English: Spending on U.S. healthcare as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
There’s a problem with the Budget released on Tuesday.
Although it all adds up today, recurrent expenditure still appears to significantly outweigh revenue.
In other words, there’s a problem, as this article which appears in The Canberra Times suggests . . .
English: Wayne Swan, Treasurer of Australia Source commons:category:Politics of Australia (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
How some editors stuff-up a story.
When I sent this column in to the Canberra Times the first line read, as it does here, “tonight’s budget”. Going for “platform neutrality” the words were changed to read “Tuesday’s budget” in the paper.
Just a little change, I know, but how it alters the feel and the immediacy of the piece . . .
Lockheed Martin, Joint Strike Fighter (Photo credit: San Diego Air & Space Museum Archives)
Last week’s release of the Defence White Paper was generally well received. Certainly the bit on our international relationships was a significant improvement over the last Paper in 2009. But that doesn’t mean it’s flawless.
Perhaps the biggest concern is the way the analysis reflects the structures of Defence – Army, Navy and Airforce – rather than the reality f the plethora of new challenges we’re likely to face . . .
I was too breathless to keep up last week. First the government announced a $12 billion dollar hole in the budget, then the NDIS, then Defence White Paper.
But as I wrote in Saturday’s C
English: Julia Gillard’s signature. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
anberra Times, I didn’t find a great deal to encourage me in any of the announcements . . .
Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs Stephen Smith (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Guess what? Defence has gotten a new White Paper.
And that’s really all you need to bother knowing, because it’s rubbish . . .
Billboard with portrait of Assad and the text God protects Syria on the old city wall of Damascus 2006 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The Westphalian system is one where each nation state is mean to pretty much look after itself. That idea comes under challenge the minute you begin to talk about universal human rights.
Just where should the balance be found?
This column actually appeared in the Canberra Times last Saturday . . .
Photo of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
This began as a story about Malaysia, but in this time of media turmoil it offers an opportunity to rethink the role of the media as well . . .
Young Winston Churchill as a Subaltern in the 4th Hussars (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Aaah, yes. Thirty years ago we were all talking about how Anzac Day would die out.
Today it’s all “raise a glass” crap . . . all very well for Young Winston.
Not for those who died proving him wrong.
The Adelaide-built Collins class submarine HMAS Rankin entering Pearl Harbor, August 2004. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The government has made a decision: we’ll be getting a new class of submarine, designed here, built in South Australia. It will enter service in 2025.
It just hasn’t announced the move yet.
This piece for the Canberra Times backgrounds the issue . . .
Yes, I was there in her second term and – although I loved England – I wasn’t so swept away by her policies that I came to love her. Perhaps the opposite.
This piece for the Canberra Times indicates my doubt about the ‘Great Person’ theory of history . . . Continue reading
