December 24, 2024

Gaza lights candles during Christmas, not to celebration in the New Year, but in grief and sorrow

For the second year in a row, the Christmas season passes while Gaza remains under genocide. While the entire world bids farewell to 2024 and celebrates the arrival of 2025, Palestinians continue to suffer under Israeli aggression, which kills, starves, and displaces civilians in Gaza with brutal cruelty.

April 15, 2014

Michael Sainsbury. Australia and Cambodia's shady asylum seeker deal.

Australia’s history of dealing with asylum seekers continues to spin into a dizzying spiral of contempt. Already under fire for shutting its doors to some of the world’s most vulnerable people, the Canberra government is now in talks with Cambodia, the latest in a rollcall of poor, dysfunctional neighbors to whom it will “outsource” its so-called asylum seeker problem.

Immigration Minister Scott Morrison, who counts as a ‘success’ every asylum seeker he can banish, last week became the second member of Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s Cabinet to visit Cambodia this year, following Foreign Minister Julie Bishop’s whistle-stop trip to Phnom Penh in February. Seemingly peripheral to the talks was any discussion of Cambodia’s own woeful rights record, and how that may impact on the refugees Australia is unwilling to shelter.

May 24, 2025

On the preciousness of life – making sense of the horrifying murders in Washington, DC

So, this terrible murder of two young Israeli embassy officials, Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim. I think, is one of those moments where it’s important to be able to speak certain complementary truths, truths that are separated by “and,” not by “but".

April 7, 2013

Tokyo postcard. John Menadue

It is great to be back in Japan for cherry blossom. I first came to Japan almost 45 years ago and have been visiting regularly ever since. On our visits and residence in Japan, we stayed at scores of minshuku - Japanese B & B - across the country. It was a wonderful experience.

Cherry blossoms have been early in Japan this year. Many locals say that it is due to climate change! I suspect that many Japanese are more concerned about their environmental pollution of dust out of China, soaring eastwards, first over Korea and then over Japan. A family member who recently stayed in Seoul for a couple of days said that the dust obscured the sun until about 2pm each day.

June 10, 2014

John Menadue. Taxes and the free riders.

Our tax system is in a mess. It is easily exploited by the wealthy who can afford expert financial and taxation advice. We hear from Alan Jones and the Daily Telegraph about dole-bludgers. The Minister for Social Services Kevin Andrews says that disabled pensioners should get off the couch.

Tax avoidance and tax bludging however are much greater problems.

The Henry Review of Taxation addressed many problems but by and large the Rudd and Gillard Governments did not grasp the tax nettle. The scandal continues.

March 31, 2015

Peter Day. He is Alive: the Spiritual ‘Big Bang’

I love science. It takes us to different places: places of pure logic, of non-emotion, of rational intelligence, of majesty and beauty – sometimes even to places beyond our wildest imaginations.

Just think: 13.78 billion years ago our universe is thought to have begun as an infinitesimally small, infinitely hot, infinitely dense, something. After its initial appearance, it apparently inflated (the “Big Bang”), expanded and cooled, going from very, very small and very, very hot, to the size and temperature of our current universe. It continues to expand and cool to this day and we are inside of it: incredible creatures living on a unique planet, circling a beautiful star clustered together with several hundred billion other stars in a galaxy soaring through the cosmos – and all this out of nowhere, from nothing, for reasons unknown. 1

December 28, 2014

Brian Johnstone. Terrorism and torture - the Catholic tradition.

In Australia today, we accept that a person who has expressed ideas that justify terrorism may be restrained from acting out those ideas. But we would not justify torturing a person suspected of harbouring such notions to force him to reveal them or to reject such ideas. However, surveys in the Western world find that torture to obtain information is sometimes justified. The Prime Minister’s acceptance of torture in the context of the Sri Lankan civil war was as follows: “Obviously the Australian Government deplores any use of torture. We deplore that, wherever it might take place, we deplore that. But we accept that sometimes in difficult circumstances, difficult things happen.” ( http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2013/s3893068.htm, retrieved 15 Jan 2014).

April 16, 2016

Jon Stanford and Michael Keating. A more efficient submarine solution.

This week the Melbourne Age, SMH and the Canberra Times carried the following article written by Jon Stanford and Michael Keating on the $50 b. submarine project. This article is based on a three part article written by Jon Stanford and posted in Pearls and irritations. See link to three articles below. John Menadue

The 2016 Defence white paper proposes a substantial increase in expenditure on major assets for the Australian Defence Force. The largest item, and the most costly acquisition ever for the ADF, is the $50 billion project for 12 future submarines.

June 3, 2016

JOHN MENADUE. Best we forget. We commemorate Australians who died in foreign wars in foreign lands, but not Australian aborigines who died in defence of their own country.

Yesterday, in a moving ceremony, the remains of 33 Australians who were buried in military cemeteries in Malaysia and Singapore were returned to Australia. Our Governor General, Sir Peter Cosgrove, and Chief of the Defence Force, Air Chief Marshal Mark Binskin, were at Richmond airbase to witness the repatriation of 33 Australians who had died in foreign lands.

What a contrast this is to our refusal to acknowledge the 30,000 aborigines who died, not in wars in foreign lands but in defending their homelands where they had lived for hundreds of generations.

August 7, 2014

Michael Sainsbury. Will China’s crackdown save or sink the Communist Party?

In launching an investigation into former security chief Zhou Yongkang, Chinese President Xi Jinping has entered uncharted and possibly dangerous territory. It not only raises the stakes for Xi’s increasingly iron fisted rule, but also for the Communist Party itself.

The case announced last week targets an official who until recently was ranked the third most senior member of the party hierarchy as a senior member of the elite seven-man Politburo. Zhou controlled the police, paramilitary, courts and state security.

July 2, 2013

Asylum seekers - a regional solution and Bob Carr's nonsense. Guest blogger: Frank Brennan SJ

This morning Frank Brennan was interviewed by Fran Kelly on ABC Breakfast. See link below to the interview. (John Menadue)

http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/2013/07/bst_20130702_0821.mp3

April 8, 2016

David Peetz. Productivity in the Construction Industry: Did it surge under the Coalition’s Reforms?

On _7.30_ recently the Prime Minister dismissed the Productivity Commission’s findings on productivity growth in the construction industry in favour of those from a small consultancy firm. He used it to support a claim that the previous Coalition government’s legislative reforms in that industry had led to a 20% increase in construction productivity, which had ‘ flatlined’ under Labor.

Actually, though, things were a bit different. To see how we know it didn’t, and why he said it did, we look at (i) what’s it all about—what reforms are we measuring; (ii) what the official data show about productivity in that industry; (iii) why the Productivity Commission and a consultancy firm differed on the issue; and (iv) why the Prime Minister wanted to prefer the consultant’s version of events.

August 6, 2013

Encouraging words from Pope Francis at World Youth Day in Rio. John Menadue

On Copacabana beach in Rio, Pope Francis celebrated Mass with three million people, more than the Rolling Stones or Carnivale could ever attract. With his obvious modesty he showed himself a great communicator with the young and the poor. He appealed for the rich to share with the poor and solidarity between all people. He called the bishops to accountability rather than autocracy, to walk humbly with struggling people and to meet them on their journey. (John Menadue)

May 24, 2016

BILL AND BARBARA CLEMENTS: Refugees and round-ups.

The Paris Metro station of Bir Hakeim, not far from the Eiffel Tower, serves both the Australian Embassy and a monument that was erected in 1994 to commemorate the mass round-up of Jews, brought to the Velodrome d’hiver (an indoor cycle track known as the Vel d’hiv) which formerly occupied the site. The Australian Embassy in Paris is built on railway yards across from that Vel d’Hiv site.

February 1, 2014

Walter Hamilton. The ABC and its Japanese Cousin.

If the board and management of the ABC need to firm up their ideas about the proper relationship between a public broadcaster and the government of the day they might consider what is happening in Japan.

NHK, that nation’s public broadcaster, is a $7bn enterprise largely funded from television licence fees, with a board of governors appointed by the prime minister. It exerts enormous influence through its highly rating news and information programs, but the situation in which it now finds itself––criticised for being a mouthpiece for the conservative national government––is in sharp contrast to the ABC’s predicament. In thinking about how to respond to the attacks of Tony Abbott and others, managing director Mark Scott and chairman Jim Spigelman might reflect on their Japanese cousin.

March 28, 2013

The Boat People Obsession. John Menadue

The Australian Parliamentary Library has again pointed to our obsession with boat people.

In its 11 February 2013 Research Paper”Asylum seekers and refugees, What are the facts”, it highlights (p.8) that despite increases in boat arrivals in recent years, the number of ‘Irregular arrivals by sea’ to Australia is quite small compared with other countries.

The chart below shows this quite clearly.

Irregular arrivals by sea, selected countries

Parliamentary Library, data source: UNHCR, _All in the same boat: the challenges of mixed migration_, UNHCR website.

December 12, 2014

The Wit of Whitlam - a great read.

**ISBN: (Paperback)**9780522868081
**ISBN: (E-Book)**9780522868098
**PUBLISHED:**03/Dec/2014
**IMPRINT:**Melbourne University Press
**SUBJECT:**Biography: general

The Wit of Whitlam

James Carleton

Paperback $14.99
E-Book $9.99
See more at: https://www.mup.com.au/items/154221

Self-proclaimed international treasure Gough Whitlam never shied away from a pun, a put-down or a witticism.

His wife Margaret was his ‘best appointment’, he called Malcolm Fraser ‘Kerr’s cur’ after the Dismissal and when Sir Winton Turnbull called out in parliament ‘I am a country member’, Gough interjected ‘I remember’. When it was suggested he was funny, Gough responded: ‘Funny! Funny? Witty, yes. Epigrammatic perhaps, but not funny. You make me sound like a clown.’ James Carleton, Radio National presenter and founder of the university club ‘The Dewy-Eyed Whitlamites’, presents a keepsake of Goughisms that vindicates the Great Man’s self-assessment, ‘I never said I was immortal, merely eternal.’

May 18, 2015

John Dwyer. Politics trumps health policy yet again.

Current Affairs. Health.

A new medical school in Perth will create more problems than it will solve.

As must also be true for many colleagues who have been focussed on evidence based solutions to the serious shortage of Australian trained doctors working in rural communities, I am frustrated and annoyed by the Prime Minister’s capricious decision to fund a new medical school in Perth. In an attempt to solve the maldistribution of Australian trained doctors that has resulted in almost 50% of the General Practitioners available to people in rural and remote communities having been trained overseas, governments have applied a “market place” philosophy to the problem. This logic suggested that if we doubled the number of Australian trained doctors there would inevitably be competition for rural careers, as metropolitan opportunities would all be taken! In 2016 our intake of Australian students into medical schools will peak and many readers will know that (a) we are already having difficulty in finding quality clinical placements to maintain educational standards and (b) the flood of new graduates has done nothing to ease the shortage of Australian doctors working in “the bush”. This continuing problem is responsible for much unacceptable inequity with health outcomes in all categories being less satisfactory for rural Australians. Were rural patients able to access medical services as readily as their city cousins it would increase Medicare payments by two billion dollars a year!

October 12, 2016

SPENCER ZIFCAK. First Law Officer v Second Law Officer: George Brandis and Justin Gleeson in Conflict (Part 2)

In a previous article in these pages ( SPENCER ZIFCAK. First Law Officer vs Second Law Officer: George Brandis undermines Justin Gleeson), I set down the core principles at stake in the present conflict between the Commonwealth Attorney-General, George Brandis, and the Commonwealth Solicitor-General, Justin Gleeson. The conflict concerns the extent and limits of the Solicitor-General’s powers to provide high-level legal advice to the Government and to its departments and agencies.

More particularly, it relates to the Senator Brandis’ present attempt to introduce a new rule that the Solicitor-General may only provide a legal opinion to a government department or agency if the Attorney-General’s consent is first obtained.

May 3, 2013

National Party fails farmers. John Menadue

Warren Truss and Barnaby Joyce have allowed the National Party to be dragged along at the heels of the Liberal Party on climate change and other issues. What was it that Tony Abbott said about climate change being ‘bullshit’? Australian farmers particularly in Western Australia are now paying the price of failed leadership by the National Party.

Last week the government announced measures to assist distressed farmers who face drought, a strong dollar and other difficulties. Particular mention was made of farmers in the south-west of Western Australia.

July 14, 2013

Pope Francis blasts 'globalisation of indifference' for immigrants. Report from National Catholic Reporter

The treatment of asylum seekers in Australia brings shame to all of us. Pope Francis called for an end to the ‘globalisation of indifference’. In his first visit outside the Vatican Pope Francis called for decency and humanity in the treatment of outsiders. John Menadue

Published on National Catholic Reporter ( http://ncronline.org)

Francis blasts ‘globalization of indifference’ for immigrants

John L. Allen Jr. | Jul. 8, 2013 NCR Today

April 28, 2015

Peter Christoff. On these numbers, Australia's emissions auction won't get the job done.

Last Thursday, the Abbott government announced the results of its first reverse auction of emissions-reduction projects. Using A$660 million drawn from the A$2.55 billion Emissions Reduction Fund ( ERF), the government has purchased 47.3 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, as a first step towards reducing greenhouse emissions under its Direct Action plan.

Federal environment minister Greg Hunt proclaimed the auction to be a “ stunning result”, claiming that the ERF alone will get the government to achieve its existing Kyoto target.

June 22, 2014

Is Tony Abbott still a climate change denier?

Tony Abbott claimed on his recent overseas trip that he takes human induced climate change “very seriously” Or was it just a diversion before his meeting with President Obama who does take the issue seriously.

I hope he is no longer a climate change denier but I have my doubts. I suspect it is mainly window dressing with no serious new understanding of the urgency of the issue and what further action must be taken.

September 5, 2016

MICHAEL KELLY S.J. Making saints.

In our dreary world full of incredible people making claims to leadership, finding the occasional hero or heroine can’t be a bad thing. So why begrudge the Catholic Church its idiosyncratic ways of creating people for believers to admire – the saints?

Mother Teresa of Calcutta - that’s what it was called when she lived there but let’s call it Kolkata to bring the city’s name up to the present - was canonized by the Pope last weekend. The media around the world found their way to the woman “cured” of her tumor, a cure that was the first of the two miracles attributed to her intercession.

Well some do take exception to the miraculous and with good reason. The saint making process entails something offensive to post-Enlightenment ears: miracles. The mere mention of the word evokes goose bumps born of a hostility to clerical claptrap, to anti-scientific superstition or to Protestant fear of a manipulation of the Divine.

January 17, 2015

Wendy Sharpe - Asylum seeker portraits and stories

The Asylum Seekers Centre is presenting an art exhibition – ‘Seeking Humanity’ – by renowned Australian artist, Wendy Sharpe. It opens in Ultimo, Sydney, on 17 February, for four weeks, before moving to Canberra on 20 March, and then Penrith.

It is not about politics, but puts a human face to those who have fled situations of great danger in their home country in search of safety and freedom in Australia. The video has been very successful, with over 500 people viewing it within the first 24 hours.

February 17, 2015

Warwick Elsche. Abbott and Credlin.

It was on again – all last week. Apart from the uncertain future of Prime Minister Tony Abbott, all political talk was of Peta Credlin his Chief of Staff and unquestionably the most talked of, written about, high profile staffer in living memory – maybe ever.

Over more than five years in Opposition and Government, the Prime Minister himself has lauded her importance in his office and the influence she wields on him and his decision making. Apart from normal duties she has been rewarded with the role of vetting Cabinet Papers from all Ministers, unheard of in previous administrations. Equally unprecedented is the place she has taken at the Cabinet table, where she reportedly feels free to speak if so moved.

March 2, 2015

Michael Breen. Home Sour Home

Fourteen women have died this year as a result of domestic violence. Australians killed by terrorists in the same period, zero.

The ABC Q&A programme February 23rd on Domestic Violence had an enormous response from the viewer and studio audiences. Many thanked the ABC for broaching the matter. Many tragic first hand experiences were aired. For some this was cathartic but the unanswered questions and the visible and obscured statistics leave no doubt that this is a critical national issue.

April 30, 2016

Evan Williams. 'A Month of Sundays'. Film Review

I went to see A Month of Sundays, Mathew Saville’s new Australian film, expecting a comedy about real-estate agents. It was the impression I’d gained from a careless reading of publicity handouts and other usually unreliable sources. And sure enough, the film has some witty lines and one or two moments of gentle satire at the expense of the real-estate profession. But Saville’s film isn’t really a comedy – unless you get your laughs watching lonely old widows coping on their own, grieving teenage boys pining for parental love, divorced husbands pining for lost wives, and other unhappy souls.

May 10, 2017

MACK WILLIAMS. Trump's 'smart cookies'

President Trump’s characterisation of Kim Jong-un as a “smart cookie” illustrates the learning process he is undergoing about how to operate in Asia and who might be contributing to it. Learning how to manage President Duterte may be another challenge.

July 28, 2013

Iranians - refugees or migrants? John Menadue

In my blog of July 5, I compared the March quarter 2013 primary refugee protection visa rate for various nationalities and the finally determined grant rate.

In the case of Iranian nationals the grant rate rose from 55% at the primary stage to 86% on appeal. That is 86% of Iranian boat arrivals were finally found to be genuine refugees in the March quarter 2013. Because of this I queried Foreign Minister Carr’s comments about Iranian boat people being mainly economic migrants.

October 19, 2014

Faith in coal.

In my blog of 5 January 2013, ‘A Canary in the Coal Mine’, I said that ‘The future of new thermal coal mines is doubtful. Would any sensible investor take not only the political risk but also the financial risk of investing in new thermal coal mines in Australia?’

The canary warning is getting louder and louder, even though Tony Abbott tells us that ‘Coal is good for humanity’.

In an excellent article in the SMH of 18 October 2014, Tony Allard says that Abbott’s faith in coal mining could be wrong - very wrong.

May 24, 2016

MARK GREGORY: Leaks from NBN were in the public interest. The response was designed to hide the NBN mess.

The National Broadband Network (NBN) was meant to be a nation building project that positioned Australia as a leader in the global digital economy, but it has become a political football and as every day passes, Australia’s future prospects in the global digital economy are diminishing.

December 19, 2024

A view from Palestine

May 10, 2017

CHRIS BONNOR and BERNIE SHEPHERD. Gonski’s second coming will need a miracle or three

Anyone remotely committed to excellence with equity in our schools will feel the urge to break out the champagne this week. After six years a conservative prime minister is not only using the language of Gonski, he had the man standing next to him while he re-booted the Gonski Review. Politics was swept aside: this new initiative would give Australian students the quality education they deserve – with more funding, fair, needs-based and transparent; so the narrative went.

July 25, 2015

John Dwyer. An increase in the GST or efficiency gains to fund our hospitals. Which would you prefer?

Premier Baird has announced that he will require a 15% GST to fund our public hospital system in the coming years. It is certainly true that with present policies, revenue won’t match the cost of the anticipated future demand for hospital care. Hospital admissions climb steadily each year (average increase 3%) and the additional patients tend to be sicker and older. Our current health system puts pressure on our State and Territory governments to constantly find more beds and provide new hospital stock. Without financial restructuring his government will not be able to provide us with the quality service we need and expect. The better targeted suggestion from Victoria that we increase the Medicare levy won’t provide the money needed. The current levy only covers about 50% of the cost of Medicare.

April 30, 2016

Robert Mickens. Cardinal Pell and the Vatican power struggle.

The Holy See’s abrupt suspension this week of an external audit of all its financial operations by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) is being described by almost everyone as the Vatican old guard’s latest attempt to derail Pope Francis’ reforms.

This narrative pits “a powerful Italian bureaucracy resistant to greater transparency” (including the Cardinal Secretary of State, Pietro Parolin) against Australian Cardinal George Pell, the controversial figure the pope handpicked two years ago to lead the newly instituted Secretariat for the Economy.

September 13, 2024

A five-minute scroll

On X today: US Politicians launch a bill against China’s world leading genomics team and Andrew Wilkie addresses arms trade with Israel. Witness the devastation for a 13-year old in Palestine while Palestine takes its permanent seat in the UN General Assembly. Finally, a moment from the US presidential debate - Donald Trump and Kamala Harris on Israel, the Middles East and Ukraine.

April 16, 2016

Luke Fraser. Grattan in the transport pantomime: 'You're getting colder ... '

Earlier this month the Grattan Institute made its first major report into transport, producing Roads to Riches: better transport spending[i].

The 70-page report is replete with interesting-enough statistics, but it misses the mark on the major problems and where solutions might most reliably be found. Its core conclusions could perpetuate expensive mistakes (more of that in a moment).

The Grattan is one of our brightest and most respected think-tanks; its CEO is talented and speaks truth to power. So if even Grattan can miss the mark in transport, it bodes ill indeed for the national debate. Transport matters: at current spending levels, just two years of national road funds would pay for Australia’s entire $50 billion dollar submarine program. A 15% per cent efficiency gain in road spending would yield almost $4 billion to almost meet the Gonski education funding reform shortfalls.

February 12, 2015

David Neuhaus SJ. The future of Christians in the Middle East. Part 1.

Christians in the Middle East must be a voice for justice, peace, pardon, reconciliation and selfless love. The fear that dominates the experience of many Christian communities can only be overcome by understanding, dialogue and faith, all of which are necessary to maintain the Christian presence in the Middle East.

In one of his pastoral letters to the Christian faithful in the Holy Land, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Michel Sabbah wrote:

December 12, 2014

Graham Freudenberg. Gough being Gough.

LAUNCH OF JAMES CARLETON’S ‘THE WIT OF WHITLAM’,BELLEVUE HOTEL, PADDINGTON, NSW, 8 DECEMBER 2014

As Henry Kissinger discovered to his chagrin in Beijing in 1971, Gough made a habit of getting there first. The Bellevue is no exception. Most of us here probably associate the Bellevue with its glory days when Suzie Carleton was, as Gough always described her, its chatelaine. And Gough and Margaret were very much part of that scene.

August 30, 2015

John Menadue. Why are we so cruel? The problem starts at the top.

The news out of Manus and particularly Nauru shows how callous we have become. It is not that we are always as cold-hearted as this. The response to the attacks on Adam Goodes and the murder of an AFL football coach shows our generous and humane side…our better angels.

But we don’t seem to care about the cruelty being inflicted on children and women in Nauru. The Nauru government is corrupt. There is no rule of law worth the name. Magistrates are sacked by the government. In effect, we bribe the Nauru government to do our dirty work. Women and children in Nauru are crying and we turn away.

November 19, 2016

JOHN MENADUE. Peter Dutton has got it wrong in blaming Malcolm Fraser on refugees.

This is a slightly edited text of an interview with Elizabeth Jackson on The Saturday AM program on ABC radio on 19 November 2016-11-19

ELIZABETH JACKSON: The former head of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet and former secretary of the Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs has hit back at comments from the Immigration Minister, Peter Dutton, that Australia is now paying for the mistakes of former prime minister Malcolm Fraser.

In a television interview Mr Dutton said Malcolm Fraser made mistakes in bringing some people to Australia the 1970s and he said, “We’re seeing that today.”

Mr Dutton said many foreign fighters getting involved in conflict zones were the children or grandchildren of migrants who came in the 1970s.

John Menadue was a senior public servant under both Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser in the 1970s and in the 1980s in the Immigration portfolio.

I asked John Menadue whether Australia was, in fact, now paying for Malcolm Fraser’s mistakes.

November 30, 2015

Bullying and bugging in East Timor.

The bugging by Australian Security Intelligence Service (ASIS) of an East Timorese cabinet meeting in 2004 will not go away. The event was so outrageous it is not surprising that it continues to resurface. Only a Royal Commission or a Judicial Review can redress some of the damage that has been done to Australia’s reputation, our intelligence agencies and most importantly of all, in our relations with our near neighbour, East Timor.

April 16, 2013

Report of 'Clerical celibacy in context'

A few nights ago, some fifty people went to the Veech Library, at Strathfield, to hear a retired history professor, Ed Campion, give a lecture entitled Clerical Celibacy in Context. The next day people telephoned the library to get copies of this lecture but there was none to be had because the lecturer performed without the safety net of a text.

He started with the story of the Mass, showing how the clergy became more and more dominant in worship. Parallel to this, their privileged civil status grew until by the time of Thomas Becket and Henry II they were a separate entity in society with their own courts, tax system and much besides. This growth accentuated the division between clergy and laity, giving the clergy power over other Christians. Clericalism was about privilege and power. Prohibitions reinforced this distinction, keeping the clergy out of pubs and theatres, tonsuring their hair and dressing them in drab clothes, and barring them from trade, the money market, surgery and warfare.

December 9, 2014

Australia is worst performing industrial country on climate change.

For the Lima Conference on Climate Change that has just begun, a report by the think-tank Germanwatch and Climate Action Network Europe examined the 58 emitters of greenhouse gasses in the world, and about 90% of all energy-related emissions. The report named Australia as the worst performing industrial country in the world on climate change. We have now replaced Canada as the worst performing industrial country. The report author told The Guardian, which has published this story ‘It is interesting that the bottom six countries in the ranking - Russia, Iran, Canada, Kazakhstan, Australia and Saudi Arabia - all have a lot of fossil fuel resources. It is a curse.The fossil fuel lobbies in these countries are strong. In Australia they stopped what were some very good carbon laws.’

April 16, 2016

Evan Williams. The seven sacred cows of Australian politics

We are indebted to the Hindu religion for that useful term sacred cow. As every schoolboy knows, Hindus venerate the cow and forbid its slaughter or abuse. Our political landscape abounds in sacred cows – institutions or practices that are considered beyond criticism, immune to scrutiny and supported by politicians of all parties. Some sacred cows are worth having, of course. Perhaps the most sacred is the Parliamentary Remuneration Tribunal – much loved by MPs when it delivers them well-deserved salary rises at regular intervals. Other sacred political cows are harder to account for. Here’s my list of the top seven.

May 10, 2017

RICHARD BUTLER. Afghanistan: Early Warning.

The US is planning to increase its forces in Afghanistan. It is bound to ask us to do the same. In the light of his performance in New York, our Prime Minister seems certain to accede, and do so without prior public or parliamentary discussion.

May 24, 2016

ANN GILROY RSJ: A Response to Pope Francis’s Commission on Women Deacons

Women Religious welcome any development in Church that responds to women’s repeated call to have an equal share in the decision-making. Pope Francis’s proposal to set up a Commission to study the possibility of having women deacons, while not yet a decision to change a structure, is offering Catholic women a frisson of promise.

November 19, 2016

MACK WILLIAMS. Trump : Getting our priorities right

Is China going to fill the void?

The media-hyped flurry to try to establish the likely policy guidelines of the Trump administration is timely and natural but should be approached very cautiously. Not only is it virtually impossible at this moment to reach many definitive conclusions it is no less easy to identify the likely key players in the new administration – even within the close-in transition team as the sacking of Governor Christie and his cohort has illustrated. At the same time Australia needs to undertake a proper review of the major strategic trends in our region which have been developing for some years - and pre-date Trump. Concerns about the implications for our region stemming from Trump’s comments in the campaign certainly served to accelerate those trends. But we are where we are today because of the fundamentally changing strategic scene.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal