December 12, 2019

ALEXANDER HOLDEN and HEIKO SPALLEK. We Must Fill the Hole in our Public Health Services: Why Doesnt Medicare Cover the Mouth?

In Australia, the cost of visiting a GP can be completely covered by Medicare, with anyone being able to see a medical professional free of charge, regardless of their ability to pay privately.

December 11, 2019

ABUL RIZVI: Re-emergence of Dodgy VET Colleges

Since January 2018, the Australian Skills Quality Agency (ASQA) has cancelled the registration of around 450 private VET colleges. This is after years of such cancellations being relatively rare. A spokesperson for ASQA has said this reflects an improved ability to better target regulatory activities on providers demonstrating the highest risks to VET in Australia. But what does this mean for the merits of qualifications issued by these colleges?

July 16, 2019

Professor White, the bomb can endanger but not defend Australia.

Nuclear weapons have dubious operational utility and discarding treaty obligations would leave the stench of hypocrisy.

December 24, 2019

RICHARD WHITINGTON. Bushfire inaction from the Commonwealth? Federation is the real villain.

Many of the shots laid on Scott Morrison are as justified as they are cheap. But in many respects his hands are tied by what our forebears voted for more than 120 years ago: narrow, not national interests.

March 25, 2019

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Morrison has something to clap about.

Scott Morrison would have been happier and clappier than usual when he went to his Horizon Pentecostalist Church last Sunday.

October 30, 2018

VICTOR MERRICK. Anwar Ibrahim is he for real?

Malaysia’s prime minister-in-waiting shows signs of irritability as reformist mask starts to slip.

This article was published by UCA News on the 23rd of October 2018.

June 29, 2018

MICHAEL PASCOE. Electricity driving towards the coal cliff

How bad, how dumb, how driven by internal political stupidities, how simply nonsensically odd are the electricity troglodytes pushing to keep the old Liddell coal-fired power station open for a few more years? Their case is destroyed by a single graph.

June 17, 2018

JOHN AUSTEN. Australian freight policy: where is my chainsaw . Part2.

A recent report on freight and supply chains leads Governments astray. This is the second of three articles seeking to put them back on course.

March 17, 2019

LINDA SIMON. NSW election candidates Stand Up for TAFE

NSW goes to the polls on 23 March and the outcome is not clear at this time. There are many programs being highlighted and funding promised by the major parties, with TAFE an area of concern. The TAFE Community Alliance asked candidates to Stand Up for TAFE and were overwhelmed with the strength of the responses from many candidates and not surprised at the lack of interest from others.

January 21, 2019

MUNGO MacCALLUM. ScoMo needs damaging distractions - to distract from even more damaging ones.

However strenuously our Prime Minister insists that he is talking quietly and respectively to constituents about the real issues that concern them, the real ScoMo always lurches shoutily into the headlines.

Last week, barely emerging from an estivation all too brief for the weary voters, Morrison the Marketeer flung himself straight into the culture wars, parading what he imagined was his patriotic authenticity but which looked more like just another episode of dog whistling and wedge politics.

October 17, 2019

JOHN MENADUE. The failure of the National Party on rural poverty and rural health.

Country electorates have the most disadvantaged people, the poorest health and inferior health services. But the National Party does very little about it.

November 11, 2017

GRAHAM FREUDENBERG says Sorry

_I want to apologise for a failure going back to the Bicentenary in 1988._The very fact that 26 January continues to cause controversy is possibly the best reason for keeping it as the national day. The ambiguity of its meaning obliges us constantly to re-examine our modern origins. The new round of debate drew from Malcolm Turnbull the wisdom that it stands for Australian values. He managed to say much the same thing at Beersheba of all places. So we are to seek Australian values from Botany Bay to Beersheba. All this took place in the middle of the self-imposed fiasco in which his own Deputy Prime Minister (and by extension a huge proportion of us all) is in a legal limbo about his citizenship.

October 7, 2019

LAURIE PATTON. Time to stop digging our way out of trouble. A lesson from the past?

For the foreseeable future Australia will rely on mining for economic growth and to maintain our current standard of living. Yet unresolved debates over a number of proposed coal mines have exposed a rift in political circles that may well determine the outcome of the next federal election, just as the issue had a major impact on this years poll. While the risk is arguably greater on Labors side the turning tide of public opinion spurred by concerns about Global Warming suggests both the major parties would be well-advised to start thinking about their future responses to the demands of the mining lobby.

February 2, 2018

ACT private schools have the mother of all special deals

The Turnbull Government promised to eliminate all special deals for private schools under its Gonski 2.0 funding plan. However, new data released through Senate Estimates reveal that the $58 million adjustment fund for ACT private schools announced last year is the mother of all special deals.

May 24, 2020

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Angus Taylors thought bubbles: from the second rate to the already discredited

Our current government has become inordinately keen on producing road maps, and its most recent cartographer is our constantly embarrassed and embarrassing energy minister, Angus Taylor.

December 11, 2019

Morrisons Public Service reforms do us no favours

The mergers of Australian Public Service Departments announced by Scott Morrison on 5 December will do nothing to advance the cause of good government. The claims of efficiency gains that invariably accompany such announcements always turn out to be illusory, and, far more importantly, result in matters that ought to be debated out in full Cabinet being tucked away in individual portfolios.

March 31, 2019

MUNGO MacCALLUM. A last minute swing, delivering an improbable victory.

On the eve of the crucial budget, the trailing coalition government finally had a shred of hope: New South Wales.The fairly comfortable re-election of Gladys Berejiklian following nail-biting opinion polls gave them the hope that perhaps their own leader a fellow Cornstalker, no less could pull off the same trick. A last minute swing, delivering an improbable victory.

July 16, 2018

JOHN QUIGGIN. Australia's failed energy policy needs more than just a Band-Aid (the Guardian 13.07.18)

The ACCC report is a mishmash of cognitive dissonance and half-baked suggestions for fixing the unfixable.

December 30, 2019

JACK WATERFORD.-Is Morrison really on the bridge?

Australia cant much influence Trump, or Hong Kong or Boris. The more reason he should be working on what he can change

December 23, 2019

JACK WATERFORD.-Even a PM needs time to chill and think

Time for detailing how conservative policies could improve the nation

October 17, 2019

GREG CLARK. The Day I met the Emperor in Waiting

The request came from out of the blue. A neighbor in rural Chiba whose wife had royal family connections had sent a message via her husband that the crown prince, Naruhito, want to talk with me. He was said to have had read an article I had written for a Nagano prefecture regional newspaper about Japans little known Southern Alps. He himself was planning a trip to the area. Would I and my wife be willing to visit him and have chat about it?

November 6, 2019

A hometown lynching

This gut-wrenching story is from and about my hometown where I was born and grew up. I wish I could say I’m surprised as well as horrified but that would be a lie. This is the reality I grew up with and still return to for one-two weeks almost every year. Brutal, savage, barbaric and primitive even by Indian standards, so much so that Bihar state is a foreign country to most Indians. If its not religious violence, its caste and gender killings that will be the main news from Bihar. To make it worse, Sitamarhi is named after the Hindu goddess Sita, the very symbol of purity, peacefulness, gentleness, because this is her birthplace.

May 27, 2019

ASSOCIATED PRESS REPORT. Revolution in Poland as nation confronts priestly abuse.

Poland thought it had started confronting the problem of clerical abuse and its cover-up by church authorities. Then a bombshell came: A documentary with victim testimony so harrowing it has forced an unprecedented reckoning with pedophile priests in one of Europe’s most deeply Catholic societies.

June 12, 2019

CHRIS MILLS. Truthslaying The Environment.

In the Australia in Wonderland in which we are now living, things are getting curiouser and curiouser. Like the time-travel budget surplus arriving in 2019 from the 2020 budget, the Prime Minister has declared that Australia will meet its Paris Climate Change promise in a canter. (Or is that at a canter?)Curiously, the Department of Environment and Energy reports total emissions for the year to September 2018 increased by 0.9%. What, then, is the true State of the Nations greenhouse gas emissions?

October 21, 2019

MICHAEL KEATING. The Future of Monetary Policy

For the last forty years or more, economic orthodoxy has assigned the principal responsibility for macroeconomic demand management in the advanced economies to monetary policy. In recent years, however, inflation targets have been under-shot and incomes have continued to stagnate, while asset prices have boomed. This article discusses how these policy failures have led to increasing questioning of the future role of monetary policy, and the orthodox macroeconomic model on which it is based.

February 13, 2019

MARGARET REYNOLDS. I love the ABC and I Vote!!

Several public policy issues will be vigorously debated when Australians vote in this years Federal Election. But the one policy area where a vast majority of Australians can agree is that our national public broadcaster- the A B C- must be protected. More than 80 per cent of Australians trust the ABC above all other media and value its services to the community.

October 10, 2019

SUE WAREHAM. Abbott - a natural fit for a war memorial sliding from commemoration to propaganda

People who have the power to set the direction of national cultural institutions need to reflect appropriate values. The appointment of Tony Abbott to the Council of the Australian War Memorial reminds us of just how much the Memorial has lost touch with the values of many Australians. A man whose public life has been divisive and polarising seems a very poor choice for an institution that should unite people across political and ideological divides, but a natural fit for an institution that is sliding towards grandiosity and propaganda.

September 5, 2019

STEPHEN S. ROACH. Flailing at China (Project Syndicate 27.9.2019)

_Despite years of denial, there can no longer be any doubt that the US is pursuing a bipartisan containment strategy vis–vis China. Whether justified or not, the real problem with this strategy is less the merits of the allegations leveled by US politicians than the incoherence of the Trump administrations policies to address them.

March 10, 2019

ALAN PEARS. Beyond the Climate Chaos

It seems our politicians live on a different planet from the rest of us.

The government’s climate position is untenable and morally irresponsible, while the opposition’s is still marginal. Humanity and the planet are in serious trouble. Strong action is economically sensible, practical and morally responsible.

December 14, 2017

JOHN MENADUE Repost of a Submission to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

In November 2013, together with colleagues, I made a submission to the Royal Commission on the governance and systemic problems which lead to an abuse of power in the Catholic Church. That abuse of power is not limited to sexual abuse of children. See submission reposted below:

October 9, 2014

Understanding the goals of Hamas and Israel.

Jeffrey Goldberg in The Atlantic on 4 October 2014 said ‘_I remain partial to the view that American Jewry is threatened more by its own ignorance than by anything that may happen in the Middle East. But if Rabbis are going to speak about Israel, then they should speak with clarity …’_The article is available online below:

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/10/understanding-the-goals-of-hamas-and-israel/381048/

September 19, 2018

DAVID DODWELL. Keep Calm and carry on amid the current state of the trade war, for time is on China's side. (South China Morning Post 16.9.2018)

Over the weekend, Donald Trumps trade team invited Beijing to fresh trade talks. Almost simultaneously, tweets from the White House cast doubt on the talks.

Is this good cop, bad cop tactics? Or routine erratic signalling? How is one to respond, given how much the world economy is at stake?

Having mulled this conundrum carefully over the weekend, and without any attempt to discover what Beijings leaders might do, I have decided to imagine a secret internal memo from Liu He to Xi Jinping and the Beijing trade team.

December 21, 2017

Govt. Failure to Ensure Private School Systems Distribute Funding According to Need Will Continue Under Gonski 2.0

A recent report by the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) has slammed the Commonwealth Government for failing to ensure its funding of private school systems is distributed according to need and for not knowing how private school systems distribute their funding. The report is a scathing indictment of a massive failure of ministerial responsibility and government administration. Yet, this failure is likely to continue under Gonski 2.0, as it has for the past decade or more.

January 7, 2020

ROD MITCHELL.-Carbon pricing to the rescue - for climate and government.

Tragically, we now have a disaster serious enough to wake up almost all of us to the catastrophe that is unfolding in large parts of Australia and advertising itself to the rest of the world.

October 7, 2018

PETER RYAN. 'Big four' accounting firms should face banking royal commission to prove independence, former ASIC investigator says (ABC News)

A former forensic investigator at the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has called for the major accounting firms hired to audit and approve sensitive company reports to be brought before the financial services royal commission to prove their independence.

April 22, 2019

DAVID STEPHENS -People against the War Memorials grandiose extensions project.

On 23 March,theCanberra Timescarried a story about an open letter from 83 distinguished Australians opposing the plan to spend $498 million on extensions to the Australian War Memorial.

January 22, 2019

LUKE FRASER. The roads that ate the Australian economy Part 2 of 2

Australias current approach to road spending will soon generate up to $20 billion every year in new public sector debt - making it impossible for any new Commonwealth government to benefit from much-needed tax reform and revenue increases. This also cooks the goose of the road freight sector which Australias economy relies upon, while the perverse pattern of spending neglects our local road networks thanks to the endless fascination with dubious new motorway mega-projects.

October 26, 2018

BRAD CHILCOTT. The deck is stacked against average Australians

Corporations exist to deliver profits to their shareholders. Unions exist to deliver fair wages, access to benefits like annual and sick leave to workers and to ensure workplaces are safe for all employees.

October 23, 2018

Australians oppose Trumps decision to declare Jerusalem Israeli capital.

A special Roy Morgan SMS Survey taken on December 14-15 2017 shows a large 76% of Australians opposed to US President Donald Trumps decision to declare Jerusalem the capital of Israel with only 24% of Australians expressing support for Trumps decision earlier this week.

This article was published by Roy Morgan on the 16th of December 2017.

February 13, 2018

The apology ten years on

Today we mark the tenth anniversary of the National Apology. All of us remember where we were that day when Prime Minister Kevin Rudd read the words of the parliamentary motion moved by him and seconded by Brendan Nelson, the Leader of the Opposition:

‘The time has now come for the nation to turn a new page in Australia’s history by righting the wrongs of the past and so moving forward with confidence to the future. We apologise for the laws and policies of successive parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians.

‘We apologise especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country. For the pain, suffering and hurt of these stolen generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry.

‘To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the breaking up of families and communities, we say sorry. And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry.’

August 5, 2018

MICHAEL JENSON. Nigerian farmers are under attack, so why don't we hear about it?

We’ve heard a lot lately about white South African farmers being killed in farm murders. But another group of African farmers are being killed in far greater numbers and we’ve barely heard a whimper.

October 19, 2018

PETER VARGHESE. Australian Universities and China. Part 2 of 2

My remarks today are very much a personal perspective, drawing on my past engagement with China as a foreign policy practitioner and informed by my current role, but it is not an official University of Queensland position.

Today I wish to talk about what China means to Australian universities: what are the issues we face, how best to think about the relationship with China and, importantly, how do we manage risks while expanding opportunities.

October 11, 2017

SUE WAREHAM. Open letter: Parliament, not ministers, must decide Australia's response to a Korean war

The possibility of war between the United States and North Korea particularly a war triggered by one too many provocative moves by an unpredictable leader, leading to miscalculation or misinterpretation continues to threaten millions of people. The consequences of any such war, even a “conventional” one, would be dire.

November 21, 2019

MICHAEL KELLY SJ. What is to become of us?

I used to think I was part of a religion founded by Jesus Christ. The older Ive got and the more Ive come to know Jesus, the more Im convinced I got that wrong and have outgrown it.

Not that pressure to keep up religious appearances is flagging. It is still alive and well. We live in age of identity politics but also of identity religion. I find both, and the satellite culture wars they trigger, just tedious, often odious and so destructive.

March 8, 2018

SCOTT BURCHILL. What is going wrong and how did we get here?

Despite the temptations of presentism and intemperate thinking, the forces which have brought us to the current political malaise have been around for some time.

The ideological convergence of the major parties in our two party system has been underway for over four decades. Its most unfortunate consequence is that voters are robbed of meaningful policy choices in key areas which concern them: the threat of terrorism, national security and defence, surveillance laws, foreign policy, immigration and asylum seekers. This is the serious negative effect of bipartisanship.

May 22, 2019

NEIL IRWIN. Australia and the US are old allies. China's rise changes the equation. (New York Times 11.5.2019)

_Economic geography is proving more significant than historical alliances.

November 18, 2019

Australias China threat obsessions are not new.

Australias China threat obsessions are not new. Remember the Vietnam War? Obsessions then were far worse:

It (the Vietnam War) must be seen as part of a thrust by Communist China between the Indian and Pacific Oceans. (Robert Menzies, April 29, 1965).

..there is not the slightest doubt that the North Vietnamese are the puppets of China(Defence Minister, Allen Fairhall, March, 1966)

The fear of China is the most dominant element in much that happens in Asia, and the fear is well founded. (Foreign Minister, Paul Hasluck, October, 1964)

July 19, 2018

DENNIS ARGALL. In a changing world, who are we, where are our eyes and minds?

In what is perhaps a fantasy endeavour to find Trumps objectives in recent travel and assess outcomes I suggest three. And in this essay, I look further into global and perceptual actions and needs and the lack of decent vision in Australia.

September 21, 2018

IAN BURUMA. From Charlottesville to Chemnitz: the Wests race problem.

For obvious reasons, the sight of a German mob chasing foreigners through the streets and throwing up their arms in Hitler salutes is particularly disturbing. This is what happened recently in Chemnitz, a bleak industrial city in Saxony that was touted in the former German Democratic Republic as a model socialist city (it was called Karl-Marx-Stadt between 1953 and 1990).

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal