December 19, 2017

MICHAEL MULLINS. It’s likely Pope Francis would support ‘killing off confession’ to support abuse victims

At his media conference following Friday’s release of the report of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Archbishop Anthony Fisher said that ‘killing off confession is not going to help anybody’. The report recommended legal strictures against the ‘seal of confession’ to allow the reporting of sex abuse. A Melbourne canon law expert is much less worried than Archbishop Fisher, and it seems that even Pope Francis would give less priority to the ‘seal’ than addressing the needs of the most vulnerable.

June 2, 2018

GEORGE PERKOVICH. What Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un Don't Know About Their Own Standoff

If the Cuban Missile Crisis is any indication, today’s leaders may be dangerously misinformed about the nuclear crisis.

March 20, 2018

CAROL NIKAKIS and REBECCA BUNN. The impact of failed drug policies on our criminal justice system cannot be ignored

There is now indisputable evidence that the criminalisation of drug use causes significant harm to people who use drugs, their families and the wider community. Even the United Nations has conceded that the ‘War on Drugs’ has failed to curb drug use, increased the spread of blood-borne viruses including Hepatitis C, and seen a burgeoning criminal drug market flourish.

December 23, 2013

Waiting on Him in Advent for His Birth; His birth in us. Guest Blogger: Caroline Coggins

Is the birth of Jesus a story that can touch us deeply today, does it offer a way for us to know and follow Jesus? Do we get glib with what we know, and skate over the story?

The advent story is like a pregnancy, it creates an intimate space to be with Mary, from her meeting with God, through conception and pregnancy, to the birth of Jesus, the Son of God. What a marvel that a woman will bear this child, and Joseph will father him, ordinary people like us, called to do extraordinary things for God. The story, if we are game, is not an external narrative, but one where we are called to hear God calling us, to enter into His story.

April 17, 2018

MUNGO MaCALLUM. Malcolm Turnbull still doesn’t get it.

Malcolm Turnbull still doesn’t get it.

While desperately playing down the significance of his own 30th Newspoll loss on the unconvincing basis that he wished he hadn’t mentioned Tony Abbott’s, our leader has taken what he apparently considers the high road.

October 2, 2017

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Politics is an integral part of sport

“Keep politics out of sport." No doubt this piece of graffiti appeared some two thousand years ago on the walls of Olympia, when the Roman emperors were accused of fixing the chariot race. Certainly it has appeared on and off ever since as conservatives pretend that sport is some sacred activity that can be divorced from the messy business of being part of the society in which it takes place.

November 6, 2018

Bullying in the public health system

The formation of the Australian Health Reform Association (AHReform) is triggered by the need to have a community organisation with members from all healthcare professions to help create a safer working environment for all healthcare professionals so that they can provide the highest standard of care for healthcare consumers. This article introduces the subject of medical bullying which is widespread in Australia and AHReform’s proposal on how to effectively reform the healthcare system to reduce the incidence of depression and suicides among medical practitioners.

December 27, 2017

HAMISH MCDONALD. Australia still on smoko over Asia.

When Malcolm Turnbull hosts the ten leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations for an unusual summit in Sydney in March, the Australian public will know virtually nothing about most of them or the current state of affairs in their countries.

August 30, 2019

While Canberra ignores the RBA, the world pays attention (The New Daily 27-8-19)

The federal government is increasingly giving Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe the cold shoulder while the world’s central banks are paying him serious attention.

November 9, 2018

WILLIAM BRIGGS. A century of remembrance days: will the guns ever fall silent?

One hundred years ago ‘the guns fell silent’ or at least WWI ended. Since the end of the war to end all wars, however, 120 million more people have died as a result of armed conflict. Well might we remember, but what are we remembering and what have we learned along the way?

August 30, 2019

CHRISTOPHER LAMB. Cardinal Pell analysis: What happens next? The Pell case has become something of a litmus te st for the church’s handling of abuse

The Vatican is holding off from issuing any disciplinary measures against Cardinal George Pell until the Australian prelate has exhausted all legal avenues in trying to overturn his convictions for the sexual abuse of children.

March 2, 2016

Jeffrey Knapp. Big four accounting firms avoid scrutiny in multinational tax avoidance.

The Senate Inquiry into corporate tax avoidance is due to hand down its final report by April. One of the lesser-mentioned groups appearing before 2015’s Senate hearings are Australia’s big four accounting firms.

Multinational companies like Apple, Chevron, Google, Microsoft, and News Corp have dominated headlines, but little has been said of the role of PwC, KPMG, Deloitte and EY. After all, it is the big four firms that audit the accounts of leading multinational companies and render assistance with their taxation affairs.

October 17, 2018

SHIRO ARMSTRONG. Japan’s high stakes diplomacy with the US and China. (East Asia Forum 14.10.2018)

Japan is now fully embarked on navigating a course through the economic and national security minefield that lies between the United States and China.

September 21, 2016

MICHAEL McKINLEY. The unmooring of our national defence from our national interest. Part 3 of 4.

Australia is currently courting offence rather than, as governments so often assert, defence - a transformation which might only charitably be attributed to absent mindedness if the alternative, stealth, is excluded. It is, moreover, a change wrought, in the first instance, as a consequence of the ways in which Australia thinks about its national defence, but also of both the logic and the inherent dangers arising from and within the Australia – US alliance. While an extraordinary number of avenues of inquiry are possible, there are four which are pursued, the drift to offence itself, followed by, second, the emergence of the “post-democratic” military and security complex in the US; third, the strategic dimension to the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, and fourth, Australia’s developing relationship with NATO.

Part 3. US Grand Strategy and the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement

September 7, 2018

Chinese Australians Or Australian Chinese?

The Chinese Australian community has been hijacked in the current public debate about the extent of Chinese influence in Australia. Far-right elements are fanning anti-Asian feelings and there is an upsurge in racism in major cities. Government leaders now more than ever should affirm the many contributions of the Chinese Australian community. It is an asset in our relationship with the People’s Republic of China.

July 5, 2018

WILIAM J PERRY. Why I’m Still Hopeful About Trump’s North Korea Deal (Politico)

For a euphoric moment, it seemed everything was about to change on the Korean Peninsula. Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un—two leaders with a flair for the dramatic and a willingness to shatter precedents—fanned expectations of a diplomatic breakthrough that would end a nuclear standoff and open a pathway to peace between the two Koreas.

July 15, 2016

JOHN MENADUE. How Graham Freudenberg lost to Eddie Obeid.

On Monday night at Parramatta, I attended Gough Whitlam’s 100th birthday celebration. It was organised by the Whitlam Institute and attended by Gough Whitlam’s family and old friends. Bob Hawke was there. John Faulkner spoke.

There was a memorable speech by Graham Freudenberg who spoke eloquently as usual. I don’t know anyone who has the ability to plumb the heart and soul of the Labor movement like Graham Freudenberg. He is one of the most noble and proper people it has been my pleasure to know.

July 25, 2018

ELAINE PEARSON. Cambodia's 'dirty dozen' have no place in Australia.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen’s crackdown on dissent is in full swing ahead of national elections later this month. But who are the generals around Hun Sen who act like a praetorian guard protecting him and the ruling party, helping to crush or eliminate political opponents, and then obstructing efforts at accountability?

November 7, 2019

IAN McAULEY. Reclaiming the ideas of economics: Debt and deficits

An obsession with “balanced budgets”, promoted by successive Coalition governments, is having serious economic consequences.

September 11, 2018

MARK DANTA, CHUN MA, RICHARD DAY, DAVID MA. Dealing with the spiraling price of medicines: how “low” can it go?

New medications are increasingly expensive. In Australia, where the Pharmaceutical Beneﬁts Scheme (PBS) covers the vast majority of prescription medications, the spiraling cost of medicines has a signiﬁcant impact on the sustainability of our health system. In countries where patients are required to contribute substantially to the medicine cost, high prices can negatively inﬂuence their health outcomes.

July 3, 2018

ANDREW FARRAN. Brexit: Time’s almost up.

Former UK Chancellor George Osborne’s London Evening Standard headlined after the recent Brussels summit: “Stop Your Squabbling or Games Up, Cabinet Warned”. Britain’s negotiating position to this point has been “ambiguous, from a divided place” and must tighten up. Cabinet will be meeting at Chequers on 6th July, to hammer out and clarify its settlement terms once and for all. That and the White Paper to follow, and the EU’s response, will determine whether the clamour amongst the Remainders for a re-run of the Referendum, or for a final say on the outcome in Parliament, will subside or rise to the point where it could bring down the government.

June 1, 2018

BRUCE DUNCAN. A stringent critique of financial abuse.

The Vatican has launched a stringent critique of widespread abuses in global economies, abuses that are driving astonishing inequality, threatening ecological sustainability and unleashing powerful reactionary political forces.

October 3, 2018

DAVID ISAACS. Pervasive refusal syndrome and Nauru

Fatima was a happy child who loved school and was a top student. She was 11 years old when she took to her bed, stopped eating and drinking, covered her head with the sheet, stopped washing and started wetting the bed. For months she would not or could not get out of bed and had to be carried to the toilet. She would not speak to her parents or friends. After over 5 years on Nauru, almost half her life, she had lost control of her destiny, had lost all hope and had lost the will to live. When she was transferred to Australia with her mother she needed tube-feeding for a week to maintain hydration and needed walking aid for two months to move around. She gradually began to eat, drink, wash and toilet herself and to socialise. She remained a hospital inpatient for two months and is expected to need several more months of outpatient treatment.

July 4, 2018

JOHN AUSTEN. Sydney Metro: the $60billion dollar deception

Here are some starters for the Sydney Metro inquiry.

May 18, 2020

GREG WOOD. Pretext Protectionists and Other Viruses

A growing list of countries is encountering unilateral trade restrictions as China becomes ever more prone to applying them for both protectionist and political reasons.

November 9, 2018

ANDREW FARRAN. What is it to be with China - cooperation or conflict? A response to Peter Jennings of ASPI.

In a prominent article in The Weekend Australian_’s ‘Inquirer’ section on 3/4 November, headed “Canberra alone must control our China ties”, the director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Peter Jennings, castigates the Victorian government, a large delegation of leading Australian businesses and the Australian Technology Network of Universities for having the temerity of engaging with Chinese counter-parts in pursuit of mutual interests. They are charged with being naive and operating outside their station._

February 25, 2019

MICHAEL KEATING. Labor’s policy of disallowing franking credit rebates: who will be affected, and by how much?

This article examines the claims that people with relatively modest incomes will be hard hit by Labor’s proposal to stop cash rebates of dividend franking credits to people whose taxable income is insufficient to make full use of those franking credits. Instead, this examination of the evidence shows that these claims are almost totally exaggerated.

November 6, 2018

MARYANNE DEMASI. Vindication : dietitians cut ties with the sugar lobby.

The Dietitians Association of Australia has pledged to cut financial ties with the sugar lobby following a series of investigations. The DAA initiative and the exoneration of surgeon and sugar critic Dr Gary Fettke are significant steps towards diet reform in Australia.

January 2, 2018

Malcolm Turnbull's new slogan has an ominous ring.

Malcolm Turnbull’s New Year resolution is apparently to update his slogan – jobs and growth is so 2017, and thus is ready for a rejig.

December 28, 2020

Post Brexit? It is not pages of legal text that sustains communities. It is political commitment.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his government may have got Brexit across the line, and avoided the embarrassment and discomfort the country would have suffered had they not, but clearly they have not delivered on what was promised at the 2016 referendum.

February 21, 2016

What's holding back the world economy.

In this article from The Guardian, Joseph Stiglitz points to the slow growth rates in the developed world and the reasons for them. He says that

‘In the US, quantitative easing did not boost consumption and investment partly because most of additional liquidity returned to central banks’ coffers in the form of excess reserves. … It appears that the flood of liquidity has disproportionately gone toward creating financial wealth and inflating asset bubbles rather than strengthening the real economy. … The risk of another financial crisis cannot be ignored. … [We must] begin with re-writing the rules of the market economy to ensure greater equality, more long-term thinking and reigning in the financial market with effective regulation and appropriate incentive structure.’

June 2, 2018

YANIS VAROUFAKIS. Merkel reaps with Quitaly what she sowed with Greek austerity

By crushing us Europeanist Greeks in 2015, Germany sowed the seeds of a bitter harvest: an Italy that might leave the EU. One of the most common mistakes European leaders make in interpreting US President Donald Trump’s hostility toward America’s traditional allies, or the alacrity of his administration’s efforts to blow up the international order, is to assume that all of this is unprecedented. Nothing could be further from the truth.

December 29, 2016

OLIVER FRANKEL. Sharing our space (Part 2) – implications for housing affordability

Sharing our space undoubtedly makes accommodation more affordable for those willing to share, albeit with some sacrifice in privacy.

October 27, 2017

RAMESH THAKUR. Multiple risks and limited options on the Korean peninsula

By 2020, North Korea will either be a post-atomic wasteland; an active war zone; or a de facto nuclear-armed state with a fully developed intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capability, and grudgingly accepted as such. To paraphrase Churchill’s familiar bon mot on democracy, learning to live with that reality would be the worst outcome, except for all the alternatives.

May 4, 2018

Choreographing a wallaby-elephant pas de deux.

In January, Greg Sheridan wrote about a forthcoming report to the government by former foreign secretary Peter Varghese on how to elevate relations with India. Peter, who served also as High Commissioner to India, gives three reasons why India’s economic turnaround is transformational for Australia: its sheer scale, the complementarity between the Australian and Indian economies and the need for Australia to diversify the risk to its trade-dependent economy.

May 1, 2019

SOPHIE HARDEFELDT. Political parties’ international trade policies

For the last 20 years the global trade and investment regime has been used to institutionalise neoliberalism, establishing international rules and norms through the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and bilateral trade and investment agreements that increase the power of global corporations while undermining human rights and the environment.

September 11, 2018

LYNLEY WALLIS, BRYCE BARKER, HEATHER BURKE. How unearthing Queensland’s ‘native police’ camps gives us a window onto colonial violence.

In 19th century Queensland, the Native Mounted Police were responsible for “dispersing” (a euphemism for systematic killing) Aboriginal people.

September 7, 2018

LUCIANA PORFIRIO, DAVID NEWTH, JOHN FINNIGAN. Climate change will reshape the world’s agricultural trade.

Ending world hunger is a central aspiration of modern society. To address this challenge – along with expanding agricultural land and intensifying crop yields – we rely on global agricultural trade to meet the nutritional demands of a growing world population.

March 20, 2018

JENNY HOCKING. Snub over 'palace letters' underlines why Australia should ditch the Queen

On Friday the federal court handed down its judgment in my action against the National Archives of Australia seeking the release of the “palace letters” between the Queen and the governor general, Sir John Kerr, regarding the Whitlam dismissal. In a stark decision, Justice John Griffiths held that these historically significant letters, written at a time that he recognised as “one of the most controversial and tumultuous events in the modern history of the nation”, should remain secret. Although Griffiths noted the “clear public interest in the content of the records”, he found that “the legal issues … do not turn on whether there is a public interest in the records being published”.

October 3, 2018

KIM WINGEREI. The politics of change - reviews of Michelle Grattan's anthology and Laura Tingle's Quarterly Essay.

As trust in our political leaders continues to decline, writings and commentary decrying the malaise in which our democracy finds itself are booming. Everybody has a view of what’s wrong. Much of it along similar lines of lack of leadership, the short-term focus on elections, the 24 hour news cycle and the adversarial nature of the political discourse. Plus, of course, the inevitable Facebook-, Murdoch- and ABC-bashing, lamenting populism, trashing Trump-ism and generally blaming all the other ‘ism’s’ except one’s own.

December 31, 2021

A man of substance, and joyful to the last: the Desmond Tutu I knew

Armed with inclusive views of humanity, “the Arch’’ crossed borders, challenged nationalism and advocated justice, not least for the Palestinians.

April 20, 2016

David Stephens. How did Canberra get its memorial to Kemal Atatürk?

The Atatürk Memorial in Anzac Parade, Canberra, was unveiled on Anzac Day 1985. Over the signature ‘Kemal Atatürk’, the memorial bears an inscription which commences like this:

Those heroes that shed their blood And lost their lives … You are now lying in the soil of a friendly Country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies And the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side Here in this country of ours …

April 26, 2019

LINDA SIMON. More of the same in VET or a new vision?

Vocational education and training does not always feature strongly during Federal election campaigns. But given the critical state of the sector, both major parties have announced early on the directions they will pursue if elected. For the Government this is based on their recent expert review of VET ‘Strengthening Skills’, from which a number of budgetary announcements were taken. For the Labor Party, initial announcements around funding and support for TAFE, are to be further explored through a national inquiry into post-secondary education, which they have termed as “a once-in-a-generation National Inquiry”.

January 7, 2020

MUNGO MACCALLUM.- A Tin Eared Prime Minister

For the last three months the headlines have been dominated by bushfires, and the grim prospect is that this will continue for at least another three months to come.

February 5, 2019

ROSS GITTINS. Hey pollies: weak wage growth won't fix itself. (SMH 4.2.2019)

The economy’s prospects are threatened by various risks from overseas – about which we can do little – and by continuing weakness in wage growth – about which the two sides contesting the May federal election have little desire to talk.

November 9, 2018

BRIAN COYNE. Reading the needs and wants of the ordinary punters.

The ABC’s 7.30 program on Tuesday night had an interesting analysis program on Rupert Murdoch, his heir-apparent, Lachlan, and the future for their empire and the media. [See link below] While they’ve sold off much of their empire (for something in the order of 86 billion dollars [yes, you read that correctly: “BILLION”]) the Murdoch’s still control Fox News. In the program, they claim it is because it is the only network in the U.S. which gives a voice to conservatives.

June 12, 2018

GREG BAILEY. The IPA and the Survival of the ABC.

Two prominent members of the IPA have just edited a book calling for the privatization of the ABC. This has long been a desire of this group, but with Minister Mitch Fifield, an IPA member, now taking the role of the LNP government’s attack dog against the ABC, is privatization a possibility?

January 24, 2018

MICHAEL KEATING. The Trump Tax Cuts and Economic Growth

The forecast positive impact of the Trump tax package mainly results from a temporary incentive to bring forward business investment. This is irrelevant to the cuts in company tax rates proposed by the Turnbull Government, and cannot be used as vindication for their policies. Furthermore, the Trump tax package fails to address the fundamental flaws in the US economy, and in the longer term, has a negative impact on US economic growth.

August 29, 2019

Tim Fischer and the Battle of Coral-Balmoral

Tim Fischer’s death reminds us that the Australians fought an even bigger, longer and more deadly battle in Vietnam than Long Tan – the Battle of Coral- Balmoral – at which he was wounded.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal