October 29, 2020

Underlying tension between mission and money in our universities

The corporatisation of the Higher Education System is complete. It is no longer driven by the community of science but by money. Public higher education institutions are run as “businesses” in a higher education industry where revenues account for approximately 2% of GDP.

May 21, 2023

The Isaac coal mine approval is a betrayal of our future

The decision to approve the Isaac coal mine is a betrayal of Australians and indeed people worldwide and as a medical doctor I am justifiably angry.

May 15, 2023

Australia’s narrow understanding of China is of its own making

The Australian Academy of the Humanities’ 2023 report into the knowledge capability of Australia’s universities concerning China has brought into sharp relief just how far a fraught relationship with China is permeating national life.

April 13, 2023

What if Medicare was restricted to GPs who bulk billed? This kind of reform is possible

Australia’s health system is under significant pressure. The Labor government has inherited a system with declining bulk-billing rates for GP visits. These fell from almost 90 per cent of all GP attendances bulk billed in December 2021 to just over 80 per cent a year later.

April 12, 2023

NATO’s mission creep remains a threat to European and world peace

In September 2014, in the aftermath of the Maidan coup that saw yet another in the distressingly long list of US-engineered regime change coups in foreign lands where the government proved insufficiently deferential to the ruling Washington foreign policy elite, I argued that NATO’s mission creep had become a threat to European and world peace. The article was published in _The Japan Times_ on 9 September 2014 and reprinted in _Pearls and Irritations_ on 29 October 2016.

August 6, 2022

Weekly roundup Saturday 6 August

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

May 10, 2022

Morrison on a Federal Integrity Commission is not credible

The Prime Minister has broken his promise to adopt legislation establishing a Federal Integrity Commission. The decision is not all that surprising. It has been clear for a long time that the Government does not favour a federal anti-corruption body. What is interesting, however, is how impoverished the reasons that the Prime Minister has given for ditching a commission actually are.

September 2, 2021

Why has the good war ended so badly?

The Afghanistan war, conceived in the traumatic aftermath of 9/11 has ended 20 years later in a misconceived traumatic withdrawal.

February 28, 2021

Book extract: It’s time for a new museum dedicated to the fighters of the frontier wars

Whether as paramilitary troopers, workers, trackers, guides, servants and sexual partners, many hundreds of Aboriginal Australians were participants in the outward thrust of the frontier. The implication is inescapable. Many Indigenous families have ancestors who were pioneers in the precise meaning of that term.

February 11, 2021

Why should Australia be concerned about rising tensions in the Taiwan Strait?

The pivotal reason that peace has endured for 70 years has disappeared. President of the People’s Republic of China Xi Jinping has declared he wants to oversee movement toward unification during his lifetime.

July 8, 2024

The “Invisible Doctrine” destroying our planet and controlling your life

Best-selling British writers, George Monbiot and Peter Hutchison, have very recently published “The Invisible Doctrine”, which is a powerful critique of neoliberalism, and the role they believe it is playing in destroying our human future.

September 1, 2023

The quiet champions of pill testing preventing “harrowing” deaths

You have only to walk into Canberra’s fixed-site pill testing site to have one of the chief criticisms of such schemes palpably refuted.

April 27, 2023

Direct access to Australian citizenship for New Zealanders is a good thing

The Albanese government decision to restore direct access to Australian citizenship for New Zealanders living here is a good thing. It defuses a social time bomb and removes an irritant in Australia-New Zealand relations.

April 6, 2023

Unpacking the Philip Medicare Review

Following “revelations” of $8 billion Medicare “rorts” in the Nine newspapers last spring, Health Minister Mark Butler commissioned Dr Pradeep Philip to conduct a review of Medicare integrity and compliance. His report has now been _publicly released__, and subject to vastly different readings._

April 2, 2023

Wake in fright but fear not; Ramadan’s here

It’s 1444 on the Islamic calendar and the holy month of Ramadan is well advanced with four weeks of fasting, prayer, introspection and goodwill. All commendable - though in the land next door the noise spoils the values.

July 23, 2021

Pegasus-India’s Watergate moment

A journalist hacked by Pegasus says he will survive, but Indian democracy may not.

April 30, 2021

Hong Kong judge concerned with US intervention in Hong Kong affairs

A former Hong Kong legislator from the Civic Party, Jeremy Tam, recently applied for bail in the High Court of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR). Mr Tam has been charged with subversion under the new National Security Law (NSL) which has applied in the HKSAR since July 1, 2020. The NSL was drafted for the HKSAR by Beijing as a direct response to the exceptionally violent and destructive multi-month insurrection, which began in mid-2019.

December 20, 2020

Central Banking’s Green Mission (Project Syndicate Dec. 8, 2020)

Since the 2008 global financial crisis, central banks have shown time and again that they have the power to maintain the economic status quo. Now, they must use that power to support a timely green transition.

November 4, 2020

Our ‘extended’ state’s most powerful mandarin (SMH Oct 30, 2020)

Michael Pezzullo is by far the most powerful public servant in Australia. He created and runs the ever-expanding Home Affairs Department, he oversees a ceaseless avalanche of draconian new laws and he gives public speeches about what he sees as the global ‘‘duality of good and evil’’.

October 6, 2020

It's time for a serious consideration of a job guarantee

The federal government could and should fund a job guarantee for all who want to work, paid at the minimum wage, to replace Jobkeeper and Jobseeker, with jobs created by all levels of government and community organisations.

September 21, 2024

The Albanese Government is isolating Australia and not serving the national interest by appeasing Israel

The United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution submitted by the State of Palestine demanding that “Israel brings to an end without delay its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, … no later than 12 months from the adoption of the present resolution” and that “Israel comply without delay with all its legal obligations under international law, including as stipulated by the International Court of Justice”. The resolution’s provisions are consistent with the UN Charter, international law, and the decision of the International Court of Justice.

September 3, 2024

Rewriting history will not serve Australia well

There can be little doubt that Australia is entering the same kind of misinformation domain as the US. Just a few days ago, failed presidential hopeful Nikki Haley posted on X that UN Resolution 2758 doesn’t mention Taiwan.

September 2, 2024

Dutton's nuclear vision is distorted by ignorance (or worse)

Peter Dutton’s nuclear plan may well have minimal carbon emissions, but the distant time of arrival, and ignoring the well known drawbacks makes it a dud.

August 10, 2024

More marine heatwaves could spell disaster for ocean life

Marine heatwaves are becoming more frequent under global warming and this is having a significant impact on species’ ability to recover.

July 27, 2024

Aussie ‘Top Gun’ Dan Duggan submits final appeal for Australian justice next month

In August, Dan Duggan makes his final submission to Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, who will decide whether Duggan is extradited to the United States for training Chinese pilots in 2012.

July 6, 2024

Calling all influencers: standup and be counted on climate

If tidal waves of science and activism along with increasing extreme weather events aren’t enough to turn things around, where can we turn to?

May 11, 2024

USA materiel supply to Israel’s genocide paused

President Biden has, at long last, halted the immediate supply of large bombs and other heavy munitions to Israel and acknowledged that these same munitions have been used in the Israeli attack on Palestine previously. At least one shipment of these munitions was paused last week: 1,800 2,000lb bombs and 1,700 500lb bombs ‘that might be used in Rafah’.

May 13, 2023

What should we make of the 2023-24 Migration Program planning levels?

The Government has announced the 2023-24 migration program will be set at 190,000 places – in headline terms a 5,000 place reduction on the 2022-23 migration program.

September 21, 2022

Beetaloo gas field: Resurrect health impact assessments to save lives

Our new government walks both sides of the street on fossil fuels.

September 15, 2022

One established church is enough

Just now we all need a rest from royalty. But what’s gone unnoticed in media is how intimately connected the monarchy is to the Church of England.

June 29, 2021

Nobody’s handmaiden: how nurses are taking on the top jobs despite opposition.

For so many years, nurses have been viewed as doctors handmaidens, as subordinate professionals. Indeed, the way in which the medically-dominated Medical Benefits Schedule Review Taskforce (MBSRT) treated the 14 evidence-based, patient-focussed, recommendations of its own Nurse Practitioner Reference Group (NPRG) – namely, by rejecting all of them – suggests that for some medical practitioners, these images are still current enough for them to feel they can treat the nursing profession with disdain.

June 13, 2021

Carbon border adjustments: what are they and how will they affect Australia?

Australia cannot continue to stand apart from other wealthy countries, free riding on their emission reduction efforts. Sooner rather than later, we will need to set commensurate targets under the Paris Agreement and implement policies to achieve them.

September 29, 2023

Pezzullo departure should end the Home Affairs experiment

Creation of the Department of Home Affairs was a disaster for Australia’s immigration policy and administration. The impending departure of its architect, Secretary Mike Pezzullo, enables the Albanese Government to bring that experiment to an end.

September 18, 2023

Earth Systems Treaty: The emerging cross-cultural commitment

“The evidence is compelling that human exceptionalism is a deeply-flawed construct – a grand cultural illusion – that has led modern techno-industrial societies into a potentially fatal ecological trap.” William Rees, Author, The Human Ecology of Overshoot.

September 12, 2023

Will number of temporary entrants in Australia continue to rise?

At end July 2023, there was an all-time record 2.554 million temporary entrants in Australia. The crucial policy question is whether that will be a peak or whether the number of temporary entrants in Australia will keep rising? If the latter, what will that mean for the number of temporary entrants in ‘immigration limbo’ – unable to secure permanent residence and unwilling to depart?

July 21, 2023

Cognitive dissonance in Crimea?

“What convinces masses are not facts, and not even invented facts, but only the consistency of the system of which they are presumably part.” Hannah Arendt

April 8, 2023

Let parliament make Australia’s war decisions

Australia is an advanced parliamentary democracy, but the Prime Minister and cabinet members decide whether Australia is to go to war. Parliament is like the ghost of Cinderella with no formal voice in it. This is a historical hangover, a part of the “royal prerogative,” passed on from the monarch to the government of the day. It is a political custom not enforceable as law. Yet, on that flimsy basis, Australia has been joining the USA in many unlawful wars and invasions.

April 10, 2022

Margaret Beavis: What really makes Australians more secure?

_We are assured nuclear powered submarines and missiles will make us more secure, but with hospitals chronically underfunded and poverty and homelessness on the rise, are they the actually the right choice?

May 4, 2021

A response to the Prime Minister's speech to the Australian Christians Conference

Dear Scott, You have got yourself into a bit of strife from commentators who have found your speech at the Australian Christian Churches Conference to breach the convention of separation between Church and State; also, for your assertion that the devil is using the social media platform for evil. I, on the other hand, found much in your talk with which I could agree, my problem is that I see no evidence that what you said is taken at all seriously in your life as Prime Minister.

November 26, 2020

Scott Morrison, where are you? Eight years is too long

For the past three months, rain or shine, a small, sad group of anywhere between 14 to 28 men meet outside Milsons Point railway station every Sunday at midday to march to and demonstrate at the gates of Kirribilli House. They deserve to be heard.

August 8, 2024

Urgent policy reform needed to fix fast track injustice affecting thousands of refugees

Refugee advocates are calling for the new Minister for Home Affairs, Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, Tony Burke, to urgently provide victims of the flawed Fast Track process with permanent protection visas.

May 16, 2024

This budget will make us better off now, worse off later

It’s said you can tell a government’s true priorities from what it does in its budget. If so, the top priority of Anthony Albanese’s government is not to have any priorities.

August 5, 2023

The work of Australia's most distinguished, humane and indefatigable servant of the public good

Pearls and Irritations is unmistakably the work of John Menadue, one of postwar Australia’s most distinguished, humane and indefatigable servants of the public good. I urge you to consider offering it your support.

June 3, 2023

Albanese, Biden woo Modi with flattery – Asian Media Report

In Asian Media this week: India Special: West’s one-two soft-soaping of country’s leader; anti-colonial Modi pushes ‘new’ future; forecasts of Indian century ‘magical thinking’. Plus: tighter US, Japan, South Korea ties; Timor-Leste’s ASEAN ambitions; Bangkok backing key to poll winner’s survival.

July 29, 2022

An interview with John Pilger: “Assange is the courageous embodiment of a struggle against the most oppressive forces in our world”

In an interview with the World Socialist Web Site, renowned Australian investigative journalist John Pilger has warned that the “US is close to getting its hands on” the courageous WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange.

April 28, 2022

If I were the Minister for Education, these are the three priority things I would do for schools

If any serious policy issues are aired during this election, it’s unlikely school education will feature. Yet our framework of schools is an evolving disaster. And while there are critical differences between the parties, none of the policy offerings address the root causes of our educational malaise.

May 12, 2021

It is not racism, it is politics

It could not have escaped anyone’s notice that the government and the Prime Minister in particular have been accused of racism. This is because of the decision to ban Indians who are Australian or permanent citizens from returning to Australia.

December 21, 2020

Dentists, overtreatment and policy deficiencies

A recent article in Pearls and Wisdom discussed the issue of “overtreatment” (the provision of unnecessary or low priority care) in dentistry and the associated issue of the conflict between ethics and profits.

November 13, 2020

JobMaker is nowhere near bold enough. Here are four ways to expand it (The Conversation Nov 10, 2020)

The government has targeted its JobMaker Hiring Credit too narrowly.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal