November 28, 2020

Election 2020: a Democratic Mandate or a Vote Against Trump? (CounterPunch Nov 24, 2020)

Every election year is accompanied by countless analyses of why Americans voted the way they did. The 2020 election is no different.

May 27, 2021

Never mind the width, feel the quality

Theyre standouts in any language, often tall, blond, and looking as though theyve just been hit by a runaway road train top-heavy with cultural and communication overburden.

October 13, 2020

Indonesia: keeping the communist myths flying

Its that time of the year again when Indonesians look sideways at the neighbours, whisper about family histories, question loyalties.

February 3, 2020

JACK WATERFORD. PM is never assailed by doubt,or an urge to explain

From Scott Morrison, I would never buy a used car, or (probably) a political party. As a direct liar or dissembler, he, among politicians, is only of fair average quality.

April 19, 2022

The brutality of Russias army in Ukraine is horrifying and unacceptable

Instead of making Russia important and respected Putin has taken on the mantle of Hitler and his ruthless troops are now equated with the Wehrmacht. How long can the West witness the murder of civilians and the destruction of their homes before demanding Russia stop its atrocities or face direct NATO intervention?

September 10, 2022

The public service classification review is a dud

A recent review of hierarchies and work classification structures contains too many risks to the efficiency, effectiveness and integrity in the Australian Public Service (APS) to be taken seriously.

May 1, 2022

Ethics and war: The Ukrainian tragedy

Among the headline grabbing events and the geopolitical speculations of the Ukrainian tragedy the ethical rights and wrongs of the conflict are largely ignored. For his criminal invasion, Putin rightly bears the greatest moral and legal opprobrium for the appalling death toll, atrocities, and widespread levelling of parts of eastern Ukraine. But once the war reaches its conclusion, retrospectively the contribution of others will come under closer scrutiny.

January 23, 2021

Australia can phase out coal power while maintaining energy security

The end of coal-fired generation in Australia is inevitable. The key is for an orderly transition to spread the costs fairly.

March 8, 2020

MUNGO MACCALLUM.- Porky Pies

Scott Morrison has stopped even pretending to mount a coherent argument over his sports rorts plagued administration.

March 4, 2020

ANDREW FARRAN/GARY SAMPSON. Brexiting in Brussels High Noon awaits?

As the UK/EU negotiators face up to the definitive stages of shaping their post-Brexit world, questions are being asked in London and elsewhere whether the Johnson Government is approaching these negotiations with serious intent having gone from lets get Brexit done to lets get our Sovereignty back.

June 21, 2020

Black Lives Matter, Gandhi and Makarrta

_The challenge for the Black Lives Matter protestersis to maintain their rage and commitment to their cause as Gandhi did to his, while remaining scrupulously non-violent.

May 16, 2022

Peace scenarios for Ukraine via peoples tribunals

_In November 1966, regarding the conduct of the Vietnam war, the philosopher, anti-war activist Bertrand Russell founded a Peoples Tribunal to inform public opinion and arouse opposition to war.

July 11, 2021

A refection on our engagement in Afghanistan - echoes of Vietnam;

As Australian troops pull out of their twenty year engagement in Afghanistan, I find myself reflecting on the similarities of the outcome of this conflict and the war that I served in- Vietnam, half a century ago.

January 30, 2021

Is Trump a virtuous person? Lets ask Aristotle

As Donald Trump has departed the world stage, one wonders about the man he is. Lets look behind his Presidency, and use Aristotles 12 virtues to assess Trump, the person.

March 22, 2020

JOHN TULLOH. Uncle Sam makes it an unhappy Persian new year in Iran.

_One can only surmise at the quiet satisfaction among members of the Trump administration at the current distress of Iran regarding the coronavirus sweeping the country.

March 29, 2020

MUNGO MACCALLUM.- Team Australia on the Corona virus

Scott Morrisons National Cabinet is working pretty well so far.

March 4, 2020

JOHN CARLIN. The Mad Viruses

As in the case of Mad Cow’s Disease, if people believe there is a crisis, there is one.

March 9, 2020

JACK WATERFORD. Morrison needs new roadmap and more humility

One miracle is all he can hope for: now he needs something new to sell to a public that sees through him.The nation needs a leader it can respect

February 12, 2020

JOHN DWYER.The Opioid crisis should focus attention on the inadequacy of Primary Care in Australia.

John Menadues insightful essay on urgently needed reforms to health care in Australia ( P&I Feb 7) correctly emphasised that a priority area for implementation and funding should be primary care with the rollout of multi-disciplinary primary health care clinics across Australia.

May 6, 2021

The unfinished Chinese civil war

Many frame Chinas options against Taiwan as peace or invasion. This is a dangerous oversimplification.

November 29, 2017

MICHAEL LAMBERT: The Productivity Commission on Improving Productivity and Health Reform. Part 1 of 2.

The Productivity Commission (hereafter the Commission) has recently released a very substantial and potentially important report, Shifting the Dial, and associated supporting papers. It was produced in response to a reference from the Treasurer for the Commission to investigate the state of productivity improvement and ways that government can enhance productivity performance. This is to be a five yearly review. The report is a most welcome contribution to public sector reform with major potential benefits to the community and represents a strategic and fundamental approach to public sector reform.

June 1, 2021

Indonesia's anti corruption commission goes missing in action.

If you needed a blood transfusion, would you accept a donor from a different religion? Do you believe in polygamy? Would you take part in a threesome?

April 20, 2021

The Australian War Memorial avoids the central issue: Why did we fight so many immoral, corrupt and failed wars?

Meet Gustav, the German messenger dog. Running through the deadly orange mist of mustard gas to deliver a message to trenched in German soldiers. Yes, the gas mask is very interesting. It is just one of countless items on display at the Australian War Memorial. The collection is world class I might add because it does a very good job telling us how we fought. It does a bad job in explaining why we fought.

June 9, 2024

'Easily 200,000 deaths in Gaza' - Ralph Nader

“I was muttering to myself, ‘I hope I die,"

June 2, 2021

Australia's Blind Spot: The US, China, Africa and Global Hegemony

_As the global balance of power shifts towards the Asia-Pacific region and tension between the United States and China escalates, Australia is being forced to confront its historical reliance on great and powerful friends in defining our strategic priorities.

May 1, 2021

Ned Kelly - 'The Man with the Iron Head'

Like Jackson Pollock’s painting Blue Poles, Ned Kelly’s armour has been given a refurb during the lockdown period. Now it’s back at the State Library of Victoria on (free) display in the South Rotunda until the end of 2021. But there are still major unanswered questions 140 years after the Shoot out at Glenrowan about how Ned could breathe inside a solid metal canister with a narrow eyeslit through the standoff and then the shootout.

April 27, 2021

Douglas Newton's Private Ryan and how peace efforts were sabotaged in WW1

Every now and then a historian produces a book that gives a rational and compassionate insight into the war of 1914-18 and the origins of the Anzac legend. Douglas Newton has given Australia such a work in his story of Private Ryan set against the backdrop of war aims and peace movements.

November 21, 2020

Biden plans to reopen America to refugees after Trump slashed admissions (NPR Nov 11, 2020)

President-elect Joe Biden has pledged to reassert America’s commitment to refugees after the Trump White House’s slashing of the resettlement program, part of the current president’s anti-immigration drive.

May 26, 2021

Tracing the carbon loophole and other trade secrets that lead to unaccounted emissions

As rich countries develop they cast a shadow over their poorer trading partners. Australian research is exposing these hidden ecological and social costs. Around the world, unaccounted emissions in internationally traded goods and services are estimated at over a quarter of global CO2. This undermines the Kyoto Protocol and threatens the future of the Paris Agreement.

May 3, 2021

Our Christian heritage and the culture wars

The culture war drum-beats are sounding again pounded out by the usual suspects in the Murdoch media and among shock jocks and the Morrison Government.

March 22, 2020

GREG BAILEY. Predictability, Society and the COVID 19 Virus

The economic stimulus must adopt a whole of society approach, focusing on those of lower income, of a kind that it has consistently refused to do. If it does this and, above all, can be seen to be doing it, then Australia may emerge out of this crisis as a better country than it was it went in.

July 8, 2021

Carbon Offsets are a Delusion

Any government, corporation, industry or nation, that is relying on carbon offsets to justify claims to be Net Zero is relying on bogus accounting looking at the credits whilst sweeping the debits under the carpet.

April 17, 2021

Explaining the AstraZeneca blood clots: what are our risks and how do we proceed?

Australian governments are advising people under the age of 50 not to pursue vaccination with the now locally produced AstraZeneca vaccine. Given Australia’s control over community transmission, any risk posed by the AZ vaccine is unacceptable, particularly, for not at-risk populations.

March 17, 2020

Learning from a crisis

Sickness and deaths from the corona virus present challenges to save lives, but could also prompt discussion about different ways to live.

September 18, 2022

Provoking China is dangerous for Australia as a US proxy: former Australian official

Editor’s Note:

After the Anthony Albanese government took office, there are voices from both China and Australia saying that it is time for China-Australia relations to reset, and there are some signs of thawing. To what extent will Australia continue to follow the US in provoking China?

June 16, 2021

AICD outflanks Morrison on the left

The Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD) doesn’t immediately spring to mind as one of the major progressive voices except perhaps in contrast with Scott Morrison.

June 15, 2021

How Victoria's lockdown finally got Australia in vaccination mode

The sluggish vaccination rates that we have witnessed in the weeks leading up to Victorias fourth lockdown have been attributed to Australians being happy to play a waiting game. The switch from vaccination apathy to vaccination frenzy, in the wake of Victoria’s fourth lockdown, provides a teaching moment.

April 26, 2021

The Tasmanian 2021 Election: Down the Final Stretch

Entering the final week of campaigning, the absence of regular and focused polling makes predicting the likely outcome almost as opaque today as when the snap poll was called a month ago. However, this uncertainty might not be resolved by better opinion polling over the course of the campaign. This can be illustrated by the last available EMRS poll, the one that contributed definitively to the Liberal Governments decision to call this election a year early.

July 12, 2021

Immigrant conundrums: parents, visas and Australian Citizenship during the pandemic

As Indian Australians we reflect upon the emotional impact of Australias COVID-19 border restrictions upon the Indian community, for whom the care of the elderly parents they are now unable to see is a cultural sacrament.

February 23, 2020

TONY SMITH. Time for real leadership on domestic violence.

The latest horrific episode of domestic violence involving multiple murders and suicide in Brisbane has elicited expressions of disgust and dismay across the country. Given that such atrocities occur frequently, it is obvious that something is lacking in societys attempts to address this appalling problem.

January 26, 2019

PETER SAINSBURY. Sunday's environmental round up, 27 January 2019

The Australian Energy Market Operators report (summarised here by Sophie Vorrath) into the power failure (caused by a lightning strike) that affected Victoria, NSW and Tasmania in August 2018 illustrates the complexity of maintaining reliable electricity supplies across Australias east coast whatever the power sources. However, the reporting of the AEMOs findings by The Australian was less than comprehensive, misleadingly making it look as though the problem was entirely attributable to the failure of solar energy supplies well, whod have thought it??

March 26, 2020

DUNCAN GRAHAM The land of no social distance

While the Western world thinks staying apart is wise to avoid Covid-19 infections, Indonesians still remain together.

March 11, 2020

PAUL LARIS. Making a virtue out of a renewables neccessity

How a transition to renewable power in SA also transited a change of government.

March 8, 2020

LAWRENCE MOLONEY. The Pell trial and its polarising aftermath.

Contributors to a site called, CCC Guys, most of whom are former seminarians, have had much to say about the Pell trials and the looming High Court decision.

August 26, 2022

Ian McAuley's Weekly roundup - Will workers of Australia unite?

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

May 2, 2021

Where are the grown-ups? The talk about China and war is dangerous

So whats the plan? asked an investor after I had spoken at the Lonsec Symposium about Australia-China relations. Days earlier, Defence Minister Peter Dutton talked war over the Taiwan Strait. His former department head said our warriors were ready to go fight.

March 29, 2020

PATRICIA and DON EDGAR. Who is expendable? Ethics in an age of a pandemic

In 1651, t__he English philosopher Thomas Hobbes, writing about the social contract, warned that without a strong central government man reverts to his natural state of self-interest and life is solitary, poore, nasty, brutish and short. The West has rejected Hobbes philosophy and we have seen the erosion of strong central government across decades.

And the school girl with her school bag.

March 15, 2020

JOHN MENADUE.- Democratic Renewal

_Many Australians are sick and tired of politics and politicians .The situation is worsening .The community is deserting the major political parties in droves.

February 16, 2020

New Figures Show Huge Funding Increases for Private Schools & Cuts to Public Schools

_New figures show that government (Commonwealth and State) funding increases massively favoured private schools over public schools between 2009-10 and 2017-18.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal