June 26, 2019

BOB DOUGLAS, Australia Should be Leading The Extinction Rebellion

Prime Minister Morrison is now in a very strong position to lead the way on radical policy reform. I am arguing here that we should help him to develop and promote a strategy for human survival in the face of the ten interacting, mega-threats that seriously threaten the extinction of humanity in the lifetime of our grandchildren.

October 24, 2016

JOHN MENADUE. Our Working Holiday Programs have lost their way.

I have been an advocate of Working Holiday Programs (WHPs) for over 40 years. These programs were an excellent opportunity to foster closer ties and cultural exchanges between Australia and partner countries with particular emphasis on young adults.. The programs were reciprocal.

But the nature of WHPs have changed dramatically in recent years. In Australia they have become mainly labor market and cheap labor programs.

A recent report of the Fair Work Ombudsman has drawn attention to widespread exploitation and underpayment of working holiday makers.

September 1, 2019

JUDITH WHITE. NSW arts policy officially in ruins

Arms length funding of the arts is the hallmark of a government attempting to work in the interests of the people. It prevents the arts being used as a political football, and together with peer assessment fosters the development of creativity. It was the founding principle in 1946 of the Arts Council of Great Britain, created by economist John Maynard Keynes and the Attlee Labour government, but came under sustained attack by the government of Margaret Thatcher (1979 to 1990). It was also the basis of the funding model for the Australia Council developed by the Whitlam government in 1973. But today that principle is being trashed.

June 20, 2018

RICHARD GLOVER. Move over, Emmanuel Macron. Australia has the true Trump whisperer. (Washington Post 19/6/2018)

Australia is the last U.S. ally standing. Weve escaped Americas new tariffs, our leader has yet to be labeled weak or a liar, and the United States has even agreed to accept some of Australias unwanted refugees. President Trump called that refugee arrangement the worst deal ever, but he has allowed it to be implemented.

April 24, 2019

DAVID STEPHENS. Beneath the tumult and the shouting: Anzac Day as a private experience.

Anzac should be mostly private. It should be about the quiet, within-family, remembrance of and caring about people who have suffered in war, those who have been killed and not come home, those who have come home injured in body or mind, and those who live with the memory of the dead and the reality of the living.

September 14, 2018

GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND

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

August 22, 2019

MARTIN JACQUES HK's future lies with China, not the West: (Peoples Daily Online 19-8-19)

As protests in Hong Kong continue, scholars and experts worldwide have expressed their concern over the city’s economic recession and rising violence. During an exclusive interview with People’s Daily Online, Martin Jacques, a senior fellow at Cambridge University, called for restored stability and order in Hong Kong, adding that its future lies only with China.

February 9, 2021

ABC Country Hour mouthpiece of Liberal National Party and rural elites?

ABC Country Hour is marketed as the voice of the bush; but whose voice and whose bush? A recent investigation reveals how Country Hour does the bidding of the Liberal and National Parties and their powerful friends while glossing over the likes of climate change, Indigenous issues and the #watergate scandal.

November 13, 2018

PAUL O'CALLAGHAN. For Caritas Australia, bankrolling the Pacific misses the mark.

At Caritas Australia we have long been in the business of supporting the grassroots development of our Pacific neighbours.

December 17, 2017

MICHAEL MULLINS. Mothballing the clerical collar would help prevent clergy sexual abuse

An attitude of superiority on the part of a priest or other religious functionary carries with it the distinct possibility that they will abuse their position by taking sexual advantage of someone less powerful. On the other hand, if they genuinely think of themselves as servants, sexual abuse is most unlikely. Its time for the Church to consider doing away with the clerical collar, which is a powerful symbol of priestly power and privilege.

November 13, 2019

DAVID ROWE. Pocketing science but offering thoughts and prayers. (AFR 11.11.2019)

May 23, 2019

MARIAN SAWER. After Clive Palmers $60 million campaign, limits on political advertising are more important than ever (The Conversation)

Can billionaires buy elections in Australia? In the 2019 election, Clive Palmer demonstrated they can certainly flood the print media, airwaves, social media and billboards with advertising and have an impact on the results through their preferences and negative advertising.

November 6, 2017

GILES PARKINSON. Garnaut says NEG may do little for prices, certainty or competition.

Leading economist Ross Garnaut has delivered a critical appraisal of the federal governments proposed National Energy Guarantee, warning that it will unlikely deliver lower prices or investment certainty, and could simply lock in the power of the big incumbent generators.

June 5, 2018

JOHN DWYER. Health Care Homes, set up to fail and doing so spectacularly.

Touted by Minister Hunt as the biggest health care reform initiative since the introduction of Medicare, the Health Care Home model for the better management of patients with two or more chronic diseases is floundering, beset with predictable organisational and resource inadequacies. As is so often (too often) the case with health policy initiatives, a laudable concept collapses at the implementation phase (e.g. Primary Health Networks). The boldness of the plan is not matched by the necessary resource boldness.

December 9, 2019

KISHORE MAHBUBANI. ASEANs quiet resilience (East Asia Forum, 8 December 2019)

ASEAN should have begun to crack and fall apart from the strain of the rising geopolitical rivalries in Asia between the United States and China, if what critics say about its fragility were true. But ASEAN steadily marched through another difficult and challenging year and quietly delivered many positive results that will improve the wellbeing of its 650 million people.

January 17, 2019

ANTONY GREEN. Why independents won't matter so much at the next election (ABC News).

Despite predictions that independents will be an important factor in the result of the coming federal election, two important factors suggest otherwise.

January 31, 2019

DAVID JAMES. Venezuela beset by American dirty tricks (Eureka Street, 30 January 2019)

For those wishing to peer into the heart of darkness, the nexus between big oil and big money is a good place to start. Those who control the energy market and the financial markets control the world.

September 7, 2018

KIERAN TAPSELL. The Australian Church Response to the Royal Commission Final Report on the Pontifical Secret.

The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference in its response to the Royal Commission’s Final Report has claimed that the pontifical secret does not inhibit bishops from reporting all allegations of child sexual abuse against clergy to the civil authorities. In view of statements to the contrary by the Church’s senior canon lawyers in the Roman Curia, three judicial commissions in different parts of the world and two United Nations Committees, Pope Francis has no choice but to clarify the situation.

October 9, 2017

JOHN CARMODY. Same-sex marriage survey is All Over, Red Rover.

Newspapers and the electronic media seem to flourish on controversy, novelty and scandal; the temptation is to expand and prolong their coverage unduly. The current postal survey on same-sex marriage seems to be a classic instance.

June 11, 2019

DENNIS ARGALL. Tiananmen in context

There has been feverish interest in the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen incident, in Australia with some focus on repression in China, fuelling antagonism towards China. In this essay I want to provide context that is lacking: in the evolution of economic reform and liberalism in China, in the evolution of Sino-Soviet relations and regional strategy and Chinas united front with the US (and Australia) against Vietnam and the Soviet Union.

October 3, 2019

MARK BUCKLEY. This Born Again, No Plan Government

Last year, and until the federal election this year, the Liberal National Coalition believed it was heading toward electoral oblivion, and some of the Governments behaviour looked at best to be dodgy. They made sure they would reap the benefits of the last six years in power, Im sure there was much shredding of documents, and many of them deserted the ship, entitlements intact.

August 30, 2018

DAVID GOLDMAN. Europe, Japan, China and Russia line up against US.

Investment patterns are shifting in response to Americas new assertiveness.

January 18, 2018

Time ticks closer to nuclear midnight

This weeks false ballistic missile warning gave the world its first glance of what the first 38 minutes of nuclear war might feel like as political tensions turned to real-life panic. As time ticks away, can catastrophe be averted?

October 26, 2017

STEPHEN DUCKETT. Assisted dying is one thing, but governments must ensure palliative care is available to all who need it

The debate in the Victorian Parliament about assisted dying has tended to focus on the terrible personal experiences of deaths of family members. That focus is understandable, but it has been at the cost of consideration of the need for much more attention to the need for better palliative care.

July 9, 2019

NOEL TURNBULL. Where did it all start?

From whence and whereof cometh yon Trump? From some distant time or world? Well thats how it might be put in cod Elizabethan dialogue.

October 16, 2018

GEORGE BROWNING. The Jerusalem Embassy thought bubble.

To contemplate moving the Australian embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem to shore up the chances of the Liberal candidate for Wentworth, Dave Sharma, is a small but very significant example of what is horribly wrong with Australian politics and why so few Australians now have any trust in the political process. That the Prime Minister denies any connection between the thought bubble and the weekend byelection stretches credulity and pokes fun at the electorates intelligence. What is it about our present government that it would even contemplate such a course? Please Mr Morrison you can do better than this, Australia certainly deserves better than this.

March 30, 2018

PETER DAY. Crickets lost trophy

OMG: Disastrous. Unbelievable. Shameful. Disgraceful. What the!

October 17, 2017

NICHOLAS GRUEN. Which bank could give Australians a better bang for their buck? The Reserve Bank of Australia.

How would you like to be able to get most of your mortgage from the Reserve Bank of Australia at the cash rate of 1.5% rather than three times that after your bank has slapped on its margin for the same money?

May 13, 2019

PETER SAINSBURY. How do the parties environmental policies compare?

If climate change is going to influence your vote this Saturday you may want to know how the three main political parties environment policies shape up. Here are three scorecards to help you decide who to favour with your vote.

September 14, 2018

KIM OATES. Viewpoint: "Always say something positive about the child" (Berry Brazelton 1918-2018)

Over 40 years ago, I was fortunate to do some of my paediatric training with Berry Brazelton. He wasnt famous then, but there was something about him that set him apart from the purely organic focus of most of the senior staff at Boston Childrens Hospital. He was interested in babies as individuals with their own sets of skills. Here was a paediatrician prepared to question the status quo about the abilities of infants and young children who based his views, not on the prevailing dogma, but on careful observation. He was the first to recognise that a baby is a highly developed human, even when just newly born.

July 11, 2018

TILMAN RUFF. The treaty banning nuclear weapons one year on: history made, a solid start, here to stay, and miles to go before we sleep

One year ago, on 7 July 2017 at the United Nations in New York, 122 nations took a historic step when they voted to adopt the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The Treaty filled a gaping hole in international law, providing a comprehensive prohibition on the last weapons of mass destruction to be declared illegal; the only weapons that could not only end all of us, but deny future generations of our kind and many others a right to be born. So in the race to end nuclear weapons before they end us, how is the Treaty faring one year on?

December 17, 2015

Paul Collins. Three wise people.

In the last eighteen months Australian Catholicism has lost three of its great leaders, people who genuinely contributed not only to the church, but also to our social and cultural life. They were Professor Max Charlesworth who died on 2 June 2014, Sister Veronica Brady who died on 20 August 2015, and Father Frank Martin who died on 2 September 2015. In a time when the church is utterly bereft of episcopal leadership, it was people like Veronica, Max and Frank who were the ones who inspired us and who remained most true to the message of Jesus and the Catholic tradition.

December 15, 2019

MUNGO MACCALLUM.- Delivering on threadbare policies.

And so ScoMos annus miraculous staggers to an end, with the promise that the next one will be the year of delivery, the one that produces the outcomes which will make all the dithering, procrastination and avoidance of issues all worthwhile.

July 31, 2019

CINDY YU. Is China Really the Enemy (The Spectator)

China is a nation with values deeply at odds with the West.

April 6, 2016

James Morley. The idea that conservatives are better economic managers simply does not stand up.

Conventional wisdom holds that conservative politicians are more prudent stewards of the economy. These politicians are often happy to reinforce this view by citing their business acumen and denigrating the experience or lack thereof of their opponents.

Think of Mitt Romney as multi-millionaire businessman versus Barack Obama, former community leader. Donald Trump also highlights his business experience, although his track record suggests hes done far worse at managing his fathers wealth than a monkey throwing darts at The Wall Street Journal.

May 26, 2019

JEFF WATERS. Authenticity sells - Albanese would be foolish to overlook Kearney.

A leader devoid of what the public regards as “authenticity” appears to have cost Labor the election. Anthony Albanese should keep this in mind when appointing his shadow cabinet and should look no further than one of his most prominent and altogether successful backbenchers - the former ACTU President, Ged Kearney.

May 23, 2019

SCOTT BURCHILL: Class and the onus of proof after the 2019 election

If he had been voted in as prime minister on 18 May 2019, Bill Shorten proposed to pay for increased government spending with a crackdown on franking credits, future limitations on negatively geared property assets (that were grandfathered) and new measures to limit multinational company tax avoidance. Amongst other significant campaign shortcomings, Shorten failed to convince Australian about the fairness of these polices.

May 7, 2019

CHRIS TURNEY. UK becomes first country to declare a climate emergency. Why not Australia?

Last Wednesday night a bipartisan UK Parliament passed an extraordinary measure: a national declaration of an Environment and Climate Emergency.

The UK is the first national government to declare such an emergency. The decision marks a renewed sense of urgency in tackling climate change, following a visit to Parliament by teenage activist Greta Thunberg , the broadcast of David Attenboroughs documentary Climate Change: The Facts and 11 days of protest by environmental group Extinction Rebellion that paralysed parts of London.

With 70% of Australian media run by a climate sceptic it is not surprising that this major story was largely ignored.

August 13, 2018

ABUL RIZVI. What is Dutton Hiding Now?

In announcing the outcome of the migration and humanitarian programs, immigration ministers have traditionally provided extensive details on outcomes against planning levels by visa category, as well as other relevant information (see here for examples of such reports for past years). For the 2017-18 outcome, Peter Dutton rushed to get the news out via an exclusive for the front page of The Australian around a week before the Longman by-election. But unlike past years, Dutton held back the details. The report on the 2017-18 outcome is still under embargo almost a month after the exclusive for The Australian. Dutton is unlikely to release the report until at least after the next Senate Estimates hearings in October.

September 12, 2018

ISHAAN THAROOR. The White Houses new attack on the international system.

In his first major policy address since joining the White House in April, national security adviser John Bolton offered a particularly aggressive demonstration of President Trump’s “America First” agenda. He threatened the International Criminal Court, a U.N.-mandated body based in The Hague, with punitive measures should it pursue an investigation into alleged U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan. He warned that the United States would ban ICC judges and prosecutors from entering the country, sanction their funds in the U.S. financial system and punish any company or government that complies with an ICC investigation into Americans.

October 5, 2018

JONATHAN PAGE. How Buddhism helped this cancer doctor care for his dying patients (ABC Science interview)

Medical oncologist Jonathan Page says being more in the moment helps him to be a better doctor. His relationships with his patients were once characterised by “coldness…. and a lack of grieving”. But a mental health crisis that led him to Buddhist meditation helped change that.

April 2, 2018

SUSAN RYAN. Cricket cheats and Australian culture.

The big question for Australian culture is not which of the three cheats is most remorseful, but why this bad behaviour by cricket heroes, once exposed, has apparently caused greater distress to Australians than any other cheating currently in the public domain.

Banks cheating their customers is the subject of a current Royal Commission. The Australian Tax Office publicly warns against claiming unjustified concessions for holiday houses. Everyone is aware of cheating by insurance companies who try to refuse valid sickness and disability claims by policyholders.

April 28, 2019

MUNGO MacCALLUM. What has inevitably been rechristened Watergate is hardly a barbecue stopper.

For most voters, the issue is both too remote and too complicated apparently there are different kinds of water, different ways of harvesting them (whatever that means), elaborate regulations about selling the stuff, deciding what to do with it and evaluating the outcomes and all of that before we have to discuss the ethics of paying a large fortune to deliberately anonymous British tax avoiders based in a secretive tax haven half a world away.

November 5, 2017

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Real Malcolm stands up and tells First Australians to piss off

After a week of incompetence, chaos and downright embarrassment Malcolm Turnbull may have been looking for a silver lining.

April 3, 2019

AMANDA McKENZIE. Labors climate policy announcement: not perfect, but a significant advance.

In the lead-up to the federal election, the ALP has made climate change a focus of its campaign and has provided significant opportunities to strengthen climate action in Australia. However, if elected, the ALP would need to rapidly ratchet up these policies to ensure the scale and speed of transition that is required.

July 16, 2016

FRANCIS SULLIVAN. Economic Inequality is a Wound on our Nation: Can It be Healed?

The wash up from the Federal election echoes that from after the Brexit vote in the UK - voter disenchantment and protest.

Commentators suggest this comes from electorates where the “old economy” still holds sway. Where jobs are tenuous and basic concerns on health and education are front of mind.

Others say that the two major parties are too similar and appear unresponsive to the concerns of those who are struggling to keep up with the demands of a “globalised economy” or who have completely missed out on its benefits.

February 15, 2025

Peace in Ukraine? Let’s see

Among Donald Trump’s innumerable boasts during his presidential campaign was that the Russia-Ukraine war would be halted the day after he was elected. It didn’t happen then, or even right after his inauguration. But three weeks or so later, a ceasefire and a peace deal are both on the horizon.

April 14, 2019

ALISON BROINOWSKI. How long to extradition for Assange?

WikiLeaks watchers had been expecting it for weeks, but when news came on 11 April that Ecuador had revoked Julian Assanges asylum, a collective shudder went around the extended community. Next day the pictures appeared, and they made it worse. Images familiar to everyone of a young man waving from the Embassy balcony were suddenly replaced by the sight of a puffy-faced, balding, white-bearded victim of seven years on the inside. It was rather like when instead of the early Osama bin Laden, the world saw the new reality - a stooped, grizzled invalid, soon to be shot down by Navy SEALS. I told you so, Assange quipped.

October 1, 2021

Saturdays good reading and listening for the weekend

This weekly post is a collection of links to recent articles, reports, podcasts, interviews, and notices of upcoming webinars, on political, economic and public policy issues, that may be of interest to Pearls and Irritations readers.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal