January 4, 2021

Gutless Wonders: when will politicians demonstrate the accountability they foist on the rest of us?

Politicians are past masters at ducking responsibility, though busy prosecuting perceived foes. All the while, in the absence of a federal anti-corruption commission, the political scandals unfold, and pass without consequence.

October 17, 2018

RICHARD DENNISS. Trumps tax cuts will increase inequality. Australia shouldn't follow his lead.

The fiscal policies of conservatives like Trump and Scott Morrison are eating away at the fabric of society.

January 16, 2021

US Indo-Pacific Defence Initiative: What's really going on ?

The ritual analysis of the departing Presidents report card does not record many positives for Trumps strategic policy management in areas most vital to Australia. The key regional issues have been passed on to President-elect Biden whose immediate challenge will be to craft some coherent whole of government policy from the abundance of ideas currently being pushed by a variety of experts, think tanks, interest groups and factions within the Democrats.

November 10, 2020

Podcast ABC The Eleventh, February/March 2020

At the bottom see an edited transcript of an interview I conducted with the ABC for a podcast series The Eleventh

It also includes some more recent articles on the Dismissal.

December 22, 2020

Health Professionals during the pandemic

In a short period of time the coronavirus crisis has disrupted most aspects of Australian life the economy, our social and cultural activities, education, health, and transport. It is becoming exceedingly clear to the public the extraordinary role that doctors, and nurses have played during this pandemic.

January 8, 2019

MARTYN LLOYD JONES, PAUL KOMESAROFF. Here's why doctors are backing pill testing at music festivals across Australia

For many years experts in the field of drug policy in Australia have known existing policies are failing. Crude messages (calls for total abstinence: just say no to drugs) and even cruder enforcement strategies (harsher penalties, criminalisation of drug users) have had no impact on the use of drugs or the extent of their harmful effects on the community.

February 19, 2016

Paul Budde. Building Australia's white elephant - cheap buy for white knight Telstra.

The following piece by Paul Budde foreshadows a ‘white knight’ role for Telstra when NBN fails. He says:

We are now getting a second-rate network and the first signs from customers, as we heard in a recent Senate Hearing, are not good. This is in line with our assessment. An MtM network, by its very nature a mesh network, will not be able to deliver consistently good quality services to all customers. Telcos and ISPs are not happy with the second-rate system and want to bypass the NBN with their own fibre and mobile services. And there has been dead silence from the government on the potential economic role the NBN has in relation to innovation, healthcare, education and so on. Belatedly the NBN company is now arguing that the NBN debate should move from politics and focus on what we, as a nation, want from it. …

February 16, 2021

The pandemic is climate change on fast forward

_The think tank idea that the world can still make a gradual transition to a low-carbon world by tweaking neoliberalism is totally unrealistic. We need to undertake a massive risk management task, the first step of which must be a brutally frank assessment of the challenge we face. It is something that business, finance and politics continues to avoid._Achieving net zero emissions by 2050, is totally inadequate. It must be reached as soon as possible, ideally by 2030.

January 1, 2021

Australia, Sovereignty: the long and short of it

Projections on Australias future are bleak if it maintains its hostility to China and cloying dependence on America, particularly when coupled with a corrupt and incompetent LNP government.

November 16, 2020

Joel Fitzgibbon and Labor's environment policy

Joel Fitzgibbons resignation from the front bench does not change the policy of the Labor Party. nor its leadership. But it does change the mechanics.

November 1, 2020

Is it time for Federal Integrity Body or should we just turn off the life support machine for integrity in the federal public sector?

It is not a pretty picture. Bernard Keane writing in Crikey said recently: Everywhere you look in the Morrison government, you see sleaze and self-interest, if not outright corruption. Merely itemising the current scandals on foot is an arduous task.

October 11, 2020

Lobby Land: A Corporate Giants Dream and a Regulatory Hot Mess

As Australias government has grown in size and scope, so too has the desire to gain its favour, or avoid its wrath. This task increasingly falls to lobbyists. For representative democracy to work, constituents, including corporations, must be able to lobby their government. However, due to a failed regulatory regime, it is clear that undue influence, and even corrupt practices, are increasingly undermining Australias democracy, and its peoples faith in it.

November 15, 2020

Asia-Pacific Nations Set to Sign Massive Regional Trade Deal (The Diplomat Nov 12, 2020)

The creation of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership will leave the U.S. sitting on the outside of Asias two major free trade blocs.This mega -pact includes China but not the USA.

September 2, 2020

Defence settings - Have we got it right?

Recent articles on our defence and security postures, and their impact on civil society, have preferred pacifism over a more defensive tone. While pacific sentiment is noble, we should never underestimate harsher realities.

January 22, 2020

VACY VLAZNA. On Becoming Australian: A Migrant Story, Part 1

Australia is an unresolved crime scene

May 13, 2018

LAURIE PATTON. Heeding government warnings, auDA strengthens governance adding new board members

With debate continuing over Australias domain names registration arrangements, the company appointed by the federal government to oversee the process has added three highly qualified new directors to its board.

January 30, 2019

MARK PROOST. Millions of Americans flood into Mexico for health care - the human caravan you haven't heard about. (Truthout 23.1.2019)

The Trump administration is trying to convey panic that theres an immediate crisis on the southern border, pointing to caravans of desperate people who have traveled thousands of miles.

_Its true that Latin and Central Americans are coming to the US fleeing violence and poverty, much of it caused by destructive US trade policy over the course of decades. But theres another massive border crossing phenomenon afoot and Trump has not said a word about it. Were talking about thousands of US citizens crossing the border each day in search of affordable health care.

July 19, 2020

Poverty is a policy choice, made for the poor by the affluent

We live in the most interesting and uncertain times ever. This can be stated with certainty because the rate of change today is an order of magnitude faster than even one hundred years ago. So lets try a new economic policy mindset.

January 23, 2020

VACY VLAZNA. On Becoming Australian: A Migrant Story, Part 2

Co-host of ABC Minefield, Scott Stevens astutely, impeccably summed up the generosity inherent in The Uluru Statement of the Heart.

August 22, 2020

Consumatum est: is the Australian Catholic church finished?

_Can we save Jesus from the Church?

May 20, 2018

TAREQ BACONI. What the Gaza Protests Portend

The battle against infiltration in the border areas at all times of day and night will be carried out mainly by opening fire, without giving warning, on any individual or group that cannot be identified from afar by our troops as Israeli citizens and who are, at the moment they are spotted, [infiltrating] into Israeli territory.

May 28, 2020

JOHN CARLIN. Discrimination and Inequality

The Covid-19 virus discriminates against the old. The young are hardly affected. The lockdowns around the world required everyone to live in a cage, young and old. Now that the restrictions are being relaxed, it is inevitable that governments are going to have to discriminate in the same way the virus does against the old who will be the ones who need the confinement to protect their health, not the young who need jobs and a future.

July 9, 2018

ABUL RIZVI: Business migration should focus on establishing businesses not passive investment

While Eryk Bagshaws article of 8 July 2018 screams Millionaires stream in, the Sun Heralds editorial of the same day is a bit more sanguine about the benefits and risks of the Business Innovation and Investment Programme that facilitates entry of business migrants and investors. This Programme and its predecessors, while superficially attractive, have a chequered history as recognised by the Productivity Commission in its 2016 Report on the Migrant Intake and Minister Alex Hawkes decision to initiate a review of the Programme.

January 8, 2019

LUKE FRASER. Best of 2018: Canberra has abandoned roads to inflationary spending and policy chaos.

Botched State road projects, toll road fee hikes and congestion grab big headlines and make good sport for critics of State governments.

February 4, 2019

DANIELLE WOOD, CARMELA CHIVERS AND KATE GRIFFITHS. Tasmania's gambling election shows Australia needs tougher rules on money in politics.

Todays Commonwealth donationsdata releaseis a stark reminder of the deep flaws in our political donations system.Contributions to political parties are revealed up to 19 months after the event, and sometimes not at all. Withmost states now operating far more transparent regimes, the only conceivable explanation for the current Commonwealth system is that our political leaders dont want us to see where the money is coming from. And the information contained in todays data dump gives clues as to why that might be.

January 31, 2019

JOSH GORDON. Will Labor's dividend imputation policy overwhelmingly affect the low paid? (ABC News)

For months the Morrison Government has argued Labor’s controversial plan to raise more than $5 billion a year by scrapping refundable franking credits on dividends from shares is “not fair”.

January 22, 2020

PATRICK COCKBURN. The US and Irans Perpetual Almost-War is Unsustainable and Will End Badly(Counterpunch21.1.2020)

_The basis for a deal exists between the US and Iran, but that does not mean one will materialise.

April 1, 2019

DUNCAN GRAHAM: Vote patriotism who wouldnt?

Impossible to imagine: Scott Morrison and Bill Shorten start a pre-election national TV debate with handshakes and a hug. Two and a half hours later after gently tapping a few verbal shuttlecocks to-and-fro they pledge to remain friends forever.

That was the scene in Jakarta last weekend when President Joko Widodo and challenger Prabowo Subianto faced off 18 days ahead of the election.

July 27, 2018

JAMES FERNYHOUGH. Revealed: Australias most climate-conscious super funds

This week 23-year-old Queenslander Mark McVeigh made headlines when he revealed he was suing his super fund, REST, for failing to disclose how it was preparing for the investment risks of climate change.

April 16, 2019

DAVID MACILWAIN. Two Australians in trouble abroad.

The law to censor violent content rushed through Parliament last week connected dots between two Australians abroad, when Julian Assange was extradited from Ecuadorian territory, in London. I examine the linkages.

July 21, 2020

UN rapporteur slams Israel for 'collective punishment' against Palestinians (PressTV 18.7.20)

A UN human rights expert says the Israeli regime must end its “collective punishment” against Palestinians, which is “most strikingly seen” in its persisting siege against the Gaza Strip.

November 5, 2020

Its Arrived: Trumps attempt to steal the election

Will Trumps crazed attempt to steal the election wake up his enablers. They will need a plan to dispose of him if, as now seems likely, he loses the election.

October 7, 2019

JOHN CARLIN. Wrestling with Pigs

Trump deserves to be dismissed, but the impeachment process will only play into his hands. It will give him the opportunity to wage a populist war in which anything goes. Boris Johnson has ditched the admirable English tradition of fair play and has opted to copy Trump. The two old Anglo-Saxon democracies are now involved in a struggle between civilisation and barbarism.

July 12, 2018

MICHAEL MULLINS. Treatment of the mentally ill as 'the next civil rights issue'

Humour touching on mental health is a delicate undertaking that can either enhance or destroy the dignity of those living with mental illness.

August 23, 2020

Harmful research misconduct, is our research integrity framework adequate?

Could harmful research misconduct happen in Australia? _What steps are followed if an allegation of research misconduct is made in Australia? Is our system sufficiently robust to deal with allegations impartially and justly?

March 8, 2018

JOHN MENADUE. Afghanistan the graveyard of empires and the opium poppy.

They have all failed to conquer Afghanistan the Greeks, Indians and more recently, the British in the mid 19th Century and the Soviets in the late 20th Century. And now the US empire is failing to subdue the tribes of Afghanistan despite enormous cost of people and treasure. What has not received much attention is that the Taliban depends very heavily on the opium trade which finds its market in the US and other developed countries. That opium trade determines what happens in Afghanistan and not military intervention.

January 10, 2018

CAVAN HOGUE. White man'a media- A REPOST from May 29 2017

That the Australian media gives us saturation coverage of Europe but much less on Asia is obvious but the question is why? Have they done market research which shows this is what the public wants or does it stem from their own beliefs and prejudices? Is this really what most Australians want? Possibly it may be.

July 10, 2018

ANDREW JAKUBOWICZ. A Rose by Any Other Name: Reflections on the future of race discrimination and vilification in Australia

In a penultimate spate of inter-personal hostility between the current Race Discrimination Commissioner and his opponents in government and the media, the future of a Commissioner (RDC) and the enabling Racial Discrimination Act (RDA) have been flagged by Attorney General Porter as being high on his to do list.

December 7, 2020

Memorial Wars and our hypocrisy

The commemoration of war must force us to remember the people - the victors and victims, men and women, patriots and pacifists, soldiers and civilians. It must connect, confront and complicate, rather than celebrate, petrify and simplify. Dr Sam Edwards (Historian).

October 17, 2018

JULIE INGERSOLL. Why Trumps evangelical supporters welcome his move on Jerusalem (the Conversation, 08.12.17)

President Trumps announcement on Wednesday, Dec. 6 that the U.S. would recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel received widespread criticism. Observers quickly recognized the decision as related not so much to national security concerns as to domestic U.S. politics and promises candidate Trump made to his evangelical supporters, who welcomed the announcement..

February 22, 2021

Skilled operators: Europe is back in the Indo Pacific

The US might be coming back to the region, but so too is Europe, a nod to the fact that the central locus of global economic weight and geopolitical activity has moved. However, we need to beware the excessive zeal of Boris Johnson.

December 13, 2020

El Cheapo Aged Care: why the Coalitions make-work schemes wont work

The best interests of older people are not uppermost in this governments thinking. Referring to older people requiring care as consumers, describing the transfer of residents to hospital as decanting, talk of cohorting residents into specific sections of a home and other dehumanising language set the scene for its priorities.

March 28, 2018

JOHN DWYER. Poor oral health in Australia; a costly chronic problem getting worse and which current strategies have no chance of resolving.

Australias health system, such as it is has two Achilles Heels. The left one is our lack of emphasis on the prevention of disease while the right one concerns our incompetence in integrating health services in a patient-focused way. Both were on vivid display recently with the release of a new report by the Australias Oral Health Tracker.

October 18, 2020

In for a penny, in for a pound: $90 billion for an obsolete submarine fleet

So much for Australian sovereignty. We are locked out of repairing key US components of our subs computer systems, and the Coalition has committed our submarine fleet to the extraordinarily dangerous role of helping the US conduct surveillance in the South China Sea.

December 18, 2019

OSCAR ROMERO. Advent readings from a modern martyr.

He sent the rich away empty handed.

December 23, 2020

Misery profits: Woolworths selective listening on a new mega alcohol supermarket in Darwin

The decision in recent days by the Northern TerritorysLiquor Licensing director to green light the constructionof a huge Woolworths owned alcohol retail store within walking distance of Aboriginal communities is an outrage on every level.

January 8, 2021

The Confederacy stormed the Capitol. The unfinished civil war.(The Nation 7.1.20)

And then, because the rioters were white, they were allowed to walk away. But just imagine if they had been Black…Authorities would remove and arrest Trumpif he were Black.

May 20, 2018

JENNIFER DOGGETT. Health Budget Gaps.

Prevention, out-of-pocket costs, and oral health.

March 6, 2019

Indias Trifecta of Failure (Project Syndicate).

With a general election approaching, India’s government is planning a further extension of caste-based quotas in schools and public-sector jobs. This is typical of the two main parties’ tendency to choose the path of least political resistance and defer deep reforms.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal