John Quiggin

Thanks to the efforts of Environmental Justice Australia (EJA) and the Environment Council of Central Queensland (EcoCeQ,), Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek reopened the environmental assessment process for 16 coal mines and two gas projects that had previously been approved. To take part, it was necessary to submit new information not available at the time of the original approvals. I wrote the same comment for all of the coal projects*. I wish to draw attention to the...

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...

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...

My latest from Independent Australia Share this:Like this:Like Loading...

The weekend is something most of us take for granted. But the five-day working week was achieved 75 years ago through a combination of workplace struggles and decisions of governments and industrial tribunals. Further reductions in working hours and increases in annual leave followed. But the current standard full-time arrangement of a 38-hour week and four weeks annual leave hasn’t changed in 40 years, despite huge advances in technology. The COVID-19 pandemic made us aware that...

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...

The Quiggin' Out MMA Podcast is back with Episode 61 and are back with one of the friends of the show and recently announced BKFC lightweight title challenger "The Gentleman of Violence" himself, Tom Shoaff! We already know what you're going to say. Tom was just on the show just a mere 8 episodes ago. How much could have really changed since then? A LOT. This episode was exciting to film as Shoaff has been INCREDIBLY vocal about deserving a title shot and he has finally achieved...

I was part of a panel who responded to this question for The Guardian Here’s my response The economic situation facing the majority of Australian households is dire. However, the common framing of the problem in terms of the “cost of living” distracts attention from the real problem, which is the decline in the real purchasing power of wages. Having remained stagnant for years, wages have now fallen far behind inflation. Moreover, the average rate of tax paid is rising because of...

It seems highly likely that the Republican Party will win control of the US House of Representatives, and possibly also the Senate, next week. Unless the margin is so narrow that a handful of believers in democracy can tip the balance, that will mean the end of electoral democracy in the US for the foreseeable future. Most House Republicans voted to overturn the 2020 election. All (except a few who were on the way out) voted against the Electoral Count Act which is supposed to make...

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 Twitter @JohnQuiggin 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...