March 10, 2020

Economic and money mismanagement

The Liberals claim they are better economic and money managers. But there is scant evidence to support that claim.

June 12, 2018

RENE PFISTER. Merkel's dark view of the world we live in.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is watching with deep concern as the pillars of the postwar international order collapse. But what is she doing about it?

August 10, 2024

ASIO, Burgess and the miasma of spookdom

Collecting, sifting and presenting information on national security is not the toughest job in the world although it can be tricky.

July 13, 2024

The left-right, barking mad, marching machine

And so we march on blindly, striding robot-like ever closer towards the precipice. For those who care to listen, the point of no return is rapidly approaching.

July 1, 2024

Lockheed Martin, Australian Government: joined at the hip

There is a remarkable “revolving door” of top people between Australian government and Defence Department roles and the world’s no 1 weapons-maker.

June 11, 2024

Israel/Palestine: my personal experience and conversion

I am 93 years old and come from a large Jewish family; My mother’s mother being one of 13 children I had dozens of Jewish uncles and cousins while growing up and through my maternal connection claim Jewishness. Being old enough my memory covers the whole history of the formation of modern Israel and the Palestinian State.

May 4, 2024

Pezzullo and Campbell demonstrate the need to review the APS values

Mike Pezzullo’s mea culpa should convince no-one that he understands the seriousness of his breaches of the Code of Conduct or the responsibilities that go with being a departmental secretary.

July 15, 2023

Very modern Major General

The Australian War Memorial Council believes its a strength that Council members can campaign against Council decisions a far sighted and enlightened view in many ways but also one that could allow a minority to undermine the AWMs mission.

June 1, 2023

Governments response to Thodey: long on rhetoric, short on substance

My recent stocktake of the state of play on implementation of the Thodey Report recommendations was written just before PM&C released details of proposed changes to the Public Service Act with an exposure draft of the legislation and an exposure draft of explanatory materials. Extraordinarily, consultation on the changes ends on 31 May but these documents were only released on 22 May (a brief consultation paper was released on 3 May).

September 14, 2024

The defence of self-defence

As Israel’s genocidal rampage in Gaza continues unabated after 11 months, the Labor Government recites ad infinitum its talking point, borrowed from the Biden/Harris playbook, that Israel has the right to defend itself, thereby legitimising its carpet-bombing and indiscriminate mass killing of Palestinian civilians. Treating the atrocities of 7 October as an isolated event that came out of the blue buttresses the self-defence line, de-contextualising it from decades of brutal subjugation of Palestinians, which have fuelled their resistance against the settler-colonial apartheid state.

July 8, 2024

The Atlas Network's transnational revolution

Twice in a fortnight, the president of the Heritage Foundation has declared that America is experiencing its second revolution. The revolution would remain bloodless (because their side is “winning”) “if the left allows it to be.” The two bodies whose acts provoked the announcements are leading Atlas Network partners. They are also spending millions of dollars in Europe to roll back rights for women and LGBTQIA people.

July 3, 2024

Refuting myths about nuclear and renewable energy

Nuclear energy proponents are attempting to discredit renewable energy and promote nuclear energy and fossil gas in its place. This article refutes several myths they are disseminating that are receiving little or no challenge in the mainstream media.

July 18, 2023

Treasurys net migration forecasts and the big Australia furore?

In May this year, Treasury created a furore when it announced net migration in 2022-23 would be 400,000 a level Australia has never experienced.

May 30, 2023

The aged care payment system should be re-designed to support quality

The aged care payment system currently requires providers wishing to make a profit to do so by skimping on care and services. A new payment structure is needed to reverse the incentives, and link higher profits to better care.

May 27, 2023

A deep sadness: reflections about the racist treatment of Stan Grant

As the people of Thailand say, same, same. Here we go again. Another indigenous Australian, and this one an educated, travelled, and articulate First Nation public intellectual is being maligned.

May 8, 2023

The current state of Rupert Murdoch and his empire

Gabriel Shermans cover story in Vanity Fair - Inside Rupert Murdochs Succession Drama - has generated a lot of attention, and with good reason. Murdoch runs one of the most powerful but also one of the most secretive media corporations in the English-speaking world.

April 26, 2023

Father Bob's passing leaves big shoes to fill

Its hard to imagine there would be too many residents in the COPP (City of Port Phillip) who hadn’t met Father Bob Maguire over his 52-year tenure at the South Melbourne, St Peter and Paul parish.

April 11, 2023

Australia prepares legal case for war over non-sovereign nation Taiwan

Australia is inventing an unheard-of way to go to war at the invitation of a non-sovereign nation an obvious reference to Taiwan. The Governments intent seems to be to have it ready for the conflict with China that US Generals keep telling us is coming.

July 26, 2022

Peter Dutton - Liberal Party saviour or nemesis? Perhaps a Steven Bradbury!

The Liberal Partys problem is the crumbling of its liberal base. Its difficult to see how the leadership of Peter Dutton a political Steven Bradbury can fix that problem.

June 9, 2021

The use of US armed forces abroad, 1798-2020, by US Congressional Research Service: 20 July, 2020

This report lists hundreds of instances in which the United States has used its Armed Forces abroad in situations of military conflict or potential conflict or for other than normal peacetime purposes.(Covert activities are not included)

February 24, 2021

An unsentimental China policy: The case for putting vital interests first

Fifty years ago come July, US President Richard Nixon announced what would become his signature foreign policy achievement: the opening to China. The following February, in what the press called the week that shook the world, he flew to Beijing to meet Mao Zedong, the leader of communist China. So began a half-century of US engagement with Beijing.

October 27, 2020

Indonesia Can Lead the Way for ASEAN on US and China - Just say 'No to both.

The U.S. has been pressing many Southeast Asian states to join it in its efforts to politically and militarily contain China. Indonesia thede facto leader of ASEAN - can show the way for ASEAN members by just saying no to requests and actions from both the U.S. and China that it judges are contrary to its interests.

July 18, 2020

Federalism does not need an ongoing 'National Cabinet'

Australia has so far been successful in its response to the COVID 19 pandemic, a major reason being the constructive role of the National Cabinet. But there is good reason to be highly sceptical about the ongoing role for the National Cabinet announced by the Prime Minister.

October 5, 2024

Worried about earthlings, Martians pull the plug on closer cooperation

P&I has obtained a copy of the confidential report to headquarters prepared by a recent intelligence gathering mission to Australia from Mars.

September 16, 2024

Guess what? Tony Abbott got it wrong

Guess what? A study of about 1,500 climate policies in 35 countries found that the single most effective policy in reducing carbon emissions was a carbon tax.

August 6, 2024

Slogans masquerading as policies - the Dutton playbook?

I don’t expect that Donald Trump, presidential candidate, or Trump, elected president, gives a toss whether Anthony Albanese or Peter Dutton is prime minister of Australia after the next Australian election.

July 10, 2024

APS reform bus runs out of solar power

Andrew Podger, former Public Service Commissioner and advocate for reforms that take account of recent failures in public administration, is circulating a paper on priorities for change. About thirty former senior public servants, most with senior Order of Australia postnominals, have endorsed, without necessarily adopting each specific suggestion, his paper as a basis for a discussion about what they describe as a “once in a generation” opportunity to deliver the urgent need for reform.

May 16, 2024

Blinded by the light

Richard Flanagan has done us a favour. His recent book, Question 7, takes us back to the creation of atomic bombs, and to their use against people, in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Those bombs played an indirect but pivotal role in Flanagan’s family. They are directly pivotal in humanity’s story. After many decades of habituation to abstract talk of nuclear warfare, Flanagan reminds us of what a nuclear bomb does to people and why no more should ever be used.

April 24, 2023

Dutton gives voice to Jacinta Price

Peter Dutton has staked his political future on Jacinta Price, his new shadow minister for Aboriginal Affairs, a woman of less than 10 months experience in Parliament, none of which have been spent in government.

September 12, 2022

Modi's India gets a free pass on Human Rights - but not China!

The people of Jammu-Kashmir are at a critical juncture in their struggle for justice. Despite the fact that they live in the most militarised region on earth, experience shocking human rights abuses, and have been given a genocide warning by Genocide Watch, few Western countries have acted. Its time for the Australian government to speak up about the crimes of the Modi government.

April 25, 2021

The critics are wrong: Australia needs a universal aged care system

The Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety has envisioned a new aged care system that would deliver an entitlement to high-quality care and support for older people, and ensure that they receive it. Its a call for sweeping change.

June 19, 2024

The National Anti-Corruption Commission: a damp squib

In Australia, the demon of penal regulation clings in its stubbornness. Keeping government accountable and open to the suspicious eye of the public is a weary worn task that yields little by way of change. Secrecy remains addictive, even pathological. Reforms, to that end, remain cosmetic, patchy, and indeterminate. What is the public interest useful for but to frustrate the public?

May 20, 2024

Are our policy makers Voltaire’s illegitimate children ?

Aged care and disability services bureaucratic elites seem increasingly to work in ways that are divorced from morality and common sense and removed from the everyday reality experienced by older people and their families.

May 7, 2024

Combating Islamophobia and addressing oral health inequities

Promoting culturally sensitive oral health care for elderly Muslim migrants is vital to address disparities in oral health among cultural and linguistic diverse communities in Australia.

September 17, 2023

The Greatest: Vale Ron Barassi

Of the proposition that he was the greatest there can be no doubt.

June 24, 2021

Facing a taxing time in Indonesia

There are no EFTPOS machines on the benches of Indonesias traditional markets. All deals are cash, rupiah notes grubby from the soiled roots of shallots pulled hours earlier.

June 19, 2023

A problem bigger than rich schools and funding

Its easy to gain the impression that there are just two school sectors in Australia: elite private schools and public schools, the former being exclusive and over-funded, the latter inclusive and cash-strapped. True to a point, but in dwelling on this dichotomy we are missing bigger policy issues that cry out for resolution.

June 16, 2023

When does news analysis become opinion?

The recent Stan Grant controversy threw up a host of important issues, among them the way in which the ABC supports its staff, diversity in the newsroom and racism. But it also raised the tricky issue of where the ABC draws the line between analysis and opinion, and whether ABC journalists are being given too much freedom to share their views.

June 1, 2023

Value-focused repair of the public service

The Public Service Act doesnt just allow secretaries and their departments to push back on politicians abuses of power; it demands it. But targeting ministers or SES, or tightening the standards and laws under which they operate, will not be the most effective way to repair what is a broader issue.

May 16, 2023

Calvary hospital unresponsive? Yes, Chief Minister

Canberras Calvary Hospital is to be compulsorily acquired by the ACT Government, charged by Chief Minister Andrew Barr with being, amongst other things, unresponsive.

July 3, 2021

Sunday environmental round up.

Marine algal blooms are increasing but not everywhere, while bottom trawling fishing releases vast amounts of CO2. Earth is trapping even more solar energy than expected: anthropogenic or meteorological? Whichever, every fraction of a degree of global warming wipes out another glacier. Lessons from wartime Canada.

August 14, 2024

Maybe only a recession will fix macroeconomic management

In the economy, as in life, it helps a lot if you learn from your mistakes. Or, if you’re in public life, from the mistakes of your predecessors.

June 28, 2024

Guns, butter & taxes: hard choices, volatile economy

The Australian government needs to stand up against growing global protectionism and make some hard budgetary choices between guns and butter, defence and welfare, and the need to reform taxes if it is to avoid taking on too much at once in a world economy characterised by uncertainty and geopolitical tensions, and in an Australian economy treading a bumpy and narrow path balancing fiscal and monetary policy.

April 13, 2024

The Voice and Australia’s democracy crisis

The dire state of truth in Australia’s civic space crystallised in 2023. We had seen the waning influence of News Corp’s impact on our elections and assumed it meant that enough of us were becoming inoculated against the propaganda. The defeat of the notoriously mendacious Coalition government might have signalled a ceasefire, a moment for the “conservative” parties to rediscover their integrity. We had underestimated, however, the strategising of vested interests.

May 16, 2023

Incarceration conundrum

The crime rate is dropping due to advanced technology, but our rate of incarceration is rising, especially for First Nations prisoners, who are gaoled at thirty times the rest of us. Even the US only gaols non whites at eight times. As Sumner Miller asked, Why is it so? It is largely the practice of the courts and the prosecuting authorities.

May 1, 2023

Parkinson immigration review: very good as far as it goes

The 190 page Parkinson Immigration Review provides a very good blueprint for the future, considering the limitations placed on it by its terms of reference and timeline. The government has circulated a Migration Strategy document for consultation picking up broad concepts in the reviews recommendations. There is much more work to be done to decide on, and implement, the best of this report and to deal with outstanding issues that it was not requested to cover.

August 5, 2021

The price of primacy: Can the United States stop China becoming the dominant regional power?

In this episode of Democracy Sausage, eminent strategic studies expert Hugh White joins Mark Kenny to examine Australias strategy for dealing with rising tensions between the United States and China and the prospects for armed conflict in the region.

April 19, 2021

Anti-China threat porn: Antiquitys antidote to its sophistry

If China is a threat to international peace and security, then the relationships outlined below approach the crime of trading with the enemy.

November 10, 2020

The election and the US military empire (Ron Jacobs, CounterPunch, 6.11.20)

When examining the activities of the US military it is essential to maintain the long view. In other words, despite the practice of looking at Pentagon activities in four-year spans that approximate the terms of the US president, the reality is that the military operates on its own timeline.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal