Category Archives: Political philosophy

How our economy is like an out of control AI

By Warwick Smith | 8 September 2019, 12:30pm First published at Independent Australia Humans, individually, can be incredibly brilliant but collectively we’re often puzzlingly stupid. To take a simple, uncontroversial example, we know that forests are critical for our survival. … Continue reading

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Memories. In 1961 Labor promised to boost the deficit to fight unemployment. The promise won

  First published in The Conversation Arthur Caldwell almost defeated Robert Menzies in the poll in 1961, and won the debate about policy. National Archives, National Library of Australia, Wikimedia Warwick Smith, University of Melbourne Lately, governments and oppositions have … Continue reading

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What the government wants us to do – and not do – based on the budget – The Conversation

Warwick Smith, University of Melbourne Budgets are a good opportunity to see through the spin to what the government really wants. Forget the Treasurer’s speech and the budget overview, the truth is in the measures themselves. Generally things the government … Continue reading

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Joe Hockey’s unscripted moments of truth reveal what the Government really thinks – The Age

By Warwick Smith Originally published by The Age on September 3, 2015 – 12:17PM. Talk of throwing Hockey to the wolves is worrying. After all, it’s his slip-of-the-truth lines that give us a glimpse of the Government’s real agenda: only the rich … Continue reading

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Video – Talking Justice 2015

A recording of my speech at Talking Justice has been uploaded to the Loddon Campaspe Community Legal Centre YouTube channel. The speech is like a 22 minute summary of my writing over the last year. Speech notes Talking justice – … Continue reading

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Interviewed for podcast: “Is it worth voting?”

By Warwick Smith I was interviewed by Abla George for the first of a new podcast series InformMyOpinion. The topic, “is it worth voting?”, was prompted by record levels of disengagement in politics in the UK in the leadup to … Continue reading

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Conservative ideology and the Intergenerational Report: why Hockey had to remove all reference to inequality

By Warwick Smith A search of the government’s recently released Intergenerational Report for the word “inequality” yields zero results. The same is true for “income distribution” and “wealth distribution”. This is not surprising because conservatives are basically forced by their … Continue reading

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Political donations and the destruction of democratic scrutiny

This is an expanded version of an article originally published at The Guardian. By Warwick Smith Published by the Transnational Insitute. Abstract Many corporations donate to both sides of politics. One of the reasons they do this is to ensure … Continue reading

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To attack rather than build is now the norm, but the Coalition’s negative campaigning is backfiring

Attacking a policy simply because it is open to attack can result in painting yourself into an awkward policy corner First published in The Guardian Friday 7 November 2014 By Warwick Smith The Abbott led federal opposition in Australia was … Continue reading

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Part 3 of three part series on democracy in The Guardian

If democracy is broken, why should we vote? By Warwick Smith Originally published at theguardian.com, Thursday 18 September 2014 14.28 AEST Some argue that only by withdrawing our participation from the broken system can we hope to fix it or … Continue reading

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