June 16, 2013

What is powering Japan's foreign policy? Guest blogger Walter Hamilton

Could it be they are handing out macho pills at the Japanese Foreign Ministry? Has it become de rigueur for the countrys diplomats to browbeat international forums? Are internal divisions within the ministry about to break out into open policy warfare?

There are at present enough straws in the wind to invite these questions.

The metaphoric macho pills might explain the extraordinary outburst by Japans Human Rights Ambassador (and former Ambassador to Australia), Hideaki Ueda, during a recent UN committee hearing. He was responding to an African delegates criticism of Japan for not allowing lawyers to be present during police interrogations of suspects. As Ueda attempted to explain how his country was among the most advanced in this field, there were audible sniggers from unidentified attendees. Dont laugh! Why are you laughing? protested Ueda. Shut up! Shut up! (The rant is viewable on YouTube.) Although one may make allowances for the wear-and-tear of spending too much time at UN talkfests, this was an ugly face to bring to a discussion on human rights. It might be best if Mr. Ueda goes off the pills.

June 25, 2013

Julia Gillard's greatest failure. John Menadue

The Prime Ministers greatest failure is her refusal to lead the reform of the structure of the ALP.

That structure is controlled by a handful of faction and union bosses like Paul Howes. In return for protecting their positions, they are now repaying their debt to her by shoring up her precarious position.

The last ALP federal conference considered a report by Steve Bracks, John Faulkner and Bob Carr for modest party reform. Julia Gillard failed to provide leadership on these reforms and the ALP is now paying a very heavy price.

May 11, 2016

Chris Bonnor. My Gonski is bigger than yours

We should have known it would come to this. For years both Labor and the Coalition have ducked and weaved while the education sector battled to ensure that at least the Gonski funding hope was kept alive. Labor recast Gonskis recommendations into a form that the Gonski panel would hardly recognize, and the Coalition was never committed in fact it is only a few months since they announced that extra Gonski funding wasnt going to happen.

August 3, 2016

CHRIS BONNOR & BERNIE SHEPHERD. Its NAPLAN time again!

August is when the NAPLAN test results come out to schools and parents. It isnt as exciting as the annual release of Year 12 results, but it is developing a life of its own. We are bombarded with media releases, claims and counter claims about schools and results. Cheer squads or jeer squads form up, the occasional moral panic revived, along with the usual exhortations to do better next year.

March 8, 2017

IAN McAULEY. South Australias Electricity Problems: Jay Weatherill Should Follow The Coalitions Example

Spare a thought for the people of South Australia. Large parts of Adelaide blacked out for up to 18 hours without notice. Trams stopped in their tracks across busy intersections. A bitter and partisan debate in state parliament about responsibility for the chaos the electricity supplier, the federal government, other states putting their own energy needs ahead of South Australias? A heated argument about energy sources coal or alternatives? Firms threatening to shift to other states because of unreliable electricity supply. Bitter complaints from consumers and businesses about electricity prices.

July 18, 2016

STEVE GEORGAKIS. Sport is only sport if you participate; otherwise it is a spectacle

The highpoint of sport occurred more than 2,000 years ago when the ancient Greeks established an education system which placed a significant emphasis on the playing of sport and in particular the educational value of participation in sport. The central role of sport in the education system coincided with the flourishing of Greek culture which included democracy, philosophy, architecture and law. That is the Greeks had developed a sports system from the grassroots to the elite level and what characterised this system was the emphasis placed on participation. Subsequently the Greek world was overrun by the Romans who dismantled this participationary system and replaced it with spectacles. For the conquering Romans, sport became something you watched in arenas and hippodromes and usually involved some form of brutality. For the ruling Roman classes it became a way of controlling the masses and from this emerged, Bread and Spectacles.

August 5, 2016

WALTER HAMILTON. Japans Diminishing Returns.

Japan, in my nearly forty years of observing and reporting on that country, has never been so delicately and dangerously poised. Australians, who have long relied on it as an economic powerhouse and common interest partner, need to be paying close attention.

July 19, 2016

In the service of empires from Fromelles to the present day.

See link below to article by Paul Daley in the Guardian ‘Australians didn’t sacrifice themselves at Fromelles, the British sacrificed them’. John Menadue.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/postcolonial-blog/2016/jul/19/australians-didnt-sacrifice-themselves-at-fromelles-the-british-sacrificed-them?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+AUS+v1+-+AUS+morning+mail+callout&utm_term=182252&subid=18184347&CMP=ema_632

December 16, 2015

Michael Keating. The Turnbull Governments Fiscal Strategy

This second article, in response to the release of the Governments Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO) on Tuesday 15 December, focuses on the Governments fiscal strategy. It is a companion piece to another article that focussed on the Governments economic strategy and what the Government expects that economic strategy to achieve.

As had been well telegraphed in advance, total budget receipts are now expected to be $33.8 bn lower over the next four years of the forward estimates than expected last May in the 2015-16 Budget. This reduction in receipts mainly reflects lower than forecast commodity prices impacting on company profits and a weaker outlook for wage growth. On the other hand, and consistent with the Governments tight fiscal strategy, spending decisions have been more than offset by other decisions to reduce expenditure elsewhere in the Budget.

August 3, 2016

WALTER HAMILTON. Corruption by Prediction

It is a modern-day impatience: we want to eat dessert first. In election campaigns, therefore, we seek to taste the result through opinion polls, vox pops, electoral maps (with winners already allocated), predictive analogies or psephological cephalopods. So it was during the recent Australian elections; so it is again as Americans wait (redundantly?) for the real polls to open in November.

July 8, 2015

Warwick Elsche. Heads must roll at ABC, but not at ASIO

Heads must roll; words from the Prime Minister Tony Abbott. And in case you missed them he said them twice on national TV.

He was talking of the ABC and presumably some executives who failed to detect the threatening presence of a convicted Islamist sympathizer Zaky Mallah in the audience of popular current affairs program Q&A.

Tony dislikes the ABC because it is not as imaginatively sycophantic as the Murdoch Press. He has branded it on this and other occasions as cruelly politically biased - despite the fact that the Head of his own media office was recently recruited from this source.

May 11, 2016

Mungo MacCallum. Turnbull/Morrison mantra: jobs and growth.

Our economic plan for jobs and growth jobs and growthjobs and growth jobs and growth sobs of mirth Hobsons Choice blobs and froth ..

The trouble with endlessly repeating slogans is that they become meaningless babble. Just what the Turnbull/Morrison mantra will sound like in another eight weeks beggars the imagination.

And while were at it, the transition away from the mining boom is bad enough, but its ugly and illiterate derivative, transitioning the economy, is downright horrible, guaranteed to drive the sensitive listener mad within a fortnight.

July 19, 2016

PHILOMENA MURRAY. Nice attack brings a difficult question into sharp focus: why France?

If you live in France, you enjoy Bastille Day. There is a buzz in the air as you celebrate a day off in the middle of summer with your family and friends. You go to the fireworks. It is good to be in France and to remember the founding principles of the state liberty, equality and fraternity. There is little mention of a bloody history of revolution and wars, colonialism and empire.

August 5, 2016

FRANK BRENNAN SJ. Refugees - John Howard could do it. Why not Malcolm Turnbull?

My quandary remains: if John Howard was able to keep the boats stopped while closing Nauru and Manus Island, why cant Malcolm Turnbull? If John Howard was able to accept New Zealands offer to resettle some of the caseload why cant Malcolm Turnbull?

I just dont buy the line that the people smugglers have become more clever than our intelligence services and that the Indonesians have become less co-operative with our military. If Operation Sovereign Borders depends on protracted, ongoing indecent treatment of proven refugees on Manus Island and Nauru then it doesnt pass the test of basic Australian decency.

May 31, 2014

NY Times - Capitalism Eating its Children.

Yesterday I posted a blog ‘Are our Bankers Listening or Caring’. It referred to speeches by the IMF Chief, Christine Lagarde, and the Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney. They were speaking at a ‘Inclusive Capitalism’ conference in London.

Today the New York Times has carried an op ed piece by Roger Cohen entitled ‘Capitalism Eating Its Children’. Cohen draws extensively on the speech by Mark Carney. The op ed piece in the New York Times can be found at:

September 27, 2013

Reflections on the Senate Election. Guest blogger: David Combe

David Combe was National Secretary of the ALP, 1973 to 1981

As the composition of the new Senate which will sit from July 1, 2014, becomes clearer, my mind goes back to two earlier Senates which took office 40 and 30 years earlier, and which were elected in double dissolutions of the Parliament.

The election of May 18, 1974 is mainly remembered because it made Gough Whitlam the first Federal Labor Leader to take the party to victory at successive elections. At the time, our joy was tempered by the narrowness of the majority achieved in the House of Representatives (just 5), but in reality there had been very little slippage in the vote for the Government. (It is seldom remembered that despite everything which the party had going for it when it won its first Government in 23 years at the election of December 2, 1972, the House of Representatives majority - only 9 - was much smaller than might have been expected).

August 13, 2015

John Menadue. Liberal Party misuse of Royal Commissions.

Dyson Heydon is in the news again.

Several weeks ago he appeared to question the credibility of Bill Shorten as a witness before the Trade Union Royal Commission. He also had unusual things to say about the credibility of Julia Gillard when she appeared before the Commission.

See below a repost of an article on the Liberal Party and royal commissions.

John Menadue

REPOST

With the Abbott Government there is a pattern of using Royal Commissions to attack former and current ALP leaders. See the links below to two earlier posts on the subject.

August 19, 2015

Jon Stanford. The governments new naval shipbuilding policy

I think this is an outstanding article on naval shipbuilding, industry policy and economic prospects in South Australia. Jon Staford suggests that in terms of industry policy, ‘continuing to prop up the car industry … would probably have been a much cheaper way of [creating jobs]’. In case you have missed it, I have decided to repost. John Menadue

The recent statement by the Prime Minister on the naval shipbuilding industry is highly problematic. By committing up to $89 billion to a continuous warship-building program in Adelaide, the governments largesse knows no bounds. This policy seems irresponsible, not just financially but also in terms of both industry policy and defence requirements. Yet, in political terms, it may seem a masterstroke, not just in shoring up the Coalition vote in South Australia but because none of the other political parties will oppose it.

August 1, 2013

Japan's Deputy PM: 'Let's learn from the Nazis'. Guest blogger: Walter Hamilton

Taro Aso, Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister of Japan, has a clumsy tongue; its always getting him into trouble. Hes so malapropic (remember the one about people becoming so affluent even the homeless are getting diabetes), we can only shake our heads and say, Japans a funny place, before changing the channel on our Sonys.

But wait a moment. Did he really say this latest thing?

On Monday Aso addressed a forum on constitutional change organised by a right-wing lobby group, the Japan Institute for National Fundamentals (more on it later). He spoke extempore, as usual, with an eye to creating controversy that, if necessary, might be explained away later. The rubric I was misunderstood or I failed to explain myself properly or I didnt say what I meant is familiar with politicians of Asos type, who habitually linger between not meaning what they say and not saying what they mean.

June 20, 2024

ALP Government must be consistent on nuclear energy

Grassroots anti-AUKUS campaign, Labor Against War, joins with the ALP Government in condemning Liberal leader Peter Dutton’s desperate attempt to reignite the climate wars by announcing plans for seven nuclear reactors on land sites in Australia.

September 26, 2014

Kerry Murphy. Kurds in the way.

Since the collapse of three divisions of the Iraqi army at Mosul in June 2014, it has been the Peshmerga, Kurdish militias, that have strongly opposed the apocalyptic death cult of ISIS in Iraq. Already Syrian Kurdish forces had strongly defended their territories in Syria. The relief of the besieged Yazidis on Mount Sinjar saw Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga forces and Turkish PKK forces help on the ground. The conflicts in Iraq and Syria are continuing to mutate and some of the results mean that western countries have to support groups such as the PKK previously labelled terrorists.

December 12, 2024

A five-minute scroll

The UN Security council has voted for an unconditional, immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, 158 countries voted yes. Yoav Gallant visits the White House, no arrest took place there. Senator Payman calls out anti-semitism but also calls for recognition of Islamophobia. An IDF soldier boasts of the ocean views amongst the destruction in Gaza.

April 18, 2013

Where has the Business Council of Australia been? John Menadue

The BCA President, Tony Shepherd, was at it again on Wednesday 17 April at the National Press Club attacking the Government for many failures a lack of focus, the need for politicians to sacrifice their jobs for the national interest and that old perennial of his, reform of the labour market. His comments were loudly supported by the Australian Financial Review which now reports on behalf of the business sector rather than about business.

September 18, 2014

Chris Bonnor, Bernie Shepherd. School equity since Gonski: how bad became worse.

This is a shorter version, prepared for Pearls and Irritations, of a paper which was reported in the Sun Herald on September 14 Go to http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/schools-worse-now-than-when-gonski-wrote-report-20140913-10gepz.html A longer version, including graphics, is available at https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxK25rJrOw-eVU4zM2p2UTF5ZkE/edit?usp=sharing

The story of the Review of Funding for Schooling, otherwise known as the Gonski review, is well known. The Review began in 2010 and its report, with its significant findings and recommendations, was handed to the Gillard Government at the end of 2011.

June 10, 2016

BOB KINNAIRD on China-Australia Free Trade Agreement (ChAFTA)

An opinion piece in yesterdays Financial Review by James Laurenceson dismisses union concerns on ChAFTA - Don’t believe Chinese worker Free Trade Agreement scaremongering, 9/6/16. It warrants a response.

Laurencesons claims do not stand up to scrutiny. They concern firstly the Chinese installers on the 400 visas, the subject of John Menadues blogbelow.

Laurenceson fails to mention the fundamental point that ChAFTA granted LMT-exempt entry to Chinese workers in this installers and servicers category, for the first time in our FTA history.

March 8, 2017

ERIC HODGENS. The Catholic Dilemma.

Clerical privilege took a heavy blow when Catholic bishops were summoned to appear at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to child sexual abuse (RC). The church answering to the state.

April 15, 2015

Frank Brennan. Cunneen v ICAC

Margaret Cunneen is a high profile public prosecutor. The NSW Independent Commission against Corruption (ICAC) wanted to investigate her for corrupt behaviour, but not in relation to anything she did as a prosecutor. They wanted to investigate her behaviour as a private citizen, she being the mother of a boy whose girlfriend was involved in a car accident. The suggestion was that Cunneen on being called to the accident scene was party to a plan that the driver should fake chest pains to escape a blood alcohol test even though the driver had not been drinking and her blood alcohol content was zero. ICACs argument was that the behaviour of Cunneen and her family members could adversely affect the police in performing their official functions investigating the accident.

November 2, 2016

MACK WILLIAMS. The real shipping choke point for Australia - Sibutu Channel

Neither the Australian government nor the Australian media have informed us about the critical nature of the Sibutu Channel.

As mentioned in this blog some time ago. the active political and media discussion in Australia about the South China Sea has continued to ignore the fact that the most critical choke point for Australias huge trade with North Asia is the Sibutu Channel. This lies inside Philippines territorial waters between Sabah and the southernmost Philippines islands. Nor has our media recognised that this area has long been a hot spot for the Muslim insurgency in the Philippines and more recently the radical Abu Sayyaf. The latter have an established history of kidnapping and ransom and worse with a number of foreigners currently in their hands.

March 8, 2017

DOUGLAS NEWTON. The Political Correctness of the Right

In a recent speech to CEDA, John Howard denounced an avalanche of political correctness. In fact, Howard has helped promote a stifling version of political correctness on the Right of Australian politics.

May 30, 2013

Pell before the Parliamentary Enquiry. Guest blogger: Chris Geraghty

I watched Cardinal George Pell give his evidence to the Victorian Parliamentary Committee on Monday and thought that he was fortunate to be questioned across the polished table by a team of amateur interrogators. The members of the committee were, for my taste, too respectful, and far too thankful for the inadequate information he was providing. He will not be treated so softly, so kindly by counsel assisting the Royal Commission. We should prepare ourselves for a longer and more equal contest when the trained, heavy-weight inquisitors put the Archbishop of Sydney on the rack.

February 3, 2016

John Menadue. Tax reform and vested interests.

We are in the midst of a misleading campaign on tax and budget reform.

Large corporations and high income groups are pressing the government to increase the GST in order to reduce company tax and taxes for high-income groups. I have seldom seen such a blatant and self-interested campaign by vested interests. And they seriously suggest that it is in the name of tax and presumably, necessary budget reform. Even Mike Baird has joined in this nonsense.

December 11, 2015

Jon Stanford. Defence procurement and the new submarine

When people remember Gough Whitlam, few would identify him as an economic rationalist. Economics was not his primary interest and, partly because of the perceived urgency of implementing the programme after 23 years in opposition, partly because of the incompetence of some of his Ministers, the budget blew out excessively on his watch. Yet in terms of microeconomic reform his record was, in many ways, better than that of previous and subsequent Coalition governments. Even including all the reforms by the Hawke/Keating governments in the 1980s and 1990s, Whitlams 25 per cent tariff cut in 1973 remains the single greatest stand alone initiative to open the Australian economy to international competition.

May 6, 2014

Michael Kelly SJ. Why Protestants are more popular than Catholics in China

Questions abound over the recent vicious actions of the Chinese government towards Christians in the prosperous Zhejiang Province just south of Shanghai. The actions of the government during the fortnight after Easter against both Protestants and Catholics are unprecedented in recent decades and, justifiably, have received world attention.

As with all actions in a country as vast as China, whose government could never be accused of transparency, it is difficult to discover who is making the decisions and what they hope to achieve.But one issue that has surprised many people outside China is both the size of its Christian population and the ruthlessness, born only of fear, that the governments violence displays.

January 7, 2019

KIM WINGEREI. Independent Media On The Rise

T_o conclude my series of posts on media power and politics, it is worth highlighting how independent media is on the rise in Australia. As we head into the new year elections looming trust in politicians at an all-time low, aided and abetted by mainstream media focused on headlines instead of substance voters can and should seek answers elsewhere._

December 7, 2014

John Menadue. Our Environment Minister is not going to Lima

Almost all countries will have their climate change or environment ministers at the UN Climate Change Conference which commences this week in Lima, Peru. This conference is in preparation for the crucial conference on climate change in Paris next year.

But our Environment Minister, Greg Hunt, will not be there. Tony Abbott is sending his Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop, but is also sending Andrew Robb, our Trade Minister to keep an eye on her. It is reported that Julie Bishop went bananas over this insult to her.

November 7, 2014

Graham Freudenberg. Bjelke Petersen was an innocent.

What is the real meaning of the G20 security farce in Brisbane? It is a massive exercise in political intimidation. It is a demonstration of the power of government to prevent or limit the most basic democratic rights of free speech, protest and assembly. Perhaps the worst thing about it is that, in the atmosphere of these times, this intimidatory assertion of authority is accepted without question as normal, routine and completely justified. There is a long term conditioning process of work here.

September 21, 2017

IAN McAULEY Private Health Insurance - let's make the young pay.

Private health insurers are losing their most profitable members, younger people whose contributions subsidise older members. Rather than forcing young people back into private insurance, the government should break private hospitals dependence on private insurance and let private insurance go the way of other high-cost industries.

The media and the PHI lobby consistently understate the taxpayer subsidy to PHI. It is not $6b per annum. It is $11b pa

March 8, 2017

FAZAL RIZVI. What students learn about Asia is outdated and needs to change.

While we readily recognise the new Asia to be culturally dynamic, and changing rapidly, we have yet to develop a more sophisticated understanding of Asia-Australia relations - and indeed also of the discourse of Asia literacy.

November 15, 2015

Cavan Hogue. Russian airliner and ISIS.

The almost gleeful attacks by columnists and cartoonists on Vladimir Putin when the Russian plane went down were in very bad taste. The difference between this and MH17 is clear. MH17 was shot down by accident in Ukrainian territory probably by rebels who thought they were shooting down a warplane from Kiev. It was not a deliberate act by Russians, let alone ordered by Putin. (Russia could however be criticised for not putting more pressure on those who control the crash site to cooperate with the investigators - most likely they know what happened and don’t want to admit it.)

July 15, 2014

Take your pick on the way News Corp operates.

On oath before the Leveson Enquiry, Rupert Murdoch said Ive never asked a prime minister for anything. (Leveson transcript 25 April 2012)

In his book The Whitlam Government 1972-75, published in 1985, Gough Whitlam says

in the week after the 1972 election, Menadue, who had become my private secretary at the beginning of 1960 and had then become Murdochs financial manager in mid-1967, saw me on Murdochs behalf to put the proposition that Murdoch should become High Commissioner in London. Murdoch was confident that there could be no conflict of interest, since he would put his British interests in trust and there would be no public outcry since the media proprietors would not oppose the appointment of one of themselves. (p.581)

October 16, 2016

MACK WILLIAMS. Duterte plays the China card

Not surprisingly, President Duterte is proving more than a handful for US policy makers on the eve of his major state visit to China. If he achieves many of the ambitious goals set for the visit , Duterte will be strengthened in his resolve to chart policies away from the traditional Philippines dependence on the US. How far China will be prepared to exploit Duterte’s position will be critical for US (and Australian) policy in the South China Sea. But so also it will be for the Philippines’ ASEAN partners as Chinas considerable soft power potential in the region will be on display.

November 7, 2014

Patty Fawkner SGS. Betty has dementia.

Grief is a constant companion when a loved one has dementia. And so, too, is grace, writes Good Samaritan Sister Patty Fawkner.

Betty has dementia. Betty has had dementia for over eight years. Betty is my mother.

Mum will know when its time to go into care, I would confidently say to my five siblings as Betty aged. I had utter faith in my ever-practical, no-frills, no self-pitying mother. I was wrong.

September 19, 2024

UN Palestine vote: Australia shows it lacks a backbone

Why is it that successive Australian Governments cannot bring themselves to call out Israel for what it is? A state that constantly ignores international law, most recently in the current Gaza conflict where there can be no doubt that war crimes have been, and are being committed against the Palestinian population. What Israel is perpetrating against the Palestinians is genocide on any definition.

September 2, 2016

JOHN MENADUE. Medicare, Private Health Insurance and the ALP

In my article, ‘Down a different path in Melbourne: how Medibank was conceived’ written in 2000 for the Medical Journal of Australia (see link below), I described the history from 1967 to 1975 which led to Medibank/Medicare. In that article, I highlighted one issue that drove Gough Whitlam’s determination to establish Medibank/Medicare. His concern was that “The Liberal and Country party Coalition’s voluntary health insurance scheme, supported by taxpayer deductions was wasteful and inequitable.”

September 7, 2016

MARIAN SAWER. Democracy for sale?

Since the 1980s Australia has become known for its laissez-faire or lackadaisical attitude to the role of money in politics. At the federal level Australia introduced public funding for political parties to reduce reliance on private donations, but corporate donations have continued to grow reaching $202 million in 201314.

Disclosure to the Australian Electoral Commission is required for donations of over $13,200 but there are no source restrictions or limits for donations.

September 1, 2016

GRAHAM FREUDENBERG. On race discrimination.

Assent by silence made Hitlers crimes possible.

As Pastor Martin Niemoller wrote:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out Because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me and there was no-one left to speak for me.

The warning is as relevant as ever. The more we study how the Holocaust happened, the more we must realise how small steps of acceptance, acquiescence, rationalisation, political convenience and expedience, and above all, silence paved the path to hell from 1933 to 1945. For 80 years, we have glossed over the silent acquiescence of countries like the United States, Britain and Australia in the period after Hitler, for so long dismissed as just another ratbag, came to power by legal and constitutional means in Germany in 1933.

July 15, 2014

Chris Mitchell, The Australian and Iraq

As part of the celebration of the 50th anniversary of The Australian, the editor, Chris Mitchell, revealed on Monday 14 July that he was a secret opponent of the invasion of Iraq. This will come as a surprise for many who followed The Australian’s wholehearted support of the Iraq invasion and hectored and criticised those who opposed it.

In The Monthly magazine yesterday, Robert Manne tells us about this remarkable confession by Chris Mitchell. See Monthly link below. John Menadue.

November 7, 2014

ISIS and Vietnam.

In an op ed column in the New York Times, Thomas L. Friedman spoke of the parallels between the war in Vietnam and the conflict now in Iraq and Syria. He mentions how the executive of foreign journalists is designed to provoke Western intervention. See link below for Thomas Friedman’s article. John Menadue

http://nyti.ms/1vcTEK5

March 24, 2016

John Menadue and CPD. Building a regional framework on refugees and forced-migration.

For several years a group of us at the Centre for Policy Development (CPD) have been endeavouring to develop a regional framework for the management of refugee issues in our region. We strongly feel that no country in the region, including Australia, can handle refugee flows on their own. A regional framework based on cooperation and burden-sharing is essential.

For over two years we have been pursuing the case for a Track II Dialogue in the region. We have felt that this is necessary to break out of the impasse on refugees that Australia and other countries face in the region. The Track II Dialogue includes people from the region with an interest and understanding of the issues. It includes members from think-tanks, government officials in a private capacity and people from international agencies.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal