November 5, 2024

A five-minute scroll

Senator David Pocock raises questions about visas for people from Gaza, while in the UK the founder for the Jewish Network for Palestine was arrested under anti-terrorism laws. Journalist Miko Peled suggests ending the Apartheid as a course of action, while Gideon Levy speaks of the reality of Gaza where a child is killed every 15-minutes. Israel continues to bomb Lebanon while they also continue drone warfare and North Gaza. By day people in Gaza are waiting for food. A five minute scroll on x.

May 31, 2017

JOHN DWYER. Punishing and jailing the mentally ill.

A 37-year-old Sudanese woman has been sentenced to 26 years in jail for murdering three of her children by deliberately driving her car into a lake. The story is a tragic one and has nothing to do with criminal behaviour. It raises, yet again, the appalling way in which we treat those with a seriously mental illness who, while ill, break our laws.

January 22, 2016

Bob Debus to deliver Frank Walker Memorial Lecture.

Invitation to attend Frank Walker Memorial Lecture.

Join us as we celebrate the life times of former NSW Attorney-General the Hon. Frank Walker QC, with guest speaker the Hon. Bob Debus AM. This event isfreeto attend. Post-lecture drinks will be held at Penny Lane (the bar above the lecture theatre).

“Over-representation of Aboriginal people in prison: The need for some genuine decision-making”

Frank Walker grew up among tribal people in New Guinea and from a young age stood up for the rights of Aboriginal people in Australia. On the one hand concern for justice for Aboriginal people drove many of his successful reforms to the criminal law. On the other hand his landmark Aboriginal Rights Act of 1983 reflected his desire to allow Aboriginal people to take more control over their own lives.

April 17, 2017

Our misguided wars of choice.

In this article in the Boston Globe of April 16, JEFFREY D SACHS speaks of the risks that the US and the world are running. He speaks of the US ‘wanton addiction to war’. John Menadue.

“There is one foreign policy goal that matters above all the others and that is to keep the United States out of a new war, whether in Syria, North Korea or elsewhere. In recent days President Trump has struck Syria with Tomahawk missiles, bombed Afghanistan with the most powerful non-nuclear bomb in the US arsenal, and has sent an armada towards nuclear-armed North Korea. We could easily find ourselves in a rapidly escalating war, one that could pit the United States directly against nuclear-armed countries of China, North Korea and Russia. …

America has developed a level of wealth, productivity and technological knowhow utterly unimaginable in the past. Yet we put everything at risk through our wanton addiction to war.”

Jeffrey D Sachs is University Professor and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University.

April 10, 2015

Fiona McGaughey, Mary Anne Kenny. Lashing out at the UN is not the act of a good international citizen.

The United Nations has again criticised Australias human rights record in relation to its treatment of asylum seekers and refugees. A report by the UNs Special Rapporteur on Torture, Juan Mndez, has raised a number of concerns. These include:

Australias policy in relation to the detention of asylum seekers on Manus Island breaches Articles 1 and 16 of the UN Convention Against Torture. These articles require that Australia, as a signatory to the convention, not allow acts amounting to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment in any place under its jurisdiction. Mndez found that the reports of conditions in the centre including increasing acts of violence combined with the arbitrary and indefinite nature of the detention violated the convention.
Failing to respond adequately to specific allegations of intimidation and ill-treatment of two asylum seekers on Manus Island following their statements in relation to the violent outbreaks at the centre in February 2014.
Recent legislation passed by federal parliament violates the convention as it allows for the arbitrary detention and refugee determination of asylum seekers at sea without access to legal assistance. Concerns were raised that this could lead to an asylum seeker being sent back to a country where there are substantial grounds for believing they would face torture, in breach of Article 3 of the convention.
Amendments to character provisions in the Migration Act violate the convention, as an increase in the refusal of visas on character grounds will lead to those individuals being held in detention indefinitely.

Australias response

Prime Minister Tony Abbott reacted by saying Australians are:

March 8, 2015

Helen Sykes and David Yencken. Leadership in the public interest.

No fundamental social change occurs merely because government acts. Its because civil society, the conscience of a country, begins to rise up demand demand demand change. (Joe Biden, Vice President of the United States)

History shows that the public interest can vary over time and between societies. These are, nonetheless, ideals that every nation should have for the wellbeing of its citizens. For Australia they include the protection of core values of democracy and society and the proper care of its people. They require the protection and nurturing of the physical environment as the source of sustenance and life. They ask that we maintain decent standards of living for all citizens and thus a fair and efficiently operating economy. They mean that our artistic and cultural heritage and traditions are treated with respect, support and encouragement.

February 13, 2025

A five-minute scroll

The US renounces NATO membership for Ukraine. The implications of Trump’s plans for Gaza. Palestinians moved from one refugee camp to another in the West Bank. The late Robert Fisk’s experience with Western media.

July 1, 2014

Xenophobia and strange behaviour over boats.

UN High Commissioner Antonio Guterres criticises Australias strange obsession with boats

Excerpts from his address and answers to questions at UNHCR NGO consultations, Geneva, 17 June, 2014.

I think it is .. important to underline that, especially from the perspective now of refugee protection, we are facing also the development in several parts of the world of manifestations of xenophobia and similar other problems Islamophobia, racism that are particularly worrying. If you analyse the result of the last European elections, you have seen that xenophobic parties made remarkable increases in the number of votes. And even from the point of view of, for instance, borders, we see, in several situations in the world, borders being closed. We see it in Egypt. We see it in Bulgaria. We see it in Australia. We see it in many other parts of the world and manifestations of xenophobia at the same time targeting refugees in communities in very dramatic circumstances. The plight of Somalis for instance in many countries, including in African countries, is a very dramatic demonstration of this dimension..

July 2, 2014

Kerry Murphy. More punishment for asylum seekers and refugees.

“As a young boat people refugee, I arrived here 36 years ago with nothing but an invisible suitcase filled with dreams, [with] a dream to live in a peaceful, safe and free country and to live a meaningful and fulfilling life. said the new Governor of South Australia Hue Van Le OAM. He arrived on a boat in Darwin back in 1978, a boat person from Vietnam, or an llegal as Scott Morrison would prefer. Mr Le and his family were accepted as refugees and granted permanent residence. The announcement was made public, appropriately just after refugee week.

April 16, 2017

MUNGO McCALLUM. Turnbull's Passage to India.

He may not have landed any concrete results, but he continues to give the myths and legends a good workout.

February 28, 2017

MICHAEL WEST. Australia's march to corporatocracy.

Confounding the familiar government narrative of reckless spending binges by Labor, the Coalition actually has the record of greater profligacy when it comes to showering billions of dollars of taxpayers money on external consultants.

January 12, 2017

RAMESH THAKUR. Syria and the Hippocratic principle: first do no harm

Western interference has worsened the pathology of broken, corrupt and dysfunctional politics across the region from Afghanistan to North Africa.

April 19, 2017

How has education come to this?

For a country that prides itself on the egalitarian ethos of a fair go for all, the latest results from the OECDs Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) are a distressing reminder that many are not getting a fair go in education. The egalitarian label is a self-indulgent delusion as far as education is concerned. It hasnt fitted for some 40 years or more.

June 9, 2016

JOHN MENADUE. Free Trade Agreements. The Abbott and Turnbull Governments were told but wouldnt listen. They went further and attacked those who expressed concerns.

The ink was hardly dry on the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement (ChAFTA) before we learned about labour market exploitation under the agreement.

January 6, 2019

STEWART FIRTH. China, Samoa and debt-for-equity swaps- East Asia Forum Jan. 3 2019

Last year, Australia discovered the debt owed to Chinese banks by Pacific island countries. As the debate over Chinas intentions in the region grew, commentators pointed to the possibility that Pacific countries might be compelled to accept debt-for-equity swaps if they could not repay. The port of Hambantota in Sri Lanka, where a Chinese company obtained a 99-year lease to run commercial operations in return for helping to pay the countrys debt, was the commonly raised example.

June 11, 2017

DUNCAN MACLAREN. May's Folly: the Brexit election result

The people who will suffer most from economic meltdown likely to follow from the UK election will be the country’s poorest and most vulnerable as funds dry up for public services, jobs disappear as firms move to the EU and as the UKs international reputation for sound, stable government that attracts investors plummets.

January 2, 2017

I am ashamed to be Australian.

I decided to become a photojournalist to help refugees tell their stories, and to show their plight. I was stunned by the lack of compassion and the outright racism I saw in my countrymen. I was angry as only a teenager can be with the politicians who fanned the flames of xenophobia.

February 17, 2014

Andrew Babkoff. The human side of refugees.

(*names have been changed to maintain privacy)

There is a significant amount of misinformation and misunderstanding surrounding asylum seekers (in particular boat people) and refugees in Australia. In response, a number of people outside of the mainstream media have highlighted the need for refugees stories to be presented through mainstream outlets. My personal experience as a teacher of refugees and migrants has allowed me to see the human side of the refugee issue by hearing about the stories of people who have been granted asylum in Australia.

September 21, 2018

JOHN MENADUE. The Coalition has deserted country people on climate change, NBN and more

Both the Liberal and National parties are taking a drubbing from country voters. A while back it was New England and Lyne. More recently it has been Indi and Wagga Wagga. Strong Independents are thriving in country electorates.

Outside the metropolitan area both Coalition partners have become heavily dependent on the miners rather than farmers for money and ideas.. The Liberal and National parties are also ignoring issues of concern to country voters climate change, NBN, rural poverty and inferior health services.

September 3, 2017

ARCHBISHOP FISHER. Does Pope Francis support same-sex marriage?

A number of commentators have recently suggested that loyalty to Catholic teaching, and especially to Pope Francis, would allow, even require, support for same-sex marriage; by implication, the Australian bishops misunderstand Catholic teaching and have been disloyal to Pope Francis by saying Catholics should vote NO. But what has Pope Francis actually said about this?

January 10, 2017

RICHARD WOOLCOTT. Indonesia Complexities, restraints, and opportunities for Australia

The importance of our relations with Indonesia in the future and in the wider context of the Asian century cannot be overstated. It is essential that each country acts to know more about its neighbour.

August 30, 2016

RICHARD WOOLCOTT. Do we need a White Paper on Australia's foreign policy?

A White Paper could be useful if it is agreed to by the key ministers of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Defence, and Immigration and Border Protection ;and consistently applied by the Cabinet.

A major problem which I see is that we seem to be in a period of fairly intense political and bureaucratic infighting over Chinese activity, especially on the South China Sea. My concernis that there are serious divisions within the Coalition and also divisions within the ALP.

October 28, 2014

Kelvin Canavan. Gough Whitlam: a tribute to an education visionary.

I first met E. G. Whitlam when he spoke at a series of State Aid rallies in Sydney prior to the 1969 federal election. He was in full voice before a Catholic community that had packed halls and cinemas on eight Sunday evenings, demanding financial support for their schools from federal and state governments.

The final gathering was in the Sydney Town Hall. Around 5,000 people crammed into the upper and lower levels, and on the George Street steps. The proceedings were broadcast live on radio station 2SM.

December 19, 2016

RICHARD BROINOWSKI. Series. We can say 'no' to the Americans

How Bill Hayden stood up to the Americans on Vietnam.

March 15, 2015

Eric Hodgens. Can Pope Francis Turn the Church around?

The question needs to be asked because the Catholic Church is in trouble. Firstly, it has a . credibility problem. Affiliation has been dropping since the 60s. Sunday Mass attendance, the first indicator of affiliation, backs this up. The Churchs compelling message of Jesus as the icon of life defeating death is not getting through. Relentlessly, Catholics are feeling more and more marginalised or leaving the Church altogether. Bishops are not leading. Sexual and financial scandals have blackened the Churchs image. The administration is too centralised and preoccupied with issues which are irrelevant to the lives of people whether Catholic and not.

May 9, 2016

Are conservatives better economic managers?

Are conservatives better economic managers? Part 1

In my blog of 3 May 2016, I queried the claim by Malcolm Turnbull and apparently supported by many media commentators and also by the public, that conservatives are better economic managers. The evidence and the record do not show that.

In last weeks budget and in the public relations selling afterwards, Scott Morrison fell back on slogans again. In this case the slogans were jobs and growth, jobs and growth. This was quickly followed by we have a plan, we have a plan. But as Ross Gittins in the SMH has pointed out, there is really no economic plan to get the budget back into surplus. The surplus is now pushed out again for years. With no real economic plan, the government again resorts to slogans at it did at the last election stop the boats eliminate the deficit and reduce the debt. But we know from experience that the Abbott and Morrison activities did not stop the boats. It was a myth, but still believed by many. And the deficit and debt are much worse.

September 28, 2015

Climate Change and Refugees.

We have had a wake-up call about how Western and particularly US policies have destabilised the Middle East with the resulting exodus of refugees. Half of the Syrian population has either fled or been displaced within their own country.

Climate change in the Middle East is adding to the problem. This is examined in a report by Jaime de Melo for the Brookings Institute on August 24, 2015. He comments:

September 20, 2016

JOHN NIEUWENHUYSEN. Rising hostility to refugee movement.

The inspiring poem by Emma Lazarus carved on the Statue of Liberty clearly reflects the ethos and caring spirit of a bygone era:

Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these, the homeless, tempus-tost to me

September 13, 2016

JOHN MENADUE. Aunty, with our prospects in life what is the point of being healthy?

The ABC Boyer Lecture series this year is being delivered by Sir Michael Marmot, the World Medical Association President and Professor of Epidemiology and Public Health at University College London .The main thrust of his lecture series has been about inequalities, poverty and social conditions the social determinants that have a major impact on health in the community.

December 9, 2016

LESLEY RUSSELL. The impact of private health insurance on equity and access in specialist healthcare

Most specialists charge fairly and reasonably, but there is clearly a need to name and shame those who are over-charging and over-servicing to ensure a level playing field for the good guys and to protect, respect and care for their patients.

June 26, 2016

RAY MOYNIHAN. Drug companies are buying doctors - for as little as a $16 meal.

An important new study in the United States has found doctors who receive just one cheap meal from a drug company tend to prescribe a lot more of that companys products. The damming findings demonstrate the value of new transparency laws in the US, and remind Australians were still very much in the dark about what our doctors get up to behind closed doors.

Just published in the leading Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Internal Medicine, this study is well worth a look for anyone interested in the hidden influences on how doctors prescribe.

August 30, 2013

Japan's war memory. Guest blogger: Walter Hamilton

Japans struggle with the issue of war memory has been brought into sharp relief again amid a controversy over what children should be taught about the past. Last week the Matsue city board of education confirmed a ban placed on a famous comic book (manga) series called Barefoot Gen (Hadashi no Gen). The boards decision allegedly was based on the fact the series contains scenes considered too violent for school children. Behind this explanation, however, lies a different story.

June 27, 2016

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Trust and Distrust.

So at long last, next weekend, the voters get to choose, not that its much of a choice: which putative prime minister do they least distrust?

The least few days of the campaign of degenerated into a screaming match between dodgy scare stories, a barrage of negativity which can only erode what little faith the punters have retained in the political process.

July 8, 2016

TONY SMITH. A major madness

It is only the most naive among us who equate democracy with majoritarianism. The Brexit plebiscite certainly returned a majority in favour of Britain leaving the European Union, but the distress caused by the decision shows that the plan is far from the ideals of democracy. Democracies behave moderately. They demand a degree of consensus. Realising that there may be large numbers adversely affected by majority decisions, democracies ensure that minorities remain part of considerations. The implementation of Brexit threatens to create impacts that will be felt deeply by some sections of society, and in many cases, these sections saw the dangers and voted no.

September 10, 2015

Ian Marsh. What wrong with Australias political system?

Most readers of this piece will not need lessons about the power of economic incentives. They know that efficient price signals can channel investment into productive assets and these same signals will drain funds from unconstructive pursuits. The same process more or less works at individual levels. Both good and bad performance is demonstrated by similar calculations. In turn these calculations draw on a variety of other metrics prices, volumes, demand, supply, growth estimates and so forth.

June 7, 2017

JENNIFER DOGGETT. Wasting government funds in subsidising private health insurance.

_In the lead up to the recent Federal Budget, the Australian Healthcare Reform Alliance (AHCRA) ran a campaign to highlight the inefficiency of using health resources to subsidise private health insurance (PHI)._The campaign focussed on calling on the Government to re-direct funding for the $7 billion private health insurance (PHI) rebate to address key areas of inequity and under-performance (while some estimates of the cost of the rebate are larger, AHCRA decided to use the most conservative figure for our campaign).

May 30, 2017

JEAN-PIERRE LEHMANN. Phasing out the US (dis)order in the Asia Pacific

It is widely held that there is qualitative distinction between the benign, liberal US global order prevailing in the Asia Pacific, and a potentially threatening and malign Chinese imperialist order. This perspective is quite hallucinatory.

February 13, 2017

ALLAN PATIENCE. How Conservative or Populist is the Contemporary Right in Australian Politics?

Conservatism and populism have become two abused concepts in contemporary Australian politics. In fact they are now being used as a camouflage by certain political operatives to conceal a harsh political agenda that bitterly contradicts nearly everything for which traditional conservatism has ever stood while distorting our understandings of the true nature of populism.

May 8, 2014

John Menadue. Increasing the petrol tax is good policy.

It may not be good short-term politics for the Abbott Government but it will be of long-term benefit to Australia if we lift the excise on petrol which has been frozen since 2001.

The motor industry will protest. It should be faced down, just as we should have faced down the mining lobby when it was being asked to make a fair return to the public for its depletion of our national endowments.

December 5, 2014

Eric Walsh. A ragged year not a ragged week.

Nobody laughed things must be different in the press gallery these days.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott in one of his longest press conferences was trying desperately to erase the hangover from the setbacks which have dogged him and his government since his dismal performance at the G20 meeting which he had hoped forlornly as it proved would rescue the image of a very disordered and unimpressive government. He was trying to end the year on what at least might seem to be a high note.

May 29, 2014

Geoff Hiscock. Onus on Abbott to forge closer ties with India

As a young man, Tony Abbott backpacked across India in 1981, and spent six weeks at the Australian Jesuit mission in Bihar state. He was fascinated by the countrys many contrasts, from its bullock carts to its nuclear power stations.

His Indian exposure since then has been limited, but the Australian Prime Minister says he has always taken India seriously and has made it clear in his speeches and his interaction with the Indian community in Australia that he wants a much closer and deeper relationship.

June 25, 2014

All at sea again.

Lt Gen Angus Campbell, the Commander of Operation Sovereign Borders is at it again highlighting the policy and political achievements of the Coalition government on asylum seekers rather than sticking to his last, and ensuring that Australian naval vessels dont stray into Indonesian waters.

Gen. Campbell says that as a government employee, he doesnt comment on government policy. But apparently he has no constraint about commenting when it suits him. He declines to comment when there are embarrassing political questions. He then says they are on water matters.

March 31, 2016

If we strike a deal with Japan, we're buying more than submarines.

In this article in the Melbourne Age, Hugh White comments

‘So before we decide whether to select the Japanese (submarine) bid, we have to ask if an alliance with Japan is good for Australia.’

See link to full article below:

http://www.theage.com.au/comment/if-we-strike-a-deal-with-japan-were-buying-more-than-submarines-20160314-gni3hl.html

March 22, 2017

ERIC HODGENS. Back to following The Way.

Power is still the Churchs stumbling block. Mind you, Jesus warned us: The gentiles lord it over their subjects not so with you. The Churchs power to lord it over society has been curtailed by todays pluralism but is still jealously guardedwithinthe institution. And ideas and laws are the instruments by which power is exercised. Doctrine and law are sacralised as the teaching of the Church or even the teaching of God.

August 29, 2016

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Scott Morrison - channelling Paul Keating or Joe Hockey.

In his latest jeremiad on the state of the economy, Scott Morrison seemed torn between channelling Paul Keating or Joe Hockey.

There was an echo of Keatings warning about the country turning into a banana republic, in the prospect of the national debt reaching a trillion dollars (thats $1,000,000,000,000, a figure of sheer fantasy for ordinary voters) and a glance to Hockeys need to end the age of entitlement and designate the populace as either lifters or leaners, rebranded by Morrison as the taxed and the taxed-not (by whom he means not the wealthy who employ armies of lawyers and accountants to avoid their obligations, but the indigent who collect more in entitlements than they contribute to his coffers a soft target for the richly rewarded demagogues of the tabloid press).

September 20, 2024

A five-minute scroll

Five minutes on X is all it takes to witness the realities of a world in turmoil and the horror that continues in Gaza. This is what we witnessed today.

February 16, 2015

The Forgotten Children.

April 2, 2014

Michael Kelly SJ. Where does the buck stop in the Church?

You could be forgiven for not knowing where the buck stops in the Catholic Church these days. In any society, organization or Church community, it is important to know who is ultimately responsible in decision making; otherwise, chaos or worse would prevail.

In an unprecedented (for a cardinal) cross examination in court last week, Cardinal George Pell of Sydney seemed confused about responsibility in the Sydney Church. He was speaking for the Archdiocese of Sydney which he led from 2001 until his transfer to a job at the Vatican, appearing before the Royal Commission into child sex abuse in institutions, including the Churchs, across Australia.

March 20, 2014

Wayne Gibbons. The boats were not sabotaged.

So we convince ourselves every cruelty weve inflicted beginning with sabotaging boats along the Malaysia coast under Malcolm Fraser isnt a reflection on us. Its tactical.

I was surprised and disturbed by this sweeping statement from David Marr in theguardian.com on 5 March. It unfairly casts a pall over the great success of Australias Indochina refugee program led by the Fraser government and the role of the immigration officials involved.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal