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The AFR View

Yesterday

A photo released by the Houthi Media Centre shows a Houthi gunman on the cargo ship Galaxy Leader on November 19.

Labor’s best policy might be admitting Red Sea defence gap

If strategy is Labor’s reason, it raises concerns. If there is no available ship, it raises another set of questions about Australia’s alarming lack of military capabilities.

  • The AFR View

This Month

Transport Minister Catherine King has yet to give a credible explanation why Qatar Airways was blocked from expanding services to Australia.

More questions, no answers, about Turkish flights take-off

It would be in the national interest for the aviation white paper to lay out a proper pro-competition, pro-passenger framework so that regulatory decisions don’t continue to invite speculation about integrity.

  • The AFR View
Anthony Albanese’s shrinking lead as preferred prime minister is evidence Peter Dutton is not as “unelectable” as some pundits claim.

Dutton’s political tactics are no governing agenda

The problem for the country with the Coalition’s approach of opposing much and proposing little is that the political heat is not being put on Labor to genuinely revamp its policy approach in the new year.

  • The AFR View
Gina Rinehart lived up to her outsider status when accepting The Australian Financial Review’s Business Person of the Year award

Rinehart’s common sense crucial to green mining transition

Policy-makers need to heed the calls by two prominent female resource sector leaders not to hobble the upstream mining sector on which the nation’s prosperity rests.

  • The AFR View
Display monitors show the result of a UN General Assembly vote on a ceasefire in Gaza.

Votes at the UN are not for the home gallery

Voting for a one-sided Gaza resolution for domestic political reasons just betrays our foreign policy principles and costs us practical influence.

  • The AFR View
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The Australian Financial Review Business People of the Year for 2023 (from left): Sam Hupert, Amanda Lacaze, Mark Delaney, Gina Rinehart, Robin Khuda and Vik Bansal.

Mavericks on top of the Business People of the Year list

This year’s list reflects a world in which Australia’s biggest companies took a cautious approach to investing and dealmaking in an uncertain economic environment.

  • The AFR View
Treasurer Jim Chalmers discusses the budget update in Canberra on Wednesday.

MYEFO’s missing medium-term fiscal framework

Governments once were politically rewarded for keeping a tight lid on the size and cost of government.

  • The AFR View
A green activist storms the plenary hall at COP28, demanding an end to fossil fuels.

COP28: Beware premature predictions of the death of fossil fuels

Whatever the final climate conference wording, given the clear lack of global consensus, we should be wary of predictions that oil’s days are numbered.

  • The AFR View
An emotional Annastacia Palaszczuk announces her resignation as Queensland premier on Sunday.

Palaszczuk leaves behind a profligate legacy

Annastacia Palaszczuk bequeaths the next premier a temporary budget surplus built on a populist jacking up of coal royalties.

  • The AFR View
While talking up limiting overseas arrivals, Labor has largely maintained a demand-driven temporary skilled worker program.

No populist overreaction against immigration

While talking up limiting overseas arrivals, Labor has largely maintained a demand-driven temporary skilled worker program.

  • The AFR View
Treasurer Paul Keating and RBA governor Bob Johnston announce the float of the Australian dollar on December 9, 1983.

Forty years after $A float, no brave new world of prosperity in view

The anniversary of the bold decision is a reminder that the float set off a domino-effect of policy liberalisation that reversed Australia’s economic decline.

  • The AFR View
Labor is tightening the regulatory screws and slamming the door on flexibilities.

Labor has no grasp of Australia’s need to compete

Everything Anthony Albanese has done since the election betrays an utter indifference to sharpening the ability of a high-cost economy to compete in the global marketplace.

  • The AFR View
Mr Shorten’s political focus at yesterday’s National Press Club appearance was on cracking down on waste, fraud, and business models of “millionaire” NDIS service providers.

The $92b disability services question is still unanswered

The NDIS minister failed to drive home the real political message: as harsh as it may sound, expectations of what the NDIS can do, and for whom, have to be wound back.

  • The AFR View
Anthony Albanese and Dan Andrews.

Andrews fallout for Albanese

The question for the PM Catherine King is why have they decided to put federal taxpayers on the hook for Dan Andrews’ election boondoggle.

  • The AFR View
States extracted a price from the prime minister at the national cabinet this week.

States extract NDIS pound of flesh from Canberra

The insatiable appetite of the political class for higher taxing and spending is not matched by any serious policy intent to boost growth.

  • The AFR View
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Federal education minister Jason Clare is being urged by the usual educational suspects led by the teacher unions to double down on Labor’s Gonski spending monument.

Jason Clare’s counter-insurgency must save the education revolution

The PISA results are an opportunity to draw a line under the failed educational thinking and practices that have allowed school students to fall behind.

  • The AFR View
Chris Bowen sees Australia in the same camp as similar fossil fuel-producing countries backing a faster transition.

COP28 pledges and realities

Whatever the outcome in Dubai, the world will end its reliance on fossil fuels not to a political timetable but only when reliable, affordable replacements are a reality.

  • The AFR View
Financial reality should be allowed to catch up with technological change and the trend of continued declines in letter volumes.

Australia Post’s mail modernisation

Plans for big changes prompt the question of why the government needs to own a postal service in this day and age.

  • The AFR View
Palestinians flee from east to west of Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip during Israeli bombardment.

A permanent ceasefire would be just another temporary truce

Supporters of a genuine peace process should hope Israel can finish the job of protecting itself from Hamas as quickly as possible.

  • The AFR View
Genocide has become a routinely abused word.

Drawing a line under a toxic surge of prejudice

Turning societies overseas into echo chambers of prejudice and conflict in the Middle East is not helping the cause of a settlement

  • The AFR View

The Australian Financial Review Magazine

BOSS Financial Review

Paul Flynn grew up in a “good Catholic family of six girls and three boys.

Life & Leisure

It’s time to sparkle this New Year’s Eve! As to what to wear, read on.

Rich List

Rich Lister Sam Kennard took over the self-storage business when he was just 24.