May 2, 2016

Douglas Newton. What we fought for: from Bullecourt to the Armistice, 1917-1918

From 1916 to 1918 on the Western Front, the Australian divisions suffered 181,000 casualties, including 46,000 dead.[1] Some 10,892 of these dead have no known grave.[2] They died mostly from shrapnel and high explosive shells designed to tear people to pieces, or bury them alive. Pulverised, or ploughed under, their remains were unidentifiable.

So, more terrible centenaries loom from 1917-18. Bullecourt, Passchendaele, Villers-Bretonneux, the Hindenburg Line. For what did Australians die?

November 19, 2018

MICHAEL McKINLEY. The age of Thorby (Part 2 - The addictive denial of transparency and the protection of malfeasance)

Where matters defined under the rubric of national security are concerned, the intelligence agencies of the state demand nothing less than the indulgence to act with unwarranted secrecy secrecy beyond that which is absolutely essential. Over the last 80 years, as detailed in Part 1, this arrogation and its putative rationale have been explicit especially in the politicised legal casuistry of the Attorney-General. We, the people should understand our place as unknowledgeable actors in the drama of governance and desist from dissent; indeed, against an abundance of evidence, we should trust the state - it is the repository of secret information and our guardian. A spelling revision of citizen is required: sitizen.

September 17, 2024

A five-minute scroll

Pulling children out of rubble, witnessing ill-treatment of Palestinian civilians by Israeli soldiers, witnessing the displaced Gazan population work its way through destroyed streets. In Australia, the Senate debate on housing. These are the items we found on our five-minute scroll on X.

November 5, 2016

RAMESH THAKUR. The nuclear refuseniks: Australia follows the US again.

In voting against the UN resolution calling for negotiation of a treaty to ban nuclear weapons, Australia, Japan and South Korea are swimming against the global tide of opinion and that of their Asia and Pacific neighbours, argues Ramesh Thakur.

June 18, 2016

PETER GIBILISCO. Friedreichs Ataxia and my Miraculous Journey with Education

My life to date has been unduly constrained by the enforcement of standardised practices, stereotypes and official policies designed to uphold the primary care of people with Friedreichs Ataxia. I was diagnosed with onset at 14; now Im 54.

April 13, 2016

'We are the forgotten people'; the anguish of Australia's invisible asylum seekers.

Nearly 29,000 asylum seekers are in Australia on temporary ‘bridging visas’. These people may be free from detention but - with many denied education, healthcare and the right to work - they remain locked in desperate poverty and with no idea what their future holds. See link below to an article in The Guardian Australia. The preparation of this article was assisted by the Asylum Seekers Centre in Sydney and other organisations and people across Australia.

March 26, 2016

Michael Kelly SJ. Washing feet, culture and religion.

The decision by parts of the Catholic Church in India to differ with Pope Francis’ decision to allow women to have their feet washed in the ceremony on Holy Thursday is puzzling to say the least.

Their reason given is simple. The inclusion of women in a ceremony where a man (the celebrant) washes the feet of a woman as one of the 12 people who participate in the re-enactment of Jesus actions on the first Holy Thursday would offend against “cultural sensitivities.”

August 13, 2016

ROBERT MANNE, FRANK BRENNAN, TIM COSTELLO & JOHN MENADUE. A solution to our refugee crisis

This article was posted in today’s The Age.

There are two powerful arguments about the plight of the refugees dying a slow death in the offshore processing centres Australia has established and which it maintains on Nauru and Manus Island.

The supporters of the present policy argue that we cannot bring these refugees to Australia because to do so would act as a signal to people smugglers, allowing their trade to begin again.

August 16, 2014

Kieran Tapsell: The Royal Commission on the Melbourne Response

Next Monday, 18 August, 2014, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse will commence Case Study No. 16 on the Melbourne Response that operated within the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne.

In 1994, Bishop Geoffrey Robinson had been appointed by the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference to draw up a protocol for dealing with sex abuse of children by priests. The outcome was Towards Healing that was approved in November 1996 by all the Australian bishops except Archbishop Pell. Just one month before, in October 1996, Archbishop Pell set up his Melbourne Response.

June 16, 2014

Kieran Tapsell. Canon Law and the Truth, Justice and Healing Council.

In his more than 40 blogs posted on the Truth Justice and Healing Councils web site, Francis Sullivan, its CEO, has never, until last week, mentioned any difficulties that canon law might have posed for bishops in reporting sexual abuse by clergy to the police or in dismissing them through the Churchs own internal disciplinary systems.

In his blog of 4 June 2014, Francis Sullivan wrote:

Earlier in the week I went to the launch of Kieran Tapsells new book Potiphars Wife: The Vaticans Secret and Child Sexual Abuse. This highly controversial book argues that the cover-up of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church has been occurring since 1922 when Pope Pius XI imposed the secret of the holy office on all information obtained through the Churchs canonical investigations. If the State did not know about .the crimes, the Church could treat them as a purely canonical crime to be dealt with secretly.

December 30, 2016

LAURIE PATTON. Turnbull's New Year resolution should be a fibre-based NBN for everyone

As we all make our New Year’s resolutions, here’s one for Turnbull: build us a better broadband network. It’s time to allow NBN to dump copper and revert to a fibre-based model. The sooner the better.

December 10, 2024

A five-minute scroll

What were you expecting asks Bisan Owda of the situation in Syria, where Israel has now launched air raids overnight. Jonathon Cooke calls out the BBC on their selective reporting while Prof, Seyed Marandi tells George Galloway it is clear who is behind these groups. Craig Murray reports that it’s not a revolution in Syria, it’s foreign interference, while Gaza airs strikes are still killing the innocent. A timely reminder of Rod Campbell debunking Dutton’s nuclear power proposal.

June 11, 2014

Mark Isaacs. The Salvos on Nauru.

Judging the Salvation Army’s role in Nauru is difficult. Their job was to provide humanitarian support to asylum seekers in a detention centre that was established to deter desperate people from seeking protection by subjecting them to cruel conditions. The contradictory nature of the Salvation Army’s position meant they were damned by the government if they assisted the asylum seekers, and damned by their staff if they didn’t. Despite this the employees of the Salvation Army, my colleagues, showed utmost care for the asylum seekers we worked with and implemented a wide range of programs that alleviated some of the mental pressure placed upon these people This justified the need for a humanitarian organisation to act as a service provider within detention centres.

January 14, 2017

RAMESH THAKUR. Australias gulag of shame

As someone born after World War II who grew up in India, I have always wondered how it was possible for a highly civilized society like Germany to have been complicit through silence in the horror of the Holocaust. It simply wasnt possible for people not to have known what was being done to the Jews on an industrial scale, and that too in their name. For the first time, as an Australian, I begin to get glimmers of understanding.

August 19, 2016

JULIANNE SCHULTZ. You'll miss it when it's gone: why public broadcasting is worth saving.

In an age of global media abundance, the notion that public broadcasting is a mechanism to address market failure is beguiling. It is also fundamentally wrong.

Public broadcasters have a unique national responsibility to provide a public good to citizens, rather than the more narrowly defined and easily measured mission of commercial broadcasters, to engage consumers and maximise the return to shareholders.

Public broadcasters provide a return that is more complex to measure, but with the increasing sophistication of impact measurement, not impossible. The exact nature of the outputs and outcomes varies from one country to another, but includes providing platforms for news, entertainment and education that foster a shared sense of national coherence.

November 24, 2016

JOHN MENADUE. Quo vadis - the future of the US-Australian alliance.

Next week I will run a series of short articles entitled ‘Quo vadis - the future of the US-Australian alliance’.

In anticipation of that series, I will be posting three articles this week. Part 1, posted today, is by Michael McKinley concerning our reliance on the US relationship. He argues that whilst US military power remains strong, the US is in decline in many ways.

Part 2 will based on comments by the late Malcolm Fraser in which he said “We no longer have an independent capacity to stay out of America’s wars”.

May 3, 2016

Douglas Newton. Lost opportunities for a negotiated peace during the Great War: from 1914 to 1916. Part 1

A big centenary is approaching: the battle of Villers-Bretonneux, April 1918. Right now $93.2 million is being spent on the battle site to build the Sir John Monash Centre, ready for Anzac Day 2018.[1] Villers-Bretonneux is irresistible. It simplifies everything: German invaders, liberating Australians, grateful French. But it will provide a mere pinhole on the war, obscuring the big picture.

No one at the opening ceremony is likely to ask: Why were millions of men, including Australians, still struggling on the Western Front in April 1918?

April 7, 2017

JAMES O'NEILL. Verdict First, Evidence Later: How the Australian Media Misrepresent Geopolitical Events

The reporting of the tragedy from Syria is but the latest illustration of an all too common phenomenon: a pre-determined verdict on little or no evidence.

October 14, 2015

Cavan Hogue. MH17

The Dutch led report doesn’t really tell us anything much we couldn’t already work out but it does highlight some valid points.

That the missile was Russian is hardly news but the report does give us the make, However, while theoretically this might help trace who bought it, missiles have moved around so much that all parties can disclaim ownership and in any case the Russians are certainly capable of faking it. But since all three parties involved have Russian missiles this is not a smoking gun and the report makes it clear that both Russia and Ukraine have this type of missile.

April 29, 2016

Richard Eckersley. Wellbeing and sustainability: irreconcilable differences?

Better concepts and measures of quality of life and wellbeing make sustainable development more achievable.

The debate about progress and development is converging and merging with that about sustainable development. My analysis of the flaws in equating progress with modernisation, discussed in my previous article, contributes to this debate because it shows the equation counts modernitys benefits to wellbeing but not all its costs.

Modernitys dominant narrative of material progress gives priority to economic growth and a rising standard of living. It is being increasingly challenged by the alternative narrative of sustainability, which seeks to balance social, environmental and economic priorities and goals to achieve a high, equitable and lasting quality of life. Material progress represents an outdated, industrial model of development: pump more wealth into one end of the pipeline of progress and more welfare flows out the other.

May 21, 2016

MICHELE KOSASIH. Seven years on and still itching for change on the negative impacts of alcohol.

2016 marks seven years for the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Educations (FARE) Annual Alcohol Poll (conducted by Galaxy Research), and we continue to see Australias concern about the negative impacts alcohol has on the community.

September 27, 2024

A five-minute scroll

We round up the week at the UN in New York where thousands have gathered to denounce Benjamin Netanyahu and demand his arrest. Groups have also called for the resignation of Antony Blinken for alleged lies to Congress, and we question why Jordan, also a US ally, can speak out against Israel. Finally, we applaud the recognition of a young journalist in Gaza on the world stage.

October 22, 2024

A five-minute scroll

Renowned journalist speaks out about the three regimes of Israel while a child in Gaza speaks out about the loss of her people. A child carries her sister on her back to hospital while the IDF marches Palestinians in Gaza. Media Watch tells more stories that also need to be told, while Lidia Thorpe tells the King he is not her king. Professor Ilan Pappe talks about Zionism and cartoonist Cathy Wilcox shares her thoughts on AUKUS.

May 27, 2016

Did the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki end the war?

Today, President Obama is visiting Hiroshima. He will be the first US President to do so since the bombing in 1945. He said that he will not be apologising for the dropping of the bomb and will not try and second-guess President Harry Truman’s decision.

The widely accepted moral justification for the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was that they brought a quick end to the war which if continued would result in more widespread deaths and destruction.

There is an argument that what the Japanese military feared most of all was not the bombing of civilians but the threat of Soviet occupation and perhaps partition of Japan.

June 9, 2016

IAN WEBSTER. Bulk-billing rates are not what they seem.

A categorical mistake: Is bulk-billing a reliable indicator of access to GPs?

Where I work in regional NSW, patients have difficulty finding a GP who is prepared to bulk-bill them for their medical care. The phone call to the practice receptionist ends, so often, with, The doctors books are full. At the same time were told that 83% of Medical Benefits Schedule (MBS) services are bulk-billed. Like everyone else, I thought this fact would mean increased access and affordability for patients to a local GP.

Had I thought more thoroughly about the problem and scrutinised the MBS data, the penny would have dropped.

November 24, 2016

MICHAEL McKINLEY. Quo vadis - the future of the US-Australian alliance. Part 1:

Summary._Donald Trump, Dylan Thomas, and the Australia US Alliance -_A great power in decline.

June 22, 2016

MUNGO MacCALLUM. A treaty with indigenous Australians.

The idea of a country negotiating a treaty with its indigenous inhabitants is hardly novel.

Three of our closest friends and allies (New Zealand, Canada and the United States) have all done so successfully, and none of their nations fallen into terminal division and chaos.

And of course even in Australia, a treaty has been under discussion for nearly a century. Aboriginal elders have talked about it since at least the sesquicentenary of settlement in 1938, and it was seriously mooted a generation later when the great public servant, Dr H C (Nugget) Coombs proposed what he called a makharrata a settlement.

May 11, 2018

JOHN FALZON. Budget 2018: Noodle Nation?

Budgets should be a time when governments outline a practical vision of the future in which we share our commonwealth for a just, prosperous and equitable future. In a wealthy country such as ours, it should be a time of hope.

November 18, 2013

Tony Abbott in Sri Lanka. John Menadue

Tony Abbott has continued his ‘stop the boats campaign" in Sri Lanka regardless of growing concerns about human rights abuses in that country.

He offered two patrol boats as part of a ‘foreign aid package’. His justification for this is that it would help save the lives of people drowning at sea. Please spare us this hypocracy. The real reason is that with the cooperation of the Sri Lankan Navy he hopes he stop asylum seekers leaving Sri Lanka and possibly landing in Australia. The previous government used the same phoney excuse that it wanted to stop the boats to stop the drownings.

January 14, 2017

The strange career of American exceptionalism.

In this article in The Nation, George Grandin of New York University comments

‘Obamas recomposition of American exceptionalism was tactically successful, at least as measured by his 2012 reelection, which expanded the multiracial and cross-class coalition that had given him the White House four years earlier.

December 12, 2016

LAURIE PATTON. Un-populate or perish rethinking the Whitlam decentralisation vision in a digital age

There’s been quite a deal of media coverage lately about the need for better Internet access in regional, rural and remote Australia. Earlier in the year delegates to the annual Broadband for the Bush conference highlighted the communications challenges facing everyone living outside our major population centres while pointing to opportunities for better delivery of health services and education using emerging online technologies.

January 29, 2025

A five-minute scroll

Challenging the narrative: Ali Abunimah of the Electronic Intifada was freed and deported by Switzerland, Abby Martin speaks of youth seeing world issues as they are not as mainstream media portray them. Saffrin Duggan will run the Canberra Marathon to raise funds for her husband and Humzah Yousaf takes on Michael Gove over his suggestion the IDF be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.

February 5, 2016

How long can we keep lying to ourselves.

In the SMH on February 5, 2016, columnist Waleed Aly says ‘The history of asylum seeker policy in Australia will be remembered as a story of how successive governments legislated their lies to justify a world of make-believe borders and imaginary compliance.’

See link to article below:

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/nauru-how-long-can-we-keep-lying-to-ourselves-20160204-gml6or.html

June 22, 2015

Max Bourke. Northern Australia the fantasy continues

Current Affairs

The White Paper on Northern Australia. ( www.northernaustralia.dpmc.gov.au accessed June 19, 2015)

The cover of this Report features, a slightly sick (ironically seems to have a fungal disease), young seedling growing in rich black soil. The seedling well reflects the issue, the black soil does not.

When white settlers landed in Australia at the end of the 18th century they brought the techniques and understandings they knew from Europe to farming, the climate and the environment. What else could they do? It has taken over 200 years for many Australians, and some clearly still do not, to understand that the climate, soils, landscapes of Australia are profoundly different from Europe or Asia. The recently released White Paper on Northern Development June 2015, suggests we still have a long way to go.

May 2, 2016

Richard Woolcott. Australia/China and Barracuda submarines.

It seems that one of the important roles for the new Barracuda submarines that we are to purchase from the French is for the submarines to be able to operate at long-range in the South China Sea. Quite apart from the cost of the submarine purchase, is this a wise strategy for Australia to pursue. I have reposted extracts below from an earlier article by Richard Woolcott in which he warns of an adversarial attitude towards China based mainly on Japanese policies and US support. John Menadue.

June 18, 2016

STEPHEN LEEDER. Looking forward to a national health policy and not ignoring the community.

Health policies presented as part of the election campaign should address our expectations for prompt, courteous and effective high-quality care when we need it and not be a random collection of thought balloons - from a childs birthday? - about waiting lists and co-payments .

Health care is essential to achieving goals for more jobs and a brighter budget. Its availability to all is a fundamental of fairness. Labor or Coalition, health policy is critical to what they hope to achieve for us. Here is why we should be hearing a national health policy from the contestants.

June 20, 2015

Michael Wesley. The Dangerous Politics of National Security.

Policy Series

In January 2013, as she launched her governments National Security Strategy, then Prime Minister Julia Gillard proclaimed that Australias decade of terrorism was over. Her argument was that al Qaeda had failed to regenerate after being degraded in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, and that there were other more conventional security issues, such as the rise of new Asian great powers, that would dominate the forward security agenda.

November 21, 2015

Royal Commissions for some.

The Abbott government established a Royal Commission to harass trade unions and in the process to damage the ALP. But what we are hearing in this Royal Commission is really small beer by some union hacks. It is small scale compared with the massive tax avoidance by multinational companies in Australia that is being revealed.

Yet the government has refused to establish a Royal Commission to examine the activities of these multinationals who are depriving Australia of billions of dollars of tax revenue. A Royal Commission would be very useful to flush out this very serious national problem.

October 10, 2014

Malcolm Fraser. Without a ground force and an end point, the war against ISIS will be a farce.

In The Guardian, Malcolm Fraser has said ‘Air power alone will not make a difference in Iraq. Barack Obama and his allies have the worst strategic understanding possible of what they claim is an existential threat ’ See link to article below

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/08/without-a-ground-force-and-an-end-point-the-war-against-isis-will-be-a-farce

November 18, 2024

A five-minute scroll

Three times smaller, Israel has dropped the equivalent of three atomic bombs on Gaza, and still they continue unabated, exposing Governments in their complicity and media alike. In New Zealand Māori leaders mobilise on a 1000 kilometre plus walk to Wellington in protest of legislation from the right-winged government. In the US the analysis of the US election continues, Chris Hedges talks about the Democrats and Trump, Bernie Sanders talks about oligarchy. A five-minute scroll.

December 28, 2014

John Menadue. Capitalism and the fall of communism

In this blog on 5 November I drew attention to an article by the Economics Editor of the Guardian Larry Elliott. In that article Elliott said As the Berlin Wall fell, checks on capitalism crumbled. The principal thesis of that article was that with the end of communism capitalism became more aggressive and less inhibited. He said

The fear that workers would go red meant that they had to be kept happy. The proceeds of growth were shared. Welfare benefits were generous. Investment in public infrastructure was high. But there was no need to be so generous once the Soviet Union was no more. What was known as neoliberal economics was born in the 1970s but it was not until the 1990s that market forces reigned supreme. The free market spread to poorer parts of the world where it has previously been off limits, expanding the global workforce. That meant cheaper goods, but it also put downward pressure on wages. Whats more, there was no longer any need to be inhibited. Those running companies could take a bigger slice of profits because there was nowhere else for workers to go. If its citizens did not like reform of welfare states, they just had to lump it.

August 25, 2015

Quentin Dempster. Rupert Murdoch destroys freedom of the press.

In a recent address to the Medico-Legal Society of NSW, Quentin Dempster has referred to the parlous state of journalism and the media and particularly the damage being caused by Rupert Murdoch and News Corp. It is a no-holds barred speech about the damage that Rupert Murdoch is doing. See link to the speech below. John Menadue.

www.facebook.com/quentindempster

April 27, 2016

Frank Brennan. Cheque book solution on asylum is unconstitutional

A bench of five justices of the Supreme Court of Justice, the highest court in Papua New Guinea, has unanimously ruled that the detention of asylum seekers on Manus Island is unconstitutional.

The successful applicant in the case was Belden Norman Namah, the PNG Leader of the Opposition. Unlike the Australian Constitution, the PNG Constitution contains a list of basic human rights including section 42 which deals with ‘liberty of the person’. That provision states that ‘No person will be deprived of his personal liberty’ except in specific circumstances.

September 3, 2015

Bob Kinnaird. China FTA and binding trade treaties are undemocratic.

The China FTA and all international trade agreements are essentially undemocratic because they are binding on all future Australian governments. They provide incumbent governments with the opportunity permanently to limit the options open to the Australian people and to tie the hands of their political opponents when they take office.

Most Australians and probably some Australian Parliamentarians would be astonished to discover that treaty-status trade agreements permanently limit the ability of future governments to make laws, regardless of the wishes of the electors.

November 18, 2014

John Menadue. Julie Bishop substance and style

According to opinion polls, Julie Bishops standing has climbed. In Harpers Bazaar she has been described as the Woman of the Year. It is suggested that she could be a leadership contender

But how much substance and how much achievement has there really been. How has Australias foreign policy interests been advanced?

Before looking at the performance, it is worth recalling that no Australian Foreign Minister could be said to have failed in recent decades, from Gareth Evans to Bill Hayden to Alexander Downer, Stephen Smith, Kevin Rudd and Bob Car. One advantage that Foreign Ministers have is that there is really no domestic constituency that they are likely to upset. At the same time there are numerous media and photo opportunities to do newsworthy things like running around Beijing. The media which is so often about politics and spin rarely looks beyond style and presentation.

December 23, 2014

Jesus and the modern man.

James Carroll has been writing about religion for over 40 years. In this beautiful piece in the International New York Times of November 7 this year, he describes how he still keeps going to Mass despite his many doubts. See link below. John Menadue.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/09/opinion/sunday/can-i-stay-with-the-church.html?smid=nytcore-iphone-share&smprod=nytcore-iphone

March 9, 2016

Terry Laidler. To Michael Pezzullo, Secretary, Department of Immigration and Border Protection.

Dear Mr Pezzullo,

Starting to get through to you, is it? Great!

Forget your law of the land, let alone your direction of the government of the day drivel neither of these is some sort of absolute that lets you suspend all moral judgment!

For, make no mistake about it: the actions of you and your departmental officers in our name are a gross violation of basic ethics and of innocent peoples rights.

March 15, 2023

Paul Keating - Australia locks in Asian Century as subordinate to the US

The Albanese Governments complicity in joining with Britain and the United States in a tripartite build of a nuclear submarine for Australia under the AUKUS arrangements represents the worst international decision by an Australian Labor government since the former Labor leader, Billy Hughes, sought to introduce conscription to augment Australian forces in World War One.

October 14, 2017

JOHN MENADUE. The unfairness and waste of private health insurance and the threat to Medicare. Repost from April 21 2017

History is repeating itself.

Medicare was created by the Whitlam government because of the abject failure of private health insurance or, as it was then called voluntary health insurance.

As a result of the growth of private health insurance (PHI) since 1999 under the Howard government, Medicare is now seriously threatened. Government subsidies for PHI will take us back to the pre Whitlam and pre Medicare era.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal