Public Policy
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John Tulloh. Springtime – the season of alarm and disharmony in Europe.
United in diversity. EU’s motto. If ever there were a line in a report to alarm European leaders, it might have been one buried in a 204-page document on the EU economy last November. It predicted that up to three million additional asylum seekers could enter the 28-nation bloc by the end of Continue reading »
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Building Australia’s white elephant – cheap buy for white knight Telstra
Tony Abbott gave Malcolm Turnbull instructions to undermine the NBN. As Minister for Communications it is apparent that that is what Turnbull did. As Prime Minister he could have reversed the damage to NBN. But he chose not to. In the following blog published by Paul Budde, he points out that both Infrastructure Australia and Continue reading »
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Peter Hughes, Arja Keski-Nummi, John Menadue. Part 3: Settlement Policy and Services.
This is a repost from 27/5/2015. 3.1 Overview The migration process starts in earnest after a visa is given to a migrant. Its success or otherwise is determined after the person arrives in Australia and becomes part of the workforce and community. Australia, along with the other great traditional migration countries, has sought to smoothly Continue reading »
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Kerry Goulston. Postcard from Vietnam. Health and medical cooperation with Vietnamese doctors and nurses.
In 1998, Dr Phillip Yuile visited Professor Ton That Bach, Rector of Ha Noi Medical University, with a letter of introduction from Professor Kerry Goulston, Associate Dean of Medicine at the University of Sydney who had been appointed by the then Dean, Professor John Young, to explore possible links between the two universities. Subsequently Professor Ton That Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Canada’s response puts us to shame.
In this blog on 4 February, I mentioned the failure of the Australian government to adequately respond to the Syrian refugee crisis. I pointed out that at that time only ten refugees had arrived from Syria out of a promised intake of 12,000. I mentioned three factors for this delay. The first was political will. Continue reading »
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Peter Hughes, Arja Keski-Nummi and John Menadue. Part 2. Refugee Policy
A repost from 26/05/15 Part 2: Refugee Policy 2.1 Overview The current and future global environment for irregular migration is extremely challenging. Many more people are on the move globally to gain protection from persecution, security from conflict or greater economic opportunity – or a mixture of these things. The movement of people is being Continue reading »
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David Armstrong. A journalistic career from Tharunka to Bangkok.
David Armstrong has had a remarkable career as a journalist. From Tharunka at the University of NSW . His career includes The Bulletin, The Australian, South China Morning Post, and now business and semi-retirement in Bangkok. In an interview with American writer, Kevin Cummings, David Armstrong speaks of his travels and career. See following link: Continue reading »
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Renee Bittoun. Postcard from Hanoi. Smoking in Vietnam
Unlike Australia today where the prevalence of smoking is about 15%, Vietnam remains a country where smoking is widespread. About 60% of the men smoke and about 5% of women. The burden of diseases related to smoking is therefore extremely high. On visiting a Hanoi hospital respiratory ward last week, most of the 100s of Continue reading »
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Peter Hughes, Arja Keski-Nummi and John Menadue. Part 1: Immigration Policy and Administration.
This article and the two following articles were part of a policy series that was posted in May/June last year and subsequently published in book form ‘Fairness, Opportunity and Security’. This is a repost from 25/5/2015. Overview This paper sets out a broad design for Australia’s immigration, refugee and settlement policies for the coming decades. Continue reading »
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Stephen Duckett. Blood money: pathology cuts can reduce spending without compromising health
The Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO) set the cat among the pathology pigeons late last year. One of the government’s flagged changes, estimated to save around A$100 million a year, was to abolish the bulk-billing incentive Labor introduced in 2009. The industry mobilised, threatening to charge consumers significant out-of-pocket co-payments for pathology tests for Continue reading »
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Will Steffen. CSIRO and climate change: Making policy based on myths
The recently announced cuts to CSIRO climate science have stunned the Australian research community and sent shockwaves through the international climate research system. Claims and counter-claims are flying around the media, the cybersphere, Senate estimates, and elsewhere. To cut through the claims that are being made in support of the CSIRO’s leadership to gut the Continue reading »
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The benefits of migration.
In this article in fivebooks.com, Ian Goldin speaks about the benefits of migration although those economic benefits are often widely and differently dispersed. He points to the disconnect between the benefits of immigration and often the political downsides where some communities feel disadvantaged. He notes that the business community often calls for more migrants and Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Our humanitarian program.
Some issues have no place in partisan politics, they may be topics that are politically charged, but they are not ideological battlegrounds – they are about the personal and the human. Our stance on refugees and on protection is such an issue. It is an area that has been supported by the left and the Continue reading »
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Measuring the misery of those forced to flee.
Robert Shiller, a 2013 Nobel Laureate in Economics says ‘Under today’s haphazard and archaic asylum rules, refugees must take enormous risks to reach safety and the costs and benefits of helping them are distributed capriciously . It does not have to be this way. Economists can help by testing which international rules and institutions are Continue reading »
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Which country has the world’s best healthcare system?
On 9 February, the Guardian published a report on health systems around the world. It drew particularly on analysis of ratings by the Commonwealth Fund and its correspondents around the world. The UK’s national health service was ranked number one in the world. Australia was ranked number four. For Guardian article, see link below: http://gu.com/p/4f6vb/sbl Continue reading »
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Laurie Patton. Pirates of Perchance: How “site-blocking” could force up Internet fees but do little else
Last week both Village Roadshow and Foxtel finally launched court actions under the eight months old Copyright Amendment (Online Infringement) Act designed to deal with Internet “piracy”. The first thing that needs pointing out is that downloading video and audio content over the Internet is a not a crime as such. It is, however, in breach Continue reading »
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Business can take lead on refugees to end ‘execution by indifference’.
In this article, Tony Shepherd, former President of the Business Council of Australia, urges Australia to be more generous in helping asylum seekers from Syria. He says: ‘As I stare out the window on the plane ride home (from the refugee camps in the Middle East) I think that if history has taught us nothing Continue reading »
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Spencer Zifcak. Special Envoy on Human Rights. Ruddock. What?
In 2003, I wrote a short book entitled Mr Ruddock Goes to Geneva. The book was not as superficial as its title might have suggested. It was in fact a serious study of Australia’s vexed relationship with the UN Human Rights Treaty System. My argument was that the Howard Government should have given the recommendations Continue reading »
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Frank Brennan SJ. An Unholy Mess: Cardinal Pell, the Royal Commission are Owed Justice, not Vigilantism
Cardinal George Pell still has a lot of questions to answer before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. On medical advice he has decided not to risk the long plane flight home from Rome. This makes things much harder for victims seeking closure. It makes things harder for others, including members Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Making the Federation work better.
The Abbott Government decided that over the next decade commencing in 2017 the Commonwealth Government would reduce grants to the states for education and health by $80 b. This is likely to produce a major and concerted campaign by the states to protect their hospitals and schools. It does provide an opportunity for more effective Continue reading »
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Alex Wodak. Endgame in the protracted drug policy debate: are we there yet?
The long running debate about illicit drugs policy has moved a great deal in the last five years. But social policy reform is a different matter from a debate. Actual reform usually takes many decades. The recent growing consensus regarding the abject failure of a criminal justice dominated approach to drugs is very encouraging. Retired Continue reading »
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Peter Gibilisco. Neoliberalism and its Perceptions
Politics has changed so much over the years; our political climate is unstable, since 2007 we have had five different prime ministers. A person in my position would ask how does this affect people with severe physical disabilities? Neoliberalism has its aim to put into question all collective structures capable of obstructing the logic of Continue reading »
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John Nieuwenhuysen. Multiculturalism Today and the Little Evil
According to the ABS, the proportion of Australians born overseas has reached its highest point in 120 years. At about 6.6 million people, the overseas born represent 28 per cent of the country’s total, and, since 2005, migration has contributed half of total population growth. Some 47 per cent of Australians in 2015 were either Continue reading »
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Murdoch takes Abbott as his guest to President’s banquet in US.
According to a report on Media Watch on 8 February, Rupert Murdoch brought Tony Abbott as his guest at a banquet in Washington which President Obama attended. Several of the Murdoch papers in Australia suggested that this was a personal meeting between Tony Abbott and President Obama. It was nothing of the sort. It was Continue reading »
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Jonathan Page. The Inspiration of Vietnam
Postcard from Hanoi: I have been an oncologist for some 35 years, treating adults with advanced cancer. Despite a far greater understanding of the disease, with the discovery of quite remarkable “targeted” therapies, most patients still die of this disease. Many are not suitable for these treatments, many don’t respond or respond poorly and briefly, Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Postcards from Hanoi.
I will be in Hanoi from February 17-26, attending a Hoc Mai Foundation workshop on learning from each other about health issues in Vietnam and Australia, and assisting in the learning of English in the health field. Hoc Mai means ‘forever learning’. The foundation was established in the late 1990s. University of Sydney was a Continue reading »
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Robert Manne. Why we have failed to address climate change.
In this article, published in the December The Monthly Essays, Robert Manne describes the major obstacles to addressing climate change. He refers to the unique nature of climate change and the difficulties that it has presented for scientists to persuade the world community about the problem and the need to take action. Robert Manne also Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Hoist with their own petard
Private health insurance funds like NIB are complaining about high specialist fees. But these very same funds are major contributors to the problem. And it is a problem. In the last 30 years we have seen a dramatic increase in specialist fees. A major contributor to this increase in specialist fees is the ‘gap insurance’ Continue reading »
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The things that must be done…
Some Genuine Decision-Making Power: Dealing with the over-representation of Aboriginal people in the prison system This is an extract from the 2016 Frank Walker Memorial Lecture delivered by the Hon. Bob Debus AM on 16 February 2016. The Hon. Frank Walker QC was NSW Attorney General from 1976 to 1983. He later became a Federal Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Regional cooperation on refugees, Bali and a Track II Dialogue.
I attended a Track II Dialogue in Bangkok recently to try to help develop a framework of shared responsibility to manage in a humane and efficient manner, displaced people movements in the region. There is concern that the Track I Regional Dialogue at government level has not been particularly fruitful. So much of the response Continue reading »