January 13, 2020

DUNCAN GRAHAM.-Indonesian Free Trade not there yet

For much of 2019s last quarter Australian rural journals and politicians were forecasting a bonanza.But some reality is overdue

July 4, 2020

US belief in national exceptionalism collapses

Donald Trump promised he would make America great again. Instead he has presided over a significant collapse in belief in American exceptionalism.

June 7, 2020

RICHARD R. GAILLARDETZ. A promising roadmap for ecclesial reform and conversion. One of the world's top ecclesiologists analyzes an unprecedented Church governance report

The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference (ACBC) and the Catholic Religious of Australia (CRA) instituted the Implementation Advisory Group to respond to the Royal Commission Report. That group, in turn, created the Governance Review Project Team (GRPT). This team was tasked with crafting, “in light of Catholic ecclesiology,” a comprehensive response to the Royal Commission’s critique of church governance.

January 22, 2020

JAMES CURRAN. China challenge needs clever diplomacy not shrill crusades(AFR 21.1.2020)

Some Australian politicians are convinced that China is waging political warfare against us. But where is the evidence that they are winning?

May 24, 2020

CAVAN HOGUE. Entangling Alliances?

Should Australia take more notice of Charles de Gaulle than Donald Trump? What is the value of an alliance?

July 21, 2019

MASSIMO FAGGIOLI. Reform or Dismantle? Why We Need to Keep the Institutions that Keep Us.

One of the effects of the sex-abuse crisis is the current moment of institutional iconoclasmthe temptation to get rid of the institutional element of the Catholic Church. The failures of the churchs institutions are now on full display, even more so than after the revelations of the Spotlight investigation. It is hypocritical, however, to interpret the abuse crisis as a clerical abuse crisis rather than a Catholic abuse crisis. Obviously, the clergy had a unique role in the crisis, but the moral and legal responsibilities do not belong exclusively to those wearing a Roman collar. We are still reluctant to acknowledge the systemic nature of this crisis as something that affected the entire Catholic world and not just its ordained ministers. We would like to contain it neatly within the hierarchy so as to exempt ourselves from the burden of critical self-reflection.

April 5, 2020

MARK BUCKLEY. It's a Health Emergency and we need to act

The Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918-1920 bears a strong resemblance to the current pandemic. Although the actual virus causing the disease is different, the result of the infection is similar. It causes pneumonia, and people die in large numbers. It’s a health emergency and we need to act. If we dont survive this, the economy is irrelevant.

April 15, 2020

LEANNE SMITH. What Matters to Australia's Young Citizens?

If we want our children to have a stake in our democracy and our society, we have to treat them as valued citizens and engage with their concerns. Not because of the leaders they might one day be, in our own projection of what that means, but recognising their legitimacy and leadership as it stands today.

January 19, 2020

JOHN DWYER. The lack of truth in Medicine and Science.

Opioid addiction is pervasive and growing rapidly. Medicine and Science are threatened by the phenomenon.

January 19, 2020

PAUL WALDMAN. There are no heroes in the Trump Administration.(Washington Post 18.1.2020)

There will be hundreds of books written about this dreadful period in our history, and one of the questions well have to grapple with is this: How should we judge those around President Trump? The ones who helped him, who enabled him, or even just failed to stand up to him?

June 9, 2020

TERRY FEWTRELL. . Catholic bishops need to give up secrecy and learn to trust

Australias Catholic bishops seem to have learned little from the sexual abuse scandal and associated cover-ups, writes Terry Fewtrell. Pushed by a Royal Commission (RC) report to implement reforms, they recently reverted to standard operating procedures of delay and secrecy in suppressing a major report on governance reform.

June 3, 2020

BRENDAN COATES. Money for social housing the key to construction stimulus

Theres no doubt Australias construction industry is facing tough times. COVID-19 has caused migration to slow to a trickle. Some 2.6 million Australians have eitherlost their jobsor had their hours cut in the past two months. Many economistsexpectproperty prices to fall.

January 22, 2020

TONY COADY. Bouncer barrages, Bodyline and the Laws of Cricket Revisited

In Pearls and Irritations ( September 2, 2019) I wrote about the way that the long-standing intimidatory bowling of bouncers in international Test cricket is both clearly in conflict with the Laws of cricket in spite of being widely practiced, relished by most commentators, and ignored by umpires.

November 22, 2018

Racial misprofiling

On 9 November, Hassan Khalif Shire Ali crashed a vehicle full of gas cylinders in Bourke Street, Melbourne and stabbed three people, one fatally, before being shot by police. The 30-year old was on multiple watchlists at the time because if his known radical views and links to Islamic State. Yet he was not under active counter-terrorism monitoring at the time and able to embark on his murderous rampage in the heart of Melbourne. One reason may be that our security and law enforcements agencies are drowning in too much intelligence noise and lack the intelligence, common sense and fortitude to focus on genuine risk categories instead of casting a population wide dragnet.

January 14, 2021

Copying and pasting government drops?

Spruiking the Coalition’s 2020 tax cuts; Australians’ ‘$200 billion’ war chest; Google’s experiments; free speech; and even a Liberal Party self-congratulatory piece on the NBN.

April 13, 2020

JONATHAN PAUL MARSHALL. Pandemic Action and Climate Action

The pandemic has shown that the world is quickly able to organise against crisis. Can this new-found ability be carried through into responses to climate change? Pandemic action and climate action have much in common.

June 20, 2019

MASSIMO FAGGIOLI. Massimo Faggioli explores how conflicting memories of Nazi-Fascism on two continents is impacting global Catholicism. The European and American Catholic divide

This year marks the 75th anniversary of D-Day, when the Allied troops invaded Normandy on June 6, 1944. Just two days earlier the Allies had carried out the Liberation of Rome, making the Eternal City the first capital to be freed from Nazi German occupation.

March 14, 2019

JERRY ROBERTS. Labor's targets in Western Australia.

Even without the extra hours time difference from daylight saving, West Australians often know the result of federal elections before they vote on Saturday evening. This will most likely be the case again in May, despite Scott Morrisons dramatic journey to Christmas Island.

June 5, 2018

NAHAL TOOSI. Surreal Trump-Kim summit defies diplomatic playbook

How do you plan a high-stakes meeting between a freewheeling American president and a paranoid Asian dictator? The world is about to find out. As President Donald Trump prepares to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, officials from both countries are working overtime to prepare for aJune 12 nuclear summit in Singapore. The event is unprecedented: A sitting U.S. president has never met with his North Korean counterpart. Kim had never even met with a fellow head of state before a March visit to Beijing. In theory, traditional diplomatic protocols will apply. In reality, anything could happen. Heres a look at some of the issues organizers are grappling with as they scramble to arrange this extraordinary meeting:

December 17, 2019

OSCAR ROMERO. Advent readings from a modern martyr.

This is what advent is.

November 22, 2018

With the rise of China our failures in Asia are even more serious

We are so used to being conditioned ,told and doing what Washington wants that we find it hard to make up our own mind on what is in our national interest in our own region. And our failure to think for ourselves is going to become even more critical with a new powerful player in our region, China. For the first time in our history we will have a regional power that will become more powerful than our outside protector, the US. China is already a larger economy.

May 20, 2020

JEFF BORLAND. Australia's labour market - What is the damage? (Conversation 14.5.20)

After all the forecasts and speculation, now we know the worst. Todays numbers from the ABS lay out the catastrophic impact of COVID-19 on the Australian labour market.

December 28, 2019

DUNCAN MACLAREN. Scottish Independence: a new start with a fresh vision

I am currently visiting friends and former colleagues from Australian Catholic University in Australia, having cast my postal vote for the SNP before leaving Scotland. Since then, two excellent articles by George Monbiot and John Carlin have been published in Pearls and Irritations on the disastrous General Election result in England which has given Boris Johnson, branded as a liar, narcissist and racist by those close to him, an 80-seat majority in the House of Commons.

June 21, 2020

BEVAN RAMSDEN. Campaigning for an independent, self-reliant, and sustainable manufacturing sector

_Australia has lost much of its manufacturing industry, including the ability to produce essential strategic materials, and has become far too dependent on imports which are subject to disruption from pandemics, wars and foreign political threats.

January 16, 2019

SANG JIEJA. Tibetans get home decor order: Hang Xi, Mao portrait

Dalai Lama images removed from temples, monasteries as Party reinforces iconography of its ‘heroes’; households next

April 26, 2020

INGEBORG van TEESELING. When white Australians fought against the Maori for control of their land. (The Big Smoke 4.6.2018)

The ANZACS fought together first, not in 1915 but much earlier in the 1840/60s in the Maori Wars.

February 7, 2019

RICHARD BROINOWSKI. Cognitive Dissonance in Canberra

At the annual conferences of the Australian Institute of International Affairs in 2017 and 2018, at least two retired senior public servants strongly asserted their faith in the United States as guarantor of Australia’s security. They did so with varying degrees of asperity in response to questions from the floor suggesting that American power was slipping, and with it Washington’s inclination, even its ability, to defend Australia in the event of an attack.

February 3, 2019

TIM WOODRUFF. Whats wrong with Labors Private Healthcare Discussion Paper? (Croakey)

In 2017 I referred a patient for relatively simple orthopaedic surgery on her wrist to enable her to get back to working in a caf. She had been advised that she was a category 3 patient and should be operated on within 365 days. During this period she couldnt do her usual part-time work which she could juggle around child care commitments. Furthermore, Centrelink required her to apply for jobs she couldnt do. It took 6 months to even get on the waiting list. She finally had the surgery 15 months after I referred her.

Another of my patients had a similar problem. Retired, it stopped him playing golf. He was operated on within a month and is happily back on the golf course. He had publicly subsidised private health insurance (PHI).

Both received high quality health care except for the time delay for the first patient.

February 7, 2018

BRIAN TOOHEY. ABC kowtow to government and ASIO on cabinet papers was gutless.

The ABCs treatment of what it calls one of the “biggest national security breaches in Australian history” is a disgrace. It put the identity of its source at risk, but reported very little from the documents, preferring to talk at length about how it got them and handed them over to the government.

March 18, 2019

ALAN KIRKLAND. Government gives in to mortgage broking lobbyists

“Unintended consequences”. It’s the clich consumer groups like CHOICE are used to hearing from industry groups every time a major review recommends a change that would put people before profits.

January 16, 2020

IAN WEBSTER.- Advocacy is hard going against the alcohol lobby.

It is a loss powerfully felt,but subdued. Not by politicians or the alcohol industry, but by doctors and nurses in the clinics and rehab. centres. The highly respected Michael Thorn has departed from the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education(FARE) as the CEO. What is the real story?

March 13, 2018

Could the Trump Kim summit succeed?

The KimTrump summit is an opportunity that will be difficult to seize and easy to squander. For example, if Trump decertifies the Iran nuclear deal on May 12, ahead of the summit, the move would almost certainly call into question Americas good faith and ability to honour negotiated international agreements.

August 16, 2020

Do we need state-owned enterprises?

Per Capitas recently released paper on Auspost becoming a bank begs the question of state-owned enterprises helping economic growth and create jobs? The Simandou mining project in West Africa may offer an answer.

November 28, 2019

HECTOR ABAD FACIOLINCE. The Impossibility of Being a Child

Being a child means more than being under age. The State has a responsibility to ensure that all children have a childhood. Some politicians in power think that the solution to every problem is a hard hand, even if the victims are children.

September 19, 2020

It's a gas, gas, gas.

With the Federal Government announcement of a gas-lead recovery (and as a potential centrepiece having the large coal-fired power station, Liddell in NSW, replaced by gas generation) Australians can now have both lower emissions and lower energy prices. High fives all round.

January 14, 2020

MINXIN PEI. Bush's disastrous Iraq war paved the way for China's rise. Is Trump about to make the same mistake?(SCMP and Project Syndicate 10.1.2020)

_China joined the WTO and grew into an economic giant in the time the US was fixated on fighting al-Qaeda. Its a lesson Trump appears not to have learned

September 26, 2020

Widodo, a man of contradictions; a book review (Inside Indonesia Sep 9, 2020)

The complex research that Bland is demanding has existed for decades, and it is not too difficult to find…

July 15, 2019

MARTIN WOLF. Legacy of Bretton Woods is under threat (Financial Times 11.7.2019)

_Trumpian populism is destroying 70 years of global economic co-operation. What can we put in its place?

December 22, 2019

J.A. DICK. Spirited Community

A very personal email about a friend’s faith journey.

January 16, 2020

JOHN TAN. Zuckerberg is right, isnt he?

Facebooks Mark Zuckerberg is reportedly under intense pressure in the US to curb political advertisements on its pages. Who might be running such a campaign and for what reasons? Perhaps the answer lies in the gap between rhetoric and reality.

February 19, 2016

John Menadue. Postcards from Hanoi.

I will be in Hanoi from February 17-26, attending a Hoc Mai Foundation workshop on learning from each other about health issues in Vietnam and Australia, and assisting in the learning of English in the health field. Hoc Mai means ‘forever learning’.

The foundation was established in the late 1990s. University of Sydney was a very active partner. Over 30 groups of Australian clinicians and others interested in Vietnam have travelled to Vietnam since the late 1990s. 29 Australians will be in our group in Hanoi.

January 14, 2019

JOHN MENADUE. Joined at the hip to a very violent and dangerous ally . An update

We are a nation in denial that we are joined at the hip to a dangerous ally that is becoming even more dangerous with the increasing privatisation of the US ‘war complex’ The complex is less and less under civilian control. Arms companies in the US and particularly drone manufacturers have powerful interests and the means to keep the US perpetually at war.

R_etiring US Defence Secretary Mattis complains that President Trump should show more respect for allies. But the US shows most respect for allies that do what they are told or supinely comply.It has been thus for decades with one US mistake after another and one US President after another._

Apart from brief isolationist periods, the US has been almost perpetually at war; wars that we have often foolishly been drawn into. The US has subverted and overthrown numerous governments over two centuries. It has a military and business complex, almost a hidden state, that depends on war for influence and enrichment. It believes in its manifest destiny which brings with it an assumed moral superiority which it denies to others. The problems did not start with Trump. They are long-standing and deep rooted.

Unfortunately, many of our political, bureaucratic, business and media elites have been so long on an American drip feed that they find it hard to think of the world without an American focus. We had a similar and dependent view of the UK in the past. That ended in tears in Singapore. Conservatives rail about Chinese influence but we are immersed and dominated by all things American,including the Murdoch media.

December 21, 2020

2020: a year in review for Pearls and Irritations

Despite the turmoil of 2020, Pearls and Irritations almost tripled in size. Perhaps 2020 was a year where independent comment and analysis was needed and appreciated more than most.

July 6, 2018

Kevin Rudd on Xi Jinping, China and the Global Order (Asia Society Policy Institute 26/6/2018))

(On Tuesday, June 26, 2018, Asia Society Policy Institute PresidentKevin Rudddelivered an address to the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore for The Significance of China’s 2018 Central Foreign Policy Work Conference. Below is the transcript of the speech. )

_On 22-23 June 2018, the Chinese Communist Party concluded its Central Conference on Work Relating to Foreign Affairs, the second since Xi Jinping became General Secretary of the Party and Chairman of the Central Military Commission in November 2012. The last one was held in November 2014. These are not everyday affairs in the partys deliberations on the great questions of Chinas unfolding global engagemen_t.

May 19, 2020

JAI QINGGUO. Chinas diplomatic response to COVID-19 (EAF 17.5.20)

The term responsible power is finding its way into Chinese official lexicon more frequently including in President Xi Jinpings report to the 19th party congress. But being a responsible power is easier said than done. As Chinas experience with the outside world since the outbreak of COVID-19 testifies, it can be difficult and even traumatic.

November 22, 2018

PETER VARGHESE. Australia and India: Navigating From Potential to Delivery.

In July I submitted to then PM Turnbull a report he had commissioned on an India Economic Strategy out to 2035.

January 31, 2018

GEORGE RENNIE. The Revolving Door at the Infrastructure Club

The revolving door of politics represents a particularly difficult problem for modern democracies. And when senior public servants leave their positions to work as lobbyists for the infrastructure industry an industry that takes a lions share of government spending, and is afforded substantive protection from scrutiny by commercial confidentiality that problem grows substantially.

May 12, 2020

OLIVER HOWES. Net-zero carbon, CSIRO and Big Australia

While net-zero carbon needs our nation-wide commitment, an older national ambition competes for primacy Big Australia. CSIRO reports have plans for our future, but cant please everyone.

March 25, 2019

GRAHAM HUNTER. A nationwide approach to Climate Change is possible.

Under the Paris Climate Agreement, all countries acknowledged that the total of their current targets for reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases was insufficient to avoid dangerous climate change. They agreed to enhance the targets progressively. Developed countries are to lead the way. All countries have been invited to submit their new targets to a UN climate summit in September this year. This could be an opportunity for a new Australian national approach to climate change.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal