June 20, 2018

LAURIE PATTON. You can’t privatise an organisation that doesn’t make a profit!

The ABC earns around $100 million a year from its commercial activities (mainly ABC shops). Its annual operating budget is more than a billion dollars.

November 11, 2016

ANDREW JAKUBOWICZ. A Bigots’ Frenzy: how race, class and gender still matter in the Australian politics of Section 18C.

Australia is a democratic pluralist society and there lies the rub. Democracies privilege freedom, while pluralism requires civility. In the increasing hyperbole surrounding the question of the impact of Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act many are arguing that freedom of speech should trump freedom from hate, and others that the current “balance” is fine.

A sociology of the protagonists suggests that those who are proposing to diminish the protections offered to victims of racial vilification under 18C are predominantly well-off (Christian) Euro-Australian males, who are also the majority of those previously complained against under 18C. Those who are opposed to changes to 18C tend to be drawn from minority groups in terms of ethnicity, race and religion, and are more likely to be women.

May 23, 2018

PETER PHIBBS. Australian housing policy – going around in circles

The housing affordability report card for the last 12 months is a mixed one. A welcome reduction in price and rental pressures in some capital cities is offset by rising homelessness and ongoing housing stress for those on lower incomes, for whom more direct help is needed. Policy debate is often still very confused, even amongst some of our most revered institutions, including the RBA.

July 3, 2019

ABUL RIZVI: South Australia - Canary in the Ageing Coalmine

In terms of the impact of population ageing, South Australia provides a glimpse into Australia’s future. Over the next decade, ageing will impact Australia more significantly than at any time in our post World War II history. By 2030, all the 5.5 million baby boomers will be past age 65 and predominantly in retirement.

February 11, 2016

Michael Keating. An Update on Tax Reform

The Prime Minister seems to have been encouraging speculation that the Government has decided not to consider any reform of taxation that involves an increase in the GST. If true, hardly a courageous decision, given the support he has received from some State Premiers. But this posting is concerned about the consequences.

First, in the absence of any extra GST revenue, it now is almost certain that the Australian Government will not give the States any more money. Instead the States will have to wear the $80 billion cut to health and education funding that the Commonwealth has already imposed on their budgets.

October 24, 2017

JOHN MENADUE. The NBN and the wholesale/network arm of Telstra that should never have been sold.

Yesterday Malcolm Turnbull , perhaps unwittingly,sheeted home the real responsibility for the NBN debacle to the privatisation of Telstra by the Howard Government. In his attempt to blame the Rudd government for the current problems, he really let the cat out of the bag. He said

If you want to look at a country that did this exercise much better, it was New Zealand. What they did was they basically ensured the incumbent telco - the Telstra equivalent - split its network operations from its retail operations and then that network company, called Chorus, became in effect the NBN.'

October 27, 2018

JOHN KERIN. Droughts and Drought Policy

Drought policy has always been marked by the near impossibility to satisfactorily match efficiency, preparedness, risk management and resource base (environmental) management with welfare measures once large areas of the continent are declared to be in drought by State Government authorities.

October 27, 2017

JOHN MENADUE. How a rogue organization operates.

This week Crikey has been running a series, the Holy Wars on ‘How The Australian targets and attacks its enemies ‘This prompted me to recall my own experiences and earlier writing on how News Corp intimidates its critics and threatens and seduces governments.

The way News Corp operates must be traced to Murdoch himself for he has told us that ‘for better or worse (News Corp) is a reflection of my own thinking, my character and my values’.

August 25, 2018

GILES PARKINSON & SOPHIE VORRATH “Scoal-Mo” as PM. What does that mean for climate and energy policy? (RenewEconomy, 24.08.18)

It says something about the state of Australia’s politics that the new prime minister, the man who brandished a lump of coal in parliament, is considered a moderate, at least in comparison to the forces he beat to the job.

July 26, 2018

HENRY REYNOLDS. Australia's perpetual 'war footing'. (Repost from 7/5/2018)

We should have paid more attention at the time. It was September 2013 and the Abbott government had just been sworn in. The new Defence Minister, Senator David Johnston, gave an interview to a Fairfax journalist which was reported on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald. The content was truly extraordinary.

September 14, 2017

MICHAEL MULLINS. Civil and religious marriage are best kept separate.

By conflating the civil law with religious ritual, we create confusion that makes it easy for the Church to claim authority that rightfully belongs to the state. In other words, the Church makes demands regarding sacramental marriage, which of course is OK. But it often weighs in on civil marriage as well, which is different.

September 12, 2017

ANNE O’BRIEN. Clericalism is alive and well in the Catholic Church

The Royal Commission has provided few grounds for optimism concerning the future of the Catholic Church in Australia. The institution is moribund and its leaders are unable or unwilling to face reality.

June 18, 2018

MUNGO MacCALLUM. America's frightened allies.

Donald Trump has spent the last three years scaring the crap out of his allies, but suddenly it has become serious. His predilection for ruthless dictators, traditionally anathema to America and its allies, has now got to the point where those same allies are disposable.

August 24, 2017

JOSEPH A. CAMILLERI. Australia's engagement with Asia and the world has fallen on hard times.

In the vain hope of minimising the catastrophic consequences of America’s 16-year long military intervention, Donald Trump has just announced yet another surge in its military presence in Afghanistan. Australia, like other allies, will also be asked to do more, and will almost certainly agree to the request. This is part of the now familiar pattern that has seen Australia despatch military forces to Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. It is a reminder of the same reflexive mindset that has prompted Malcolm Turnbull’s recent comments linking ANZUS to the Korean crisis. In this case, the response is so ill-informed as to be comical, and so bereft of common sense as to be tragic. Australia’s foreign and security policies, it seems, have now descended into pure farce.

June 29, 2017

DAVID MENERE. Don’t mention the War — the latest on what isn’t being reported on Syria

Reporting on the Syrian conflict by Australia’s media is practically non-existent. Only when events impinge directly on Australia, or involve a major incident, do they gain local coverage. Overseas mainstream reporting is little better. Where does the distinction lie between disinterest and self-censorship?

January 23, 2019

JOHN HEWSON. She won't be right: the economic storm our leaders ignore. (SMH 18.1.2019)

It’s the economy, stupid" – a slogan and a focus that largely won the US presidency for Bill Clinton in 1992. He then went on to reap the benefits of Bush senior’s economic management, not yet evident at the time of the election.

The issue of economic management is usually a significant issue at our federal elections, with polling consistently suggesting the LNP has an edge as “better economic managers”.

Perceptions matter in politics, but realities are ultimately determinant. Even though both our major parties have warned recently of global storm clouds ahead for our economy this year, neither is actually prepared to spell out the full significance of the risks, particularly systemic risks, and neither is the Reserve Bank of Australia or Treasury.

September 22, 2017

EVAN WILLIAMS. Nanny state? Bring it on!

Among conservatives, the term “nanny state” is enjoying a new vogue. And its use is by no means confined to a handful of loony libertarians. Any action intended to protect personal safety or curb anti-social behaviour is now seen as evidence of the dreaded nanny state taking over our lives. Gun-control laws, mandatory helmets for bike riders, plain packaging on cigarettes, compulsory vaccination for kids – all are part of a sinister left-wing plot to destroy capitalism.

October 17, 2017

Private Health Insurance: focus on premiums ignores the cost of using it

Last week’s _announcement_ from the Turnbull Government purported to be about making private health insurance “simpler and more affordable” but in fact delivered more for health insurance funds’ bottom lines than for Australians’ budgets and highlighted the contorted, confused and controversial logic that underpins the government’s push requiring taxpayers to contribute to the financing of both tiers of a two-tiered healthcare system.

July 3, 2019

Trump’s disdain for Japan is insulting and high-risk

In his forays abroad, US President Donald Trump increasingly resembles a bull carrying his own china shop on his back, to be set down for wrecking at diplomatic confabs. At the moment a grave crisis seems imminent with regard to Iran. As former German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer notes, soon Trump will come to _a fork in the road to Tehran_ where he must choose between: a diplomatic climbdown on his impossible demands; or a war with Iran with regional and long-term consequences far worse than the terrible damage wrought by the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. Either will hurt Trump’s standing with his base, the only constituency he seems to care about.

June 2, 2018

New figures show States have cut funding to public schools.

New figures show that government funding increases have massively favoured private schools over public schools across Australia since 2009. Total government funding per student in public schools was cut between 2009 and 2016 while large funding increases were provided to Catholic and Independent schools. Even during the Gonski funding period of 2013-2016 funding increases for private schools far outstripped the increase for public schools.

September 2, 2019

BRIAN TOOHEY Chained to the chariot wheels of the Pentagon

The British monarchy has no say in Australian government decisions. It’s a different story with the head of the American Republic. A US president presides over a military-industrial-intelligence complex with a huge say in whether Australian governments go to war, buy particular weapons, host US-run military and intelligence bases and ban trade with certain countries. The upshot is that Australia has now surrendered much of its sovereignty to the US.

November 15, 2016

ANDREW FARRAN. Under Trump - A moment of truth may be approaching

Indications are that a Trump Administration will expect America’s allies to pay their way to a greater extent than former President Nixon’s expectations were pursuant to the Guam Doctrine of 1969 mid-point in the Vietnam War.

By and large it could be argued that Australia has paid its way - through Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq since that time. All defeats. Will the balance of wider interests be more or less benign in the coming years?

The next year may see the return of ‘nation’ states. Elections in 2017 may bring in a swag of far right governments in Europe. The greatest risk is Marine Le Pen in France which would presage or bring forward the inevitable break up of the EU.

January 25, 2016

Cavan Hogue. Mr Turnbull goes to Washington.

Despite one welcome outburst of independence by refusing a request for more troops on the ground in the Middle East and a generally less sycophantic approach than most of his predecessors,the Prime Minister’s visit to Washington had all the usual hallmarks of a client presenting tribute to the Emperor. The fact that Australian and American comentators felt the need to sound surprised at the refusal of a US request is instructive.

May 22, 2018

JOHN DALEY AND BRENDAN COATES. We can’t begin to fix our housing crisis until our leaders start levelling with the public

Governments at both Federal and State level are still avoiding the politically difficult changes that would make a real difference to housing affordability. But we won’t make progress unless our leaders eschew the popular but ineffective options in favour of planning and tax reforms that could actually improve affordability.

September 11, 2017

BRUCE THOM. Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, and their implications for Australia

Massive losses in Texas, Florida and across the Caribbean in recent days reminds us again of the capacity of tropical cyclones to wreak havoc.

January 14, 2019

HUGH WHITE. The Costs of Containing China (East Asia Forum)

Washington’s policymakers at last understand that China is a serious strategic rival. For the first time since the Soviet collapse, they recognise that a major country is trying to expand its power and influence at the expense of US global leadership.

June 17, 2019

MUNGO MACCALLUM - What Bob Hawke meant by aspiration.

Bob Hawke’s widow Blanche d’Alpuget summed it up best: his was a life triumphantly well lived. The state memorial service last week sent the silver bodgie off in grand style. It was a fitting celebration of a remarkable leader.

September 18, 2017

JOHN BLAXLAND AND ELAINE PEARSON. Myanmar Rohingya crisis: Australia needs to stand up and help as the situation worsens.

The world seems to be sitting on its hands as the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar descends into what the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has described as “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing”.

June 5, 2018

IAN McAULEY. What’s so sacred about small business?

Flowing from the Financial Services Royal Commission is a stream of stories about the bad behaviour of big business, but is that distracting our attention from the shortcomings of small business?

September 24, 2019

JACK WATERFORD. Albanese’s race against time (Canberra Times 20-9-19)

On paper, Anthony Albanese has all the time in the world. The electorate is not paying any attention to defeated Labor at the moment, and won’t probably for at least another year. That’s time enough for a comprehensive review of how Labor snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in May. It’s time enough to plot, develop and project an entirely new image for Labor at the 2022 election. All the more reason for hastening slowly, as he has been explaining patiently to his Caucus.

May 5, 2019

PETER SAINSBURY. Sunday environmental round up, 5 May 2019

_Land use is the focus this week. From threats to the Fitzroy River in the Kimberley and to Indigenous cultures and lifestyles in the Arctic to cities’ responses to the opportunities and challenges presented by climate change. But to start, news from UK that the parliaments in London and Cardiff have both passed motions this week declaring a climate and environmental emergency.

June 27, 2017

MUNGO MacCALLUM. We are in dreadful peril.

You might not have known it, but Australia is in deadly peril. National security is endangered on all fronts, the most obvious indicator the imminent arrival of fleets of boats poised to descend on our sacred shores, ready to wreak havoc and despair among the populace. Terrorism is just the start of it; who can tell what horrors to which the lucky country will be subjugated.

September 29, 2017

MICHAEL WEST. Tax base eroded by backdoor deregulation of Australia’s labour market and jump in foreign contract workers

The biggest failure of public administration since the formation of the Commonwealth of Australia in 1900. – Australian Tax Office insider

The result of having the wrong system where taxes are too high and a labour market which is over-regulated. – Liberal Party insider

We are talking about the broad, state-sanctioned, backdoor deregulation of Australia’s labour market, which has gathered pace as employers increasingly sign up foreign workers, not as employees, but as contractors.

July 31, 2018

ROY GREEN. World class container terminal for Newcastle and the investigation by the ACCC

Connectivity isn’t everything, but it’s almost everything. Faster, better and cheaper is transforming our daily lives. And connectivity isn’t just about broadband access. It’s also about fast and efficient freight transport. Even in a digital world where so much of what we produce is intangible, Australia’s fortunes as an island continent depend on its transport linkages, particularly through our seaports.

January 5, 2017

WALTER HAMILTON. The Sideline is Out of Play

‘Taking sides’ is a schoolyard conception of how a nation’s strategic interest is to be calculated and diplomacy shaped. Standing on the sidelines of a fight, pointing an accusing finger at other barracking spectators and crying ‘you’re taking sides’ is merely a way of avoiding the more challenging task of assessing the rights and wrongs of an issue and how it might, sooner or later, directly involve others. This is a repost from 20 September 2016.

August 25, 2017

MICHAEL McKINLEY. Pine Gap: A Case of Australia’s Reckless Endangerment

The Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap is a reproach to Australian democracy, independence and government. Over the years Australia has achieved its goal of being fully integrated within the operations of the facility to such a degree that it is significantly responsible for the consequences of those operations. Among these consequences are the facilitation of illegal modes of warfare and of illegal operations per se. At the same time those responsible for this involvement have remained silent and allowed issues of fundamental importance to be ignored.

October 22, 2015

Jon Stanford. Australia’s New Submarine: What is its Mission?

Recent papers published in Pearls and Irritations by Jon Stanford and Rear-Admiral Ian Richards have suggested respectively that:

the case for providing significant financial support to the naval shipbuilding industry is flawed, both on defence policy and industry policy grounds
there are unacceptable risks involved in building Australia’s proposed new fleet of submarines locally.

In this article I seek to move back from the issue of local or overseas acquisition of the new submarines and attempt first to address the more fundamental question of what exactly the Australian government wants these submarines to do. That then leads on to the second question of what technologies the submarines will need to deploy in order to undertake this mission most effectively and at minimal risk to their crews.

November 29, 2017

Myanmar Is Not a Simple Morality Tale

In this article published in the New York Times on November 25, 2017, Roger Cohen writes about the dilemma of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. He comments ‘The West made a saint of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. The Rohingya crisis revealed a politician.’

October 4, 2016

GRAEME ORR. Party Over? Reforming Australian Political Finance

After decades of halting debate, the momentum for political finance reform has never been greater. At a national level, this comes off a low base. Australia has the **laxest** political finance system of all our common law cousins: Canada, UK, US, New Zealand.

But don’t hold your breath. Any systemic reform faces two hurdles: one real, one more imagined. The real hurdle is political will. The perceived hurdle is constitutional. Let’s take them in reverse order.

August 18, 2017

PAUL COLLINS. An Open Letter to Sydney Archbishop Anthony Fisher

I am disturbed by your identification of your personal views on marriage equality with those of the Catholic Church… The saddest thing is that you have linked Catholicism with some of the most reactionary and unattractive political forces in the entire country.

June 5, 2018

TONY STEPHENS. Freda Whitlam: educationalist passionate about her girls.

Freda Whitlam, a formidable educator and church leader, was principal of a prominent Sydney private girls school, helped establish the University of Western Sydney and the University of the Third Age, and became Moderator of the Uniting Church of Australia. She died on Wednesday, May 30, at the age of 97.

February 12, 2019

PAUL BONGIORNO. Scott Morrison has formally hit the panic button. (The New Daily 12.2.2019)

Scott Morrison is desperately in need of a circuit breaker. Something dramatic to save his government and pull off an unlikely election win.

The opinion polls are stubbornly stuck in wipeout territory, the latest Newspoll just confirming the trend not only since August, but since the last federal election in 2016.

Nothing is working, not even the promise of a million new jobs.

March 12, 2014

Fran Baum & Paul Laris. Beware of the crocodiles, they will keep you out of the garden!

We interviewed 20 former Australian Federal and State and Territory health ministers about the extent to which they were able to focus on promoting health, health equity and social determinants of health during their tenure. Social determinants of health are the conditions of everyday life (income, housing, food availability, employment, education) and the structural factors that shape those conditions (distribution of wealth, taxation levels, extent of political empowerment) that combine to determine health outcomes and their distribution. Evidence from the Commission on the Social Determinants of Health showed that action on the social determinants are vital to achieving equitable health outcomes.

March 26, 2018

MUNGO MacCALLUM. The banks are bastards.

The banks are bastards. Every Australian knows that and has known it from birth – it is fixed in our DNA. Deep in our psyche is the indelible picture of Mr Moneybags, the bloated cigar-smoking capitalist, shovelling in the loot and grinding the faces of the poor.

February 8, 2019

QUENTIN DEMPSTER. The ABC is now fighting for its survival (Speech delivered on 7 February 2019)

In trying to defend the ABC as an institutional pillar of a fearless free media in Australia’s robust democracy, first, we have to confront paranoia.It comes in the form of constant Murdoch Press complaints that the ABC is biased and a force for “left wing” ideology.__“All the ABC’s presenters are left wing!” columnists and ABC critics have written.

I found myself on Monday night (4/2/19) on Sky News “after dark” being interviewed on the “Chris Kenny on Media” program. And again the paranoia was in the air.“Name me one conservative or right-of-centre presenter at the ABC?” Mr Kenny demanded.I said I wasn’t going to fall into that trap by offering up a name. And, of course, to do so would be to make an admission that the question was valid and did have a basis in fact.

August 10, 2018

TONY TRIMINGHAM. Drug Reform Series-Don’t punish drug users. Help them instead.

This is mostly a personal story, about my son Damien, who died from heroin use in 1997, at the age of 23. I feel sure that his death could have been avoided if we had at the time an approach to drug use that was based on harm prevention rather than punishment.

March 27, 2017

FRANK BRENNAN SJ. Let’s amend 18C to say what it means

The debate over section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act (18C) has gone on for far too long. I welcome the Turnbull government’s attempt to amend the provision, while being disappointed yet again at the petty politics played on both sides in Canberra in relation to a matter of principle which needs to be handled sensitively for the good of all citizens in our multicultural Australia.

August 28, 2017

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Our Prime Minister needs to become more prime ministerial.

From bollocks one week to bollards the next. Malcolm Turnbull’s response to everything that went wrong with the last session of parliament was to ramp up the terrorist threat to install aesthetically pleasing road blocks to deter truck driving terrorist and then disappear into the outback.

October 8, 2018

SALVATORE BABONES. Australia -the world's first immigration economy.

Australia’s economy is addicted to immigration, requiring ever-increasing infusions of new people to stave off an inevitable collapse.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal