August 7, 2025

Algal bloom: first peoples ngamath-sea country

A civilisation that proves incapable of solving the problems it creates is a decadent civilisation. – Aime Cesaire.

August 3, 2017

LINDA SIMON. A crisis approach to reform in the VET sector

M_any of us who write about vocational education and training (VET) are asked not to use the word ‘crisis’ as it undermines confidence in the system. Unfortunately it will take a lot more than a change of language to restore consumer confidence, as private training providers continue their financial collapse and students are left stranded._

July 17, 2017

PETER DAY. Show me the money!

Cricket’s two most powerful bodies have reached an impasse over pay. The enmity between the two runs deep – blinking first ain’t an option. Thus, all our elite players (230+) are currently unemployed. HOWZAT for a dilemma?

July 13, 2017

ALLAN PATIENCE. The failure of Australian conservatism.

Tony Abbott has announced his intention to stay in politics in order to protect and promote what he calls “liberal conservative values.” He claims his values are at the very heart of Liberal Party philosophy. Meanwhile Cory Bernardi seeks to trump this by asserting that his new party is the one true home of Australian conservatism. What this latest ideological imbroglio points to is the fact that the Australian Liberal Party has always been an unconsummated marriage between liberalism and conservatism. Perhaps Liberal Party supporters need reminding that nearly all unconsummated marriages end up in bitter divorce.

July 24, 2017

MARGARET O'CONNOR. Reforming the Catholic Church: it's up to the laity

The task of reform of the Catholic Church has to fall to the Church’s laity. This work is too important to be led by media figures and personalities with their twitter accounts, large public platforms and endless opinions.

July 25, 2017

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Greek Wisdom.

The Greeks said it succinctly: the system of tyranny is only as good as the worst man who can become a tyrant. Step forward, Peter Craig Dutton, Master of the Universe.

July 11, 2017

GEOFF MILLER. Kim Jong Un - Forcing the pace, or forging a peace?

Kim Jong Un’s continual provocation of the United States can probably be best explained as a considered strategy to bring about negotiations between the two.

July 21, 2017

JIM COOMBS : Bean Counters Stand Up and Be Counted

Budget problems arise for governments who don”t control spending. Where are their financial advisers when gross overspending takes place. No business could survive the profligacy of our government’s spending.

July 31, 2017

WILLIAM GRIMM. Why have US Catholics turned right? And Paul's epistle to the Fallopians

American Catholics have traditionally supported the Democratic Party, but a combination of episcopal intransigence, Democratic abortion policies and a primitive cast to US society have brought about a change.

August 7, 2017

ANDREW FARRAN. Afghanistan in the wake of the Pakistan Prime Minister's dismissal

President Trump must decide soon whether the US should remain in a holding pattern in Afghanistan. As Trump has little personal skin in the war to this point he may decide that enough is enough leaving everyone to ponder what it was all about. Is the recent dismissal of the Pakistani Prime Minister a further complication?

September 25, 2025

Journalists' union issues statement backing Kostakidis in legal fight

The Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance has released a strong statement of support for former SBS newsreader Mary Kostakidis in her fight to defend free speech against legal and media attacks from the Zionist Federation of Australia.

August 3, 2017

DOUGLAS NEWTON. The Centenary of the Third Battle of Ypres

On 31 July 1917, one hundred years ago, Britain launched the Third Battle of Ypres on the Western Front. It would climax in the Battle of Passchendaele in November. During this centenary, will the Australian people be showered with stories of special valour? Or will there be more clear-eyed commentary? The catastrophe that unfolded in Flanders is an object lesson in what happens when an Australian government allows our Allies to dominate in the high diplomacy of war, exposing our own troops to horrific suffering – for dubious goals.

July 26, 2017

JOAN STAPLES. Environmental NGOs, Public Advocacy and Government

Environmental NGOs fear the Federal Government is moving to limit their public’ advocacy by requiring them to spend 50% of their income on practical environmental tasks such as tree planting.

July 24, 2017

JOHN MENADUE. Rupert Murdoch's abuse of power. (Repost from 7 August 2013)

Controlling 70% of Australia’s metropolitan newspapers, one would hope that Murdoch would exercise some responsibility in the use of that power. But none of that responsibility for Rupert Murdoch!

July 25, 2017

JOHN MENADUE: Privatisation is costing consumers and damaging economic reform. (Repost from 26 July 2016)

‘Privatisation is costing consumers and damaging economic reform’ said Rod Sims, the Chairman of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, recently. He added ‘Poorly regulated privatisations are driving up prices and have little to do with economic reform … this situation is getting worse and as the main concern of governments with privation is maximising proceeds from the sale by fighting against effective regulation. … A sharp uppercut is needed. [Privatisation] is increasing prices. … The whole idea of asset sales is that the private sector can run them more cheaply than the public sector. … Very bad reform implementation [of privatisation] has been a big part of the current backlash against any economic reform’

July 28, 2017

BEN NEWELL, CHRIS DONKIN, DAN NAVARRO. worried about shark attacks or terrorism? (Repost from 21 April 2017)

The world can feel like a scary place. Today, Australia’s National Terrorism Threat Level is “ Probable”. Shark attacks are on the rise; the number of people attacked by sharks in 2000-2009 has almost doubled since 1990-1999. Travellers are at a high risk of getting the Zika virus in places where the disease is present, such as Brazil and Mexico.

August 10, 2017

RICHARD BUTLER. The Myths of Australian Foreign Policy. (Reposted from 31 March 2017)

The review of Australian foreign policy needs to be freed from the myths of our dependency and take serious account of the current and likely state of US foreign and military policy.

August 4, 2017

RAWDON DALRYMPLE. A personal link to World War One.

All of us who have a stake in understanding the Great War should be grateful to Joan Beaumont for her magisterial history of Australia’s involvement in that terrible conflict (Broken Nation: Australians in the Great War).

August 1, 2017

JOHN QUIGGIN. People have lost faith in privatisation and it's easy to see why. (Repost from 22 August 2016)

From the viewpoint of ordinary Australians, privatisation is a policy that has consistently failed but is remorselessly pushed by the political elite. It is little surprise that voters are turning to populism in response.

July 26, 2017

JOHN AUSTEN. Road spending incurs billion dollar new debts annually - nobody notices (Repost from 27 June 2016)

It’s traditional that election time in Canberra brings out the road lobbies who ask for ‘all that extra cash’ which governments raise from fuel excise to be ‘put back into our roads’. The problem is that the facts no longer bear this out. Australia is spending more on roads than it collects from fuel excise and vehicle registrations. It is going into more and more debt to build roads. What is worse, it appears that official figures are being fudged to obscure this inconvenient truth from scrutiny – lest it get in the way of more promises for more and more multi-billion dollar road projects.

July 21, 2017

JOHN MENADUE. The litany of failed privatisations. (Repost from 20 March 2017)

Ideologues ,the self interested bankers and accountants and lawyers still persist with their fixation with privatisation despite the fact that it is failing in one area after another and the electorate shows very clearly that it does not want it.

July 27, 2017

JOHN MENADUE. Malcolm Turnbull - Mr. 300%. (Repost from 18 November 2016)

Malcolm Turnbull has announced a submarine building program that has an effective rate of protection of 300%. Yes 300%. That is the additional cost we will pay compared with buying at best price in the international market.

August 9, 2017

RICHARD BUTLER. Trump: A Sideshow? (This is a repost from 27 January 2017)

It is not only Trump that has assumed power in the US but also a set of deeply ideological and introverted Republicans. Both will shape US policy and actions. Australia should now review the conduct of its relationship with the US, and develop an independent foreign policy, freed from the dictates of internal US politics.

August 3, 2017

Sabre rattling off the Queensland coast

Exercise Talisman Sabre does not address any of Australia’s main security concerns and sends the wrong messages to Australia’s neighbours. It contributes towards locking Australia into America’s wars, no matter how irrelevant to Australia’s own interests.

August 7, 2017

ALISON BROINOWSKI. Still losing the last Afghan war.

President Trump’s many current distractions did not prevent him telling his military advisers the simple truth about Afghanistan on 19 July: ‘We aren’t winning. We are losing.’

August 2, 2017

IAN MARSH. Australia’s gridlocked Parliament. (Repost from 9 September 2016)

There is a structural contradiction at the heart of the new parliament. Two diametrically different political systems co-exist. Incentives and expectations are at cross purposes. Until this contradiction is addressed the prospects for major legislative change must be judged slight.

August 8, 2017

JOHN MENADUE. Conservatives set the rules but they keep breaking them. (Repost from 7 February 2017)

Many people around the world are concluding that the system is rigged in favour of powerful insiders who bend the rules. The populists - Trump, Farage, Le Pen and Hanson are adept at tapping into that disempowerment and the sense that the system is rigged against them.

August 11, 2017

DAVID KING AND PETER BROOKS. Coal is the new tobacco.

Coal is the new tobacco in terms of the harms it has on our health. No hospital would think of lending its logo to support the marketing of cigarettes or allowing any of its key decision makers to have strong links to cigarette companies. Yet, such an extraordinary situation has arisen around the Mater Hospital in Brisbane.

August 7, 2017

China’s Maritime Provocations Are Nothing Next To America’s Adventurism A Century Ago

The message from the U.S. is that China should be more like us. But Americans should be careful what they wish for.

December 15, 2018

GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND

A regular collection of links to writings and broadcasts in other media

September 30, 2014

John Menadue. Great Teachers

There has been a lot of recent comment about the importance of good teachers; how they can be recruited, trained and rewarded.

Let me tell you about two teachers who turned my life around. Many of us have had such experiences with great teachers.

Professor W.G.K. Duncan at Adelaide University taught me Political Science in 1958. I was used to lecturers and teachers presenting facts and interpretations for me. I would write down my lecture notes with the intention of reproducing them at examination time. I was a passive learner. But in WGK, I had a lecturer who asked question after question. I found it very frustrating for the whole first term. What was this fellow all about? He wouldn’t tell me what was correct, right or wrong.

September 29, 2014

Robert Manne. “When the facts change I change my mind. What do you do, Sir.” JM Keynes

You might be interested in this repost. John Menadue.

I have been a supporter of refugee rights since the mid-1970s, when with others I formed the Indo-China Refugee Association. During the period of the Howard government I wrote tens of thousands of words in defence of the asylum seekers fleeing from Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran. This interest arose from family history. Not only was I the child of refugees from Nazism. I very recently discovered that not long after my father was accepted by this country he wrote passionate articles in The Jewish News expressing, on the one hand, gratitude to Australia, and, on the other, radical astonishment that the most anti-fascist element in the community, Jewish refugees, were subject to petty forms of discrimination as enemy aliens. I mention all this to make it clear that what I am going to say this afternoon is delivered with a heavy heart.

September 13, 2014

Gavan McCormack Disturbing trends in Japan (Part 1 of 4)

These posts (published over 4 days) are extracts from an article by Gavan McCormack, entitled ‘Partnership 135 Degrees East’ which will be published in Arena.org.au.

Our best friend

The current Japanese and Australian governments came into being in December 2012 and September 2013 respectively. Both are headed by conservative, neoliberal, climate-denialist, pro-American leaders, of similar age, who quickly established a close rapport. Following their first meeting, at an ASEAN summit in October 2013, Abbott declared Abe Australia’s ‘best friend in Asia’. In meetings that followed, in Tokyo in April and Canberra in July 2014, they resolved to transform the ‘strategic partnership’ into a new ‘special relationship.’ Both made unprecedented invited appearances at the highest-level national-security-council meeting of their counterpart country, and signed agreements for free trade and defence cooperation (including ‘trilateral security cooperation with the United States’) and closer scientific and academic links.

January 7, 2014

Repost: The scourge of special interests. John Menadue

A REPOST FOR HOLIDAY READING.

Lobbying has grown dramatically in recent years, particularly in Canberra. It now represents a growing and serious corruption of good governance and the development of sound public policy. In referring to the so called “public debate” on climate change Professor Ross Garnaut, highlighted the ‘diabolical problem’ that special interests brought to bear on public discussion on that critical issue.

‘What is in it for me’ is not just a problem of self-interest by voters and consumers. That self-centredness has been taken to a high art form by powerful vested interests that extract monopoly rents at the expense of the national interest. The media and particularly News Ltd and the Australian Financial Review are part of this growing corporate influence and the propaganda that they bring to bear.

June 5, 2014

Hugh Mackay. Immoral acts - that's one way to stop the boats.

“No boats have arrived for 36 days!” That was the recent proud claim of our immigration minister, Scott Morrison, delivered in a tone that suggested we should all cheer such a wonderful accomplishment.

In fact, given the strategies employed to achieve this result, we should hang our heads in shame. We are living through a dark period in our cultural history where politicians like Morrison are actively encouraging a dulling of our moral sense by appealing to that most dangerous moral principle of all: “The end justifies the means”.

May 2, 2014

John Menadue. Taxes - public or private

The Commission of Audit has recommended that a Medicare levy surcharge be applied to individuals earning more than $88,000 a year and $176,000 for families. This is designed to force high income earners to take out private health insurance. This is one of the most economically stupid and dangerous proposals that I have seen for a long time. The Commission of Audit foolishly thinks that this would reduce public taxes, but it would result in increased private taxes (premiums). Higher premiums are the inevitable result of increased reliance on private health insurance. This is what has brought disaster for healthcare in the US. Private healthcare premiums have gone through the roof and the US now has one of the worst and most expensive healthcare services in the world.

January 13, 2014

Repost: Don't tamper with the Refugee Convention. John Menadue

It would be dangerous to open up the pandora’s box of the Refugee Convention. It has served us well. Who would seriously suggest that persons facing persecution should not be protected. Given the world wide agitation against refugees and ‘outsiders’, a review of the Convention would be a great opportunity for extremists to run their campaigns against foreigners. It would be a field day for the Scott Morrisons of this world.

September 18, 2014

John Menadue. The Great Complacency

Professor Ross Garnaut has spoken many times about our great complacency and our unwillingness to undertake the types of economic and social reform that we saw in the Hawke/Keating periods and in the early days of the Howard Government – think, GST.

Have the golden days of reform gone forever?

The former head of Treasury Ken Henry said that he has never known a period in which the standard of public debate on important issues is as bad as it is today. Ross Garnaut has spoken with obvious frustration about the ‘diabolical problem’ of sensible policies on climate change.

September 25, 2014

John Menadue--We stopped the boats; we will now stop the jihadists

You may be interested in this repost. John Menadue

By linking boat arrivals and jihadists in the one sentence, a couple of weeks ago, Tony Abbott sounded very much like a dog-whistler that we can expect to hear more from in the future.

He knows there is widespread, although a mistaken perception, that most boat arrivals were Muslims and that Muslim jihadist are a threat to Australia. A lot of dog-whistlers are going to feed on that perception.

January 2, 2014

Repost: We all see our doctor too much; and it's not just the aged. John Menadue

The media have been discussing a proposal to impose a $5 or $6 levy for GP visits. There has been a dramatic increase in the number of times we each see our GP. It needs addressing, but not with a simplistic GP levy. See also piece below by Ian McAuley.

Following the Grattan Institute’s recent work on budget deficits there was a focus by the media on rising health costs. The media commentators didn’t seriously examine the Grattan work about ageing but hopped onto an old and overworked hobbyhorse – that rising health costs are largely due to the ageing on the Australian population. The Business Council is also a repeat offender on this fiction about ageing.

April 14, 2014

John Menadue. The new squatters on public land.

More alienation of public space.

In my blog yesterday, I referred to the alienation of public space in Barangaroo and proposed for the Sydney Botanic Gardens. Today there are reports that Wentworth Park, which is Crown Land, will be developed as a billion dollar residential complex. In a letter to the SMH we are told how Wentworth Park was originally described as ’the second most beautiful park in Sydney after the Botanic Gardens’. It had lakes, beautiful gardens and a cricket pitch. Unfortunately, it was then converted to a greyhound race track, but elements of the park were still preserved for community use. Even that limited community use is now threatened. It is another example of how our ‘public commons’ is alienated and eroded step by step. John Menadue.

September 22, 2014

John Menadue. What does Labor stand for Part 3

Citizenship

We are more than individuals linked by market transactions.

Our life in the public sphere is no less necessary than our private lives. As citizens we enjoy and contribute to the public good. It is where we show and learn respect for others, particularly people who are different. It is where we abide by shared rules of civic conduct. It is where we build social capital – networks of trust. We need to behave in ways that make each of us trusted members of the community. ‘Do no harm’ is not sufficient.

September 16, 2014

Gavan McCormack. Disturbing trends in Japan Part 4

Friendship, states, peoples and Australia

The government of Japan struggles to reconcile servile incorporation in today’s US hegemonic project with Japan’s own nationalism, but the circle is not easily to be squared. Nationalism is distorted, denied and channeled into a ‘correct history’ movement, beautiful Japan campaigns, and antagonism to China and Korea. The wave of xenophobic abuse of China and Korea, speculation about a possible war, and ‘hate speech’ bullying of Zainichi resident Koreans, helps consolidate Abe’s support base and justify frontier militarisation. It constitutes the reverse side of his stealth revision of the constitution and promotion of military-first, US-serving priorities. Furthermore, basic insecurity is exacerbated by neoliberal policies that for more than a decade now have functioned to replace regular jobs with part-time, temporary or other non-regular ones (now accounting for 19 million people, or 38 per cent of the total workforce).

February 20, 2014

John Menadue. Cutting waste and costs in health.

Last night on lateline, the Minister for Health Peter Dutton called for a public debate on health reform. I therefore have taken the liberty of reposting a blog of February 3 on ‘Cutting waste and costs in health’.

The Minister for Health, Peter Dutton, has said that we must reduce waste and reduce costs in health. I agree. In 2011/12 total health expenditure in Australia was $140b up from $83b in 2001/2. Costs are rising rapidly, partly due to population increase.

January 14, 2014

Repost. Refugee advocates and offshore processing. John Menadue

This is a repost from 23 September, 2013.

The insistence on onshore processing for all asylum seekers is damaging the case for humane and sensible refugee policies.

The blanket opposition to any offshore processing is understandable but it is just not working. Just look at the election result on September 7. The important issue is not where processing occurs but whether it is just, fair and efficient. Many of the asylum seekers who claim protection in Australia are not in direct flight from persecution. Most transit Malaysia and Indonesia. Some are asylum shopping.

July 6, 2014

John Menadue. Free Trade Agreement with Japan - 'turbo charging' our trade or mainly hype?

Next Tuesday Prime Minister Abe will visit Australia. I expect the Free Trade Agreement with Japan or its new name the Economic Partnership Agreement with Japan will feature prominently. I repost below what I said on March 29 about the limited value of these bilateral agreements.

Only last week, the Productivity Commission expressed similar reservations. It said ‘Australia recently agreed to bilateral trade agreements with Korea and Japan. Trade agreements can distort comparative advantage between nations and consequently reduce efficient resource allocation. The rules of origin in Australia’s nine bilateral agreements vary widely and are likely to impede competition and add to compliance costs of firms engaging in trade’.

September 14, 2014

Gavan McCormack. Disturbing trends in Japan (Part 2 of 4)

Shared values

Much was made during the visit of the ‘shared values’ that unite Australia and Japan. But are the values of Abe or his government really widely shared? From the time of his entry into the national Diet in 1993, Abe immersed himself in the historical revisionist cause, resisting moves towards formal apology for the war and compensation for war victims and objecting to what he and his colleagues refer to scathingly as a ‘Tokyo Tribunal view of history’. He believes Japan was unjustly blamed for the China and Pacific wars of 1931 to 1945. As his friend Hyakuta Naoki, Abe-appointed director of national broadcaster NHK, put it earlier this year, the Nanjing massacre of 1937 never occurred and Americans had ‘fabricated war crimes against Japanese leaders in order to cover up American atrocities’. He and most of his cabinet today belong to organisations that look back to wartime Japan for inspiration, with names such as Dietmembers Associations ‘for the Passing on of a Correct History’, for a ‘Bright Japan’ and ‘Reflection on Japan’s Future and History Education’, and the ‘Shinto Politics League’. The basic principle of Shinto politics was articulated in January 2000 by then prime minister Mori Yoshiro, who referred to Japan as an ‘emperor-centred country of the gods’—precisely the view held by those who led Japan to the disastrous wars of the 1930s and 1940s.

July 3, 2014

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses of Child Sexual Abuse and the Catholic Church.

Yesterday, in Eureka Street, Fr Frank Brennan SJ commented on the first interim report of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses of Child Sexual Abuse. He said:

‘Before Prime Minister Gillard announced the commission, I said that the Catholic Church needed help, in part because there seemed to be a vast discrepancy in the statistics when it came to the number of abuse claims in the Catholic Church when compared with other Churches and institutions which care for vulnerable children. The Commission has not yet come up with any answers or theories about the discrepancy. But its own statistics are frightening and shaming. The commission has provided a safe space for victims to come forward and tell their stories. The commission refers to victims as survivors. 60% of the institutions where survivors reported being abused were faith-based institutions (1,033 of 1,719 institutions). Where abuse occurred in a faith-based institution, 68% of survivors reported that the abuse occurred in a Catholic institution while only 12% reported that the abuse occurred in an Anglican institution. Other churches reported lesser figures. No doubt there were many more Catholic institutions set up for vulnerable children. But that goes nowhere close to providing a complete explanation for the shameful discrepancy. It seems that about 40% of all victims who have come forward to tell their story were abused in institutions auspiced by the Catholic Church. When the royal commission was announced, Cardinal Pell said “we object to being described as the only cab on the rank”. We are not the only cab, but we are the main one when it comes to reports of child sexual abuse within Australian institutions.’

January 10, 2014

Repost: Nation building or border policing? Guest blogger: Peter Hughes

This was posted on November 15, 2013.

Increasingly refugee policy is portrayed in terms of border protection and stopping the boats. We are losing sight of the enormous nation-building benefits that we have received from immigrants and refugees. John Menadue

The repositioning of the Immigration and Citizenship portfolio as “Immigration and Border Protection” was a clear indication by the incoming government of its political priority - stop the arrival of maritime asylum seekers!

Pearls and Irritations

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