This week’s Economist has a sobering article about the gap between black and white america. It included a graphic of various statistics, showing the difference between black and white america on a range of measures. It also showed how the two compared with various countries around the world – forContinue Reading
Back as part of the International Women’s Day festivities, Tony Abbott, speaking at an event in Canberra on Tuesday to mark the upcoming International Women’s Day, declared that while we still have some work to do Australia is a nation which has just about “smashed every glass ceiling”. “If you look at ourContinue Reading
With the controversial Stronger Futures laws passing the Senate in the early hours this morning, it seems a good time to write about Aboriginal life expectancy. Aboriginal people have a much lower life expectancy than non Aboriginal people in Australia. At birth Aboriginal men can expect to live about 12Continue Reading
Ross Gittins, in his column this week talked about how much we seem to distrust the government because we don’t want to pay extra taxes to help flood victims, even though we are very willing to give money voluntarily. And yet Julie Bishop this week complained that the government isn’t doingContinue Reading
Watching Julia Gillard being sworn in as Australia’s first female prime minister by Quentin Bryce, Australia’s first female Governor-General, I realised there were more. I live in NSW, which has a female Premier, and female Governor, and I work in the financial services industry where Australia’s biggest bank is runContinue Reading
The SMH had a scare article in the main section of the paper today, arguing that Australian house prices were about to drop, following the US. The rise in the number of Australian households who are in so much difficulty with their mortgage repayments that they are facing selling upContinue Reading
The thought that the market can do anything better than the public sector has become pretty unpopular in the last six months. Nevertheless, I still believe it. And I’m going to illustrate it today with one public service that is pretty close to being a basket case; Sydney Ferries. SydneyContinue Reading
In most big Sydney CBD companies, a car space is a sign that you’ve made it. In my company, and the last company I worked for, the most senior executives are entitled to a car space. They are allocated strictly by rank, and neither the cost, nor the Fringe BenefitsContinue Reading
It’s polling day here in NSW today – the whole state votes together for our local councils. Back in 2000, the NSW government changed the electoral rules for local councils in a way which significant improved the chances of political parties ahead of genuine independents. What they did is outlinedContinue Reading
The campaign for paid maternity leave in Australia has gotten renewed vigour following the recent change of government. The government has asked the Productivity Commission to enquire into what should be done. And there are a lot of blog posts about it. Joshua Gans has written a series from anContinue Reading