Public Policy
-
JOHN MENADUE. Best we forget. We commemorate Australians who died in foreign wars in foreign lands, but not Australian aborigines who died in defence of their own country.
Yesterday, in a moving ceremony, the remains of 33 Australians who were buried in military cemeteries in Malaysia and Singapore were returned to Australia. Our Governor General, Sir Peter Cosgrove, and Chief of the Defence Force, Air Chief Marshal Mark Binskin, were at Richmond airbase to witness the repatriation of 33 Australians who had died Continue reading »
-
JOHN DWYER. Restructuring the governance of health care in Australia. Part 1
Part One. Structural reforms for better health outcomes from a redesigned more cost-effective health care system. The most important pre-election health care initiative has received very little publicity. Labor has committed to establishing a “Healthcare Reform Commission” if elected. While not likely to generate much discussion in one’s local pub it represents an acceptance by Continue reading »
-
JOHN DWYER. Restructuring the governance of health care in Australia. Part 2
Part Two. Structural reforms for better health outcomes from a redesigned more cost-effective health care system. There is broad agreement that in the near future our General Practitioners and their teams will earn the majority of their income from capitation payments that will require, for the first time in our Primary Care system, the documentation Continue reading »
-
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 »
-
KAITLIN WALSH. The conundrum of engagement and ending the blame game. Any takers?
Political “outsider” Kaitlin Walsh, self-proclaimed “ordinary person”, rakes over the pallid entrails of our body politic. And considers what might shut Mathias Cormann up. Continue reading »
-
JACQUELINE PEEL. Are the Coalition and Labor on the same page for emissions trading?
Climate change policy has been a noticeable absentee from political debate in the current Australian federal election campaign. Recent news reports, however, suggest this silence masks secret bipartisanship on the need for an emissions trading scheme – or ETS – to help bring down Australian’s emissions of greenhouse gases. Labor’s commitment to introduce an ETS Continue reading »
-
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 »
-
EVAN WILLIAMS. Chasing Asylum. Film Review.
I rate it among the best Australian documentaries ever made If you want to see Chasing Asylum, Eva Orner’s brilliant new Australian documentary, my advice is to hurry along. At last count it was showing on just two screens in Sydney, and when I went along to the Dendy in Newtown on a recent Sunday Continue reading »
-
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 »
-
FRANK BRENNAN. Asylum policies and the election.
The following is an extract from a speech by Frank Brennan at the Yass Catholic Parish Pot Luck Dinner on Saturday 28 May 2016. The full text of the speech is in the link below. John Menadue Continue reading »
-
JOHN O’DONOGUE: On Compassion – even for people who are ‘different’
Compassion distinguishes human presence from all other presence on the earth. The human mind is one of the most gracious gifts of creation. The human mind is the place where nature gathers at its most intense and at its most intimate. The human being is an in-between presence, belonging neither fully to the earth from Continue reading »
-
CHRISTIAN DOWNIE, HOWARD BAMSEY. Election 2016: do we need to re-establish a department of climate change?
With a federal election looming, Australia’s top mandarins will once again be turning their minds to the incoming government briefs, the so-called blue book if the Coalition is returned and the red book if Labor is elected. High on the agenda will be the organisation of the bureaucracy and it won’t get any trickier than Continue reading »
-
EVAN WILLIAMS: Who cares what the papers say?
In the first week of Malcolm Turnbull’s interminable election campaign, the Murdoch press surprised its readers by advocating support for Labor. How’s that again? Had Rupert had a change of heart? Well, not exactly. But it certainly looked that way when his Sydney tabloid, the Daily Telegraph, under the headline “Save Our Albo”, urged voters Continue reading »
-
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 »
-
MUNGO MacCALLUM: Tax – in the eye of the beholder.
The dementors of Newscorps couldn’t believe their luck. When the hapless Duncan Storrer rose to ask why rich people were to receive tax cuts while the poor, like himself, did not, the man ticked all the boxes. He was obviously a victim, and presumably a whinger. And he was not only an invited guest of Continue reading »
-
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 »
-
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 »
-
JOHN MENADUE. Attacks on refugees tell us more about Malcolm Turnbull than Peter Dutton.
Power doesn’t always corrupt. Power can cleanse. What I believe is always true of power, is that power always reveals.’ Robert Caro. Peter Dutton has ‘form’, so his comments about refugees although disgraceful are not that surprising. The big disappointment has been Malcolm Turnbull who described Peter Dutton as ‘an outstanding immigration minister’. Instead of Continue reading »
-
JOHN KEANE. Money, Capitalism and the Slow Death of Social Democracy.
In this article, John Keane speaks of the slow death of social democracy but suggests that there may be possibilities that social democracy could embrace Green movements, intellectuals and parties that have common interests. See extracts from article below and link to the full article in The Conversation. Continue reading »
-
DAVID STEPHENS. A review of Douglas Newton’s five articles that take us behind the scenes in the Great War.
Douglas Newton confronts the really important questions about war David Stephens reviews five articles by Douglas Newton that take us ‘behind the scenes’ in the Great War Continue reading »
-
DAVID STEPHENS. Honest History’s Alternative Guide to the Australian War Memorial
Questioning the received view: Honest History’s Alternative Guide to the Australian War Memorial Which word should we use to describe what happened on 25 April 1915: ‘landing’ or ‘invasion’? Why do we refer to dead soldiers as ‘the fallen’? Does the ‘freedom’ we are said to have fought for in our many wars include the Continue reading »
-
MICHELE KOSASIH. Seven years on and still itching for change on the negative impacts of alcohol.
2016 marks seven years for the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education’s (FARE) Annual Alcohol Poll (conducted by Galaxy Research), and we continue to see Australia’s concern about the negative impacts alcohol has on the community. Continue reading »
-
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 »
-
EVAN WILLIAMS. ‘The Man Who Knew Infinity’. Film Review 4.5 stars.
Here is that rarest of cinematic pleasures – a fine story, beautifully told, acted to perfection by a first-rate cast, with a screenplay consisting mainly of intelligent conversation between adults of mature years, and with no recourse to car chases, explosions or gratuitous four-letter words. And with all of coming in at a little over Continue reading »
-
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 »
-
CARMEN LAWRENCE. When in doubt, rewind to the politics of fear.
Peter Dutton now makes no distinction between asylum seekers and refugees who come through regular or irregular channels. He now demonises all refugees. John Menadue. It has been an article of faith for the Coalition that “real” refugees from UNHCR camps dotted around the globe deserve our compassionate support while the “illegal” asylum seekers who Continue reading »
-
JOHN MENADUE. Never underestimate a survivor, but Peter Dutton obviously under estimates refugees. They may be ‘takers’ in the early years, but they become great contributors.
The following are extracts from a blog I posted on 27 June 2013. John Menadue As responsible members of the human family, we have a strong moral case to provide protection for refugees who are the victims of persecution and violence. There is also a strong case in our own self-interest Refugees are almost by Continue reading »
-
ARJA KESKI-NUMMI. Peter Dutton should know better – rather than demonise refugees we should stand tall and proud of what we have achieved over the past 70 years.
The problem with refugees and asylum seekers is that they are not us – so it is OK to demonise them. Dutton is not dog whistling when he puts people into boxes describing them as “these people”, asserts that they are barely literate or numerate in their own languages, can’t speak English and at the Continue reading »
-
EVAN WILLIAMS. Who do you trust to speak plain English?
“Who do you trust to keep the economy strong and protect family living standards? Who do you trust to keep interest rates low? Who do you trust in the fight against international terrorism?” Familiar words? Malcolm Turnbull’s opening pitch for the July 2 election? Actually, no. These were John Howard’s words, launching his campaign against Continue reading »