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 QUIGGIN. Jobs bonanza? The Adani project is more like a railway to nowhere

The dispute over the Adani Groups proposed Carmichael mine and the associated port at Abbot Point has long been cast as a choice between jobs and the environment. Climate change is already well on the way to destroying the Great Barrier Reef, among many other things, and the development of the massive coal reserves of the Galilee Basin would make it almost impossible to stabilise the global climate.

JULIE BISHOP. Foreign policy in an uncertain world.

We have an independent foreign policy and we do not outsource our decisions to other countries.Julie Bishop Yesterday, we posted a speech by Shadow Foreign Minister, Penny Wong, Engaging with China. Today we post a presentation by Foreign Minister Julie Bishop to the Australian Institute of International Affairs, 2017 National Conference in Canberra.

NICHOLAS GRUEN. Which bank could give Australians a better bang for their buck? The Reserve Bank of Australia.

How would you like to be able to get most of your mortgage from the Reserve Bank of Australia at the cash rate of 1.5% rather than three times that after your bank has slapped on its margin for the same money?

PENNY WONG. FutureAsia - Engaging with China (A speech to the Australian Institute of International Affairs, Canberra, 16 October 2017)

Last month, my friend and colleague Chris Bowen, the Shadow Treasurer, delivered a major speech to the Asia Society in Sydney. In it he outlined Labors approach to Asia.FutureAsiawill be a whole-of-government framework underpinning our efforts to deepen and broaden our engagement. As the Shadow Treasurer said, Asian economies are changing, and Australia isnt keeping up.

JOHN MENADUE. The end of car manufacturing in Australia

Last Friday General Motors Holden closed its last Australian manufacturing plant at Elizabeth in South Australia. In an attempt to save Christopher Pyne. Malcolm Turnbull has told us that ship and submarine building in SA will take up the slack. But consider the figures. The car manufacturing industry employed 200,000 people across Australia with an effective rate of protection of 8% .The submarine project will employ about 2000 people in Adelaide but with an effective rate of protection of 300 %. Yes 300%. Go figure that out for a waste of money!

RANALD MACDONALD. Open letter to Communications Minister, The Hon. Mitch Fifield

Can we just be serious just for a moment? Having read your piece in The Australian headed Shrill Attacks on ABC Adjustments Are Hysterical, Unhinged (9/10/17), I cannot believe that you, Minister, REALLY believe in what you have written.

KELLIE TRANTER. Pine Gap: Full Knowledge & Concurrence

Heavily redacted documents produced in accordance with Freedom of Information laws appear to imply that the Australian government has full knowledge of current and future operations taking place atPine Gap and that it is given the opportunity to approve or deny proposed future conduct carried out at the base. This may have serious ramifications for Australia, a signatory to the Rome Statute, in any future proceedings in the International Criminal Court.

KATE CHARLESWORTH and PETER SAINSBURY. The Devastating Health Costs of Coal.

Amid all the debate about energy policy about security, affordability, and carbon emissions - there is one critical issue that has barely rated a mention: human health. Coal is hazardous to our health; renewables are not. In any discussion about energy, the human health costs of coal and the significant health benefits of switching to safe and healthy forms of energy must be considered as seriously as security, affordability and emissions.

JOHN MENADUE. The unfairness and waste of private health insurance and the threat to Medicare. Repost from April 21 2017

History is repeating itself. Medicare was created by the Whitlam government because of the abject failure of private health insurance or, as it was then called voluntary health insurance. As a result of the growth of private health insurance (PHI) since 1999 under the Howard government, Medicare is now seriously threatened. Government subsidies for PHI will take us back to the pre Whitlam and pre Medicare era.

WALTER HAMILTON. Big changes mean more of the same in Japanese election

Early signs of trouble for the Abe government in Japan have seemingly evaporated under the more intense heat of election campaigning, and more of the same is now the likely outcome of the 22 October poll.

WE ARE ALSO READING AND LISTENING TO ...

Pearls and Irritations provides the following links for weekend reading:

JOHN QUIGGIN. Socialism with a spine: the only 21st century alternative

Socialism is back, much to the chagrin of those who declared it dead and buried at the end of history in the 1990s. When the New Republic, long the house organ of American neoliberalism, runs an article on The Socialism America Needs Now, its clear that something has fundamentally changed.

PAUL FRIJTERS. EU plans for VAT taxation are doomed to fail. Again.

Taxation is the potential downfall of the EU as an institution. The reason is that within the EU, several member states are making money from the tax evasion in other member states, a situation akin to having a wife slowly murdering her husband with poison. Unless this stops, a divorce becomes inevitable.

ARTHUR STOCKWIN. Developments in Japan including threats to press freedom

Most international attention on East Asia today is sharply focused on North Koreas nuclear and missile developments. But this does not mean that we can neglect the significant developments taking place in Japans domestic political landscape. Since winning the December 2012 elections, Prime Minister Shinzo Abes government has maintained a commanding majority in the national Diet, and Abe himself is sometimes called all-powerful Abe.

PAUL FRIJTERS. Observations, lessons, and predictions for the Catalan situation

I make the following observations about the Catalan situation:What might happen!

PETER DAY. One of us: the sanity behind an act of insanity

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the Right of the people to Keep and Bear Arms shall not be infringed. (U.S. Constitution, 2nd Amendment) Thanks to the literalist and, thus, intellectually corrupt interpretation of this archaic 18th century sentence, there are more guns in the United States today than there are citizens over 300 million. Indeed, the 2nd Amendment gundamentalism that abounds continues to wreak havoc on its people. The U.S. is at war with itself; a war in which only the innocent are being targeted.

JOHN CARMODY. Same-sex marriage survey is All Over, Red Rover.

Newspapers and the electronic media seem to flourish on controversy, novelty and scandal; the temptation is to expand and prolong their coverage unduly. The current postal survey on same-sex marriage seems to be a classic instance.

LEONID PETROV. Imagining the catastrophic consequences of a new war in Korea.

The 1953 Armistice Agreement brought a sustainable halt to the Korean War, but has never ended it. Nor did it transforminto a peace regime. During the last sixty four years the North and South Koreans have lived in conditions of neither war nor peace, which has certain advantages and downsides for both regimes separated by the Demilitarised Zone.

ELIZABETH EVATT. Our Rights and Civil liberties- Death by a Thousand Cuts

Its time to give the Courts power to determine whether our anti-terrorism laws violate our fundamental rights of liberty and freedom from arbitrary detention.

WE ARE ALSO READING AND LISTENING TO ...

Pearls and Irritations provides the following links for weekend reading and listening:

JOCK COLLINS. How refugees overcome the odds to become entrepreneurs

Refugees face monumental challenges when starting a business. Many lack formal education, capital, social capital (relationships in the community), English language skills, and knowledge of the local market and regulations.

EVAN WILLIAMS. University education: the monster in the room.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that anyone lacking a rewarding occupation must be in want of a degree. A university education is not only a good in itself, but an indispensable passport to a satisfying career and a secure lifestyle. It follows that universities should be open to all, that everyone should be encouraged to take a degree and that greater public investment in higher education is the key to national progress and prosperity. All of which, as we are now discovering to our cost, is nonsense a dangerous fallacy that politicians on all sides are unwilling to...

REBECCA PETERS. Las Vegas and Port Arthur - a tale of two tragedies.

Heres what the Las Vegas massacre has in common with Port Arthur - Las Vegas is the worst mass shooting in modern US history; Port Arthur set the same record for Australia, and in fact for the world at that time. Both massacres occurred at iconic holiday locations, popular with tourists and honeymooners. The victims, survivors and witnesses came from across the country and even overseas. This means the events have personal significance for enormous numbers of people.

SHAUN KING. The White Privilege of the "Lone Wolf" Shooter

White killers are invariably 'lone wolves' and not terrorists.Muslim and African-Americans killers are treated differently

THOMAS ALBRECHT. Australia's refugee policy is a failure. This is not the time to shirk responsibility.

Australia's current refugee policy has been an abject failure. A proper approach by Australia must include, at a minimum, solutions for all refugees and asylum seekers sent to Papua New Guinea and Nauru, and an end to offshore processing.

WALTER HAMILTON. Koike's coup.

Japan is going to the polls on 22 October, with the conservative coalition led by Shinzo Abe facing a stiff challenge from a new party led by the right-wing governor of Tokyo.

MICHAEL LAMBERT. Achieving Clean Energy

The constant refrain from the Commonwealth of reliable, secure and affordable power appears to dismiss the other objective of clean energy. This is reinforced by the failure to endorse the Clean Energy Target recommendation of the Finkel report. However, clean energy is feasible, affordable and can be made secure and reliable and certainly is good for the environment and long-term health of people and the economy.

HYLDA ROLFE. A Sydney icon is under threat - the creeping commercialisation.

In this blog on 20 September 2017 I (John Menadue) described how the new squatters in our National Parks are being given commercial access to our public commons. In NSW and elsewhere National Parks are being deliberately under funded, resulting in park deterioration which will then be used as the pretext for sale or commercialisation. A former mayor of Woollahra and now Secretary of the Sydney Harbour Association, Hylda Rolfe, in a letter to the Minister for the Environment and Minister for Heritage, Gabrielle Upton, sets out the perils the South Head National Park faces and the unhelpful attitude...

MARK OGGE. We have enough cheap, easy-to-export gas for 100 years. There is just one problem ...

Hard to believe, isnt it? But its true: in the last decade, tens of thousands of square kilometers of Queensland farmland has been covered in gas fields. The export gas rush in Australia is one of the largest and fastest expansions of a gas industry ever seen, anywhere in the world. We are awash with gas. The problem is we are allowing almost all of the cheap and easy-to-get-at gas to be sent overseas.

KELLIE TRANTER. Shortage of information about Iraq airstrikes

In response to criticisms from Amnesty International that the Iraq government and coalition carried out disproportionate and unlawful attacks to take back Mosul, a Senior British Commander, Major Gen Jones, said recently that it is naive to think a city such as Mosul, with a population of 1.75 million, could be liberated without any civilian casualties while fighting an enemy that lacks all humanity. That pragmatic approach is what our government would have us accept in relation to our involvement in Iraq until now.

JOHN MENADUE. Is the Australian cruise control in Asia going to end?

Last week, Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen gave a very encouraging speech outlining a new comprehensive and holistic policy approach to Asian engagement which will be called FutureAsia'. After many false starts about our engagement with Asia, could this be the beginning of something important? Could it be as Gareth Evans has said in his memoir, Australia needs to be more self reliant, more Asia, less US.

RIC DAY. Community Pharmacists Under-Utilised

Community Pharmacists spend too much time dispensing prescriptions and not enough time promoting the safe and effective use of their customers medicines. Reform is needed.

TOM IGGULDEN. Navy may be without submarine fleet for two decades due to replacement plan, experts say

The Navy could be left without a submarine fleet for up to 20 years because of a wildly ambitious schedule to replace the ageing Collins Class fleet, an independent report has found.

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TIM LINDSEY. Watch out Indonesian democracy Islamism, communism and Jokowis Neo-New Order?

On 16 September, police broke up an academic discussion at the offices of renowned activist NGO the Jakarta Legal Aid Foundation (LBH). The topic was the killings of alleged leftists in 1965 and 1966 in the wake of the failed coup that brought former president Soeharto to power.

JOHN MENADUE. The submarine mess that Pearls and Irritations has high lighted for 18 months.

At the National Press Club yesterday Mike Keating and Hugh White again drew attention to the very serious problems of our proposed submarine purchases. We will be following their addresses further. The following is a repost from December 16 last year. For eight months inPearls & Irritations,Jon Stanford, Michael Keating, myself and others, have drawn attention to major problems with the proposed build of the Shortfin Barracuda submarine in Adelaide by the French company, DCNS.With the exception of Brian Toohey and Michael Pascoe. I cannot recall one journalist who has seriously examined the problems of our future submarines....

JIM COOMBS. The neo-liberal failure on energy

JIM COOMBS: The source of our current economic imperatives and crises, especially in the fields of energy, is that we cant see beyond the neoliberal (does it have a meaning?) insistence that only a market solution answers economic problems. Surely, economics is better than that.

SRIPRAPHA PETCHARAMESREE. The Rohingya exodus.

The most recent Rohingya exodus has been making headlines during the past few weeks. But just a week ago Daw Aung San Suu Kyi broke her silence. In her more than 30 minute speech addressing the Myanmar Parliament and diplomats on 19 September, the term Rohingya was not used. Rohingya continues to be forbidden to name. This explicit denial of the name not only works against the existence and human rights of Rohingya but also against any desire of the Myanmar government to work towards peace and harmony as well as to fulfil its international commitment to human rights and...

OISN SWEENEY: Will the Coalition degazette the Murray Valley National Park and cement its anti- environment reputation?

Up to now, Australian Governments of both sides have largely honoured national park declarations made by each other. However, its now official National Party policy to degazette the Murray Valley National Park which would be a low point in Australian conservation history. Given the success of The Nationals in dictating NSW environment policy in the last few years, and the degree to which the Coalition has regressed on environment protection, this is something we need to be worried about.

WE ARE ALSO READING ...

Pearls and Irritations provides the following links for weekend reading: Murdoch wins again and populist Xenophon goes again with the big end of town - the NewDaily (Bruce Guthrie) Dance of the elephants - Inside Story (Matthew Ricketson). When governments and Big Media dance together, it is not a pretty picture. US Senate Democrats show off anti-religious bigotry - Washington Post (Michael Gerson) Pope Francis Calls Out Trump, Accuses Him of Pro-Life Hypocrisy - Vanity Fair (Tina Nguyen) Bangladeshis helping Rohingya: I gave them shelter because I am a human being - Aljazeera Debate...

EVAN WILLIAMS. Nanny state? Bring it on!

Among conservatives, the term nanny state is enjoying a new vogue. And its use is by no means confined to a handful of loony libertarians. Any action intended to protect personal safety or curb anti-social behaviour is now seen as evidence of the dreaded nanny state taking over our lives. Gun-control laws, mandatory helmets for bike riders, plain packaging on cigarettes, compulsory vaccination for kids all are part of a sinister left-wing plot to destroy capitalism.

JOHN MENADUE. Principles to guide housing policy and programs.

Housing policy should be based on three important principles.First, we should value housing for its use-value, not its exchange-value.Second, housing policy should be part of community and neighbourhood building.Third, housing policy should promote social mixing and sharing, rather than stratification.

JOHN MENADUE The new squatters in our National Parks

The new squatters on public land are being given a leg-up as they were in the 19th Century to seize and occupy public land. By deliberately underfunding National Parks commercial friendly governments are putting commercial interests ahead of the public interest.

JEAN PIERRE-LEHMANN. The Clouds of Imminent Trade War Are Looming

In the conclusion of her outstanding book on the First World War (The War That Ended Peace) historian Margaret MacMillan asks whether, as many have argued, war in 1914 was inevitable. She refutes this view; the final sentence of the book contains these four words: There are always choices.

JOHN BENSON. Biodiversity is threatened in New South Wales

The New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) was the first of its type in Australia. Established by a Liberal government, its lyrebird emblem became world-renowned. But the Service is not valued by the present Government and now faces grave uncertainty.

PETER FLINN. The brave new world of fire services in Victoria: is it go or woe?

The Country Fire Authority (CFA)in Victoria has long been recognised as one of the worlds leading volunteer fire-fighting organisations, but its boundaries with Melbournes Metropolitan Fire Brigade (MFB),which comprises career fire-fighters, have not changed since 1945.

TRAVERS McLEOD. Opportunity for regional leadership on Rohingya refugees.

Australia and Indonesia, the CoChairs of the Bali Process on People Smuggling, Trafficking in Persons and Related Transnational Crime, have been asked by regional experts to fulfil a promise made after the 2015 Andaman Sea crisis by responding quickly to the refugee crisis in Myanmar and Bangladesh. This is an historic opportunityfor the Bali Process to demonstrate its value and the benefit of cooperation problem solving in the region.

RANALD MACDONALD. Testing times for the ABC with a 'competitive, neutrality enquiry'.

One of our most trusted institutions is under real threat- and, like Humpty Dumpty, once broken may never be able to be put together again.

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Pearls and Irritations provides the following links for weekend reading.

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