February 13, 2019

ALISON BROINOWSKI. Australian values in free fall.

What Australians value and what they fear are not, apparently, clear to the latest Prime Minister. Scott Morrisons election campaign, which began at the National Press Club on 11 February, failed to assure voters that his government understands either what they resent or what they want.Two days later, the Coalition lost a vote on the floor of the House of Representatives. Thisis historic, Labor was quick to email its supporters. No Federal Government has lost a vote since 1929. An election could be called any second. This is a Government in full free fall.

November 13, 2019

HANS J OHFF. Submarines and how not to defend Australia

The Governments new submarine project continues to be subjected to serious criticism. I have written on the ill-conceived SEA 1000 project since before the decision was made to award the contract to the French company NAVAL Group Australia (formerly DCNS) in April 2016. I now argue that we must face up to the underlying issue, which is that the two critical decisions, to buy sub-optimal diesel-electric boats, and to design them for missions off the coast of China, are fundamentally incompatible.

October 13, 2019

JOHN MENADUE. Expanding naval bases in central Sydney does not make sense.

The Navy is proposing a $500 million expansion of its training facility at HMAS Watson which is adjacent to the historic South Head National Park. There are good defence, urban, economic and social reasons why naval facilities at Garden Island , Watsons Bay and elsewhere in Sydney harbour should be progressively re-located, probably to northern Australia.

June 1, 2019

PETER SAINSBURY. Sunday environmental round up, 2 June 2019

Where is the drive that is urgently needed to transition to a zero carbon, environmentally sustainable world going to come from? A European group thinks Community-Led Initiatives can provide a kick-start. Climate change is affecting animals and plants, and the reverse is also true. Stories about worms, forests, snow hares, moose and ticks illustrate this. Humans produce massive amounts of waste which then produces methane, the oft-forgotten but increasingly important greenhouse gas. Finally, a sorry story about the deaths of 38 freshwater swordfish in Western Australia.

November 25, 2019

ALAN AUSTIN. Which party runs the economy better and how do we know? Part one.

The claim that the Coalition manages the economy better than Labor has never been valid. Yet the myth endures. Bizarrely, it seems to become more firmly believed as the evidence disproving it accumulates. So what is the reality? And how did the falsehood become so widely accepted?

December 18, 2019

JOHN AUSTEN. Electric Vehicle Charging

Recently the question of road charges for electric light vehicles cars - hit the headlines. Opinions split into: those who want such charges to collect funds for road building; those opposed to such charges because they might slow the take-up of electric vehicles.

November 19, 2018

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Another week, another stuff-up. Israel and Indonesia.

Bill Shorten and Penny Wong got it right last week: ScoMos pre-Wentworth thought bubble about moving the Australian embassy to Jerusalem should be dead, buried and cremated.

It was always a bad idea and if there was any doubt the Indonesians have tried to put it out of its misery with the simple tactic of taking Morrisons cherished preferential trade deal with Jakarta off the table until our leader disposes of the remains.

July 29, 2018

GIDEON RACHMAN. Revenge on the US is sweet for Vladimir Putin.

The Russian president draws satisfaction from embarrassing America.

July 6, 2018

CLIVE KESSLER. Western Civilization in our universities: Killed off by its latter-day champions.

Who killed off the Western Tradition in our Universities? Its current neo-liberal champions and those who share their crocodile tears.

April 8, 2019

TIM WOODRUFF. Cancer is horrible; so is death from any cause.

_The Opposition Leader has announced the biggest investment in Medicare for a generation, $2.3 billion to be spent eliminating the co-payments faced by those with cancer who see specialists, need diagnostic imaging and radiotherapy. It is also guaranteeing all new drugs approved by the Pharmaceutical Advisory Committee (PBAC) will be listed for subsidy. The latter means prescription costs will be a maximum of about $6 or $40 a month for pensioners and health care card holders or non card holders respectively._Cancer is scary. It is debilitating. It is life changing. It is often fatal. Furthermore, as Mr Shorten correctly pointed out cancer makes you sick and all too often makes you poor. Labor is to be commended for addressing this challenging issue.

February 28, 2019

IAN DUNLOP. Keeping Australians Safe and Secure

Defence Minister Christopher Pyne recently gave us the benefit of his wisdom on the parlous state of Australian politics, doubting that it is any longer capable of acting for the long-term good of the nation. Prime Minister Morrison confirmed the truth of Pynes observation in his 11 February 2019 National Press Club speech on Keeping Australians Safe and Secure. A masterpiece of obfuscation and scaremongering.

October 20, 2016

MARK BEESON. Crown: the trials of a tributary state.

Of all the indicators of Australias evolving relationship with China, Crown Casinos current problems are some of the most striking, unexpected and revealing. They present an unflattering but painfully accurate vignette of this countrys increasingly dependent relationship with the Peoples Republic.

We have all become accustomed to the idea that Australias economic future is inextricably bound up with Chinas. The Australian dollar is increasingly seen as a proxy for the health of the Chinese economy.Likewise, there are growing concerns that Chinas real estate bubble may be infecting ours, as wealthy Chinese look for seemingly more secure investment opportunities outside China.

October 22, 2019

GEOFF MILLER. The Good American.

Even a good American uses language in regard to China that raises questions about Americas stance in its envisaged long existential struggle with China.

October 7, 2018

RON GARDINER. Brisbane City Councils Metro Madness

To address busway-congestion problems in central Brisbane, City Council plans tointroduce, in 2023, a newand distinctive form ofpublic transport. Priced at approximately $1 billion, the project has the inappropriate name Brisbane Metro (common definition: a railway system, usually underground). Three aspects of Brisbane Metro are cause for urgent concern choice of vehicle, proposed river-crossing route, and pervasive use of deception in promoting the project. The first two stem directly from Councils aborted 2016 light rail project.

December 18, 2015

John Duggan. The effect of healthcare privatisation on patient outcomes

Recent actions by the Federal Minister of Health and her predecessors indicate the government’s aim to shift hospital care from the public to the private sector. Associated with this is the developing perception that private hospitals are superior just as private schooling is increasingly held to be superior to publicly funded schooling.

However, while there are massive data available comparing standards and outcomes in the school system, public, private and Catholic, there are virtually no Australian data comparing the two hospital systems; the only study found is a Productivity Commission report outlining the equal inefficiency of both systems. http://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/completed/hospitals/report

October 7, 2018

President Moon Jae-in is driving the Korea peace train.

The Korean War is 68 years old. Despite a ceasefire in effect since 1953, the heavily militarized border is still patrolled by soldiers, ringed with barbed wire and covered in land mines. Almost seven decades of containing, isolating and embargoing North Korea have demonstrably failed. It is time to pause and reconsider. South Korean President Moon Jae-ins dogged optimism and U.S. President Donald Trumps unconventional diplomacy might be just the synergetic mix required to shake things up.

October 31, 2017

JOAN STAPLES. Civil Society Highs and Lows

Australian civil society has seen the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) win the Nobel Peace Prize, the High Court uphold Bob Browns challenge to Tasmanian protest laws, and the Coalition extend its attacks on NGO advocacy, targeting GetUp.

October 25, 2018

REG LITTLE. Australian universities and China.

Comment on Australian universities and China needs to correct the universal Western oversight of the reality that Chinas past, present and future can only be understood in the context of its unique classics and millennia of recorded history_._

October 19, 2018

GEORGE MONBIOT. As the fracking protesters show, a peoples rebellion is the only way to fight climate breakdown.

Our politicians, under the influence of big business, have failed us. As they take the planet to the brink, its time for disruptive, nonviolent disobedience.

This article was published by The Guardian on the 18th of October 2018.

September 6, 2020

The atrocious foreign interference law It doesnt add up

When, for example, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) receives grants from the US State Department to undertake research projects it is an admission that it is engaging in conduct on behalf of a foreign principal.

December 3, 2019

ALLAN PATIENCE. The shonk from the shire.

Maybe Australians took to Scott Morrison during the election campaign for two main reasons: (1) He was not Bill Shorten; (2) He cunningly presented himself as an authentic bloke, a “daggy dad”, Mr Mainstream. There were no airs and graces. He was happy to be photographed goofily playing amateur soccer or wearing a baseball cap not so subtly in the style of Donald Trump. He made sure never to appear superior to ordinary Mums and Dads. He cleverly claimed to be the champion of the quiet Australians getting on with their lives outside the Canberra bubble. The remarkable fact is that all of this is shonky. Scott Morrison is not what he seems.

June 29, 2018

MARGARET SCOTT. The Truth about the Killing Fields in Indonesia (NYRB 28/6/2018)

On a baking hot afternoon in 2010, Jess Melvin, a young scholar from Australia, walked out of a government archive in Banda Aceh carrying a cardboard box. It was brimming with three thousand photocopied documents from the Indonesian army, and Melvin could barely believe her luck. These documents prove what has always been officially denied: the Indonesian army deliberately planned the 19651966 massacre in which up to a million suspected Communists died, one of the worst but least-known mass killings of the twentieth century.

September 19, 2018

ROSS GITTINS. Long way to go to get banks back in their box (SMH 17.9.2018)

_Have we learnt from the mistakes of the global financial crisis, now 10 years ago? Yes, but not nearly as much as we should have.

August 1, 2016

JOHN MENADUE. Democratic Renewal.

In the series, Fairness, Opportunity and Security that Michael Keating and I edited there were several articles that are still particularly relevant. Several of them deal with the disappointment many of us feel about our institutions and the lack of trust in parliament and politicians. I will be reposting some of these articles over the next week. I still believe that democratic renewal is essential in Australia today. John Menadue

Role of government. The importance of values. (Repost)

Good government must be based on some broadly shared values that inspire and enthuse us.

We can accept that our leaders must make some compromises from time to time, but we need to know what they stand for. We look for leaders who have conviction.

November 7, 2019

We Need to Stop Turning India into a Hindu Pakistan (The Wire 19-10-15)

This is the follow-up article promised yesterday. It was first published in October 2015 in The Wire_, one of India’s premier online news and analysis site that has managed to remain independent and critical. I have added translations of common Hindi words used in the article. Because the original was aimed at an Indian audience, there was no need of any translation. The original article can be found here._

December 16, 2018

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Morrison prepares for the next world.

It appears that Scott Morrison has now given up on this world and is planning to move on to the next.

May 29, 2018

WANNING SUN. Megaphone diplomacy is good for selling papers, but harmful for Australia-China relations.

_The issue of Chinas influence in Australia is complex. It ranges from worries about national security, political donations and media infiltration to concerns about scientific collaborations, Confucius Institutes, the patriotism of Chinese students, and allegiance of the Chinese community. The most recent trope is Chinas so-called debt trap diplomacy_with Australias neighbours in the Pacific.

May 13, 2019

IAN WEBSTER. US opioid epidemic: a warning to Australia?

Two ABC documentaries Opioid America, Foreign Correspondent, 19th March and on TV Tonight, Louis Theroux, April 2nd portrayed the cycle of addiction in damaged US communities with no hope or future. Both were in West Virginia where opioid deaths are 2 to 3 times higher than other US states. The people and their environments are forever written off. Alarm bells ring.

March 8, 2018

ROB STEWART. Mal and Scottys Excellent Company Tax Cut Adventure.

The Governments full proposed company tax cuts package may eventually pass the Senate. If it does this will not be due to any inevitability or natural law of diminishing company tax revenue. And the tax cuts will not result in a win for average hard working Australians. Income and wealth inequality will continue to rise.

May 19, 2019

PATRICIA and DON EDGAR Family Views the Election Results

Last Saturday evening we sat as a family to view the election results. There were four grandchildren present, aged 18 to 24 who had voted that day and taken their decisions seriously. They were waiting to see how the evening would unfold. They are rightly concerned about their future, particularly climate change, and as the votes came rolling in they watched in disbelief. One leader had offered them a detailed plan for their future, the other had run around the country, behaving like a clown, spouting slogans: Cut taxes, I stopped the boats, Kill Bill, How good is that? Yet the clown was getting the votes.

January 11, 2018

JOHN WARHURST. Corruption and decay of Australian politics. A REPOST from June 15 2017

This week’s ABC Four Corners program that revisited, after 30 years, Chris Masters’ revelations of police corruption in Queensland, “The Moonlight State”, brings to mind how widespread corruption in Australian politics has been since then.

February 17, 2016

John Menadue. Privatising Medicares payments system and the erosion of Commonwealth Public Service capability.

The government has apparently accepted the advice of the Commission of Audit that Medicares payments system should be reviewed with the possibility of privatisation. The payments system includes Medicare, the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, Aged Care Services and Veterans Affairs.

It sounds like another expression of neo liberalism, that only the private sector can be efficient and cost-effective.Let us see whether that is so through market testing. I remain sceptical.

As a regular user of Medicare services and payments, I am not aware of problems in the payments system. But if there are problems, the government should fix them..

February 14, 2016

Michael Gracey AO. Grappling with the Indigenous health gap.

By most recognised markers of socio-economic status, Indigenous Australians fare badly compared with their non-Indigenous counterparts. This is certainly the case where health standards are concerned. For example, rates of infections and hospitalisation for these and many other illnesses are much higher; chronic diseases like heart disease, stroke and diabetes are more prevalent; and hearing loss and blindness rates are increased as are a multitude of other disabilities. Illnesses and deaths linked to alcohol and drug abuse, and accidents and violence are more frequent, as are disorders associated with psychosocial stress. Death rates are increased across the life span and Indigenous people tend to die younger and have a life expectancy which is somewhere between 10 and 17 years shorter than that of other Australians. The statistics are stark and this situation represents one of Australias worst embarrassments internationally.

November 5, 2019

ALLAN PATIENCE. Schmoozing America, antagonising China

The Morrison government is cleaving ever more closely to the USA, asserting that the two countries have shared values and aligned interests. Meanwhile it has taken to lecturing China about human rights abuses and emphasising how the values of the Chinese Communist Party are anathema to Australias cultural values and democratic politics.

October 7, 2018

MICK PALMER. The drug trade has just kept getting bigger,more dangerous and more prosperous.

The facts are clear. For over half a century our governments have relied heavily on law enforcement to curb the drug trade and reduce drug use. However, despite huge funding, ever increasing levels of police effectiveness and genuine effort, and the imposition of very lengthy prison terms for serious drug offences, the drug trade has just kept getting bigger, more dangerous and more prosperous.The simple over-riding fact is that, with the best intentions in the world, as former Chief Commissioner Ken Lay said when head of then PM Tony Abbotts Ice Task Force, we cannot arrest and imprison our way out of our present dilemma.We must be prepared to try new ideas and approaches.

October 31, 2019

The marketing of Australian universities

There seems to have been a long period of quiescence in higher education, with the interests of the top end of the university sector (identified as the G8) coinciding with the desire of successive governments to shift costs away from their regular budgets and on to overseas consumers. But some chickens have come home to roost concerning other interested parties, not least the wider public but also non-G8 universities and regional institutions promised a better deal by the LNP in its slim election policy portfolio.

March 3, 2019

MUNGO MacCALLUM. Christopher Pyne,The mincing poodle!

The imminent retirement of Christopher Pyne, christened the mincing poodle by Julia Gillard and the most irritating person in Australia by just about everyone else, is not just another deserter from the sinking ship.

April 5, 2017

WAYNE McMILLAN. David and Goliath: One step forward, two steps back. (Part 1 of 2)

Malcom Turnbulls recent comment that he couldnt work with Sally McManus the recently elected Secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) is just another excuse against strong union representation for ordinary waged workers.

April 12, 2016

China and North Korea: the long goodbye.

Jonathan D. Pollack from The Brookings Institution quotes Ambassador Wu Dawei, Japan’s long-time leading negotiator on the Korean nuclear issue, who expressed mounting frustration that North Korea lets China’s advice ‘go through one ear and out the other ear’. Ambassador Wu suggests that North Korea ’ had signed its own death warrant’. For link to Pollack article, see below.

http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/order-from-chaos/posts/2016/03/28-china-north-korea-sanctions-pollack#.Vv2jy9wxlqc.email

August 5, 2018

JUDY HEMMING. The US Marines in Darwin according to precedent: neither in the national, nor the local interest.

Australian Defence Policy, in lockstep with the US as regards managing the rise of China, embraces the deployment of US Marine to Darwin as being consistent with the national interest. Where the social fabric of the Northern Territory is concerned, however, the potential for Darwin to be just another locale to be trashed by the US military has not been sufficiently investigated.

December 10, 2017

ROSS BURNS. The Art of the Pushover

There are perhaps no negotiations more fraught, or with higher stakes, than those surrounding Israel-Palestine. Has the self-professed worlds greatest deal-maker dropped the ball after making his first major play in the region?

November 1, 2017

JOHN MENADUE. We need to curb rent-seekers and lobbyists.

In the series “Fairness, Opportunity and Security” last year I drew attention to the pervasive loss of trust in institutions. Essential Research revealed that the six least trusted institutions were: the news media, state parliaments, trade unions, business groups, religious organisations and political parties. The three most trusted institutions were all public: the ABC, High Court and Reserve Bank. In light of Jacquie Lambies proposals to curb the lobbying racket in Canberra I decided to repost an earlier blog on the collapse of trust with the growth in rent seeking and lobbying, with some up dating.

January 3, 2020

LAURIE PATTON. My New Years wish more collaborative technology policy development

A report released by communications minister Paul Fletcher has confirmed that so-called Internet piracy declined dramatically following the arrival of Netflix and other online streaming services debunking the need for site-blocking laws controversially introduced following a well-funded lobbying effort by local representatives of the Hollywood studios.

February 18, 2019

ROSS GITTINS. Stagnation spanner in the works? The tradesman you need to call is Keynes. (SMH 16.2.2019)

Every so often the economies of the developed world malfunction, behaving in ways the economists theory says they shouldnt. Economists fall to arguing among themselves about the causes of the breakdown and what should be done. Were in such a period now.

_Its called secular stagnation and its characterised by weak growth in the economy, in consumer spending, in business investment and in productivity improvement. This is accompanied by low price inflation and wage growth, and lowrealinterest rates.

October 3, 2017

ALISON BROINOWSKI. Back to the FutureAsia.

How can Chris Bowen ensure that engagement with Asia will be different this time? By convincing all Australians its important and urgent, and by getting Bill Shorten to endorse it convincingly.

November 20, 2019

CAVAN HOGUE.Hong Kong - Students and police

The current situation is Hong Kong is depressing as both police and protesters blame the other and both engage in violence. There is no sign of reconciliation and the future looks bleak whatever happens. Recession is serious. This report is from a long time resident of Hong Kong who works in universities but prefers not to be identified. It is not safe to stand out in either direction. University staff have to teach on line because universities are closed which makes more work but it is still possible to keep in touch with students - even with those holed up in campuses.

November 12, 2019

MARGARET REYNOLDS. Labor Review ignores Centralised Factional Control!

The ALP Reviewers certainly deserve recognition for facing some of the issues which led to its recent Federal election defeat. The Review Team has put on the record the factors contributing to misunderstanding and failure to capture the public imagination. Recommendations are a welcome start in charting new directions. However, the fundamental issue of factional control is not considered as a major factor in community alienation.

October 19, 2018

HENNY SENDER. The weaponisation of the dollar risks rebounding on the US.

One consequence of the America First policies will be to create a bipolar financial world.

February 15, 2018

A new Cold War arms race has begun

In the immediate post Cold War period, regular United States Nuclear Posture Reviews have been relatively restrained, emphasising no first use and no attacks against non nuclear weapons states which are signatories of the nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty. With his 2018 Review, however, President Trump has thrown circumspection out the window. Citing new emerging threats from Russia, China, North Korea and Iran, he has blurred the distinction between usable and non-usable nuclear weapons and the situations in which they can be applied. To pay for an enormous expansion in the US nuclear arsenal he wants a colossal annual defence budget increase of three to four percent per annum over existing levels over ten years.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal