While in Canberra on 20 August, Defence Minister and President-elect Prabowo Subianto made it clear that Indonesia remains avowedly non-aligned. This stance and how Indonesia perceives the world needs to underpin our relationship. (more…)
Francesca Beddie
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Read history, talk peace
Russia is not Putin, though you’d hardly know it in current media coverage. Nor is it an autarky. On the contrary, for centuries Russia has interacted with both the East and the West, whose influences have shaped, and confounded, the country’s sense of identity. (more…)
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A university career is no longer the best way to channel a fine mind
A friend of mine resigned from her university job in February 2024 just weeks before term started. She couldn’t face another year. She was old enough to retire but I had thought she might have a couple more years of teaching in her. The bureaucracy, the rules, lowering standards were too much. Another friend, an emeritus professor no less, saddened me when he confided he would not recommend a university career to someone starting out now. No longer was it the best way to channel a fine mind. (more…)
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Vale Bill Hayden, a dedicated foreign minister
Bill Hayden’s five years as foreign minister have received some attention in the week since his death. However, there’s more to say about his contribution to an independent foreign policy that allowed its diplomats to hold their heads high. (more…)
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Truth-telling with Walpiri people at the heart of new opera
Jack Waterford warned recently that ‘it’s time to get fair dinkum, or the Voice proposal will lose momentum and support’. A way to do that is by taking a two-way approach to telling shared stories. That’s what the composer Anne Boyd is doing as she creates a musical language for the Australian landscape. Her new opera tells the story of Olive Muriel Pink (1884–1975), artist, Aboriginal-rights activist, anthropologist and gardener, whose work with the Walpiri people lives on in the Olive Pink Botanic Garden in Alice Springs. (more…)
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It’s time to ditch the hierarchy of tertiary education
Education and training carry a heavy weight of expectation in policy development. They are cited as the pathway to prosperity and productivity, a key to innovation and to international competitiveness. Less and less often are they mentioned as the foundation for a healthy and harmonious citizenry. (more…)
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The larrikin: a symbol of our fractured political landscape
It is a matter of despair that Australian politics has become all about faux larrikinism, leaving much of the population marginalised by bad policy.
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Don’t forget the plight of Afghans in Australia
Further to Stuart Rees’ eloquent exposure of the Prime Minister’s cruelty toward those Afghans already in Australia on temporary visas, below is my letter to the Prime Minister arguing for a more humane and pragmatic asylum seeker policy. Pragmatic because times have changed – the boats are no longer coming – and because among those temporary protection visa holders are talented, resilient and determined young people.
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Humans unite: We badly need more than gestures
Dave Sharma’s token gesture on International Women’s Day, handing out single pink dahlias to female commuters, reminded me of my days in Moscow.
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Will we ever be satisfied with less?
I can’t imagine the old normal returning unaltered after COVID-19 but worry that the rush towards a new normal will entail too much focus on growth and profits and not enough on caring for the vulnerable and the environment. If that happens, we will have squandered an opportunity to reset how we value health, work and leisure. (more…)
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Higher education reform: use and abuse of Menzies
Announcing his plans for university reform on 19 June, the minister for education, Dan Tehan, did as many of his predecessors have done. He invoked Robert Menzies. (more…)
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FRANCESCA BEDDIE. Tertiary education after COVID-19. Part 1
One thing COVID-19 has done is shatter laborious bureaucratic reform processes that so often breed inertia rather than change. I marvel at how quickly education systems have adapted to the lockdown. (more…)
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FRANCESCA BEDDIE. Australia Day: the occasion for collective mourning.
In early January, the leader of the Opposition, Anthony Albanese, suggested the first sitting day of Federal Parliament for 2020 be devoted to marking the unprecedented bushfire crisis. That got me thinking about Australia Day. (more…)
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FRANCESCA BEDDIE. Bushfire Haiku
These catastrophic times call for different responses to the festive season. Mine is below. The community reaction in our part of the Southern Highlands (as yet untouched by fire) has been heartening. Donations are flowing, people are looking out for each other, and even grey-haired respectably clad ladies are openly railing about the lack of national leadership. (more…)
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FRANCESCA BEDDIE. The Golden Country, Australia’s Changing Identity.
I follow migration matters closely, so Tim Watt’s survey of the White Australia Policy and subsequent immigration policy was familiar territory. For those who don’t, there is much to recommend in the story he tells and his demonstration of the economic benefits of skilled migration. But his analysis has flaws. (more…)
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Vocational education in an election climate: it’s time to be bold
The Labor Party is being bold, putting reformist policies before the voter. It has proposed a comprehensive inquiry into post-secondary education. If it gets to undertake that inquiry, I hope it will keep being bold and be prepared to restructure rather than just fiddle with a system that was shaped in the 1970s in very different labour market conditions.
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FRANCESCA BEDDIE: Beyond Anzac: a multicultural Australia needs a multicultural history
I recently attended a history conference in Wellington, New Zealand, which posed the question After the War, What Next? My answer was that we need a transnational approach to telling history, which presents the complexity of global influences that have informed decisions about nation building and which resonates with Australia’s multicultural community.
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FRANCESCA BEDDIE. The common-sense test for assessing research applications.
In 2014, the last year for which complete data is available on the Australian Research Council’s website, 20.7 per cent of applications for research grants were successful; 1,417 grants were made, at a cost of $1,018,017,312. The Australian taxpayer deserves to know if sums of such magnitude are being well allocated. (more…)
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FRANCESCA BEDDIE. Renewing democracy must include honing public servants on the job.
These days, opinion polls and surveys provide the basis for many a proclamation about the state of the world. According to the 2018 Lowy Institute Poll, only 47% of Australians between 18 and 44 years of age say ‘democracy is preferable to any other kind of government’. As someone who still thinks of democracy as the least-bad system of government, that figure alarms me. (more…)
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FRANCESCA BEDDIE. Wanted: politicians who inspire and creative public policy (Part 2 of 2)
I watched Ken Loach’s film I, Daniel Blake again recently. Again, I cried. A sick bloke with talent and decency ends up dead before he can argue his case to be treated not as a client, customer, service user or national insurance number but as a citizen, no more no less. Surely our citizens can expect more from governments and public servants than mindless process and indifference. In the age of automation ought not compassion be precious? In the age of big data, shouldn’t it be easier to tailor public services to the individuals who pay, or have paid, taxes? This essay explores the malaise in our polity (part one) and argues for doing things differently (part two). (more…)
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FRANCESCA BEDDIE. Wanted: politicians who inspire and creative public policy (Part 1 of 2)
I watched Ken Loach’s film I, Daniel Blake again recently. Again, I cried. A sick bloke with talent and decency ends up dead before he can argue his case to be treated not as a client, customer, service user or national insurance number but as a citizen, no more no less. Surely our citizens can expect more from governments and public servants than mindless process and indifference. In the age of automation ought not compassion be precious? In the age of big data, shouldn’t it be easier to tailor public services to the individuals who pay, or have paid, taxes? This essay explores the malaise in our polity (part one) and argues for doing things differently (part two). (more…)
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FRANCESCA BEDDIE. What do we mean by Australia Day?
All the talk about Australia Day – what it symbolises, for whom and when we should celebrate – prompted me to delve into the history of the date, which has long been contentious. Before we lock in the date, we need to decide what we want our national day to commemorate. (more…)
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FRANCESCA BEDDIE. The way ahead for VET
The Productivity Commission’s five-year review, Shifting the Dial, recommends reforms in vocational education and training (VET). These are based on ‘the key premise…that skills formation is one of the central pillars for productivity improvement, even if its benefits are not immediately realised’. That caveat is important: neither skills acquisition nor other knowledge gains are easily quantified, nor are their effects on individuals straightforward. Nevertheless, as the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show, more and more Australians are seeking post-school qualifications. Most do so because they want a job and decent income. Some are mesmerised by learning and marvel at the wonder of human endeavour and the natural world. They are not thinking about productivity statistics yet may turn out to be vital assets in guarding our civilisation. (more…)
