The Age, May 15, 2009

THE ritual is over for another year. We have a $58 billion budget deficit and unemployment will rise to a million people. Treasury forecasting has been undertaken as far ahead as 2012-13, when we are supposed to have a government debt of $188 billion. In 12 months we have moved from a budget-projected surplus of $21 billion and 2.75 per cent growth in GDP to a huge deficit.

The Age, April 21, 2009

Endless repetition renders a word meaningless, not true.

WE ALWAYS seem to be searching for the Chosen One. The last candidate was free-market economics. We know where that false idol led us. The next cab off the rank is innovation. The Government and every academic and business think tank are busy telling us that innovation will lead us to salvation.

Innovation is one of those words that can mean something different, or nothing at all, to each person.

The Age, April 3, 2009

Society needs minders, finders and grinders.

ABOUT 20 years ago I decided to merge my industry policy and trade consultancy business with Deloitte. After a few years we moved to Ernst & Young. This was an educational time for someone who had been used to owning and operating a boutique business without a couple of hundred partners and a few thousand staff.