April 12, 2018

All bets off on the Korea summit outcome.

CANBERRA – The pieces of the jigsaw are falling into place on the Korean Peninsula. But the overall picture — a denuclearized North Korea, a nuclear-weapon-free zone for all of Northeast Asia and/or a U.S. withdrawal from East Asia — remains fuzzy.

Reaction to the March 8 announcement of a summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un was mixed. Some thought Trump’s threats of “ fire and fury” had spooked Kim into a climbdown. Others argued a one-on-one meeting with the U.S. president will confer legitimacy on the North Korean leader as an equal.

August 24, 2015

Irfan Ahmad. As Morsi faces the gallows, where are the defenders of democracy?

In mid-June, an Egyptian court upheld the death sentence against the country’s first freely elected president, Mohamed Morsi, whom the military deposed in July 2013. Death sentences against Morsi and 105 others were confirmed after Egypt’s grand mufti gave his approval. Many Islamic scholars (ulema) in the past spoke truth to power, for which they were jailed or executed. The mufti and the general who ousted Morsi, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, are instead sending democracy, freedom, justice and truth to the gallows.

May 27, 2015

Peter Hughes, Arja Keski-Nummi, John Menadue. Part 3: Settlement Policy and Services.

Fairness, Opportunity and Security. Policy series edited by Michael Keating and JohnMenadue.

3.1 Overview

The migration process starts in earnest after a visa is given to a migrant. Its success or otherwise is determined after the person arrives in Australia and becomes part of the workforce and community.

Australia, along with the other great traditional migration countries, has sought to smoothly integrate migrants into its multicultural society, by assisting them to become quickly productive through specialised assistance if necessary, and providing a relatively.

August 8, 2019

IAN DUNLOP, DAVID SPRATT. Australia’s climate stance is inflicting criminal damage on humanity (The Guardian)

The government opts for conflict rather than change, while suppressing details on the implications of its climate inaction

July 30, 2015

Gareth Evans. Time for the middle powers to step up.

Leadership is one of those things about which it’s sometimes wise to be careful what you wish for. In the context of Asia Pacific security, there has been far too much preoccupation with who is—and will be in the future—the top dog on the block, and far too little with building the kind of cooperative and collaborative arrangements that will make the region safe and comfortable for all its inhabitants—no matter who has, and for how long, the biggest GDP, the strongest military, the most allies and partners or the most evidently effective soft power.

May 26, 2015

Kim Williams. Creative Arts Policy Formulation

Policy Series

I have been giving presentations recently in which I have exhorted the creative community to accept responsibility for: -

Writing refreshed meaningful arts policies for federal political parties to inform a renewed approach for support and activity;
Forming renewed priorities and objectives for national arts training and other tertiary institutions which address evident misdirection and negative trends; and
Advocating coherent and well-formed detail in school curriculums of our primary and secondary systems which are devoted to the arts generally and music specifically as fundamental rights for all Australian students so as to improve the national capacity to think, concentrate, learn and appreciate creativity.

Our society is increasingly governed by several sustained characteristics, which are profoundly unhelpful to clear direction in national policy construction and commentary equally. These trends have manifest impact on the process of policy formulation and are seen particularly in:

November 13, 2014

Ian McAuley. Is capitalism redeemable? Part 2: Karl Marx’s and Henry Ford’s shared understanding

Karl Marx was the intellectual father of communism, grandson of a rabbi. Henry Ford was the quintessential American industrialist, anti-union and anti-Semitic.

They shared one insight, however. They both knew that capitalism could destroy its own markets. A plentiful supply of workers would keep wages low, to the benefit of industrialists. But those same industrialists needed markets for their products, and an underpaid workforce wasn’t going to be able to afford the products coming off the industrialists’ assembly lines.

November 4, 2014

Michael Keating. Rebalancing government in Australia. Part II

Taxation Reform and Vertical Fiscal Imbalance

Another third and final reason for national government pre-eminence over the States in our federal system is of course the national government’s domination of taxation, widely described as ‘vertical fiscal imbalance’ or VFI. Paul Keating called VFI the glue that holds our nation together, but for the States and the champions of States’ Rights, VFI is regularly trotted out as the root cause of centralism.

May 10, 2019

WANNING SUN. Another Non-Story on China – An Example of Selective Framing

An ABC news _story__, ‘Chinese media mocks Australia and Prime Minister in WeChat posts’, fails to mention a few key points, and as a result, is potentially misleading, even confusing._

July 9, 2015

John Menadue. London Postcard-some impressions.

We have just spent three weeks in the UK in Bath and London. But I kept the blog going with the help of friends.

For years I have largely avoided the UK. When I first visited London in 1963, I was very conscious of social and economic class. It seemed quite unhealthy. Most people knew their place, particularly working people. In 1963 I found it quite a relief to go to Ireland that did not show the same obsession with class. That initial impression in 1963 was followed by the harshness, in my view of the Thatcher years.

June 16, 2015

John Menadue. Risk-averse business.

Current Affairs

The Reserve Bank has pushed interest rates to record lows but business continues to be reluctant to invest.

Capital investment will fall by a record 25% to $104 b. in 2015/16 compared with what companies expected to spend a year earlier. In the March quarter of this year spending by companies on new equipment and buildings fell 4.4%, the sharpest fall since the global financial crisis.

In this blog on 30 October last year, see below, I wrote about how Australian business was becoming risk-averse – rather than investing in new ventures it was handing money back to shareholders in share buy-backs and generous dividends. This was at a time when corporate profits were high, but apparently the animal spirits of business was in short supply.

August 17, 2015

Ian Dunlop and Rob Sturrock. As the tide comes in, Australia chooses to remain the climate laggard

Amidst growing pressure and heightening expectations, on Tuesday Australia announced its intended nationally determined contribution (INDC) target to take to the Conference of Parties in Paris in December. It reinforces the notion of Australia as climate laggard going against the tide of science, action and opinion.

Tuesday’s announcement provides a meek objective of 26% emissions reduction by 2030 based on 2005 levels. The Government’s INDC is extremely inadequate for several reasons. Primarily it does not contribute to keeping temperature increases to 2⁰C above preindustrial levels. It does not aid Australia’s decarbonisation of the economy over the longer term. By comparison, the Climate Change Authority called for a minimum reduction of 45% on 2005 levels. Overall Australia will remain the highest per capita emitter commensurate with its role as a major contributor to the global fossil fuel industry. It reaffirms that Australia will be a fringe player at COP 21 in Paris, seen as marginal at best and obstructionist at worst in achieving genuine progress. Our commitment is less than Canada, another mining-centric climate-sceptic nation. The Australian Financial Review called the announcement ‘policy rubbish’.

January 23, 2015

Henry Reynolds. Militarisation marches on.

This article by Henry Reynolds was initially posted in September last year. John Menadue

Australia is obsessed with war. For a generation, federal governments have funded an intense program highlighting the importance of our military history. It has reached into every part of the country. Books, films and research projects have been subsidised. Old monuments have been refurbished, new ones created. Trees have been replanted in ageing avenues of honour; new days of remembrance have been added to the already crowded calendar of commemoration. National leaders attend the funeral ceremonies of the fallen servicemen with a regularity that was never expected of them in the past. Recently the prime minister, the minister for defence and the leader of the opposition were absent from parliament to be at the private funeral of a soldier who died in what was officially described as a “non-combat” incident in Afghanistan.

June 12, 2015

Bruce Duncan. Pope Francis and the Abbott government

Current Affairs

Pope Francis has repeatedly called for greater social and economic equity in the world, and reiterated the critique of neoliberal economics very strongly. Now he is about to issue an encyclical, the highest form of Church teaching, on the need to reduce carbon emissions and global warming. What will our pollies make of this, especially Catholics in the Coalition government?

Many observers are deeply puzzled by Abbott’s metamorphosis from being lampooned as ‘Captain Catholic’ into an advocate of neoliberal policies. What has happened to the man who called BA Santamaria one of his mentors?

January 23, 2015

Nanny Endovelicus. Preventing prevention Part 2

This is part 2 of a series on health prevention. It was initially posted in October last year. John Menadue.

Yesterday, in part 1, I began the task of analysing the cuts to the Commonwealth’s health budget and to the promised payments to the States and Territories in the area of prevention. Are the cuts well justified by the statistics?

Obesity - Nutrition and Physical Inactivity

Other than tobacco and excess alcohol consumption, the rising rates of obesity are the most concerning statistics in the area of preventable diseases. People’s diets and their levels of physical activity both contribute to obesity and overweight. By mid 2012, almost two thirds of Australians over 18 years were either overweight or obese according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, a significant increase from a decade ago. The current combined level for obesity and overweight is 63% for adults (70% of men and 56% of women). Of children between the ages of 5 - 17, about 18% are overweight and 8% are obese; this is very bad news, but at least it isn’t worse news - these numbers for children are largely unchanged since 2007-08. Unsurprisingly, a clear pattern of socio-economic disadvantage is visible: the prevalence of obese children, for example, is four times higher in disadvantaged areas.

May 20, 2019

ROGER SCOTT. Writing from the 'Blue Ribbon' north.

Queensland has delivered a killer punch to the Australian body politic, not for the first time.

April 10, 2019

Indonesia and Australia

On 17 April Indonesia goes to the polls. Shortly thereafter Australia will do the same. We will again need to think about Indonesia.

September 30, 2015

Why fighters are quitting ISIS.

The International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence at Kings College London points to the ways that many thousands of recruits who journeyed to Iraq and Syria may now be regretting their decisions. The more defectors speak out, the more the ISIS cause will suffer. The ICSR Report Executive Summary follows. John Menadue.

Executive Summary

• Defectors from the so-called Islamic State (IS) are a new and growing phenomenon. Since January 2014, at least 58 individuals have left the group and publicly spoken about their defection. They represent a small fraction of the many disillusioned fighters who have turned against IS.

April 24, 2018

RICHARD FLANAGAN. Freedom means Australia facing up to the truth of its past. (Part 2 of 2)

We should, of course, question these things more. We could ask why – if we were actually genuine about remembering patriots who have died for this country – why would we not first spend $100m on a museum honouring the at least 65,000 estimated Indigenous dead who so tragically lost their lives defending their country here in Australia in the frontier wars of the 1800s? Why is there nowhere in Australia telling the stories of the massacres, the dispossession, and the courageous resistance of these patriots?

(Second Extract from a speech by Richard Flanagan to the National Press Club on 18 April 2018)

May 23, 2015

Michael Keating, Luke Fraser. Infrastructure: Improvement or Impoverishment?

Fairness, Opportunity and Security Policy series edited by Michael Keating and John Menadue.

To paraphrase Paul Keating, right now every galah in the pet shop seems to favour more infrastructure spending. The current Prime Minister wants ‘to be remembered as a Prime Minister who built the roads of the 21st century’. The business community is similarly demanding more infrastructure investment, while both Treasury and Reserve Bank, both of whom might be expected to be a bit more critical of spending proposals, have added their blessing to infrastructure spending.

August 15, 2015

Alison Broinowski. . Borderless war

(or – when you get in a hole, stop digging)

To the sound of approaching drumbeats, first the ever-reliable Jim Molan, then Peter Jennings, and after them Liberal MP Dan Tehan have been wheeled out to tell us in recent days that the RAAF should start bombing in Syria. Right on cue, on 13 August Kevin Andrews said Australians would soon direct drone attacks into Syria, and Tony Abbott said expanded RAAF raids across the border had –wait for it – ‘been discussed’. Always briefed, Greg Sheridan informed us on 14 August that Australia was in discussions with the US, Iraq and other ‘coalition allies’, which he did not name, but some of whom had ‘already joined the US in attacks inside Syria.’ (Sheridan, ‘RAAF Syrian bomb missions loom’, Australian 14 August 2015, 1,2. David Wroe, ‘Australia in talks to bomb IS in Syria’, 14 August 2015, 3)

August 13, 2015

John Menadue. The Senate saves the day on the Trans Pacific Partnership.

The Senate saves the day on the Trans Pacific Partnership.

Often the Senate is seen as obstructive or worse. But it has performed a very useful purpose in helping to derail the Trans Pacific Partnership. Hopefully the TPP will not be put back on track.

According to the New York Times, our Trade Minister Andrew Robb told the TPP negotiating ministers in Hawaii that the Australian Parliament – read Senate – would not accept the further restrictions on trade in pharmaceuticals which the US was proposing. He was apparently concerned that to accede to the US demands would result in substantial increases in Australia’s Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and penalise Australian pharmaceutical users. As a result of this breakdown on pharmaceuticals, the Australian government ‘walked away from the negotiations’.

June 16, 2015

Michael Gracey . What’s needed to fix aboriginal health?

Policy Series

By most of the usually accepted markers the health of Australia’s indigenous people compares unfavourably with that of other Australians. This has been known for decades and numerous strategies and programs have been developed to correct this inequity. Despite the best of intentions and expenditure of billions of taxpayers’ dollars over the past half-century, a yawning chasm remains in this so-called “gap”. The Prime Minister, no less, admitted in February 2015 that the findings of the seventh annual Close the Gap Report were “profoundly disappointing”.

April 25, 2015

Peter Day. Rather Be Dancing With Me Rosie.

My grandad, he represented Australia; wore a green helmet, too.

Walked out and faced the music: ducked a lead ball, not a leather one, mind you.

Not much of a dressing shed in which to relax and prepare;

A stinking-bloody-trench, sick mates, a smoke, and a ‘God-help-me’ prayer.

Such a long way from home; just seventeen, no one has a clue.

The pollies speak of glory and sacrifice; another teenager’s down … no, not Blue.

September 18, 2014

Philip Kokic, Mark Howden, Steven Crimp. 99.999% certainty humans are driving global warming.

There is less than 1 chance in 100,000 that global average temperature over the past 60 years would have been as high without human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, our new research shows.

Published in the journal Climate Risk Management today, our research is the first to quantify the probability of historical changes in global temperatures and examines the links to greenhouse gas emissions using rigorous statistical techniques.

Our new CSIRO work provides an objective assessment linking global temperature increases to human activity, which points to a close to certain probability exceeding 99.999%.

September 15, 2019

PETER SAINSBURY. Sunday environmental round up, 15 September 2019

A focus on the economic aspects of climate change this week: business-as-usual will reduce global GDP but climate action is blocked by potential financial losers; the Adani mine is viable only because of massive government subsidies, while in India investment in coal facilities is plummeting; and hydrogen power seems to have some answers for Australia if the right investments are made. To combat the heat island effect, Singapore is going green.

May 31, 2019

ANDREW FARRAN. ‘America First’: Strategic Choices

President Trump’s ‘America First’ policies are shaking established structures. Regardless of Trump’s future they are unlikely to be reversed anytime soon. His split with China opens unprecedented opportunities for Australia. Indeed a brave new world, if we have the intelligence and the skills to navigate the transition along with our regional partners.

January 4, 2019

BRUCE THOM. University research cuts.

The December budget update gave the federal government the opportunity to once again slice into the operating expenses of universities. This time it was to cut funds for research. Cumulative hits to one of the nation’s major sources of export income, let alone further stifling funding for research and development, reflect a pattern of anti-intellectualism which some have come to expect from this government.

July 10, 2017

JOHN MENADUE. Chilcot - The Iraq war and Murdoch's war on critics. (Repost)

On 1 July 2014, I posted a story about the role of News Corp and Rupert Murdoch in the Iraq disaster. The Chilcot Report confirms even more how News Corp publications misled readers and viciously attacked their opponents. News Corp demonstrated that it is indeed a rogue organisation. See repost below:

September 5, 2015

Peter Johnstone. Bishop Robinson at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

“the major obstacle to a better response from the Church has been the Vatican."

Bishop Geoffrey Robinson

On Monday 24 August 2015, Bishop Geoffrey Robinson spent a day in the witness box at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. He showed the integrity one would hopefully expect from a Christian bishop in focussing on the interests of children ahead of the institutional interests of the Church. He was there to assist the Commission in its understanding of the Catholic Church’s approach to the scandal of clerical child sexual abuse. Bishop Robinson was transparent in his formal statement, in his responses to questions, and in the multitude of accompanying exhibits. His evidence provides new and worrying insights into the decision-making processes of the Australian hierarchy and the Roman curia. It is clear from Robinson’s frank evidence that much of the institutional Church’s actions have been focussed largely on the reputation of the Church at the expense of the protection of children from sexual abuse.

September 4, 2015

John Menadue. Don’t add to the disaster.

The government is considering adding to the disaster in the Middle East by instructing the RAAF to bomb targets in Syria.

Will we ever learn from our past mistakes?

In supporting the US invasion of Iraq, Australia helped trigger the tragedy that is now unfolding. Perhaps a million lives have been lost and refugees are flooding in their millions into adjoining countries and Europe. Our involvement has triggered both ethnic and sectarian conflict. Does Tony Abbott ever stop and think about his role in the Howard Government that helped sow the seeds of this disaster?

June 1, 2015

John Menadue. Health Policy Reform: Part 1 – Why reform is needed

Policy Series

I will be posting three articles on health policy.

This article outlines the priority areas where reform is necessary.

Part 2 will explain why reform is so difficult but not impossible.

Part 3 will be about processes and governance issues that are necessary to move us beyond the present inertia, incrementalism and tinkering, with suggestions for policy directions. I will not be proposing specific policies.

The Rudd-Gillard Government – lost opportunities

May 23, 2015

Andrew Podger. A fair, effective and sustainable retirement incomes system.

Fairness, Opportunity and Security Policy series edited by Michael Keating and John Menadue.

In his introduction to this series, Ken Henry said he could not recall a poorer quality debate, on almost any issue, than what we have had in Australia in recent times. Ian Marsh, in his contribution, advocated pursuing bi(multi)partisanship opportunities as far as possible.

Sadly, Henry’s comment seems most apt when it comes to retirement incomes policy, and Marsh’s call seems a long way off after the Prime Minister and Treasurer ruled out a comprehensive review of the policy after the recent Budget. This is despite the Treasurer recently saying in relation to taxation that all options were on the table, and the Opposition indicating a willingness to work with the Government. In addition, there has been some excellent work in academia over recent years, and a quality report from David Murray’s Financial Services Inquiry which highlights the importance of drawing all the threads of the retirement income system together. We can only hope some others in the Government can find a way to allow proper discussion and wide engagement on this critical issue for everyone.

January 22, 2015

Nanny Endovelicus. Preventing prevention. Part 1

This repost is an outstanding article on prevention that I originally posted in October last year. Part 2 will follow tomorrow. John Menadue

One of the more curious decisions of the Abbott Government in its 2014 Budget was the decision by Health Minister Peter Dutton to reduce Commonwealth expenditure on prevention.

Funding for population health broadly is set to decline substantially - although the brunt of the cuts are for later years and the real devil is in the finer detail.

January 9, 2015

Chris Bonnor. The education gap is widening.

A repost in case you missed this important article by Chris Bonnor. John Menadue

It appears we are going to have yet another tilt at reforming federalism. The persistent overlap between the Commonwealth and states in school education is frequently stated as reason enough to rethink the roles of government. Last May the Commission of Audit demonstrated its expertise in matters educational by suggesting that the states, almost alone, should run education.

January 6, 2016

Allan Patience. Australia and the War in Syria.

Repost from 02/09/2015

Australia and the War in Syria: Perverting a Noble Vision in International Law for Ignoble Domestic Political Purposes

In 2005 a summit of world leaders at the United Nations unanimously endorsed the doctrine of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P). Along with the establishment of the International Criminal Court, it constitutes one of the most noble contributions to international law, ever. Basically the doctrine declares that where a state is incapable or unwilling to protect its citizens, the international community should come to their aid. Intervention may take one or more of several forms: debt forgiveness, manageable loans, direct financial and logistical aid, sanctions, peace keeping operations and - as a very last resort - threatened or actual military intervention.

November 7, 2015

Race Mathews. A cancerous corruption is eating the ALP

Bill Shorten is to be congratulated on telling the Victorian ALP to investigate and eliminate its membership rorts, as exemplified by the latest branch-stacking scandal that has again humiliated the party and exposed it to public ignominy and disrepute.

There may never be a better opportunity to clean up once and for all the morass that has been exposed. The party must not let this opportunity be lost.

Shorten must now insist that the investigation into this disgraceful episode be truly independent.

May 11, 2015

Ian Marsh. Part 1. Democratic Renewal: towards a post-majoritarian policy making structure?

Fairness, Opportunity and Security Policy series edited by Michael Keating and John Menadue.

Whoever wins the next election, the challenge of dealing with a hung Senate will almost certainly loom large. Perhaps also a hung House of Representatives. Malcolm Turnbull tells us that the appropriate response is a compelling narrative delivered with conviction and resolve by a sufficiently competent leader.

Is this enough? In this short note I will argue that the problems in present political arrangements are much deeper – they are systemic and structural. The present political and policy system is largely gridlocked. This is the result not of incompetent leaders or deficient narratives, important though both certainly are, but rather of a slow-burn legitimacy crisis that has been many years in gestation.

July 1, 2019

Folau saga: when employers and sponsors become the thought police

Like _Paul Collins__, I am destined for Israel Folau’s version of hell on multiple counts of sin. Indeed I will be even deeper in it since I have repeatedly, over several decades, refused to embrace the love and salvation offered by Jesus Christ despite countless missionaries and proselytisers pleading with me to do so and renounce my Hindu heathenism. Given the contrasting pictures painted of heaven and hell, I look forward to sharing hell’s pleasures with Paul while the devout enjoy the tedium of life in heaven._

October 6, 2017

EVAN WILLIAMS. University education: the monster in the room.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that anyone lacking a rewarding occupation must be in want of a degree. A university education is not only a good in itself, but an indispensable passport to a satisfying career and a secure lifestyle. It follows that universities should be open to all, that everyone should be encouraged to take a degree and that greater public investment in higher education is the key to national progress and prosperity. All of which, as we are now discovering to our cost, is nonsense – a dangerous fallacy that politicians on all sides are unwilling to confront.

October 9, 2015

Sean Gorman. Goodes is gone but the confronting truth remains.

For many AFL fans, the last week in September is the time of the year where we reflect on a season that could have been and dream of next year.

One thing we can be sure of is that we won’t see Sydney Swans champion Adam Goodes on a football field again. This saddens me. I think the reason for this is the sense of unfinished business. What should have been the rounding out of a great career or even the saddling up for one last crack in 2016 now has a full stop on it. But even in retirement, questions about Goodes’ legacy and actions remain.

May 22, 2018

ANDREW FARRAN. Parliamentary report on Section 44: Despite serious democratic deficit, referendum can wait!

There could be no clearer case for an early referendum than the fact that over half of all Australians today have barriers to nomination under s.44. In practice, the Report states, some may never be able to overcome these barriers and nominate. Indeed, 10,779,230 people (46% of the population) were born overseas or have one or more parents who were born overseas - a percentage much the same as may have existed when s.44 was drafted in 1898; and clearly it was not intended then that all such persons should be excluded from the Parliament after Federation.

September 8, 2018

JIM COOMBS. Alternatives to the “big four.

The AFR reports Mark Carnegie of the Superannuation Trustees saying that their funds could move into High Street banking as the Big Four retreat after being found with their hands in the cookie jar. Even Auspost could pile into the market !

October 6, 2018

China and New World Order. North Korea Part 4

The most acute contemporary manifestation of the demand on China to demonstrate responsible leadership is the challenge of North Korea’s nuclear weapons. Le Hong Hiep speculated on the prospect of a grand bargain between Trump and Xi when they met at Mar-a-Lago to accommodate US concerns on its massive bilateral trade deficit and on North Korea’s nuclear program in return for meeting China’s concerns on US anti-missile deployments in South Korea. Such a deal was correctly assessed as unlikely.

August 9, 2016

JEFF KEHOE. Can capitalism be redeemed?

In this article in the Harvard Business Review, Jeff Kehoe poses the future of capitalism. He says

Although it may be necessary to treat inequality as an economic problem, it is not sufficient. The US as a country needs to ask and answer some basic questions. Who gets to set the rules? What value should they reflect? What’s fair? What do we owe to one another?

See link for full article: https://hbr.org/2016/07/can-capitalism-be-redeemed

January 11, 2019

RICHARD BROINOWSKI. The US-Mexican Border Paradox

President Trump’s characterisation of asylum seekers from Mexico as illegal criminals and rapists threatening American citizens is a cynical distortion of reality. Drug runners and criminals both from Mexico into the United States and vice versa represent a tiny fraction of the flow of one million people who legally cross between the two countries every day to work, shop or visit relatives. A much larger proportion of criminals, from many origins, enter the United States by air.

October 5, 2018

ROSEMARY O’GRADY. Death of a Real-Life Publisher.

In June this year I posted in these pages a piece entitled ’ Meanings of War’. It reported the publication of new translations and editions of the German-language classic Simplicius Simplicissimus, first-published in its original German edition in 1669.

November 14, 2018

MARGARET SIMONS. Good riddance to Guthrie and Milne. The ABC needs grown-ups in charge (the Guardian 12.11.18)

The most powerful message to emerge from Four Corners’ sad story about the tumult at the top of the ABC is that neither the former chairman Justin Milne nor the former managing director Michelle Guthrie appeared to be friends of the public broadcaster.

August 15, 2018

JEFFERY SACHS. We Are All Climate Refugees Now.

This summer’s fires, droughts, and record-high temperatures should serve as a wake-up call. The longer a narrow and ignorant elite condemns Americans and the rest of humanity to wander aimlessly in the political desert, the more likely it is that we will all end up in a wasteland.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal