August 31, 2014

Clare Condon SGS. Sanctioned Violence: What does it do to our society and relationships?

Some violent acts, depending on where and how they were perpetrated, are regarded as criminal. Others, however, are sanctioned by society, even applauded and cheered. Some are blatant; others are covert and subtle. Some are justified by cultural norms, by the blind eye or the deaf ear; they happen behind closed doors. Others are justified by official permission and approval, or even by public opinion.

I wish to highlight four areas of sanctioned violence which I believe impact adversely on society and relationships.

December 3, 2017

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Malcolm Turnbull and John Barilaro.

When the New South Wales Nationals leader John Barilaro called for Malcolm Turnbulls resignation last week, it was simple for Turnbulls federal allies to dismiss it as just another distraction just another frustrated voice howling into the empty air.

November 29, 2016

JOHN TULLOH: Fidel's ghost teases Washington.

John Tulloh argues that for Trump to renege on Obama’s changes, would be fraught with legal problems, specially for those businesses which have already invested tens of millions in infrastructure in anticipation of Cuba becoming more accessible.

April 24, 2017

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Turnbull's lunge to the populist right.

And this is the big glitch in last weeks announcements there was a lot of sound and fury, but it was hard to see just what, if anything, will really change except, perhaps, the squalid dynamics within the Liberal Party. At least Tony Abbott has given the changes a cautious tick. But he has not, and never will, endorse the core values of his leader. He has his own announceables to ponder.

March 31, 2016

Greg Bailey. The Liberal Party and the Institute of Public Affairs. Who is Whose?

Arguably the most influential think tank in Australia over the last decade, the Melbourne based Institute of Public Affairs, serves good beer at its functions, so I have been told. Whilst it has always been significant in pushing right wing, neo-liberal agendas, it is only in the last decade, and really during the last period of Liberal government, since October 2013, that it has emerged from the dim shadows into the brightness of political life. Previously it functioned mainly as a pressure group that would provide some kind of intellectual substance to the economic and lobbying interests of the large mining companies and banks that provided most of its financial support. Yet already it had honed its lobbying skills with high success when Jeff Kennett privatised the electricity industry in Victoria in 1993. Now in 2016 whilst it continues to make many submissions to parliamentary inquiries, its influence on the political functioning of the country has become more direct.

April 17, 2016

Richard Woolcott. A modern Australia for the 21st century.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has said it is a great and exciting timefor Australia. Indeed, it is a time of great opportunity for the Australian Government elected later thisyearto take bold action which will transform Australia into an updated, modern member of the Asian and South West Pacific Region.

After World War II the United States wanted to implement ideals and practices it believed should be applied throughout the world. The spread of democracy was the overarching goal. Now,however, the United States, exhausted byunsuccessfulwars in Iraq and Afghanistan, now faces the rise of States with greater economic growth rates and rapidly expanding middle classes, such as China, India and Indonesia in our own region, and a more assertive Russia which regards itself as both a Pacific and an Atlantic power, as well ascountries such as Brazil and Mexico in South America.

July 16, 2014

How does Australias health system compare.

The Treasurer, the Minister for Health and the Commission of Audit have warned us in one way or another that the Australian health service is unsustainable, particularly with an ageing population. The Treasurer tells us that the age of entitlement has to end in health as elsewhere.

We need to keep modernising Medicare but by almost any international comparison we have one of the best and most sustainable health services in the world. We need to keep our problems in perspective.

December 31, 2015

Chris Bonnor . Unhappy New Year, struggling schools and parents!

Prime ministers come and go but the timing of nasty announcements doesnt change. And so it was with the dumping of Gonski funding beyond 2017, announced in the traditional period of national lethargy between Christmas and New Year. It came despite earlier rumours which suggested Turnbull would pull a rabbit out of the hat but the December MYEFO showed an increasing deficit of fiscal rabbits.

Aside from a very few, the reaction was one of dismay, including from NSW. Amongst the few was Jennifer Buckingham who joined the usual more money doesnt deliver chorus, drawing attention to recent findings which suggested funding makes little difference to student achievement. But the full report on the impact of National Partnership funding in NSW shows that, with certain programs and practices in place, targeted funding is certainly effective.

May 14, 2017

JOHN MENADUE. Is the seat of Wentworth to become an hereditary fiefdom?

In Malcolm Turnbulls electorate, we have had a media blitz on behalf of his son-in-law, James Brown. Could it mean that James Brown is readying himself to take the seat of Wentworth, perhaps before or after the next election?

August 19, 2014

John Menadue. The ANZAC Myth.

The four-year and well-funded carnival celebrating Anzac and WWI is now rolling. The carnival will depict WWI as the starting point of our nation, as our coming of age!

It was nothing of the sort. It was a sign of our international immaturity and dependence on others. What was glorious about involving ourselves in the hatreds and rivalry of European powers that had wrought such carnage in Europe over centuries? Many of our forebears came to Australia to get away from this. But conservatives, our war historians and colonel blimps chose deliberately to draw us back to the stupidities and hatreds of Europe.

April 11, 2015

Harold Levien. The Coalition Governments Bankrupt Economic Policies:

The Coalition Government seems to have been fighting the next elections since the day it won Office and using the same misleading tactics. Throughout the last election campaign, and for months before, the Coalition bitterly attacked both Labors budget deficit and government debt. Yet when the Labor Government left Office Parliamentary Library statistics show government gross debt was 19% of GDP. The advanced economies international organisation, the OECD, apparently calculates the figures differently showing Australias debt as 33% of GDP in 2013. This is still much lower than all OECD economies except for tiny Estonia and Luxemburg. Government debt to GDP in 2013 shown for some leading economies was: Germany 86%, Canada 93%, UK 99%, USA 104%, France 112%, and Japan 224%. NZ was 40%. These figures place into context the Coalitions bellowing attack on the previous government for the size of our public debt.

June 15, 2017

JOHN CARMODY. May day was in June

The only word to describe Theresa Mays unnecessary recent decision to call an early election in Britain is hubris and that hubris has now led to irremediable humiliation. Strong and stable could have described her political position before the election, but as a campaign slogan, delivered with numbingly motoric repetition, it became risible as Jobson Growth had been in Australia last year.

September 23, 2016

LUKE FRASER. Roads: Minister Fletcher will need a good nose for bullshit to deliver genuine reform a la Paul Keating.

Both the Grattan Institute [i] and Ross Gittins [ii] have lauded Minister for Urban Infrastructure Paul Fletcher for his hard talk on road reform. Gittins compared him to Paul Keating.

Fletcher is setting out with a reformers zeal. Like Keating, he shows a willingness to level with the public about big problems and the costs of inaction.

It would be a pity if poor advice sees Fletcher telling us about the wrong problem. If he is to approach comparison with Keating, he must be alert to policy furphies.

September 19, 2016

MACK WILLIAMS. Here we go again: Julie Bishop and Duterte!

Foreign Minister Bishop’s not so gentle rebuke of President Duterte that the Philippines as a claimant state should pull its weight in the South China Sea eerily had all the elements of the earlier Australian approach to the acrimonious bilateral debate between Washington and Manila over the closure of the huge US bases in the Philippines. Much of which occurred in my 5 years as Ambassador there. Driven by our perceived Alliance obligations we were under instructions from Canberra to offer what assistance we could to the US in their debate with the Philippines on the grounds of regional security.

September 3, 2017

STEWART LITTLE. Titles registry sale a super storm.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian will bequeath the state a financial disaster for millions of property owners thanks to her governments leasing of Land and Property Informations 150-year-old Land Titles Registry.

May 31, 2017

BASTIAN SEIDEL. Patients want health not necessarily treatment.

Achieving recognition of general practitioners as medical specialists in our own right has been an uphill battle for decades. We only achieved vocational recognition as specialists in the 1990s. For many years we were seen as#JustaGP, a term that symbolises the academic and professional discrimination our members are still subjected to today.

August 28, 2016

JOHN MENADUE. Medicare the Labor Party does not understand its own creation.

It is claimed that at the last Federal election, the Coalition lost support because it was going to undermine Medicare. In fact, at the last election, the ALP was proposing to do more to undermine Medicare than the Coalition.

Let me explain.

May 30, 2016

RICHARD BUTLER. Obama and Nuclear Weapons

It is widely acknowledged by those who have had anything substantive to do with nuclear weapons that as long as they exist they will, one day, be used, either by accident or decision. Equally, it is acknowledged that any such use would be a catastrophe. Thus, the logical and human solution is to eliminate them.

Three months after he assumed his office, President Obama publicly joined those who accept these truths when, in Prague on April 9th, 2009, he said: I state clearly and with conviction Americas commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons

September 14, 2015

John Menadue. Turnbull and Abbott

Bill Shorten aside, most Australians will welcome our new Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull. He offers a more rational, humane and consultative style of leadership. His main problem will be how to reconcile his own progressive views on such issues as climate change, a republic and gay marriage, with the hard-heads in the parliamentary Liberal party.

As Laura Tingle in the AFR put it, Tony Abbott has no-one but himself to blame. He saw politics as war. He never made a sensible transition from a pugnacious and effective opposition leader to a national leader. He broke promise after promise. His first budget was grossly unfair. In his second budget, he abandoned all attempts at budget repair, despite telling us for years that we had a deficit and debt emergency. He kicked one home goal after another. The benefits of the Free Trade Agreements with Japan, Korea and China were grossly and willfully exaggerated.

April 9, 2017

RAMESH THAKUR. Decoding the Trump strikes on Syria

The use of chemical weapons in Syria and the US air strikes in punishment are part of the continuing descent into lawlessness by various actors with unforeseeable consequences in an already inflamed region.

December 8, 2015

John Menadue. More on second-hand car rent-seekers.

In my recent blog ‘Rent-seekers in the motor industry’ I drew attention to the successful lobbying by the motor industry to retain the $12,000 excise duty on used-car imports into Australia and the restriction that imports must be limited to a single second-hand vehicle.

To defend its position, the Chief Executive of the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries has said that there have been instances in New Zealand where used-car imports were linked to the Japanese mafia, the Yakuza, and instances where radioactive cars from the Fukushima nuclear disaster found their way to Russia.

April 3, 2016

Ian Marsh. What wrong with Australias political system? Part 1 of 3.

Most people are familiar with the power of incentives in economic markets. They know that efficient price signals can channel investment into productive assets and these same signals can drain funds from unconstructive pursuits. The same process more or less works at other levels. Both good and bad performance is demonstrated by similar calculations. In turn these calculations draw on a variety of other metrics prices, volumes, demand, supply, growth estimates and so forth.

May 17, 2016

IAN MARSH. Our political system is in gridlock.

Longer term policy making in Australia.

Longer term policy making in Australia is in a parlous state. The scale and significance of this problem is totally unrecognised. For example, since 1996 almost no contested measure that required legislative approval has past the Australian parliament. Change to the Senate voting system was one but it is hardly likely to weaken the influence of minor parties. The GST was another. As a result John Howard nearly lost the 1998 election.

February 6, 2015

Rosemary Breen- Living water in Myanmar

I listened to Rosemary Breen from Inverell speak at my local church about the work she is doing in Myanmar to help poor villagers get access to clean water. She was inspiring and challenging. We all know that polluted water is a cause of dysentery, diarrhoea, infant mortality and early deaths across all age groups. Rosemary Breen decided she would do something about it.

If you could help financially you could greatly improve the health of many young people and reduce the death rate. My own parish contributed well over $20 000 in a Christmas appeal. As each tank costs about $US 2 000 that gift will bring clean drinking water to over 10 villages.

June 26, 2016

CAVAN HOGUE. Brexit and Russia.

There has been some speculation about how Brexit will affect Russia. Probably not a lot politically but we can only speculate about the economic effects.

No doubt the European Community will spend the next few years contemplating its navel and so be less focused on relations with Russia. The Europeans will be even less interested in Ukraine and this could be to Russia’s advantage but it could have a negative impact if this confusion leads to a stalling of efforts to reach a peaceful solution to the Ukrainian civil war. Russia would like a solution to be found so long as Russian interests were protected.

July 24, 2014

John Menadue--President Jokowi and Australia

The election of Joko Widodo as Indonesias seventh president is a victory for burgeoning democracy in our neighbour with 240 million people. It was a victory for civil participation by ordinary people to defeat Prabowo Subianto by a margin of 53% to 47%, by 8 million votes and winning in two thirds of Indonesias provinces.

Prabowo had a very dubious performance on human rights when he was in the military. But like so many people from born to rule elites he now refuses to accept the result. What would the lower orders know about the need for strong leadership from his business and military friends? It is similar to the way Tony Abbott behaved after the 2010 election. Denied the prime ministership by a vote of the House of Representatives he set about with Christopher Pyne to wreck the place.

April 25, 2017

MARK COLVIN. Four Weeks One Summer by Nicholas Whitlam

In the summer of 1936, over just four weeks, it all went wrong for democracy and for Spain, even for the British royals. Politicians failed, and Hitler was emboldened to plan a new European war, and more.

When some army generals sought to overthrow Spains elected government Francisco Franco quickly emerged as their leader; Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy supported him with men and matriel; pusillanimous politicians in Britain and the United States, even in France, turned a blind eye and the Spanish Civil War was on. Edward VIII took a scandalous holiday cruise with Mrs Simpson, Berlin staged the greatest sporting event of modern times, the alternative Peoples Olympiad never came to be, and Barcelona was transformed into a unique workers paradise. All this in four weeks. It was an incongruous, at times brilliant, juxtaposition of events.

September 26, 2018

QUENTIN DEMPSTER. Government moves ABC chair Justin Milne to the exit ramp (the NewDaily, 27.09.18)

The Scott Morrison government and the ABC board are moving to pressure ABC chairman Justin Milne to resign as soon as possible.

August 31, 2016

CHRIS BONNOR & BERNIE SHEPHERD. NSW public schools are bursting at the seams - but which ones and why?

A news report in The SMH August 29th revealed that more than 800 public schools in NSW are operating at 100% of capacity or more. Apparently 180 of these are stretched beyond their limits. The report listed a large number of these schools.

Where are these schools and why are they in high demand? Most are primary schools, usually located in metropolitan areas. There are 118 of these for which full My School data is available. 98 of these are located in metropolitan areas.

The most noticeable feature of these 98 schools is that they already enrol advantaged students. Their average Index of socio-educational advantage (ICSEA) is 1069. This compares with the NSW average for public primary schools which is around 100 lower at 967. It is a big difference.

September 20, 2016

FRANK BRENNAN SJ. The hypocrisy of it all is breath-taking.

As you listen to the self-satisfied, self-congratulatory observations of our Australian representatives at the UN Summit on Refugees and Migrants and at the Obama summit, just ask yourself what Messrs Turnbull and Dutton have done to provide a humane solution for the proven refugees on Nauru (and Manus Island), given that after three years the Abbott and Turnbull governments have not resettled one proven refugee. You will recall that the MOU with Nauru was signed by the Rudd Government just prior to the 2013 election and that Richard Marles, the Labor shadow minister, told us during the recent election that the expectation was that the whole thing would be done and dusted within a year.

September 11, 2016

ADELE WEBB. He may have insulted Obama, but Duterte held up a long-hidden looking glass to the US.

This article is part of the Democracy Futures series, a joint global initiative with the Sydney Democracy Network. The project aims to stimulate fresh thinking about the many challenges facing democracies in the 21st century.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has taken his bad manners having gained global notoriety with his election campaign insults earlier this year to a new level.

At a press conference at Davao International Airport on Monday, on his way to meet US President Barack Obama and other leaders attending the ASEAN summit, Duterte muttered a few short words in tagalog at the end of a lengthy and irritated reply to a local journalist. With those words, he again made international headlines.

If that were all there was to it, we could rightly roll our eyes and move on. After all, Dutertes language is vulgar; his slander of people and groups is liable to incite violence; and his determination to kill drug pushers (to fight crime with crime) an abuse of power. He should not be defended for any of this.

But as someone who has spent a long time studying US-Philippine relations, I think theres something more for us to see here. And if we want to judge the Philippine president (and, by default, the nation for electing him) from high moral ground, I think we have a responsibility to pay attention to it.

December 5, 2014

Frank Brennan SJ. Making the world safer for children.

The United Nations has developed an elaborate system of committees to oversee compliance by nation states with a broad range of international human rights instruments. These committee processes are sometimes used by nongovernmental organizations pushing their own particular causes. Of late, a group called SNAP the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests have been making submissions to U.N. committees expressing dissatisfaction with the Vatican’s response to child sexual abuse. SNAP was pleased with the report published last week by the U.N. Committee Against Torture setting out the committee’s concluding observations on Australia’s fourth and fifth periodic reports on its compliance with the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

June 28, 2016

IAN McAULEY. Brexit - retreat to isolationism and discontent of those left behind.

The Brexit vote has given the media a cornucopia of stories dissent in the British Conservative and Labour Parties, the possible breakup of the United Kingdom and turmoil on financial markets.

These, however, are distractions from two serious issues that go beyond the events in one European country and in the rarefied world of financial markets. These are the retreat to economic isolationism and the discontent of those who have been left behind. Both are echoes of the developments in Europe between 1929 and 1933, which saw such terrible consequences.

January 23, 2017

OLIVER FRANKEL. Sydney second to Hong Kong in housing unaffordability

Demographia Internationals latest (13th) annual International Housing Affordability Survey provides yet more evidence of the burning issue of housing affordability in Australia, particularly in our largest cities. Sydney ranks second most unaffordable, and Melbourne is only a few places behind that.

May 27, 2018

JOHN MENADUE. Who is in charge of Australias relations with China? The Australian Prime Minister or ASIO?

ASIO is on a roll in co-ordinating the attack on China and its alleged covert operations in Australia. Only last Friday we learnt that super patriot Andrew Hastie, formerly an officer in SAS and currently Chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, cleared his parliamentary speech with ASIO but not his own Prime Minister. That is extraordinary for a person supposedly in parliamentary charge of supervising the activities of ASIO.

June 23, 2016

HUGH MACKAY. Its time for a national conscience vote

Whatever this ill-conceived double-dissolution (double disillusion?) election is about, it is clearly not addressing the issue that, more than any other, is redefining what it means to be Australian.

May 29, 2014

John Menadue. Are our bankers listening or caring?

On Wednesday in London at a conference on inclusive capitalism the Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, and IMF Chief, Christine Lagarde, gave the international banking community the most severe pasting that I can ever recall of a particular industry, or at least one that operates legally.

They said that bankers regarded themselves as different and not bound by the need for economic and social inclusion that is essential in a modern society. Both Carney and Lagarde said that the actions of the banks were excluding them from mainstream society. It is true of banks in Australia as much as banks in Europe and the US.

February 19, 2017

WAYNE SWAN. Coalition energy policy.

Its a lost decade we couldnt afford on climate change and energy policy but when the consequences are felt in years and decades to come, its incumbent upon us all not to forget the political opportunists and charlatans who led us down this path.

September 4, 2016

JOHN AUSTEN. How port privatisation will hobble Newcastle

Commonwealth action is necessary to undo potential penalties on Newcastle Port.

While the infrastructure conversation focusses on major projects like electricity grids it can ignore more significant matters.

One such matter in NSW that deserves immediate attention is port privatisations. A deal included in the sales of Botany (2013) and Newcastle (2014) impedes the development of Newcastle Port and city. That deal also effects public confidence in privatisation.

The deal, a port commitment, is that the state government would compensate Botany for competition from Newcastle using funds from Newcastle Port. [1]

The deal reportedly requires Newcastle to pay around $100 to the NSW state Government for each container it handles in excess of an annual 30,000 cap. The cap increases modestly each year, as might also payments per container. The state government would pay this amount to the new owners of Port Botany. The deal lasts for another 47 years, yes 47 years.

December 18, 2016

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Federal Government failure and State Government responses.

Various premiers have finally despaired of the torpor of the Turnbull administration. .. so the states have begun to go it on their own.

September 10, 2019

KEVIN RUDD. Democracy overboard: Rupert Murdoch's long war on Australian politics (The Guardian 7-9-19)

Australia has become a dangerously complacent country, dancing to the reactionary tune of the Murdoch press

August 13, 2014

John Menadue. Who owns Medibank Private?

The government has announced that it hopes to raise $4 billion from the sale of Medibank Private. But like many of its budget savings it might find that it has to rely in this case on the High Court rather than the Senate to decide if the $4 billion saving can be realised.

The case has been made by many people that the government is not the owner and certainly not the sole owner of Medibank Private. A view is strongly held that Medibank Private is owned by members/policy holders of Medibank Private. There are 3.8 million members. There is not much doubt that Medibank Privates equity including accumulated reserves has come overwhelmingly from members contributions. At 30 June 2013 issued capital was $85m. Retained earnings were $1.3b. The market value of Medibank Private is estimated to be $4b by the governments financial advisers. .

January 12, 2017

CHARLES LIVINGSTONE. Gambling industry finds plenty of political guns for hire to defend the status quo.

Responsible gambling, like responsible drinking, is a clever-sounding way of deflecting attention away from the product.

August 29, 2016

Anti-global backlash is realigning politics across the West.

In the WorldPost, Nouriel Roubini writes “Across the West establishment parties of the Right and the Left are being disrupted - if not destroyed from the inside. Within such parties, the losers from globalisation are finding champions of anti-globalisation that are challenging the formal mainstream orthodoxy.”

August 31, 2017

JOHN MENADUE. 'Faster economic growth demands better chief executives'. (Repost from 27 September 2016)

In the AFR today (1/9/2017) under a headline ‘The big end of town has no-one but itself to blame’, Laura Tingle said “Big business preaching against the rising tide of government is undermined by its own failures”. This was theme that I wrote about in September last year on the failures of our chief executives. This repost follows.

January 9, 2017

KIM OATES. Respecting patients and keeping them safe

Some words of advice from Kim Oates for doctors and other health workers. The patient is the reason for health services. Health workers are means to that end.

June 9, 2024

Israel kills over 200 Palestinians to rescue 4 captives; U.S. allegedly involved in operation

At least 210 Palestinians were killed and 400 others were injured in the central Gaza Strip on Sunday after Israeli forces carried out a “rescue operation” to retrieve four captives. Reports of U.S. involvement in the operation have sparked backlash.

April 10, 2017

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Another distraction, but what a distraction.

The starting point is putting a price on carbon some form of emissions trading policy. But this is total anathema to the coalition party room worse even than negative gearing.

July 31, 2013

Our business failure in Asia. John Menadue

In my blog of March 14 on Productivity and Skills I drew attention to the failure of Australian business to equip itself for Asia. PM Rudd in his address to the National Press Club on 16 July this year put it very clearly.

I am concerned that if you went through our business elites, you would not find a lot of the top 25 executives in each of our top 100 firms who have spent any of their career time serving in Asia the engine driver of the global economy through until mid-century. Remember this is the Asian Century. The truth is Australia is much underdone in Asia.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal