Public Policy
-
Kieran Tapsell. Facing prejudice.
Piedad Bonnett, El Espectador, Colombia 5 November 2013 http://www.elespectador.com/opinion/una-injusticia-historica-columna-466919 Summary: Alan Turing was responsible for breaking the German enigma code in the Second World War. He was subsequently convicted of the crime of homosexuality, and given a choice of being chemically castrated or imprisoned. He chose the former and then committed suicide. The Queen has Continue reading »
-
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 »
-
Louise Newman. Detention of children seeking asylum in Australia.
Australia has a unique approach to the ‘problem‘of 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 Continue reading »
-
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 Children’s Hospital at Westmead, where we assess child asylum seekers and refugees. The initial aim of this clinic was to screen children Continue reading »
-
Mark Isaacs. Deterring boat arrivals!
Over the past decades of asylum seeker policy in Australia we have heard many justifications for a strict deterrence policy. Border protection, save lives at sea, ‘no advantage’ for queue jumpers, smash the people smugglers’ business model, and, of course, ‘we decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come’. At Continue reading »
-
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 »
-
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 »
-
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 »
-
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 »
-
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 »
-
Wayne Gibbons. The boats were not sabotaged.
“So we convince ourselves every cruelty we’ve inflicted – beginning with sabotaging boats along the Malaysia coast under Malcolm Fraser – isn’t a reflection on us. It’s tactical.” I was surprised and disturbed by this sweeping statement from David Marr in theguardian.com on 5 March. It unfairly casts a pall over the great success of Continue reading »
-
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 »
-
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 »
-
Fran Baum & Paul Laris. Beware of the crocodiles, they will keep you out of the garden!
We interviewed 20 former Australian Federal and State and Territory health ministers about the extent to which they were able to focus on promoting health, health equity and social determinants of health during their tenure. Social determinants of health are the conditions of everyday life (income, housing, food availability, employment, education) and the structural factors Continue reading »
-
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 »
-
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 »
-
Arja Keski-Nummi. Offshore Processing in Cambodia – Really?
The idea of Cambodia as a so-called offshore processing centre is not new. For a nanosecond I recalled the former government contemplated Cambodia as a likely candidate for an offshore processing centre. Thankfully saner heads prevailed, although to their discredit they did also contemplate East Timor. The scramble to avoid doing the decent thing and Continue reading »
-
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 »
-
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 »
-
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 »
-
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 »
-
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 »
-
Andrew Babkoff. The human side of refugees.
(*names have been changed to maintain privacy) There is a significant amount of misinformation and misunderstanding surrounding asylum seekers (in particular ‘boat people’) and refugees in Australia. In response, a number of people outside of the mainstream media have highlighted the need for refugees’ stories to be presented through mainstream outlets. My personal experience as Continue reading »
-
John Menadue-Refugees – the demographic dividend.
As responsible members of the human family, we have a strong moral case to provide protection for the victims of persecution and violence. There is also a strong case in our own self-interest – that refugees almost by definition are risk-takers and entrepreneurial. It can be argued that they are amongst the most highly motivated Continue reading »
-
Mark Gregory. NBN – ageing copper network and structural separation.
The Australian telecommunication industry is in crisis and centre stage is an ageing copper network that some would have you believe is good for another hundred years and others argue it is time to move to an all fibre access network. But the problems extend far beyond copper versus fibre and go to the heart Continue reading »
-
John Menadue. Cutting back government spending – does it include middle-class and corporate welfare?
Tony Abbott told his listeners recently at Davos that small government was the best form of government. The Minister for Health, Peter Dutton, has said that waste must be reduced in our health sector. The Minister for Social Services, Kevin Andrews, has told us that our welfare system is unsustainable and has appointed Patrick McClure Continue reading »
-
Jennifer Doggett. Cutting waste and costs in health.
Cut expensive and low-value services: Health funding is not allocated to areas which deliver maximum output. We spend too much on expensive low-value services and not enough on preventive, high –value care. Recent research shows that a number of routine tests performed in the Australian health system do not improve clinical outcomes. These include x-rays for lower Continue reading »
-
Ian Webster. Cutting waste and costs in health
Waste in health care conjures up several pictures. One picture is of community nurses, psychologists and Aboriginal health workers in the community centre I visit anchored to their computer screens, endlessly it seems, trying to fulfil the demands of data entry. They are obviously frustrated by the lack of relevance this has for solving the Continue reading »
-
John Dwyer. Cutting waste and costs in health.
Tactics and strategies for a six year journey to sustainable, equitable excellence (1) Move to a single funder for our national health scheme (The Commonwealth). The funder would contract with States and other potential providers to deliver integrated patient focused care. The health bureaucracy would be reduced by 80% with greater efficiency, better outcomes Continue reading »
-
Ian McAuley. Cutting waste and costs in health.
There are three areas of saving to be made in health care – real savings rather than movement of costs from public budgets to consumers. There can be savings in technical efficiency — savings any engineer or cost-conscious manager seeks in a workplace. A strong example is making better use of information technology. There can Continue reading »
Top 5 most read
- The inconvenient truths in the rise of China
In charting the way ahead for Australia-China relations, Canberra needs… - Here’s why I can no longer be a Labor Party member
I am the child of holocaust survivors. I cannot remain… - Sending the cops into PwC is the tamest possible…
The idea of sending the PriceWaterhouseCoopers scandal off for criminal… - Mainstream media need to focus on peace
The fact that Australia is sleepwalking towards a catastrophic war… - Bruce Haigh: time for some revolutionary Australian art
Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know…
