July 15, 2015

Race Mathews. 'Let us now begin'

A local Labor journal Grassroots, has been advocating reform of the ALP to ’empower members, branches and communities’. With the ALP Federal Conference on July 24-26 I will be posting three articles on party reform ‘past, present and future’. I will also be re-posting an article on refugee policy. John Menadue.

The philosopher George Santayana wrote famously ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

A case in point is failure by the Australian Labor Party (ALP) to remain mindful of the circumstances and shortcomings that denied it office from the middle -1950s federally until 1972 and until 1982 in Victoria.

October 18, 2015

Robert Mickens. The Pope's Opposition.

It has been known for quite some time that a number of cardinals and bishops, both in Rome and abroad, are – to put it mildly – uncomfortable with the way Pope Francis’ pontificate is unfolding.

Well, this week it all spilled out into the open when it was revealed that several cardinals – including three top Vatican officials (Cardinals Pell, Müller and Sarah) – wrote a letter to the Pope that basically criticized the way he is running the Synod of Bishops.

October 23, 2015

Derk Swieringa. Ka-ching - The interest of the Labor Party in poker machines in the ACT.

This article is prompted by the recent ABC program ‘Ka-Ching’ which details the subtle mechanisms that are programmed into poker machines to make them addictive. It reminded me of the clever engineers at VW who were able to program software into their cars to cheat pollution testing.

Let me also declare my personal experience of the havoc caused to families by poker machine addiction. My late mother in law blew her last $60,000 of retirement savings on mainly poker machine gambling. A close friend’s sister in law committed suicide after she gambled away her own daughters’ savings. Sadly, there are few families that have not been adversely affected by the curse of gambling addiction.

September 14, 2015

Ian McAuley. Refugees and German redemption.

Imagine if Australia were to open its doors to 240 000 refugees.

That’s twenty times our offer to take 12 000 Syrians, or around the same number as our total annual immigration in all categories.

It’s what Angela Merkel’s offer of 800 000 places would come to if scaled to Australia’s population.

Although some may call Merkel’s offer a “brave decision” (a shorthand for suicidal political stupidity in the TV show Yes-Minister), it makes excellent sense on many criteria.

July 8, 2014

Warwick Elsche. I hope you know what you're doing, Tony!

Rum has never been my drink; two wipe-outs in youth. One nip - very nice, two – too many, any more – dangerous - positively confusing.

I suppose it was surprising then that I chose it as my companion as, with another million Australians, I settled in to hear the policy speech which would oust a dysfunctional Labor Government and make a Prime Minister of robust, forthright, Tony Abbott.

Perhaps I should admit to a strong pro-Liberal partisanship; a particular admiration for Tony and the direct brand of politics he represents. It was this quality which had bought his Party to the point of certain accession to Government.

October 15, 2014

The Italian solution.

Last night the ABC program, Foreign Correspondent, carried a remarkable and moving account of the work of the Italian Navy in rescuing ‘people fleeing conflict or economic despair in the Middle East and Africa’.

The Italian Admiral in charge of the operations in the Mediterranean said ‘We have the duty in these cases when we are at sea to intervene to save human life. If we are not at sea, then we can’t see what happens. We can close our eyes, turn off the lights and in that way, there’s no need to “turn back” the boats because they will die. We need to remember that International Rights exist. There are international laws that our countries have ratified’.

May 16, 2015

Parliament of Australia. Russia in the Region.

Current Affairs.

Beyond the attention assigned to the arrival of Russian naval vesselsin the Coral Sea coincident with the G20 meeting in Brisbane in November last year, there has been little public scrutiny of Russia’s recent activities in the Asia-Pacific, and particularly in Southeast Asia.

Russian engagement with Southeast Asia is certainly not a new phenomenon, with Presidents Putin and Medvedev clearly pursuing Asia-oriented foreign policies since the late 1990s. Recent efforts to expand relations with China have been teamed with attempts to expand links with Southeast Asia and promote investment in Russia’s Far East and the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). Over the last year or so Russian engagement with Southeast Asia has picked up markedly—in terms of overall economic cooperation, but notably in terms of strategic arrangements, nuclear energy discussions, and weapons sales.

January 13, 2015

David Timbs. The Synod of Bishops.

Catholic lay people face a very difficult task in attempting to influence the members of the 2015 Ordinary Synod of Bishops. Firstly, they will have a challenge in finding bishops to listen to them. Secondly, they will have a challenge in finding bishops ready to accept the risks associated with taking the Sensus Fidei Fidelium (or sense of faith of believers) seriously and then walking the road of Christ in solidarity with (syn-‘odos) their people. From long and painful experience, many Catholics who have worked for significant reform in the Church have learnt that there have been only a few bishops in Australia who take the laity seriously, show themselves ready to engage in conversation and to listen to what is said and to make it their own. The situation may now be changing.

February 23, 2017

RAMESH THAKUR. The nuclear deal with Iran was a triumph of global diplomacy, not a success of US sanctions

The deal (with Iran) is worth defending for three reasons: it is a good accommodation of each side’s bottom lines; sanctions may not have been as decisive as the hawks seem to believe in explaining Iran’s signature; and unilateral US sanctions will prove even less effectual.

July 17, 2013

Don't race to the bottom on asylum seekers!

Kevin Rudd, in your review of asylum seeker policy please don’t let Foreign Minister Carr lead you to a race to the bottom with Tony Abbott.

The media is clearly being briefed that in a revision of asylum policy, the Government is considering tougher new country assessments by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. It is suggested by the Foreign Minister that this is necessary to exclude persons who are really economic migrants.

September 9, 2016

Defence & Australian Strategic Policy Institute - Joined at the Hip

Following on John Menadue’s recent item in which he dissected the funding of Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) and the pervasive influence of the ‘Australia/US Defence and Intelligence Complex’ of which ASPI is a part, he questioned whether ASPI as a supposedly independent source of strategic advice could provide the advice necessary to get the balance right for Australia between the US and China.

Andrew Farran argues that it is already too late because of the intertwining threads of our intelligence and military arrangements with the US, now inextricable. We have missed the opportunity to develop a force structure suited to our national strategic situation and interests at far less cost than will be incurred by partnering US strategic operations. In this regard ASPI has lost its original purpose and is not providing the independent strategic advice to government envisaged for it.

November 5, 2014

As the Berlin wall fell, checks on capitalism crumbled.

The Economics Editor of the Guardian, Larry Elliott, describes how capitalism is facing an increasing crisis. He says that after the fall of the Berlin wall, we have seen the dark side of the post-Cold War model. Instead of trickle-down, there has been a trickle-up. Instead of the triumph of democracy there has been the triumph of the elites. We are seeing this in so many ways - the avarice of bankers, growing inequality, executive salaries and greed. This article suggests that the Vatican may be right that markets must be underpinned by morality. For this interesting and challenging account, see the link below. John Menadue.

December 1, 2015

Luke Fraser. What the Australian Treasurer can do for roads.

or - How to stop pissing taxpayer money up against the wall!

Australia’s Treasurer Scott Morrison has signalled his reform priority:

“I’m interested in talking to people who have ideas how we can get spending under control. We have a spending problem, not a revenue problem.”

There is plenty of money to be saved in roads. They cost Australians over $30 billion annually, but what does Australia see from all this spending? When major projects are independently assessed at all - which is infrequently - they often expose themselves as commercial and economic duds. As Dr Michael Keating and I explained in an earlier collaboration, this approach doesn’t add to national productivity - it creates conditions where it can drain away[i].

January 24, 2016

John Menadue. Supporting Adam Goodes.

This blog is a repost from 1 August 2015.

Adam Goodes has been bullied and vilified because he has reminded us of our dark history and the discrimination that continues against him and many others in Australia today. We don’t like being reminded of the dispossession, killing, poisoning and discrimination against our own indigenous people. We want to forget that 30,000 indigenous people were killed in the Frontier Wars by police and white settlers. Yet we have scarcely a memorial to the 30,000 who died defending their land. The Australian War Memorial turns its back on the Frontier Wars yet with the Australian Government is spending $700 million on the centenary of WW1.

April 5, 2013

Are most asylum seekers and refugees Muslims?

Well, as a matter of fact, most asylum seekers and refugees are not Muslims.

But I am sure that many commentators and a lot of the community believe that most are Muslim. The dog-whistlers like Scott Morrison feed on this assumption .According to Jane Cadzow in the Sun Herald he urged the Coalition parties “to ramp up its questioning … to capitalise on anti-Muslim sentiment”.

Figures on this issue are extracted from the DIAC Settlement data base. One reason for the difficulty in analysing the figures is that a religious test is not applied to persons seeking refugee status, and neither should it. Ascertaining religious background often then depends on voluntary declarations.

June 14, 2016

PAUL BUDDE. The more fibre the better.

You can’t turn the clock back and in the case of the NBN that means you can’t undo those parts of the Multi-Technology-Mix (MtM) without immediately destructing billion of dollars. While it is a pity that the original plan – providing fibre-to-the-home to 93% of the population - can’t be continued the next best thing is to deliver fibre to as many premises as possible as that could avoid replacing the MtM in a few years time.

July 9, 2014

Tony Smith. Singing out for asylum seekers.

Recent poll results that show rising support for the Abbott Government’s approach to border security are disturbing even if not entirely surprising. Asylum seekers have been detained offshore, out of general sight and conveniently out of mind for those Australians who prefer not to think about the issue, and the Labor Opposition has consistently failed to offer any decent alternative. Given that refugee advocates have had the better of the Government on details of truth and on virtually every moral and economic argument, they might well be wondering what they must do to convince Australians that our approach to asylum seekers is shameful and urgently in need of change.

April 22, 2016

Evan Williams. What Bill Shorten should say – but won’t

With Australia’s longest-ever election campaign now underway, politicians face a problem. How long can they go on repeating the same promises and slogans? According to usually reliable sources, Bill Shorten drafted a speech for his campaign launch which was immediately shredded by his close advisers. Leaked extracts are reproduced here by Evan Williams, who accepts no responsibility for their accuracy.

Men and women of Australia!

We all remember the words of my great predecessor Gough Whitlam when he launched his election campaign in 1972. Tonight, as we approach the centenary of his birth, I hope to draw some inspiration from his record and achievement. In the best Whitlam tradition, I’m presenting an ambitious program for reform and renewal.

January 24, 2016

Stan Grant. The Australian Dream!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEOssW1rw0I

January 27, 2024

The ICJ could not order a general ceasefire. It ordered Israel to cease fire

The responses by U.S. main stream media to the ICJ judgment on Israel are moronic.

August 15, 2017

GREG LOCKHART. An old imperial reflex

Rawdon Dalrymple’s 4 August blog ‘A personal link to World War One’ presents us with an automatic defence of the old imperial order.

June 24, 2014

Eric Hodgens. On a Wing and a Prayer – A Personal Memoir.

As priests we were sent out on a mission to spread the Gospel and be pastors of the flock. But it was the secular world that formulated mission statements and pastoral care policies. We had the vocation, but it was the secular world that developed vocational training. We were good at the concepts – but slow at the application. The nuances of Scholastic theology weren’t much help once we got out. The seminary had initiated us into the clerical class but we had to learn our task on the fast track of self-help – launched on a wing and a prayer.

February 7, 2013

Sport and Markets. Guest blogger: Ian McAuley

We are all suitably shocked by Justice Minister Jason Clare’s announcement of the findings of the Australian Crime Commission’s investigation into the use of prohibited substances and links to organized crime in sports. I heard his solemn announcement as I was driving home, past our local croquet club, and wondered if any code was exempt.

Sport in Australia has never been entirely clean. Most people of my age have enough stories from the racetracks to bore our dinner guests for hours. But we also recall an era when league football was an outlet for suburban tribalism, when a player for Collingwood or Port Adelaide actually lived in Collingwood or Port Adelaide, when white-clad cricketers played on green grounds surrounded by white fences, and when the only signs of commercialism were the vendors of Four’n Twenty or Adams Pies.

September 24, 2015

Michael Keating. Fiscal Repair - both Revenue and Expenditure.

With Federal Budget deficits projected to continue indefinitely, the one thing that is generally agreed is that fiscal repair and consolidation is absolutely necessary. Where there is debate, however, is about how much of the repair job must be achieved by expenditure savings and how much by increasing revenue.

In this regard, the new Treasurer Scott Morrison has declared that Australia has a spending problem not a revenue problem. Others including the Shadow Treasurer, Chris Bowen, and the esteemed former head of the Treasury, Ken Henry, have disagreed. Instead they consider that restoring the Budget to a modest surplus will require action on the revenue side as well as on the expenditure side of the budget.

July 2, 2014

Japan and comfort women.

In 1993 the Japanese government issued an apology to comfort women who had suffered sexual abuse by the Japanese military during WWII. This apology was called the ‘Kono Declaration’. Kono was the chief cabinet secretary.

Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been trying to undo the words of the Kono Declaration without officially withdrawing the declaration. In an article published in the Canberra Times on June 29 2014, see link below, Tessa Morris-Suzuki describes how Japan is going about ’the art of un-apologising’.

November 27, 2014

Peter Hughes. Reintroduction of Temporary Protection Visas -Time to Negotiate

In the last few days of the 2014 Parliament, the controversial Migration and Maritime Powers Legislation Amendment (Resolving the Asylum Legacy Caseload) Bill 2014 remains to be considered.

The Bill contains a wide range of proposed changes to the asylum system reflecting, amongst other things, concern by the government that the current system is too heavily weighted towards approving asylum claims – a concern shared, but not acted on, by the previous government before losing office.

August 13, 2014

John Menadue. Missing in action when Kerry and Hagel come calling?

I can understand Tony Abbott’s wish to direct attention away from the budget by going off to The Hague and London. But are Australia’s national and policy interests being served by his absence when John Kerry and Chuck Hegel visit us.

In my blog of July 31 ‘Overplaying one’s hand’ I quoted Tony Abbott’s comments on MH370 in PNG. He said ‘Satellite footage shows what could be debris from the missing airline’s flight MH370’. But he was wrong.

January 25, 2014

Michael Kelly SJ: Chaos reigns in Bangkok

The fear of many Thais is that the country will end up like the Philippines – so laid back that nothing gets done, so corrupt that everyone stops trying, so mismanaged that there is misery for many just around the corner.

While things may not have reached the depths of Marcos era chaos, there are worry signs. Why? There seems now no way out of the circumstances the country finds itself in:

October 16, 2016

ANDREW FARRAN. The legal spat in Canberra - more serious than we may think.

Legal advice on a government decision to go to war.

The legal spat between the Commonwealth Solicitor-General and the Attorney- General is potentially more serious than it might appear.

It is not uncommon that certain actions or proposed actions by governments raise either constitutional or international legal issues of questionable validity. In this context the Governor-General, the Parliament, the bureaucracy, the military and others in the official sphere may seek assurance that what they or the country are being committed to do is legal. Should it not be legal there may be serious personal consequences for them.

September 20, 2015

Lynne Strong. Climate change and farming.

Farming in partnership with nature.

I live in a very special part of the world. The view from my front verandah has rolling green hills to the left, the ocean to the right and in front of me - the ocean. You can understand why I call it paradise. Our family has been farming in this region for over 180 years. Our family dairy farm is located in steep rainforest country at Jamberoo in NSW.

November 10, 2016

STEPHEN FITZGERALD. Donald Trump. Seizing the opportunity to strengthen relations with countries in Asia.

Kim Beazley, as shocked as anyone by the election result, has said: “We do have one advantage going for us with a Trump presidency, and that’s this. We are a member of the only American alliance that the Trump people unreservedly approve of. So at least we’ve got a basis of a discussion with them.” Kim seems to believe this is some kind of plus. But I think it is frightening. The favoured client of the Trump people! If that is true, what does it say about us, and the expectations of us in regional and international affairs as the Trump presidency gets into stride?

Bob Carr said to his fellow panellists on ABC News 24 on Wednesday that they must stop ‘normalising’ Trump, the Trump phenomenon and the coming Trump presidency, stop saying well we’ve had this kind of thing before, like Reagan for example. You can see this ‘normalising’ already in the first responses of Malcolm Turnbull and Julie Bishop. But as Bob said, you have to understand that Trump’s win expresses a complete shift in the US political scene and it’s not going to change after Inauguration day.

September 28, 2015

David Charles. Innovation, Disruption, Growth and Jobs of the Future

What a difference a day makes to so many things including innovation. Immediately prior to the replacement of Tony Abbott by Malcolm Turnbull the Commonwealth Government barely had innovation, to say nothing of digital disruption and start ups, on its radar. Its major achievements in the area of funding for innovation were mostly notable for cutting and rebranding existing programs.

To be sure they had responded to worthy ideas from the Business Council of Australia to identify and support five industry growth centres but the level of support - $188.5 million over 4 years - is modest and expectations about their impact, outside government, is limited.

February 4, 2015

John Menadue. Is the public sick of reform?

The business sector and the media have each been asking this question. It is not surprising perhaps in view of Tony Abbott’s plummeting approval rating and the election results in Victoria, Queensland and South Australia.

In the Australian Financial Review on 2 February 2015, Laura Tingle said ‘The biggest national question to flow from Queensland’s historic 2015 election result is not whether the Prime Minister will survive, but whether, after 30 years, voters have had enough of political rhetoric about reform and change and whether both sides of politics back away from ambitious reform as a result.’

February 22, 2017

BRIAN COYNE. The randomness and chanciness of life...

In this short essay, Brian Coyne, explores how much randomness and chance play in the outcomes we experience in life. He asks how much we are influenced by the Christian biblical mythology that an afterlife where the first will be last the last will be first helps us cope with the inherent unfairness and injustice that is the outcome of randomness and chance in life.

June 14, 2016

WARWICK ELSCHE. Shorten should play to Labor's strength.

For more than 60 years, since opinion polling became important in shaping election strategies, there has been for the Australian Labor Party one awkward but stubborn consistency.

Rightly or wrongly the Australian Electorate, with very isolated and brief exceptions, has always preferred and trusted the non Labor side of politics, the Liberal-National Party Coalition, as managers of the National economy.

Incredibly, the present Government, which came to power on the strength of a supposed debt and deficit calamity retains that favoured regard on economic issues despite the fact that it has, in just three years added more than 100 billion to the National debt and trebled the deficit – the two things they claimed were threatening Australia’s future.

January 27, 2024

ICJ Ruling on Israel crimes "Poses the greatest political dilemma for the Biden presidency"

“I only hope that Biden will, on this occasion, stand up for justice.”

November 10, 2016

IAN MARSH. Trump’s Victory and Australian Politics

A new anti-globalisation surge.

Trump’s ascension no doubt creates new agenda challenges for Australia. But his campaign generated so many diverse and inconsistent statements that the policy landscape remains obscure. What is crystal clear is the gulf between elite worldviews and large swathes of public opinion. Remember those panegyrics to economic globalisation: The World is Flat and The Golden Straightjacket? What now of Thomas Friedman’s assured analysis?

Here is one potted reading of the past half century or so. Start with the mass party world. The parties drew their power and reach from class identity. Here is Ernest Bevin’s description of his (British) socialisation: ‘I had to work at ten years of age while my employer’s son went to the university until he was twenty. You have set out for me a different set of conditions. I was taught to bow to the squire and touch my hat to the parson; my employer’s son was not. All these things have produced within me an intense hatred, a hatred which has caused me to organise for my fellows and direct my mind to a policy to give to my class a power to control their own destiny and labour….At present employers and employed are too often separated by something akin to a barrier of “caste” …The operatives are frequently regarded by employers as being of a different and inferior order…So long as these views continue to exist they inevitably produce an intense class bitterness.’

August 15, 2017

TERENCE BEED. Turnbull’s postal “plebiscite” and the Australian Bureau of Statistics: next step in its fall from grace?

The Australian Bureau of Statistics has another debacle approaching brought on by its direction to conduct the government’s proposed postal plebiscite on same sex marriage. Little more than an outmoded postal survey it will be flawed from the start, plagued by biases both known and unknown. The survey will seriously erode the public’s confidence in this once peerless official statistical agency. It needs to start work now to salvage what it can of its reputation for trust and integrity.

October 9, 2015

Nauru and the Philippines

Three days ago, on 6 October, I posted a story ‘ Nauru and the Philippines’. That story carried an unconfirmed report that the Australian government was negotiating with the Philippines government for the transfer of 600 asylum seekers in Nauru to the Philippines.

Since then there have been several reports confirming the thrust of this story, even though there has been no confirmation from the Philippine or the Australian government. These reports indicate that the discussions are proceeding, but are not yet concluded. The detail of the arrangement will be very important, particularly the residential status of any asylum seekers transferred to the Philippines. See below the links to the reports in The Guardian (Daniel Hurst and Ben Doherty) and UCAnews (Michael Sainsbury). The reports have also been covered in several News Ltd publications.

October 31, 2016

JOHN MENADUE and IAN McAULEY. The future of globalisation.

Rescuing globalisation from cheer leaders and populists.

If we cannot make globalisation work for all, in the end it will work for none. Kofi Annan

Last week John Menadue raised the issue of globalisation, welcoming comment from other people in his blog community.

As he points out, the rise of Trump in the USA, the Brexit vote in the UK and the success of protectionist parties in our federal election have all elevated globalisation as a pressing issue, and there is a risk that we slide into an era of isolationism and protectionism.

February 3, 2014

Ian Webster. Cutting waste and costs in health

Waste in health care conjures up several pictures.

One picture is of community nurses, psychologists and Aboriginal health workers in the community centre I visit anchored to their computer screens, endlessly it seems, trying to fulfil the demands of data entry. They are obviously frustrated by the lack of relevance this has for solving the problems of their patients. It takes time away and it is disempowering. About one third of each day is lost in this way.

December 27, 2025

‘Australians for Humanity’ demand the invitation to Israel’s President be withdrawn immediately

The Israel President cannot be welcomed in Australia. The government he represents has been found by the International Court of Justice to have breached international law: the Netanyahu regime has committed a range of international crimes against humanity including war crimes, apartheid, illegal occupation and ethnic cleansing.

January 27, 2024

Israel accuses the ICJ of (you guessed it) antisemitism

The International Court of Justice rejected Israel’s request to dismiss the genocide case brought against it by South Africa on Friday, ruling by a massive majority that the case shall proceed and instructing Israel to refrain from killing and harming Palestinians in the interim.

March 23, 2015

John Menadue. More problems with the Department of Health and Ageing.

On 16 March, I drew attention to a Capability Review of the Department of Health and Ageing by the Australian Public Service Commission. It set out a very worrying analysis of the overall performance of DHA.

We now have a report by the Australian National Audit Office of DHA’s administration of the Fifth Community Pharmacy Agreement (5CPA). The 5CPA is the fifth agreement which the Commonwealth Government has made to provide subsidised medicines to Australians who are eligible through the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS). This agreement is with community pharmacies across Australia.

July 8, 2016

ROBERT MANNE. Murdoch's war.

In July 2005, Robert Manne in The Monthly Essays, outlined Rupert Murdoch’s role and that of some of his senior journalists in support of the invasion of Iraq. Robert Manne notes that ‘of the 175 Murdoch owned newspapers worldwide, all supported the invasion’. The opponents of the war were described in Murdoch’s newspapers as ’the coalition of the whining’. See transcript below of Robert’s Manne’s revelations about how monopoly press power is abused. John Menadue

July 15, 2013

Regional cooperation is the key. Guest blogger: Rt Hon Malcolm Fraser

Australia’s problems with asylum seekers and refugees are not unique. We are not the only point of destination. There are around 30,000 in Australia, over 160,000 in Canada, 51,000 in Austria, 22,000 in Belgium, 74,000 in Netherlands with a population much less than ours, nearly 150,000 in the United Kingdom and 589,000 in Germany. There is a massive move of a similar kind to Europe. We are not the only destination. It is a worldwide problem which requires regional and international cooperation. We cannot ‘fix’ it on our own.

February 22, 2017

DAVID JAMES. Trump's pro-globalisation critics miss the key questions

The most pressing question: Is the global system there to serve people, or are people there to serve the global system? They also never address a central contradiction of globalisation: that capital is free to move, but for the most part people are not, unless they belong to the elite ranks. The inevitable backlash has begun.

November 17, 2018

KELLIE MERRITT. Stepping up to the war crease.

Unaccountable spin and double standards are the stuff of “good bloke” politicians. It’s a skilful charade that perpetuates unchecked executive power and distances the parliament and public. Kellie Merritt’s husband Paul was killed “whilst on operational duty” in Iraq. She doesn’t want to collude with the “good blokes”. Truth is often the first casualty of war… and cricket.

August 1, 2024

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