July 4, 2017

PETER HUGHES. Citizenship changes: poisonous and pointless

The government’s proposed changes to the requirements for Australian citizenship are both poisonous and pointless. They are bad public policy and should be rejected by Parliament.

February 27, 2018

JOHN MENADUE. Health Ministers may be in office but they are seldom in power

The major barrier to health reform is the power of providers. A succession of Australian health ministers Liberal and Labor for three decades have failed in any serious health reform. It is a very sorry story. Any Minister, Liberal or Labor who wants to reform health must be prepared to take on the providers. Otherwise, we can forget serious health reform.

March 27, 2017

KIERAN TAPSELL. The Royal Commission, Religious Liberty and the Jehovahs Witnesses

A more difficult issue is the Jehovahs Witnesses practice of shunning those who decide to leave the organisation as adults because of sexual abuse. It may be that the Commission is left with no other alternative but to condemn it as cruel. Quite apart from Church/State separation issues, legislation can be effective to overrule Jehovahs Witnesses wishes that their children not have blood transfusions, but it is a blunt and useless tool to make them love their neighbour.

September 7, 2013

The election - punishing bad behaviour. John Menadue

One thing the election did was to explode the perceived wisdom that if the economy was doing well, governments are seldom voted out. But the Rudd Government was.

As I have written in earlier blogs.

The Australian economy, by almost any measure is one of the best performing and managed in the world.
Our material stand of living is continuing to rise at a rate of about 2.5% p.a.
Only two days ago, The Herald Lateral Economics Wellbeing Index showed that our wellbeing rose by 7% last financial year. The index measures not only changes in income but also knowhow, environment, health, inequality and job-satisfaction.

But there were other factors at work in the election.

September 9, 2019

ANDREW GLIKSON. From climate denial to planetary arson. The planetary consequences of injecting >910 billion tons CO2 into the atmosphere

Last night (6 September) as fires were raging through the desiccated granite belt of southern Queensland, not a single reporter, politician or anyone else had the temerity of pointing out the inevitable relation between coal mining, carbon emissions, global and regional heating and the incendiary consequences.

April 23, 2017

JUDITH CRISPIN. Indigenous Elders to Tackle Youth Suicide Using Mobile Technology

A groundbreaking collaboration between Walpiri Elders, cultural historians, technologists and a clinical psychologist aims to tackle youth suicide using traditional knowledge and mobile technology.

March 1, 2017

RICHARD WOOLCOTT. The US has 'wasted $6 trillion' in the Middle East without achieving any success.

In a statement on 27 February President Trump said that the United States had spent $ 6 trillion in the Middle East and had " got nowhere “. It had produced a “mess” and a " hornet’s nest “. In a conflict United States must always be “winning ,or not fighting at all”.

April 30, 2017

Making Housing Affordable Series. JOHN DALEY, BRENDAN COATES AND TRENT WILTSHIRE (1). Why should we care about housing affordability?

Housing affordability includes a grab-bag of concerns: less money to spend on goods and services other than housing; falling home ownership rates; worsening access to jobs; increasing wealth inequality between and among generations; and increasing risks of a housing-led economic downturn.

Responding to these concerns requires careful analysis of the underlying drivers and of the potential impact of policy changes.

March 29, 2015

Race Mathews Let Us Now Begin

The philosopher George Santayana wrote famously Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

A case in point is failure by the Australian Labor Party (ALP) to remain mindful of the circumstances and shortcomings that denied it office from the middle -1950s federally until 1972 and until 1982 in Victoria.

When I joined the ALP in 1956, it was in dire straits reeling in the aftermath of the failed Santamaria Movement takeover of the Party and the subsequent splitting off of the Democratic Labor Party (DLP), and in the grip already of yet another extremist and in this instance ostensibly Left external body, known variously as The Trade Unionists Defence Committee, the Ticketing Committee or simply and succinctly, the Junta

November 28, 2016

CHRIS BONNOR. School funding: Grattans timely circuit breaker

Chris Bonnor contends that the Grattan Institute report has resurrected the missing link in the sporadic implementation of Gonski.

January 21, 2014

Andrew Podger - Health reform, co-payments, fee for service and doctor contracts.

The recent suggestion of a modest user charge on patients of bulk-billing doctors, and the immediate reaction in the media, suggests the need for a more careful study of the appropriate role of co-payments in our health insurance system, and of other measures to contain costs while delivering an effective insurance product.

Ensuring everyone has affordable access to effective health services, while keeping total costs manageable, is the central challenge for any health insurance system. The very existence of an insurer raises the risk of moral hazard whereby consumers and service providers take advantage of the third party payer. This is exacerbated in the health system by the reliance patients have on the expertise of doctors and the extent to which doctors, understandably, wish to draw on the latest technologies to help their patients.

June 19, 2017

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Tony Abbott is winning and Peter Dutton is paying hush-money.

Chief Scientists Alan Finkels report on energy is not yet dead, buried and cremated, but Abbott and his gang of avid colliers have already left it struggling on life support.

November 20, 2016

GEOFFREY HARCOURT. The pluses and minuses of globalisation

Donald Trumps victory in the American Presidential election has brought into prominence greatly divergent views concerning the merits or demerits of globalisation. Here we set out the criteria that need to be met before globalisation can be regarded as a world welfare improving institutional arrangement.

First, and absolutely fundamental and necessary, is the need for nation states engaged in trade and international borrowing and lending to implement domestic policies that establish sustained full employment of their work forces and normal capacity working of their existing stocks of capital goods and human capital.

September 13, 2018

JERRY ROBERTS Whither Labor?

Stan Grant in his interesting post of 10 September asks which kind of conservatism our Prime Minister will practise. Since we are about to commence a decade of Labor in office in Canberra a more pertinent question is what type of Labor Government will it be?

January 14, 2018

A paraplegic woman and her elderly carer.

A well-known and respected doctor has written to me about caring for his loved wife. He outlines a compelling and human story. With his permission I share with readers his account of the burdens and cost of caring. John Menadue.

December 5, 2016

REG LITTLE. Understanding cultural differences between Australia and China.

Australia’s most urgent challenge today is overcoming two centuries of ‘false education’ about China. Western thought culture tends to be characterised by assumptions, abstractions, rationalities, theories and belief. In contrast, Chinese thought culture tends to be holistic, fluid, intuitive, reflective, strategic and practical.

January 15, 2018

Nuclear arms: Look ahead to 2018 in hope, not back at 2017 in anger

We begin 2018 with a surreal contest between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Koreas Kim Jong Un as to whose nuclear button is bigger. Against North Koreas anxiety-inducing rapid nuclear advances, the biggest positive story line of 2017 was a new United Nations nuclear ban treaty adopted on July 7 and opened for signature on Sept. 20.

March 23, 2015

Walter Hamilton. Lee Kuan Yew and Australia

Lee Kuan Yew ran the island-state of Singapore, someone said, with a mixture of charisma and fear. Having worked there as a correspondent for the ABC in the mid-1980s, the remark seems apposite to me.

Lees brilliance as a politician and statesman is undisputed, but the country he forged, improbably, out of a remnant of the British Empire in Asia was a place that seemed to miss some essential inner purpose. Others have suggested thatmirroring Lee himselfit lacked a sense of humour, a sense of fun. There is something in this, although in my recollection Lee knew how to smile (usually as he skewered less talented opponents).

May 7, 2018

Turnbull Government may be toning down anti-China stance

Canberra is giving indications it believes an 18-month tilt to a marked anti-China stance might now be corrected. There are hints the Turnbull Government recognises that being the most rhetorically hostile to China of all US allies does not serve our national interest.

September 7, 2014

John Tulloh. Canberra's fork in the road - the humanitarian way or the warpath?

What interesting, fraught and changing times we live in. This month marks the 75th anniversary of the start of World War Two. Britain and France with little ado told Germany to get out of Poland or else. Three days later King George VI made a radio speech to the British nation that good must prevail. Robert Menzies, the Australian Prime Minister, did his ‘melancholy duty’ via ABC radio and without further ado off went the men of both countries to war again. It all seemed so straight forward.

May 4, 2015

Wiryono Sastrohandoyo. Getting the Australia-Indonesia relationship back on track.

John Menadue asked me to discuss how best toget Australian-Indonesian relations back on track, although I agree that this is a politically sensitive issue and weighing it up may not be the prudent thing to do while there is still a lot of anger in the heart of many Australians and Indonesians.

The anger on the part of the Australians is easy to understand. Two of your citizens have been executed by firing squad, after having been found guilty of a capital crime by a duly constituted court and after all the legal processes to save their lives had been exhausted. But during the ten years between their sentencing and their execution they had reformed, become good persons who were always in the service of their fellow human beings, notably through the drug abuse rehabilitation program that they designed and carried out while in prison.

May 24, 2017

JOHN WARHURST. Catholic Citizens needed within Church

Catholics must stand up and become active citizens not loyal subjects within their own church community. The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has pointed to weaknesses in culture and governance within the Catholic Church in Australia. Within the church the normal tenets of liberal democracy, including inclusiveness, transparency, equality and responsiveness do not apply.

August 22, 2018

GREG BAILEY. The Australian Political Duopoly: are its days numbered?

Statistics of voting patterns over the past forty years have shown a consistent drift towards fringe and minor parties. Such a drift seems likely to continue whilst the duopoly of the LNP and the ALP continue to ignore the mainstream, both ideologically and as group worthy of receiving some intrinsic recognition.

July 25, 2019

JOHN MENADUE. Vale Graham Freudenberg

A dear friend and colleague, Graham Freudenberg, died this morning at the Redcliffe Hospital. He was admired and will be mourned by many people who knew him personally and a great number of people who knew him in public recognition of his work.

Throughout his long illness, he remained courageous and concerned for people around him, and particularly for the Labor Party that he loved. As he physically declined, the strength of his inner life became even more apparent. He was delighted that, in his last week of life he could see again ‘The Scribe’ on ABC TV.

March 2, 2017

JOHN DWYER. The parlous state of strategies to protect consumers from health care fraud. Part 2 of 3.

Credible scientific evidence of clinical effectiveness should underpin the delivery of health care. Satisfactory health outcomes and cost effectiveness require this approach. In Australia however pseudoscience flourishes as regulatory bodies fail to protect consumers from health care fraud and a massive industry prospers as it convinces consumers to use expensive supplements they do not need. In this three part examination of the issue the extent of the problem is examined, as are the changes that would better protect consumers.

May 15, 2019

ABUL RIZVI. The loss of control of our air borders and with the AAT drowning

The backlog of migration and asylum cases at the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) reached a record 57,597 at end April 2019. That includes an astonishing 19,469 applications for asylum. The AAT is drowning. With the Dutton/Pezzullo engineered chaos in our visa system and loss of control of our air borders (see here and here), the situation at the AAT will get quite a lot worse before it gets any better irrespective of who wins the forthcoming Election.

May 15, 2014

Fran Baum and Sara Javanparast. Demise of Medicare Locals.

Demise of Medicare Locals: impact on community health, partnership and PHC research

Fran Baum and Sara Javanparast Southgate Institute for Health, Society and Equity, Flinders University, Adelaide

Tuesdays budget announced the abolition of the 61 Medicare Locals and that they will be replaced with an unknown but smaller number of Primary Health Networks. Regional primary health care organisations are widely acknowledged to be vital to effective coordination of PHC activities, reducing service fragmentation, making the health system easier to navigate for users, and reducing health care cost. Primary Health Care Trusts in England, New Zealand Primary Health Care Organisations, Canada/Ontario Local Health Integration Networks, and Scotland Community Health Partnerships are examples of overseas regional PHC organisations which support GPs and other PHC providers and plan for population health initiatives. The World Health Organization recommends that PHC should be comprehensive and not just concentrate on clinical issues but also emphasise population-based approach, including disease prevention and health promotion, equity of access, responsiveness to community needs and community engagement.

June 6, 2017

PETER OLSZEWSKI. Still banging away Michael Kelly as a media mogul.

Bangkok-based Father Michael Kelly Mick to his mates is a journalist who became a Jesuit priest who became a savvy publisher and who now runs a complex global religious media empire.

November 13, 2016

What so many people don't get about the US working class.

In this article in the Harvard Business Review, Joan C Williams says:

“If you want to connect with white working class voters, place economics at the centre. … Trade deals are far more expensive than we have treated them because job development and training programs need to be counted as part of their cost. … At a deeper level, both parties need an economic program that can deliver middle class jobs. Republicans have one. Unleash American business. Democrats? They remain obsessed with cultural issues. … Back when the blue collar voters used to be solidly democratic, good jobs were at the core of the progressive agenda. … The biggest today for me and other Americans is continued class cluelessness. If we don’t take steps to bridge the class culture gap, when Trump proves unable to bring steel back to Youngstown, Ohio, the consequences could turn dangerous.”

January 7, 2014

People like us: personal reflections. Guest blogger Trevor Boucher

One of my great-great grandfathers on my mothers side was transported to Australia in the early 1840s for stealing lead from a chapel roof. The lash and Van Diemans Land didnt reform him, although marriage in Geelong to an Irish orphan helped- even though a couple of manslaughter convictions followed.

Not that I knew about this as a child born in 1936 in remote eastern Victoria. My family historian brother later extracted the information from a reluctant Mum (a crusading Salvationists daughter). Her opinion was, We dont need to talk about that sort of thing. With hardworking and upright Dad being a Methodist local preacher, the numerous local Catholics (of Irish origin) were to be treated with some reserve not really people like us. For their part, they probably saw us as wowsers. The hundreds of Chinese alluvial gold miners who once dug up the place had long gone. They didnt meet White Australia prescriptions anyway.

February 7, 2017

MICHAEL McKINLEY. Trump, Australia, Iran, and a Question For Australia

For all of the radical change promised by Donald Trump when he was campaigning, at least one area of continuity is abundantly clear: the preoccupation with, and a distorted understanding of Islam in general and Iran in particular. His appointment of those he refers to as my generals to National Security Adviser (Mike Flynn), and Defense (James Mattis) as my generals are one of the strongest indicators of this and the militarisation of his counsel. So, too, is his appointment of Steve Bannon to the position of Chief Strategist. All share apocalyptic visions of the war in which the United States is currently in, as does the President himself.

May 9, 2013

Our better angels. Guest bloggers Brenda, Edith and Elizabeth

Dear Elizabeth,

At our church, Liverpool South Anglican Church,we have befriended some men from Sri Lankawho have been released from the Curtin Detention centre.They are setting up house in Sydney.We held a BBQ and cricket match on Anzac Dayand about 30 men came along.

Our Minister explained to them about Anzac Dayand why it is important to Australians.

Another minister preached the gospel message to them in Tamil.

We heard from about 5 of the men about the story of their trip to Australia. They were very grateful. It was the first celebration they had been to in_Australia._

February 26, 2017

Trumps assault on the liberal international order

There is considerable skepticism about U.S. President Donald Trumps commitment to uphold the post-1945 liberal international order crafted under American leadership and underwritten by U.S. military power, economic heft and geopolitical clout. Trumps pre-election statements on trade, immigration, alliances and nuclear policy in particular seemed to question these four critical pillars of established U.S. policy.

March 23, 2017

JAMES O'NEILL. A tale of two cities: Aleppo and Mosul.

The double standards of the western media are clearly demonstrated in the different treatment accorded the liberation of Aleppo by Syrian and Russian forces and the ongoing battle for the liberation of Mosul by coalition (i.e. US) forces in northern Iraq.

Also completely missing from western accounts is the fact that prior to the March 2003 invasion of Iraq by the US, UK, Australia and others, there was no al Qaeda or ISIS in either Iraq or Syria. That illegal invasion was based on a series of massive lies and has caused the deaths of well over one million Iraqis and plunged the region into chaos and destruction.

October 27, 2013

Mideast Road to Nowhere. Guest blogger Marcus Einfeld

This blog by Marcus Einfeld is in response to the blog by John Tulloh of 16 October on the abovesubject.

John Tullohs 40 year career in international news gathering should have taught him that jumping into Israeli-Palestinian issues with instant judgements and simplistic solutions is unwise and simply assists to continue the conflict. The concept, promoted in Tullohs piece posted on this blog on October 16, that the only or principal cause of the ongoing problems in this long dispute is Israeli settlements is at best nave. More importantly it demonstrates a seriously imperfect knowledge of the facts and of the problems that have defied solution at the hands of the worlds best diplomats for almost 70 years, during most of which there were no settlements at all.

January 15, 2018

CHRIS BONNOR AND CHRISTINA HO. Selective school decisions coming back to haunt us.

Almost alone in Australia, New South Wales has been expanding its number of selective schools, accompanied each time by arguments about the need to increase choice and cater for the gifted and talented. And each time we are left with one less school for local students, together with an ongoing trail of collateral damage to other schools and overall student achievement. The Department of Education, successive governments and even peak education groups have long ignored the downsides of selective schools until now. The NSW Education Minister now wants to open the doors of these schools to solve a student accommodation problem.

January 24, 2017

JOHN MENADUE. Gladys Berejiklian and NSW Ports

As a former Minister for Transport, Gladys Berejiklian leaves a very dubious record in port privatization. The Chair of ACCC, Rod Sims has said Privatisation (of NSW ports) is costing consumers and damaging economic reform.

April 30, 2017

Making Housing Affordable Series. JOHN DALEY, BRENDAN COATES and TRENT WILTSHIRE (2). Sorting reality from the appearance of action on housing affordability.

Governments have raised expectations among voters anxious to see action on housing. There is no shortage of proposed policy solutions. But how do we sort the good from the bad? Many policy ideas sound good, but wont do much in practice. Some will make housing affordability worse, drag on economic growth, or subtract from budget balances that are already in trouble. There are reforms that would make a big difference, but none is politically easy. If governments want to be seen as serious on housing affordability, theyre going to have to make some tough choices.

April 12, 2015

John Menadue. Tax dodging may be legal, but is it fair and ethical.

Senior executives of companies like Google, Microsoft and Apple have all admitted to the Senate in the last week that they have avoided billions of dollars of Australian tax by a range of devices such as transfer pricing and earnings made in Australia being diverted to Singapore which has a lower tax rate. In every case they have told us that it is all perfectly legal. And apparently it is. Other companies such as Westfield and News Corp have also received earlier publicity because of their massive tax avoidance. But its all been legal!

January 1, 2015

What a disgrace! Australia at the UN on Palestine.

Concluding our two year term on the Security Council, Australia voted against the proposal in the Council demanding Israel and the occupation of Palestinian territories end within two years. For the resolution to pass, nine votes were needed. Eight countries voted in favour of the resolution, including China, Russia, Luxembourg, France and Jordan. Five countries abstained, including the UK and South Korea. Only two countries voted against the resolution, the US and Australia.

May 1, 2017

Making Housing Affordable Series. MARCUS SPILLER. The planning system, politics and housing affordability

Forever expanding supply on the urban fringe is unlikely to provide a solution to retreating affordability of home ownership. Housing needs to be expanded in those places where good jobs, services and infrastructure are.

The inner and middle suburbs where the good jobs and opportunities are represent the major battle ground for NIMBY-ism.

October 27, 2016

ROBERT MANNE. How we came to be so cruel to asylum seekers.

This is an edited extract of a talk delivered to the Integrity 20 Conference at Griffith University on October 25, 2016

If you had been told 30 years ago that Australia would create the least asylum seeker friendly institutional arrangements in the world, you would not have been believed.

In 1992 we introduced a system of indefinite mandatory detention for asylum seekers who arrive by boat. Since that time, we have accepted the idea that certain categories of refugees and asylum seekers can be imprisoned indefinitely; that those who are intercepted by our navy should be forcibly returned to the point of departure; that those who havent been able to be forcibly returned should be imprisoned indefinitely on remote Pacific Islands; and that those marooned on these island camps should never be allowed to settle in Australia even after several years.

How then has this come to pass? There are two main ways of explaining this.

April 25, 2015

Mark Triffitt and Travers McLeod. Hidden crisis of liberal democracy.

A burning platform with big, tangible impacts on our everyday lives is often the tipping point for concerted action. We call these crises.

Think of the G20s actions in the wake of the global financial crisis or the global response to 9/11. Both events left governments and decision-makers with no choice but to act.

Then there are the hidden crises. These are usually not a single, explosive event, rather a pattern of events whose impacts are difficult to connect.

August 28, 2018

JOHN CARMODY: The Catholic Right

While Malcolm Turnbulls own manifest lack of political skills and understanding has played a major role in his downfall, he and others are perfectly correct to recognise that outside forces including some journalists and other media figures who seek to be players rather than simply observers and commentators have also contributed significantly to his fate .

September 9, 2018

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Duttons double standards.

Powerful and sensitive weapons need to be handled with extreme care if they are not to harm the user as well as the intended victim. Ministerial intervention is a powerful and sensitive weapon.

August 8, 2019

Tugging our forelock again and again to our dangerous ally. An update

The US has coming calling again. Not an Admiral this time but the Pentecostalist Secretary of State Mike Pompeo . He is whistling us up as a faithful dog to join with the US in tackling the problems which Donald Trump created with Iran and presumably to soften us up to host missiles to protect the US marines and port facilities in Darwin. And Pine Gap.

July 4, 2017

GILES PARKINSON. Garnaut: CET may be useless without higher emission targets

Leading economist professor Ross Garnaut says the clean energy target recommended by the Finkel Review could be useless in meeting current emission reduction targets, because technology change and coal retirements will get us there in any case.

January 24, 2019

When rule of law becomes a slogan, not a policy The Huwaei saga- A repost

On 1 December, Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Huwaei Technologies and daughter of its founder, was arrested at Vancouver airport by Canadian authorities. In October, Cubas ambassador to Japan and a colleague were refused rooms by the Hilton hotel in Fukuoaka in western Japan. As a US-based firm, a company official explained, Hilton is obliged to comply with worldwide US sanctions on Cuban officials. City authorities retaliated that Hiltons actions were in violation of Japanese law. Of course, no foreign owned hotel operating in the US would go unpunished if it violated US laws.

February 27, 2018

BRUCE THOM. CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATIONA LOSS OF MOMENTUM

Over the past 10 years, there has been a range of initiatives by federal and state governments that aim to improve the nations capacity to meet the challenges of climate change. Considerable attention has been directed at reducing emissions, or climate change mitigation, especially at a federal level. Efforts to respond to impacts of climate change, or climate change adaptation, have been the subject of less public debate although the focus of research and planning by governments, academic institutions and some businesses. It appears that the appetite for continuing such efforts is dwindling. This does not bode well for the nations future.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal