John Quiggin

Next week, as I’ve mentioned, I’ll take part in a debate/dialogue with Stephen Hicks, a North American philosopher, who has criticised postmodernism from a right/libertarian perspective. He’s on a tour of Australia, and was invited to Brisbane by Murray Hancock who’s setting up The Brisbane Dialogue which has the ambitious objective of promoting civil discussion across political divides. I ended up being dobbed in (is this an Australianism?) to present the other side, and chose the...

I’ve got quite a few events coming up in the next ten days. I’ll be in Adelaide for the Writers Week (program here), appearing at the Pioneer Women’s Memorial Garden, King William Road on Wednesday 4 March at 2pm in conversation with Jane Goodall, on the theme the Common Good. I’ll be signing copies of Economics in Two Lessons. I’ve fitted in two earlier events on Tuesday 3 March. At 12 noon, I’ll be talking about the economic cost of the bushfire disaster, at the University of...

The news of deaths from bird flu in Indonesia is pretty scary. Although, as I’ve mentioned recently Indonesia has made a lot of progress in many respects, the handling of this threat so far seems to show the worst of both worlds: all the ill ffects of authoritian habits combined with the timidity of weak politicians. There have been a lot of coverups, and an unwillingness to tackle the necessary but unpopular task of slaughtering affected flocks of birds. Things seem to be improving...

I’m one of 10 000 Australian academics who signed an open letter to Unisuper (our industry superannuation fund) calling for a policy of divestment from carbon-based fuels. The first step in such a policy has to be divestment from thermal coal. Purely on fiduciary grounds, getting out of thermal coal is now a matter of cashing out before the assets are completely unsaleable. Just in the last week, here’s a list of investors, ranging from small institutions to financial giants that have...

If Labor plans to keep its promise of emission reductions by 2050, serious action must be taken as time is running out, My latest piece for Independent Australia argues that if the 2050 target is taken seriously, Labor must have policies for 2030 similar to those taken to the 2019 election. Share this:Like this:Like Loading...

… Australia’s tourist numbers may take years to recover. That’s the headline for my latest piece in The Conversation. It’s part of a larger project on the economic impact of the bushfire catastrophe. It’s going to be hard to disentangle this from coronavirus – I’m still thinking about this issue. Share this:Like this:Like Loading...

Like most recreational tri-athletes, I don’t pay much attention to what’s happening in the top levels of the sport, let alone in the separate worlds of swimming, cycling and running[1]. But I took notice last year when Eliud Kipchoge ran a marathon distance in under two hours, a barrier long thought to be unbreakable, and one that reminded my of my failed attempts to break four hours over the same distance. Kipchoge had plenty of help in his effort, including pace runners (providing...

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

Back again with 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...

Looking at the string of appalling statements from the rightwing commentariat in the last week or so, I have come to the conclusion that they must be involved in a private contest to “trigger the libs”, in the parlance of the Trumpist right, by making statements that will provoke social media outrage to be used either for mockery or claims of persecution as the occasion demands. Chris Uhlmann’s entry in the competition, exposing firefighter Paul Parker as a One Nation voter, was...