December 13, 2018

ANTHONY PUN. The arrest of Huawei CFO Sabrina Meng in Canada.

The arrest of Meng Wanzhou (Sabrina), the CFO of Huawei, has sent shock waves in China. It would appear that the US-China Trade Cold War has escalated to new level of conflict which involves the arresting of personnel. Canada is the accessory to the kidnapping of Meng on behalf of her American master by choosing on which side the bread is buttered. Trudeaus action has put the China Panic into Canada and questions whether this short term gain is more attractive than the long term loss of service revenue with China. A lateral plan to escape this uncertain diplomatic dilemma has been suggested by one Chinese Canadian.

May 16, 2018

DUNCAN GRAHAM. Praying is fine - Action is better.

Five guards and an inmate died in a Jakarta prison riot last week, allegedly launched by Islamic State. More than 150 terrorists are held at the overcrowded jail where turmoil erupted six months ago.

Then early on Sunday church bombings in Surabaya, Indonesias second largest city, killed nine at the start of the Muslim fasting month.

In March police said theyd smashed an Internet jihad group known as the Muslim Cyber Army. It was accused of spreading fake news to stir the gullible and destabilize upcoming elections.

Where do the radicals recruit? At universities, according to Indonesia’s Intelligence Chief Budi Gunawan.

He claimed almost 40 percent of students have been exposed to zealots trying to mobilise new terrorists.

There are close to 3,000 tertiary education institutions in the Republic. Most are private and run by religions. Some are resisting the fundamentalists.

December 27, 2017

GEORGE WRIGHT. A year of dashed hopes and tyranny in Cambodia

To many, dissolution of the main opposition party caps a year in which the country became a full dictatorship.

September 2, 2018

RICHARD BUTLER. Trump: It's not legal, it's political and the jury's out on that.

It should be anticipated that Trump will be found to have broken various US laws and, obviously, trashed established political and Constitutional rules. What it is decided should be done about this will not be guided by the law but by the now dysfunctional domestic politics of the US. That dysfunctionality, in both domestic and foreign policy, cannot be overstated. This is the USs business, but we need to think hard about its effects on us.

May 6, 2019

DAUD BATCHELOR. Sacrificing national interest in Australian Embassy move

In todays geopolitics, Australia must balance relations with its largest trading partner China and key defence ally, the United States, at a time of spirited jousting. Maintaining good relations with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations also becomes essential with expanding Chinese power. Significantly, ASEAN has a dominant 67% majority Muslim population.

November 5, 2017

MARTY NATALEGAWA. The Menadue Oration-Can Democracy Deliver?

Inaugural Menadue Oration of the Centre for Policy Development (CPD), delivered in Melbourne on 2 November 2017,the tenth anniversary of the establishment of CPD. John Menadue was the founding Chair.

Can democracy deliver? As one who has traversed Indonesias now more than a decade-long transformative democratic journey - such that today it constitutes the worlds third largest democracy the reply to such question can only be resoundingly in the affirmative: yes!

May 17, 2020

TONY SMITH. Time to abolish the spies?

Planned expansion of the powers of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) should alarm anyone who believes in democratic values and rule of law.

April 21, 2019

ELAINE PEARSON. Australian Children are Trapped in Syria and the Government Must Bring Them Home (Human Rights Watch)

AnABC Four Corners investigationhas exposed the callous indifference of Australian officials over the return of Australian children held without charge in foreign camps for families of Islamic State members.

December 31, 2019

FRANCES RUSH: Reflections on the year for people seeking asylum

Last year was a very challenging year for people seeking asylum and the many Australians who support them.

June 16, 2019

LAURIE PATTON. The Assange dilemma. What is journalism in the online age?

Julian Assangereleased bulkmaterial, unfiltered and uncorroborated, via the Internet. If he had leaked it directly to the media outlets that subsequently, but selectively, published reports based on hisWikiLeaks dumps he probably would not be in gaol facingextraditionto the United States. His identity as a source would have been protected. Ironically, any American journalists who used his material would quite possibly now be in prison for failing to reveal their source.

December 20, 2018

GEORGE BROWNING. Peace on Earth, Goodwill to all Humankind

Is peace on earth, good will to all humankind a cruel fantasy? Are we destined to live in increasingly walled off environments, afraid of losing the little advantage we think we have?

I have recently returned from 10 days in the Palestinian Territories. The highlight was my journey to Nabi Saleh in Palestinian area C, north of Ramallah, the home of the Tamimi family and totally under the control of Israeli forces. Bassem, the father, shot to publicity when his visa was suddenly cancelled by the Australian government at Amman international airport en route to Australia. Ahed, the young daughter, gained even more publicity through the photograph of her slapping an Israeli soldier on the face as soldiers attempted to enter her house after her cousin was shot in front of her. The campaign free Ahed became a global movement.

November 7, 2018

DAVID HUTT. Timor-Leste developing closer ties with China.

Southeast Asia’s newest and poorest nation needs funds that Beijing is poised to provide to fuel what some see as Dili’s misguided oil and gas ambitions.

This article was published by Asia Times on the 2nd of November 2018.

June 1, 2018

BEH LIH YI. Malaysias new deputy PM aims to be a role model for women.

PUTRAJAYA: Wan Azizah Wan Ismails childhood ambition was to become a doctor and cure disease. Now that she is Malaysias most powerful female politician, she says her mission is to improve womens rights.

April 16, 2018

Downer leaps into British political fray with gratuitous advice

There was a time, back in the days of childhood, when everything that was modern and power about Britain seemed to begin with a V: Vanguard and Vauxhall cars, Vickers Viscount aircraft, the Victor, Vulcan and Valiant bombersAlexander Downer wants to build back those days when Brits and Aussies were brothers together.

September 11, 2018

CHRISTIAN DOWNIE. Lack of climate policy threatens to trip up Australian diplomacy this summit season.

Australia has navigated a somewhat stormy passage through the Pacific Islands Forum in Nauru. Scott Morrisons new-look government faced renewed accusations at the summit about the strength of Australias resolve on climate policy.

May 2, 2018

MICHAEL McKINLEY. War talk, China phobia and Australia's Hobbesian choices.

Australias choices and policy debate on China are in need of clarification and rethinking. Currently, they are mired in an idealised past which has gone and cannot be recovered but the resulting nostalgia, now indulged, requires accepting phobic propositions by the US which reflect its preoccupation with decline and not with understanding the imperative to negotiate with historical change, which cannot be addressed by brute military power.

December 13, 2018

GREG LOCKHART. On the back of the great crime against humanity in Iraq.

It was a bloody mess. So said one Iraq veteran heavily involved on the logistics side of things and quoted in Dr Albert Palazzos recently declassified studies The Australian Army and the War in Iraq 2002-2010 (572 pages, 2011) and Deploy, Sustain, Return: Australian Logistics and the War in Iraq (156 pages, 2008). But note well that therein the term bloody was meant metaphorically. In Australias Iraq, there was very little fighting.

October 29, 2019

JOHN MENADUE. We should stop pretending that the Coalition is a good economic or business manager

The Coalition, supported by our corporate media and billionaires like Gina Rinehart and Clive Palmer, claims that it is the superior manager. This claim has become part of the public mindset. But the evidence shows that the Coalition is a very poor manager. Its priority is not to resolve problems or manage them well, but to play a political game to win votes.

December 20, 2018

CSIRO and BUREAU OF METEOROLOGY. Climate report 2018 shows continued warming of climate and oceans.

More frequent extreme heat events and marine heatwaves, an increase in extreme fire weather, and declining rainfall in the southeast and southwest of the continent are some of the key observations showing Australia's changing climate, as detailed in the latest State of the Climate report released today by CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology. <!--more--> Drawing on the latest climate observations, the biennial report provides a comprehensive analysis of Australia's climate and how it is changing. Since 1910, Australia's climate has warmed by just over 1C,and sea surface temperatures in the oceans surrounding Australia have increased by around 1C. "In line with global trends, our data shows that Australia's climate is continuing to warm, witheight of the 10 warmest years on record occurring since 2005,"Director of CSIRO's Climate Science Centre Dr Helen Cleugh said. "This warming is caused by increased greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, in the atmosphere. "Measurements taken over the past 40 years at Tasmania's Cape Grim Baseline Air Pollution Station show thatcarbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have been steadily increasing, with levels now consistently above 400 parts per million since 2016. "Globally, carbon dioxide levels haveincreased 46 per cent since pre-industrial times (around 1750), and are likely the highest they've been in at least the past two million years. "The main contributor to this observed growth in atmospheric carbon dioxide is thecontinued increase in emissions from burning fossil fuels." The Bureau of Meteorology's Manager of Climate Monitoring Dr Karl Braganza said the warming trend in Australia was contributing to an increase in extreme fire weather and the length of the fire season. "Fire weather in Australia is largely monitored using the Forest Fire Danger Index, which estimates fire danger on any given day," Dr Braganza said. "Monitoring of the FFDI shows there has been an increase in the frequency and severity of fire weather in recent decades. "This trend in fire weather is particularly noticeable through southern and eastern parts of Australia." Dr Braganza said declining rainfall in the southwest and southeast of the continent was another key change to Australia's climate over recent decades. "While Australia's rainfall is highly variable and influenced by major climate drivers, such as El Nio and La Nia, there has been a noticeable decline in rainfall between April and October through southern parts of the country," he said. "In 17 of the past 20 years, April to October rainfall in southern Australia has been below average." The report also provides projections for Australia's future climate. These include: Further increases in sea and air temperatures, with more hot days and marine heatwaves, and fewer cool extremes. Further sea level rise and ocean acidification. Decreases in rainfall across southern Australia, with more time in drought, but an increase in intense heavy rainfall throughout Australia. State of the Climate 2018is the fifth report in a series published biennially by CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology, which together play an integral role in monitoring, measuring and reporting on weather and climate. The State of the Climate 2018 report can be found on theCSIROwebsite. Fast facts: Australia's climate has warmed by just over 1 C since 1910, leading to an increase in the frequency of extreme heat events. Surface temperatures in the oceans around Australia have warmed by around 1 C since 1910, contributing to longer and more frequent marine heatwaves and mass coral bleaching events. Sea levels are rising around Australia, increasing the risk of inundation. The oceans around Australia are acidifying (the pH is decreasing). April to October rainfall has decreased in the southwest of Australia. Across the same region MayJuly rainfall has seen the largest decrease, by around 20 per cent since 1970. There has been a decline of around 11 per cent in the AprilOctober rainfall in the southeast of Australia since the late-1990s. Rainfall has increased across parts of northern Australia since the 1970s. Since the 1970s, streamflow has decreased across southern Australiaand increased in northern Australia, where rainfall has increased. There has been a long-term increase in extreme fire weather, and in the length of the fire season, across large parts of Australia.

July 22, 2018

PETER JOHNSTONE. Breaking the seal for the common good.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has recommended that the Catholic ‘seal of confession’ should not exempt priests from a proposed offence of ‘failure to report’. That offence would apply to any failure to report to police in circumstances where a person knew, suspected, or should have suspected that a person associated with their institution had sexually abused a child.

May 21, 2019

ANTHONY PUN. Metamorphosis of the Immigration Department to a fatal progeny?

This article relies on the materials provided by two distinguished former Deputy Secretaries of the Immigration Department in their building of the peoples immigration department and their disappointment over the last two decades. As an active community advocate on immigration matters, I also have been involved with the department over a period of 40 years. I too, shared their achievements and current disappointment. The merger of Immigration and Customs into DIBP is a mismatch and the incoming government should recast the foundations to a department to be more sensitive to peoples needs.

November 15, 2018

HENRY REYNOLDS. Has the Cavalcade of Commemoration Finally Halted?

With Remembrance Day behind us we may finally have some relief from the relentless commemoration of conflict which began twenty years ago and climaxed with the centenary of the First World War. Historians of the future may well wonder where this obsession with war came from and why we spent more on the centenary than any other comparable country. It has been one of the most striking features of both political and cultural life for the last quarter of a century. Despite the continuous and lavish expenditure of public money there has been almost total bipartisan support and few attempts to ask what it has all been for. The apotheosis of the warriors has lifted them far above sceptical assessment and even the normal cut and thrust of public life.

October 21, 2016

ALISON BROINOWSKI. Reclaiming Australia

ASIO Director-General is under-reported when he says anti-Islamic groups also threaten Australian security.

Incredible is a word over-used in the media when all they mean is very. So when something truly unbelievable happens, we have no description ready for it. In recent days, while American and Australian leaders were debating their various degrees of credibility, a revelation from the Director-General of ASIO, Duncan Lewis, was ignored by the mainstream media except the Guardian online and AAP (Reclaim Australia in Asio’s sights, intelligence chief tells senators, 19 October 2016). But what he said was close to incredible, at least for those with long memories of the domestic spy agency.

June 3, 2019

NOEL TURNBULL. WTF just happened?

Well, after a couple of weeks consideration, just another Steven Bradbury phenomenon, something else altogether, or perhaps just a re-run in more virulent form of the fake news and social media negative campaigns seen in the 2016 Presidential election and Brexit referendum?.

November 7, 2018

ROSS GITTINS. Our oldies have never had it so good (SMH 5.11.2018)

Dont let anyone tell you Scott Morrison is out of touch. When he says that, if he had the money, hed increase the age pension rather than the dole, hes reflecting the views of most older Australians. Everyone knows its the old who are the deserving poor.

Except it aint true. It was true once, but not for many years.

You might expect the Prime Minister to be better informed than the average punter, but Morrison is from the new breed of politician who see a leaders job as to reflect the voters misperceptions back to them. Read the focus group reports, not the briefing notes.

Something Morrison clearly hasnt read is theresearch briefspublished last week summarising the findings of the Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research an outfit funded by the federal government to ensure it (and the rest of us) are well-informed about matters such as the adequacy of the age pension.

May 2, 2019

RAY MOYNIHAN, PAUL GLASZIOU. We need new rules for defining who is sick. Step 1: remove vested interests (The Conversation)

Did you know the definition of high blood pressure (hypertension) in the United States was recently greatly expanded? Overnight, tens of millions of people were reclassified, leaving one in every two adults with a diagnosis of hypertension.

The move has been welcomed by some but also widely criticised, amid concerns the expanded definition may bring more harm than good to many people, from unnecessary illness labels and unneeded drugs.

March 27, 2018

MATTHEW FISHER. Malcolm Turnbull in denial on climate change: The Uses and Abuses of Complex Causation.

It is commonplace for political and corporate leaders to obfuscate public debate on issues they want to avoid by applying simplistic, linear concepts of cause and effect to events that have multiple causes. In the case of climate change, one wonders how long the media and the public are going to let leaders like Malcolm Turnbull and others get away with this blatant piece of cynical misdirection.

September 6, 2018

JAMES GOLDGEIER, ELIZABETH SAUNDERS. The Unconstrained Presidency.

Checks and Balances Eroded Long Before Trump.

April 11, 2019

JOHN DWYER. Politics and anti-science. Hunts patheticFlip-Flop on the use of Taxpayers dollars to pay for Alternative Medicine

_The National Health and Medical Research Council (NH&MRC) is Australias pre-eminent provider of advice on science and health to government and the community. Concerned that taxpayers dollars might be wasted subsidising private health insurance payments for a range of Alternativeclinical services, the federal government asked the NH&MRC in 2015 whether there was credible scientific evidence of benefit to support this subsidy.

March 14, 2019

GEOFF RABY. Trump will create early tests for a new Labor Government (AFR 13.2.2019)

In a few months, Labor is likely to take charge of Australias foreign policy and security. It will be doing so with a global order vastly different that which existed last time it held power. It is important then to consider how prepared is Labor for the task.

May 15, 2018

TIM COSTELLO. The Budget and aid.

The Coalition Governments fifth budget last week was carefully calibrated to offer just enough to a discontented electorate to restart the political contest ahead of the poll expected early next year. Yet again Australias battered aid program took a hit, this time in the form of a multi-year cut, combined with an extended freeze on indexation to inflation a cut by attrition. This is the same technique being applied to the ABC. But while attacking the national broadcaster is long-running pet project for the Governments culture warriors and their commercial media cheer squad, the assault on aid is more puzzling, as it is surely self-defeating.

January 31, 2019

RICHARD KINGSFORD. The successive government failures behind the fish kills. (SMH 31.1.2018)

_With the NSW election looming, its time to make sure the next state government has environmental policy front and centre at the big table of decision making. On nearly every major measure for the environment numbers of threatened species, pollution, state of ecosystems and burgeoning threats were going backwards.

May 27, 2019

DAVID MACILWAIN. Of Miracles, Mice and Men.

Following the disastrous failure to change the Australian government to one offering effective action on climate change, I take a scientific and personal look at just what lies ahead.

May 3, 2018

PETER SAINSBURY. Macron tests his entente cordiale with Turnbull on climate change.

Frances President Macron is taking the opportunity while briefly in Australia to bully, embarrass, shame, blackmail, whatever, Prime Minister Turnbull into taking meaningful action on climate change and become the real leader the Australian people and Macron himself are looking for. Hes got a hard task ahead of him but we need whatever help we can get to move this government forward.

J_ust think how News Corp would be beside itself if a Labor leader got a dressing down like this from a French President!_

January 3, 2020

ALLAN KESSING. Mendaciously Manufacturing Consent

Of the various national groupings, political (EU), economic (EFTA), religious (OIC), or linguistic (ex-colonies) that of the Anglophone countries, exemplified by the FIVE EYES intelligence sharing, is unique - its members being so similar yet so different.

Four are Constitutional monarchies with parliamentary government determined by control of the Legislature Chamber, three use the antiquated FPtP electoral system, two have PR/STV and one compulsory voting.

April 11, 2019

STEPHANIE DOWRICK. More death than life in the Christian (and secular) Right.

There are many theories as to why the so-called centre in Australian politics has moved so far to the right that even moderately progressive views are shrieked at as dangerous. There are probably fewer theories as to how and why the radical, genuinely anti-authoritarian teachings of Jesus Christ have been successfully kidnapped and hung out to dry by the so-called Christian Right. But both shifts and certainly the consequences of those shifts matter.

June 19, 2019

CHAS FREEMAN. The Sino-American Split and its Consequences

To be able to compete effectively with rising powers like China and resurgent nations like Russia; to be able to do so with the confident optimism our country has always embodied, we must fix not only our diplomacy but the domestic policies and practices that now divide and weaken us. We have a constitutional democracy that history has shown can facilitate orderly change. To bring the immense talents and energies of the American people to bear on the unprecedented challenges our country now faces, we must adapt to new domestic as well as foreign realities. We Americans have done this before. And we can do it again.

May 22, 2018

DMITRI TRENIN. Russia and Ukraine: From Brothers to Neighbours.

Russia is parting ways with both Ukraine and Belarus. This did not have to be a tragedy with Ukraine, and can still be handled amicably with Belarus. Moreover, an independent Ukrainian state and a Ukrainian political nation ease Russias transition from its post-imperial condition and facilitate the formation of a Russian political nation.

December 31, 2019

Greg Dodds: The Asian Century and the Australian Smoko. A repost from 30 December 2013

The Asian Century and the Australian Smoko was first published in April 2012. This repost might be interesting holiday reading. (There has been little improvement in 8 years .John Menadue)

May 20, 2019

KIERAN TAPSELL: Pope Francis and the Closed Door Syndrome

For all his good points, Pope Francis has a credibility problem over child sexual abuse. Public statements are made, but once the door is closed, the paper that comes out contradicts what has been said. His latest Apostolic Letter, Vos Estis Lux Mundi, is no exception.

November 27, 2018

FRANK JOTZO. Labors policy can smooth the energy transition, but much more will be needed to tackle emissions (The Conversation).

The Labor partys energy policy platform, released last week, is politically clever and would likely be effective. It includes plans to underwrite renewable energy and storage, and other elements that would help the energy transition along. Its approach to the transition away from coal-fired power is likely to need more work, and it will need to be accompanied by good policy in other sectors of the economy where greenhouse emissions are still climbing.

October 3, 2017

MICHAEL LAMBERT. Achieving Clean Energy

The constant refrain from the Commonwealth of reliable, secure and affordable power appears to dismiss the other objective of clean energy. This is reinforced by the failure to endorse the Clean Energy Target recommendation of the Finkel report. However, clean energy is feasible, affordable and can be made secure and reliable and certainly is good for the environment and long-term health of people and the economy.

December 20, 2018

ABUL RIZVI. The Best of 2018: 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?

December 22, 2019

MUNGO MACCALLUM.- The trolls at The Australian and SmoKo

They just cant help themselves. Even in this season of peace and goodwill the belligerent lunar right remains determined to charge into the culture wars, as they like to call their grubby vendettas against any who dare challenge their self-interested agenda.

June 1, 2018

DAMIEN CAVE. Blurred lines between journalists and what we cover.

As soon as I made eye contact with the smiling woman in the Doctors Without Borders T-shirt on a busy Sydney street, I knew Id be asked for money or a signature. And I knew Id say no.

Im a foreign correspondent for The New York Times, I told her. I cant really help because at some point, somewhere, theres a good chance I may cover what you do.

I always feel bad trying to explain journalistic detachment in such moments, and I often get looks of confusion in response.

April 30, 2018

CLIVE KESSLER. Malaysias electoral fantasy belies worrying reality.

Malaysias fourteenth general elections (GE14) have finally been called. For almost a decade Prime Minister Najib Razak has ruled on recurrent hints of a snap, surprise election; this is the second time he has let the Parliament run close to its full five-year course. On 7 April, Najib dissolved the Parliament, leaving it to the Election Commission to proclaim 28 April as the nomination deadline for candidates and 9 May as the day of the vote.Rather than holding the election as usual at the weekend, when city-dwelling voters may easily return to the villages where many are registered to vote, GE14 will be held on a Wednesday yet another obstacle to the oppositions hopes of prevailing because of a high voter turnout.

August 2, 2018

ANDREW GLIKSON. Global fires and droughts while Nero fiddles (but don't mention the words 'climate change').

There was a time when the contamination of drinking water constituted a punishable crime. Nowadays those who wilfully ignore or promote the destruction of the Earths atmosphere and ocean acidification through the rise in emission of carbon gases (2014 ~36.08 billion ton CO2/year ; 2017 ~36.79 billion ton CO2/year), hold major sway in the world. Consequently the rise rate of atmospheric CO2 at 2 ppm/year (from 408.84 ppm in June 2014 to 410.79 ppm in June 2018) is the fastest observed in the geological record since 66 million years ago, when an asteroid hit the Earth, wiping out the dinosaurs. (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/gcb.13342). The hapless residents of planet Earth are torn between survival in several parts of the world and sport circuses in other parts, while some of their representatives are playing with chunks of coal in their parliament.

July 22, 2018

ANDREW GLIKSON. A mainstream media drive towards a nuclear WWIII ?

For many weeks much of the mainstream media world-wide, including broadcasters, been warning of potential concessions in the negotiations between the US and North Korea and between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, lest vital interests of the west are compromised. In the process little has been said about the alternative for such negotiations and potential agreements, namely a nuclear holocaust on a regional to a global scale, with consequences that belong to the unthinkable (https://thebulletin.org/2010/03/the-climatic-consequences-of-nuclear-war/ ; https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidbressan/2017/08/12/even-a-small-nuclear-war-would-still-have-effects-on-global-scale/#5fbd4b75507d; http://www.nucleardarkness.org/warconsequences/hundredfiftytonessmoke/). In this context, a picture is emerging regarding the priorities of the US President: On the one hand favoring authoritarian undemocratic leaders and regimes; on the other hand a wish to form an pact with Russia, which could avoid a mutually suicidal nuclear war.

July 19, 2018

ANTHONY HOGAN. Law and the seal of Catholic confessional.

I continue to be concerned by the public positions taken by various Catholic Arch-Bishops (Prowse, Canberra Times, June 7, 2018; Coleridge Canberra Times, 11 July, 2018) with regards the Catholic confessional and the mandatory reporting of child abuse. The Churchs position against such laws is based on the arguments that:

people basically dont confess such sins anymore so there is no issue
that children would not be safer
the priest has taken a holy vow to keep confidential what is heard in the confessional, and that
the practice of confession is a religious freedom and as such, that what occurs within the practise of religion is somehow outside the law of the land.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal