Politics
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SPENCER ZIFCAK. Counter-terrorism and human rights.
I am presently in Paris. Along with many other countries, France faces a terrorism threat. France is grappling with the problem of how democracies can best handle threats of terrorism. In light of that I am reposting an earlier article from the Policy Series, by Spencer Zifcak, on human rights and combatting terrorism. John Menadue Continue reading »
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MUNGO MacCALLUM. Campaign against the Australian Census.
My first encounter with the Australian census was in 1971, and even then there were worries about its privacy. Gordon Barton, the proprietor of Nation Review, the paper for which I then worked, ran a fierce campaign against what he thought was a dangerous tendency for the government to collect people’s personal details. I Continue reading »
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IAN McAULEY. Health care and Labor.
In the recent election Labor had fine words on health care – “Labor will ensure that access to health care is determined by your Medicare card, and not your credit card” – but in reality its policy proposals, if implemented, would have been even more destructive of Medicare than the Coalition’s. The Coalition, true Continue reading »
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JEFF KEHOE. Can capitalism be redeemed?
In this article in the Harvard Business Review, Jeff Kehoe poses the future of capitalism. He says Although it may be necessary to treat inequality as an economic problem, it is not sufficient. The US as a country needs to ask and answer some basic questions. Who gets to set the rules? What value should Continue reading »
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MICHAEL KEATING. Improving employment participation.
This is a repost of an article by Michael Keating last year which was part of the Fairness, Opportunity and Security policy series. John Menadue The rate of employment participation and the productivity of those employees together determine the average per capita incomes of Australians, and therefore our living standards. In addition, being employed creates Continue reading »
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TONY KEVIN. Kevin Rudd and the UN
An exceptionally difficult UN Secretary-General selection process is set to continue On 29 July, Malcolm Turnbull controversially announced that the Australian Government will not nominate Kevin Rudd for the UN Secretary-General position. Here in Australia, the focus of discussion on the Rudd candidacy has been on domestic political issues of precedent and loyalty to Team Continue reading »
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MUNGO MacCALLUM. Malcolm Turnbull and indigenous affairs.
If Malcolm Turnbull did not know it before, he certainly should now: before you stomp your way into Aboriginal politics, it is wise to first don the emu-feather sandals of a trained Kadaitcha man. The area is fraught with uncertainty and sensitivities which are not always apparent to the outsider; whitefella politics are relatively Continue reading »
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CIA Briefing for Donald Trump
In the New York Times of 4 August, 2016, Nicholas Kristof gives a make-believe account of a security briefing of Donald Trump by a CIA officer. It is quite funny – but at the same time, quite worrying. John Menadue http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/04/opinion/donald-trump-and-a-cia-officer-walk-into-a-room.html?ref=international&_r=0 Continue reading »
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MERVYN KING. Which Europe Now?
In this article ‘Which Europe now?’ in the New York Review of Books, Mervyn King says Our political class would do well to recall the words of Confucius: Three things are necessary for government: weapons, food and trust. If a ruler cannot hold on to all three, he should give up weapons first and Continue reading »
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LINDA SIMON. Australian VET in crisis! Are there lessons to be learned from the UK?
For some the crisis in vocational education and training (VET) and the fate of TAFE was a critical issue in the recent Australian Federal elections. For others it hardly made the radar. Unfortunately a number of those others included members of the re-elected Federal Government. Karen Andrews is now the fifth Minister or Assistant Continue reading »
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WALTER HAMILTON. Japan’s Diminishing Returns.
Japan, in my nearly forty years of observing and reporting on that country, has never been so delicately and dangerously poised. Australians, who have long relied on it as an economic powerhouse and ‘common interest’ partner, need to be paying close attention. Continue reading »
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FRANK BRENNAN SJ. Refugees – John Howard could do it. Why not Malcolm Turnbull?
My quandary remains: if John Howard was able to keep the boats stopped while closing Nauru and Manus Island, why can’t Malcolm Turnbull? If John Howard was able to accept New Zealand’s offer to resettle some of the caseload why can’t Malcolm Turnbull? I just don’t buy the line that the people smugglers have Continue reading »
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MICHAEL KEATING. The role and responsibilities of government.
With the election of the new government, I have decided to repost several articles from our policy series that are still relevant. One of these is by Michael Keating (below) on the role and responsibilities of government. John Menadue Different possible conceptions of the responsibilities and roles of government are an important backdrop to Continue reading »
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JOHN MENADUE. Democratic renewal.
Vested interests and the subversion of the public interest. There are many key public issues that we must address such as climate change, growing inequality, tax avoidance, budget repair, an ageing population, lifting our productivity and our treatment of asylum seekers. But our capacity to address these and other important issues is becoming very difficult Continue reading »
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JOHN MENADUE. Democratic Renewal.
Our loss of trust in institutions. We speak often about the need for new ideas and policies to fill the void in the public debate. We will be examining these issues in this series Fairness, Opportunity and Security. But I think there is a prior problem. We need political reform to restore trust in Continue reading »
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CHRIS BONNOR & BERNIE SHEPHERD. It’s NAPLAN time again!
August is when the NAPLAN test results come out to schools and parents. It isn’t as exciting as the annual release of Year 12 results, but it is developing a life of its own. We are bombarded with media releases, claims and counter claims about schools and results. Cheer squads or jeer squads form Continue reading »
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WALTER HAMILTON. Corruption by Prediction
It is a modern-day impatience: we want to eat dessert first. In election campaigns, therefore, we seek to ‘taste’ the result through opinion polls, vox pops, electoral maps (with winners already allocated), predictive analogies or psephological cephalopods. So it was during the recent Australian elections; so it is again as Americans wait (redundantly?) for Continue reading »
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TONY SMITH. Hopes End: the cynics must not prevail
Dear Prime Minister Turnbull Congratulations on your election success. Two years ago very few observers believed the Coalition Government deserved another term so you have a personal achievement of which you can be proud. While you were busy campaigning, I distracted myself by reading Coral Lansbury’s Sweet Alice. * What an enjoyable read that Continue reading »
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CAMERON DOUGLAS. The military coup and the Constitution in Thailand.
Thais will vote in a referendum on Sunday (August 7) to approve, or reject, a new constitution. This will be the post-coup government’s second attempt to implement a new national charter. The constitution would usher in a form of parliamentary government but the military would retain the power of veto: the system could not Continue reading »
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WALTER HAMILTON. Tokyo’s First Female Governor, and the disturbing state of Japanese politics.
The victory of 64-year-old Yuriko Koike in last weekend’s Tokyo gubernatorial election tells us a lot about the disturbing state of Japanese politics. Hailing from the right wing of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party, Koike holds views on constitutional change, school textbook revision and other contentious issues that line up with those of Prime Continue reading »
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JON STANFORD and JOHN MENADUE. The submarine confusion continues. Is the way being prepared for Australia to acquire nuclear submarines?
REPOST In an interesting development relating to Australia’s new submarine acquisition, Peter Jennings, Executive Director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), has written a piece in The Australian (7 June 2016) that is clearly at odds with the Institute’s previous public stance. Jennings says that while conventional power for Australia’s submarines has previously been Continue reading »
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JOHN MENADUE. Democratic Renewal.
In the series, Fairness, Opportunity and Security that Michael Keating and I edited there were several articles that are still particularly relevant. Several of them deal with the disappointment many of us feel about our institutions and the lack of trust in parliament and politicians. I will be reposting some of these articles over Continue reading »
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IAN McAULEY. Problems of Private Health Insurance.
The PHI industry continues to make two invalid assumptions about private health care. The first is that governments are intrinsically high cost and bureaucratic and that the private sector is unquestionably more efficient. This is patently not true. The least efficient health service in the world, the US, is based on private health insurance and Continue reading »
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RICHARD WOOLCOTT. The South China Sea, China, Philippines, Australia and the US.
I was surprised the Opposition did not differentiate itself from the Australian Coalition Government’s strong support for the US and the Philippine position on the South China Sea issue. It can be argued that it was misleading to state in public that the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) judgment in favour of the Philippines was Continue reading »
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MUNGO MacCALLUM. So much for Team Australia!
The term was always a bit suss – indeed, when Tony Abbott coined it to claim solidarity against the war against terror, it quickly became obvious that membership of his side was to be strictly limited. Team Australia meant, in effect, Team Abbott: its participants were to be Captain’s picks, loyal not to the country Continue reading »
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Culture and Religion, Human Rights, Immigration, refugees, Politics, Religion and Faith, World Affairs
DALLY MESSENGER. A letter to Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten concerning refugees.
There is some talk of cooperation so, living in hope, I am emboldened to write to both of you. Only by you both working together can this criminal behaviour cease. There are far better ways to stop people smuggling than imprisoning people in third world jails without charge or trial. Continue reading »
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ALISON BROINOWSKI. What Chilcot doesn’t say.
Comprehensive though the Chilcot report is, and 12 volumes long, its promised revelations about how Britain went to war in Iraq and the lessons to be learnt are incomplete. What’s missing is particularly important for Australia, which has yet to hold such an inquiry, and where public pressure for one is mounting. Continue reading »
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PETER YOUNG. Speaking of Freedom: Human rights and mental health in detention.
Peter Young is a member of Doctors for Refugees who have launched a High Court challenge against the Secrecy Provisions in the Border Force Act which states that an ‘entrusted person’ who discloses protected information can face up to two years in prison. I am reposting below an earlier article that Peter Young contributed to Continue reading »
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JIM COOMBS. “Circle” Incarceration
After the revelations this week, it is trite to say that the criminal justice system is failing the Aboriginal people of Australia. One significant reason for this is the exclusion of the Aboriginal community from the process. One “reform” in the process over the last decade or so is “circle sentencing” which allows a Continue reading »
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DEAN ASHENDEN. State aide, the ALP and the ‘needs policy’.
When Labor decided to support public funding of non-government schools fifty years ago, it created a legacy that is still misunderstood. Continue reading »
