Regulating the 21st century

Modern society cannot exist without an effective regulatory framework. But Patrick Callioni looks at how the reduction of some red tape could enhance business productivity and competitiveness in Australia.

The hallmark of success in a globalised economy, especially in a troubled economy, remains competitiveness.

Saving the Murray-Darling – the saga continues

Why we need to do something about productivity – right now

High productivity with low input is what every business in the world is looking for. Patrick Callioni says that getting the equation right is about more than sacking people or making them work harder – it’s about working smarter.

When I use the term productivity, I mean the amount of value produced per hour worked, which is the result of the application of several economic factors, including capital, labour and land, the traditional factors, plus knowledge or know how and several other less visible, but increasingly crucial factors in a globalised economy.

Making good policy

The trouble with pessimism

This week I will be considering the plague of pessimism that appears to be infecting our media, aided and abetted by that spreader of (often concocted) bad news, the Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott.

Am I the only one who can see that pessimism about our present and our future is largely unwarranted? Am I the only one who can see that if we stay on this path of gloom we will do our nation enormous damage?

Surely not, but reading the press or watching TV I get that impression, sometimes. 

What I see and hear is one tale of gloom after another, with each would be opinion leader striving to outdo all others in denigrating our country, our government and our capacity to think for ourselves.

Walking the tightrope

Being in a government is very much like walking on a tightrope, with the abyss of irrelevance below and gusts of wind buffeting you from both sides, sometimes all at once.

For Prime Minister Gillard it is even harder, because she has to carry on her shoulders the deadweight of the shattered reputation of the Rudd Government, as well as the expectations of the independents who keep Labor in power.

Now Ms Gillard has made matters worse, the polls suggest, by adding a heavy policy burden to complicate her perilous position. And the May Budget did not help.

Hints of hypocrisy

It is only human to abhor a trait in others which we fear might be alive in oneself. In my case, that is hypocrisy. It is something I watch out for in my own behaviour, generally successfully, though not always.

Because of that, I have finely developed antennae to help me detect this trait in others. Here are a few examples.

First, states such as Western Australia and Queensland, which, having been mendicant states for decades, dependent on the charity of others – mainly New South Wales and Victoria – suddenly forget the charity extended to them when they become rich as a result of a geological accident that has given them rich ores to mine and export. In fact, their sin is triple, because it blends ingratitude, hypocrisy and hubris, hubris because they should know that there is no certainty in this world and today’s rich state might be tomorrow’s mendicant state, again.

Why Australia’s defence needs a shake up

An Agenda For Government

Last week, as I wished a pox on both the federal government and the would-be government, I said that I would put forward a constructive agenda for government dealing with major policy challenges. Here it is.

The nanny state and class war

Making it up as they go along

The economics of refugee policy

Let’s see if you can guess whose refugee policy this is:

• Multiculturalism is a myth.
• We are at risk of being swamped by undocumented immigrants.
• Government is impotent to stop these people.
• The only solution is to turn the boats back.

Is it Tony Abbott or Scott Morrison or Julia Gillard? No, it is Marine Le Pen, doyenne of the French Right and leading light of the National Front, the daughter of a man who counts Adolf Hitler as one of his heroes. Marine Le Pen, the woman who is riding a wave of bigotry and racism in France to try to capture the presidency for herself and for her radical views.