By Luca Belgiorno-Nettis, Mon 26 Aug 2024 in The Mandarin Two hundred years ago yesterday, self-rule began in Australia. On the 25th of August 1824, a group of people met for the first time to have a say about the workings of the fledgling colony. A majority vote of the five members of this first...
By Iain Walker, March 14, 2024, published by the Jerusalem Post. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu receives regular criticism for failing to share the plan for Gaza after the military role concludes. The lack of an official position on this subject could stem from the fact that all over options are unattractive, and so a new approach is...Continue reading
By Luca Belgiorno-Nettis, 4 March 2024, published by The Mandarin. The issue of housing affordability isn’t going away – even though it seemed that the Albanese Government had settled the matter last year. Now the Greens are baulking over the ‘Help to Buy’ bill. In September, the government passed what it described as ”Landmark legislation...
By Luca Belgiorno-Nettis, 24 Nov, 2023 and published by the ABC. The divisions surrounding the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to Parliament had as much to do with referendum process as anything else. The Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters missed a golden opportunity earlier this year when, in proposing a Bill to reform...
By Luca Belgiorno-Nettis, in The Mandarin 3/8/2023 The way we do politics is all wrong, and the Voice highlights how bone-headed our system is. As the political scientist and my former co-director, Ian Marsh, said: ‘Firstly, political incentives undercut bipartisanship. Secondly, since the primary channel for the leaders is the media, there is no systemic ability to...Continue reading
Peter Hartcher, Sydney Morning Herald – June 10, 2023 Australia is an entire continent that is failing to build enough homes for the population of a mere city, but the federal government’s plan to fix the crisis has hit a brick wall. That wall is political intransigence. Specifically, it’s the Coalition and the Greens. They’ve combined...Continue reading
Citizens’ juries can help fix democracy Western polities are ailing — deliberative assemblies would revivify them By Martin Wolf “Brexit has failed.” This is now the view of Nigel Farage, the man who arguably bears more responsibility for the UK’s decision to leave the EU than anybody else. He is right, not because the Tories...Continue reading
Quarterly Essay 83 Lone Wolf Correspondence Luca Belgiorno-Nettis The subtitle of Katharine Murphy’s Lone Wolf – “Albanese and the new politics” – is a tease. “New” works every time: new toothpaste, new art, new idea. There was little that was particularly new in the political campaigning of 2022 – except what catapulted six freshly minted...
Robert French, the former chief justice of the High Court, says ‘The Voice is a big idea, but not a complicated one.’ That may be true, but how do we really know? Currently, the parliament is considering a bill to improve the process of informing the Australian public about referenda questions. The bill contemplates suspending...Continue reading
Art O’Leary was minding his own business and enjoying his role as a senior civil servant in Ireland’s parliament when the prime minister phoned to offer him a unique job. The self-described middle-aged man with a suit and a comb-over couldn’t have known that he was about to become a social revolutionary. The newly elected...Continue reading