September 15, 2020

Chinese academics in Australia shocked, fear ‘chilling effect’ after Canberra revokes visas of two scholars (SCMP Sep 11, 2020)

Chinese-born academics in Australia have expressed shock, as well as their fears of a chill on scholarship and Sino-Australian engagement, after two leading figures linked to Canberra’s cultural diplomacy efforts had their visas revoked on national security grounds.

August 21, 2020

Unmaking socio-economic cohesion Part 2

The neoliberalist ethos has been a long time in gestation and cultivation. Society, social order and the role of the state in such are alien to it. Economists are a large part of the story – indeed the centrepiece?

February 21, 2019

DEMETRI SEVASTOPULO AND DAVID BOND . UK National Cyber Security Centre says Huawei is manageable risk to 5G( Financial Times London 18.2.2019

British intelligence has concluded that it is possible to mitigate the risk from using Huawei equipment in 5G networks, in a serious blow to US efforts to persuade allies to ban the Chinese supplier from high-speed telecommunications systems.

September 24, 2020

The South China Sea: Grasping at Straws and Whistling Past the Graveyard

As their struggle for dominance in the region heats up, China and the U.S. are cranking up pressure on Southeast Asian countries to choose between them. As they become ever more desperate, officials and pundits are now ‘grasping at straws’ and ‘whistling past the graveyard’ in response to the rapidly deteriorating political situation in the South China Sea.

April 16, 2020

PETER SAINSBURY. Corona-myths: shifting the blame to preserve privilege. Part 1 of 2.

Myths about the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, who is to blame and characteristics of the global response abound. In Part 1 I explore seven myths, the most significant being that the pandemic could not have been predicted. These myths are being used to obscure the truth, shift responsibility and perpetuate existing power and privilege.

July 10, 2020

Defence Strategic Outlook lacks a civilian perspective.

The Defence Department’s Strategic Update is somewhat servant to the past rather than the future. It’s just one way to see the world and should be subordinated to a civilian perspective in less adversarial terms. The government’s endorsement of the Update is tragic and dangerous.

October 1, 2020

The bathtub is nearly full: Australia's extraordinary energy plan

The Coalition government's energy plan ensures the emissions tap will continue to flow. While economic recovery following the pandemic is an important objective, to ignore the consequences of persisting with fossil fuels is incomprehensible.

September 22, 2020

Scientists and capitalists agree on climate. When will governments act?

Time again for Australia’s political leaders to ignore the regular cycle of reports that highlight the failure to deal with the coming climate disaster. The pandemic might provide a “look over there” opportunity to distract citizens, but the recent climate publications warrant close attention.

September 8, 2020

How governments made economic medicine less potent, more insipid

I expect the premiers will suffer little political pain if recovery doesn’t happen, is patchy or too slow. It will be Morrison and Frydenberg who are blamed.

June 2, 2020

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Scott Morrison's cooing of doves.

_Morrison has finally built a store of political credit through his deft and lucky handling of the COVID-19 crisis and obviously believes that as long as he keeps moving, there is a fair chance that the punters will forgive him for a few mishaps.

July 27, 2020

The dragon in the room next door

He’s one of China’s most high-ranking and experienced diplomats yet he was caught on TV squirming when confronted by video showing manacled men shunted onto trains. The prisoners were alleged to be Chinese Uyghur, a Muslim ethnic group.

June 16, 2020

India’s human capital: A gift that keeps on giving

India is now Australia’s largest source of skilled migrants, the largest provider of temporary skilled specialists and second-largest source of overseas students.

August 11, 2020

Cyber-war: building more empires than it destroys

Cyber disruption is an unpleasant fact, but not the end of the world. But the sort of bad, unexamined and unaccountable thinking our planning involves, presents every risk of making our bullets land in the wrong places, when or if we reach the disaster on which our hawks are so bent.

June 11, 2020

The Climate Tide roars in, yet leaders fail to understand and act

_Climate change is a massively complex ‘wicked’ problem hence solutions require human capacities of logic and imagination guiding action. Our leaders appear bereft of science-based logic, acknowledging neither magnitude nor urgency of climate change.

September 22, 2020

Neoclassical economics II: pseudo-scholarship

Neoclassical economics is without scholarly integrity. It does not belong in universities. It certainly should not be the dominant source of policy advice to governments.

February 6, 2019

KAREN COX. Now Hayne has reported, the lobbyists will get to work (SMH 5.2.2019)

_After a year of front pages filled with the evidence of scandalous wrong doing, rip-offs and greed in our banking and financial services institutions, we finally have a roadmap from Commissioner Kenneth Hayne on how to solve the finance sector’s ills. His report is bold, full of commonsense and clear solutions.

August 12, 2020

Child sex victims being bent to national security agenda

We are all against cyber-crime - criminal offences done with the aid of a computer - are we not? And cyber-terrorism - bad guys, and not only jihadist terrorists, using the internet to recruit, propagandise, communicate and, probably transfer money to each other?

April 6, 2025

For an alcoholic, abstinence is the surest path to long-term recovery

It may be an inconvenient truth, but the fact is that, in terms of its harm, alcohol is by far Australia’s most dangerous drug.

June 12, 2020

What is to be done about the Chinese in Oz. (Part 1 of 3)

The Chinese Question refuses to go away. It’s testing the inheritors of White Australia.

August 3, 2020

One of the biggest open secrets in Australian public policy-privatisation has failed (Canberra Times, 27 July 2020)

_Australians hate privatisation. It is politically toxic and has brought down governments on both the political left and right.

August 14, 2020

US sanctions policy ‘on steroids’: a legitimate tool or is Donald Trump using it for retribution? (Michael West August 10, 2020)

The Trump Administration is adding foreign individuals and entities to US sanctions lists at a rate never before seen and it’s increasingly been done without Congressional oversight, judicial review or any requirement to produce evidence, writes Marcus Reubenstein.

April 30, 2020

WANG GUNGWU. The China lesson (East Asia Forum 26.4.20)

In the months since the Wuhan lockdown to contain the COVID-19 pandemic, there is reason to feel sadder if not wiser. How quickly the Beijing government gathered its national resources to help the province of Hubei was impressive.

August 26, 2020

Who's repelling boarders at our internal borders?

The emergency border controls are not doing much, if anything, to drive the virus from our shores.

July 28, 2020

Corona-crisis calls for imagination, not panic, parsimony and punishment.

Tertiary education, including universities, was badly hit (to complete government indifference, even delight.) The cultural sector was punished – and a good deal more than sport. Lobbyists for pubs and clubs have had a field day with compliant governments.

June 24, 2020

University rankings and the rise and fall of international education

University rankings helped recruitment of international students to finance increased research. With student numbers dropping, now is the time to put less emphasis on rankings and reduce concern about the risks of relying too heavily on international students.

July 24, 2020

It is Orwellian to say that America has preserved the peace in Asia.

On 14 July, US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia, David Stilwell, gave a speech elaborating on US China policy in the South China Sea, and further increased tensions with China there.**

March 16, 2016

Jon Stanford. Technology, economics and Australia’s future submarine Part 2 of 3.

Part 2: Economic and financial risks

Introduction

The first part of this article considered the technological risks involved in the decision, as set out in the 2016 Defence White Paper, to procure twelve new submarines at an acquisition cost of at least $50 billion. The economic and financial risks of this project are discussed here in Part Two of the article.

There is a considerable literature on the economics of defence procurement but the fundamental principles of economics, including corporate financial analysis, can readily be applied to military programs. Any major investment program to acquire a new or updated defence asset should be subject to the same rigorous appraisal that a new investment in, say, a coal mine or a tourism resort would demand in the private sector. Of course, the defence asset is different in that it gives rise to a largely intangible pay-off and doesn’t produce cash flows, but the benefits of the project can still be assessed and set against the costs. Importantly, the risks around both the projected benefits and the costs need to figure prominently in the analysis.

July 31, 2020

US Assistant Attorney General fuels Chinese hacking conspiracy

Despite what the US alleges against China, would any government spy agency be so stupid as to combine extortion for profit with spy activities?

August 21, 2020

ABC News Should Fight Back

The ABC News and Current Affairs division is a shadow of its former self, but the public doesn’t know. It’s time to fight back.

July 10, 2020

Smashing the Chinese golden goose egg

In the fragile recovery from mega-bushfires, floods, drought and the pandemic, Australians are looking for competent, trustworthy and decent political leadership. If the Eden-Monaro by-election was a leadership testing ground, both major parties failed.

September 17, 2020

Time for a rethink on discount rates

The 1980s were great in many ways, but a 1989 discount rate is looking distinctly old-fashioned in 2020.

August 27, 2020

A bigger canvas: Russia, China and Australia's strategic policy

In an article in The Conversation, Professor Alexey Muraviev has pointed out that Australia has failed to factor into its strategic calculations the relationship between China and Russia. While Russia poses no credible direct threat to Australia, it could be a key player in a conflict between the US and China.

August 16, 2020

China sympathisers’: a new "Red Scare" stalks Australian businesses (SCMP HK 10.8.2020)

As anti-China rhetoric heats up down under, expressing support for one of the region’s most important trade relationships has become a risky business. _Right-wing manipulation of social media is fanning deeply ingrained racial prejudices and anti-communist sentiment, experts say

March 5, 2019

JAMES LAURENCESON. Australia's China debate.

Australia’s China debate is frequently cast in terms of ‘doves’ versus ‘hawks’, with the former also receiving the tag of being ‘pro-China’ and the latter designated ‘anti-China’. In fact, the common ground between these two groups is expansive.

July 16, 2020

Guilty until proven innocent? (The China Story 15.7.20)

Media reporting and public commentary on China’s foreign interference efforts in Australia have focused heavily on alleged associations and links between Australian organisations or individuals and the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front system.

August 12, 2020

Putting Rosalind Franklin into pandemic perspective

The British decision to put Rosalind Franklin’s famous Photograph 51 on the new 50p coin is a reminder that the controversy over her DNA X-ray diffusion work is but one part of a much larger scientific career.

July 8, 2020

Humanities Fightback: CASSH Skills VS STEM.

Just how do Universities respond to Minister Tehan’s diabolical plan to neuter the brainpower of the next generation through engineering their debt burden by more than doubling fees for Humanities Degrees?

July 2, 2020

Monthly digest on housing affordability and homelessness – May/June 2020

The latest instalment of a monthly digest of interesting articles, research reports, policy announcements and other material relevant to housing stress/affordability and homelessness – with links to the relevant source.

August 27, 2020

Performing Anzac: Brendan Nelson and the emotion of remembrance

_Dr Brendan Nelson came out swinging recently__, providing a submission to the Public Works Committee defending the project he championed, the $498 million makeover of the Australian War Memorial._

July 13, 2020

Make peace not war, the language of military strategists

Politicians, defence strategists and media enthusiasts for the armed forces will use words from the Defence Strategic Update proposal to spend $270 billion on weapons for the military. Via the language of non-violence, it is also valuable to convey other ways of thinking.

September 9, 2020

Islam, Communism and the Belt and Road Initiative

Soon after the Bolshevik uprisings, Communism and Islam seemed destined to liberate the Muslim world from European Imperialism, but that was not to be due to their ideological differences.

December 12, 2019

MAURICIO GARCÍA VILLEGAS. Levelling the Playing Field

The millions of people protesting in different Latin American countries have a variety of complaints. A main one in Chile and Colombia, is the lack of equality of opportunity which is normally provided by good public education. In those countries, the rich are educated in well-resourced private schools while the poor are sent to second rate and poorly resourced public ones. Apart from the social tensions that such segregation and inequality creates, the country misses out on the benefits that clever children from poor families can provide.

March 20, 2019

ALAN PEARS. Electric vehicles thrill school children

My grandchildren were too young to go to the ‘school strike’ last Friday. But on Saturday they experienced the excitement and reality of a zero carbon future at the Electric Vehicle Expo.

August 24, 2020

The perils of privatisation and outsourcing.

Waste of government money is the inevitable consequence of government’s funding the private sector to deliver a public good.

August 20, 2020

Heritage, justice and the future of culture

A crucial debate is taking place over the function of cultural institutions. The concerns of a rising generation about race, gender and historical justice have to be heard. But it’s equally important to defend heritage collections and the cultural achievements of the past.

June 4, 2020

CAVAN HOGUE. How should Morrison respond to Trump's invitation?

_President Trump wants to invite Australia to attend the forthcoming G7 meeting as a guest along with Russia, Japan, South Korea and India. Mr Morrison has said he will consider a reply.

February 20, 2019

ALAN PEARS. The Politics of Confusion on Achieving the Paris Commitment

Will Australia meet the government’s Paris climate commitment? Experts disagree, while the government avoids explaining exactly how it will achieve its goal. This creates confusion and conflict, which suits the government in the lead-up to the election. Lack of information and widespread disruptive change mean it is not yet possible to make a definitive judgement. The government must, as a matter of urgency, explain in detail the assumptions, policies and expected outcomes underpinning its claim that it will meet the 2030 Paris commitment ‘at a canter’.

August 19, 2020

Industrial policy makes a comeback (EAF 16 August, 2020)

It used to be said that governments are terrible at picking winners but losers are good at picking governments. Is that still true?

June 19, 2020

Population ageing in Australia and Japan

Australia and Japan are demographic polar opposites.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal