October 17, 2016

RICHARD BUTLER. The Seeds of War, and the New UN Secretary General

The sources of potential serious international conflict are expanding, as States increasingly ignore the UN Charter. Australia should support efforts by the new UN Secretary General to strengthen the Charter and join the majority of States seeking to reform the Security Council.

September 9, 2019

SPENCER ZIFCAK. The Religious Discrimination Bill

The Religious Discrimination Bill, introduced by the Attorney-General Christian Porter, has its flaws. Nevertheless, it walks a more or less acceptable line between arch proponents and critics of the recent campaign for greater religious freedoms. The Government has produced relatively moderate legislation that mirrors Commonwealth anti-discrimination legislation related to race and sex. In that sense it is familiar and justifiable. Whether it is necessary and appropriate is an entirely different question.

August 10, 2018

DOUG TAYLOR. Drug Reform Series. Canada is set to become only the second country in the world to legalise marijuana.

Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, announced the move to legalise marijuana earlier this year. He said the move would take the market share away from organised crime and protect the countrys youth.

September 12, 2017

PETER JOHNSTONE. The Catholic Church is Circling the Wagons

This is no time to circle the wagons in some supposedly self-protective manoeuvre. (Archbishop Coleridge, Chair Bishops Commission for the 2020 Plenary Council)

July 20, 2018

GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND

A regular collection of links to writings and broadcasts covered in other media.

January 3, 2021

Rethinking 2020: We should never forget it

For millions of people, 2020 was the worst of years. But it also showed humanity at its finest. At times, I find it tempting to want to wish away all memory of 2020. It was a sorrowful, depressing year. Tempting but wrong.

April 22, 2018

IAN DUNLOP. Climate Change: The fiduciary responsibility of politicians & bureaucrats. Part 1.

Fiduciary: a person to whom power is entrusted for the benefit of another

Power is reposed in members of Parliament by the public for exercise in the interests of the public and not primarily for the interests of members or the parties to which they belong. The cry whatever it takes is not consistent with the performance of fiduciary duty__Sir Gerard Brennan AC, KBE, QC

After three decades of global inaction, none more so than in Australia, human-induced climate change is now an existential risk to humanity. That is, a risk posing large negative consequences which will be irreversible, resulting inter alia in major reductions in global and national population, species extinction, disruption of economies and social chaos, unless carbon emissions are reduced on an emergency basis. The risk is immediate in that it is being locked in today by our insistence on expanding the use of fossil fuels when the carbon budget to stay below sensible temperature increase limits is already exhausted.

May 20, 2018

Update to May 2017 Making Housing Affordable series

Pearls and Irritations continues to publish various blogs on housing affordability, recognising that the cost of and accessibility to appropriate housing remains out of reach for a significant part of the Australian population.

January 18, 2017

TESSA MORRIS-SUZUKI. Anti-PC gone mad.

The moment you condemn something or someone for being Politically Correct, you have transformed yourself from being a billionaire businessman, a media pundit, or the bloke down the street, and have instantly become a champion of the oppressed silent majority against the murky and invisible forces of darkness that are supposedly imposing Political Correctness on us.

August 29, 2017

JOHN MENADUE. When will Saudi Arabia be brought to account for its malign influence and promotion of terrorism?

Through its support of extremist Wahabism, the Saudi government has been promoting radical Islam around the world. Its influence has included funding schools, universities and mosques in over 80 countries. But like the issue of the burqa, few Australians want to discuss the highly dangerous activities of the Saudi government.

August 20, 2018

JOHN MENADUE. Drug policy reform series

Attached is a collection of articles on drug policy reform, which were published as a series on Pearls and Irritations between 6 and 11 August 2018.This series is designed to draw attention to this important issue, and to the failure of our current policies.

February 22, 2018

SAUL ESLAKE. The quest for 'security' - is it rational, has it made us safer, and at what cost?

In November last year, I gave an address to the Royal Society of Tasmania the oldest such society dedicated to the advancement of knowledge outside of the United Kingdom at an event hosted by the Governor of Tasmania, Her Excellency Professor Kate Warner AC, at her official residence in Hobart. In this address I posed, and sought to answer, three questions:

How significant a risk is the threat of terrorism in Australia, both in absolute terms and relative to some of the other risks and threats on our horizon?
How effective in reducing that risk have the various measures enacted in the name of security actually been? and
How does whatever reduction in the risks posed by terrorism which has been obtained compare with the costs, broadly defined, of those measures?

May 21, 2014

Geoff Hiscock. Economic time is right in India for Modi and his mandate

Narendra Modi comes to office in India with two big advantages: the economic cycle is starting to turn up at last, and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has a clear majority in parliament that frees him from the coalition-style shackles that plagued his predecessor, Manmohan Singh.

The timing is right for Modi. After two years of sub-5 per cent growth, it looks like Indias economy will grow 5.2 per this year and 6.0 per cent in 2015, according to the latest outlook from regional analysis firm IMA Asia.

September 13, 2017

JEAN-PIERRE LEHMANN. University challenge: Asia in the scales of global knowledge.

The Times Higher Educational Supplement (THES) has published its 2018 World University Rankings. Rankings are rankings are rankings. They are not Holy Writ! Still they can be interesting fodder for drawing some interpretations and implications. I admit I may be partly biased as Oxford has come out number 1! (I was at Oxford from 1967 to 1970 and did my doctorate there.) The rankings are based on five key criteria: teaching, research, citations, income from industry and international outlook.

November 6, 2016

TONY KEVIN. Is Hillary the Russia-hater a safer American choice?

The final days of the US presidential campaign a disgraceful saga at best have been marked by a frantic race to the bottom by both sides.

On the Trump side: an anonymous but skilfully made video is doing the social media rounds, alleging improper links between Hillary Clintons long-standing personal assistant and friend Huma Abedin, through her kinship connections to her powerful Saudi Arabian family, to Wahhabi Islamist extremism which supports Al Qaeda, ISIS and so on. The snide innuendo here is that the people who organised the World Trade Centre attacks have planted Abedin at the heart of Hillarys political career. The video is thoroughly nasty. It is not clear who commissioned it.

More overtly, Julian Assange features on a Russian news video today (by www.rt.com). He alleges that because the Clinton Foundation has accepted much Saudi and Qatari government money, and because Hillary Clinton knows both governments fund ISIS, this must mean that Hillary Clinton knowingly connives with ISIS.

On the other side, the Clinton camp alleges that the Kremlin hacked into Democratic National Congress emails and gave the product to Assanges Wikileaks to distribute; that seventeen US intelligence agencies have confirmed that Putin is behind this; that Trump is a puppet of Putin; that Putin is manipulating the US election to try to get Trump elected, because he knows Trump will not stand up to him as Hillary would.

September 18, 2019

GEORGE FRIEDMAN. US Military Options in Iran (Geopolitical Futures 17-9-19)

The United States has openly accused Iran of being behind the drone and cruise missile attacks on Saudi Arabias largest oil refinery.

August 31, 2017

FRANK BRENNAN. Compulsory drug testing is no silver bullet.

Christian Porter, the Minister for Social Services, has been trying to make his mark as an upcoming minister in the Turnbull Government. Porter thinks he might have found the perfect silver bullet: mandatory drug tests for unemployed welfare recipients.

October 30, 2016

MACK WILLIAMS. President Duterte and high stakes poker.

Following President Dutertes recent trips to China and Japan he has continued to play his hand in what has become a high stakes poker game with the US and China attracting a growing number of interested onlookers. Despite the twists in his game, which have often been interpreted as wobbles or even backflips by many foreign observers, Duterte has kept his cards close to his chest and tried to stay on course to rebalance The Philippines relationship with the US and China. An axiom for understanding the Philippines domestic scene has always been thanks to a free and hyperactive media there are no secrets but the truth is always extremely difficult to determine. That is certainly in play again now!

August 31, 2018

GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND

A regular collection of links to writings and broadcasts covered in other media.

May 17, 2017

BRIAN TOOHEY. How to repair neo-liberalism

The policy debate needs fresh ideas to fill the gap left by the lack of popular and political support for the neo-liberal economic agenda. Paul Keating, who championed that agenda, recently said neo-liberal economics has run into a dead end and had no answer to the contemporary malaise.

September 11, 2017

JOHN MENADUE. Failure of regional leadership on refugees

An estimated 270,000 Rohingya refugees have fled Myanmar in the last two weeks. More will follow. Their position is precarious. We should not be surprised as the persecution of Rohingya goes back centuries. Yet ASEAN and Australian leaders have failed again to anticipate and respond to this human disaster. Ethnic cleansing is under way.

December 28, 2016

DANI RODRIK. Put globalisation to work for democracies.

A repost from the New York Times, Sunday Review, 17 September 2016.

A Chinese student once described his countrys globalization strategy to me. China, he said, opened a window to the world economy, but placed a screen on it. The country got the fresh air it needed nearly 700 million people have been lifted from extreme poverty since the early 1980s but kept mosquitoes out.

September 24, 2017

LESLEY RUSSELL. Private Health Insurance - a low-value proposition?

Private health insurance has been allowed to undermine the universality Australian healthcare to the extent that international experts now downgrade the Australian system in comparison to those of similar countries because it is two-tiered. Growing public concerns about increasing premiums, unexpected out-of-pocket costs and inequalities have led to a focus on whether health insurance provides value for money. The focus should be widened to investigate the extent to which private health insurance supports low-value and low-quality healthcare services.

September 15, 2019

Kashmir: the international dimension (Strategist 10 Sep 2019)

Indias decision last month to revoke Kashmirs autonomy and statehood, break it into two union territories and merge them fully with the Indian union caught everyone unawares. The changes give effect to theBharatiya Janata Partys vision of Indiaas one nation and one people under one constitution. Indians have reacted with jubilation (majority), concern at the lack of consultation and the military lockdown in Kashmir (many), and criticism of the threat to Kashmirs cultural identity, especially if Indias sole Muslim-majority statesdemographic balanceis altered (minority).

May 22, 2019

ROY GREEN. Labors unloseable election

Was it the message or the messenger? Or a bit of both? This question will occupy the minds of political strategists for years to come. The federal election was a setback to Australias labour movement, not least because it came as a shock, but there is no reason for despair once put into perspective. The route back to political contention should already be clear.

August 14, 2017

RAMESH THAKUR. All the way with Donald J? No way Jose

Has the quality of Australias decision making on issues of life and death for the country and its people not to mention Planet Earth truly become reform proof? Going by the lack of any serious process before lining up dutifully behind the most strategically challenged president in American history and the most irresponsible suite of bellicose threats from his tweet-addicted thumbs, the answer to the question is anything but reassuring.

November 26, 2014

Lifters and leaners in tax.

In the SMH today (27 November 2014), Michael West has a very interesting story about the leaners and lifters in the business community and the unfairness of tax avoidance by some companies. It clearly works to the disadvantage of many Australian companies who are paying fair rates of taxation. For the link to this story, see below. John Menadue

http://www.smh.com.au/business/comment-and-analysis/leadership-needed-on-tax-fairness-in-australia-20141126-11ukw2.html

September 25, 2017

JIM COOMBS. The neo-liberal failure on energy

JIM COOMBS: The source of our current economic imperatives and crises, especially in the fields of energy, is that we cant see beyond the neoliberal (does it have a meaning?) insistence that only a market solution answers economic problems. Surely, economics is better than that.

January 1, 2017

RAMESH THAKUR. AHRC President Gillian Triggs: a year of living dangerously. Part 1 of 3.

Increasingly, voters are frustrated with parties captured by special interests or catering to noisy minority activists. Citizens want competent governance that promotes the general welfare.

January 8, 2014

The mooted $6 fee for GP visits trivialises the problem. Guest blogger: John Dwyer

There is a lot that is disturbing about the federal governments flirtation with a $6 co-payment for a service from a GP. Most commentators have rejected this approach as poor public policy as it will act as a deterrent for poorer Australians to seek the care they need to provide paltry savings in a 120 billion dollar a year health system. This policy will cost all of us dearly as avoidable chronic illness among those less economically secure already absorbs so many of our tax dollars. With the exception of illness caused by excessive alcohol consumption, all risk factors for serious disease are more prevalent in less advantaged Australians. Studies show that already too many patients delay seeking help and fail to take prescribed medications because of the costs involved. Health care in our wealthy country is distressingly and increasingly inequitable.

August 17, 2017

MICHAEL LAMBERT. The shambles of Australia's national electricity policy.

Australia has rich energy resources, both fossil and renewable, and a well considered electricity market design, as evidenced by the National Electricity Market (NEM), so why is our electricity market policy overall in such a shambolic state? Successive national governments have failed to address the core policy issues that are fundamental if the trilemma of current challenges are to be resolved.

February 2, 2017

JOSEPH CAMILLERI. The Politics of Paralysis: Australian style

It is hard not to conclude that our major parties have been the primary stumbling block. They seem singularly ill equipped to envisage, let alone manage, the institutional changes called for by a globalising and increasingly interdependent world. If innovation holds the key to the future, we would do well to look elsewhere for leadership or inspiration.

August 29, 2017

ALISON BROINOWSKI. Till war do us part.

A survey reports a significant movement of Australian opinion about the US alliance, away from current government policy which unquestioningly supports the Afghanistan deployment.

April 29, 2015

COMING SOON. A policy series to fill the policy vacuum.

COMING SOON. 11 May 2015

Fairness, Opportunity, Security.

A Policy Series to fill the policy vacuum. Edited by Michael Keating and John Menadue

There is growing public disquiet. The government and the opposition keep playing the political and personal game at the expense of informed public discussion of important policy issues.

As a community we have become concerned about the trustworthiness of our political, business and media institutions. Insiders and vested interests are undermining the public interest. Money is unduly influencing political decisions. There is gridlock on important issues like climate change and taxation. We are not satisfied with small target politics.

September 12, 2019

JAMES CHAPPEL. Weigels Irony of Modern Catholic History in review.

The pope is far less in control of his flock than most people realize. This has always been the case: no leader in history, let alone one in charge of a billion people across the globe, has been able to claim absolute obedience. It is especially true, though, of Pope Francis, and especially true in the United States. Here, the standard-issue neglect of papal missives coincides with a well-financed effort to conquer the Catholic public sphere in the name of clerical conservatism and libertarian economics. Over the centuries, popes have had to deal with all manner of challenges to their rule, including military ones. And while some of those were devastating to the church, perhaps none were as corrosive as this one to the world the church calls home.

September 6, 2017

JENNY HOCKING. The palace treats Australia as the colonial child not to be trusted with knowledge of its own history

Its more than 40 years since the dismissal of the Whitlam government, but under instructions from the Queen the secret palace letters are still embargoed.

July 15, 2019

JACK WATERFORD. Have Australians the heart for the Uluru statement? Losing the referendum would set back indigenous affairs by decades

There are many good reasons to support the latest plans to find a constitutional referendum question to encapsulate the principles of the Uluru statement from the heart. Theres the fact that it represents a good idea and good ideal perhaps one, as some say, that is essential to a mature nationality for Australia and a reconciliation with indigenous Australia, so cruelly displaced, to this day, by white settlement.

March 19, 2019

GWYNNE DYER. New Zealand vs. Australia: Terrorism and the difference (Japan Times 19.03.19)

LONDON - Extreme right-wing terrorism, mostly of the white nationalist variety, is becoming as big a problem as Islamist terrorism in many places. Thats certainly the case in the United States, where the U.S. Government Accounting Office calculated last year that 119 Americans have been killed by Islamist extremists since the 9/11 attacks, and 106 Americans by far-right extremists.

May 17, 2017

RICHARD CURTAIN. Good information on outcomes is missing in the Higher Education Reform Package.

The Minister for Education and Training, Senator Simon Birmingham, in the new Higher Education Reform Package released on 1 May, states that Students deserve improved information from which to make an informed choice on the most relevant course of study for them…. There is much emphasis in the package on reforms to the information provided to students at the front-end of tertiary education but precious little on providing better information on graduate employment outcomes.

January 4, 2017

DAVID MENERE. How the mainstream media mislead the public on Syria

The bias in the treatment of the Syrian conflict by the mainstream media is not accidental or due to laxity on the part of the media. Rather, it is the result of the opposition groups exclusion of independent reporting, coupled with western governments financial assistance to the opposition for media production.

September 19, 2019

MIKE WALLER.What Westminster system, Prime Minister

These core elements of the Westminster tradition are as important as they have ever been Scott Morrison Speech to IPAA

When I use a word, Humpty Dumpty said, it means just what I choose it to mean… The question is, said Alice, whether you can make words mean so many different things. The question is, said Humpty Dumpty, which is to be master thats all.Alice through the Looking Glass (Lewis Carroll)

October 18, 2017

ALAN PEARS, ANNA SKARBEK, DYLAN MCCONNELL. Federal government unveils National Energy Guarantee experts react

The federal government has announced a new energy policy, after deciding against adopting the Clean Energy Target recommended by chief scientist Alan Finkel.

February 18, 2015

Michael Gracey. Why is closing the aboriginal health gap failing so badly?

The disparity between the health of Aboriginal people and other Australians first drew wide public attention In the 1960s; it became known as The Aboriginal Health Problem. This awareness came from reports of widespread and severe malnutrition in Aboriginal infants and young children, high rates of infections and gut parasites, high infant mortality, and reduced life expectancy.

This wasnt good enough for a wealthy nation like Australia, the Lucky Country if you like, where the luck seemed to not extend to the First Australians. There was a public outcry at the time, followed by almost predictable political reactions aimed at correcting the inequity.

November 9, 2017

Letter from concerned Australians to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on the Manus Island disaster

9 November 2017

Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern Prime Minister Private Bag 18888 Parliament Buildings Wellington 6160 New Zealand

Dear Prime Minister

Warm congratulations on your election as New Zealands new Prime Minister.

We are writing to call upon the New Zealand Government to intervene in the entirely preventable humanitarian disaster unfolding on Manus Island.

October 11, 2015

Luke Fraser. Shorten, Infrastructure Australia and boldness.

Infrastructure Australia (IA) has truly become something to conjure with; it has even spawned a comedy series. Where is it headed? Last week Federal Opposition Leader Bill Shorten outlined Labors vision. This involved:

a new $10 billion IA financing facility to encourage spending;
putting trillions of Australian superannuant money to work in infrastructure investments;
IA to become an investment bank of sorts

The problem here lies in promoting more investment in infrastructure along the same lines as today.

March 5, 2015

Elaine Pearson. Time for an Asia-Pacific Anti-Death Penalty campaign.

Many Australians are sickened that Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, two Australians sentenced to death by Indonesias courts for drug smuggling, have been transferred to an Indonesian island in preparation for their imminent execution.

They are slated to be executed alongside three Nigerians, a Filipina, a Brazilian, a Frenchman, a Ghanian, and an Indonesian.

I am sure that Indonesia understands it will have consequences, Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop told journalists.

September 12, 2017

CAVAN HOGUE. Our news media need less hysteria and more history

Australian reporting on international affairs leaves much to be desired as recent comments on the Philippines and Russia show. While the situation in Mindanao must be taken seriously, it is important to understand that only 20% of the inhabitants are Moslems and that most of the island is inhabited by Christian migrants. This doesn’t seem to be understood by some commentators. The threat is not to the island but to the south. Russia also gets superficial treatment which tends to descend into a goodies and baddies approach instead of a balanced one.

July 20, 2018

ROSS BURNS. From Deraa to Deraa.

Syrias seven-year conflict is favouring those who play the long game.

May 18, 2016

ARJA KESKI-NUMMI. Peter Dutton should know better - rather than demonise refugees we should stand tall and proud of what we have achieved over the past 70 years.

The problem with refugees and asylum seekers is that they are not us so it is OK to demonise them. Dutton is not dog whistling when he puts people into boxes describing them as “these people”, asserts that they are barely literate or numerate in their own languages, cant speak English and at the same time says they would take Australian jobs and at the same time assert that they will languish on the dole andMedicare! You cant have it both ways Mr. Dutton.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal