April 1, 2020

JUDITH WHITE. Save the arts, save the nation

As the Federal Government rolls out one bailout package after another, the arts is being ignored. ‘Culture Heist’ author Judith White argues that saving the arts is integral to saving the nation.

March 9, 2020

DUNCAN GRAHAM Reporting from afar using mining models

_The Australian Associated Press closure in June will shut Australians out of much domestic journalism. Courts, councils and commissions whose workings underpin democracy will often go unreported.

October 6, 2020

Do US Intelligence Probes Against China Violate the 'International Order' ?

The U.S.stands accused of violating that ‘international order’ by flying military spy planes under civilian “false flags” of other countries while collecting intelligence on China’s defenses.The U.S. may not only be violating international norms but also undermining confidence that it will abide by any agreements it enters.

February 20, 2020

Monthly digest on housing affordability and homelessness Jan/Feb 2020

The following is the latest instalment of a monthly digest of interesting articles, research reports, policy announcements and other material relevant to housing stress/affordability and homelessness with hypertext links to the relevant source.

July 11, 2020

A smart Indian response to China (East Asia Forum 5.7.20)

The Indian government is under massive pressure to retaliate for the deaths of Indian soldiers in a border clash with China. While some bilateral measures may be unavoidable, Indias broader interest is not to reduce its engagement with China.

March 10, 2020

JOHN DWYER. Understanding the public health imperatives required to minimise infections with the Corona virus. (Part One).

Providing communities with accurate, timely and logical information about the control measures required to minimise the harm associated with infectious diseases is essential to avoid both complacency and panic.

February 26, 2020

JACK WATERFORD. Most sex abuse occurs in the home

WHY does Peter Dutton and the Home Affairs Department need more high -tech powers when the real problem of sex abuse is in the home?

July 10, 2021

B-minus for Australias threatened species recovery efforts

Australias unique wildlife is under increasing threat, with legislation failing to provide adequate protection for species in crisis. Release of the new Threatened Species Strategy provides an opportunity for Australia to lift its game but will the current legislative opportunity also be seized?

March 23, 2020

JACK WATERFORD.-COVID-19 mapping must go beyond the sick to the well

Only mass screenings will tell us about the dynamics of the disease

October 12, 2020

LobbyLand. The politics of fossil fuels - the pits!

Fossil fuel lobbying is a cancer inflicting death, illness and misery on Australian society. How does it operate, what are its impacts and how can society allow this disabling condition to continue without treatment?

August 4, 2022

Gary Highland: Changing the parliament and changing the country

_Kerrynne Liddle had to wait a nail biting 25 days to be confirmed as the final Aboriginal person elected to the Federal Parliament at the May 21 election.

July 27, 2022

Waiting for Gonski: a response to Trevor Cobbold

Trevor Cobbolds recent review of Waiting for Gonski, how Australia failed its schools, will resonate with many. He is generous in his praise, forthright in his criticisms, and remains focused on his preferred policy options for the future. But his critique side-steps the big problems facing Australias schools, and he fails to recognise the key ingredients in any solution to the inequality (and ineffectiveness) of Australias school system.

October 29, 2020

No power in the Lowy Asia Power Index 2020

TheLowy Asia Power Index 2020 reveals a misunderstanding of the concept of power, and some underlying subjectivity and biases, undermines its usefulness. This is illustrated in the measures used concerning technology, military power, and the impact of the pandemic….This enterprise is at least partly funded by the Australian government security agencies. The benefit to taxpayers is not self-evident.

March 8, 2020

CHRIS BONNOR. The pendulum swings (yet again) for NSW schools

_One thing we used to tell beginning teachers was to never punish the whole class because a few students were misbehaving.

May 12, 2021

Mike Pompeo and The Xinjiang Genocide Determination

On 19 January 2021, his last day in office, Trumps Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, issued a determination that the PRC, under the direction and control of the CCP, has committed genocide against the predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minority groups in Xinjiang. On taking office, Pompeos successor Antony Blinken immediately agreed with this view.

July 17, 2021

Sunday environmental round up.

Plants and growth: where to plant 60 billion trees in the USA; climate change destroying kelp forests; burning biomass destroys native forests and fuels climate change; and forbs disappearing from Victorias basalt plains. Plus degrowth, of the economy rather than vegetation.

March 24, 2020

CHRIS SIDOTI.- Archbishop Anthony saves the day.

I laughed so hard I could hard stop myself from crying. Theres no limit to the wonderful capacity of human beings to produce clowns to make us laugh our way through every crisis.

April 13, 2021

Morrisons minders at the heart of his doldrums

_Perhaps a day will come when the champion rorters, liars, and conscious mis-managers of public resources are before a serious corruption commission and out on their ears.

August 26, 2022

Peter Sainsbury's Environment Report: Rewilding the USAs west and saving the Amazons headwaters

Wolves and beavers could recreate the wild West. Indigenous communities fight for the Amazons sacred headwaters. Is your battery killing mine workers?

May 10, 2021

Armed Neutrality: an alternative, principled defence policy to safeguard an independent Australia, keep us out of wars and promote peace- Part 1

Australias defence policy has for decades been based on dependence on a foreign power with foreign policy subservience to it. This policy has led Australia into disastrous wars and with the establishment of their military bases on our soil, led to loss of our sovereignty. Would an alternative defence policy based on armed neutrality help us regain our national sovereignty, safeguard continental Australia and promote peace?

November 3, 2020

Is Trump the worst economic manager in almost a century?

As he has done with the property business built up by his father, Trump has squandered the economic inheritance from Obama by poor management.

May 8, 2021

Abusive Israeli policies constitute crimes of apartheid, persecution

Israeliauthorities are committing the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The finding is based on an overarching Israeli government policy to maintain the domination by Jewish Israelis over Palestinians and grave abuses committed against Palestinians living in the occupied territory, including East Jerusalem.

July 21, 2022

Orban's Australian sycophants

Australians welcoming the defeat of our nascent religious right in the May election need to pay attention to the echoes of the American right wing strategies looming ahead of their 2024 election, and the faction in Australia that shares those goals.

April 6, 2021

Morrisons over-hyping of vaccine delivery

If the mass vaccination of Australians against the severe effects of Covid-19 proves to be a complete political debacle for the government, it seems likely at this moment that it will be more a consequence of its being over-hyped by the prime minister than of serious mismanagement of the program, or even the incompetence which is increasingly tending to accompany programs devised by new anti-public sector methods.

March 31, 2020

FRANK STILWELL.- Beyond the Global Coronavirus Crisis: Austerity of Recovery?

These are hard times. The twin crisis of public health and economic downturn has no simple solution.

March 2, 2020

GEOFF RABY COVID-19 is unlikely to be Xis Chernobyl moment(AFR 2.2.2020)

Cynicism is prevalent but is trumped by the CCPs patriotic narrative and the governments performance in delivering on peoples expectations.

April 2, 2020

STEPHEN DUCKETT, ANIKA STOBART, WILLMACKEY.- If coronavirus cases dont grow any faster, our health system will probably cope (The Conversations 1.4.2020)

The growth in COVID-19 cases in Australia appears to have slowed across all states, through a combination of tighter border control and spatial distancing.

April 12, 2021

Lobby Land. The power of the health lobby. Health ministers may be in office but they are not in power. An update.

The major barrier to health reform is the power of providers- the health lobby. A succession of Australian health ministers Liberal and Labor for three decades have failed in any serious health reform. We have been going around in circles. It is very depressing. The new shadow minister Mark Butler could succeed as Minister if he can find a way to manage and neutralise the provider/lobbyists. But not otherwise. And don’t look the the Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing for much help. It was State Premiers, State Health Ministers and State Health officials who drove the fight against the pandemic, not the Commonwealth and its agencies.

March 14, 2019

NOEL TURNBULL. A dangerous decline

It is symptomatic of much that is disturbing and dangerous about Australian political discourse that Australias continuing decline in international public sector corruption rankings is given so little attention.

June 25, 2022

John Brennan: UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, East Jerusalem & Israel

_The United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, issues first report June, 2022..A WAY FORWARD. The question, I believe, is not to devise a means for persisting on trying to separate them, but to see whether it is possible for them to live together as fairly and peacefully as possible Edward Said, 1935-2003, born in the British protectorate of Mandatory Palestine; public intellectual, Professor of Literature and founder of the academic field of Postcolonial Studies.

May 24, 2021

Wherenext for private healthcare?

The future of private health in Australia both private hospitals and private health insurance is under challenge. The proportion of the population with insurance has declined over the past decade. The insured population is getting older, which is putting upwardpressure on insurance premiums, which leads to more people dropping out, especially younger people, creating a death spiral. Statistics released by the insurance regulator last week confirm that trend continues.

March 22, 2020

IAN WEBSTER. Too many experts at a time of crisis.

This is a time when advice needs to be considered, balanced, respectful and well-founded.

February 6, 2020

GEOFF RABY. Australia-China:The year ahead (UTS/ACRI Forum5.2.2020)

Civil emergencies have marked the start of the New Year for both Canberra and Beijing. Each in its own way is likely to have some implications for foreign policy and how the bilateral relationship is managed.

June 13, 2022

Are Labor just coalition lite on climate?

Australian voters were ecstatic to be rid of the Coalition, but have we jumped out of the frying pan into the fire on climate?

May 17, 2022

What Ministers should do - Human Rights in the election

_Human rights experts have welcomed Labor’s plan to restore merit appointments to the Australian Human Rights Commission, and to appoint a global ambassador for human rights. Nine years of partisan ‘captain’s picks’ by the Coalition government have shredded the Commission’s impartiality and subdued its voice as a champion of the vulnerable. Its funding has also been decimated.

May 10, 2021

The devil in the detail of identity politics

If anyone was in any doubt about whether Australian politicians speak the same language, or swim in the same ocean, it would be worth thinking about labels of identity politics. Or political correctness.

May 4, 2021

Tasmanian state election result has important lessons for Labor and Liberal parties

The headlines and bland media commentary about the island states weekend election indicates that the Tasmanias Liberal Government won a major vote of confidence for its policies. But they may end up with just a one seta majority.

April 26, 2021

The Biden-Suga agreement shows the importance of the Western Pacific

The primary importance of the Biden-Suga summit is that Mr Suga was the first foreign leader to be received by President Biden in Washington. The second such visitor will be President Moon of South Korea - not Britains Boris Johnson or Germanys Angela Merkel. Israels Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is nowhere in sight.

March 24, 2020

MIKE SCRAFTON. COVID-19: Dirty hands and political leadership in a crisis

Normally, bringing ethics and crisis politics together in a crisis is like putting Siamese fighting fish in the same tank; only one is likely to survive.

June 9, 2021

Competition isnt improving the aged care sector

A new study finds more competition isnt associated with better quality of care or lower prices in aged care, prompting policy reform to address sources of market failures.

August 25, 2020

The world cannot afford a war between US and China

It is so obvious that the world cannot afford a war between US and China.

We have a very serious COVID pandemic with us. We have to try to feed the 7-8 billions global citizens around the world affected by this pandemic and keep them safe from illnesses and dying. We could be facing even a greater economic depression of 1930s in coming months and years.

April 25, 2021

Australia's cruelty to refugees: which legal 'straw' might break the camel's back?

_In April 2021, Australias harsh treatment of immigration detainees under a 1994 policy whereby anyone without an entry visa who seeks asylum from persecution must be detained, potentially indefinitely is facing two court challenges. Could either case end the regimes systemic cruelty?

December 17, 2020

The Most Lethal Virus is Not COVID. It is War

My personal Oscar goes to Peter Hartcher of the Sydney Morning Herald,whose unrelenting rousing drivel about the existential threat (of China/Russia, mostly China) was illustrated by a smiling Scott Morrison, the PR man who is Australias prime minister.

August 10, 2022

Diego Garcia: Stealing a nation and how 'international rules' don't apply if it is the US or UK

One of John Pilgers most remarkable documentaries, bringing a little-known story to a wide audience, is Stealing a Nation, about how British governments ruthlessly expelled the population of the Chagos Islands, a crown colony in the Indian Ocean, in the late 1960s and early 70s to make way for an American military base on Diego Garcia, the largest island.

July 15, 2018

GAURAB SHUMSHER THAPA. China and Nepal reach across the Himalayan divide (Asia Times 6/7/2018)

_Nepalese Prime Minister KP Sharma Olis visit to China last month was closely watched by both domestic and international observers.

February 9, 2021

China does not like the coup in Myanmar

Since themilitary coup in Myanmaron 1 February 2021, there have been reports and allegations that China approves of or is able to spin the military takeover to its advantage. This is unlikely to be true.

May 2, 2022

Wrong way, not just kidding, on climate change

Ross Garnaut has said the leaders are just kidding on climate change in the election campaign. Its worse than that. They are leading us the wrong way.

February 13, 2020

DUNCAN GRAHAM. From blusukan to bland in five years

_There are some cheering on-line videos worth checking from 2015 when Malcolm and Lucy Turnbull visited Jakarta.

May 27, 2021

The Australian passport that can take you anywhere including an Aussie jail!

The Indian passport I had when I first came to Australia allowed me to enter a few countries only. I had to get it endorsed by the Indian Government if travelling to a country not included. While such restrictions no longer exist, as an Australian passport holder I am now not allowed to make the journey from India to Australia.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal