November 27, 2017

HUGH WHITE. The White Paper's grand strategic fix: Can Australia achieve an Indo-Pacific pivot?

By far the most important and sobering part of the 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper is Figure 2.4. It offers the Treasurys estimates of the sizes of the regions key economies in 2030. They are calculated in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms, which adjusts for differences in prices and exchange rates to give a more accurate picture of the relative weight of different economies. The choice of PPP measures is deliberate: it gives the strategists view of GDP.

May 15, 2018

JOHN MENADUE. Are pharmacists professionals or shop keepers?

Pharmacists are the most under-utilised health professionals in the country. The Australian Pharmacy Guild is happy to keep it that way.

November 12, 2018

RICHARD McGREGOR AND JONATHAN PRYKE. Australia must tread carefully in its Pacific contest with China. (SMH 9.11.2018)

_If you want a glimpse into the future of Australia’s relationship with China, with all the elements of competition and co-operation, and tensions and bridge-building, then this week is a good place to start.

September 12, 2018

MICHAEL PASCOE. For-profit funds take a hit off back of royal commission (11.09.18)

Never mind the fines and compensation building up, what about retail fund managers losing more than $20 billion of assets in the June quarter?

June 20, 2018

2018 Lowy Institute Poll - Climate change, renewables and coal.

Despite the debate and political rhetoric, most Australians have not been persuaded to support coal over renewables for the nations energy security. Almost all Australians remain in favour of renewables, rather than coal, as an energy source. In 2018, 84% (up three points since 2017) say the government should focus on renewables, even if this means we may need to invest more in infrastructure to make the system more reliable.

November 6, 2017

Regional infrastructure: if you want something done right

There is a not-so apocryphal story of a senior government minister explaining his regional policies to party colleagues. Somebody is said to have asked what is your Regional Assistance Strategy? to which he is said to have replied: Its a room in a building, in a country town, with a phone. You pick up the phone. You ring the number we provide and when somebody picks up, you say get me the f*#k out of here!

November 8, 2018

DOUGLAS NEWTON. For Armistice Day: Lest we forget the realities of the Armistice

Armistice Day dawns. Supposedly, it marks the end of the First World War. It was not. There was no peace. Wars and civil conflicts continued to rage across Eastern Europe, Russia, and the Middle East. Moreover, the victors cruelly maintained the economic blockade of Germany during the eight-month armistice period. Hundreds of thousands of malnourished Germans perished. And Australias Prime Minister Hughes was there in London for the big decisions worst luck.

October 2, 2018

China and World Order: Navigating the Thucydides and Kindleberger Traps Part 1

There have been two big geopolitical storylines thus far in this century: the US has suffered a relative decline from its dominant position at the end of the Cold War; and China has acquired impressive power in both relative and absolute terms. How China develops economically and evolves politically, and how it behaves domestically, regionally and globally, are among the most critical questions confronting the world going forward.

December 9, 2019

JACK WATERFORD. Chinese checkers in the great game

Active spying need not mean an invasion, or war, is imminent

June 10, 2019

MIKE SCRAFTON. The new national security - protection from global warming

Ian Dunlop has argued persuasively that global warming now represents an emergency situation akin to wartime. The alarmingly obstinate year-on-year increase in the levels of greenhouse gases being pumped into the atmosphere has brought this about and will ensure the IPCC prediction that [G]lobal warming is likely to reach 1.5C between 2030 and 2052 if it continues to increase at the current rate is exceeded. The disaster of the Anthropocene is now unavoidable. The world has passed a tipping point and national security now means defence against the consequences of global warming.

October 17, 2017

MERRIDEN VARRALL. Chinese student furore reveals Australias poor integration strategy

Why does Australia encourage international including Chinese students to study within its borders? Australian universities are about teaching and learning, but they need to be properly resourced to do so, so one reason for encouraging foreign students is the funding they bring to Australian universities. Another more important aspect is the potential to enrich their appreciation for Australias way of life, its values and its ethics which can ultimately enhance Australias soft power.

April 3, 2016

Paul Barratt and Chris Barrie. The case for building the future submarine in Australia

When charting a trajectory to a desired end point it is as important to have an accurate fix on the starting point as it is to know where one wants to end up. So it is with SEA 1000, the Future Submarine (FSM) project.

Much of the commentary is based on a politically inspired perception that the Collins Class submarine project (Beazleys subs) was a disaster characterised by cost over-runs, delayed delivery, intractable technical problems, and chronic unreliability once introduced into service.

July 9, 2019

LEONID PETROV. Love the North Korean Style: Alek Sigleys Misfortune is a Coded Message

Alek Sigley was expelled from North Korea for using the Internet

Last weekendthe worldwasbaffled by thestatement ofthe(North)Korean Central News Agency(KCNA)whichexplainedwhyAlekSigley, the Australian student whohadstudied at the Kim Il-sung University in Pyongyang,wasdetained, investigated and expelled. Nobody, including seasonedNorth Koreawatchers, could make sense of this brief but eloquent statementthat became viralamong Western mediaevenbefore it appeared on theKCNAofficial site.

July 15, 2016

TIM HARCOURT. Three reasons free trade has become a political football.

Surveying democratic election results around the world, its clear the high water mark for globalisation has been met. Free trade, always questionable economics, is no longer good politics and in many ways has jumped the shark.

July 19, 2018

JOHN MENADUE Why are Australian defence correspondents so quiet about complaints to the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court on the use of Australian and Latin American mercenaries by UAE in the war against Yemen (Arab Organisation for Human Rights in the UK)

ANCILE Avocats French law firm filed a complaint with the Public Prosecutor’s Office at the International Criminal Court (ICC) on the use of an army of mercenaries trained in the UAE and sent to participate in the ongoing war in Yemen.

May 2, 2019

Australias ChinaUS choice is three dimensional, not binary (Part 2)

By framing the choice as a binary one, most Australian analysts typically explain the threat from China as including its challenge to the rules-based international order. This has been true, for example, of several recent defence and foreign policy white papers. A major advantage of framing Australias foreign policy dilemma as three-dimensional is that it allows us to grasp how threats to our interests and values along the third dimension can come from both China and the US. Thus in 2013 China rejected the ruling of the international arbitration court in its maritime territorial dispute with the Philippines.

November 5, 2018

What are the real lessons of the First World War?

The Centenary of the Armistice of 1918 is almost upon us. There will be sincere and solemn events. But prepare also for a hurricane of media puffery, a cascade of clichs, narrow nationalism, the familiar medley of cheers and tears and little serious attention to the real lessons of the First World War.

September 24, 2018

GRATTAN INSTITUTE Special deals for special interests -Catholic School funding

How lobbyists work to advantage Catholic schools at the expense of state schools .

June 13, 2016

ALISON BROINOWSKI. The silence is deafening.

We learn belatedly that Prime Minister Abbott tried to persuade the Army to send to the MH17 crash site in Ukraine, were more like 3000, a full brigade!

In this long election campaign, the major parties are debating anything and everything that will affect votes. Everything, that is, except refugees, foreign policy, and as if it is a minor matter the war. Australians who havent been paying attention may well be unaware that we have military in Afghanistan (still), Iraq (again), and Syria. In spite of retired generals Peter Leahy and Peter Gration repeatedly questioning the strategy and prospects of their deployment, the Government says nothing, and the Opposition keeps whatever it is confidentially told to itself.

May 28, 2018

MICHAEL LAMBERT. Review of Fair Share Part 2

In part 1 I provided a brief overview of the book, Fair Share: Competing Claims and Australias Economic Future by Stephen Bell and Michael Keating, published by the Melbourne University Press, and set out as identified in the book, the broad trend of increasing economic inequality and the causes for this, noting that economic inequality has been a long term feature of human society, including but not limited to capitalism. In Part 2 I set out what the book identifies as the negative features of increasing economic inequality when it exceeds a certain level and then summarise the key findings of the book and the policy prescriptions provided for both addressing the impacts of relations.

December 18, 2017

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Turnbull overhauls his hyperbole

You may have missed it in all the excitement and jubilation of the passage of same sex marriage, but last week Malcolm Turnbull announced the most significant overhaul of Australias espionage laws in decades.

June 6, 2018

GLEN S. FUKUSHIMA. Is Trump stringing Abe along?

Japan has been reeling ever since 8 March when US President Donald Trump met with South Koreas national security adviser Chung Eui-yong and announced, to the worlds surprise, that he would accept the offer to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Until then, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was confident that he was managing Trump well, starting with the meeting in Trump Tower on 17 November 2016 that made him the first foreign leader to meet with the then president-elect. This was followed by the meeting in Washington, DC on 10 February 2017 and golf and dinner in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, when North Koreas missile launching forced an impromptu news conference pledging USJapan solidarity against North Korea.

September 12, 2018

MATT FLYN. The longevity dividend: how ageing populations could boost economic productivity.

People are generally living longer than previous generations across most parts of the world. Rising life expectancy is a result of advances in medicine as well as improving living standards and healthier lifestyles. But while this should be celebrated for social reasons, is it beneficial in economic terms? Does the increase in the older population create an economic burden on society or can older people be mobilised to enhance the productivity of communities in which they work and live?

October 23, 2019

IAN McAULEY. Reclaiming the ideas of economics: Taxes

So long as we talk about taxation as a burden we will overlook the civilising effect of public expenditure.

November 11, 2018

KIM WINGEREI. The Turnbull Legacy Hour

Malcolm Turnbull appeared on a special edition of the ABCs QandA last Thursday. Charming, at times evavise and polite as ever, we didnt learn much, but is this the end of his political career as he claims, or the beginning of a new chapter?

September 14, 2018

JOSEPH NYE. The two sides of American exceptionalism (Project Syndicate, 5.09.18)

In July, I joined 43 other scholars of international relations in paying for a newspaper advertisement arguing that the US should preserve the current international order. The institutions that make up this order have contributed to unprecedented levels of prosperity and the longest period in modern history without war between major powers. US leadership helped to create this system, and US leadership has long been critical for its success.

July 15, 2018

HANKYOREH EDITORIAL. President Moons vision for peace and prosperity after denuclearization

In a Singapore Lecture during the final day of his state visit to Singapore on July 13, President Moon Jae-in outlined his vision for an inter-Korean economic community and peace on the Korean Peninsula. It could be seen as his second vision for peace, after the one he presented in the German capital of Berlin in July of last year. It is deeply significant that he shared this vision for a future of Korean peace and prosperity in the same place as the historic North Korea-US summit one month ago.

January 24, 2018

PETER SAINSBURY. Australias 2017 carbon emission projections yet more spin and red herrings from the Australian government

Despite Australia committing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 26-28% by 2030 compared with 2005, the Australian government is projecting, but trying hard to cover up, a 3.5% increase in greenhouse gas emissions between now and 2030. It is also encouraging companies to increase their emissions if they can increase their productivity thus confusing efficiency with the need to reduce the total amount of greenhouse gas pumped into the atmosphere if we are to limit global warming to manageable levels. There is a need for greater transparency and honesty in government communications.

April 8, 2018

RUTH ARMSTRONG*. Pathways to justice pass through health: six ways the health sector can help reduce the harms of over-incarceration.

A recent post at Croakey highlighted the major findings of the Australian Law Reform Commission s Pathways to Justice report on the over-incarceration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The report was tabled in parliament last week and is awaiting a detailed response from government.

November 5, 2017

MICHAEL LIFFMAN. Asylum seekers: what now?

In the face of the paralysing - and with the closure of the centre in Manus, accelerating - crisis in Australia’s asylum seeker policy, I propose the revival of an initiative I first suggested ten years ago, but which remains relevant and arguably adds further moral integrity to the call by Brennan/Costello/Manne/Menadue for the admission of those still in detention or banned entry to Australia….

July 5, 2016

LAURIE PATTON. NBN: The Internet is for everyone

According to Twitter, #NBN ranked fifth out of the ten issues most mentioned on the #ausvotes hashtag. Ahead of immigration, marriage equality, super, jobs and tax cuts. So it is timely that we look at how we are going when it comes to providing access to fast, reliable broadband.

Last week the widely quoted Akamai State of the Internet report confirmed our poor performance, ranking Australia 56th in the world on average peak speeds. Thats up four from last time, but still around 30 spots lower than we were just a few years ago. This marginal improvement is moot, however, given that our speed boost was the smallest gain in the Asia Pacific region. We are being left behind.

November 8, 2018

ARTHUR CHESTERFIELD-EVANS. Lest We Remember.

Lest We Remember traces the history of how Australia was drawn into wars by the British and the Americans, and looks at how poorly the strategies had been thought out and how poorly the troops themselves have been treated. The hype and hoopla of the centenary of the end of the First World War will be used by the arms manufacturers and the politicians to cover the folly and indeed to perpetuate it.

January 10, 2018

MICHAEL KEATING. National water reform- A REPOST from September 28,2017

According to the Productivity Commissions draft report on National Water Reform, Australia is now viewed internationally as a world leader in water management. Nevertheless, these reforms continue to be challenged by special interests. In particular, the history of poor investment in irrigation continues, encouraged by the comfortable expectation that governments will not enforce the requirement to recover irrigators share of the costs through cost-reflective water pricing.

May 1, 2019

DUNCAN GRAHAM Why didnt Widodo do better?

Slowly, carefully, nervously, Indonesia is retreating from the threat of a bloody revolution following the 17 April election.

May 14, 2018

GEOFF RABY. China relations can only be unfrozen with Julie Bishop's sacking

Once again Australian foreign policy seems to be missing in action. As events unfold at remarkable speed in our area of most strategic interest north-east Asia Australia finds itself unable to engage with the key participant at the centre of those events: namely China.

February 28, 2019

JOHN MENADUE. Drownings at sea and 'the more boats that come the better'

To divert attention from the politicking and cruel treatment of asylum seekers on Manus and Nauru, Scott Morrison tells us that Coalition policy is designed to stop drownings at sea. That is rank hypocrisy. It is nothing of the sort. Its ‘boats policy’ is crass and cruel party politics.

March 14, 2018

CHRIS BONNOR and LYNDSAY CONNORS A school funding horror story: special deals are back

Almost a year ago we thought that peace had been declared in the school funding wars. True, the Turnbull governments Gonski school funding changes fall well short on many fronts but the government did try to bury the special deals that have dogged school funding for decades. After less than a year Labor has resurrected them in a planned gift of $250 million to Catholic schools in the first two years of a new Labor government.

October 13, 2016

LYNDSAY CONNORS. Cometh the hour, cometh the man?

Is the Hon. Simon Birmingham, Federal Minister for Education and Training, the man?

In his recent appearance on the ABCs Q&A, Senator Birmingham announced that there are private schools that are over-funded.

This came as the Turnbull Government is under pressure to commit the Commonwealth to meeting its share of the funding required to achieve the Gonski resource standards. The Coalition Government will have, reluctantly, funded only one-third of the transition towards those standards by 2017. For schools that are yet to reach the appropriate standards under the formula developed by the Gonski Review in 2012 the Commonwealth bucks will stop there. The Coalition budget commitment of only $1.2 billion over four years will not do much more than cover the effects of inflation. It falls far short of the $3 billion needed to bring all schools to the Gonski standards in 2019 according to the timetable foreshadowed by the previous Labor Government.

December 16, 2015

Andrew Ailes. Does Charity Begin At Home?

Christmas comes but once a year, When in the northern hemisphere, The cold winds blow, the sun goes down, Now every day some children drown. The Christmas storys full of hope, Yet life and death hang by a rope. Its not the sword of Damocles, Its shipwreck in the angry seas.

The icy waves show no remorse. But terror is the driving force. Ten million people, maybe more, Are out there knocking at our door, For years weve boasted of our wealth, Yet cannot fund the nations health. We cannot house our countrys poor, And so we guard the nations shore.

June 4, 2019

JOCELYN CHEY. Remembering June Fourth

As people in Australia and around the world remember the events of June Fourth 1989, I think back to my own experience. The story is worth repeating and perhaps can give some guidance to all who are presently trying to deal with the conundrum that is the Peoples Republic of China.

July 30, 2016

PETER YOUNG. Speaking of Freedom: Human rights and mental health in detention.

Peter Young is a member of Doctors for Refugees who have launched a High Court challenge against the Secrecy Provisions in the Border Force Act which states that an ’entrusted person’ who discloses protected information can face up to two years in prison. I am reposting below an earlier article that Peter Young contributed to this blog. This article was based on a speech he gave at a public meeting organised by the Asylum Seekers Centre. John Menadue

In 2011, after many years working in public hospitals and community mental health services I came to work for the Commonwealth Governments privately contracted immigration detention health provider.

This was a time when there had been much public and professional criticism of immigration detention. The harms to mental health of prolonged arbitrary detention were already being documented through the Palmer Inquiry; in reviews by the Australian Human Rights Commission; the Commonwealth Ombudsman and; in Coronial Inquiries relating to a number of deaths in detention.

May 7, 2019

CHRIS MILLS. Powering electric vehicles with 'Swap-n-go" power packs

In Australia, a minuscule 0.3% of vehicles have electric propulsion, notwithstanding that those acknowledging the reality of anthropometric Global Warming recognise that transportation is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases. Possible reasons for resistance to electric vehicle purchase include high price, range anxiety and long charging times. Those with an eye to the future might add the future cost of replacing batteries and the fear of missing out (FOMO) of future technology developments that will increase battery capacity and hence vehicle range. This purchasing resistance could be overcome with an engineering and design initiative: Swap-n-Go Standard Power-Packs for electric vehicles.

October 1, 2017

RIC DAY. Community Pharmacists Under-Utilised

Community Pharmacists spend too much time dispensing prescriptions and not enough time promoting the safe and effective use of their customers medicines. Reform is needed.

June 12, 2016

GEORGE RENNIE. How interest groups influence politicians and the public to get what they want.

We see their spokespeople quoted in the papers and their ads on TV, but beyond that we know very little about how Australias lobby groups get what they want. This is the first article in our series on the strategies, political alignment and policy platforms of ten lobby groups that can influence this election.

May 15, 2018

STEPHEN DUCKETT. Turnbull government backs pharmacies over consumers, yet again.

The government has totally squibbed the latest pharmacy regulation review, and consumers will be the losers.

Every five to 10years in Australia, the government establishes a review of the regulations governing pharmacies. Those reviews invariably come to the same conclusion: community pharmacy is over-regulated, and a reduction in regulation would benefit consumers. Just as invariably, the government response is to do nothing.

December 9, 2018

ABUL RIZVI. Dutton Sets New Asylum Seeker Application Record

Why did 50,000 asylum seekers arriving by boat represent a crisis for our border sovereignty while the arrival of a similar number over the past two and a half years by plane is just ho hum? Peter Dutton in 2017-18 has set a new record for the number of asylum seeker applications received. His record surpasses that set in 2012-13 under the Rudd/Gillard government. This is the result of a crisis in our visa processing system (see here) which is likely to be creating a honeypot for people smugglers. The new record will likely be exceeded in 2018-19 as Home Affairs is reducing frontline staff and IT contractors (see here). Outsourcing visa processing will make the problem worse. Tackling the chaos in our visa processing system will cost the taxpayer hundreds of millions of dollars, possibly north of a billion dollars and take many years. Is the Governments border protection mantra a diversion from its real border protection failings? (Note: Please print this post to obtain a clearer view of the tables)

August 9, 2016

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Campaign against the Australian Census.

My first encounter with the Australian census was in 1971, and even then there were worries about its privacy.

Gordon Barton, the proprietor of Nation Review, the paper for which I then worked, ran a fierce campaign against what he thought was a dangerous tendency for the government to collect peoples personal details.

I spoke at length to the responsible minister, a somewhat bemused Billy Snedden; neither of us could see what the fuss was about, and 45 years later I still cant. The census is a necessary and desirable tool of government, a snapshot of the nation to allow administrators to analyse and, it is to be hoped, improve the condition of the citizenry.

July 3, 2019

MIKE BRUCE. No jobs here: Penalty rate cuts fail to fire up employment growth (New Daily)

Jobs growth in the retail and hospitality sectors has more than halved since the introduction of Sunday penalty rates, a new study has revealed.

November 12, 2018

AMANDA MEADE. 'It was magic': Kerry O'Brien on ABC bosses, battles and why it's no bed of lefties (The Guardian)

‘It was magic’: Kerry O’Brien on ABC bosses, battles and why it’s no bed of lefties.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal