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

PETER DAY. Crickets lost trophy

OMG: Disastrous. Unbelievable. Shameful. Disgraceful. What the!

IAN BUCKLEY. Finding Solutions to Humankinds Neoliberal/Mercantile Crises.

In resolving the crises brought on within current neoliberal economies, a widespread recognition of their historical derivation from the mercantile political economy that Adam Smith described and condemned (1776) is crucial for effective understanding of this system, its corrupt roots and its persistence; likewise for its urgently-needed transformation to a just economy that works harmoniously for all.

UTA MIHM. How to avoid excessive surgery out-of-pocket costs

Tips on negotiating with your doctor and shopping around for a surgeon who doesn't charge excessively.

MICHAEL LIFFMAN. Tribalism, anti-racism, and over-reach

Living, as the world does, with slavery, colonialism, brutal civil conflicts, and the Holocaust still casting the blackest of clouds over us, the principle of 'anti-racism' has - rightly - been developed to become an incontestable foundation of our ethics and morality. This is as it should be, and arguably can be seen as one of the major advances in humanity's faltering progress towards a more ethical global order.

ROBYN J WHITAKER. Jesus wasnt white: he was a brown-skinned, Middle Eastern Jew. Heres why that matters

I grew up in a Christian home, where a photo of Jesus hung on my bedroom wall. I still have it. It is schmaltzy and rather tacky in that 1970s kind of way, but as a little girl I loved it. In this picture, Jesus looks kind and gentle, he gazes down at me lovingly. He is also light-haired, blue-eyed, and very white.

NICOLAS SENZE. Rediscovering the role of Mary Magdalene as 'apostle of the apostles'.

Turning Mary Magdalene into a sinner obstructed womens place in the church.

PETER DAY: Crucify him! Crucify him

This Good Friday there will be two Passion plays proclaimed throughout the world: The Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ According to John, and The Passion of Our Lauded Cricket Captain According to Us.

SCOTT BURCHILL. On the Russian gas attack

Given the sexing up and outright distortions of dodgy intelligence about Saddam Husseins WMD in 2002-3 by both the UK government of Tony Blair and US administration of George W. Bush, one can only be astonished at the credulity of those in the Fourth Estate who dont even feel the need to ask for evidence in the case of the Salisbury gas attack on double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia.

FRANCIS SULLIVAN. CEO Truth Justice and Healing Council.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuses comprehensive and confronting final report rightly focuses on the Catholic Church, with one of the 17 volumes dedicated solely to that institution. The litmus test for the Church leadership in the coming months and years will be the degree to which they act on the Royal Commissions recommendations.

MICHAEL LAMBERT. An Update on the National Electricity Market and the National Energy Guarantee.

The Council of Australian Governments (COAG) Energy Council meets in the second half of April to consider a report from the Energy Security Board on the proposed initial design of the National Energy Guarantee which seeks to address both emissions reductions and improved reliability in the National Electricity Market.

TOM SWITZER. Skripal: the West escalates, but where is the proof?

Australia, the US, and several EU nations joined forces with Britain this week to expel Russian diplomats from their nations. The decision is based on the widespread view that the Russian regime of Vladimir Putin is responsible for the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter in England earlier this month.

MATTHEW FISHER. Malcolm Turnbull in denial on climate change: The Uses and Abuses of Complex Causation.

It is commonplace for political and corporate leaders to obfuscate public debate on issues they want to avoid by applying simplistic, linear concepts of cause and effect to events that have multiple causes. In the case of climate change, one wonders how long the media and the public are going to let leaders like Malcolm Turnbull and others get away with this blatant piece of cynical misdirection.

TRISTAN EDIS. How renewables trumped brown coal and gas over Australia's summer.

In reading some of the panic-stricken media commentary about the impending blackouts we were supposed to have this summer, you might have been led to believe that renewable energy doesnt contribute much at all to ensuring the lights stayed on.

JOHN MENADUE. It is class warfare alright

The government is hoping to let its business mates back up their trucks to the Treasury for a windfall grab of $65 billion in company tax reductions. At the same time, the Governments Welfare Reform Bill contains, as Ross Gittins has pointed out, seventeen measures that will adversely affect the lives of thousands of the unemployed, single parents and women and children escaping domestic violence.

DR WARWICK YONGE. Corporate medicine: Illness or cure?

Australia has a unique mix of private, public, for profit and NFP stakeholders in its health system. This structure derives significantly from Constitutional issues. Corporate medicine now occupies a significant part of the health landscape. Is this a cause for concern?

AUSTRALIAN COUNCIL OF SOCIAL SERVICES - Appeal to Senate

JOHN MENADUE. Our cricketers The Ugly Australians. A REPOST

Repost from 01/04/2015. Things have only got worse with the cheating in South Africa.. We need a clean out not just of players but coaching staff,Cricket Australia and the media . They are very good cricketers, but the behaviour of our cricketers leaves a nasty taste.

ROB STEWART. Wage Rises in the Neoliberal New World Order- Bad policy and bad politics

Neoliberals are often wrong but never in doubt. In pursuing its corporate tax cut agenda the Government is attempting to shift the industrial relations paradigm linking private sector wage rises to public sector funding cuts, despite the fact corporate coffers have rarely been in better shape.

RANJANA SRIVASTAVA From a frontline clinician: here's what's wrong with private health insurance

My patients often pay thousands of dollars annually for their cover, but its not cost-effective in many cases

GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND ...

A conservative commentator revolts against Fox News Max Boot, Washington Post The monstrous strategic mistake that took Australia to war in Iraq Kevin Rudd, Canberra Times. A plea to the Queen to disclose the palace letters for the sake of Australian democracy the Guardian. Suicide note shows Japanese officials fear of being blamed for land sale scandalthe Asahi Shimbun Cambridge Analytica facebook influenced US election the Guardian. On Saturday Extra the 24th of March, Geraldine Doogue speaks with SMHs economics editor Peter Martin about the continuing tax discussion; William Davies from...

BRAD CHILCOTT. Do you expect a return on your compassion?

In 2014, two Vietnamese high school students were suddenly taken from my local community and put into a detention facility. Theyd received a letter from the Department of Immigration stating that their presence in the community was no longer in the public interest.

JAMES FERNYHOUGH. Half of Australians with private health insurance say it isnt worth it

Half of Australians with private health insurance say it is no longer worth the expense, a new survey commissioned by comparison website iSelect has found.

HAROLD LEVIEN. How to Solve our Housing Crisis.

Federal Government policies are primarily responsible for the housing crisis facing Sydney and Melbourne first-home buyers and renters. Yet this Government virtually ignores fist-home buyers. Indeed it pursues policies which drive very many out of the housing market into exorbitant rentals. One policy, annual tax concessions to housing investors, cost $12 billion last year.

PAT POWER. Quo Vadis? The Plenary Council of the Catholic Church in Australia

The Plenary Council planned for 2020-21 gives rise to great hopes and some anxiety as the Catholic Church in Australia and indeed worldwide faces the greatest challenge of the modern era. As a church always in need of reform we are continually confronted by the need to read the signs of the times and to respond in the light of the Gospel.

JIM COOMBS. MEMO to Kenneth Hayne: the four pillars of the system you are reviewing are NOT set in stone. As they crumble it is worth looking at what went before.

The present four pillars of the banking system are not a necessary evil or inevitable. History tells us why.

ANNE HURLEY. Former Internet Australia directors support NSW Business Council call for a National Broadband Service Guarantee

Last year the NSW Business Chamber conducted a statewide survey of members. It has since called for changes it believes will help save business an average $9000 per year resulting from problems related to the NBN rollout. Four former directors of Internet Australia, the NFP peak body representing Internet users, have come out in support of the call for a National Broadband Service Guarantee.

PETER BROOKS and IAN KERRIDGE The Royal Australasian College Of Physicians Examination Debacle Leaves Serious Unanswered Questions.

The Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP), comprising more than 16,000 medical specialists, advises governments on matters of health and medical care, and has a respected voice in the community. However, its raison dtre is to train specialist physicians. 8,000 aspiring physicians are now in training. Assessing their road-worthiness includes a high-stakes, high-stress, barrier examination. This years exam, offered at 20 centres in Australia and New Zealand, was computer-based.It was a debacle.

DUNCAN MACLENNAN ET AL. Housing: New Reapolitik Needs a New Real Economics

Managing the pressured housing markets of cities such as Sydney and Melbourne poses a major challenge to governments at both state and Federal levels. As has become increasingly clear, such trajectories are wreaking serious damage for younger aspiring homebuyers and for broad swathes of the lower income population. As yet less well-recognised, however, is the wider hit to urban productivity that results from poorly functioning housing systems. Smarter policymaking is eminently possible in this area but will require that Ministers and their advisers resist the lure of simplistic blame the planners analyses and adopt cleverer and better-informed approaches to the...

CAROL NIKAKIS and REBECCA BUNN. The impact of failed drug policies on our criminal justice system cannot be ignored

There is now indisputable evidence that the criminalisation of drug use causes significant harm to people who use drugs, their families and the wider community. Even the United Nations has conceded that the War on Drugs has failed to curb drug use, increased the spread of blood-borne viruses including Hepatitis C, and seen a burgeoning criminal drug market flourish.

CHANDRA ROULSTON. Before most of us had made our morning coffee, they were gone.

I come from a country town in central Queensland called Biloela. A town where you can leave work to pick up the kids from school and it takes five minutes because we have one traffic light. A place where the Buy Swap Sell pages in the local newspaper are equal parts items for sale and posts asking: Anyone know who owns this? My favourite so far being a runaway bull on the golf course.And then Border Protection took our neighbours.

MICK PALMER. Drugs policy - there has to be a better way.

Australia 21, a respected, independent, public policy, research and think tank focused, organisation is hosting its fourth roundtable forum on the issue of Australias illicit drugs policy, on 21 March 2018 at Victorias Parliament House.

ERIC SIDOTI. What if anything Corbyn can teach the ALP?

Populism is rapidly evolving as the catch-all explanation for the maelstrom engulfing national and international politics. It is said to be driving the rise of the authoritarian right in Europe and to be evident in the re-emergence of strong man politics associated with Putins Russia, Xi Jinpings China and Dutertes Philippines. While Trump appears to be riding a populist wave all his own, it is also proferred as the key to understanding Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyns surprising successes. The recourse to populism as the answer risks blinding us to the complex realities. It risks obscuring the more meaningful lessons...

STEVAN WONG,TRI NUKE PUDJIASTUTI, SRIPRAPHA PETCHARAMESREE and TRAVERS McLEOD Dialogue on Forced Migration ;Co-Chairs call for ongoing, coordinated action on Bangladesh and Myanmar.

The Asia Dialogue on Forced Migration (ADFM) concluded its sixth meeting in Sydney, Australia, this week ahead of the ASEAN-Australia Special Summit. The meeting focused on the humanitarian crisis in Bangladesh and Myanmar; efforts to address human trafficking, forced labour and modern slavery; and principles for sustainable and protection-sensitive repatriation and reintegration pathways.

GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND ...

Remember Daniel Ellsberg, author of The Pentagon Papers? Peter Hannan, Environment Editor at the Sydney Morning Herald has written a review of his new book The DoomsDay Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner. Ellsberg recounts the occasions during the Cold War when the world came close to a catastrophic all-out nuclear war, triggered not by politicians but by technical errors and misinterpreted signals. Attention has been focussed on North Korea, but there are at least seven other states with nuclear weapon capability France, India, Pakistan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States. Writing in the New...

JOHN MENADUE. The ASEAN Summit in Sydney this weekend.

The meeting this weekend will highlight for Australia the importance of our relations with regional countries. It will also highlight the importance of our relationship with the US and China, and how that rivalry can best be managed in association with regional countries. As background to this weekend's Summit meeting, I provide links to five important foreign policy articles that were posted on Pearls and Irritations in May/June 2016. These articles were part of a series called Fairness, Opportunity and Security edited by Michael Keating and myself. The Foreign Affairs articles were written by former senior officials of the...

TIM LINDSEY and DAVE MCCRAE. Australian-Indonesia: strangers next door

At the weekend, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull will meet with President of Indonesia Joko Widodo (Jokowi)on the margins of the Australia-ASEAN Special Summit. Although Turnbull seems to have built the positive personal relationship with Jokowi that eluded Tony Abbott, managing the bilateral relationship wont be any easier for Turnbull than his predecessor.

NANDINI PANDEY. Romes Empire Without End and the Endless U.S. War on Terror (Replaying the Roman Civil Wars in Reverse Since 9/11)

That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.

NICOLE GURRAN, BILL RANDOLPH, PETER PHIBBS, RACHEL ONG, STEVEN ROWLEY. Affordable Housing Policy Failure Still Being Fuelled By Flawed Analysis.

Australia has a housing affordability problem. Theres no doubt about that. Unfortunately, one of the reasons the problem has become so entrenched is that the policy conversation appears increasingly confused. Its time to debunk some policy clichs that keep re-emerging.

TOYO KEIZAI. The Peace Train Leaves The Station.

Tokyo -- In a flurry of developments that left experts stunned, the long-stalled Korean peace train has suddenly left the station. Sitting in the locomotive is the engineer of these events, North Korea's young leader, Kim Jong Un. The conductor of the peace train, welcoming the passengers aboard, is South Korea's President Moon Jae In. At the front of the passenger car, we find a jumpy U.S. President Donald J. Trump. A few rows back, wearing a quiet smile, sits Chinese President Xi Jinping. And in the last row of the car, a clearly unhappy Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo...

CHARLES LIVINGSTONE. Is gambling reform possible?

Gambling reform has been in the headlines lately perhaps more than at any time since the Wilkie-Gillard agreement was shot down by ClubsNSW between 2010 and 2012.

MOTOKO RICH. Japan Fears Being Left Behind by Trumps Talks With Kim Jong-un

As recently as last fall, it was Seoul that appeared sidelined by Washington in its approach to North Korea, as President Trump made fiery threats and accused South Korea of appeasement for advocating dialogue. Shinzo Abe, Japans prime minister, was Mr. Trumps closest friend among world leaders.

CASSANDRA GOLDIE. The tax cut war and why everyone must pay for essential services, including wealthy shareholders

Labors policy on tax refunds for shareholders released on 13 March 2018 is a starkreminder that policies addressing the huge gaps in Australias revenue base are necessary.This is a media release by Cassandra Goldie

SAM BATEMAN. No need to rock the boat in the South China Sea.

In the wake of Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbulls visit to Washington, there has been renewed pressure for Australia to undertake assertive freedom of navigation operations (FONOPs) in the South China Sea. It has also been suggested that France and the United Kingdom should undertake joint patrols in the South China Sea to push back against China.

JOHN MENADUE. Cars, not immigration, are killing our cities.

This week on Four Corners many commentators blamed immigration for many of our ills. It was a diversionary tactic.I think that immigration is Australias great success story. Many of the problems that immigration cause are the result of policy failure in other areas like housing and transport.

JOHN MENADUE. When will we wake up to the risks as well as the benefits of the US alliance? (Repost)

We are a nation in denial that we are joined at the hip to a dangerous ally. Apart from brief isolationist periods, the US has been almost perpetually at war; wars that we have often foolishly been drawn into. The US has subverted and overthrown numerous governments over two centuries. It has a military and business complex, almost a hidden state, that depends on war for influence and enrichment. It believes in its manifest destiny which brings with it an assumed moral superiority which it denies to others . We are running great risks in committing so much...

Trump Is Smart to Talk to Kim Jong Un

The problem is, the United States is nowhere near ready for this kind of high-stakes diplomacy. SUZANNE DIMAGGIO and JOEL WIT point out the risks

BILL ROWLINGS. TPP-11 still flawed, costly for most Australians.

The trade deal known as TPP delivers financial benefits to some 100,000 people in agricultural and farming enterprises, paid for by extra imposts on the purchases of many millions of urban Australians. In future, every time an Australian buys an app, pays to listen to music, gets a prescription from the chemist, does banking, he or she will be subsiding rural and corporate interests to the detriment of the average Aussie Jo because of the TPP.

JIM COOMBS. The Italian Election: Traditional Right and Left parties losing out and elsewhere (except perhaps in Britain) What is going on? The people are asking What is government for?

Well, Italy! The usual mess, or something else? Five Star mid 30%, Northern League next, low 30s, with Berlusconi next, but not a sufficient force. 5 Star is nearly anarchist, with direct democracy in its platform, and distinct distrust of the Old System. Northern League a little nostalgic for Mussolini certainty. The vast majority of voters dont trust what has gone before. So what does it all mean?

ROSS GWYTHER. Our nuclear chickens come home to roost

Popular TV personality Mike Higgins addressed a packed Brisbane City Hall gathering on a rainy November night in 1983. As chair of the meeting he was joined on the podium by later-to-be Governor General of Australia, Quentin Bryce, retired US Army colonel David Hackworth, Anglican Dean Butters, the president of the Qld Trades Hall council Harry Haunschild, famous Aboriginal writer Oodgeroo Noonuccul, and others. Convened by the newly formed People for Nuclear Disarmament, the meeting foreshadowed one of the largest and most active mass movements in Australian history the nuclear disarmament movement of the 1980s and 90s.

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