East Timor: billions given but poverty remainsBillions spent on East Timor’s U.N nation building effort may have helped preserve the peace, but most of the money went to international security forces, not to the Timorese economy or its people.
Nation building
Two schools and a clear felling: Question Time fails to inspire
Three Question Times so far this week, and a grand total of eight questions from the Opposition about actual economic matters. Bernard Keane is unimpressed.
Infrastructure funding plight continues
What Australia got from the federal budget is a list of projects, not a solution to our infrastructure crisis, writes Phillip O’Neill.
Mungo MacCallum: Confusion reigns amid Australia’s GFC bandaids
The Prime Minister now seems to enjoy messing with the collective mind of the entire electorate.
Mungo MacCallum: Turnbull can’t hold a candle to Saint Kevin
Malcolm Turnbull may or may not be an expert in telecommunications, but he is rapidly becoming one on unsaleable products.
Essay: Our children’s standard of living is at stake
Australian political and business leaders need to be able to see the ‘Big Picture’ to be globally competitive, writes Peter Cox.
Essay: Rudd’s NBN recalls the day Billy Hughes went wireless
Nearly ninety years ago, prime minister Billy Hughes announced a public private partnership to construct a nation-building communications network. Sound familiar? Jock Given writes.
NBN: Pricey, but it’s building for the long term
Infrastructure doesn’t have to be profitable in and of itself to be of value, argues Stilgherrian.
Rudd gettin’ busy with some nation building
Kevin Rudd wants to make nation-building fashionable again and it seems like the times suit him, writes Bernard Keane.
