World Affairs
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FAZAL RIZVI. Migration Ain’t What It Used to Be
That Asian-Australians are making a substantial contribution to the Australian economy is a fact that can no longer be contested. This contribution is of enormous significance, especially as Australia seeks to become integrated into the regional economy. The issues of how this contribution might be mapped and enhanced are examined in a report released by Continue reading »
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JOHN MENADUE. Julie Bishop – Foreign Minister or Senior Consular Officer
Foreign ministers can hide their failures more easily than other ministers because ‘foreign affairs’ has no serious domestic constituency. Appearances on the public and world stage can also hide a lack of substance – for a while. But the failures of Julie Bishop are now clear. Most of her media appearances are now about ‘consular’ Continue reading »
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ALISON BROINOWSKI. The silence is deafening.
We learn belatedly that Prime Minister Abbott tried to persuade the Army to send to the MH17 crash site in Ukraine, were more like 3000, a full brigade! In this long election campaign, the major parties are debating anything and everything that will affect votes. Everything, that is, except refugees, foreign policy, and – as Continue reading »
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BOB KINNAIRD on China-Australia Free Trade Agreement (ChAFTA)
An opinion piece in yesterday’s Financial Review by James Laurenceson dismisses union concerns on ChAFTA – ‘Don’t believe Chinese worker Free Trade Agreement scaremongering’, 9/6/16. It warrants a response. Laurenceson’s claims do not stand up to scrutiny. They concern firstly the Chinese installers on the 400 visas, the subject of John Menadue’s blog below. Laurenceson fails Continue reading »
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JOHN MENADUE. Free Trade Agreements. The Abbott and Turnbull Governments were told but wouldn’t listen. They went further and attacked those who expressed concerns.
The ink was hardly dry on the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement (ChAFTA) before we learned about labour market exploitation under the agreement. Continue reading »
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A war on women. Protection denied, abuse condoned on Nauru.
the news from Manus and Nauru gets worse by the day. Inhumanity is imposed in our name. Nauru and Manus are unsustainable. I have yet to meet anyone who will admit that what is happening is right or defensible. See link below ‘Protection denied, abuse condoned; women on Nauru at risk’. This searing story is Continue reading »
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CAVAN HOGUE. Australia and its relationships with US and China.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the US Studies Centre at Sydney University has produced a study which showed that 8 out of 10 Australians were only mildly concerned about the fact that, as they saw it, China already dominated Asia and they did not think China would go to war with the USA. They Continue reading »
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FAZAL RIZVI. The benefits to Australia of our Asian diasporas which now constitute over 17% of our population.
That Asian-Australians are making a substantial contribution to the Australian economy is a fact that can no longer be contested. This contribution is of enormous significance, especially as Australia seeks to become integrated into the regional economy. Continue reading »
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TIM SOUTPHOMMASANE. Bamboo ceiling and race relations.
Many of us have good reason for thinking that the state of our race relations is under challenge. We frequently see stories about people being racially vilified on public transport, and our recent public debates are punctuated by controversies about race. We know racism is a reality in contemporary Australian society. About 20 per cent Continue reading »
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JOHN TULLOH. 60 Minutes – the failure to think it right through. Amazing!
One of the best pieces of advice I received in 40 years of involvement in foreign television news was ‘Think it right through’. I was arguing with a colleague on a telex machine about a certain story. I was keen for it. He was cautious, hence his advice. He was right. The story was in Continue reading »
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RICHARD BUTLER. Obama and Nuclear Weapons
It is widely acknowledged by those who have had anything substantive to do with nuclear weapons that as long as they exist they will, one day, be used, either by accident or decision. Equally, it is acknowledged that any such use would be a catastrophe. Thus, the logical and human solution is to eliminate them. Continue reading »
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TRAVERS McLEOD, PETER HUGHES, SRIPRAPHA PETCHARAMESREE, STEVEN WONG, TRI NUKE PUDJIASTUTI: Rohingya refugees and building a regional framework to manage refugee flows.
Part 1. The Andaman Sea refugee crisis a year on: what happened and how did the region respond? The Andaman Sea crisis a year ago catalysed important policy developments on forced migration in Southeast Asia. Part one recaps what happened, and how the region responded. In part two, we discuss what’s happened since the crisis, Continue reading »
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ALISON BROINOWSKI; Wisdom in hindsight.
Leaders who have presided over policy disasters typically respond in one of three ways. Some of them leave office and retire to their well-feathered nests, where they hibernate in silence. Others spray the blame around, including at those who advised them against the original folly, refusing to admit responsibility for it, and yet still Continue reading »
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Obama and the absence of apology in Hiroshima
‘As President of the United States of America, I express my profound apologies for the sufferings inflicted on the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the atomic bombings.’ These, of course, are the words that we are not going to hear Barack Obama speak in Hiroshima on 27 May, when he becomes the first sitting US Continue reading »
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JOHN MENADUE. Is the Coalition better able to manage our borders?
For many years senior journalists have been telling us, or at least accepting the spin, that conservatives are better economic managers. I don’t think there is evidence to back that claim as several writers have pointed out in this blog. The other area where many senior journalists have been even more gullible is the acceptance Continue reading »
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Did the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki end the war?
Today, President Obama is visiting Hiroshima. He will be the first US President to do so since the bombing in 1945. He said that he will not be apologising for the dropping of the bomb and will not try and second-guess President Harry Truman’s decision. The widely accepted moral justification for the bombings of Hiroshima Continue reading »
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BILL AND BARBARA CLEMENTS: Refugees and round-ups.
The Paris Metro station of Bir Hakeim, not far from the Eiffel Tower, serves both the Australian Embassy and a monument that was erected in 1994 to commemorate the mass round-up of Jews, brought to the Velodrome d’hiver (an indoor cycle track known as the Vel d’hiv) which formerly occupied the site. The Australian Embassy Continue reading »
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SPENCER ZIFCAK. PNG Supreme Court Trumps Detention on Manus Island and Australia’s High Court too. It is regrettable that Australia does not have a similar Bill of Human Rights
In the latest legal saga to beset the Government’s troubled offshore processing program, the Supreme Court of Papua New Guinea declared that the mandatory detention of asylum seekers from Australia on Manus Island was unconstitutional. The Court held that the detention of some 900 men on Manus violated the right to liberty guaranteed by PNG’s Continue reading »
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JOHN MENADUE. Our White Man’s Media. It is so derivative and relies heavily on news and entertainment sources in New York and London.
Mark Scott the outgoing Managing Director on the ABC regretted his failure to ensure that the ABC reflected the ethnic diversity of Australia. He should also have added that the ABC has failed to help us equip ourselves for our future in Asia. It is therefore welcome that the new MD Michelle Guthrie has said Continue reading »
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BOB KINNAIRD. Like earlier Free Trade Agreements, the new FTA with Singapore continues to waive labour market testing which has been designed to protect Australian workers and students.
Prime Minister Turnbull announced the Australia-Singapore ‘Comprehensive Strategic Partnership’ (CSP) on 6 May last, just a few days before he called the 2 July election. Cynics will suspect the timing and also see the Singapore announcement as something of a consolation prize. The much bigger FTA fish for the Turnbull government was the elusive agreement Continue reading »
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JOHN MENADUE. Bamboo ceiling and the old boys club. Our business sector is not equiping itself for our future in Asia.
For three decade James Ruse High School in NSW and similar high schools around Australia have been dominating Higher School Certificate results. And according to the NSW Education Department 80% of these top students come from a background other than English with most coming from Asian Backgrounds But despite this remarkable record few of these Continue reading »
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GEOFF HISCOCK. Asia’s easy opportunities overshadow Indian business ties. Australian businesses lack enthusiasm for Indian opportunities.
At the Australia India Business Council forum in Sydney earlier this week, Indian diplomats wondered why Australian businesses lacked enthusiasm about engaging with an economy that is destined to become the world’s third largest within the next two decades. Continue reading »
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Brexit and possible consequences.
In the London Review of Books, Ferdinand Mount, describes the gaggle of opponents of the EU and the possible consequences if the UK votes to brexit (exit from the EU). He highlights some of the risks: a risk of recession or at worst a slump; capital flight; impact on employment; a rumpus in Scotland and Continue reading »
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Warwick Elsche. If words were deeds.
If words were deeds – or even credible policies – Malcolm Turnbull might already have joined the company of Australia’s pre-eminent Prime Ministers. All three of Malcolm’s pre-politics callings, journalism, law and banking, have involved the extensive used of the words medium. But none of these also involved the commitment, the enduring exposure, or the Continue reading »
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Bruce Duncan. Julie Bishop cuts Overseas Development Aid to record low.
Despite lobbying from many groups, the May federal budget for 2016-2017 is hacking another $224 million from Australia’s overseas aid, reducing our aid to $3.8 billion, and as a percentage of our national income to just 0.23%, our lowest level ever. The Coalition had already cut $1.1 billion off our aid, reducing spending in Africa Continue reading »
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Our better angels.
Wasim Buka was sentenced recently on two charges of people-smuggling. He came to Australia as a boat person and has settled in Australia. Unfortunately, two of his brothers were executed in Iraq and one sister, following in his footsteps to Australia, drowned along with her husband and five children in the waters between Australia and Continue reading »
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‘Refugees don’t self-harm because of me, Peter Dutton, they self-harm because of you.’
One of the many disappointments of Malcolm Turnbull’s prime ministership is that he reappointed Peter Dutton as Minister for Immigration and Border Protection. This disappointment is reinforced by his attempt to blame refugee advocates rather than his own policies for the self-harm of asylum seekers. Sarah Smith, a supporter of refugees, tells of the heartbreak Continue reading »
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Kerry Murphy. Blaming refugees.
Blaming instances of self-harm by refugees and asylum seekers on ‘refugee advocates’ or the undeserving asylum seekers is not a new political tactic. Back in 2001 then Minister Ruddock was interviewed by Four Corners about the problems of self-harm by asylum seekers in detention, especially in Curtain, Woomera and Port Hedland detention centres. Journalist Debbie Continue reading »
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John Zaw. No end in sight to Rohingya suppression in Myanmar.
The hardline Buddhist Arakan National Party (ANP) that holds a majority of seats in Myanmar’s religiously divided Rakhine State has promised to fight any attempts to grant up to 1 million stateless ethic Rohingya citizenship. For the new National League for Democracy (NLD) government in Myanmar, the first civilian administration in the country in more Continue reading »
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Douglas Newton. The Centenary of the Great War – and Anzac
The Great War. What we fought for and why were peace initiatives resisted for so long. Many of those promoting the Anzac Centenary appear to believe that there are certain essentials the Australian people must learn about the Great War: that Australians fought exceedingly well; that they fought even better when led by Australians; that Continue reading »