October 23, 2014

Claire Higgins. International legal obligations once shaped our refugee policy

The refugee policy of the Fraser government is often invoked in debates about Australia’s current approach to asylum seekers. While the small number of boat arrivals between 1976 and 1981 cannot be compared to the many thousands who arrived between 2009 and 2013, the political difficulties in that era were far greater than simply the reception and processing of asylum seekers. By contrast with more recent policy, the Fraser government overcame these difficulties by choosing to fulfil Australia’s international legal obligations under the Refugee Convention and by explaining this imperative to the Australian community.

October 5, 2018

SAM BATEMAN. Understanding American Freedom of Navigation Operation(FONOP) in the South China Sea

The recent encounter between American and Chinese warships in the South China Sea could be the fore-runner of more serious incidents unless both parties show more restraint.

January 18, 2017

JOHN MENADUE. Private Health Insurance vs dental care.

Australian health would be much improved if the $11 billion subsidy for private health insurance was abolished and part of those funds allocated to universal dental care within Medicare.

October 3, 2019

IAN McAULEY. Reclaiming the ideas of economics: Jobs and Growth

Not all growth improves our wellbeing; not every job is a useful job. We should not confuse economic indicators, encapsulated in slogans, with meaningful economic outcomes.

October 20, 2017

FRANK BRENNAN. SJ Towards an economy that works for all.

The promise of riches from the trickle-down effect is at best patchy for many Australians, and non-existent for others. Continuing with the same economic and social policy settings will exacerbate the already growing divide between the rich and the poor and eventually damage the economy to such an extent that it has a detrimental effect on everyone.

July 5, 2017

PETER DAY. “Hands-up if you think George is guilty!”

The Australian judicial system will have its work cut-out ensuring the case against Cardinal Pell does not descend into a show trial cum media circus – some feel the horse has already bolted.

February 15, 2019

FRANK BRENNAN, TIM COSTELLO, ROBERT MANNE, JOHN MENADUE. Boat Turnbacks and Medical Transfers.

It’s time to stop the shrillness. The boats have stopped. Both sides of politics are now committed to turnbacks. Both Scott Morrison and Bill Shorten will do whatever it takes to stop asylum seekers setting sail from Indonesia. If asylum seekers do set sail, they will be returned.

February 7, 2017

ALISON BROINOWSKI. The pact of silence.

The death of Dr David Kelly in 2003 has not been explained to the satisfaction of everyone in Britain. Investigations suggest the Government of Tony Blair still has questions to answer.

July 3, 2020

Media in the Asian Century

Not the cyber Pearl Harbour

September 27, 2017

ANDREW FARRAN. Not the time to deny natural justice to the Kurds.

Will the revived march of the Kurds for an independent homeland be the time when the Sykes-Picot agreement, which amidst the chaos of the First World War divided the Arab world between British and French inﬂuence and control, becomes ﬁnally unstuck?

October 25, 2017

LINDA SIMON. Axing access and equity in VET!

The axing of TAFE NSW Outreach programs as part of a current restructure process, highlights the importance of these programs to individuals and the community. It also raises the issue as to VET’s role in delivering access and equity programs and why governments should make them a priority.

August 6, 2014

Paul Collins. Much ado about nothing?

The 2014-15 Synod on The__Pastoral Challenges of the Family in the Context of Evangelization

Around Christmas 2013 there was much ado in the Australian Catholic community about the upcoming Synod of Bishops on the Family called by Pope Francis for October 2014 and 2015. In preparation for this synod, for the first time ever, the laity as well as bishops were consulted and asked to respond to a document that covered a range of doctrinal and practical issues concerning family, personal relationships and gender. Many people put a lot of energy into responding to what was a badly formulated questionnaire within the context of a tight timeframe.

September 19, 2017

RICHARD BUTLER. The Alliance: The Facts and the Furphies

A review of how we conduct our alliance relationship with the US is urgently required, not simply because it has elected a President who is unfit for his job, but because of the US’ attachment to war.

September 18, 2019

TIMOTHY L. O'BRIEN. Trump Is Cornered by the Saudi Drone Attacks (Bloomberg 16-9-19)

Regarding the drone strikes on Saudi oil facilities, writes the executive editor of Bloomberg Opinion: “Not everyone is telling the truth here (although everyone might think they are) and any prudent response to the attacks hinges on more factual certainty.”

December 6, 2016

WALTER HAMILTON. When all else fails, try Pearl Harbor

Prime Minister Abe of Japan is running out of tricks, but there is no viable alternative.

November 29, 2016

IAN McAULEY. Holden cars, AWA TVs, Chesty Bonds underwear: Manufacturing and globalisation

Ian McAuley argues that it has not been globalisation and trade that has been the biggest factor displacing jobs in manufacturing. It has been automation.

August 7, 2018

BILL BUSH. Drug Reform series- High drug incarceration – harms manifest and benefits hard to perceive

At 160 prisoners per 100,000 of population, Australia’s prison rate in 2016 was more than 3 times the rate of the 1940s and 1950s. The steep increase correlates with an increasingly repressive drug policy and the closure of mental health institutions.

July 5, 2017

JAMES O'NEILL. The Belt and Road Initiative and Australian Foreign Policy: A Golden Opportunity

The Australian Cabinet recently turned down an opportunity to join the world’s greatest infrastructure project. The rhetoric and the approach disclose much about how Australia is failing to adjust to the realities of the 21st Century.

January 5, 2016

John Quiggin. Piketty and the Australian exception.

Over the past forty years, leading developed economies, most notably the United States have experienced an upsurge in inequality of income and wealth. Most of the benefits of economic growth have accrued to those in the top 1 per cent of the income distribution. Meanwhile, living standards for those in the bottom half of the income distribution have stagnated or even declined.

Piketty’s work, published in reports and academic journals, has documented these trends. His book, Capital, not only brought the issues to the attention of a broader public, but presented an analysis suggesting that worse is to come. Piketty argues that we are in the process of returning to a ‘patrimonial’ society, in which income from inherited wealth is the predominant source of inequality.

January 15, 2018

ALLAN PATIENCE. It’s Time for New Politics.- A REPOST from June 12 2017

How do we explain the phenomenon of a Bernie Sanders, who almost certainly would have won the US presidency if he’d been the Democrat candidate running against Trump? How do we account for the astounding failure of, first, David Cameron and now Theresa May, to maintain the Conservative Party’s dominance of contemporary British politics? How is it that a political maverick like Jeremy Corbyn can drag a recalcitrant British Labour Party kicking and screaming to the brink of government in the UK? These questions point to the failure of old politics and the urgent need to imagine a new politics for progressing the West into the twenty-first century.

August 22, 2017

RAMESH THAKUR. China and the North Korean nuclear challenge

On a superficial reading, China is feeling the squeeze to take effective action to bring North Korea to heel over its rogue nuclear program. On a deeper reading, China’s gains from the crisis exceed the costs. On a wider reading, Washington daily vindicates Pyongyang’s nuclear choices.

August 26, 2016

WALTER HAMILTON. Stand off in the East China Sea

About eighteen months ago, while talking with a policy analyst at Japan’s Defense Ministry in Tokyo, I asked how the confrontation with China over the disputed Senkaku (or Daioyu) Islands in the East China Sea was affecting morale in the Self-Defense Forces.

‘I recently visited Sasebo,’ he replied, referring to the southern base of the SDF units designated to repel any Chinese attempt to occupy the islands. ‘The expression on the faces of the men was very different from what I’m used to seeing at Ichigaya,’ the district of Tokyo where the Defense Ministry is located. In the Ichigaya compound, a certain non-military air prevails; you’ll notice chirpy tour groups being shown around twice a day and snapping up souvenirs at the commissary. (I cannot imagine this at Russell Hill in Canberra!)

What he saw in the faces of the troops at Sasebo was the tense and fixed expressions of soldiers and sailors who realize their next deployment might not be an exercise, but the real thing.

November 2, 2018

ABUL RIZVI: Is Dutton Frustrated by the Success of Turnback Policy?

After Scott Morrison’s success in implementing boat turnbacks, and Shorten insisting he will maintain that policy, Dutton’s role in this space has largely been confined to scaremongering. At last he has found a role he excels in. But like the boy who cried wolf, is the Australian public starting to see through Dutton’s bluster?

September 22, 2017

MAX HAYTON. NZ election, politics and leaks.

A dramatic event in the last week of the New Zealand election campaign looked set to destabilise the Government’s re-election plans. Although it was a major development which continues to disrupt the travel plans of thousands of visitors and New Zealanders, the Government’s polling looks firm.

February 22, 2016

Peter Gibilisco. Neoliberalism and its Perceptions

Politics has changed so much over the years; our political climate is unstable, since 2007 we have had five different prime ministers. A person in my position would ask how does this affect people with severe physical disabilities?

Neoliberalism has its aim to put into question all collective structures capable of obstructing the logic of the pure market. Such a belief allows one to question the ideology behind the welfare state, progressive taxation and other social policies that can lead to an egalitarian society. Their ideology harvests the sentiment that many welfare recipients are lazy and should do more to help grow the economy. But rather neoliberals are persistently oriented towards supporting a society in which self interest prevails and that is why they give all their energy to policies that claim to further the individual pursuit of wealth. That is, the individual pursuits that are deemed worthy of government support are those that are beyond those living on the “other side” of the great divide between the rich and the poor.

July 2, 2015

John Tulloh. Why Eritreans are crossing the Mediterranean.

Current Affairs.

ERITREA: THE NORTH KOREA OF AFRICA

It is the seventh youngest nation in the world. It was born in 1993 after a 30-year war. Its flag was raised for the first time as an independent nation with high hopes for democracy in a continent dominated by too many despots. In its first years it set an example of frugality when its people were encouraged to ride bikes and, what vehicles there were, had to be modest small ones. Its original leader is still in charge 22 years later. Time for an election? ‘Never’, he said. Instead he has created a harsh dictatorship with thousands of desperate citizens deciding life must be better elsewhere. Hundreds have died in the process. Their country has been likened to North Korea.

September 18, 2017

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Murphy was a political giant, a man of voracious appetites on many levels.

Murphy may have been flawed, but he was a flawed colossus, a Labor hero. Whatever his peccadillos, history has already redeemed him.

May 16, 2019

ANNIKA DEAN. We cannot afford inaction on climate change

There has been a lot of recent speculation in the media about the economic costs of each party’s climate policies. But so far, there has been little talk of the costs of inaction.

March 29, 2014

Kieran Tapsell. Pell's business strategy in tatters.

There was once a rich man in England who became tired of watching his friends’ estates being eaten up by lawyers’ fees in disputes over wills. So, he made a very simple will leaving everything to a friend, and then wrote a letter to the friend explaining what he wanted the friend to do with his estate, thinking that this was the best way to keep lawyers’ snouts out of it. That will and the letter ended up becoming a lawyer’s veritable pig feast because it became the classic case in the House of Lords on secret trusts. I could not help being reminded of that while watching George Pell in the witness box at the Royal Commission, trying to explain his reasons for “vigorously” fighting John Ellis’s claim for compensation arising out of his sexual abuse by the Sydney priest, Aidan Duggan.

June 27, 2018

ALISON BROINOWSKI. The conference season begins, in denial.

On the last weekend in June, the ALP will hold its NSW Conference. The agenda is packed with items including indigenous, community and country issues, education, health, and social justice. Right at the end is ‘Australia and the World.’ This is to be expected, as State governments aren’t responsible for foreign affairs and defence – although they do have to consider treaties. But resolutions from the NSW ALP will go forward to Labor’s National Conference in December, where they could influence the more vigorous debate you might expect about the growing list of problems facing Australia.

September 26, 2018

BRUCE WEARNE. What can we infer from the more than four month delay in releasing the Ruddock Panel’s Report?

According to the Government’s web-site, the Religious Freedom Review received over 15,500 submissions. In political terms the review was established so that Parliament and the citizens of this country could have qualified juridical advice about the prevailing situation across this Commonwealth and thus how subsequent public debate should proceed, particularly in terms of the consequences that will follow on from the change to the Marriage Act’s definition of lawful marriage as enacted in legislation last December. It is now over 9 months since that legislation was passed and now it is over 4 months since the Review’s report was handed to the Prime Minister.

September 27, 2017

ELAINE PEARSON and JOHN BLAXLAND. Myanmar Rohingya crisis: Australia needs to stand up and help as the situation worsens

The world seems to be sitting on its hands as the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar descends into what the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has described as “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing”.

October 3, 2016

JOHN FITZGERALD. Beijing's Guoqing versus Australia's way of life.

Beijing’s role in the Chinese community media in Australia is increasingly in conflict with its own demand for respect.

Beijing is tired of foreign analysts criticising China simply for being what it is. A former Chinese ambassador to Australia, Fu Ying, made the point succinctly in her current role as vice–foreign minister: “The West is too arrogant and must stop lecturing us and trying to change China. Unless you can accept China as it is, there is no basis for a relationship.”

But what is China, exactly? Is it getting its message across overseas? In the case of Australia, what does China’s engagement with Chinese community and social media tell us about the Chinese party-state? If Australians were to take up Fu Ying’s challenge and accept her country for what it is, would China welcome a little more plain-speaking about what it is up to in Australian community media?

I raise these questions in the hope that a frank conversation about Chinese propaganda operations in Australia will help to build a more solid foundation for Australia–China relations into the future – a relationship that Australians need to get right if they are to ensure their national prosperity, security and way of life over the decades ahead.

October 25, 2017

MICHAEL KELLY. The weakest to the wall.

The eyes of the world have been fixed on and appalled by the sight of more than 580,000 Rohingya fleeing the violence gratuitously inflicted on them by the military in Myanmar. And the story isn’t over yet. More will be targeted and more will run for their lives in what is the most serious humanitarian crisis in Asia since the end of the Vietnam War in 1975.

December 16, 2016

JON STANFORD. Australia’s climate change policy mess: quo vadis?

Make no mistake: Malcolm Turnbull’s pusillanimous refusal even to consider the option of an emissions intensity scheme (EIS) for electricity generation represents a massive abdication of responsibility to the Australian community.

February 27, 2015

John Menadue. How vested interests are subverting the public interest.

There are many key public issues that we must address. They include climate change, growing inequality, tax avoidance, budget repair, an ageing population, lifting our productivity and our treatment of asylum seekers.

But our capacity to address these hard issues is becoming very difficult because of the ability of vested interests with their lobbying power to influence governments in a quite dis- proportionate way.

Lobbying has grown dramatically in recent years, particularly in Canberra. It now represents a growing and serious corruption of good governance and the development of sound public policy. In referring to the so called ‘public debate’ on climate change, Professor Ross Garnaut highlighted the ‘diabolical problem’ that vested interests brought to bear on public discussion on climate change.

December 26, 2013

Repost: Health care and the budget deficit in the US. Joint blog John Menadue and Ian McAuley

Repost for holiday reading.

The political obstacles to these two major problems for President Obama are real and confusing. But the arithmetic is quite clear.

If the US had a health service like those in countries without heavy reliance on private insurance, such as Australia, it could solve its budget deficit problem.

Let us explain the arithmetic. US health care expenditure is already 18% of GDP – and on present trends will reach over 20% of GDP by 2020. It is by far the highest in the world: most developed countries contain their health care expenditure at around 10% of GDP. (Australia’s health care expenditure is 9% of GDP, of which about 6% is spent by our governments.)

September 19, 2017

PAUL BUDDE. Digital media and media diversity

The changes recently proposed to the Broadcasting Act will allow for a further concentration of media power in Australia.

March 7, 2017

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Scratching to find an alternative to Malcolm Turnbull.

A corner has been turned, a bridge has been crossed, a line has been drawn. Australian politics has changed: the idea that Malcolm Turnbull could be replaced as Liberal leader is no longer unthinkable.

May 23, 2018

URI AVNERY. The Day of Shame

ON BLOODY MONDAY this past week, when the number of Palestinian killed and wounded was rising by the hour, I asked myself: what would I have done if I had been a youngster of 15 in the Gaza Strip?

May 8, 2018

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Government baking pie in the sky.

Well, we made it to budget day – that’s the easy bit. Selling the bastard budget will be more problematic. But the Business Council of Australia is at hand.!

August 22, 2017

ANDREW FARRAN. We should discuss Pine Gap!

Whether the leaked documents from the US National Security Agency were revealing, as claimed by the ABC_’_s Background Briefing on Sunday morning ( http://ab.co/2vSXdhD), enough has been known about the Pine Gap facility long enough for some searching questions about its accountability to be well overdue.

April 6, 2017

SUE WAREHAM. How independent is the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

ASPI’s oft-repeated claim of independence - immunity from the influence of the corporations who help fund the organisation - does strike one as rather naive for experts who might otherwise be seen as “hard-headed realists” in a tough world. Corporations are, after all, accountable to their shareholders to whom they must demonstrate that funds are spent in pursuit of profits. How then, could these corporations justify granting sponsorships to an organisation in which they have zero influence?

December 19, 2024

A five-minute scroll

Witness an interview from 54 years ago regarding Israel and Palestine that are still relevant today, and an interview with our Treasurer that’s less so. Margaret Satterthwaite speaks at the UN about threats to the ICC, while Israel has decimated North Gaza, barely a building standing.

February 8, 2017

RICHARD ECKERSLEY. The Trump imbroglio: confusion and contradiction everywhere

Global consumer capitalism, is reducing quality of life: stripping our lives of intrinsic worth and meaning; weakening communities; undermining health and wellbeing; creating grotesque inequities; destroying the natural environment; and undermining our faith in humanity’s future.

March 26, 2018

JOHN MENADUE. Our cricketers The Ugly Australians. A REPOST

Repost from 01/04/2015. Things have only got worse with the cheating in South Africa.. We need a clean out not just of players but coaching staff,Cricket Australia and the media .

They are very good cricketers, but the behaviour of our cricketers leaves a nasty taste.

May 25, 2017

JOHN AUSTEN. Where to for Commonwealth infrastructure policy?

Legend has it that Charlton Heston flashed a Rolex wristwatch during a chariot race in the 1959 Ben Hur movie. Some recent Prime Ministerial comments could be considered flashes of a policy Rolex in an infrastructure discussion fitted to the setting of Ben Hur – in ancient Rome.

February 27, 2017

TERRY LAIDLER. Reconstructing Juvenile Justice – a 7 point plan

A major public storm has erupted in Victoria about the government’s decision to locate a new juvenile justice detention centre at Werribee in the city’s south west. Locals see it as demeaning to their neighbourhood, but, in my view, it’s the whole idea is wrong, NOT the site!

February 1, 2017

WALTER HAMILTON. Bad hombres.

Donald J. Trump likes to sound off about ‘bad hombres’ sneaking into the United States to spread terror and crime. Bad hombres come in many shapes and disguises, not only as bad people but also bad ideas.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal