December 30, 2014

Glencore buying Rio Tinto could burn hole in Hockey's pocket.

In the SMH on December 20, 2014, Michael West draws attention to Glencore’s checkered history on paying tax and the consequences for Joe Hockey’s budget if Glencore acquired Rio Tinto.

Michael West said that ‘billions of dollars in tax payments are on the line, not to mention job losses and the spectre of this country seeding control over a large chunk of its natural resources to a secretive group of commodity traders ultimately run out of Switzerland.’

February 1, 2021

Labor's dissembling and ducking wont win climate votes

On climate change, voters want clarity, not obfuscation; honesty, not slogans. At the last election, voters saw through Labor’s mixed messaging and slapped the party down accordingly.

February 4, 2021

Nine's international editor's demonising of a 'genocidal China' is downright dangerous

Using such a loaded term as genocide as a kind of throwaway is irresponsible, especially when its designed to sneer at nuance. Sneering at anybody wanting more nuance in analysing Australia-China relations is not only unwise but dangerous.

February 22, 2021

China, Russia steal a vaccine diplomacy march

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought about an unprecedented mobilisation of advanced biotechnology globally. Progress in developing, testing and deploying vaccines has proceeded with breathtaking speed. China-Russia collaboration is helping to get cheap and effective Covid-19 vaccines to the developing world.

September 22, 2014

Peter Day. An Open Letter to Cardinal Pell

Dear Cardinal Pell,

In the lead-up to next months Extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the Family you and a number of your confreres are re-asserting the churchs longstanding exclusion of divorced and remarried people from communion.

Your foreword to The Gospel of the Family appears to leave us with little doubt: outsiders are not welcome.

As you have said, “The sooner the wounded, the lukewarm, and the outsiders realise that substantial doctrinal and pastoral changes are impossible, the more the hostile disappointment (which must follow the reassertion of doctrine) will be anticipated and dissipated.”

September 12, 2020

We need a standing Royal Commission to supervise our intelligence agencies (REPOST Aug 31, 2020)

We need intelligence agencies that are accountable to the community.. We do not have that at the moment. They duchess ministers and their parliamentary supervisors_._

We have witnessed the failure of bank regulators. Regulatory failure in the intelligence sector is even more in plain sight. The sector is really not answerable at all.

November 8, 2015

Allan Patience. Now is the Time for All Good Men and Women to Come to the Aid of the Party

Richard Di Natale has called on the Greens to get ready for government. Well and good. The direction in which he is prodding his party is a rare glimmer of hope in an otherwise bleak Australian political landscape.

Whether in a coalition (likely with Labor), or in its own right (unlikely), what sort of public policy agenda would a Greens government pursue? It is time for it to come up with a broad and innovative policy agenda; otherwise a completely new political party will have to be created.

July 11, 2017

Health Ministers may be in office but health providers are in power. Think medical specialists fees! (Repost from 19 April 2017)

Perhaps [we could consider] a review of what Pierre Trudeau and his government (in Canada) did in 1984 when they took on a system not dissimilar to ours uncontrolled fee for service and legislated that doctors could charge what they liked BUT unless they adhered to the fee negotiated between the provincial government and the profession (on an annual basis) the doctor lost all access to a Medicare reimbursement. The system still works today in Canada and few doctors opt out of it. Now there is a thought and a significant game-changer.

February 9, 2019

PETER SAINSBURY. Sundays environmental round up, 10 February 2019

Articles from around the world this week: electrical power sources in Australia, oil and gas drilling expansion in the USA, effects of shrinking glaciers on communities in Central Asia, and the Presidency of the next COP meeting in Chile.

June 8, 2018

DAVID EDWARDS. The Syrian Observatory - funded by the Foreign Office.

Writing in the Mail on Sunday_, journalist Peter Hitchenscommented last month on the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR): ‘Talking of war, and Syria, many of you may have noticed frequent references in the media to a body called the “Syrian Observatory for Human Rights”, often quoted as if it is an impartial source of information about that complicated conflict, in which the British government clearly takes sides. The “Observatory” says on its website that it is “not associated or linked to any political body”. To which I reply: Is Boris Johnson’s Foreign Office not a political body? Because the FO just confirmed to me that “the UK funded a project worth 194,769.60 to provide the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights with communications equipment and cameras”. That’s quite a lot, isn’t it? I love the precision of that 60p. Your taxes, impartially, at work.’_

January 14, 2020

J.A. DICK. War wisdom

Is it just and moral to assassinate an Iranian General?

February 15, 2019

SATURDAYs GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND

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

January 30, 2021

Taxpayers' $50m gift to gas in Beetaloo Basin sums up the crisis: Environmental round-up Jan 31

Heat causes climate change and climate change causes humans to produce reports: reports documenting the worsening problem and its causes; reports about the actions needed but not being taken; and reports about actions that should be avoided but are taken any way. And through it all, we keep burning coal.

February 11, 2021

Media in the Asian Century: Defamation payout has Nine urging law reform

And Senator Eric Abetz does not back away from his much-criticised call at a hearing last October for three Chinese-Australian witnesses to publicly and unconditionally condemn the Chinese Communist party dictatorship.

February 28, 2019

LESLEY RUSSELL. Can Primary Health Networks (PHNs) Drive Needed Primary Care Reforms?

A strong primary care system is essential to the equity, efficiency and effectiveness of the healthcare system and for improvements in health outcomes. However, the structure and funding of primary care has not kept pace with changes to disease patterns, the economic pressures on the healthcare system, workforce needs and evidence about the impact of social factors on health. In a paper recently published with my colleague Dr Paresh Dawda, we analyse the current operations and funding of Primary Health Networks and explore whether they are fit-for-purpose to drive and foster primary care reforms.

December 29, 2020

What real reform looks like: increase wages and tackle inequality, climate change

The economy has been stagnating for years under successive Coalition governments. It badly needs fixing, but it can be done. This is how.

February 8, 2019

SATURDAYs GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND

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

January 18, 2019

GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND

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

December 2, 2018

STUART REES. Israel/Palestine, the Prime Minister and the Language of Peace

A former Australian Ambassador to Israel, Peter Rogers has described as a fraud Prime Minister Morrisons claim that moving the Australian embassy to Jerusalem could be shock therapy for the non-existent Israel-Palestine peace process.

July 17, 2017

GREG AUSTIN. Australians have little to fear from terrorism at home - here's why. (Repost from 24 October 2016)

According to an ANU poll, more than half of the countrys adults are concerned Australia will be a target for terrorism at home and strongly believe the government needs to introduce greater preventive measures to combat it. But the reality is less alarming.

More Australians have died at the hands of police (lawfully or unlawfully) in ten years (50 at least from 2006 to 2015) or from domestic violence in just two years (more than 318 in 2014 and 2015) than from terrorist attacks in Australia in the last 20 years.

Although Australias terrorism threat level is set at probable, the likelihood of an individual being killed or wounded from a terrorist attack in this country is extremely low.

March 23, 2019

PETER SAINSBURY. Sunday environmental round up, 24 March 2019

In Europe ExxonMobil is spending billions of Euros every year to hold back climate action in the EU, while in Asia communities living in the sixteen downstream countries of the ten rivers that rise in the Hindu Kush region of the Himalayas face increasing problems with food production and incomes as a result of climate change. In the USA forest regrowth after bushfires is also threatened by climate change. And yet recent research demonstrates that action on climate change makes social, environmental sense and economic sense. An initiative by Melbourne City Council produces unexpected heart-warming results.

October 13, 2014

Kieran Tapsell: The Catholic Cafeteria

On 29 July 2011, Cardinal George Pell gave a speech in which he accused many Catholics of being Cafeteria Catholics, by picking and choosing from the doctrinal menu.

Having moved to Rome, he is now attending the Synod of Catholic Chefs de Cuisine to decide what is wrong with the menu at the Catholic Cafeteria, particularly when it comes to the Family Meal. There is an argument for taking some of the old recipes off the menu, like Haggis Humanae Vitae, because no one buys it anymore, and for relaxing the dress rules to allow divorced and same sex couples to dine there.

February 19, 2019

EKA KURNIAWAN. Indonesia's next election is in April. The Islamists have already won. (New York Times 14.2.2019)

When Joko Widodo, the incumbent presidentof Indonesia, last year chose Maruf Amin as his running mate for the general election this April, it became clear that Indonesian politicsis now backedinto a corner. Mr. Maruf is an Islamic cleric and scholar, and Mr. Joko was perhaps hoping to dampen attacks from conservative and radical Islamic groupsthathave called him anti-Islam (even though he is Muslim himself). Instead, he has built a Trojan horse for his opponents outside the walls of his own city.

The presidential race, in which Mr. Joko is again facingPrabowo Subianto, aex-army general and former son-in-law ofthe dictator Suharto, looks like a replay of the 2014 contest. Back then, Mr. Joko won by a small margin, on a platform promisinga grand maritime strategyfor Indonesia and to revitalize the economy partly through major infrastructure projects. This year, it seems, the decisive issue will be the candidates professed commitment to Islam.

January 12, 2021

After Georgia, Biden has no excuses but it's a long road ahead

While on paper Joe Biden has the power to force his agenda through Congress, the reality is a little different. He will need to take action on many fronts, not just the pandemic. A critical first task will be the dismantling and discrediting of Trumpism.

July 10, 2017

JOHN MENADUE. Making housing affordable. (Repost from Housing Series)

Pearls and Irritations recently posted a series of articles on the theme Making Housing Affordable. The series focuses on Australias housing affordability crisis. Most of the articles were posted just before the Federal Budget, but a few were posted afterwards, by way of a reflection on the relevant Budget reforms (or lack thereof). The date of publication of each article on Pearls and Irritations appears after the title.

September 29, 2014

Bruce Duncan. Iraq: where to now?

Threats from the self-styled Islamic State to kill Australians randomly on the street or wherever by any means possible have shocked us all. The threats were not just against Australians, nor only against westerners, but against other Muslims, even Sunnis who refused to bow to the IS, and especially against the modernising Muslims and the political elites in Muslim countries.

It appears that Islamic State is trying to unleash a global war between Muslims and non-Muslims, believing that the final apocalyptic battle against the crusaders or Romans to be fought at Dabiq in northern Iraq will usher in a new golden age. Many Muslims in the Middle East believe that this battle will occur within decades.

February 1, 2019

SATURDAYs GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND

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

January 11, 2019

GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND

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

July 10, 2017

JUDITH WHITE. Risks of gallery expansion

The NSW Coalition government has allocated $244m towards a major new building at the state Art Gallery. But questions are being raised about its ongoing funding and its mission as a public institution.

November 28, 2020

Old dog, new tricks? John Kerry needs to lead a total reform of U.S. climate diplomacy

An introduction by Peter Sainsbury to an article by Brendon Wu concerning John Kerry as President Biden’s Special Presidential envoy for Climate.

February 28, 2018

Australians prefer government funding for dental care rather than private health insurance

Polling released by Essential Report on February 27 2018 revealed that 48% of Australians favoured abolishing the taxpayer subsidy to Private Health Insurance (PHI) and using the savings to establish a Medicare Dental Scheme. 32% opposed such a change and 20 % did not have a view.

February 28, 2021

Our C18th health workforce structure is riddled with demarcations, inefficiencies and antique work practices. (An edited repost)

Casual workers are fair game but the government is not prepared to tackle the very serious workforce inefficiencies in our large and growing health sector.

February 16, 2019

PETER SAINSBURY. Sunday environmental round up, 17 February 2019

It may be too slow but the policy environment around climate change is moving. Recently in NSW we have seen a mine proposal refused because of its impact on climate change and the release of a report calling for the development of a plan for the Hunter Valley to transition away from coal. In the USA calls for a Green New Deal have been released. But while all this grinds along, insects around the world are disappearing fast.

February 8, 2021

The hidden corrosion of good intent: an inbuilt problem for Labor, as much as it is for the Coalition

Labor needs to confront its own contribution to undermining faith in politics. What does it have to fear, or lose, from claiming the moral high ground?

January 4, 2019

GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND

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

July 9, 2017

MARK METHERELL. Church chooses plenary team behind closed doors while saying it cant be business as usual

Amid the turmoil besetting the Catholic Church in Australia, the announcement, after an in-house process, of a diverse team to advise the bishops on the 2020 Plenary Council has raised the hackles of reform advocates.

October 10, 2014

Wooki KIM, Discrimination against Korean school children in Japan today

On 29 August this year the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) which is under the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) made rulings on Korean schools in Japan. It said The committee encourages the state party [Japan] to revise its position and allow Korean schools to benefit, as appropriate, from the High School Tuition Support Fund, as well as to invite local governments to resume or maintain the provision of subsidies to Korean schools.

September 23, 2014

Xanthe Emery: Family violence and immigration is the message getting across?

Family violence in Australia is at epidemic levels, with some horrific high profile cases dominating the news in 2014. Migrant women in Australia are extremely vulnerable to violence from their partners. Threats to cancel a womans visa are used to frighten, intimidate, and coerce her to stay in a violent relationship. More could be done to ensure that migrants are aware you dont have to remain in a violent relationship to obtain a visa.

September 19, 2024

UN vote: Newspaper raises irrelevant questions about an ICJ decision

The exclusive ‘US urges Australia over UN’s Israel vote’, published in Tuesday’s The Australian by Ben Packham, demands a response.

June 14, 2018

SIMON ROUGHNEEN. How Beijing is winning control of the South China Sea (Nikkei Asian Review 13/6/2018)

Erratic US policy and fraying alliances give China a free hand.

November 14, 2017

JOSEPH E. STIGLITZ. America has a monopoly problem - and it's huge. (from 'Nation')

We have become a rent-seeking society, dominated by market power of large corporations, unchecked by countervailing powers. And the power of workers has been weakened, if not eviscerated. What is required is a panoply of reformsrewriting the rules of the American economy to make it more competitive and dynamic, fairer and more equal.

February 2, 2021

Polls will narrow, especially as Morrison is open to attack on issues of probity

However, the position of deputy Labor leader requires a heavyweight. Richard Marles may be treasured by his faction, but he is virtually unknown and lacks the clout to make things happen. In Defence he couldnt make an impression on a soft silk cushion.

February 3, 2021

Searching for Scotty: using the Bible to show that capitalism has Gods seal of approval - Part 2

Scott Morrison serves two masters: his God, as a Pentecostal believer; and his people, as a democratically elected leader. And as Ecclesiastics says: “Work hard, enjoy the fruits of your labour and do not be ashamed of your wealth.”

September 25, 2024

Defending nation’s sovereignty is not the act of an ‘appeaser'

Could the Alexander Downer who accuses me and Paul Keating of appeasement possibly be the same Alexander Downer who recently wrote in The Australian that if he had a vote in the US Presidential election it would be for Donald Trump? The same Donald Trump whose willingness to accommodate Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine makes Chamberlain’s behaviour in Munich in 1939 seem almost Churchillian?

May 21, 2024

ICC applies for arrest warrants against Netanyahu, Sinwar

The ICC chief prosecutor accused Israeli and Hamas leaders of war crimes while repeating false claims against Hamas and downplaying Israeli violence against Palestinians, writes The Cradle news desk.

December 30, 2020

Cancelling Brexit, the only remedy for a disastrous decision

No deal Brexit looms. Britain will be leaving the EU. Nationalist Prime Minister Boris Johnson promises the use of the Royal Navy to protect British fishing boats and to keep foreign vessels out, even though the EU emphasized inclusiveness. Theres no place for friendly sentiments among ethnocentric Tories.

February 23, 2019

PETER SAINSBURY. Sunday environmental round up, 24 February 2019

Glaciers, forests and the Great Barrier Reef: todays round up discusses threats to biodiversity in each of these from global warming or drought or flood or deforestation, or some combination of these. And to finish, a map of Europe that demonstrates the serious and widespread harm caused to humans by coal fired power stations.

September 26, 2024

Will Labor have the guts to propose changes to negative gearing?

Press reports this week suggest that the Albanese Government has sought advice from Treasury about possible changes to negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount, to be taken to the election due to be held before the end of May next year.

February 25, 2021

Tamed Estate: Facebook 1, Australian government 0 but no mainstream media mastheads ran that line

And the miserly $3.57 a day rise in JobSeeker was ‘fair and affordable’, ‘pragmatic’, and ‘fiscally responsible’. The mainstream media tripped over themselves to support the government’s line in the face of widespread condemnation from eminent economists that the huge cut to the unemployment payment rate would cost jobs and hit the recovery.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal