August 5, 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.

August 11, 2020

Silver Bullet: an elegant cure for Government spending excess (Michael West Media August 5, 2020)

If it’s good enough for tennis stars and entertainers, it’s good enough for multinational tax avoiders and consultants. Michael West addresses the Senate Inquiry into Finance and Public Administration today.

May 13, 2020

JACK WATERFORD. Digesting the cases being missed

As we cautiously begin to lift the lockdown, if we don’t know who the silent carriers are, how can they play an active role in keeping the community safe?

November 13, 2017

PAUL FRIJTERS. Why Blockchain has no economic future.

When Bitcoin went public in 2009 it introduced to the world of finance and economics the technology of blockchain. Even the many who thought Bitcoin would never make it as a major currency were intrigued by the Blockchain technology and a large set of new companies have tried to figure out how to offer new services based on blockchain technology. It is still fair to say that very few economists and social scientists understand blockchain, and governments are even further behind.

July 29, 2020

Liberals throw out their Doctrines and Dogma

The Prime Minister, the head of Treasury and the present or former Chief Medical Officer may each be experts within their fields, but none of their guesses about when Coronavirus will loosen its grip on the nation’s economic throat are any better than yours or mine, or the throwing of a dice.

August 31, 2020

The China threat: turning myth into reality

We have been told that China poses a real and present danger to Australia and, regardless of the truth, it has become a ’truth.'

August 11, 2020

Australian strategic policy: why we need a robust public debate

Australia’s writings on the history of strategic policy and military history are abundant and of a high quality. However, this knowledge is not reflected in the public debate on issues pertaining to Australia’s strategic policy choices.

August 6, 2020

William Barton: A voice from the heart

On 1 August didgeridoo artist-composer William Barton and violinist Véronique Serret brought their composition Heartland to online audiences via the Melbourne Digital Concert Hall. It is a work to resonate across Australia and around the world.

August 4, 2020

Forget the trench battles. There's a war to be won

Scott Morrison has never been so vulnerable to fundamental attack. It is about time the Albanese army began seriously probe his defences.

July 28, 2020

Australia can't rely on overseas migration anymore Mr. Treasurer

The _Government’s July Economic Statement_ forecasts net overseas migration in 2020-21 will be around 31,000 – the lowest since 1975-76 and a dramatic contrast to the _fanciful levels of net overseas migration forecast in the 2019 Budget__._

August 19, 2019

Adapting to a ‘World Church’. A New Internatio nal Commentary on Vatican II

Vatican II was, according to Karl Rahner, the beginning of the “world church.” Elected bishop of Rome half a century after Vatican II, Francis is the first pope who is not from the Euro-Mediterranean area, and he can therefore be understood as the first pope of Rahner’s “world church”: a truly global, non-Eurocentric church. But theological globalization and institutional globalization are two different things, and they have been surprisingly disconnected from each other in the recent history of the church. The institutional shock of a Latin American Jesuit being elected as pope has been slower to influence theology than one might have expected in 2013.

September 16, 2020

A China spy story? Abandon perspective all ye who enter here (The New Daily Sep 15, 2020)

’Twas pure coincidence that as I was writing Monday’s story on the local spook/defence/media industries having little faith in Australia but lots of self-interest in promoting Sinophobia, journalists at the ABC and Australian Financial Review were belting their keyboards over another alleged Chinese spying outrage.

August 13, 2020

Why is Australia's public health data hidden?

Against the backdrop of _Melbourne's Stage 4 Restrictions_, _Victoria's State of Disaster_ and diminishing personal freedom in other parts of Australia, we need to have a discussion about the lack of public health data in Australia.

July 30, 2020

Frydenberg, the hollow man: Thatcher and Reagan's political grandson.

It has never been clear what ethical principles guide Josh Frydenberg’s politics. He appears to be a hollow man, especially with his recent declaration that he will look to the economic policies of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Regan for inspiration to shape Australia’s economic future.

July 24, 2020

Confronting global warming: do democracies have the expertise?

Global warming, ecological collapse, biodiversity loss, and social injustice are complex, technical challenges. Understanding them and their relationship to each other requires high levels of expertise, and solutions will demand political leadership. Confidence that democracies can meet these challenges isn’t high.

September 28, 2020

The Wrong Questions

The real issues of how the failure of the Victorian hotel quarantine program became the SOURCE of the State’s lethal second wave of Covid-19 infections have been lost.

June 26, 2020

What is to be done about the Chinese in Oz?

During the last Federal elections, our political leaders went on WeChat, to impress the PRC émigrés. They seemed not to care about the feelings of the huayi Aussies who have mostly come here since 1951.

September 5, 2018

GARRY EVERETT. Have we learnt nothing?

In the work of the recent Royal Commissions of Inquiry in Australia, into the sexual abuse of minors, and the banking and financial institutions, two glaring similar findings presented themselves. The institutions involved were neither transparent nor accountable for their actions. It remains to be seen whether, following the excoriating assessments by the Commissions, the institutions have learned any lessons, and whether we the public have been duped by the decisions of those who imposed penalties.

May 19, 2019

PETER SAINSBURY. Sunday environmental round up, 19 May 2019

The shocking loss of biodiversity and the threat it poses for human welfare have been highlighted recently with reports on the global crisis and New Zealand’s parlous record. Threatened by climate change, Torres Strait Islanders have challenged the Australian government at the UN Human Rights Committee, arguing that the government is obliged to do more to save their homes. How best to communicate about climate change is summarised in an article in the New York Times. And while many nations are declaring climate emergencies, a young Australian sounds a note of caution. Finally a visual tribute to Bob Hawke.

August 15, 2020

The witch-hunting of Moslemane and Zhang

Australia’s ‘foreign interference’ laws were criticised by many as a step towards domestic authoritarian politics with a pronounced anti-China flavour. NSW politician Shaoqett Moselmane and staffer John Zhang have since been attacked by the Attorney-General, the PM, and vilified by the media; all in the cause of witch-hunting China. Now both Moselmane and Zhang are fighting back, although against insuperable odds.

September 2, 2020

Tackling substance abuse in the coronavirus pandemic

The social and economic impacts of the coronavirus pandemic are driving more people to substance abuse while also limiting access to prevention, treatment, support and rehabilitation - services already in short supply. Without immediate actions, the consequences will be felt for years to come.

September 14, 2020

Brexit - a crash landing in prospect

Brexit is done but its end-shape is not. The final stages of the post-Brexit negotiations are shrouded in mistrust, misrepresentations, and most recently an intended breach of international law. The real intentions of the negotiators, both sides, remain clouded.

August 10, 2020

Words matter - poets can change the World!

Responses to the mayhem caused by the destruction of Beirut will have much in common with the aftermath of Covid 19: long term recovery from devastation coupled to an opportunity to build societies so different from those which preceded the explosion and the virus.

August 17, 2020

Why the US policy initiative in the South China Sea is likely to fail

On 13 July US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced a ‘new’ policy on the South China Sea, declaring that “America stands with our Southeast Asian allies and partners in protecting their sovereign rights to offshore resources. The world will not allow Beijing to treat the South China Sea as its maritime empire.”**

July 3, 2020

Australia’s health care after coronavirus – is there a silver lining to the pandemic?

What have we learned from the coronavirus pandemic that can inform and drive reforms to Australia’s health care system?

July 6, 2020

Australia’s Defence: All the way with the USA, again?

The PM’s July speech launching the new strategic documents presents an alarming picture of the state of our immediate region, on which he says the Government will focus.

December 4, 2018

Time to make dental care an election issue

Scientific breakthroughs in the prevention and treatment of tooth decay and dental disease have not yet converted dental practice, and consequently dental costs, in Australia. It will take a paradigm shift in how we organise and train our dental work force and how we fund dental services to deliver the benefits if these new prevention-focused treatment modalities. The improvements in outcomes and reductions in costs that are possible offer real incentives for governments to deliver dental care to all Australians.

August 30, 2018

E. TAMMY KIM. Moon Over Korea (New York Review of Books 16.08.18 Issue)

Moon Jae-in eui Unmyeong [The Destiny of Moon Jae-in]

by Moon Jae-in

Seoul: Bookpal, 488 pp., ₩15,000

In Singapore on June 12, as Donald Trump vigorously shook hands with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, the man behind this improbable meeting leaned forward in his chair and smiled. South Korean president Moon Jae-in, just thirteen months into his five-year term, had helped arrange the first-ever summit between an American president and the leader of North Korea. Yet Moon was careful to keep a respectful distance. He watched on a television monitor in the Blue House, the presidential compound in Seoul. It was, however symbolic, a goal he had pursued over two decades in politics, and it brought him a step closer to healing familial and national wounds. Moon is a child of the Korean War, the son of refugees from the pre-division North. But unlike Trump and Kim, who swapped boasts and missile threats just months before their handshake, Moon didn’t feel the need to take credit.

July 9, 2020

Is our alliance with America worth it?

Almost eighty years ago Prime Minister John Curtin prepared a New Year’s Eve message for the Australian people. It was written three weeks after the war with Japan had begun.

September 9, 2020

Promoting health equity: mixed scorecard for Australia’s policy response to Covid-19

Covid-19 has shone a spotlight on health inequities in society. Despite claims that ‘we are all in this together’, just like other historical pandemics, inequalities in Covid-19 mortality and morbidity reflect existing social and economic inequalities. Australia’s Federal and State/Territory policy response to the pandemic reveals some positive short-term policies. However, there is an urgent need for multisectoral social and economic policy that prioritises health equity.

April 6, 2025

Environment: Coal, oil and gas still produce three-quarters of all greenhouse gases

Three-quarters of greenhouse gas emissions still originate from the burning of fossil fuels in the energy sector. Australia’s legislation regarding environmental destruction is hindering environmental repair. Increasing demand for copper requires more recycling.

August 19, 2020

Temporary Entrants Continue to ‘Go Home’ in July 2020

The Prime Minister’s call for temporary entrants to ‘go home’ continued to be effective in July 2020 with a net loss of temporary entrants of 34,830 in July 2020.

June 18, 2020

Folly of following the Five Eyes Anglo-Saxon relic

The main countries comprising this electronic espionage group have made an abysmal hash of responding to the economic and health impacts of Covid-19. Yet the Australian government has chosen them to develop a “strategic” economic response to the Covid 19 crisis.

October 11, 2018

MARK BUTLER. There is only one energy future: firmed renewables. (AFR 10.10.2018)

Australia is in the deep throes of the most severe energy crisis in living memory. Power and gas prices have skyrocketed in recent years and are continuing to go up in spite of claims from the Liberal government that they have solved the energy crisis and prices are coming down.

August 14, 2020

Kamala Harris might ensure a fair fight

Joe Biden’s choice of Kamala Harris as his candidate for Vice President is outstanding. It takes the fight to Trump and Pence forcefully. Harris’ presence in the debates and the campaign will strengthen the possibility that the vote will be allowed to determine the outcome, not corruption.

August 13, 2020

Modernising Merit: It's time to Rethink Judicial Appointments

Pale, Male, and Stale; such is the criticism levelled at our judiciary by detractors, rightly arguing it is too white, male dominated, and out of touch to represent and deliver just outcomes for an increasingly diverse Australia.

March 1, 2019

PETER O’HARA. My Lunch with French Secret Service Agents Who Sank Rainbow Warrior.

Dateline: 1986 in the remote South Pacific. For thirty years French ‘atomic bombs’ were exploded in atoll islands of the Tuamotus archipelago in French Polynesia. I was Qantas area manager based in the capital Papeete. A dream job some would say, and interesting times in that hub of political agitation. Lunch with French secret service agents following the infamous Rainbow Warrior debacle was certainly not in my job description.

July 15, 2020

NBN-Up the Creek without a Plan

The NBN, in its present form, will not be able to deliver the digital future that Australia deserves and needs.

June 11, 2020

Health inequalities: plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

‘The poorest Australians are twice as likely to die before age 75 as the richest, and the gap is widening. People living in socially disadvantaged areas and outside major cities are much more likely to die prematurely, our new research shows. The study […] reveals this gap has widened significantly in recent years, largely because premature death rates among the least advantaged Australians have stopped improving.’

June 11, 2018

TIM COLEBATCH. Underestimating China.

Let’s clear up any confusion about the size of the Chinese economy.

September 9, 2020

Federal and State blame game won't shift the burden of economic revival

Initially, Scott Morrison was imaginative in trying to co-opt the premiers and chief ministers into a united response. However, as the premiers have gone their own way he has become more willing to criticise and more exasperated about their standing in the way of economic revival.

June 30, 2020

ABC sending a strange message to the region.

The slashing and burning of ABC workers, their goodies and services seems to have missed the overseas TV service ABC Australia. That’s no reason to whoop. Further cuts will kill.

January 27, 2020

ABUL RIZVI. No end in sight to growth in Dutton’s backlogs-the asylum seekers who came by air.

End December 2019 data shows the backlog of asylum applications at the primary stage, at the AAT and those who have been finally refused and have become overstayers continues to grow.

April 8, 2020

ABUL RIZVI. We need to keep migrants in Australia during coronavirus recession

If the government does not act to stop the coronavirus recession from forcing migrants out, then Australia will be far more economically vulnerable. Because Australia is a migrant settler nation, recessions here have special characteristics.

August 20, 2020

Gig workers falling through pandemic protection

Many people have pointed out how various groups have been forgotten in the official response to the Covid-19 pandemic: casual workers, temporary migrants, and anyone involved in universities.

August 6, 2020

Where do we go from here after Trump?

The visit to Washington of the two Australian ministers is mildly encouraging but some important questions remain. Why did they go and why did they say what they said? What next? And in the longer term what degree of control will Australia have over the world we inhabit?

May 11, 2020

ANDREW PODGER. New Normals: Likely, Unlikely and to aim for. Part 2

A desirable new normal in economic and social policy will require a new normal in Australian politics. For a decade or more we have suffered from hyper-partisanship and the constant campaign. Good policy is no longer recognised as good politics. Arguably, Scott Morrison is the supreme example, being until now the most ‘transactional’ of political leaders.

November 8, 2019

CO2 is rising at the fastest rate since 66 million years ago.

As the CO2 level rises to 408 ppm and the total greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere, including CO2, methane and nitrous oxide, reaches about 500 parts per million CO2-equivalent, the stability threshold of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, currently melting at an accelerated rate, is exceeded. Under warming drought conditions, firestorms currently engulfing California, large parts of South America, Siberia, Australia and elsewhere are a direct consequence of the extreme changes in the composition of the atmosphere.

September 4, 2020

Victoria should stay the course

Victoria is now facing a difficult choice: to continue stringent lockdowns in the hope of getting COVID-19 cases down to zero, or accepting the lesser goal of opening up once cases are in single digits.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal