The latest facts on business turnover from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) refute the Governments critics, as Alan Austin reports.

IT MAY BE too soon to applaud the Albanese Government for transforming Australias sclerotic economy into a socialist paradise for workers which is simultaneously brimming with opportunities for courageous capitalists. But we are now getting an idea of the direction the economy is taking. So far, pretty impressive.

Construction expanding

Construction turnover across Australia has surged 17.6% through the 12 months from May 2022 to May 2023 from 112.5 index points to 132.3. This is the ninth consecutive month that construction has shown an annual lift above 11.0%. Thats according to last weeks ABS analysis titled Monthly Business Turnover Indicator.

This is the first run of nine months with construction turnover surging at that level since this ABS series began in 2010.

Measuring the business environment

This series is an experiment the Statistics Bureau has been conducting since October 2021, using turnover data from the Australian Taxation Offices business activity statements collected since January 2010. It uses 13 of the 19 main industry classifications accepted internationally, using seasonally adjusted numbers. Index values are produced for each month for all industry sectors so we can observe changes between any two time periods.

The base month, where the index values are 100.0, is July 2019. More detail on the methodology is available here.

This IA analysis focuses on the full 12 months since Australias change of government in May 2022....

Controversy surrounds the fate of wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster, with some so-called experts claiming its release to be safe. Dr Binoy Kampmark reports.

NOTHING SAID by the nuclear industry can or should be taken at face value. Be it in terms of safety, correcting defects or righting mistakes, or in terms of construction integrity, there is something chilling about reassurances that have been shown, time and again, to be hollow. 

The 2011 Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (FDNPP) disaster has forever stained the Japanese nuclear industry. Since then, the site has been marked by over 1,000 tanks filled with contaminated water that arises from reactor cooling. The attempts by the Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc (TEPCO) to decommission and clean the plant have also seen a daily complement of 150 tons arising from groundwater leakage into the buildings and systems involved in the cooling process.

According to Japans Nuclear Regulation Authority, the gradual 1.3 million or so tons kept in those tanks into the Pacific over three decades is something that can be executed without serious environmental consequences. This was a view that was already entertained in 2021, expressing confidence that the Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS) being used in cleaning the contaminated water would be effective. Of primary concern here is the presence of a radioactive form of hydrogen called tritium, the presence of which is a challenge to remove.

There are various questions arising from this, not least...

Activists and the media are turning trans issues into controversy instead of helping to find ways to treat gender dysphoria in children, writes Dr Jennifer Wilson.

AT THE CENTRE of the recent Four Corners program, Blocked, is research conducted at Sydney's Westmead Childrens Hospital on the treatment of children presenting with gender dysphoria. This is defined as the feeling of discomfort or distress that might occur in people whose gender identity differs from their sex assigned at birth or sex-related characteristics.

The Westmead research can be read here and here.

The Westmead team, along with researchers in Sweden, Finland and the United Kingdom (all countries where the use of puberty blockers has been wound back) argues for a trauma-informed biopsychosocial model of treatment for gender dysphoria, prior to or instead of the gender affirmative model which offers puberty blockers, cross-sex hormone therapy and...

Failing to distinguish journalism from commentary and opinion is making News Corp a danger to our society, writes Dr Victoria Fielding.

IN NOVEMBER 2020, former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull berated The Australians editor-at-large, Paul Kelly, for the newspapers record of promoting climate denial.

Despite Rupert Murdoch having previously denied his news outlets deny climate science and action, Kelly implied his newspaper did hold an opinion on climate change when he responded:

We have many publications that are dedicated to promoting the cause of climate change and radical action on climate change, so that's okay, is it? It's okay to be a propagandist for one side, but if one is a critic or sceptic about some of these issues, that's not okay.

Kelly admitted that News Corp presents news about issues like climate change in a style that more closely resembles commentary and opinion rather than factual analysis.

When journalists become commentators and commentators call themselves journalists, the public loses trust in the authority of real journalists to tell it what is happening in the world. News Corps melding of facts with opinion is not only degrading the cultural authority and strength of the news media industry but is also degrading Australian democracy.

The medias differentiation between facts and opinion used to be like a wall between church and state. Printed newspapers made clear where the news pages ended and where the opinion pages began so that readers knew when...

Recent inquiries have brought to light the lack of accountability from government institutions engaging in cruelty and human rights abuses, writes Max Costello.

TWO PRESIDING officers Federal Court Justice Bernard Murphy in the case of Mostafa Moz Azimitabar, and Robodebt Royal Commissioner Catherine Holmes recently said damning things about the ethics of major Australian institutions and their senior office holders. Similar words were said in 2018 by Banking Royal Commissioner Kenneth Hayne and in 2017 by Justice Peter McClellan, chair of the Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse Royal Commission.

So, how to prevent, punish (and thus deter) such embedded cruelty in the behaviour of both government and non-government institutions? In pub test terms, it seems amazing that no institutions have been prosecuted and no senior officers gaoled.

On Thursday 6 July, Justice Murphy found against a civil claim, lodged by Kurdish refugee Moz, that his detention in two hotel APODs (alternative places of detention) was unlawful. Yes, it was lawful, Murphy decided. But, he added in post-decision remarks, that did not imply his approval of Mozs treatment by the Government.

Murphy said:

I can only wonder of the lack of thought, indeed the lack of care and humanity, in detaining a person with psychiatric and psychological problems in the hotels [for] 14 months.

Last Friday, the report of Robodebt Royal Commissioner Hol...

Neoliberalism and corporate greed are destroying the idea of a fair and equal society, dividing classes into 'us versus them', writes Dermot Daley.

*Also listen to the "https://open.spotify.com/episode/5pznLOZkLd4ng9nhgRC5Rc" target= "_blank">HERE.

ECONOMISTS SUCH AS Reserve Bank (RBA) governor Philip Lowe think that economics is almost a science, but in effect, there is no more correlation between economics and science than there is between astrology and astronomy.

The following is an opinion and as such, it carries no more weight than any other opinion. Although it probably has greater validity than when Lowe opined that interest rates would not change for several years and then progressively increased the rate to address inflation without evidence that his actions were having the desired effect.

Mr Lowe has since moved on. One might hope that the new governor of the RBA will more closely examine the inflationary effects of unearned benefits, such as executive salaries and middle-class welfare, on the markets compulsion to gouge the cost of household goods and services.

Modern economists believe that their career path was founded by Adam Smith in his seminal work, The Wealth of Nations; however, Smith was a sociologist before the word economist was coined and his thinking referred to the need for sound fiscal management to nurture the whole of society. He was, after all, living in the Age of Reason.

By the third quarter of the 20th Century, socialism and democracy, the two prevailing ideologies, had lo...

This short story is an *IA Writing Competition (fiction category) entry.

The warm day was but a chimera of Spring, however, the discovery of a new word was the real motivation for Bazzas walk on the beach.

A passage he had read, moved him, and had ended with the word "saudade". He had researched the highly emotive Portuguese term and was further intrigued by the fact it defied a single word translation to English. He twirled the word around in his mouth numerous times, enjoyed elongating the syllables and sought to experience "saudade", by way of a walk on the beach.

From the base of the headland, Bazza squinted across the gently wrinkling sea, admiring its silent power, as it pushed off the next queued wave. He followed it as it devoured a lonely rocky outcrop, before coughing it up in a swirl of white foam. Closer now, the wave flexed and then smashed, kamikaze like, into the headland, throwing shards of ocean high into the air.

The cliff was resolute, but it was more a pyrrhic victory for this moment, as the much scarred headland attested. It could only brace for the next pound and pause, pound and pause, night and day and slowly surrender to the power of the sea.

Bazzas eyes traced the rest of the same wave as it now massaged and shaped the inevitability of the contest between headland and sea the beach before him.

The conflict between sea and shore sparked memories of lifes travails and Bazza shook his head:

"Saudade? Bloody hope not.

He half-laughed to himself.

The two sets of footprints in the wet sand before him switched his thoughts and he began to follow the steps. Perhaps it was the loneliness of the beach, the timeless nature of the surrounds or his love of a mystery that had him thinking of the dinosaur trackway, southwest of Winton in central western Queensland. Scientists had used the clues from thousands of footprints to piece together the theory of a dinosaur stampede on a single day 95 million years ago. Clever buggers, he mused.

One set of footprints before him were about the same size as his own and the strides equivalent. He surmised they belonged to a man. For the most part, the footprints followed an energy conserving and economic straight line. He smiled at that thought.

The other footprints were tiny. They zig zagged and danced around the male prints and at times darted between them, but always in a defined orbit. There...

The Albanese Government's future popularity may rest on the action it takes against the architects of the Robodebt scheme, writes Michael Galvin. 

ANTHONY ALBANESE has 320,000 followers on Instagram and I am one of them. Instagram is a great way to keep track of what people like the Prime Minister choose to say and show about their lives.

Albanese is so far ahead of the other Party leaders in Australia that it is not funny. The numbers of Instagram followers tell their own instructive story:

• Adam Bandt: 64,500
• Peter Dutton: 18,200
• David Littleproud: 5,100

Clearly, in the political firmament, Albo is a bit of a rock star. I have been following him for the last couple of years, and especially since he became Prime Minister. No doubt his staff do the routine work for him, but he would probably average about two posts a day, every day.

And this is the thing: he always looks so damned relaxed and comfortable! Clearly, he is capable of doing the job, genuinely likes the people he meets, and works hard. These are good things. And polls consistently show that about two thirds of people approve of his performance, while about one third do not. I suspect a sizeable minority of those disapproving come from his left rather than his right.

For this group, not only is Albanese far too relaxed and comfortable in his job, he is also far too conservative, too cautious, too risk-averse, a...

There is great community opposition to the Labor Governments embrace of AUKUS and its proposed spend of $368 billion on acquiring nuclear-powered submarines.

That opposition is spreading to the Labor Partys own rank and file branches. The ALP leadership is undeterred by this opposition and one must ask why? Does fear of intervention if they deviate from U.S. foreign policy explain their dogged commitment to these policies?

The Albanese ALP governments embrace of AUKUS and a $368 billion spend on nuclear powered submarines, both policies of the previous Liberal-Coalition government, surprised some and angered many. That anger has spread from community groups, peace organisations, academics and trade unions to the grass-roots of the Labor Party itself.

A grass-roots Labor against War organisation has emerged in NSW making the following statement:

LAW is a grassroots network of ALP members and unionists opposed to Australia being dragged into another U.S.-led war. We oppose involvement in the AUKUS alliance and the acquisition of nuclear submarines. AUKUS is against the interests of the Australian people. The Australian Labor Party and Australian unions have long opposed Australias involvement with the nuclear industry and in wars of aggression. We will not be dragged into a war against China.

Resolutions opposing AUKUS and the acquisition of nuclear submarines have been passed by a number of ALP branches and the 2023 Queensland Labor Party Conference adopted the following motion:

The Queensland Labor Party categorically opposes the manufacture/construction of nuclear-powered/armed submarines or vessels in Queensland, including but not limited to Brisbane or any other Queensland port current or future port facility. This opposition is based on concerns over safety, environmental impact, and public sentiment.

One has to ask why the ALP leadership are so adamant...