December 21, 2019

J.A. DICK. Christmas 2019

The message of Christmas is our New Years challenge: to believe and to act on our beliefs. We believe that truth is stronger than fake political rhetoric and falsehood. Being a bully is destructive and demeaning. We are all our neighbours brothers and sisters, even when community harmony is difficult to achieve and maintain. Our human climate is threatened. The survival of humanity everyones human dignity and worth are at risk. Yes our ongoing challenge this Christmas and in 2020.

December 3, 2019

ALISON BROINOWSKI. Friends of Assange, at last.

Influential Australians are suddenly stirring in support of Julian Assange, who will face extradition to the US and several life sentences unless political intervention heads it off. Is it too late?

March 23, 2018

BRAD CHILCOTT. Do you expect a return on your compassion?

In 2014, two Vietnamese high school students were suddenly taken from my local community and put into a detention facility. Theyd received a letter from the Department of Immigration stating that their presence in the community was no longer in the public interest.

January 9, 2018

MACK WILLIAMS. Adrift in the South China Sea? -A REPOST from May 22 2017

While Washington is paralysed by alleged White House scandal the US has taken its eye off the South China Sea. Continuing developments in the region have reinforced Chinas position. Australia cannot afford to delay its own examination of our long term national interests in our neighbourhood.

May 4, 2019

The climate and the extinction rebellion

The first law of humanity is not to kill your children.(Joachim Hans Schellnhuber, Germanys and the EUs chief climate scientist.)

We will be in a position where we set off an irreversible chain reaction beyond human control that will most likely lead to the end of our civilization as we know it Now we probably dont even have a future anymore, because that future was sold so that a small number of people could make unimaginable amounts of money. It was stolen from us every time you said that the sky was the limit, and that you only live once. You lied to us. You gave us false hope. You told us that the future was something to look forward to. And the saddest thing is that most children are not even aware of the fate that awaits us. We will not understand it until its too late. And yet we are the lucky ones. Those who will be affected the hardest are already suffering the consequences. But their voices are not heard. Greta Thunberg

February 26, 2019

ROBERT MICKENS. The sex abuse summit and the Vatican's lack of transparency.

Illustrative of the Church’s fear of revealing the truth is the case of Msgr. Joseph Punderson.

December 31, 2020

The world after 2020

What a year 2020 was for Australia, with first the fires and then the pandemic. Now at the end of it, were still confronted with the challenges of climate change in the shape of floods, not fires, and our Prime Minister unable to get a speaking slot at an international climate change conference.

September 22, 2020

'You will be put into detention': Former ABC bureau chief tells story of fleeing China for first time (ABC News Sep 21, 2020)

It was late on a Friday evening and I was about to head home from the ABC’s Beijing office when the telephone rang.

June 8, 2020

The existential perils facing humanity: the Thucydides Trap.

Today there are three existential perils facing humanity, nuclear war, rapid climate change and pandemics. These are currently prioritised in the antipodean populations thoughts and endeavours in reverse order.

June 20, 2018

DER SPIEGEL Italy Sends a Jolt Through Europe.

Euro-skeptic Italian populists are posing a serious threat to the European Union. Following the drama over Greece and Brexit, the political situation in Rome could throw Europe into its next major existential crisis.

May 18, 2018

MICHAEL PASCOE. Profit-rich private health insurers burning billions on non-health costs

Australian capitalisms sheltered workshop, the private health insurance industry, is burning billions of dollars a year unrelated to Australians health.

September 26, 2020

Will we ever be satisfied with less?

I cant imagine the old normal returning unaltered after COVID-19 but worry that the rush towards a new normal will entail too much focus on growth and profits and not enough on caring for the vulnerable and the environment. If that happens, we will have squandered an opportunity to reset how we value health, work and leisure.

March 25, 2018

ROB STEWART. Wage Rises in the Neoliberal New World Order- Bad policy and bad politics

Neoliberals are often wrong but never in doubt. In pursuing its corporate tax cut agenda the Government is attempting to shift the industrial relations paradigm linking private sector wage rises to public sector funding cuts, despite the fact corporate coffers have rarely been in better shape.

September 21, 2020

US spy plane impersonates Malaysian aircraft, apparently to fool China (Popular Mechanics Sep 10, 2020)

_A US Air Force RC-135W reconnaissance aircraft carried out several flights off Chinas Hainan island._The plane switched its transponder code in mid-flight, mysteriously becoming a Malaysian airplane. The RC-135W was likely trying to keep a low profile while it spied on Chinese military bases.

April 11, 2019

PAULINA GUZIK. Church in Poland struggles to address clerical sex abuse crisis

A penitential liturgy for the crimes of sex abuse in the industrial city of d on March 28 signaled an about-face for the Polish Church.Two weeks earlier, the leaders of the countrys bishops conference held a press conference where they criticized zero tolerance as an ideology with Nazi roots. In d, Archbishop Grzegorz Ry expressed exactly the opposite - a victims first approach, in-sync with Pope Franciss latest guidelines.

January 2, 2018

CAVAN HOGUE. Let those who are without sin cast the first stone. A REPOST

The USA is a complex place with its vices, virtues and differences. Despite its noble ideals and democratic institutions, it has a long history of aggression and of overthrowing democracies in the pursuit of American commercial or strategic interests. It does not have the moral high ground and its lectures to other countries can be counter-productive. It does not observe the rules it demands from others.. This does not make it any worse than other countries but no better either. Australia should judge it by the same standards that we apply to other counties. We cannot trust Chinese and Russian propaganda and intelligence but nor can we trust the Americans. It is very dangerous to put all our strategic eggs in the one basket especially when we don’t know what the threat will be and when the US has a president as unpredictable as Donald Trump. Let us be friends but not a client state.

February 22, 2016

Alex Wodak. Endgame in the protracted drug policy debate: are we there yet?

The long running debate about illicit drugs policy has moved a great deal in the last five years. But social policy reform is a different matter from a debate. Actual reform usually takes many decades.

The recent growing consensus regarding the abject failure of a criminal justice dominated approach to drugs is very encouraging. Retired and even serving police commissioners have been lining up before the microphones to acknowledge the comprehensive failure of efforts to date. The seizure announced 16 February of 720 litres liquid methamphetamine, said to be worth $1.2 billion, represents the largest drug bust in Australias history. But there was little optimism that even a seizure of this size would make a difference to the market. In 2014, 91% of Australian drug users surveyed reported that ice was easy or very easy to obtain.

December 11, 2017

GREG BAILEY. The Institute of Public Affairs, finance and the contradiction between individualism and corporatism.

Readers of Pearls and Irritations will be fully appreciative of the considerable influence exercised by the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) on the commentariat and political decision-making through its representatives in various parliaments and its presence in the media. And given its discernible influence or occasional lack of it witness James Patersons aborted attempt to neuter the outcome of the marriage equality survey on shaping political opinion, we might ask whether it too will be required to open the books relating to its financial sources as part of an investigation of foreign influence on Australian lobby groups. If it is good enough for Get Up and various environmental groups to be targeted in this way, why not the so-called libertarian groups which are all really public relations fronts for the corporatization of government and the private sector.

May 15, 2019

MICHAEL MAZENGARB. Global fossil fuel subsidies reach $5.2 trillion, and $29 billion in Australia (Renew Economy)

New analysis commissioned by the International Monetary Fund has shown that global fossil fuel subsidies continue to grow, despite the growing urgency of the need to decarbonise the global economy.

December 2, 2019

MARK EMERICK. Brisbane priest urges more help for West Papuans in exile following visit to PNG

A HIGH-level Australian Catholic delegation has met with former Manus Island asylum seekers and refugees now in Port Moresby, and heard shocking stories of their detention. It was shameful to hear how our government has treated them on Manus Island and how some of them would feel safer in some totalitarian prison back home rather than what they had been subjected to, Brisbane priest and delegation member Fr Gerry Hefferan said.

June 10, 2018

MIKE YEO. France is deploying forces to the Indo-Pacific for more than just a drill.

MELBOURNE, Australia France will be deploying a detachment of combat aircraft to the Indo-Pacific region for a major air exercise in Australia and for additional interactions with Asian air forces, as France seeks to increase its presence in the region.

February 14, 2018

Issues of Integrity, Not Sex

The story of a middle-aged husband and father talking up the failure of his marriage to justify his relationship with a much younger and previously childless woman is too clichd to have much drama. The effect of this on the abandoned wife and, in this case, four daughters, would of course make for a story of genuine poignancy. We may even wonder what caused the younger woman to assume a future with a man who is not only married but an avowed and vocal upholder of traditional family values, whatever they are. (Loyalty, honesty, transparency and kindness could be a start.)

December 2, 2019

GIDEON LEVY. The Contract on Corbyn (Haaretz 28-11-19)

Corbyn is not an anti-Semite. His real sin is to fight against injustice in the world, including the version Israel perpetrates.

August 22, 2020

The Palace Letters - in conversation with Jenny Hocking (video)

What do The Palace Letters tell us about our history, Gough Whitlam’s dismissal and our system of Government?

December 13, 2017

MATTHEW FISHER. Australia's policy failure on mental health.

Australia rates highly on international measures of physical health status such as life expectancy at birth, suggesting we are healthier than ever before, but the data on mental health and illness tells a very different story. On measures of mental health and illness we are doing poorly and compare badly to other OECD countries. Despite a large body of evidence on social determinants of metal health and illness, our policy responses are overwhelmingly dominated by individualised responses such as drug treatments, counselling and resilience programs. This unwillingness to recognise major social causes of mental illness is a national policy failure.

June 25, 2020

BRUCE CAMERON: The Politicisation of Gallantry - will Teddy Sheean get his VC?

Public opinion (aka votes) means that a face-saving new enquiry is now to be held into potentially awarding a VC to Seaman Teddy Sheean for his extraordinary bravery during World War II.

January 23, 2019

PETER SMALL. A Royal Commission on the Murray-Darling.

In response to an excellent article by Michelle Pini Something stinks in the Coalition and its not dead fish Pearls and irritations 18/01, I posted a comment. Yes a Royal Commission with forensic capacity to peel away each layer of vested interest. Politician, scientist and industry. Sounds a bit rough on scientists but let me explain..

May 19, 2020

GERRY MCKERNAN and PETER SHEEHAN. The Plenary Council: Where to after Coronavirus?

The pandemic is forcing communities everywhere to adopt new approaches, unthinkable only a few months ago. This must apply to the Catholic Church too, and provides an opportunity to revive its Plenary Council process.

March 6, 2019

LEANNE WELLS. Modest step in response to egregious specialist fees.

The announcement of Federal Government plans to establish a website listing medical specialist fees may seem a modest response to a problem that causes financial distress to many patients already struggling with their physical pain.

May 17, 2020

SALLY GILLESPIE. Energising Climate Conversations

Good climate reporting informs us about the complex consequences of a heating planet. In order to also act as a catalyst for change, climate campaigners need to acknowledge the complex emotional responses their stories stir while highlighting avenues for personal and collective action.

October 24, 2019

MARGARET PERIL AND MARGARET BEAVIS Is your super funding nuclear weapons?

Many people have welcomed the widespread divestment from tobacco by superannuation funds, but would be shocked to know their retirement savings are invested in nuclear weapons companies.

In Sydney and Melbourne this week, the Quit Nukes nuclear weapon free finance campaign will kick off. Quit Nukes aims to raise awareness amongst superannuation companies and encourage them to no longer invest in nuclear weapons.

June 15, 2018

ROSEMARY O'GRADY. Meanings of War.

As war memoirs go, the horrors of the conflict concluded by the Treaty of Westphalia, 1648, have long stood in a class of their own. They are also the subject of the autobiographical, first novel of the German language.

January 26, 2020

DUNCAN GRAHAM. This bus isn't moving fast.

Its not too difficult for outsiders to get the gist of Indonesian economics. Thats because terms, like administrasi, deficit, bangkrut, fiskal and others have been pinched from English and tweaked.

July 17, 2018

ANDREW FARRAN. Special Forces: The Downside - Impossible missions out of country and out of culture

The Australian Special Forces are again in the firing line for alleged misconduct in combat, in relation to which the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force is expected to hand down a report in the near future. The number of alleged incidents are more than previously believed, though relatively small overall.

May 18, 2018

MICHAEL O'KEEFE. Why Chinas debt-book diplomacy in the Pacific shouldnt ring alarm bells just yet

Talk of Chinese debt trap diplomacy is nothing new, but a recent report by Harvard University researchers has resurrected long-held fears that Chinas debt diplomacy poses a threat to Australian interests in the Pacific.

May 20, 2020

JOHN AUSTEN. Transport infrastructure in a Covid world

Governments made dramatic responses to challenges posed by Covid-19. New ideas are being sought in many areas of public policy. However, transport infrastructure is a lamentable exception instead of a reassessment of plans in light of the new realities, the reaction of its boosters has been to double down their egregious rent-seeking.

February 14, 2021

Australian sovereignty: not in our hands, and not in safe hands

We hitch our wagon to a nation that is bereft of influence and respect, deploys its considerable military arsenal in a display of strength it vainly hopes will broker influence; naked power as a substitute for diplomacy. It has ever been thus.

April 8, 2020

PATRICK COCKBURN.- Trump's Chernobyl Moment: the US May Lose Its Status as World Superpower and Not Recover( Counterpunch 31.3.2020)

The US may be reaching its Chernobyl moment as it fails to lead in combating the coronavirus epidemic.

January 3, 2019

ABUL RIZVI. The Best of 2018: Privatising visa processing the alarm bells are ringing (Part 2)

Major ICT transformation projects conducted in partnership with a big IT company are high risk. Privatisation of core government functions such as visa processing are also high risk, especially when undertaken under the cloak of commercial-in-confidence type secrecy. Doing the two together multiplies the risk big time. But that is exactly what the Home Affairs department is doing.

March 21, 2018

PAUL BARRATT. Time for a new Royal Commission into the Australian Public Service

On 7 March Pearls and Irritations published my Are all those consultancies really necessary? This dealt with the $129 billion spent by the Commonwealth over the last five years on services the content of which no doubt include a great deal that would traditionally have been regarded as core business for the Commonwealth, and for which both the Public Service Act 1999 and the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013 would indicate agency heads have prime responsibility and accountability. Outsourcing on this scale can only be understood in the context of the changing status and powers of agency heads, especially Secretaries of Commonwealth Departments.

August 24, 2020

The 1953 Iranian coup dtat Neoliberal Doctrine

The CIA sponsored 1953 Iranian coup dtat has become the blueprint for the neoliberal doctrine of colour revolutions, and the primary cause of world tensions today.

May 24, 2020

ROY HARVEY. The Anzac spirit and the future of health policy

The policies adopted by the Australian governments to fight the Covid-19 crisis are the opposite of the policies that the Coalition Government has pursued for the past 70 years.

May 13, 2020

LAURIE PATTON. The Opposition Leader is correct. We need a decentralisation plan

Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese is right. In his latest vision speech he pointed to the benefits of decentralisation. Its time we stopped cramming more and more people into already overcrowded cities.

March 15, 2018

BOB BIRRELL Australia's Skilled Migration Program is not delivering Scarce Skills

A_s vexations flowing from record high net overseas migration mount, supporters of the permanent entry program have had to dig deeper to defend it._These supporters include the Treasury and the Reserve Bank as well as business and property interests. They say that any major cut to the migration program would put in jeopardy Australias 26 years of unbroken nominal economic growth. The Treasury emphasises that Commonwealth taxation revenue would also diminish, putting further pressure on the budget deficit.

February 7, 2019

JOHN STAPLETON. Acknowledged Civilian Casualties Only Beginning of Defence Scandal

The truth is military authorities have no idea how many civilians have been killed by Australian bombs in the medieval streets of Iraq and Syria.

January 17, 2019

MASSIMO FAGGIOLI. A Church within the Church. Behind the new integralism is the old intransigentism. (La Croix International, 9.1 2019)

They build a Church within the Church while making of their views a dogma. I am not defending myself against them, but against what I would call their schismatic spirit. John Henry Newman on integralism.

July 11, 2018

ANDREW SALMON. South Korea unveils plan for N Korean economic enrichment (Asia Times 3/7/2018)

Ideas for the North’s development and regional integration, while ripe with promise, face obstacles and remain dependent on the US and denuclearization

_South Korea presented its master plan for North Korean economic cooperation to the public last week, laying forth a roadmap not only for economic development north of the Demilitarized Zone, but also for regional economic integration in Northeast Asia and beyond.

April 8, 2020

JOHN MENADUE.- Vale Bob Sorby

Bob Sorby died last week. In tribute I repost an article that Bob wrote for Pearls and Irritation on 7 November 2017 concerning Rex Connor’s plans for Australia.

December 7, 2018

GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND

A regular collection of links to writings and broadcasts covered in other media.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal