost of Western Australia’s dodgy GST deal. It’s an extraordinary case of political extortion. But is it even legal? And will WA have to give the money back?

  An unbroken record of failure. The last time the Labor party in Tasmania won a parliamentary majority was seventeen years and six leaders ago. Even against a tired, inept Liberal government, they still look unelectable.

The decline and fall of the intelligent political insult. It’s not that our politics have become unexpectedly polite. It’s just that the wit has vanished.

How alien abduction explains Donald Trump. When given a choice between truth and a lie, vast millions of people unerringly choose the lie. What on earth is going on – and what does it mean?

What’s the Intergenerational Report really for? Projecting 40 years ahead is nonsense. The Intergenerational Reports have quite a different purpose – to justify what the government has already decided to do.

  That very silly stadium in Hobart. The saga of a billion-dollar football stadium encompasses tragedy and farce – and reveals familiar folly at the core of government policy-making.

  What will replace the Liberal Party? As the country moves left, the Liberal Party moves further right. If they’re no longer a viable party of government, what comes next?

  We’re getting submarines. So what will we lose? The navy wins. Losers will be the army, the air force, Medicare, hospitals, schools, the unemployed – and the nation’s safety.

  Are our schools really that bad? No, actually. Jason Clare teams up with the Murdoch tabloids to smear the school system. He’s playing a dangerous game.

  Quietly, Chalmers moves on WA’s dodgy GST deal. Nobody is going to be happy. A rather large time-bomb, bequeathed to Jim Chalmers by the previous government, is set to explode in just over three years from now.

  Is Labor serious about health? Doesn’t look like it. Mark Butler’s Medicare “Taskforce” isn’t action on health reform. It’s a substitute for action.