November 7, 2017

EVA COX. The non-economic causes of political trust deficits - The function of trust Part 1 of 2

G__ood democratic governance requires those in power to both be seen as both trustworthy and representing voters , effectively and fairly. Those ostensibly in control need to provide evidence that they are delivering, or ensuring access to those services and resources that are seen as public responsibilities. The disappearing common wealth and rising focus on individualised self-interest benefits need to be seen as causing the rising anti-elite, populist politics that undermine social cohesion, rather than just blaming the changes on limited economic flaws, e.g. the GFC. If we are to restore trust in good democratic processes, we need to recognise and address the social effects of citizens being redefined as customers in the shift to market models, as well as the increased invisibility of public good and goods.

November 29, 2018

ANDREW GLIKSON. Climate cover-up and Orwellian newspeak.

In so far as it may have been assumed that the growing manifestations of global warming through extreme weather events will cause people to realize the reality and the implications of carbon emissions, this is only partly happening, due to ongoing attempts by large part of the mainstream media to attribute these events to natural causes., masking the existential threat posed by global climate disruption.

September 12, 2019

BEN EHRENREICH. The End of the Frontier Myth. America can no longer run from its past (The Guardian 31-7-19)

The idea of the frontier in US history has been one of endless promise, but the reality has involved violence, even genocide. As this powerful study argues, its latest incarnation is Trumps wall.

April 9, 2018

IMOGEN ZETHOVEN. Trashing our Global Ocean Leadership.

Australia was once a global leader in marine protection. Today, we have fallen spectacularly from grace. The Commonwealth marine park plans tabled recently in federal Parliament represent a triumph for the oil, gas and fishing industries and a massive backward step for our threatened oceans.

October 22, 2017

PETER ARNOLD. Calling for medical help at night

Obtaining first-line medical attention at night, especially if the patient is house-bound, has become increasingly difficult. Proposals to improve affordable access to such services need to take account of changing urban structures, medical culture and community expectations.

February 21, 2016

John Nieuwenhuysen. Multiculturalism Today and the Little Evil

According to the ABS, the proportion of Australians born overseas has reached its highest point in 120 years. At about 6.6 million people, the overseas born represent 28 per cent of the countrys total, and, since 2005, migration has contributed half of total population growth. Some 47 per cent of Australians in 2015 were either born overseas or have parents who were.

The diversity of Australias population has also increased, and the days of White Australia are long since gone. The traditional major country sources of immigration remain Britain and New Zealand, which represent 20.8 and 9.1 per cent respectively of our overseas born population. But Asian migration has been rising; and, in 2015, 6 per cent of Australias overseas born were from China; 5.6 per cent from India; 3.5 per cent from Vietnam; 3.2 per cent from the Philippines; and 2.2 per cent from Malaysia.

July 6, 2018

GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND

A regular connection of links to writings and broadcasts covered in other media.

August 30, 2017

ACT Government provides much needed leadership on refugees

Last Thursday, the ACT Government passed a strongly worded motion calling on the Federal Government to end its damaging, cruel and inhumane policy on refugees. It requested that the Federal Government immediately remove all refugees and asylum seekers from Manus Island and Nauru and resettle them in Australia.

June 27, 2019

Monthly digest on housing affordability and homelessness May/June 2019

This is a monthly digest of interesting articles, research reports, policy announcements and other material relevant to housing stress/affordability and homelessness with hypertext links to the relevant source.

September 18, 2018

JOE ASTON. Rupert Murdoch to Kerry Stokes: Malcolm has to go. (AFR 18.9.2018)

Murdoch met with Seven West proprietorKerry Stokes…… “Malcolm has got to go,” he told the Perth billionaire.

_(This abuse of power by media barons is appalling.There is strong case for Bill Shorten to propose a Royal Commission into this unacceptable abuse of power and the general failure of our main stream media on issues such as climate change. The health of our democracy is at stake John Menadue)

March 17, 2016

Bruce Duncan. Pope Francis supports social revolution among the Zapatistas in Mexico

The western media largely missed the significance of Pope Franciss visit to the Free and Sovereign State of Chiapas in the south of Mexico on the border with Guatemala in February 2016. He not only reiterated the message he bore elsewhere in Mexico, about the Churchs support for a social and cultural revolution in favour of greater equality, social justice and human rights.

Francis singled out the indigenous peoples of Chiapas, which had erupted in a short-lived rebellion on 1 January 1994 against the Mexican governments attempt to privatise the communally owned land; this was the very day the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) came into effect. The issues of indigenous peoples and land rights are extremely sensitive in Mexico, yet Francis by visiting Chiapas was determined to highlight the problems and encourage solutions.

December 31, 2019

Modis project to make a Hindu India (East Asia Forum 30-12-19)

When Scott Morrison visits India later this month, he should temper his marketing enthusiasm. The Modi government is fast-tracking India into uncharted territory despite a forest of flashing amber signs of dangers ahead.

January 25, 2018

JOHN MENADUE. Cricket - grog and junk food!

Over the holidays I have very much enjoyed watching on television Australia winning the Ashes series, although they seem to be exhausted after the celebrations and are performing poorly in the ODI series. The visual TV coverage on Channel 9 is outstanding. The camera crews do a great job. I enhance my enjoyment by minimising the audio content. Except for the opening and closing of each session, and at the fall of each wicket, I keep my TV console on mute. Channel 9 is destroying a well-earned cricket legacy. Perhaps the loss of Richie Benaud was the beginning of the end.

But that is the good news. Unfortunately I cant get away from the almost saturation picture coverage of junk food (KFC) and alcohol (XXXX and Canadian Club). Last year it was Victorian Bitter and Bear-Wine-and-Spirits or BWS.

October 3, 2018

JOHN MENADUE. We all owe a lot to great teachers.

Recently I chatted with a friend about how much we all owe to some teachers and mentors. So I decided to share, with a few minor changes, what I wrote about twenty years ago about two teachers to whom I owe a great debt. They turned my life around.

June 12, 2015

Brendan Mackey. Green vision for a brown country

Policy Series

Introduction

Like we do in many areas, such as sport and financial services, Australian conservation punches above its weight in the international arena. Australia is signatory to all major multilateral environmental agreements including the Convention on Biological Diversity and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, we have environmental law in all three tiers of government, have established one of the worlds best national reserve systems including some of the largest world heritage areas, along with supporting cutting edge conservation science and management practices. All these conservation measures are worthy achievements that should be celebrated. They are certainly necessary and warrant the ongoing support of all concerned citizens and organisations. They are, alas, insufficient in the face of the overwhelming pressure on the natural environment we now face. Unfortunately, we are not fixing conservation problems at a faster rate than we are creating them. We are not saving species and ecosystems at a faster rate than they are being extirpated and degraded. While technological innovation brings both welcomed conveniences and economic efficiencies, it also opens the doors to novel ways of exploiting natural resources on land and sea, exposing ecosystems that we previously never imagined being threatened.

September 16, 2018

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Turnbull lets fly.

Unlike Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull did not hang around in parliament, which must be a major relief for Scott Morrison one baleful ex-prime minister glowering from the backbench is more than enough.

August 24, 2018

NATALIE ACTON. A revolution that starts in the heart.

An afternoon at the Sydney Writers Festival had delivered me an unexpected and precious gift. I think Id experienced what Benedictine Sister Joan Chittister names as having an unboundaried heart, writes Natalie Acton.

June 10, 2019

DUNCAN GRAHAM - Past their use-by date but still current

They ignore the local statistics, but hang on to the exceptional example, Mahathir bin Mohamad. Next month the Malaysian Prime Minister will turn 94 and although he promised to hand over to Anwar Ibrahim, 71, that has yet to occur.

September 27, 2018

JOHN AUSTEN - A public Inquiry into Sydney Metro is essential (Part 2)

Only a public inquiry can cut through the nonsense surrounding Sydney Metro and advise on what to do.

July 25, 2019

MICHELLE PINI. Newstart, wage theft and big fat ducks (Independent Australia)

“Having a go"just to put food on the table? Unless you’re a well-fed restaurateur or politician, it’s unlikely that you’ll"get a go” from this Government.

June 9, 2019

ROBERT MICKENS. The current state of the priesthood and episcopacy seems to be in shambles. Broken trust in a broken clerical system.

“If you want to be priest, lie!“That was supposed to be a punch line in “Mass Appeal,” a comedy-drama written by American Catholic playwright Bill C. Davis. First staged in 1980, it was made into a film four years later.

July 27, 2018

QUENTIN DEMPSTER. Because its wreck-able: Anger mounting at decision to end Fairfax.

The proposed end of Fairfax Media as an entity governing the editorial output of The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian Financial Review and regional newspapers has provoked mounting anger by some of Australias most prominent journalists.

May 8, 2019

ANDREW EDGECLIFFE-JOHNSON, LINDSAY FORTADO, JAMES FONTANELLA-KHAN. Elite gathering reveals anxiety over growing inequality. Financial Times 2.5.2019)

Throughout centuries what weve seen when the masses think the elites have too much, one of two things happens: legislation to redistribute the wealth…or revolution to redistribute poverty. Those are the two choices historically and debating it back and forth, saying no, its capitalism; no, its socialism is what creates revolution. (Alan Schwartz)

March 1, 2018

JOHN MENADUE. The AMA did its best to scuttle Medicare over 40 years ago.

This week I posted an article Health Ministers may be in office but they are seldom in power I pointed out how doggedly and often quite selfishly the provider institution- mainly the AMA, the Pharmacy Guild of Australia, Medicines Australia and the parasitical Private Health Insurance funds-resist almost all health reform unless it benefits provider interests. The public, patients and the community run a poor last.

May 19, 2019

PAUL COLLINS. Parochialism Reigns Supreme

The Coalition, like many of those who voted for it, seem incapable of grasping the big-picture evidence required to deal with global warming. Morrison says he always believed in miracles, but unfortunately thats not going to work for climate change.

July 20, 2018

MASSIMO FAGGIOLI. 'La Civilt Cattolica' rails against prosperity Gospel and its support for Trump.

The article is not shy about making the link between the prosperity gospel and the crisis of globalization political, social and economic.

April 9, 2018

MAX HAYTON. Inexperience in government brings problems for smiling Prime Minister.

Inexperience, arrogance or ignorance among members of the administration are causing problems for the New Zealand government of Jacinda Ardern. After nine years in opposition, too few members of Arderns cabinet have previous experience as ministers and some prefer to follow their own path, leaving the Prime Minister sometimes exposed un-briefed and even misled.

October 3, 2018

Susan Reid reviews 'Adani and the War Over Coal' by Quentin Beresford and 'The Coal Truth' by David Ritter (Australian Book Review, October 2018

Who can forget the image of Scott Morrison, as federal treasurer, juggling a lump of lacquered coal in parliament on 9 February 2017? Appearing pretty chuffed with his own antics, Morrison urged people not to be afraid. Eighteen months later, the jester is now prime minister. His ascension results from one of the most undignified and ill-conceived political coups in Australias political memory. The Liberal Party clambers from the rubble of its bitter internal ruptures with the same foot soldiers of big coal even more prominent.

June 13, 2018

CAVAN HOGUE. Digger mates in Singapore?

We have two countries and individuals with a well established record of breaking treaties, agreements and promises who tell us they have established a relationship of trust. How reassuring! At least for the time being they have stopped threatening and that is a good thing but no clear definition emerged of exactly what is meant by denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula. No doubt further talks will take place and the optimist in me says this gives hope but the pessimist says don’t start counting chickens. There are many traps and problems to be solved. While we don’t know what Kim is willing to offer nor do we know what he is willing to accept from the Americans and what they are willing to give.

January 18, 2018

JOHN MENADUE. A Commonwealth Hospital Benefit to replace the $11b private health insurance subsidy.- A REPOST from October 18 2117

The wasteful and unfair $ 11b per annum cost to taxpayers of the subsidy to Private Health Insurance should be abolished and the savings used in two possible ways - part funding a Medicare dental scheme and/or part funding private hospital care through a Hospital Benefit Scheme. In that Hospital Benefit Scheme, individuals could choose to access either a public or a private hospital in the same way that veterans do today.

May 23, 2019

China, Hong Kong & Australia's Love of Authoritarianism

In relations with China, Australia’s support for human rights faces a demanding test. Human Rights Watch reports that in areas of free expression and political participation, oppression in Hong Kong has increased to the worst level since the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.

September 2, 2018

JAMES CURRAN. Julie Bishop: buffeted by headwinds.

Few can quibble with the accolades that Julie Bishop has received in recent days for the manner in which she performed the role of Australian foreign minister. The first woman to hold the position, she graced the world stage with a mixture of professionalism and poise, dignity and discipline. No one can doubt Bishops ability to master a brief or effectively prosecute the national interest.

April 25, 2019

JOCELYN PIXLEY. The Coalitions Terms on Haynes Commission

When Morrison says, Labor cannot manage money, he must deny banks large-scale 2007-2011 crises - GFC - an outcome of Liberals mismanagement of money. Incoming Labor reversed looming depression in a brilliant world-first. The myth,john-menadue-the-myth-that-the-liberals-are-better-economic-managers/P&I,relies on crucial cover**-**ups. Some are illustrated in the Financial Sector Royal Commission that Liberals restricted before it started.

July 30, 2019

ANDREW GLIKSON. $trillion space games and false prophecies by billionaires while Rome burns

_History testifies to powerful rulers aspirations for the position of gods, including the Pharaohs and Roman Emperors such as Caligula or Nero, nowadays mimicked by false messianic prophecies of intergalactic civilization made by billionaires and their followers in public and the media, including some scientists. This includes predictions ofmaking life interplanetaryby giant proprietors of space hardware, such as Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson, including plans for space tourism,__asteroid miningand permanent human settlements on theMoon and Mars._This would by some estimates be expected to cost about $1 trillionby 2040. These ideas are closely linked to the rise of climate disruption and potential nuclear calamities and with the upsurge of fascism. Space playgrounds of billionaires can only come at the expense of the multitude of humanity left behind where, coupled with plans for militarization and evenweaponizationof space, humanity may be left with a few barren rocks in space to temporarily support a few survivors.

August 6, 2019

ERIC HODGENS. Catholic Culture Wars and the Pell legacy

A clash of cultures was graphically dramatized in 1968 when Paul VI published Humanae Vitae. It was a major moment in a tumultuous year. Europe was split over the Vietnam War. Student riots paralysed Paris and alarmed a young theology professor in Tubingen, Joseph Ratzinger, into retreat to a fearful conservatism.The baby boomer generation was rejecting old certainties and exercising new freedoms, especially sexual, that alarmed their elders. Paul’s condemnation of contraception was accepted or rejected along the lines of this cultural divide.

November 29, 2018

IAN BURNET. Friends in Australia a message from Sutan Sjahir, the Prime Minister of the newly declared Republic of Indonesia, November 1945.

On 17 August 1945 and two days after the Japanese surrender, Soekarno and Hatta unilaterally declared Indonesias Independence and became the first President and Vice President of the Republic of Indonesia.

November 26, 2017

RICHARD KINGSFORD. Policy holes drain the life out of Murray-Darling rivers.

We are often told by some politicians and irrigation lobbyists not to worry about our rivers Australia is a land of droughts and flooding rains and ever it was thus. After all, Murray-Darling rivers surely fixed themselves when the 2010 and 2011 floods broke the seven year Millennium Drought. This tired old talking point is wrong unequivocally demonstrated by reductions in river flows and thousands of hectares of dead river red gums. Critics of environmental flows for rivers argue that the so-called poor state of the rivers is nothing more than a figment of the imagination of the disconnected environmental fringe, mostly in our cities and scientists intent on growing their empires.

March 19, 2020

KERRY BREEN and KERRY GOULSTON.-An improved response to COVID-19 will not be achieved with the current approach.

One of the puzzling and troubling aspects of the Australian response to the Covid 19 public health crisis is that the actions taken or advised by government have often lagged behind what many in the community, including people with expert knowledge, are agitating for.

August 14, 2019

Julian Assange One case dismissed: one to go

From the Australian mainstream media most readers wont know it, but on 29 July a Federal Court in New York dismissed the Democratic National Committees case against Julian Assange for publishing leaked internal emails in 2016.

October 9, 2017

PAUL FRIJTERS. Observations, lessons, and predictions for the Catalan situation

I make the following observations about the Catalan situation:What might happen!

November 1, 2018

MACK WILLIAMS. New Cold War: Just how independent can Australia be ?

As renewed discussion grows pace in Australia about being less dependent on the United States in any Cold War against China how realistic is that option? For one thing we would need to loosen some of the linkages which have embedded us so deeply into the US defence machine through the US Indo Pacific Command (INDOPACOM).

October 29, 2017

JULIAN CRIBB. The 'Coal Toll' and the moral vacuum.

While the focus of public debate about energy has been on monetary costs, it has almost entirely ignored the larger issue of human life, health and wellbeing. Julian Cribb sets the record straight.

October 2, 2019

JOHN MENADUE. From a Long Term Permanent Resident of Hong Kong.

The following report is from a long term permanent resident of Hong Kong who along with the rest of Hong Kong has watched the long Summer of Discontent, with disbelief at how rapidly the city has fractured and deteriorated. It analyses what is happening and why and is pessimistic about a solution to the current problem in the near future.The writer is a university lecturer who wishes to remain anonymous for reasons of personal and professional security.

October 23, 2017

JOHN DWYER. The folly of looking at private health insurance as a single issue . Part 2 of2

So Private Health insurance is in the DNA of the Coalition government we hear from Minister Hunt. That may well be the case but there is no evidence to suggest that the delivery of equitable, quality health care to all Australians is so programmed. Indeed many have commented that the recent focus on private health insurance and the need for younger Australians to embrace a very poor deal is couched in rhetoric which suggests that Private Hospital care is better than Public Hospital care and, in any case, the public hospital system may not be there for you when you need it.

July 23, 2019

MARK BUCKLEY. Is Scomo Fair Dinkum?

_In Australia it is entirely appropriate for a politician to display religiosity in his public, and or private, life. That being said, it is also appropriate, if said religiosity is on public display, for the politician to fully divulge the length and breadth of those beliefs. In that way the electorate has the opportunity to judge whether the individuals beliefs are acceptable to them, and whether full knowledge would, or could, change voting behaviour.

August 19, 2018

KOFI ANNAN. Stop 'war on drugs' (05.11.13, CNN)

Each year, hundreds of thousands of people around the world die from preventable drug-related disease and violence. Millions of users are arrested and thrown in jail. Globally, communities are blighted by drug-related crime. Citizens see huge amounts of their taxes spent on harsh policies that are not working…

.(In memory and honour of Kofi Annan who died recently.John Menadue)

July 9, 2018

GRAHAM FREUDENBERG. Trump and Putin - One last word

My unfulfilled ambition was to put a new word into the English vocabulary. May I make a last attempt with an ugly word for an ugly thing? It is neo-victimism. It defines the dominant element into todays great power relations.

July 12, 2020

Sir John Kerrs secret Palace letters to be released

_History will be made this week with the release of hundreds of secret letters between the Queen and the Governor-General, Sir John Kerr, relating to Kerrs 1975 dismissal of the Whitlam government.

April 28, 2019

FRIDAY FORUM. Easter Sunday's suffering in Sri Lanka - seeking and finding answers

The Friday Forum, Sri Lanka

TheFridayForum isan informal and self-financed group dedicated to democracy, good governance, human rights and the rule of law. Ithas for over five years sought to alertthe public on issues concerningthe rights of the citizen. We work ona non-partisan basis and have been critical of both the Government and Opposition.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal