Ambit Gambit

Let the dithering begin!

Ambit Gambit - July 9, 2010 - 4:33pm

Now that the mining tax has been sorted, and already forgotten, we can move on to refugees. Just what was sorted with the mining tax already slips into oblivion, but the miners are happy.  Somewhere along the road to compromise the public good had to yield, all too predictably. The refugee ‘solution’ is likely to [...]

Gillard’s mining tax a fix not a masterstroke

Ambit Gambit - July 4, 2010 - 12:26am

With her rebadged Resource Super Profits Tax Julia Gillard confirms she has no vision for Australia and that big business cannot and should not be relied upon to look after the common interest. It is a pea and thimble trick that appears to have fooled the mining companies, but should fool no-one else. The original [...]

Neither the forest nor the trees

Ambit Gambit - June 28, 2010 - 10:50am

Time to focus on the key issues, as an election may be sooner now than later. Only open, evidence based policy should be allowed. The spun has begun: we now have a minister for ’sustainable’ population, with heaps of blather from Tony Burke to reassure anyone who chooses to feel reassured. Don’t think the new [...]

Naomi Klein on the Gulf oil disaster

Ambit Gambit - June 23, 2010 - 10:15am

A writer of exceptional  insight and clarity, Naomi Klein also expresses the compassion and sorrow many of us feel about this ongoing catastrophe. Below is a link to her Guardian article ‘A hole in the world’, and the accompanying video. Her observations about the political context and the natural world are equally powerful.
My questions: why [...]

Opps! Rudderless forgot the D word

Ambit Gambit - June 17, 2010 - 12:07pm

As escaped public servants, partner and I were shaking our heads last December about the Henry Tax Review. We were familiar with the release of reports to a generous consultation period, followed by a draft government response and further argy-bargy with the affected groups.
But only the Government got to see the Henry report, and it [...]

Will Kevin Rudd see out his term?

Ambit Gambit - June 12, 2010 - 10:48am

Robert Gordon Menzies was the last Australian Prime Minister not to make it to his first election as PM after winning the preceding one. Will Kevin Rudd follow in his steps?

Rudd tries to do a Westfield

Ambit Gambit - June 9, 2010 - 12:30am

What we normally call "rent", and what economists mean by "rent" when they talk about rental taxes, are two different things, but there are lessons for resource rental taxes that can be drawn from the everyday experience of renting.

LA ripens while the Big Apple gets a new core

Ambit Gambit - June 7, 2010 - 12:20pm

Coming back to a cold Canberra, chilled as much by lack of imagination as frost, it is time to reflect on my recent travels.
The radio tells me the ACT Greens have expressed concern again, this time over the Stanhopeless government’s lack of attention to planning in the work on the road around City Hill. This will need [...]

Has Gillard made room for Turnbull?

Ambit Gambit - July 8, 2010 - 1:55pm

Kevin's implosion and Julia's incompetence leave room for Malcolm in the middle.

Mining not that profitable afterall

Ambit Gambit - June 29, 2010 - 12:57am

Writing in the BRW, Phil Ruthven puts the lie to the, well lie, that the mining industry is earning super profits.

She’ll have to dance with them that brung her

Ambit Gambit - June 25, 2010 - 6:26pm

By chance I was at a breakfast for 300 women in Canberra yesterday. It was part of the ‘one million women’ campaign, which seeks that number in Australia to unite in personal and political action to combat climate change.
Penny Wong spoke, then dashed off to caucus at Parliament House. Greens Senator Milne also spoke, along [...]

An Aussie sport worth cheering

Ambit Gambit - June 18, 2010 - 10:30am

Only rarely I forward intact a message from another site, usually this one, the Institute for Public Accuracy (which incidentally really needs a correlate in OZ). A big tip of the hat to Australian Julian Assange and his team at Wikileaks.
Although I laugh heartily at Stephen Colbert, he is often the best comentary available on US [...]

Getup and Budgie Smugglers

Ambit Gambit - June 17, 2010 - 8:46am

Has GetUp decided that the budgie smugglers are a net loser for Tony Abbott? How else to explain their fascination with Abbott and the beach. First they were running billboard against his position on global warming by showing him on the beach in a pair of Speedos.

I didn’t think this was particularly smart politics. When [...]

IPCC an unreliable witness

Ambit Gambit - June 10, 2010 - 11:30pm

I've met lawyers who tell me I should just accept the IPCC view. For members of a profession paid to scrutinise each last detail of their opponents case this strikes me as bizarre. One US academic lawyer takes a different view and puts the IPCC in the box and finds it an unreliable witness.

Rudd’s kleptocratic resources tax

Ambit Gambit - June 8, 2010 - 1:19am

Some people would say that all taxation is theft. I don’t accept that, but in the case of the Rudd government’s so-called Resources Super Profit Tax theft is occurring at two levels. That is what has got me angry about the tax, and I suspect it underlies a lot of the public opposition to it [...]