John Quiggin

My latest piece in Crikey Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (Image: AAP/Mick Tsikas)A year after the Albanese government’s election win, Labor’s strategy for its first term in office is clear. On the issues where the Coalition has historically had an advantage, most notably economics, defence and foreign policy, Labor has adopted those policies and sought (so far successfully) to more competently implement them. On everything else — climate, health, education, human rights — Labor...

Another Message Board Post comments on any topic. Civil discussion and no coarse language please. Side discussions and idees fixes to the sandpits, please. I’ve moved my irregular email news from Mailchimp to Substack. You can read it here. You can also follow me on Mastodon here I’m also trying out Substack as a blogging platform. For the moment, I’ll post both at this blog and on Substack. Share this:Like this:Like Loading...

Yesterday, I gave a presentation to the Canberra Security Economics Network. Central point: *Self-defence is special, military expenditure is not* Spelling this out *The need to defend the country against invasion, air attack or naval blockade involves existential risk Any other use of military power should be assessed in terms of (opportunity) costs and benefits Compared to alternative public or private expenditures Share this:Like this:Like Loading...

A new sandpit for long side discussions, conspiracy theories, idees fixes and so on. To be clear, the sandpit is for regular commenters to pursue points that distract from regular discussion, including conspiracy-theoretic takes on the issues at hand. It’s not meant as a forum for visiting conspiracy theorists, or trolls posing as such. Like this:Like Loading...

Another Message Board Post comments on any topic. Civil discussion and no coarse language please. Side discussions and idees fixes to the sandpits, please. I’ve moved my irregular email news from Mailchimp to Substack. You can read it here. You can also follow me on Mastodon here I’m also trying out Substack as a blogging platform. For the moment, I’ll post both at this blog and on Substack. Share this:Like this:Like Loading...

Kevin Drum points to an obscure, but radical proposal to change the way the US government does benefit cost analysis. The Office of Management and Budget has released draft guidance saying One practical approach to implementing weights that account for diminishing marginal utility uses a constant-elasticity specification to determine the weights for subgroups defined by annual income. To compute an estimate of the net benefits of a regulation using this approach, you first compute...

My latest piece in Independent Australia over the fold OPPOSITION LEADER Peter Dutton’s call for nuclear power, made as part of his Budget reply speech, should not be taken too seriously. In its nine years in office, the L-NP took no steps to promote nuclear energy, not even an attempt to repeal the largely symbolic ban imposed by John Howard in 1998. Dutton’s renewed call can best be understood as a dog whistle to the climate denialists who dominate the party’s base,...

The Albanese government has quietly abandoned full employment. Looking back over the past four weeks, I’ve turned out ten opinion pieces criticising the Albanese government. This piece, from Inside Story, should be the last for a while. I haven’t covered everything they’ve done wrong, but I think I’ve written enough on the topic for now. Share this:Like this:Like Loading...

Mainly, expressing my disappointment in the Albanese government Share this:Like this:Like Loading...

But save the angst for decisions that matter more My latest piece in The Conversation looks at Tanya Plibersek’s masterclass in the delivery of bad news. We were softened up with the rejection of two zombie coal mines, then distracted by the approval of a relatively unimportant mine. The real news is that the Labor government, having rejected a formal “climate trigger” for environmental approvals, intends to complete disregard the climate effects of our coal and gas exports. Share...