January 11, 2018

ANDREW GLIKSON. The ALP and global warming

When a lump of coal was presented in Parliament to the cheers of conservative MPs no doubts could remain regarding their position on global warming, covered with the thin fig leaf of the Paris agreement. One wonders whether the PM would now be willing to repeat his statement of 2010: Now our response to climate change must be guided by science. The science tells us that we have already exceeded the safe upper limit for atmospheric carbon dioxide. We are as humans conducting a massive science experiment with this planet. Its the only planet weve got.

January 28, 2018

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Do we really need an honours system?

The hard fact is that the lists which bulk up the morning papers each year are far from representative of our diverse population, and suggest that there is at least a vestige of the despised British class system still lingering at the edges of the cultural cringe.

September 18, 2019

AMY VERDUN. What to Make of the Win of the AfD in Germany? (Australian Outlook 13-9-19

On 1 September 2019, the German far right-wing political party, Alternative fr Deutschland (AfD) had a historical win in state elections. It won 28 percent of the votes in Saxony and 24 percent of the votes in Brandenburg the state that surrounds Berlin gaining respectively 18 and 12 percentage points compared to the last elections that took place in 2014.

June 28, 2017

CHRIS BONNOR. Has the Gonski dust settled?

Many claims have been made about the Turnbull Governments Gonski breakthrough. It seemed to grant the wishes of advocates for greater equity and efficacy in the funding of schools - so much so that I had to re-cast the recommendations in the recent CPD report, Losing the Game, written with Bernie Shepherd. We had always stressed an urgency to support the most needy schools and the importance of a Schooling Resourcing body. At the penultimate hour both priorities were thrown into the legislation.

August 28, 2017

'Theresa May. Hang your head in shame.'

From Dublin to the Somme: How the Death of an Irish priest exposes the tragedy of Brexit, by Robert Fisk.

February 6, 2017

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Trump and Turnbull.

The problem is not with America and Australia it is with Trump and Turnbull, and more urgently with Turnbull. Sooner or later he will have to decide: does he continue as the next in line of Trumps Aunt Sallies, punching bags and door mats or does he have a plan B? Perhaps it is finally time to unleash his inner political animal assuming, of course, that he actually has one.

September 15, 2019

MUNGO MACCALLUM. How good is Gladys?

According to Scott Morrison, Gladys Liu is the most innocent of innocent bystanders – a nave and trusting immigrant, embroiled in a brutal conspiracy engineered by the evil inquisitors of the Labor Party. The worst that can be said is that she slipped (or more likely was entrapped) over an interview in which she was a little clumsy about her relationship with communist Chinese controlled bodies working in Australia. But she has issued a statement (or had it issued for her) clearing all that up, so nothing to see here.

September 4, 2017

PAUL BUDDE. Upgrading the NBN with G.fast has its limitations

Quite coincidentally, at the same time that G.fast is being discussed in Australia a similar discussion is taking place in the USA; and there is doubt there too about the contribution that G.fast can make to improve the performance of the faltering broadband systems in both countries.

December 3, 2024

A five-minute scroll

Trump seeks a currency commitment from BRICS or 100 percent tariffs will apply. The man feeding up to 3,000 Gazans daily has been targeted and killed, while Al Jazeera investigates IDF use of quadcopters with sounds of babies crying luring Gazans from their homes. A soldier tells Hareetz that what he has seen in Gaza will define our future. Gabriel Shipton speaks to the optimism that Biden might parden Julian Assange. The Australian Institute decried interest rates as the only way to fix inflation while ABC News still reports on Gaza with ambiguity.

March 14, 2017

MARK BEESON. WA and the politics of the resource curse. Take on the miners at your peril!

_WA is but the most glaring example of the way that Australias politics have been directly affected by the politics of the so-called resource curse, when a powerful economic sector uses its disproportionate influence to shape political outcome_s.

May 1, 2014

Refugees to Cambodia

The Australian government appears to have struck a deal with Cambodia to house 100 refugees in exchange for a massive increase in foreign aid. But Cambodia is far from a safe place to settle.

May 21, 2017

JOHN TULLOH. The winds of change in Iran.

‘Iran’s nation chose the path of interaction with the world, away from violence and extremism’. President Hassan Rouhani on his election victory looks forward to a fresh new era for Iran.

October 20, 2014

John Menadue. Farewell to Gough Whitlam, 21 October 2014

Few public figures have left their mark on Australia like Gough Whitlam. I knew him for fifty years. He was the most exciting and challenging public person I have met. Australians owe him a great debt for giving them new opportunities and linking the aspirations of working people with those of the university educated.

For me two events stood out. The first was his letter to Richard Nixon at Christmas 1972 deploring the bombing of the people of Hanoi and Haiphong. The outrage of the Nixon administration was wonderful to behold. It was great to see that at last an Australian Government had and would express our own views.

April 4, 2019

DAVID SOLOMON. A strange election with some unknowns in Queensland

This is the weirdest starting point for a federal election that I can recall. Here in Queensland there are nine seats held by the LNP with a two-party preferred margin of 6 per cent or less. Depending on which betting market you prefer, in eight or nine of them the punters reckon that the Labor Party challenger will win.

July 25, 2019

SUSAN RYAN. Vale Graham Freudenberg.

Anyone who has heard of Graham Freudenberg, and most aware Australians have, think of him not so much as an individual , but in association with the great men, the massive political personalities whom he served.

August 20, 2018

JOHN MENADUE. Peter Dutton is an embarrassment for all of us. Repost from March 21 2018

Peter Dutton failed as Health Minister. His track record since then is even worse.

October 31, 2018

QUENTIN DEMPSTER. Google vs News Corp in Australian algorithm war

Its Google versus News Corp Australia in a battle over the way algorithms can be controlled to drive internet search engine traffic.

March 23, 2016

Bruce Duncan. Perplexed by Easter

Perplexing and confronting. Whether believers or not, that is how many of us find the events of that first Easter week in Jerusalem. Here are the elements of high drama: betrayal, confrontation with Jewish and Roman authorities, a trial, torture and a cruel death by crucifixion.

Even so, Jesus would have disappeared completely from history had it not been for what happened next: Jesus Resurrection, and the appearances which convinced his incredulous followers that he was indeed alive. This did indeed changed everything.

December 17, 2014

Tony Doherty. Remaining balanced in times of tragedy and turmoil.

Our ability to hang on to sanity and some sense of equilibrium this week has been sorely tested. In the face of scarcely imaginable acts of violence right in the citys heart, Martin Place, the balance of our emotional lives could be endangered. The press sifts through the many and various reactions casual bystanders, politicians, radio commentators, the police. Everyone feels impelled to respond in their own way. A young woman on a suburban train declares her solidarity with Muslims (#illridewithyou) too scared to ride on public transport. Her twitter message goes viral.

January 11, 2018

"Catastrophic institutional failure" can be fixed

The Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse spent five years interviewing over 8,000 survivors, their abusers and personnel from institutions that had covered up the abuse. The Commission found that 61.8% of all survivors within religious institutions had been under the care of the Catholic Church.The Commission’s 17 volumeFinal Report, released on 15 Dec 2017, made hundreds of recommendations for change in structures, practices and internal laws of institutions. Many of the recommendations addressed to the church involved changes to canon law.

Two of these recommendations received massive media attention: that celibacy no longer be obligatory and that civil reporting laws should not provide an exemption in the case of confession. There has been some pushback against these recommendations because they involve overturning long traditions in the church.But many other recommendations had more to do with church law and practice, and could be more easily implemented, if church leadership is willing to take up this challenge.

February 20, 2015

Quentin Dempster. Attacks on the ABC's international broadcasting service.

Australian insularity and the strident xenophobia it generates is, I reckon, a significant drawback to our development as a responsive and engaged country in the Asia Pacific region.

In this context it was immensely distressing to see the recent vandalising of this countrys international broadcasting services through Foreign Minister Julie Bishops unilateral decision to terminate DFATs contract with the ABC.

While Minister Bishop can be expected to reject any suggestion that she has exercised her discretion to terminate the Australia Network contract at the insistence and persistence of a lobbying campaign by Rupert Murdochs News Corporation, she has exposed the shallowness of her thinking through her stated reasons for such termination.In a speech to Chatham House in London (12th March 2014) she said:

September 4, 2017

JIM COOMBS. Nicholas Gruen and the lessons of history.

Nicholas Gruens piece in the Saturday Paper, Making the Reserve Bank a peoples bank, while gratifying in its support for my recent piece, lacks a particular historical perspective: weve been there before.

March 19, 2017

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Opponents of political correctness have had a ball.

The elitist couch crusaders of the far right have had a busy but productive week so many pesky lefties to sneer at,, so much political correctness to whinge about. It was almost an embarrassment of carnage, which was just the way they like it.

September 25, 2019

KIM OATES. An insidious tragedy

Imagine what would happen if a fully laden 747 airliner crashed in Australia every week for a whole year. There would be public outcry, an outrage, swift political action and an enquiry at the highest level, possibly a Royal Commission.

January 4, 2017

ERIC HODGENS. Epiphany A Supernova In Full Eruption.

Love is a many splendored thing. So, too is a diamond. The more skilled the diamond cutter, the more brilliant the diamonds sparkle. Love and diamonds pair perfectly.

February 5, 2017

Labor Again Exposed as Morally Bankrupt on Private School Overfunding

An unholy alliance between Tanya Plibersek and Tony Abbott on overfunding of private schools was again revealed this week. Labors position on overfunding was exposed as morally bankrupt, cynical and at complete odds with its supposed support for the principle of needs-based school funding.

July 17, 2019

MACK WILLIAMS : Korea : Just what did the DMZ Reality TV show add up to ?

After the enormous Reality TV coverage of the hastily arranged Trump:Kim meeting at the DMZ and the wads of media commentary afterwards,have the prospects of an eventually peaceful Korean peninsular been enhanced? To a large extent the jury is still out on this but there are a few possible glimmers of hope. The crunch issue remains an agreed definition of denuclearisation along with an as yet unresolved roadmap for future negotiations.

August 28, 2017

ROB MOODIE. Seven tactics that unhealthy industries use to undermine public health policies.

Across Africa there are examples of governments trying to introduce policies that improve health and protect the environment only to find their efforts undermined by unhealthy corporations and their industry associations. A case in point is South Africas efforts to introduce a tax on sugary drinks to reduce the growing burden of obesity. In the process they are facing a barrage of resistance. This is one small example of unhealthy industries undermining the publics health and the global environment. This is about how rent seekers go about protecting their selfish interests.

March 6, 2017

ANDREW FARRAN. The Tactical Strike Force fighter to stalk terrorists - really!

Why does the Prime Minister extoll our expensive F-35s as instruments for killing terrorists in irrelevant conflicts when their purpose is to protect the nation against threats of strategic dimensions were they to arise, not now but in the decades to come?

December 11, 2014

Frank Brennan SJ. The Vaticans Synod Questions for the Australian Catholic Church

Following up on the Relatio Synodi, the Vatican has now released the lineamenta (http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/synod/documents/rc_synod_doc_20141209_lineamenta-xiv-assembly_en.html)

for next years synod on the family. They have appended a list of 46 questions and they want the worlds Catholic bishops answers by April. This will be a demanding task for the Australian bishops for three additional reasons. First, they have not shared with the public the results of the first round of questionnaires circulated before this years synod. Second, the country is about to retire for the summer recess. Third, the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference (ACBC) is not due to reconvene for a plenary meeting until May 2015.

April 4, 2019

GEOFF RABY. Wresting China diplomacy back from the securicrats.

In the fading days of the Morrison Government, two important decisions are likely to be overlooked. Both came last week. One was to establish the National Foundation for Australia-China Relations and the other the appointment of a new Ambassador to China.

November 27, 2016

PAUL BARRATT. Managing ANZUS in the age of Trump. Quo vadis series.

Quo vadis - Australian foreign policy and ANZUS.

Summary. Australia should do a ‘really deep stocktake of what is in our vital national interests and what we are prepared to sign up to’.

August 16, 2018

DAVID JAMES. Australia's deadly game of mates (Eureka Street, 13.08.18)

In Australia it is common to hear criticisms of the corruption in developing countries. It is a constant theme, for example, in media coverage of Papua New Guinea, our nearest neighbour.

November 6, 2016

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Family First or Day First?

The name of Bob Day, the now former senator, was never one to conjure with.

If he was noted at all, it was usually as the Sancho Panza to David Leyonhjelms Don Quixote a loyal and reliable hanger-on, grounded where his leader tended at times to eccentricity. Leyonhjelm, the Liberal Democrat Libertarian, could be a touch unpredictable and troublesome, most recently in the brouhaha over his attempted deal to rebirth the Adler shotgun.

Day, on the other hand, was an unswerving ideologue, a relentless crusader for a hard-line economic fundamentalism. Given that the designation of his party was Family First, it might have been thought that he would have put social concerns the family, in fact at the forefront. But while he was sturdily conservative over such matters, these were essentially side issues.

August 20, 2017

TONY SMITH. In Defence of the Yarra Council

Local government leading the way on an important political issue? Who would have thought it? Well, anyone with an eye to federal ossification on Indigenous policy will welcome the move to stop calling 26 January Australia Day as a potential circuit breaker.

October 17, 2016

HUGH MACKAY. The days of political stability and vision are gone.

From 1949 to 2007, Australian federal governments were defeated at the polls on only five occasions. Voters’ reluctance to rock the political boat over those six decades was not necessarily a reflection of great satisfaction with politics. Rather it was a symptom of their desire for, at least, stability.

A one-term government was unthinkable then. Governments were generally regarded as committed to nation-building and governing in accordance with a set of transparent political values. Leaders were not embarrassed to talk about their sense of vision and purpose; political idealism was expected.

September 12, 2017

JENNY HOCKING. Secret Palace letters not so secret after all and where is Malcolm?

The Federal Court case against the National Archives of Australia, seeking the release of the Palace letters which are embargoed by the Queen, concluded in Sydney last week. The case centres on the critical question of whether these letters, between the Queen and the Governor-General, Sir John Kerr, at the time of the dismissal of the Whitlam government, are personal rather than Commonwealth records.

September 4, 2017

LAURIE PATTON. The Australian shoots the NBN messenger, as usual.

Three years ago, Internet Australia, the not-for-profit peak body representing the interests of Internet users, embarked on a mission to foster more informed debate about theNational Broadband Networkand its importance to Australia’s future.

It wasand is the view of our board and members that we need something better than a network deploying ageing copper wires.

May 21, 2017

ALISON BROINOWSKI. Press freedom is a minefield

Julian Assange has cleared the Swedish legal minefield between him and freedom. The two which lie ahead are British and American.

March 23, 2017

LAURIE PATTON and ROBIN ECKERMANN. Time for rational, informed debate about the NBN

We believe it’s time for the Government and the Opposition, and their respective sword carriers, to put down their weapons and strive to agree on a bipartisan NBN strategy that will deliver all Australians fast and affordable broadband using modern technologies and an investment strategy that balances deployment costs with the demonstrable socio-economic benefits achievable through advanced fixed broadband.

December 21, 2016

MICHAEL KELLY SJ. 2017 for Pope Francis: what to expect.

At the heart of what Arrupe sought to do was get Jesuits out of their comfort zone, engaged with the real world and most especially reconverted to Jesus Christ by their encounter with the poor. Pope Francis would agree.

February 24, 2016

Business can take lead on refugees to end 'execution by indifference'.

In this article, Tony Shepherd, former President of the Business Council of Australia, urges Australia to be more generous in helping asylum seekers from Syria. He says:

‘As I stare out the window on the plane ride home (from the refugee camps in the Middle East) I think that if history has taught us nothing else, it is that generosity is always rewarded. Our nation, Australia, was built by immigration; it has been the secret of our success. In the aftermath of the Second World War, the nations that chose to open their hearts and invest in new people, over the decades to follow, came to dominate diplomacy and lead in the global economy.’

September 19, 2018

Wentworth, Bill Shorten and refugees

What a boost it would be for humanity and decency if Bill Shorten broke with the government’s refugees policy and told us during the Wentworth by-election that the ALP would no longer support the cruel and crippling policies that leave refugees and asylum seekers stranded and abused on Nauru and Manus. What is happening is not on Planet Nauru or Planet Manus. It is happening in our neighbourhood to people it is our duty to protect.

March 31, 2015

Patty Fawkner. Leading by flipping the omelette.

Pope Francis leadership differs markedly from that of his predecessors. He models two clear principles that our political leaders and, in fact all of us who lead in some capacity, would do well to emulate, writes Good Samaritan Sister Patty Fawkner*.

Weve got to flip the omelette, Pope Francis told a group of religious leaders from Latin America in the early days of his papacy. Why was it, he asked, that its world news when the Dow Jones moves up or down a few points, but not when an elderly person dies of cold in the street? If we are to be faithful to the Gospel, he said, weve got to change and turn this around.

January 28, 2016

John Dwyer. 'Health' products and treatments that are often unproven and sometimes dangerous.

Health Care Advertising and Consumer Protection

There are far more irritations than pearls available currently to those of us trying to champion the importance of having our health care underpinned by credible scientific evidence of clinical effectiveness. Though we live in the most scientific of all ages it is cause for concern that practices based on pseudoscience remain so entrenched in our community. Consumer protection from misleading often-fraudulent advertising and unscientific ineffective practices is distressingly inadequate.

October 6, 2016

ROBERT MANNE. Rescuing 1700 marooned people.

At present the chief priority of those concerned about the refugee situation in which Australia is directly implicated is to save the lives of the 1500 or so on Manus Island and Nauru and the 250 or so at present in Australia on medical grounds.

When this is achieved the next priority will be to struggle to provide the present case-load of around 30,000 refugees and asylum seekers in Australia with full citizen rightsto be treated as refugees brought to Australia have been treatedso they can live decent human lives.

What is peculiar about the nature of the political problem posed by Nauru and Manus Island?

September 28, 2017

PATRICIA EDGAR AND DON EDGAR. Aged care will be a different ballgame -the risks of commercialisation.

There is an obvious conflict of interests in any care industry where profits have to be made and returned to shareholders, rather than ploughed back into better care. Profit is never a good incentive for the common good. Its easier to cut back on staff, food quality, proper supervision and social activity for those in care, while ramping up schemes that confuse people about entry and exit costs in aged care homes and deny families peace of mind and financial justice. Lack of enforcement of proper standards means the providers too often get away with it.

January 20, 2014

Arja Keski-Nummi. They are us ... and the language of war!

Why are we using the language and methods of war against civilians fleeing war and persecution? Asylum seekers are not our enemies. Our real enemies are our complacency and a willingness to turn a blind eye to the spin we are getting. This reflects the Abbott governments ability to drill deep into our collective psyche of fear with our settler past. What if we lose it all?

It conflicts so dramatically with our other self-image of an open, caring and welcoming society.

March 28, 2018

SCOTT BURCHILL. On the Russian gas attack

Given the “sexing up” and outright distortions of dodgy intelligence about Saddam Husseins WMD in 2002-3 by both the UK government of Tony Blair and US administration of George W. Bush, one can only be astonished at the credulity of those in the Fourth Estate who dont even feel the need to ask for evidence in the case of the Salisbury gas attack on double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal