Francesca Beddie
Francesca Beddie is a former diplomat. She was general manager research at the National Centre for Vocational Education Research from 2007 to 2013. She is editor of Australian Garden History and co-editor of Circa, the journal of Professional Historians Australia. She is the author of A differentiated model for tertiary education: past ideas, contemporary policy and future possibilities.
Francesca's recent articles
17 April 2025
Australia’s innovation system needs new partners
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
2 September 2024
Indonesia: going for gold
While in Canberra on 20 August, Defence Minister and President-elect Prabowo Subianto made it clear that Indonesia remains avowedly non-aligned. This stance and how Indonesia perceives the world needs to underpin our relationship.
7 July 2024
Read history, talk peace
Russia is not Putin, though you’d hardly know it in current media coverage. Nor is it an autarky. On the contrary, for centuries Russia has interacted with both the East and the West, whose influences have shaped, and confounded, the country’s sense of identity.
17 March 2024
A university career is no longer the best way to channel a fine mind
A friend of mine resigned from her university job in February 2024 just weeks before term started. She couldnt face another year. She was old enough to retire but I had thought she might have a couple more years of teaching in her. The bureaucracy, the rules, lowering standards were too much. Another friend, an emeritus professor no less, saddened me when he confided he would not recommend a university career to someone starting out now. No longer was it the best way to channel a fine mind.
1 November 2023
Vale Bill Hayden, a dedicated foreign minister
Bill Haydens five years as foreign minister have received some attention in the week since his death. However, theres more to say about his contribution to an independent foreign policy that allowed its diplomats to hold their heads high.
8 October 2022
Truth-telling with Walpiri people at the heart of new opera
Jack Waterford warned recently that its time to get fair dinkum, or the Voice proposal will lose momentum and support. A way to do that is by taking a two-way approach to telling shared stories. Thats what the composer Anne Boyd is doing as she creates a musical language for the Australian landscape. Her new opera tells the story of Olive Muriel Pink (18841975), artist, Aboriginal-rights activist, anthropologist and gardener, whose work with the Walpiri people lives on in the Olive Pink Botanic Garden in Alice Springs.
13 June 2022
Its time to ditch the hierarchy of tertiary education
Education and training carry a heavy weight of expectation in policy development. They are cited as the pathway to prosperity and productivity, a key to innovation and to international competitiveness. Less and less often are they mentioned as the foundation for a healthy and harmonious citizenry.
7 November 2021
The larrikin: a symbol of our fractured political landscape
It is a matter of despair that Australian politics has become all about faux larrikinism, leaving much of the population marginalised by bad policy.
26 August 2021
Don't forget the plight of Afghans in Australia
Further to Stuart Reeseloquent exposureof the Prime Ministers cruelty toward those Afghans already in Australia on temporary visas, below is my letter to the Prime Minister arguing for a more humane and pragmatic asylum seeker policy. Pragmatic because times have changed the boats are no longer coming and because among those temporary protection visa holders are talented, resilient and determined young people.
5 April 2021
Humans unite: We badly need more than gestures
Dave Sharmas token gesture on International Womens Day, handing out single pink dahlias to female commuters, reminded me of my days in Moscow.
26 September 2020
Will we ever be satisfied with less?
I cant imagine the old normal returning unaltered after COVID-19 but worry that the rush towards a new normal will entail too much focus on growth and profits and not enough on caring for the vulnerable and the environment. If that happens, we will have squandered an opportunity to reset how we value health, work and leisure.
30 June 2020
Higher education reform: use and abuse of Menzies
Announcing his plans for university reform on 19 June, the minister for education, Dan Tehan, did as many of his predecessors have done. He invoked Robert Menzies.
27 May 2020
FRANCESCA BEDDIE. Tertiary education after COVID-19: part two
Are we finally seeing the end of the Dawkins era? If so, what next?
29 April 2020
FRANCESCA BEDDIE. Tertiary education after COVID-19. Part 1
One thing COVID-19 has done is shatter laborious bureaucratic reform processes that so often breed inertia rather than change. I marvel at how quickly education systems have adapted to the lockdown.
23 January 2020
FRANCESCA BEDDIE. Australia Day: the occasion for collective mourning.
In earlyJanuary, the leader of the Opposition, Anthony Albanese, suggested the first sitting day of Federal Parliament for 2020 be devoted to marking the unprecedented bushfire crisis. That got me thinking about Australia Day.
23 December 2019
FRANCESCA BEDDIE. Bushfire Haiku
These catastrophic times call for different responses to the festive season. Mine is below. The community reaction in our part of the Southern Highlands (as yet untouched by fire) has been heartening. Donations are flowing, people are looking out for each other, and even grey-haired respectably clad ladies are openly railing about the lack of national leadership.
13 November 2019
FRANCESCA BEDDIE. The Golden Country, Australias Changing Identity.
I follow migration matters closely, so Tim Watts survey of the White Australia Policy and subsequent immigration policy was familiar territory. For those who dont, there is much to recommend in the story he tells and his demonstration of the economic benefits of skilled migration. But his analysis has flaws.
12 May 2019
Vocational education in an election climate: it's time to be bold
The Labor Party is being bold, putting reformist policies before the voter. It has proposed a comprehensive inquiry into post-secondary education. If it gets to undertake that inquiry, I hope it will keep being bold and be prepared to restructure rather than just fiddle with a system that was shaped in the 1970s in very different labour market conditions.
22 April 2019
FRANCESCA BEDDIE: Beyond Anzac: a multicultural Australia needs a multicultural history
I recently attended a history conference in Wellington, New Zealand, which posed the question After the War, What Next? My answer was that we need a transnational approach to telling history, which presents the complexity of global influences that have informed decisions about nation building and which resonates with Australias multicultural community.
7 November 2018
FRANCESCA BEDDIE. The common-sense test for assessing research applications.
In 2014, the last year for which complete data is available on the Australian Research Councils website, 20.7 per cent of applications for research grants were successful; 1,417 grants were made, at a cost of $1,018,017,312. The Australian taxpayer deserves to know if sums of such magnitude are being well allocated.
1 July 2018
FRANCESCA BEDDIE. Renewing democracy must include honing public servants on the job.
These days, opinion polls and surveys provide the basis for many a proclamation about the state of the world. According to the 2018 Lowy Institute Poll, only 47% of Australians between 18 and 44 years of age say democracy is preferable to any other kind of government. As someone who still thinks of democracy as the least-bad system of government, that figure alarms me.
5 April 2018
FRANCESCA BEDDIE. Wanted: politicians who inspire and creative public policy (Part 2 of 2)
I watched Ken Loachs film I, Daniel Blake again recently. Again, I cried. A sick bloke with talent and decency ends up dead before he can argue his case to be treated not as a client, customer, service user or national insurance number but as a citizen, no more no less. Surely our citizens can expect more from governments and public servants than mindless process and indifference. In the age of automation ought not compassion be precious? In the age of big data, shouldnt it be easier to tailor public services to the individuals who pay, or have paid, taxes?...
4 April 2018
FRANCESCA BEDDIE. Wanted: politicians who inspire and creative public policy (Part 1 of 2)
I watched Ken Loachs film I, Daniel Blake again recently. Again, I cried. A sick bloke with talent and decency ends up dead before he can argue his case to be treated not as a client, customer, service user or national insurance number but as a citizen, no more no less. Surely our citizens can expect more from governments and public servants than mindless process and indifference. In the age of automation ought not compassion be precious? In the age of big data, shouldnt it be easier to tailor public services to the individuals who pay, or have paid, taxes?...
25 January 2018
FRANCESCA BEDDIE. What do we mean by Australia Day?
All the talk about Australia Day what it symbolises, for whom and when we should celebrate prompted me to delve into the history of the date, which has long been contentious. Before we lock in the date, we need to decide what we want our national day to commemorate.
26 November 2017
FRANCESCA BEDDIE. The way ahead for VET
The Productivity Commissions five-year review, Shifting the Dial, recommends reforms in vocational education and training (VET). These are based on the key premisethat skills formation is one of the central pillars for productivity improvement, even if its benefits are not immediately realised. That caveat is important: neither skills acquisition nor other knowledge gains are easily quantified, nor are their effects on individuals straightforward. Nevertheless, as the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show, more and more Australians are seeking post-school qualifications. Most do so because they want a job and decent income. Some are mesmerised by learning and marvel at...