Paul Laris
Paul Laris is a semi-retired health and human services policy tragic, health care users advocate, medical regulator, community activist, gardener and sailor.
Paul's articles (12 total)
16 June 2025
Misgivings in the heart of the defence state
On a quiet Wednesday night in Adelaide recently about 50 people met in a church hall to share concerns about the militarisation of their schools and universities.
10 April 2025
How Australian education was captured by arms dealers
Australian universities, technical institutes and schools are becoming militarised. The power of defence industry money combined with government policy and public underfunding of education have created an avalanche of defence funding and profound influence over our education system and the people who emerge from it.
6 July 2023
Call them Hospital Departments... and reclaim people’s health
The overall capture of the meaning of “health” by the medical industrial complex and its hospital systems and departments has helped to hide the absence of policy and structures to specifically address the health of the public. It’s time we named our health departments to describe what they actually do – provide illness care -and time to make health and equity explicit central goals of the whole system of government.
25 May 2023
SA’s populist punishment law to chill climate dissent
A new Bill to silence climate protest has provoked a broad chorus of alarm in South Australia. Despite opposition, it seems likely the Bill will pass and South Australia will join the ranks of governments determined to suppress opposition to the fossil fuel industry.
15 April 2021
Cracks form a year out from South Australian election
One year out from the next South Australian state election and Steven Marshall’s Liberal government is starting to lose its mildly progressive safe covid manager gloss as old and new scandals and blunders start to bite.
20 August 2020
Universities at the crossroads - will town trump gown?
University mergers proposed for SA may be the wrong answer to the wrong question. We have let universities become captured by commercial interests and corporate culture. Now Covid has wrecked their business model. It is time to reclaim them for the public?
15 July 2020
For whom the bell polls in South Australia.
At the half way point in a four year term the SA Marshall Liberal government is surprisingly looking a little lost – and it’s pretty much all their own work.
9 July 2020
Marshall's SA Government – Just like a duck
Moderate Marshall is calm on the surface – but paddling like mad underneath...
8 July 2020
Marshall's SA Government - just like a duck
Moderate Marshall is calm on the surface – but paddling like mad underneath...
25 June 2020
Death of the critical friend in South Australia
Organisations advocating on behalf of those who otherwise have little say in the decisions which effect their lives can be seen as critical friends of government. They appear to be a threatened species - and we should be alarmed.
12 March 2020
PAUL LARIS. Making a virtue out of a renewables neccessity
How a transition to renewable power in SA also transited a change of government.
19 February 2020
PAUL LARIS. SA’s Planning Code – Consistency, democracy, or centralised chaos?
The SA government’s attempts to streamline and centralise urban planning are shaping up as an electoral liability and may also fail to address the problems of urban infill development.