October 21, 2020

The renaissance of nuclear energy is a myth

Nuclear energy is often abused to secure power political and geopolitical strength. Renewable energy, on the other hand, strengthens democracy, participation and prosperity.

September 25, 2022

A feast of new reading outside the grip of corporate Western media: Part 2 - Asia

Australian mainstream media is generally lacking in coverage of Asia, with occasional fly-in-fly-out-shock-horror or dependence on Reuters or AUKUSWORLD news sources. This isnt consistent with any claim to be an advanced member of our region. We can however turn to local newspapers in the region.

September 3, 2022

Donald Rothwell: Is Australia in danger of becoming the USs deputy sheriff in the South China Sea?

Recent comments by Defence Minister Richard Marles about Australia, China and the international law of the sea raise the spectre of Australia acting as an Indo-Pacific deputy sheriff for the United States, enforcing the rules-based international order.

April 16, 2022

Campaign needs a touch of the spiritual

Australia is calling out for leadership, for ideas, for enduring values and for decisive choices.

April 5, 2021

The usual suspects and mates, making a killing from vaccinations

Australia has the right to whinge about Europes withholding of solid vaccines orders. We have done that, even as we have accepted the decision with reasonably good grace. We have to, more or less, because there is no immediate hope of reversing the decision through law courts or military invasion, and because our moral, as opposed to our legal right, is not the greatest.

June 15, 2022

Floods, mental health & love in Lismore

A principle known for centuries by Indigenous peoples, teaches that the health of the land affects the wellbeing of people, a principle familiar to citizens of Lismore in northern NSW. After catastrophic floods submerged homes and commercial properties, one thousand citizens still live in emergency accommodation and thousands more survive in homes where walls, ceilings and windows need repair. Faced with powerlessness and uncertainty, peoples mental health is more difficult to restore than walls and windows, yet signs of love in Lismore display potential benefits for a whole country.

March 16, 2020

JACK WATERFORD.-Covid-19 and the economic hospital

We are not ‘fighting’ the virus but staging a skilful retreat.

November 7, 2020

The ethical advantage: the economic and social benefits of ethics to Australia (The Ethics Centre Oct 2020)

We know what ethical failure costs look at the billions of dollars paid by financial institutions in penalties and customer remediation since Hayne. But what are the economic benefits of ethical best practice? What can we gain economically by being more ethical as a nation?

March 10, 2020

JACK WATERFORD. The Life and Legacy of Len Hewitt

Jack Waterford writes on the life and legacy Len Hewitt, former secretary of the Prime Minister and feared government man.

February 6, 2021

To care for the sheep or to preserve Church doctrine? Faith groups are found wanting

It was a rare act of cooperation between the Catholic and the Muslim communities of Melbourne: a full page advertisement in The Age of a joint letter of protest. That is, if it weren’t for the content of the letter.

February 23, 2020

KOBI MAGLEN. SVAs approach to improving outcomes for older women at risk of becoming homeless

_Estimates suggest 300,000 Australian women aged between 45 and 65 are at risk of homelessness when they retire.

September 22, 2022

Advertising by doctors: Helpful or harmful?

_It was only as recently as 1979 that Dr Arthur Burton wrote in his Australian textbook on Medical Ethics and the Law It is the hallmark of a responsible profession that its members do not advertise, and so the ethical rules relating to advertisement are strict. In his book he quoted the then advice of the Medical Board of Victoria that: Advertising has for many years been held judicially to constitute infamous conduct in a professional respect, and therefore a ground for deregistration.

July 30, 2022

Gerald Sussman - Russia-Ukraine conflict: The propaganda war

We must remember that in time of war what is said on the enemys side of the front is always propaganda, and what is said on our side of the front is truth and righteousness, the cause of humanity and a crusade for peace

Walter Lippmann, cited in[Shah 2005

May 11, 2021

No room for the poor at the Pentecostal table

To the core coalition supporters, any call for higher taxes for richer people is invariably exciting the politics of envy. Any undue stress on the sufferings or disadvantage of the poor involves identity politics. Any sustained attack on established ideas – including racist, sexist or ageist ones – often involves political correctness gone mad. Radical right provocateurs, especially those who claim for themselves victimhood status after being attacked for their ideas, say they are being deplatformed. None of these labels has much meaning as such, other than as abuse. Those who scream about it most are themselves most likely to be doling out similar abuse, often, because of their power and influence, to great effect.

September 24, 2022

AUKUS agreement a threat to peace

Reflecting the prevalent view, that the AUKUS agreement is a threat to peace, a conglomeration of peace groups (under the banner Raising Peace_) brought together opponents of the agreement from the three nations involved, for an on-line discussion on September 19._

March 4, 2020

JUDITH WHITE. Whatever happened to Whitlams vision for the arts?

In 1972 Gough Whitlams election campaign promised to promote a standard of excellence in the arts, to widen access to, and the understanding and application of, the arts in the community generally, to help establish and express an Australian identity through the arts and to promote an awareness of Australian culture abroad.

May 1, 2021

Australia needs to draw a line between policy and posturing on China

The past few weeks have confirmed that the strategic parameters of our regional policy are basically sound. However, the self-righteousness of some of our statements and actions demonstrate overreach inconsistent with the national interest.

July 8, 2021

We can complete a full mRNA rollout by end of 2021. Heres the plan

How many attempts do we give Scott Morrison to fix the ongoing Covid quarantine and vaccine rollout debacle? There have been mistakes, holdups with vaccine deliveries and unforeseen complications, but it is possible to develop a plan to get us out of the turmoil he has inflicted upon us, and do it by the end of 2021!

April 12, 2021

Another attempt to mute the voices of Catholic women

_My text for today is taken from the Book of Genesis, as translated by John Milton:_Hee for God only. Shee for God in him.Paradise Lost, 1667.

April 7, 2021

Labor makes another flimsy commitment to Palestinians

While Israel and Palestine are geographically distant, theres no excuse for the Labor Partys out of touch support for a two-state solution, and for appearing unaware of critiques of the controversial Israeli supported definition of anti-Semitism.

August 23, 2021

The All-American Base World

According to our list, American military bases overseas are now scattered across 81 countries, colonies, or territories on every continent except Antarctica. And while their total numbers may be down, their reach has only continued to expand. Between 1989 and today, in fact, the military has more than doubled the number of places in which it has bases from 40 to 81.

April 13, 2021

WA election: an untold story

The main story about the WA election is the scale of the Labor victory. However, there is an untold story: the total failure of the “don’t give Labor total control message”.

March 17, 2020

JACK WATERFORD.- Covid-19. The risks to us as it spreads to our region and elsewhere.

The US already has a two-tier health system: when the disease takes hold in the general population, many of its facilities will be swamped, with only the wealthy able to be sure of proper treatment.

September 20, 2022

The Strengthening Medicare Taskforce: Commonwealth must resist lobbyists and embed team-based care

The Strengthening Medicare Taskforce must set aside the tired, unhelpful trope that care is about choosing between a GP, or a pharmacist, or a nurse. Health care professionals are complementary to each other and provide better care working as a team.

August 7, 2021

Ships in the Night: A Vietnam war story, by Greg Dodds

Greg Dodds career began as a professional Australian soldier who served as an intelligence officer with the Australian Task Force in Vietnam in the late 1960s. In this racy 200-page monograph, Dodds disposes with scholarly requirements no footnotes, no glossary, no reading list or sources. To appreciate its full context, the reader should have some knowledge of the war, its causes, its leading characters and its aftermath. Even without such background, however, this is a captivating memoir.

May 15, 2021

China-Australia: What is the intelligent person supposed to think?

I speak Mandarin having studied it at University. A friend of mine, who also studied Chinese with me commented that Australia was foolish in becoming the aim of Beijing’s displeasure. He argues money is money and you don’t bite the hand that feeds you. I agreed with him. Another friend of mine said Chinese actions in Hong Kong and against the Uighur people were intolerable and we should make a stand. I agreed with him too. In fact, I wrote an article for a paper that an editor described as racist.

May 6, 2021

China's sanctions on Western think tanks

Chinas sanctions on the prominent Washington-based think-tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) has prompted a greatwailing and wringing of hands__. While I empathize with those affected, I do take issue with some of their specific concerns.

May 18, 2021

Evelyn Araluen's Drop Bear demands our engagement

No objective observer could fail to notice how inadequately we are closing the gaps we have created between Indigenous and other Australians. Part of the difficulty could be that 250 years of European occupation have damaged the language on which oral cultural transmission depends.

April 19, 2022

Morrison government to over-fund NSW private schools by nearly $1 billion

NSW private schools are massively over-funded by the Commonwealth Government. Estimates based on official figures presented to Senate Estimate show that the NSW Catholic education system and nearly 40% of Independent schools will be over-funded by $865 million by the Commonwealth Government from 2022 to 2028.

May 16, 2021

Climate change is an area of cooperation for China and the Five Eyes countries

Despite the deterioration in relations between the UK and China, they will continue to cooperate on climate change due to the force of circumstances because the UK is hosting the UN Conference of the Parties on climate change in Scotland in November referred to as COP26.

April 8, 2021

Shifting national interests put Bidens alliance strategy in doubt

The Biden Administrations approach to China is anchored in the strength America draws from its alliances. The President and the Secretaries of State and Defensehave made this clear. This is an anachronistic basis on which to construct a strategic policy given todays strategic realities.

March 17, 2020

RICHARD ECKERSLEY.-Bushfires, coronavirus and economic turmoil provoke existential fears for humanitys future

Greta Thunberg said Before I started school striking I had no energy, no friends and I didnt speak to anyone. I just sat alone at home, with an eating disorder ..All of that is gone now, since I have found a meaning, in a world that sometimes seems shallow and meaningless to so many people.

June 3, 2021

President Xi asks Chinese media, diplomats to tone down aggressive approach

Asked whether China will take a different approach in its diplomatic efforts in the light of Xi’s remarks, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a media briefing here on Wednesday that the comments were in line with China’s “peaceful development”.

March 23, 2020

TONY SMITH. Government in perpetual crisis.

Dealing with the corona virus epidemic requires extraordinary measures by governments. Unfortunately, the Australian governments response has been piecemeal and does not inspire confidence.

June 2, 2022

Neil Westbury: The Albanese Labor Government needs to act urgently to protect women and children in remote NT communities

The Panel recognises that the negative impacts that arise from the over consumption of liquor in the NT, laid out in detail in this report, are off the scale, not just by Australian but by international standards. The resulting costs in terms of human suffering and social and economic costs cut right across the NT community and are not confined to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Territorians. They cannot be ignored. Gilbert Review into the proposed Dan Murphy Store in Darwin, (2021).

July 25, 2021

Gridlock: Removing barriers to policy reform

_Australias governance has deteriorated over recent decades. The formal institutions and the informal norms of behaviour are weaker. Others have written about how this soft corrosion can easily bloom into hard corruption. This report shows how weaker governance also means that governments are adopting less policy reform changes to policy that would improve the lives of Australians.

January 6, 2021

Dont Mention the Ban: Australias evasion of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

Australia has disagreed with its major military ally on the prohibition of other unacceptable weapons and we must do so again. If our alliance requires allegiance to weapons of mass destruction, who does it really serve?

September 28, 2022

President Abbas at UNGA: Why is Israel not punished for violating international law?

Who is protecting Israel from being held accountable? Why these double standards when it comes to Israel?

June 8, 2022

Richard Drake: The American cause in Ukraine: Advancing freedom or the course of empire?

_The disasters of war in Ukraine have not yet found their Francisco Goya, but the reporting of journalists conveys a graphic picture of the death and destruction there. This war, like all its predecessors, is hell. Writing about the putatively good war of 1939-1945, Nicholson Baker in_Human Smoke_described its beginnings as the advent of civilisations end with the records of both sides marred by the most horrific war crimes. The reporting of Nicholas Turse in Shoot Anything that Moves_about the war in Vietnam and of Vincent Bevins in_The Jakarta Method_about Washington-backed massacres worldwide in the Cold War showed Americans in these two cases as arch perpetrators of war crimes. Chalmers Johnson in the_Blowback_trilogy and_Dismantling the Empire_compiled long lists of American enormities in what he called our obsessive wars of empire in Iraq and Afghanistan.

March 8, 2020

JOHN TAN. More securitisation of policing functions? More democracy decay?

There is a concerted push to have ASD (Australian Signals Directorate) help in tracking paedophile suspects. Are there implications for law enforcement accountability, FOI, journalism, human rights and democracy? Take a look at some issues that have arisen in other countries.

October 19, 2020

Loose talk by MPs worsens China tensions: China is not an enemy: Houston ( AFR Oct 16, 2020)

Former Defence Force chief Angus Houston says loose talk by MPs has made tensions with China worse than necessary and has called for an urgent reset in the relationship between Canberra and Beijing. China is our partner. China is not an enemy. Lets get that straight.

August 1, 2020

Chinese hackers or spies

Are the US Justice Department’s alleged hackers Li Xiaoyu and Dong Jiazhi Chinese spies or merely run-of-the-mill criminals?

June 21, 2022

China, a country of the mind

China has always been a country of the mind, a big Rorschach test into which we pour all our dreams or hopes of good and evil. But it has rarely matched those dreams.

February 26, 2020

What should Australia do about its politics being too white? (China Matters 25.2.2020)

_Australian politics is too white. It is less diverse than comparable countries such as the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Canada. This is embarrassing.

September 27, 2022

Time to get fair dinkum, or the Voice proposal will lose momentum and support

Many of the proponents of the Voice referendum already agree that the referendum should go forward only if a Yes vote is a virtual certainty. Some expect that the effect of a rejection of the proposal would be catastrophic for First Nations people.

June 5, 2022

Andrew Stewart - Wages and women top Albaneses IR agenda: the big question is how Labor keeps its promises

Industrial relations issues were front and centre when federal Labor last won office from opposition in 2007. The backlash against John Howards Work Choices reforms cost both his government and his own seat. Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillards detailed Forward with Fairness policy provided a blueprint for the Fair Work Act that is still in force today.

March 30, 2020

KIM OATES.-COVID-19. Good news and bad news for children

There is good news for most children and bad news for some in this pandemic. Unlike most epidemics, where those at both ends of the age spectrum are more likely to succumb, the good news is that we are seeing a smaller proportion of deaths and infections in children.

August 26, 2021

Afghanistan- of course it was about oil.

_The Afghanistan war disaster raises questions about the ANZUS treaty and what we were really fighting for.

October 31, 2020

Company director is the one job where pay and performance don't matter (ABC Oct 27, 2020)

For generations, it has been the nation’s most exclusive club. Entry is strictly invitation only. And while acceptance is difficult, once you’re in, you’re in for the long haul.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal