September 4, 2017

LUKE FRASER. Federal Court decision at Port of Newcastle: a failure of bureaucratic leadership.

A recent episode of ABC televisions satire Utopia saw political spivs trying to convince the fictional Nation Building Authority to endorse anti-competitive conditions on a multi-billion-dollar port asset sale. Head of that Authority Tony Woodford - played beautifully by Rob Sitch - resisted valiantly. Shortly thereafter, a newspaper review criticised Utopia thus: the writers ofUtopiamake their point by reducing pivotal players in the policy formation process to idiots. (They) are straw men, delivering obviously untenable arguments, which guide the viewer to thinkno one in government knows what they are talking about. It’s a lazy critique, but the writers get away with it because the viewers are entirely sympathetic. Lampooning “those clowns in Canberra” is hardly a controversial undertaking. If only that sniffy assessment were accurate.

December 10, 2016

TIM WOODRUFF. How universal healthcare is being undermined.

October 22, 2019

ANDREW FARRAN. Brexit and Britain: A strange state of affairs indeed

Brexit is again on the cusp. Boris Johnsons lowest common denominator Withdrawal Agreement (WA2) is before the Parliament either for a meaningful vote or for a Second Reading as a Bill. Whether passed as a meaningful vote, it cannot of itself secure Brexit as that is conditional on the passage of separate and complex enabling legislation which may be subject to amendment and may take a long time to enact. If however Boris chooses to crash out regardless and take his chances with regard to Parliament and the law, Britain will be in a turbulent state as never before.

September 4, 2014

Tony Smith. The failure of imagination

Australia has rushed to despatch even more armaments into the already troubled areas contested by men of violence across Iraq and Syria. It is clear that once again, our national government has assumed that this action is necessary and unavoidable. In reality, there are always choices and it is disappointing that the Coalition has failed to imagine any alternative to an escalation of warfare.

The Government line is reminiscent of the disastrous entry to the invasion of Iraq a decade ago. Minsters argued that Australia had to do something about the regime of Saddam Hussein, but the only thing on their minds was military action. We went to war then with inadequate information, and in some respects totally inaccurate information, particularly about the so-called weapons of mass destruction. The intelligence services are expensive financially and their cultural threats to civil liberties both here and abroad make their failures doubly tragic. Why, if we make such sacrifices of national sovereignty to be kept well informed by the big players in the USA and Europe, did we not see the need to take some lower level of action over the rise of ISIS during the last two years?

August 29, 2016

ALISON BROINOWSKI. A Foreign Affairs White Paper. What is there to inquire about?

We have just had a Federal election, so now the inquiry season has begun. The government already has a Royal Commission inquiring into the detention of children in the Northern Territory, it wants a plebiscite on gay marriage, the inquiry into institutional child abuse is still running, and the Opposition wants one on the banks.

September 30, 2016

JOHN AUSTEN. Urban rail projects: property developers should be servants not masters

There is plenty of advice on how to plug the supposed infrastructure gap in Australias big cities. One popular idea is for passenger rail projects to be led and funded by property development. [1]

The idea has intuitive appeal. The origins of some railways many years ago was land development. Land use has been put as the sine qua non for major rail projects, recently via agglomeration theory. The idea would be a step towards the holy-grail of integrating the yin of land use and the yang of transport planning.

Yet caution is needed. There were reasons why privately led railways fell out of favour.

March 13, 2013

The Power of the Gambling and Liquor Complexes. John Menadue

I remember speaking many years ago to an old friend, Justice Xavier Connor, after he had completed an enquiry for the Victorian Government on a possible casino in Melbourne. He recommended against it.

He said John, gambling and casinos everywhere in the world attract criminals and organised crime. It is like bees around a honeypot. Criminals are naturally attracted to gambling and casinos.

We have had warnings that the gambling industry has enormous power and influence. Look how easily it ran off the rails the attempts by Andrew Wilkie and Nick Xenophon to curb problem gambling in licensed premises in Australia.

March 29, 2014

Chris Geraghty. Farewell to Pell

It was sad and painful, and no satisfaction, sitting at home in front of a computer, watching a senior prelate stagger around, wounded and bleeding. I sat glued to the screen, mesmerized, fiercely proud of our legal system, and watched a prince of the Church in humble street-clothes being tormented.

George Pell, Cardinal Archbishop, sat there day after day, an image of King Lear, a broken man, weary, slow and incompetent, a man who had spent his life climbing the greasy clerical pole, now at the tail-end of his life, being forced to answer questions and to confront his conscience, summoning hollow logic to assist in his defence, thrashing about blaming others, constructing academic distinctions, trying to exculpate himself and deflect the load which will inevitably be heaped upon him. His private secretary, Dr Casey, Mr John Davoren, the elderly man and ex-priest who used to be in charge of the healing service of the archdiocese, and Monsignor Brian Rayner, his former chancellor all muddlers, all incompetent and unable to provide an accurate version of events, while he was macro-managing the show with his hands off the wheel. The board of any public company would have long since called for the resignation of its CEO.

January 20, 2017

PETER DAY. Kyrgios: the anti-hero

Like the rest of us, Nick needs time: time to mature; time to know himself; and time to sort out the wheat from the chaff as regards the latter, I think hes already worked out that the media is mostly full of chaff and dont the media hate it, love it, know it, resent it, milk it.

November 21, 2015

Lesley Russell Too high: the impact of specialists fees on patients health

In todays health care debates around the centrality of primary care, moving towards patient-centred medical homes, improving care coordination for people with chronic illnesses and whether private health insurance provides value for money, there is one element that is almost always missing the role and the costs of specialist services.

In 2014 over 28 million specialist services were billed to Medicare and 21 million of these were for out-of-hospital services. Only 30% of these services were bulk billed, and the average out-of-pocket cost for the remaining 70% of services was $70.89. However gaps of several hundred dollars are not uncommon.

November 30, 2016

Castro's legacy. Cuba's achievements in health have been remarkable.

In the article from The Lancet, Arjun Suri points out that despite spending one tenth per capita of what the US spends on health, Cuba’s infant mortality rate is better than the US and that the two countries have equivalent life expectancy.

April 26, 2016

Mungo MacCallum. So that was the week that wasnt.

We were promised drama and suspense, the start of a massive showdown in the senate over the Building and Construction Commission bill, a clash of egos leaving us wondering how and when it would end.

And we were hoping for some action in the House of Representatives, too the session might be rudely truncated, but both government and opposition would set the pre-election scene by belting each other with hyperbole over the atrocities of the unions and the banks respectively and there might also have been some discussion of Arthur Sinodinos and his role in Liberal Party funding.

April 17, 2015

Alex Wodak. The toxic combination of illicit drugs and politics: Australia confronts ice

John Ehrlichman, the Watergate conspirator, claimed to have come up with the idea of waging a war on drugs while he was a member of President Nixons Committee for the Re-Election of the President, wonderfully referred to as CREEP. The aim, Ehrlichman told Nixon, was to ensure that the elderly wealthy white voters who turned out in such large numbers to vote for Nixon in 1968 would turn out again in 1972 on polling day. The plan was to appeal to their contempt for the young, poor and black using illicit drugs as the perfect dog whistle. Despite the albatross of the Vietnam War hanging around his neck in 1972, Nixon won 49 of the 50 states in a landslide victory. Politicians around the world took note. An electoral magic pudding had just been discovered.

July 26, 2013

Asylum seeker saga continues. Guest Blogger: Marcus Einfeld

The saga proceeds in relation to people seeking refugee asylum in our country. The latest contribution in these last few days is that we should seek changes in the UN Refugee Convention because circumstances have changed since it was introduced after WWII. The label economic migrants is being resurrected as a reason for refusing refugee asylum to thousands of people protected by the Convention.

The idea that this situation can be dealt with by negotiating amendments to the Refugee Convention is fatuous. The chances of serious changes being achieved in the lifetimes of the currently displaced asylum seekers and their children, if ever, are non-existent. So is a new Convention. Many years of discussions in Geneva and elsewhere about the possible need to review the Convention in certain respects, in which I played a small part, actually produced proposals for its strengthening, not its weakening to relieve countries like Australia from its humanitarian obligations to provide rescue and relief of people fleeing terror and persecution, and yes, the consequent economic hardship that physical displacement always causes.

December 19, 2015

How a photographer of refugees finds the stories that get left behind.

‘I feel an obligation to give something back to the people I photograph.’

See link to stories and photos from the Huffington Post.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/alessandro-penso-interview_5672f66fe4b0648fe3028939?ir=World%253Fncid%253Dnewsltushpmg00000003

December 8, 2015

John Menadue. Malcolm Turnbull on climate change.

Since he became Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull has committed himself to Tony Abbotts policies on climate change. He supports Direct Action. He supports the Abbott governments carbon reduction targets. At the Paris Conference, the Turnbull government reaffirmed its commitment to the fuel rebate subsidy for miners. It plans to double coal exports.

In his blog on 7 December 2009, after he was dumped as Leader of the Liberal Party, Malcolm Turnbull said:

September 9, 2019

ANDREW FARRAN. Brexit a reconfiguration of British politics

It is not new news that British politics are fragmenting. What we cant be sure about is how the political lines may permanently be redrawn. How might the two main drivers, Brexit and the next General Election (if and when held), impact on the process and determine political outcomes for the foreseeable future?

June 11, 2016

EVAN WILLIAMS. Who do the Liberals hate most in this election?

In our brave new world of digital gadgetry, awash with empty slogans and blighted by ever-shrinking attention spans, is there any prospect of rational political debate in this election? A pervading mood of paranoia seems to be the new norm. Who do the Liberals hate most in this campaign? Bill Shorten? The unions? The Greens? The left-wing media? In varying degrees they detest them all. But no organisation arouses deeper contempt in conservative breasts greater fear and loathing, more paranoid suspicion and distrust than the ABC.

November 30, 2013

Pope Francis's Synod. Guest blogger: Eric Hodgens

The new Pope Francis has caught the eye of the world. Many people with Catholic friends know that there are two Catholic Churches in the world today one of the popes and the Pells, the other of the rank and file Catholics and their priests. The first is doctrinaire. The second makes adjustments to doctrine and rules as required.

The Churchs central vision is one of life, forgiveness and hope. But in recent years this has been smothered by its pope and bishops preoccupation with todays hot ethical issues abortion, sexuality (including homosexuality), medical technology, divorce and gender. This has undermined the churchs credibility because all of these issues are in play except within the ranks of a hierarchy. Then Pope Francis came along. He is aware that these issues are personal and pressing and all under debate. He has changed the focus of the discussion from ideology to pastoral practice. We know the rules and doctrine, he says, but how do you handle the pastoral question in the lives of real people?

November 24, 2016

GRAHAM FREUDENBERG. The travesty of Britains greatest legacy parliamentary government

To my generation which saw the almost bloodless collapse of the Soviet Union, Trumps election is small beer in the scale of improbabilities. But the combination of Trump and Brexit, so improbable scarcely a year ago, raises a more astonishing proposition.

It is that so much of our hopes for stability and the success of Western liberalism should now centre so largely on Germany! The question can even be put in the terms Disraeli used in 1871, after the Franco-Prussian war and Bismarcks Proclamation of the German Empire in the Palace of Versailles:Is it to be a European Germany or a German Europe?

July 9, 2016

PAUL COLLINS. How powerful is Pell in Australia?

The papacy only gained complete power over the appointment of bishops in the mid-19th century; its that recent. Previously many different systems operated, but the key issue was that the local church had a major say in who was appointed bishop, even if it was only the local lord or king. Nowadays episcopal appointments result from a closed, opaque process in which all power is held by the Vatican and hardly any by the local church. The result: some very poor appointments.

August 30, 2016

MEREDITH BURGMANN. ASIO and dirty secrets.

In commenting this week, Meredith Burgmann said that ‘my view is that the stories in my book (Dirty Secrets: Our ASIO Files. New South Wales Publishing, Sydney 2014) collectively represent ASIO as being improper, incompetent, irrelevant, inappropriate and intrusive.’

The following are extracts from her book.

December 23, 2014

Pope Francis sharply criticises Vatican bureaucracy.

In his pre-Christmas address to Cardinals, Pope Francis referred to a Curia that is outdated, sclerotic or indifferent to others. He said that the Curia, the administrative pinnacle of the Roman Catholic Church was suffering from fifteen ailments which he wanted cured in the new year. See link below for Pope Francis’ comments to the Curia. John Menadue.

http://www.news.va/en/news/francis-a-curia-that-is-outdated-sclerotic-or-indi

May 2, 2025

How credible are the Coalition’s budget projections?

The Coalition’s costings finally reveal that in the next two years it will have a bigger deficit than Labor. In the second half of the four-year projection, the forecast net positive impact from the Coalition’s policy changes is questionable.

March 22, 2017

DAVID JAMES. Penalty rate cuts are the result of thinking small

Australia is showing signs of contracting the American disease of rising inequality, which will ultimately spill over into low growth, especially when the effect of high household indebtedness has its inevitable dampening effect.In the last quarter of 2016 GDP growth was strong and corporate profits jumped 20.1 per cent. But wages and salaries actually went down 0.5 per cent on a seasonally adjusted basis.

April 25, 2015

John Tulloh. Gallipoli: Lest we forget the British promise to the Indians.

One hundred years on, many Australians probably still regard the Gallipoli campaign as an event involving only Australia and, to a lesser extent, New Zealand. We hear mainly legends, tales of derring-do, myths and maudlin sentimentality about the Australians who fought there. We hear next to nothing about the others who also participated in this futile exercise.

It was, of course, an international campaign led by Britain and France. They suffered more deaths than the Anzacs. As a German general commanding a Turkish division observed: Seldom have so many countries of the world, races and nations sent their representatives to so small a place with the praiseworthy intention of killing one another. That amounted to about 130,000 on both sides.

February 24, 2020

MUNGO MACCALLUM. The balancing act is becoming more precarious.

We can no longer pretend that Australia is not largely dependent on our great northern neighbour,its physical and economic health and crucially, its goodwill.

February 24, 2017

DOUG CAMERON. Commonwealth can, and must, do more on housing and homelessness

The failure of the market to provide housing for all who need it is compounded by several political failures.

June 21, 2016

Bill Shorten is right: Malcolm Turnbull is a major threat to Medicare

Labor appears to have rediscovered old values, while the Liberals dont appear changed one bit. Ian McAuley explains the mire that is the fresh debate on the future of Medicare.

April 10, 2017

ROSS BURNS. After Khan Sheikhun

The 4 April attack on Khan Sheikhun using CW (chemical warfare) weapons was almost certainly the work of Bashar al-Assads regime. This is the only explanation which ticks off all the boxesmeans, motive and opportunity. The hastily assembled US retaliatory attack on the Syrian air base at Shayrat near Homs, however, might not have been particularly effective in addressing the problem of residual nerve agents in the hands of the Syrian regime.

March 28, 2016

Garry Woodard. Should Australia do more on the South China Sea?

No. The Prime Ministers statement in regards to the Middle East that this is not the time for gestures or machismo applies in spades to what we do in the South China Sea. Australia should act prudently and, though some will see this as a contradiction, transparently and after full parliamentary and public debate.

Australias relative propinquity gives us an interest in the outcome of the territorial disputes between countries in the South China Sea, but will our interest in seeing a peaceful resolution be helped or harmed by introducing an Australian naval presence? As Australia already has a naval presence in the North China Sea, and northwest Cape supports intelligence collection there, are we not bound to see the China Sea as a strategic whole? Is this not the strategic perception of the US Seventh Fleet?

September 1, 2018

GABRIELLE CHAN. Climate change making drought worse, farmers' federation chief says.

Fiona Simson says people have been tiptoeing around the subject for too long and it is time for a national strategy.

June 9, 2017

GEORGE BROWNING. Monotheism, Terrorism and Injustice

I want to reflect on the unspeakably appalling terror events that have occurred recently in Afghanistan, Iraq, Manchester, London, Melbourne and Tehran in the light of monotheistic religion and the ethical requirements that flow from it.

May 20, 2016

JOHN MENADUE. Bamboo ceiling and the old boys club. Our business sector is not equiping itself for our future in Asia.

For three decade James Ruse High School in NSW and similar high schools around Australia have been dominating Higher School Certificate results. And according to the NSW Education Department 80% of these top students come from a background other than English with most coming from Asian Backgrounds

But despite this remarkable record few of these students make it to the top in business, political or academic life. They may be regarded as intelligent and hardworking but what is holding them back in mainstream organizations in Australia?

October 4, 2024

A five-minute scroll

Al Jazeera has produced a documentary of graphic war crimes, academic Seyed Mohammad Marandi receives death threats after setting Sky News straight, reports that Hezbollah had agreed to a ceasefire before Nasrallah assassination, Jayson Gillham takes a stand against the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, and more war crimes. Our five-minute scroll on X.

March 29, 2017

KELLIE TRANTER. Unreasonable silence

So what are we left with?The burial of truth. A closed bloc hunkered down in Canberra who conceal information and who fail to condemn the loss of life of innocents at the hands of either our country or our allies, and who are cut off from the consequences of their own cruelty, stupidity and collaboration. Defence personnel who no longer fight for a better future for Australians.

April 25, 2017

The Anzac Myth

Conservatives and militarists want us to cling to a disastrous imperial war. They encourage us to focus on how our soldiers fought in order to avoid the central issue of why we fought.

August 22, 2016

PETER GIBILISCO. Some key ideas for the next generation of disability activists.

1. Meritocracy

Meritocracy is a belief that seems to me to still be alive and well in the senior management of disability support. It also seems to drive many aspects of public policy, particularly when appeals are made to equal opportunity.

Advocates of a meritocratic approach to disability policy are still assuming that the base-line principle should be that people get out of the system what they put into it. That is why they seek to remove any barriers to people with disabilities putting in. It is a political vision often articulated in terms of free market principles that wants a future based on merit. Hence meritocracy (rule by those who gain merit) and is an alternative toaristocracy (the rule by those who inherit land), or more recently to a class-based luck of being born in the right place at the right time. But in 1998, Michael Young argued in an article titled_Meritocracy Revisited,_meritocracy is even worse than aristocracy because it attempts to acquire plus points because it connotes power and privilege as merited rather than born with.

February 14, 2017

KAREN WILLIS AND SOPHIE LEWIS. Increased private health insurance premiums don't mean increased value.

A topic of discussion at many barbecues this summer will inevitably be private health insurance. Is it worth it? Do we need it? Every year it gets more expensive. The average 4.8% increase in premiums just announced will have more Australians raising these questions, and debating with their friends how much they value choice of doctor, reduced waiting times for elective surgery, and having a private room when in hospital.

September 27, 2016

JAMES GERRAND. Cambodia Crackdown part 1 of 2

Part 1 Kill a Chicken to Scare the Monkeys

Around my regular haunts in Phnom Penh are daily reminders of Cambodias enduring capacity for political violence: in Kabko market my favourite street restaurant was the scene where political adviser Om Radsady was shot dead in 2003; in a similarly blatant daylight execution, trade union leader Chea Vichea was gunned down in 2004 among the news stands at the end of my street where I buy the Cambodia Daily each morning; and now whenever my tuktuk driver pulls in to the Caltex station on the corner of Mao Tsetung Boulevard, I suppose Ill be forever reminded of Dr. Kem Leys body sprawled dead on the floor of the Caltex convenience store.

September 12, 2016

PETER WHITEFORD & DANIEL NETHERY. Where to for welfare?

The Coalitions proposed budget cuts would have a disproportionate impact on low-income groups, write Peter Whiteford and Daniel Nethery in this detailed analysis for Inside Story.

January 20, 2016

Steve Georgakis. The unholy trinity of sports advertising in Australia - betting agencies, junk food and alcohol.

Why we shouldn’t be surprised that tennis is implicated in match-fixing.

The first day of the Australian Open was marred by revelations alleging widespread match-fixing and cover-ups in mens tennis stretching back more than a decade. World number one Novak Djokovic confirmed he was approached with a reported offer of US$200,000 in 2006 to throw a match.

Hyper-commercialised sport in the 21st century has resulted in a number of benefits for athletes and spectators. Athletes are able to make significant amounts of money; spectators can enjoy excitement of the highest order without having to leave their lounge rooms. But it is nave to think that all changes have been beneficial.

May 17, 2013

Truth, Trust and the Media. John Menadue

Our mainstream media is in a downward spiral. Its decline is driven by new technology and a growing sense by readers that we can no longer trust the media. We have a lot of spin, but very little well-informed debate. Ken Henry has commented that he cant recall a time when public debate was so bad.

An Australian election study 1997/2010 rated trust in the following institutions as follows:

Armed forces 91%
Universities 80%
Police 79%
Banks and financial institutions 56%
Major Australian companies 54%
Political system 53%
Public service 41%
Trade unions 29%
Television and newspapers 17%.

The survey found that the least trusted in the media was talk-back radio.

July 22, 2015

Brian Johnstone. Pope Francis, Laudato Si and Cardinal Pell.

Cardinal George Pell has criticized Pope Francis ground-breaking environmental encyclical. As Pell told the Financial Times on Thursday, July 14, Its got many, many interesting elements. There are parts of it which are beautiful, he said. But the Church has no particular expertise in science the Church has got no mandate from the Lord to pronounce on scientific matters. We believe in the autonomy of science.

In the encyclical Laudato Si Pope Francis engages his readers on three levels; the first is that of science, the second is that of faith and theology the third is that of reasoned ethics.

November 25, 2014

John Menadue. Capitalism, inequality and taxation.

In his challenging series last week on Is capitalism redeemable Ian McAuley drew attention to how growing inequality is the cause not only of serious social concerns, but it is also presenting us with some quite serious economic problems.

There is not much doubt that in the US, the growing tax concessions for the wealthy and the obstacles placed in the path of low income and poor people to organise themselves through trade unions, has had serious economic as well as social consequences. With companies like Walmart paying poverty wages, low income people dont have the money to buy goods and services that businesses would like to sell. And despite US companies and the wealthy being awash with money, particularly as reflected in the buoyant US stock market, business is not investing in new businesses and jobs for the chief reason that the demand is just not there. Inequality is a major economic problem.

December 20, 2016

JOHN MENADUE. Series: We can say 'no' to the Americans. How the Fraser Government said 'no' on Chile and El Salvador.

In 1982, when I was Secretary of the Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs, the Fraser Government ignored the pressure from the US that we should not help people in South America suffering at the hands of US-supported military governments.

October 12, 2018

JOHN TULLOH. The non-great expectations in Saudi Arabia

Perhaps the most masterful PR campaign of international diplomacy this year was the visit to the US of Saudi Arabias Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman commonly known as MBS. He was feted on a two-week coast-to-coast tour by politicians, big business, oil tycoons and the tech industry. President Trump fawned over him with a photographic display of the billions of dollars of American weaponry the Saudis were buying. Just peanuts to you, said Trump with some admiration. The media lined up like drooling supplicants. The main reason was that they all thought the new ruler of Saudi Arabia in all but name was a reformist who would steer the theocratic kingdom into the sunlit world of freedom and democracy.

September 4, 2017

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Business people and trade unionists.

Not only has the debt and deficit emergency ballooned and productivity stalled, but the mantra of Jobs and Growth, which Turnbull still insists is not a slogan but an outcome, has signally failed to deliver.

December 6, 2013

Being in Government is different to being in Opposition. John Menadue

Tony Abbott is being mugged by the reality of Government and how he manages day to day events. He has very little of a developed policy framework on which to draw.

In Opposition, Tony Abbott was adept at the political one-liners stop the boats, axe the tax, reduce the deficit and pay back the debt. There was not a great deal of policy to back up this political rhetoric. We are now seeing that day after day with one blunder after another.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal