April 26, 2019

MELISSA SWEET. What might Greta Thunberg tell the Australian Parliament? (Croakey)

This week, 16-year-old Greta Thunberg, who must surely go down in history as one of the great champions for global health, addressed the British Parliament.

May 10, 2018

JOSEPH A. CAMILLERI: Australia’s China policy mired in phobia and confusion.

Australia’s handling of its relations with China is rapidly descending into farce. Geoff Raby’s excellent piece (30 April) makes abundantly clear the principal factor at work, namely a nostalgic attachment to the US-led regional and global order of earlier years.

September 10, 2018

ALISON BROINOWSKI. Afghanistan: Set And Forget.

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle. (Sun Tzu, The Art of War)

September 17, 2019

JOHN MENADUE. 'Things you learn along the way'.

Occasionally friends suggest to me that I should write my autobiography. Ruefully I explain that I wrote ‘Things you learn along the way’ twenty years ago. The book sold about 8,000 copies but as far as I know is no longer available.

The book covers many aspects of my life: The early days as a footloose son of the Methodist manse; seven years in the ‘wilderness’ working for Gough Whitlam in Opposition; working for Rupert Murdoch in his better days; Secretary of Prime Minister and Cabinet to both Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser, including the Dismissal; enjoyable family days in Japan as Ambassador; the most meaningful job of my life as Secretary of the Immigration Department during the Indochina Refugee Program; and a few years at Qantas where I found that Directors and my views were not necessarily the same.

See link below if you are interested in reading. (link also on home page ‘about John Menadue’.)

‘Things you learn along the way’.

July 10, 2018

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Tax - something will turn up.

Scott Morrison has inched forward to another interminable episode of tweaking the tax. This time it’s the scales of the returns the states get from the commonwealth’s GST, but, as always, do not hold your breath.

August 26, 2019

A genuinely good man.

_Timothy Andrew Fischer was a rare political beast, a genuinely good man._He had his blind spots – the worst of them was refusing to acknowledge the reality of Indigenous Land Rights following the High Court decisions on Mabo and Wik.

September 23, 2019

ABUL RIZVI: Bob Birrell’s War on Partner Visas

The partner visa categories are for people who have formed a genuine relationship (formally married or de facto or prospective marriage) with an Australian citizen or permanent resident. In July 2019 Bob Birrell continued his long-standing war on partner visas, particularly for people from poorer Asian countries, by calling for further restrictions on partner migration. His article attracted substantial coverage in The Australian and Sky News. But how strong is his case?

May 9, 2019

JOHN MENADUE. News Corp – a rogue organisation (Repost from 21 September 2018)

Rupert Murdoch’s form in abusing power and finding truth hard to handle continues. ‘Turnbull has to go’ is typical behaviour for a man who has done more to damage democracy than any living media person .

I worked with Rupert Murdoch for seven years in the late 1960s and early 1970s. I was General Manager of his Sydney operations. It was then exciting working for him.He derided the stuffy old guard establishment . He was open to new ideas and opportunities. Then it all steadily went down hill. Ending his days in the embrace of the extreme right of the American Republican Party and Donald Trump says it all. What a wasted life that had so much going for it. What a disappointment.

My assessment of News Corp and Murdoch in 2014 follows.Little has changed. The media tragedy and abuse continues.

August 9, 2019

MIKE SCRAFTON. The persistence of white supremacists in the US is the problem

In the wake of the recent murders by white supremacists, blame has been apportioned partially to President Trump’s rhetoric and to the availability of white replacement theory and white genocide conspiracy material. Both are relevant but the policy challenge is far greater. Even in the absence of both, white supremacists will persist.

November 27, 2017

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Bishop's credibility leaking away.

The government of Malcolm Turnbull has now transcended mere dysfunction – it has lapsed into anarchy, total chaos.

March 10, 2015

Alex Wodak. Reducing the demand for illicit drugs

At his Congressional confirmation hearing in January 2001, the then Secretary of Defense-designate Donald Rumsfeld was asked whether US drug problems were best attacked by reducing demand or targeting drug supplies. Rumsfeld said that he believed that illicit drug use was “overwhelmingly a demand problem”. He added, “If demand persists, it’s going to find ways to get what it wants” and “if it isn’t from Colombia, it’s going to be from someplace else.” This might have been an unconventional view 14 years ago but it’s becoming a mainstream perspective these days.

May 23, 2019

IAN McAULEY. No wonder the real-estate agents went against Labor

A glance at movements in share prices since the election shows who expects to do well out of the Coalition’s win. (Spoiler – it’s the finance sector.)

June 6, 2019

IAN DUNLOP. Parliament must treat Climate Change as an Emergency

A year ago, discussion of climate change as an existential threat, and the corresponding need for emergency action, was anathema to those leading debate on climate policy in the political, corporate and NGO incumbencies globally. Incremental change remained the order of the day. But even that was too much for Australia, where political denial of climate change remained dominant.

April 24, 2019

HENRY REYNOLDS. Anzac Day.

As we approach Anzac Day for another year, its national significance is reaffirmed. But we are so familiar with the accustomed ritual and rhetoric that it escapes critical scrutiny. And its sanctity places it outside the reach of sceptical inspection.

October 16, 2017

ANDREW FARRAN. Trump is being reckless with the Iranian nuclear deal

President Trump’s decision this past weekend to de-certify the nuclear deal with Iran displays a recklessness almost on a par with his apparent readiness to vaporise North Korea with nuclear bombs. He is in error in citing non-nuclear aspects of the Iranian government as bearing on the agreement.

November 28, 2016

GARRY WOODARD. Trump and ANZUS. Quo vadis series.

Quo vadis - Australian foreign policy and ANZUS.

Summary. Will Australia allow itself to be drawn into Sino-American tensions in the incorrect belief that it has no choice under ANZUS or ‘five eyes’.

March 14, 2015

John Tulloh. Israel the promised land of democracy.

Surrounded by a hostile region where even basic freedoms cannot be taken for granted, Israel is to be admired for its electoral democracy at least. It has a boisterous political system full of wheeling and dealing with everybody having a say. One party even has a 101-year-old leader. Electioneering is in full swing right now for next week’s general election (March 17) with no less than 11 parties fielding candidates.

December 18, 2013

Is trench warfare the answer? John Menadue

Sensing concern about the government’s performance in the first 100 days, Tony Abbott reportedly told the Liberal Party caucus to ‘prepare for trench warfare’ when parliament resumes in 2014.

I would have thought that the last thing that Australia needs is for the government to embark on trench warfare. I sense that the public is looking for considered and conciliatory leadership.

Defenders of Tony Abbott’s 100 day performance point out that John Howard had a rocky start, but that he then recovered. That is true, but Tony Abbott needs to learn quickly or the pattern set in the first 100 days will become entrenched. And the polls are certainly showing an early disquiet with the government. I suggest that the disquiet about Tony Abbott was always there, but the divisions with the ALP leadership took focus away from that concern. The last election showed that oppositions don’t win election. Governments lose them.

January 29, 2019

CAVAN HOGUE. Democracy in Venezuela?

Much of the current situation arises from internal conflicts and policies but US policy has nothing to do with democracy and everything to do with US commercial, ideological and strategic interests. Foreign support for Maduro or Guaidó is based on predictable ideological and national interest lines. Domestically the military supports Maduro against widespread unrest and public demonstrations but how long this can last is a moot question. All parties call for peaceful solutions although the US has reserved its options. I look at some of the complexities.

December 5, 2017

ALLAN PATIENCE. The Coalition government: In thrall to the Nationals.

The National Party receives about 7 % of the vote nation-wide in general elections. This is less than the Greens. Meanwhile over-all support for the Nationals is trending downwards. As a minority rump within the Coalition they nonetheless wield power that is way out of proportion to their representation in parliament. Coalition politics it seems is in thrall to the populist right.

January 26, 2017

John Menadue. Should we re-think Australia Day?

The Australia of today is vastly different to the Australia of my childhood with its widespread racism and sectarianism. It was socially suffocating. For those changes I am very grateful. There is a lot that we can be proud of. No country has integrated newcomers as well as we have. But there have been failures and remedial action yet to be taken. We are yet to be reconciled to our indigenous brothers and sisters who watched the European boat arrivals in 1788. We are yet to take our share of responsibility for the displaced and persecuted people of the world.

September 26, 2018

BRIONY DOW. Do we need a Royal Commission into Aged Care?

With the recent announcement of a Royal Commission into Aged Care, debate is raging in the aged care sector and beyond as to whether it is really needed.

July 9, 2018

GREG AUSTIN: Counter-terrorism lessons for family murders

It is time to police family violence perpetrators as rigorously as we police terrorists. We can learn from the country’s successes in counter-terrorism work and perhaps apply some lessons to the family violence challenges.

June 27, 2019

JOHN TULLOH. Time for reflection for Turkey’s humiliated Erdogan

The electoral invincibility of Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is officially no longer. When his party’s candidate lost the Istanbul mayoral race in March, he cried foul. After all, Istanbul was Turkey’s biggest city and the mayoralty was once the job which propelled Erdogan himself to political power. He demanded a recount, hoping the original poll was as tainted as he claimed. The tame electoral authorities obliged him. The result was an overwhelming defeat and a humiliation for the autocratic Erdogan.

May 13, 2019

ROD TIFFEN. These News Corp newspapers are first and foremost propaganda sheets.

It takes rare genius to provoke Scott Morrison and Andrew Bolt to express sympathy for Bill Shorten, but the Daily Telegraph managed it.

June 1, 2018

STEPHEN FITZGERALD AND LINDA JAKOBSON. Is there a problem with Australia’s China narrative?

Australia’s China policy is flawed. Diplomatic relations between Canberra and Beijing are strained, to the extent that Australia’s prime minister and foreign minister have not been welcome to visit the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Yet at a time when Australian leaders have been frozen out, leaders from countries experiencing far more serious issues with the PRC than Australia have been visiting Beijing. The poor state of the relationship is a result not so much of what Australia has done as what Australia has said and signalled.

March 27, 2018

DR WARWICK YONGE. Corporate medicine: Illness or cure?

Australia has a unique mix of private, public, for profit and NFP stakeholders in its health system. This structure derives significantly from Constitutional issues. Corporate medicine now occupies a significant part of the health landscape. Is this a cause for concern?

May 9, 2018

SUSAN RYAN. Book launch. 'Jesus the forgotten feminist' by Chris Geraghty.

The Catholic Church here and globally faces a crisis of loss of support arising especially from its deeds and omissions in relation to appalling sexual abuse of children.

Our secular societies are experiencing a massive epidemic of allegations and charges of sexual harassment and violation of women in their workplaces, be they on film and television sets, in the training of medical specialists, on university campuses, in major corporations, within churches, just about anywhere where men dominate women’s employment prospects.

The Catholic Church’s failure to protect children, and our first world societies’ failure to protect women, are connected in ways that makes Geraghty’s book highly relevant.

October 3, 2017

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Malcolm is sure of one thing: it's all Labor's fault.

Well it was not exactly water tight – or perhaps gas tight.

May 1, 2018

JOHN McCARTHY. Australian foreign policy needs more silence.

Simon and Garfunkel sang of the dangers of the sound of silence. But in Australian Foreign Policy, we need more of it.

January 25, 2019

STEPHANIE DOWRICK. The LNP have far more than a “women problem”

The “broad church” messaging from the Liberal Party is self-evidently in disarray. The Member for Cook’s eagerness to spend a little shy of $7m on a re-enactment of the Captain Cook circumnavigation-that-never-was may be his major gaffe this past week. Or that dubious prize may go to his choice of newly-hatched Liberal, ex Labor President, ex-Liberal Democrat Warren Mundine as the PM’s preferred candidate for Gilmore, confirming the cherished “base” has no meaningful voice or power at all. A loss of even the outer forms of democratic engagement is deadly serious. But the LNP’s most consistent electoral problems are surely around gender, along with urgent, central issues of social inequity and race that are even further off their radar.

January 23, 2018

GEOFF MILLER: White Paper versus White’s Paper; some questions about Australian policies.

The Foreign Policy White Paper issued late last year is based on its judgement that “the United States’ long-term interests will anchor its economic and security engagement in the Indo-Pacific”. Is this right? Hugh White asserts the opposite. And whether it’s right or not, it seems we’re going to try to make it happen.

October 11, 2017

PAUL FRIJTERS. EU plans for VAT taxation are doomed to fail. Again.

Taxation is the potential downfall of the EU as an institution. The reason is that within the EU, several member states are making money from the tax evasion in other member states, a situation akin to having a wife slowly murdering her husband with poison. Unless this stops, a divorce becomes inevitable.

January 27, 2017

ALEX WODAK. Do large seizures of illicit drugs really make a difference?

Large seizures of illicit drugs always attract considerable publicity, and are no doubt very positive for the law enforcement agencies and politicians involved. But do they benefit the community?

July 3, 2019

TONY WALKER. Acting on Iran has painful shades of joining the US in Iraq. (SMH 1.7.2019)

Here’s a word of advice to Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Unless he wants to risk a smudge on his reputation of the sort that accompanies John Howard to this day: don’t get involved in conflict with Iran beyond limited naval engagement in a Gulf peace-keeping role.

September 12, 2019

TONY SMITH. What price an early election? Ten grand a head?

As the Prime Minister looks over his shoulder for the inevitable challenge, the prospect of an early election must be tempting. With the New South Wales Labor Party before the Independent Commission Against Corruption and Channel 9 giving the Liberals a $10k a head fundraiser, the contest might be lop-sided.

June 8, 2017

PETER RODGERS. Trump’s sugar hit in Israel mugged by reality

Arriving in Israel on 22 May, Donald Trump told the Israeli President that he’d ‘just got back from the Middle East’. Not the most geographically informed start to the visit but from then on it was all schmooze, to the obvious delight of Trump’s hosts. Remarkably, Trump gave his twitter fingers a well-deserved rest and stayed on script. This might have been welcome except for the script itself. It appeared to include nothing of consequence – so even Trump’s critics acknowledged that as he had nothing to say he said it well. As Trump settled back into the White House, Saudi Arabia and Qatar – both important to US strategic interests in the Middle East – resumed their spiteful relationship.

March 5, 2018

IAN McAULEY. Tax reform, not tax cuts

From an unlikely source comes a message that Australia doesn’t need “smaller government”. Rather we need tax reform to ensure we can build a social safety net, and fund world-class health and education.

August 12, 2019

Time to stop this marginal madness

The reputation of the New South Wales Coalition Government in the area of environmental management has taken yet another tumble. Along with decimation of National Parks, poor management of Murray-Darling water, failure to act on carbon emissions and ignorance of species extinction, it has decided to allow wilful destruction of habitat through deforestation.

November 30, 2018

RICHARD WOOLCOTT. The emergence of China can not be denied.

The recent APEC meeting in Port Moresby underlined the deepening competition between China and the United States in the Asia Pacific region. China has been expanding its influence in the South China Sea and beyond and with the United States,Japan,and regrettably Australia consulting on how it can check China’s expansion.

March 27, 2018

The Skripal affair: ‘curiouser and curiouser’

On 4 March a former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, who came from Moscow on 3 March to visit her father, were found slumped unconscious on a bench outside a shopping centre in Salisbury. Both remain in critical condition in hospital. Prime Minister Theresa May said the two had been poisoned with Novichok and pointed the finger of criminality at Russia. Moscow dismissed and mocked the accusation as entirely without foundation. The two countries have since carried out tit-for-tat expulsions of 27 diplomats each.

August 16, 2019

'Australia's Authoritarian Future? CPAC & The High Court'

In early August, two events cast a shadow over Australia’s democracy. The US Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) met in Sydney to fight to ‘protect the future.’ The High Court ruled that the government may restrict the right of public servants to express political views, and in this way supported the sacking of a public servant for anonymously criticising her employer the Department of Immigration.

August 20, 2019

Tuvalu, climate change and Westminster

The conventional wisdom is that Morrison’s intransigence on climate change, which has badly damaged our relations in the Pacific, is due to the arithmetic of his slim parliamentary majority. But why do we have to assume that our two-party “Westminster” system with its rigid party loyalties is immutable?

June 23, 2017

TONY KEVIN. Oliver Stone’s The Putin Interviews - reflections on the first half of this current SBS miniseries

Oliver Stone gives Vladimir Putin a comradely easy time, but elicits interesting insights into the man and his policy framework. The second half will be worth watching, as will the first half in replay for those who missed it.

September 26, 2018

DANIELLE WOOD. ScoMo can get a quick win by cleaning up Canberra's murky dealings (Australian Financial Review, 204.09.18)S9

Scott Morrison needs to pull a policy rabbit out of a hat and he needs to do it quickly. At best, he has eight months to convince a sceptical public the Coalition can be trusted to run the country. But fortunately for the new PM, there is a bunny in plain sight. Policies to improve our political institutions are popular with the public, cost next to nothing and would enhance the quality of Australian government.

June 30, 2017

ROD TIFFEN. The UK Election's Second Biggest Loser - Rupert Murdoch

A widely circulated tweet claimed that on election night in Britain, Rupert Murdoch stalked out of the Times’s party when the exit polls suggested the Tories were in trouble. As we know, Teresa May’s opportunistic calling of an early election backfired on her, and the Conservatives went from a parliamentary majority to a minority government, and her political authority and latitude are now much diminished. The second biggest loser from the election though is less obvious – Rupert Murdoch.

May 14, 2019

JOHN MENADUE. The communist threat curbed capitalist greed, but no longer

Five years ago in this blog I warned about growing inequality.With the communist threat gone we have seen again greed coming back into full play around the world. We have seen it here in the greed and anti social behaviour of our banks and massive tax avoidance by large multinational companies in co-operation with our major audit and accounting firms.Paying tax has become optional for many powerful people and companies.Our largely American owned print media is promoting this dangerous lurch to the right. Conservative political parties have turned a blind eye to this more aggressive attack on fellow citizens and the consequent inequality.

And the greed for economic growth at any cost is endangering our planet.

February 20, 2018

Class power Australia

If you are someone with power and privilege in a state capitalist society such as Australia, it is vital to maintain class consciousness for yourself, while eliminating it in others. It is particularly important that the broader community does not see themselves as a group exploited by an inequitable economic system. Class solidarity and a concern for others must be driven from their minds.

September 19, 2019

NOEL TURNBULL. 181 CEOs take on Milton Friedman

When 181 US chief executives, organised by the Business Roundtable, issued a “collective statement on the purpose of the corporation” it caused fury among some investors and economists; joy among some activists; cynicism among other activists; and, horror among conservative commentators.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal