April 29, 2020

FRANCESCA BEDDIE. Tertiary education after COVID-19. Part 1

_One thing COVID-19 has done is shatter laborious bureaucratic reform processes that so often breed inertia rather than change. I marvel at how quickly education systems have adapted to the lockdown.

February 24, 2019

KELSEY MUNRO AND ALEX OLIVER: Polls apart: how Australian views have changed on 'boat people'. (Lowy Institute 19.2.2019)

Since 2005, the annual Lowy Institute Poll has been tracking the attitudes of Australians to foreign policy issues and their place in the world. The issue of boat people, unauthorised asylum seekers, irregular maritime arrivals, refugees the politics is so contested that it is difficult to find a neutral term has been a lightning rod in Australian politics since 2001.

_The issue of boat people, unauthorised asylum seekers, irregular maritime arrivals, refugees the politics is so contested that it is difficult to find a neutral term.

March 27, 2019

STEPHANIE DOWRICK. After al-Noor, a new sense of neighbour is needed.

Theres a simple, eloquent community song written by parish priest and musician Father Kevin Bates SM that begins with a sacred invitation: Come and sit at my table. Though you have no money, come! Come and sit at my table and make yourself at home. It goes on to ask, Are you lonely or fearful? Do you ever lose your way? If youre tired or hungry, if you have no song to singthen come and sit at my table and make yourself at home.

June 1, 2020

Authoritarian cultures in Hong Kong, the US and Australia.

Authoritarianism as a way to govern has been embraced in democracies and by dictators. It rests on assumptions that leaders know best, dissent should be suppressed, democracy derided, free speech stifled, control made effective by violence and secrecy.

October 18, 2018

JIM RUTENBERG. Reality Breaks Up a Saudi Prince Charmings Media Narrative.

Just six months ago, American media outlets presented a sunny-side-up portrait of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia as he made a good-will tour of New York, Hollywood and Silicon Valley and dining with Rupert Murdoch.

August 4, 2020

The courage deficit: Will Albanese die wondering?

Scott Morrison may have done Anthony Albanese a big favour by taking some time from his paterfamilial labours saving the nation from Coronavirus to engage instead in a little discreet fundraising and rallying of the coalition’s troops.

December 3, 2017

MICHAEL KELLY. The Pope in Asia

Pope Francis was true to his word about the best place for the Catholic Church to be is on fringes, away from the cosseted privilege that keeps reality at bay. Traveling to Myanmar and Bangladesh - both in the top five poorest countries in Asia - he was also visiting relatively tiny Catholic communities (accounting for one of the 220 million people who are citizens of the two nations) that find their entry among the marginalized.

June 29, 2020

Australian Soaps to the Pacific - Good Diplomacy?

_The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade launched an initiative to send commercial (soaps) Australian television programs to stations in the South Pacific. This will do little to enhance vigorous and discerning projection of Australian news and values in the region.**

April 6, 2020

JACK WATERFORD. The young not the old are the key to beating COVID-19

Coronavirus not only effects the elderly and cooperation on the part of the young is the key to beating COVID-19. Perhaps we need Grim Reaper ads to highlight the risk to their own.

April 16, 2020

ROY GREEN. Australia's Manufacturing Future. Part 2 of 2

The framework for a national industrial strategy can draw with great benefit from the experience of other countries, but it is important to recognise that such a strategy should also be adapted to the specific conditions and prospects of the Australian economy.

May 3, 2020

DAVID SHEARMAN and MELISSA HASWELL; The EPBC Act Review is a once in a decade chance to prioritise our Environment, our Health and our Future

After COVID 19, many of us have a flicker of hope that our government will apply some of its demonstrated sense of responsibility on medical advice to the larger health emergency on our doorstep.

January 17, 2019

JOHN MENADUE. We are paying to protect an industry that no longer exists.

We see it almost every day in the media; rent-seekers extracting benefits for themselves through political influence and lobbying at the expense of the broader community. It has very little to do with markets. It is about political favours for the powerful. No wonder that more and more people around the world are concluding that the economic and political system works for the influential and powerful insiders and not for the general community.

September 7, 2020

The 2020 presidential campaign: a theological observation

It will probably be at least two more months before we know the winner of the US 2020 presidential election. So far the campaign has broken all historic records with its promotion of polarization, violence, and deceptive rhetoric. So far it is certainly the most chaotic and consequential in USA history. Many observers see it marking an historic turning point in US identity and social behavior. I agree with them; but as an historical theologian I also see a major theological issue underlying the current presidential campaign.

April 16, 2020

TIM WOODRUFF. COVID 19: Lessons for our Health ?System

_Australia doesnt have a health system. We have a maze of poorly connected health services which barely manage to work together to provide health care of extremely variable quality depending on many competing variables such as income, geography, ethnicity, culture, and type of illness.

May 11, 2020

PETER HANSFORD. Corona Virus: Capturing the Lessons Learned

As the COVID 19 infection curve flattens and we look forward to a potential easing of restrictions on the lives we once knew, it is appropriate to start contemplating what sort of world we want to create on the other side.

September 22, 2020

How would a fairness campaign fare in Australia?

Whether it was ever a myth or not there has been until recently an ingrained belief that Australians value fairness and the fair go, as the concept was often characterised.

April 12, 2020

Singapore Prime Minister's message to foreign workers

What a contrast to Australia’s treatment of foreign workers.

April 5, 2020

LESLEY RUSSELL. The Hidden Death Toll from the Coronavirus Pandemic

As deaths from the coronavirus pandemic climb relentlessly, it is already becoming clear that the official toll is an under-estimate and that significant numbers of deaths caused directly and indirectly by the virus are not being recorded as such.

April 16, 2020

OWEN BARDER. Time for a Love Actually moment

There is a precedent. One of George W. Bushs first acts as president in 2006 was to reinstate the global gag rule which withdrew US aid from organisations that counsel women about abortions or to advocate for liberalized abortion laws in their countries. In response, the UK Government offered to make up the funding to any organisation that lost out from George Bushs political grandstanding. As a Brit, I was so proud.

September 9, 2020

Who is the Rogue State in the South China Sea?

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo hascalled China a rogue state.Among its alleged international sins are its policy and actions in the South China Sea. But if China is a “rogue” state actor in the South China Sea, it is not the only one. Indeed, the U.S. has also engaged in rampant violations of the international order including that in the South China Sea.

February 25, 2019

IAN WEBSTER. Of minds imprisoned.

Beyond the image of the vagabond and the impaired bodies and minds of homeless people there are untapped veins of intellect and potential; this is where our focus should be.

The homeless are our most important dreamers, prophets and poets for they challenge our apathy. (Sydney from Below, McCarthy F, Matthew Talbot Hostel)

August 23, 2020

Making the paranormal the new normal

Last Monday was going to be the most spectacular splash of all, a grand semi sesquicentennial commemoration of Indonesias independence. Then came Covid19. While the Jakarta government promised a vaccine, others were relying on ritual.

July 15, 2020

How an Australian 'safety adviser detonated the worlds first atomic bomb.

On July 16, 1945, an English scientist, later the founding Professor of Physics at the ANU and Menzies safety adviser for the British atom bomb tests, detonated the worlds first atomic bomb at Alamagordo in New Mexico.

August 9, 2020

The United States moving a step closer to the brink

Kevin Rudds most recent article in Foreign Affairs, warns us to beware the guns of August. His allusion to the early days of WWI is apt, but the world is by no means sleepwalking to war but rather rushing, with eyes wide open, toward the precipice.

January 27, 2019

RICHARD BUTLER. Unconstitutional politics.

The evidence is now in.

Donald Trump wants a second term: his base is indispensible to this end; he must deliver on the biggest chunk of red meat he tossed it during the election campaign the wall on the border with Mexico- which he would have Mexico pay for. Problem is, Mexico refuses.

April 1, 2019

DAVID SMITH. Warrants for genocide

The killing of 50 Muslims in two Christchurch mosques is the largest massacre of a minority group in the west since at least 1961. On October 17 of that year, Paris police opened fire on thousands of Algerians demonstrating against the French war in their homeland and the curfews imposed on Muslim Algerian workers. Police threw Algerians from bridges into the Seine, where many drowned. The exact number of deaths is disputed; some historians concur with the official account of 40 deaths, while others place the death toll at more than 100.

June 3, 2018

ROBYN WHITAKER. Christians in Australia are not persecuted, and it is insulting to argue they are.

As Australians wait to hear the governments response to the Ruddock review of religious freedom (and indeed, the content of the report itself), it is worth considering exactly how the two intersect in this largely secular society.

Australia has neither a bill nor charter of rights, leaving us with complex and diverse laws governing these issues.

Discussion of religious freedoms is an important conversation to have and not one that should be hijacked by inflammatory rhetoric. Yet, much like the marriage equality debate that sparked the review, that is the danger we face.

October 21, 2019

JAMES E. CONNELL. Clergy mandatory reporter laws to protect children from abuse or neglect in the USA

Many, but not all, of the fifty States of the USA have statutes that prevent members of the clergy (of whatever faith) from reporting to civil authorities information about child abuse or neglect that the clergy person acquires in a confidential setting. An effort to repeal or revise these statutes is underway and this effort is rooted both in the sense of urgency placed on the subject by the American people and in a critical moral value that is being violated.

October 18, 2018

ANDREW FARRAN. Rendering 'rules-based order' to meaninglessness.

T__he constant reiteration in speeches of a Rules-Based Order" is reducing the concept to relative meaninglessness, lacking either content or policy. There is already in existence a rules-based order which is undergoing change. The question is: what kind if change should that be.

August 2, 2020

The politics of the coming generation.

ANUs 2019 Australian Electoral Survey showed that among young people in Australia today there is “evidence of a growing divide between the voting behaviour of younger and older generations”.

July 12, 2020

As warming approaches 1.5C, a carbon budget for the Paris targets is delusional

There’s a lot of talk about how much “carbon budget” (new emissions) are allowable to keep global heating to the Paris target of 1.5C. The reality is that over the last year, global average warming was already close to 1.5C, based on a true, pre-industrial baseline.

February 17, 2019

JOHN DWYER. Labor unveils the health care reform initiatives to be pursued if elected.

Shadow health minister, Catherine King, in an address to the National Press Club, has detailed the major health initiatives Labor would embrace if elected in May. Her plans indicate that she has heard and accepted many of the priorities for reform proposed by would be health reformists. The status quo is unacceptable. Most encouraging was her recognition that patient-centred reforms, which must include truly integrated care, was impossible if the current jurisdictional division of responsibility for health care continued. The portfolio of reforms she presented are welcomed and would be readily understood by electors if they could hear these plans. Fears were expressed at her presentation that totally unjustified scare tactics about boarder security might so dominate election debates that these important promises might get little attention. Certainly there has so far been very little media reporting on the health initiatives announced with some of the few comments made by journalists suggesting they did not understand the proposals.

April 14, 2020

GREG BAILEY. Covid-19 and personal liberty.

It has been many years since Australians experienced a crisis like the present one where all paradigms have been turned upside down. The social implications of the need for physical isolation are immense and the economic costs, both personal and national, are equally significant.

April 13, 2020

MICHAEL KEANE & HAIQING YU. Chinese culture and the power of digital platforms

Despite massive investment in soft power by the Chinese Party-state over the past decade, the influence of Chinas culture in Southeast Asia and Australia remains relatively weak.

April 18, 2020

PETER SAINSBURY. Sunday environmental round up, 19 April 2020

Theres a plan to decarbonise the industrial sector by 2070 but the burning question of the moment is whether coronavirus will spell the end of the line for fossil fuels. I doubt it but coal, oil and gas are all struggling in different ways. Getting bored? Build a hotel.

January 19, 2020

JON BLACKWELL and KERRY GOULSTON. Aspects of Australian healthcare reform (part 1 of 3) Some history

This is the first of three papers. It deals with the history of some healthcare reforms in NSW in 2001, their scope and outcomes. The second will comment on similar but in many ways different and more successful healthcare reforms in Denmark, which has a similar population to the Greater Metropolitan Sydney Area. The third will discuss the present difficulties in implementing meaningful healthcare reforms in Australia.

July 2, 2020

The Emperor has no clothes! - should we invest in CCS?

The federal government will shortly vote on whether to significantly increase taxpayer funding of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology in order to support business as usual for the fossil fuel industry. Would this be a wise public investment?

December 23, 2019

SR PATTY FAWKNER SGS. The Feast for the Frayed and Fatigued

Christmas is the feast for the fatigued and the frayed, because God is with us in the actual reality, not the fairy tale version, of our lives.

May 21, 2020

IAN HICKIE and STEPHEN DUCKETT. Mobilise private resources to cope with the COVID-19 mental health wave

The public-private divide in Australias health system disappeared early in the Coronavirus pandemic when all states signed contracts with private hospitals to ensure private beds were available to meet the anticipated tsunami of hospital demand. The same can do approach is now urgently required to respond to the second COVID-19 curve, namely the predicted increase in mental ill-health, self-harm, and suicide.

November 5, 2019

GARRY WILLS. Changing the Changeless Church. A view of John O' Malley's 'When Bishops Meet: An Essay Comparing Trent, Vatican I , and Vatican II'

In John OMalleys When Bishops Meetthe latest of his five books on ecumenical church councilshe compares and contrasts what he has written on the three last councils and argues that there should be a new one.

January 27, 2020

MUNGO MACCULLUM. Our prime minister knows that most of his ministers are past both knowing and caring.

Scott Morrisons puerile sneer that most of cabinet ministers wouldnt even know who (NSW Environment Minister) Matt Kean was actually contains a grain of truth.

September 24, 2020

The Conundrum of the London Kangaroos

Seven years ago the UK government overruled the purchase for $10,000,000 by the Australian government of two oil paintings of a dingo and a kangaroo painted in London by George Stubbs from stuffed pelts brought back from the coast of Australia in 1771 by Sir Joseph Banks.

But there are two more paintings of kangaroos in London that may be even more important than the Stubbs kangaroo and dingo. Can we have a look at them?

May 10, 2020

Building a mental health system that tackles root causes

For many of us, forced to work at home or to not work at all, the COVID-19 crisis has driven home the importance of mental health and how work interacts with our sense of wellbeing.

January 13, 2020

JACK WATERFORD.-Pot shots prove poor policy

Must we follow Trump down his Iranian rabbit burrow?

April 1, 2018

PURNENDRA JAIN AND TAKESHI KOBAYASHI, LDP MEMBER. Political dynasties dominate Japan's democracy

Hereditary political succession is not limited to monarchical and autocratic systems of government. Politicians from families that have previously occupied high office take top positions in many democratic countries. In Japan, hereditary politics show little sign of abating.

January 23, 2020

As the Liberals rest on their climate laurels, Labor must bite the coal bullet

As the smoke from our bushfires circles the Earth and other developed countries admonish our indolence on climate change, we are deluding ourselves if we hope for government action on emissions.

May 4, 2020

GEOFF RABY. PMs Virus Inquiry was a Lose-Lose Call (AFR 4.5.20)

The Prime Minister and his Foreign Minister have handily demonstrated over the past fortnight how not to get an international inquiry into the origins and early management, or mismanagement, of COVID-19. It has been a useful lesson for students of strategy and how the Government in future might better advance Australian national interests.

August 31, 2020

Robodebt and suicide

Department head stubbornly avoids answering questions on the role of Robodebt and the death of Australians and whether she apologised for those deaths.

March 25, 2019

CAMERON DOUGLAS. Thailand's elections - horse-trading, according to plan

The results of Thailand’s first post-coup elections went well for the military junta, following their script for keeping control of government in the name, and name only, of democracy.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal