December 20, 2016

JOHN MENADUE. White man's media - Rupert Murdoch's faulty memory.

Rupert Murdoch has asserted again that he has never asked anything from any Prime Minister.

November 10, 2013

Mid-east Journey to Nowhere. Guest blogger: John Tulloh

I read Marcus Einfeld’s response to my blog regarding Israeli settlements posted on October 16 with both interest and incredulity. It seems that he has grasped my piece as an opportunity to voice his own musings on the question of Israel/Palestinian relations.

Mine was based on my own personal bewilderment why Israel on one hand says it wants peace, but on the other insists on aggravating the Palestinians by building settlements in disputed land when it has five times as much undisputed territory of its own. To a distant outsider, it doesn’t make sense.

May 30, 2017

PETER RODGERS. Donald Trump, Saudi Arabia and the Hypocrisy Olympics

The breathless hypocrisy of Donald Trumps recent visit to Saudi Arabia should leave us all reeling. The fact that the new president could make his first overseas journey to the very country he previously castigated, rightly, as the mother lode of 9/11 is bad enough. But the sycophancy he displayed to his hosts, especially King Salman, demonstrated just what a dangerous chameleon Trump is.

June 8, 2014

Walter Hamilton. Postcard from Poland and Auschwitz

Poland this month is celebrating the 25th anniversary of its rebirth as a democratic state. It is also marking 10 years since it became a member of the European Union. The country thus provides an interesting vantage point from which to observe Europes schizophrenic politics.

To the westnotably in the UK, France and Germanyso-called Eurosceptic parties took the spoils in recent elections for the Strasbourg Parliament (with every intention, too, of being spoilers); to the east, meanwhile, Ukraine is struggling to attach as much of itself as Vladimir Putin will allow to the EU locomotive. It is the Disenchanted versus the New Believers. While voters in the west have flocked to rightwing parties opposed to sharing their baguette with new arrivals, in the east, where theyre still biting on black bread (to extend the metaphor), and where stateless Africans are scarce, most believe the opportunities flowing from European unity far outweigh the costs.

January 1, 2016

Kim Oates. Don't forget children when talking about domestic violence

Children are victims of domestic violence too.

Last week the Children’s Commissioner released this year’schildren’s rights report. It provided new data about the prevalence of child physical and sexual abuse and their links with domestic violence.

Christmas, traditionally a time of peace and goodwill is sadly, a time of increased domestic violence, thought to be due to increased alcohol consumption and family gatherings where there can be the potential to cause resentment and open old wounds.

April 30, 2015

Richard Woolcott. Australia and Indonesia.

For Australia no bilateral relationship will be more important, complex and challenging in the future than that with Indonesia.

The relationship is, however, going through a difficult period at present, especially due to the reaction in Australia to the execution of the two Australian citizens for drug smuggling. The necessary improvement will take time and require sensitive management by both Governments. Efforts to improve knowledge and reduce suspicion in the wider communities in each country of the other will be necessary.

June 4, 2017

GEOFF MILLER. Decline and Fall of America? No, but a very difficult patch.

President Trumps actions, and the international reactions to them, are so bad that the question naturally arises, are we witnessing the beginning of the long-term decline of the West, and of the US in particular?

February 13, 2017

TIM AYRES. What We Leave Behind: The Case for Universal Inheritance, including an inheritance tax.

Older Australians are enjoying a growing share of Australias wealth; the wealth of younger Australians has stagnated. Structural changes to the labour market threatens to leave more young people in low wage, precarious work than any generation before them, and they face increasing debt and declining social mobility.

October 30, 2015

Eric Hodgens. Hope After The Synod?

In Greek synod means on the way together (odos means a way; syn means together). The model is peripatetic- walking around. Aristotle used to walk round with his disciples discussing issues and his school got called the Peripatetic School.

The Synod of Bishops was set up after Vatican II and met in 1967, 1971 , 1974 and 1977 under Paul VI. These were meetings of a representative group of the worlds bishops looking at significant issues selected by the pope. There was genuine consultation but the pope alone wrote the final document. By the time the fifth meeting was held in 1980 John Paul II was pope. He changed the whole nature of the synod and used it as a vehicle to impose his own views. Melbourne Auxiliary Bishop Eric Perkins was shocked on arriving in Rome for the 1980 Synod on the Family only to find that there was no room for considering the findings he had collected from nation-wide discussion groups. In fact the projected conclusions had already been written

March 7, 2017

GEOFFREY ROBINSON. The Royal Commission.

I am convinced that there must be a full and open discussion of all aspects of the Church if we are ever to put this scandal behind us. Quite simply, we need a different church. The Royal Commission was not constrained by any Church laws or teachings and so came much closer to the heart of the problem.

May 15, 2016

National Foundation for Australian Women. Budget 2016-17: A gender lens.

The National Foundation for Australian Women has prepared an analysis of the Budget 2016-17 with what it calls a ‘gender lens’. An executive summary of this analysis follows. A link to the full document can be found on ’the budget’ button:www.nfaw.org.

Budget 2016-17 fails to bring Australian women into the centre of the economy and pushes many further into poverty. Cuts to overseas aid hurt vulnerable women in our region.

The budget is far from fair, with just a touch of the white picket fence. It provides tax breaks for the wealthy, while low to middle income families are hit by zombie savings from the Abbott-Hockey horror budgets. It is lacking in investments in education and training reforms which might drive innovation and jobs.

May 29, 2017

QUENTIN DEMPSTER. Slack electoral regulations and the arrogance of power

Senator Pauline Hanson denies any impropriety. We are told there is nothing to see in the Liberal Party siphoning cash from their MPs taxpayer-funded electoral allowances purportedly to fund the partys voter analysis entity Parakeelia Pty. Ltd.ALP Senator Sam Dastyaris failure to disclose that a party donor had paid a personal invoice was nothing but a regrettable over-sight. Labor leader Bill Shorten, exposed by evidence at the unions royal commission that he had failed to disclose a $40,000 donation from labour hire company Unibilt is allowed to make a corrected disclosure years after the event.

April 22, 2015

COMING SOON - Mike Keating and John Menadue (joint editors). POLICY SERIES

Mike Keating and John Menadue (joint editors) Fairness, Opportunity and Security -filling the policy vacuum

There is a growing public disquiet that both the government and the opposition keep playing the political and personal game at the expense of informed public discussion of important policy issues.

As a community we have become concerned about the trustworthiness of our political, business and media elite. Insiders and vested interests are undermining the public interest. Money is unduly influencing political decisions. There is gridlock on important issues like climate change and taxation.

May 15, 2017

ALLAN PATIENCE. What values are we talking about?

How much longer must we endure the so-called culture wars? How much longer do we have to put up with vacuous phrases like Australian values in our politics? Now, it seems, the Prime Minister has taken to using this disagreeable language.

December 10, 2014

John Menadue. The dogs breakfast in co-payments has got worse.

The government is trying to dump its co-payment mess on to doctors. If doctors decide not to absorb the reductions in the Medicare rebate, many will pass it on to patients and dramatically reduce bulk billing. What a mess!

In justification for their ill-considered GP co-payment in the budget, the Minister for Health Peter Dutton and Prime Minister Tony Abbott kept parroting that we need some improved price signal in health in order to make our health system sustainable. But this argument is not valid. We have one of the best and most sustainable health services in the world. The Commonwealth Fund ranks Australia fourth in the world for the quality and efficiency of its health service after UK, Switzerland and Sweden. That is due to Medicare.

June 18, 2015

Andrew Podger. Australia's 'welfare system': Family assistance and tax elements.

Policy Series

While it is important to consider our tax and transfer arrangements as a single integrated system, there are various (overlapping) parts to it: retirement incomes (including superannuation tax arrangements and the age pension), the core welfare system (pensions and benefits for people not able or not expected to work, including the aged, disabled and sole parents with young children, as well as the aged) and family assistance (family payments, childcare subsidies and related personal income tax arrangements). This article examines family assistance and the personal income tax system; an earlier article addressed retirement incomes and a separate article focuses on inequality and Australias welfare system.

December 3, 2015

Richard Butler. Bombing Syria: Wheres our Debate?

On December 2nd, the UK House of Commons debated for 10 hours, a motion moved by the Government, that it should authorise bombing of DAESH targets in Syria by UK airforces. (Prime Minister Cameron announced early in his statement that, henceforth, ISIL should be referred to as DAESH: the acronym of its name in Arabic).

Some 150 members of the House took part in the debate. The motion was approved by a vote of 397 for, 223 against. Leader of the Opposition, Jeremy Corbyn had approved a free vote for members of his party. 66 Labour members exercised that right and voted with the Government.

March 12, 2025

A five-minute scroll

Volodymyr Zelenskyy reports on the peace talks in Saudi Arabia, saying if President Trump can get Russia to agree, a ceasefire will take effect immediately. After weeks of reported antisemitic attacks, police reveal the events were an organised crime hoax. Malcolm Turnbull defends his free speech on 7:30 report while Israel, cutting off electricity is another act in support of genocide, leaves Palestinians without fresh water.

June 17, 2015

Andrew Podger and Peter Whiteford. Inequality and Australia's Welfare System

Policy Series

Inequality is a complex issue. It is affected by many factors, so that it can increase as a result of beneficial changes as well as socially undesirable ones, and can decrease because of changes that reduce overall social wellbeing as well as a result of socially desirable changes. A particular level of inequality may not therefore be suitable as a policy target per se as distinct from such specific objectives as alleviating poverty, increasing employment, achieving a fair taxation system or improving levels of participation and engagement in society.

November 25, 2014

John Menadue. Move over Joe Hockey

The Julie Bishop media blitz continues. But will it flame out like the media blitz of her namesake, Bronwyn Bishop who was also touted by the media as a possible Liberal leader over a decade ago. Like Julie Bishop now and Bronwyn Bishop then, they had amazing free runs in the media. But in the end substance and not style wins out.

And on substantial issues as I have mentioned in my earlier blogs, there is little of real achievement… There have been record cuts in overseas development aid, Ebola delays, needlessly provoking China over its island dispute with Japan, failure to achieve real outcomes on MH17 and of course, most recently, playing party politics with the President of the US over climate change.

May 22, 2017

JOHN MENADUE. Miners, taxation and donations. (Repost 17/10/2013)

In my blog of June 3 the Miners Lament, I pointed out that the large foreign owned mining companies in Australia may yet regret that they rejected out of hand the Resources Super Profits Tax that the Rudd Government proposed. Politically of course the miners will never admit it but I suspect that at some point the wiser heads amongst them will look again at a tax arrangement based on profit performance rather than royalty taxes that the States are now increasingly levying.

August 19, 2013

Government failure in health care. John Menadue and guest blogger Ian McAuley

We have little to see for six years of reform under the Rudd/Gillard Governments. What was that about ending the blame game in health? It has been mainly muddling through with hopes dashed for significant reform in many key areas

Health costs are rising rapidly, through lack of coordination and waste. Doctors provide too many services. Vested interests are rampant Mental and Indigenous health are in a serious position. Services are being delivered less equitably. Progress has been made in prevention. However, the high expectation raised by the first Rudd Government has not been realised.

May 10, 2017

LIONEL ORCHARD. Housing Policy: a social democratic response

The missing element in current debates about Australian housing policy is consideration of the social democratic case for building a genuine mixed economy in the housing system respecting the different purposes of the sectors involved public, private and household. Given the demand and supply problems currently making effective housing access very difficult, the case for much more direct public intervention and investment in the Australian housing system is strong.

September 8, 2019

Dutton on a power trip

_The Greens reckon that Peter Dutton is a sadist that he positively enjoys inflicting cruelty on his defenceless victims._But this is probably unfair to the potato-headed potentate. Dutton is certainly heartless, but his cruelty, while undoubtedly real, is more of an inevitable consequence of his demeanour than a deliberate agenda.

April 1, 2013

The Asian Century - another smoko? John Menadue

Chaired by Ken Henry, the White Paper, Australia in the Asian Century was released five months ago, in October 2012. We have heard precious little about it since. Prime Minister Gillard appointed Craig Emerson, the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister on Asian Century Policy. I have not seen or heard anything from him that gives me confidence that an implementation plan has been drawn up and is being implemented.

Will we go on smoko again as we did after the Garnaut Report of 1989 on the challenge and opportunities we faced in North Asia and particularly Japan and Korea. (See The Asian Century and the Australian Smoko which Greg Dodds and I wrote in April 2012 on my website publish.pearlsandirritations.com.)

May 22, 2017

LYNDSAY CONNORS. The Tangled Education Web. Part 2 of 2: The Catholic Story

Sector-blind does not mean turning a blind eye to the shortcomings of any sector in distributing public funding received from government.

February 23, 2017

IAN WEBSTER. The need for more balanced media reporting of alcohol and illicit drug problems.

To those who work in the health system, ICE is but one problem among many and pales into the background of the prevailing problems of addiction and misuse of alcohol and drugs.

February 2, 2014

Chris Geraghty. The ABC and Scott Morrison

The ABC has been much criticised, by our Prime Minister no less, and by the silly bullies on some commercial radio stations, for not being patriotic enough, for not barracking for the home team. Disloyal journalists published a story that some wounded, unwelcome refugees who had been intercepted on the high seas by our navy boys and girls were alleging that they had been tortured by them, forced to grasp and hold onto hot engine pipes and burnt. These dishonourable journalists broadcasted pictures of several dark-skinned men presenting their severely burnt hands to camera and complaining about the brave troops defending our borders.

May 10, 2013

Euthanasia - A denial of human dignity. Guest blogger Dr Joanne Wright

It is concerning that The Greens and organisations such as GetUp have seen fit to re-ignite the debate about the legalisation of euthanasia. I am a doctor. I worked in palliative care and now work with the elderly. I have seen first hand the complexity of the issues at the end of life. In reality, most people who say they agree with euthanasia have little understanding of the issue at all. The term as it is intended by pro-euthanasia activists refers to the intentional termination of life by another at the request of the person who wishes to die, not the withdrawal of futile care or life support.

April 25, 2015

Frank Brennan. ANZAC Centenary Homily.

ANZAC Centenary Homily

Harvard Memorial Church

25 April 2015

Fr Frank Brennan SJ AO

Homily

This Memorial Church here at Harvard was dedicated on Armistice Day 1932 in memory of those who died in World War I. The inscription over the south entrance to the memorial room reads, In grateful memory of the Harvard men who died in the World War we have built this Church.

It is fitting that we, Australians, New Zealanders, Turks and Americans should gather in this place to mark the centenary of Anzac Day, the day on which Australians and New Zealanders landed in the stillness of the early dawn on the Turkish shoreline wanting to assist with the Allies advance on Constantinople, now Istanbul, the day on which the Turks commenced a successful, eight month campaign to defend their homeland against the assault.

July 18, 2018

CAVAN HOGUE. Putin, Trump. Morals and Australia

Trump has shown little political savvy and even less powers of analysis. However, it is hard to see the USA as having the moral high ground to justify the hysterical moral outrage generated by Trump’s incompetence when it has done exactly the same thing many times in many places. Syria is a case of double standards. Great powers always promote their own interests irrespective of their domestic arrangements. Americans don’t care about MH17 because lots of Americans were not involved so Trump was not going to raise that with Putin if he was even aware of it. Australia would be well advised to keep out of this but we won’t because MH17 is important to us.

May 14, 2017

MARK METHERELL. The need for Catholic Church Reform

It is at once disturbing and affirming to realise the depth of dissatisfaction and mood for change among Catholics in Australia. Dissatisfaction may be too soft a word for the disillusion many Catholics express about the clericalism and authoritarianism that dogs the church.

November 21, 2014

Eric Hodgens. Archbishop Fishers Vision.

Archbishop Fisher introduced himself to his Sydney flock at his installation on 12th November 2014. He knows the Sydney Church and its history from personal experience. He is, after all, a born Sydney native whose early years inculturated him into that city and church.

He was always a leading student at Catholic primary and secondary schools. He gained a First Class honour law degree at Sydney University and practised as a lawyer till entering the Dominicans. After ordination his life was academic - first as a post-graduate student and then as a lecturer. He was the founding director of the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and the Family before appointment as Auxiliary Bishop to Cardinal Pell in Sydney. He has been a bishop for eleven years seven as auxiliary in Sydney and four as Bishop of Parramatta.

April 8, 2015

Kieran Tapsell: The Seventh Pope to Require the Cover up of Child Sexual Abuse?

In 2010, Fr Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, announced that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith would instruct bishops to report allegations of clergy sexual abuse of children where there was a local civil law requiring it. The terms of the dispensation were limited, so that if there were no reporting laws, the pontifical secret applied, and prevented any reporting of such allegations. The President of the Italian Catholic Bishops Conference, Cardinal Bagnasco, announced in 2012 and 2014 that Italian bishops would not report allegations of clergy sexual abuse to the police on the ground that Italian law did not require it. On 25 March 2015, the spokesman for the Polish Catholic Bishops Conference, Fr Jozef Kloch stated that as a matter of policy Polish bishops would not report allegations of child sex abuse by clergy to the civil authorities. It was up to the victims to report, he said. These statements are consistent with the pontifical secret and the limitations imposed by the 2010 dispensation.

September 2, 2014

John Menadue. MH17 At last a thank-you to Malaysia may be on the cards.

In ten days time, Tony Abbott will be visiting Malaysia and India.

The visit to Kuala Lumpur will at last be an opportunity for him to thank on our behalf the Malaysian Governments significant contribution to Operation Bring them Home.

Without fanfare the Malaysian Prime Minister secured two key outcomes that have been of great benefit to Australia and others who suffered losses as a result of the shooting down of MH17. The first major outcome was the release from rebel territory of the refrigerated trains that carried over 200 bodies out of rebel territory. The second major outcome that the Malaysian prime Minister secured was the handover by the rebels to the Malaysian Government of the black boxes.

February 9, 2017

RYAN MANUEL. Belt and road: less than meets the eye

The recent unravelling of world affairs has seen many argue that China may lead closer global economic cooperation. Xi Jinpings recent speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos encouraged this rather surprising turn of events. Xi opined that protectionism, populism, and de-globalisation were increasing and that this increase would hinder closer global economic cooperation. His remedy was more economic development, closer links between countries and what he called the Belt and Road initiative.

May 25, 2018

RAMESH THAKUR. What Sank the Kim-Trump Summit?

The abrupt cancellation of next month’s planned meeting between the North Korean and US leaders should surprise no one. Developments in recent weeks exposed three factors that doomed the initiative to collapse.

February 27, 2017

PAUL CLEARY. How Australia wasted the mining boom.

The countries that have mastered the development of their resources, most notably Norway, worked out long ago that to truly prosper in the long run, the citizens who own these assets are entitled to share in the super profits derived from extracting their finite resource wealth.

May 19, 2014

Julian McDonald. We will right this terrible wrong.

With searing eloquence, 11 men bravely told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Perth of the devastating impact of physical and sexual abuse at the hands of Christian Brothers in residences at Castledare, Clontarf, Bindoon and Tardun in Western Australia more than 50 years ago.

No one could be but moved by these men, who told of their painful experiences of stolen innocence, of being subjected to physical brutality and the depths of sexual depravity by supposedly religious men from whom they had every right to expect care, nurture and respect. Instead they were betrayed and treated as objects for sexual gratification.

February 8, 2016

David Isaacs. Secrets and lies and bad morality: Australias policy on people seeking asylum

The latest episode in the long, sorry saga of how badly we can treat people seeking asylum was played out in the High Court in February 2016. Long because the story started in 1992 when the Paul Keating Labor government introduced mandatory detention as a temporary measure in reaction to a handful of people arriving in leaky boats from Cambodia. And I use the term people seeking asylum advisedly, because the term asylum seekers dehumanises the people and has been shown to cause Australians to switch off. The High Court found it is legal for the Government to send babies born in Australia and children and adults transferred to Australia for mental health and other problems back to Nauru. This decision was predictable because the Government passed retrospective legislation making it legal. As the human rights lawyer Daniel Webb put it so eloquently, the law is complex but the morality is simple. Bad Governments pass bad laws to allow them to do things that are morally wrong. I am a doctor not a lawyer, so I am not qualified to say at what point the High Court has a duty to make sure our Government does not exact really heinous legislation, but this is pretty bad. Excising Christmas Island from the mainland and sending people into detention centres on Nauru and Manus Island is our Guantanamo. These are black sites where people can be severely mistreated under a veil of secrecy: out of sight and out of mind.

January 11, 2016

Commercialisation and the casualness of going to war

Repost from 23/04/2015.

If we feel overwhelmed by the crass commercialism of Gallipoli and Anzac, take a deep breath because there are three years to go.

Target has sponsored Camp Gallipoli, Woolworths has asked us to Keep Fresh in our Memories’ the losses of Gallipoli ; VB depicted for us actors on the steps of the Melbourne Shrine of Remembrance who tell us to bow our heads and raise a glass of VB in memory of the first Australians who charged and died at Gallipoli. There have been endless advertising and sales of Gallipoli kitsch. Even our Governor General a few years ago fronted at the hotel bar for VB to raise a glass and money for veterans.

October 21, 2024

A five-minute scroll

Events in Jabalia over the weekend have still not shocked the world into action; men, women and children rounded up shared with the world in footage taken by IDF soldiers. We are awakened to the knowledge Australia’s US bases are take off points for US planes heading to the Middle East and witness the protest in London that shut down the Tower Bridge. We are reminded of a time when our Prime Minister stood up for Palestine and our King didn’t stand up for Gough Whitlam, who passed away on this day ten years ago. Monday, a five-minute scroll.

May 24, 2018

ROSS GITTINS. Parties offer clear choice at next election

The federal election campaign could be as soon as August and no later than May. So which side is shaping as better at managing the economy?

January 19, 2018

GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND ...

Canberra Times journalist Crispin Hull writes about the harm of growing inequality, particularly where it results from government policies to opt out of shared health and education services, through financial support for private schools and private health insurance, rendering public services as residual services for the poor and indigent.

Esther Rajadurai of the McKell Institute has produced a major report Mapping Opportunity on widening wage and income inequality in Australia, with extensive analysis of the causes of widening inequality and fine-grained analysis of regional data. It stresses the need for policies to restore social mobility. Writing in the Fairfax Press Mark Kenny has a short summary of the report emphasising inequality on internet access. Sam Crosby also of the McKell Institute, drawing on the reports findings, urges Labor to commit to attend not only to peoples immediate needs, but also to a sustained policy of reducing inequality, including measures that ensure a fair go and improve social mobility.

September 12, 2016

NIALL McLAREN. The Dangerous Folly of the "War with China" Scenario.

Nick Deane “reflected on the troubled waters of the South China Sea,” concluding that we need to pay close attention to what our military alliance with the US may drag us into. War between the US and China would necessarily involve us, but not necessarily to our advantage. While for ordinary citizens, such an eventuality would be horror beyond comprehension, it doesn’t seem to trouble some of our leaders intent on spending a fortune on a dozen submarines with the capacity to interdict shipping in China’s near-coastal waters. The advantages of such projection of military power are not immediately clear but have doubtless been carefully tallied.

June 16, 2014

Jane Tolman. Dementia: how did we get it so wrong?

In the past few weeks I have had the privilege of participating in the second running of the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on Understanding Dementia run by the Wicking Dementia Research and Education Centre at the University of Tasmania. This has provided a forum for learning and discussion about dementia for 15,000 carers, health professionals and interested persons from all around the world. More than that, the participants are able to seek answers to their questions, and to tell us their concerns about their journey and about their expectations.

January 30, 2017

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Malcolm Turnbull and Donald Trump on 'alternate facts'.

The Trans Pacific Partnership is not worth pursuing by anyone serious which leaves Turnbull and Ciobo, still clinging, not even to a straw, but to the open waters of internationalism.

August 26, 2018

MACK WILLIAMS. Korea: We're here because we are here!

Korean issues have often been edged out of the headlines in the past few months by a plethora of other global issues but they remain far from being resolved. War War been replaced by Jaw Jaw at least for the moment. Much is still simmering along largely beneath the radar. And much has been clouded by the chaotic US domestic scene not only surrounding President Trumps own governance problems but equally his relations with the US intelligence and defence establishment. So where do things stand right now?

April 9, 2015

Mike Steketee. Our missed opportunity to tackle wealth inequality

The Abbott Government has promised a “comprehensive and inclusive” review of the tax system, but appears to have ignored a major issue: rising inequality of income and wealth, writes Mike Steketee.

The Abbott Government committed itself last week to a “comprehensive and inclusive” review of the tax system.

But the tax discussion paper it released to kick off the process does not find space in its 196 pages to canvass some of the major issues.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal