John Menadue

John Menadue is the Founder and Editor in Chief of Pearls and Irritations. He was formerly Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet under Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser, Ambassador to Japan, Secretary of the Department of Immigration and CEO of Qantas.

John's recent articles

JOHN MENADUE. We are paying to protect an industry that no longer exists.

We see it almost every day in the media; rent-seekers extracting benefits for themselves through political influence and lobbying at the expense of the broader community. It has very little to do with markets. It is about political favours for the powerful. No wonder that more and more people around the world are concluding that the economic and political system works for the influential and powerful insiders and not for the general community.

GRACE BLAKELEY. The Latest Incarnation of Capitalism (Jacobin, September 2018)

Financialization isnt a perversion of an otherwise well-functioning system. Its just capitalisms latest survival mechanism.

JOHN MENADUE. The myth that Liberals are better economic managers. A repost from 25 July 2018

Malcolm Turnbull has made it clear that his mantra of Jobs-and-Growth will be at the forefront of his campaign in the next election. This week he will be talking about the growth of a million jobs in 5 years, but there is nothing really remarkable in that on average over the last 15 years about 200,000 new jobs have been created each year. Further, it is less impressive because our population is growing by about two million every five years.

KAREN ELPHICK. United States Senate shows President a red light on war powers as Labor promises a war powers inquiry in Australia (Australia Parliamentary Blog 21.12.2018)

For several years,Yemen has been in a state of civil warbetween a Saudi-led coalition supporting the Yemeni Government and Houthi forces. The US armed forces are not directly engaged in Yemen but have been supporting Saudi military efforts with aerial targeting and intelligence sharing. On 13 December 2018, the United States (US) Senate passedResolution S.J. Res. 54 115thCongress(Res.54) directing the US President to withdraw US Forces from hostilities in Yemen. Res. 54 provides (emphasis added): This joint resolutiondirects the President to remove U.S. Armed Forces from hostilities in or affecting Yemen within 30 days unless Congress authorizes a later...

JOHN MENADUE. Our intelligence agencies are out of control -An edited repost

It seems likely that the prosecution by the Commonwealth Government of former spy (Witness K ) and his lawyer Bernard Collaery will be heard in closed court. What a travesty of justice this is. Those who authorised the illegal bugging of the East Timorese Cabinet for the commercial benefit of Woodside Petroleum and those who subsequently covered up their activities have not been pursued.. Some of them have been promoted. We need intelligence agencies that are both competent and accountable. We have neither at the moment.We have witnessed the abject failure of bank regulators.Regulatory failure in the intelligence sector...

SANG JIEJA. Tibetans get home decor order: Hang Xi, Mao portrait

Dalai Lama images removed from temples, monasteries as Party reinforces iconography of its 'heroes'; households next

JOANNE SIMON-DAVIES. Community attitudes towards violence against women. (Commonwealth Parliamentary Blog 5.12.2018)

The National Community Attitudes toward Violence against Women Survey (NCAS) is the worlds longest-running survey of community attitudes towards violence against women. Results from thelatest surveyare mixed; levels of awareness have generally risen but there are still areas of concern.

RICHARD KINGSFORD. The catastrophic fish kill on the Darling River decades in the making

The plight of the Darling River shocked the nation last week, when up to a million fish were killed by lack of oxygen, accompanying the disruption of a blue-green algal bloom on a forty kilometre stretch of the river near Menindee, southeast of Broken Hill. This followed a similar kill of tens of thousands of native fish in December.

JON FINER and ROBERT MALLEY. Trump is right to seek an end to Americas wars (The New York Times International Edition).

The presidents desire to disentangle the country from costly overseas conflicts must be encouraged.

JOHN MENADUE. Joined at the hip to a very violent and dangerous ally . An update

We are a nation in denial that we are joined at the hip to a dangerous ally that is becoming even more dangerous with the increasing privatisation of the US 'war complex' The complex is less and less under civilian control. Arms companies in the US and particularly drone manufacturers have powerful interests and the means to keep the US perpetually at war. Retiring US Defence Secretary Mattis complains that President Trump should show more respect for allies. But the US shows most respect for allies that do what they are told or supinely comply.It has been thus for...

'CHRIS HARRINGTON. Care? The scourge of the ward station'

The professionalism in hospitals may have contributed greatly to better data collection and use of technology, but after a visit to a hospice and an ICU unit recently, I wondered what has happened to care. Our system is failing us.

JEFFREY SACHS and others.- Fully Filling the Global Fund.

In a world divided by conflict and greed, the Global Funds fight against AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria is a matter of enlightened self-interest and a reminder of how much humanity can accomplish when we cooperate to save lives. For public and private donors, that means providing the financing needed to eliminate all three scourges by 2030.

LORRAINE CHOW. Ten grim climate scenarios if global temperatures rise above 1.5 degrees celsius.

The (Northern) summer of 2018 was intense: deadly wildfires, persistent drought, killer floods and record-breaking heat. Although scientists exercise great care before linking individual weather events to climate change, the rise in global temperatures caused by human activities has been found to increase theseverity,likelihoodanddurationof such conditions.

PETER BROOKS. If specialists cannot be fair in their fee charging - should we not be supporting a Royal Commission into medical fees

Well done John Menadue for starting 2019 off with something that must strike at the heart of all Australians- out of pocket medical expenses. Some of the highest in the world and showing no sign of slowing and driven by let's be honest - greed on the part of some of our most highly paid doctors. Despite comments over the last few years from some of the Colleges saying that they do not support the significant fees charged by some doctors (and remember it is not a small minority), little has changed. Comments from the Colleges have stopped and...

RICHARD McGREGOR. We need the Five Eyes spy network, but with oversight (SMH 12.1.2019)

After Canadian authorities seized a top Chinese executive from the telecommunications giant Huawei at Vancouver Airport last month on a US arrest warrant, Beijing immediately set about retaliating. A couple of Canadians who, until then, had been working openly in China, were detained. Top-level meetings for Canadian diplomats dried up. And Beijing made clear more was to come, threatening grave consequences unless the Huawei executive was released.

JOHN MENADUE. The scourge of lobbyists is likely to continue if there is a change of government. A repost from 20 July 2018

Lobbyists are back in the news but it looks as if the scourge of lobbyists will continue in Canberra if Bill Shorten wins the next election. There is no sign that the ALP, like the Coalition is prepared to curb the way lobbyists are corrupting public policy in Australia.. The media reports that lobby firms are taking on labor staffers so that they can influence a future Labor Government.

JOHN MENADUE. We dont have a coherent health workforce. We have highly trained and professional people working in silos.

In the blue-collar area where there have been very substantial workforce reform and improvements which have helped transform the Australian economy. It was begun under the Hawke/Keating governments and continued under the Howard governments. But the health sector the largest and fastest growing in the economy has not been seriously reformed. I guesstimate that there is a potential productivity dividend of at least 40% in health workforce reform over the next decade. That 40% may be on the low side.

JONATHAN WEISMAN. American Jews and Israeli Jews break up

The events of the past year brought American and Israeli Jews closer to a breaking point. President Trump, beloved in Israel and decidedly unloved by a majority of American Jews, moved the United States Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in May, with the fiery evangelical pastors John Hagee and Robert Jeffress consecrating the ceremony.

BOB BEADMAN. Financial Crisis in the Northern Territory.

Clearly, budget outcomes rely on two simple issues income and expenditure. On the income side of the ledger, the Northern Territory is hugely reliant on our share of the Goods and Services Tax (GST). We have been gutted. On the expenditure side, the Northern Territory Government has been under enormous pressure to spend. The armchair experts (usually in leafy suburbs on the east coast) seem to expect that the Territory has a limitless capacity to provide gold plated social services, of EVERY kind found in the big cities, to every small pocket of population in the bush....

JOHN MENADUE. The 'war on drugs' is a disastrous failure.We must find a better way

Attached is a collection of articles on drug policy reform, which were published as a series on Pearls and Irritations between 6 and 11 August 2018. This series was designed to draw attention to this important issue, and to the failure of our current policies. Despite the clear failure of the war on drugs across the world our police and border force officers tell us breathlessly time and time again about another record drug haul. Who are they kidding about the success of present policies.?Do they even believe their own propaganda? When will they stop and ask themselves some...

JOHN MENADUE. The Best of 2018: Why dental care was excluded from Medicare and why it should now be included.

In 1974, the Whitlam Government decided to exclude dental care from Medicare for two reasons. The first was cost. The second was political in that Gough Whitlam felt that combatting the doctors would be hard enough without having to combat dentists as well. Forty-four years later, with Australia much richer and the proven success of Medicare, it is now time for dental care to be progressively included in Medicare.

PETER WOODRUFF. What Matters at the Show and in the Church.

I spent my childhood and youth in Tasmanian towns, never had any desire to live on a farm but always enjoyed going to what I knew as the show, which was in fact an agricultural show. The show offered two kinds of spectacles: what went on in the side-shows and what happened in the main arena.

JOHN MENADUE. The Pandora's box of excessive medical specialists fees! An update and repost from April 19 2017

Perhaps [we could consider] a review of what Pierre Trudeau and his government (in Canada) did in 1984 when they took on a system not dissimilar to ours uncontrolled fee for service and legislated that doctors could charge what they liked BUT unless they adhered to the fee negotiated between the provincial government and the profession (on an annual basis) the doctor lost all access to a Medicare reimbursement. The system still works today in Canada and few doctors opt out of it. Now there is a thought and a significant game-changer.

GARRY EVERETT. A Legal Leap of Faith?

GARRY EVERETT. A Legal Leap of Faith? In the Weekend Australian (5/6 Jan.19), Professor Greg Graven wrote an article entitled Taking a Legal Leap of Faith. In essence it is an examination of the key issues involved in trying to legislate in the matter of religious freedom. This is a disappointing contribution.

CHRISTOPHER LAMB. Pope Francis comes out in support of Macron and Merkel in warning against the resurgence of Nationalism.

The Pope said the 'resurgence of nationalistic tendencies' is at odds with the 'vocation' of international bodies The Tablet 08 January 2019. Pope Francis leads an annual meeting to exchange greetings for the new year with diplomats accredited to the Holy See, at the Vatican Jan. 7. Photo: Pope Francis leads an annual meeting to exchange greetings for the new year with diplomats accredited to the Holy See, at the Vatican Jan. 7.

JAKE JOHNSON. Facebook let corporate partners read users' private messages.

Just hours after civil rights groupscalled onFacebooks top executives to step down from the companys board for allowing viral propaganda and bigoted campaigns to spread on the platform, demands for CEO Mark Zuckerberg to resign intensified after abombshell New York Timesreportlate Tuesday detailed a special arrangement the social media behemoth had with tech corporations that gave them access to users data and private messages without consent.

We need a national political summit to promote democratic renewal

Bob Hawke's Economic Summit following the 1983 election promoted cooperation and consensus which led to remarkable economic and social reform. With the loss of trust in our political institutions and politicians today, we need a political summit to build consensus on democratic reform. Such a proposal, if carefully implemented, could produce real political and policy dividends for its advocates and more importantly, for Australia. Australians are sick and tired of politicians. The community is deserting the major political parties in droves. After the next election we need a government that will assist us in major democratic renewal. It...

ROBERT D KAPLAN. The case for leaving Afghanistan (The New York Times International Edition).

America is spending beyond its means on a mission that might only be helping its strategic rivals.

MARTYN LLOYD JONES, PAUL KOMESAROFF. Here's why doctors are backing pill testing at music festivals across Australia

For many years experts in the field of drug policy in Australia have known existing policies are failing. Crude messages (calls for total abstinence: just say no to drugs) and even cruder enforcement strategies (harsher penalties, criminalisation of drug users) have had no impact on the use of drugs or the extent of their harmful effects on the community.

SHIRO ARMSTRONG, PETER DRYSDALE. Navigating the new international economic policy landscape (East Asia Forum).

The United States under President Donald Trump is on a mission to add economic policy to the armoury of national security policy to deal with a rising China. The approach holds the global economic order hostage to the attempt to put China back in its box. The stakes are as high as they get. But how should middle powers like Australia and its neighbours like Japan or Indonesia respond to the hard choices they now confront?

DANIELLE WOOD. The case for an inheritance tax.

We all hope for an overflowing stocking on Christmas morning, but for most people, the biggest gift they will ever receive is an inheritance. Whether a house, a car, or a share portfolio, inheritances can change lives. And as wealth grows and inheritances get larger, these intergenerational transfers will also play more of a role in shaping Australian society.

STEWART FIRTH. China, Samoa and debt-for-equity swaps- East Asia Forum Jan. 3 2019

Last year, Australia discovered the debt owed to Chinese banks by Pacific island countries. As the debate over Chinas intentions in the region grew, commentators pointed to the possibility that Pacific countries might be compelled to accept debt-for-equity swaps if they could not repay. The port of Hambantota in Sri Lanka, where a Chinese company obtained a 99-year lease to run commercial operations in return for helping to pay the countrys debt, was the commonly raised example.

PAUL KRUGMAN. The Trump tax cut: even worse than you've heard. (New York Times 1.1.2019)

The 2017 tax cut has received pretty bad press, and rightly so. Its proponents made big promises about soaring investment and wages, and also assured everyone that it would pay for itself; none of that has happened. Yet coverage actually hasnt been negative enough. The story you mostly read runs something like this: The tax cut has caused corporations to bring some money home, but theyve used it for stock buybacks rather than to raise wages, and the boost to growth has been modest. That doesnt sound great, but its still better than the reality: No money has, in fact,...

JOHN MENADUE. The Best of 2018: Sydney Metro: A Forty Billion Dollar Deception?

Like all our big cities, Sydney needs better public transport. The Governments responsibility is to secure this with the best system, for the best price. But as a minimum, new investments cannot be allowed to threaten the productivity and growth potential of our existing public transport system and its commuters. Sydney Metro Rail is starting to show clear signs of failing us on all these counts. The Royal Commission into Banking shows us how official stories can change dramatically once confronted with a process where evidence can be compelled and witnesses protected. On its first day in...

MUJIB MASHAL. Afghan units led by C.I.A. leave trail of abuse .Victims and officials say raids are pushing people toward the Taliban (The New York Times International Edition).

Razo Khan woke up suddenly to the sight of assault rifles pointed at his face, and demands that he get out of bed and onto the floor. Within minutes, the armed raiders had separated the men from the women and children. Then the shooting started. As Mr. Khan was driven away for questioning, he watched his home go up in flames. Within were the bodies of two of his brothers and of his sister-in-law Khanzari, who was shot three times in the head. Villagers who rushed to the home found the burned body of her 3year-old daughter, Marina, in a...

GEORGE MONBIOT. Advertising and Academia are controlling our thoughts. Didn't you know?

By abetting the ad industry, universities are leading us into temptation, when they should be enlightening us.

PETER BAUME. Labor shifts on pill testing.

The Labor leadership has announced, if it wins government, that a drug summit will be held at which pill testing will be discussed. This announcement was made in the run up to a March State election and so is a political action it will appeal to a lot of younger voters in many electorates. It is a common sense announcement. It is hoped that a trial of pill testing will follow and that pill testing will then be introduced more generally.

THE GUARDIAN EDITORIAL Reforming capitalism: from controversy to consensus

The claim that Britains economic model is systemically unjust was recently deemed radical and extreme. Now it is indisputable.

RICHARD CHAUVEL. The Cycle of Violence in Papua.

The killing of construction workers in Nduga and the Indonesian security forces subsequent military operations impact quite differently on the politics of the Papua Indonesia conflict. It is contested whether the 16 construction workers were unarmed civilians or members of the security forces but the event on 2 December 2018 marked a departure from the predominantly peaceful, political struggle for independence developed since 2000. In terms of numbers of those killed, it was the largest attack in recent years.

CLAIR WILLS. Prodigal Fathers (The New York Review of Books).

More than twenty years ago, writing about Roy Fosters Modern Ireland, Colm Tibn recalled what it was like to study history in Ireland in the 1970sto be on the cusp of the revisionist wave, questioning all the old narratives. Imagine if Irish history were pure fiction, he wrote, how free and happy we could be! It seemed at that time a most subversive idea, a new way of killing your father, starting from scratch, creating a new self. The burden of having relatives has been a constant theme of Tibns stories, essays, and reviews: A Priest in the Family, How...

CHRIS HEDGES. Banishing Truth - The story of Seymour Hersh. (Truthdig 24.12.2018)

The investigative reporterSeymour Hersh, in his memoir Reporter, describes a moment when as a young reporter he overheard a Chicago cop admit to murdering an African-American man. The murdered man had been falsely described by police as a robbery suspect who had been shot while trying to avoid arrest. Hersh frantically called his editor to ask what to do. The editor urged me to do nothing, he writes. It would be my word versus that of all the cops involved, and all would accuse me of lying. The message was clear: I did not have a story. But of course...

JOHN MENADUE. How Murdoch and Abeles twisted the arm of the Hawke Government to help Ansett Airlines at the expense of Qantas. (Edited and reposted)

I have recalled several times that Rupert Murdoch has said that he has never asked a Prime Minister for anything. That is quite brazen. From my own personal experience I know that is just not true. I was the intermediary when Rupert Murdoch asked new Prim Minister Whitlam in late 1972 that he be appointed Australian High Commissioner to the UK One other example which I describe below is an example of the way Rupert Murdoch operates, in this case in association with Peter Abeles, to extract aviation concessions from governments. At the time in 1988...

ROSS BURNS. US Withdrawal from Syria

There is everything wrong with the way in which Donald Trump reached his decision to pull US forces out of Syria, apparently without touching base with his own advisers and commanders. Australia is also now exposed to such impromptu creativity in foreign policy as in PM Morrisons attempt in October to float a new initiative on moving the Australian Embassy to Jerusalem, again without prior warning even to Foreign Minister Payne.

JOHN MENADUE. The Best of 2018: Peter Dutton is an embarrassment for all of us.

Peter Dutton failed as Health Minister. His track record since then is even worse.

JONATHAN STEVENSON. How Jim Mattis failed (New York Times 24.12.2018)

Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, who submitted his resignation on Thursday, was the last adult in the room of the Trump administration or so claim a small army of pundits, who now worry that the president, finally unchecked, will unleash an unvarnished, unpredictable America First foreign policy on the world.

M.K.BHADRAKUMAR. Trumps Afghan withdrawal could pave the way for peace (Asian Times 24.12.2018)

The US president's controversial decision signifies a well-crafted political and diplomatic move aimed at ending the 17-year conflict There has been withering criticism from within the United States regarding the reported decision by President Donald Trump on troop withdrawal in Afghanistan. Predictably, Trumps detractors in Washington are painting the town red lampooning his decision (especially its timing) and visualizing apocalyptic scenarios. But the good part is that no one has had the audacity to present an alternate road map.

M.K.BHADRAKUMAR. Trump made the right decision to quit Syrian conflict (Asia Times 21.12.2018)

Despite the criticism, there is a strong argument that the US president has done the right thing by withdrawing his forces from Syria If 700 days out of US President Donald Trumps 1,461 days of presidency seem a wasteland of unfulfilled promises and expectations in foreign policy except, perhaps, on the Korean Peninsula things dramatically changed on December 19 when he announced the troop withdrawal from Syria. Taken together with Washingtons hurry to negotiate with the Afghan Taliban, it appears that Trump is, finally, on the move as a man of peace, fulfilling...

PETER MAGUIRE. Regulate It, Man. Marijuana

One of the few issues that many Americans can agree on in 2018 is, improbably, marijuana legalization. Pot is now legal in thirty-three states and Washington, D.C. In April, John Boehner, the former Republican Speaker of the House, made the rounds of the morning TV talk shows to announce that he now supported decriminalization. Boehner, a former Big Tobacco lobbyist, had declared in 2015 that he was unalterably opposed to making pot legal. Now, perhaps hoping to cash in on the marijuana green rush, he sits on the advisory board of Acreage Holdings, a New York Citybased marijuana startup headed...

The Best of 2018: The Liberals and the Nationals Malcolm Turnbull and Barnaby Joyce

Only weak and compromised Liberal Party leadership would put up with the behaviour of Barnaby Joyce and the Nationals who have influence way out of proportion to their numbers and on policy issues, are a blank page or even worse. As Ian McAuley said yesterday Barnaby Joyce is an albatross around Malcolm Turnbulls neck. It is getting worse every day.

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