August 14, 2020

Saturdays good reading and listening for the weekend

Unfortunately Ian McAuley has broken a few bones in a bicycle accident. Nothing this weekend, sorry, back on air next weekend.

April 24, 2020

SATURDAYs GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND

What people in other forums are saying about public policy

October 15, 2018

VINCENT BEVINS. Jair Bolsonaro, Brazils Would-be Dictator.

For most of his twenty-seven-year career in national politics, Jair Bolsonaro has been a fringe figure on the far right of Brazilian politics, hopping among nine different political parties and yelling his support for Brazils bygone military dictatorship into empty congressional chambers. All that has changed. Last weekend, the former army captain won over 46 percent of the vote in Brazils presidential raceclose to an outright win in the first round. He goes forward to the run-off election on October 28 as the clear favorite.

November 11, 2019

BOB CARR. Erratic US Pacific policy is leaving Australia stranded (Australian Financial Review 8-11-19)

The Canberra hawks hope that our tough stance on China will encourage US resolve. But that underestimates the flightiness of Donald Trump.

October 21, 2019

JOHN AUSTEN. Infrastructure Claims - Above the law?

Ongoing urging of infrastructure proposals for Commonwealth funding exacerbates already high moral hazard. Yet nothing is done to discourage the possibility of illegal behaviour costing Australia dearly.

July 19, 2019

SATURDAYs GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND

A regular collection of links to writings and broadcasts in other media

December 11, 2018

STEPHANIE DOWRICK. Facts flung overboard on refugee health - and our nations.

Thursday 6 December was the final sitting day of the Australian Parliament for 2018 and one of only 10 sitting days between now and next May when an election is expected. It was a day to get things moving. Yet far more was undone than done, and not just for the asylum seekers and refugees held in indefinite, punitive detention off-shore, or the 6000 Australian doctors and the Australian Medical Association speaking up for their care.

September 11, 2020

Saturdays good reading and listening for the weekend

What people in other forums are saying about public policy

August 23, 2019

SATURDAYs GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND

A regular collection of links to writings and broadcasts in other media

May 5, 2020

GARY SAMPSON. Australia joins group to overcome US blockage of WTO dispute settlement process

In the post Covid-19 world, with global trade in total disarray and predicted to fall by up to 32 per cent next year, Australia has never had a more pressing need of a strong rules-based trading system.

April 10, 2020

SATURDAYs GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND

What people in other forums are saying about public policy

September 6, 2019

SATURDAYs GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND

A regular collection of links to writings and broadcasts in other media

February 13, 2019

JOHN STAPLETON: Hakeem, the Australian Federal Police and a Truly Desperate Government

Just how many own goals can one government make and still survive?

August 21, 2020

Saturdays good reading and listening for the weekend

What people in other forums are saying about public policy

January 29, 2019

Eric Hodgens. Catholic Culture Wars.

Culture Wars are a feature of todays political life. The Catholic Church has likewise been through the wars. Here are some features of the last fifty years.

December 9, 2019

ABUL RIZVI: Dysfunction in Home Affairs officially confirmed

The dysfunction in the Home Affairs Department that has been long reported on (see here, here, and here) has now been officially confirmed in a survey conducted by the Australian Public Service Commission.

April 12, 2019

SATURDAYs GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND

A regular collection of links to writings and broadcasts in other media

December 26, 2020

On Grace Karskens The People of the River. A remarkable story of settler and Indigenous co-existence

The Nepean-Hawkesbury Dyarubbin witnessed a remarkable story of settler and Indigenous co-existence. In her recent tome, Grace Karskens uncovers this story while shattering many myths and setting new standards for interpretation of historical records.

July 31, 2020

Saturdays good reading and listening for the weekend

What people in other forums are saying about public policy

November 2, 2018

KIM OATES. If we listened to children the world would be a better place

Last week was National Childrens week, with a theme that children’s views and opinions should be respected, that they have a right to be heard.

July 10, 2020

Saturdays good reading and listening for the weekend

What people in other forums are saying about public policy

October 13, 2019

PRINCE CHARLES, THE PRINCE OF WALES. John Henry Newman: The harmony of difference

When Pope Francis canonises Cardinal John Henry Newman tomorrow, the first Briton to be declared a saint in over forty years, it will be a cause of celebration not merely in the United Kingdom, and not merely for Catholics, but for all who cherish the values by which he was inspired.

July 24, 2018

JOHN MENADUE. Our security agencies are not accountable. (Repost from 29/5/2018)

To cover up illegal activities in East Timor, the government has embarked on a campaign to charge whistle-blowers. The wrong people are being charged.

The performance and integrity of our security services is a serious national problem. These are particular problems for agencies which operate in secret and with few public checks. We have seen that they are prepared to upstage ministers and undermine governments on key public issues like relations with China at the moment. There is no effective supervision in the public interest as the Hastie/Lewis mess illustrates. Governments must make our security services accountable. But they are frightened to do so. This is an urgent public issue. And the ALP has gone AWOL.

July 29, 2020

Caring for older Australians

Covid has blown the cover on much of what we need to maintain credibility as a humane nation. Care of older Australians is of priority concern.

May 15, 2020

SATURDAYs GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND

What people in other forums are saying about public policy

May 8, 2020

SATURDAYs GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND

What people in other forums are saying about public policy

November 13, 2019

RICHARD TANTER. Pine Gap history-dogged by censorship and dereliction of duty.

On 1st January this year, the National Archives of Australia published a set of highly redacted Commonwealth cabinet papers dealing with a decision by the National Security Committee of the Howard coalition cabinet in September 1997 to allow the establishment of a Joint Australia-United States Relay Ground Station (RGS) at Pine Gap.

May 3, 2019

SATURDAYs GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND

A regular collection of links to writings and broadcasts in other media

January 30, 2018

I have watched and mourned as NSW national parks have been run into the ground

MICHAEL MCFADYEN. Over the past 40 years I have visited probably more national parks in NSW than 99 per centof the population, both for work and recreation.

May 1, 2020

SATURDAYs GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND

What people in other forums are saying about public policy

August 16, 2019

SATURDAYs GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND

A regular collection of links to writings and broadcasts in other media

October 11, 2017

Elite Melbourne Private Schools to Get Big Funding Windfalls

S_everal wealthy Melbourne private schools are set to get large windfall gains from the Turnbull Governments Gonski 2.0 funding model after revisions to their assessed student need. Many of the schools will get increases of $1-$3.2 million between 2018 and 2027 because their student need has been revised upwards due to implausible stories about disabilities._

January 2, 2017

RAMESH THAKUR. AHRC President Gillian Triggs: a year of living dangerously. Part 2 of 3.

Asylum seekers and children in detention

There are four separate issues that typically get lumped into one confusing debate: the policies on asylum seekers, boats turnback and offshore detention; and the treatment of detainees.

June 26, 2020

Saturdays good reading and listening for the weekend

What people in other forums are saying about public policy

September 27, 2020

What is unforgivable about the Victorian shut down policies is that they are working

The indefatigable freedom fighters crusading to liberate the shut-down in Victoria are quite right. The restrictions are stultifying, draconian, totalitarian. They are intolerable in a democracy, an affront to Australia as we know it.

July 1, 2020

Cyber hacks, media hacks and political hacks.

Greatly increased defence spending plus proposed cyber capability tie us more to the USA and clearly will be seen by China as unfriendly. Can we rely on a dysfunctional USA and do we really understand Chinese motives and the level of threat from it?

June 5, 2020

SATURDAYs GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND

What people in other forums are saying about public policy

September 4, 2020

Saturdays good reading and listening for the weekend

What people in other forums are saying about public policy

June 24, 2019

BHIM BHURTEL. The threat to Christianity is from within. (Asia Times 21.6.2019)

_Christianity is an indispensable cog in the idea of Western civilization along with other core values of the West supposedly based on the moral and ethical foundations of Christianity. Perhaps no one can imagine Western civilization secluding Christianity as depicted by Samuel P Huntington in his famous 1993 Foreign Affairs essay, The Clash of Civilizations. He says, Religion is a central defining characteristic of civilization, referring to Christopher Dawsons supposition that the great religions are the foundations on which the great civilizations rest. Western civilization embraces many elements, but among them are the moral, ethical, and legal systems that evolved from European Christendom.

September 25, 2020

Saturdays good reading and listening for the weekend

What people in other forums are saying about public policy

October 4, 2019

SATURDAYs GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND

A regular collection of links to writings and broadcasts in other media

June 19, 2019

CAROL GIACOMO. A New Trump Battleground: Defining Human Rights (The New York Times)

After the horrors of World War II, the United States led in adopting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, recognizing the inherent dignity and equal and inalienable rights of all people to life and liberty. For three-quarters of a century it has stood for the protection of human rights by the rule of law.

Now, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is establishing a Commission on Unalienable Rights to provide fresh thinking about human rights discourse where such discourse has departed from our nations founding principles of natural law and natural rights, according to a notice in the Federal Register…

June 19, 2020

SATURDAYs GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND

What people in other forums are saying about public policy

April 17, 2020

SATURDAYs GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND

What people in other forums are saying about public policy

July 5, 2019

SATURDAYs GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND

A regular collection of links to writings and broadcasts in other media

October 16, 2019

MELISSA CONLEY TYLER and MITCHELL VANDEWERDT-HOLMAN. Diplomacy Needed to Stop Australias Declining Power

We spend our days looking at short-term economic indicators, such as the Reserve Banks decision on the cash rate or whether Australia has entered a recession. This means we dont pay enough attention to the longer-term trend: that Australias economy is inevitably in relative decline compared to its Asian neighbours.

To maintain its influence, Australia will have to invest in other elements of national power, most obviously in its under-resourced diplomatic capacity.

July 3, 2020

Saturdays good reading and listening for the weekend

What people in other forums are saying about public policy

June 12, 2020

SATURDAYs GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND

What people in other forums are saying about public policy

July 11, 2019

TONY DOHERTY. Dancing to my Death.

With the Love called Cancer

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal