Politics
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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 people’s aspirations and their problems. We invariably find that Continue reading »
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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 Continue reading »
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Mack Williams. Abbot’s visit to Korea not all about trade!
As Tony Abbott’s first time to South Korea (ROK) as Prime Minister this visit carries much more importance than the mercantilist hype in which it has been cloaked. It will certainly will be seen through a much larger prism by his hosts – and their brothers across the border. The Korean peninsular is of fundamental Continue reading »
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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 Continue reading »
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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 formalism––keeping up appearances long after a cause has ceased to have any meaning––suited a nation unable to change with the times. Credulity and formalism Continue reading »
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John Tulloh. The way to the future through annexation.
Annexation, as in the latest example of Russia with Crimea, usually refers to a smaller entity being swallowed up by a bigger one. It has a long history with both violent and peaceful outcomes. A recent example is East Jerusalem which Israel took over after the Six-Day War in 1967, resulting in enmity ever since. Continue reading »
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John Dwyer. Primary healthcare in Australia reaches the crossroads.
When I graduated some 50 years ago more than 50% of my class pursued careers as General Practitioners. In the last available survey of the career intentions of graduating medical students only 13% said they were interested in Primary Care and only 13% of those who would consider a career in rural Australia. Currently more Continue reading »
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Ian McAuley, Jennifer Doggett and John Menadue. The case for government funding of healthcare.
In our joint submission to the Senate Inquiry into the Abbott Government’s Commission of Audit, we drew attention to the fact that by international comparison, Australia is a low-taxed country. Furthermore, the trend in Commonwealth expenditures has been downwards since the mid-1980s. Our full submission can be found on my website (click above). In that Continue reading »
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Martin Laverty. Poverty and poor health go together.
In 2008, the World Health Organisation provided an action plan to Australia and other countries to tackle the health disparity between rich and poor which sees an Australian in the lowest group of wealth-holders live with up to three times the amount of chronic illness of a person in the highest wealth-holding group. One year Continue reading »
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Graham Freudenberg on ‘The Making of Australia – A Concise History’ by Robert Murray
When I was a teenage Tory in Brisbane in the early Fifties, Bob Murray, a bright young spark from the Melbourne Argus was the most persuasive of my newspaper contemporaries who led me gently towards the light. In Sydney a couple of years later, at the end of 1954, in midnight to dawn sessions at Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Privatising Medibank Pte – who cares?
This is a repost from 28 November 2013. My own view is that all the private health insurance companies, including Medibank Pte are parasitical and undermine Medicare. The only important political issue in my mind is whether the policy holders who have contributed over decades to Medibank Pte should receive appropriate recompense rather than Continue reading »
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Rod Tiffen. Abbott contempt of court.
After the 2013 election, the ABC satirical program The Hamster Decides responded to an election night comment by the columnist for the Australian Chris Kenny that the ABC’s funding should be cut with an animated version of Kenny having intercourse with a dog. Kenny demanded an apology and then sued for defamation. It is unusual Continue reading »
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Susie Carleton. The ABC is at it again.
Don’t we all now know from the upright Hon Scott Morrison that decent members of the Australian Armed Services would never – and did not – cause the burning of the hands of asylum seekers under their control. Nor was there any further ill-treatment of a later batch of unfortunates as claimed in ABC 7.30- Continue reading »
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John Menadue. An enormous financial heist is underway.
We saw the enormous power of the mining sector when the foreign-owned mining companies forced the Rudd government to ignominiously back down on its super profits tax. For less than $20 million in an advertising and public relations campaign the miners secured for themselves tax savings of over $60 billion. The public interest was surrendered Continue reading »
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Azita Bokan. The tragedy on Manus – an eye-witness account.
Azita Bokan was on Manus Island as an official Iranian interpreter during the recent violent clashes. What follows is an edited version of her interview by Richard Glover on ABC Radio Sydney on 21 February 2014. I came to Australia some 27 years ago and am a proud Australian. My father was a writer and Continue reading »
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Alex Mitchell, reporting from Hobart. The Tasmanian Chainsaw Massacre.
On the eve of any election it is the practice of tabloid editors to reach into battered folders containing tried and trusted headlines capable of exciting readers on polling day – PHOTO FINISH or TOO CLOSE TO CALL or sometimes IT’S A CLIFFHANGER. With Tasmanians going to the polls this Saturday none of the above Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Gina Rinehart and the age of entitlement.
It is a bit rich for Gina Rinehart, with the enormous privileges she has inherited, to be telling us that we all need to work harder, cut taxes and curb wasteful government spending. Born on third base, as baseball enthusiasts would understand, does give a very jaundiced view of yourself and others. There is a Continue reading »
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Race Mathews. Victorian Labor’s new crisis.
ALP members and supporters in Victoria have cause for alarm about the party’s wellbeing and perhaps long-term survival. While federal leader Bill Shorten has committed to far-reaching party reforms, and other states such as Queensland are already adopting them, the Victorian ALP is lurching back into a troubled past, which threatens its effectiveness and future. Continue reading »
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John Menadue. The lesser royals are on the move again.
Prince William, his wife Kate and son George are to visit Australia next month. What joy awaits us. The weather should be good for a holiday and adulation from Tony Abbott and his monarchist friends. Seeing such a visit, the leaders in our region will again scratch their heads. In this ‘Asian Century’ why is Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Conservatives, conventions and traditions.
Conservatives extoll the importance of conventions, traditions, and respect for established institutions. But it seems to be only when it suits them. They lecture us and others about democracy, free elections, the separation of powers and the independence of the judiciary. Colloquially they sum it up ‘If it is not broken, don’t try to fix Continue reading »
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John Menadue. The war on asylum seekers
For political purposes the government has deliberately embarked on a policy and a language to militarise the asylum seeker issue in the same way the Howard Government did in the “war on terror”. It is designed to highlight the government’s resolve, to play to our fears about a threat and to lessen our rights to Continue reading »
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Michael Sainsbury: Are Chinese leaders cleaning up or cracking down.
In April 2009 Dr Fan Yafeng was sacked from his job as a legal researcher at a prestigious think tank, China Academy of Social Sciences. It’s not that he was no good at his job – to help the country’s government formulate its constitutional and religious policy. Rather, it was that he was an openly proselytising Continue reading »
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John Menadue. The Carbon Tax and Flat-Earthers.
Despite all the political rhetoric and hysteria, the evidence is mounting almost daily that the carbon tax is largely working as planned and that its impact on electricity prices is quite small, particularly compared with the ‘network costs’, the poles and wires, which have been the main drivers of increased electricity prices. But the flat-earthers Continue reading »
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Paul Barratt. Goodwill between countries matters.
In his Australia Day post Abbott’s relations with China Australia’s first Ambassador to the People’s Republic, Stephen Fitzgerald, begins ‘Can you believe the Abbott government has any idea where it’s headed on relations with China? Whatever you think of China’s politics, you can’t just take sides against China or meddle in the tense and volatile Continue reading »
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Daniel Brammall. Financial advisers and the conflict of interest.
In December last year the new government announced how it was going to ‘make financial advice more affordable’ by amending the previous government’s ‘Future of Financial Advice’ (FOFA) proposals (1). Recall that the FOFA legislation was introduced in response to hundreds of millions of dollars of Australians’ savings being lost in the corporate collapses of Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Patriots and scoundrels.
Samuel Johnson in 1775 said that ‘patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel’. That brings to mind the “patriotic” politics that both PM Abbott and the PM of Japan, Shinzo Abe, are playing. In this Tony Abbott will find more confirmation that “Japan is Australia’s best friend in Asia”, a term that irritates the Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Manus and Nauru and Australia’s responsibility in regional processing.
An asylum seeker who comes to our shores must be protected. We cannot offload that responsibility onto another country. We continue to carry a responsibility for that asylum seeker whatever happens in Manus, Nauru or even Malaysia. I have not always held the view that those who come to Australia could be transferred and processed Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Cutting waste and costs in health.
Last night on lateline, the Minister for Health Peter Dutton called for a public debate on health reform. I therefore have taken the liberty of reposting a blog of February 3 on ‘Cutting waste and costs in health’. The Minister for Health, Peter Dutton, has said that we must reduce waste and reduce costs in Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Opinion and fact on climate change.
Tony Abbott keeps telling us that climate change is not a factor in the current drought in eastern Australia. Last October he ruled out climate change as a factor in October’s early season bushfires in the Blue Mountains. He keeps giving us opinions when the facts, supported by overwhelming scientific research, tell us that Australia Continue reading »
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Michael Kelly SJ. Australians as the ‘white trash of Asia’ reaches new depth.
It is now over thirty years since the then Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew described Australians as the “white trash of Asia”. The barb stung and is still recalled with shame and hurt by Australian politicians as then Prime Minister Julia Gillard did in 2012. But the term has reached a new level Continue reading »
