People & associates
Chris Berg
Neutering the net is about repression, not protection
It seems like only yesterday that the country was prosperous and the Labor Party was going to make everyone's internet faster. But now the Federal...
Politics and the top cop
Being the Chief Commissioner of Victoria Police sounds like a terrible job. In the aftermath of Christine Nixon's announcement to step down as...
Clamp on conflict of interest may hobble sound judgement
Do we want our councillors to be even less interested in local government policy than they already are? As potential councillors submit their...
Why greed's just too small a word to hang a crisis on
Pundits, letter writers, talk-back radio callers, John McCain and the Prime Minister all agree: It Woz Greed Wot Done It. In a speech in Sydney...
Where's the local goodwill when it comes to rates
How do we know that our local councils have raised far more money than they need? It isn't the fact that local governments have enough money to...
Get off the turps - idiots are the problem, not alcohol
Hardly a weekend goes by without a heavily publicised nightclub bashing or brawl plastered all over the newspapers. Melbourne seems to have...
City car levy is just another taxing burden
There are two basic tasks governments have historically been very good at - collecting taxes, and thinking of interesting new taxes to collect. So...
Battling green noise
"Beyond Petroleum" is a strange slogan for a company that sells mostly petrol. Is BP really that embarrassed by the 3.8 million barrels of oil they...
Memo Starbucks: next time try selling ice to Eskimos
Globalisation has pulled millions of people in developing countries out of poverty. It has sent goods, services and people around the world,...
Connies a nostalgic symbol of lost community spirit
The proposal aired in last week's Sunday Age to reinstate conductors to Melbourne's trams was greeted with unsurprising enthusiasm. But the...