April 22, 2019

DAVID SHEARMAN. Parliamentary reform is vital to address the complex problems of environmental change.

The poor standing of politicians and the lack of expertise in their ranks and Ministries increasingly results in inadequate policy in complex problems such as climate change. It is essential that the next government commences reform of Parliamentary processes and harness necessary expertise.

October 1, 2020

Social Housing: the social need and the economic opportunity

The unfairness of Joe Hockeys first budget in 2014 presaged the end of his political career. If Josh Frydenberg fails to address the need and opportunity for action on social housing will it start his political decline?

July 13, 2020

The NBN complete but not finished

With the NBN rollout now ‘complete’ on 30 June, it would seem that this is as good as broadband connectivity is going to get for Australian households.

June 15, 2020

Hypothetical protests cost not worth the hyperventilation

Shock, horror. Someone has been tested positive to COVID-19 after the Black Lives Matter protest in Melbourne and Peter Dutton is terrified his worst fears have been realized, he hyperventilated.

December 3, 2018

JOHN KERIN. Australian soils.

We live in the driest occupied continent. Most of our soils are old and fragile. Rain is variable in our most arable areas and our precipitation to evaporation ratio is low. Dust storms and soil exposure caused by unprecedented, catastrophic bush fires in Queensland in the last weeks of November remind us of the fragility of our land mass, 60% of which is in the stewardship of our farmers and graziers. To many, but not all, of these landholders it is not a mystery that soil and water, as with the relevant sciences, is the basis to all agriculture. It has been calculated that each of our meals costs 10 kg of soil. Food security is a real debate in a world facing the accelerant of climate change on our resource base; care of our soils becomes critical.

May 13, 2018

LINDA SIMON. TAFE upfront in Shortens Budget speech in reply.

Whilst the Governments 2018 Federal Budget failed to recognise the importance of TAFE and skills development to Australias economy, TAFE and funding were upfront in the Labor Oppositions speech in reply.Labor has put TAFE back as the centrepiece of national skills training, promising to scrap upfront fees for 100,000 TAFE students as part of its platform.

December 26, 2020

Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity Memo: To Biden: Don't be suckered on Russia

Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) hopes President-elect Joe Biden will avoid the mousetrap being laid for him to make it more difficult for his administration to deal in a sensible way with Russia.

September 1, 2020

Pope Francis: We need to get serious about climate change and unfair economic systems

Here in Australia, we need to make a bigger contribution to the fight, given our abundant resources and expertise.

June 21, 2020

University reforms pose bigger problems than many realise.

Much of the controversy about the governments university package, just announced, has centred on its impact on the arts and humanities. But the problems are much deeper, affecting other faculties and indeed universities’ viability.

March 24, 2019

JUDITH BETTS. Dutton, the media and framing Lebanese migration as Frasers mistake

Events in Christchurch have prompted a long-overdue examination of our own tolerance of the dog whistling and hate speech our politicians and the right-wing media have engaged in for years now. But research conducted by a colleague, Dr Mehal Krayem, and I after Duttons comments in 2016 found that it was not just the right-wing media who have a case to answer. Our mainstream media have also failed to challenge politicians such as Dutton and right-wing commentators like Bolt, Devine and Henderson, over their inflammatory and misleading comments, in this case about Lebanese migration.

September 4, 2018

BATES GILL. Australias Political Division at Home Undermines Its Leadership Abroad.

Fractious domestic politics have made it all but impossible for the country to formulate coherent policy on critical regional and global issues.

July 27, 2020

A second wave of relief for Morrison

We would never dream of accusing Scott Morrison of being relieved by the onset of the second wave of coronavirus, but nonetheless it has postponed a nagging Jobseeker problem for him.

May 6, 2020

CAVAN HOGUE: Double standards in dealing with China and USA

Why do our government and media apply different standards and rules to China and the USA? We are usually told it is because we share values with the US but not with China. Also, China is aggressive and the US is a democracy which respects universal human rights and the rules based international order.

July 23, 2020

AI Unveiled: another propaganda service for Defence, big business and the Coalition (Michael West 22.7.20)

Is AI Group just a front for big business and foreign weapons manufacturers?Michael Westreports on the rise of government and business propaganda outfits who are suddenly mute when the subject turns to the delicate matter of who funds them.

July 7, 2020

Equality or austerity after COVID?

Can the COVID crisis help drive a more equal Australia? The crisis reveals an alternative is possible, focuses attention on social needs and exposes the macroeconomic risks of growing economic insecurity. However, the shadow of debt and snap back loom large.

June 22, 2020

Bloody Vics!

Dj vu all over again. In the dim, dark ages before I even arrived in Canberra, I was writing stories about the Victorian branch of the Australian Labor Party its bullying exclusion, its factional resistance to change, its impotent failure to rise from opposition to offer its disillusioned supporters even a sniff of electoral victory at either a state or federal level.

March 21, 2019

JOHN AUSTEN. NSW infrastructure: who is fit to govern?

_Readers of Pearls and Irritations may have followed the transport infrastructure fiasco in NSW under conservative governments led first by Mr OFarrell, then Mr Baird and now by one-time Transport Minister and Treasurer, Ms Berejiklian._Several reports last week put an exclamation mark to the debacle and raised questions about the fitness of either side to govern.

April 21, 2020

IMOGEN ZETHOVEN. The coral bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef continues.

As the novel coronavirus engulfs the worlds attention, the Great Barrier Reef is still suffering from coral bleaching and the government is pursuing a novel approach to its protection, without confronting the main threat.

September 17, 2020

The UN at 75: a real declaration of intent, or multilateral virtue signalling?

An atmosphere of unreality is building in advance of the virtual meeting of world leaders to mark the 75th anniversary of the United Nations (UN). Nothing demonstrates this more than the proposed draft declaration. Rather than reaffirming the UNs centrality, the draft declarations faux earnestness jars amid the current international reality. Additionally, it ignores the biggest challenge to multilateralism.

August 10, 2020

Johnson pops in to 'save the Union' and to destroy devolution in Scotland.

_Scotland was recently graced with a visit from the UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, his second since not being elected to his post on a Brexit ticket by the Scots.

April 29, 2020

TIM WOODRUFF. Health Services or a Health System?: We Have a Choice

How do we keep our population healthy? From a patient perspective we dont have a health system. From a providers perspective we dont have a health system.

August 24, 2020

Privatisation - who's it good for?

_Privatisation is one of those terms which politicians avoid using. That is because the public does not like the idea, or its outcomes. It can be used in a number of ways, but most of us regard it as meaning selling off a publicly owned asset, usually to the detriment of good government.

July 19, 2020

In Hong Kong,China's United Front includes the billionaire property tycoons.

As the tension between Australia and China is on the rise, there is often a reference to one organisation in China - the United Front (UF).

April 1, 2019

IAN DUNLOP. Climate Policy: Predatory delay destroys prosperity, threatens survival.

As the debacle of Australian climate and energy policy unfolded over the last three decades, the continuing bleat from peak industry bodies, such as the BCA, MCA and APPEA, has been the need for policy certainty and consistency.Notwithstanding the fact that those same organisations too often have wilfully undermined achievement of those objectives.

January 4, 2018

MICHAEL LAMBERT. Overweight and Obesity Part 2: The indigenous Australians Impact

Part 1 of this two-part post provided a global and broad Australian perspective on the pandemic of overweight and obesity. This part sets out the position for indigenous Australians and argues that this pandemic is a significant part of the health gap between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians and that the way forward must involve interventions to address the problem at childhood and adolescent stages.

May 27, 2020

MICHAEL KEATING. Why the coronavirus shouldnt stand in the way of the next wage increase (The Conversation 26.5.20)

Wage increases are widely believed to pose a threat to employment. But this ignores their role in supporting demand growth. Instead, wage increases consistent with maintaining an equilibrium distribution of income are necessary to sustain economic growth and employment.

August 30, 2020

Environmental values remain threatened

Environmental legislation now before federal parliament offers an opportunity to go beyond that of removing green tape. Devolution to the states of federal responsibilities without an independent regulator and funding support will ensure our environmental trajectory remains unsustainable.

July 21, 2020

The PM, the spy and the governor-general: what John Kerr didn't tell the palace (Crikey 17.5.20)

It was Monday November 3, 1975, and on a practice track somewhere in Melbourne, champion horse Think Big was being taken for a light canter.

July 16, 2020

RICHARD CURTAIN. Key elements of a suppression strategy

What is a workable alternative to an elimination strategy?

September 7, 2020

Overcoming individualisation is fundamental to social change

Individualisation positions the idea of the autonomous, self-contained individual at the centre of political, ethical and psychological frameworks, and determines much of our current politics.

May 11, 2020

WILLIAM BRIGGS. A Trade War is Announced

A new cold war has been announced. While some will have it that COVID 19 is at the root of the deteriorating relations between the US and China, the pandemic is but a symptom of a deeper and potentially far more deadly problem; how the US responds to its perceived China threat.

December 22, 2017

MARILYN HATTON and MOIRA COOMBS. Catholic women speak out.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuses report and its recommendations are essential for the care and protection of children and care of victims and their families. They are also important steps in preventing the perpetuation of the destructive clerical culture that produced the horrifying sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.

April 8, 2020

BOB DEBUS. Its no excuse to trash the planet.

As nearly everybody now understands, the changes that have occurred in public policy in the last few weeks are without precedent, at least since the Second World War. They tell us in the most straightforward possible way that only government finance and organisation can support the people in a national emergency.

May 5, 2019

MARJORIE COHN. Human rights and global wrongs in Venezuela,Cuba and Nicaragua.

Under the guise of protecting human rights, the Trump administration is illegally meddling in three countries it hasdubbedthe troika of tyranny Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua. National Security Adviser John Bolton claimed, Miami is home to countless Americans, who fled the prisons and death squads of the Castro regime in Cuba, the murderous dictatorships of Chavez and Maduro in Venezuela, and the horrific violence of the 1980s and today under the brutal reign of the Ortegas in Nicaragua.But the U.S. governmentshuman rights recorddoesnt compare favorably to Cubas. And the Trump administration, which ignores notorious human rights violators like Saudi Arabia, is acting out of more cynical motives in its commission of egregious human rights violations against Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua.

June 22, 2018

ROBERT KAGAN. Trumps America does not care.

Since the end of the Cold War, it has widely been assumed that U.S. foreign policy would follow one of two courses: Either the United States would continue as primary defender of the international order it created after World War II, or it would pull back from overseas commitments, shed global responsibilities, turn inward and begin transitioning to a post-American world. The second approach was where U.S. foreign policy seemed headed under President Barack Obama, and most saw the election of Donald Trump as another step toward withdrawal.

August 2, 2020

AUSMIN 2020: confirmation of Australia's abandonment of strategic autonomy?

Australians should not be quite as comforted by the governments recent statements around Australia-US Ministerial Consultations (AUSMIN) as some have indicated. Reassuring word s are the slippery province of diplomacy. Strategic policy is founded in force structure and force posture.

April 13, 2020

IAN McAULEY. Arithmetic supports a policy of eradicating coronavirus

The numbers behind the spread of coronavirus in Australia are promising, but we should wait some time before considering any relaxation of social distancing and other restrictions.

October 6, 2019

FIONA STURGES. Snobs,Brexit and Lady Hale (The Guardian, 27 September 2019)

For all the talk of an industry in crisis, you have to hand it to the British media for their ability to get to the nub of a story. It was, one imagines, with a gasp of triumph that the Daily Mail was able to deliver a stinging blow to the president of the supreme court, Lady Hale, she of the spider brooch and the damning verdict on our prime ministers prorogation wheeze. Via a stunned headline, the paper was this week able to reveal that Hale, who graduated top of her class at Cambridge in law, who was the first woman to be appointed to the Law Commission, and the second to be appointed to the court of appeal, was in fact an ex-barmaid. Truly, we must applaud this mighty organs dogged commitment to truth and scrutiny.

August 13, 2020

Why do LNP Governments hate the arts and universities?

LNP Governments vindictive attitudes to the arts are obvious from the widespread cutbacks they have imposed on the sector. Ditto universities which have been forced to rely on overseas students to make up funding shortfalls and are then attacked for doing so.

September 10, 2020

Problems with new F-35 fighter planes shouldn't fly under the radar (Canberra Times Sep 1, 2020)

Defence gives an average price of less than $126 million for Australia’s 72 F-35s when fully delivered. But the Australian Strategy Policy Institute estimates the sustainment costs to be triple those of the F-18 fighters it replaces.

September 19, 2020

A Government Program to lock-in Fossil Fuels

The federal governments “Next Generation Energy Technologies Investment Package” is designed to lock-in fossil fuels.

August 24, 2020

Scott Morrison's marketing of a vaccine is true to form

_Morrison is offering not a solution but a thought bubble, something to keep us going until some other rabbit can be pulled out of his well worn hat of illusions. But the fact that it has already been dismissed as so much puffery by both AstraZeneca itself and by the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories who are supposed to deliver the vaccine to the masses is not encouraging.

September 21, 2020

Aged care has become a property play - perhaps even for some church groups?

Whenever governments outsource or subsidize a community service, it is amazing how quickly and cleverly the private sector finds a way to milk it.

November 19, 2017

NEW YORK TIMES. Refugees on Manus Island trapped far from home, farther from deliverance

Refugees Trapped Far From Home, Farther From Deliverance

www.nytimes.com

The New York Times sent journalists into a contested detention camp in Papua New Guinea to investigate Australias refugee policy, and the resistance rising against it.

April 14, 2020

JACK WATERFORD. Prosecution as an obstacle race

Many people who had opinions about Pells guilt or innocence will retain them despite the High Courts decision. Whether they fall on one side or another, there are several words of caution:

September 5, 2020

Night and Day (NYBooks Aug 26, 2020)

But a broken nation is not a macrocosm of a broken family. It cannot be healed by love and understanding alone, by religious faith and small acts of kindness.

June 16, 2020

What Does China Want under the Leadership of Xi? -The South China Sea, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Part 1 of 2

China now is no more aggressive than China in the era of Mao or the post-Mao period. But China is now seen to be more assertive because it has grown in economic and military capabilities. In the three US-led Western agenda setting issues of the South China Sea, Hong Kong and Taiwan China wants to keep the status quo as much as possible.

February 17, 2019

KERRY GOULSTON. Healthcare Reform at last?

Will meaningful and significant reform of the Australian health care system occur at last?

Will there be bipartisan political support for the initiatives proposed by Labor? 2019 could be the year that delivers.

August 4, 2020

Coalition toes party line between US and China (SMH, 3 August 2020)

“Don’t sell your soul for a pile of soybeans,” warned US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo a year ago, when Australian foreign affairs and defence ministers met their United States counterparts.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal