January 17, 2021

Chocolate: still tainted by child labour

What is your New Year resolution? To get fitter and eat less sugar, including chocolate? There’s plenty of other reasons to re-think our love affair with chocolate.

October 13, 2020

Julian Assange and failure of mainstream media

On 18 September, a little over a year since Amal Clooney was appointed as the UK’s special envoy for media freedom, she resigned. Among Clooney’s barrister colleagues are Geoffrey Robertson, Jennifer Robinson, and Gareth Pierce, all of whom, at their Doughty Chambers human rights practice, are advocates for Julian Assange.

September 7, 2024

Good teachers: how to ensure they remain within the system

The American poet e.e. cummings once observed that good teachers provide a mirror for their students, reflecting back to them valuable attributes that hitherto they’ve not been able to recognise for themselves. This precious pedagogical gift is treated with indifference — even contempt — by far too many Australian politicians, bureaucrats, opinionated media aficionados, and parents.

August 16, 2024

A new western war against Iran?

Iran made two attempts to free its oil fields from Western domination. Since the Islamic revolution of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979, Iran has kept Western companies out. They paid a huge price, a trade embargo lasting some 40 years. Is a new attack on Iran in the offing?

August 1, 2024

New England wind project shelved as local MP Barnaby Joyce takes anti-renewable vitriol to new low

Plans to build a 340MW wind farm and a big battery in the New England Renewable Energy Zone in NSW have been shelved by developer Ark Energy, following a “change of mind” from some of the landowners involved in the project.

July 28, 2023

Climate and ecological security: time for rogue thinking?

Imagine encountering an enemy and, as it starts to reveal its full array of tactics and capabilities, a feeling of ice-cold fear runs through your chest. In an instant, you realise that you are out-matched; you’ve been out-witted, and defeat is a real possibility. As has occurred so often in military history, the threat assessment was wrong. The problem-framing disguised the real nature of threat, and while you were blinded, it quietly grew in strength and seized vital terrain.

May 1, 2023

What the Defence Strategic Review does not tell us

There are a number of salient points arising from the Defence Strategic Review which have not been exposed to clear light - which might explain why the government has taken the approach it has. There are two scenarios behind the DSR: war over Taiwan with the US, or war with Indonesia by ourselves.

April 11, 2023

Death and resurrection: history and the Voice to Parliament

All history is politics, and every politics is a future. The proposed Indigenous Voice to Parliament is part of a collection of actions seeking to hold colonial history and post-colonial future together, and so to propose a new Australian polity.

August 10, 2022

Is the Liberal Party abandoning war talk on China?

_Is Dutton also preparing to shift ground?

July 2, 2022

Weekly roundup Saturday 2 July

Weekly roundup of links to articles, reports, podcasts and other media on current political and economic issues in public policy.

May 14, 2022

Morrison Government’s high risk visa switch for migrant meatworkers

We are on a very slippery slope with these visas towards the slavery-like conditions that have existed for migrant workers in North America and Europe for decades.

May 13, 2022

If I were the Prime Minister - Taking the climate emergency seriously

The Black Summer bushfires, the Millennium Drought, the dying Great Barrier Reef, this year’s floods. Australia has experienced unprecedented environmental disasters in recent times. Each was amplified by global warming. Scientific reports indicate worse may still to come.

May 20, 2021

Once was a hegemon: Australia and the decline of the US

Australia’s Indo-Pacific obsession hides a radical global geopolitical shift. Australian policymakers will persist in making poor choices unless they accept that the US hegemony has passed a tipping point, and America has already become just one great power among others.

December 3, 2020

EU proposal marking a new chapter

The European Union has reacted with uncharacteristic speed to US president-elect Joe Biden’s call for a revived and enhanced transatlantic relationship by circulating to the 27 member leaders and European parliamentarians a draft plan for a comprehensive new alliance. It is the second major initiative by the impressive German-born president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.

November 23, 2020

Conspiracy Theories – The Big Con

There was a time, I’ll admit, when I thought that so-called conspiracy theories were quixotic, mildly interesting, and largely benign. Not any more.

August 9, 2020

W. Gyude Moore. China has built more infrastructure in Africa in two decades than the West has in centuries,

_Where is the European or American equivalent/alternative to China’s BRI? Where is it? If Chinese loans are deceptive and are a trap and are wrong - where are the Western alternatives? How come our “shared” values do not exclude building our infrastructure?

February 10, 2020

MICHAEL KEATING. The Gaetjens Report: a footnote

The Government has refused to release the Gaetjens report which purportedly exonerates the former Minister, Bridget McKenzie, and thereby the Government from charges of political bias in the distribution of the Community Sport Infrastructure grants. But why this refusal to release the report – the only obvious answer is because the report cannot stand-up to public scrutiny.

September 5, 2024

Tucker Carlson and Jeffrey Sachs confirm mainstream Western media mostly a shabby cabaret

_A recent, comprehensive social-media interview has provided an acute reminder of how hard it now is to imagine certain flagship, Western current affairs programs drowning their cherished war-drums in a lead weighted bag and applying themselves to investigating pivotal geopolitical challenges with intelligent thoroughness _(as Four Corners can still manage (see:_ Inside Iran: The proxy war on the brink of erupting | Four Corners).

July 1, 2024

USA - home of the brave?

Can you think of another country which has caused so much grief and violence throughout the world?

June 27, 2024

Radioactive waste is curiously missing from debate over Dutton’s going nuclear

The media is abuzz with Dutton’s Nationals-inspired plan to go nuclear in terms of electricity, due to “ aging coal plants” shutting down, as Insiders host David Speers put it on Sunday, yet he neglected to note that another reason coal’s no longer viable is its emissions are cooking the planet.

June 8, 2024

Defence policy an enigma

The logistics of crossing the sea to invade Australia are insurmountable. In terms of cost/benefit analysis, invading Australia is simply not worth the trouble.

July 30, 2022

Australian media and the Ukraine crisis

Readers of Guardian Australia will have been startled over recent weeks by repeated calls in its columns for all-out war between Nato and Russia. These are the handiwork of Simon Tisdall, until recently the paper’s International Editor. Just a fortnight ago he urged “using Nato’s overwhelming power to decisively turn the military tide” – the latest of five separate occasions on which he has made the same argument.

September 6, 2021

Summer games in Tokyo – the Paralympics

The current Paralympic Games are being carried out in the context of the dual crises facing Japan.

June 18, 2021

The authoritarian academy: corporate governance of Australia’s universities exploits staff and students and degrades academic standards. Part 3

The corporatization of Australia’s public universities has been driven by government funding cuts and regressive changes to how universities are governed. The rationale for corporatization was that it would encourage universities to become more entrepreneurial by turning vice-chancellors into CEOs and governing bodies into corporate boards. The resulting hybrid has been very successful at promoting university ‘brands’ to international students but has utterly failed to maintain a supportive and collegial work environment for staff and students on university campuses.

June 10, 2021

Right and left: Dumb and Dumber

When it comes to thinking, progressives do it better than conservatives do. Progressives embrace novelty, nuance and complexity, while social conservatives struggle to process complex tasks. A decade of brain scans suggests why.

January 3, 2021

The elephant, the canary, the wolf and other beasties to dispatch by journalists.

The tweeters are using the media as spittoons. Along with the contrived malice of Donald Trump and the spinmeisters of government they’re doing their damnedest to discredit our profession. We don’t need help: This is a job we’ve been doing ourselves.

October 5, 2020

Social prescribing links workers

Social prescribing acknowledges that the provision of holistic, patient-centred healthcare must move beyond a medical model and consider the wider social determinants of health. Link workers can provide personalised support to help patients identify and achieve health and wellness goals and linkage into appropriate community services.

March 27, 2020

MICHAEL KEATING.- Good health policy is good for the economy

The Government seems to think that it must balance the needs of the economy against the actions needed to stop the spread of the coronavirus. In fact this is not true, and Australia’s future economic capacity will fall if the virus is not defeated as quickly as possible.

September 29, 2024

Penny Wong's fig leaf reveals more than it hides

Around 1541 the “Fig Leaf Campaign” was begun by Catholic fundamentalist, Cardinal Carafa. Between 1758 and 1759, Pope Clement XIII delicately covered the offending parts of even more sculptures in the Vatican’s collection with fig leaves.

May 23, 2024

Australian Prime Minister referred to ICC for complicity in genocide..A Repost

“The Australian government and its most senior officials have both failed to prevent or respond to the genocide committed by Israel against Palestinians in Gaza and been complicit in the carrying out of this genocide in a manner which falls squarely within Article 25 (3)(c) and/or (d) of the Rome Statute of the ICC,” state Birchgrove Legal in a communiqué to the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. A Repost from March 6, 2024.

May 9, 2024

NZ Foreign Minister’s anti-China defamation of Carr threatens trans-Tasman friendship

Former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr sues New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters for defamation over AUKUS comments. The defamation action comes as a chagrined Peters took what looked like a step back from AUKUS in recent speeches.

April 10, 2024

The crossbench and the environment

The environment is a key policy concern for Independent MP Kylea Tink, as for the other “Teal” Independents. Community concerns about climate change won them their seats in the current Parliament and they remain committed to action. No matter how many storms, floods and fires come our way before the end of this year, when the next election is called, climate is guaranteed to be at the top of voters’ minds. I joined a large audience in the North Sydney electorate on 4 April at a community forum that Kylea Tink called on “The future of our environment”. The message I took home was that the climate crisis is more urgent than ever. Its impacts are increasingly obvious. Voters, at least in this part of the country, feel passionately about it.

August 29, 2023

Inside the AUKUS bubble

UWA Defence and Security Institute’s Masterclass Series AUKUS: Pillar 1 provided an illuminating insight into what some of our brightest and best think about national security and how to achieve it. The net effect was profoundly depressing and unsettling.

May 2, 2023

A comprehensive approach to APS values and codes of conduct

In a recent submission to the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet’s (PM&C’s) public service reform team, Paddy Gourley, Helen Williams and I support stronger action to improve the capability of the APS and its standing as an institution, but do not support adding ‘stewardship’ to the APS Values. Stewardship is a responsibility of ministers and senior public servants, not a value that every public servant can be expected to uphold.

April 18, 2023

AUKUS and the rupture in Australian civil-military relations

When a senior officer in the Australian Defence Force assumes political positions that are in the realm of the overtly political, and is not disciplined for having done so, the government is derelict in its duty to maintain the firewall between the civil and the military. Worse, it constitutes an offence against democratic theory and practice.

May 24, 2022

With a new Australian government and foreign minister comes fresh hope for Australia-China relations

An Albanese government in Canberra means an improved trajectory in Australia-China relations is a real possibility. Sure, there will be no “re-set” like we saw in the heady days of 2015. The world has changed; Australia and China certainly have.

September 20, 2021

The documentary trying to build a democracy movement in Australia

In an entertaining, new documentary, Craig Reucassel is working with the Australian Democracy Network in trying to help build a healthy democracy that is more fair, balanced, accountable and participatory.

September 25, 2024

Given the choice, would my wife have chosen to 'let dementia take its course'?

This is an emotional story for me. It is personal. It is a story about my experience.

June 23, 2024

‘I’m permanently pissed off’- just one feature of a Gaza malaise

In response to the question, ‘Do you despair over the slaughters in Gaza’, a close friend responded, ‘When I hear the news, I’m angry and permanently pissed off. I also recognise that anger can lead to despair.’

April 18, 2024

Cartoonist's comment

September 21, 2023

Shadow boxing in the Universal Health Coverage debate

Shadow boxing around “universal health coverage” instead of “universal access to healthcare” in the UN General Assembly reflects deeper tensions around the direction of the world economy.

August 31, 2023

It’s high time to let PHC nurses show what they can do

Australia’s primary health care (PHC) nurses are one of our health system’s biggest assets – but they aren’t working to their full potential. A recent APNA survey tells us that despite the widespread under-utilisation of PHC nurses, recent progress in using nurses effectively has virtually stalled.

August 27, 2023

"Yes" on the Voice is a vote for a better future

Despite their occupation of our continent for over 60,000 years, our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are not recognised in the Constitution, the document on which our nation is founded.

August 20, 2023

How the Voice can work and the purpose of Lake Burley Griffin

Michael Leunig perfectly captures the challenges of current issues in Australian politics and the nation’s loss of sovereignty to the US.

August 16, 2023

US concern over Chinese navy an exercise in double speak

The double standard continues. Russian collaboration with China in naval exercises in the north Pacific are presented in United States media as creating ‘a dangerous world’. But far larger military exercises in the south Pacific by ‘free’ countries are presented as ‘promoting peace, security and stability’ in the Indo-Pacific region.

August 14, 2023

ASPI’s call for a militia – a step to military madness

The Australian economy is increasingly becoming a war economy. The PM talks of the economic benefits of weapons manufacture, and of how the military and a growing military-industrial-complex is almost a job creation scheme. The media works diligently to build and sustain a sense of fear. But even so, the warmongers of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) and their stablemate, Strategic Analysis Australia (SAA) are not satisfied.

June 22, 2023

Refer the Public Service Act Amendment Bill to a Senate Committee

Last Thursday (14 June), the Government tabled its Public Service Act Amendment Bill 2023 in the House of Representatives. The Bill is almost exactly the same as the exposure draft which was released by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet on 22 May with consultation ending on 31 May.

June 23, 2022

The U.S. - China dispute over the Taiwan Strait’s legal regime

In the most recent flap over the legal regime governing passage of warships through the Taiwan Strait, both China and the U.S. are partially right –and partially wrong.

January 29, 2021

A crisis in and of knowledge: an issue of trust

Many of us no longer know what to think or who to believe. This is compounded by the assault on ‘expert opinion’ and doubts over ‘mainstream’ media coverage. Meanwhile, the social disconnection wrought by neoliberalism enables nationalistic ideologies that foster a sense of victimhood.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal