A report on the level of foreign ownership in our food industry produced some inconvenient facts for food security hysterics.
Articles by Bernard Keane 
About Bernard Keane
Bernard Keane is Crikey’s Canberra correspondent. He writes on politics, media, and economics.
Keane on SOPA: Big Copyright will continue to endanger basic rights
The copyright industry has rejected the opportunity to profit from online content and insisted on maintaining its analog business model.
Welching on Wilkie: Labor plays percentages on pokies
Labor has judged the benefits of welching on its deal with Andrew Wilkie outweight the costs. Will it be proved right?
Essential: for big retailers, price and service are a key problem
New Essential Report data backs what we know about the changes in Australian retail, but with an interesting age-related twist.
The Boston fishing party and Australians’ rights online
A Melbourne activist is caught up in a remarkable social media fishing expedition by the state of Massachusetts.
Essential: warmer months but voters still cold on leaders
Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott both finish the Summer break with marginal improvements in their voter standing, but the political landscape is essentially unchanged.
Why is Rupert spending millions undermining national security?
Rupert Murdoch complains that Google has spent millions lobbying for “piracy”. He has spent millions possibly undermining internet security …
Does automotive assistance work? We’ll know ‘in future years’
We could better debate manufacturing assistance if we knew what worked and what didn’t. But we can’t, not yet.
NYT debate: what would it cost to end he-said-she-said journalism?
The New York Times has raised the issue of he-said-she-said journalism. It should be discussed here, too, but it’s more complicated than media critics think.
The car industry’s (not so) merry-go-round
It’s only three years since the car industry was last rescued. Meantime, other parts of manufacturing have got on with the job of lifting productivity.
Sweeping the net: the economies of scale of filtering
The web filtering industry ranges from the innocuous to the ruthless in its quest to censor the internet.
Tracking the trackers: the cyber snoops working in Australia
Companies that have provided surveillance equipment to some of the world’s worst régimes are operating in Australia
Retail data: an industry changing, not collapsing
Ignore the doomsters: Australia retail is doing OK — it’s just changing, and not in a way the Gerry Harveys of the world like.
Keane’s guide to the year in political garbage
Will 2012 see an improvement in the quality of public debate? Don’t count on it.
Keane’s 2011: year of the flake
Politics in 2011 was characterised by an intense dislike of Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott, and rampant denialism.
Electric finish to top year of partisan journalism from The Tele
More propaganda from The Daily Telegraph — this time on electricity efficiency. Let’s dissect a particularly blatant example.
Housing report shines light on undersupply crisis in NSW
The National Housing Supply Council has produced extensive data on the nature of our housing undersupply. And the big problem is in NSW.
The year of the non-lessons of fiscal stimulus
In 2011 we all became monetarists again, despite the lessons of the GFC.
A year on, what has changed in asylum-seeker policy?
We’ve gone nowhere on asylum seekers in the past 12 months and they continue to die trying to reach Australia.
Eurogeddon Watch: honey I shrank the bazooka
Europe’s already-inadequate efforts to ensure it can stabilise its economies has suffered another hit.
The 2011 Crikeys: the government policy hits and misses
2011 was the biggest year in economic policy for a long time - which isn’t saying much. What was best and worst?
The 2011 Crikeys: our best and worst politicians
Who are our best and worst political performers for the year? The award goes to …
Wikileaks Keane: why I signed a letter in support of Julian Assange
As an Australian citizen, Assange has a right to expect his government will seek to ensure that he is accorded due process by other countries seeking to prosecute him.
Indefinite detention formalised in US — and the world is a war
A new bill in Washington formalises the power of the US military to abuct and imprison anyone, anywhere in the world.
