Author: Paul Cleary
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The Howard government’s GST
When the Howard government prepared to introduce the goods and services tax (GST) in 2000, the most far-reaching tax reform since WWII, I used the Freedom of Information law to identify the real impact of this new regressive tax. The Government had assumed that every individual and household had the same spending pattern, whereas this…
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How this Pilbara community found the way to economic independence
Australian Financial Review The Yindjibarndi, in and around Roebourne in WA, are building businesses and revitalising their community. After two decades of sustained mining expansion, Australia’s resources “super-cycle” has shown mixed results for traditional owners whose land has yielded trillions of dollars of wealth. In the Pilbara region, which has seen a five-fold increase in iron ore…
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An Indigenous fight with Fortescue makes a case for reform
Australian Financial Review The mining companies have learnt how to divide and conquer Indigenous communities. Change is needed to put things on a fairer footing. Throughout the mining boom, the public has been given a very positive narrative about the benefits generated for Aboriginal communities, and it wasn’t until Rio Tinto’s Juukan Gorge blast that…
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Mining giants must share wealth
Sydney Morning Herald It’s time to revisit unfinished tax business and make miners contribute to a national future fund. As mineral prices soar to record highs and companies automate their digging, mines in Australia should perhaps be renamed Money Printing Operations because the cash they make has become truly astronomical. Take Australia’s biggest export industry,…
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WWII hero dies but his Timorese love story blossoms
In collaboration with Paige Taylor for The Australian One of Australia’s last World War II commandos, who escaped the Japanese after being shot and garrotted through the neck and then spent the rest of his life repaying the kindness of the Timorese people who saved him, has been laid to rest in Perth. Keith Hayes’s…
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Serving Our Country: Indigenous Australians, War, Defence and Citizenship
The Australian When Charles Bean wrote his 12-volume official history of Australia’s involvement in World War I, he made a passing reference to just one Aboriginal Digger, a private who was highly decorated in the epic battle of Mont St Quentin on August 31, 1918, when the Australians overcame the German stronghold. William Irwin rushed and…
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Sydney Wars: Conflict in Colony, Quiet Invasion, Myall Creek Massacre
The Australian When Kate Grenville’s novel The Secret River, about the massacre of Aboriginal people on the Hawkesbury River in the early 1800s, was put on stage a few years back, the comments from some audience members, at the performance I attended, were incredulous. “Did that really happen?” one glumly asked a friend. Others made…
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Delivering the right stuff: the F-35A Joint Strike Fighter
The Australian He wears a pair of Clark Kent glasses, and with his tall, solid build, this senior air force officer could easily play the part of Superman. But the man charged with delivering Australia’s $17 billion defence baby, a fleet of 72 F-35A Joint Strike Fighters, doesn’t just look the part. Air Vice-Marshal Leigh…
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Australia should meet East Timor halfway on maritime boundary
The Australian When Australian commandos landed in the colony of Portuguese Timor in 1941, they immediately noticed that the gum trees, rocks and ochre-coloured earth were strikingly similar to home. As novelist Nevil Shute observed after the war, the commandos found that much of the Timor landscape consisted of “stony hills covered in thin forest…
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Norway, Canada show the way to cash in on resources boom
The Australian NSW has decided to put its property stamp duty windfall in infrastructure. Cashed-up Canadian pension funds have been very active in Australia of late, with a strong focus on agriculture, and so has Norway’s $1 trillion sovereign wealth fund. It’s no coincidence that these resource-rich countries have been extending their global investment reach…