June 20, 2019

JACK WATERFORD. The leaking tap: cherchez le Pezzullo-haters (7 June 2019)

As usual with a leak inquiry, its not clear that the AFP means to solve the crime. It could be too embarrassing.

(This article was posted two weeks ago in the Canberra Times but it is still very relevant. JM)

March 21, 2018

IAN MACPHEE on Peter Dutton (repost from December 2016)

T_he attack by Peter Dutton on Malcolm Fraser’s refugee policies is outrageous. We have had a succession on inadequate Immigration Ministers in recent years but Dutton is setting the standard even lower Yet Turnbull recently declare him to be an ‘outstanding immigration minister’. The Liberal Party has long ceased to be liberal._

June 29, 2017

KIERAN TAPSELL. A Different Scorecard on Pope Francis

Pope Francis has rightly been acclaimed for his stand on climate change, poverty, inequality and refugees, but on these issues he can only encourage others to act. When it comes to the role of the laity in Church governance and the cover up of child sexual abuse, Pope Francis’ rhetoric does not match his actions. He will never have the moral authority of a Nelson Mandela while he refuses to initiate changes to canon law that would bring them into line.

September 19, 2017

JOHN MENADUE The new squatters in our National Parks

The new squatters on public land are being given a leg-up as they were in the 19th Century to seize and occupy public land. By deliberately underfunding National Parks commercial friendly governments are putting commercial interests ahead of the public interest.

June 21, 2018

GARETH EVANS. How we should manage Donald Trump's meltdown world (AFR 20/6/2018)

_The assumptions that have sustained and underpinned Australian security and economic policy for decades are in meltdown. The post-Second World War global order an open, rules-based system underpinned by a robust network of security alliances, and by effective multilateral institutions in which rules could be agreed and norms reinforced is the only one we have known in our modern history. Its maintenance has depended more than anything else on American belief in the liberal norms laid out in the San Francisco peace treaty and the Bretton Woods organisations. As the Trump administration conspicuously abandons those norms, that order is now unravelling with remarkable speed.

March 12, 2015

Michael Gracey. Risks of Closing Remote Aboriginal Communities.

Forced dislocation from traditional homelands in the late 1960s and early 1970s made many Aboriginal families and groups move, for the first time, to small towns in the north and north-west of WA. This drift to strange environments with access to alcohol and living close to people from different backgrounds, languages and alien beliefs and behaviours, had dire and long-lasting social consequences as well as negative impacts on health and well-being and contact with the police. This came with a price to the general community as well as to those who were displaced.

November 5, 2019

MACK WILLIAMS. North Korea: the clock is ticking - but just?

There have been a few developments since the abortive Hanoi Summit but overall little of substance has changed.

July 5, 2017

DENNIS ARGALL. Ignore Trump's tweets about North Korea ; the diplomacy is being handled by adults

Since his election in May South Korea’s President Mon Jae-in has developed a productive relationship with US President Trump, particularly on the difficult issue of both countries’ dealings with North Korea. Regrettably Australian and other mainstream media is reporting Trump’s rants, intended for his domestic support base, rather than the positive outcomes from those summit meetings.

March 13, 2017

ALAN KOHLER. Hello, Elon? It's Malcolm.

Cannon-Brookes! That mans an absolute nuisance. Hes been causing Arthur problems with our457 visa plans, and now hes trying to mess up the nice little wedge weve got going with Shorten and Weatherill over renewables and blackouts in Adelaide.

September 5, 2017

TEJSHREE THAPA. Watching Burma in Flames from Bangladesh

I stood at the edge of the Naf River on the Bangladesh border watching heavy smoke rise from a village on the Burma side. Bangladeshi border guards talked of fires all along the border targeting villages of Rohingya Muslims.

August 20, 2018

ROGER SCOTT. Withering Australian Political Science

There are two explanations for the withering of Australian Political Science: the increasing shift in domestic student preferences away from studying local issues and towards International Studies, and the impact of universities maximising the economic benefits to be derived from recruiting international students.

August 15, 2018

JOHN STAPLETON. The Demise of Malcolm Turnbull

The leadership is in play. Diabolical polling ensures that.

August 10, 2018

RICHARD BUTLER. Foreign Policy on Auto-Pilot: In Spite of the Weather

Every week now, we are presented with another reason to think hard about exactly what our joined at the hip relationship with the US obliges us to do. July Bishops Foreign Policy White paper doesnt meet that need. Indeed, it urges us to deepen our relationship with the US as the way ahead. Our relationship of dependence on the US renders us unable to address effectively the key current and foreseeable determinants, of politics among nations.

February 19, 2019

HENRY REYNOLDS. The Debate About Anzus and the Defence of Taiwan.

Last week Pearls and Irritations printed spirited contributions by Hugh White and Cavan Hogue about the future of Anzus and the American Alliance. They were both responding to an earlier paper in The Strategist, the in- house journal of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, by Paul Dibb entitled Australia and the Taiwan contingency. It was encouraging to see that there was significant debate within the defence and foreign policy establishment in Canberra although little of it emerges into the wider public sphere.

October 29, 2018

MICHAEL KEATING. Privatisation: When does it work, and when doesnt it work?

Opponents of privatisation accuse it of being a key part of neo-liberal ideology. But blanket opposition to privatisation seems to me to be equally ideological. Instead, privatisation should be considered on a case-by-case basis. Accordingly, this article discusses the criteria against which the possible privatisation of a government service and its implementation should be considered.

January 31, 2018

SAUL ESLAKE. Defenders of housing status quo create 'alternative facts'.

The release last month of (albeit heavily redacted) Treasury advice to the Turnbull Government on the likely effects of the policies the Labor Opposition took to the 2016 election regarding negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount once again highlight the extent to which those defending the status quo in this area are willing to create their own alternative facts in order to promote their arguments.

January 13, 2014

Health workforce reform. Prof Peter Brooks

As we draw to the end of the holiday period and contemplate the challenges for us in 2014 we might take a moment to think about the big questions in health. We are continually reminded by politicians, media and other (self) interested groups about the cost of health care, the need for more doctors and nurses, more beds, more money -all of which will blow out the health budget even more . We are told that patients will have to pay more (the proposed $6 fee for GP visits) but rarely do we look at what are the real drivers in the costs of health care. Doctors have a very privileged position in society but we are responsible for generating the bulk of costs of healthcare every time we order a test, prescribe a medication, recommend a procedure, and admit a patient to hospital costs are generated, so surely we need to look at this side of the equation. This is particularly so in the context of the Australian health system which is based on fee for service every time there is an interaction with the medical profession the cash register tinkles!

May 27, 2018

MICHAEL LAMBERT. Review of Fair Share by Stephen Bell and Michael Keating , Part 1

The topic of economic inequality has become an area of strong research and academic interest , and Fair Share: Competing Claims and Australias Economic Future, by Stephen Bell and Michael Keating, published by Melbourne University Press, adds to an illustrious group of authors who have tackled this complex subject from a range of perspectives. (These include but are not limited to British economist Anthony Atkinson; French academic Thomas Piketty; Austrian historian Walter Scheidel; American economist, Branko Milanovic; and Nobel prize winner, American economist Joseph Stiglitz).

September 15, 2018

JOHN MENADUE. The urgent need for democratic renewal. We don't trust the major parties

Australians are sick and tired of politicians. The community is deserting the major political parties in droves.Most recently we have seen it in Longman and Wagga. We have lost trust in our major political parties and most particularly the Liberal and National Parties in recent months.

In the 1980s we embraced economic change and reform. It was necessary but painful for some. Today we need democratic reform and renewal. Like the 1980s, it is necessary but it will be painful for some.

After the next election we need a government that will assist us in major democratic renewal. It is urgent. We could start with a post-election summit in the same way that Prime Minister Hawke called an economic summit many years ago. We need a summit of community leaders to help chart a new course for democratic renewal.

February 25, 2019

PAUL COLLINS. Catholicism's Year from Hell

Without a doubt the last twelve months have been Catholicisms annus horribilis and, let me assure you, theres still not much light at the end of the tunnel.

August 27, 2017

PETER JOHNSTONE. (Announcement) International Authority on the Churchs Governance to visit Australia

Dr Richard Gaillardetz, an eminent lay theologian who raises some of the hard questions for the Catholic Church concerning its governance, is coming to Australia for the National Pastoral Leaders and Pastoral Planners Conference. This is a conference organised by pastoral associates, a challenging leadership role occupied mostly by women and increasingly important to the functioning of the Church.

June 19, 2017

FRANK BRENNAN. The origins and incoherence of Australia's asylum seeker policy

During Refugee Week 2017, I would like to offer a historical perspective on how we got to where we are in the hope that we might be able to convince one or both of our major political parties to reset their policy, which is needlessly destroying lives, including the lives of children who are proven refugees still living in the no man’s land of Nauru.

December 10, 2014

John Menadue. Temporary Protection Visas and the Senate cross-bench.

I wish that the Rudd, Gillard and Abbott Governments had done things very differently on refugee policies. But faced with the impasse at the present time, I welcome the compromise arrangement which the government has negotiated with the senate cross benches two senators from the Palmer Group, Nick Xenophon, Ricky Muir, Bob Day and David Leyonhjelm. But like the curates egg it is good and bad in parts.

As a result a negotiated package has been achieved that will enable the government to get the refugee processing system moving again to assess the claims of over 30,000 asylum seekers who are in detention or in the community with very restricted rights. The package includes

March 26, 2017

SPENCER ZIFCAK. From Imbroglio to Fiasco: Malcolm Turnbull Loses the Plot on S.18C

The argument about the terms of Sections 18C and 18D of the Commonwealth Racial Discrimination Act (RDA) began with the case brought against the journalist, Andrew Bolt, now some six years ago. The temperature of the debate has risen and fallen during that time, but one aspect of it has remained constant.

August 6, 2019

ANDREW PESCE. Patient Gap payments and Out of Pocket Costs. What needs to be done? Part 2

The first of this two article series quantified and explained out of pocket (OOP) cost in the Australian Health system.

_Some areas of OOP costs are acceptable and there is no need to intervene. OOP costs for non PBS pharmaceuticals, for example, largely reflect discretionary spending on products with little proven impact on health outcom_es.

February 2, 2018

GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND ...

In an article in the Fairfax Press, Clancy Yeates points out that Australias big banks have slashed loans to fossil fuel companies by almost a fifth in 2017, including a 50 per cent drop in their coal mining exposure.

On last weekends Saturday Extra, Geraldine Doogue interviewed Laura Dassow Wallis, author of Henry David Thoreau: A life. There is a common image of Thoreau as a hermit in the wilderness, but Wallis dispels this image. He was thoroughly connected with society, and was deeply concerned with the way, as capitalism advanced, public land was being taken from the community and enclosed. The appropriation of physical and metaphorical public space for commercial purposes continues to this day.

July 3, 2017

TONY MAHER. Energy future debate needs to put people first

Without bipartisan support for the key planks of energy policy, we will continue to have electricity shortages, higher than necessary prices and investment decisions being made by governments based on populism. Workers shouldnt be used as a pawn in a political game by politicians. Workers should be centre stage changes to the energy system should make sure workers and their communities dont continue to bear a disproportionate share of the burden of this unholy mess.

August 7, 2018

MICHAEL KEATING. Why Trumps economic policies are doomed to fail.

President Trumps protectionist policies have been widely criticised and rightly so. What is more surprising is the lack of analysis as to why America has a long-standing trade deficit, and the contradictory and self-defeating nature of President Trumps overall economic strategy.

June 4, 2018

RICHARD DENNISS. The big con: how neoliberals convinced us there wasn't enough to go around

Australia just experienced one of the biggest mining booms in world history. But even at the peak of that boom, there was no talk of the wonderful opportunity we finally had to invest in world-class mental health or domestic violence crisis services.

September 3, 2019

SCOTT BURCHILL. Resuscitating Sinophobia in Australia.

Sinophobia has a long history in the West, especially in Washington. It has always contained xenophobia, racism and Cold War animus in roughly equal parts. In Washingtons China, James Peck documents how since the 1950s, the national security establishment in the United States has used the fear of China to thwart any challenge to Washingtons vainglorious and limitless ambition to rule the world.

February 18, 2019

PAUL BONGIORNO. Did Scott Morrison miss his Tampa moment? (The New Daily 18.2.2019)

The question playing on the minds of nervous Coalition MPs is whether Scott Morrison has missed his Tampamoment.

Should the embattled Prime Minister have seized the moment of last weeks humiliating government defeat in Parliament to have called an immediate election?

June 27, 2018

PETER RODGERS: Postcard from Doha: blockaders, bovines and billions

A year on, the Saudi-led boycott of Qatar appears stymied by the latters capacity to buy its way out of trouble. Qatars extravagant spending on the 2022 FIFA World Cup would make many a national treasurer weep.

March 12, 2018

MACK WILLIAMS. North Korea: What now?"

President Trumps positive response to Kim Jong-uns invitation to direct talks naturally has created a swirl of media commentary and speculation. It has served Trumps interest to promote a sense of surprise though it probably also reflects a considerable amount of activity by a number of stakeholders in recent months. Given the DPRKs track record in earlier negotiating efforts and the seemingly dysfunctional White House, it is hard to be more than cautious about where it might lead.

June 21, 2017

FRANK BRENNAN. Seeking Clarity on Boat Turnbacks and the Utility of Offshore Refugee Warehousing

Erika Feller (former Assistant High Commissioner UNHCR) and Michael Pezzullo (Secretary, Dept of Immigration and Border Protection) spoke at this years ANU Crawford Australian Leadership Forum on borders and the movement of people. The convenor of the forum is ANU Chancellor Gareth Evans.

August 13, 2019

Rich school, poor school

This week the ABC kicked open the door to an overdue debate about school funding - a debate claimed to have been settled by Malcolm Turnbull two years ago. In a stunning interactive report on its website, Inga Ting and her team at the ABC unpacked and presented a disturbing picture of the capital funding of schools. Even if you arent infected by the politics of envy, just running your cursor down the list of schools might make you pause. Half of the $22 billion spend on capital projects in Australian schools between 2013 and 2017 was spent in just 10 percent of schools.

July 28, 2019

DAVID POPE on 'The Freudenberg'. (Canberra Times 27.7.2019)

October 29, 2018

BERNIE FRASER- Neoliberal failure, putting the economy ahead of society -A repost

At The Australian Institute’s Revenue Summit in Canberra on 17 October 2018 Bernie Fraser raised an important question as to why with Australia’s 27 years of successive economic growth there is so mush social disquiet and sense of unfairness in the community.

Bernie Fraser was formerly Secretary of Treasury and Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia.

He asked …‘How do we explain (the) disconnect between Australia’s impressive economic growth story and its failure on so many markers to show progress towards a better,fairer society? In my view a large part of the answer lies in the influence of the political ideology of neoliberalism on policy making in Australia over much of the last few decades. In varying degrees similar influences and outcomes are evident in several other developed western countries.

June 3, 2018

JOHN MENADUE. Four waves of economic and strategic relationships - UK, US, Japan and China - similarities and differences.

Waves of foreign investment and trade have been essential features of Australian development since 1788. The waves began with the UK, then the US, then Japan and now China. In each of these waves the Australian government has consistently managed the economic and strategic ties that were involved, despite difficulties from time to time . In our burgeoning relationship with China, we have for the first time an agency of the Australian government deliberately doing damage to our major trading partner.

December 31, 2023

China: Perspectives beyond the mainstream media

China looms large in the Australian psyche. On a practical level, what happens in China largely determines the success of global action to deal with climate change, the profitability of our rural economy and the financing of our universities. Our national leaders are concerned about rising tensions in our region and the interplay of US-China relations. How are we to find our way through media doom and gloom and come to grips with the reality of China?

June 5, 2019

Tiananmen anniversary revisited

Readers of my generation will recall the horror story told to the US Congressional Human Rights Caucus on 10 October 1990 by a 15-year old Kuwaiti girl. Nayirah claimed to have witnessed invading Iraqi troops storming a Kuwaiti hospital, ripping 15 babies out of incubators and leaving them to die on the cold floor. On 19 December 1990, an 84-page report by Amnesty International concluded: 300 premature babies were reported to have died after Iraqi soldiers removed them from incubators, which were then looted. The Amnesty story and Nayirahs testimony were widely circulated around the world and used as a powerful mobilising tool by the George H. Bush administration to drum up public and Congressional support for a resolution to grant the president authorization to use force in Kuwait.

July 1, 2018

FINTAN O'TOOLE. Trial runs for fascism are in full flow.

Babies in cages were no mistake by Trump but test-marketing for barbarism.

August 1, 2020

Rio Tinto: ditch the colonial baggage and get with a 21st-century program (MWM July 31, 2020)

Rio Tinto has just announced an astronomical profit, largely on the back of its continued exploitation of Indigenous land in WA. Yet Rio still does not have an Indigenous Australian in a senior executive role. To maintain its social licence the company must also move its headquarters to Australia and up its royalties, writesStephen Mayne.

December 10, 2013

In defence of compulsory voting. Guest blogger: Graham Freudenberg

One of the best features of Australian elections is the high voter turnout. This has been achieved by compulsory voting. The LNP in Queensland is now moving to abolish it in the state in which it was first established, by a Tory government, in 1914. This must not be allowed to go uncontested, like so much else that is happening in Queensland.

Compulsory voting has been a distinctive, positive and successful feature of Australian democracy for the best part of a century (1924 in Federal elections). It is deeply embedded in our political culture and custom. It makes elections by far the most majestic of all our national events the only occasion on which every Australian adult participates in exactly the same way, on equal terms, for the highest common purpose the election of a democratic government. It is a unique affirmation of the equality of every Australian citizen and of the inclusiveness of our society, immensely important in a nation of immigrants. It embodies the civic obligation as well as the entitlement that comes with the right to vote.

June 27, 2018

JIM COOMBS: Class Warfare Bring it On !

CEDA survey Community Pulse 2018 Economic Disconnect perhaps tells us what we already know: The vast majority feel that they have got less than a fair share of our years of growth, and our working conditions have worsened, and they are right.

September 3, 2018

WILLIAM CASE. UMNOs ethnoreligious order is not gone just waiting.

Malaysias new Pakatan Harapan government rode to power on a pledge to clean up Malaysias foul politics. It was wise to focus on the UMNO-led Barisan Nasionals transgressions: Pakatans appeal lay less in its own glowing imagery and manifesto than in the electorates widespread contempt for the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), which leads the now opposition Barisan Nasional coalition.

October 15, 2017

IAN McAULEY. Yet another futile attempt to support private health insurance

The governments changes to private health insurance have little, if anything, to do with health policy. Rather they are about staving off the insurers death spiral of rising premiums and desertion of profitable customers, and protecting the government from the embarrassment of yet another five or six per cent rise in premiums in 2018.

May 7, 2018

MICHAEL KEATING and JON STANFORD. Australias strategic risks and future defence policy (Part 1 of 2)

Part 1: Australias strategic environment and the US alliance

Two years ago the government selected the French company Naval Group to design Australias future submarine (FSM). We were highly critical of the decision at the time for a number of reasons, including the excessive cost. In particular, we are concerned by the lengthy delivery schedule for the submarines, a decade or more after the present Collins class submarines are due to be retired, resulting in a dangerous capability gap. In this series of two articles we explore how Australias strategic environment has evolved since the decision on the FSM was taken and what this implies for Australias future defence strategy and the ADFs force structure.

August 7, 2019

MACK WILLIAMS. Alliance Management- Morrison's First Challenge : Iran

_The past week of the Australian-US Ministerial Consultations (Ausmin) talks has presented the Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, and his inexperienced ministerial team with the first serious test of how to manage the US alliance relationship. Despite the very difficult contemporary problem of coping with the most dysfunctional US administration in recent history we should not fail to recognise that the fundamental issues for our alliance remain as they have been for years. The “Swamp” is still very much alive.

July 16, 2018

GEOFF RABY. Lessons from Chinas 40 years of reform a very personal reflection

I am delighted to have been asked to open this conference [the China Economists’ Conference] which is occurring on the 40th Anniversary of the launching of Chinas reforms and open-door policies, policies that have changed China and the world.

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John Menadue's Public Policy Journal