May 1, 2019

Australias ChinaUS choice is three dimensional, not binary (Part 1)

RAMESH THAKUR. Australias ChinaUS choice is three dimensional, not binary (Part 1)

As ChinaUS tensions rise, Australias dilemma is almost always debated in terms of the competing gravitational pulls between China as its most important trading partner and the US as its ultimate security guarantor. This depiction of Australias primary current foreign policy dilemma as a binary choice is false. In reality, Australias dilemma is not two but three dimensional: trade,security and a rules-based order.

June 11, 2019

GEOFF RABY. What a Morrison Government could do on China.

The Accidental Morrison Government needs now to face up to Australias most important foreign policy challenge: how to restore relations with China. Under Turnbull/Bishops mismanagement, the relationship plumbed its lowest depth since diplomatic relations were established 47 years ago. Doing so wont be easy and will require substantive policy changes, not merely a re-packaging of existing approaches and changed messaging, as helpful and well-intentioned as these may be.

April 10, 2018

NICOLE GURRAN and CATHERINE GILBERT. England expects 40% of new housing developments will be affordable, why cant Australia?

Australia has record levels of supply of new properties but despite various government interventions, housing still remains unaffordable for many.

August 4, 2019

EDWARD WONG. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Israel and Iran and The Rapture. (NYT 30.3.2019)

Yesterday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had dinner with Scott Morrison. They both believe in The Rapture when Christ will return to Israel with Jerusalem as its capital. Importantly at the moment we are being urged to join forces to counter the alleged Iranian ‘menace’ to Israel.

_See below an article from Edward Wong on how Mike Pompeo’s beliefs are influencing US foreign policy, which we invariably follow. Odd indeed! John Menadue.

June 21, 2018

DAVID JAMES. Academics tangle with managerial oppressors.

The imposition of what is termed ‘managerialism’ or ‘marketisation’ on universities is almost entirely disastrous.

July 6, 2017

STEVE LEEDER. Health care: getting it right the first time

Ronald Reagan once famously quipped that the nine most terrifying words in the English language are Im from the government, and Im here to help. But that doesnt, for one moment, stop Michael Horrocks, Professor of Postgraduate Surgery at the University of Bath and a former President of the Vascular Society of Great Britain and Ireland, relaying precisely that message to a room full of vascular surgeons and interventional radiologists. We are here to help, he says. We are not the Care Quality Commission. We are here to serve. There will be plenty of chance to comment as we go through, he says as the team [of clinicians and managers] wants to provide answers to what they can see are their less-good figures. We are not here to catch you out. We are here to help.

December 15, 2019

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August 8, 2019

KIERAN NOONAN. Respecting Sacred Spaces

Can you imagine the uproar if, with the convenient burning of the roof of the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, the French Minister for Transport approved a plan to build a freeway through the Cathedral? Through the main transept to be precise. Four lanes, dual carriageway. We suppose it will be a bit of an obstacle between the baptismal font and the main altar, but it will dramatically improve traffic movement in the city.

April 15, 2019

MUNGO MacCALLUM. ScoMo is happy to keep the campaign as mean and ugly as possible.

The final jobs for the boys and girls have been squared away, the pointless tit for tat over taxpayer advertising and who is closer to the Chinese have been shelved, and Melissa Price has obediently signed off on Adani, as ordered by the Queensland Nats.

July 8, 2018

ROSS GITTINS. Cash and kind: How governments shift income from rich to poor. (SMH 7/7/2018)

Everyone knows the gap between high and low incomes has grown. But much of what we think we know about why its happened, and what the government has been doing about it, is probably wrong.

May 8, 2018

Ian McAuley: Morrisons budget: 23.9 is the new 42

Treasurer Morrison has brought down a pre-election budget. While it has little in the way of handouts, it is carefully designed to wedge Shorten between higher taxes and higher deficits, all based on the absurd idea that there is some merit in a tax cap of 23.9 per cent of GDP.

October 10, 2017

JOHN TULLOH. The paranoia of the US/Iran relationship.

If North Korea were willing to sign much the same kind of nuclear agreement as Iran did in 2015, President Donald Trump would exult in the ultimate deal and there would be international relief far and wide. Yet now there is talk that he wants to decertify the arrangement and thus risk giving Iran the excuse to revert to its nuclear ambitions just like Kim Jung-un.

July 29, 2018

JERRY ROBERTS. The weirdest by-election of them all

On a day of weird and silly by-elections the weirdest of all was held in Perth. For Sydney-siders who have never heard of the place, thats a remote capital city on the Indian Ocean side of the continent.

April 5, 2018

LYNDSAY CONNORS. Where did the money come from for the recent Robocalling in Batman?

In the recent Batman by-election, the Catholic Education Commission of Victoria (CECV) headed by Executive Director, Stephen Elder, contacted voters directly through so-called Robocalling to urge them to vote Labor. Since then, I have been asking myself two questions. Why should the Catholic Education authority do this at all and, second, where did the funds come fromparents, taxpayers or the Churchs own coffers?

June 29, 2020

The Myth of Chinese Money in Australia

Fears amongst the Australian public of China buying up the country run deep. Opportunistic politicians and commentators have long shown a willingness to tap into this unease to boost their own following.

July 4, 2019

China is not an enemy (Washington Post letter, 3 July 2019)

Dear President Trump and members of Congress:

We are members of the scholarly, foreign policy, military and business communities, overwhelmingly from the United States, including many who have focused on Asia throughout our professional careers. We are deeply concerned about the growing deterioration in U.S. relations with China, which we believe does not serve American or global interests. Although we are very troubled by Beijings recent behavior, which requires a strong response, we also believe that many U.S. actions are contributing directly to the downward spiral in relations.

August 5, 2018

MICHAEL PASCOE. The key question for governments giving farmers money: is it climate change or weather? (New Daily)

Before again giving billions of dollars to agricultural businesses, our governments should have their feet held to the fire to get a straight answer about that spending in the name of transparency and honesty.

April 22, 2018

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Girt by Sea - Australia, the refugees and the politics of fear.

Some at least of the South Africans who have come here, and no doubt most of those Dutton is promoting, want to emigrate to get away from blacks.

October 24, 2017

EVAN WILLIAMS. Mobile addiction: the new scourge of our time

That stupid woman! my wife exclaimed, looking out through the front window of our house onto the street below. We were listening to the news, and at first I thought my beloved was referring to some blunder by Julie Bishop or Theresa May. But the object of her scorn was a woman wheeling a baby in a pram down the centre of the street and studying her mobile phone while cars edged past on either side.

November 25, 2018

MICHAEL KEATING. The US Economic Outlook

One of President Trumps proudest claims is how successful he has been in creating jobs and growth. Indeed, with typical restraint, Trump has boasted that the US economy, thanks to him, is now in the best shape of all time.

But exactly how strong is the US economy, can it last, and what is most likely to be the US economic situation in two years, at the time of the next Presidential election?

June 13, 2019

BERNARD MACLEOD Youth Suicide

Our new government is making the elimination of youth suicide a focus of health policy under Minister Greg Hunt. However, billions of dollars of investment over the years has failed to reduce the numbers of those taking their own lives. Business as usual is not an option and radical ideas are required for treating suicidality in both in-patient and out-patient settings.

August 25, 2019

JOHN BROWN. How Quickly They Forget - But I Don't.

Some years back, one of my proudest acts as a Minister for Sport was that I introduced about 10 pieces of legislation into the Parliament to the benefit of sport which were the first pieces of legislation including the word sport introduced since Federation. One of the better pieces of this legislation was a taxation ruling which allows particular classes of people who achieve fluctuating incomes an ability to spread their income over five years. This ruling particularly benefited cricketers who over their career have good years and bad years

June 17, 2019

Hong Kong, Canberra, Carrie Lam and Mike Pezzullo

Hong Kong’s autonomous, free status, One Nation Two Systems agreement is at risk of disappearing. The Hong Kong legislature had proposed extradition laws which would make residents and foreigners who live there or who might be travelling through the city at risk if wanted in mainland China.

April 7, 2019

ABUL RIZVI. Dodgy Population Assumptions Crucial to Budget Figuring.

Ken Henry was forever explaining economic growth, and consequently the strength of the budget, is a function of productivity, participation and population. With the weak productivity growth of recent years likely to continue, the population and labour participation assumptions become crucial - particularly as the Treasurer is forecasting budget surpluses so big that over 10 years they are assumed to wipe out the Governments net debt. The question must me asked: to deliver the forecast surpluses the government demanded, did Treasury have no choice but to assume a much faster rate of population growth, even if this contradicted the Prime Minister’s congestion-busting rhetoric?

August 17, 2018

JOHN TULLOH. The death by stealth of an independent Palestine.

Not long ago Prince William visited a Palestinian refugee camp on the West Bank and solemnly told a gathering: My message tonight is that you have not been forgotten. HRH was mistaken. The Palestinians have been forgotten. A once sympathetic world has moved on. Their once fervent Arab supporters have enough problems of their own without wanting to worry about them. Washington is apathetic. Israel has marginalised them. They are helpless. They are destined to yearn for an independent state forevermore just like the Kurds.

March 4, 2018

SCOTT BURCHILL. Class power in the US.

All for ourselves and nothing for other people seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind (Adam Smith).

Class is a Communist concept. It groups people together and sets them against each other (Margaret Thatcher).

[Current opposition to free trade in the United States is] heavily influenced by perceptions that voters themselves now view trade issues in terms of a domestic class struggle, not as promoting exports and global integration (David Hale, economist).

May 29, 2019

GRAHAM FREUDENBERG. No child in poverty

At the risk of repetition I must put the record straight on By 1990, no Australian child will be living in poverty, Bob Hawkes promise made in Labors policy speech in 1987.

August 7, 2019

JOCELYN CHEY. One Two,Buckle my Seatbelt; Hong Kong's Special Status

The world has changed hugely since 1984. China of course has grown richer and more powerful. Since Xi Jinping was made Party and state leader in 2013 it has changed in more sinister ways. He has increased central control and waged a campaign to suppress dissent. Hong Kongs special status under One Country Two Systems does not accord with his ethos. This alone is enough to guarantee friction between Beijing and Hong Kong.

May 26, 2015

Terry Flew. Regulating Convergent Media: An Ongoing Policy Challenge.

Fairness, Opportunity and Security. Policy series edited by Michael Keating and John Menadue.

In the 2013 Federal election, neither of Australias major political parties took forward a detailed media policy. This was surprising as one of the main features of the Gillard and Rudd Labor governments was significant attention being given to reviews of media and communication law and policy, particularly between 2011-2013. The Convergence Review was established in 2011 to review the current policy framework for the production and delivery of media content and communication services (Convergence Review Committee, 2012, p. 110), and presented a comprehensive roadmap for media policy reform in April 2012. It was accompanied by a series of other media-related policy inquiries during 2011-2013, including the Finkelstein Review of news media regulation (Finkelstein, 2012), and the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) reviews into the National Classification Scheme (ALRC, 2012) and Copyright and the Digital Economy (ALRC, 2013). These media-related reviews occurred in the context of Labors commitments to develop a National Broadband Network (NBN) as an enabling technological infrastructure for wider forms of innovation in the digital economy, in the cultural and creative industries, and in delivery of government services.

August 7, 2018

RAMESH THAKUR. Australias invisible Asians

There are three components to any spoken or written act of communication: the intended message (what was meant by the sender); the message as conveyed (what was actually said); and the message as received (how it is interpreted by the recipient). The emphasis on language and inoffensive speech with offence being subjective as per the recipients feelings, not the intention of the author nor the actual content of the message allows the virtue-signalling instinct to be satisfied. The price is a neglect of the advancement of the substance of the inter-group equality agenda.

October 3, 2019

PATRICK COCKBURN. Just as Iraq begins to find Peace, it once again becomes the battleground for an American proxy war (Counterpunch, 30 September 2019)

People in Baghdad are fearful that the next war between the US and Iran will take place in Iraq, which is only just returning to peace after the defeat of Isis. Alarm that Iraq will be sucked into such a conflict has increased here because of recent Israeli drone attacks on the bases of the Iraqi paramilitary groupknown as the Hashd al-Shaabi, which is accused by the US and Israel of acting as a proxy of Iran.

September 15, 2019

LESLEY RUSSELL. Where is the Focus on Rural Health?

It is unfair and poor public policy that mortality and morbidity rates in rural Australia are significantly worse than those in metropolitan areas. There is an urgent need for a National Rural Health Strategy, accompanied by a sustained increase in funding, workforce and other resources, to address this growing health and healthcare disparity.

August 18, 2019

Will the last PM of the UK please put out the lights?

The dissolution of the United Kingdom is now bruited abroad on a daily basis as a likely outcome of a No Deal Brexit. This applies not just to Scotland, the likeliest candidate to be first to leave, but also to the possibility of Northern Ireland joining with the Republic, and even tiny Wales rethinking its future.

May 29, 2019

MICHAEL KEATING Why Labor should oppose Morrison's tax cuts

Labor should oppose the second and third round of the Governments proposed tax cuts which only take effect after the next election. The future is too uncertain to lock-in these tax cuts now. Furthermore, reasonable projections raise strong doubts whether they can be afforded, and they do not represent the best way to increase economic growth.

April 24, 2019

JOHN MENADUE. Best we forget the Frontier and Maori Wars. An update

The Frontier Wars were the most destructive and decisive in our history. The first war we fought alongside ‘New Zealanders’ was not at Gallipoli in 1915 but in the Maori Wars in the middle of the nineteenth century. Yet both wars are ignored by the Australian War Memorial. The AWM promotes myths about the wars it chooses to remember, the imperial wars.

July 16, 2019

Trump/Kushner Deal of the Century: 'Money, Money, Money, It's A Rich Man's World'

The Trump/Kushner Israeli/Palestinian Peace Plan, the deal of the century, was presented in a workshop held in the Manama Hotel, Bahrein on June 25. The authors emphasised economic proposals not political considerations, but their deal had a more sinister policy objective: the crafting of every conceivable cruelty towards Palestinians.

October 8, 2014

Walter Hamilton. A Chandelier in the barracks.

In July 1940, five months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, Emperor Hirohito met with his military planners to discuss the details of Japans new southward advance policy. An apparently skeptical Hirohito asked them a series of questions, including whether the policy would involve occupying points in India, Australia and New Zealand."

Although Japans supreme commander felt nervous about his countrys impending military adventure, he did not resist itas he had, for instance, in 1936 when his disapproval was sufficient to crush a military coup by disaffected elements of the Imperial Army.

July 2, 2019

STEPHEN KINZER. In an astonishing turn, George Soros and Charles Koch team up to end US forever war policy (Boston Globe, 30 June 2019)

BESIDES BEING BILLIONAIRES and spending much of their fortunes to promote pet causes, the leftist financier George Soros and the right-wing Koch brothers have little in common. They could be seen as polar opposites. Soros is an old-fashioned New Deal liberal. The Koch brothers are fire-breathing right-wingers who dream of cutting taxes and dismantling government. Now they have found something to agree on: the United States must end its forever war and adopt an entirely new foreign policy.

May 9, 2019

Killing them softly with sanctions

For three years Washington has been consumed by charges of Russian interference in the last US presidential election. In the latest sign that the Trump administration doesnt do irony, on Tuesday Vice President Mike Pence threatened Venezuelan judges with unspecified consequences if they refused to back opposition leader Juan Gaid, while lifting sanctions on a general who broke with President Nicols Maduro. Thus Washington proclaims the right to choose other countries leaders and to reward and punish military officers and judges who genuflect and object to US diktat.

December 12, 2013

Japan's secret agenda. Guest blogger: Walter Hamilton

Using its dominance of both houses of the Diet, Japans ruling party has pushed through a new anti-terrorism and secrecy law. The strong-arm parliamentary methods used to secure its passage have added to public concerns about the way the law may be employed by the Abe Government to stifle dissent, curb public access to information and intimidate political opponents. The LDP mustered its numbers during a late-night session on Friday, noisy public protests and extensive media criticism notwithstanding.

September 2, 2019

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Liberals make a mess out of politics.

In the good old days, when officers were gentlemen and sometimes vice versa, most barracks observed an iron rule: no mention of politics, religion or women in the mess.

July 30, 2019

FRANCES RUSH. No Protection - No Hope

A 39 year old man from Iran arrived by boat in 2013. He was not permitted to apply for a Temporary Protection Visa until 2017. For six years he has lived in fear and struggled with mental trauma. He has no protection, no income, no social support and no family. He believes he has no hope - and suicide is an option.

May 1, 2019

IAN DUNLOP. Stopping Adani is a National Necessity, Economically, Financially and for our Survival.

Central banks, regulators and insurers are starting to acknowledge that the risks of human-induced climate change will have far greater economic and financial consequences than the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. Likewise, global investors and corporations are finally accepting that climate risk is fundamentally changing their business models.

March 13, 2019

MARC HUDSON. Game over for the Nationals on climate change? Spruiking for miners instead?

The National Partys battles over climate policy are becoming ever louder, ever more ludicrous. The consequences of thirty years of climate denial and spruiking for mining may finally tear the party apart.

September 17, 2019

MOUIN RABBANI. Jerusalem and the Trump administration

In December 2017, the administration of U.S. president Donald Trump upended seventy years of U.S. policy by recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. In doing so, it also effectively recognized Israels sovereignty over the city.

July 3, 2019

MICHAEL KEATING Why the Stage 3 tax cuts will need to be revisited.

In previous articles I argued that Stage 3 of the Governments proposed tax cuts should be opposed (see Pearls & Irritations, 30 May and 24 June). However, the Government appears to have the numbers to pass its proposed tax cuts as one package, with or without the support of the Labor Party. Nevertheless, the Grattan Institute in a report released on 30 June provide additional evidence as to why the Stage 3 tax cuts should wait. Grattans and my concern is that Australia will eventually find that these tax cuts cannot be afforded, and that the best alternative will be to reverse them at a later date.

April 22, 2019

MUNGO MacCALLUM. The essence of marketing is constant repetition.

A short week of campaigning and an even shorter one to come which is perhaps why the temperature has ramped up to almost febrile levels.

May 2, 2018

RICHARD BUTLER. An Avalanche of Advocates

While the US will be without an Ambassador in Canberra for a while it can be forgiven for thinking it will be able to rely, on our own home-grown Alliance advocates.

June 5, 2015

Infrastructure Audit 2015 and serious transport reform: how soon is now?

Infrastructure Australias Infrastructure Audit was released to the press in May this year. It circulated quickly across the nations media houses. They all parroted Hanrahan: well all be rooned if we dont resign ourselves to a big, new wave of investments.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal