Breaking news reported in Crikey: Meanjin, one of Australia’s oldest and most prestigious literary journals is winding up: its staff made have been made redundant; its last issue is coming out in December.

Chair of Melbourne University Press, which oversaw the operation said, “The decision was made on purely financial grounds, the board having found it no longer viable to produce the magazine ongoing.”

Aside from the spectacular example of weaselly managerial syntax in that sentence, this is why it doesn’t make sense to reach decisions on culture purely from examining the accounts. A literary journal is a cultural project, not an economic one. As Australia Institute research shows, there’s plenty of money in universities for consultants, travel and marketing but not enough for staff, students or critical cultural infrastructure like Meanjin.

It’s only a matter of time before we see what the next casualty is.

Independent ACT Senator David Pocock wants voters to know who is lobbying Members of Parliament at Parliament House.

He’s set up a voluntary pass register and spoke about it at a press conference today.

There is a story today in the Financial Review that the Reserve Bank’s chief economist, Sarah Hunter, accepted a gift from disgraced consulting/accounting firm, EY. The gift was an invitation to be a guest of EY at the Parliament House Midwinter Ball at a 10-seat table which would have cost EY $22,000!

You have to ask what EY was buying.

This may seem a minor conflict of interest – but a conflict of interest it is. It is part of a long history of RBA collaboration with business to restrict demand so as to reduce workers’ power. Who can remember a monetary policy statement that did not refer to potential wages break out and the need to ensure that does not happen? And of course that wage break out never happened.

Meantime, RBA management has been busy lining up juicy retirement jobs in the finance sector.  Ex-staff have joined banks, while past governors can be found on the boards of various banks and sometimes even as the chair of the boards. Former governor, Glenn Stevens, is chair of Macquarie Bank, which is being hauled over the coals for booking fictitious trades in the US and UK and misreporting Australian trades, among other matters.

And we recall the RBA advising then Treasurer, Wayne Swan, to make board appointments from among business leaders rather than appoint others such as ACTU representatives who, it was suggested, might have “sectional interests”. The RBA apparently never saw business as a sectional interest.

For more on this see our Reserve Bank Review Submission.

Victims of the illegal Robodebt scheme have won a record payout, with the government opting not to defend a second legal claim, following the original settlement, which refunded their payments with interest.

Lawyers told the federal court this morning the case had been settled.

In a statement, Gordon Legal revealed details of the $548.5 million settlement, which still needs to be approved by the court.

It also provided written reaction from two applicants.

Nathan Knox, Applicant:

I am very pleased that our legal challenge has been so successful and that group members can finally
begin to put this terrible chapter behind them. Everyday Australians should now know that they can stand
up and demand respect and fairness, especially from their government.

Felicity Button, Applicant:

Today I feel as though myself and all the other victims of Robodebt have been heard and finally have our
voice back. When nobody else would listen to us and we were treated as second class citizens Gordon
Legal took on our fight.

Former Prime Minister John Howard has put out a statement with former Foreign Minister Alexander Downer on the government’s decision to recognise Palestine.

As long-standing friends and supporters of Israel who worked in government to advance a genuine two-state solution, we are appalled by the Albanese government’s recent behaviour.

No mention of genocide or starving children, or how you achieve a two-state solution when you only recognise one state, but it goes on:

Both the Prime Minister and the Minister for Home Affairs, Tony Burke, have undermined a relationship of enduring trust between Australia and Israel.

While the coalition and Murdoch media collectively wet the bed over Daniel Andrews and Bob Carr’s visits to China, NZ can go one better.

Not one but two former Kiwi Prime Ministers – John Key and Helen Clark – were also among 70 “special guests” of Xi Jinping at yesterday’s military parade in Beijing.

And while Dan got a handshake, John Key went one better.

Opposition Leader Sussan Ley has refused to condemn Jacinta Nampijinpa Price over her ridiculous claim that the government was picking and choosing which migrants it allowed into the country on the basis that they’d vote for the Labor Party.

Yesterday, Price claimed “Labor like to be able to ensure that they’re going to allow those in that would ultimately support their policies, their views, and vote for them as well” in a discussion about Indian migrants … This is Labor. Basically, it’s power at any cost. And we see that occur all over the place in terms of the way they conduct themselves.“

Ley did the rounds on morning TV and, on Sky, was asked about the claims by Senator Price.

Question: Jacinta Price … claimed in an interview that migrants were being brought in from India to boost the Labor vote. She ended up walking that back later on in the day, but has the damage been done here? Could she have isolated an Indian vote the Coalition might have sought?

Sussan Ley:

Look, she’s corrected those comments, Pete, and our migration policy, longstanding, bipartisan, is non-discriminatory. But I want to make this point that we do vote every three years, but every day that I’m Opposition Leader, I’m fighting for every single Australian, no matter where you came from. And our Australian Indian community is amazing, you contribute as Australian Indians so much to our country. We know how hard you work, your family values, and the contribution you make across this country. And as Opposition Leader, I value that incredibly.

Question: Do you expect Labor to use that at the next election as a scare tactic now though, that clip?

Sussan Ley:

Labor will carry on in the way that they do and I will leave that to them. What we’re here for is to fight every single day for every Australian, and as I said, Pete, it doesn’t matter how you vote, we’re here for everyone because we know that the values of the Liberal Party; aspiration, hard work, reward for effort and building this community in this country are something that will resonate in a serious, credible, compelling agenda.

As you would have read in an earlier blog entry, the Opposition and Greens teamed up to push the government to fund another 20,000 home care packages immediately.

Senator David Pocock says the Labor Government is keen to give the Opposition the credit because they see the independents (and presumably Greens) as a greater threat.

That’s a funny reversal of the usual trend in the Senate. Normally, when the government loses a vote independent and minor party crossbenchers are blamed or celebrated – even though the Opposition is just as important to making that happen.

In Representative, still, our paper about the Australian Senate, Ben Oquist and I quoted Fred Chaney on this topic. Chaney is a former Liberal minister, senator and MP (yes, he served in both houses of Parliament):

No single senator has any power to affect the outcome of the legislative program unless he or she is taking a position that is in common with enough of the rest of the Senate to make a majority. Senators Brian Harradine and Mal Colston have a critical role only when the ALP, Greens and Democrats are united in their opposition to a government measure. The united opposition group in such circumstances represents a democratically elected majority against the government measure. …

The thing to remember is that any single Liberal, National or Labor senator could be pivotal in the case of a close vote. In the 1970s, when senators on the conservative side were less bound by party discipline, they often used their power across the floor to achieve the same apparent dominance in the decision making process as Colston and Harradine. There seems to me nothing undemocratic or indeed undesirable in that circumstance.

Chaney’s full article is well worth the read.

Today we might substitute “the Greens” for “Brian Colston and Mal Harradine”, two independent senators of decades gone by. 

But the point stands: whenever there appears to be a single “kingmaker” in the Senate, they only became kingmaker because of the 38 other senators already lined up behind them.

AAP

Many workers do not have the skills necessary to tap into artificial intelligence technology, a study has found, with just one in 10 managers confident their workforce is up to the task. 

But while the skills gap could hold some businesses back over the next two years, some employees remain resistant to adopting AI in their roles. 

Employment firm Skillsoft released the findings from a large-scale survey on Thursday, which one executive said should serve as a wake-up call for businesses banking on generative AI technology. 

The research comes days after the Australian Bureau of Statistics revealed AI had become the fastest-growing field for research and development investments, and after Treasurer Jim Chalmers named the technology as a national priority. 

Skillsoft’s 2025 Global Skills Intelligence Survey questioned 1000 human resources and learning and development professionals in Australia, the US, UK and Germany. 

Just 10 per cent of the participants said they were confident the workforce had the training and skills needed to achieve business goals in the next two years, with the biggest gaps in AI, technology and leadership. 

Almost one in four (24 per cent) expressed concern generative AI technology was advancing faster than training available to master it, and and a similar number (28 per cent) said the lack of skills could prevent businesses pursuing opportunities. 

The Australian Bureau of Statistics recently found Australian businesses had more than doubled their investment in AI, with a $668.3 million injection in the 2024 financial year, compared to $276 million in 2022. 

The federal government has yet to release rules to govern high-risk uses of the technology, and has committed to a legal analysis before proposing laws.

Special Minister of State Don Farrell has tasked the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters with looking at, among other things, adopting a four-year parliamentary term.

The argument is sometimes made that three-year terms make serious reform hard because there is little time to implement it.

But governments that are serious about reform don’t even need the full three years. Gough Whitlam’s first term was only about 18 months, and Bob Hawke’s first term was just a little longer. They are remembered as great reformers because they had the heart and courage to make reform happen in the time available. 

A three-year term has at least two benefits over a four-year term: it means parliamentarians face the people they represent more often, and it keeps Senate terms at six years instead of a more unwieldy eight years.

In addition, moving to a four-year term would require a constitutional amendment, and by extension a referendum.

By contrast, politicians could commit to seeing out the full three-year term without any constitutional change. 

In all states and territories bar Tasmania, elections happen on scheduled days known as soon as the previous election has been held. This allows for forward planning and removes the political advantage for a government to surprise the opposition by going to an early election.

Back in 2016, senior journalist Michelle Grattan identified “fixed” three-year terms as a good compromise between our current three-year terms (which often ended up as two-and-a-half-year terms due to early elections) and four-year terms.

Labor’s first term went by with the government failing to deliver truth in political advertising laws, the second tranche of whistleblower law reform or increasing the number of senators for the territories. Why spend its second term discussing something the Prime Minister has already said won’t happen, when it hasn’t gotten through the to-do list from last term?