September 13, 2020

How Australia's climate policy fell victim to the conservatives (SMH Sep 11, 2020)

It took one lunch with George W. Bush in 2001 for John Howard to agree to dropping ratification of Kyoto, without a word to his ministers. We became the president’s closest friend in resisting climate change.

October 20, 2019

ANDREW FARRAN. Modernising the Rules-based International Order

Prime Minister Morrisons verbal assault on what he described, in relation to multilateral institutions, as negative globalism that coercively seeks to impose a mandate from an often ill-defined borderless global community…and worse still an unaccountable international bureaucracy - is of course simplistic political rhetoric. But in the light of generational changes in the balance of the global order it raises serious questions for the present day and future that need to be addressed.

February 21, 2019

PEPE ESCOBAR. US elites remain incapable of understanding China

_A new report on US policy toward China launched by the Asia Society in New York is another example of how supposedly bipartisan US intellectual elites, instead of offering impartial advice, do little more than parrot Washingtons talking points, failing to admit they know nothing of substance about the existential threats posed by Russia and China.

June 14, 2016

QUENTIN DEMPSTER. Michelle Guthrie's strategic plan for the ABC.

New ABC managing director Michelle Guthrie now faces a choice.

She can simply manage the ABCs government-decreed decline or reorganise its resources to make distinctive, original and quality content the institutions strategic priority.

The choice she (and the ABC board which appointed her) make will become apparent when the ABC publishes its updated corporate plan.

This is the key publicly posted document promulgated by the board which sets the resourcing and content priorities.

August 13, 2020

A pandemic letter from an Aussie in the USA (PURSUIT August 14, 2020)

How did one the worlds most inequitable health care systems cope with COVID-19? The short answer is that it provides the starkest of warnings

November 4, 2019

TOM SWANN. Morrisons claim of an Australian gold in per capita renewables is not true (Renew Economy 27-10-19)

Despite promises to cut emissions, Australias emissions are still rising. But at the United Nations General Assembly in New York last month, prime minister Scott Morrison rejected criticism by claiming that Australia now has the highest per capita investment in clean energy technologies of anywhere in the world.

September 3, 2019

NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER. Editorial: Those who dismiss Pell verdict ignore integrity of legal process

The response in certain circles to the Aug. 21 court decision upholding Cardinal George Pell’s conviction for sexually assaulting two choirboys in the 1990s was as swift as it was irrational.

January 8, 2019

IAN WEBSTER. It's not mental illness, but despair

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders have got it right when they frame the conditions we label as mental illness as issues of social and emotional well-being. They do not consider the endemic problems in their communities, as mental illnesses.

May 10, 2020

The Coronavirus Derby

And the winner is

May 6, 2018

HENRY REYNOLDS. Australia's perpetual 'war footing'.

We should have paid more attention at the time. It was September 2013 and the Abbott government had just been sworn in. The new Defence Minister, Senator David Johnston, gave an interview to a Fairfax journalist which was reported on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald. The content was truly extraordinary.

January 20, 2019

GEOFFREY MILLER. Intelligence and the function of government. (Australian Outlook 9.1.2019)

Intelligence and the Function of Government, edited by Daniel Baldino and Rhys Crawley, contains a great deal of useful material on the Australian Intelligence Community (AIC), intelligence issues and intelligence in relation to government.

It consists of 12 chapters, covering topics such as the history of the AIC, intelligence as an academic discipline and, very importantly, the dissemination of intelligence to and within the government.

December 9, 2018

ANTHONY PUN. Advances in Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine.

From a rubber band lizard tail shooter to a molecular biologist and later medical scientist, it took a life time to understand why the lizard loses its tail and is able to regenerate it completely. The advancement of molecule biology in science and medicine has created sophisticated tools for looking into the stimulation and mechanism of tissue repair and led to the introduction of the field of Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine. A current example of fingertip regeneration is presented.

February 11, 2019

JOSEPH A. CAMILLERI. Just Peace: A timely roadmap for Australia or impossible dream? Part 2

If just peace requires peacemaking and peacebuilding to be sensitive to the cries of the poor and the cries of the Earth, how relevant is it to Australias present circumstances? If what is proposed is a holistic approach to the problem of violence that encompasses social and ecological violence as well as physical violence, is Australia capable of adopting the approach as a guide to its domestic and external policies? To judge by the parlous state of Australian politics and public discourse, at least as filtered by mainstream media, the omens are less than propitious. And yet, the possibilities are immense and tantalising, and the ground potentially more fertile than is often supposed.

July 5, 2020

A wins a win in Eden-Monaro

A messy and unedifying campaign gaffes, sabotage and dirty tricks. And a pretty ordinary result in the Eden-Monaro by-election.

October 31, 2019

UN expert: Israeli occupation longest in modern world (Middle East Monitor 23-10-19)

A UN human rights investigator on Wednesday called the Israeli occupation in Palestine the longest occupation in the world, Anadolu reports.

August 30, 2020

We need a standing Royal Commission to supervise our intelligence agencies

We need intelligence agencies that are accountable. We do not have that at the moment. We have witnessed the failure of bank regulators. Regulatory failure in the intelligence sector is even more in plain sight.

December 1, 2019

MICHAEL SAINSBURY. Back to basics for Pope at huge Tokyo Mass (UCA News 25-11-19)

Francis warns against the consumerism and isolation that wealthy societies can create

October 21, 2018

DENNIS ARGALL. A letter from Italy: to put some global and Australian issues in perspective.

In the languages of the mighty, in the temples of globalisation, the simplicities of neoliberal globalisation and orthodoxies of Brussels and money, Italy is the coming big problem, bigger than Greece, needing to be reined in, needing to conform and spend less. A country which many of the serious and mighty think is a bit of a joke.

My intention in writing this, against a backdrop of daily fast paced developments, is to show the complexities of this country, its compassion and passions and urgencies. Things are in a ditch here. Whereas from 2010 to 2015 Australias GDP grew from USD 0.92 to 1.32 trillion, Italys shrank from 2.4 to 1.9 in similar period, having doubled in the first decade of this millennium.

Italys intention is to deepen its budget deficit in 2019, contrary to EU wishes. Compromise will be difficult. There are elements in the budget which are naive; the Brussels lambasting will be severe, Merkel seeks compromise, but Brussels is Brussels.

January 7, 2018

JENNY HOCKING. An Australian republic inevitable as Turnbull disappoints again.

T__he republic is now emerging as a key election issue, with the Prime Minister a mere observer in its wake. In considering the powers of a president in a new Republic it is important to affirm that government can only be formed with the confidence of the House of Representatives.

February 14, 2019

MARY CROCK AND DANIEL GHEZELBA. It's high time we stopped playing politics with migration laws.

Ordinary Australians are tired of the casual cruelty of hard-line border control policies.The medical evacuation bill was introduced by Dr Kerryn Phelps to ensure that refugees and asylum seekers on Nauru and Manus Island can access the medical care they require.The bill was passed because our elected representatives, too, recognise that enough is enough.

October 1, 2020

Lobbyland. The alcohol industry lobbies furiously in the pandemic.

_Alcohol industry representatives have been furiously lobbying for concessions to the efforts by governments to restrict the movement of people the primary tool in fighting the virus.

August 27, 2020

Defending border protections

_Diversity not unity is what federalism is about. Australia is a federation and that is not going to change.

November 7, 2019

JAMES O'NEILL. The Rhetoric and the Reality: Australia, the United States and the World in the 21st Century.

Henry Wotton is perhaps best remembered as the author of the phrase that an ambassador was an honest gentleman sent abroad to lie for the good of his country.

August 3, 2020

Some good news emerging from the bad

Another month, another setback several, unfortunately. With preparations for the budget being finalised in an atmosphere of quiet desperation, COVID-19 is now clearly out of control.

January 4, 2018

ERIC HODGENS. Melbournes New Archbishop.

2018 will be a fateful year for the Catholic Church in Australia as Melbourne gets a new archbishop. This appointment, if successful, offers some hope for the Church; if a failure, it will hasten the Churchs decline into insignificance. Heres why.

September 10, 2020

Planning in the age of the virus

Are we getting to the point where the public simply tunes out when one of our political leaders outlines their latest plan, or road map, or framework for the way the nation or their state will deal with the virus? Hasn’t the public seen enough experienced enough in the past seven or eight months to appreciate that it is almost impossible to predict what the situation will be next month, let alone in two, three or six months’ time?

January 2, 2018

HANS-J. OHFF. Acquiring an orphan submarine. A REPOST from January 2017

If the RAN holds firm to the concept offered by DCNS it will acquire an orphan no other Navy will contemplate commissioning into service. It will own a submarines that will be expensive to build, expensive to maintain and expensive to operate. It will be a class that has no equals sadly for all the wrong reasons.

September 1, 2020

Australia's policies towards China have little support in the region.

_The Southeast Asian states see themselves as being in a region where China and Japan have the most influence, and where the US’s influence is declining. The foundations of Australia’s strategic logic are very shaky.

July 15, 2020

Book Review: "Hidden Hand" Exposing how the Chinese communist party is reshaping the world (The Conversation 10.7.20)

InHidden Hand, China scholars Clive Hamilton and Marieke Ohlberg examine the Chinese Communist Partys influence in Europe and North America in a similar way to how Hamilton dissected the CCPs influence in Australia in his 2018 book,Silent Invasion.

May 7, 2019

MICHELLE PINI. The Morrison Government's strange bedfellows (Independent Australia)

This week, the Coalition finally admitted what many had already suspected: preference deals with Pauline Hansons One Nation (PHON) and Clive Palmers United Australia Party (UAP).

August 16, 2020

The Ruby Princess fiasco, deaths and damage.

This was not just another Covid cluster it was a full on Covid cluster fuck, brought to you in glorious 20-20 hindsight and quadrophonic dodging and denial.

July 19, 2020

A pilot Revenue-Contingent Loan for the JobKeeper Transition

Several months ago we argued the case for the use of revenue-contingent loans (RCLs) as part of the transition from JobKeeper. An RCL is a debt for business, with the defining characteristic being that repayments occur when the firm is able to do so comfortably in the future. The concept is closely related to the Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS) pioneered in Australia in the 1980s.

April 16, 2019

The next clash between India and Pakistan (Japan Times 2.4.2019)

For many years, I have argued in these pages that the Indian subcontinent and the Korean Peninsula are among the least unlikely theaters of a nuclear war. The known consequences of a nuclear war mean a deliberate policy decision to go to war is highly unlikely in either theater. But there are different dynamics at play in South and East Asia for an inadvertent nuclear war through an escalation spiral that can be triggered by a minor event, including miscommunication, flawed intelligence, system error or misperception of red lines.

July 26, 2020

An obituary for our native flora,fauna and habitat.

The essential reform…the appointment of an independent cop on the beat to remove politics from a system infested by donors and lobbyists, mainly miners and developers.

December 22, 2017

JOHN HANNON. Failed leadership and systemic failure

I believe it is time to address the elephant in the room, now that the Royal Commission has presented its findings. Last weekends Saturday Age had a dark front-page image of a large cross with claw like hands descending from the horizontal crossbar, an almost sacrilegious image, reflecting the darkness and wrongs perpetrated by some in the name of the Church. At the foot of the cross is a young man, on his knees, hands joined in front of a candle, a striking contrast between the bright light of innocence and the darkness of evil.

September 24, 2020

Tamed Estate: Low Emissions, Insolvency Reforms, Responsible Lending and NBN Privatisation

Following on from the opener to the Tamed Estate released in both Michael West Media and Pearls and Irritations, we will be conducting a rolling watch for media failures and manipulations.

June 26, 2019

SHIRO ARMSTRONG. The PM must step up if WTO is to return from the brink (Financial Review)

The G20 will meet in Osaka with world trade in crisis. The time has come to chose between our volatile ally and the multilateral trading system.

April 20, 2018

GREG HAMILTON. Not much ado about a helluva lot.

A stage play that wouldnt make it into an Australian theatre today caused a helluva stink back in 1962 and said some wise and courageous (aka shocking) things about the most sacred day in our national calendar. The reasons it wouldnt make it today say something tragic about us as a society of people.

April 17, 2019

GARRY EVERETT. Worse things than dying.

In Eric Bogles haunting song : And the band played Waltzing Matilda, there is the heart-wrenching line sung by the young soldier who has just had both legs blown off by a Turkish bomb. He sings:And when I saw what it had done, well I wished I was dead. Never knew there were worse things than dying.

June 25, 2015

John Dwyer. Pseudoscience and health care.

Current Affairs

The catalyst for my need to share with you frustrations associated with the penetration of pseudoscience into Australian health care and the poor protection of consumers from same, was generated by the release of the details of the long awaited Free Trade agreement between Australia and China.

We now know that Chinese medicine was the subject of a side letter from Australia’s Trade Minister, Andrew Robb, to the Chinese government, which outlined plans to strengthen cooperation on traditional medicine, which among other things, could open the door for hundreds of contractual service providers from China to be officially registered to work here. The CEO of the Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine Association was delighted by the news, “We do know that the Chinese government has set globalisation of traditional Chinese medicine as a major priority and they’ve invested a lot of funding into this process”. Minister Robb also noted the opportunities that would be available for Australian manufacturers of supplements and Complementary medicines to penetrate the huge Chinese market.

January 7, 2019

MICHAEL KEATING. The Future of Democracy: Part 2

Yesterday in Part 1 of this article I discussed some of the possible explanations for the apparent loss of government capacity in most advanced democracies. Today in this second Part I will discuss some of the solutions that have been proposed to restore government capacity. This discussion has been influenced in part by Laura Tingles excellent Quarterly Essay, Follow the Leader: Democracy and the Rise of the Strongman, and by some of the responses to that Essay.

October 30, 2019

TERRY FEWTRELL Plenary Council - Faith and Hope in Abundance

_Catholics are growing restless with their bishops. A Plenary Council process is underway to review the state of the church in Australia. But Catholics are increasingly wary, amid fears attempts are being made to stifle calls for reform from ordinary Catholics.

November 16, 2015

Greg Smith- Tax Reform and Change Leadership

If we look at the tax reforms of the past we can observe a few clear problems that are accumulating from design compromises.

We replaced narrow indirect taxes with a broader GST, but the GST base is narrower than consumption and the trend over the past 15 years is for a relative decline in GST revenues. This has been partly offset for the States by higher mining royalty revenues, but these are now weakening.
Other indirect taxes imposed on narrow bases have declined even more dramatically than the GST. These are structural weaknesses that will not be overcome by future economic changes.
The reformed personal tax scale was not indexed and has undergone a series of changes based both on bracket creep and on ad hoc politically based changes. Forward estimates are based on an assumed increase in average personal income tax burdens.
The income base is a complex compromise between a wide range of competing principles for example between the comprehensive income and expenditure tax principles, the realisation and accrual principles, the asymmetric treatment of gains and losses, different concepts of source and residence, and different approaches to entities and income assignment. Progressivity is also pursued in a highly imperfect and incomplete way.
Secondary tax layers that is additional taxes and charges imposed on top of the broadly based taxes such as payroll taxes and stamp duties continue to be relied upon but without clear rationales or efficient design principles.

So here we are again. Once again we confront the problems of a compromised tax system and seek to achieve reforms that will at least for a further time set us on a more robust and effective path. We confront another change leadership task which would set us on a substantially new course, rather than one that takes us along an old and well-worn path. Can we do it?

December 26, 2018

CHRIS MILLS. Australian Defence Organisation Combats Climate Change Effects in Australia.

The Mission of the Australian Defence Force is to defend Australia and its national interests. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2018 Report assesses that climate change presents a global risk to heath, livelihoods, food security, water supply, human security and economic growth. Australia, being the driest inhabited continent faces existential risk from climate change which is attacking Australia and adversely affecting national interests with extreme weather events such as droughts and fires, and the Great Barrier Reef is being cooked alive. The logical deduction is that the Australian Defence Organisation should exercise its Mission and participate in a campaign to combat climate change.

An ironic canary in the Queensland coalmines contributing to climate change is the widespread and extended drought and the consequential wildfires burning over half a million hectares. There are broadacre carbon farms in Queensland and the good these farms do in capturing and storing carbon is negated when forests burn across huge areas, releasing carbon-dioxide. Project these early-warning signals and the future is bleak for Australian production of food and fibre to meet domestic and the worlds needs.

October 22, 2018

MARTIN HIRST. Whos got the energy mix to win the Victorian state election?

As the Victorian election looms, energy prices are a critical issue for voters. The Liberals espouse scrapping the renewable energy target and lifting the ban on onshore gas extraction. Labor has its program for expanding wind and solar. Voters have a clear choice on energy and climate but have been presented with a false dichotomy: cheap and dirty versus clean and expensive. Will voters buy it? Academic and journalist,Dr Martin Hirst,looks at the facts and reports that, whoever prevails, wholesale power prices are falling anyway.

May 22, 2018

JOHN TULLOH. Count Australia out on Iran, Uncle Sam.

A U.S. presidential executive order makes it illegal for America to target a foreign leader for assassination. But it seems it is perfectly acceptable to try to throttle another countrys struggling economy as a means of getting rid of its leader through regime change. This appears to be the raison d__tre of President Trump in dealing with Iran.

July 12, 2018

TERRY BARNES. Pharmacy power is a paper tiger (AFR 4/7/2018)

_If something looks, walks and acts like a duck, it’s a duck. In the case ofpharmacy giant Chemist Warehouse, however, it’s anything but.

April 12, 2016

John Menadue. Health reform and cooperative federalism. Part 2

In part 1 of this series, I set out why I was attracted to the development of an option set out in a COAG paper on health reform which suggested the establishment of a commonwealth hospital benefit which would replace the PHI subsidy.

Regional Purchasing Agencies to address the’ blame game’ in health.

In part 2, I examine another option in the federalism discussion paper which is for The commonwealth and the states and territories to share responsibility for all health care through Regional Purchasing Agencies.

October 29, 2019

WILLIAM ASTORE. Killing Me Softly With Militarism (Common Dreams 24-10-19)

The militarization and decay of democracy in America.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal