February 16, 2017

CAROLYN WHITZMAN. States drag feet on affordable housing, with Victoria the worst.

Moral panic over recent increases in visibly homeless people in central Melbourne has brought to the fore the critical shortage of affordable housing across the metropolitan areas of Australias wealthiest cities. But living on the street is only the tip of the iceberg. Many more households are living in insecure and/or overpriced accommodation. Their plight is due to an undersupply of appropriately priced, sized and situated rental housing.

August 20, 2014

John Dwyer. The structural reform of Medicare rather than its funding is the real challenge.

Part 2: Attracting the future work force needed to provide Primary Care.

There is another imperative for introducing Integrated Primary care (IPC),the new model of primary care described in part one of this review; the recruitment of the next generation of GPs.

Recent surveys of the career intentions of medical graduates show only 13% are interested in a primary care career and only 13% of them have any interest in working in rural Australia. They see that 70% of GPs do not want to be tax collectors for the government and note that the Medicare rebate for a standard occasion of service has been reduced to $31.60. GPs are specialists arent they? This is not attractive remuneration especially when socio-economic circumstances leave 80% of GPs with little option but to bulk bill their patients. This in turn leads to turnstile medicine: unsatisfactory to both practitioner and patient, and the well documented poorer health outcomes associated with this form of practice. Many GPs want to move away from the fee for service model and try to do so by joining the corporate GP world. There many are dissatisfied with the model of care imposed on them.

April 27, 2017

Appeasement and learning the right lessons of history

The lesson of Munich for major powers Britain and France was that you do not buy peace with fellow major powers tomorrow by giving in to their demands today. But for smaller powers, the lesson was that faced with the prospect of war with a major power, your allies and guarantors will rather sell you out than risk a war.

July 4, 2016

KLAAS & AAFKE WOLDRING. Has Australia now become ungovernable?

While the final outcome of the 2016 election will have to wait for a few days, a Hung Parliament or a Government with a narrow majority seems likely. The outcome for the Senate will take longer but will be even more remarkable with approx. 19 Senators not representing the major parties: nine Greens and 10 others. Probably 30 Senatorial seats will go to the Coalition and 27 to the ALP. The purpose of the Double Dissolution was to reform the Senate voting system and then pass legislation that was blocked by the Cross Benches. Not only will this be unlikely now but a Coalition Government would be hard put to get much of its legislative program through the Senate.

August 26, 2016

PAUL BARRATT. Would war powers reform really leave national security in the hands of the minority parties?

During a segment on war powers reform on ABC TVs current affairs program Lateline (25 August see http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-25/mps-call-for-iraq-war-inquiry/7786424 ) Australian Strategic Policy Institute Executive Director Peter Jennings expressed opposition to parliamentary involvement in decision-making about deployment of the ADF, saying:

If you look at how parliaments are structured, you’re really saying that you’re going to leave decisions to go to war to a handful of crossbenchers in the Senate," he said.

So if we were to have a debate today about deploying, that means it’s going to be Jacqui Lambie, Pauline Hanson and her supporters. It’s going to be Nick Xenophon. Are they the people we want to give Australia’s war powers to?

This argument is disingenuous to put it at its most charitable. The key determinant of whether or not a motion to deploy the ADF into international armed conflict would pass both Houses of Parliament is whether or not the Government of the day can persuade the Opposition that our national security and/or the nations vital interests are at stake. If the Opposition votes with the Government, the views of the minority parties cannot affect the outcome.

July 7, 2016

DOUGLAS NEWTON. A 100 Per Cent Ally Utterly Dependable - conscience washing.

The Chilcot report should prompt much heart-searching, and not only about Australias commitment to the Iraq War in 2003. It should prompt us to think about two long-standing problems: the use of the war powers by the Executive, without any requirement to consult parliament; and the broader issue of balancing Australias interests in her alliance relationships. In essence, two questions should haunt us. First, should our decision to go to war be made by handfuls of people at the centre of power? Second, do we as a people so crave the approval of powerful allies that we should plunge our military forces into faraway deployments without carefully weighing costs and objectives?

November 22, 2024

A five-minute scroll

Overnight the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant. Benjamin Netanyahu gives his response, journalist Mehdi Hasan provides analysis and Human Rights Watch calls for international support. At G20 in Brazil, PM Albanese says outcomes will lead to more jobs for Australia while earlier this week he spoke of stabilising Australia’s relationship with China, while Jim Chalmers responds to being called economic illiterate.

January 19, 2017

DUNCAN MacLAREN. Scotland, Brexit and the EU.

Brexit: the Constitutional Angle

I hate to boast of my prescience but my article in this blog in April 2016 warned, in the case of a successful Brexit vote, of the birth of a Little England searching for a greatness that is delusional in the current world of alliances. That nightmare has become true. With two acts of political lunacy perpetrated by the English (and I mean English) on one side of the Atlantic and the Americans on the other, we are now facing a global scenario of the absurd you could not make up.

September 3, 2017

FRANK BRENNAN. The Copenhagen breakthrough in the Timor Sea.

There has been an agreed breakthrough in the long running dispute between Australia and Timor Leste in relation to maritime boundary demarcation and control of the resources in the disputed area in the Timor Sea. The breakthrough came on 30 August, the 18th anniversary of the bloody referendum at which the Timorese voted for their independence from Indonesia. The terms of the deal remain confidential. But the Permanent Court of Arbitration which is overseeing the Conciliation Commission convening the two parties meeting in Copenhagen has issued a press release noting that they have have reached agreement on the central elements of a maritime boundary delimitation and they have agreed to the establishment of a Special Regime for Greater Sunrise.

July 28, 2013

Least-worst option and minimising PNG. John Menadue

In my blog of July 20, I referred to the Regional Settlement Agreement with PNG. With some reservations I described it as the least-worst option. Some were surprised at my comments. I wish it were otherwise, but in the toxic and poisonous political debate over refugees since John Howards time, we have had to face up to many unpalatable facts.

The coalition has been the principal cause of this toxic situation. It broke with bipartisanship on refugees because it felt it was to its political advantage to focus our fears on the foreigner. I dont think the coalition has genuinely wanted the boats to stop whilst ever it was in opposition. It was political manna from heaven to have the boat arrivals continue.

March 28, 2017

TONY SMITH. Hope in diversity and real cases, not ideological claptrap

Self-righteous people, believing themselves to be self-made are prepared to punish children along with single mothers and so entrench disadvantage for generations.

September 6, 2015

Two years in - even supporters despair of Abbott's feeble government.

The Abbott government marks its two-year anniversary of winning office today, September 7. I was tempted to begin by claiming that Tony Abbott has established himself as one of Australias more successful prime ministers, but I struggled to find a second sentence.

The headlines in the opinion pages of August 29s Weekend Australian show that even Abbotts supporters despair:

Why the Australian economy is going to hell in a handbasket [Judith Sloan]

February 3, 2015

Rod Tiffen. Murdoch blames Credlin

Does Red Rupe have any remaining red beliefs? Murdoch was called Red Rupe by his fellow Oxford students in the early 1950s. He had a bust of Lenin on his mantle, was a member of the Labour Club and generally espoused the need for radical change. Many thought that his stance was more posturing than any deep seated set of intellectual commitments. Later, and especially from the time he went to live in New York in 1974, his beliefs have tended towards the far right - neo-liberal economics and hawkish foreign policies - and there is a solid, indeed simplistic, consistency to them.

April 16, 2017

JAMES O'NEILL. Scientific evidence exposes the falsity of US government claims about Syrian gas attack.

The irresistible conclusion is that those same senior politicians know that the White House claims are false and misleading and therefore highly dangerous to Australias national security. That they should maintain their silence on this while continuing to perpetuate a barrage of lies and half-truths about the ongoing Syrian tragedy raises serious questions about their fitness to govern.

June 24, 2014

Those Feisty Iranians

Amongst our asylum seeker population Iranians feature very prominently. And it is not just because of Reza Barati, an Iranian asylum-seeker who was murdered at Manus Island on our watch.

A feature of the Iranian asylum seekers, apart from their number, is that they have a reputation of being quite pushy. As past and current Immigration officers tell me they are always in our face. I am afraid that this view of Iranians does not help in the way they are treated. But the same qualities make them good settlers determined and highly motivated. I wish more of our migrants were like that.

July 2, 2014

Michael Kelly SJ. Catholic Church needs to show more than legal compliance

It’s been a big few weeks for the clergy and their dealings with the police across the world. In legal matters in countries covering four continents India, the Dominican Republic, Italy and Australia clerics are being held to account by police and civil courts.

Two priests in India have been charged with murdering the rector of a seminary in Karnataka, in southwest India; a former papal nuncio to the Dominican Republic has been defrocked by the Vatican for child abuse and will face criminal charges; a bishop in Australia has been charged with sexually abusing an adolescent 45 years ago, and a priest in Sicily has been charged with seeking sexual favors from refugees he was supposed to be helping.

January 23, 2017

RONALD MACKINNON. Do we as doctors always put our patients first?

After his retirement, Dr Chris McCaffrey requested that his gravestone be inscribed:

‘I was always on the side of the patient_’._

July 1, 2014

Bruce Duncan. The Coalition: how to lose friends and alienate people

Mr Abbott in his 2013 book, Battlelines, wrote that in government he would balance social values with pragmatic policy for the common good of the country.

Yet one could be forgiven for thinking government policy is being driven by neoliberal ideologues, with a very heavy stress on policies of privatisation of public assets, further deregulation (including in banking and finance), expanding free trade agreements, and creating more flexible labour markets (reducing wages and conditions).

December 18, 2016

QUENTIN DEMPSTER. NBN - Are you one of the lucky ones in Turnbull's two-speed society?

If Australia was a corporation, we, its shareholders, would be justified in terminating CEO Malcolm Turnbull’s employment contract forthwith.

February 5, 2017

DENNIS ARGALL Korea, China, US and Trump

It has not helped that senior military people have been inclined to simply call the North Koreans crazy, any more than it helps now to simply call Trump crazy.

August 12, 2014

Barbara Preston. State school kids do better at uni.

State school graduates do better at university than private school graduates with the same end-of-school tertiary entrance score. Thats the clear finding in a number of Australian studies since the 1980s and in England since the 1990s .

The Australian research compared academic results at the end of first year at particular universities for cohorts whose entry was based on tertiary entrance scores (now ATAR) for the previous year in the same state.The most recent English researchtracked all students who completed the end-of-school A-levels and went directly on to complete a full-time four-year degree course.

September 16, 2015

John Menadue. Slogans vs Facts.

In my post of 16 September, I referred to the continual exaggeration over the benefits of Free Trade Agreements.

There has been quite a pattern of this type of exaggeration with slogans rather than facts. One example of slogans and one-liners has been the Abbott government’s claim that it ‘Stopped the Boats’. This is just not true, but the media keeps repeating the myth and the slogan. I will be writing further about that early next week.

January 12, 2017

BOB BIRRELL. GP Oversupply and Medical Migration

There are many indicators of GP over-supply in Australia. … One consequence has been an escalation in the cost of GP rebates to the taxpayer. … Better distribution of GP services could be achieved by restricting new provider numbers to under-supplied districts.

January 14, 2016

The policy scandal of a $11b taxpayer subsidy to private health insurance.

I dont think that I can recall a domestic policy that is so outrageous as the $11 b. annual cost to the taxpayer of the subsidy to private health insurance (PHI) companies. The subsidy is paid to policy holders, but it really means that PHI companies receive the benefit of the subsidy. For further explanation of the $11b figure see link to submission below. Repost from 08/12/2013

December 20, 2016

HENRY SHERRELL, PETER MARES & ANNA BOUCHER. Another obstacle on the road to citizenship?

Making migrants ‘provisional’ risks Australia’s multicultural success.

November 16, 2014

Bruce Duncan. Pope runs moral template over G20.

Pope France outlined a sharp moral template for world leaders at the G20 meeting in Brisbane. In a letter on 6 November to the current chair of the G20, Prime Minister Tony Abbott, the Pope warned that many lives are at stake, including from severe malnutrition, as he highlighted the values and policy priorities needed for the global economy.

Francis regarded the Global Financial Crisis as a form of aggression equally serious and real as the extremist attacks in the Middle East. He specifically condemned abuses in unconstrained speculation and maximising profits as the final criterion of all economic activity.

February 12, 2017

Catholic Church and the Royal Commission on Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

“It would be easy to write the problems off as a few ‘bad apples’; however, the problems that have brought the [Catholic] Church to the very edge of disaster and beyond, trashing its reputation as a moral leader, were never just because of a few bad apples. The problems were institutional and cultural.”

June 14, 2017

ALLAN PATIENCE. Advance Australia!

Madness in the Coalitions ranks over the Finkel report and sleaziness in ALP ranks over clandestine foreign donations are just the latest evidence that the current pack of parliamentarians is incapable of governing in the interests of all Australians. What this country needs is a strong political enema to clean out the political constipation from which the country is now suffering.

December 13, 2018

PMs anti-corruption commission is a picture of impotence (The New Daily, 14.12.18)

No public hearings? Prime Minister Scott Morrisons proposed Commonwealth Integrity Commission is deeply flawed in its current conception under the authorship of Attorney-General Christian Porter and the Attorney-Generals department.

May 29, 2017

LYNDSAY CONNORS. Schools Funding: unearthing the facts

The objections raised by Catholic leaders to the Turnbull Governments Gonski 2.0 funding model raise as many questions about the governance and operation of the Catholic school system as about Gonski 2.0. One of these questions is: who pays for the teachers in Catholic schools?

February 12, 2015

David M Neuhaus SJ. The Future of Christians in the Middle East. Part 2.

Christian institutions and discourse

In the Exhortation of Pope Benedict XVI, The Church in the Middle East, the Pope pointed to the preeminent role of the Christian institutions in the mission of the Christians in the Middle East.

For many years, the Catholic Church in the Middle East has carried out her mission through a network of educational, social and charitable institutions. She has taken to heart the words of Jesus: As you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me (Mt 25:40). The proclamation of the Gospel has been accompanied by works of charity, since it is of the very nature of Christian charity to respond to the immediate needs of all, whatever their religion and regardless of factions or ideologies, for the sole purpose of making present on earth Gods love for humanity.[iii]

January 5, 2016

Cavan Hogue. Shia vs Sunni in Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia’s execution of a Shia cleric who criticised its policies has exacerbated the split between Shia and Sunni Nations. Politics and religion have come together in a way that will be familiar to anyone who knows Northern Ireland. Sunni Saudi Arabia is the home of the deviant puritanical Wahabi sect which is rejected by most Muslims but provides the theological underpinning for al Qaeda and ISIS. It is also a US ally and therefore an Australian ally.

January 31, 2017

MARK BEESON. Turnbull turns toady for Trump

Lets hope its worth it. Malcolm Turnbull has sacrificed whatever remaining credibility he may still have had as a small l liberal in a desperate effort to save his tawdry deal with the American government. What looked like a brilliant political ploy to resolve the running sore of off-shore detention, has now come back to bite him.

May 17, 2020

CAVAN HOGUE. Science, not politics, must drive an independent and comprehensive Coronavirus inquiry

The whole question of lessons to be learned to help prepare for future pandemics is caught up in international politics and it will be hard for science to defeat politics. We need to examine who handled it well and who not, but this will point the finger at some countries which prefer to do the finger pointing.

June 18, 2014

Catholic Church - catch-up and cover-up

The sad saga of the Catholic Church in its response to sexual abuse goes on and on and on. Pope Francis is yet to grasp the nettle.

Invariably it is people outside the hierarchy and clergy who are responding and calling for action. The latest has been former NSW Premier, Barry OFarrell, who spoke in the NSW Parliament on this issue on 17 June 2014. He called on Fr Brian Lucas, the General Secretary of the Catholic Bishops Conference to be stood down in light of the report of the Cunneen Commission into alleged cover-up of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Diocese of Maitland/Newcastle. Barry OFarrell has a particular interest in this issue as he had appointed the Cunneen Commission.

October 28, 2014

Robert Mickens. An exercise in keeping friends close and enemies closer.

No Australian bishop has ever assumed such high rank in the Catholic Church as Cardinal George Pell, who eight months ago became head of the Vaticans newly created finance ministry or Secretariat for the Economy.

For the 73-year-old native of Ballarat, a city about 100 kms west of Melbourne, this is but the latest rung on what has been a steady and seemingly unstoppable rise up the Churchs hierarchical ladder, a climb that began in the pontificate of John Paul II and continued under Benedict XVI. Cardinal Pells ascent to key positions of leadership and his attainment of real ecclesiastical power have vexed his critics, including a good number of fellow bishops, as much as they have heartened his fans and allies, many of them so-called traditionalists who are devotees of the pre-Vatican II Mass in Latin.

December 28, 2016

End of an era in US-Thai relations!

In this article in the Bangkok Post, journalist Alan Dawson writes of a trend by the Thai government to improve relations with China at the expense of the US. Obama’s ‘pivot to Asia’ is having difficulties in the Philippines, Malaysia and Thailand. See link below to Bangkok Post article.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/general/1167845/end-of-an-era-

August 13, 2017

RICHARD BUTLER. Turnbulls Appalling Statement

Australia is not compelled to accompany the US in a war on North Korea, as PM Turnbull has asserted. His recent statement would seem to reflect his need to distract attention from the serious disputes within his government. That it has resulted in his endorsing the possible use of nuclear weapons is a profound moral failure. Trump seems dug in and maybe thats where the deep state wants him.

February 23, 2020

CAMERON DOUGLAS. Thailand's future party now past tense

Thailand’s constitutional court has what must be unique powers to decide the fate of political parties - and the shape of national politics. It exercised its powers again last week. The latest party to threaten military-backed authoritarian rule there no longer exists

June 11, 2017

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Theresa May and Malcolm Turnbull - same problems and same prospects.

The conservatives of the Anglosphere still dont get it: their elitist prescriptions for both the economy and the society that houses it are simply no longer acceptable. The mob are ready to reject what has been dubbed the political class and are scrabbling for solutions that can embrace more prosperity, and, even more crucially, more equality. There is no sign either May or Turnbull have either the skill or the desire to provide them.

June 4, 2017

JOHN MENADUE. The terrorists are over here because our troops are over there.

Political leaders like John Howard, who lead us into the war in Iraq must shoulder most of the blame for the appalling world-wide consequences, particularly terrorism. Yet, conservative political leaders today - John Howard’s successors - seek every opportunity to exploit the community’s fear of terrorism. Our news media cannot get enough of terrorist attacks in Western countries, while largely ignoring attacks in countries that have had much more serious terrorist violence - Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Pakistan and Nigeria. Our media never stops to ask how all of this terrorism started in the first place.

September 3, 2017

ANDREW FARRAN. SAS Special Forces to the Philippines - Useful tactical move or first step on another escalator?

Reports that ISIS is relocating to the Philippines following defeats in Iraq and Syria have raised concerns about its possible spread elsewhere the region. The Australian government has offered support to the Philippines, but it should think more deeply before it slides into a conflict that develops into something it can’t control

November 23, 2017

JIM COOMBS. Is Parliamentary Reform needed?

When we contemplate the hopelessness of our national (and state) politics now, we are tempted, like John Menadue, to think that tinkering with the machine will turn a clapped out jalopy into a Roller. It is more likely the quality of the driver that is the problem.

September 16, 2019

GILL HOFFMAN, KHALED ABU TOAMEH, OMRI NAHMIAS. Netanyahu Vows to Annex All Settlements, Starting with Jordan Valley (Jerusalem Post 11-9-19)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Tuesday that if reelected, he will apply sovereignty over all settlements in Judea and Samaria, starting with the Jordan Valley.

January 10, 2016

Richard Butler. Nuclear North Korea: Profound and Dangerous Hypocrisy

During the last 10 years, North Korea has resigned its membership of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and conducted four nuclear test explosions. It claimed that the latest of these, detected four days ago, was of a hydrogen (fission-fusion) bomb. It made no such claim for the earlier three tests; said to be merely atomic (fission) bombs.

Argument about the veracity of the current claim is underway. There was seismic evidence of a test, but there is good reason to doubt that it was of a hydrogen bomb. We might have a clearer reading on that soon. The UN Security Council has condemned the test, as it has done in the past, describing it as constituting a threat to international peace and security. North Koreas statements have spoken of a remarkable scientific achievement and their ability to threaten the destruction of its enemies, chiefly the United States.

September 8, 2016

EVAN WILLIAMS. How to fix the Senate.

Among the many self-inflicted wounds Malcolm Turnbull has sustained since the knifing of Tony Abbott, his biggest problem remains an unworkable and unpredictable Senate. The election result has raised once again a perennial question in Australian politics how best to define the powers and proper role of the upper house. With sophisticated preference deals and refined techniques of voter manipulation now the norm, the Senate has become a minefield , not only for Turnbull but for both sides of politics a rabble of conflicting interests and an obstruction to effective government. Can anything be done to reform it?

February 1, 2017

GEOFF DAVIES. Brexit, Trump and a Rigged System. Part 1 of 2.

Behind the votes for Brexit and Trump lies a simple and widespread perception: the system is rigged in favour of the rich. That perception is accurate. People may lash out at scapegoats and follow false prophets, but their disgust and alienation are quite justified. Trump promised to break up the cozy club at the top, and many people said Yes.

September 27, 2016

MICHAEL KELLY SJ. Winners are grinners - asylum seekers in Bangkok.

In the great race of life, its well to savor the few winners you back. Such was my experience last week. For some years, Ive been helping a small group of asylum seekers survive against the odds in Bangkok.

The win was a simple one as all the best wins are. After almost four years of waiting, five asylum seekers Ive been able to help - thanks to the financial support of Australian friends are making their way to resettlement in Canada. Five down and 28 to go.

Theres no great virtue in doing what you can for people down on their luck. It used to be part of being Australian and Christian and Jewish. Fortunately I have Australian friends who are Christian or Jewish enough to remember what our religions are about.

February 16, 2015

Jill White. Nurse Led Clinics for NSW.

Luke Foley great!

Congratulations on committing to nurse led clinics as part of to a primary health care strategy to increase access to community based health care. The four nurse led clinics promised last week are a welcome adjunct to the current but often overstretched GP services.

The ACT has led the way in nurse led clinics with the first, based in an emergency department, being evaluated as providing high quality safe and appropriate care; however where there was also easy access to medical care there was the risk of over-servicing lessening the cost effectiveness. So with lesson learned the two new ACT services are in underserviced areas and are providing high quality care to a population which otherwise would have had difficulty in quick and affordable access to health care. Information on these services is available through ACT Health. It is a success story, ask the people of Belconnen and Tuggeranong.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal