June 13, 2019

GREG JERICHO. Coalition's lies, damned lies and election-winning strategies (The Guardian)

No, the government doesn’t care about reducing carbon emissions and no, the economy is not strong.

May 2, 2019

VACY VLAZNA. The Sarafand Massacre and Anzac Cover-up, Part 2

Cover-ups are a reprehensible part and parcel of military history and testimonies collected on Australian Military History of the Early 20th Century: Desert Column _site__are tainted with fundamental lies and racist justifications that have become the prototype for subsequent historical and newspaper accounts of the Sarafand Massacre._

October 20, 2018

MICHAEL KEATING. The Future Demands for Government Revenue

At The Australia Institute’s Revenue Summit on Wednesday I presented a paper that showed that the Federal Government’s future economic and budget forecasts are most likely wrong. Instead, I showed why a modest increase in the ratio of revenue to GDP will be necessary over the next couple of decades, if we want to maintain economic growth and a socially inclusive society. Below I summarise that paper.

November 6, 2017

PETER ARNOLD. Ethics and the AMA

Interestingly, the committee appointed by the Victorian government to report on ‘assisted dying’ was headed by the immediate past-president of the AMA, neurosurgeon Brian Owler. Neurosurgeons have a close connection with this problem when patients with severe head injuries have been on life-support for days or weeks with no apparent chance of meaningful survival.

August 23, 2017

KIERAN TAPSELL. Sex Abuse and the Seal of the Confessional

The Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has just released its Criminal Justice Report in which it deals with many matters relating to the way child sexual abuse within institutions is handled by the Australian criminal justice system. In the course of that report, it recommends mandatory reporting of all suspected child sexual abuse within institutions and the creation of new offences of failing to take proper care to prevent such abuse.

January 23, 2019

GEOFF RABY. China needs a grown-up foreign policy for a changed era.

At the key 19th Party Congress in October 2017, Xi Jinping set out his signature policy – Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for the New Era – which, unusually early on in his term, was inscribed into the Party’s Constitution as Xi Jinping “Thought”. Socialism with Chinese Characters was Deng’s contribution to the Party’s corpus. Xi added “for the New Era”.

August 22, 2018

PAUL BUDDE. National Party has failed regional Australia on broadband -- Repost from 1 September 2018

It is still a battle to extend the perception of the importance of high-speed broadband beyond fast access to the internet or to Netflix.

December 16, 2019

ANDREW FARRAN. Brexit. The beginning is ending. The end is just beginning!

What explains Boris Johnson’s election and what does it mean for Brexit? Pure fatigue. It should never have gone on this way.

August 5, 2019

RACE MATHEWS. Graham Freudenberg.

When I heard the news of Graham Freudenberg’s death last week I wept. Not just for the passing of this generous, passionate, erudite and supremely eloquent man, but for the dreams and hopes that were shared by those of us who worked for Gough Whitlam as Leader of the Opposition from 1967 to 1972.

May 24, 2018

The Plenary Council

After the Royal Commission in Child Sexual Abuse in Australia, the Irish child abuse commission 2009 on the other side of the world and the resignation of all the bishops in Chile, the Roman Catholic Church as we know it has received the last rites lyi__ng in periculo mortis in inten__sive care and is now on a respirator. The family has been notified, a plot has been purchased and the funeral director is on stand-by.

January 6, 2017

Chomsky interview on the ravages of neoliberalism.

In this interview, reported in The Wire on 31 January 2016, Noam Chomsky talks about the ravages of neoliberalism. this is a repost from 21 February 2016.

October 17, 2019

LUKE FRASER. A Repost: Congestion charging: – Stockholm, Melbourne and Turnbull’s legacy.

The Grattan Institute has just published a report on road congestion charging. It argues that congestion charging is a better way to manage busy urban roads. It is right but Ministers rejected the idea immediately.

We waste far more money on pointless roads than we do on welfare. But the dollars we waste on roads is in response to powerful lobbyists, the motor and construction industries.

See below a repost of an article by Luke Fraser on 3 October 2017.(John Menadue)

October 26, 2018

BOB CARR. Chinese Australians are the silent minority on foreign policy (Australian Financial Review, 25.10.18)

Imagine the crucial byelection had not been in Wentworth but in another Sydney electorate, Barton. Instead of a 12 per cent Jewish population, it is one with a 34 per cent Chinese population. And imagine that, in the context of this byelection and after lobbying by the Chinese community, the federal government had announced it was considering a shift in Australia’s position on the South China Sea. Perhaps by way of an article in a Chinese language paper.

November 27, 2019

EVAN JONES. Freedom of the press: to what end?

The Australian media have been running a campaign for freedom of the press, under the rubric _yourrighttoknow.com.au__. The campaign asks: ‘When government keeps the truth from you, what are they covering up?’ A worthy cause. One needs to go further and ask: When the media keep the truth from you, what are they covering up?_

December 10, 2019

GEORGE BROWNING. Morrison Government you are a disgrace

NSW is alight, and it is still not the right time to talk about Climate Change!!!!! What message of commitment did we have to give the world community in Madrid? - nothing. Y__ou said Australia is reducing its emission year on year. Your own department’s graphics shows this to be untrue. Asserting untruth does not make it true. How is it possible to believe anything you say?

November 29, 2019

MIKE SCRAFTON. Global warming - we're screwed!

In 2018, _the IPCC warned_ with high confidence that ‘Global warming is likely to reach 1.5°C between 2030 and 2052 if [the rate of emissions] continues to increase at the current rate’. The _World Meteorological Organisation_ reported this week that in 2018 emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide had equalled or surpassed emissions in the previous year. We’re screwed!

March 6, 2019

PETER BROOKS. Will teenagers’ involvement in the climate change debate be a ‘game changer’?

March 15 has been flagged as a coordinated day of school strikes by teenagers around the world. Let us hope that they will start a new movement to bring home the urgency for real action around the world, but particularly in Australia, to ensure that our children, grandchildren and all future generations do actually have a planet to live on! So, let us all support them – they surely deserve it.

November 5, 2019

JACK WATERFORD. Do harrowing inquiries deliver bang for the bucks?

The onion juice sometimes obscures the inconvenient, or unspeakable truths

January 24, 2020

BRUCE THOM.Time for Adaption on Climate Change.

There is a need for the Commonwealth to rethink mechanisms for supporting the states in disaster management through the establishment of a climate change adaptation action arm within the Defence portfolio. A model is offered based on the US Army Corps of Engineers.

December 4, 2019

WILLIAM BRIGGS Lessons in how to hate China

_In an often-confused world, some things have a ring of certainty. The steady rise in anti-Chinese rhetoric is an example. It is disturbing, and largely baseless, but is becoming one of life’s truisms. This is not to suggest that China is beyond criticism or that its internal politics are in any way defensible. A country that can treat its working class in so poor a fashion, that can ride roughshod over human rights, is difficult to defend. But then, Australia has allowed for a massive casualisation of the workforce and has been more than once criticised by the UN Human Rights Committee for its treatment of indigenous Australians and refugees. Glass houses and all that.

September 20, 2018

TROY BRAMSTON. Ex-Labor leader Bill Hayden, 85, baptised into Catholic Church.

Bill Hayden, at age 85, has renounced his atheism and been baptised into the Catholic Church.

February 26, 2018

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Holy by-election, Batman, this could be serious!

Well, that depends on where you sit. In the effective numbers in the House of Representatives, it actually won’t make any difference whether Labor’s Ged Kearney or the Greens’ Alex Bhathal fills the vacancy – given the voting record of the Green incumbent Adam Bandt, Malcolm Turnbull has no hope of securing an extra crossbencher on anything that matters.

January 31, 2019

MICHAEL KEATING. The Prime Minister’s Economic Plan

This week the Prime Minister promised to return the Budget to surplus, massively reduce net government debt, and create 1.25 million jobs over the next five years. However, there was no attempt to substantiate these promises, nor to argue that the promises were a logical outcome of his so-called Economic Plan. Indeed, apart from alleging he had a Plan, no further detail was provided. Accordingly, in this article I consider whether we can we believe the Government’s promises for jobs and future budget surpluses.

November 16, 2018

MARC STEARS. Don’t give up on politics. It’s where the fight for the fair go must be won (The Conversation).

This article is the third in the Reclaiming the Fair Go series, a collaboration between The Conversation, the Sydney Democracy Network and the Sydney Peace Foundation to mark the awarding of the 2018 Sydney Peace Prize to Nobel laureate and economics professor Joseph Stiglitz. These articles reflect on the crisis caused by economic inequality and on how we can break the cycle of power and greed to enable all peoples and the planet to flourish. The Sydney Peace Prize will be presented on November 15 (tickets here).

October 4, 2017

JERRY ROBERTS. Corruption or Ideology?

Just when critics of neoliberalism are finding a seat at the table economists are mounting a counter-attack blaming society’s ills on political corruption. John Menadue summarises their argument under the heading of rent-seekers, regulatory capture and lobbyists. The neoliberal critics, of whom I am one, maintain that ideology is a major factor in the absurd situation in which we Australians find ourselves in relation to electricity, gas, housing, inequality and the dictatorship of multinational corporations. About political corruption only one point can be made with certainty. It is not a new problem.

November 28, 2018

MARCIA ANGELL. Opioid Nation. (NYRB 6.12.2018)

In this article, Marcia Angell reviews four books on pain-killers, doctors ,drug overdoses and the drug companies. She concludes that alcohol and tobacco have far more serious health consequences than opioids.Opioids at least have the redeeming feature that they have a medical use as painkillers . She comments. “As long as this country [the US] tolerates the chasm between the rich and the poor and fails even to pretend to provide for the most basic needs of our citizens, such as health care, education and childcare, some people will want to use drugs to escape.”

Marcia Angell is a member of the faculty of Global Health and Social Medicine at the Harvard Medical School . She was former Editor in Chief of the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine. See article below.

June 7, 2019

JOHN QUIGGIN. Explaining Adani: why would a billionaire persist with a mine that will probably lose money? (The Conversation)

The road to Adani. There are more hurdles to overcome, and Gautam Adani might have to put up his own money.

May 10, 2016

Bruce Duncan. Julie Bishop cuts Overseas Development Aid to record low.

Despite lobbying from many groups, the May federal budget for 2016-2017 is hacking another $224 million from Australia’s overseas aid, reducing our aid to $3.8 billion, and as a percentage of our national income to just 0.23%, our lowest level ever. The Coalition had already cut $1.1 billion off our aid, reducing spending in Africa and the Middle East by 63%, and in Asia by 36-38%.

According to the national coordinator for Micah Challenge, the coalition of church networks, this latest cut comes ‘on top of $11 billion in cuts to aid’ over ten years, and is the fourth time the Coalition government has cut aid levels.

December 9, 2019

ABUL RIZVI. Highlights of 2018-19 Migration Program Outcome

Minister Coleman has at last allowed the 2018-19 Migration Program report to be published in early December. These are usually finalised each July. Two highlights: (1) the Partner visa application pipeline has reached almost 90,000 and is certain to grow much further in 2019-20; and (2) the backlog of employer sponsored visa applications is falling fast and will require Coleman to back-track on the ham-fisted changes to these visas made by Peter Dutton.

June 6, 2018

MICHAEL McKINLEY. Are we preparing to fight the wrong war : an interesting but lower order question.

In weapons systems, as in many other areas of life, Artificial Intelligence is being heralded as “the future for all humankind”. This description is part of the problem: it comprises a submission to a fatalistic view of the future in which we are all information organisms (“inforgs”). It does not have to be this way but the omens are discouraging: understanding the nature of the problem is the first step to countering it.

October 31, 2018

IAN MACPHEE. I plead with the Labor Party to adopt a humane policy regarding asylum.A repost

I plead with the Labor Party to adopt a humane policy regarding asylum seekers on Nauru and Manus Island. I have no doubt that the majority of Australians feel humiliated by the disgusting treatment that recent governments have given to asylum seekers and especially to those on neighbouring islands. Parts of Queensland might support Hanson’s racism but most Australians will not. Labor must realise that and adopt our belief in a fair go.

December 20, 2017

MICHAEL KEATING. The 2017-18 Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook

This Mid-Year review of the economic and fiscal outlook contains no new surprises. However, the balance of risks is that the outcomes will be worse than predicted. Clearly on the Government’s own projections, the nation cannot afford income tax cuts in the foreseeable future. Instead what this review reminds us, is just how threadbare this Government’s economic and fiscal strategies actually are.

August 5, 2016

MICHAEL KEATING. The role and responsibilities of government.

With the election of the new government, I have decided to repost several articles from our policy series that are still relevant. One of these is by Michael Keating (below) on the role and responsibilities of government. John Menadue

Different possible conceptions of the responsibilities and roles of government are an important backdrop to the policies that will be examined later in this series of articles. The purpose of the present article is to show that despite the ideological debate between the extremes on the Right and the Left of the political spectrum, in practice:

The responsibilities of governments have changed little in the last thirty years
The roles have changed, but changes in regulatory regimes and the ‘marketisation’ of some services has enabled governments to better fulfil their continuing responsibilities.

March 2, 2016

Peter Hughes, Arja Keski-Nummi, John Menadue. Part 3: Settlement Policy and Services.

This is a repost from 27/5/2015.

3.1 Overview

The migration process starts in earnest after a visa is given to a migrant. Its success or otherwise is determined after the person arrives in Australia and becomes part of the workforce and community.

Australia, along with the other great traditional migration countries, has sought to smoothly integrate migrants into its multicultural society, by assisting them to become quickly productive through specialised assistance if necessary, and providing a relatively.

July 25, 2018

JOHN MENADUE. The facts don't show that Liberals are better economic managers. (Repost from 7/4/2018)

Malcolm Turnbull has made it clear that his mantra of ‘Jobs-and-Growth’ will be at the forefront of his campaign in the next election. This week he will be talking about the growth of a million jobs in 5 years, but there is nothing really remarkable in that on average over the last 15 years about 200,000 new jobs have been created each year. Further, it is less impressive because our population is growing by about two million every five years.

December 22, 2019

BINOY KAMPMARK.-Climate Change Accounting: the Failure of COP 25 and Australian Spoiling(Counter Punch 17.12.2019)

_Prior to the UN Convention on Climate Change talks held in Madrid, the sense that tradition would assert itself was hard to buck. Weariness and frustration came in the wake of initial high minded optimism.

October 21, 2019

Australia plummets below Greece

At last Scott Morrison’s torpid government realises that it is in danger of being mugged by reality.

October 20, 2018

HUGH EAKIN. The Khashoggi Killing: America’s Part in a Saudi Horror (New York Review, 18.10.18)

In the spring of 2012, I made an extended visit to Saudi Arabia to report on the effects of the Arab Spring there. The arch-conservative oil monarchy was pursuing a robust counter-revolution, but the uprisings had brought new energy to reformers across the region. I was curious to see how Saudis themselves saw their country’s future.

December 30, 2015

ISIL is really a revolt by young Muslims against their parents' generation.

In Quartz on 7 December 2015, Australian journalist, Emma-Kate Symons, shines a particular light on young Muslim terrorists. She argues that ISIL is really a revolt by young Muslims against their parents’ generation. We have seen that many times on numerous issues - younger people who reject the values and materialism of earlier generations.

See link to article below.

http://qz.com/562128/isil-is-a-revolt-by-young-disaffected-muslims-against-their-parents-generation/

April 5, 2019

BOB CARR. Real diplomacy could have avoided China's coal revenge (Australian Financial Review, 3 April 2019)

The ban on Huawei itself isn’t the problem, but the way that some arms of the government rubbed China’s face in it.

July 24, 2018

JOHAN LIDBERG. When whistleblowers are prosecuted, it has a chilling effect on press freedom in Australia.

Fear is a tricky thing. It’s often hard to distinguish between what is real and perceived danger. US President Donald Trump, being more comfortable with autocrats than democratic leaders, is arguably a real danger to the world order.

September 20, 2018

JAMES FERNYHOUGH. Claim we’re on track to meet emissions targets is false.

Australia’s new energy minister Angus Taylor made a claim about carbon emissions this week that looked on the surface to be fantastic news, but on closer inspection is false.

October 10, 2019

The establishment strikes back at the deplorables. Part 1: ‘Impeach the MF’

Fasten your seatbelts. With fresh revelations on almost a daily basis, we look set for convulsive politics over the coming weeks and months in the UK, the Mother of Parliaments, and in the US, the world’s most successful and powerful democracy, even while the world’s most successful and powerful non-democracy, China, grapples with its own protracted dilemmas in Hong Kong. At this stage it is hard to see happy endings in any of the three storylines, and that will have deleterious consequences for us all. But this four-part article is about the Anglo-American crisis of democracy.

October 14, 2019

MIKE WALLER. Restoring trust in our Westminster system: politicians heal yourselves

Politics in the US and the UK represent the death of shame in democratic government. To be caught lying in today’s populist, post truth world of tribal politics is seemingly, at worst, a peccadillo. Legitimacy is now based on the will of the people (as the leaders interpret it), not by the standards they hold themselves to, or accountability to Parliament.

July 22, 2019

GEOFF RABY. Xi Jinping: much more than just one man (The Interpreter, Lowy Institute, 16 July 2019)

Book Review: Xi Jinping: The Backlash by Richard McGregor (Penguin, Lowy Institute, 2019)

Richard McGregor has written a dazzling account of the first six years of the Xi Jinping era and what he sees as the “backlash” to Xi’s increasing authoritarianism domestically and assertive foreign and defence policies.

October 26, 2018

Invictus Games do nothing to remedy government failure to properly care for veterans

No amount of royal fairy dust or ministerial speech-making at the Invictus Games can hide the abject failure of successive Australian governments to fulfil their moral responsibility to veterans.

June 30, 2018

GREG HAMILTON. The New Class War – Part 1: Foundations.

Humanity had a chance to avoid the class war now raging. It might have come from The Harvard War that was fought and lost in the early 1930s. Hardly noticed at the time, it gets no mention today, yet it had the most profound impact on our civilization of any since the ructions in Judea of yon.

May 19, 2020

MUNGO MACCALLUM. The gruesome twosome’s crystal ball

In last week’s truncated edition of parliament, Scott Morrison declared stridently that he did not have a crystal ball.

December 13, 2019

MICHAEL McKINLEY. The “China threat” has moved beyond the frantic into the realm of the explicitly dangerous.

One of the most disturbing features of Australian Foreign and Defence policies over the last two years has been the obvious encroachment into actual policy-making by not only the intelligence agencies – which is outrageous enough in itself - but also by the Chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS), Andrew Hastie.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal