October 15, 2017

MICHAEL KEATING. Should VET be contestable?

The introduction of contestability into training markets is often cited as a prime example of the failures of privatisation. However, the totality of the evidence is rarely examined in support of this allegation. This article aims to fill this gap. It finds that a contestable training market can fail if not properly regulated, but now that Australias training market is being properly regulated, the quality of training is being preserved, while competition is reducing costs and increasing choice and responsiveness to customer needs.

July 29, 2018

ROGER SCOTT. The morning after in Longman

Many Brisbanites even mildly interested in national politics woke 0n Sunday morning with a sense of satisfaction that the PM had not been rewarded for his guttersnipe tactics. As Greg Jericho pointed out on Sunday, he may not be as vulgar as Trump but Turnbull uses the same playbook. (Jericho G, The Guardian, 29.7.18) His choice of playbook may seem inappropriate for Harbourside Mansions; his assumption must be that it is appropriate for vulgar unsophisticated Queensland.

September 5, 2017

PAUL FRIJTERS. Its not about state versus markets.

It is said that all generals prepare for the last war. So too it often seems in ideology land_, where_ the conflict with the Soviet Union seems to have left us with an obsession with state versus market_. Just as we are not preparing for the_ cyber wars of the future by building obsolete submarines that would only have been useful in WWII, we are not addressing todays economic challenges by thinking in Cold War economic terms either.

January 1, 2014

People smugglers - villains and heroes. John Menadue

In 2009 Kevin Rudd called people smugglers the absolute scum of the earth who should rot in hell. Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison echo and expanded this view.

Others will point to people smugglers like Oskar Schindler who saved hundreds of lives.

Life is anything but simple for people facing persecution. There will be grades of grey rather than black and white when we look at the history of people escaping from persecution to freedom. We know that some agents helping people flee may be driven by greed. Some will have genuine humanitarian concerns.

July 9, 2019

JOHN MENADUE. Here we go again- attacking unions and 'red tape'.

With no policy agenda and with the economy sagging, the Morrison government(‘We are the good economic managers’) intends to take us back to what Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey offered us six years ago, an attack on the trade unions again and less red tape.

May 8, 2018

MICHAEL PASCOE. Budget 2018: The Middle Australia tax cuts are a con

No, Scott Morrison is not promising average Australians significant tax cuts. To use a technical term, the proposed cuts are bugger all.The Treasurer is promising a radical flattening of the tax scale to primarily benefit the top tier of income earners.

September 17, 2017

JOHN AUSTEN. Doubts about infrastructure go beyond Sydney Metro.

John Menadue recently asked for an open public inquiry into the NSW Metro scheme. Given the momentous questions about that scheme and its supposed evaluation there is no doubt such an inquiry must be Australias highest infrastructure priority.

September 26, 2019

CHRIS BONNOR. Britain's private schools in the firing line

It seems that there is more to UK politics than Brexit: Britains Labour conference has passed a motion to effectively abolish private schools and redistribute their students and even their properties to the state sector. Are there implications of such proposals for Australia and what would a similar move cost in this country?

March 9, 2014

Race Mathews. Victorian Labor's new crisis.

ALP members and supporters in Victoria have cause for alarm about the party’s wellbeing and perhaps long-term survival. While federal leader Bill Shorten has committed to far-reaching party reforms, and other states such as Queensland are already adopting them, the Victorian ALP is lurching back into a troubled past, which threatens its effectiveness and future.

Faced with a comparable crisis in the party’s internal affairs in the mid-1960s, a party body - the ‘‘Scoresby State Electorate Council committee of inquiry into representation and decision making in the ALP’’ - wrote to local branches, expressing its concern about the dire straits into which the party had fallen.

December 16, 2014

Michael Keating. The Governments mid-year Budget Update. Part 1.

What does it say about the governments fiscal performance?

The headline news is that the Budget deficit for the current fiscal year, 2014-15 has blown out by $10.6 bn from $29.8 bn in the Budget to $40.4 bn in the Mid-Year Economic and Financial Outlook (MYEFO) released on Monday. Over the four years to 2017-18 the deterioration in the Budget balance since last May is projected to accumulate to some $43.7 bn. According to the Government none of this deterioration in the Budget is the Governments fault; indeed as much as $39.6 bn is explained by changes in the economy and only $4.1 bn represents the net impact of policy decisions taken since the May Budget.

May 13, 2018

CAVAN HOGUE. Malaysia's first new government in six decades revels in a shocking victor.

The surprising Malaysian election results show yet again that we shouldnt put faith in polls and pundits. Despite serious gerrymandering and other bits of nastiness the Barisan Nasional lost the election.The return of Dr Mahathir raises questions about the future. He has promised to hand over to Anwar Ibrahim but hasnt said when. Najib looks like he is in trouble and may be charged with corrupt practices.

September 5, 2019

BRIAN TOOHEY. The man who thought he owned a Prime Minister

_This is the gravest risk to the nations security there has ever been._Sir Arthur Tange, 6 November 19751. Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, the son of a former solicitor-general, was initially attracted to the notion that Arthur Tange was a dedicated public servant. He later discovered that this public servant presumed he was entitled to withhold crucial information from prime ministers.

March 12, 2018

ALLAN PATIENCE. Compassionate policy planning as the antidote to populism

The Italian election has shown, very clearly, that ordinary voters are deeply angry with mainstream politicians and political parties. What is true of Italy is also true of Australia. The political class sneeringly dismisses voter anger as populism, blindly believe it will evaporate once voters come to their senses. Theyre wrong. Anger is mounting exponentially across the country. Voters are looking for alternatives any alternative than to vote for the narcissists currently governing us. This poses a serious danger to the political system but it also offers a golden opportunity for Labor.

July 18, 2020

Sunday environmental round up, 19 July 2020

Australia becomes the worlds largest exporter of coal and gas and joins other rich countries pouring billions into supporting fossil fuels during the COVID pandemic. Time magazine wants rapid action on climate change and doesnt think a re-elected Trump will deliver. Greta Thunberg displays her frustrations and intelligence and an engaging wryness. More problems identified with deep-sea mining.

April 24, 2018

DAVID STEPHENS. Lest We Forget again: Anzac Day is an opportunity to confront our violent frontier past and its shadow today.

Yassmin Abdel-Magied, a young Somali-Australian Muslim woman, was driven out of Australia last year after she implied that the Anzac sacred cow might be ready to graze new territory. Lest. We. Forget., she said, (Manus, Nauru, Syria, Palestine ). I thought she was on the right track and I said so, copping some of the bilious and vicious response that she herself received. Yet, surely, after a century we can move beyond dead soldiers and broaden the remembrance focus to other weighty matters where Australians bear some responsibility and where they should have some interest in making things right. Such a matter is right in front of us.

June 27, 2017

STEVE DOVERS. Australia as world leader in conservation?

With the environment a low political priority and few significant environmental initiatives in recent years, maybe Australia just isnt up to being the world leader in conservation it once was. But an analysis of our past achievements shows that we could indeed show the way internationally, and a recent report identifies the many initiatives we can implement.

July 29, 2018

ALLAN PATIENCE: Hubris doesnt win elections

Australias conservative leaders are proving to be increasingly unattractive to voters because in its ranks are those who have no other way of making an honest living other than to live off politics (for example, Pauline Hanson), those who are all about settling old and irrelevant scores (for example, Tony Abbott), and those whose monstrous political cynicism will never change (for example, Peter Dutton). Coalition members are waking up to the fact that electoral oblivion may now be staring them in the face.

July 6, 2017

MICHAEL WEST. Goldman Sachs & News Corp tax tricks as Canberra claims battle won

Peering at the local accounts of Rupert Murdochs News Corp and Goldman Sachs is the governments claim to have sorted multinational tax avoidance correct? As they gaze down from their glass eyries, partners of the Big Four accounting firms must be chuckling.

March 15, 2017

DUNCAN MacLAREN. Game On as UK Split Looms over Brexit

Just as David Camerons idiocy in calling for an EU referendum to appease his rabid right-wing has made him the godfather of Brexit, so May, in treating Scotland like a trinket which the UK has to keep, to say nothing of her handling of Northern Ireland, could well be the midwife of the break-up of Britain.

November 9, 2015

Christmas gift idea - Pearls and Irritations in print

Orders are now open for Fairness, Opportunity and Security: Filling the Policy Vacuum, edited by John Menadue and Michael Keating, and published by ATF Press.

The book is a collection of the special policy series of blogs that was published earlier this year.

At last week’s launch, Fairfax economics columnist Ross Gittins said of series: ‘I hope this project of turning them into a book will make them even more accessible and more widely read. They certainly deserve to be.’

July 4, 2019

MIKE SCRAFTON. The real cost in How to Defend Australia.

In How to Defend Australia, Hugh White has produced a work that removes much of the mystery surrounding Australian defence policy making. The historical experiences and institutional influences affecting Australias major past and present strategic policy positions are lucidly set out. His main objective though is to make the case for a significant boost to Australias defence spending based on his understanding of the strategic risks facing the nation. He would have us fighting a futile war in search of an illusory victory.

June 1, 2018

MICHAEL PASCOE. Fear and loathing in superannuation Liberal and industry fund conspiracy theories

The Productivity Commissions recommendation that all superannuation funds have an independent chairman and board seems reasonable, yet industry funds are vehemently opposed to it.Meanwhile the industry funds, on average, clearly outperform their retail opposition, but the Liberal Party has been explicit in its desire to undermine them and lift the retail funds market share.

June 26, 2017

BRUCE DUNCAN. A scorecard on Pope Francis

Unexpectedly, Pope Francis has emerged as one of the most significant world leaders. Largely unknown before his election, Jorge Bergoglio as Pope Francis has assumed the moral stature of a new Mandela, and not just among Catholics.

October 25, 2017

LAURIE PATTON. Smart people make smart communities.

Many of my friends and colleagues have remarked on how my new role as inaugural CEO of the Australian Smart Communities Association (ASCA) is a natural extension of the work Ive been doing promoting the need for #BetterBroadband. Connectivity is the cornerstone of Smart Communities. Innovation cannot occur without it, and innovation is key to creating more intelligent cities and enriching their communities.

November 7, 2018

ANDREW DEBLANCO. The long struggle for Americas soul.

Apparently, the selfevident truth that all people deserve life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is far from settled.

This article was published by The New York Times on the 7th of November 2018.

November 8, 2017

JOHN MENADUE. The growing social divide.

There are ominous signs that Australia is breaking up into different social tribes. Our claimed egalitarianism and social mobility are under serious challenge. A mixed society is the best guarantee of social cohesion and social improvement. That social cohesion arising from inclusive growth is also good for the economy. But social cohesion rather than economic growth is the key national building block.

May 8, 2018

ROSS GITTINS. Budget 2018: This budget is too good to be true

This budget is too good to be true. If you believe Malcolm Turnbull’s luck can turn on a sixpence, this is the budget for you. From now on, everything’s coming good.

October 25, 2016

RAMESH THAKUR. The slide to war with Russia.

God created war so Americans could learn geography (1)

On 3 October, taking another step on the road to a new cold war, Russia suspended the 16-year bilateral plutonium disposition agreement with the US. Are the two countries sleepwalking into a war that could cross the nuclear threshold remembering that those sleepwalking are unaware of it at the time?

One possible pathway to slide into war would be to act on the growing chorus of calls in the Washington beltway for a no-fly-zone over Syria. In a bon mot often misattributed to Mark Twain that is so good it deserves to be true, God is said to have created war so Americans could learn geography. RussiaUS tensions are rising again and could boil over if Hillary Clinton becomes president, which seems all but certain.

The threat of war comes less from Russian revanchist or imperial ambitions and more from the US insistence that no other power must have the economic resilience and military capability to resist Washingtons will, anywhere. Rooted in the triumphalism of US supremacy in the post-Cold War unipolar moment, this is both unsustainable and increasingly risky as US primacy wanes against the steady accretion of economic, military and diplomatic power by China and Russias recovery. The fierce US resistance of the inexorable tide of history also spells dangers for Australia.

September 12, 2019

RYAN MANUEL. The Hong Kong Government is as Leaderless as the Protesters (Foreign Policy, 5 September 2019)

A distant Beijing and a shifting protest movement make it hard to sit down at the bargaining table.

Bruce Lee didnt like conventional fighting styles, finding them too rigid. Instead, like jazz musicians with their scales, he took his many years of repetitive training in various martial arts and riffed on them to try and take people by surprise, hitting them hard from odd angles. He was a street fighter, not a prizefighter.

January 5, 2014

Bangkok is bubbling. Will it blow? It's looking increasingly like it will. Guest blogger: Michael Kelly SJ

In recent months, most independent observers have admitted to complete uncertainty about the outcome of the demonstrations and disturbances that for months have plagued Bangkok with its metropolitan area population of some 15 million.

But now there is a date with fate. Organizers of the demonstrations and their leader, Suthep Thaugsuban, have set Jan 13 as the day to shut down Bangkok as they try to prevent a planned national election in February.

July 31, 2019

Monthly digest on housing affordability and homelessness June/July 2019

This is a monthly digest of interesting articles, research reports, policy announcements and other material relevant to housing stress/affordability and homelessness with hypertext links to the relevant source.

January 5, 2018

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE. The US has a massive military presence in the Asia-Pacific.

We are warned about Chinese island building for military purposes in the South China Sea. But all this is quite minor compared to the US military bases that encircle China and provoke the DPRK.

July 30, 2018

MUNGO MacCALLUM. A prime minister progressively shriller and less coherent.

Well, what was all that about?After nearly three months of unremitting angst, barely restrained hysteria and several shitloads of money, we are precisely back to where we started.

June 24, 2018

JOHN MENADUE. Sydney Metro: A Forty Billion Dollar Deception?

Like all our big cities, Sydney needs better public transport. The Governments responsibility is to secure this with the best system, for the best price. But as a minimum, new investments cannot be allowed to threaten the productivity and growth potential of our existing public transport system and its commuters.

Sydney Metro Rail is starting to show clear signs of failing us on all these counts.

The Royal Commission into Banking shows us how official stories can change dramatically once confronted with a process where evidence can be compelled and witnesses protected.

On its first day in government after the next NSW election the new government should establish an enquiry into the developing rail mess.

July 25, 2019

ABUL RIZVI: Government Responds to Duttons Visa Chaos on Asylum Seekers

The Government has at last responded to the chaos in our visa system. In response to a question from Senator Keneally, Senator Linda Reynolds has suggested the bridging visa backlog is apparently due to an unexpected surge in visa applications that caught Home Affairs off-guard. Also, in 2018-19 there has been a 12 percent fall in on-shore asylum applications. So does that mean all is now well?

April 15, 2019

RICHARD FLANAGAN. Have we, Australia, become a country that breeds mass murderers with our words? (The Guardian 14.4.2019)

_We are better than our politicians’ dark fears. We are not their hate. We are optimistic about a country built on openness.

August 8, 2019

JENNY HOCKING. A tawdry distortion of history: How the Palace airbrushed Sir John Kerrs Memoirs

There have been dramatic revelations from the National Archives of Australia with the release of letters between the Governor-General Sir John Kerr and Buckingham Palace following Kerrs dismissal of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. These letters provide remarkable and disturbing new material on the dismissal of the Whitlam government and the role of the Palace. They not only confirm that Kerr was in secret contact with the Queens private secretary Sir Martin Charteris in the months before the dismissal, they also reveal that the Palace and Kerr then agreed to keep these exchanges with Charteris hidden from public view, and from our history, by omitting any mention of them in Kerrs later memoirs.

May 13, 2019

MICHAEL KEATING. This election offers a very real choice. Part I

The two major issues in this election are climate change and the economy and cost of living pressures. In both cases the two major parties are offering very different strategies.

In these two articles I will focus on the economic choice being offered to voters. In this article, I will compare the two Parties fiscal plans, and in a second part to be posted tomorrow I will comment on the likely economic impacts of these respective plans.

June 29, 2017

MICHAEL KEATING. Why Blame Neo-Liberal Economics?

The claim is frequently made that neo-liberal economic policies are responsible for an increase in inequality. However, no supporting analysis is ever offered to sustain such claims; the obvious reason being because they reflect the authors imagination and prejudices.

October 22, 2017

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Malcolm Turnbull and Daniel Andrews.

The success of Victorias Labor government in passing its Assisted Dying legislation through the lower house is surely an object lesson in how to handle a sensitive and contentious subject.

September 19, 2017

JEAN PIERRE-LEHMANN. The Clouds of Imminent Trade War Are Looming

In the conclusion of her outstanding book on the First World War (The War That Ended Peace) historian Margaret MacMillan asks whether, as many have argued, war in 1914 was inevitable. She refutes this view; the final sentence of the book contains these four words: There are always choices.

April 17, 2019

TIM WOODRUFF. Health Policy and Successful Politics.

Health policy reform is difficult. There are an abundance of powerful stakeholders whose number one priority is definitely not optimum health care for all Australians. But most Australians do share the view that our health care system (which isnt really a system) needs improving. There are two broad aspects to optimising health. The first is equitable timely access to high quality care. The second is addressing all those factors outside the health system which affect health. These are the social determinants of health and of productivity. Healthy people are more productive. The key social determinant is income inequality, both absolute and relative.

August 22, 2019

PETER WILKINSON. Witness of truth wins justice in Pell appeal

On Wednesday, 21 August 2019, a majority of the appeal judges who reviewed all the evidence in the trial of Cardinal George Pell for historic child sexual abuse, and in which he was convicted on five charges, have concluded that the key witness, a former choir boy who alleged he was abused by Cardinal Pell, was a witness of truth. On that basis, Pells appeal to have his conviction overturned was dismissed.

June 11, 2019

MICHAEL KEATING Budget Deficits: Good or Bad

Returning the Budget to surplus has been an article of faith in most Australian political dialogue for the last decade. However, with stagnant economic growth and the Governments proposed tax cuts, there is a real risk that Budget surpluses cannot be sustained. On the other hand, some people who are concerned that more public spending is needed to maintain services, have argued that these can be deficit funded. Instead this article argues that in the long run Australia will need to augment its taxation revenue if it wants to maintain the public expenditure required to achieve reasonable economic growth and welfare.

June 9, 2019

Press freedoms: No one is above the law is a slogan, not a policy

On the one hand, Australia lacks media protections of the type found in the US and Europe that enshrine free speech in human rights charters. On the other hand, we may well have more national-security and anti-terror laws than any other Western democracy, with around 70 passed or amended since the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. The resulting repressive legal regime gives the executive wide-ranging powers to hide any damaging or embarrassing information by classifying it as secret, and simultaneously to criminalise investigative journalism.

July 26, 2018

PROFESSOR LYNDALL RYAN. Massacres on Australias colonial frontier climb to 250 (Media Release, University of Newcastle)

The number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander massacres verified and recorded on an online digital map has risen to 240, following an influx of valuable information and evidence from regional communities around Australia.

March 12, 2018

LAURIE PATTON. Its not about the size of the population, its about where were all going to live

This week the ABCs Four Corners and Q and A programs are focussing attention on an important issue facing 21st Century Australia the size of the population. As is commonly the case with this subject, the debate is creating a fair amount of heat, but regrettably not all that much light.

May 13, 2019

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Finally, the beginning of the end.

Scott Morrisons launch was, ironically, the last of the big set pieces. The remaining mad (and largely irrelevant) days will be scrabbling over a few marginal seats in which the vast majority of those who have not already voted will have already made up their minds.

January 16, 2018

MICHAEL KELLY. Canada shows us how it is done.-A REPOST from July 5 2017

The Refugee Council of Australias call for more affordable and community based ways of settling refugees is only the latest attempt to bring both community good will to refugees and the implementation of a proven and superior alternative to government processes.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal