July 30, 2019

How good is Scott Morrison?

By any standard, Scott Morrison’s Government has a very threadbare policy agenda. Furthermore, the Government seems resistant to new ideas, whether they are from its backbench or the public service. According to Scott Morrison the role of the public service is limited to implementing government policy, which may help explain the thinness of his Government’s policy agenda.

January 30, 2018

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Trans-Pacific Partnership.

The TPP was never all about the economic gains, even for the most dedicated rent seekers. The strategic planners – especially in Australia, Japan and South Korea – saw the original TPP as a means of locking America involved in Asia as a permanent bulwark against the dominance of China, whose government was pointedly excluded.

September 4, 2018

The Prime Minister: personal faith and public values

On 29th August comedian Tom Ballard chose to parody the faith of the new Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, on the Tonightly ABC series by contrasting his perceived lack of love or concern for refugees with his espoused love of Jesus. The ABC has come in for criticism for putting this sketch to air.

August 2, 2018

IMOGEN ZETHOVEN. The Tourism Industry Calls for Climate Action

It’s not hard to find bad news about the Great Barrier Reef but amongst the grim reports, there are signs of hope. First the bad news: The Australian Institute of Marine Science recently released its annual findings on the state of the Great Barrier Reef. Hard coral cover has shown a steep decline throughout the Marine Park. The loss of coral in all three regions (northern, central, southern) of the Park is unprecedented. Many reefs now have very low coral cover. The geographic scale of recent bleaching means that breeding populations of corals have been decimated over large areas.

July 12, 2019

CAVAN HOGUE. Canada, Australia and the USA

Canada tries to differentiate itself from the USA but because of its proximity and similarities this is not easy. Australia has the opposite problem: we try to find similarities. Canada’s geography makes it easier for it to defy requests to get involved in US wars but Australia has the opposite problem. We have to shout to be heard which is why we get involved in wars we should keep out of and votes we should change. But the world is changing and we have not kept up with the changes.

October 30, 2018

STEPHEN LEEDER. Health and wealth travel together.

Self-contained health programs directed at infectious diseases such as HIV, TB, malaria have wrought miracles, saving lives and enhancing prosperity. But a new challenge is looming globally, as subtle as climate change.

No self-contained ‘vertical’ programs work for non-communicable disease: here we need health systems that span conditions and facilities, linking hospitals to general practice and community services for a wide variety of patients and conditions, from chronic heart disease to mental illness.

Investment in health systems that address these needs is necessary (though not sufficient) for enhancing future productivity.

May 5, 2018

SUSANNE ROBERTS. Hugh Mackay reimagines a more compassionate Australia (Book Review)

Esteemed social researcher Hugh Mackay’s latest book Australia Reimagined: Towards a more compassionate, less anxious society is exquisitely timed. As the daily headlines tell of bank and church scandals and failures in the health, education and housing systems, many of us are asking what went wrong and are increasingly preoccupied with searching for solutions. We have little faith that governments of either colour will cease their pointless political manoeuvrings, sever their murky allegiances and muster the bottle to come up with solutions.

May 31, 2019

HENRY REYNOLDS. The centre cannot hold.

In a recent article in the New York Times columnist Ross Douthat drew attention to the Australian elections and the cotemporaneous triumph of Narendra Modi in India and of Nigel Farage in Britain’s European elections. Each represented a surge in supporter for right wing populism and what he called’ the global fade of liberalism.’

August 2, 2019

ELIZABETH and BORIS

January 23, 2018

JERRY ROBERTS. Change the date of the day by all means and change Australia

Let’s change the date of Australia Day, not just for Aboriginal public relations, but to prove that we can do something – anything – to cast off the chains of our pusillanimous politicians and their little mates, the boofhead media commentators.

August 11, 2018

RAMESH THAKUR. Syria: what if?

US President Donald Trump has been widely criticised for his supposed fawning performance in Helsinki at the summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin. But a minority of commentators have made three countervailing arguments to explain and justify Trump’s statements: preventing a US–Russia nuclear war by calming bilateral tensions that have arisen from the dangerous infection of Russophobia is a transcendental goal that should override all other considerations; if the main strategic rival in the foreseeable future is going to be China, then improving relations with Russia is a strategic move on the geopolitical chessboard; and Russian cooperation is essential to extricating the US from the mess created by the Obama administration’s pursuit of incoherent and inconsistent goals in the Middle East.

December 31, 2018

ROSS BURNS. US Withdrawal from Syria

There is everything wrong with the way in which Donald Trump reached his decision to pull US forces out of Syria, apparently without touching base with his own advisers and commanders. Australia is also now exposed to such impromptu creativity in foreign policy as in PM Morrison’s attempt in October to float a new initiative on moving the Australian Embassy to Jerusalem, again without prior warning even to Foreign Minister Payne.

October 26, 2016

RICHARD BUTLER. Russia and the US Elections

The US elections campaign has set-up a deeply negative framework for the future management of US/Russia relations. If Hillary Clinton is President her past attraction to military solutions to foreign policy problems will need revision, if conflict is to be avoided.

Speaking at the Alfred Smith dinner, in New York, on October 20th, Hillary Clinton referred to a difficulty Donald Trump had apparently encountered in his use of a teleprompter, during a campaign event. She said to Trump:

“They’re hard to keep up with, and I’m sure it’s even harder when you’re translating from the original Russian”. The audience was, largely, amused.

This wasn’t merely a joke. It reflected her assessment that there was domestic political mileage in hostility towards Russia and Putin and harm to be done to her opponent by calling attention to, and misrepresenting his stated preference for trying to get on with Russia, rather than fight it. Another Clinton aside illustrated further her assessment of the “Russia card”: “We all know who Putin wants to win, and it’s not me”.

July 2, 2018

ANDREW WILKIE - The bugging of East Timor cabinet rooms (Hansard extract, 28 June 2018)

Australia bugged East Timor’s cabinet rooms during the 2004 bilateral negotiations over the Timor Sea Treaty. The operation was illegal, unscrupulous and remains unresolved. The perpetrator was the Howard government, although the Rudd, Gillard and Abbott governments are co-conspirators after the fact. I can explain today that the scandal has just gotten a whole lot worse, because the Turnbull government has now moved to prosecute the intelligence officer who blew the whistle on the secret operation, along with his legal counsel, Bernard Collaery.

September 4, 2018

LAURIE PATTON. It’s time to clean up the Internet

This week a new CEO joined the Internet Society – the global not-for-profit overseeing the development of the Internet since1992. In his first official statement _Andrew Sullivan_ noted that it’s a challenging time for the Internet. I agree. Which is why this article, originally posted back in June, still resonates.

June 23, 2017

CAVAN HOGUE. We always want an outside protector

The recent Lowy poll that showed a decrease in support for Trump but not for the alliance should not come as a surprise. It is consistent with Australia’s long standing desire for a protector. We should not be naïve about China but we do tend to look at the USA through rose-coloured glasses. Our future is uncertain.

October 12, 2018

JOHN MENADUE. Immigration is not the problem in NSW- it is Premier Berejiklian infrastructure mess

Premier Gladys Berejiklian wants to halve Australia’s immigration intake. It is a diversionary tactic to disguise her infrastructure policy failures. Road and rail policies are in melt down

Immigration does present challenges but it is Australia’s great success story. Some of the problems that immigration faces are the result of policy failure in other areas like housing and particularly transport.

November 7, 2018

Refugees – Donald Trump’s help is accepted but Jacinda Arden’s offer is rejected

Refugees and asylum seekers are being kept on Manus and Nauru for one purpose only – to serve the government’s party political purposes.

We welcome US help but not offers of help from NZ.

Keeping vulnerable people in offshore detention is not deterring boat arrivals. It is the turnback policy that is stopping the boats. The vulnerable people in Nauru and Manus are being punished for no useful policy purpose. They should all be brought to Australia where we have well established settlement services.

In all this cruel mess, the ALP is silent. Where is its courage and its humanity?

June 18, 2019

TONY WALKER. Australia has a China problem and we can't leave it to faceless spooks (Sydney Morning Herald, 16 June 2019)

Australia has a China problem. It’s not in Beijing. It’s not on the streets of Hong Kong. It’s in Canberra. China policy is in flux, under stress and confused. Australia’s meek response to the pro-democracy mass demonstrations in Hong Kong contrasts with attitudes in its own security establishment that are redolent of a Cold War era.

February 12, 2020

MARIO CAVALO. Something's not right here folks". The USA 2009 H1N1 Virus compared to China 2020 Coronavirus(China Daily8.2.2020)

This vicious, political, xenophobic racist attacks and smearing of all things China needs to stop

December 20, 2016

MICHAEL SAINSBURY. Packer kowtows after cash cow slough, Macau Crown row.

James Packer’s ignominious retreat from his once-lauded international strategy is continuing apace as 17 staff from Crown Resorts, the company he controls with 48% of its stock, continue to languish in Chinese detention centres.

June 21, 2017

MICHAEL P. HUGHES. What went wrong with the F-35, Lockheed Martin's Joint Strike Fighter?

The F-35 was billed as a fighter jet that could do almost everything the U.S. military desired, serving the Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy – and even Britain’s Royal Air Force and Royal Navy – all in one aircraft design. It’s supposed to replace and improve upon several current – and aging – aircraft types with widely different missions. It’s marketed as a cost-effective, powerful multi-role fighter airplane significantly better than anything potential adversaries could build in the next two decades. But it’s turned out to be none of those things.

September 9, 2019

GEOFF RABY. The end of Hong Kong as we know it (AFR 6 Sep 2019)

Tragically, the turmoil in Hong Kong can only end badly. No good outcomes are available to the participants. Whatever happens, Hong Kong will never be the same again. 2046, the last year of the 50-year transition, will begin once the streets are cleared, however that is achieved. Hong Kong could well become a “black swan” event that changes the region and the world beyond.

September 26, 2018

PAUL COLLINS. The Sacking of Michelle Guthrie

Commentating on the sacking, former MD David Hill says that “no reasonable explanation” has been given as to why. While there’s some truth to that, I think we can begin to sort out why board chairman Justin Milne acted. And here its important to say that it probably largely was Milne, who was the dominant player; the rest of the board seem quite detached. Milne, however, did say that “leadership style” and “relations with government” were important factors in the decision.

September 4, 2018

STEPHEN LONG. The reality is new coal power is not the answer for cheaper electricity bills (ABC News, 03.09.18)

The tipping point’s been reached: renewable energy is now a cheaper source of power for Australia’s future electricity needs than coal.

September 10, 2018

ILAN WIESEL, LISS RALSTON, WENDY STONE. How the housing boom has driven rising inequality.

The Productivity Commission – the Australian government’s highly influential economic advisory body – released a report titled Rising Inequality? last week. The question mark indicates its scepticism about other research findings on rising inequality in Australia. The commission responded to its own question in the report’s very first heading: “Over nearly three decades, inequality has risen slightly in Australia”.

June 11, 2018

STEPHEN F COHEN. The Necessity of a Trump-Putin Summit.

Ten ways the new US-Russian Cold War is increasingly becoming more dangerous than the one we survived.

July 19, 2020

What is to be done with the Chinese in Oz.

“Men, or rather monsters, on horseback, armed with bludgeons and whips, with a fiend-like fury, securing the unfortunate creatures by taking hold of their tails and pulling their heads so that they came with their backs to the horse and their heads upon the saddle, and then cutting, or rather sawing, them off and leaving them to the fury of others who surrounded them.”

July 9, 2019

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Morrison climbs aboard Plan A

Last week Anthony Albanese passed his first test – at least the one the magisterial examiners of The Australian devised for him. He had retreated, gloated the paper – caved, rolled over to the majesty of the ScoMo mandate.

By agreeing to pass the enormity of the coalition tax package, he had acknowledged the verdict of hard-working Australians. and it follows, as dogs return to their vomit, that any other bright ideas Scott Morrison can come up with must be obeyed with similar capitulation.

February 10, 2014

John Menadue. Pink batts and the Royal Commission - a bridge too far.

There are good grounds for Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard to refuse to provide documents to the Royal Commission on Pink Batts. The Royal Commission is a very vindictive act by the Abbott Government. And the government looks like continuing to use other Royal Commissions for political purposes!

In separate blogs by Michael Keating on January 8, 2014 and by me on July 11, 2013, we have pointed out the following.

October 16, 2017

KATE CHARLESWORTH and PETER SAINSBURY. The Devastating Health Costs of Coal.

Amid all the debate about energy policy – about security, affordability, and carbon emissions - there is one critical issue that has barely rated a mention: human health. Coal is hazardous to our health; renewables are not. In any discussion about energy, the human health costs of coal and the significant health benefits of switching to safe and healthy forms of energy must be considered as seriously as security, affordability and emissions.

October 11, 2017

JOHN QUIGGIN. Socialism with a spine: the only 21st century alternative

Socialism is back, much to the chagrin of those who declared it dead and buried at the “ end of history” in the 1990s. When the New Republic, long the house organ of American neoliberalism, runs an article on The Socialism America Needs Now, it’s clear that something has fundamentally changed.

June 18, 2019

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Ramping up the anti union campaign.

If John Setka did not exist, the coalition would have invented him. But fortunately he does exist, so it’s just a matter of slapping on a few bells and whistles, dimming the lights and tuning up the spooky music, and hey presto! The abrasive trade unionist is transformed into the demon prince, a bogey man designed to scare small children and gullible swinging voters.

October 30, 2018

DAVID STEPHENS. Did the War Memorial deliberately mislead the Parliament about the money it gets from arms companies – or is it just careless about accountability? (Honest History 26.10.2018)

The Senate Hansard for 25 July 2018 contained the Australian War Memorial’s answer to Question 166from the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade (FADT) Committee (question asked by then Senator Rhiannon in Estimates). The answer included a table that purported to show figures for the value of financial contributions that the Memorial received from military and defence companies over three years.

March 3, 2018

GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND ...

In the Fairfax press Martin Myer of the Myer Foundation has an article “ Rules around foreign donations threaten to cripple thousands of charities”. It’s about legislation currently in Parliament, which ostensibly is designed to track foreign political donations, but which would actually place huge administrative burdens on organisations involved in policy advocacy and on their donors.

The principles of taxation are complex: in 2009 it took five volumes of the Henry Review to explain tax reform. But on ABC Radio National The Economists website is a lively 28 minute discussion “ The joy of tax” between three experts, telling you (almost) everything you need to know about tax and tax reform.

October 25, 2017

PAUL BUDDE. And so the NBN blame game starts

It has taken four years for the government and the nbn _company to finally admit what many people have been warning for since the very beginning of the change in NBN plans from FttH (_fibre _to the home) to FttN (_fibre to the node).

September 20, 2018

ISABELLE LANE. Six big players dominate Australia’s scandal-hit aged care sector (The New Daily, 19.09.18)

Aged care providers are expected to rake in $1.7 billion worth of profits in 2018-19, but reports of poor living conditions in nursing homes have raised concerns that the industry is putting profit before people.

August 17, 2017

'It's time to act': Liberal MP calls for Australia to take refugees from Manus and Nauru

The Victorian Liberal moderate Russell Broadbent has called in Federal Parliament for “genuine refugees” in offshore detention to be settled permanently on the Australian mainland once the US resettlement deal has run its course.

July 25, 2019

MACK WILLIAMS Britannia Quo Vadis ?

Boris Johnson could hardly have chosen a more inauspicious moment to take over the reins in London with Whitehall in the death throes of a Prime Minister, the seemingly inevitable surge to a “no deal” Brexit plus the disrobing of Britannia by the Iranians and the likely accelerated pace of Beijing’s control over Hong Kong which inevitably will dog UK:China relations for some years ahead. All of which will be confused by President Trump’s graceless embrace which not only claimed Johnson as his acolyte but deliberately emphasised that he was his “man”! As Johnson himself noted, he will certainly need a better mojo than DUD but will he regret Americanising it into DUDE?

September 25, 2018

PETER MANNING. Despite her good intentions, Michelle Guthrie was never the right fit for the ABC (the Conversation, 25.09.18)

Michelle Guthrie has been badly treated – not by being sacked, but by being hired in the first place. As a former Head of ABC TV News and Current Affairs, I met Guthrie several times at functions in the ABC, and once at a social dinner party. We discussed the state of ABC News and other editorial matters. She was well aware she was on a steep learning curve.

September 26, 2018

TONY SMITH. What is a good MP?

It is hardly surprising that, as female Liberal Party parliamentarians have expressed dismay over the way that they were bullied during the removal of Prime Minister Turnbull, party powerbrokers have reacted by seeking to prescribe the role of the politician. Sadly, no-one has questioned the obvious bias in the offered definition of ‘parliamentarian’ as requiring toughness.

October 1, 2019

MIKE SCRAFTON. The strategic significance of Abqaiq and Khurais

The debate over the military implications of relatively inexpensive drones and cruise missiles has been enlivened by the recent attacks on the Saudi Arabian oil facilities at Abqaiq and Khurais. This spectacular demonstration of the effectiveness of drones and cruise missiles has prompted claims that it has ‘ changed global warfare’. Inevitably all modern defence force inventories will include such weapons, many already do, and military planners will need to focus on their use and defences against them. These weapons will find important roles but will not have a drastic impact on higher end conflict.

March 27, 2018

ANDREW FARRAN. Parliamentary inquiry on proposal for a Bipartisan Defence Agreement to govern future procurements.

Currently the Joint Parliamentary Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade is inquiring into the benefits and risks of a Bipartisan Australian Defence Agreement, as a basis of planning for, and funding of, Australian Defence capability. A comment on this reference by Richard Tanter, based on his submission to the Standing Committee, was posted in Pearls & Irritations on 14th March (“Bad, bad BADA - aka Bipartisan Australian Defence Agreement). A further submission to the Committee, prepared by Andrew Farran, on behalf of Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR), was received by the Committee on 15th March and is reproduced below. Essentially, it states, p__rocurement proposals and decisions should arise from a sound strategic basis and doctrine, ever contestable as circumstances change.

April 20, 2018

MARILYN LAKE. ANZAC from a Turkish point of view.

As Anzac Day comes round once more so we must prepare for the accompanying bombardment of nationalist myth-making. Our sense of national consciousness, so the story goes, was born on 25 April 1915. A nation was born on that day of death. The Anzacs fought for ‘freedom and democracy’. They died so that we might live.

Mythologies serve to comfort and console. They smooth contradictions and reduce historical complexity. They make meaning of events that might otherwise be senseless or unbearable.

September 3, 2019

JACK WATERFORD. Labor’s turn with the brown paper bag. Integrity bodies should have power to check corruption inside political parties.

NSW Labor’s little embarrassment in front of its Independent Commission Against Corruption has a bad look, temporarily takes attention away from problems festering the Berejiklian government and had led to the fall of yet another NSW Labor General Secretary in murky circumstances. AS is usual in NSW, whichever party is involved, brown paper bags come into it. Still, all in all, it is almost the scandal one has to have if one is going to have a scandal, because it is very unlikely that the NSW Liberal Party will be very interested in making political capital of it.

June 20, 2019

MIKE SCRAFTON. The Chief of the Defence Force and political warfare

_General Angus Campbell’s presentation_ at ASPI’s conference War in 2015 was thoughtful and provocative. Some of the CDF’s views are germane and apt are others contestable. He opened by saying, ‘I sense a renewed concern in the world for the potential for state-on-state conflict’; however ‘political warfare’ was his main concern.

November 9, 2015

Ross Gittins. Launch of book by Menadue and Keating.

Sydney, Thursday, November 5, 2015

Paul Samuelson, the famous American economist, is said to have remarked that the stockmarket has predicted nine of the past five recessions. I thought of that this week and decided the Canberra press gallery could top it: the gallery has predicted nine of the past two early elections. They were at it again last weekend, reporting that, with the Coalition now riding high in the polls, serious thought was being given to calling an election - per force a double dissolution - early next year. It was an unconvincing proposition and, perhaps fearing that election speculation wouldn’t help restore business confidence, Malcolm Turnbull quickly scotched it, saying we could expect the election to be when it was supposed to be, in September or October next year.

April 16, 2019

TIM LINDSEY. Indonesia goes to the polls: rematch or replay? (University of Melbourne, 15 April 2019)

Indonesia goes to the polls on 17 April, with the same presidential candidates as five years ago: the incumbent, Joko Widodo (known as Jokowi), a self-made former furniture exporter and former governor of Jakarta, and Prabowo Subianto, a former general who was once a son-in-law of Soeharto, the authoritarian former president who ruled for three decades until 1998.

September 10, 2018

HUMPHREY HAWKSLEY. US-led Indo-Pacific alliance against China is an outdated idea (Nikkei Asian Review, 03.09.18)

Asia should avoid being divided by Sino-American rivalry.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal