John Quiggin

In addition to my regular mailing list, I’m offering one specifically devoted to the campaign against Adani’s Carmichael mine project, and, more generally, in support of a transition to an economy based on renewable energy. You can subscribe at http://eepurl.com/ghBN0n Like this:Like Loading...

The Morrison government has just announced what it calls a climate policy, promising expenditure of $2 billion. I’ll have more to say about this later, but I want first to point out that the promised expenditure is to be allocated over ten years, at an average rate of $200 million a year. That’s only marginally more than the government spent on advertising in 2017-18, which is appropriate, I suppose, for what is basically a PR exercise. The big problem here is the new practice of...

Another Monday Message Board. Post comments on any topic. Civil discussion and no coarse language please. Side discussions and idees fixes to the sandpits, please. If you would like to receive my (hopefully) regular email news, please sign up using the following link http://eepurl.com/dAv6sX You can also follow me on Twitter @JohnQuiggin, at my Facebook public page   and at my Economics in Two Lessons page Like this:Like Loading...

Federal Government last night released an independent interim assessment of the recent fish deaths. The report is damning, but you wouldn’t know that reading the press release from the relevant minister, David Littleproud. Here’s my response, which I provided to the Australian Science Media Centre The Report clearly describes the “antecedent conditions” which made the Lower Darling so vulnerable to large-scale fish deaths, all of which reflect policy failures of the current...

Adani has been pretty quiet after the publication of a leaked memo from its newly hired law firm AJ & Co, named for its founder and managing partner, Andrew Johnson. AJ promised to act as an “attack dog” to silence opponents and sue them into bankruptcy, something Adani is already attempting in the case of indigenous leader Adrian Burragubba (I understand that funds have been raised to ensure that this doesn’t happen). This is what is known= as a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public...

Over the fold, the statement agreed to by a large group of participants at the renewable energy workshop I attended at ANU last week. Coverage in The Guardian and RenewEconomy . Electricity transmission, storage and market reform required now to achieve emissions targets 50 energy experts gathered for a three day symposium at the Australian National University last week to discuss the latest research on the role of renewable energy in Australia’s low-carbon transition....

I just signed a petition opposing any agreement between the Ramsay Centre and the University of Queensland, where I work. I am disappointed that things have reached this point. The areas of the humanities that Ramsay would support have long been underfunded: they don’t fit into either the market-driven ideology of “reform”, or the more recent technocratic push for STEM. The problem is that, quite evidently, the Ramsay Centre wants to control who teaches the courses and how they...

I’m not a big fan of political scandals. Still, it has to mean something when there are too many simultaneous scandals going on for anyone to keep track. Rather than attempt a summary, I’ll list some of the government figures currently involved in one or more scandals that would normally be expected to produce a resignation from office or Parliament: Cash, Cormann, Dutton, Hockey, Keenan, Wilson, Price [feel free to challenge these names, or add others, in comments]. The only...

The Economic Society of Australia regularly polls a panel of members seeking responses to statement on policy issues. The most recent was unusual both for a low response rate (admittedly, it was run in January) and for the unanimity of the answers. This may be attributed to the strong formulation of the statement “There is no way to significantly increase the degree to which Australian retail banks act in the interests of consumers.” None of the respondents accepted this, but the...

A new sandpit for long side discussions, conspiracy theories, idees fixes and so on. Like this:Like Loading...