June 14, 2019

SATURDAYs GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND

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

April 26, 2019

SATURDAYs GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND

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

November 24, 2019

MICHAEL KELLY. Liberal culture and revelation

Western humanism has religious and transcendent sources without which it is incomprehensible to itself. Jacques Maritain, Integral Humanism.

Faith in revelation does not destroy the rationality of knowledge but rather permits it to develop more fully. Etienne Gilson, The Christian Philosophy of St Thomas Aquinas

November 25, 2015

Cavan Hogue. Turkey shoots down Russian aircraft.

Russia supports the (Shia) Assad regime backed by Iran and others while Turkey supports the Sunni backed bySaudi Arabia, the USA and others. The Turks claim the Shia are terrorists while Russia supports them as allies of the Shia, (i.e. Assad) who support Russian strategic interests.. This is an oversimplified picture but it is relevant to the shooting down of a Russian fighter. The Turks claims it was in Turkish airspace which the Russians deny. Turkey probably overreacted but it is perfectly possible that Russians were attacking anti-Assad forces within Turkey or strayed over the border in pursuit of such forces. Either way the Russians are going to deny that they were to blame and the Turks are going to say it was all Russia’s fault.

July 17, 2020

Saturdays good reading and listening for the weekend

What people in other forums are saying about public policy

March 11, 2019

DUNCAN GRAHAM Could Kiwi values fly north?

New Zealands image has always been less coarse than Australias.

Both nations claim to be egalitarian, peopled by can-do improvisers. The Jolly Swagmans cousin is A Good Keen Man. They salute the fair go, sharpen scythes to slash tall poppies and assert Jack and Jill are as good as their masters and mistresses. (The NZ Governor General and PM jobs are held by women).

March 5, 2019

ALEX MITCHELL. A deeply divided NSW is heading for a deadlocked State Election

With NSW voters facing a State Election on Saturday, March 23, politicians are nervously asking each other, How are we going? Meanwhile, journalists on the campaign trail are equally nervous, asking colleagues: Who do you think will win?

June 7, 2018

VIRAJ SOLANKI. India boosts relations with Myanmar, where Chinese influence is growing.

India has a deepening bilateral security relationship with Myanmar, and is taking steps to help address the crisis in Rakhine State. But Chinese influence in Myanmar is growing - and meaningful cooperation between Beiijing and New Delhi remains unlikely.

February 1, 2018

JOHN THOMPSON. Private health insurers discriminate against country people

Private health insurers have asked the Commonwealth Government to prevent patients paying for public hospital services through their private health insurance (PHI). This would be grossly unfair for those people in non-metropolitan Australia who are enticed into PHI through the Medicare Levy Surcharge, but have no private hospitals in their region. More basically, the Government should abolish its $10 billion subsidy to PHI, and direct the savings to funding private hospitals more efficiently and equitably.

January 11, 2017

CHRIS SIDOTI. 30th Anniversary of the Australian Human Rights Commission. Part 2 of 2.

Human rights work has a cost, and we need to remember the cost and the toll that it takes on the people who are doing it. Those who are paying the price need the support of those who are not paying so much.

October 22, 2016

CAVAN HOGUE. Duterte - China and the US.

Attitudes to the USA have varied in the Philippines since they first came in contact in 1898 when the Americans invaded the Philippines and spent 1898 to 1904 in a brutal colonial war against the Philippine Republic under President Emilio Aguinaldo. Needless to say, Americans were widely hated for depriving the Filipinos of their freedom and many never really forgave them.

May 29, 2020

Lets learn from this pandemic to be better prepared for the really big one

On 26 May, Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy said if Australias mortality rate matched the UKs, wed have had 14,000 Covid-19 deaths. This is just tautological rubbish. It would be just as true and equally pointless to say if Australias mortality rate matched Vietnams, wed have zero deaths.

October 8, 2018

WAYNE MCMILLAN. Insecure work by another name

The NSW Business Chamber and the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman (ASBFEO) are leading the charge on behalf of employer business interests. Its obvious that both their main concerns are to create a new class of insecure workers that can be dismissed at the whim of employers under the guise of better pay. Flexibility without security will only create a new underclass of workers who will be disadvantaged.

June 6, 2020

PETER SAINSBURY. Sunday environmental round up, 7 June 2020

The politics of prevarication and inadequate action from Rio in 1992 to Paris in 2015 is followed by stories of the ongoing investment in fossil fuels rather than renewables by G20 governments and major oil and gas companies. China has the potential to generate 60% of its electricity from renewables by 2030 and solar microgrids deliver the goods in emergency situations.

December 30, 2018

JOHN MENADUE. The Best of 2018: Peter Dutton is an embarrassment for all of us.

Peter Dutton failed as Health Minister. His track record since then is even worse.

December 11, 2018

JOHN MENADUE. Newcastle Port - another botched privatisation -A repost from 5 September 2016

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has taken legal action over the terms on which the NSW Coalition Government in 2013 privatised Port Botany and Port Kembla and imposed severe restrictions on Newcastle Port.

O_ur mainstream media has shown scant interest in this episode of ‘crony capitalism’ which lessened competition, disadvantaged the Hunter region and put more trucks on our roads. It was done to boost the sale price of Port Botany and Port Kembla so the Coalition could claim a successful privatisation. The public interest was ignored._

Over two years ago John Austen, in P & I, on 5 September 2016, broke all the details about this port restriction and “how port privatisation will hobble Newcastle”. A month later, on 14 October 2016, I wrote a follow up piece “Privatisation and the hobbling of Newcastle Port”.

John Austen’s article of 5 September 2016 follows.

November 24, 2019

MICHAEL CLARKE. Some Context on Xinjiang

Gregory Clark has claimed that we badly need more context on the situation in Xinjiang before criticising the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Clarks claim both ignores the weight of evidence as to the nature and scale of Beijings repression in Xinjiang and the implications of that repression

October 9, 2018

CAVAN HOGUE. Do we really need an American Ambassador? Or will Rupert Murdoch do?

Do we really need an American ambassador? Ambassadors are paid to represent their own country, not ours, so what’s in it for us? Do we really need an imperial legate to keep us in line when we never get out of line? Our media relies on American sources for its news and Rupert Murdoch makes sure we get the right message. We may expect increasing pressure to join in putting pressure on China to do what the US wants it to do but an ambassador is not really needed for that. We can salve our wounded pride with the thought that a very large number of other countries don’t have an American ambassador either and President Trump prefers twitter to send his messages. Anyway, Joe Hockey has lots of mates in Washington so leave it to him.

July 11, 2018

LINDA SIMON. Falling enrolments in TAFE! How can this be?

The latest NCVER report shows that TAFE enrolments 2016-17 have fallen by 6.5% and government-funded VET programs by 5.9%, with the greatest fall in NSW of 6.8%. This blog is a commentary on some of the reasons why this has occurred which focus on cuts to funding for the VET sector and poor public policy decisions. If such enrolments continue to fall, the consequences for skilled employment in Australia, will be disastrous.

February 21, 2019

KERRY BREEN, M TAFFY JONES. Mandatory reporting: Health ministers still have their heads in the sand.

There are a number of unsatisfactory elements of the so-called national scheme for regulating doctors (and all health professionals) but the most problematic from day one in 2010 has been the requirement for mandatory reporting of ill doctors by their treating doctors. As we reported here in 2017, the state and territory health ministers chose to reject unambiguous advice provided by their consultant, Mr Kim Snowball, who conducted an independent review of the national scheme. He advised the ministers in 2015 that the National Law (to) be amended to reflect the same mandatory notification exemptions for treating practitioners established in the Western Australian law. Instead the ministers embarked on a further round of consultation wasting four years to reach their final conclusion that only a very minor change was needed to the mandatory reporting provisions, thereby maintaining a regressive regime. For those interested in the use of language, the minor change (see page 20) is to alter the threshold for mandatory reporting from the existing risk of substantial harm to a substantial risk of harm. In all the public consultations held over mandatory reporting, the medical profession has repeatedly advised health ministers that mandatory reporting is contrary not only to the health and well-being of doctors but also contrary to the best interests of the community because it deters unwell doctors from seeking help.

January 28, 2019

KISHORE MAHBUBANI. What China Threat? How the United States and China can avoid war. Harper Magazine 22 January 2019

Within about fifteen years, Chinas economy will surpass Americas and become the largest in the world. As this moment approaches, meanwhile, a consensus has formed in Washington that China poses a significant threat to American interests and well-being. General Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), has said that China probably poses the greatest threat to our nation by about 2025. The summary of Americas 2018 National Defense Strategy claims that China and Russia are revisionist powers seeking to shape a world consistent with their authoritarian modelgaining veto authority over other nations economic, diplomatic, and security decisions. Christopher Wray, the FBI director, has said, One of the things were trying to do is view the China threat as not just a whole-of-government threat, but a whole-of-society threat . . . and I think its going to take a whole-of-society response by us. So widespread is this notion that when Donald Trump launched his trade war against China, in January 2018, he received support even from moderate figures such as Democratic senator Chuck Schumer.

October 30, 2017

GEOFF MILLER. Xi Jinpings China: this too will pass?

Xi Jinpings first five years have produced a China in which the Communist Party is in more control of more things, and restrictions on dissent and the free expression of opinion have grown. The recently concluded Party Congress seems to offer more of the same. But how will this recipe stand with a population growing steadily more prosperous, better educated and more familiar with the outside world?

October 12, 2017

RAMESH THAKUR. Five Steps to Peace in Myanmar

The bloodshed in Myanmar has uprooted hundreds of thousands of Muslim Rohingya, eroded the prestige of government leader Aung San Suu Kyi, and damaged the credibility of ASEAN and the United Nations. The crisis can be resolved, but not without international intervention.

January 4, 2018

JOHN MENADUE. The Ausgrid decision and the growing power of security and intelligence agencies. A REPOST from August 2016

The Ausgrid decision on Chinese investment raises two important issues.

The first is how do we get a proper balance between security concerns and the wider benefits of the relationship. Our major strategic ally the US sees China our major economic partner as a rival and threat. Read about a recent discussion between Hugh White and Geraldine Doogue on this issue.

The second is how good are our security/intelligence agencies in advising the government? It is this second issue that I discuss here.

In his press conference to announce the veto on the Chinese investment in Ausgrid, the Treasurer was asked what was the security concern?. He replied that the only person security-cleared in this room to answer that question ,is me. That is hardly reassuring but it is a continuing feature of Morrisons ministerial career. Remember the need for on water secrecy. He loves being smarter and better informed than other people and telling us about it.

May 27, 2016

MUNGO MacCALLUM: Rituals of irrelevance and distraction.

So we have at last reached a marker along the long trek to the election.

The Pre-election economic and fiscal outlook (PEFO) was announced at the end of the second week, which is supposed to mean just where we and our political masters see the state of the nation.

PEFO was, like all its predecessors, determinedly optimistic: there are problems, sure, but we can expect things to get better. Nothing to see, folks. But for once there is a serious caveat: it just might not work out exactly as the Treasury and Finance Department hope. And if it doesnt, we are up shit creek in a barbed wire canoe without a paddle.

December 21, 2017

ALLAN PATIENCE. What is the Australia-America Leadership Dialogue?

Founded in 1992 by former Cocoa-Cola Amatil executive and later Australian consul-general in New York, Phil Scanlon, the Australia America Leadership Dialogue (AALD), in its own words, brings together Australian and American leaders from government, enterprise, media, education and the community to help review and refine the parameters of the Australian-American bilateral relationship. The motivations of those attending these no doubt convivial gathers appear to be taken for granted. Should they?

March 30, 2016

Evan Williams. Eye in the Sky. Film review.

Id just come home from a screening of Eye in the Sky, Gavin Hoods fine thriller about a terrorist cell in Kenya, when the news came through that Taliban suicide-bombers had killed more than a hundred people in Pakistan. Timely reminders of the reality of modern warfare and its distinctive horrors arent hard to find these days. A couple of weeks earlier we had the ISIS attacks in Brussels; before that it was Paris. Stories abound of Al-Shabah atrocities in North Africa, and the nightmare in Iraq and Syria shows no sign of ending. Theres still plenty of scope for filmmakers.

February 24, 2019

JOHN MENADUE. Julie Bishop Style and substance?

Julie Bishop did leave a positive impression with her interlocutors. She did present well. But the media seemed to mis understand that there should be much more to being foreign minister. Just compare her ‘achievements’ along side Gareth Evans.

March 5, 2018

FRANK BRENNAN. Edging closer to a just regime in the Timor Sea.

On Tuesday the governments of Timor Leste and Australia will sign a maritime boundary treaty in New York in the presence of Antonio Guterres, the Secretary General of the United Nations. This day has been a long time coming.

August 13, 2018

JOSEPH E STIGLITZ. The US is at Risk of Losing a Trade War with China.

The best outcome of President Donald Trumps narrow focus on the US trade deficit with China would be improvement in the bilateral balance, matched by an increase of an equal amount in the deficit with some other country (or countries). In fact, significantly reducing the bilateral trade deficit will prove difficult.

October 12, 2018

JOHN MENADUE Vale John Deeble - an architect of Medicare

Every Australian owes a great debt to John Deeble who died this week in Canberra, aged 87. Together with Dick Scotton he provided Gough Whitlam from 1967 onwards with the essential advice on how to establish a compulsory public insurance health program Medicare. The result was Gough Whitlams triumph in government on 7 August 1974, in a joint sitting of the parliament, to establish Medicare. The scheme started on 1 July 1975 when Medicare cards were issued to all Australians.

We now have one of the best health schemes in the world, although it clearly needs renovation. Without John Deeble it is hard to visualise how Medicare would have been possible.

October 8, 2018

CHRISTOPHER BROWNING. The Suffocation of Democracy (New York Review of Books, 25.10.18)

As a historian specializing in the Holocaust, Nazi Germany, and Europe in the era of the world wars, I have been repeatedly asked about the degree to which the current situation in the United States resembles the interwar period and the rise of fascism in Europe. I would note several troubling similarities and one important but equally troubling difference.

July 6, 2018

MICHAEL KELLY. Change of era in Oz.

In a revealing throwaway line, Pope Francis captured something that is true for the Church across the world but most especially for the Church in Australia. The pope described our time in the church and wider society as not so much an era of change as a change of era.

July 10, 2016

GRAHAM FREUDENBERG. On Gough Whitlam's 100th birthday, 11 July 2016.

This tribute is being published as a foreword to the book ‘Not just for this life’. Wendy Guest has put together all the tributes paid to Gough Whitlam in the House and the Senate in October 2014. This tribute to Gough Whitlam will be published by the UNSW Press.

Something very special and wonderful happened in Parliament House, Canberra, in the last week of October 2014. It began as a conventional condolence motion for a former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, who had died on 21 October, aged 98. It became a celebration of the political life of the nation.

August 15, 2019

JOANNE SIMON-DAVIES. Housing in Australia (Australian Parliamentary Library 2.8.2019)

_The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) recently released data from 2017-18Survey of Income and Housing (SIH). The SIH is a household survey which collects information on sources of income, amounts received, household net worth, housing, household characteristics and personal characteristics of persons aged 15 years and over in private dwellings throughout Australia (excluding very remote areas).

November 20, 2017

PATTY FAWKNER. The mystery of death and life

Death and dying have been in my thoughts. Not only in November when the Christian tradition especially remembers the dead. Not only since July when my mother died. But constantly throughout the year because of two books which offered me wisdom and insight into the mystery of death and life.

July 6, 2019

PETER SAINSBURY. Sunday environmental round up, 7 July 2019

While the Australian government continues to obfuscate and avoid any real action on climate change, other nations are ignoring the our emissions are too small to make a difference argument and demonstrating ambition and leadership. Asian countries could help their populations, economies and environments by investing in renewable energy rather than coal, while Turkeys changing climate poses threats for food production and hydroelectric power. Finally some tips for attracting wildlife to your garden and a guide to plastics in the 21st century.

October 16, 2019

ERIC SIDOTI. God Bless Scomo Part 1: The Pentecostals Are Coming?

Scott Morrisons billing as Australias first Pentecostal PM has generated torrents of commentary. Much of the interest is driven by an assumption that the PMs religious preferences herald the rise of this strange, big C conservative megachurch steamroller as a wielder of political influence. The first thing to say is that the attention to Morrisons Pentecostalism has tended to be over-simplified and risks missing the point.

August 2, 2020

Four legs good two legs bad, private good public bad

For decades there has been a relentless chorus rather like Orwells four legs good two legs bad conditioning us to believe that private is good and public is bad.

February 21, 2017

HAL SWERISSEN. Obesity: individual responsibility isnt enough

When individual choices cost tax payers $5.2 billion in extra health and welfare services for obesity, the market has failed. When the market fails, it is legitimate for government to act.

December 20, 2017

PATTY FAWKNER SGS. Of Mary and Maya.

When we see the images of Mary and her child this Christmas, may we pause and think of Maya and the countless victims of sexual exploitation, writes Sister Patty Fawkner.

October 31, 2017

IAN McAULEY. Scott Morrison commissions an economic platform for a Shorten Government

Last week the Commonwealth released a major report on productivity challenges facing Australia over the next five years. Although it was commissioned by Treasurer Scott Morrison, it is unlikely that the government, which shows no appetite for meaningful economic reform, will act on its recommendations. But the report may form a useful guide for whichever government takes the reins following the next federal election.

February 18, 2019

BRUCE LINDSAY. Reflections on the Murray Darling Basin Royal Commission

The headline findings of the Royal Commission into the Murray Darling Basin unlawfulness, incompetence, regulatory capture are spectacular. Despite its strong scientific base, the Murray-Darling Basin Plan has been undermined by the power of vested interests and a general ambivalence toward rivers. But responses to the Commissioners report by governments, opposition parties, the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, private sector organisations and even members of the community have been critical and/or dismissive. There is still time to save the river but the political system may be too broken to fix it.

October 9, 2018

KIM WINGEREI. (Art) encounters of the Jones kind.

When the artist by the name of Banksy had his own artwork shredded, it was his right. It was (and is) his own artwork and he wanted to make a statement about his work being sold at an auction. But when NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian instructed Opera House CEO Louise Herron to allow Jrn Utzon’s iconic sails to be defaced by advertising for a horse race, she is in the wrong in more ways than one.

November 14, 2017

LOUIS COOPER. Trudeau made 'fall guy' for TPP 'sabotage'

Last Friday, the small group of Canadian ministers, travelling South-East Asia with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, were in Da Nang, Vietnam, in a room away from where the leaders of 11 countries were trying to get agreement for the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal.

November 3, 2019

DUNCAN GRAHAM Dont cry for me, Indonesia

Though it started well earlier this year, the signals now flashing from across the Arafura Sea are no longer cheering. _The worlds third largest democracy celebrated a successful poll in April when the voters made their wishes clear. Since then Indonesias politicians have ignored the electors and set about imposing agendas never revealed during the campaign._The key word in Indonesian President Joko Widodos Kabinet Indonesia Maju is Advance. It would be better labeled Mundur Retreat.

August 22, 2020

Sunday environmental round up, 23 August 2020

A rich man takes some lessons from COVID and a businessman tells us how to correct the failings of the EPBC Act. Scotty has a heatwave named after him. Canada loses an ice shelf and the French say Non to a bicycle ad. But, bad news …

December 17, 2018

HAL PAWSON. Shorten places housing at the centre of the 2019 election

With his weekend announcement of a $6.6 billion affordable rental construction program, Bill Shorten has dramatically reinforced Labors emphasis on housing as central to the Partys 2019 election policy pitch. The initiative, Labors first significant housing investment pledge in four federal elections, aims to help qualifying low-to-moderate income earners increasingly squeezed out of urban housing markets. It builds on Chris Bowens vow, ahead of the last federal contest, to restrict landlord investor negative gearing tax handouts to those helping to expand supply through newly-built housing acquisition.

November 11, 2018

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Morrison drives bus over sincerity.

ScoMos blue bus is the perfect symbol of the man and his government a brash, ostentatious clich, non-functional and completely phony.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal