Writer
Allan Patience
Dr Allan Patience is an honorary fellow in political science in the University of Melbourne.
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ALLAN PATIENCE It’s time for a democratic socialist agenda for Australia
Australians have suffered greatly because of the free-market fundamentalism that has been running riot across the political landscape for nearly half a century. Neoliberalism has at last run its destructive course. It’s time for a new era of public policy reconstruction for which a democratic socialist agenda has much to offer. Continue reading »
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ALLAN PATIENCE. America- Australia’s Fool’s Paradise
Deeply ingrained into Australia’s collective psyche is the naïve conviction that the United States is the country’s most important, entirely reliable, and utterly benevolent ally. This obsequious sentimentalism was embarrassingly expressed in the words of former Prime Minister John Howard: “The relationship we have with the United States is the most important we have Continue reading »
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ALLAN PATIENCE Are we seeing the beginning of America’s fragmentation.
In his 2014 book Dangerous Allies, Malcolm Fraser issued Australians with a timely warning. He pointed out that the America with which Australia had signed the ANZUS treaty way back in 1951 is a very different country to the “great and powerful friend” we imagined it to be at the end of World War Continue reading »
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ALLAN PATIENCE Labor must broaden its base
Like all mainstream, once-reforming parties in the liberal democracies, the ALP’s base has shrunk, mainly to inner-city dwellers with progressive views on issues like same-sex marriage and climate change. These people – many with university degrees and professional careers – incline to supercilious indifference, even hostility, when confronted by the resentful prejudices, religious fundamentalisms, Continue reading »
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Behrouz Boochani, No Friend but the Mountain: Writing from Manus Prison
In the foreword to this harrowing narrative about asylum seekers incarcerated on Manus Island, Australian author Richard Flannagan writes: “Reading this book is difficult for any Australian. We pride ourselves on decency, kindness, generosity, and a fair go. None of these qualities are evident in Boochani’s account of hunger, squalor, beatings, suicide and murder.” Flanagan Continue reading »
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ALLAN PATIENCE. It’s time for a constitutional reform commission
Acting on references from attorneys-general, the independent Australian Law Reform Commission and its state government equivalents review and recommend reforms to existing laws, and/or identify where new laws are necessary. When it comes to the Australian Constitution, the highest level of law in the country, the case for an independent constitutional reform commission along similar Continue reading »
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ALLAN PATIENCE. Knowing the cost of everything and the value of nothing
When Scott Morrison announced that the Sydney Opera House was the “biggest bill board in the country” he displayed a crass mindset straight from the commercialized anti-culture of the neoliberal era. Plastering a racing industry advertisement across the sails of the Opera House meant nothing more to him other than a great marketing opportunity. It Continue reading »
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ALLAN PATIENCE. Teaching as a vocation.
Good teachers are equal to good parents in any civilized society. They are infinitely more important than politicians, civil servants, professionals, business people, media commentators, celebrities and sports stars all put together. (Good nurses come a very close second.) Yet they remain among the least valued, respected and rewarded for the amazingly vital work they Continue reading »
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ALLAN PATIENCE. Saving some of the Liberal furniture.
Time is running out for the Liberal Party and the Coalition as the 2019 federal election looms. The change of Prime Minister from Malcolm Turnbull to Scott Morrison was a classic example of jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. Opinion polls have consistently shown that the Coalition is running significantly behind Labor. Continue reading »
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ALLAN PATIENCE. Anthony Fisher’s message of ill will at Christmas tide
The archbishop of Sydney Anthony Fisher OP is the nominal head of the Australian Catholic Church – despite the fact that Melbourne is the largest and arguably the most intellectually lively diocese in the country. Fisher is seen by many as an authoritative spokesperson for his brother bishops, priests and religious. So, his 2018 Christmas Continue reading »
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ALLAN PATIENCE. It’s time to cleanse the Augean stables of corporate and political governance in Australia.
It will require a Herculean effort to clean out the greed, corruption, sense of entitlement, selfishness and ideological blindness at the “commanding heights” of Australia’s government, economy and society. The banking royal commission has exposed merely the tip of this ugly reality. In business, in the professions, in the media and in politics, many of Continue reading »
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ALLAN PATIENCE. Scott Morrison – a politician out of his depth?
Can Scott Morrison inspire the nation to reach for a better future for our children and grandchildren? Does he have a vision for the country? Or is he floundering as he tries to ride two tigers simultaneously – his right foot on the back of the alt-right tiger with Tony Abbott’s rictal grimace spread across Continue reading »
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ALLAN PATIENCE: Capitalism has run amok!
If the 2007/08 Global Financial Crisis wasn’t sufficient evidence that something is deeply pathological within the contemporary capitalist system, then Ken Henry’s at times truculent, at times ruminative responses to questioning before the Financial Services Royal Commission should provide food for thought. He pinpointed some serious defects that have grown like virulent cancers across the Continue reading »
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ALLAN PATIENCE: The dilemma now facing Coalition politics in Australia
The results of the Victorian State election are devastating for right-wing politics right across Australia. It is now blindingly obvious that the policies that they have been spruiking are irrelevant to mainstream voters. It is as if the Coalition parties presently exist in a parallel political universe, hermetically sealed off from the everyday opinions and Continue reading »
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ALLAN PATIENCE: Hubris doesn’t win elections
Australia’s conservative leaders are proving to be increasingly unattractive to voters because in its ranks are those who have no other way of making an honest living other than to live off politics (for example, Pauline Hanson), those who are all about settling old and irrelevant scores (for example, Tony Abbott), and those whose monstrous Continue reading »
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ALLAN PATIENCE. “Politics as a Vocation”
In his famous essay “Politics as a Vocation” the great German scholar Max Weber explained that the kinds of people who tend to become politicians lie along a spectrum. At one end of the spectrum are those who “live off politics.” They are there to boost their own egos and serve their own interests and Continue reading »
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ALLAN PATIENCE: Fragmenting Australia
CEDA (the Committee for Economic Development of Australia) has recently published a report (Community Pulse 2018: The Economic Disconnect) that shows that “there is a disconnect between Australia’s strong economic record and the community’s sense of having shared in the growth” (p. 5). The report adds to others that show that today a majority of Continue reading »
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ALLAN PATIENCE: Our ABC!
Grimly ideological neoliberals in the ranks of the young fogies at the Liberal Party’s recent federal council sponsored a motion to privatise the ABC. In an astonishing display of shooting themselves in the foot, the old fogies present (including Ministers Mitch Fifield and Julie Bishop) glumly and dumbly let the motion pass, thereby handing the Continue reading »
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ALLAN PATIENCE: The serious under-development of Papua New Guinea’s university system
There is a crisis in Papua New Guinea’s university system. Universities are devastatingly under-resourced and under-performing. The bizarre persecution of PNG University of Technology’s Vice-Chancellor, Dr Albert Schram, also points to a disastrous governance breakdown at university council level. Can the Australian university sector do anything to help? Yes it can. Continue reading »
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ALLAN PATIENCE. Compassionate policy planning as the antidote to populism
The Italian election has shown, very clearly, that ordinary voters are deeply angry with mainstream politicians and political parties. What is true of Italy is also true of Australia. The political class sneeringly dismisses voter anger as “populism”, blindly believe it will evaporate once voters come to their senses. They’re wrong. Anger is mounting exponentially Continue reading »
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ALLAN PATIENCE. Time to inject some realism into the China debate.
A rising chorus can be heard in Australia voicing fears about China’s alleged intrusions into our domestic affairs. There are disturbing echoes in all this of a narrative about a dangerous China lurking in the interstices of Australia’s society and economy. These echoes need top be addressed before we can have an intelligent debate about Continue reading »
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Changed America is now a threat
Malcolm Fraser’s lucid case for Australia to strike out independently from the USA in its foreign and defence policies (Dangerous Enemies, MUP 2014) pointed to a vitally important fact. The America we signed the ANZUS treaty with in 1951 is absolutely no longer the America with which Malcolm Turnbull would have us joined at the Continue reading »
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ALLAN PATIENCE. Australia Day and all that.
The moral basis of contemporary Australian society is being squeezed dry by political opportunism and contempt for civic virtue among our political leaders. The ignorance those leaders demonstrate about the insult Australia Day has become for many Indigenous people is evidence that Australia has become a morally backward society. Continue reading »
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ALLAN PATIENCE. It’s Time for New Politics.- A REPOST from June 12 2017
How do we explain the phenomenon of a Bernie Sanders, who almost certainly would have won the US presidency if he’d been the Democrat candidate running against Trump? How do we account for the astounding failure of, first, David Cameron and now Theresa May, to maintain the Conservative Party’s dominance of contemporary British politics? How Continue reading »
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ALLAN PATIENCE. In an untrustworthy world, whom can we trust?
Three political heavy weights loom threateningly over 2018: Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump. All three lead dangerous nuclear-armed states. All three have elephantine egos squashing their intellects. As ultimate narcissists, each believes that his nation is embodied in himself (“L’état c’est moi!”). In this respect they are political dinosaurs because the problems that Continue reading »
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ALLAN PATIENCE. Melbourne’s South Sudanese youth problem and the confection of a crime gang crisis.
That there are groups of disaffected and anti-social youths of Sudanese (and other) origin in Melbourne is not in dispute. What is at issue is the way it is being handled by the yellow press and by right wing politicians. Continue reading »
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ALLAN PATIENCE. Towards a social democratic future for Australia.
The neoliberal war on western economies is finally collapsing under its own contradictions. In Australia its attacks on public wellbeing have been devastating. Politicians in thrall to the neoliberal ideology have vandalized manufacturing industries. Productivity and wage levels remain static. Inequality has ballooned while CEOs have plundered profits to enrich themselves while depressing workers’ wages Continue reading »
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ALLAN PATIENCE. What is the Australia-America Leadership Dialogue?
Founded in 1992 by former Cocoa-Cola Amatil executive and later Australian consul-general in New York, Phil Scanlon, the Australia America Leadership Dialogue (AALD), in its own words, “brings together Australian and American leaders from government, enterprise, media, education and the community to help review and refine the parameters of the Australian-American bilateral relationship.” The motivations Continue reading »
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ALLAN PATIENCE. Confecting a new China hysteria.
Australia’s diplomacy with its Asian neighbours and contenders has always been awkward. In a similar manner to Britain’s awkward partnering with Europe, so Australia is Asia’s awkward partner. In the past we could calm our fears by relying on great and powerful friends. Those days are over. Australia needs urgently to plan for an independent Continue reading »
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ALLAN PATIENCE. It’s time for a citizens’ constitutional convention.
Unsurprisingly, very few Australians have any interest in their Constitution. It was designed in the closing stages of the 19th century by mostly older white men (no women were involved) for a “horse and buggy” era. It is an awfully dull document, originally an Act of the British parliament, intended to persuade a gaggle of Continue reading »