Last night we saw Canberra Philharmonic’s production of West Side Story. Maybe the music and the singing weren’t quite Broadway, or even Sydney quality. A young woman behind me was chatting about all the shows she saw while living in London, clearly some passionate performers present. But the heart […] Continue Reading…
September 01, 2009 | Graham
What is the relationship between tobacco price and consumption
The Preventative Health Taskforce has just delivered its report to the government and recommends increasing the price of tobacco.
Sounds more or less reasonable to me on economic principles, except that I do know that demand for tobacco is “inelastic”, which is a fancy way of saying it doesn’t respond […] Continue Reading…
Posted by Graham at 9:00 pm |
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August 29, 2009 | Ronda Jambe
Gimme Lessa Gomorrah
What’s in the movies isn’t always true or pretty, but sometimes it is true and ugly. And you come out kind of reeling with the relief that you don’t have to live in that narrative. So it was with Gomorrah, a fictionalised documentary about the Naples Comorrah mafia.
It would […] Continue Reading…
Posted by Ronda Jambe at 1:16 pm |
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August 16, 2009 | Ronda Jambe
Accountability goes digital
It has come to my attention that the government is looking for inputs to its Gov 2.0 strategy, complete with blogspace for comments. What should they do with government information? Who should see what? What about FOI? etc. All this has been part of the public conversation since well […] Continue Reading…
Posted by Ronda Jambe at 5:39 pm |
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August 10, 2009 | Graham
ETS – Exit Turnbull Stage left
The release of Malcolm Turnbull’s “Greener, Cheaper, Smarter ETS” puts the seal on his demise. You can explain Utegate away as a bizarre, once-in-a-lifetime accident, but the idea that you fight the government’s ETS by producing one of your own, is complete incompetence.
Apart from anything else, with his credibility, […] Continue Reading…
Posted by Graham at 11:22 pm |
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August 09, 2009 | Ronda Jambe
What would low carbon growth look like?
Today I spent much of the morning talking with an academic colleague about sustainable business practices, what they mean and why students are enrolling in these courses. We discussed the triple bottom line business sustainability, and systems thinking. This means the environmental, the social and the economic benefits are […] Continue Reading…
Posted by Ronda Jambe at 4:39 pm |
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August 04, 2009 | Graham
Congratulations to John Pilger
John Pilger has been awarded this year’s Sydney Peace Prize. John is a frequent contributor to On Line Opinion via material that we republish from his website, often at his suggestion.
The media release of the announcement says:
Examples of his work include an account of the British and American governments’ […] Continue Reading…
Posted by Graham at 10:04 pm |
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August 02, 2009 | Ronda Jambe
A Baad Approach
Last night we saw the film about the German 1970s terrorist group, ‘the Badder-Meinhof Complex’. At the start it said it was a true story, and the thread of events was believably jumbled and incoherent, so I assume it was a fairly accurate portrayal of the actual course of […] Continue Reading…
Posted by Ronda Jambe at 7:27 am |
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July 29, 2009 | Graham
More pressure in the housing bubble
RBA Governor Glen Stevens was widely quoted as warning of a housing “bubble” if we didn’t use the current period of low interest rates to increase housing supply. The word “bubble” appears to be a journalistic embellishment. What he said was:
“Given the circumstances – the economy moving to a […] Continue Reading…
Posted by Graham at 1:01 pm |
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July 25, 2009 | Ronda Jambe
My digital craft
It’s the weekend! What could be sweeter than two days at home, after five in the office? I’ve never felt good about being enclosed in an office, with no reason to leave my desktop other than for tea and toilet. Even a benign, friendly, non-challenging culture with good kitchen […] Continue Reading…
Posted by Ronda Jambe at 10:56 am |
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