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

Tuong Quang Luu, AO. Cambodia, a deterrent or an opportunity lost?

My old friend looked straight at the stage witha strong determination, and perhaps, a touch of sadness. Sitting next to him, I sensed that the events of 60 years ago for Bern Brent, were rolling back to him as he mentally relived his teenage years. The occasion was a celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Dunera Boys arrival at SydneyHarbour in 1940. I first met Bern in the late 1950s when he taught me English as a lecturer at the University of Saigon. He was my first contact with Australia. Unbeknown to me at the time, Bern had...

John Menadue. Get ready for El Nino, Tony

The late Senator Moynihan from New York famously said that everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but no one is entitled to their own facts. Tony Abbott and Greg Hunt along with Alan Jones and Andrew Bolt have strong opinions on climate change that are not based on facts. If El Nino develops as presently indicated, Tony Abbott and Greg Hunt will tell us that its severity has nothing to do with global warming. Yet the facts tell us otherwise about the relationship between El Nino and global warming. In their political opportunism over the carbon tax,...

NY Times - Capitalism Eating its Children.

Yesterday I posted a blog 'Are our Bankers Listening or Caring'. It referred to speeches by the IMF Chief, Christine Lagarde, and the Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney. They were speaking at a 'Inclusive Capitalism' conference in London. Today the New York Times has carried an op ed piece by Roger Cohen entitled 'Capitalism Eating Its Children'. Cohen draws extensively on the speech by Mark Carney. The op ed piece in the New York Times can be found at: http://nyti.ms/1owYMKI John Menadue

John Menadue. Are our bankers listening or caring?

On Wednesday in London at a conference on inclusive capitalism the Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, and IMF Chief, Christine Lagarde, gave the international banking community the most severe pasting that I can ever recall of a particular industry, or at least one that operates legally. They said that bankers regarded themselves as different and not bound by the need for economic and social inclusion that is essential in a modern society. Both Carney and Lagarde said that the actions of the banks were excluding them from mainstream society. It is true of banks in Australia...

Geoff Hiscock. Onus on Abbott to forge closer ties with India

As a young man, Tony Abbott backpacked across India in 1981, and spent six weeks at the Australian Jesuit mission in Bihar state. He was fascinated by the countrys many contrasts, from its bullock carts to its nuclear power stations. His Indian exposure since then has been limited, but the Australian Prime Minister says he has always taken India seriously and has made it clear in his speeches and his interaction with the Indian community in Australia that he wants a much closer and deeper relationship. With Narendra Modi as Indias new leader, he has chance to do...

Michiya Matsuoka. Japanese collective atmosphere and the power of the media.

In John Menadues blog of 31 March, 2014, he expressed strong concern for recent events concerning Japans Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, and warned that Japan was fast approaching a nationalistic agenda and revisionist view of history. (See re-post today) I have these same misgivings about Japan and fully agree with John Menadues concern, including the role and responsibility of NHK (the Japanese public broadcaster similar to the Australian ABC and British BBC). Although NHK is an independent corporation, its annual budget is subject to review and approval by the Diet. A twelve member Board of Governors oversees...

John Menadue. Australia-Japan - friends should be frank.

Tony Abbott is shortly to visit Japan. He should be aware of the serious ultra-nationalist trend in Japan. That ultra-nationalism in the past has brought tragedy to the Japanese people and our region. The chief exponent of this ultra-nationalism in Japan is Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe,who will be his host. I believe that Japan is at a tipping point in its domestic politics and in its relations particularly with China and the Republic of Korea - countries that it has invaded and colonised in the past. I am presently in Japan and my friends express to me increasing...

John Menadue.The vendetta against the ABC and the cost to Australia

Tony Abbotts vendetta against the ABC is prejudicing Australias regional diplomacy. The ABC is the most trusted media organisation in the country but Tony Abbott wants to bring it to heel. He has grown used to the fawning Murdoch media. According to Essential Research, 70% of Australians have a lot of or some trust in ABC TV news and current affairs. For commercial news and current affairs, it is 38%; for news and opinion in daily newspapers it is 48% and for commercial TV news and current affairs it is 41%. In his attacks on the ABC,...

Caroline Coggins. Art and prayer

What do we pay attention to, what do we look for? It sounds like such an innocent question, yet it is a reflection of who we are, and how we have been shaped. I went to a Matisse exhibition when I was in London recently. What struck me was a comment the artist made as an older man, with only fourteen years of life left to him, that it was only now that he had tolearnthow to ' see'. And this seeing would take him on a totally other path, and would revolutionize what was considered art. Of...

John Falzon. Time to stand and fight

There are measures in this Budget that rip the guts out of what remains of a fair and egalitarian Australia. These measures will not help people into jobs but they will force people into poverty. You dont help young people or older people or people with a disability or single mumsinto jobs by making them poor. You dont build people up by putting them down. This Budget is deeply offensive to the people who wage a daily battle to survive. The content of the Budget is offensive. The lies told to justify the Budget are offensive. As...

Geoff Hiscock. Economic time is right in India for Modi and his mandate

Narendra Modi comes to office in India with two big advantages: the economic cycle is starting to turn up at last, and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has a clear majority in parliament that frees him from the coalition-style shackles that plagued his predecessor, Manmohan Singh. The timing is right for Modi. After two years of sub-5 per cent growth, it looks like Indias economy will grow 5.2 per this year and 6.0 per cent in 2015, according to the latest outlook from regional analysis firm IMA Asia. While that is still a long way from the 8...

John Menadue. Think tanks, cash for comment and the corruption of public debate.

In recent months we have been partly appalled and partly amused by the urgers and spivs from both sides of politics that have been paraded in Sydney before the Independent Commission against Corruption. Most recently we have seen developers and others using fronts to launder money to hand on to political parties. Even the Young Liberals have decided to get into the act with their Black Ops. But there are other more serious problems with think-tanks that receive large amounts of money, seldom disclose their sponsors or donors and then conduct overt political campaigns, invariably on behalf of business...

Julian McDonald. We will right this terrible wrong.

With searing eloquence, 11 men bravely told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Perth of the devastating impact of physical and sexual abuse at the hands of Christian Brothers in residences at Castledare, Clontarf, Bindoon and Tardun in Western Australia more than 50 years ago. No one could be but moved by these men, who told of their painful experiences of stolen innocence, of being subjected to physical brutality and the depths of sexual depravity by supposedly religious men from whom they had every right to expect care, nurture and respect. Instead they were...

Fran Baum and Sara Javanparast. Demise of Medicare Locals.

Demise of Medicare Locals: impact on community health, partnership and PHC research Fran Baum and Sara Javanparast Southgate Institute for Health, Society and Equity, Flinders University, Adelaide Tuesdays budget announced the abolition of the 61 Medicare Locals and that they will be replaced with an unknown but smaller number of Primary Health Networks. Regional primary health care organisations are widely acknowledged to be vital to effective coordination of PHC activities, reducing service fragmentation, making the health system easier to navigate for users, and reducing health care cost. Primary Health Care Trusts in England, New Zealand Primary Health...

John Menadue. For some the age of entitlement continues.

Joe Hockey talks endlessly that the days of entitlement are over. They may be over for the unemployed, students, the sick and pensioners in fact the majority never had days of entitlement. But they are certainly not over for the miners and the financial sector. These two sectors survived unscathed from the budget. This tells us a lot about who is running this government. For the miners, the mining tax and the carbon tax will end at a cost to the taxpayer of at least $10 billion per annum. The rebate on diesel fuel will remain. The government...

John Menadue. Seven dollar GP co-payment and an unintended consequence

If the co-payment takes effect, it is likely to result in an increase in doctors fees. As Ian McAuley has pointed out, the attraction of bulk-billing for the doctor is that it removes the cost of handling and accounting for transactions. The invoice is sent directly to Medicare. Once the doctor is obliged to handle the $7 co-payment, another transaction occurs; either by cash or probably credit card. This inevitable patient/doctor money transaction will provide the doctor with an opportunity to charge above the bulk billing rate. As soon as doctors stop bulk-billing we can expect a rapid...

John Menadue. The Budget: Robin Hood in reverse.

There was a real risk that Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey believed their windy rhetoric of the last two years about debt and deficits. Having won the election they have had to face the reality that they have been grossly exaggerating our economic problems. The real risk was that Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey would act on their own exaggerations and savagely attack the economy. Fortunately, the Budget tells a very different story. In terms of managing the macro-economy, the government has got it about right in the budget. It hasnt cracked down in the way many feared. ...

John Menadue. Health Co-payments and $7 for a GP visit!

We do need to take action to curb our visits to the doctor. In 1984-85 weaveraged about 7 Medicare services per head. By 2012-13 it had doubled to over 15 Medicare services per head. The increase was across all age groups and not just for the elderly. Bulk billing, fee for service, and the ability of doctors to generate demand for more and more visits, tests and referrals contributed to this dramatic doubling of Medicare services. It must be addressed for both fairness and efficiency reasons. The media seems convinced that the budget will include a co-payment of...

Peter Menadue. Should corporations have political rights?

There is an old legal saying that a corporation has no body to be burnt or soul to be damned. In other words, it is just a legal fiction designed to confer limited liability upon its shareholders. Despite that, there is an insidious and very dangerous notion abroad that corporations have political rights and should be allowed to make political donations and engage in political advertising. That notion is a terrible threat to the health of our democracy. The United States Supreme Court recently gave that idea a massive boost in the Citizens United case, when it decided...

John Menadue. Increasing the petrol tax is good policy.

It may not be good short-term politics for the Abbott Government but it will be of long-term benefit to Australia if we lift the excise on petrol which has been frozen since 2001. The motor industry will protest. It should be faced down, just as we should have faced down the mining lobby when it was being asked to make a fair return to the public for its depletion of our national endowments. Our petrol prices are amongst the lowest in the world. That results in less revenue for the government, reduced fuel efficiency, increased congestion in our...

John Menadue. Penalty rates and Liberal lobbyists.

There is a campaign underway to cut weekend and holiday penalty rates particularly in the restaurant and hospitality industries. True to form the Australian Financial Review says that weekend penalty rates are a relic of times past. A report leaked to the ABC indicates that the government will ask the Productivity Commission to undertake a comprehensive review of workplace laws. This will include penalty rates, pay and conditions, unfair dismissal, enterprise bargaining flexibility and union activities. It is proposed that this review by the Productivity Commission will consider the performance of the Fair Work Act. The Commission is expected...

A last hurrah from Graham Freudenberg on his 80th birthday

May Day 2014 fittingly the day of Neville Wrans memorial service at Sydney Town Hall may well turn out to be the day when the Labor Party began to see its way ahead. Not because of the event itself, although it certainly was a marvellous celebration of a great Labor era. But it was the day of the Shepherd Audit Report. It also happened to be the day when News Ltd bared its fangs and reminded the Abbott Government just who was calling the tune. I invite students of history to file away the Sydney Daily Telegraph on...

John Menadue. The cost of abolishing the Mining Tax

Just when the mining tax looks like raising some worthwhile revenue, the Coalition proposes to abolish the tax. The Rudd Government made a mess of the Resources Super Profits Tax (RSPT). We know from the Henry Tax Review and other commentators that such well-designed rent-based taxes are likely to be more efficient and even out the effects of volatile mineral prices. We also know that such taxes are superior to state government royalties. But the mining companies advertising and public relations campaign of $22 million scuttled the RSPT. For an expenditure of $22 million in lobbying and advertising...

Walter Hamilton. Yasukuni Shrine and why it matters.

YasukuniJapans Patriotic Lightning Rod The Shinto shrine known as Yasukuni sprawls over ten hectares in the centre of Tokyo near the northern edge of the Imperial Palace grounds. Here are enshrined 2.47 million deitiesthe spirits of Japanese military personnel and civilians on war service from conflicts going back to 1853, including around 1,000 convicted war criminals. To its critics, Yasukuni is a bastion of historical revisionism, which denies that Japan waged a war of aggression between 1937 and 1945. Visits to the shrine by senior members of the government are an ongoing source of friction with China and South...

John Menadue. Taxes - public or private

The Commission of Audit has recommended that a Medicare levy surcharge be applied to individuals earning more than $88,000 a year and $176,000 for families. This is designed to force high income earners to take out private health insurance. This is one of the most economically stupid and dangerous proposals that I have seen for a long time. The Commission of Audit foolishly thinks that this would reduce public taxes, but it would result in increased private taxes (premiums). Higher premiums are the inevitable result of increased reliance on private health insurance. This is what has brought disaster for healthcare...

John Menadue. The Commission of Audit and facing the wrong way.

Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey have been leaking confusing stories in the lead-up to the budget. A consistent theme however is that they must take tough action because of all the problems left by the previous government. They also need to justify the exaggerated rhetoric they used during the election campaign. A lot of it is confected. The Commission of Audit will add to the confusion in focussing on expenditure when the main problem is declining revenue. The neglected Henry review of taxation will be a better guide for the future than an ideological and partisan Commission of Audit...

John Menadue. Do our governments spend too much or do they raise too little in taxation?

This a repost and provides a summary of the submission that Ian McAuley, Jennifer Doggett and I made to the Commission of Audit. John Menadue The Minister for Health, Peter Dutton, has said that we must reduce waste and cut costs in health. (I responded to this in my blog on 3 February Cutting waste and costs in health). The Minister for Social Services, Kevin Andrews, has said that our welfare system is not sustainable and that we are headed down the high cost welfare path of European countries. (The ABC examined this assertion and found that it...

Penne Mathew and Tristan HarleyRegional Cooperation on refugees

In November last year Penne Mathew and Tristan Harley of the Australian National University undertook field work in Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia to examine the treatment of refugees in those countries and to discuss the possibilities of improved regional cooperation amongst themselves and also with resettlement countries such as Australia. I am strongly of the view that shared responsibility and cooperation is essential The Indonesian Foreign Minister, Marty Natalegawa recently put the case succinctly. For Indonesia, the message is crystal clear: the cross border and complex nature of irregular movements of persons defies national solutionsThere is no other recourse...

John Menadue. AMP excess and dud products.

I have posted several blogs on how powerful insiders bend governments to their will. Just think of the power of the polluter lobby, the mining lobby, the health lobby, the gambling lobby and the hotel lobby. But the superannuation lobby is probably the most powerful and the most lucrative gravy-train of all. The superannuation industry receives over $32 billion subsidy each year through tax expenditures or what we normally call deductions. In addition there is the tax-free superannuation income for those over 60, like me. In addition to these enormous subsidies to boost the superannuation industry, federal governments require...

Walter Hamilton. Anti-climax in Tokyo

Three words for Shinzo Abeand for history. Three words: including Senkaku islands (was Obamas omission of the definite article the, one wonders, part of a subconscious hesitation?). Thus a US president for the first time explicitly committed his country to defend Japan if it should come to blows with China in their territorial dispute. Barack Obama affirmed that the islands were covered by Article V of the Japan-US Security Treaty which states: Each Party recognizes that an armed attack against either Party in the territories under the administration of Japan would be dangerous to its own peace and safety...

John Menadue. Anzac and hiding behind the valour of our military.

For those who may have missed this. I have reposted this earlier piece about Anzac and hiding behind our heroes. John Menadue There is an unfortunate and continuing pattern in our history of going to war- that the more disastrous the war the more politicians and the media hide behind the valour of service men and women. We will see this displayed again on April 25. The Director of the Australian War Memorial, Brendan Nelson, drew attention to this well-honed way of distorting and excusing our strategic and political mistakes. In the SMH on October 5 last year,...

We were warned about lobbying.

In my blog of April 19 2014, 'This is about more than a bottle of wine' I referred to the need for major reforms in lobbying. Three and a half years ago the ICAC in NSW brought forward proposals to better manage lobbying and avoid corruption. The Recommendations of the ICAC are still relevant today. If action had been taken at the end of 2010 we could have avoided many of the problems that have arisen in NSW. The ICAC report follows. John Menadue

Brian Howe - Raising the Retirement Age

The Labor Government planned to lift age of eligibility for the aged pension from 65 to 67 between 2017 and 2023 and now the conservatives are considering raising it to 70 by 2029. Unless there are very big changes in the demand for older workers these changes must increase numbers on other payments such as Newstart or the Disability Pension. In the case of case of Newstart it would add to the hundreds of thousands of people living at least twenty percent below the poverty line. Several years ago a panel (Advisory Panel on the Economic Potential of Senior...

John Menadue. The media, our region and the PM's visit.

The Prime Ministers visit to Japan, the Republic of Korea and China, highlighted for me the problems of media reporting and understanding our region. I have posted blogs on our media. See April 17, 2013, Media failure: the tale of two bombings in two cities; May 17, 2013, Truth, trust and the media and January 31, 2014, Murdoch and Abbott versus the ABC. I posted a blog on April 10 this year, specifically on Tony Abbotts visit to Japan and the political shortcomings of Free Trade Agreements which usually have more hype than substance. That continues to be the...

This is about more than a bottle of wine

To mix my metaphors, the bottle of red wine that Barry OFarrell received is only the tip of an iceberg a sleezy world of lobbying, influence-peddling and corruption.

Patty Fawkner. An Easter story

If we think about it, each of us has an Easter story. Mine goes back to the death of my father. Dad died when I was a young nun. It was my first experience of the death of someone I deeply loved. Where once the word loss seemed a somewhat evasive euphemism, it was now acutely apt. I felt empty and fell into an abyss of grief, a grief that had begun eighteen months earlier, the day Dad was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. He was 57. People were kind; sympathy and support were generous and heartfelt. Yet...

Simon Rice. Racial vilification, social values and humility

I have spent a professional lifetime trying to get people to know about (let alone respect) anti-discrimination law, and suddenly everyone knows about section 18C. For all the wrong reasons. A right reason for knowing about 18C would be because it is offers guidance on what can fairly be said and done on the basis of race. A wrong reason would be because it is characterised as an unwarranted limit on free speech. For close to 20 years, the limits imposed by 18C have been unremarkable. The Australian Human Rights Commission receives and resolves complaints about conduct that exceeds...

John Menadue. The new squatters on public land.

More alienation of public space. In my blog yesterday, I referred to the alienation of public space in Barangaroo and proposed for the Sydney Botanic Gardens. Today there are reports that Wentworth Park, which is Crown Land, will be developed as a billion dollar residential complex. In a letter to the SMH we are told how Wentworth Park was originally described as 'the second most beautiful park in Sydney after the Botanic Gardens'. It had lakes, beautiful gardens and a cricket pitch. Unfortunately, it was then converted to a greyhound race track, but elements of the park were still...

John Menadue. Using the military for political purposes

In my blog of March 26 (below) 'Using the military for political purposes', I drew attention to three instances in which the Australian Defence Forces have been used, apparently willingly, to support the party-political aims of the government. That political support has now been stepped up several notches by the comments of the Commander of Operation Sovereign Borders, Angus Campbell, on a government television advertisement. In a series of government advertisements on U-Tube, Angus Campbell, standing next to a sign 'No way' says 'The message is simply, if you come to Australia illegally by boat there is no...

Caroline Coggins. The story of Easter: the love template.

How often do we fall in love, the sort that turns us around, strips us and re-orientates us, shakes the foundations of what it is to relate and be with another? Not very often, mostly we are too guarded. But at times it happens, and I have come to take this as a call, our feelings leap forward and say follow me. A person I loved died this week. He was an old man, though he did not feel old to me. I just loved him. He had been a training supervisor when I was becoming a psychotherapist, so...

John Menadue. Tony Abbott in Japan

Tony Abbott has just completed his visit to Japan. The media has been full of stories about the improvement particularly in agricultural exports from Australia to Japan. It should all be taken with a grain of salt. There have been some improvements particularly for our beef exports but the hype and spin does not obscure the fact that the so-called deal in Japan is only of marginal benefit.It is a third rate result. The best result would be a multilateral result. The second best result would be unilateral tariff reductions. Bilateral Free Trade Agreements are third rate. In my...

Ben Saul. Australia's Guantanamo problem.

Ben Saul has written an article for the New York Times about the imprisonment of 52 people in Australia for up to nearly five years without trial. Secret evidence has been presented against them. They have no prospect of release. Read the full article from the New York Times by following the link below. Ben Saul is Professor of International Law at the University of Sydney. John Menadue   http://sydney.edu.au/news/law/436.html?newscategoryid=64&newsstoryid=13274

John Menadue. Citizenship and shared experience.

The recent decision by the NSW Government to evict pensioners and low-income tenants from the Rocks in Sydney highlighted for me the importance of mixed communities and shared experiences. We all benefit in society when we have shared experiences. We can then get to know other peoples aspirations and their problems. We invariably find that we have much more in common than we think. We benefit both as individuals and as a society. Why should only one part of society, the wealthy, enjoy harbour views? Why should a mixed community that has lived for so long in one...

Kerry Murphy. To Kill a Mockingbird and 2014.

Mark Twain is quoted as saying that history does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme. I was reminded of this when seeing the excellent production of To Kill a Mockingbird at the New Theatre in Newtown, Sydney last week. Good literature manages to make us reflect on our own times, and challenges us to think about how we might act in difficult times. Harper Lees 1960 novel is well known and is a modern classic. The seemingly simple story of young Scout and her brother Jem, and their widower lawyer father in 1935 Alabama still resonates with an...

Walter Hamilton. The guts of a Free Trade Agreement with Japan.

Dolphin-culling and free trade agreements represent opposite sides of the coin of the relationship between Australia and Japan. Both are currently in the news, with Sea Shepherd activists hounding the fishermen of Taiji (where the documentary The Cove was filmed) and Australian cattle producers in Tokyo trying to break down the last obstacle to a bilateral FTA. More than that, the two issues encapsulate the divided response among many in the West to Japan as a backward and insular nation, on the one hand, and a modern, global partner on the other. Years ago I visited the island of...

Walter Hamilton. Credulity and formalism: Abbott's twin challenges in Japan.

A prominent Japanese historian once likened the psychology of wartime Japan to a madhouse in which the public became capable of believing anything. Another who lived through those years noted how formalismkeeping up appearances long after a cause has ceased to have any meaningsuited a nation unable to change with the times. Credulity and formalism remain powerful elements in Japanese culture, regardless of the fact that the population is highly educated and, these days, formal barriers to the free flow of information are low. Recently we have witnessed extraordinary examples of this phenomenon. As Tony Abbott prepares for his first...

John Menadue. Pity our diplomats.

It is not often that our diplomats in foreign posts receive or need our sympathy in the work they do. But just think of their present plight in defending the Australian Governments behaviour in foreign policy. What we are seeing across so many countries is alarming. With many key countries, we are skating on very thin ice and the ice will probably crack fairly soon. Just consider what is happening. In our region for decades, opinion leaders and almost anyone else who knew anything about Australia scratched their heads when they realised that we had a foreign...

Louise Newman. Detention of children seeking asylum in Australia.

Australia has a unique approach to the problemof asylum seekers arriving by boat in an unauthorised fashion exportation. Under current policy all unauthorised arrivals are processed as rapidly as possible on Christmas Island and then transferred to Nauru or Manus who are supported by Australia to assess refugee claims, house and ultimately resettle those found to be refugees. Or so the story goes. Much recent discussion, particularly since the attacks on asylum seekers on Manus allegedly by those in protective roles, has pointed to the breakdown of this system with increasing numbers remaining on Christmas Island and lack of...

David Isaacs. Impacts of detention on children.

I am a paediatrician. I specialise in paediatric infectious diseases but also work as a general paediatrician. For the last 10 years, I and my colleagues have run a Refugee Clinic at the Childrens Hospital at Westmead, where we assess child asylum seekers and refugees. The initial aim of this clinic was to screen children for treatable infectious diseases like tuberculosis and malaria and for other non-infectious conditions like rickets. However, the whole nature of the assessment has changed of late. Over the ten years, we have seen a very large number of children who have been in detention...

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