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

GRAHAM FREUDENBERG. Malcolm Turnbulls response to the Korean crisis has been contemptible.

In his grovelling hip to hip statement on 10 August, he served up to the Australian people an utterly false and misleading version of the ANZUS Treaty and its meaning.

JEAN-PIERRE LEHMANN. The Empires continue to strike back as international order continues to collapse

...as the international order continues to collapse. The best check is a return to a liberal, rules-based, multilateral order.

JIM COOMBS. "Just good business" or gun-running.

The Neo-liberal language speaks of arms sales as just good business, notwithstanding the concomitant death and destruction.

Australias Desperate Refugee Obstinacy

[An article by Roger Cohen reposted from the New York Times] BYRON BAY, Australia Now we know how desperate Australia is to close the shameful chapter in its history that has seen about 2,000 asylum-seekers and refugees some now dead, most suffering from depressive disorders dumped on two remote Pacific islands for four years.

RANALD MACDONALD. ABC deal comes back to haunt Government.

Make a deal for political expediency and then unforseen consequences usually follow.

DAVID KING AND PETER BROOKS. Coal is the new tobacco.

Coal is the new tobacco in terms of the harms it has on our health. No hospital would think of lending its logo to support the marketing of cigarettes or allowing any of its key decision makers to have strong links to cigarette companies. Yet, such an extraordinary situation has arisen around the Mater Hospital in Brisbane.

MICHAEL LIFFMAN. Is it time for National Civic Youth Service Program?

Perhaps the time has come to consider a notion, at which most progressives' immediate reaction is to recoil, that a compulsory non-military youth civic service program be introduced in Australia?

John Menadue. Rent-seekers and the hollowing out of democracy (Repost 12/2015)

Rent-seeking is a term understood by most economists. It refers to the ability of powerful groups to extract special concessions and favours at the expense of the wider community.

LYNDSAY CONNORS. The Coalition applauds most queue jumpers.

The sound of transactional businessmen - Trump and Turnbull-brokering a Faustian bargain was never going to be edifying. The question is how Australians want to deal and to be seen to deal with the world as it is, while working out how we would like it to be.

John Menadue. Murdochs Media Tax. (Reposted from 29/12/2015)

Rupert Murdoch complains that he faces unfair competition from a taxpayer funded public broadcaster like the ABC and SBS. Yet in effect, he imposes his own consumption taxes on consumers.

JOHN MENADUE. Conservatives set the rules but they keep breaking them. (Repost from 7 February 2017)

Many people around the world are concluding that the system is rigged in favour of powerful insiders who bend the rules. The populists - Trump, Farage, Le Pen and Hanson are adept at tapping into that disempowerment and the sense that the system is rigged against them.

JOHN MENADUE. Australian business in Asia - pale, male and stale. (Repost from 8 August 2016)

A recent report on Australias Diaspora Advantage: Realising the potential for building transnational business networks with Asia reveals that social class and racism, either conscious or unconscious, still excludes many Australians of Asian origin from many Australian institutions and particularly business institutions. The bamboo ceiling is still in place. It limits opportunities for people in Australia with Asian 'talent'. It also limits the effectiveness of Australian business in Asia.

CHARLES LIVINGSTONE. Pokies, sport and racing harm 41% of monthly gamblers: survey

For the first time, the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey has turned its attention to gambling, revealing that around 1.4 million Australians are directly harmed by the activity.

Chinas Maritime Provocations Are Nothing Next To Americas Adventurism A Century Ago

The message from the U.S. is that China should be more like us. But Americans should be careful what they wish for.

How Trump is trashing the US Department of State.

In the New York Times International Edition of 29 July 2017, Roger Cohen writes -Why is Trump hollowing out the State Department? Is it punishment for Hillary Clintons department? Or an extreme iteration of the deconstruction of the administrative state sought by Trumps chief strategist, Steve Bannon? Roger Cohen writes...

DAVID CHARLES. The Australian media's emphasis on the downsides of technological change has implications for innovation, growth and living standards.

There is systematic tendency in Australia compared to many countries in Asia for the mainstream media to place greater emphasis on the potential downsides of technological change rather than the upsides.

JIM COOMBS. What Economic Policy should be about

The idea that government economic policy should only be about making capitalist enterprise easier is just plain wrong. It should be trying to make it better for the nation.

RAWDON DALRYMPLE. A personal link to World War One.

All of us who have a stake in understanding the Great War should be grateful to Joan Beaumont for her magisterial history of Australias involvement in that terrible conflict (Broken Nation: Australians in the Great War).

ANDREW LEIGH. Why Scott Morrison isn't entitled to his own facts on inequality in Australia

You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts, the great American professor-turned-senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan used to enjoy saying to opponents.

HANS J OHFF. Horse for Courses: Nuclear and Diesel-Electric Submarines

Arguing for a review into nuclear-powered submarines former PM Abbott laments that the RAN will take delivery of a class that will have less power, less range, less speed and less capability and that it will come into service about a decade later than would be optimal at a time when strategic circumstances are changing against us.

IAN MARSH. Australias gridlocked Parliament. (Repost from 9 September 2016)

There is a structural contradiction at the heart of the new parliament. Two diametrically different political systems co-exist. Incentives and expectations are at cross purposes. Until this contradiction is addressed the prospects for major legislative change must be judged slight.

JOHN QUIGGIN. People have lost faith in privatisation and it's easy to see why. (Repost from 22 August 2016)

From the viewpoint of ordinary Australians, privatisation is a policy that has consistently failed but is remorselessly pushed by the political elite. It is little surprise that voters are turning to populism in response.

WILLIAM GRIMM. Why have US Catholics turned right? And Paul's epistle to the Fallopians

American Catholics have traditionally supported the Democratic Party, but a combination of episcopal intransigence, Democratic abortion policies and a primitive cast to US society have brought about a change.

TIM LINDSEY. Jokowis dilemma: turning Islamists into civil rights heroes?

Indonesias emergency law, enacted in response to the growing disruptive influence of Islamist hard-liners, could be a blow to the open, liberal democracy that Indonesian reformers have been trying to build ever since the fall of Soeharto in 1998. And it has the ironic result of forcing civil society groups that are usually against the hard-liners into their camp.

BEN NEWELL, CHRIS DONKIN, DAN NAVARRO. worried about shark attacks or terrorism? (Repost from 21 April 2017)

The world can feel like a scary place. Today, Australias National Terrorism Threat Level is Probable. Shark attacks are on the rise; the number of people attacked by sharks in 2000-2009 has almost doubled since 1990-1999. Travellers are at a high risk of getting the Zika virus in places where the disease is present, such as Brazil and Mexico.

JOHN MENADUE. Malcolm Turnbull - Mr. 300%. (Repost from 18 November 2016)

Malcolm Turnbull has announced a submarine building program that has an effective rate of protection of 300%. Yes 300%. That is the additional cost we will pay compared with buying at best price in the international market.

JOAN STAPLES. Environmental NGOs, Public Advocacy and Government

Environmental NGOs fear the Federal Government is moving to limit their public advocacy by requiring them to spend 50% of their income on practical environmental tasks such as tree planting.

Big business influence wanes as public rejects 'bizonomics'

In this article in the Fairfax media on 24 July 2017, ROSS GITTINS refers to the debate in Pearls and irritations about neoliberal economics. John Menadue The collapse of the neoliberal consensus is as apparent in Oz as it is in Trump's America and Brexitting Britain, but our big-business people are taking a while to twig that their power to influence government policy has waned.

RICHARD WOOLCOTT. Government policies have made us less safe.

The establishment of an enlarged Department of Home Affairs under the ministerial control of Peter Dutton is an unnecessary mistaken policy.

JOHN MENADUE: Privatisation is costing consumers and damaging economic reform. (Repost from 26 July 2016)

'Privatisation is costing consumers and damaging economic reform' said Rod Sims, the Chairman of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, recently. He added 'Poorly regulated privatisations are driving up prices and have little to do with economic reform ... this situation is getting worse and as the main concern of governments with privation is maximising proceeds from the sale by fighting against effective regulation. ... A sharp uppercut is needed. [Privatisation] is increasing prices. ... The whole idea of asset sales is that the private sector can run them more cheaply than the public sector. ... Very bad reform implementation...

CESAR JARAMILLO. Canada's opposition to the nuclear weapons ban treaty has degraded its reputation on disarmament, at home and abroad. An open letter to Justin Trudeau on the banning of nuclear weapons

Dear Mr. Trudeau, You recently dismissed this years multilateral process to negotiate a legal prohibition of nuclear weapons as useless. Im afraid you were misinformed: it was anything but.

MARGARET O'CONNOR. Reforming the Catholic Church: it's up to the laity

The task of reform of the Catholic Church has to fall to the Church's laity. This work is too important to be led by media figures and personalities with their twitter accounts, large public platforms and endless opinions.

JOHN MENADUE. Rupert Murdoch's abuse of power. (Repost from 7 August 2013)

Controlling 70% of Australias metropolitan newspapers, one would hope that Murdoch would exercise some responsibility in the use of that power. But none of that responsibility for Rupert Murdoch!

Aleppo and Fallujah. (Repost from 30 December 2016)

In light of the civilian disaster unfolding presently in Aleppo, it is timely to revisit the uncontradicted claims unwarranted action against civilians in Fallujah supervised by Australian military commander, Jim Molan. This piece was first published in 2008. If correct, the claims are an indictment on Australia's military presence back then in Fallujah. What now passes for legitimate military action when civilians are so exposed? John Menadue. The report from On Line Opinion, 4 August 2008, follows:

JIM COOMBS : Bean Counters Stand Up and Be Counted

Budget problems arise for governments who dont control spending. Where are their financial advisers when gross overspending takes place. No business could survive the profligacy of our governments spending.

JOHN MENADUE. The litany of failed privatisations. (Repost from 20 March 2017)

Ideologues ,the self interested bankers and accountants and lawyers still persist with their fixation with privatisation despite the fact that it is failing in one area after another and the electorate shows very clearly that it does not want it.

LESLEY HUGHES. Solving the climate crisis: one city at a time

Although Trump has withdrawn from the Paris Climate Agreement, many cities in the US (and in Australia) are taking climate change matters into their own hands, thumbing their collective noses at ideological-driven policy paralysis at the federal level.

GREG AUSTIN. Australians have little to fear from terrorism at home - here's why. (Repost from 24 October 2016)

According to an ANU poll, more than half of the countrys adults are concerned Australia will be a target for terrorism at home and strongly believe the government needs to introduce greater preventive measures to combat it. But the reality is less alarming. More Australians have died at the hands of police (lawfully or unlawfully) in ten years (50 at least from 2006 to 2015) or from domestic violence in just two years (more than 318 in 2014 and 2015) than from terrorist attacks in Australia in the last 20 years. Although Australias terrorism threat level is set at probable,...

PETER DAY. Show me the money!

Crickets two most powerful bodies have reached an impasse over pay. The enmity between the two runs deep blinking first aint an option. Thus, all our elite players (230+) are currently unemployed. HOWZAT for a dilemma?

DAVID MACILWAIN. Truth buried is truth denied.

Seymour Hershs latest revelations, that US intelligence knew Assad didnt use chemical weapons in Khan Shaikoun in April are earth-shattering, and of crucial relevance to Australia and our military commitment in the war on Syria. We cannot allow them to be buried.

KELLIE TRANTER. Different country, different rules

Leaked reports of clandestine operations by our elite special forces in Afghanistan have given us some insight of the way a protracted war affects all involved soldiers and civilians. By keeping us in blissful ignorance of the cold hard facts about deaths and injuries in our military campaigns our government avoids the soul searching we should be going through.

TONY KEVIN. Australia has been enlisted by Trumps Washington opponents

Australia has now been enlisted in Trumps war against the Washington elite. There are costs and risks to Australia in this development.

STEPHEN CORBETT After the Grenfell fire in London

The fire in the Grenfell tower in London has heightened awareness of fire risks in tall buildings in Australia. The pressure to increase height limits and urban density, and to create sustainable and efficient buildings, must not lose sight of the fundamental engineering and design requirements for fire safety, and of the need for robust regulatory oversight of these standards.

GEORGE YANCY AND NOAM CHOMSKY (INTERVIEW). On Trump and the State of the Union

Is Russian hacking really more significant than, for example, the Republican campaign to destroy the conditions for organized social existence, in defiance of the entire world?

JOHN MENADUE. The Catholic bishops dont understand their responsibility and accountability. (Repost from 27 February 2017)

In any other walk of life or area of public administration, admission of criminal neglect would be a prelude to the tendering of resignations. The criminally negligent are not fit and proper persons to hold senior administrative responsibilities.Not so in the Catholic Church because its all someone elses responsibility.

KEITH JOINER. Australias 13th Submarine: The Barracuda F model

In building our new submarines there is a choice between a fast process with comparatively fixed designs and a rolling design processwhich would be slower but would be more likely to match Australia's evolving defence requirements and provide more continuity and retention of expertise.

Health Ministers may be in office but health providers are in power. Think medical specialists fees! (Repost from 19 April 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.

CHARLES LIVINGSTON. Victorian pokies "reforms" may impose big costs on population

The Victorian Government has announced that it will extend existing poker machine licences until 2042, freezing the total number of machines available in pubs and clubs at 27,342 (there are another 2,658 at Crown Casino). The Minister made much of this in her announcement, lauding this as a harm minimisation measure. Yet these reforms may impose significant opportunity costs on the Victorian population.

ALICE FABBRI, LISA BERO AND RAY MOYNIHAN. Vested interests -Whos paying for lunch? Heres exactly how drug companies wine and dine our doctors

Now you can find out whos wining and dining our doctors, nurses and pharmacists with publicly available data of drug company funded events.

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