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Parnell Palme McGuinness

November 2020

The day after: media organizations set up outside the White House on Wednesday.

Another epic fail for the liberal elite

The clanging bias, euphemistic pussy-footing and pie-eyed focus of many major media outlets played right into Trump's hands, writes Parnell Palme McGuinness.

October 2020

Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden and President Donald Trump during the second and final presidential debate.

Weasel words on oil could backfire at the booths

If Joe Biden's vague talk of an energy "transition" gives right-leaning voters last-minute poll jitters, the result on November 3 could be another upset for the shovel-calling Donald Trump.

President Donald Trump arrives for a campaign rally at Orlando Sanford International Airport on Monday.

Hatred of Trump is a roadblock to reopening

International experts agree harsh lockdowns are harmful and unnecessary. But because Donald Trump supports this view, politics is preventing the science becoming policy in the US.

September 2020

Saving lives has come at an undoubtedly heavy cost to the country.

It's time to weigh the cost of death and deficit

It is hard to have a debate right now about the cost of saving lives. But we will need to have it before a potential next wave hits.

Super funds have to do more if they want to attract younger members. Good returns alone may not be enough.

We don't need China to polarise ourselves

China hardly needs to mine our data to help sow social discord. Western countries are doing a fine job of polarising themselves on social media.

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Donald Trump is talking over a Democrat campaign that seems flaccid in comparison.

Trump taps a deep well of political fear

Vote Trump, defend America. The message is more potent than the Democrats' own streak of PC authoritarianism.

August 2020

Melbourne crowds on VP Day, August 15, 1945:.

Fight for freedom is far from over

Seventy-five years after the end of World War II, the liberties fought for are being frittered away by surrendering to authoritarian lockdowns.

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Josh Frydenberg with portraits of his inspirations Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.

Thatcher-Reagan ideology needs left and right update

A new post-pandemic centrism would learn from the supply-side success of the 1980s but also incorporate the conservative and progressive critiques of neo-liberalism.

July 2020

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews puts on a face mask after fronting the media on Monday.

Don't mask the complexity of messages on COVID-19

Single-minded health warnings by politicians patronise instead of making the public partners in the uncertain fight against the pandemic.

The vandalised statue of the Little Mermaid in Copenhagen, Denmark

Why cancel culture can't take a joke

Like all censorious establishments, the elite-sponsored Black Lives Matter movement is using fear to silence those who laugh at its absurdities.

June 2020

Captain James Cook was one of the Anywheres of his time.

Nihilists fighting the past and the future

Culture is not a war, it's an edifice that everybody contributes to. Nothing positive can come out of fighting over it.

The parenting experience has been changed by working from home.

The age of industrialised childcare is coming to an end

Post-pandemic parents have found themselves valuing flexibility even more than subsidy. Campus-style childcare centres are no longer the right model, writes Parnell Palme McGuinness.

May 2020

Australia came nowhere close to the dangers first feared.

No model answers for this crisis

A forecasting model is an opinion column with more maths. Its purpose is to spark action, not necessarily to be right.

Lunch-led recovery: he government is considering the removal of the Fringe Benefits Tax from meals at restaurants, cafes and pubs for three years.

How Australia could have a miracle recovery

How well we snap back, whether we experience a V, W, U or other alphabetically styled recovery, will depend on whether the upheaval caused by the COVID-19 virus has shaken up existing systems enough, writes Parnell Palme McGuinness.

April 2020

Voters wanted more jobs not bigger welfare states from Bill Shorten, Hillary Clinton, and Jeremy Corbyn.

Why reform needs a shot of morals too

Liberalising reform isn't just urgent and practical. It is rooted in the new political morality of the post-virus era as well.

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The most challenging question governments are now facing: how to reanimate an economy that has been thrown out of whack – into “disequilibrium” – by the public health shutdown.

Now isn't the moment for utopias

The COVID-19 pandemic is a wet market for central planners. But road maps for exiting the crisis are meaningless when there are no clear answers.

The cost of lockdown could be higher than just victims of the virus.

Lockdowns will kill people too

There is a tipping point at which suicide, alcoholism, and domestic violence becomes too high a price in an all-out fight against COVID-19.

March 2020

“There are a lot of SMEs that could be more productive if they were more digitised and used apps for scheduling staff, for stock control or to provide online services and goods,” says Small Business Ombudsman, Kate Carnell

A truth serum for globalisation

COVID-19 is a remorseless protectionist infection that is revealing weaknesses in Australia's economy that need addressing,

EU President Ursula van der Leyen has announced a corona response team.

Panic tests the trust of nations

In infected countries the spread of the virus is driving a wedge between citizens, governments, and the rest of the world.

February 2020

#IStandWithFiremanPaul: “There is only one politician in Australia he doesn’t think should “get f-ed”.

The anti-Morrison pile-on will bolster his base

Like the 'Never Trump' bubble in the US, the perverse effect of this summer will be to bolster the Prime Minister's political base.

Original URL: https://www.afr.com/by/parnell-palme-mcguinness-h1evu4