June 10, 2020

IAN BOWIE. How many Aboriginal Australians are there?

It is commonly said that there are about 800,000 ‘indigenous’ Australians. In fact, the number of Aboriginal Australians may be substantially fewer.

November 21, 2018

GARETH PORTER. America's permanent-war complex. (The American Conservative, 15.11.2108)

_What President Dwight D. Eisenhower dubbed the “military-industrial complex” has been constantly evolving over the decades, adjusting to shifts in the economic and political system as well as international events. The result today is a “permanent-war complex,” which is now engaged in conflicts in at least eight countries across the globe, none of which are intended to be temporary. The Department of Defence is no longer a war- fighting organisation. Its a business enterprise. War is being privatised.

February 22, 2021

Laughing Stock: Australia’s new media code rivals our climate policy for absurdity

Google good, Facebook bad. That sums up mainstream media coverage of the Coalition government’s bizarre new media code. That’s because Google paid up, Facebook decided it was extortion and called Josh Frydenberg’s bluff, banning Australian news. The mainstream media has been corrupted.

January 29, 2019

PETER DONNAN. Is church reform supported by Australian Catholic media?

Despite rhetoric around listening and discernment, Australian Catholic media are not generally forums where diverse perspectives are to be found. Many diocesan Catholic publications do not include Letters to the Editor and ‘discussions’ are outsourced to social media such as Facebook and Twitter. An exception in Australia is the Jesuit online site, Eureka Street and one gets a sense of its ethos from the remarks of contributing editor, Andrew Hamilton, SJ, who writes of a “commitment to a public conversation that is open and courteous. Its editors hope that readers will engage with what is written, explore the arguments deeply, and be open to modify their own views”.

February 27, 2018

HYLDA ROLFE. Summer of our disconnect. (Part 1 of 2)

Some National Parks in New South Wales are taking a beating. On occasion, it’s difficult to distinguish the businesses that are officially sanctioned in them from the activities usually undertaken in normal commercial venues. Should they be there at all? It is time to sort things out.

January 22, 2019

ALAN BOYD. Morrison misconnects across the South Pacific. (Asia Times 19.1.2019)

“I urged your predecessor [Malcolm Turnbull] repeatedly to honor his commitment to clean energy. From where we are sitting, we cannot imagine how the interests of any single industry can be placed above the welfare of Pacific peoples and vulnerable people in the world over.

“Consensus from the scientific community is clear and the existential threat posed to Pacific island countries is certain,” Bainimarama said. Pacific island nations are on a precarious front-line of the climate change debate as rising sea levels sink portions of their land masses and wreak havoc on their coastlines.

September 20, 2020

Children in jail: why change and why now?

The recent expression of concern at 10 year olds being imprisoned is quite appropriate, but the age of criminal responsibility is not the only issue. More important is who does it and why they do.

January 21, 2020

Modi’s threat to the idea, national unity and territorial integrity of India

China’s Communist Party never admits to mistakes but always learns from them. India’s PM Narendra Modi never admits to mistakes and seems too stubborn to learn from them. He calls to mind Barbara Tuchman’s description of Philip II of Spain: ‘No experience of the failure of his policy could shake his belief in its essential excellence’.

October 9, 2019

GERARD O'CONNELL. As Amazon Synod begins, Pope Francis looks to proceed with a ‘pastoral heart’

Pope Francis opened the first plenary session of the synod for the Amazon region this morning by praying with the synod participants at the tomb of St. Peter in the basilica dedicated to his name and then gave an incisive speech to offer some direction to guide them over the next three weeks.

November 12, 2019

ASSOCIATED PRESS-Europe looking to China as global partner, shunning Donald Trump’s US ( 7 November 2019)

When France’s president wants to carry European concerns to the world stage to find solutions for climate change, trade tensions or Iran’s nuclear ambitions, he no longer calls Washington. He flies to Beijing.

July 5, 2018

WILLIAM GRIMM. Japanese fans’ shocking behavior at World Cup games.

Fans cleaning the stadium after matches they attend is an example of how one must be conscious of the convenience of those around.

April 25, 2019

ANTHONY PUN. Understanding the battle for telecommunications supremacy.

Sam Byford’s article, on the Huawei chairman accusing American critics of hypocrisy over NSA hacks, represents the current battlefront in the US-China trade war over “telecommunications” (telecoms) and its battle plan objective. This article takes a deeper dive into the matter in order to understand the nature of this Huawei battle for telecoms supremacy, as part of the US-China trade war and the reaction of US allies to this battle.

February 24, 2018

JOHN MENADUE. When will we wake up to the risks as well as the benefits of the US alliance (A REPOST)

We are a nation in denial that we are ‘joined at the hip’ to a dangerous ally. 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. As the US goes into relative economic decline, it will be asking allies such as Australia for more help and support. We are running great risks in committing so much of our future to the US. We must build our security in our own region and not depend so exclusively on a foreign protector.

July 21, 2020

Australia firms in China say bilateral tensions now a bigger risk than weak economy: survey(South China Morning Post 17.7.2020)

_For Australian businesses with close China ties, tensions between the two countries pose a more worrisome threat than a slowdown in the Chinese economy, a new survey has found.

June 19, 2019

STEPHEN S. ROACH. Japan Then, China Now. (Project Syndicate 27.5.2019)

_Back in the 1980s, Japan was portrayed as the greatest economic threat to the United States, and allegations of intellectual property theft were only part of Americans’ vilification. Thirty years later, Americans have made China the villain, when, just like three decades ago, they should be looking squarely in the mirror.

March 21, 2019

DUNCAN GRAHAM Doing democracy differently

Outsiders who propped their eyelids apart to watch Indonesia’s third TV ‘debate’ ahead of next month’s national elections would have concluded the campaign is bloodless.

For 150 minutes – minus about a third for commercials and promos – vice president hopeful and hidebound Islamic cleric Ma’ruf Amin, shared a platform with challenger and business tycoon Sandiaga Uno.

Amin is coupled to incumbent President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo; Uno supports former general Prabowo Subianto in his bid for the top job. In this show only the VP candidates performed.

January 10, 2018

JENNY HOCKING. Pressure Builds on Turnbull Over the Secret ‘Palace Letters’ on the Dismissal of the Whitlam Government -REPOST from June 16, 2017

Pressure is building on the Prime Minister to intervene in the long-running dispute over the release of the ‘Palace letters’, the secret correspondence between the Queen and the Governor-General Sir John Kerr in the months before Kerr’s 1975 dismissal of the Whitlam government. These letters are held by the National Archives in Canberra where they have been designated as ‘personal’ not official correspondence and embargoed ‘on the instructions’ of the Queen until at least 2027, with her private secretary retaining a final veto over their release even after that date. The reality is that we as Australians do not own our history while these historic letters, written at the height of our greatest constitutional crisis, remain hidden from us at the behest of the Queen.

April 28, 2018

MICHAEL PASCOE. It’s confession time and there’s much for the government to confess

If confession is good for the soul, key government figures should be mightily uplifted by the admissions now pouring out of them, however obliquely.

April 3, 2019

NOEL TURNBULL. Wages, jobs and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

“This is the West sir, and when the legend becomes fact, print the legend” says the reporter to the Governor who is returning to a town for the funeral of a friend,Tom Doniphon, in the final scenes of the 1965 film The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. The quote came to mind when reading an obituary of the economist, Alan Krueger, just after reading yet another quote from yet another business leader saying that increasing the minimum wage would increase unemployment. And this wage-unemployment myth is very much part of a modern Western myth just as much as it was part of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance US western cow town myth.

January 24, 2019

LISA NANDY. Patriotism and the Left (New Statesman).

A speech on the Left, patriotism and solidarity.

October 29, 2020

The Coonan Conundrum: Crown chair in a morass of conflicts

Crown chair Helen Coonan is chair of PR firm GRACosway, whose clients have been involved in questionable financial transactions and include mortgage brokers fighting commission bans. Her PR role is in conflict with her position as chair of financial complaints ombudsman AFCA, and both make her position at the head of Crown unsustainable.

September 20, 2020

Australian multiculturalism is a success story: it is time to enshrine it as our shared value

What makes Australia unique and special is the ability to celebrate one’s ethnicity and cultural heritage in an Australian setting. I am able to call myself a Chinese-Australian and Asian-Australian without having my loyalty questioned and allegiance to Australia judged.

January 12, 2021

The Murdoch-Trump love affair

January 7, 2021

Right outcome, wrong reasons on Julian Assange

British justice has been done, but it is hard to fathom. _Assange’s crime is different from the usual. He embarrassed the US by revealing activities recorded by Americans themselves, and the lawlessness of the US military that continues every day, all round the world.

December 9, 2020

Coalition Spin Kings: Expecting accountability in aged care is mere tilting at windmills

The federal Health Department has learnt a thing or two from Scotty from Marketing. It has just announced version seven of the aged care pandemic plan. Never mind that the previous six versions never existed.

February 18, 2021

The race is on ... vaccines vs variants. The global response will determine the winner

Boris Johnson’s call for wealthy nations to share Covid vaccines more equitably with poorer countries was vital. The warning from the WHO that “no-one is safe from Covid till all are safe” is a truism with major implications.

January 26, 2020

PETER SAINSBURY. Sunday environmental round up, 26 January 2020

A development plan for the 21st century is needed for northern Australia, perhaps informed by lessons from the Niger Republic. Three stories from north America: dead ‘penguins’ along the west coast indicative of severe ecosystem disruption caused by ocean warming; Trump fails to halt coal’s decline; and US Department of Justice provides support for oil companies being sued by city governments. Finally, 2019 was a very hot year.

February 8, 2019

EVAN JONES. The gaping hole in the Royal Commission's final report.

The Banking Royal Commission’s Final Report has generated much froth and bubble in the media. Hayne has chosen to emphasise the sins of the finance sector in the ‘wealth management’ arena (financial advice, insurance, super – the last superficially). Media coverage has implicitly accepted Hayne’s priorities (nowhere defended); indeed, the media has itself set the scene over preceding years for these priorities.

Marginalised, in particular, are the domains of small business and family farmer lending. These two command a mere 10 of 580 pages! Upon reading the pages on small business lending I experienced revulsion and disbelief. And I am an outsider. A small business victim reading these pages, life destroyed, would be reacting with fury.

January 17, 2020

The half-century miracle of Asian resurgence (Japan Times 6-1-20)

Is Japan Asian? Geographically, this is a silly question. Yet in an age in which identity politics have become increasingly critical, by economic logic, political orientation and geopolitical alliance, Japan is Western.

October 22, 2020

Australian submarines operating in the South China Sea is a very provocative and very bad idea.

In responding to my post (19 October) about the Morrison government’s plan to spend at least $90 billion on large submarines, Jon Stanford’s post (21 October ) argues that we should do what the Commander of the US Submarine Force wants with our submarines.

February 22, 2021

Even a brown paper bag filled with cash may not be enough to start an investigation

The recent release of Australian Electoral Commission political donation figures has put the lack of transparency back in the spotlight. This issue is also behind the push for a federal integrity commission. But the Coalition government, which is by far the largest recipient of political donations, has no intention of reforming the system and is pushing for a toothless integrity commission on purpose.

February 8, 2021

Myanmar: the US howls and seethes from the sidelines but it has no influence

America is calling the military takeover in Myanmar a coup. Not quite. Myanmar’s fragile democracy always existed at the pleasure of the military and the military became displeased when it appeared the people wanted to strengthen democracy.

May 19, 2020

RAY BRICKNELL. Solving the Morrison government's Newstart problem

Having ditched the Holy Grail of a budget surplus, admitting in the process – in deeds if not in words – that unemployment is a bigger problem than government debt, the Morrison government now faces a serious quandary.

February 2, 2021

Australia in a no-win situation if Taiwan crisis escalates

Tensions are escalating between the US and China and the recent provocation over Taiwan on the part of both powers could well be a tipping point. Joe Biden will face an agonising choice if Beijing does poke the bear and call America’s bluff.

February 16, 2021

What are the casino regulators in Victoria and WA doing right now?

Underneath all the glitz and tizz of flashy casinos, many serious issues arise from former NSW Supreme Court Justice Patricia Bergin’s report into Crown Casinos. The common thread is the power of money, especially but not only in Sydney.

February 27, 2018

DUNCAN GRAHAM. Where’s Ozzie - down here or up there?

This month Foreign Minister Julie Bishop spoke at the Menzies Research Centre in London on Australia’s Foreign Policy White Paper published three months earlier.

Her theme circled around getting ‘rules-based order’ into Asia, just like Europe where she says nationalism has subsided.

Dr Euan Graham (no relation), Director of the Lowy Institute’s International Security Program, wrote in The Interpreter _that the address was ‘_probably Bishop’s most important foreign policy speech since her Fullerton lecture in Singapore (to the International Institute for Strategic Studies) last March.’

However, its inconsistencies whizzed past the media obsessed with the Barnaby Joyce affair, bewildering those trying to understand Australia’s political location and Facebook likes.

May 8, 2020

SEAN INNIS and BOB MCMULLAN. Restarting Australian democracy Part Two

The performance of National Cabinet has been the administrative success story of the pandemic. Cooperative and decisive action at the top of our federation has been crucial to successful management of the virus. It is clear that National Cabinet should continue until current restrictions have been removed. But what then?

May 3, 2020

PETER SAINSBURY. Sunday environmental round up, 3 May 2020

Two stories from India: creating environmentally sustainable, healthy cities for the post-COVID world and the installation of cheap solar energy signals the end of coal. Plus, Joseph Stiglitz summarises some principles the Australian government should adopt post-COVID, a literary interlude and a summary of carbon capture and storage.

February 19, 2021

Expert denialism: federal Covid advisory committee slow to accept airborne evidence

Why the official reluctance in Australia to recognise aerosol transmission?

November 11, 2020

Review of 'The Eleventh' on podcast ABC

The ABC 2020 podcast, “The Eleventh” re-examines the events around the dismissal of the Whitlam Government 45 years ago, on 11 November 1975. The podcast is very penetrating but also very long and detailed. Some revelations from the podcast deserve being reduced to print.

July 16, 2020

GARY MOORHEAD. Cheap renewable energy and the future of manufacturing.

Whether it’s economic recovery post COVID, enhancing our future defence capabilities or even helping deal with climate change, manufacturing has become the new black. But before we can see any lift in manufacturing performance, a truly wicked problem must be overcome.

June 27, 2018

GARRY EVERETT. Archbishop Coleridge and the culture of confusion.

It was disappointing to read the latest comments of Archbishop Coleridge of Brisbane on the topics of sexual abuse and the culture of the Church. The comments convey a certain confusion, which could imperil any attempts the Church might make to re-establish trust among its members, and between the members and society at large.

January 13, 2021

The love affair that made America grate

Between rides and walks on the Trump Golf Course and embracing at the White House, Murdoch and Trump have debauched democracy.

February 11, 2021

Can we clean up gambling in Australia?

ClubsNSW has become a powerful political force, and along with the Australian Hotels Association is a major political donor. ClubsNSW has in fact signed an MoU with every NSW premier since Barry O’Farrell. Why this is necessary is a mystery.

February 25, 2021

Australia’s plans for a $2 billion airstrip in the Antarctic is environmental vandalism

While Australia criticises other countries for their supposed expansionist policies, Australia is the most brazen of any country in asserting ownership of territory that doesn’t belong to it. And while Australia claims to be staunchly committed to the environmental protection of the Antarctic, its actions belie such a claim, with its proposal to build a $2 billion concrete aerodrome at its Davis base.

January 9, 2021

University degrees are not as valuable as they once were with the million dollar cheating industry.

For the last decade it seems, employers, most unknowingly, have not been able to take for granted that a degree, even from the most highly ranked universities, ensures that the holder of that degree actually studied and passed the courses indicated by the degree.

November 4, 2020

A Clayton’s Integrity Commission?

Some readers will recall the major marketing campaign in the 1970s and 1980s for a non-alcoholic drink called Claytons**, which looked like and was packaged to resemble whisky**: “the drink you have when you’re not having a drink” was the slogan. The term Clayton’s caught on to mean anything which is not the real thing, and that is ineffective.

October 12, 2020

Aged Care: Human Right or a market opportunity

The overwhelming evidence is that, after more than two decades, the private-for-profit market model has not resulted in the improvements that were expected – more competition, more choice, improved efficiency, improved access and so on. It is time to conclude that aged care should no longer be framed as a private market. If it has not worked until now, there is no reason to expect it to work in the decades ahead.

March 24, 2018

JAMES FERNYHOUGH. Half of Australians with private health insurance say it isn’t worth it

Half of Australians with private health insurance say it is no longer worth the expense, a new survey commissioned by comparison website iSelect has found.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal

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