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 dont have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem.

Treasurer Scott Morrison has been expounding the above philosophy of his for months. But he couldnt be more wrong. Unfortunately the Secretary of Treasury has now followed up with nonsense that Australia should have a ceiling of 25% of GDP on government spending (I assume he is referring to Commonwealth Government spending). Michael Pascoe (Michael Pascoe on Page 21 of February03,2016 issue of Sydney Morning Herald) nailed the ideological clamour and suggestion that lower levels of government spending result in improved economic performance and that Australia has a high level of government spending that should be reduced. In...

How long can we keep lying to ourselves.

In the SMH on February 5, 2016, columnist Waleed Aly says 'The history of asylum seeker policy in Australia will be remembered as a story of how successive governments legislated their lies to justify a world of make-believe borders and imaginary compliance.' See link to article below: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/nauru-how-long-can-we-keep-lying-to-ourselves-20160204-gml6or.html

John Menadue. What has happened to the 11,990 Syrian refugees?

After telling us for months that Australia would not take additional Syrian refugees, Tony Abbott announced on September 9 last year that the government had agreed to settle 12,000 Syrian refugees one of the worlds largest (intakes) to date. We were told that the first refugees would arrive by Christmas and the 12,000 by June 2016. State governments, community groups and churches then geared up to respond. But to date, after five months, only about ten Syrian refugees have arrived. We should contrast our performance with the generous and efficient response of the Canadians. The Canadian government...

John Menadue. Tax reform and vested interests.

We are in the midst of a misleading campaign on tax and budget reform. Large corporations and high income groups are pressing the government to increase the GST in order to reduce company tax and taxes for high-income groups. I have seldom seen such a blatant and self-interested campaign by vested interests. And they seriously suggest that it is in the name of tax and presumably, necessary budget reform. Even Mike Baird has joined in this nonsense. We are told by these vested interests that the benefits of tax advantages for the powerful and wealthy will trickle down...

John Menadue. Balance and the ABC

The ABC has a mistaken notion of media balance. It has become clear that Nick Ross, a Senior Technology Editor at the ABC, could not publish a story critical of Malcolm Turnbulls NBN unless he also published an article critical of Labors NBN. To add to this bias by ABC management he was told that Labors plan was dead because Labor couldnt win the next election. The ABC management was desperate to be onside with the new Coalition government. The ABC was making a political judgement and refused to allow a professional judgement of policies. The ABC continually...

Evan Williams. Film review: 'The Big Short'

An opening title informs us that The Big Short is based on a true story. That usually means that the film we are about to see has only a tenuous connection with reality, that most of it is invented and the events depicted may not have happened at all. Is anyone suggesting that the Global Financial Crisis, the subject of this scarifying comedy from director Andy McKay, may not have happened, that the millions who lost their jobs, their homes or their businesses, or saw their families shattered by the crisis were victims of some strange delusion? Well, of course...

John Menadue. Royal commissions partisan politics or public interest.

Australia has had a string of politically inspired and often useless royal commissions. The fiasco surrounding Dyson Heydons acceptance of an invitation to speak at a Liberal Party dinner made it even more likely that his enquiry into trade unions would be quickly discounted, except for those who wanted to pursue a political agenda against trade unions and by implication, their association with the ALP. In response to the Trade Union Royal Commission report, Malcolm Turnbull identified himself with business and the political right rather than the public interest or the middle ground. He is consistently taking an ambivalent...

Another face of the refugee crisis.

What beautiful photos of refugees - our sisters and brothers, our children and grandchildren!   http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/frederic-seguin-refugee-photos_us_56a1439ce4b0d8cc10993c79?ir=Worldion=australia

Niall McLaren. A case for 'armed neutrality'

In its short history, Australia has been among the most aggressive nations on earth, regularly engaging in wars that, on any objective basis, have nothing to do with us. These military adventures cost us dearly in men, material and credibility without ever showing the slightest evidence that they improve our security. Malcolm Fraser argued that we graft ourselves to foreign military powers in the hope that they will come to our aid in an emergency but that this has never benefited us. At present, our military is fully enmeshed with the American war machine at all levels, to the extent...

Bob Kinnaird. Turnbull Government buries the FTA bad news

The Turnbull government has proved just as determined as the Abbott government to hide from the Australian community the truth about what their FTA deals mean for the 457 visa and other temporary work visa programs. Under the Turnbull administration, the conclusion of Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations was announced on 6 October 2015 and the TPP text released on 5 November 2015. The China FTA (ChAFTA) entered into force on 20 December 2015. In both cases, the Turnbull government has treated the Australian community like the proverbial Mushroom Club. The TPP Three months after releasing the...

John Menadue. Australia Day doing well, but could do better.

The following repost is from Australia Day 2014. I wonder what indigenous people thought when they saw Captain Phillip with his ships come uninvited and sail up Sydney Harbour in January 1788. There does not seem any doubt that despite their concerns they were less hostile than we are to boat people 226 years later. Succeeding generations came by boat in their millions, including my ancestors who came from agriculturally depressed Cornwall in SS Northumberland to desolate Port Willunga in SA in 1847. Migration has never stopped. It has dramatically changed Australia, mainly for the better. I dont...

Brad Chilcott. I donated a kidney to my son. Don't tell me not to make it 'political'.

In early December, I went into surgery to give my eight-year-old son Harrison my left kidney. He heard me groaning in recovery as the anaesthetist put him to sleep a few hours later so that he could receive it. The operation was the first of my life and Harrisons 13th. Hed experience his 14th general anaesthetic two weeks later when surgeons removed the vascular catheter that had been used to connect the dialysis machine into his heart three times a week for the five months leading up to the transplant. After a successful surgery, Harrison had a number of...

The Frontier Wars

The following extract 'The Frontier War' was part of an address I gave in September 2013 for the launch of the Catholic Social Justice Statement. It was carried on this blog at the time. It was one of many blogs I have posted concerning the Frontier War and also the Maori Wars. Our military association with New Zealand did not begin in 1915 at Gallipoli. It began when we sent ships and troops to fight against the Maori people in New Zealand in the mid 19th Century. The Frontier War We have still not properly acknowledged the great...

John Menadue. Supporting Adam Goodes.

This blog is a repost from 1 August 2015. Adam Goodes has been bullied and vilified because he has reminded us of our dark history and the discrimination that continues against him and many others in Australia today. We dont like being reminded of the dispossession, killing, poisoning and discrimination against our own indigenous people. We want to forget that 30,000 indigenous people were killed in the Frontier Wars by police and white settlers. Yet we have scarcely a memorial to the 30,000 who died defending their land. The Australian War Memorial turns its back on the Frontier Wars...

Stan Grant. The Australian Dream!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEOssW1rw0I

Anand Kulkarni, Travers McLeod. Battle of ideas on innovation.

Were now in a race to the top on innovation. Better late than never. Liberating ideas could reboot Australias economy, as we argued a year ago. Now it seems there are more ideas about how to generate ideas than ever before in Australian policymaking. Both the Liberal-National government (Welcome to the Ideas Boom and the National Innovation and Science Agenda) and Labor opposition (Powering Innovation and Getting Australia Started) have put down markers around innovation in the lead-up to this years federal election. The Coalition and Labor pronouncements have much in common: growing awareness that our...

Robin Room and Michael Livingston. Alcohol companies target the 20% of Australians who drink 75% of the alcohol.

Researchers have known for a long time that alcohol consumption is quite concentrated in a small part of the population. They argue about the exact distribution, but there is substantial agreement that, so long as alcohol sales are not heavily restricted, consumption is distributed in a quite predictable way. That is, there are many light and moderate consumers, along with a long tail of those drinking at heavier levels. In Australia, the top 20% of the drinking-age population in 2013 consumed around three-quarters of all the alcohol consumed. The top 5% consumed more than a third. The concentration...

What do we owe each other?

In this opinion piece from the New York Times, Aaron James Wendland draws on work by Emmanuel Levinas in response to the surge of refugees around the world and particularly into Europe. Levinas describes the allergic reaction to refugees. In response he suggests three things. First, an appeal to the 'infinity' in human beings, that other people are always more than our categories can capture. Second, faces confront us directly and immediately. Thirdly, hospitality involves curtailing our enjoyment of the world when confronted with another's wants. See link to article below: http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/opinionator/2016/01/18/what-do-we-owe-each-other/

Evan Williams. Film Review: Carol.

Im not alone in rating her the best actress in the world. Or as some would prefer to say, the best female actor in the world. Or more precisely, the best female English-speaking screen actor working in mainstream cinema. And yes, Im talking about our Cate up there with Garbo, Hepburn, Streep, destined for legendhood (if I may use that word) and currently starring in Carol, an absorbing romantic drama directed by Todd Haynes. Shes in her usual impeccable form. A critic once said that Cate Blanchett has the kind of beauty svelte, ravaged, angular, irresistible...

Steve Georgakis. The unholy trinity of sports advertising in Australia - betting agencies, junk food and alcohol.

Why we shouldn't be surprised that tennis is implicated in match-fixing. The first day of the Australian Open was marred by revelations alleging widespread match-fixing and cover-ups in mens tennis stretching back more than a decade. World number one Novak Djokovic confirmed he was approached with a reported offer of US$200,000 in 2006 to throw a match. Hyper-commercialised sport in the 21st century has resulted in a number of benefits for athletes and spectators. Athletes are able to make significant amounts of money; spectators can enjoy excitement of the highest order without having to leave their lounge rooms. But...

John Menadue. Media censorship and the NBN

The ABC's outgoing editor of its Technology and Games subsite, Nick Ross, has claimed that he has been 'gagged' by ABC management from publishing further articles about the NBN. He has now left the ABC. For link to an article on this latest gag on NBN coverage, see link at bottom to article by Renai LeMay of 14 January, in delimiter.com. There is a continuing pattern of failure by the mainstream media to expose the mess that Malcolm Turnbull has left us in the NBN. It has been almost entirely social media, including this blog, that has carried...

How 'Crazy' are the North Koreans?

Joel S. Wit writes about how the North Koreans have played their cards extremely well despite the appalling nature of their regime. See link to an article in the New York Times, by Joel S. Wit, who is a Senior Fellow of the US-Korea Institute at John Hopkins University. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/10/opinion/sunday/how-crazy-are-the-north-koreans.html

Peter Day. Professional sport needs more Pats.

Despite all the feel good talk, the rags to riches stories and wonderful qualities that people like to associate with professional sport, when all is said and done, what really shapes and drives it are these three things: Results 2. Results 3. Results. Winning is everything, and self-interest, the jockey. In such a hyper competitive environment, gaining an advantage, any advantage, becomes the Holy Grail. Even a one per cent edge can be the difference between winning and losing, between keeping your job and looking for another. No wonder clubs aggressively pursue all sorts of human expertise: corporate...

I stand at the door and knock.

Popes Message for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees January 17, 2016 Dear Brothers and Sisters, In the Bull of indiction of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy I noted that at times we are called to gaze even more attentively on mercy so that we may become a more effective sign of the Fathers action in our lives (Misericordiae Vultus, 3). Gods love is meant to reach out to each and every person. Those who welcome the Fathers embrace, for their part, become so many other open arms and embraces, enabling every person to feel loved like...

The policy scandal of a $11b taxpayer subsidy to private health insurance.

I dont think that I can recall a domestic policy that is so outrageous as the $11 b. annual cost to the taxpayer of the subsidy to private health insurance (PHI) companies. The subsidy is paid to policy holders, but it really means that PHI companies receive the benefit of the subsidy. For further explanation of the $11b figure see link to submission below. Repost from 08/12/2013

John Duggan. Advice from expert clinicians or the AMA

For those interested in the cost of health care the recently released interim report by the Medical Benefits Schedule (MBS) Review obsolete MBS items track one demonstrates the dawning recognition that there are procedures and tests that do not justify their existence or federal funding. The story begins with the decision of Ms Sussan Ley, Minister for Health to form the Medical Benefits Schedule Review taskforce, with a mandate to review the schedule in its entirety. The Task Force is an expert clinician led Medicare Benefit Schedule (MBS) review established to lead an accelerated program of MBS reviews...

Dennis Hemphill. Essendon Football Club

Their club failed them, but Essendon players can't excape blame for doping ban. Fingers are pointing again at the Essendon Football Club for its failures in the long-running supplements fiasco. This follows the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS) decision to ban 34 past and present players for one year for contravening the World Anti-Doping Code. A clubs coaches and other officials are supposed to have a duty of care to ensure a safe working environment and practices that are compliant with the anti-doping code. But the clubs failings in this area have already been dealt with. The AFL...

John Menadue. Preferential trade deals gigantic foundation stones or pebbles?

Malcolm Turnbull has described the TPP as a 'gigantic foundation stone' that will deliver 'more jobs, absolutely'. The World Bank now tells us that the TPP will be more like a pebble than a foundation stone. See following article by Peter Martin in SMH on January 12, 2016. http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/transpacific-partnership-will-barely-benefit-australia-says-world-bank-report-20160111-gm3g9w.html The following is a repost on the same subject, originally posted on 13/10/2015. John Menadue Repost from 13/10/2015. After two wasted years in government, it is perhaps not surprising that Malcolm Turnbull would try and gild the lily by telling us that the Trans-Pacific Partnership...

Evan Williams. Film Review: Paolo Sorrentino's 'Youth'

Written and directed by Paolo Sorrentino, Youth is a film for the young at heart or at least for those aspiring to that happy condition. The main characters are a couple of blokes on the wrong side of 70, and it was noticeable at my screening that most of the audience werent too far behind. Youth may not have been the best title. For all its undoubted charms, this isnt a film for the 18-to-24 demographic, much targeted these days by the major studios. That makes it something of a rarity and a pleasure. Sorrentino is keen...

Eric Walsh. Tribute to Brian Johns.

The death of Brian Francis Johns, 79, in the early hours of New Years Day marked the end of one of the most impressive Australian media careers of the last half century. During this period Johns engaged in and excelled at the top level of almost all aspects of media affecting the lives of everyday Australians. He distinguished himself as a political journalist on The Australian when he was that papers first political correspondent. He then filled similar roles on the now-defunct Weekly, The Bulletin and was later chief of the political office of The Sydney Morning Herald....

Commercialisation and the casualness of going to war

Repost from 23/04/2015. If we feel overwhelmed by the crass commercialism of Gallipoli and Anzac, take a deep breath because there are three years to go. Target has sponsored Camp Gallipoli, Woolworths has asked us to Keep Fresh in our Memories' the losses of Gallipoli ; VB depicted for us actors on the steps of the Melbourne Shrine of Remembrance who tell us to bow our heads and raise a glass of VB in memory of the first Australians who charged and died at Gallipoli. There have been endless advertising and sales of Gallipoli kitsch. Even our Governor...

Peter Drysdale. Taiwan's Political Choice.

On Sunday, Taiwan will elect its next president, the successor to President Ma Ying-jeou from the Kuomintang (KMT) party who has been in power for the past eight years and is ineligible to run for another term. The vote will almost certainly record a decisive choice for political change. In the run up to the election, the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate, Tsai Ing-wen, appears to be heading towards a runaway victory with polls suggesting that she has about 45 per cent voter support. This puts her far ahead of the ruling KMT party candidate, Eric Chu,...

Mark Gregory. Turnbull's NBN Mess

It has been an inauspicious beginning to 2016 for NBN Co and the year only promises to go from bad to worse as the rest of the world moves ahead with NG-PON2 Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) rollouts and Australians slowly realise that the spin from Turnbull about how his NBN was going to be fast, affordable and here sooner is nothing more than a bad joke. If youre a critic of the Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbulls Multi-Technology Mix (MTM) National Broadband Network (NBN) then youll have to get in line to be heard as there is going to...

John Menadue. Australians who fight in overseas wars.

Repost from 02/03/2015 The government has been concerned, as many of us are, about Australians fighting for IS in Syria and Iraq. The government is threatening to revoke the Australian citizenship of dual nationals who involve themselves in this war. Whether this will be successful is a very moot point. It is asserted by many that prosecution under our existing laws would be much more effective. But a government in trouble about its own security has to be seen to be doing something, e.g. revoking citizenship. There are an estimated 100 or so Australian citizens fighting with...

Vale Malcolm Fraser

Repost from 21/03/2015 I am sure that Malcolm Frasers concerns for human rights were always there. But as he grew and matured, that concern flourished and became obvious to all. He became our moral compass on human rights. I was first conscious of Malcolms concern for human rights when I listened to his speech in September 1975 at a luncheon in Parliament House Canberra to honour Helen Suzman. She was an anti-apartheid campaigner who for 13 years was the sole opponent of the apartheid regime in South Africas parliament. For the first time that I can recall, Malcolm...

Edmund Campion. Homily for the funeral service of Brian Johns.

Family, friends, colleagues of Brian Johns. The other morning, after Brian had died, it came to me, so this is the end of a conversation that endured for more than sixty years. Then I recalled that one name had dominated our earliest talks together, all those years ago, the name of Dorothy Day. Dorothy Day? Who was she? She was an American Catholic radical who, when she died in 1980, was given lengthy obituaries in The New York Times, The New York Review of Books and all the other leading papers. A significant figure in American culture. I can...

The forgotten war - Chinese resistance to Japan.

Repost from 17/09/2015 WASHINGTON, Sept. 1 -- Few in the West remember the fact that China was the first country to enter what would become World War II, and it was an ally of the United States and Britain from just after Pearl Harbor in 1941 till Japan's surrender in 1945, an Oxford expert said. In an article titled Forgotten ally? China's unsung role in World War II (WWII),circulated on U.S. TV network CNN's website Tuesday, Rana Mitter, a professor of modern Chinese politics and history at the University of Oxford, elaborated China's role in WorldWar II. ...

Bob Kinnaird. Foreign worker exploitation.

To reduce foreign worker exploitation, enforce employer sanctions laws 2015 produced a never-ending stream of stories of exploited foreign workers on all kinds of temporary visas. They include overseas students, working holiday and 457 skilled visa-holders. Nearly all temporary visas and some permanent residence visas are implicated. A Senate committee on Australias temporary work visa programs is due to report by end- February 2016. Changes are needed in many policies and practices. In an earlier blog (9/10/15), I argued for changes in government international education and visa policies that are feeding the growth in Australia of a...

Julianne Schultz. Tribute to Brian Johns.

Brian Johns: A critical Australian romantic Brian had a gift for friendship. I first got to know him in the late 1970s; I know that many of you knew him for longer. Over the years as some of his closest friends passed away, he made time to get to know others and share their dreams, ambitions and stories. That speaks to his gift for friendship his curiosity and empathy drove him to make connections, to find the good in people. He used to say to me that the best structures and systems in the world wouldnt work...

John Menadue. Radicalism and terrorism.

Repost from 15/10/2015 Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is talking a lot about his governments commitment to counter radicalisation in the Muslim community. The NSW Premier and Police Commissioner also keep talking about countering radicalisation. At least this is preferable to the endless talk we had before about a death cult and team Australia. But radicalism and terrorism are not the same thing. Radical politics and radical religion are surely acceptable and widespread. But what is not acceptable is to commit acts of violence and terrorism. Making this distinction between radicalism and terrorism is not some semantic play with...

Malcolm Turnbull's NBN.

The evidence continues to build that Malcolm Turnbull's version of the NBN is failing on almost all grounds. Analysis by Monash University researcher, Richard Ferrers, shows that the fibre to the premises option would actually deliver better value than the fibre to the node alternative which Malcolm Turnbull has been advocating. In his latest newsletter, Renai LeMay draws on this research by Richard Ferrers. See link below: https://delimiter.com.au/2016/01/04/detailed-analysis-of-nbn-cos-finances-shows-fttp-better-value-than-fttn/

John Menadue. Repost: NBN; the rot set in with John Howard.

The current NBN mess started with the decision of the Howard Government to privatise the whole of Telstra and not just its retail arm. If the wholesale arm of Telstra had remained in public hands we would have been well on our way to a successful NBN. Unfortunately, at Tony Abbott's urging, Malcolm Turnbull also let ideology take over with the resulting problems of an NBN that is slow, obsolete and expensive. See below, a repost of an article on John Howard's responsibility beginning the problem. John Menadue. The confusion and the delay that we have got ourselves...

John Menadue. 'The Big Short'

Paul Krugman reviews 'The Big Short', a film that the enemies of financial regulation hope you won't see or believe. See link below. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/18/opinion/the-big-short-housing-bubbles-and-retold-lies.html?smprod=nytcore-ipad&smid=nytcore-ipad-share

Crony capitalism, lobbyists and markets.

In the AFR today, John Kehoe writes about the power of lobbyists and crony capitalists who are killing faith in markets. He refers particularly to the US where 'crony capitalism' is sapping vitality out of the US economy. He adds that 'If you analyse the very richest Australians, beyond lucky inheritance, many have built their enormous wealth in industries heavily influenced by government regulation. Media, gaming and real estate development dominate the c.v.s of the upper echelons of the BRW rich list.' See link to John Kehoe's article: http://www.afr.com/opinion/regulation-crony-capitalists-are-killing-faith-in-the-markets-20160104-glyr2q I am also reposting an article I wrote in May...

John Quiggin. Piketty and the Australian exception.

Over the past forty years, leading developed economies, most notably the United States have experienced an upsurge in inequality of income and wealth. Most of the benefits of economic growth have accrued to those in the top 1 per cent of the income distribution. Meanwhile, living standards for those in the bottom half of the income distribution have stagnated or even declined. Pikettys work, published in reports and academic journals, has documented these trends. His book, Capital, not only brought the issues to the attention of a broader public, but presented an analysis suggesting that worse is to come....

John Menadue. High Court judges.

Former High Court judges have been in the news recently and not just Dyson Heydon In the 40th anniversary of the Whitlam Dismissal, two High Court judges at the time of the dismissal have been very much in the news. We were reminded again of the role of Sir Garfield Garwick in briefing and encouraging the Governor General to dismiss the Whitlam government. We also learnt more about the role of Sir Anthony Mason who not only coached the Governor General on what he might do but on the afternoon of the Dismissal advised the Governor General he need...

Pope Francis' frightening invitation to freedom.

I found this article very good reading for Christmas and the holiday season. It gives a very good account of where Pope Francis is heading. The article highlights the often-quoted comment from the Scriptures that the Sabbath is made for man and not man for the Sabbath. The author Tom Roberts is Editor at Large of the National Catholic Reporter in the US. John Menadue http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/francis-frightening-inviation-freedom

Victoria Rollison. The WorkChoices Zombie

Lets put aside the irony of a Liberal government, the preacher of the ills of big government, spending $45 million to reach its expensive Royal Commission tentacles into the operation of trade unions. Lets put aside the obvious political nature of such a witch-hunt, designed to reduce the power of unions to negotiate on behalf of workers, a seek and destroy mission with the pincer-movement aim of a) benefiting employers at the big end of town, b) reducing unions capacity to contribute funds to Labor election campaigns and c) to discredit Labor MPs with union backgrounds. For now, putting these...

Wayne McMillan. Rewriting the Rules: Lessons for Australia

The Roosevelt Institutes Chief Economist Joseph Stiglitz a Nobel Economics prize winner in his own right, has come up with a block buster report on the social and economic problems facing American society. This115 page report which was published as a book in November 2015 was put together with valuable assistance and input from a broad cross-section of people under the stewardship of Stiglitz. Notable economists such as Brad De Long and Robert Reich were among the consulting researchers. Stiglitzs team of researchers have revealed that the USA is in big trouble and at the heart of it are...

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