January 19, 2020

MARK BUCKLEY. Waiting for the Replay

_Scott Morrison is now having to deal with the two very distinct wings of his party, as they gird themselves for the culture war which will probably erupt at any moment. This culture war will not be about indigenous history, or the date of Australia Day, or even immigration. It is about climate change.

October 24, 2019

PETER DONNAN. The Plenary Council: Searching for Australian Catholics

Approximately 8% to 10% of those who identify as Catholics are regular mass attenders and almost a third of these are between 60 and 74; decline in mass attendance has been occurring since the 1950s, according to the National Centre for Pastoral Research. Many Catholics have fled the pews, following an era of sexual abuse of children and the shame of the Churchs response. Cardinal Pell, the senior cleric in Australia, is in jail, awaiting a judgement by the High Court on a leave to appeal. Is this time the dark night of the soul for practising Catholics in Australia?

January 16, 2020

GHADA KARMI.- Palestinian Rights.(LRB 5.12.2019)

A Palestinian State-Constantly Dangled, Endlessly Receding

December 18, 2018

MICHELLE GRATTAN. Rudd says Murdoch media is a political party (The Conversation, 18.12.2018)

Former prime minister Kevin Rudd has used an address to the Labor national conference to deliver a fresh swingeing attack on the Murdoch media, declaring it is not a news organisation, it is a political party.

December 19, 2019

0SCAR ROMERO. Advent Readings from a Modern Martyr.

No one can celebrate a genuine Christmas without being truly poor.

January 14, 2020

GREG LATEMORE. Morrison's Leadership - Some inconvenient truths about authenticity.

Morrisons Leadership Inconvenient Truths

Scott Morrison has recently confronted important truths about leadership your credibility as a leader has to be earned and it is very easy to lose it. Just being confirmed in the position as a leader does not necessarily make that person a leader.

July 14, 2020

Knockers or Rockers of the Barque of Peter?

Lets not entirely knock the six Theme Papers from the Plenary Council Writing Groups.

January 15, 2020

TERRY LAIDLER. Stop the Fires

The old paradigm we used for fighting fires has failed. The new paradigm has to be that we decide to Stop the Fires and the new question is not how do we contain or manage them or wait them out. It is: How do we put these fires out?

April 27, 2019

PETER SAINSBURY. Sunday environmental round up, 28 April 2019

The United Nations, The Lancet, Australia21 and Extinction Rebellion all, in their various ways, reckon that the environment and human health are going to hell in a handbasket while oil and gas companies invest big to ensure that we dont run out of fossil fuel energy to get us there. Reassuringly, the majority of Australians want strong government action to tackle climate change and other environmental problems. But how many politicians are listening?

July 8, 2020

Constitutional recognition, representation and affirmative action in India

Indigenous Australians have been seriously disadvantaged for far too long. Its time for a treaty and a radical affirmative action program to close the gap in one or two generations. There are significant lessons to be drawn from Indias pioneering Constitution, the first to specifically commit to affirmative action.

December 10, 2020

Tamed Estate: IR changes good for workers. Really? The fine print is buried.

With workplace reform winging its way towards the Senate, the mainstream media’s coverage of the changes was predictably unbalanced.

May 11, 2021

Talking up war over Taiwan flouts reason, fact, judgment and Australias national interest

It is never wise, in foreign affairs and defence policymaking, for emotion to trump reason, for politics to trump objectivity, or for sensitive judgment calls on major national interest issues to be made before they have to be. Talking up, as so many now are, the prospect of war with China with Taiwan as the likely trigger point runs the risk of offending all three prescriptions.

November 21, 2020

Sunday environmental round up, 22 November 2020

Wealthy people and wealthy nations cause it but its the poor and vulnerable who suffer the most from climate change. Adani is behaving badly in Australia but moving into renewables in India. Recycling plastic recycling. Spotted and striated, pardalotes charmalot.

December 13, 2017

Jared Kushner is wreaking havoc in the Middle East

The entire Middle East, from Palestine to Yemen, appears set to burst into flames after this week. The region was already teetering on the edge, but recent events have only made things worse. And while the mayhem should be apparent to any casual observer, whats less obvious is Jared Kushners role in the chaos.

May 18, 2020

JACK WATERFORD. Good policy comes from loud debate, not good manners

It took only a question about some fresh developments with the Sports Rorts affair for the prime minister to note, sourly, that it was back to politics as usual.

May 11, 2020

KIM OATES. Anxiety and the Etiquette of Walking

_When we meet people walking towards us, have you noticed how anxious many look? Anxiety can be damaging to mental health. What can we do to help reduce damaging anxiety?

March 22, 2018

PAT POWER. Quo Vadis? The Plenary Council of the Catholic Church in Australia

The Plenary Council planned for 2020-21 gives rise to great hopes and some anxiety as the Catholic Church in Australia and indeed worldwide faces the greatest challenge of the modern era. As a church always in need of reform we are continually confronted by the need to read the signs of the times and to respond in the light of the Gospel.

February 18, 2016

The things that must be done...

Some Genuine Decision-Making Power: Dealing with the over-representation of Aboriginal people in the prison system

This is an extract from the 2016 Frank Walker Memorial Lecture delivered by the Hon. Bob Debus AM on 16 February 2016. The Hon. Frank Walker QC was NSW Attorney General from 1976 to 1983. He later became a Federal Government Minister and a District Court judge. As a former Attorney General himself Bob Debus believes that Walker’s approach to the affairs of Aboriginal people remains the correct one.

December 15, 2019

OSCAR ROMERO. Advent Readings from a Modern Martyr

In celebrating Christmas**,** many Christians do exactly the opposite of what the earliest Christians did. By celebrating Christmas, they succeeded in bringing Christ into the pagan feast of the sun. Todays Christians neopaganism is managing to paganize Christmas.

March 6, 2019

MIKE SCRAFTON. Morrison is not the man for the times

Last month Scott Morrison delivered Our plan for keeping Australians safe and secure to the National Press Club. Not so much a headland speech as a report from the bookkeeper. Not FDRs Four Freedoms address to Congress or Churchills Iron Curtain speech in Fulton, Missouri; the Prime Ministers flat rhetoric avoided the big strategic issues that will confront future Australian governments. China was not mentioned. Nor was the US.

January 9, 2019

CLIVE KESSLER. Mahathir's deep dilemma for 2019 (ASIAN NIKKEI REVIEW).

Can he win over the dominant ethnic Malays and halt the growth of Islamist forces?

November 14, 2018

RICHARD BUTLER. What is History?

President Macrons warning against growing nationalism and the need to ensure the preservation of values, as against unalloyed selfishness in international relations, was an important way to mark the Centenary of the end of the First World War. Trump was present, but certainly not listening. The show was not about him and, he couldnt find his umbrella.

May 13, 2020

IAN WEBSTER: Public health and the nanny state.

Behind our backs, public health became the poor cousin of biomedicine and was dismissed as drains and sewerage. How wrong we were!

May 18, 2020

Don't be duped by biased media, reporters and political commentators

We argue for a more independent Australian foreign policy as former Prime Ministers Gough Whitlam, Malcolm Fraser, Bob Hawke, Paul Keating andKevin Rudd have advocated.

June 21, 2018

FERGUS PEACE. Australias pitiless migrant policy is no model for Europe.

Italys refusal to let a migrant rescue ship dock feels alarmingly familiar to many.

July 5, 2020

Donald Trump's American Carnage (Commonweal 4.7.20)

Gratifying as it can be to see a braggart brought low, it’s best to note Donald Trump’s Tulsa rally and sliding poll numbers with only a passing mention. Focus instead on his malfeasance and corruption and what it means for the American people.

February 26, 2018

HENRY REYNOLDS. A hundred years of mateship?

I was astonished! An SBS news report about the Turnbull visit to Washington declared that the two countries were celebrating their hundred years of alliance. Where had this extraordinary snippet of history come from, I wondered? I then discovered that it was the Australian Embassy which had had been talking about 100 years of mateship.

May 22, 2019

NICK HALLETT. Christian persecution near genocide levels

The worldwide persecution of Christians is at near genocide level, a report for the British government has said. The review, led by the Anglican Bishop of Truro, Philip Mounstephen, said Christianity is set to be wiped out from parts of the Middle East as people are killed or forced to flee.

April 7, 2019

MICHAEL NIMAN. Weaponised Social Media Is Driving the Explosion of Fascism (Truthout)

Social media platforms give governments, extremists, haters and propagandists the ability to excite and incite hate amplified by algorithms.

March 4, 2019

NOEL TURNBULL. Dodging the draft

Kim Jong-un has managed to achieve something that Presidents Johnson and Nixon couldnt get the draft dodging Donald Trump to Vietnam. Of course Trump didnt stay long soon leaving on a jet plane.

January 7, 2019

SHIRO ARMSTRONG, PETER DRYSDALE. Navigating the new international economic policy landscape (East Asia Forum).

The United States under President Donald Trump is on a mission to add economic policy to the armoury of national security policy to deal with a rising China. The approach holds the global economic order hostage to the attempt to put China back in its box. The stakes are as high as they get. But how should middle powers like Australia and its neighbours like Japan or Indonesia respond to the hard choices they now confront?

November 14, 2018

JIEH-YUNG LO. Ross Cameron sacking shows we won't tolerate racism any further.

In typical fashion, Andrew Bolt through his blog at the Herald Sun mounted a defence of Ross Camerons sacking from Sky News Australia. Instead of recognising its racist connotations directed towards Chinese people (and people of Chinese origin for that matter) Bolt went on by saying Ross Camerons intentions, while recognising his poor choice of words, was to defend China. What the defenders of Ross Cameron need to understand is that, despite his pro-China intentions, it does not justify his ignorance and the right to be racist.

February 26, 2019

DANIEL WARNER. The Martin Ennals and Victorian Prize winners contrast with Australia's policies against human dignity.

Australia’s refugee policies have been condemned for violations of the detainees’ human rights. The recent winners of two prestigious prizes, both detained on Manus, are further proof of the international community’s condemnation andhighlight the shocking plight of those sequestered on Manus and Nauru.

January 22, 2021

Saturdays good reading and listening for the weekend

What people in other forums are saying about public policy

October 7, 2020

The government sees itselfas an agent of the private sector.

Frydenberg’s budget, based on discredited “trickle down” economics, misses an opportunity to restructure our economy, weakened by seven years of Coalition mismanagement.

September 30, 2020

Vietnam cashes in on China exodus (Asia Times Financial Sep 27, 2020)

Former Southeast Asian adversary now cosy with Washington but trade war opportunities come with a cost.

December 20, 2019

SATURDAYs GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND

Below is the last Saturday entry for 2019. Well be back on Saturday 11 January.

November 1, 2019

SATURDAYs GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND

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

February 21, 2020

SATURDAYs GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND

What people in other forums are saying about public policy

October 9, 2020

Saturdays good reading and listening for the weekend

What people in other forums are saying about public policy

November 6, 2020

Saturdays good reading and listening for the weekend

What people in other forums are saying about public policy

March 6, 2020

SATURDAYs GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND

What people in other forums are saying about public policy

January 24, 2020

SATURDAYs GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND

What people in other forums are saying about public policy

February 26, 2021

Saturdays good reading and listening for the weekend

What people in other forums are saying about public policy

October 23, 2020

Saturdays good reading and listening for the weekend

What people in other forums are saying about public policy

February 14, 2020

SATURDAYs GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND

What people in other forums are saying about public policy

August 5, 2019

MICHAEL HIRSH. Boris and Donalds Wrecking Ball (Foreign Policy)

It will be a new sort of special relationship as the men who lead the U.S. and the U.K. work to undo what their predecessors built after World War II.

December 11, 2020

Saturdays good reading and listening for the weekend

What people in other forums are saying about public policy

November 13, 2020

Saturdays good reading and listening for the weekend

What people in other forums are saying about public policy

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal