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1 week ago | 
spectator.com.au | Dimitri Burshtein |Peter Swan
If the 2025 Australian federal election proved anything, it’s that the era of major party dominance is approaching its end. It is true that Labor secured more seats than in the previous election, but the combined first preference flow to the major parties continues its downward trajectory. The voters have spoken.
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1 week ago | 
firstlinks.com.au | Noel Whittaker |James Gruber |Peter Swan |Dimitri Burshtein
Reader: "Carry on as you are - well done. The average investor/SMSF trustee needs all the help they can get."Professor Robert Deutsch: "This has got to be the best set of articles on economic and financial matters. Always something worthwhile reading in Firstlinks.
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2 weeks ago | 
spectator.com.au | Dimitri Burshtein |Peter Swan
In the world of politics, governments are often imagined as benevolent, armed with perfect information and hearts of pure gold, ready to deliver us to the promised land. Australians, however, might be feeling a little less starry-eyed these days, having lived through years of pandemic-era central planning, ballooning government interventions and bureaucrats who believe they understand Australians’ lives better than they do themselves.
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2 weeks ago | 
firstlinks.com.au | Peter Swan |Dimitri Burshtein |James Gruber |Noel Whittaker
Reader: " Finding a truly independent and interesting read has been magical for me. Please keep it up and don't change!"Eleanor Dartnall, AFA Adviser of the Year, 2014: "Our clients love your newsletter. Your articles are avidly read by advisers and they learn a great deal."Reader: "Is one of very few places an investor can go and not have product rammed down their throat.
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4 weeks ago | 
spectator.com.au | Dimitri Burshtein |Peter Swan
President Donald Trump’s trade policies, launched under the slogan ‘Making America Great Again’ have instead sparked economic disruption, geopolitical instability, and strategic confusion. Far from securing America’s economic and national interests, these policies are actively undermining both.
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1 month ago | 
spectator.com.au | Dimitri Burshtein |Peter Swan
In 1980, then Singapore prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, warned that if Australia failed to reform, it risked becoming ‘the poor white trash of Asia’. At the time, Australia was inward-looking, heavily protected by tariffs, and structurally complacent. Under prime minister Malcolm Fraser and his treasurer John Howard, Australia was grappling with a period of stagflation, economic stagnation combined with high inflation.
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1 month ago | 
afr.com | Peter Swan
Peter Navarro, Donald Trump’s tariff advisor, opines: “For decades, under the biased rules of the World Trade Organisation, the US has faced systematically higher tariffs from its major trading partners and far more punitive non-tariff barriers.”But the evidence against Navarro is overwhelming.
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1 month ago | 
firstlinks.com.au | Andrew Mitchell |Steven Ng |James Gruber |Peter Swan
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1 month ago | 
spectator.com.au | Dimitri Burshtein |Peter Swan
Following his election as Venezuelan President in 1999, Hugo Chávez launched a series of radical reforms known as the Bolivarian Revolution. Chávez’s aim was to transform Venezuela socially, politically, and economically. Some of Chávez’s notable reforms included nationalising industries and dramatic increases to public spending, primarily funded by debt and commodity exports.
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1 month ago | 
spectator.com.au | Peter Swan
In 2023 a constitutional referendum was held on an Indigenous Voice to parliament.
