Sometimes an aside illuminates the important underlying drivers of issues. At Wednesday’s ASPI–Hewlett-Packard Defence and Security Lunch, retired US Admiral Gary Roughead mused briefly about rebalancing of US forces to the Pacific. Pressed later to …
Have we been sold a dummy pass on the impact of the defence budget cuts? Statements by the Defence Minister that that future plans are merely delayed may seem reasonable when money is tight and …
The Australian Government has recently announced a series of cuts to the Defence budget. According to Greg Sheridan, writing in The Australian, more possibly loom on the horizon. Those with an awareness of Australian defence …
Andrew Davies has a good stab at the nexus between government revenues and the defence budget in his recent post, but I think he might be giving the government a bit too much latitude. The …
Regular contributor Peter Layton drew my attention to the final chart in the ‘Tax Chartacular’ at the Mark the Graph blog. It shows Australia’s total taxation burden 1959–2011 as a proportion of the nominal GDP. It …
