February 19, 2020

CHRIS MILLS. Is affordable, reliable and low-emissions Nuclear-generated electricity the path to Climate Management?

How on Earth will we power the Planet when the Sun is not bright enough, the wind is not strong enough, droughts have dried up pumped-hydro and burning fossil fuels will incinerate us?

March 6, 2020

DAVID MACILWAIN. The Beechworth Principles - setting demands for Integrity in Government

As claims the Federal Government is honestly serving and representing the people look increasingly hollow, Independent MP Helen Haines has presented a historic scheme to hold them to account in “the Beechworth Principles”.

July 26, 2020

What else have the Archives got?

Jenny Hocking’s persistence has revealed the ‘Palace Letters’ between Canberra and London which the National Archives didn’t want Australians to see. If there were other exchanges with Washington and Langley they may be even more reluctant.

September 5, 2021

Sunday environmental round up.

Principles of degrowth for a post-capitalist world.

May 21, 2022

The fascist who inspires the Russian messiah

Ivan Ilyin was a Christian Fascist, exiled by the Communists after the 1917 Revolution, and whose influence on Vladimir Putin has been profound.

December 27, 2018

CHRIS BONOR. The Best of 2018: The elite schools’ arms race goes nuclear

Yes, it was Sunday and the news is usually more sensational than during the week. But the extravagant building plans of some ‘elite’ schools, revealed in the Sun Herald, were certainly eye-opening. According to the report, two of these schools are already funded by governments well above their Schooling Resource Standard. The combined cost ($365m) of the planned capital projects at the seven named schools is close to the amount allocated to address the maintenance backlog across all public schools in NSW.

November 8, 2020

2020 John Menadue Oration with Professor Megan Davis - Can Australia Deliver (video)

Professor Megan Davis delivered a powerful and impassioned response to the question: ‘Can Australia Deliver?’. Professor Davis addressed the future of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, the ongoing journey toward Constitutional reform, as well as the impact of COVID-19 on Indigenous Australians.

June 3, 2022

'Mutual respect and genuine partnership': how a Labor government could revamp our relationship with Indonesia

Dear Albo: Get to know the people next door.

On ABC TV’s The Insiders, the then opposition Leader Anthony Albanese said he planned to visit Indonesia ‘as soon as possible’ – a statement rapidly drowned in the mainstream media’s trite election coverage. In 1994 when the then PM Paul Keating said ‘no country is more important to Australia than Indonesia’, the response was intense.

March 23, 2018

JENNIFER DOGGETT. 8th National Health Reform Summit to focus on equity, efficiency and sustainability.

On Tuesday, March 27__th the Australian Healthcare Reform Alliance (AHCRA) is hosting the 8__th National Health Reform Summit in Canberra. This biennial event brings together organisations, experts and individuals working to improve Australia’s health system. This year’s Summit has a theme of Equity, Efficiency and Sustainability and will focus on developing positions on key health reform issues in the lead-up to the next federal election. Registrations for this event and the associated Advocacy and Communications Workshop are still open at _www.healthreform.org.au_

June 16, 2022

Vale Francis Gerard Brennan

Francis Gerard Brennan, who died on June 1 at the age of 94, will be farewelled in a Requiem Mass at St. Mary’s Church, North Sydney on June 17. He was a Justice of the Federal Court and the High Court of Australia, and Chief Justice of the High Court 1995-1998.

June 20, 2022

Roger Dargaville: Five policy decisions that led to today's energy crisis

If you aren’t a long-term energy policy news junkie, you’d be forgiven for thinking today’s crisis arrived fairly suddenly. But we arrived here thanks to a series of policy decisions under previous governments – state and federal – that left Australia’s energy system ill-equipped to cope with the demands placed on it.

May 31, 2022

Why only bridging visas to Biloela family?

Interim Home Affairs Minister Jim Chalmers has granted the Murugappan family bridging visas to enable the whole family to return to Biloela ‘while they work towards resolution of their immigration status’.

June 27, 2021

The Council on Foreign Relations, the Biden Team, and Key Policy Outcomes. Serving a corporate ruling class.

The U.S. working class, led by people of color, has, at least temporarily, defeated the criminal Trumpian regime and the specter of the consolidation of gangster neofascism.

January 1, 2019

JOHN MENADUE. How Murdoch and Abeles twisted the arm of the Hawke Government to help Ansett Airlines at the expense of Qantas. (Edited and reposted)

I have recalled several times that Rupert Murdoch has said that he has never asked a Prime Minister for anything. That is quite brazen. From my own personal experience I know that is just not true.

I was the intermediary when Rupert Murdoch asked new Prim Minister Whitlam in late 1972 that he be appointed Australian High Commissioner to the UK

One other example which I describe below is an example of the way Rupert Murdoch operates, in this case in association with Peter Abeles, to extract aviation concessions from governments. At the time in 1988 Murdoch and Abeles had a business partnership in Ansett Airlines. I was then CEO of Qantas.

June 12, 2022

The Catholic Plenary Council: A suggested preamble

Convoking a Plenary Council as an instrument for Church renewal and reform in Australia has both advantages and disadvantages.

April 22, 2021

To hell in a trolley-car with a motley crew: utilitarians, “triage” urgers and Neo-Aztecs

And one of them, named Caiaphas, being the high priest that same year, said unto them, Ye know nothing at all, Nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not. (John, 11:49-50 KJV).

Covid-era debates over the intrinsic value of human life have trundled the Trolley Problem (broadly, one person killed to save five), into the public arena. The general concept is not new.

May 30, 2022

501 reasons why deportations damage Australia in the Pacific

The new Australian government wants to push back against Chinese military expansion in the Pacific. It needs the support of the Pacific Islanders themselves. That also means getting rid of a deportation policy with overtones that are, for want of another term, racist.

June 7, 2022

New Brooms, old stories: The Australian Labor Party and Julian Assange

After having a few lunches with Australia’s then opposition leader, Anthony Albanese, John Shipton felt reason to be confident. Albanese had promised Assange’s father that he would do whatever he could, should he win office, to bring the matter to a close.

April 11, 2022

Keith Mitchelson: The perfect rort...gas-guzzling SUVs and utility trucks and more

The Morrison Government is nothing if not inventive. If you need to rort votes there is always a danger that people will notice. How to devise the perfect rort that is the question? Free vehicles for anyone!

June 2, 2022

Mike Gilligan: AUKUS is not about defending Australia but a possible US attack on China

The hidden legacy of AUKUS is that Australia is on a path to attract thermonuclear attack from China, against which it is defenceless. In April I could only wonder about the illogicality of AUKUS, that peculiar agreement struck in September last year with the US and Britain, for Australia to build nuclear submarines to save the Indo-Pacific. (“AUKUS and submarines – a slippery slope”, P&I, 27 April 2022). AUKUS and its emblematic eight budget-crippling nuclear submarines make no sense against Australia’s defence policies, or economic sanity. AUKUS has to be opened intellectually, its innards exposed, to find the risks it’s pushing Australia into.

March 1, 2020

PETER SAINSBURY. Sunday environmental round up.

Without the ‘services’ provided by nature, humanity could not exist – so why do we keep destroying nature? Financial institutions have cold feet about investing in Alberta’s oil sands and the Premier directs a blow torch at their bellies. A follow up to last month’s Siemens story and hints for environmentally sustainable alcohol intake. Finally, a reminder that the Great Barrier Reef is still in danger.

April 4, 2020

SATURDAY’s GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND

What people in other forums are saying about public policy

May 2, 2021

Vale Edie Mayhew

Prominent Australian Dementia Advocate, Edie Mayhew, died unexpectedly but peacefully aged 69 on 23 June 2020 in Ballarat, Victoria.

July 2, 2021

Hong Kong's stability is being restored.

_The National Security Law for Hong Kong has had a profound impact since its enactment on June 30, 2020, ending the era of lawlessness, bringing back peace and stability. A city famed for its decency and tolerance has reasserted its values and triumphed over those who wished it ill.

June 19, 2022

Binoy Kampmark: Julian Assange in Ithaka

“Keep Ithaka always in your mind. Arriving there is where you’re destined for". P. Cavafy, trans. Edmund Keeley

June 4, 2022

A mixed blessing for Catholicism

The man who effectively ran the papacy in the late-1990s and the early-2000s during declining years of John Paul II died on Friday 27 May. His career was a mixed blessing for Catholicism. And sixteen new voting cardinals just appointed.

September 15, 2022

China is muscling Indonesia but not with war threats

Unlike Australians, Indonesians don’t fear war with China. Their concerns are more prosaic – debt, work and the virus of atheism.

June 10, 2022

From limits to growth to regeneration 2030

Fifty years ago, Italian business leaders in the Club of Rome gave a jolt to the world in their path-breaking report Limits to Growth. That thought leadership continues today as Italian business leaders launch Regeneration 2030, a powerful call for more holistic, ethical, and sustainable business practices to help the world achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Climate Agreement. The 50-year journey from Limits of Growth to Regeneration 2030 shows how far we have come in understanding the critical challenges facing humanity, but also how far we still have to go to meet those challenges.

February 10, 2020

DUNCAN GRAHAM. Bali Nine 'Black Sheep' pleads for mercy

The media curtain-raisers for Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s visit to Australia focused on trade and visas. Human rights activists were hoping the agenda might include the fate of the five surviving Bali Nine. One is Martin Stephens.

December 22, 2018

SATYAJIT DAS. Australia's flip-flop policies put off Asia. (Nikkei Asian Review 19.12.2018)

If the opinion polls are correct, Australia will have a new federal government around May 2019. A new prime minister will likely take charge, which would make seven in the past decade, compared to four in the previous 32 years.

This instability has long prevented consistent domestic decision making. Now it is starting to change Australia’s relationship with Asia.

March 6, 2021

Saturday’s good reading and listening for the weekend

What people in other forums are saying about public policy

February 27, 2020

John Carlin. Caroline Flack and Freedom of Opinion

Suicide as a result of trolling on the internet is a modern trend. The problem with legislating away the trolls is that it comes up against freedom of expression. The internet is certainly a new phenomenon that has made the problem of bullying worse, but the solution is to get out of social media.

February 21, 2020

HENRY BATEMAN. What Malnutrition Looks Like.

As the ABC incorporates round the clock disaster warnings into its scheduling, other programming is showing the consequence of resource deprivation.

August 4, 2021

Palestinians: The Final Victims of the Holocaust

When we discuss the Holocaust and Hitler’s slaughter of six million European Jews, we often forget the fact that the Holocaust had other victims as well, namely the Palestinians, whose country was taken from them. They were innocent victims as the world sought to make a place for Jews who had been displaced by the Nazi tyranny, and wished to do so in a way that did not involve inviting Jewish refugees into their own countries.

October 16, 2020

Turkey's Erdoğan is upsetting CIA’s plans in the Middle East

Turkey has been ‘belligerent’ with its destabilising influence in Central Asia and the Mediterranean. Since Erdoğan’s rise and consolidation of executive powers, he has been unashamedly outspoken about his desire to bring the Sunnis and Shiite together in a neo-Ottoman Empire or Caliphate.

March 16, 2018

CHARLES LIVINGSTONE. Is gambling reform possible?

Gambling reform has been in the headlines lately – perhaps more than at any time since the Wilkie-Gillard agreement was shot down by ClubsNSW between 2010 and 2012.

April 27, 2021

Democracy militant: strategic autonomy and Europe's lessons for Australia

The Biden Administration’s China policy assumes that among democratic nations there is a shared view on an existential competition with China. The re-emergence of the issue of European strategic autonomy highlights President Biden’s misunderstanding. Rather than again uncritically fall in behind America’s foreign and strategic policies, Australia needs to pay heed to Europe’s mature approach to sovereignty and autonomy.

February 20, 2020

DAMIEN CAVE. Fearing summer in Australia (NYT17.2.2020)

_Climate change and fires force a nation to rethink the way it looks at life

April 11, 2022

Russian and US parallel pathways to a nuclear conflict

Biden escaped rigorous critical scrutiny that is the normal lot of presidential campaigns with the help of major media and Big Tech platforms that despised Trump. The world is now discovering just how grave the real-world consequences can be when reality bites back.

April 19, 2022

Israel and apartheid

Readers will be aware that earlier this year Amnesty International released a report which made a determination that Israel was an apartheid State. The report was titled ‘Israel’s Apartheid Against Palestinians, a Cruel System of Domination and a Crime Against Humanity’.

February 6, 2018

QUENTIN GRAFTON, ET. AL. The Murray Darling Basin Plan is not delivering – there’s no more time to waste

More than five years after the Murray Darling Basin Plan was implemented, it’s clear that it is not delivering on its key objectives.

May 9, 2022

Preferences confusion compounded!

On the very day my article, The preferences conundrum for Independents, was published, on 4th May I found this how to vote card in my letterbox, from Nicolette Boele, a well-resourced candidate who’s running an energetic and impressively visible campaign in the safe Liberal seat of Bradfield.

January 24, 2019

CIARA MORRIS. Seeing China Through a Washington Lens

Balancing relations between China and the US is arguably Australia’s greatest foreign policy challenge in the 21st century. But is Australia getting it right?

April 22, 2021

The religious recession

A Gallup poll released on Monday, March 29 , 2021, indicates that the proportion of Americans who consider themselves members of a church or synagogue has now dropped below 50%. The results highlight a dramatic shift away from religious affiliation in recent years, and among all age groups. When Gallup first asked the question in 1937, church membership was 73%.

January 11, 2019

MASSIMO FAGGIOLI. Why I cannot even think about leaving the Catholic Church (La Croix International).

We do not know what kind of Church there will be after this abuse crisis, but we must assume that it will probably get worse before it gets better.

February 7, 2020

JOHN MENADUE What is a health service for?

A health service should be run in the interests of the public.Unfortunately any worthwhile reforms of our health sector to benefit the public are usually vetoed by providers with their special interests.

July 14, 2018

JEAN-MARIE COLLIN. The Nuclear Illusion Strikes Again (La Tribune, 08/06/2018)

The issue of NW’s, everyone’s, is riddled with hypocrisy. This is a great example; from France, an ardent defender of the Iran agreement and, a country which played a major role in Israel’s acquisition of nuclear weapons.

July 24, 2022

Richard Falk: When the centre does not hold in America

_I find the prospect of civil wars less disheartening than the related drift toward fascism or the torments of anarchy.

December 22, 2018

Coalition energy and climate policies hit rock bottom at year's end

The federal Coalition government has achieved what most would have assumed impossible at the start of 2018: its position on climate and energy policies has worsened and shifted even further to the right.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal