May 18, 2021

Israel-Palestine plus a change, only worse

It may seem an odd, almost insensitive thing to say but the most searing aspect of the current appalling violence between Israelis and Palestinians is not the death, destruction and suffering from new storms of rockets and bombs and bullets. It is the awful, depressing predictability of it all. The only difference this time is the ugly spectre of violence between Israelis themselves.

April 11, 2024

Senator Wong’s speech a good step but more must be done to halt Israel’s assault on Gaza

The Jewish Council of Australia today welcomed Australia’s foreign affairs minister, Senator Penny Wong’s speech overnight which signaled a shift in the Australian Government’s otherwise steadfast support for Israel and its actions.

August 24, 2023

Australia could be leading the way on human survival: Will Albanese act?

Our human species is drifting rapidly towards extinction, and there is not yet in place, a process to prevent it.

August 21, 2023

Yes for the Voice: How to translate into Chinese?

The Yes for the Voice campaign must work harder on a multicultural education campaign in the last weeks leading up to the referendum. The Chinese-Australian community is still uninformed about the issues and open to rumours and disinformation. The outcome could well depend on achieving understanding and consensus between disparate ethnic communities.

July 18, 2023

An Australian battery Industry, or a dodgy AUKUS scam?

Australia is now at a key point in our Defence major project acquisitions planning. We are looking at a very dodgy AUKUS scam which will be the driver of our largest ever Defence expenditure. Brian Toohey in this publication recently pointed out some of the serious problems of buying obsolete 2nd hand nuclear submarines from the US who cannot meet their own needs and buying nonexistent British AUKUS nuclear submarines delivered over budget and sometime in the distant future.

June 19, 2023

Our law and order violate women

Every woman in Australia, and not a few men, should experience a shiver of apprehension about the Bruce Lehrmann case.

September 9, 2022

Weekly roundup - can we reverse our decline into a guest worker system?

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

August 16, 2021

Vaccinating aged care staff: mismanagement by Scott Morrisons government.

Calling something as poorly designed as Australia’s Covid vaccination system ‘a rollout’ gives wheels a bad name. The failure to manage effectively the identification of priority groups for coronavirus vaccination, and to deliver vaccines to them, has to date been an awful failure of public administration.

July 21, 2021

Data hesitancy: class, race, ethnicity and geography in the viral dangers of Sydney

_In Sydney an outbreak that started in the east, under lax surveillance and permissive admonitions poorly policed, has spread to the west where it has taken on draconian, oppressive and destructive forms in both its virology and its sociology.

April 11, 2021

Not sleepwalking but marching with eyes wide open to war with China

A lie told often enough can become accepted, but it can never be the truth. China has been declared a threat to all that we hold dear, but it is just not so. China, for all its faults, is not a threat and nor is it practising genocide!

April 4, 2021

ASPI sponsors collect billions from Defence

Scott Morrison’s latest billion-dollar missile spend was leaked to the media and then talked up by ASPI whose sponsors have raked in $51 billion in Defence Department contracts whilst doling cash to the highly-conflicted “think-tank”

January 27, 2021

How ping pong brought Australia and China together: a story from 1971

As the 50th anniversary of Australias 1971 opening to China approaches it is time to tell the true story of how a team of confused ping pong players and journalists hunting for a scoop opened Australia/China relations.

January 9, 2021

You don't want to imagine an ocean without coral reefs, but you might have to

With a recent report titled Projections of Future Coral Bleaching Conditions, published by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) inNovember, Leticia Carvalhohead of the Marine and Freshwater Branch of UNEPsaidon December 21 that coral reefs are the canary in the coalmine for climates impact on oceans.

July 11, 2020

Low-paid, young women: the grim truth about who this recession is hitting hardest (The Conversation 7.7.20)

When a recession hits, no group of workers is immune. But some are harder hit than others. The latest labour market figures are giving us a good idea of who is being hardest hit this time.

January 28, 2020

TREVOR PARMENTER. Tune Report on the National Disability Insurance Scheme

One of the findings of the recent review of the operations of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), conducted by Mr David Tune was that, some participants feel NDIA staff do not understand disability or appreciate the challenges people with disability face as part of everyday life..

September 16, 2024

Was the housing crisis caused by government policy?

The housing crisis plaguing Australia is the direct result of Coalition taxation policies that favour individuals with capital and assets, and disadvantages individuals on wage incomes.

August 14, 2024

What is Zionism? Who is responsible for Israel’s crimes, Jews or Zionists?

Israel and Zionists try to confuse the public by conflating Judaism with Zionism; they commit their crimes and hide behind the Jewish people. Palestinians, on the other hand, distinguish between Jews, Judaism and Zionism and hold the Zionists responsible for the crimes they commit against them, not the Jews.

April 27, 2024

Weekly Roundup Saturday 27 April

The so-called “cost of living” crisis is a low-wage problem of the Coalition’s making, the dangerously simplified world of central bankers, spooks and cops on the threat from social media, democracy becomes collateral damage from fear campaigns. Read on for the weekly roundup of links to articles, podcasts, reports and other media on current economic and political issues.

September 4, 2022

Asylum seekers languish through the job summit

_In the week of the Albanese governments job summit, the immigration department again sent out a raft of letters to bridging visa holders in Queensland advising them it was time to reapply to rollover their permission to stay in Australia. While politicians and sector representatives debated whether we needed skilled and unskilled migrants to tackle the workforce shortfall, a substantial group remain in the country in limbo and barely tapped.

August 15, 2022

Paul Frijters & Cameron Murray: How mates and grey corruption rig the political game

If you were a powerful politician, there is a good chance you would make decisions that favour your mates.

July 25, 2022

Australia is dancing with the devil's in the South China Sea

Is Australia sleepwalking into a conflict with China in the South China Sea? Canberra echoes Washingtons arguments about freedom of navigation and mimics US surveillance activities in the South China Sea, while claiming it acts in its own interests. Yet it must ask itself: how does provoking a possible military conflict serve the country or region?

June 28, 2022

Liberals have ICAC on their conscience

NSW Liberals have a bit of a thing about ICAC. It was, more or less, a Liberal Party brainchild seen as a counter to seemingly obvious corruption in the Labor government of the day, three decades ago. Perversely, some thought, incoming Liberal Premier, Nick Greiner, popularly regarded as a cleanskin was its first victim. Later he could claim that he was exonerated from a corruption finding by the NSW court system, but, whether that is true or not, it was too late. He was right out of politics.

May 17, 2022

I have not seen an Australia so bereft of trust in its politicians, so cynical of their motives and their promises as it is today

A strong, independent public broadcaster, with its governing board appointed at arms-length from executive government, and funded by and accountable to a healthily functioning parliament, is a gift to democracy.

September 9, 2021

Doherty has ditched the pledge to First Nations Australians

The Doherty Institute says it’s committed to Indigenous Australians, but it fails to protect marginalised communities.

July 29, 2021

Monthly digest on housing affordability and homelessness: June/July 2021

The following is the latest instalment of a monthly digest of interesting articles, research reports, policy announcements and other material relevant to housing stress/affordability and homelessness with hypertext links to the relevant source.

July 18, 2021

Covid 19 has revealed the weaknesses but also the importance of globalisation.

If enough of us ever get vaccinated to get over the immediate emergency, it will be useful to take time to reflect on the medium-term implications of the global pandemic for the governance of Australia and the world. There is much to be done and much we can learn.

July 18, 2021

Wanting a social marketing campaign on Covid and getting a band aid instead

There is one thing almost everybody commenting about Australia’s poor vaccine roll out agrees with the need for an advertising campaign.

June 20, 2021

Bumbling Boris' Brexit bombast, a bitter brew for Northern Ireland

_The approach of summer raises anxiety levels within the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), for it heralds the beginning of the marching season, which runs each year from April to August. In the lead up to summer 2021, fallout from the Brexit debate has caused the PSNIs anxiety levels to ratchet up to an extent not seen for many years. And behind it all stands a Tory politician playing a dangerous political game.

May 12, 2021

Whitlam, Keating, Anzac, and the drums of wars past

“I think the war against Hitler was justified. I dont know whether the war against Wilhelm II was.” Thus spoke Prime Minister Gough Whitlam in a BBC TV interview with Lord Chalfont recorded in September 1973, and aired in December. It was screened in Australia in early January 1974. The transcript is in the Whitlam Papers.

May 8, 2021

Scott Morrison. Politics and Pentecostalism 101

Scott Morrisons personal religion is entirely his own business. However, given recent public statements about his beliefs, by himself and in the media, it is legitimate to ask about Pentecostalismin Australia and its relationship, if any, to politics and politicians.

April 19, 2021

Accountability in the public sector: Part 2

In Part 1 of this article, I discussed the broad role and capability of the public service to assist the government in policy development and its implementation. Part 2 discusses in more detail how accountability is presently working (or not working) in practice and proposes some improvements.

February 14, 2021

Preferential lobbying: the rich get richer, the poor get poorer (Part 1 of 4)

In this four-part series, we investigate preferential lobbying - what it is, why it matters, how and why it happens and how to stop it. Preferential lobbying is primarily wealth appropriation and rarely wealth creation. Every time a decision goes in favour of the wealthy it is to the cost of the less well off, which means preferential lobbying is a driver of inequality.

August 24, 2024

The best daily analysis of issues in world affairs and Australia’s foreign relations of any media in Australia

Pearls and Irritations provides quite the best daily analysis of issues in world affairs and Australia’s foreign relations of any media in Australia

August 3, 2024

What's the point of the Albanese Government?

The Albanese government is arguably the most timid Labor Government in our history.

April 21, 2024

Do we suppress authoritarians' speech before they suppress us?

The global movement towards authoritarianism took a step forward this week, and faced an experiment in checking its infiltration.

August 28, 2023

DHAC review recommends improved strategic policy capability, data-driven metrics

The Australian Public Service Commission released the second capability review of the Department of Health and Aged Care on 18 August. While the review is not as scathing as the first review in 2014, it still sets out a challenging internal reform agenda for new Secretary Blair Comley.

May 29, 2023

Sending the cops into PwC is the tamest possible response to fraud on the taxpayer

The idea of sending the PriceWaterhouseCoopers scandal off for criminal investigation by the Australian Federal Police is such a thoroughly bad idea that one might imagine that it had been recommended by one of the major consultancies, perhaps PwC itself.

August 21, 2022

Its time for India to join the U.N. Security Council permanently

China in particular should support Indias ascension to permanent membership on the Security Council, a change that would reflect Indias global influence and a world order shifting away from the Wests dominance.

August 13, 2022

Nuclear non-proliferation treaty review conference in historical context

The Tenth Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is underway at the UN in New York. The record of the treaty is not perfect but it is the major persisting arms control agreement. If peace means a continuing negotiating process with the other, as President Kennedy asserted, we need more of this.

July 13, 2022

Raymond Newland: What ever happened to the casino control authority?

The Bergin Inquiry in NSW has recommended the creation of an Independent Casino Commission after allegations that high rollers which Crown Casino knew had a history of money laundering, lost $1.1 billion dollars to the casino since 2016, some of which was carried in plastic bags and shoeboxes. How did we get here?

April 20, 2022

Early voter? Think again

More than 6 million people voted early at the last federal elections, in 2019. If you were one of them and were planning to do so again this year, you may have to think again. The Federal Government (with the concurrence of the Opposition) has decided to greatly restrict access to this particular highly convenient mode of voting.

April 11, 2022

We still have a chaotic VET system

_The Federal Budget has identified the need for increased skilled workers as a critical area. In analysing some of the Budget’s promises and what commentators had to say, it appears there is a lot more to be done.

August 15, 2021

Is Australias grand experiment in multiculturalism failing us all?

One of the greatest public policy innovations in Australias political history has been the large scale immigration programs commenced in 1947 under the Chifley government. The Menzies government grudgingly inherited the policy on the understanding that all immigrants would be assimilated into the community as New Australians. (Meanwhile, Prime Minister Menzies preferred to think of himself as British to the bootstraps.)

August 2, 2021

Fibre in the Coral Sea or message in a bottle? Who's interests are we serving?

_Many have been preoccupied with the geopolitical tensions exposed by the Coral Sea Cable, continuing a longstanding and problematic tradition of treating the islands of the South Pacific as an empty stage on which to play out Great Power conflict.

July 28, 2021

Allan Patience: Is the Australian federation in danger of balkanisation?

The Morrison governments dishonesty about obtaining sufficient anti-COVID vaccines and its reluctance to provide the nation with dedicated quarantine facilities threaten the cohesion of the Australian federal system. Is the historical shift of power to the federal government reversing as state premiers do their own thing in response to the immense public health crisis now confronting the nation?

July 28, 2021

The ALP is supporting stage three tax cuts for the wealthy.

Progressive taxation is the cornerstone of a fair, equitable and just society. Just dont tell that to the Australian Labor Party.

July 21, 2021

1921: pandemics, racism, inequality a hundred years on

_Considering what was making news a hundred years ago, we seem to be plagued with the same issues. Race, wars, gender inequality, pandemics; self interest still seems to drive those in power, and although we have learned to use weasel words to hide our real intent, we are not improving much.

July 21, 2021

Is AstraZeneca the Britney Spears of COVID vaccines?

_In the UK the AstraZeneca vaccine is hailed as a public health success story. Professor Sarah Gilbert, the Oxford University scientist who led its development, was created a Dame in the Queens Birthday Honours list and received a spontaneous standing ovation from the crowd at Wimbledon.But not in Australia.

July 7, 2021

Hong Kong and Taiwan: seeking perspectives

My intention here is to provide some information on Hong Kong and Taiwan, having regard to media failure and the general drought of information in Australia. Policy and public sentiment is being driven by passions and our tendency to prefer conflictual in news and argument.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal