January 17, 2018

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

The Refugee Council of Australia’s 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.

February 3, 2017

OLIVER FRANKEL. Focusing on supply only will not solve the affordable housing crisis

There is now widespread recognition in the echelons of government, both Federal and State, that we face an affordable housing crisis. However, there is still no consensus about how to solve it.

The Coalition insists the problem can be fixed by bringing on more supply. Labor regards a supply only market-based approach as too simplistic, and accepts the need also to address demand-side management, including through reform of negative gearing.

July 30, 2018

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Hywood was the very model of a modern chief executive.

It would not be fair to blame Greg Hywood alone for the destruction of the Fairfax brand. The rot set in a long time ago, arguably some 30 years before when young Warwick Fairfax decided on his own disastrous takeover bid for the company.

June 2, 2018

IMOGEN ZETHOVEN. Outsourcing Reef Protection.

The outsourcing of nearly half a billion dollars of taxpayer funds to an independent Foundation to protect the Great Barrier Reef is unusual by any measure.

April 18, 2018

MICHAEL LAMBERT. We know about the Grants Commission but what is this thing called HFE?

You may have noticed recent press reports of some angry Premiers or Treasurers bemoaning the loss of revenue in the triannual carve up of the GST pie among the States and Territories while the winners kept their pleasure to themselves. Welcome to the wonderful world of HFE, horizontal fiscal equalisation as practised in Australia.

July 2, 2018

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Abuse of and in parliament.

For even the most masochistic of political tragics, parliamentary question time can be wearing. A constant screaming match of ever more virulent abuse and insult, it sounds (and sometimes looks) less like a part of the democratic legislative process and more like the final of the big swinging dicks competition, open to all members regardless of allegiance or even gender.

January 23, 2018

ROBERT MICKENS. The pope’s bewildering inaction on sexual abuse

Pope Francis has been away in South America this past week and, while in Chile, he drew only modest crowds of supporters. It was the frostiest reception he’s received on any of his 22 foreign trips — at least to those countries with a majority of Christians and certainly in the traditionally Catholic lands of Latin America.

July 22, 2019

MUNGO MacCALLUM. We came in peace for all mankind!

I sometimes think I was the only one who was not gobsmacked.

On that day fifty years ago when mankind kicked the moon, I was working in the Canberra press gallery, keeping an eye on the television for the news, but never doubting the outcome.

May 15, 2019

MICHAEL KEATING. This election offers a very real choice. Part 2

In a previous article (posted yesterday) I compared the Coalition and Labor fiscal plans. The credibility of these plans, as well as their value, depends significantly on whether the underlying economic parameters upon which the plans are based are sound, and equally how those plans will impact on economic activity and growth. These issues are discussed further below in the second part of this series comparing the two Parties fiscal plans.

May 8, 2019

It is no surprise that News Corp is even less and less trusted

American owned News Corp Australia is the least trusted media company in the country and is a cellar-dweller in the Reputation Index of Australian companies. Its behaviour in this election will ensure that it is even less trusted.

Murdoch rewards generously employees who are tame and loyal. But how can self-respecting journalists, and particularly senior journalists, continue to take his coin?

February 24, 2018

GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND ...

On Phillip Adams’ Late Night Live Tony Moore of the National Centre for Australian Studies at Monash explains the Centre’s “recovering the Australian working class” project. In arguing for a strong social wage he points out how means-tested benefits have contributed to “downward envy”. Australia’s working class is not necessarily poor, but it is disadvantaged in areas such as health and education.

Transparency International has released its Corruption Perception Index 2017. New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland and the Nordic countries retain their lead rankings. Australia, which held 8th place behind these countries in 2012, has slipped to 13th place. Even the United Kingdom now ranks ahead of Australia.

May 19, 2020

Political ambition demands we play the Covid ‘Blame Game’ while Rome still burns

President Donald J Trump claims that carelessness in the Wuhan Institute for Virology saw the Covid-19 virus, which, he insists, was being grown in the Institute, escape, resulting in a disastrous pandemic.

September 20, 2019

MACK WILLIAMS. The CSIS report on Iran’s missile program

In The Iranian Missile Threat_, published by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (Washington DC: 30 May 2019), Anthony Cordesman examines Iran’s view of the threat, the problems in military modernization that have led to its focus on missile forces, the limits to its air capabilities, the developments in its missile forces, and the war fighting capabilities provided by its current missile forces, its ability to develop conventionally armed precision-strike forces, and its options for deploying nuclear-armed missiles._

June 22, 2017

BRIAN TOOHEY. Building submarines in SA simply sinks Australian dollars

Despite claims to the contrary by the defence industry minister Christopher Pyne, this sector is not driving growth in the economy or jobs. A defence economics specialist Mark Thompson has debunked these claims in a careful analysis just released by Australian Strategic Policy Institute. Thompson concludes, “If we are going to use defence spending to grow the economy, we should get the most out of it, and that might mean importing more equipment to maximise access to global supply chains”.

April 6, 2018

IAN DUNLOP. The Monash Forum – of Coal & Horses.

Sir John Monash was a visionary engineer, military leader and much more, who succeeded in spite of the prejudices of the conservative Melbourne establishment (read: The Coalition right wing), to become, in Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery’s view, “the best general on the Western Front” in WW1. Monash was renowned for his vision and innovation.

April 22, 2019

ABUL RIZVI. Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton have lost control of our borders.

Chaos in our visa system and extraordinary border control failures are being exploited by people smugglers to deliver record numbers of non-genuine asylum seekers arriving by air. The Coalition pretends we only have sea borders and can ignore our air borders. Yet Australia is sleep-walking into replicating the experience of Europe and the USA with an ever increasing underclass of failed asylum seekers. Our borders have never been so out of control.

May 20, 2019

JOHN MENADUE. Negativity and a policy vacuum win the day.

On Saturday, the quiet Australians that Scott Morrison spoke of so fondly voted for self-interest and in fear of change. All the democracies are suffering from a disgruntled working class that wants to blame outsiders and has thrown in its lot with the extreme Right . That is why they chose Brexit and Trump and now Morrison without thinking through the dire consequences.

July 3, 2017

GERALDINE DOOGUE. Flawed Catholic Church a test for the true believers

T_he other day a visiting Israeli man bluntly asked me during a small dinner: was I religious? Well, yes, I replied, though not quite in the way I once would have answered. But Cardinal George Pell is not to blame for that._

October 4, 2019

RICHARD WHITINGTON. David Combe obituary

David Combe was a significant and accomplished figure not only in Australian politics but in business and international trade, with an unwavering commitment to social justice and civil liberties. He deserves to be remembered for more than the “Iraqi Donations” affair of 1975-6, let alone the “Combe/Ivanov” affair of 1983. He won’t thank me for even mentioning them. Nor, I guess, will the Australian Labor Party, which he served as National Secretary from 1973 to 1981.

August 29, 2018

JOCELYN PIXLEY. The Politics of Banking.

The Hayne Royal Commission has, so far, found not just “misconduct”, but a long list of dubious activities over previous money laundering and insider trading cases. Such tactics are common to the largest finance centres, Wall Street and the City of London.

June 18, 2018

GEOFF MILLER. Trump-Kim Summit: What happens after a “day from a science fiction movie”?

Kim Jong Un was reported to have said that his meeting with Trump was like scenes from a science fiction movie. At times the TV coverage—all those banners—did seem rather like that, but what happens next? I think that at least the medium-term outcome could be much more like the Chinese and Russian prescription of “twin freezes” than the “complete, verifiable, irrevocable” nuclear disarmament of North Korea sought by the United States.

September 3, 2019

Eric Hodgens. Pastoral Care of Victim and Offender - The Pell Case Dilemma.

The church is called to offer pastoral care to both offender and victim. A dilemma arises when the offender is an official of the church. Like it, or not, the victim must come first.

September 16, 2019

TSUYOSHI MINAMI. Are Japan and China really getting along? (East Asia Forum 7 Sep 2019)

Following the 2019 Osaka G20 summit, Japan–China relations appear to have entered a new period. While improved Japan–China ties are in the national interests of both countries, the ongoing US trade war with China is beginning to have significant effects on the relationship. Can Japan and China continue to improve relations? What benefits does this rapprochement offer the two countries?

March 13, 2018

Returning To The Edge Of The Nuclear Cliff

The two leaders most responsible for bringing the Cold War to a peaceful end were U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet head of state Mikhail Gorbachev. They also kick-started the dramatic reductions in nuclear arsenals with a mix of unilateral measures and bilateral agreements. The driving force behind this was acceptance of Reagan’s affirmation in his State of the Union address on Jan. 25, 1984, that “A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.”

Now their successors, U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, seem determined to resurrect the Cold War rivalry, restart a nuclear arms race, and look for technological breakthroughs and doctrinal justifications for “usable” nuclear weapons.

March 20, 2015

Laurie Patton. The ‘metadata’ Bill.

The House of Representatives has passed, with amendments, the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Bill 2014.

The Bill requires telcos and Internet Service Providers to store certain information (called “metadata”) for a period of two years. Metadata is essentially the information that reveals the parties to phone and email communications and other things such as the time and duration of a communication. It does not include the content of the communication.

August 23, 2018

KIM WINGEREI. Vale the two-party system - the elephant in the room (Part2)

As Malcolm Turnbull was pushed from pillar to post on his National Energy Guarantee and renewable targets over the last month or so, Bill Shorten and his team were enjoying the spectacle from across the aisle. At no point did it occur to them that if they stepped in to support the proposed renewable energy targets - insufficient as they may be - they could have ensured that we at least had some targets. Labours own target is 50% renewables by 2030. But rather than compromising on a solution that could ensure at least a target better than no target, they sat on their hands. Seeing the self-destruction of a political opponent is, of course, more important than taking action against the destruction of our planet.

September 8, 2017

PAUL GREGOIRE AND UGUR NEDIM. Asylum seekers left destitute at hands of Dutton

Stooping to a new low, the Turnbull government has begun cutting off the welfare payment to vulnerable asylum seekers and given these people three weeks to vacate their government-supported accommodation.

March 3, 2015

Walter Hamilton. The Nationalist Siren of Destruction

Virulent, fanatical nationalism is not the answer.

It’s not the answer in Russia, where an opponent of Putin’s war on Ukraine was murdered on the streets of Moscow in broad daylight. It’s not the answer in China where the ruling Communist Party needs a new raison d’etre after embracing capitalism without liberalism. It is not the answer in Japan, where a conservative government needs a cover for its inability to end a decades-long economic malaise. It is not the answer in South Korea, where the government wants to show its Japan-bashing credentials are just as good as those of the rabid propagandists of North Korea.

January 17, 2019

KAREN ELPHICK. United States Senate shows President a red light on war powers as Labor promises a war powers inquiry in Australia (Australia Parliamentary Blog 21.12.2018)

For several years, Yemen has been in a state of civil war between a Saudi-led coalition supporting the Yemeni Government and Houthi forces. The US armed forces are not directly engaged in Yemen but have been supporting Saudi military efforts with aerial targeting and intelligence sharing.

On 13 December 2018, the United States (US) Senate passed Resolution S.J. Res. 54 – 115th Congress (Res. 54) directing the US President to withdraw US Forces from hostilities in Yemen. Res. 54 provides (emphasis added):

This joint resolution directs the President to remove U.S. Armed Forces from hostilities in or affecting Yemen within 30 days unless Congress authorizes a later withdrawal date, issues a declaration of war, or specifically authorizes the use of the Armed Forces. Prohibited activities include providing in-flight fueling for non-U.S. aircraft conducting missions as part of the conflict in Yemen. This joint resolution shall not affect any military operations directed at Al Qaeda.

_The President must submit to Congress, within 90 days, reports assessing the risks that would be posed: (1) if the United States were to cease supporting operations with respect to the conflict in Yemen, and (2) if Saudi Arabia were to cease sharing Yemen-related intelligence with the United States.

June 2, 2018

WAYNE SWAN. Foreign influence and foreign donations in Australia.

The debate over foreign influence in our domestic politics and policymaking is an important one for our country – too important for political point-scoring and manipulation by vested interests and political vendettas.

April 3, 2018

NICHOLAS GRUEN. Some real banking competition - central banking for all.

As the great economic journalist Martin Wolf puts it, there’s a “giant hole” at the centre of modern economies. Although the money in our economy is a classic public good, like the air we breathe or the radio spectrum over which we communicate, almost all of it is privately created – by commercial banks like NAB and Westpac when they advance loans. (The physical money in our wallets represents a tad over 3 percent of the money supply.)

June 21, 2017

JOHN MENADUE. Who can we trust?

In the series “ Fairness, Opportunity and Security” last year I drew attention to the pervasive loss of trust in institutions . Essential Research revealed that the six least trusted institutions were: the news media, state parliaments, trade unions, business groups, religious organisations and political parties. The three most trusted institutions were all public: the ABC, High Court and Reserve Bank.

February 26, 2019

HUGH WHITE. Canberra’s growing silence on US leadership in Asia

Sometimes what is left out of a major policy speech is as important as what is said. This was certainly true late in January when Australia’s Defence Minister Christopher Pyne spoke about regional security in a keynote address to a prestigious audience in Singapore.

June 4, 2018

MUNGO MacCALLUM. The Barnaby Joyce slapstick soap opera.

We have had enough of Barnaby, and it is obvious that his own colleagues have too. The sooner he retires to his fractured love nest the better.

November 6, 2019

ANDREA HAMBLIN. More than 11,000 scientists endorse a global ‘climate emergency’ declaration (New Daily, 06 November 2019)

The Australian parliament voted against it.

But now 11,000 people who might know one or two more facts than a bubble of politicians have confirmed it is, indeed, happening: the whole world is in the midst of a climate emergency.

March 12, 2018

GEOFF MILLER. The ASEAN meeting in Sydney and the Quad – same same but different.

Singapore and Australia are having to deal with the same set of problems and relationships as the strategic situation in the Asia-Pacific changes. Singapore isn’t a contender for an expanded “Quad” but, as next year’s Chairman of ASEAN, it will have an important role to play in one of the Turnbull Government’s major foreign policy initiatives, the ASEAN-Australia Summit to be held in Sydney March 17-18. A REPOST

January 25, 2017

Birmingham misleads on School Funding and Outcomes

Improving the results of disadvantaged students is the major challenge facing Australian education. Yet, the Minister continues to wilfully ignore the extensive research evidence demonstrating that increasing funding for disadvantaged students is critical to improving outcomes. Five major academic studies published in the last year alone show that increased funding improves results, especially for disadvantaged students.

September 23, 2019

TONY SMITH. CEO remuneration and socio-economic decline

Superannuation investors are keenly interested in income distribution patterns. They also monitor the ethics of companies in which they might invest. Recently they published a report of research into the Australian Stock Exchange’s top 100 Chief Executive Officers. The report found that CEO salaries and bonuses continue at obscene levels and that their remuneration has little correlation with performance.

February 22, 2018

Trump and Turnbull must recognise that China is not going away

Foreshadowed warnings by American spokesmen to the Prime Minister and his party during their coming visit to the United States about the rise of China reflect a belated realisation on America’s part that the China challenge is for real, but do not reflect the position of Australia, which has important links to both competing powers.

June 26, 2018

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Turnbull goes aspirational

John Howard announced that he was running on incentivation – a word that even his colleagues could not comprehend; they thought they were hearing things.

April 17, 2018

MORTON HALPERIN, PETER HAYES, LEON SIGAL. Options for denuclearising the Korean peninsular

A critically important part of assembling the Korean peninsula-wide denuclearization jigsaw puzzle is the institutional and legal form of North Korean commitments on the one hand, and the nuclear negative security assurances by the NPT-Nuclear Weapons States (NWSs), especially the United States, on the other.

In Nautilus Institute there is a special report ‘A Korean nuclear weapons-free zone treaty and nuclear extended deterrence: options for denuclearising the Korean Peninsula’. ( Nautilus Institute Report). A summary of this special report follows.

September 17, 2019

JACK WATERFORD. Politics and the rustle of folding money (Canberra Times 13-9-19)

I wouldn’t hang a dog on the evidence so far assembled in support of the proposition that Gladys Liu, Liberal MP for Chisholm, is an active agent of the Chinese government, engaged in nefarious and illegal activities against Australia. On the other hand, one cannot help cynically feeling that were Ms Liu to be accused, in China with similar evidence to that presented here of being an agent for Australia, she would probably be summarily convicted and shot.

December 15, 2017

LAURIE PATTON. Setting the Record Straight – The Australian newspaper publishes rebuttal to Internet Australia attacks

For former journalist and media executive Laurie Patton, spearheading Internet Australia’s campaign for #BetterBroadband meant becoming accustomed to the occasional sledge from the pro-NBN Co forces. However, a series of false and defamatory newspaper articles led to an out-of-court settlement and the publication of an ‘op-ed’ setting the record straight.

March 10, 2015

Spencer Zifcak. Proportionality Lost in Australia’s new Counter-Terrorism Laws. Part 1

The Attorney-General, George Brandis, crashed two major tranches of counter-terrorism law through federal parliament recently. As always there are two problems with such an approach: overkill and error. Both tranches demonstrate these deficits in abundance.

It’s important to say that in Australia the threat of terrorist attacks is real. So is the danger posed by fighters returning trained and hardened in Middle Eastern conflicts. The threat and the danger have undoubtedly increased because of the Government’s military commitment to a third Iraq war. The case for some new security laws, specifically targeted at clearly identified threats, is persuasive.

January 6, 2018

ANDREW FARRAN. India riding roughshod in commodities trade.

India’s decision on 21 December to slap overnight a 30% tariff increase on Australian imports of lentils and chick peas is just not what a stable, orderly trade system needs. But even so, do we need another discriminatory bilateral so-called ‘free trade’ agreement with yet another country (India) when all these taken together are a recipe for future trade wars as occurred in the 1930s.

October 26, 2017

OISIN SWEENEY. Let's take the opportunity to put the wellbeing of people at the heart of forest protection.

Any Australian under the age of 30 is unlikely to have heard of Regional Forest Agreements (RFAs). The RFAs, signed in the late 1990s and lasting for 20 years, were designed to facilitate multiple uses of public native forests including timber extraction, nature conservation and recreation. They haven’t worked as planned, and logging now threatens multiple values of forests, including fundamentals for human well-being like water. We should heed the evidence and use the end of the RFAs to put forests at the heart of regional communities. We have a plan that can help us do that.

July 4, 2017

MICHAEL LIFFMAN. The Real Roots of Populism

(If we are really to understand and respond to populism, we need to go deep into the human psyche. Perhaps Jung is as relevant as Marx to this inquiry, and those of us who are committed to social progress need to reassess our approach…)

June 27, 2017

TONY SMITH. The political ugliness we cannot hide

Half a century ago in The Australian Ugliness Robin Boyd reminded us what happens when architectural planners embrace utilitarianism and abandon aesthetics. During the days of the Howard Coalition Government, examining the invasion of Iraq and policy on asylum seekers, moral philosopher Raimond Gaita reminded us what happens when decision-makers abandon ethical considerations. Under the Turnbull Government, mendacity, hypocrisy and arrogance are producing an observable ugliness in its spokespersons. The great fear is that this ugliness is reflecting our own grotesque faces back to us.

November 11, 2016

TESSA MORRIS-SUZUKI. Trump: it's time to go back to basics.

The election of billionaire and reality TV host Donald Trump to the most powerful political position in the world has created global shockwaves. As countless commentators have already observed, Trump’s election is a stunning reminder of the depth of social division in the United States. For millions of Americans, particularly in the rust-belt states and rural areas, Trump’s candidacy provided a golden opportunity to stick a finger up at the political establishment that has so long neglected their needs and anxieties. And the more outrageous his statements, the better he became a symbol of that finger.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal