August 5, 2016

WALTER HAMILTON. Japan’s Diminishing Returns.

Japan, in my nearly forty years of observing and reporting on that country, has never been so delicately and dangerously poised. Australians, who have long relied on it as an economic powerhouse and ‘common interest’ partner, need to be paying close attention.

July 19, 2016

In the service of empires from Fromelles to the present day.

See link below to article by Paul Daley in the Guardian ‘Australians didn’t sacrifice themselves at Fromelles, the British sacrificed them’. John Menadue.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/postcolonial-blog/2016/jul/19/australians-didnt-sacrifice-themselves-at-fromelles-the-british-sacrificed-them?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+AUS+v1+-+AUS+morning+mail+callout&utm_term=182252&subid=18184347&CMP=ema_632

December 16, 2015

Michael Keating. The Turnbull Government’s Fiscal Strategy

This second article, in response to the release of the Government’s Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO) on Tuesday 15 December, focuses on the Government’s fiscal strategy. It is a companion piece to another article that focussed on the Government’s economic strategy and what the Government expects that economic strategy to achieve.

As had been well telegraphed in advance, total budget receipts are now expected to be $33.8 bn lower over the next four years of the forward estimates than expected last May in the 2015-16 Budget. This reduction in receipts mainly reflects lower than forecast commodity prices impacting on company profits and a weaker outlook for wage growth. On the other hand, and consistent with the Government’s tight fiscal strategy, spending decisions have been more than offset by other decisions to reduce expenditure elsewhere in the Budget.

August 3, 2016

WALTER HAMILTON. Corruption by Prediction

It is a modern-day impatience: we want to eat dessert first. In election campaigns, therefore, we seek to ‘taste’ the result through opinion polls, vox pops, electoral maps (with winners already allocated), predictive analogies or psephological cephalopods. So it was during the recent Australian elections; so it is again as Americans wait (redundantly?) for the real polls to open in November.

July 8, 2015

Warwick Elsche. Heads must roll at ABC, but not at ASIO

“Heads must roll;” words from the Prime Minister Tony Abbott. And in case you missed them he said them twice – on national TV.

He was talking of the ABC and presumably some executives who failed to detect the “threatening” presence of a convicted Islamist sympathizer Zaky Mallah in the audience of popular current affairs program “Q&A”.

Tony dislikes the ABC because it is not as imaginatively sycophantic as the Murdoch Press. He has branded it on this and other occasions as cruelly politically biased - despite the fact that the Head of his own media office was recently recruited from this source.

May 11, 2016

Mungo MacCallum. Turnbull/Morrison mantra: jobs and growth.

Our economic plan for jobs and growth … jobs and growth…jobs and growth… jobs and growth … sobs of mirth … Hobson’s Choice … blobs and froth .. …

The trouble with endlessly repeating slogans is that they become meaningless babble. Just what the Turnbull/Morrison mantra will sound like in another eight weeks beggars the imagination.

And while we’re at it, the transition away from the mining boom is bad enough, but its ugly and illiterate derivative, transitioning the economy, is downright horrible, guaranteed to drive the sensitive listener mad within a fortnight.

July 19, 2016

PHILOMENA MURRAY. Nice attack brings a difficult question into sharp focus: why France?

If you live in France, you enjoy Bastille Day. There is a buzz in the air as you celebrate a day off in the middle of summer with your family and friends. You go to the fireworks. It is good to be in France and to remember the founding principles of the state – liberty, equality and fraternity. There is little mention of a bloody history of revolution and wars, colonialism and empire.

August 5, 2016

FRANK BRENNAN SJ. Refugees - John Howard could do it. Why not Malcolm Turnbull?

My quandary remains: if John Howard was able to keep the boats stopped while closing Nauru and Manus Island, why can’t Malcolm Turnbull? If John Howard was able to accept New Zealand’s offer to resettle some of the caseload why can’t Malcolm Turnbull?

I just don’t buy the line that the people smugglers have become more clever than our intelligence services and that the Indonesians have become less co-operative with our military. If Operation Sovereign Borders depends on protracted, ongoing indecent treatment of proven refugees on Manus Island and Nauru then it doesn’t pass the test of basic Australian decency.

May 31, 2014

NY Times - Capitalism Eating its Children.

Yesterday I posted a blog ‘Are our Bankers Listening or Caring’. It referred to speeches by the IMF Chief, Christine Lagarde, and the Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney. They were speaking at a ‘Inclusive Capitalism’ conference in London.

Today the New York Times has carried an op ed piece by Roger Cohen entitled ‘Capitalism Eating Its Children’. Cohen draws extensively on the speech by Mark Carney. The op ed piece in the New York Times can be found at:

September 27, 2013

Reflections on the Senate Election. Guest blogger: David Combe

David Combe was National Secretary of the ALP, 1973 to 1981

As the composition of the new Senate which will sit from July 1, 2014, becomes clearer, my mind goes back to two earlier Senates which took office 40 and 30 years earlier, and which were elected in double dissolutions of the Parliament.

The election of May 18, 1974 is mainly remembered because it made Gough Whitlam the first Federal Labor Leader to take the party to victory at successive elections. At the time, our joy was tempered by the narrowness of the majority achieved in the House of Representatives (just 5), but in reality there had been very little slippage in the vote for the Government. (It is seldom remembered that despite everything which the party had going for it when it won its first Government in 23 years at the election of December 2, 1972, the House of Representatives majority - only 9 - was much smaller than might have been expected).

August 13, 2015

John Menadue. Liberal Party misuse of Royal Commissions.

Dyson Heydon is in the news again.

Several weeks ago he appeared to question the credibility of Bill Shorten as a witness before the Trade Union Royal Commission. He also had unusual things to say about the credibility of Julia Gillard when she appeared before the Commission.

See below a repost of an article on the Liberal Party and royal commissions.

John Menadue

REPOST

With the Abbott Government there is a pattern of using Royal Commissions to attack former and current ALP leaders. See the links below to two earlier posts on the subject.

August 19, 2015

Jon Stanford. The government’s new naval shipbuilding policy

I think this is an outstanding article on naval shipbuilding, industry policy and economic prospects in South Australia. Jon Staford suggests that in terms of industry policy, ‘continuing to prop up the car industry … would probably have been a much cheaper way of [creating jobs]’. In case you have missed it, I have decided to repost. John Menadue

The recent statement by the Prime Minister on the naval shipbuilding industry is highly problematic. By committing up to $89 billion to a continuous warship-building program in Adelaide, the government’s largesse knows no bounds. This policy seems irresponsible, not just financially but also in terms of both industry policy and defence requirements. Yet, in political terms, it may seem a masterstroke, not just in shoring up the Coalition vote in South Australia but because none of the other political parties will oppose it.

August 1, 2013

Japan's Deputy PM: 'Let's learn from the Nazis'. Guest blogger: Walter Hamilton

Taro Aso, Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister of Japan, has a clumsy tongue; it’s always getting him into trouble. He’s so malapropic (remember the one about people becoming so affluent ‘even the homeless are getting diabetes’), we can only shake our heads and say, ‘Japan’s a funny place,’ before changing the channel on our Sonys.

But wait a moment. Did he really say this latest thing?

On Monday Aso addressed a forum on constitutional change organised by a right-wing lobby group, the Japan Institute for National Fundamentals (more on it later). He spoke extempore, as usual, with an eye to creating controversy that, if necessary, might be explained away later. The rubric ‘I was misunderstood’ or ‘I failed to explain myself properly’ or ‘I didn’t say what I meant’ is familiar with politicians of Aso’s type, who habitually linger between not meaning what they say and not saying what they mean.

June 20, 2024

ALP Government must be consistent on nuclear energy

Grassroots anti-AUKUS campaign, Labor Against War, joins with the ALP Government in condemning Liberal leader Peter Dutton’s desperate attempt to reignite the climate wars by announcing plans for seven nuclear reactors on land sites in Australia.

September 26, 2014

Kerry Murphy. Kurds in the way.

Since the collapse of three divisions of the Iraqi army at Mosul in June 2014, it has been the Peshmerga, Kurdish militias, that have strongly opposed the apocalyptic death cult of ISIS in Iraq. Already Syrian Kurdish forces had strongly defended their territories in Syria. The relief of the besieged Yazidis on Mount Sinjar saw Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga forces and Turkish PKK forces help on the ground. The conflicts in Iraq and Syria are continuing to mutate and some of the results mean that western countries have to support groups such as the PKK previously labelled terrorists.

December 12, 2024

A five-minute scroll

The UN Security council has voted for an unconditional, immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, 158 countries voted yes. Yoav Gallant visits the White House, no arrest took place there. Senator Payman calls out anti-semitism but also calls for recognition of Islamophobia. An IDF soldier boasts of the ocean views amongst the destruction in Gaza.

April 18, 2013

Where has the Business Council of Australia been? John Menadue

The BCA President, Tony Shepherd, was at it again on Wednesday 17 April at the National Press Club attacking the Government for many failures – a lack of focus, the need for politicians to sacrifice their jobs for the national interest and that old perennial of his, reform of the labour market. His comments were loudly supported by the Australian Financial Review which now reports on behalf of the business sector rather than about business.

September 18, 2014

Chris Bonnor, Bernie Shepherd. School equity since Gonski: how bad became worse.

This is a shorter version, prepared for Pearls and Irritations, of a paper which was reported in the Sun Herald on September 14 Go to http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/schools-worse-now-than-when-gonski-wrote-report-20140913-10gepz.html A longer version, including graphics, is available at https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxK25rJrOw-eVU4zM2p2UTF5ZkE/edit?usp=sharing

The story of the Review of Funding for Schooling, otherwise known as the Gonski review, is well known. The Review began in 2010 and its report, with its significant findings and recommendations, was handed to the Gillard Government at the end of 2011.

June 10, 2016

BOB KINNAIRD on China-Australia Free Trade Agreement (ChAFTA)

An opinion piece in yesterday’s Financial Review by James Laurenceson dismisses union concerns on ChAFTA - ‘Don’t believe Chinese worker Free Trade Agreement scaremongering’, 9/6/16. It warrants a response.

Laurenceson’s claims do not stand up to scrutiny. They concern firstly the Chinese installers on the 400 visas, the subject of John Menadue’s blog below.

Laurenceson fails to mention the fundamental point that ChAFTA granted LMT-exempt entry to Chinese workers in this ‘installers and servicers’ category, for the first time in our FTA history.

March 8, 2017

ERIC HODGENS. The Catholic Dilemma.

Clerical privilege took a heavy blow when Catholic bishops were summoned to appear at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to child sexual abuse (RC). The church answering to the state.

April 15, 2015

Frank Brennan. Cunneen v ICAC

Margaret Cunneen is a high profile public prosecutor. The NSW Independent Commission against Corruption (ICAC) wanted to investigate her for corrupt behaviour, but not in relation to anything she did as a prosecutor. They wanted to investigate her behaviour as a private citizen, she being the mother of a boy whose girlfriend was involved in a car accident. The suggestion was that Cunneen on being called to the accident scene was party to a plan that the driver should fake chest pains to escape a blood alcohol test even though the driver had not been drinking and her blood alcohol content was zero. ICAC’s argument was that the behaviour of Cunneen and her family members could adversely affect the police in performing their official functions investigating the accident.

November 2, 2016

MACK WILLIAMS. The real shipping choke point for Australia - Sibutu Channel

Neither the Australian government nor the Australian media have informed us about the critical nature of the Sibutu Channel.

As mentioned in this blog some time ago. the active political and media discussion in Australia about the South China Sea has continued to ignore the fact that the most critical choke point for Australia’s huge trade with North Asia is the Sibutu Channel. This lies inside Philippines territorial waters between Sabah and the southernmost Philippines islands. Nor has our media recognised that this area has long been a hot spot for the Muslim insurgency in the Philippines and more recently the radical Abu Sayyaf. The latter have an established history of kidnapping and ransom and worse – with a number of foreigners currently in their hands.

March 8, 2017

DOUGLAS NEWTON. The “Political Correctness” – of the Right

In a recent speech to CEDA, John Howard denounced an “avalanche of political correctness”. In fact, Howard has helped promote a stifling version of political correctness – on the Right of Australian politics.

May 30, 2013

Pell before the Parliamentary Enquiry. Guest blogger: Chris Geraghty

I watched Cardinal George Pell give his evidence to the Victorian Parliamentary Committee on Monday and thought that he was fortunate to be questioned across the polished table by a team of amateur interrogators. The members of the committee were, for my taste, too respectful, and far too thankful for the inadequate information he was providing. He will not be treated so softly, so kindly by counsel assisting the Royal Commission. We should prepare ourselves for a longer and more equal contest when the trained, heavy-weight inquisitors put the Archbishop of Sydney on the rack.

February 3, 2016

John Menadue. Tax reform and vested interests.

We are in the midst of a misleading campaign on tax and budget reform.

Large corporations and high income groups are pressing the government to increase the GST in order to reduce company tax and taxes for high-income groups. I have seldom seen such a blatant and self-interested campaign by vested interests. And they seriously suggest that it is in the name of tax and presumably, necessary budget reform. Even Mike Baird has joined in this nonsense.

December 11, 2015

Jon Stanford. Defence procurement and the new submarine

When people remember Gough Whitlam, few would identify him as an economic rationalist. Economics was not his primary interest and, partly because of the perceived urgency of implementing “the programme” after 23 years in opposition, partly because of the incompetence of some of his Ministers, the budget blew out excessively on his watch. Yet in terms of microeconomic reform his record was, in many ways, better than that of previous and subsequent Coalition governments. Even including all the reforms by the Hawke/Keating governments in the 1980s and 1990s, Whitlam’s 25 per cent tariff cut in 1973 remains the single greatest stand alone initiative to open the Australian economy to international competition.

May 6, 2014

Michael Kelly SJ. Why Protestants are more popular than Catholics in China

Questions abound over the recent vicious actions of the Chinese government towards Christians in the prosperous Zhejiang Province just south of Shanghai. The actions of the government during the fortnight after Easter against both Protestants and Catholics are unprecedented in recent decades and, justifiably, have received world attention.

As with all actions in a country as vast as China, whose government could never be accused of transparency, it is difficult to discover who is making the decisions and what they hope to achieve. But one issue that has surprised many people outside China is both the size of its Christian population and the ruthlessness, born only of fear, that the government’s violence displays.

January 7, 2019

KIM WINGEREI. Independent Media On The Rise

T_o conclude my series of posts on media power and politics, it is worth highlighting how independent media is on the rise in Australia. As we head into the new year – elections looming – trust in politicians at an all-time low, aided and abetted by mainstream media focused on headlines instead of substance – voters can and should seek answers elsewhere._

December 7, 2014

John Menadue. Our Environment Minister is not going to Lima

Almost all countries will have their climate change or environment ministers at the UN Climate Change Conference which commences this week in Lima, Peru. This conference is in preparation for the crucial conference on climate change in Paris next year.

But our Environment Minister, Greg Hunt, will not be there. Tony Abbott is sending his Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop, but is also sending Andrew Robb, our Trade Minister to keep an eye on her. It is reported that Julie Bishop went ‘bananas’ over this insult to her.

November 7, 2014

Graham Freudenberg. Bjelke Petersen was an innocent.

What is the real meaning of the G20 security farce in Brisbane? It is a massive exercise in political intimidation. It is a demonstration of the power of government to prevent or limit the most basic democratic rights of free speech, protest and assembly. Perhaps the worst thing about it is that, in the atmosphere of these times, this intimidatory assertion of authority is accepted without question as normal, routine and completely justified. There is a long term conditioning process of work here.

September 21, 2017

IAN McAULEY– Private Health Insurance - let's make the young pay.

Private health insurers are losing their most profitable members, younger people whose contributions subsidise older members. Rather than forcing young people back into private insurance, the government should break private hospitals’ dependence on private insurance and let private insurance go the way of other high-cost industries.

The media and the PHI lobby consistently understate the taxpayer subsidy to PHI. It is not $6b per annum. It is $11b pa

March 8, 2017

FAZAL RIZVI. What students learn about Asia is outdated and needs to change.

While we readily recognise the new Asia to be culturally dynamic, and changing rapidly, we have yet to develop a more sophisticated understanding of Asia-Australia relations - and indeed also of the discourse of Asia literacy.

November 15, 2015

Cavan Hogue. Russian airliner and ISIS.

The almost gleeful attacks by columnists and cartoonists on Vladimir Putin when the Russian plane went down were in very bad taste. The difference between this and MH17 is clear. MH17 was shot down by accident in Ukrainian territory probably by rebels who thought they were shooting down a warplane from Kiev. It was not a deliberate act by Russians, let alone ordered by Putin. (Russia could however be criticised for not putting more pressure on those who control the crash site to cooperate with the investigators - most likely they know what happened and don’t want to admit it.)

July 15, 2014

Take your pick on the way News Corp operates.

On oath before the Leveson Enquiry, Rupert Murdoch said “I’ve never asked a prime minister for anything’. (Leveson transcript 25 April 2012)

In his book ‘The Whitlam Government 1972-75’, published in 1985, Gough Whitlam says

‘ … in the week after the 1972 election, Menadue, who had become my private secretary at the beginning of 1960 and had then become Murdoch’s financial manager in mid-1967, saw me on Murdoch’s behalf to put the proposition that Murdoch should become High Commissioner in London. Murdoch was confident that there could be no conflict of interest, since he would put his British interests in trust and there would be no public outcry since the media proprietors would not oppose the appointment of one of themselves.’ (p.581)

October 16, 2016

MACK WILLIAMS. Duterte plays the China card

Not surprisingly, President Duterte is proving more than a handful for US policy makers on the eve of his major state visit to China. If he achieves many of the ambitious goals set for the visit , Duterte will be strengthened in his resolve to chart policies away from the traditional Philippines dependence on the US. How far China will be prepared to exploit Duterte’s position will be critical for US (and Australian) policy in the South China Sea. But so also it will be for the Philippines’ ASEAN partners as China’s considerable soft power potential in the region will be on display.

November 7, 2014

Patty Fawkner SGS. Betty has dementia.

Grief is a constant companion when a loved one has dementia. And so, too, is grace, writes Good Samaritan Sister Patty Fawkner.

Betty has dementia. Betty has had dementia for over eight years. Betty is my mother.

“Mum will know when it’s time to go into care,” I would confidently say to my five siblings as Betty aged. I had utter faith in my ever-practical, no-frills, no self-pitying mother. I was wrong.

September 19, 2024

UN Palestine vote: Australia shows it lacks a backbone

Why is it that successive Australian Governments cannot bring themselves to call out Israel for what it is? A state that constantly ignores international law, most recently in the current Gaza conflict where there can be no doubt that war crimes have been, and are being committed against the Palestinian population. What Israel is perpetrating against the Palestinians is genocide on any definition.

September 2, 2016

JOHN MENADUE. Medicare, Private Health Insurance and the ALP

In my article, ‘Down a different path in Melbourne: how Medibank was conceived’ written in 2000 for the Medical Journal of Australia (see link below), I described the history from 1967 to 1975 which led to Medibank/Medicare. In that article, I highlighted one issue that drove Gough Whitlam’s determination to establish Medibank/Medicare. His concern was that “The Liberal and Country party Coalition’s voluntary health insurance scheme, supported by taxpayer deductions was wasteful and inequitable.”

September 7, 2016

MARIAN SAWER. Democracy for sale?

Since the 1980s Australia has become known for its laissez-faire or lackadaisical attitude to the role of money in politics. At the federal level Australia introduced public funding for political parties to reduce reliance on private donations, but corporate donations have continued to grow – reaching $202 million in 2013–14.

Disclosure to the Australian Electoral Commission is required for donations of over $13,200 but there are no source restrictions or limits for donations.

September 1, 2016

GRAHAM FREUDENBERG. On race discrimination.

Assent by silence made Hitler’s crimes possible.

As Pastor Martin Niemoller wrote:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out – Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out – Because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out – Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me – and there was no-one left to speak for me.

The warning is as relevant as ever. The more we study how the Holocaust happened, the more we must realise how small steps of acceptance, acquiescence, rationalisation, political convenience and expedience, and above all, silence paved the path to hell from 1933 to 1945. For 80 years, we have glossed over the silent acquiescence of countries like the United States, Britain and Australia in the period after Hitler, for so long dismissed as just another ratbag, came to power by legal and constitutional means in Germany in 1933.

July 15, 2014

Chris Mitchell, The Australian and Iraq

As part of the celebration of the 50th anniversary of The Australian, the editor, Chris Mitchell, revealed on Monday 14 July that he was a secret opponent of the invasion of Iraq. This will come as a surprise for many who followed The Australian’s wholehearted support of the Iraq invasion and hectored and criticised those who opposed it.

In The Monthly magazine yesterday, Robert Manne tells us about this remarkable confession by Chris Mitchell. See Monthly link below. John Menadue.

November 7, 2014

ISIS and Vietnam.

In an op ed column in the New York Times, Thomas L. Friedman spoke of the parallels between the war in Vietnam and the conflict now in Iraq and Syria. He mentions how the executive of foreign journalists is designed to provoke Western intervention. See link below for Thomas Friedman’s article. John Menadue

http://nyti.ms/1vcTEK5

March 24, 2016

John Menadue and CPD. Building a regional framework on refugees and forced-migration.

For several years a group of us at the Centre for Policy Development (CPD) have been endeavouring to develop a regional framework for the management of refugee issues in our region. We strongly feel that no country in the region, including Australia, can handle refugee flows on their own. A regional framework based on cooperation and burden-sharing is essential.

For over two years we have been pursuing the case for a Track II Dialogue in the region. We have felt that this is necessary to break out of the impasse on refugees that Australia and other countries face in the region. The Track II Dialogue includes people from the region with an interest and understanding of the issues. It includes members from think-tanks, government officials in a private capacity and people from international agencies.

August 13, 2015

Trans Pacific Partnership and consumer rights.

The consumer magazine Choice has recently carried articles by Sarah Agar about the TPP and what might be traded away in terms of cheaper medicines, public interest laws and food labelling. This report was updated on 29 July, about a fortnight before Trade Minister Andrew Robb decided that he would walk away from the TPP negotiations. This article in Choice is a useful background on many of the key issues that were at stake. Fortunately the government has decided that the TPP was balanced too much in favour of corporate interests and at the expense of consumer interests. John Menadue.

May 31, 2016

EVAN WILLIAMS. Chasing Asylum. Film Review.

I rate it among the best Australian documentaries ever made

If you want to see Chasing Asylum, Eva Orner’s brilliant new Australian documentary, my advice is to hurry along. At last count it was showing on just two screens in Sydney, and when I went along to the Dendy in Newtown on a recent Sunday afternoon – usually a good time for ticket sales – I was directed upstairs to a little cinema at the end of a long corridor to find the place half full. The ads are promoting it as “The film the Australian Government doesn’t want you to see” – and that I can believe. But does anyone want us to see it? Not the distributors – there’s barely a mention in the ads. Not, apparently, the ABC or SBS, who should be seizing it with both hands for prime-time screening during the election campaign. Perhaps that’s the problem – the film is politically explosive, and everyone seems to be running scared, including, of course, our political masters.

June 24, 2014

Bill Van Esveld. Dispatches: What's in a Name? A lot, in the West Bank.

Is it occupied, disputed, or contested? Some are finding it hard to find the right words to describe the West Bank.

In a move widely seen as an effort to demonstrate its pro-Israel bona fides, Australia’s attorney general said on June 5 that the Australian government would stop referring to East Jerusalem – which is part of the West Bank – as “occupied” territory. Attorney General George Brandis explained the change was being made because the term is “freighted with pejorative implications,” relates to “historical events,” and is “neither appropriate nor useful” to “describe areas of negotiations” in the peace process. On Twitter, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu welcomed Australia’s statement, calling “eastern Jerusalem” an “area in dispute” and condemning “the chorus of hypocrisy and ignorance of history” around the issue.

July 9, 2014

Turning the federation clock back to 1901.

The Commission of Audit has made many unhelpful suggestions about budgetary and economic issues. It seems to have been driven more by ideology than fact. See my blog of May 1 2014 “The Commission of Audit and facing the wrong way”.

One of its most unhelpful suggestions is that Australia returns to the 1901 intentions of the federation fathers and with clear lines of responsibility drawn between the commonwealth and the states as set out in Section 51 of the Constitution. The Abbott Government’s terms of reference for its White Paper on Federalism also suggest that his government would like us to go back to the arguments about sovereignty. We are being urged to look back to 1901 rather than focus on the way our constitution has evolved to date and will need to evolve in the decades ahead.

February 3, 2016

John Menadue. ‘Balance’ and the ABC

The ABC has a mistaken notion of media balance.

It has become clear that Nick Ross, a Senior Technology Editor at the ABC, could not publish a story critical of Malcolm Turnbull’s NBN unless he also published an article critical of Labor’s NBN. To add to this bias by ABC management he was told that Labor’s plan was dead because Labor couldn’t win the next election. The ABC management was desperate to be onside with the new Coalition government.

August 27, 2013

Japanese amnesia and the contrast with Germany. Guest blogger: Susan Menadue Chun

Our four Australian/Korean children were educated in Japanese primary schools.

Every summer holiday we struggled through the prescribed homework text- Natsu no Tomo (Summer’s friend). In the early August segment, there were assignments regarding WWII. They stated, “talk to your parents about WWII and write a composition about the importance of peace”. So, we talked to our children about their Korean grandfather, how he was conscripted from Korea into the Japanese army, how he fought in the savage battles on the Truk Island, was injured and was badly treated because he was not Japanese. In retrospect, writing about a Korean grandfather was probably off-limits as all Japanese children were expected to write the customary composition regarding how the Japanese had suffered as a result of the nuclear bomb and the importance of peace. Every following year in the Natsu no Tomo　the topic never progressed past the nuclear bomb and a peace discussion. There was no mention of Japan’s hostile war of aggression. Because the nuclear bomb transformed Japan into a victim, education played the key role in creating what many Japan critics call collective amnesia.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal