Is Australian Prime Minister Morrison’s call for a Royal Commission on matters related to the recent bushfires just a smokescreen, an excuse for avoiding real action, or is it a genuine attempt to get a body of evidence and a report on which the government could build a holistic strategy for addressing global warming, which should be applauded?
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The biggest question in geopolitics is: will President Trump be re-elected? More than any previous presidential election, the 2020 election could presage a very dangerous era in world politics, making the presidential election the most important geopolitical event this year. However, the American presidential election will be determined by domestic issues that swirl around a collection of policy issues as well as identity and values.
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The Thodey Review of the Australian Public Service is set against a backdrop of four simultaneous and momentous crises before which modern democracies seem impotent; global warming, population growth, wealth inequality, and a dangerous geostrategic shift. Is the APS as reformed by the Thodey Review going to be up to the task of supporting ministers facing this level of overwhelming uncertainty and risk management?
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The conviction that racial differences account for behaviours and values in the real world, although erroneous, is strongly held by some. Singling out the racism of extremists as being exceptional risks obscuring the authorising environment in which they operate.
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We should pay close attention when Michael Pezzullo connects together a dubious ‘social contract’, some muddled history, superficial legal references, and an almost mystical connection between the Executive and the ‘common good’ with some as yet poorly understood ‘nationhood power.’
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According to Mike Pezzullo, Australians are like ‘comfortable hobbits’ – blissfully unaware of the grave dangers that exist beyond their borders and ill-prepared for the ‘emerging … “dark universe”’ of globalised ‘terror, crime, and indeed evil’. Pezzullo’s proposed response is radical and revolutionary and alarming.
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