December 15, 2023

CNN goes to Gaza

CNNs Clarissa Ward and her crew became the firstwestern journalists to enter Gaza independent from Israeli forces since October 7, briefly visiting a 150-bed hospital that was recently constructed in a soccer stadium by the United Arab Emirates in the southern part of the enclave before leaving to report on the footage from Abu Dhabi.

October 17, 2018

BOB CARR. How the Israeli Lobby operates.A repost

The letter was in the bulging file marked Premiers Invites. The invitation was to an annual dinner where a peace prize was presented to a person chosen by the Sydney Peace Foundation at Sydney University. This year they had decided to present the award to Hanan Ashrawi. I knew her from CNN and had been impressed by her dignity.

April 22, 2016

Adrian Bauman & William Bellew. Does a spoonful of sugar help the medicine go down?

“A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down”, according to Mary Poppins. Many more spoonfuls of sugar currently pervade our lifestyles and unconscious food choices. The recent media focus on sugar has been remarkable, but the media frenzy has sought a single solution, a quick fix, to what is in reality a complex problem: childhood and adult obesity. Rapid increases in obesity rates have occurred since the late 1980s in Australia and in many other countries, and even if starting to plateau, still leaves 63% of adult Australians overweight or obese.

April 15, 2014

Patty Fawkner. An Easter story

If we think about it, each of us has an Easter story. Mine goes back to the death of my father.

Dad died when I was a young nun. It was my first experience of the death of someone I deeply loved. Where once the word loss seemed a somewhat evasive euphemism, it was now acutely apt. I felt empty and fell into an abyss of grief, a grief that had begun eighteen months earlier, the day Dad was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. He was 57.

July 3, 2016

JOHN MENADUE. Conservatives have set the gold standard in scare campaigns.

After following politics and elections for over 60 years, it is quite extraordinary to see the Liberal party complaining about the Medicare scare campaign. In a downcast and confusing speech on election night Malcolm Turnbull spoke of the well funded lie campaign on Medicare.

In fact, I think the ALP is right on the threat to Medicare, although I would have used different arguments.

July 1, 2013

What should Prime Minister Kevin Rudd do about boat arrivals? John Menadue

The new government has indicated that it will be reviewing current policies on such issues as carbon reduction and boat arrivals. I have written extensively about asylum seekers and refugees. I suggest that in the short term, the PM should consider the following on boat arrivals.

We need some perspective in the political debate. We should acknowledge that there is a political problem but there is no need to panic. We are a nation of immigrants and refugees. Our wealth is built on it. We had about 16,000 asylum seekers in 2012, although there has been a surge in recent months in boat arrivals (7,500 in the March quarter) compared with air arrivals (2,200 in the same quarter). In 2012 the US had 82,000 asylum claimants. In Germany it was 64,000, in France 55,000 and in Sweden 44,000. Our borders will never be completely secure but as an island continent and country we are much more secure than almost any other country and the number of asylum seekers coming to Australia is quite small compared with other countries. There is a world-wide problem of refugee flows eg Syria and we cannot isolate ourselves from the problem. Apart from our migration program of about 200,000 persons per annum, we have over 700,000 foreigners who can work in Australia under various temporary resident permits, e.g. 457, working holiday and student visas.

August 11, 2015

John Menadue. Parliamentary reform and the new Speaker.

In my post of 12 May this year Democratic renewal and our loss of trust in institutions, I wrote about our loss of trust in so many institutions including our parliament and political parties. If Tony Abbott and Bill Shorten want to improve public debate and restore some faith in our public institutions the election of new speaker Tony Smith provides an opportunity to change course.

The most trusted of our institutions are all public institutions; the ABC, the High Court and the Reserve Bank. The least trusted are political parties and the expenses mess triggered by Bronwyn Bishop will add to that lack of trust.

July 3, 2016

JOHN MENADUE. A hung parliament could be a good thing.

We have been warned time and time again about hung parliaments and the chaos that follows. The media which is so often more concerned about politics and personalities than good governance, joins in the chorus about the risks of hung parliaments.

The claims that minority governments are disastrous are nonsense.

November 8, 2015

Michael Keating. The role of government in policy renewal.

**In thanking Ross Gittins for launching ‘Freedom, Opportunity and Security’, Mike Keating explains the reasons why he and I decided to launch this series, first online and now in a book. Mike Keating’s book launch notes follow.**I will also be posting Ross Gittins’ comments. John Menadue.

Thank you Ross Gittins and thanks to you all for coming

Why we embarked on this project

Concern about the poor quality of public debate on many public issues
The failure of political leadership to change that situation, or even be willing to try

Instead we think there is a role for public conversation in developing and prosecuting a genuine reform agenda

December 14, 2016

RICHARD WOOLCOTT. A declining Australia.

With dropping levels in education and a fadingeconomy Australia is in a decline. What we need is a clear focus on our own area, Asia and the South West Pacific.

February 13, 2018

RICHARD KINGSFORD. The Darling River up the creek without a political paddle.

Once again, the Senate is poised this week to decide the future policy course of the rivers of the Murray-Darling Basin. The critical decision for senators is whether or not to accede to the recommendation by the Murray-Darling Basin Authority that environmental flows in the Darling Rivers catchments be cut by seventy billion litres a year. The Greens are opposed and Labor is wavering while seeking a deal on the promise of delivering four hundred and fifty billion litres to the River Murray. The Darling River could once again be the poor sibling of the Murray-Darling family.

February 2, 2015

John Menadue. Tony Abbott at the National Press Club

In his speech today, Tony Abbott recycled many of his one-liners that we heard at the last election. Lets examine several of them.

First, he said that his government was a low-taxing government and that it would reduce the budget deficit by reducing spending, rather than increasing taxes. But the most recent mid-year economic forecast shows that tax receipts are increasing substantially as a result of allowing budget creep as people move into higher income tax brackets. Government receipts/taxation are projected to increase by 2% from 22.8% of GDP in 2012-13 to 24.8% in 2017-18. Further the coalition said it would reduce debt. At the end of 2013 actual net debt was $178 b. The Department of Finance tell us that at the end of 2014 the net debt was $239 b, an increase of $61 b or 35%

October 16, 2014

John Menadue. Post-script from France.

My wife and I and quite a few members of our family, have been summering in France for a week or two.

We have enjoyed the history, the architecture and the beauty of the countryside. Not for nothing, France has 37 sites inscribed on UNESCOs World Heritage list. Many other Australians also feel the attractions of France. We heard a lot of Australian accents in Paris.

But this year France seemed chillier and I am not just referring to the weather. I sensed a growing malaise particularly with unemployment stuck at around 12% and double that for young people. I did not sense any confidence that France was going to break out of its malaise.

May 16, 2015

Stephen Morey. How 37% of the vote in the UK resulted in 51% of the seats.

Current Affairs. UK election

On Thursday, May 7 2015, the Conservative Party won the national election in the United Kingdom despite the fact that nearly two-thirds of ballots were cast for other candidates. With only 36.9% of the vote - some 3% more than opinion polls predicted - the Conservative Party won a 50.9% absolute majority of seats, 331 out of 650, in the House of Commons.

The 61.1% of voters who supported other candidates will thus be represented by a minority in the Commons. There have been public protests at an outcome that some feel was not a democratic expression of voters’ will.

September 30, 2015

John Menadue. Murdoch is losing his touch.

Two weeks before the fall of Tony Abbott, Rupert Murdoch tweeted Abbott, far the best alternative. The Liberal Party ignored his tweet and chose Malcolm Turnbull.

Rupert Murdochs declining influence is becoming plain to see.

At the last SA state election, the Adelaide Advertiser backed the Liberal Party. The Liberal Party lost.

At the last Victorian state election, the Herald Sun backed the Liberal Party and the Liberals lost.

In Queensland, the Courier Mail backed the Liberal-National Party at the last election and there was a record swing which tipped the LNP out of office.

May 16, 2014

Jennifer Doggett. Budget 2014 - Primary Health Care

While some commentators are calling this Budget The end of universal health care others are seeing some opportunities to improve health system performance, in particular through better collaborations with state-funded health services and programs.

The most high profile Budget measures in the primary health care sector are the introduction of new co-payments for bulk billed GP services and increased charges for related tests and medicines. There will be caps for high level users and some support provided for people on low incomes but overall these changes will result in higher out-of-pocket costs for consumers.

April 22, 2014

Brian Howe - Raising the Retirement Age

The Labor Government planned to lift age of eligibility for the aged pension from 65 to 67 between 2017 and 2023 and now the conservatives are considering raising it to 70 by 2029. Unless there are very big changes in the demand for older workers these changes must increase numbers on other payments such as Newstart or the Disability Pension. In the case of case of Newstart it would add to the hundreds of thousands of people living at least twenty percent below the poverty line.

October 22, 2015

David Combe. Tony Abbotts soul-mate has gone.

After the second longest campaign in Canadian history 11 weeks finally Federal Election Day for Canadians had arrived on Monday, October 19.

When I was moving to Canada 30 years ago, Gough Whitlam said to me that There are no two peoples in the world who are so similar, have so much in common, and get on better than Australians and Canadians. For some months, I could not see it, but after 4 years I knew it to be so trueexcept that the Scottish heritage of Anglophone Canadians makes them more reserved in expressing what they really think. Get to know them well enough and they will tell you, for example, what they really think of their southern neighbours! Their humour, like ours, has a large dose of self-deprecation at its base.

October 23, 2015

Sam Bateman. US muddle in South China Sea.

Strong calls continue to be made in Washington for the US Navy to increase its freedom of navigation (FON) activities in the South China Sea. This is despite apparent differences of view between the Pentagon and the White House about the wisdom of such action. The US has done little in 2015 to ease concerns about whether it knows what its doing in the South China Sea. If anything, the rhetoric coming out of the Pentagon, and the US Navy in particular, has become stronger.While extensive land reclamations in the South China Sea have not helped Chinas image, none of its current actions justify deliberate provocations by the United States. Its not clear just what Washington is protesting in the South China Sea. There are three possibilities, some or all of which may apply.

May 9, 2015

Ken Henry. Fairness, opportunity and security.

The policy series Fairness, opportunity and security begins on Monday May 11.

I cant recall a poorer quality public debate, on almost any issue, than what we have had in Australia in recent times. Ken Henry

In December 1983 the $A was floated and restrictions on the free international movement of capital were abolished. On 1 July 2000 a broad-based goods and services tax replaced a plethora of highly inefficient, inequitable and unintelligible indirect taxes. These events bookended an extraordinary period of policy reform that opened up the Australian economy, transforming just about every aspect of microeconomic and macroeconomic policy and institutions.

May 24, 2015

Marion Terrill. Budget infrastructure spending serves mainly political gains.

Current Affairs

Tony Abbott famously told Australians he wanted to be known as the infrastructure prime minister and in the 2013 election campaign committed to retain and strengthen the role of Infrastructure Australia, to create a more transparent, accountable and effective advisory body.

In contrast to last years $11.6 billion Infrastructure Growth Package, this budget has only three big transport infrastructure announcements. One is the claw-back of $1.5 billion from Victoria for the shelved East West Link, while offering to provide the full $3 billion the Commonwealth originally promised if any Victorian government decides to proceed with the project. Another is the decision to give $499 million to Western Australia, nominally for road infrastructure but effectively replenishing state coffers after the Premier complained about a shortfall in GST revenue. The third is the decision to establish a $5 billion Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility with concessional loans for ports, railways and electricity.

March 31, 2015

ICC Cricket World Cup: Alcohol-drenched culture needs to change.

Many media outlets today have drawn attention to the alcohol influenced behaviour of Australian cricketers as they celebrated winning the International World Cup. At the celebration in Federation Square in Melbourne yesterday morning, the Australian captain Michael Clarke seemed to be proud of the fact that all the team members had hangovers.

In the link below Michael Thorn, the chief executive of the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education, in today’s SMH, draws attention to the influence of the alcohol lobby,the alcohol consumption of the Australian cricket team and advertising. See link below.

December 28, 2015

John Menadue. Drownings at sea.

Repost from 22/04/2015

The recent tragic loss of 800 Libyans in the Mediterranean has given once again an opportunity for the Government to infer that Australias refugee policies are designed particularly to stop people drowning at sea.

It is self-deception or worse for the Government to suggest that its policies towards refugees have been motivated by humanitarian concerns and not political advantage. Perhaps with guilty consciences self-deception is necessary.

In Opposition the Coalition was not interested in stopping the boats to save people drowning at sea. Its political objective was to stop the Labor Government stopping the boats. That is why the Coalition with cooperation from the populist Greens voted in the Senate against amendments to the Migration Act which would have allowed the Malaysian Arrangement to proceed and curb boat arrivals, in cooperation with UNHCR. By frustrating the government, the Coalition showed no interest in stopping drownings at sea.

September 3, 2015

Suffer the little children

December 19, 2014

Brian Johnstone. How to Respond to Terrorism?

How can we make sense of the contemporary situation of increasing violence? Some groups engage in terrorism against other groups and these engage in torture as a means of defeating the terrorism of the others? In liberal states torture is condemned as immoral; some seek to prohibit it by law, others defend it as a necessary and effective means to defend freedom. Historical experience suggests that torture will continue.

Paul W. Kahn, in Sacred Violence: Torture, Terror and Sovereignty, (Ann Arbor, 2011) argues that secular, liberal philosophy and the theories of rights that it has developed, cannot deal with these issues. The key is a religious notion that he calls sovereignty. By this Kahn means a notion of ultimate reality. Both sides of the contemporary war on terrorism appeal to an ultimate reality. For the jihardist this may take the form of a distorted notion of god. But western, liberal states have their own conceptions of a sacred reality. We may call this our freedom. To defend this, these states send their young women and men to kill terrorists and to be ready to sacrifice their own lives in the service of the sacred reality. Once we begin to speak of sacrifice we move into the realm of religious experience and religious discourse.

May 16, 2014

Kieran Tapsell. The Vatican at the UN: Who is fossilised in the Past?

The Holy See has found itself before the United Nations once again, this time in relation to the Treaty on Torture. According to Reuters, Archbishop Tomasi told critics of its sexual abuse record that it had developed model child protection policies over the last decade and that its accusers should not stay “fossilised in the past” when attitudes were different. He said that the “culture of the time” in the 1960s and 1970s viewed such offenders as people who could be treated psychologically rather than as criminals, but this was a mistake, and it is all in the past.

December 24, 2024

Gaza lights candles during Christmas, not to celebration in the New Year, but in grief and sorrow

For the second year in a row, the Christmas season passes while Gaza remains under genocide. While the entire world bids farewell to 2024 and celebrates the arrival of 2025, Palestinians continue to suffer under Israeli aggression, which kills, starves, and displaces civilians in Gaza with brutal cruelty.

April 15, 2014

Michael Sainsbury. Australia and Cambodia's shady asylum seeker deal.

Australias history of dealing with asylum seekers continues to spin into a dizzying spiral of contempt. Already under fire for shutting its doors to some of the worlds most vulnerable people, the Canberra government is now in talks with Cambodia, the latest in a rollcall of poor, dysfunctional neighbors to whom it will outsource its so-called asylum seeker problem.

Immigration Minister Scott Morrison, who counts as a success every asylum seeker he can banish, last week became the second member of Prime Minister Tony Abbotts Cabinet to visit Cambodia this year, following Foreign Minister Julie Bishops whistle-stop trip to Phnom Penh in February. Seemingly peripheral to the talks was any discussion of Cambodias own woeful rights record, and how that may impact on the refugees Australia is unwilling to shelter.

May 24, 2025

On the preciousness of life – making sense of the horrifying murders in Washington, DC

So, this terrible murder of two young Israeli embassy officials, Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim. I think, is one of those moments where it’s important to be able to speak certain complementary truths, truths that are separated by “and,” not by “but".

April 7, 2013

Tokyo postcard. John Menadue

It is great to be back in Japan for cherry blossom. I first came to Japan almost 45 years ago and have been visiting regularly ever since. On our visits and residence in Japan, we stayed at scores of minshuku - Japanese B & B - across the country. It was a wonderful experience.

Cherry blossoms have been early in Japan this year. Many locals say that it is due to climate change! I suspect that many Japanese are more concerned about their environmental pollution of dust out of China, soaring eastwards, first over Korea and then over Japan. A family member who recently stayed in Seoul for a couple of days said that the dust obscured the sun until about 2pm each day.

June 10, 2014

John Menadue. Taxes and the free riders.

Our tax system is in a mess. It is easily exploited by the wealthy who can afford expert financial and taxation advice. We hear from Alan Jones and the Daily Telegraph about dole-bludgers. The Minister for Social Services Kevin Andrews says that disabled pensioners should get off the couch.

Tax avoidance and tax bludging however are much greater problems.

The Henry Review of Taxation addressed many problems but by and large the Rudd and Gillard Governments did not grasp the tax nettle. The scandal continues.

March 31, 2015

Peter Day. He is Alive: the Spiritual Big Bang

I love science. It takes us to different places: places of pure logic, of non-emotion, of rational intelligence, of majesty and beauty sometimes even to places beyond our wildest imaginations.

Just think: 13.78 billion years ago our universe is thought to have begun as an infinitesimally small, infinitely hot, infinitely dense, something. After its initial appearance, it apparently inflated (the “Big Bang”), expanded and cooled, going from very, very small and very, very hot, to the size and temperature of our current universe. It continues to expand and cool to this day and we are inside of it: incredible creatures living on a unique planet, circling a beautiful star clustered together with several hundred billion other stars in a galaxy soaring through the cosmos and all this out of nowhere, from nothing, for reasons unknown. 1

December 28, 2014

Brian Johnstone. Terrorism and torture - the Catholic tradition.

In Australia today, we accept that a person who has expressed ideas that justify terrorism may be restrained from acting out those ideas. But we would not justify torturing a person suspected of harbouring such notions to force him to reveal them or to reject such ideas. However, surveys in the Western world find that torture to obtain information is sometimes justified. The Prime Ministers acceptance of torture in the context of the Sri Lankan civil war was as follows: Obviously the Australian Government deplores any use of torture. We deplore that, wherever it might take place, we deplore that. But we accept that sometimes in difficult circumstances, difficult things happen. (http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2013/s3893068.htm, retrieved 15 Jan 2014).

April 16, 2016

Jon Stanford and Michael Keating. A more efficient submarine solution.

This week the Melbourne Age, SMH and the Canberra Times carried the following article written by Jon Stanford and Michael Keating on the $50 b. submarine project. This article is based on a three part article written by Jon Stanford and posted in Pearls and irritations. See link to three articles below. John Menadue

The 2016 Defence white paper proposes a substantial increase in expenditure on major assets for the Australian Defence Force. The largest item, and the most costly acquisition ever for the ADF, is the $50 billion project for 12 future submarines.

June 3, 2016

JOHN MENADUE. Best we forget. We commemorate Australians who died in foreign wars in foreign lands, but not Australian aborigines who died in defence of their own country.

Yesterday, in a moving ceremony, the remains of 33 Australians who were buried in military cemeteries in Malaysia and Singapore were returned to Australia. Our Governor General, Sir Peter Cosgrove, and Chief of the Defence Force, Air Chief Marshal Mark Binskin, were at Richmond airbase to witness the repatriation of 33 Australians who had died in foreign lands.

What a contrast this is to our refusal to acknowledge the 30,000 aborigines who died, not in wars in foreign lands but in defending their homelands where they had lived for hundreds of generations.

August 7, 2014

Michael Sainsbury. Will Chinas crackdown save or sink the Communist Party?

In launching an investigation into former security chief Zhou Yongkang, Chinese President Xi Jinping has entered uncharted and possibly dangerous territory. It not only raises the stakes for Xis increasingly iron fisted rule, but also for the Communist Party itself.

The case announced last week targets an official who until recently was ranked the third most senior member of the party hierarchy as a senior member of the elite seven-man Politburo.Zhou controlled the police, paramilitary, courts and state security.

July 2, 2013

Asylum seekers - a regional solution and Bob Carr's nonsense. Guest blogger: Frank Brennan SJ

This morning Frank Brennan was interviewed by Fran Kelly on ABC Breakfast. See link below to the interview. (John Menadue)

http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/2013/07/bst_20130702_0821.mp3

April 8, 2016

David Peetz. Productivity in the Construction Industry: Did it surge under the Coalitions Reforms?

On 7.30 recently the Prime Minister dismissed the Productivity Commissions findings on productivity growth in the construction industry in favour of those from a small consultancy firm. He used it to support a claim that the previous Coalition governments legislative reforms in that industry had led to a 20% increase in construction productivity, which had flatlined under Labor.

Actually, though, things were a bit different. To see how we know it didnt, and why he said it did, we look at (i) whats it all aboutwhat reforms are we measuring; (ii) what the official data show about productivity in that industry; (iii) why the Productivity Commission and a consultancy firm differed on the issue; and (iv) why the Prime Minister wanted to prefer the consultants version of events.

August 6, 2013

Encouraging words from Pope Francis at World Youth Day in Rio. John Menadue

On Copacabana beach in Rio, Pope Francis celebrated Mass with three million people, more than the Rolling Stones or Carnivale could ever attract. With his obvious modesty he showed himself a great communicator with the young and the poor. He appealed for the rich to share with the poor and solidarity between all people. He called the bishops to accountability rather than autocracy, to walk humbly with struggling people and to meet them on their journey. (John Menadue)

May 24, 2016

BILL AND BARBARA CLEMENTS: Refugees and round-ups.

The Paris Metro station of Bir Hakeim, not far from the Eiffel Tower, serves both the Australian Embassy and a monument that was erected in 1994 to commemorate the mass round-up of Jews, brought to the Velodrome dhiver (an indoor cycle track known as the Vel dhiv) which formerly occupied the site. The Australian Embassy in Paris is built on railway yards across from that Vel dHiv site.

February 1, 2014

Walter Hamilton. The ABC and its Japanese Cousin.

If the board and management of the ABC need to firm up their ideas about the proper relationship between a public broadcaster and the government of the day they might consider what is happening in Japan.

NHK, that nations public broadcaster, is a $7bn enterprise largely funded from television licence fees, with a board of governors appointed by the prime minister. It exerts enormous influence through its highly rating news and information programs, but the situation in which it now finds itselfcriticised for being a mouthpiece for the conservative national governmentis in sharp contrast to the ABCs predicament. In thinking about how to respond to the attacks of Tony Abbott and others, managing director Mark Scott and chairman Jim Spigelman might reflect on their Japanese cousin.

March 28, 2013

The Boat People Obsession. John Menadue

The Australian Parliamentary Library has again pointed to our obsession with boat people.

In its 11 February 2013 Research PaperAsylum seekers and refugees, What are the facts, it highlights (p.8) that despite increases in boat arrivals in recent years, the number of Irregular arrivals by sea to Australia is quite small compared with other countries.

The chart below shows this quite clearly.

Irregular arrivals by sea, selected countries

Parliamentary Library, data source: UNHCR, All in the same boat: the challenges of mixed migration, UNHCR website.

December 12, 2014

The Wit of Whitlam - a great read.

**ISBN: (Paperback)**9780522868081
**ISBN: (E-Book)**9780522868098
**PUBLISHED:**03/Dec/2014
**IMPRINT:**Melbourne University Press
**SUBJECT:**Biography: general

The Wit of Whitlam

James Carleton

Paperback $14.99
E-Book $9.99
See more at: https://www.mup.com.au/items/154221

Self-proclaimed international treasure Gough Whitlam never shied away from a pun, a put-down or a witticism.

His wife Margaret was his ‘best appointment’, he called Malcolm Fraser ‘Kerr’s cur’ after the Dismissal and when Sir Winton Turnbull called out in parliament ‘I am a country member’, Gough interjected ‘I remember’. When it was suggested he was funny, Gough responded: ‘Funny! Funny? Witty, yes. Epigrammatic perhaps, but not funny. You make me sound like a clown.’ James Carleton, Radio National presenter and founder of the university club ‘The Dewy-Eyed Whitlamites’, presents a keepsake of Goughisms that vindicates the Great Man’s self-assessment, ‘I never said I was immortal, merely eternal.’

May 18, 2015

John Dwyer. Politics trumps health policy yet again.

Current Affairs. Health.

A new medical school in Perth will create more problems than it will solve.

As must also be true for many colleagues who have been focussed on evidence based solutions to the serious shortage of Australian trained doctors working in rural communities, I am frustrated and annoyed by the Prime Ministers capricious decision to fund a new medical school in Perth. In an attempt to solve the maldistribution of Australian trained doctors that has resulted in almost 50% of the General Practitioners available to people in rural and remote communities having been trained overseas, governments have applied a market place philosophy to the problem. This logic suggested that if we doubled the number of Australian trained doctors there would inevitably be competition for rural careers, as metropolitan opportunities would all be taken! In 2016 our intake of Australian students into medical schools will peak and many readers will know that (a) we are already having difficulty in finding quality clinical placements to maintain educational standards and (b) the flood of new graduates has done nothing to ease the shortage of Australian doctors working in the bush. This continuing problem is responsible for much unacceptable inequity with health outcomes in all categories being less satisfactory for rural Australians. Were rural patients able to access medical services as readily as their city cousins it would increase Medicare payments by two billion dollars a year!

October 12, 2016

SPENCER ZIFCAK. First Law Officer v Second Law Officer: George Brandis and Justin Gleeson in Conflict (Part 2)

In a previous article in these pages (SPENCER ZIFCAK. First Law Officer vs Second Law Officer: George Brandis undermines Justin Gleeson), I set down the core principles at stake in the present conflict between the Commonwealth Attorney-General, George Brandis, and the Commonwealth Solicitor-General, Justin Gleeson. The conflict concerns the extent and limits of the Solicitor-Generals powers to provide high-level legal advice to the Government and to its departments and agencies.

More particularly, it relates to the Senator Brandis present attempt to introduce a new rule that the Solicitor-General may only provide a legal opinion to a government department or agency if the Attorney-Generals consent is first obtained.

May 3, 2013

National Party fails farmers. John Menadue

Warren Truss and Barnaby Joyce have allowed the National Party to be dragged along at the heels of the Liberal Party on climate change and other issues. What was it that Tony Abbott said about climate change being bullshit? Australian farmers particularly in Western Australia are now paying the price of failed leadership by the National Party.

Last week the government announced measures to assist distressed farmers who face drought, a strong dollar and other difficulties. Particular mention was made of farmers in the south-west of Western Australia.

July 14, 2013

Pope Francis blasts 'globalisation of indifference' for immigrants. Report from National Catholic Reporter

The treatment of asylum seekers in Australia brings shame to all of us. Pope Francis called for an end to the ‘globalisation of indifference’. In his first visit outside the Vatican Pope Francis called for decency and humanity in the treatment of outsiders. John Menadue

Published on_National Catholic Reporter_(http://ncronline.org)

Francis blasts ‘globalization of indifference’ for immigrants

John L. Allen Jr.|Jul. 8, 2013NCR Today

At a time when Catholic leaders in the United States and other parts of the world are pressing for more compassionate immigration policies, Pope Francis on Monday devoted his first trip outside Rome to a strong appeal against the “globalization of indifference” toward suffering migrants.The pope on Monday morning visited the southern Mediterranean island of Lampedusa, a major point of arrival for impoverished immigrants, mostly from Africa and the Middle East, seeking to reach Europe.

April 28, 2015

Peter Christoff. On these numbers, Australia's emissions auction won't get the job done.

Last Thursday, the Abbott government announced the results of its first reverse auction of emissions-reduction projects. Using A$660 million drawn from the A$2.55 billion Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF), the government has purchased 47.3 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, as a first step towards reducing greenhouse emissions under its Direct Action plan.

Federal environment minister Greg Hunt proclaimed the auction to be a stunning result, claiming that the ERF alone will get the government to achieve its existing Kyoto target.

June 22, 2014

Is Tony Abbott still a climate change denier?

Tony Abbott claimed on his recent overseas trip that he takes human induced climate change very seriously Or was it just a diversion before his meeting with President Obama who does take the issue seriously.

I hope he is no longer a climate change denier but I have my doubts. I suspect it is mainly window dressing with no serious new understanding of the urgency of the issue and what further action must be taken.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal