May 25, 2016

PETER BROOKS. Mind the gap in doctors' fees - it is all around us

John Thompson reminds us of the total lack of transparency in fees charged by doctors in Australia. Surgeon’s report shows the ineffectiveness of private health insurers to control health costs Posted on 07/05/2016 by John Menadue

So can we dissect this further. What is in a medical fee – well may you ask. When you go to your doctor you may see a fees schedule on the reception desk – or you may have received a letter from the receptionist / practice manager indicating that you will be responsible for certain fees over and above what you will get back from Medicare and ( possibily ) your Private Health Scheme . It is not unusual to be asked to pay something in advance before an appointment ( usually for a procedure - endoscopy ) is even made . Even lawyers don’t make you do that- do they . So there are at least three fees- what the Government pays the doctor – the Medicare fee , then there is the AMA rate – why this is different does not seem to be based on any scientific evidence , and then there is what the doctor actually charges you . Again not based on anything but what the doctor feels the market will support - and it usually does because effectively you have no choice .Do you ask for a second opinion ? do you have a discussion about the fee and why it is so much higher than the Medicare rebate or the AMA fee- when this person is going to put a new hip into you next week or open up your belly – I don’t think so .

November 16, 2014

John Tulloh. Innocents abroad at the ABC.

INNOCENTS ABROAD AT THE ABC LOOK INWARDS AS AUSTRALIA LOOKS OUTWARDS

‘Now we cross to an ABC correspondent in Beijing for the latest on the Japanese crisis…’

The Guardian the other day carried a report that the ABC planned to emasculate its foreign news presence as part of its budget cuts. While the ABC has not confirmed or denied the claim, the reporter concerned has had very good contacts at the ABC for many years.

June 8, 2015

Garry Everett. Who’s Messing with marriage?

Current Affairs

A response to the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference’s Pastoral Letter entitled “Don’t Mess With Marriage”, May 2015.

The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference issued this Pastoral Letter with three purposes in mind: to engage in the current debate about marriage equality; to present the Catholic Church’s teaching on marriage; and to explain the position of the Church to the wider community. The letter does not succeed as it should on any of the three nominated purposes.

February 26, 2013

Another misleading story about hospital costs

The head of Ramsey Health told us in the AFR today that the “Productivity Commission report on public and private hospital systems found that the private sector was 30% more efficient” It did not.

Last year the CEO of the Private Hospitals Association said that private hospital costs are 32% lower than public hospitals. The same old hoary untruths keeps being repeated.

The Productivity Commission concedes (p83) that it is hard to compare the costs of the two systems. However it went on to say that at a national level public and private hospitals had broadly similar cost per case mix adjusted separation in 2007/08. (Sorry for the jargon but it means comparing like with like).It added that significant differences were found in the composition of costs.

September 22, 2016

TRAVERS McLEOD, PETER HUGHES, SRIPRAPHA PETCHARAMESREE, STEVEN WONG, TRI NUKE PUDJIASTUTI. Developing a regional refugee framework.

September has seen a surge of international summits. First came the G20 in Hangzhou, then ASEAN and the East Asia Summit in Vientiane, plus the Pacific Islands Forum in Pohnpei.

And, on consecutive days this week, the United Nations in New York hosted a summit on refugees and migrants, followed by US President Barack Obama’s special leaders’ summit on refugees. Representatives from government, business and civil society gathered to decide how best to move the dial on unprecedented mass displacement.

It’s easy to be sceptical of talkfests, but the New York summits carried special significance. They show that forced migration has become a matter of high politics. And unless managed more effectively, forced migration will have permanent and intensifying negative impacts on countries across the globe.

May 18, 2016

CAROLINE RYAN. Women deacons or women cardinals?

While I welcome anything authentic that promotes the capacity of women to be truly influential in the church, I am not really keen on the diaconate idea of female deacons. Essentially this is because I think it is unnecessary. That is to say, if the theology of the laity was allowed to mature, the diaconal ministry could be effectively offered by lay people - men and women.

March 12, 2014

John Menadue. Gina Rinehart and the age of entitlement.

It is a bit rich for Gina Rinehart, with the enormous privileges she has inherited, to be telling us that we all need to work harder, cut taxes and curb wasteful government spending. Born on third base, as baseball enthusiasts would understand, does give a very jaundiced view of yourself and others.

There is a quite dishonest campaign being run about the need to cut spending and reduce taxes. It looks as if we are being softened up to help the “deserving rich”.

September 8, 2013

Deconstructing the election result. Guest Blogger: Walter Hamilton

1. Labor lost the election before the Coalition won it.

2. There was a narrowing in the state-by-state differences in the two-party preferred voting ratios of Labor and the Coalition, which partly accounts for the bigger swings against the ALP in Victoria, SA and Tasmania. That is, where Labor did well in 2010 to hold ground it was more vulnerable this time around.

3. The ALP’s primary vote has fallen to the low 30s, its worst result in a century. In the past six years it has hopped from one side to the opposite on key issues such as climate change and border protection. It has failed to respond effectively to the further hollowing out of manufacturing jobs on which its traditional union base relies. It has talked about itself in the third person, with a regal presumption to rule, and talked down to the electorate. It has talked too much altogether. It has treated policies like play things – to be spruiked one day and cast off the next.

May 8, 2014

Kieran Tapsell's "Potiphar's Wife"

In this book by Kieran Tapsell which is to be launched on May 27 we can learn about canon law and secrecy in the Vatican, particularly in relation to sexual abuse. Kieran Tapsell has been a guest blogger on these issues on this site. John Menadue

For 1500 years, the Catholic Church accepted that clergy who sexually abused children deserved to be stripped of their status as priests and then imprisoned. A series of papal and Council decrees from the twelfth century required such priests to be dismissed from the priesthood, and then handed over to the civil authorities for further punishment.

April 29, 2015

Philippe Le Corre. World War II is also not over in Asia.

Historians estimate that 14 million Chinese died at the hands of the Japanese in WWII. The Chinese economy and society was in ruins. Will Australia attend the 70th anniversary of VJ Day in Beijing on September 3 this year. John Menadue.

All the controversy on the Russian celebration of the end of World War II has obscured the similarly problematic role of such events in Asia. Indeed, at a recent roundtable among think-tankers and government staffers, one participant candidly asked a simple question. “What will governments do when China’s official invitation letter to attend World War II celebrations in Beijing arrives?” Embarrassing silence ensued. On September 3, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) plans to host a military parade to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II and, to use the Chinese phrasing, “victory in the World Anti-fascist War and the Chinese people’s War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression.”

November 25, 2018

CAVAN HOGUE. Democracy and the Future.

Recent polls have reported that roughly half of young Australians do not think democracy is the best form of government. There have been other expressions of concern in the media about the state of democracy in Australia and indeed the world. This reflects a widespread dissatisfaction with Australian politics and politicians. Democracy is a faith like any other and is not the end process of some kind of Darwinian inevitability. If we want to convert others to our views on democracy and human rights we need to do a better job of it and perhaps show more respect for the rights of minorities who don’t agree with the prevailing majority view.

September 4, 2014

Ben Lewis. The false advertising of mandatory detention and “Stopping the Boats”

Spend any amount of time listening to Australian policy makers or reading Australian media and you’re certain to hear a familiar phrase: “Stop the Boats”. It has become such a political imperative within the Australian asylum seeker debate that “Stop the Boats” is rarely even challenged. But putting aside the question of whether Australia should (or even can) “Stop the Boats”, there is a fundamental flaw in the logic . . . the key policy which underpins the “Stop the Boats” thinking—namely mandatory detention—has been shown to be false advertising.

November 25, 2018

DUNCAN MACLAREN. Scotland: Overcoming the Scottish Cringe to Exit Brexit

I was recently in Croatia with representatives of Caritas members mostly from Eastern European countries. I was a speaker and a facilitator for these newer members of the largest aid, development and social service network in the world attending the conference about advocacy and humanitarian action, whether domestic or overseas. There was a European Union flag in front of the podium since the EU had paid for the conference. I made reference to the EU badge I was wearing because, as I said, I was a proud European who came from a country, Scotland, which objected to being dragged out of the EU against its will after having its vote 62% to remain in completely ignored. Milling around afterwards, delegates from Georgia, Armenia, Slovenia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Croatia, Albania and elsewhere registered their astonishment that Scotland had voted against independence when it had the chance in 2014, citing the economic success and sense of dignity that had followed their moves to freedom. “Ah”, I sadly whispered, “you didn’t have the Scottish Cringe to contend with!”

April 24, 2015

John Dwyer. Sliding down the slippery slope to two-tiered health care.

Private Health Insurance gets a foothold in primary care.

Imagine the following scenario. You are checking in with your GP’s receptionist for your scheduled appointment and are asked to produce your Medicare Card and, if you have one, your private health insurance membership card. If you have both you move into the waiting room on the right reserved for patients with private health insurance for whom the practice will provide a range of additional services not available to those in the waiting room on the left. Health outcomes are resource dependent so patients who can expect more quality time with their doctor and a range of services from other health professionals because private health dollars make it possible will, in many cases, have better outcomes. This is particularly likely if they are troubled by chronic and complex conditions. In such circumstances it’s also not hard to imagine practices over time, deciding to accept only patients with private insurance, as is commonplace in the US.

May 21, 2013

What Rupert Murdoch told the US Ambassador about the pending Whitlam dismissal – 12 months beforehand in November 1974? Yes 1974. John Menadue

More pieces are falling into place. Last year we learned from Jenny Hockey’s second biographic volume of Gough Whitlam that a serving High Court Judge Anthony Mason from August 1975 improperly briefed Sir John Kerr about the dismissal of the Whitlam Government. He even drafted a dismissal letter, although it was never used. The legal, political and business establishment was closing ranks to get rid of the elected Whitlam Government.

February 6, 2013

New leadership on Asylum seekers

Yesterday, Crikey published an article by Arja Keski-Nummi and me on the opportunities for the new Minister for Immigration to break the impasse on asylum seekers. You can find it at my website publish.pearlsandirritations.com.

August 3, 2014

John Menadue. Suffer the little children to come unto me…

Well, not so if they are Palestinian children or asylum seeker children in our detention centres.

At last counting there were 1,230 Palestinians killed in Gaza as a result of 3,000 or more air and artillery strikes. 56 Israelis have died. Close to 1,000 of those Palestinians killed were civilians, including children. Only three Israeli civilians died. Just imagine the outcry of the Israeli lobby if those figures were reversed and 1000 Israelis had been killed… Clearly the Israel lobby and many others don’t regard Palestinian civilians and children of equal value to their own.

May 5, 2016

Michael Keating. The 2016-17 Budget. Part 1 of 2.

The Turnbull Government’s Budget for 2016-17 reflects an essentially ‘steady as she goes’ fiscal strategy. Not that that is a fault – indeed it can be a virtue, especially when matched against the give-aways in other previous pre-election budgets.

Furthermore, we could not have realistically expected any other sort of Budget, given the extent to which the Government had narrowed its options before Budget day. In addition, a policy of matching every new spending initiative by a saving, is bound to produce minimal change; not least because cutting existing programs typically generates more opposition than the support for the new initiatives. But that said there are a few interesting and useful initiatives in this Budget.

March 27, 2024

A revolution in American Foreign Policy

Such is the title of a recently published FOREIGN AFFAIRS article by Bernie Sanders, the sub-title of which is Replacing Greed, Militarism and Hypocrisy With Solidarity, Diplomacy, and Human Rights.

August 19, 2014

Elizabeth Elliott. Compassion goes missing on Christmas Island

When it comes to children in need, most Australians feel compassion.

Most will applaud today’s announcement that ‘Boat Kids’ will be released into the community. However this decision does not go far enough. It includes only kids aged less than 10 years (excluding many vulnerable teens); only those detained on the Australian mainland (excluding kids on Nauru, Manus and Christmas Islands); and only kids who arrived before July 19th 2013. Furthermore, the number to be released includes kids already living in community detention housing.

November 30, 2013

What a good effort. Guest blogger: Chris Geraghty

This is the best effort at an apology so far and “the leaders of the Catholic Church in Australia” are to be congratulated, finally. They have been dragged, fighting and squealing, to their knees, no, to their bellies, but eventually a thorough and unqualified commitment statement has been published and read to the faithful at every parish Mass on Sunday 24 November. I heard it and it produced a great sigh of relief in me and in those united in prayer with me. The sadness, the horror, the anger, the shame have been all pervasive, like a fog low over the landscape. They have hovered there in my heart, in my mind for the past few years, and the scandal continues to besmirch my image of Christ’s immaculate bride. But at last, some acceptance, some unqualified response, some expression of guilt, of humility, of understanding. The Justice and Truth Commission under the guidance of Francis Sullivan, as well as the bishops and senior clergy of Australia are to be congratulated. At last they have got something right.

February 3, 2013

Cricket - Junk food and BUPA

I used to be a grafted-on cricket watcher. But I am being weaned off. One reason is that there is so much cricket on TV that the quality suffers.

I mostly turn off the audio and although the camera work is superb, I can’t turn off the unhealthy diet of fast-food and beer advertisements that Channel 9 and Foxtel overwhelm me with from first ball to stumps. I thought sport had something to do with encouraging healthy lifestyles. But the endless Kentucky Fried Chicken, Macdonalds, Pizza Hut and Victorian Bitter advertisements do just the reverse.

January 29, 2017

JOHN FALZON. The housing crisis in Australia is not an economic inevitability

The government is actually intervening in the market, especially through such levers as negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount, to ramp up housing inequality!

May 13, 2016

JOHN MENADUE. Health principles and policies for the next parliament.

Thanks to Medicare introduced over 40 years ago, despite bitter conservative opposition, we have one of the best health systems in the world. It is sustainable but we waste over $20 b per annum. There are threats and problems that we must face.

What are they?

June 9, 2016

A war on women. Protection denied, abuse condoned on Nauru.

the news from Manus and Nauru gets worse by the day. Inhumanity is imposed in our name.

Nauru and Manus are unsustainable. I have yet to meet anyone who will admit that what is happening is right or defensible.

See link below ‘Protection denied, abuse condoned; women on Nauru at risk’. This searing story is authored by Wendy Bacon, Pamela Curr, Carmen Lawrence, Julie Macken and Claire O’Connor. Please pass on to friends and colleagues.

December 20, 2024

'China's Pearl': Macao 25 years after return to China

Zhongshan, where I live, is only about 40 kilometres as the crow flies from the Special Administrative Region of Macao, described as "China's Pearl" by Xi Jinping. The name is apt, Macao sits at the entry of the Pearl River opposite Hong Kong and has, in recent years, shown both robust growth and remarkable stability.

November 17, 2013

Systemic issues arising from the Victorian Parliament's 'Betrayal of Trust Report' Guest blogger: Kieran Tapsell

On 13 November 2013, the Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into the Handling of Child Abuse by Religious and Other Organizations handed down its Report, entitled “Betrayal of Trust”. It stated:

“No representatives of the Catholic Church directly reported the criminal conduct of its members to the police. The Committee found that there is simply no justification for this position.” (p.170)

There was no justification, but there was a reason. In 1922, Pope Pius XI issued Crimen Sollicitationis, requiring any investigation of child sex abuse by the Church to be covered by the “secret of the Holy Office”, the penalty for breach of which was automatic excommunication. There were no exceptions for reporting such crimes to the police. In 1962, it was reissued by Pope John XXIII with some minor changes.

September 22, 2016

JON STANFORD. Business welfare under the Coalition: two case studies (2)

This is the second of two articles by Jon Stanford on the Coalition’s approach to industry protection and ‘business welfare’. Part 1 (Motor Cars) can be found at Jon Stanford. Business welfare under the Coalition: two case studies.

Naval shipbuilding

At the outset, we need to understand that there are no significant defence reasons for building naval platforms in Australia. Self-reliance means that Australia must be capable of maintaining its defence platforms and systems to a high standard and returning damaged assets to full availability as quickly as possible. Australia does not produce a single missile or weapons system that is employed on its ships, not even a 5-inch gun. Apart from the excellent CEA Technologies naval radars, almost every defence system in the ADF comes from overseas. We do not build any fixed wing platforms for the RAAF, nor do we make the Abrams tank. A sensible acquisition policy should focus on value for money, with local procurement only occurring when it represents an efficient use of resources.

May 5, 2016

Michael Keating. The Government’s Plan for Jobs and Growth. Part 2 of 2.

On Tuesday night the Treasurer announced that this year’s Budget was like none other – this Budget represents the Government’s Plan for Jobs and Growth. Presumably the Government hopes that its Plan will represent such a compelling narrative that it can then sail to victory in the forthcoming election. Accordingly, in this article I propose to assess how the Government’s Plan measures up in terms of its probable impact on jobs and growth.

January 15, 2015

Héctor Abad Faciolince : Against Submission

I am forever indebted to the Catholic Church and Cardinal Alfonso López Trujillo. When I was a happy and irreverent twenty year old student at the Pontifical University, I published an article in which I openly insulted the Holy Father.

“The Meddling Pope”, it was called. I say that I am forever indebted to the Church because at that time, they restricted themselves to expelling me from the Universidad Pontificia Boliviariana (with three other iconoclast friends) when, according to the time honoured Catholic tradition, the correct thing to do would have been to burn us at the stake, make a public example of us, put us on trial for blasphemy, and deliver us over to the secular arm to put us on the rack until we died from the pain. But no, they did me the simple favour of expelling me, and as a result I went to a good university, the University of Antioquia, and ended up travelling to Italy to study literature.

November 3, 2017

FRANK BRENNAN. Questions Ardern can ask Turnbull about Manus.

When Prime Minister Turnbull meets with New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Sunday, he will receive a renewed offer of help from New Zealand in relation to Manus Island. For the last four years, New Zealand has offered to take 150 refugees from Manus Island. Messrs Turnbull and Dutton have seen fit, unilaterally and contrary to the signed agreement with PNG, to step in (on behalf of PNG presumably) and refuse New Zealand’s offer of help. At the same time, they continue to say that these refugees are the responsibility of PNG. It’s hard to see how they continue to have it both ways.

December 24, 2014

Michael Kelly SJ. Pope Francis and the Curia.

The tongues are certainly waging worldwide over the Christmas message of Pope Francis to staff at the Vatican – the priests, monsignors, bishops and cardinals gathered for an end of year assessment by the pope of the year that has passed.

A few perfunctory words to round out a very busy year or a general expression for thanks for various contributions? Not at all! A full on, Gospel based account of the traps of bureaucracy, the hypocrisy that can beset professional Catholic administrators and an implied warning that more is to come when the anticipated plans to restructure the Vatican Curia are announced in the next couple of months.

July 30, 2014

Wiryono Sastrohandoyo. The new Indonesian President Joko Widodo.

Joko Widodo is an upright, decent and honourable person.

It is the general feeling in Indonesia that his election is a victory for the Indonesian people and the generally peaceful election process. This is a sign of the growing maturity of Indonesia’s young democracy. Jokowi was great during his two terms as mayor of Solo, a small city of half a million people in central Java. He has been less impressive during his two years as Governor of Jakarta with a diverse population of more than ten million people. Now he has to deal with a larger and even more diverse population of 240 million.

August 19, 2014

An abuse of power by the Israeli lobby.

In 1967 the Israeli military attacked the USS Liberty, an American spy-ship which had been monitoring Israeli transmissions about the conflict during the Six-day War. Intercepted Israeli communications indicated that the goal was to sink the Liberty and leave no survivors.

As the story reveals, - see link below - both the US President Lyndon Johnson and the Secretary of Defence, Robert Macnamara, did their best to ensure that this action by the Israeli military - an attack on the US navy - never became public.

January 29, 2017

JOHN AUSTEN. The Premier and privatisation; selling silverware for transport tupperware?

Commentators on Premier Baird’s years focussed on short term matters such as money from privatisations or inconvenience caused by infrastructure building. The most important question, the merit of infrastructure built with sale proceeds, may take years to answer. NSW will be lucky if it ends up with transport infrastructure of lasting value from the sale of the state’s silverware.

April 24, 2015

Walter Hamilton. In the Name of the Emperor

Emperor Hirohito never made it to Okinawa. He passed away before he could fulfill that stated desire. (He was scheduled to go in 1987, until illness intervened.) Okinawa was the scene of some of the most savage fighting of the Pacific War: 100-200,000 Japanese soldiers and civilians died there in April-June 1945, as well as 14,000 Americans.

The Okinawan or Ryukyu Islands were annexed by Japan in 1872 during the reign of Hirohito’s grandfather, the Emperor Meiji. Ever since, the islands’ ethnically distinct people have remained stuck at the bottom of Japan’s socio-economic ladder; Okinawans endured disproportionately heavy sacrifices during the war, and continue to do so.

November 13, 2014

Frank Brennan SJ. The G20 Agenda and Pope Francis

The leaders of the world’s 19 largest economies (together with the EU) are meeting in Brisbane this weekend at the annual G20 meeting. Australia is the host and Prime Minister Tony Abbott is the president this year. The host country gets to put its stamp on the agenda. Last year at St Petersburg, the G20 acknowledged the “need to work to ensure that growth is strong, sustainable, inclusive and balanced”. At these meetings, a lot of word-smithing goes on even before the world leaders disembark their planes and change into the compulsory conference shirts. In the lead up to this meeting, Australia has been wary about the word “inclusive”, preferring a commitment to achieving “strong, sustainable and balanced growth”. When the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors met in Cairns as guests of Australian Treasurer Joe Hockey in February, they set a goal of economic growth “at least 2 percent above the currently projected level in the next five years”. Since then the IMF has twice downgraded its global growth forecasts in light of the weaker than expected global activity, volatility in the financial markets, and geopolitical tensions. Back then no one was talking about Ebola or the need to go to war against the Islamic State.

November 3, 2017

TESSA MORRIS-SUZUKI. Manus Island - Mr. Turnbull, Just Say 'Yes'

The nightmare scenario that everyone has predicted for months is now unfolding. Desperate and frightened refugees are digging in the ground for tainted water. Hundreds of men who are dependent on psychotropic medication because of neglect and mistreatment now have less than a month’s supply of medication left. But there is a small window of hope. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinta Ardern has offered to take 150 of the refugees, possibly opening the way to other resettlement arrangements. Malcolm Turnbull meets Ardern on 5 November, and has the choice of accepting this offer, or slamming the door in the faces of the refugees. Mr. Turnbull, just say yes.

August 6, 2014

Tessa Morris-Suzuki Rare Earth, politics and human rights.

On 5 July 2014, the ABC’s PM program ran a report which revealed that “a leading Asian human rights activist has urged the Federal Government to investigate a Queensland-based resources company and a prominent Australian geologist over mining deals with North Korea that he believes may breach United Nations sanctions”. (http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2014/s4061381.htm)

The report looked at a project by the firm SRE Minerals to develop rare earth mines in North Korea. The prominent geologist in question is Brisbane based scientist Louis Schurmann. This scheme has come under attack from Japanese activist Ken Kato, head of an organisation known in English as “Human Rights in Asia”, and in Japanese as the “Asian Investigation Organization” (Ajia Chosa Kiko). Kato, as PM reported, has lodged a complaint with Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, stating that Schurmann’s activities may be in breach of UN sanctions because “rare earths are an indispensable material for guided missiles”.

July 4, 2015

John Menadue. The Greek crisis and regime change.

Current Affairs

A lot of the blame for the present crisis should be borne by many countries and institutions, but the one group that is least responsible is the present left-wing government of Greece, Syriza.

The major blame must rest first with the previous Greek governments that mired the Greek people in corruption and cronyism. The second group that must bear immediate responsibility is the incompetence of the Troika – the EU, the European Central Bank and the IMF, led very much by the German Government. The austerity campaign inflicted on Greece has resulted in the GDP shrinking by 25%, accompanied by unemployment of 25%, and youth unemployment of 50%. Such a situation is unacceptable and is likely to result in extreme outcomes. Something just has to give in Greece.

June 17, 2015

John Menadue. Early tax avoidance: the window tax

Holidaying in Bath, I came across an early example of tax avoidance. A window tax was introduced in the UK in 1696. It was believed to be a progressive tax on the assumption that the wealthy property owners had larger houses and more windows. But the tax avoiders found a way around the problem…fill in the window spaces with masonry and avoid the tax even if it looked very ugly. Wealthy property owners don’t often have good taste or care about neighbours. The tax was abolished in 1851. Tax avoidance is now largely conducted in secret and the scale of it by such companies as News Corp, Westfield Glencore, Google, Apple and the Big Pharma multinationals puts the tax avoiders in Bath in the shade.

May 13, 2016

Bruce Wearne. Political questions that can't be answered by our publicly funded public relations firms.

Last week, four days before the election was called, I received a “pre-election” letter from my “Parliamentary representative”. It began with the following disclaimer:

Dear Fellow Corangamite Resident: Soon there will be another election and I write to apologise for the fact that your letter boxes will be swamped with election material. However, it will be an opportunity for you to choose your representative - and yes, I will be standing and asking for your vote.

March 14, 2013

Francis I. An unpredicted but not unpredictable result. Guest blogger Michael Kelly SJ

While everyone agrees that the election of Jorge Bergoglio as Pope Francis is unprecedented in many ways, it is not entirely a surprise. He was runner up to Joseph Ratzinger in the 2005 Conclave that saw him elected as Pope Benedict XVI.

Bergoglio is the first Jesuit, first Latin American and first Pope from the South. He is of Italian migrant parents but not a “Romano” or a Curial Cardinal having had no time in his working life at the Vatican.

July 18, 2016

JOHN AUSTEN. Road pricing rather than more road funding must be the priority.

Road pricing is a hot topic for policy advisers although less popular with the public and elected representatives. This article attempts a (overly) simple explanation of what, why and whereto of road pricing.

April 9, 2014

Kieran Tapsell. Two empires.

Antonio Caballero, Semana, Colombia, 30 March 2014 http://www.semana.com/opinion/articulo/antonio-caballero-dos-imperios/381891-3

Barack Obama is normally very careful in his rhetoric, but some days ago, he said something a little unfortunate. When criticizing Russia’s annexation of the Crimea, he said to the press: “We (the United States) have considerable influence on our neighbours. But generally, we do not need to invade them to enforce their cooperation.”

Generally? In its brief history of a little more than two centuries, the United States has invaded its neighbours on the American continent twenty nine times, beginning with its defeat in attempting to annexe Canada in 1812 (although even before that it had been casting its eye on Mexico and Haiti after its slave revolution). It was distracted for a period while it exterminated its internal enemy, the Indian tribes. Then it was full bore ahead.

January 13, 2015

Charlie Hebdo and Algeria.

Robert Fisk of The Independent traces the Charlie Hebdo massacre back to the French occupation and disaster in Algeria. See link to this article below.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/charlie-hebdo-paris-attack-brothers-campaign-of-terror-can-be-traced-back-to-algeria-in-1954-9969184.html

November 13, 2014

Global Pulse Magazine

You can now subscribe to Global Pulse Magazine.

Global Pulse Magazine which you can view at www.globalpulsemagazine.com was launched on September 29 and for the last month has been free to visit.

We invite you to subscribe at and receive daily newsletter. Just go to the homepage of www.globalpulsemagazine.com and at the top right hand corner you can click the SUBSCRIBE button and follow the prompts.

Global Pulse Magazine combines the resources of five leading Catholic publishers – Commonweal in New York, La Croix in Paris, UCAN based in Bangkok, Eureka Street in Australia and eRenlai from China though edited in Taiwan.

October 15, 2014

Frank Brennan SJ. The Vatican Synod has let the genie out of the bottle. Deo Gratias

Let there be no doubt. There is change, and a great deal of uncertainty, in the air in Rome. And it is not just coming from Pope Francis. The Catholic Church retaining some of the attributes of a royal court in its mode of governance provides its senior prelates with every opportunity to emulate the tone and substance of the remarks and the ambiguity of approach of the one they call “the Holy Father”. The Pope has the opportunity even when convening a synod of 190 bishops to handpick those who steer the synod process, write the minutes and manage the media statements to the world. On Monday, Cardinal Peter Erdo, the chief reporter (general rapporteur) of the Synod on the Family released the ‘relatio post disceptionem’ after the first week of the Synod. This is not a final text. It is simply a working document “intended to raise questions and indicate perspectives that will have to be matured and made clearer by the reflection of the local Churches” in the year ahead.

March 17, 2015

John Menadue. Private health insurance and funding a Medicare Dental Scheme.

In this blog I have written extensively about the damage that private health insurance (PHI) is doing in Australia. We are sleep-walking into a US style health disaster.

If people want private health insurance, that is their right, but I see no reason why the taxpayer should subsidise a socially divisive and nationally damaging subsidy.

The damage of PHI is increasing year on year. In my most recent blog on the subject at the time of the last annual increase in PHI premiums, I pointed out that since 1999 when John Howard introduced the subsidy on PHI, overall prices have risen by only 50% but PHI premiums have risen by over 150%.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal