The Minerals Council of Australia pushing zombie ideas

John Quiggin28 Comments

Fighting zombies is a tiresome business. Even when you think you’ve finally killed them, they bounce back as often as not. But it has to be done, and there are some benefits. When you see a supposedly serious person or organization pushing zombie ideas, it’s an indication that nothing they put out should be presumed to be serious.

There can be few zombies more thoroughly undead than nuclear power in general, except for the idea that nuclear power is a sensible option for Australia. The strongly pro-nuclear SA Royal Commission demolished this zombie so thoroughly that it should have taken a decade at least to regenerate.

But here’s the Minerals Council of Australia, which has taken a break from promoting coal to push the idea that Australia needs a nuclear power industry and that the biggest obstacle is a legal prohibition imposed in 1998. The supporting “analysis” is riddled with absurdities, some of which have already been pointed out. I’ll give my own (incomplete) list over the fold

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Restating the case against trickle down (updated)

John Quiggin16 Comments

I’ve just given a couple of talks focusing on inequality, one for the Global Change Institute at UQ, following a presentation by Wayne Swan and the second at a conference organized by the TJ Ryan Foundation (including great talks by Peter Saunders, Sally McManus, and others), where I was responding to a paper by Jim Stanford from the Centre for Future Work. Because I was speaking second in both cases, I didn’t prepare a paper or slides, but tailored my talk to complement the one before. That can be a high risk strategy, but in this case, I think it worked very well.

It led me to a new, and I hope improved, statement of the case against ‘trickle down’ theory. As always, the most important part of a refutation is a clear statement of the theory you propose to refute, so that it can be shown where it falls down. After the talks I wrote this up, and it’s over the fold. Comments and constructive criticism much appreciated.

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My latest (ir)regular email

John Quiggin6 Comments

I guess I should call this an irregular email, since I haven’t sent one for a few weeks. As usual, I’d appreciate any compliments, brickbats, suggestions on things I should say more or less about and so on. johnquiggin1@mac.com.

Adani, energy and climate action

Farmers for Climate Action commissioned me to do a report on the proposed loan to the Adani Rail Project, focusing on alternative investments in the agricultural sector. It was release at the weekend, and got some coverage, including in The Guardian. The report is here, along with a summary. It’s recently got a nice run in Queensland Country Life
http://www.queenslandcountrylife.com.au/story/4874157/report-shows-value-of-investing-in-agriculture/
Other media interviews included Robyn McConchie RN Country Hour, and WIN Rockhampton. I also spoke to ABC Brisbane Drive about electricity prices

Asset recycling

There’s been quite a lot of interest from the US in the idea of ‘asset recycling’ which is being pushed hard by the finance operators who would profit from such a deal and also by our unlamented former Treasurer and now Ambassador to the US, Joe Hockey. My thoughts are here
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/07/asset-recycling-may-look-new-and-exciting-but-its-the-last-gasp-of-a-failed-model

I did interviews with the Washington Post a while back
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/trump-advisers-call-for-selling-off-old-assets-to-build-new-infrastructure/2017/05/23/657aa2c6-2f53-11e7-9534-00e4656c22aa_story.html?utm_term=.ed9502270a0b
with Bloomberg,
Asset recycling https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-10/australia-pitches-trump-on-a-plan-to-fix-america-s-roads-and-bridges
reported here and just now with Politico (yet to appear)

UBI

I gave to a video presentation to on Income: What to aim for and how to get there a workshop on UBI run by the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia.
Penalty rates
I appeared by teleconference, before a Senate Committee today (24 August), defending penalty rates

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Blog https://johnquiggin.com/

Some unsolicited advice on equal marriage

John Quiggin34 Comments

I’ve seen quite a number of church leaders making statements in support of a No response to the Turnbull government’s ABS survey on equal marriage. In nearly every case, there isn’t much of an argument on the merits of why the state should enforce their views about marriage. Rather, they express concerns that, if equal marriage is allowed, they will be forced to conduct marriages, or to employ members of same-sex married couples.

This seems like a nonsense to me. If that is the real concern, the obvious answer is to support a bill in the current Parliament that allows equal marriage but entrenches the right of the churches to discriminate in this way. That’s a compromise that would almost certainly be accepted, and once in place, would be hard to change. What government, having reached a compromise that more-or-less satisfies everyone would want to reopen the can of worms?

On the other hand, suppose that the survey yields a No response thanks to the advocacy of the churches, or even worse, there’s a Yes majority in the survey but the LNP right blocks legislation? Then, when Labor gets in, there’s no obvious reason to make concessions to a group who’ve shown themselves to be implacable opponents in any case.

Speaking more generally, it’s obvious that (nominal) Christians are going to be a minority of the Australian population quite soon, and, quite possibly, a small minority in a few decades. So, it would make good sense for the churches to dissociate themselves from people like Kevin Donnelly and Lyle Shelton who argue that the majority (currently Christian) should be able to impose their views on the minority. A whole-hearted commitment to strict governmental neutrality in matters of religion would make much more strategic sense.

Update I just saw that George Brandis made the same point. Not sure what I think about that.