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

WARWICK ELSCHE. From as far away as Australia it is difficult to assess Americas Trump administration.

Reading as widely as possible and watching American news reports helps but does not altogether solve the problem. Indeed, many Americans, far closer to the action are finding themselves similarly baffled.The President of just eight months has, in his own words, given us a picture of a truly remarkable occupant of the worlds top office.

KOMALA RAMACHANDRA. Australias Modern Slavery Proposal Falls Short

In mid-August Australias justice ministerproposed a new lawrequiring the countrys biggest companies to report on their practices and policies to prevent forced labour in their operations and supply chains. The government wants to ensure that consumer products like food, electronics, and clothing whether theyre made abroad or domestically are not produced by people forced to work against their will. It is a laudable goal, but the steps theyve taken are inadequate.

JEAN-PIERRE LEHMANN. University challenge: Asia in the scales of global knowledge.

The Times Higher Educational Supplement (THES) has published its 2018 World University Rankings. Rankings are rankings are rankings. They are not Holy Writ! Still they can be interesting fodder for drawing some interpretations and implications. I admit I may be partly biased as Oxford has come out number 1! (I was at Oxford from 1967 to 1970 and did my doctorate there.) The rankings are based on five key criteria: teaching, research, citations, income from industry and international outlook.

PETER HAYES and DAVID VON HIPPEL. North Korea - How crucial are oil imports for its nuclear and missile programs?

A recent report by the Nautilus Institute by Peter Hayes and David von Hippel suggests that the impact of strong sanctions against oil imports by North Korea from China may not have a telling or early impact on its nuclear and missile development program.

JOHN MENADUE. Are we stopping the boats to save lives at sea?

To justify its harsh refugee policies, the government has been telling us that its policies are designed to save lives at sea. The ALP also joins in this shabby chorus

JOHN MENADUE. Failure of regional leadership on refugees

An estimated 270,000 Rohingya refugees have fled Myanmar in the last two weeks. More will follow. Their position is precarious. We should not be surprised as the persecution of Rohingya goes back centuries. Yet ASEAN and Australian leaders have failed again to anticipate and respond to this human disaster. Ethnic cleansing is under way.

ANNE OBRIEN. Clericalism is alive and well in the Catholic Church

The Royal Commission has provided few grounds for optimism concerning the future of the Catholic Church in Australia. The institution is moribund and its leaders are unable or unwilling to face reality.

EVAN WILLIAMS. Dunkirk - film review.

We all know the story or do we? It was one of Britains great wartime triumphs. With the British Expeditionary Force driven back to the French coast by advancing German armies, thousands of Allied troops were stranded on the beach at Dunkirk, and the call went out from Winston Churchill to rally the little ships and bring them home. Countless small craft fishing boats, launches, dinghies, even rowing boats crossed the Channel to gather survivors and ferry them home for joyful reunion with their families.

MICHAEL LAMBERT. Australia's electricity markets policy: The shambles continues.

Over the last week we have been treated to the depressing spectacle of the Prime Minister and his government reacting in a knee jerk, wrong-headed manner to two sensible and useful reports that have been released by the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO). This highlights the folly of not having a national plan for transitioning the National Electricity Market towards an increasingly renewable energy system.

ALAN KOHLER. Coalitions retreat back to coal-fired power stations and the loony fog

In 2015 Australias businesses made the mistake of thinking the Coalition government was serious about tackling climate change, and solemnly lined up to support it....There won't be any new coal power stations and the lives of existing ones won'd be extended unless the government bizarrely and unnecessarily pays for it. If that happened,it would bring about the final divorce of business and the Coalition and the final retreat by Malcolm Turnbull into the loony fog inhabited by Donald Trump and the coal dancers on the Coalition's right.

JOHN Menadue. It is scandalous how infrastructure spending escapes proper scrutiny

The gathering infrastructure mess in Australia requires open public inquiries, starting with the Sydney Metro.

PAUL GREGOIRE AND UGUR NEDIM. Asylum seekers left destitute at hands of Dutton

Stooping to a new low, theTurnbull government has begun cutting off the welfare payment to vulnerableasylum seekers and given these people three weeks to vacate their government-supported accommodation.

JOHN MENADUE. Abbott and Turnbull are the real culprits on the energy policy mess. (repost)

This is a repost of an article that was originally posted on 14 June 2017. I have reposted this in light of current controversy on extending the life of coal fired generators. In his journal, The Constant Investor, Alan Kohler sheeted blame very directly to the Coalition and Malcolm Turnbull. He said Those crises have now arrived in the form of blackouts, and they are not caused by too much renewable energy its due to a lack of investment, in turn due to a lack of policy certainty and clarity.This is entirely the Liberal Partys fault not...

ROD TUCKER AND JOHN DE RIDDER. How to fix the NBN pricing model: An open letter to Bill Morrow.

Dear Bill, The NBN pricing model is in urgent need of repair. In this letter, we offer our thoughts on how an overhaul of the pricing model can solve a number of problems facing the NBN.

KATHARIN R. LESTARI. Indonesia speaks up as global support for Rohingya grows

The Indonesian government has stepped up its support for ethnic Muslim Rohingyapromising humanitarian aid and a new hospital in their homeland inMyanmar's Rakhine State as the military continues to torch villages while battlinghomegrown insurgents.

PAUL FRIJTERS. What does the North Korean situation say about China?

It is easy to get drawn into the drama of rockets fired over Japan, and massive hydrogen bombs tested by a North Korean regime that likes to threaten mass extinction of its enemies, particularly with the tweeter-in-chief responding in kind. I worry though that the real game is in China, because the suspicion is that China has helped NK develop its technology, and one has to wonder what could drive the Chinese leadership to do such a thing.

TEJSHREE THAPA. Watching Burma in Flames from Bangladesh

I stood at the edge of the Naf River on the Bangladesh border watching heavy smoke rise from a village on the Burma side. Bangladeshi border guards talked of fires all along the border targeting villages of Rohingya Muslims.

PAUL FRIJTERS. Its not about state versus markets.

It is said that all generals prepare for the last war. So too it often seems in ideology land, where the conflict with the Soviet Union seems to have left us with an obsession with state versus market. Just as we are not preparing for the cyber wars of the future by building obsolete submarines that would only have been useful in WWII, we are not addressing todays economic challenges by thinking in Cold War economic terms either.

PETER MCCULLAGH. Good Suicide versus Bad Suicide

Will legalised suicide, even when presented as assisted dying, adversely impact on efforts to reduce do-it-yourself suicide? If it looks like a duck and it quacks, then . . .

MAUREEN TODHUNTER. Imaginations of the world, unite!

As news and other media apparently edge us toward a war-ready footing, we need to think critically about what informs our views, to imagine our way into more enlightened, more peaceful co-existence.

K. HUSSAN ZIA. American Objective in Afghanistan

The Afghans are not a nation as such but a composition of numerous tribes. These form loose groupings based on ethnicity. Individuals owe their allegiance first and foremost to the tribe and after that to the ethnic group. Among the latter, Pashtoons constitute the dominant force and are the main element in the insurgency. They are divided into a number of tribes and sub tribes that have a common code of conduct known as Pakhtoonwali. There are more Pashtoons in Pakistan than in Afghanistan. They have traditionally treated the border between the two countries as informal and interacted with each...

JIM COOMBS. Nicholas Gruen and the lessons of history.

Nicholas Gruens piece in the Saturday Paper, Making the Reserve Bank a peoples bank, while gratifying in its support for my recent piece, lacks a particular historical perspective: weve been there before.

STEWART LITTLE. Titles registry sale a super storm.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian will bequeath the state a financial disaster for millions of property owners thanks to her governments leasing of Land and Property Informations 150-year-old Land Titles Registry.

ARCHBISHOP FISHER. Does Pope Francis support same-sex marriage?

A number of commentators have recently suggested that loyalty to Catholic teaching, and especially to Pope Francis, would allow, even require, support for same-sex marriage; by implication, the Australian bishops misunderstand Catholic teaching and have been disloyal to Pope Francis by saying Catholics should vote NO. But what has Pope Francis actually said about this?

JOHN MENADUE. 'Faster economic growth demands better chief executives'. (Repost from 27 September 2016)

In the AFR today (1/9/2017) under a headline 'The big end of town has no-one but itself to blame', Laura Tingle said Big business preaching against the rising tide of government is undermined by its own failures. This was theme that I wrote about in September last year on the failures of our chief executives. This repost follows.

PETER DAY. When Church leaders forget to tell the story that liberates.

Human sexuality is a complex and fragile thing; far greyer than black or white. It is best tended to by gentle, wise, and humble hands religious leaders might like to consider dropping their megaphone diplomacy, then?

JOHN MENADUE. What a post-war contrast Germany and Japan; Angela Merkel and Shinzo Abe.

For all its atrocities in the 1930s and 1940s, Germany has become an exemplar country promoting prosperity and peace. Angela Merkel stands out as a world leader more than any other. By contrast, Japan has again become a divisive country in its region and its Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, has been acquiescing and promoting an ultra-nationalist cause. Germany quickly came to terms with its past. Japan has refused to.

CHRIS MIDDLETON. 'The Church's teaching, if it isn't expressed in terms of love - then it's got it wrong.'

The postal vote on same-sex marriage will no doubt generate much discussion within families and communities, and, in particular, will play on sensitivities in Catholic circles where an understanding of sacramental marriage is so strong.

JOHN MENADUE. When will Saudi Arabia be brought to account for its malign influence and promotion of terrorism?

Through its support of extremist Wahabism, the Saudi government has been promoting radical Islam around the world. Its influence has included funding schools, universities and mosques in over 80 countries. But like the issue of the burqa, few Australians want to discuss the highly dangerous activities of the Saudi government.

GERMAN LOPEZ. Imagine if the media covered alcohol like other drugs

What if the media covered alcohol like it does other drugs? This was a question that came up in my coverage of flake hka, a synthetic drug that made headlines after law enforcement blamed it for people running in the streets naked in delusional paranoia. What follows is a satirical attempt at capturing that same type of alarmist reporting, but for a substance that really causes widespread and severe problems.

'Theresa May. Hang your head in shame.'

From Dublin to the Somme: How the Death of an Irish priest exposes the tragedy of Brexit, by Robert Fisk.

ROB MOODIE. Seven tactics that unhealthy industries use to undermine public health policies.

Across Africa there are examples of governments trying to introduce policies that improve health and protect the environment only to find their efforts undermined by unhealthy corporations and their industry associations. A case in point is South Africas efforts to introduce a tax on sugary drinks to reduce the growing burden of obesity. In the process they are facing a barrage of resistance. This is one small example of unhealthy industries undermining the publics health and the global environment. This is about how rent seekers go about protecting their selfish interests.

EMMA CARMODY. Murray, Darling, what's all this 4 Corners fuss about?

This article examines the contents of a recently aired 4 Corners episode, Pumped, which included allegations of water theft, corruption and regulatory capture in the Murray-Darling Basin.

FREYA HIGGINS DESBIOLLES. The politics of public monuments: It's time Australians looked at what, and whom, we commemorate

Recent events in the US have seen Confederate Civil War monuments pulled down and painful histories revisited. Comparing these acts to those of the Islamic State terror group, Spiked editor Brendan O'Neill evocatively called this an Orwellian war on history and a Year Zero mentality on the march. O'Neill also took aim at Australias Yarra Council for its recent decision to no longer celebrate Australia Day on January 26. This is a result of ongoing calls from Indigenous groups to change the date of the national day. This is because it marks the 1788 arrival of the First Fleet at...

JOHN FALZON. Politics is concentrated economics

Stark displays of inequality, such as the concentration of homeless people in Martin Place, challenge us to unite in solidarity with those who are oppressed by injustice an injustice that is a deliberate aspect of our neoliberal economic system.

ADAM BROINOWSKI. Picking up the pieces amid the U.S.North Korea nuclear stand-off

North Korea is often righteously condemned for being the only nation to have conducted five nuclear tests and a barrage of missile tests in the 21st century. Led by a young chubby dictator with a bad haircut, we have long been told that the paranoid hermit kingdom known for its undeniably bombastic, intensely patriotic and anachronistic rhetoric is evil, unhinged and dangerous.

John Menadue. The burqa and hijab public space must be neutral and secular.-a repost

The burqa and the hijab are stale news in France. There has been an important debate and discussion on Muslim head and body covering in France for many years. The simple head dress or hijab, turbans and kippas have been banned in French schools since 2004. The burqa has been banned in public spaces since 2010. The French approach has a wide consensus across the political spectrum.

PHIL ODONNELL. A Tale of Two Churches

Threats by Catholic bishops to dismiss employees who marry same sex-partners reveal not only a lack of compassion, but also a deep gulf between the authoritarian and conservative concerns of the church hierarchy and the pastoral and justice concerns of many of its priests, religious and parishioners.

The Myth About Marriage

Paul Collins' recent article, An Open Letter to Sydney Archbishop Anthony Fisher, has attracted record numbers of readers for this blog. The following article by Garry Wills elaborates on the 'myth about marriage'. In his article in the New York Review of Books on 9 May 2012, Garry Wills writes: Why do some people who would recognize gay civil unions oppose gay marriage? Certain religious groups want to deny gays the sacredness of what they take to be a sacrament. But marriage is no sacrament.

MICHAEL LAMBERT. The shambles of Australia's national electricity policy.

Australia has rich energy resources, both fossil and renewable, and a well considered electricity market design, as evidenced by the National Electricity Market (NEM), so why is our electricity market policy overall in such a shambolic state? Successive national governments have failed to address the core policy issues that are fundamental if the trilemma of current challenges are to be resolved.

RANALD MACDONALD. ABC deal comes back to haunt the Government (Episode Two).

Last week I began my summary of the Government's complex negotiations aimed at getting its Media Reform Bill through the Senate with the words:Make a deal for political expediency and then unforeseen consequences usually follow. The ABC and its future is not a bargaining chip for the Government to use to pass legislation in the Senate. Yet a deal brokered by Communications Minister Fifield to gain Liberal Democratic Senator David Leyonhjelms vote some months back, has already come back to haunt it.........Well, the 'haunting' continues.

JEAN-PIERRE LEHMANN. Why the West and Japan should stop preaching to a rising China

Jean-Pierre Lehmann says the imperialist powers of old should acknowledge their own bloody history of plunder and exploitation, and work with Beijing to find a path to a peaceful rise, which so far is unprecedented.

JIM COOMBS. Electricity and Banks.

A belief, without foundation, that the market is the best way to deliver any product, has our politicians gibbering, when the provision of Public Goods (see my previous article) is properly to be determined by the principle of universal access, not some illusion of competition providing it.

GRAHAM FREUDENBERG. "Which of us is safe?"

Graham Freudenberg, of German, Scottish and Irish descent, whose Prussian-born grandparents were declared enemy aliens in 1915 after 50 years prolific residence in Queensland, has recently held a sance with King OMalley (an American pretending to be a Canadian and Peter Duttons early predecessor as Minister for Home Affairs) and Prime Ministers Chris Watson (born in Chile, son of a stateless Swedish sailor), Billy Hughes (a London-born Welshman), Bob Menzies (British to the bootstraps) and Malcolm Fraser (part-Jewish and therefore with a citizens right of return to Israel whether he wanted it or not) and writes:

'It's time to act': Liberal MP calls for Australia to take refugees from Manus and Nauru

The Victorian Liberal moderate Russell Broadbent has called in Federal Parliament for genuine refugees in offshore detention to be settled permanently on the Australian mainland once the US resettlement deal has run its course.

LEANNE WELLS. Health insurance: the big shift thats left patients short

The transformation of big health funds into for-profit business enterprises sheltered by significant government subsidy and regulations has failed to prompt a complementary response from federal governments, Coalition or Labor, to even the playing field for consumers.

RICHARD ECKERSLEY. What most concerns us about our personal lives and the societies we live in?

Our quality of life is about much more than our standard of living.

JEAN-PIERRE LEHMANN. Aug 15: A day to mark Western imperialism

The date marks the 70th anniversary of the independence and partition of India, an event that has its roots in Western colonial conquest of the Indian sub-continent. It should also be remembered by the imperialists who plundered the planet.

TERENCE BEED. Turnbulls postal plebiscite and the Australian Bureau of Statistics: next step in its fall from grace?

The Australian Bureau of Statistics has another debacle approaching brought on by its direction to conduct the governments proposed postal plebiscite on same sex marriage. Little more than an outmoded postal survey it will be flawed from the start, plagued by biases both known and unknown. The survey will seriously erode the publics confidence in this once peerless official statistical agency. It needs to start work now to salvage what it can of its reputation for trust and integrity.

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