Past Programs
Government and Politics - 2006
Icarus in the boardroom
30/12/2006
The inquiry into AWB's dealings in Iraq has put a black mark against Australia's reputation as an 'honest broker' in the world of business and finance.
Halfway across the world the Enron trial, which you'll remember we looked at a couple of weeks back, continues to uncover more evidence of seriously bad behaviour on the part of those who ran the company.
Of course, we always hope that such cases continue to be the exception and not the rule when it comes to acceptable practice in the corporate world.
Sadly, we have to accept that these are not the first nor will they be the last companies to be exposed for illegal or, in the case of AWB, at very least questionable practices.
As the longstanding 'top dog' of international business, the United States has a particularly long and infamous roll call of Enron like scandals.
David Skeel says an understanding of the mythical Greek figure Icarus is a good place to start when looking for reasons why the barrel will always throw up a few bad apples.
This interview was first broadcast on 25/2/06.
Labor's new constituents Read Transcript
16/12/2006
The federal Opposition, with an eye to a 2007 election, has brought Craig Emerson back to the front bench in a new Shadow Ministry for the Service Economy, Small Business and Independent Contractors.
We ask him just how Labor plans to move beyond its traditional union base in the search for votes.
Ian Macfarlane Read Transcript
11/11/2006
How has Australia, in the context of the rest of the developed world, fared on the economic front these past 60 years?
We had a 'golden age' after the second world war; a series of recessions and oil shocks through the 70s and 80s, a boom in the late 80s and then of course the 'recession we had to have'.
More recently we've enjoyed 15 years of relative good fortune, in fact we're one of the few first world countries not to have experienced a recession in that time.
Through all these ups and downs it's our policymakers - from within government, treasury and the Reserve Bank - that have grappled with questions of how to keep the ship on an even keel; how to pull the levers to restrict or release the economy as conditions at any given time demand.
From 1996 until his term ended just a few weeks ago, Ian Macfarlane was governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia; the chief architect if you will of monetary policy over that time.
He's been chosen to deliver the Boyer Lectures for 2006.
Values, policy and public life Read Transcript
04/11/2006
You might have noticed a photo in some of our newspapers this week
showing three men having an obviously good time: it was one of those
bipartisan moments of enjoyment in Canberra.
There was noted Catholic lawyer and writer Father Frank Brennan, a Jesuit; the Health Minister, Tony Abbott, and Labor's Foreign Affairs spokesman, Kevin Rudd, all happy to share jokes, slap backs and be comfortable with open discussion of religion.
They were all at an event to launch Frank Brennan's new book Acting On
Conscience, about overlaps between law, religion and politics.
Some might see this as another example of religion entering our public
politics, just the way it does in the USA, and they might lament that.
Others might say bravo, that at last religion is regaining its rightful place,
contributing to open debate, bringing its own unique perspective.
1956 Australia (transcript available) Read Transcript
23/09/2006
In 1956 emotions ran high among a nation who only a decade before had been fighting in World War II, and were still not quite at one with the peaceful times that seemed to have returned.
The ongoing Cold War was a reminder of the struggle between 'political good and political evil', the defection of Russian spy Vladimir Petrov sparked the eventual split in the Labor Party, and the Red Peril of communism was very much on people's minds.
How much has changed since then, and are there any parallels to be drawn with Australia in 2006?
Ordinary People's Politics
16/09/2006
Where does politics sit in our everyday lives?
Judith Brett, professor of politics at La Trobe University, and her university colleague Anthony Moran found out when they interviewed 22 people in considerable depth for their work, which they've called Ordinary People's Politics.
Super cycle debate
17/06/2006
The mining boom is driving Australia's economy through a once in a lifetime boom.
And the more optimistic among us are predicting the China effect will last for years yet.
But are we doing enough to make the most of these very high times, in essence are we saving for a rainy day?
More refugees from West Papua
08/04/2006
The government had a lucky break this week when the latest boat-load of asylum seekers from West Papua landed, it seems, in Papua New Guinea instead of Australia.
But that doesn't mean there won't be other boats, as it's clear that many Papuans resent being ruled by Jakarta, and don't trust the central government.
Still the president of Indonesia, Susilo Bambang Yudhono, or SBY, came to power promising to resolve tensions in Aceh and Papua. Aceh is on its way; not, it seems, West Papua.
The International Crisis Group has recently reported on West Papua, and paints a complicated one-step-forward, two-steps-back, picture on the present relations between Jakarta and Jayapura.
East Asia regional update
01/04/2006
Eight years ago the Asian economic crisis wreaked financial and social havoc across much of East and South East Asia.
But the strong rates of economic growth the region is experiencing right now are not a precursor to a repeat of that cycle of boom and bust.
According to my next guest, there is now a level of financial and structural maturity driving the economic machinery of emerging nations such as Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and, of course, China.
And as we're about to hear, this extended period of economic sunshine appears to be having a dramatic impact on poverty reduction.
Indeed, the latest World Bank East Asia Update says throughout the region the number of people living on less than two US dollars a day has fallen by about 50 million people per year for the past five years.
Japanese recovery
18/03/2006
It's been a long time coming, but Japan might be finally emerging from its long economic hibernation.
Recent modest increases in CPI and economic growth figures, along with a renewed willingness of the part of consumers to spend, signal better times ahead.
For many years deflation and zero interest rates have been the hallmarks of an economy that was once the world's most robust.
But hard off the back of this tentative recovery, the Bank of Japan has announced it will cease its five-year policy of zero interest rates, while at the same time setting an inflation target of 0-2 per cent.
The concern amongst the experts is that the central bank is applying the brakes before the economy has time to build up a full head of steam, so in effect leaving open the risk of a slide back to the deflationary conditions of the past decade.
Icarus in the boardroom
25/02/2006
The inquiry into AWB's dealings in Iraq has put a black mark against Australia's reputation as an 'honest broker' in the world of business and finance.
Halfway across the world the Enron trial, which you'll remember we looked at a couple of weeks back, continues to uncover more evidence of seriously bad behaviour on the part of those who ran the company.
Of course, we always hope that such cases continue to be the exception and not the rule when it comes to acceptable practice in the corporate world.
Sadly, we have to accept that these are not the first nor will they be the last companies to be exposed for illegal or, in the case of AWB, at very least questionable practices.
As the longstanding 'top dog' of international business, the United States has a particularly long and infamous roll call of Enron like scandals.
David Skeel says an understanding of the mythical Greek figure Icarus is a good place to start when looking for reasons why the barrel will always throw up a few bad apples.
