August 2, 2016

WALTER HAMILTON. Tokyo’s First Female Governor, and the disturbing state of Japanese politics.

The victory of 64-year-old Yuriko Koike in last weekend’s Tokyo gubernatorial election tells us a lot about the disturbing state of Japanese politics.

Hailing from the right wing of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party, Koike holds views on constitutional change, school textbook revision and other contentious issues that line up with those of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. How, then, did she manage to present herself to the electorate as a maverick, non-mainstream candidate and, despite claiming to be ‘fighting alone’, run the slickest campaign of all?

Seeking an answer, we need to recap events of recent years.

November 30, 2014

Michael Kelly SJ. Phillip Hughes: reality bites

Seeing Australia from outside the island continent offers some very strange views from time to time. The outpouring of grief over the tragic accident that took the talented life of cricketer Phillip Hughes went global within a very short time.

The home of cricket – England – was profuse in the time devoted to this sad event. While he was in hospital, Phillip Hughes was part of hourly bulletins on the BBC. On the day Hughes was declared dead, the BBC gave a full quarter hour of coverage from England and Australia involving players, administrators, medical doctors, sports physicians and engineers who design helmets. And all in prime time.

January 2, 2019

PETER SAINSBURY. Labor’s environmental policies: will the action match the rhetoric?

The ALP has released details of the environmental policies they will introduce if elected during 2019. Central to these are a new Australian Environment Act and a new Federal Environmental Protection Agency. Labor’s challenge will be to provide national leadership to tackle the wide range of environmental threats to human health and survival, while giving businesses the policy certainty they need but not the free-passes some want.

February 10, 2015

Chris Bonnor. School funding and achievement: following the money trail

The recurrent expenditure on school education in Australia is over 44 billion dollars, around 36 billion of this provided by governments. These are considerable sums, more often than not expressed as a cost rather than an investment – especially when it doesn’t always seem to deliver noticeable improvements in student results.

But a closer look at where the money goes and what it delivers reveals many surprises. Schools are expensive places, some far more than others. But in recent years the biggest funding increases have gone to the most advantaged schools - and there is scant evidence of any difference in student results.

October 20, 2016

TONY KEVIN. Clinton-Putin-Trump: foreign policy dimensions of the final debate.

There is no doubt that Hillary Clinton trumped her contender on domestic economic and social policy issues, migration, and proper respect for women. She has neutralised the personal emails and Clinton Foundation questions. Barring the unforeseeable, she will cruise to victory next month.

On foreign policy, her words and what she left unsaid left many important questions: and Trump more often found himself on the right side of the foreign policy argument, for those who follow these things. Such debates proceed according to a free flow of their own and important issues easily get submerged and diverted as the caravan rapidly moves on. Here are my notes for what they are worth.

April 20, 2014

Kieran Tapsell. The war on drugs.

Juan Gabriel Vásquez, El Espectador, Colombia, 20 December 2013, http://www.elespectador.com/opinion/esta-babilonia-nuestra-columna-465199

Summary: The so called “War on Drugs” is an American invention from the time of Nixon. It has been a spectacular and costly failure. But the Puritans in the Americas do not want to even discuss the subject.

A year and a half ago, President Santos of Colombia said to Obama that the 40 year war on drugs had failed, and that perhaps it was time to look for alternatives.

April 20, 2014

John Menadue. The media, our region and the PM's visit.

The Prime Minister’s visit to Japan, the Republic of Korea and China, highlighted for me the problems of media reporting and understanding our region.

I have posted blogs on our media. See April 17, 2013, ‘Media failure: the tale of two bombings in two cities’; May 17, 2013, ‘Truth, trust and the media’ and January 31, 2014, ‘Murdoch and Abbott versus the ABC’. I posted a blog on April 10 this year, specifically on Tony Abbott’s visit to Japan and the political shortcomings of Free Trade Agreements which usually have more hype than substance. That continues to be the case.

January 27, 2024

Ignore Israel’s spin: ICJ HAS ordered a ceasefire – and much more than a ceasefire

Desperate damage control by genocidal regime can’t hide the facts – the ICJ has gone well beyond a mere ceasefire: Israel has been ordered to protect Palestinians in Gaza, not just stop shooting at them.

October 9, 2015

Bob Kinnaird. 750,000 temporary residents with work rights.

The recent Fairfax/ABC Four Corners reports exposing widespread exploitation and wage abuse of overseas students and other visa workers in 7-11 stores, horticulture and other sectors have been justly applauded as outstanding examples of investigative journalism.

Their impact has been immediate, forcing 7-11 to set up an independent investigation panel chaired by Alan Fels and 7-11 chairman Mr Russ Withers to resign.

The latest Fairfax report was titled ‘The Precariat’ (SMH, 3 October 2015). The term combines ‘precarious’ and ‘proletariat’ and was coined by British economist Guy Standing. It means broadly workers reliant on transitory and insecure work, though not necessarily low-skill.

September 8, 2015

Michael Kelly SJ. The challenge of people movements.

Great as the gesture of Pope Francis is to mobilize parishes in Europe to accommodate the influx of tens of thousands of asylum seekers from the Middle East (they call them migrants), the problem is more complex than offering immediate support to needy people. The Pope knows that. He’s said so many times.

The Pope is drawing a line in the sand. He will be called naïve and “grandstanding". In a world where 60 million of the 7.3 billion humans on the planet are displaced, the cliché about protecting borders isn’t adequate to the challenge that confronts humanity now.

February 22, 2016

Jenny Hocking. ‘The Governor-General, the Palace and the Dismissal of Gough Whitlam: The Mysterious Case of “the Palace Letters”’

The dismissal of the Whitlam government by the Governor-General, Sir John Kerr, was marked by secrecy and collusion on a scale that has only recently been uncovered. Its history has been no different. From the outset we were treated to a carefully constructed narrative that masked the Governor-General’s secret collusion with members of the High Court, with the leader of the Opposition, Malcolm Fraser, and his acknowledged deception of Whitlam regarding the half-Senate election that Whitlam was set to announce on the afternoon of 11 November 1975.

February 23, 2016

Tessa Morris-Suzuki. The ever-shifting sands of Japanese apologies

On 16 February, Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida signed a ‘Strategy for Co-operation in the Pacific’, in which both countries emphasised their shared values of ‘democracy, human rights and the rule of law’

As they were doing so, Japanese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Shinsuke Sugiyama was in Geneva addressing a meeting of the UN committee which oversees the implementation of one of the world’s key human rights accords: the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). On the agenda was the Japanese government’s treatment of the problems of memory, justice and redress arising from the imperial military’s mass recruitment of women (the so-called ‘comfort women’) to military brothels during the Pacific War.

April 1, 2014

Walter Hamilton. The guts of a Free Trade Agreement with Japan.

Dolphin-culling and free trade agreements represent opposite sides of the coin of the relationship between Australia and Japan. Both are currently in the news, with Sea Shepherd activists hounding the fishermen of Taiji (where the documentary ‘The Cove’ was filmed) and Australian cattle producers in Tokyo trying to break down the last obstacle to a bilateral FTA. More than that, the two issues encapsulate the divided response among many in the West to Japan as a backward and insular nation, on the one hand, and a modern, global partner on the other.

February 23, 2018

GARY JOHNSTON. The Future Submarine: a technical problem

It is nearly two years since the government announced that the Shortfin Barracuda, to be designed and built by the French company, Naval Group, would be Australia’s future submarine (FSM). The proposed acquisition remains controversial. As an Australian citizen who has observed over many years the ongoing waste and incompetence exhibited in many Defence acquisitions, I have been concerned since the outset at the huge cost and immense risks around the FSM project. In this article, I describe what may be a major technical error on the part of the Defence department, with potentially far reaching consequences.

February 22, 2016

Evan Williams. Film review. 'Trumbo' (M)

Everyone remembers Psycho, in which Anthony Perkins played a knife-wielding weirdo obsessed with his dead mother, and most of us remember Rambo, in which Sylvester Stallone played a super-patriot action-hero fighting for truth, justice and the American way. We all know about Romeo, and some of us will remember Dumbo, Disney’s animated baby elephant with the big ears. But Trumbo? He’s not exactly a household name, and unless you’re something of a film buff you may never have heard of him. Trumbo is the hero of Trumbo, a wholly absorbing film from Hollywood director Jay Roach.

February 23, 2018

ANDREW GLIKSON. The price of the Earth.

“Dear Caesar, Keep burning, raping and killing, but please, please spare us your obscene poetry and ugly music” (From Seneca’s last letter to Nero).

Astrophysicist Greg Laughlin came up with a figure of €3000 trillion for the worth of planet Earth, given its breathable atmosphere—a shield from cosmic radiation. A close estimate is by Greg Laughlin at US$5000 trillion. By contrast Mars is estimated as a modest $16,000 while Venus is dismissed at about a penny (https://www.treehugger.com/natural-sciences/new-formula-values-earth-at -50000000000000.html). Far from a joke, such estimates symbolize the religious worship of money, the loss of reverence toward nature and life and the reality of the Faustian Bargain in the roots of the seventh mass extinction of species. Once a species has acquired the power to destroy its environment, the species needs to be perfectly wise and in control if it is to survive.

February 23, 2018

Weatherill: Why state election will be a referendum on renewables

South Australia Premier Jay Weatherill might not be able to see much daylight between his Labor Party and the rival Liberals and SA Best, but he’s certainly making sure there is a big difference between his energy policy and those of the Opposition and the upstart party of Nick Xenophon.

June 19, 2016

JOHN MENADUE. Privatisation and the hollowing out of Medicare

Malcolm Turnbull says that the Coalition will ‘never, ever, privatise Medicare’. Given the wide public support for Medicare and Malcolm Turnbull’s way with words his attempted rebuttal is not surprising.

But the Coalition has been eroding Medicare from within for a decade and a half since John Howard. The vehicle for this erosion is private health insurance (PHI) and the government is facilitating this process with the $11 billion p.a. taxpayer funded subsidy to support private health insurance.

And the ALP does not seem to care. It scarcely ever mentions the damage of PHI. Is it scared of this vested interest?

April 1, 2014

Eric Hodgens. A new moral compass

The Church is not the best guide to moral values. That is the response of some Catholics to the questionnaire which the Vatican sent out in preparation for the October Synod of Bishops. Many practising Catholics do not agree with the official opinions of the Pope on moral rules associated with marriage and sexuality.

The disagreement list is long:

No living together before marriage;
No sexual activity except between a man and a woman officially married in the Church;
No contraception;
No masturbation;
No civil marriages or partnerships;
No re-marriage after divorce;
No sexual activity by homosexuals;
No homosexual partnerships, let alone marriage;
No IVF;
No refusal of sex to a reasonable request from a marriage partner;

Many Catholics would say that they used to believe everything on the list was wrong; but not now. The times have changed. Implicit in this is the judgement that what is right and wrong is determined not by the Church but by the surrounding culture. That’s why it changes.

April 13, 2013

Post card from Kyoto

Kyoto is both an historic and beautiful city. Fortunately it was spared allied bombing during the last war.

When our family first visited Kyoto and other parts of Japan in the 1960’s the exchange rate was about 400yen to the Australian dollar. It made for not only wonderful holidays, but cheap holidays as well. We usually stayed at Japanese minshuku for less than $A 10 for dinner, bed and breakfast for an adult.

May 4, 2014

Walter Hamilton. Yasukuni Shrine and why it matters.

Yasukuni–Japan’s Patriotic Lightning Rod

The Shinto shrine known as Yasukuni sprawls over ten hectares in the centre of Tokyo near the northern edge of the Imperial Palace grounds. Here are enshrined 2.47 million ‘deities’––the spirits of Japanese military personnel and civilians on war service from conflicts going back to 1853, including around 1,000 convicted war criminals. To its critics, Yasukuni is a bastion of historical revisionism, which denies that Japan waged a war of aggression between 1937 and 1945. Visits to the shrine by senior members of the government are an ongoing source of friction with China and South Korea.

December 4, 2013

Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. John Menadue

On December 9 the Royal Commission will commence public hearings into the role of the Catholic Church in Australia on this issue. Francis Sullivan the Executive Director of the Truth Justice and Healing Council of the Catholic Church said on 3 December that “Catholics and non-Catholics will be shocked and disillusioned when they hear the details of the four Queensland based case studies and how the Catholic Church handled the cases and treated the victims”.

October 3, 2014

David Stephens. Is this justifiable delicacy or insidious censorship?

The Battle of Bita Paka occurred in then German New Guinea on 11 September 1914. It saw the deaths of the first six Australians killed in the Great War, as well as the deaths of a German officer and 30 Melanesian soldiers. It was really a series of skirmishes rather than a battle.

On the eve of the centenary of the ‘battle’ the ABC presented evidence that the German and the Melanesians had been massacred by Australian troops. Two historians with relevant expertise were more cautious and readers of the Daily Telegraph were outraged. In the absence of further research it is difficult to know what happened at Bita Paka. Of immediate interest though are the remarks of the Minister for the Centenary of Anzac, Senator Ronaldson:

July 26, 2016

JOHN DWYER. Medicare and the 45th Parliament.

Clearly the future of Medicare was the election issue of greatest importance for most Australians. Community concern was focussed on the possibility that the primary care they receive from their general practitioner might be privatised such that a superior service would be available to those who paid more, either directly or though the extension of private hospital insurance to allow for coverage of GP services. This was never going to happen but its important to understand what it was that had stimulated discussion of the possibility. Private health insurers, who are not permitted to cover services provided with Medicare dollars, are frustrated as community health services are not reducing the number of their insured who need hospital care. Many insurers see 60-70% of their costs generated by 5-10% of their insured who need frequent stays in hospital. As there is much evidence that primary care systems elsewhere are better than us at reducing the incidence of hospital care, they would like to provide these superior services to those they insure. To do so would cost a fraction of the expense needed for hospital care.

April 26, 2016

John Menadue. Defence White Paper. US, China and Barracuda – class submarines.

Rather than acquiring military off-the-shelf (MOTS) submarines, the Australian government has committed us to the French submarine that will be built to Australian specifications. It will be a ‘unique’ build, non-nuclear and very expensive

The Defence Minister says that the Barracuda submarine will meet Australian Government ‘requirements for a submarine with considerable range and the capacity to remain undisturbed and undetected for extended periods’.

The government hopes that this submarine will be able to operate in the South China Sea without running unacceptable risks for the crews lives,

June 25, 2024

After 13 years, Julian Assange walks free

Julian Assange is expected to be in Australia late tomorrow, a free man.

July 26, 2016

PETER DAY. The Lord’s Prayer: beyond lip service

Diego’s phone rang, said the voice in Spanish ‘I am Pope Francis’.

“Our Father in heaven; hallowed be your name …”

How well we know these words - perhaps too well as they slip off our tongues like a perfunctory “How are you going?”

March 3, 2016

Terry Laidler. What George Pell Might Have Said

What George Pell Might Have Said

Meanwhile, in a parallel universe …

“Your Honour

Please could I start by making a statement that I hope will help the Commission and that I pray will give some solace to so many people I now know to have been traumatised by abuse suffered on an horrendous scale.

I have no wish to put people who say they told me about sexual abuse that was occurring in a position where their recollections need to be tested in minute detail against mine. They have gone long enough with their voices not being heard by powerful figures in the Church and in society generally. I can accept that, despite differences of recollection between me and some of them, there is already enough evidence before the Commission that many tried to tell me from the time I was a junior priest in Ballarat and that I seemed to them to be dismissive or lacked compassion or took no action. For that, I apologise to them profusely: I did not do enough and more people were abused by the same priests and brothers complained about.

March 2, 2016

David Isaacs. As bad as Guantanamo

If I liken the immigration detention centres on Nauru and Manus Island to the US facility on Guantanamo Bay, even passionate advocates for those seeking asylum such as human rights lawyer Julian Burnside dismiss my concerns: “Oh we’re not as bad as that.” I will argue that we are indeed as bad as that, possibly worse.

Many people fleeing persecution to seek asylum have been subjected to psychological trauma in the countries they are fleeing and in the often highly traumatic journeys they take to reach ‘freedom’. However, people seeking asylum who are subjected to prolonged immigration detention are significantly more likely to suffer severe mental health problems than people seeking asylum who are not detained. Furthermore, the incidence of mental health problems increases with duration of incarceration. The United Nations defines torture as “…any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions”. Since prolonged detention without trial is unlawful under international law, Australia’s immigration detention policy clearly fulfils the key elements of the UN definition.

March 5, 2018

DAVID ZYNGIER. Spending more on private schools doesn't guarantee success!

It is often claimed as fact that private schools outperform public schools. New analysis of MySchool data and 2017 Victorian Certificate of Education year 12 results shows that public schools with similar Index of Community Socio-Educational Advantage (ICSEA) rankings or Socio-Economic Status have very similar or even better VCE results than private schools. However, these public schools achieve these results with far less funding per student.

October 14, 2013

The eye of the needle, politicians, and Confucius. Guest blogger: Milton Moon

Milton Moon is an eminent Australian potter. A Master of Australian Craft.

My current reading is dominated by the superb collected essays of Simon Leys, under the title The Hall of Uselessness. (An indication of just how small the world has become it was recommended to me by a Jewish friend, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst living in New York who also uses Zen meditation as part of his therapy.)

For those who don’t know, Simon Leys is the pen-name of Belgium-born Pierre Ryckmans, a sinologist and long-time resident of Australia. In the 1970‘s he taught Chinese literature at the Australian National University, and later was Professor of Chinese Studies at Sydney University. He lives in Canberra.)

March 2, 2016

What has gone wrong with Malcolm Turnbull's NBN?

In a column in The Drum on the ABC, Paddy Manning comments that

‘Malcolm Turnbull’s version of the NBN is proving to be much more expensive to deliver than was originally hoped. Remember that the only merit of Turnbull’s “multi-technology mix” (MTM) was that it would be cheaper to build …’

See link to article below:

http://ab.co/1Sef8pS

January 8, 2016

Edmund Campion. Homily for the funeral service of Brian Johns.

Family, friends, colleagues of Brian Johns.

The other morning, after Brian had died, it came to me, so this is the end of a conversation that endured for more than sixty years. Then I recalled that one name had dominated our earliest talks together, all those years ago, the name of Dorothy Day. Dorothy Day? Who was she? She was an American Catholic radical who, when she died in 1980, was given lengthy obituaries in The New York Times, The New York Review of Books and all the other leading papers. A significant figure in American culture. I can tell you her life in one sentence: she believed literally in those words of the Lord Jesus I have just read from the 25th chapter of Matthew’s Gospel: feed the hungry; give a drink to the thirsty; clothe the naked; give the poor a home; visit them when they’re in hospital or prison. It’s Christianity in its purest form. So during the Great Depression she did just that; set up houses of hospitality (as she called them) where the poor could find a home and food and drink, houses of hospitality that spread across the United States; she started a monthly paper, The Catholic Worker and a movement around it. She did jail time for protesting against American militarism and promoted an ethic that said everyone was worthwhile. Dorothy Day.

March 2, 2016

Evan Williams. Oscars and other frivolities

My vote for best performance by an actor in this year’s Oscars goes to Leonardo DiCaprio – not for his much-touted appearance in The Revenant, but for his rousing speech at the presentation ceremony. I don’t know if he scripted it himself – if he did he deserved a screenplay Oscar as well – but I rate it the most powerful contribution to the climate debate delivered from a public platform in recent memory. His passionate plea to “save the planet” drew cheers from the crowd. Yes, I know showbiz luvvies tend to be self-indulgent lefties and climate alarmists, but what an audience he had! By all accounts he was heard by 80 million people around the globe. What politician could wish for more?

September 19, 2013

Frontier War and asylum seekers. John Menadue

Launch of the 2013-14 Catholic Social Justice Statement by John Menadue 11 September 2013

This statement follows the proud tradition of the Catholic Church in Australia since 1940 of calling Catholics and all Australians to act for social justice. The 65 statements issued over the years cover a great range of social justice issues – poverty, violence, peace, environment, indigenous people, ageing and inequality. Many years ago GK Chesterton referred with admiration to the practice of Australian Catholics in their Justice Sundays and annual statements.

March 2, 2016

John Tulloh. Springtime - the season of alarm and disharmony in Europe.

United in diversity. EU’s motto**.**

If ever there were a line in a report to alarm European leaders, it might have been one buried in a 204-page document on the EU economy last November. It predicted that up to three million additional asylum seekers could enter the 28-nation bloc by the end of this year, according to the Washington Post.

If the influx should come to pass, it is about now when the surge will begin. It is springtime in Europe when the Mediterranean and Aegean storms abate and the seas become a tempting risk for those seeking a new and safe home. Already 110,000 have endured a winter crossing to Greece and Italy so far this year. That is 10 times the number for the corresponding period last year. Four hundred of them perished at sea.

December 21, 2016

ROBERT MANNE. Yes Virginia, there is a solution to Australia's asylum-seeker problem.

A new chapter of humanly decent policy with regard to asylum seekers, more reflective of the many fine and generous impulses in our history of welcoming refugees, can at long last be opened. For pity’s sake, let it be.

November 21, 2013

Australia's Foreign Policy Trailing a Leaky Boat. Guest Blogger: Arja Keski-Nummi

Our foreign policy is more than boats or asylum seekers but that is what the Abbott government has reduced it to.

We should all be concerned because what is at stake is much greater than stopping boats – it jeopardizes our ability to influence and be taken seriously on issues of greater importance to our long term future and well-being such as cooperation in security related issues, trade and in the longer term building genuine regional cooperation on asylum seekers and displaced people.

November 15, 2015

Cavan Hogue. The Paris attacks.

The Paris attacks are yet another piece of savagery by young alienated Muslims but the question we need to ask is what is the real cause? Should we be searching the Koran or should we be looking at what motivates young idealists to die for a cause and why are these ones doing it? We may not like their cause and we may condemn their cruelty but that is not the point. Should we perhaps be looking at the Red Guards, the IRA, the Nazis, the Khmer Rouge the Holy Inquisition, the young Europeans who fought for the Spanish Republic and hosts of other examples?

July 10, 2024

The bombing of a children's hospital in Kyiv was an act of desperation. Who is most desperate?

Bombing a hospital with children, especially those with cancer, is a desperate act. So, who is most desperate right now? Is Putin desperate? Not really. Are the Americans and Europeans desperate? Yes, they are. Here’s my logic.

October 26, 2014

John Menadue. Winners in the privatisation of Medibank Pte

Many would expect that the 3.8 million members or policy-holders of MBP who are arguably the owners of the company, would be the financial winners in the proposed privatisation.

But not a bit of it. Some of the 3.8 million members will seemingly get some preferential issue of shares. But it will be chicken feed. The two real winners by a country mile will be the numerous advisers to the float, and the senior executives of MBP.

January 20, 2016

Kim Oates. Excuse me doctor, have you washed your hands?

Imagine you are a patient in hospital. The doctor draws back the bed sheet to examine your abdomen. Before you are touched, you say “Excuse me doctor, have you washed your hands?”

Would you dare? Would you be too embarrassed, awkward or even afraid to ask? Would you worry that it would be rude to ask, or that it could undermine the doctor’s authority? Would you risk upsetting the person taking care of you if it led to your doctor taking offence? Or you might think it’s just not your role to ask this type of question.

February 29, 2016

Renee Bittoun. Postcard from Hanoi. Smoking in Vietnam

Unlike Australia today where the prevalence of smoking is about 15%, Vietnam remains a country where smoking is widespread. About 60% of the men smoke and about 5% of women. The burden of diseases related to smoking is therefore extremely high. On visiting a Hanoi hospital respiratory ward last week, most of the 100s of inpatients were patients with acute exacerbations of COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease), and visiting the cancer hospital also showed that most of the cancers were also smoking related. There are efforts to reduce uptake of smoking however there is little supporting funding.

October 21, 2014

Frank Brennan. My tribute to Gough

Gough Whitlam once asked me why there were so many social reformers to emerge from Queensland in the early 1970s. I told him it was simple. We had someone to whom we could react: Sir Joh Bjelke Petersen; and we had someone to inspire us: him. I have written elsewhere about his contribution to Aboriginal rights, human rights and international law. Here, I reflect on the man who inspired me so affectionately, so supportively, and with such a sense of fun. What he did for me, he did for countless other Australians who dreamt of a better world and a nobler Australia. Even his political opponents are forever in his debt for having elevated the national vision and for having given us a more complete and generous image of ourselves. On Sunday I happened to visit the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. I took the afternoon tour of American art. With pride, our guide ended the tour with Jackson Pollock’s painting No 10. I was able to tell her it was not a patch on Blue Poles purchased by a visionary prime minister down under who copped all hell for spending a six figure sum on just one painting. That was our Gough. We are forever in his debt.

October 26, 2014

Race Mathews. Whitlam eyed our conscience, not our wallet.

Gough Whitlam’s objective was equality for all. He believed the proper business of politics was to secure informed public consent for necessary change, through objective information from trusted sources.

He gave back hope to my generation of Labor Party members. Chifley’s “light on the hill” was re-kindled. The party’s electability was restored. His political career invites us to recall the words of Robert F. Kennedy: “Some see things as they are and say ‘Why?’ I dream of things that never were and say ‘Why not’?”

February 29, 2016

Ian McAuley. Chris Bowen and 'The Money Men'.

Political disunity comes in two forms. One, which we witnessed in the Rudd-Gillard years, is the subtle attack on the authority of the party leader. The other and more serious form is a conflict about policy.

Once Tony Abbott announced his intention to hang around it was clear that the Turnbull Government would suffer the disunity of the first form. Abbott’s ridiculous claim last week that he could have won the coming election is a pretty good indication of why he wants to hang around.

March 21, 2016

Frank Brennan. Deja vu for Timor as Turnbull neglects boundary talks

When Malcolm Turnbull became prime minister six months ago, our Timorese neighbours thought there might be an opportunity to draw a line on the past and to kick start the negotiation of a permanent maritime boundary between Australia and Timor-Leste. For the moment, they find themselves sadly mistaken.

Rui Maria de Araujo, the fairly new prime minister of Timor-Leste, wrote to our very new prime minister Malcolm Turnbull inviting him to turn a new leaf in the Australia-Timor relationship. It was not to be.

April 9, 2016

David Stephens. Bill Shorten’s Royal Commission proposal.

Labor and the banks go way, way back

Bill Shorten’s proposal to have a Royal Commission into the banking system is not just good politics. It also taps into a long Labor tradition: banking Royal Commissions – and banking policy generally – occupy a special corner in Labor’s history.

We need to see terms of reference for the proposed Royal Commission. The emphasis so far, though, has been on illegal and unethical banking behaviour in the absence of adequate regulation, together leading to damage to consumers of financial advice, loans and life insurance. (The Australian Bankers’ Association believes a Royal Commission was unnecessary though it conceded that ‘in the past …. banks have not always lived up to their own standards, let alone those of their customers’.)

October 31, 2015

Michael Keating. The Turnbull Government’s Response to the Financial System Inquiry

The Government has adopted 43 of the 44 recommendations of the Financial System Inquiry (FSI). These recommendations had received wide support, and as I said in an earlier blog (21 January), ‘they should be relatively easy for the Government to adopt’. Indeed, the surprise would have been if the Government had not been supportive (whoever was Prime Minister and Treasurer).

Overall the net result should:

Strengthen the resilience of the financial system
Lift the value of the superannuation system and retirement incomes
Modestly promote some more competition
Lead to some improvement in customer treatment
Enhance regulator independence and accountability

In this posting I will concentrate on the first two points, which have received most public comment and which are the most significant.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal