October 13, 2019

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Albanese risks making Rudd's mistake.

As they sweat on the results of the long-drawn out post mortem over Labors loss in the unlosable election, the warlords are already staking out their own positions.

The feeling seems to be that since a protracted series of blame games are inevitable, a least they can make a pretence of moving forward, even though they are in fact moving backwards.

August 10, 2018

ROGER SCOTT. Whither Political Science 2: A parochial perspective

The World Congress of the International Political Science Association (IPSA) was held jointly with the annual conference of the Australian Political Studies Association (AuPSA) in Brisbane in July 2018. The papers on Australia provided a snapshot of the breadth of scholarship and also underlying attitudes among political scientists towards the political system within which Australian universities function.

June 21, 2018

LAURIE PATTON. Is Telstra simply unmanageable right now?

What happens when you take a dysfunctional government corporation, privatise it, and then allow it to pretty much do as it likes? The answer to that question is at the heart of what is no doubt keeping Andrew Penn awake at night.

October 30, 2019

Monthly digest on housing affordability and homelessness Sept/Oct 2019

This is a monthly digest of interesting articles, research reports, policy announcements and other material relevant to housing stress/affordability and homelessness with hypertext links to the relevant source.

February 22, 2018

JOHN DWYER. The curse of political mediocrity; The informed, bold, courageous policies that Australia needs in health are nowhere to be seen. (Part 3 of 3)

This fair go mate country of ours is wealthy but in reality ever less egalitarian. Increasing Inequity is palpable and most notable in the problems we have with housing, education and health. Health outcomes for Individuals are increasingly dependent on personal financial wellbeing. Australians are spending about 30 billion dollars a year to supplement the care available from our universal health care system. Many, of course, do not have the resources to to cover out of pocket expenses. Many of these problems have become chronic as political intransigence inhibits the development of bold, informed and even courageous policies. Policy development, such as it is, is often insular, ignoring the successful tactics of other countries in addressing similar problems. The Commonwealth Fund, which compares the worlds health systems for quality, is critical of our efforts to swing our health system around to focus on the prevention of disease. Eleven other OECD countries are currently doing a better job than we are.How can we change this unsatisfactory situation? PART 3.

December 21, 2013

My year of leaning - and leaning into Christmas. Guest Blogger: Patty Fawkner SGS

There are all kinds of years. Theres the year of living dangerously and the annus horribilis. 2013 was the Year of Grace and the Year of the Snake. For me its been the year of leaning.

Earlier this year I was intrigued by the title and the phenomenal publishing success of Sheryl Sandbergs book, Lean In, which was on the New York Times best-seller list for a remarkable 36 weeks. Sandberg and her book were ubiquitous. There she was on the cover of Time magazine; I tuned in to Geraldine Doogues Saturday Extra show on Radio National and heard a panel discussing Lean In; and along with hundreds of thousands of others, I viewed Sandbergs TEDTalk on YouTube.

December 17, 2019

KERRY BREEN and DAVID WEISBROT - Adverse events in healthcare: How to resolve an impasse.

One of the biggest challenges of modern health care, especially care delivered in hospital, is to identify, investigate, respond to and, where possible, prevent the near misses and adverse events that have been consistently documented in many developed countries.

March 10, 2019

QUENTIN DEMPSTER. Berejiklian government in danger in NSW election

With just two weeks to go to the state election, a political dispute over Sydneys Allianz stadium has galvanised New South Wales voters.

April 3, 2019

BEN SAUL. Stop talking tough Prime Minister and start caring for Aussie children (SMH 3.4.2019)

With the defeat of the Islamic States last stronghold in Syria, governments worldwide are grappling with how to deal with the innocent family members of foreign terrorist fighters. The Prime Minister has proclaimed that he will not “put one Australian life at risk” to extract the children of Australians who were involved.

October 31, 2018

Preventing Mass Atrocities

Tyranny is not restricted to any particular religion, culture, civilisation or gender. Political rule based in terror rather than citizens welfare, safety and security is a universal moral failing. The Westphalian system of sovereign states spread from Europe to cover the whole world after decolonisation. Because it was seen to have sanctified the ability of tyrants to rule by terror - free from external restraints and counter-measures - the need arose for a matching universal norm to ban and stop atrocities.

April 21, 2020

Covid-19, Trump, Xi and Canberra (AFR 22.4.2020)

Australias decision to spearhead an international enquiry into the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic read Chinas lack of transparency and the WHOs mistakes is a nice hoary bellow from our domestic political ramparts, but it is a policy mistake.

October 17, 2019

ROGER BAYLISS. HMAS Watson redevelopment. Why in a National Park?

The Department of Defence is planning a $430 million plus upgrade of its naval training facility at South Head in Sydney. The project will be examined by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works and requires endorsement by Parliament. There is scant rationale for locating the Navys training base in this highly confined national park area. The site is incapable of expansion should training capacity need increasing. The training facility would be better located at any number of alternative locations.

June 3, 2019

DAVID MARR. The George Pell story is a long way from ending even if he wins his appeal. The high court has often backed trial juries in child abuse cases, and looms over the verdict of the Melbourne judges

G eorge Pell stands a good chance of winning his appeal next week. Not that that would be the end of the matter. Lately the Victorian court of appeal has overturned a number of jury verdicts in child abuse cases, only to see those verdicts restored by the high court. Child abuse cases are hard. The rules of evidence are complex. Witnesses are few. These assaults are inherently outlandish. Victims are frequently damaged. Often at stake is the ruin of old men who have never before been accused of crimes.

March 14, 2019

RICHARD KINGSFORD. Policy holes drain the life out of Murray-Darling rivers.

This press statement by Professor Richard Kingsford outlines what needs to be done to protect the Murray-Darling rivers and the communities that rely on them in the lead up to the NSW state election.

April 1, 2019

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Drunken braggarts get stung.

Lets be clear about the Al Jazeera sting against One Nation: the drunken braggarts who fell for it deserved all they got and more.

February 25, 2018

CHRIS BONOR. The elite schools arms race goes nuclear

Yes, it was Sunday and the news is usually more sensational than during the week. But the extravagant building plans of some elite schools, revealed in the Sun Herald, were certainly eye-opening. According to the report, two of these schools are already funded by governments well above their Schooling Resource Standard. The combined cost ($365m) of the planned capital projects at the seven named schools is close to the amount allocated to address the maintenance backlog across all public schools in NSW.

March 31, 2019

JACK WATERFORD. Can Thodey, or Shorten, stop bleeding in the public service? (Canberra Times online 30.3.2019)

It was hard to avoid the feeling this week that Terry Moran has a much better take on the problems of modern government and public administration than the review of the public service commissioned by Malcolm Turnbull last year. And Pearls and Irritations is Australias best website focused on policy issues !

November 14, 2019

The risk of entrapment by self-fulfilling nuclear prophecy

As rising nuclear threats become harder to ignore, non-nuclear states have responded in one of two ways. The majority have sought to reduce the risks of deliberate or inadvertent nuclear war by doubling down on disarmament efforts, crystallised most eloquently in the Nuclear Ban Treaty adopted in 2017. The treaty has been signed by 79 states and ratified by 33. It will enter into force with 50 ratifications.

November 17, 2019

FIRE CHIEFS pull the rug from under climate change deniers.

Commenting on the 2017 Las Vegas shooting that killed 60 people and injured more than 400, the US National Rifle Association said ‘This sort of response isn’t helpful. Families are mourning. Offer a prayer and temper your desire of politics…’ It sounds just like the response of the Prime Minister and Coalition Ministers to the recent bush fires. But former senior fire chiefs in their Emergency Leaders for Climate Action decided not to put up any longer with political evasion on the link between the’ urgent threat’ of climate change and the escalating bush fire risk. Hear what they had to say last week.

Fire chiefs want more than thoughts and prayers.

March 18, 2019

COLIN HAWES. Why Defamation Lawsuits Are Crucial for Protecting Rule of Law: A Comment on the Chau Chak Wing Case

Following the recent success of Dr. Chau Chak Wings defamation lawsuit against Fairfax and John Garnaut, Liberal MP Andrew Hastie stated that the judgment will be carefully analysed: The ability to report freely and fairly on national security is a vital part of our democracy, and we are concerned about the impact that defamation laws in Australia are having on responsible journalism that informs Australians about important national security issues. One can only hope that Hastie and related national security hawks do actually read the Federal Courts 100-page meticulously reasoned judgment before jumping to conclusions about protecting democracy and responsible journalism.

August 8, 2020

Nurses, COVID-19 and the risks they run for us.

_Nurses and other health care workers (HCWs) around the world are serving us well and at great risk to themselves. Many are exhausted but are carrying on. Still others are re-entering the workforce to assist in enabling surge capacity, so there is no shortage of goodwill and altruism.

September 20, 2018

ROSS GITTINS. How market forces have failed the nation (SMH 19.9.2018)

How will the era of neoliberalism end with a bang or a whimper? With a royal commission or three. But dont worry. Royal commissions always make a lot of noise.

With the memory of the governments embarrassing delay in yielding to public pressure for a royal commission into banking still fresh, Scott Morrison got in before theFour Cornersexpose to announce a royal commission into aged care.

_Whos to say this will be the last? A royal commission into electricity and gas prices is mooted. Maybe sometime in the future we’ll see a royal commission into problems with the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

November 27, 2017

IAN MCAULEY. Queensland election: a policy challenge for the Coalition

The Queensland election has been a disaster for the Liberal-National Party. There is a risk that the Coalition will misinterpret the result and become even more alienated from the Australian electorate.

November 5, 2017

MARTIN TAYLOR. How weak laws and weak enforcement are failing our wildlife.

How weakened laws in Qld and NSW are failing our wildlife and how the Australian Government is doing little to prevent it.

August 2, 2016

TONY SMITH. Hopes End: the cynics must not prevail

Dear Prime Minister Turnbull

Congratulations on your election success. Two years ago very few observers believed the Coalition Government deserved another term so you have a personal achievement of which you can be proud.

While you were busy campaigning, I distracted myself by reading Coral Lansburys Sweet Alice. * What an enjoyable read that is! Critics are correct to compare the book with Tom Sharpes farces about life, manners and politics. The novel explores the fortunes of the central character Alice and her son Alaric. With her home in England being demolished around her, Alice learns that she has inherited a property called Mockery Bend near Hopes End in north-west New South Wales. The problem is that the will has been made in spite and Alice cannot claim her inheritance while several cousins have claims. Alaric sets out to contact the cousins because Alice believes that reasonable women would be happy to have a sharing arrangement.

November 26, 2019

JOHN MENADUE-The Private Health Insurance industry is a scam subsidised by taxpayers.

For over fifteen years I have been pointing to the failure of PHI both in terms of efficiency and equity. Not once have the executives of major firms or their lobbyists joined in a public discussion. They prefer to strong-arm ministers and officials in private. Its a classic example of crony capitalism, using private influence to obtain public benefits. PHI is a scam.

June 8, 2018

ABBAS NASIR. In Pakistan, the art of undermining democracy. What is Imran Khan about?

The countrys military is disempowering politicians who stray from its positions on security policy and choking the press for reporting about its critics.

March 25, 2019

ABUL RIZVI: Migration confusion again (Part 1)

Judith Sloan writing in The Australian (Were the big losers in this immigration numbers game) has called on the Morrison Government to do much more to drive down immigration, not just the migration program which is measured in terms of permanent visas granted, but also net migration which measures long-term and permanent arrivals minus departures.

August 1, 2018

JOHN MENADUE. Brexit means Brexit or does it? Repost from September 13 2016

After the surprise referendum vote 52-48 for the UK to leave the EU, the new Prime Minister, Teresa May, rejected any suggestion of a new referendum or parliamentary intervention to reverse the advisory referendum result. She said Brexit means Brexit.

I am sure that she was genuine . To repudiate the referendum result so early after a heated public debate would have been out of the question.

But if a messy exit process goes on and on, and it could, the political, economic and social dynamics in the UK in two or three years time could be quite different.

The Brexit vote was the easy part. The hard part lies ahead.

December 30, 2019

MICHAEL KEATING. Policy Advice: The Thodey Review of the APS and the Governments Response

This article discusses the key role that the Australian Public Service (APS) should play in the development of government policy and the recommendations that the Thodey Review of APS makes to restore that role. Unfortunately, the Government is not interested, and has rejected all these recommendations.

January 28, 2019

JENNY HOCKING. Historical myths die hard: What the Queen really knew about the dismissal of the Whitlam government

Historical myths die hard. And historical myths have plagued our understanding of the dismissal of the Whitlam Labor government by the Governor General, Sir John Kerr, on 11 November 1975. Chief among these foundational myths is the claim that the dismissal was a solo act by Kerr, a lonely and isolated decision, that no other person was involved in its planning or knew of its execution. Not the leader of the Opposition, not the High Court justices, and certainly not the Queen.

January 7, 2020

LAURIE PATTON. Catch 22.0 We wouldnt need inquiries if public administration wasnt so broken UPDATED

Predictably, we are seeing calls for a Royal Commission into the bushfires that have Australia in crisis mode right now either in the genuine hope of finding answers or finding someone to blame.

February 3, 2019

IAN McAULEY. Labors policy on imputation credits is flawed, but its in the right direction

Labors proposal to disallow imputation credits unless offset by other taxes is flawed on grounds of economic efficiency and equity. But it does try to deal with the terrible injustice that sees well-off retirees exempt from tax. Thats in contrast to the petulant complaints from lobby groups who offer no constructive alternatives to make the system fairer, and in contrast to the Coalitions failure even to acknowledge the problem.

March 31, 2019

MARGARET REYNOLDS. New opportunity for Code of Race Ethics supported by 54% of the Australian Parliament in 1998.

Senator Penny Wong considers todays politicians have failed to isolate the extremism of One Nation as effectively as in the 1990s.

February 16, 2016

John Menadue. Part 1. How we deliver health care is as important as the funding of health care. Medicare has degenerated into a payments system

Part 1 of these articles will focus on the inefficient way we deliver health care, the many perverse incentives and the power of vested interests to resist reform in health care delivery.

Part 2 will focus more particularly on examples of waste and inefficiency in health care delivery

Part 1

We have been told many times that our health system is unsustainable.

To justify its case for an increase in the GST, the government was telling us that an increase was necessary because of rising costs in health and education. Now the GST is apparently off the table as Malcolm Turnbull retreats on yet another issue.

January 23, 2018

MICHAEL McKINLEY. Defence policies and alliances have become a new religion. Part 3 of 5 : Alliance Wars: Papal Prerogatives and Vaticanisation.

Government pronouncements in Australia, especially in the fields of Strategy and National Security, it is claimed, are determined by scientific rationality and definitely not configured according to religious belief. This is both fraudulent and a dangerous conceit: religion, has not been banished; indeed, the present reeks of ecclesiastical history and religion (more specifically, its deformation, religiosity). Accordingly, the proposition is that a more politically accurate understanding of Australias mindset is to be afforded by an interrogation of five aspects: the present state of world politics in history; the acutely deranged state of the present; the emergence of the Papal Presidency in the US; the religious state of the Australia-US Alliance; and White Papers and their like as religious documents.

November 15, 2018

JOHN MENADUE. How the politically urgent pushes the important health issues aside.

Australians have some of the best health outcomes in the world measured for example by high life expectancy and low death rates, although that is not the case with Indigenous Australians.

May 5, 2020

MARK DIESENDORF. Lessons from Covid-19: Strategic Planning for Future Risks

A key lessonfrom Covid-19 is that markets cannot manage major risks and that strategic planning is necessary.

April 24, 2018

SUE WAREHAM. Honouring the war dead means learning from the horror.

This Anzac Day, as on every other, we will hear of the horrors of war to which many of our service people have been exposed, horrors that certainly call into question any notion of us assuming the title homo sapiens. We will honour the fallen and utter the hallowed words lest we forget, as we carefully forget every lesson that the last century and more of bloodshed could teach us.

August 14, 2018

RAMESH THAKUR. Japans nuclear options.

Hiroshima was the first city in the world to be attacked by an atomic bomb on Aug. 6, 1945. The last time that an atomic weapon was used was to bomb Nagasaki on Aug. 9, 1945. By the end of that fateful year, an estimated 214,000 people had died from the two bombs. Ever since, a dedicated group of people all around the world have devoted themselves to ensuring that Nagasaki does indeed remain the last place where atomic and nuclear weapons were used.

August 27, 2019

ILAN PAPPE. Israels latest attempt to erase Palestine (The Electronic Intifada 25-7-19)

The attempt to suppress official documentation of the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948 is not new.

November 11, 2019

JACK WATERFORD. Labor could fall further yet

Did Morrison win that election? Or did Labor simply blow it?

October 25, 2018

JOHN MENADUE. Pentecostalism, Jerusalem, the Prime Minister and the Assistant Treasurer

The Prime Minister has denied that his proposal, or was it just a thought bubble, to transfer the Australian embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, has anything to do with my faith or my religion. If so, it is in striking contrast to the views of many other Pentecostalists who strongly assert that a united Israel with Jerusalem as its capital presages the second coming of Christ. His Assistant Treasurer, Stuart Robert, also a Pentecostalist is a tour leader for visits to Israel.

April 15, 2019

GIDEON LEVY. Israel's new wretched republic.

On Tuesday, the Second Republic of Israel was born. It will be different from its predecessor. The First Republic chalked up impressive achievements, accompanied by lies and deceptions. The Second Republic will dispense with any pretense.

January 2, 2018

IAN McAULEY. Reframing public ideas Part 1: Leadership

Leadership is the hard task of getting communities to make progress on difficult problems requiring adaptive change. It is not to be confused with authority. Beware of the call for a strong leader.

February 2, 2018

JOHN MENADUE. We are joined at the hip to a country perpetually at war. Part 5

Next week I will be posting articles asserting that we are running great risks in being tied to what Malcolm Fraser called “our dangerous ally”, an ally almost always at war. The risks pre-date Donald Trump. Think Vietnam and Iraq.

In recent issues of P & I I have posted many articles about the US and its almost perpetual involvement in war. I repost an article below “American Imperium - Untangling truth and fiction in an age of perpetual war” by Andrew Bacevich.

September 18, 2016

The unmooring of our national defence from our national interest. Part 1 of 4.

Australia is 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, Australias developing relationship with NATO.

February 13, 2019

LINDSAY HUGHES. Saudi Arabia's Ballistic Missile Programme: The Tip of the Iceberg.

It was recentlyreportedthat Saudi Arabia could be working towards developing a nuclear-capable ballistic missile programme. The fact that the news came as a surprise was, arguably, the biggest surprise of all. Saudi Arabia had made it clear, under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and ex-Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir, that it would acquire nuclear weapons if its regional rival, Iran, did. The issue now is not whether Riyadh wishes to acquire ballistic missiles nuclear capable or not but whether it has the technological expertise to manufacture them, or the ability to acquire them. The main question arising from this is how would Riyadhs acquisition of ballistic missiles affect the regional security balance?

August 30, 2018

CNN Interview with New York Mayer BILL de BLASIO (DEM) on Rupert Murdochs media

BRIAN STELTER, CNN HOST: Welcome back to RELIABLE SOURCES. Im Brian Stelter.

If you asked New York Citys mayor what lies behind a lot of the negativity and the divisiveness creeping this nation, hes got a simple answer for you. He says it’s the media empire of Rupert Murdoch thats at fault. Bill de Blasio has long been a critic of the hometown “New York Post” newspaper. Murdoch has owned it for years. He says it’s right-wing propaganda.

Now, hes also been talking about Fox News as well, of course on a week when Laura Ingraham’s hateful comments are on the news.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal