July 10, 2023

British elections

It is as certain as any future event can be that the British Labour Party will win the next UK election, which is likely to be held in the latter part of 2024.

May 11, 2023

A mind held captive

Edward Said’s “Orientalism” encapsulates the essence of why the West resists the rise of China as a major economic and military power.

September 27, 2024

Rendering unto Caesar in the neoliberal era

“Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and to God the things that are God’s”. (Matthew 22:21).

June 20, 2024

Israelis are celebrating mass slaughter in Gaza

What does it say about a society that mainstreams the killing and silencing of Palestinians?

June 8, 2024

Israel's duplicity and deceit of the US

“The State of Israel will be judged not by its wealth, nor by its army, nor by its technology, but by its moral character and its human values.”

September 20, 2023

Asylum seekers from Pacific Island Nations

In August 2023, there was another sharp increase in asylum applications from Pacific Island nationals (including Timor-Leste) to over 390. That is more asylum applications in August than from Chinese nationals (215) and Indian nationals (214) despite there being far more Chinese and Indian temporary entrants in Australia.

August 9, 2023

The US grip on Australia keeps tightening. Can we break free and avoid war?

AUSMIN 2023 has further surrendered sovereignty and tightened the US military grip on Australia. The integration of the ADF with the US military, insertion of US intelligence staff in our defence intelligence organisation and the increased military presence of the US including command facilities in Australia has locked us into any war plans of the United States and made us a launching pad for their wars. The US grip on Australia must be broken to give us independence and a peaceful future.

July 13, 2023

Robodebt and the APS

The Robodebt scandal reflects badly on the Australian Public Service generally, and not just on those immediately responsible.

July 11, 2023

Making Voice a referendum on the Labor government

By the time of the referendum on the Voice, No campaigners look likely to have turned it into a referendum on the Albanese government, and, probably into “wokeness.” It may be a tragedy if they do, whether for First Australians or the nation generally, because it will inevitably exacerbate divisions in the community.

June 26, 2023

Asylum seekers – Labor’s Achillies heel

While the boom in unsuccessful on-shore (ie non-boat) asylum applications started in 2015 when Peter Dutton was Home Affairs Minister, as time goes by it will be Dutton and the Murdoch press that will try to make it Labor’s Achillies heel.

June 24, 2023

Yes, of course we need a Human Rights Act!

Australia is the only democratic country in the world without a charter of human rights in either legislation or the Constitution.

June 6, 2023

Be a man, consume till it kills. It will

The World Health Organisation’s No Tobacco Day last month had Australia announcing tough new ways to get smokers to quit. Next door the fag makers were doing the opposite.

July 1, 2022

Sorting truth from facts on military spending - the media doesn't care

Certain statements offered by the defence ministers from Australia and the US about China at the recent Shangri La Dialogue displayed _a startling absence of comparative fact-based credibility. N__either of these senior political figures appears to have had the veracity of what they said seriously challenged by the supervising media contingent present in Singapore.

July 19, 2021

The ‘enemy within the gates’-the key to American politics

_It is not at all clear how much more stress, how many more incendiary inputs into its inflammable politics, the American Republic can stand before it becomes fully dysfunctional and unworkable.

October 20, 2020

The Gladys and Daryl Show. Having to squirm in open hearings acts as a disincentive to venality

If Gladys Berejiklian, and her ludicrous consort, have to take one for the team, let it not be for tiny misdemeanours but for being parties to a corrupted mindset of the spoils of public office.

August 30, 2024

Deng Xiaoping’s legacy in Hong Kong – the unfinished business of one country, two systems

As China commemorates the 120th anniversary of Deng Xiaoping’s birth, the Post examines his legacy across generations. In the final part of a three-part series, we look at Deng’s vision for Hong Kong and how much of it has been realised. Here is part one and two.

July 29, 2024

China: the global trading giant

An extraordinary chart from The Pioneer below compares nations whose largest trading partner was either the USA or China in the year 2000 and the year 2020. Over one short decade, it is a powerful visualisation of how the world’s economic centre shifted.

May 22, 2024

New US trade salvo at China shows an emotional West playing with fire

Those who curb real trade and expand financial sanctions don’t seem to understand the likeliness of a destructive outcome for all. The West is wrecking the foundations of its prosperity.

May 7, 2024

Australian politicians lock more people up, for longer

Criminal justice is an area of public policy where the disconnect between evidence based solutions and political responses is depressingly wide. And it is getting worse as both the ALP and the conservative parties respond to what is fast becoming saturation media about, in particular, family or domestic violence and youth crime.

May 6, 2024

On his 34th birthday, refugee offers the gift of life

May 6 2024, marks an important birthday for Asif Ali Bangash, who turns 34 years old. But instead of celebrating with gifts, he has decided to be the gift and give something back to the community: his healthy blood.

July 25, 2023

Integrity is what they do, not what they pretend

Integrity, accountability and stewardship are, post the Robodebt royal commission, to be the watchwords of the hour. The cynic will note that the agencies to oversee changing the culture are those which did most, in word and deed, to create, foster and promote the old culture, and that not one of them has publicly examined the agency’s performance over the past decade or ‘fessed up’ to any departmental words or actions that were plainly less than ideal on the integrity front.

July 5, 2023

China is going to be the great winner from Putin’s strife

Russia’s failed attempt to make Ukraine into a buffer state is only helping China’s statecraft on its own western borders.

June 23, 2023

The suffering of Snowdon and Assange

A recent article by Ben Bradley in The New Yorker magazine, ‘ Daniel Ellsberg’s life beyond the Pentagon Papers’ made me think again about the fate of the two courageous anti-American whistleblowers, Edward Snowdon and Julian Assange.

April 23, 2022

In Asian media: Sri Lanka crisis gets worse by the day

_Sri Lanka crisis gets worse by the day Plus: Assault scandal unfolds in Thailand; moral leadership on Ukraine; Singapore to get new leader – sometime; the greying nation.

April 4, 2021

Easter Homily: women have witnessed to the truth.

Women have been commissioned to lead the way as our society makes its way out of the present commotion of disrespect, discrimination and violence.

February 21, 2021

Santos changes tack: rugby charm offensive replaces lobbying efforts

The issue of gas extraction in the Pilliga, in north-west NSW, has caused conflict. Early this month, mining company Santos tried to win hearts and minds in the town of Narrabri by sponsoring a rugby carnival. This charm offensive was a change in tack from lobbying governments and enlisting police and courts against protestors.

December 7, 2020

Returning, six years later, to the scene of my torture by SAS

As we walked on the military base in the dark early hours of Monday morning, with a full moon setting a stunning scene across Port Phillip Bay, it was hard to imagine that I was risking torture again. This was the place of my nightmares, my years of flashbacks, where my SAS torturers probably enjoyed a laugh and a few cold beers after they scarred me for life.

October 4, 2024

The ‘Haredisation’ of Israel and its demographic future: Is there a case for ringing alarm bells?

“Haredim, not Arabs or Iran, are the biggest threat to Israel’, Dan Perry, 2021

June 7, 2024

New Zealand’s centre-right coalition gives with one hand, takes with the other

The latest Budget in New Zealand appeared to have been driven by the old idea that small government is the best government. Thousands of public service jobs have been slashed while the government reduced its own revenue by cutting taxes.

May 31, 2024

We need to talk about racism in Australia today

The recent public uproar about the comments made by ABC journalist Laura Tingle, where she stated that in her view Australia ‘ Australia is a racist country', demonstrates how, as a society, we are still incapable of having a nuanced, mature and respectful conversation about a wicked social problem that continues to be a blight on our collective conscience.

May 8, 2024

If China became a democracy, would it still be rejected by the West?

Over the last few years, I have wondered about what drives the relentless Western animosity towards China. It seems a very logical question to ask if one wants to understand the world today. But you will be hard pressed to find this explained in commentary provided by the Western media. What one gets is screaming daily headlines, like one recently found in the FT:“US seeks to isolate China with help of Allies.”

April 24, 2024

Our entire view of the world remains insular. How can Australia change?

Unlike virtually every non-Anglophone country on the planet, Australia still has no mandatory teaching of foreign languages in its schools. Why do we assume, as a matter of colonial entitlement, that people from non-Anglophone countries will understand us, but it is not even a matter of decency to make the same effort to understand them?

September 14, 2023

Albanese: The overseas Prime Minister

Prior to his most recent overseas trip to Jakarta, Manila, and New Delhi, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been abroad a dozen times. Not bad for a government that’s been in office for just on eighteen months. The next few months will see him flying off again for half a dozen more summits, head to head meetings with foreign leaders, and meetings with other official and ceremonial types. His latest trip first to Jakarta was to unveil his government’s policy on closer trade and security ties with the ASEAN states. How necessary are these trips? How may their success or otherwise be reliably measured?

July 26, 2023

Prescription co-payments: Time to stop the silent killer

Prescription co-payments are imposed by the Federal Government for subsidised drugs. Australians pay $1.6 billion a year in co-payments. Why do we continue to have financial barriers to accessing these drugs?

July 4, 2023

A genocide howling for an apology gets ‘regrets’

Before he left for a brief trip to Sydney, Indonesian President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo took a stab at reconciliation. It’s unlikely to succeed.

July 1, 2023

US holds its tongue on India’s democracy – Asian Media Report

In Asian Media this week: Modi should tackle public concerns. Plus: Blinken’s Beijing visit ‘achieves little’; China fights back against de-risking pressure; Australia’s dismal Asean investment record; the laggard in the middle of G7 gender campaign; environmental harm cruise ships cause

June 18, 2023

The United States of America: The great satan or beacon of democracy?

Since Australia has mortgaged its future to this nation it is worth debating the matter.

April 25, 2023

Commemorating ANZAC Day – a Chinese Australian perspective

ANZAC Day, 25th April, is perhaps one of the most important national days in the Australian Calendar. Initially it commemorated the Australian and New Zealand soldiers who fought in World War One. In Australia now, on this day, it honours Australian men and women who served in all overseas conflicts and in peacekeeping.

September 2, 2022

Why invisible cultures will determine humanity’s future

_A deeply flawed culture is spreading throughout the world epitomised by today’s global, technocratic and managerial elite with growing inequality and concentration of wealth and power.

May 20, 2022

Disinformation and misinformation: An electoral plague

While the major parties contest the election with competing policies and competing claims, an altogether different political contest is in play. This is the contest, across the political spectrum, between competing half-truths and deceptions. Ever since the Federal election in 2016, electoral disinformation and misinformation, particularly that communicated through social media, has become a blight upon Australia’s electoral landscape.

April 30, 2022

Weekly roundup Saturday 30 April

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

March 3, 2021

The persistence of American authoritarianism should worry Australia

America has become less comprehensible and predictable to outside observers. The scale of the support for ex-President Trump’s election fraud claims, the assault on the Capitol, and the failure to convict Trump in the Senate, all seem to be portents of an emerging illiberal authoritarianism.

The illiberal forces are barely restrained. Australian policymakers must already have reached the point of asking “what if?” and be thinking about possible policy realignments. At a minimum, the task of imagining a post-alliance future must begin. Complacency is not a strategy.

February 9, 2021

Mr Murdoch goes to Hell

Even the Devil was impressed with the level of hypocrisy on display on the sin sheet of News Corp’s executive chairman.

January 8, 2021

Three word slogans - Part 2

One of the most successful three word slogans in recent-ish political history– the Thatcher Opposition’s “Labour Isn’t Working” – almost didn’t get seen by the client.

September 27, 2024

A cautious optimism despite the savagery in Gaza

Last night I finished reading Paul Ham’s The Soul, his 856-page history of the human mind. Ham is an esteemed Australian military historian whose moving chronicle of Passchendaele secured his reputation. But with The Soul he has ventured into broader territory, and I was curious.

September 3, 2024

Ageing policy ignores the majority of older people

‘Old’ is defined by the Australian Bureau of Statistics as any person over the age of 65. This is a wildly outdated notion given our longer life expectancy and the fact that most of us will live many years beyond that arbitrary date in active service to the community._

May 21, 2024

Exposed: Private Schools caught in commonwealth funding rort

The increasing number of Grandparents paying private school fees has enabled elite schools to evade Commonwealth parent income tests determining the rate of taxpayer funding that goes to society’s most wealthy and least in need students.

August 4, 2023

No joy in ‘I told you so’: the Productivity Commission’s 2023 Closing the Gap Report

Last week the Productivity Commission released its draft Review of the National Closing the Gap Agreement. The National Agreement on Closing the Gap was launched with a lot of fanfare in July 2020, promising a new era of reform and a ‘genuine’ commitment of governments to work in partnership with First Nations peak organisations.

July 6, 2023

Call them Hospital Departments... and reclaim people’s health

The overall capture of the meaning of “health” by the medical industrial complex and its hospital systems and departments has helped to hide the absence of policy and structures to specifically address the health of the public. It’s time we named our health departments to describe what they actually do – provide illness care -and time to make health and equity explicit central goals of the whole system of government.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal