January 20, 2017

FRANCIS MARKHAM & MARTIN YOUNG. When it comes to election campaigns, is the gambling lobby all bark and no bite?

The gambling lobbys influence in overriding popular opinion and the public interest in Australia is well-known. But is its electoral power exaggerated? A look at this years ACT election suggests that perhaps the gambling industry is less influential than it appears to be.

May 29, 2017

Manchester and terrorism, Part 1 of 3.

The swamp fights back

In this three-part article, Ramesh Thakur argues that the scale of the terrorist threat to Western societies must be kept in perspective, that Western actions in the Middle East may have fomented more terrorism than they have defeated, and that an attitude of denial regarding the potential for problems of large-scale Muslim immigration feeds mutual paranoia and hostility and is not conducive to social cohesion.

January 18, 2015

Chris Clohessy. Bad reading leads to destructive religion.

The recent terror attacks in France have highlighted a number of issues, all needing furtherdiscussion. One is the reality that it took an attack on European soil to provoke such a reaction 1.6 million people marching in Paris, led by forty or more world leaders. But militant groups,under Islamic guise, have been slaughtering people for an extended period of time in Nigeria,in Pakistan, in Syria and Iraq in the last few weeks Boko Haram terrorists have killed over twothousand in Nigeria. The world reaction, compared to its reaction to Paris, has been negligible,suggesting an inconsistency in the way we value human life.

August 28, 2014

John Menadue. Refugees and asylum seekers..a re-think on Temporary Protection Visas.

I have long argued that Temporary Protection Visas (TPVs) should be rejected on the grounds that they dont deter asylum seekers, people are left in limbo and because TPV holders could not sponsor family which resulted in risky boat journeys by women and children.

It is time to think again about TPVs.

At the present time there are over 30,000 asylum seekers in detention or in the community awaiting refugee assessment. That caseload is the result of the large influx of boat arrivals following the collapse of the Malaysian Agreement and the refusal of the Coalition and the Greens to agree to changes to the Migration Act which would have helped give effect to the agreement made with Malaysia.

September 13, 2019

Roger Scott. A Response to 'Trust Me, I'm an Expert'

The podcast Trust Me, Im An Expert(10 September) is one of The Conversations rare forays into Queensland politics. It is a podcast from a much-valued series of gatherings held regularly at the Avid Reader bookshop in Brisbanes West End.

March 17, 2017

PHIL ROBERTSON. A new wave of atrocities is being committed against Muslims in Burmas Rakhine state

The burned-out mosques in Sittwe, the capital of the Rakhine state in western Burma, loom as silent reminders of an atrocity, hiding behind overgrown bushes and cement walls amid the daily port city bustle.

March 28, 2016

Mike Steketee. Election 2016: Beware the (very) long road to ruin

The risk with such a long election campaign is that unanticipated events can scuttle a party’s chances. And in the 2016 campaign it’s the Coalition that has everything to lose, writes Mike Steketee.

Elections can throw up many imponderables and the longer the campaign runs the more likely they are to do so.

After Bob Hawke won in 1983 against Malcolm Fraser, his personal popularity and that of his party kept rising. The drought broke - although not even Hawke claimed credit for that - and the economy was on the way back up after the worst recession since the Great Depression.

December 13, 2024

A five-minute scroll

The world voted to support the mandate of the UNRWA in Palestine, while Israel continues to ignore international law in Syria. Syrian born British journalists advises that the media has been lying about Syria while Francesca Albanese puts Gaza back on the table as it disappears from the news.

September 18, 2015

Ian Marsh. Revolving Prime Ministers.

As has been widely noted, Malcolm Turnbull is our fifth prime minister in as many years. You have to go back to the 1901-1909 pre two-party period for a roughly similar record. Then it was six leaders in seven years. But the analogy is only superficial. The protagonists - Barton (briefly), Watson (briefly), Deakin, Reid (briefly) and finally Fisher rose and fell based on their ability to create parliamentary majorities for particular measures. The parties Free Traders, Protectionists and Labor differed fiercely. They represented the two variants of nineteenth century liberalism and twentieth century collectivism fault-lines that persist to this day.

February 12, 2019

Housing affordability and Labors tax proposals (Revised)

Home ownership has become much less affordable. It is a major source of inequality both between generations and within generations. Housing cannot become more affordable without bringing down house prices relative to incomes. Labors tax proposals are intended to do just this. But is this the right time? House prices are allegedly falling already, and will further price reductions undermine the economy?

December 8, 2016

JOHN McCARTHY. Preparing for Trump

ANZUS has morphed from an alliance to a sacrosanct ethos to which all Australians are supposed to subscribe. It is time it went back to what it was supposed to be - an alliance. … To differ with the Americans may require political courage of an order to which the Australian political class are unaccustomed.

August 1, 2015

Marcus Woolombi Waters. We all know and admire the Haka ... so why not one of our own?

The first I heard of the Adam Goodes Bumala-y Yuurrama-y (war dance) I was in Aotearoa/New Zealand. I had been watching my son play rugby. It was a carnival (under 12s) and they had just lost the grand final. After leading for the entire game, players and parents alike watched helplessly as the opposing team swept down the field from sideline to sideline, much like the legendary Mark Coyne try in State of Origin.

June 24, 2016

ARTHUR CHESTERFIELD-EVANS. Medicare- Did the Liberals try to abolish it?

This is a current question with Shorten claiming that the Liberals are trying to privatise it and Turnbull calling this a Labor lie. What is the truth? The answer is in the history of Medicare funding. Medibank was set up by the Whitlam government and the bulk billing frees were set at 85% of the AMA Most Common Fee. The 15% was a discount but saved doctors a lot of costs and all their bad debts. They got slightly less, but the clerical and hassles saved by simply sending the paperwork, and later the computer message to the Medicare computer was felt to be a good deal.

August 27, 2018

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Abbott will find another patsy in his endless search for revenge.

In the end, a vestige of sanity prevailed.

The Liberal lemmings baulked on the brink and decided the final step into the chasm of a Peter Dutton prime ministership was just too crazy, and drew back. At least a bare majority of them did; they were happy to lurch well to the right, but not to launch themselves into the abyss.

December 3, 2014

John Menadue. The smoko continues.

In April 2012 Greg Dodds and I posted an article on this blog The Australian Century and the Australian smoko. We argued that while we responded well to the opportunities in Asia for over a decade in the 1980s, we went on smoko from the mid-1990s. There was widespread complacency and fear of Asia was promoted. The result has been two decades of failure by business, universities, schools and the media in equipping ourselves for the region. That complacency is still with us and the fear of Asia is promoted by ministers like Scott Morrison.

May 7, 2014

A last hurrah from Graham Freudenberg on his 80th birthday

May Day 2014 fittingly the day of Neville Wrans memorial service at Sydney Town Hall may well turn out to be the day when the Labor Party began to see its way ahead. Not because of the event itself, although it certainly was a marvellous celebration of a great Labor era. But it was the day of the Shepherd Audit Report. It also happened to be the day when News Ltd bared its fangs and reminded the Abbott Government just who was calling the tune. I invite students of history to file away the Sydney Daily Telegraph on 1 May 2014 and its coverage of the Shepherd Audit next day. All its hatred of Labor was as feral as ever, but in page after page, the message to Abbott and Co was clear:

January 20, 2016

Evan Williams. Film Review: Carol.

Im not alone in rating her the best actress in the world. Or as some would prefer to say, the best female actor in the world. Or more precisely, the best female English-speaking screen actor working in mainstream cinema. And yes, Im talking about our Cate up there with Garbo, Hepburn, Streep, destined for legendhood (if I may use that word) and currently starring in Carol, an absorbing romantic drama directed by Todd Haynes.

April 5, 2017

ALLAN PATIENCE. Where do we go from here?

Why do we experience such difficulty even imagining a different sort of society? Why is it beyond us to conceive of a different set of arrangements to our common advantage? Are we doomed indefinitely to lurch between a dysfunctional free market and the much advertised horrors of socialism? Tony Judt, Ill Fares the Land

January 27, 2015

John Menadue. Health Policy Reform: Part 1 Why reform is needed.

I will be posting three articles on health policy.

This article outlines the priority areas where reform is necessary.

Part 2 will explain why reform is so difficult but not impossible. The key issue is power and how it is exercised

Part 3 will be about processes and governance issues that are necessary to move us beyond the present inertia, incrementalism and tinkering, with suggestions for policy directions. I will not be proposing specific policies.

August 16, 2017

STEPHEN DUCKETT. Why it costs you so much to see a specialist and what the government should do about it

Australians pay too much when they go to medical specialists. The government can and should do more to drive prices down. A current Senate Inquiry on out-of-pocket costs will hopefully lead to some policy action.

October 12, 2018

JOHN HANNON. Complexities of Catholic marriage.

As Brendan Byrne SJ, scripture scholar, comments on todays Gospel( 7 October 2018): Any pastor would be aware that no Sunday Gospel read throughout the year will require more careful handling than this one To simply read out the rulings of Jesus in the Gospel without comment or nuance would be to turn Gospel into Law, and simply add to a burden of guilt that may already be oppressive So, here goes, for my take!

June 3, 2016

JOHN DWYER. Restructuring the governance of health care in Australia. Part 2

Part Two. Structural reforms for better health outcomes from a redesigned more cost-effective health care system.

There is broad agreement that in the near future our General Practitioners and their teams will earn the majority of their income from capitation payments that will require, for the first time in our Primary Care system, the documentation of health outcomes. Many doctors are concerned about this direction and argue that they may have neither the time nor the necessary kills to fulfil such requirements. International experience informs us that these doubts can be reversed with the creation of Primary Health Care Organisations to assist with these and many other issues.

April 25, 2017

The Australian War Memorial and weapons manufacturers

The peace of the world for future generations is anathema to the interests of those who profit from warfare. As we commemorate again the war to end all wars, and every war since, one can only wonder what the diggers would have thought, as we allow the industry that profits from the cruelty of wars to bask in the reflected glory of those who suffer it.

March 14, 2016

Peter Gibilisco. Disability support services - effectiveness and efficiency.

Let me be frank. There are many stringencies that have to be faced in the provision of disability support services. We all know this whether we are recipients of in-home one-on-one support, residents, workers or management of disability support services, or even as officials of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). We all are under the pump in an economic climate where there is widespread political anxiety about budget blow-outs and a possible collapse of our financial and economic system. We all know this. So when I make my professional contribution, as a resident of such a health-care facility, my recommendations and pleas are complex.

July 9, 2016

KEN HILLMAN. Ageing and end of life issues.

It is well known that our population is living longer. But has our health system adapted to this ageing population? Do the elderly fit into the construct of a single diagnosis? Can we identify those who are coming to the end of their life? Do we ask them if they would prefer to spend the last few months of life in hospitals? What is the impact of the increasing number of medications that they are taking? What is the impact of modern medicine on age related deterioration?

February 17, 2017

SUSAN RYAN, OLIVER FRANKEL, JOHN MENADUE. Upcoming series on Making Housing Affordable.

After Easter, Pearls and Irritations plans to publish a series ‘Making Housing Affordable’ addressing key aspects of the housing crisis and recommending solutions, with contributions from a range of experts and other key stakeholders, including economists, planners, demographers, housing providers and policy makers.

January 10, 2017

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Turnbull on Indonesia and Israel.

The theory remains that Indonesians are all right to visit, but we still dont regard them as full allies or equals.

August 22, 2016

EMMA CAMPBELL. Is South Korea still interested in unification?

It is not easy being a young person in globalised South Korea. The intense competition that defines South Koreas education system and the irregular employment market that awaits graduates has led to rising inequality, falling birth rates, insecure employment and high numbers of youth suicide.Beyond South Koreas domestic wellbeing, globalisation and its accompanying economic insecurity also have implications for foreign affairs, particularly attitudes towards North Korea.

January 21, 2019

BREXIT AND PHILLIP

June 16, 2017

SPENCER ZIFCAK. The Black Hearts Behind Australias Offshore Detention Policy

So, the Australian Government has settled a class action brought by asylum seekers detained on Manus Island for $70,000,000. Apparently, the settlement was reached because the Government was fearful of the evidence and stories of official abuse that would have emerged over some six months should the action have been litigated in court. Lawyers in the case estimated that more than 70 witnesses would have been called and 200,000 documents examined. Afraid of the findings, the Government caved in at the door of the Court.

January 17, 2015

John Menadue. Postcard from Denmark on the Nordic Success

For holiday reading, you may be interested in this repost.

I have been interested for many years in the economic and social success of the Nordic countries, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway. Together they have a population of about 26 million.

But what triggered my recent interest and decision to visit Denmark was the sheer pleasure of watching several Danish TV series Borgen, The Killing, The Bridge. They are the best TV series that I have seen in years and far superior to the tosh that we often get from the US and sometimes from the UK. The Danish film industry receives government finance, but more importantly the Danes have invested heavily in human capital and the talent shows in these TV series. Portrayal of a countrys cultural life is important for the country to understand itself better. But in the case of Danish films, I have found them attractive enough to come and visit Copenhagen and spend some tourist dollars. Although I should say that Copenhagen is expensive.

September 30, 2024

A five-minute scroll

We start the week with British journalist James Oliver giving his views on Rupert Murdoch, Jim Chalmers brings a back-to-back surplus and a picture of media reporting in the Middle East. Jordan’s Foreign minister speaks about a peace plan supported by 57 Arab and Muslim countries, Australia takes to the streets in our capital cities, while in Iran protests have broken out against the President. Dilma Rousseff, receives China’s highest honour for non-citizens.

March 9, 2016

Richard Woolcott. The burning question - should Australia do more on the South China Sea?

My clear response is ‘No!’

China, as a major trading nation, now has the same rights as the US to protect its maritime and air approaches to its mainland. Australia should avoid provocative statements and actions at sea or in the air.

When we talk about the need to support ‘a rules-based global order’, we overlook the fact that this order was framed mainly by the US after World War II.

April 11, 2017

PETER BROOKS. Physicians outed on fees Time for Patients to take more control.

If all [of the above] fail to work perhaps a review of what Pierre Trudeau and his government did in 1984 when they took on a system not dissimilar to ours uncontrolled fee for service- and legislated that doctors could charge what they liked BUT unless they adhered to the fee negotiated between the Provincial Government and the profession (on an annual basis) the doctor lost all access to a Medicare reimbursement. This system still works today in Canada and few doctors opt out of it. Now there is a thought- and a significant game changer.

December 20, 2016

Shakespeare on refugees, strangers and inhumanity.

In a series of speeches written by Shakespeare, Thomas More makes the argument for the humane treatment of those forced to seek asylum after being expelled from their homeland. This is a repost from August 23, 2016.

September 7, 2016

SPENCER ZIFCAK. Freedom of Speech and the Racial Discrimination Act

Within days of the July election result having finally been announced, forces within the Conservative faction of the Liberal-National party moved to re-open the debate on reform to S.18C of the Racial Discrimination Act (RDA). Section 18C makes it a civil offence to insult, offend, humiliate or intimidate a person on the grounds of their race.

The Prime Minister has made it clear that he is not interested in pursuing the matter. Sensibly, he does not want to re-open the damaging schism that occurred when hostilities on the issue broke out following the Federal Courts 2011 judgment against the conservative columnist, Andrew Bolt.

Pursuant to S.18C, Bolt was found to have humiliated the indigenous applicants in the case by implying recklessly and incorrectly that because they had fair skin they were not really aboriginal. And that having fair skin they had chosen falsely to identify as aboriginal in order unmeritoriously to obtain financial and professional advantage.

August 29, 2016

TONY KEVIN. A successful reawakening of serious Russian studies in Australia ?

Doctor Dorothy Horsfield of Australian National University is to be congratulated for her vision and hard work in mounting the first serious academic Russian studies conference in Australia for many years, Putins Russia in the Wake of the Cold War**,** on 24-26 August, under the auspices of the Australian National Universitys Humanities Research Centre in Canberra.

February 14, 2017

IAN VERRENDER. Coal-fired generators have no future in Australia.

From an economic perspective, it would be far more efficient to eliminate subsidies altogether and to put a price on carbon that reflected its true cost. Private investors then would be able to choose which technology was most efficient.

September 20, 2016

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Happy birthday Malcolm Turnbull.

A bit over a year ago, Malcolm Turnbull decided that it was all about winning.

Not winning for the nation, or winning for the party, and certainly not winning for his long-held policies, but winning for himself making himself number one.

So he set about buying votes; it was, after all, almost second nature. That was the way he obtained his preselection and bludgeoned his way past the sitting member for Wentworth in the first place.

April 22, 2013

The Wars we would rather forget. John Menadue

Aboriginal Wars

The Australian War Memorial records as follows:

When it became apparent that the settlers and their livestock had come to stay, competition for access to the land developed and friction between the two ways of life became inevitable. As the settlers behaviour became unacceptable to the indigenous population, individuals were killed over specific grievances. These killings were then met with reprisals from the settlers, often on a scale out of all proportion to the original incident. It is estimated that some 2,500 European settlers and police died in this conflict. For the aboriginal inhabitants the cost was far higher: about 20,000 are believed to have been killed in the wars of the frontier, while many thousands more perished from disease and often unintended consequences of settlement. Aboriginal Australians were unable to restrain though in places they did delay the tide of European settlement; although resistance in one form or another never ceased, the conflict ended in their dispossession. (www.awm.gov.au/atwar/colonial.asp)

September 14, 2015

Josef Szwarc. Resettling an additional 12,000 refugees.

The Government has announced that Australia will resettle an additional 12,000 refugees who are fleeing the conflict in Syria and Iraq.

http://www.pm.gov.au/media/2015-09-09/syrian-and-iraqi-humanitarian-crisis

This note publishes the statement with some comments about various aspects.

“Our focus will be on those most in need the women, children and families of persecuted minorities who have sought refuge from the conflict in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey.”

Comment: There were reports of political and other commentators suggesting that people of Muslim faith should not be selected. At a press conference about the decision to take in the additional refugees, the Prime Minister stated that there would not be discrimination against Muslims and said: if you look at the persecuted minorities of the region there are Muslim minorities, Druze, Turkmen, Kurds, there are non-Muslim minorities, ChristiansJews, Yazidis, Armenians, so there are persecuted minorities that are Muslim, there are persecuted minorities that are non-Muslim. The explicit rejection of faith-based discrimination is welcome: to act otherwise would be unconscionable.

July 1, 2016

PAUL BARRATT. Attorney-Generals move to control access to Solicitor-General

On 4 May 2016, the last sitting day before Parliament rose for the forthcoming election, Attorney-General Senator Brandis tabled new guidelines in the Senatewhich ruled that noone in government, including the Prime Minister, could seek the Solicitor-General’s advice without getting permission from SenatorBrandis.

April 18, 2016

Bill Carmichael. Overblown rhetoric about Free Trade Agreements.

The goal of trade policy is not limited to increasing export opportunities. Nor is it just about improving trade balances. Rather trade policy is about taking opportunities to improve the economys productive base. When assessing a nations experience with bilateral trade agreements, this is the test that should be applied.

In each bilateral agreement Australia has completed to date, projections of the potential gains for Australia, based on unimpeded access to all markets of the other country involved, were released prior to negotiations. These studies did not, and could not, project what was actually achieved in the ensuing negotiations. The quite modest outcomes for Australia from those negotiations meant the projected gains conveyed nothing about what was eventually achieved. Yet the projections were still quoted to support the agreements after they were signed, as though they reflected actual outcomes.

June 27, 2016

GREIG CRAFT. Drinking and Driving: a global problem.

Global Problem

Alcohol, drugs and driving simply do not go together. Driving requires a persons attentiveness and the ability to make quick decisions on the road, to react to changes in the environment and execute specific, often difficult maneuvers behind the wheel.When drinking alcohol, using drugs, or being distracted for any reason, driving becomes dangerous and potentially lethal [1]

January 23, 2014

Kieran Tapsell: The Inquisition of the Catholic Church at the United Nations.

The Vaticans former Chief Prosecutor, Bishop Charles Scicluna, found himself before the United Nations Committee for the Rights of the Child in Geneva on 16 January 2014. He joked that in the past his predecessors may have been on the other side of the table as the Grand Inquisitor.

The Church signed up to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1990, but had failed to provide reports under the Convention until 2012, arguing that its only responsibility for child abuse was within the 44 hectares of the Vatican City. It was a Jesuitical response that it continued to press as recently as 5 December 2013: see https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/blog/?p=1089 However, it seems that over Christmas, the Vatican had a change of heart, and was prepared to front the UN Committee to answer questions about its role in child abuse matters as a result of the Churchs canon law.

March 10, 2016

Kieran Tapsell. Cardinal Pell and the Churchs Omerta

Cardinal George Pell must now be regretting not having come back to Australia to give his evidence to the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in the relatively small town of Ballarat in the State of Victoria. By claiming that his medical condition did not allow him to travel, and offering to give video evidence in Rome, he has turned his performance in the witness box into a media feast that otherwise might have gone unnoticed in the international press.

August 16, 2017

RICHARD ECKERSLEY. What most concerns us about our personal lives and the societies we live in?

Our quality of life is about much more than our standard of living.

April 18, 2017

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Malcolm Turnbull on superannuation and housing.

But that means nothing to the ideological right, which is now shamelessly defying Turnbull on every level. Naturally Tony Abbott is front and centre of the rebellion, with most of the usual suspects on the backbench.

February 10, 2025

A five-minute scroll

A Palestinian man describes the horror of his Israeli captivity while the BBC questions the president of Israel about the torture and abuse in their prisons. Jeffrey Sachs explains why the US went to war with Iraq in 2003. ABC Insiders uncovers Trump’s plan for Gaza while the King of Jordan says they will never accept the forced displacement of Palestinians.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal