John Menadue

  • Michael Breen.  Home Sour Home

    Fourteen women have died this year as a result of domestic violence. Australians killed by terrorists in the same period, zero. 

    The ABC Q&A programme February 23rd on Domestic Violence had an enormous response from the viewer and studio audiences. Many thanked the ABC for broaching the matter. Many tragic first hand experiences were aired. For some this was cathartic but the unanswered questions and the visible and obscured statistics leave no doubt that this is a critical national issue. 

    Q&A Tweet.The conversation Australia needed to have . 

    No one from the programme nor beyond it suggests this is a simple matter with simple remedies waiting to be applied. It is vastly complex and its elements are at various depths of awareness, responsibility and are the preserve of several disciplines, services and agencies. Police, social workers, mental health workers, refuge staffs, psychologists, religious leaders, lawyers, courts and victims, perpetrators all hold chips of the ugly mosaic. 

    There are some areas, some aspects which are part of the complexity that get more attention than others less obvious and more contentious. I would like to consider some of the latter, especially with regard to men.

    Q&A Tweet. Oh the irony. just a day after #Qanda doing a show on domestic violence, the fed gov’t display the characteristics that promote it. 

    Public violence usually draws a crowd. Violence in private especially inside a house has few attendees. Cops by and large hate going to “domestics” where often there is little they can do and where they can become the recipients of the free flowing aggression. This raises the question of how well they are trained for this event common in their work lives and what support they get to manage the effect it has on them individually.

    For a victim to bring a criminal charge requires enormous courage and support. Often the victim wishes that they had never commenced the process. So the hiddenness of domestic violence adds to its stuckness. Then again victims have the first hand experiences but cannot provide solutions. They know what happens but not how it happens. We need to know how to stop what happens. Often victims’ personal adjustments to live a peaceful life or avoid aggression are lost to current memory as they stretch back over the years. They become like the frog placed in a pot of water on the stove adjusting to the incremental rises in temperature so efficiently that the frog eventually boils to death. 

    The other most knowledgeable participant is the perpetrator and we need to know much more of the processes in the minds and hearts of these people, many of whom have been raised in violent family systems.

     

    Q&A Tweet.I will NOT have my son indoctrinated at school that he is innately created a violent abuser. 

    Further, apportioning blame is in a different order from knowing what actually happened and how to avoid it.  Investigation into the mechanics of the disorder is a separate process from participants finding their treatment in therapy. 

    When we consider violence it is important not to skip parts of the picture no matter how unpleasant or minute. We know that people who experienced violent parenting are more likely to parent or relate violently; unless they have dealt with their experiences in therapy. Tony Cooke, social worker and the son of a Western Australian serial murderer, said, “If you have been touched by violence you have to deal with it”. 

    But do we know how violently a violent person operates inside their own psyche? Do they manage themselves with harshness or violence or are they moral imbeciles who have no criteria or categories of morality or ethics? My guess is that each person is a mixture of all of these factors.  Many more adolescents than we imagine are self harming in our community.  Do we know why? Is it violence turned inward? 

    We know that our society likes violence, when it happens to someone else. Stories and images our media select must sell papers or attract viewers; otherwise why put the stuff out there? 

    Sporting games are often very violent in themselves as is the language of their commentators.  And the spectacle more attractive than the game itself is a players’ or spectators’ brawl. Youths, mostly male become the expendable gladiators  fighting on behalf of their fans and financial promoters. Is it any wonder that these public contestants involved in on-field and off-field fighting? But as soon as the violence of sport is mentioned or criticised the intimidating voices defending the sacred taboos threaten consequences like “developing softies, milksops, pansies” as the alternatives.

    Parliamentary behaviour so often involves viciously attacking the person that it is far from edifying example, for the rest of the community.  Our society tolerates the degrading institution of women’s wages being 18% lower than males doing the same work. 

    Capitalism needs tough guys, winners not cooperators, we are told.  Courses and written stuff offered as training for managers use the language of warfare. Do we ever ask what are the societal costs for men to be acculturated in this way?  What are the consequences of learning to behave as if control is everything? What happens to the person’s desire for softness, gentleness, compassion, mercy? 

    Or what are a man’s fears if he is seen to be sentimental or tearful? 

    The Australian man’s upbringing and schooling are likely to have involved corporal punishment, verbal abuse, belittling and sledging.  “Counselling” has become a weasel white wash for a ticking off.

    The first woman most men meet is their mother. If she is dominant and critical, controlling and manipulative that inevitably affects a man’s attitudes to all women.  This is especially critical if the father figure is inexpressive, weak or withdrawing. When his wife is critical many a man hears his mother’s voice anew.  Is it possible that an attack on the external female critical person is an attempt to silence the man’s internal critical voice? Could violence be an inappropriate response to being taunted, shamed or belittled? He may have been little and inadequate when he was first treated this way, but now he is big and has more response options. In such circumstances is the man hearing that he is not a real man? An ex-student of mine was murdered by a hitchhiker to whom he gave a lift. The hiker went home and announced to his partner, “Now I am a real man”.  These are aberrant, inappropriate and immoral responses. Nor are they defensible. However if we are to understand violent behaviour we need to know its aetiology. 

    Q&A Tweet:if some of us gals seemed a bit peeved with men at times try to gain some understanding as to why – failure to protect. 

    I must restate that I am not seeking to blame or excuse but to ask questions, however unpalatable, about why men, particularly, act out in the ways which we often do. 

    In the 1970s and 1980s in response to feminism a lot of men felt threatened. Men were often impugned as “the problem”. Some feminists said it was ok to blame men for everything because women had had such a bad deal for so long. One response was the development of courses, workshops and groups for men. Unfortunately many of these were inexpertly led but they were spaces to share common material. Most courses I was involved in with had men lamenting or craving better relationships with their fathers and deeper relationships with other men. The Australian cultural conserves impeded both. There were lots of cathartic tears and ept and inept tenderness from male peers. Robert Bly’s article “Iron John” about finding the primitive slimy man in all of us is supposed to have been the most photocopied article of the decade. In hindsight it was not such a good item, but it was all that there was at the time though it treated man isolated from family and children. The “Mens Movement” in Australia was largely a boys movement. 

    Q&A Tweet:‘why doesn’t she leave?’ – great title for a powerful movie to educate community how hard it can be & how attitudes need to change. 

    Finally if leadership is finding a procession to get in front of, the current government could resource all kinds of successful programmes such as the one sent in by the Q&A viewer, a violent perpetrator reformed and his football team in the Northern Territory. Giving grants for research is probably not as effective as  setting up competitions with prizes for interventions which can be demonstrated to  achieve results.

    Michael  Breen is a ‘Humanistic Psychologist’

  • We should expect more.

    In this article in The Guardian, Richard Flanagan, the Booker Prize winner, refers to the increasing ugliness in Australian public life.  He says ‘Writing my novel “The Narrow Road to the Deep North” I came to conclude that great crimes like the Death Railway did not begin with the first beating or murder on that grim line of horror in 1943. They began decades before with politicians, public figures and journalists promoting the idea of some people being less than people’.  He makes the case that the brutality and cruelty we now see has been developing for years. I think it really began with the Howard Government in 1996. To read this article, see the link below.  John Menadue

    http://gu.com/p/4663q/sbl

  • Andrew Leigh. The remarkable persistence of power and privilege.

    If you want to know who made up Australia’s elite in the nineteenth century, a useful place to look is the Australian Dictionary of Biography. In its many volumes, you’ll find business leaders, scientists, media barons and politicians who have featured among the upper echelons of Australian society.

    Now, suppose we take the first cohort of significant Australians – those who died before 1880 – and identify those with unusual surnames like Ebden orMaconochie. People with those names were overrepresented among the elite in the nineteenth century. Are they still at the top of society, or are they mixed through?

    The answer to this question will depend on the level of social mobility we have in Australia. In a very mobile society, privilege dissipates quickly. Children of doctors become labourers, and children of cleaners become lawyers. “Class-jumping” is the norm. Conversely, in an immobile society, we should expect to see privilege perpetuated across generations. If wealth can easily be passed down to one’s children, if education is costly, and if jobs are based on old school ties rather than ability, then the same surnames will stay at the top across generations.

    For Australia, it turns out that if we look at the register of modern-day medical practitioners, we find the privileged names of the nineteenth century overrepresented by a factor of nearly three. In other words, if your ancestor was at the top of Australian society six generations ago, you are three times more likely than the average Australian to be a doctor today.

    In The Son Also Rises: Surnames and the History of Social Mobility, economist Gregory Clark uses rare surnames to learn more about the extent to which societies are fluid or static. Take the case of Samuel Pepys (1633–1703), the famous diarist who was secretary of the English Admiralty. Pepys has been a rare name since it entered the ranks of the elite in the late 1400s. And yet in the past 500 years, Pepyses have attended Oxford or Cambridge universities at a rate at least twenty times that of the general population. On average, those of them who’ve died over the past decade left wealth of at least five times the British average. Four of the eighteen living Pepyses are medical doctors. Only in a society with extremely low levels of social mobility would we expect a name to persist among the elites in this way.

    Analysing mobility in medieval England, Clark finds that people with names derived from jobs (Cook, Butler, Thatcher and so on) were more likely to move upwards, while those with names that derive from towns (including Baskerville, Pakenham and Walton) tended to move downwards. And not much changed after the industrial revolution. Surnames of Oxbridge graduates in the early 1800s, for instance, are three times as common among British MPs in the late 1900s.

    In the United States, tax return data for the top taxpayers was publicly reported in 1923–24. Nearly a century later, people with the same surnames as those who featured on the list are three to four times as likely to be doctors or lawyers, while those with lower-status names are underrepresented. People with the high-status surname Katz are twelve times as likely to be doctors and lawyers as those with the low-status surname Washington.

    In Japan, samurai surnames date back to before the 1868 Meiji restoration. Even today, they are overrepresented at least fourfold among doctors, lawyers, professors and writers. In China, Qing surnames overrepresented among the nineteenth-century elite are overrepresented among today’s corporate board chairs and government officials. In Chile, surnames overrepresented among landowners in the 1850s are still overrepresented among high-earning occupations.

    Strikingly, Clark finds persistence even in Sweden, one of the world’s most egalitarian societies. The 1600s and 1700s saw the creation of a set of “noble surnames,” which today have twice their expected share of doctors, five times their expected share of lawyers, and three times their share of members of the top 1 per cent of income earners. This degree of persistence of status across ten generations demonstrates the power of inherited privilege.

    GREGORY CLARK’s analysis of intergenerational mobility signals a marked shift in the way economists think about social mobility. In his 1988 presidential address to the American Economic Association, Gary Becker argued that “earnings are not strongly transmitted from fathers to sons.” Four years later, Gary Solon showed that prior researchers had been overestimating the degree of social mobility because they were using just a single year of data.

    To see how this happens, imagine a high-earning barrister who happens to take six months off work in the year of the survey. Now suppose his son becomes a high-earning barrister too. A study that used just one year of data might wrongly assume that this was a case of someone moving from rags to riches. But a study that used several years of data would see that both father and son were well-off.

    At this point, I need to introduce a few numbers. The standard measure of mobility across generations is the “elasticity” of children’s earnings with respect to their parents’ earnings – in other words, how closely the former reflects the latter. Because women have tended to have much lower rates of paid work, researchers have focused on the father–son earnings elasticity. An elasticity of zero means there was no relationship between the earnings of fathers and sons, while an elasticity of one would mean that a 10 per cent rise in fathers’ earnings was associated with a 10 per cent rise in sons’ earnings. The closer the elasticity gets to one, the less mobile the society.

    Elasticity measures aren’t confined to income. The elasticity of height, for example, is about 0.5, which means that if a father is ten centimetres taller than average then we expect his sons to be five centimetres taller than average. Sure, there are tall fathers with short sons (and vice versa), but basketball dads are generally taller than gymnast dads.

    In the case of earnings, economists’ best estimate of intergenerational elasticity went from 0.2 when they used a single year of earnings (as did the studies Gary Becker was relying on) to 0.4 when they used a few years of earnings (Gary Solon’s approach). Over the next decade, US researchers threw better and better data at the problem, and each time they found less and less mobility. Using more than a decade of earnings data, Bhashkar Mazumder estimated in 2005 that the intergenerational earnings elasticity for the United States was 0.6. That would put it higher than the father–son height elasticity. Among American sons, fathers had a larger impact on their earnings than on their stature.

    Using similar techniques, researchers began estimating father–son earnings elasticities for other countries. As one survey showed, Scandinavian nations tended to be extremely mobile, with elasticities below 0.2. In Latin America, there was much less class-jumping, with elasticities over 0.5. Compared with other nations, the United States is extremely immobile, a fact that Barack Obama has thankfully switched from denying (“In no other country on earth is my story even possible”) to decrying (“It is harder today for a child born here in America to improve her station in life than it is for children in most of our wealthy allies”).

    In 2006, while I was working as an economist at the Australian National University, I produced the first (and so far, only) estimates of the father–son earnings elasticity in Australia, putting the intergenerational elasticity at around 0.25. This means that a 10 per cent increase in a father’s earnings translates to a 2.5 per cent increase in his son’s earnings. My estimate implied that we are more socially mobile than the United States but not as mobile as Scandinavia. Looking back through the twentieth century, I found no evidence that we had become markedly more or less mobile.

    So what does the surname approach add to our understanding of mobility? Simply put, there are two reasons for using surnames. The first is that we only have good data on earnings (from surveys or administrative records) for the relatively recent past. If we want to understand mobility in centuries gone by, surnames may be the best torch for seeing into an otherwise dark statistical corner.

    The second, and more important, reason for using surnames is that they may help to take out some of the transitory fluctuations. Recall how we got more precise estimates of the intergenerational earnings elasticity when we used data that smoothed out the fluctuations in an individual’s earnings over a career? Call it the “odd year” problem. Now let’s think about a different problem: a family where the social status dips down for one generation, before reverting to the long-run average. You might call this the “black sheep” problem. By looking at surnames, we are able to look not just at single father–son pairs, but also at patterns for entire lineages.

    So once we take out the odd years and black sheep, how easy is it to jump between classes? Several assumptions need to be made in order to estimate an intergenerational elasticity from surnames. But if we accept Gregory Clark’s methodology, his results imply a very static society. For Britain, the United States, India, Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, Chile and even Sweden, he concludes that the intergenerational elasticity is between 0.7 and 0.9. This would mean that social status is at least as hereditable as height. It suggests that while the ruling class and the underclass are not permanent, they are extremely long-lasting. Erasing privilege takes not two or three generations, but ten to fifteen generations. If you cherish the notion of a society where anyone can make it, these results are disturbing.

    How do we break the pattern? Part of the answer must lie in a fair tax system, a targeted social welfare system, effective early childhood programs, and getting great teachers in front of disadvantaged classrooms. We need banks willing to take a chance on funding an outsider, and it doesn’t hurt to maintain a healthy Aussie scepticism about inherited privilege.

    Yet Gregory Clark’s results also remind policy-makers that this is no easy nut to crack. Part of the transmission of social status occurs through genes. On top of this, people tend to marry those with similar levels of education; and researchers have also documented significant differences in parenting approaches among different social groups. Making the system a bit fairer is within our reach – but a complete transformation may prove elusive.

    Andrew Leigh is the Federal Member for Fraser and the Shadow Assistant Treasurer.  This article was published in Inside Story.

  • John Menadue. Health Insurance – here we go again!

    The Health Minister, Sussan Ley has just announced a 6.2% increase in private health insurance premiums.  Increases of this order happen almost every year.

    Since the Howard government introduced the rebate on private health insurance in 1999, the cost of private health insurance has increased over 150%. Overall prices have increased by less than 50% in this period.

    Because private health insurance has not got the will or ability to control prices, it is a ‘price taker’ as economists say, it underwrites large increases in health costs particularly by private specialists. That is why we are all paying more in out-of-pocket expenses. But it is even much worse than that. Private health insurance makes it more difficult for Medicare to control fees.

    The private health insurance industry receives a $7 billion p.a. subsidy from taxpayers. This subsidy is far more than the car industry ever received. This is real corporate and middle class welfare. Abolition of the subsidy and at the same time funding a Medicare dental scheme would greatly improve equity and quality of care at no extra cost to the budget.

    Abolition of the subsidy would also remove the Damocles sword that hangs over Medicare. Private health insurance has proven disastrous in the US. We must stop sleep-walking down a similar path in Australia.

    Private Healthcare Australia runs a quite dishonest campaign. Private health insurance has not taken pressure off public hospitals. By funding excessive private specialist fees, private health insurance has attracted many specialists away from public hospitals. Comparing like with like, private and public hospital costs are about the same. The administrative costs of private health insurance are three times those of Medicare.

    But subsidised private health insurance has one particular attraction. It enables wealthy people to avoid the queue for public hospital beds.

    A major beneficiary of private health insurance has been private hospitals and one hospital group in particular. That group is Ramsay Healthcare which operates 120 odd hospital and day-care surgeries in Australia and offshore. Like other supporters of private health insurance, Ramsay Healthcare seldom argues its case publicly. It knows that its case will not stand up to public scrutiny.

    Instead, Ramsay Healthcare relies on lobbying and political influence like so many other wealthy companies and people in Australia. In the last 14 years, Ramsay Healthcare and Paul Ramsay Holdings gave more than $1.8 million to the Liberal Party. Not a cent was given to the Labor Party. Paul Ramsay left an estate of over $3.4 billion recently. Before his death, he was Australia’s eleventh richest person.

    The private health insurance industry relies on lobbying and political influence and not on a publicly defensible case.

    The interests of Australian taxpayers and the Australian community would be better served if the $7 billion taxpayer subsidy was abolished and the money transferred to a Medicare dental scheme.

    The response of the ALP to the latest round of PHI premium increases shows that it has little idea of what is at stake…. Medicare

    See earlier post that I have made on this subject below:

    Two days before Christmas and to avoid scrutiny, the hard-to-notice Federal Minister for Health, Peter Dutton, announced a 6.2% increase in health insurance premiums for next year.

    We have seen the same pattern year after year with health insurance premiums increasing at well ahead of the CPI.

    The Howard Government introduced the Private Health Insurance (PHI) rebate in 1999. Since then the average health insurance premium has risen by 130% while overall prices have risen by less than 50%.

    The Chief Executive of NIB put the reason for the latest increase very bluntly. He said ‘the rise was necessary to meet the rising cost of providing health care’. But PHI is a key part of the problem of rising health care costs because PHI funds have little or no power in the market to contain costs. They are price-takers. The power to set prices in the health market is with the providers – doctors and hospitals – and only a single payer or national insurer, as in the UK or Scandinavian countries with national insurers, can and do exercise market power.

    Medicare would have more market power to control prices if it was the only single payer. But its power is eroded by the PHI companies. A clear example of this is gap insurance which the PHI funds offer. This gap insurance has underwritten the largest increase in specialist fees in Australia in the last quarter of a century.

    If Australians want to waste their money on expensive PHI that is their choice. But I see no reason for taxpayers providing an annual subsidy of $7 billion for PHI that enables the wealthy to jump the hospital queue.

    In February 10, 2013 year, I wrote about the rising cost of PHI. See repost below. I have also reposted ‘Health care and the budget deficit in the US’ which shows the enormous damage that PHI has wrought in the US.

    Repost (from February 10, 2013)

    Last week Health Minister Plibersek approved an average increase of 5.6% in private health insurance premiums from April this year. It is the same story year after year with health insurance premiums increasing at 2% to 3% ahead of the rate of inflation.

    There are two main reasons for these increases.

    The first and least important reason is that the administrative costs of private health insurance companies run at about 15% to 16% of premiums. Medicare, including the cost of tax collection, costs about 6% per year. Broadly speaking private health insurance administrative costs, including profit margin, run at about three times the administration costs of Medicare.

    The second and most important reason for the steady increases in premiums is that private health insurance funds are largely unable to control the price, quality and utilisation of services provided by doctors and hospitals. This is a problem for all insurers, both private and public, when services are provided free at the point of delivery. There is little incentive or opportunity for consumers to exercise power either over  the cost of the service or whether the service is  necessary. The power is with the provider, not the consumer. Economists call this ‘moral hazard’.

    But when a country has a single payer or a single national insurer, as in the UK or Scandinavian countries, the national insurers can and do exercise market power. That is why health services in those countries is invariably delivered efficiently and at low cost. . Private health insurance has practically no power to control prices and demand for health services. What is worse, private health insurance in Australia undermines the ability of Medicare to exercise market power.

    Evidence on the failure of private health insurance is clear. First, the standard example of private health insurance failure is the high cost and inequity of the US health service. That service provides the worst value for money of any health ‘system’ in the world. Secondly, The Economist, in an article on February 18, 2010, said ‘The biggest factor behind the cost conundrum is that insurers lack market power. Health care providers hold all the cards.’  Thirdly, our Productivity Commission said in 2005 ‘increased levels of private health insurance membership have been associated with a marked increase in the number of services performed and reimbursement for those services”.  Fourthly, in a review in 2003 of private health insurance in Australia, the OECD commented ‘Private (insurance) funds have not effectively engaged in cost controls. They seem to have limited tools and few incentives to promote cost efficient care … Private health insurance appears to have led to an overall increase in health utilisation in Australia …’

    Increases in private health insurance premiums ahead of the inflation rate are not surprising. Private health insurance is badly serving Australians and undermines the power of Medicare as a single payer.

    This is not to say that Medicare should not be improved. It is a very efficient payments vehicle. But it is much too passive. It was launched and still carries in its name, the ‘Health Insurance Commission’. If it were a proactive public health insurer, it could significantly reduce the malign influence of private health insurance in Australia.

    See also article by John Menadue and Ian McAuley ‘Private Health Insurance: high in cost and low in equity’ – reposted today below.

     

  • Stuart Harris. China is not seeking to break the rules of global order.

    Australia’s foreign policy, and notably its relations with the US and China, has been a mix of positives and negatives under the Coalition government, as was true of the previous Labor government.

    This reflects the lack of a broad strategic vision of Australia’s geographic realities and the evolving relationships involved.

    Former prime ministers, Gough Whitlam and Bob Hawke recognised the need for Australia to think strategically about future regional developments, and John Howard‘s thinking gradually moved in that direction. Such long term strategic thinking is more urgently needed today.

    The Asian region is changing, as are its regional dynamics. While the US is a Pacific power, it comes to Asia from outside. To complicate the picture, this is a region not only featuring China, but a China which is the largest trading partner with all Asian nations, including Australia. Our future relations with the region, in Northeast Asia and with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) particularly, will depend upon our relations with China as well as with the US.

    A coherent strategy needs to reflect the reality that we are linked to Asia from within the region. It needs to reflect the growing importance of China globally and to Australia, and to develop a political depth with that country similar to that with the US. And it will be increasingly difficult to continue separating economic and strategic issues (paralleling, as we do, the divide between engagers and confronters in US policy). Consequently, adapting historian Michael Howard’s injunction, we need greater understanding of China’s environment, history, and culture, including its political system; that understanding does not imply that we like that system, but that we are able to work effectively with it.

    The dominant and often one-sided Western perspective is not always helpful when judging whether China will be aggressive and expansionist, or whether it will live more or less peaceably with the rest of the world. We assume that terms like ‘international rules’, ‘global order’ and what constitutes ‘responsible behaviour’ are understood and accepted by all others. Yet for China, these terms have emerged from a different culture and historical experience. These differences in vision affect China’s foreign policy. Even so, despite obvious exceptions, such as human rights, in practice China is well integrated into the international system as we know it and largely complies with international rules – probably at least as well as other major powers. Despite criticism of China’s reluctance to lead internationally, that approach might suggest not just free-riding, but reluctance to challenge the existing global order.

    When China opened up under Deng Xiao-ping, it joined an international order that reflected a pluralistic view of the international community, that acknowledged differences in political and domestic value systems, and that pursued mutually acceptable global rules and geopolitical equilibrium. Then the common vision shifted and the membership bar was raised.

    Ultimately, a US led international system emerged that involved an agenda of good governance, ‘free’ markets and ‘democracy’ (usually just elections). These aimed to advance US security and its other interests. The objective of regime change under this agenda in Iraq, Libya, Egypt, Syria and perhaps Ukraine suggests we should be cautious about what we wish for. For China, in any case, it implies regime change, social instability, and the end of the Party/state.

    Of course, China has regional and global ambitions and China’s relative military and other capacities will grow, probably substantially. China wants a role that commands attention and respect from its neighbours, particularly in its ‘near abroad’, and we may not always like what it or others do. So a continued US presence in the region is critical; it needs, however, to manage relations between states rather than just pursue political change or impose views of complex issues that then become part of the problem.

    China feels internationally vulnerable and, as with the US, domestic nationalism influences its policies. Internally, China’s leaders fear fragmentation, instability and, after Bo Xilai, competition for power. China has major problems: corruption, inequalities, pollution, resource shortages, an aging population, and an economy that needs structural reform. Consequently, with domestic issues as its main priority, its foreign policies will remain largely defensive and reactive to external influences, rather than offensive and expansive. Moreover, it knows it needs stable relations with the US and its neighbours in order to sustain its development. It will seek changes to the rules by basically working within the existing framework.

    Obviously, maritime disputes are worrying but hardly central to Australia’s strategic interests. Sovereignty claims by all parties in the South China and East China Seas are unhelpful and pose serious risks of miscalculation. Outcomes that reflect resolution of sovereignty claims are unlikely. Our attention is understandably focused on China, but the historical context needs to be understood including China’s ‘missing out’ on territory in the 1960s/1970s regional ‘island grab’. Provocations and efforts to change the status quo are not limited to China or unconnected to the US pivot and the regionally divisive Trans Pacific Partnership.

    A US regional presence remains strategically important; our values, however, are often different, as at times are our vital interests, and we need to re-examine our concepts of regional order. There are considerable risks in Australia’s growing enmeshment in the US regional security system to where our security policy is increasingly a function of that of the US, and an independent Australian position difficult to maintain.

    These issues will become important in the future, possibly with long term potential dangers in adverse regional developments, notably potentially over Taiwan. US diplomatic management of such problems will remain critical, but history will treat unkindly any Australian political leader who, consciously or inadvertently, commits Australia to military conflict involving China without clear public support and a full parliamentary debate for which an explicit strategic assessment of Australia’s long term vital interests would be a prerequisite.

    Stuard Harris is emeritus professor in the Department O International Relations at the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, ANU College of Asia and the Pacific. 

    This article was also published by the ANU College of Asia and the Pacific website: http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/

    – See more at: http://www.policyforum.net/playing-by-rules/#sthash.ad9r7c6b.dpuf

  • John Menadue. How vested interests are subverting the public interest.

    There are many key public issues that we must address. They include climate change, growing inequality, tax avoidance, budget repair, an ageing population, lifting our productivity and our treatment of asylum seekers.

    But our capacity to address these hard issues is becoming very difficult because of the ability of vested interests with their lobbying power to influence governments in a quite dis- proportionate way.

    Lobbying has grown dramatically in recent years, particularly in Canberra. It now represents a growing and serious corruption of good governance and the development of sound public policy. In referring to the so called ‘public debate’ on climate change, Professor Ross Garnaut highlighted the ‘diabolical problem’ that vested interests brought to bear on public discussion on climate change.

    These problems include:

    • There are over 900 full time independent lobbyists working in Canberra, more than 30 lobbyists for every Cabinet minister. On top of these ‘third party’ lobbyists, there are the special interests who conduct their own lobbying, such as the Australian Pharmacy Guild.
    • These lobbyists encompass a range of interests including mining, clubs, hospitals, private health funds, business and hotels that have all successfully challenged government policy and the public interest. Just think what the Minerals Council of Australia did to subvert public discussion on the Super Profits Tax and the activities of Clubs Australia to thwart gambling reform, or the polluters over an Emissions Trading Scheme and the Carbon Tax. With its lobbying power over the major parties, the hotel lobby at the State level effectively determines hotel operating hours. Violence and crime are a result.
    • With journalism under-resourced, the media depends increasingly on the propaganda and promotion put into the public arena by these vested interests The Australian Centre for Independent Journalism at UTS found in a survey of major metropolitan newspapers published in Australia in 2010 that 55 per cent of content was driven by public relations handouts from lobbyists and their associated public relations arms, and 24 per cent of the content of those metropolitan newspapers had no significant journalistic input whatsoever., relying heavily on public relations handouts.
    • The Media Council of Australia has drawn attention to how media independence is increasingly compromised by ‘advertorials’, a deliberate confusing of advertising and editorial content. The Council also drew attention to trips financed by large corporations and organisations that were not disclosed. It’s not just travel companies that do this.
    • With over 60 per cent of metropolitan newspaper circulations in Australia, News Ltd is a major obstacle to informed debate on key public issues like climate change.
    • The health ‘debate’ is really between the Minister and the Australian Medical Association, the Australian Pharmacy Guild, Medicines Australia and the Private Health Insurance companies. The debate is not with the public about health policy and strategy, it is about how the Minister and the department manage the vested interests.
    • The wealthy private schools are obstacles to needs based funding which is necessary for both equity and efficiency reasons
    • Much of the policy skills in Canberra departments has been downgraded and much of the policy work is now in the hands of young staff in ministers’ offices that are much more inclined to listen to vested interests.
    • Policy work within the government is now undertaken more in specialist organisations such as the Productivity Commission rather than in the departments. Departmental policy capability has been seriously denuded.

    What can be done?

    • Federal lobbyists have to be registered with the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, but this is inadequate. They should also be obliged to promptly, publicly and accurately disclose the discussions and meetings they have had with ministers, shadow ministers and senior public servants.
    • All proposals by special interest groups should be accompanied by a public interest impact statement prepared by an independent and professional body. This public impact statement would be attached to representations from the vested interest group. Many of the major private consulting firms should be excluded from this process as many of them have shown themselves to be compromised in the interests of their clients.
    • Refuse tax benefits for ‘think tanks’ like Institute of Public Affairs which are secretly funded and act as fronts for vested interests.
    • Departments such as Health which are so influenced by special interests should have different governance arrangements. The traditional minister/departmental model in Health is a happy hunting ground for vested interests that significantly influence outcomes in health. The Reserve Bank, composed of independent and professional persons, has shown the benefit of such governance arrangements in keeping vested interests at bay and promoting an informed public debate. We need such an arrangement in the health field particularly.
    • No minister or senior official should work with a vested interest group that they have been associated with for at least five years after retirement or resignation.
    • There should be increased funding to the Parliament to provide alternate public advice in key policy areas. The Parliamentary Budget Office is a good start. The current policy vacuum must be filled by independent and professional advisers. At the moment the policy vacuum is filled by special interests assisted in many cases by a compliant and under-resourced media.
    • Adequate funding of the Australian Broadcasting Commission to assert the public interest and develop good public policy is now more important than ever.
    • Major reform of election funding to stop powerful groups buying political favours.
    • A federal Independent Commission Against Corruption and in each State to examine allegations of corruption.
    • Citizen Assemblies of randomly selected people who are fully informed on key public issues to advise governments.

    Action to assert the public interest in the face of powerful vested interests is necessary on many fronts. The problem is urgent.

    This article is part of a series ‘Who speaks for and protects the public interest in Australia? published by Australia 21. Other articles in this series can be accessed by clicking on my website at the top of this page.

  • Denis Muller. The stitch-up by The Australian.

    It is an ugly spectacle when a newspaper aligns itself with the executive government in an attempt to hound from office someone who can otherwise be removed only by the Governor-General. This is what The Australian is doing, in concert with Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Attorney-General George Brandis, to Australian Human Rights Commission President Gillian Triggs.

    It is the latest in a series of campaigns the newspaper has waged against those in public life with whom it disagrees or against whom it has a grievance.

    However, these campaigns have usually had the advancement of The Australian’s own self-interest or the settling of personal scores as their originating motivation.

    For example, it was aggrieved by its treatment at the hands of former Victoria Police chief commissioner Simon Overland. To settle the score, The Australian waged a sustained campaign for his removal. In the end, Overland resigned in messy political circumstances to which The Australian made a contribution by giving the then-Victorian Coalition government the strength of the newspaper’s convictions.

    More recently, The Australian waged a similar campaign against the then-chair of the Australian Press Council, Julian Disney, whose reforms to stiffen the effectiveness of the council the newspaper opposed. Disney served out his full term, which came to an end this month, but the campaign diverted energy and resources from the reform effort.

    However, in Triggs’ case, the originating motivation looks different. This time the motive appears to be purely ideological. The campaign is clearly designed to play into the political process in a way that is closely aligned with the political interests and strategy of the executive government.

    The contours of this strategy can be discerned from a statement by Brandis, reported in The Australian on Wednesday. Brandis is reported as saying that:

    … anger within the government intensified amid “very savage attacks” on Professor Triggs from MPs including the Prime Minister and “strongly expressed” criticism in the media, including in The Australian.

    It might well have read “principally The Australian”.

    Neat, isn’t it? Your media allies lend their platforms to help you advance your political objectives, and their coverage is then cited as a ground for legitimising those objectives.

    In our democracy, the media are meant to act as the “fourth estate” – the institution that holds to account the other three. It is a betrayal of this function to become enmeshed with the executive’s political strategy, as The Australian has done in the Triggs case.

    It is, of course, a matter of degrees. Clearly, the Coalition government and The Australian have a shared conservative ideology. It is well within their rights to share it. They are both affronted by what they say is anti-government partisanship on Triggs’ part, as they are obviously entitled to be.

    However, the point where shared ideology, shared political interests and shared opinions shade into betrayal of fourth-estate independence is difficult to define with precision. Some markers might be these:

    • To what extent and with what prominence does the newspaper publish material that is contrary to the shared political interest? For instance, what attention was paid, and with what prominence, to the offer of an alternative job said by Triggs to have been made to her in circumstances that suggested to her that it was an attempt to procure her resignation? This is a serious matter and it has been referred by shadow attorney-general Mark Drefyus to the Australian Federal Police for investigation.
    • What spectrum of opinion has been represented in the newspaper’s opinion pages on this matter?
    • What has been the tone of the news reportage?
    • To what extent is there evidence of interplay between government MPs and the newspaper in the way the story has developed? For instance, how much of the coverage is based on government backgrounding of the newspaper?

    So far, there is scant evidence of this last factor. But on the remaining three we can make some observations. The issue of a possible inducement received a very low level of attention; the spectrum of opinion has been all against Triggs; and the tone of reporting has been unmistakably hostile to her, as have the headlines.

    If it was just a one-off case, The Australian’s conduct would perhaps not merit such attention, but it is part of a pattern that ill-serves the public interest. There is a due process for removing statutory office-holders. The grounds for removing a member of the Human Rights Commission are confined to misbehaviour or physical or mental incapacity. Nothing Triggs has done has triggered that process.

    Triggs may have lost the confidence of Abbott and Brandis, but that is not a ground for removing her. As The Australian itself has said, she is on political trial and Abbott has delivered his verdict. In doing so, he spoke of a “stitch-up”.

    But if there is a stitch-up going on here, it is what the government and The Australian are joined in doing to Triggs.

    Denis Muller is Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Advancing Journalism at University of Melbourne. This article first appeared in The Conversation on 25 February 2015.

  • John Menadue. Mother Merkel and 800,000 refugees

    In September last year I posted an article about the Heroism of Angela Merkel in her generous response to asylum seekers arriving in Germany.

    She is holding to her course but the difficulties are increasing. The attacks on women in Cologne by men who were reported to be of Arab or North African decent on New Year’s Eve coloured attitudes. This unfortunate event and growing concern has resulted in Angela Merkel’s approval rating dropping from a high of 75% almost a year ago to 46% now.

    It was always going to be difficult and leadership in this area will always be politically fraught. It is so easy for the unscrupulous to appeal to the fear of foreigners, the outsider and the person who is different.

    The arrival of newcomers in any country is probably the greatest test of leadership.

    Ben Chifley made a courageous decision that Australia should accept large numbers of Jewish people following the disastrous events of WWII in Europe. He didn’t do any public polling or focus groups. If he had and was influenced by it, we would not have accepted Jewish refugees.

    In the 1970s, Malcolm Fraser didn’t wait for political polling to decide if we should accept refugees from Indochina. I am sure that if he had commissioned any polling, it would have told him to be careful.

    In Australia every group of new arrivals, whether migrants or refugees, has encountered opposition. but we have got through these difficulties and as a community we now look back with pride with what we have done in accepting people from Germany, the Baltic countries, Italy, Turkey, and Indochina.

    The opposition to Angela Merkel is nothing new. It will need courage and skill to see off those who resent her country helping vulnerable people.  Perhaps like Australians in receiving newcomers, the Germans will also get satisfaction out of knowing that they responded well and that not only the newcomers, but the German people were beneficiaries.

    Repost from September 2015

    With its sometimes dark history, Germany is facing a great test with the unprecedented arrival of asylum seekers .There are conflicting signs of great generosity, disappointment, anger, hope, mistrust and honesty. A great drama is being played out.

    With the support of her political opponents in the Social Democratic Party, Angela Merkel of the Conservative Christian Democratic Union is grappling with courage and determination a trial for the heart of Germany. She warned ‘If Europe fails on the question of refugees, its close connection with universal civil rights will be destroyed’. 

    In an article in Spiegel Online on 31 August, staff correspondents wrote of the ‘Dark Germany and the Bright Germany.  Which side will prevail under the strain of refugees.’

    They said

    How long will the alliance of reason hold up? … As many as 800,000 refugees and migrants may arrive in Germany this year. … and even if we don’t really know how things will develop in coming years, one thing is certain;  the numbers aren’t likely to drop appreciably … it is also certain that the newcomers will change our country. Germans have only recently become used to the idea that they live in a country of immigration and now, the next illusion is being destroyed;  that there is such a thing as controlled immigration. It isn’t just the best minds that are coming to us; it is people fleeing Assad’s barrel bombs and Islamic State brutality. They are running for their lives, whether they are illustrious or illiterate.

    The good news is that most Germans don’t have a problem with this. Sixty percent are of the opinion that the country can absorb the huge numbers of refugees currently arriving. And a new form of civility is developing, one that isn’t just being driven by pricks of conscience and the weight of the past. Rather, it is fuelled by the joy of doing good. But how long will it last?

    Mother Merkel as many refugees now call her, is showing courage and leadership, something we lack in Australia. She is finding the road rocky and hilly, but she offers great hope. She is appealing to the better angels of the German people        John Menadue

    For a full account of the Spiegel article, see link below:  http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/spiegel-cover-story-the-new-germany-a-1050406.html

  • Intergenerational Report and Australia’s future.

    In The Age on February 23, Sam Hurley from the Centre for Policy Development highlighted the importance of long-term policy priorities that will support people across all generations. He refers to the crucial issues that we must face that go beyond the one-liners about debt and deficit. See link to article below.  John Menadue.

    http://www.theage.com.au/comment/the-intergenerational-report-should-be-the-time-for-a-conversation-about-australias-future-20150223-13m59i.html

  • The economic potential of older people.

    In the SMH on February 22, Susan Ryan, the Age Discrimination Commissioner, described how many older workers are being ignored , yet they could be making a more significant contribution to the economy and society. For article, see link below. John Menadue

    http://www.smh.com.au/comment/the-economic-potential-of-older-people-is-being-ignored-20150222-13lfgt.html

  • The frontier wars – best we forget.

     

    I have posted many blogs about our refusal to acknowledge the frontier wars,  when we suffered the largest death toll in war in our history in relation to our population at the time. In the SMH on February 12, see link below, Tim Flannery draws our attention to the valour of 52 indigenous people who were killed near Casterton, Victoria, in the 1840s. The victors write history! These heroes have been largely expunged from our history. There were no rewards for those who were defending their homelands in the battle known as ‘Fighting Hills’. John Menadue

    http://www.smh.com.au/comment/we-shouldn8217t-forget-the-sacrifice-of-our-aboriginal-warriors-20150212-13bzib.html

  • Mark Triffitt and Travers McLeod. Don’t blame micro-parties or the Senate.

    Paul Keating famously labelled the Senate “unrepresentative swill”. Similar sentiments – while not as colourful – are being voiced by those frustrated with the blocking power of the Senate’s micro-parties.

    In a recent Australian Financial Review survey, leading corporate CEOs called for major reform to the Senate.

    At one level it is not hard to understand why. The Senate in general, and the minor and micro-parties that hold the balance of power in particular, were instrumental in gutting the Abbott government’s budget at a time when reform is pressing.

    Criticism of their power over policy will likely grow as the Senate casts a critical eye this year over the government’s attempts to reshape the budget and fix Australia’s tax system.

    But behind the singular criticisms of the Senate is a bigger picture of deeper dysfunction. It’s a picture that suggests the Senate is not a root cause, but part of a long list of symptoms that indicate our political system is increasingly unfit for purpose in the 21st century.

    Excluding micro-parties is not reform

    A clue to understanding these deeper problems lies in the complaints these business figures make. In essence, they lament how micro-parties are an increasingly powerful phenomenon, gaining outsized power compared to their meagre vote in elections.

    Many of the CEOs surveyed proposed that, in response, the Senate’s proportional voting system should be abolished. Or, at least, the system of preferential voting should be changed to stamp out the micro-party phenomenon.

    This would allow major parties to pass legislation with greater certainty and reduce the range of political parties able to hold the balance of power. It would also restore “representativeness” to our democratic system by ridding it of what one CEO described as “a disparate bunch of single-issue politicians”.

    On a superficial level, these and other proposals aimed at restoring the primacy of major parties seem to have merit. But these complaints overlook what is occurring within our political system, and the political arena more generally.

    On the face of it, democratic systems like Australia’s look the same as 20 or 30 years ago. Major parties dominate the day-to-day political process, presenting their policy programs at general elections as they vie to form government and represent the general public.

    But beneath the surface the relationship between citizens and these parties has been fundamentally and irreversibly weakened. This is reflected in membership and support for major political parties, which have fallen across the Western world.

    In contrast, support for smaller parties has risen sharply, albeit from low bases.

    Why?

    Because voter preferences are no longer shaped predominantly by class, ideology, ethnicity and geography. And it is to these catch-all attributes that major political parties traditionally appealed.

    19th-century model is showing its age

    In a 21st-century internet-driven, globalised world, the array of political choices and identities available to voters are increasing and fragmenting.

    This reflects broader changes in a society in which choices – political, social or economic – are influenced by a widening collection of complex factors.

    Major parties are finding it increasingly difficult to develop a coherent overarching narrative for what they seek in government and why it benefits the community as well as the individual over the long term.

    In contrast, voter fragmentation suits micro and minor parties. With their single or limited issues campaigns they can cut through the political noise with more succinct appeals and arguments. They offer retail politics in a wholesale world.

    Informal groupings and alliances of micro-parties likewise can respond more nimbly to the flux of 21st-century voter sentiment.

    In addition to the splintering of traditional voter blocs, voter choices are rarely static. Our democratic system is now characterised by larger and unpredictable cohorts of “swinging” voters. Their political preferences and voting intentions constantly change, often heavily influenced by a single issue or narrower policy platform.

    The major parties, as a result, become less flexible and responsive. Their feedback mechanisms are often stilted. They can be held up by procedural delays, adherence to party rules or structures, and even the “need” for cabinet solidarity.

    All this suggests micro-parties may not be some kind of unwelcome or unrepresentative intrusion into our democratic system, as conventional views would have it. Whether by accident or design, they have allied themselves with the way the 21st-century political world is being restructured.

    In short, all this should signal that new political configurations like micro-parties need to be accommodated, not curtailed.

    However, advocating more collaborative attitudes to politics and policy-making can only get us so far, particularly if major parties won’t work together on long-term reform.

    Our democracy needs new organising principles

    Ultimately the micro-party issue should begin to highlight how our political system is predicated on many organising principles that no longer apply.

    The system requires functional majorities – built on major parties achieving stable blocs of voter support – to get anything major done. This is a system where the languid decision-making processes of parliament are increasingly left behind by a super-speed 21st century.

    This is a system that seems unable to acknowledge what many citizens already know: that so much going on in our globalised and interdependent world escapes the control of territorially based parties and parliaments.

    Broader, progressive reforms to our democratic institutions are urgently needed to reflect the realities of a new political and policy world.

    We need to have a conversation about managing this world more effectively with more inclusive structures of policy-making and more innovative systems of voter input. The conversation needs to tackle some weighty issues, namely:

    • What is the role of political parties, both large and small, in this system and what processes might encourage more effective political and policy collaboration?
    • What sort of voting and electoral systems best capture and reflect the kaleidoscopic nature of today’s citizenry?
    • What reforms do our democratic institutions require so they can develop the policies Australia needs to thrive over the long term, beyond short-term political cycles that can turn in days?

    It is this path – not attempts to restore a world that no longer exists through piecemeal changes to a single part of the system – that will give our democracy the new lease of life it sorely needs.

    Mark Triffitt is Lecturer, Public Policy at University of Melbourne.

    Travers McLeod is Honorary Fellow in the School of Social and Political Sciences at University of Melbourne.

    This article was first published in The Conversation on 23 February 2015.

     

     

  • John Menadue. Is there intergenerational theft?

    Yes – there certainly is, but not in the ways that Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey suggest.

    In his National Press Club speech on February 2, Tony Abbott said ‘Reducing the deficit is the fair thing to do because it ends the intergenerational theft against our children and grand-children.’

    Joe Hockey has also been talking up issues of intergenerational theft in preparation for the release of the fourth Intergenerational Report (IGR).  He says we will ‘fall off our chairs’ when we see the numbers in the report. Apparently the government plans an advertising campaign to tell us how serious the problem is of our ageing population and the economic consequences.

    Joe Hockey’s rhetoric is designed to resurrect his failed sound bite about debt and deficits. Unfortunately for him, the public is not listening to his message that the budget needs to be brought into balance. We have turned off because of his and Tony Abbott’s wild exaggeration on debt and deficits, and the obvious unfairness of his 2014 budget.

    But we do have an intergenerational problem. There are several contributing factors.

    The first and by far the most important is climate change. My generation is failing to take this problem seriously. Our failures will bring major problems, even calamity for our grand-children. Global warming has major impacts – rising temperatures, changes in rainfall patterns, drier and hotter summers, more bushfires, fewer but more destructive cyclones, rising sea levels, and destruction of icons like the Great Barrier Reef. This is an intergenerational threat on an enormous scale. The Abbott government has done less than almost any government in the developed world to address the Damocles sword of climate change that is hanging over our grand-children’s future. The Abbott government has dismantled almost every program to tackle climate change.

    On the economic front the Abbott government has refused to tackle the issues that give privileges to older generations like mine.

    Superannuation tax concessions cost the taxpayer about $32 billion p.a. and rising rapidly to almost $50 billion by 2017-18. This generous middle-class welfare benefits older generations. We don’t even have to pay tax on superannuation income once we turn 60. This is intergenerational theft. The Abbott government like its predecessors is dodging the issue. Vested interests in the superannuation sector and particularly the four major banks with their large superannuation subsidiaries are doing their best to protect the wealthy and the aged.  The unfair privileges for older Australians like me are being protected.

    Older and wealthy people are putting their money into investor housing to get a tax advantage through negative gearing. The estimated tax loss of this is $7 billion p.a. Over 60% of bank loans for housing is for investor loans. Is it any surprise that first-home buyers – my grandchildren’s generation – are finding it extremely difficult to buy a house; something that my generation took for granted. A student asked the Reserve Bank Governor, Glen Stevens, at Club Central, Hurstville, ‘How am I ever going to afford a house?’.  We are engaging in intergenerational theft.

    The discount on the Capital Gains Tax is largely at the expense of younger generations

    Then there is the Abbott government’s proposal that we hear about so much from Christopher Pyne that will load up students with enormous debt in the future. Intergenerational theft!

    The Abbott government proposes to penalise the unemployed, mainly young people, by denying them unemployment benefits for a period.

    Now we learn that the government and the opposition are refusing to entertain any idea of including the home in the means test for the aged pension. Once again, the older generation like mine, will benefit, with many senior taxpayers with large and expensive mansions drawing the aged pension or aged pension concessions.

    We do have a problem with the privileges that my generation enjoys. The scales are being steadily loaded against my grand-children’s generation.

    Climate change is the most critical way in which we are refusing to acknowledge the rights of younger generations. We look like handing on to them a planet that is under serious threat.

  • Brian Johnstone. The forgotten children. The ethical dimension.

    Professor Gillian Triggs, president of the Australian Human Rights Commission, has found that by reason of its policy of the continued retention of children of asylum seekers, Australia has been and remains in breach of its international obligations. This applies to both major political parties. The legal argument is clear and has not been refuted. The best the Prime Minister could offer was bluster, condemning the report as a “transparent stitch-up.” Australia’s Human Rights Commissioner Tim Wilson conceded that retaining children in detention was not in anyone’s interest, but provided no justification for continuing the detention.

    The Report of the Commission argues that asylum seeker families and children have been left “. . . [i]n a legal black hole in which their rights and dignity have been denied.” This ethical claim needs supporting argument.

    Contemporary philosophers and lawyers have been working to clarify the notion of dignity. A leading exponent is Charles Foster, Fellow of Green Templeton College, and University of Oxford in Human Dignity in Bioethics and Law (2011).

    Foster cites Christopher McCrudden’s summary of the basic, minimal agreed content of the notion of dignity drawn from international human rights texts; there are three points. The first is that “Every human being possesses an intrinsic worth merely by being human.” The second is that “This intrinsic worth should be recognised and respected by others;” it follows that some ways of treating others are inconsistent with this dignity or required by this dignity. The third is that the state exists for the sake of the individual person and not vice versa.   The first point is ‘ontological;’ it refers to the being of the person. The second is relational; it concerns ways in which persons connect with each other. The third is political; it expresses the basic priorities that should govern political judgments and activities.

    Foster begins his account with a question: “What makes humans thrive?” This was expressed in traditional philosophy drawing on Aristotle as “flourishing.” We can clarify what dignity requires and what violates dignity by asking what enables people to thrive. It is important for Foster’s argument that we can meaningfully ask this question not only of mature individuals, who we may presume are fully rational and free, but of the youngest children and of the most disabled. Foster argues that to make sound ethical and legal decisions we have to inquire empirically what is good for us.

    We can connect Foster’s arguments with the present debates in Australia. As cited by Kim Oates in his recent contribution, the Australian Government’s own Early Years Learning Framework describes three foundations as the basis for healthy childhood growth and progress for pre-schoolers: “Belonging, being and becoming.” We can adopt the same three points to develop an account of dignity that is more specifically related to the present Australian situation.

    To thrive, a human person needs to belong, that is to be part of a human community; this is the relational aspect of dignity. This community will normally be a family, but it could also be, of course, another group that takes over the role of the family. A family gives to its members and in particular to children what they need to thrive; food, clothing, affection, education. Children need to form relationships so as to establish a secure sense of themselves. Children characteristically achieve this by play-based behaviour. Learning to be themselves corresponds to the ‘ontological’ element of dignity.

    They are enabled to become more fully themselves by engaging their capacities to learn and develop. Becoming is another word for thriving. The adults who are responsible for the children themselves thrive by engaging in these processes on behalf of children.

    Thriving is the basis of dignity. But dignity entails more than this; it requires recognition. A parent or responsible adult recognizes the child as one who has inherent worth and enables a child to thrive. But the parent or adult who acts in such a way receives recognition also, recognition as a person of dignity.

    Dignity is always a two-way notion; when one person recognises the dignity of another, the other accepts that recognition and in so doing recognises the dignity of the first. When the first receives that recognition she can then recognise her own dignity.   I cannot recognise dignity in myself while I act in such a way as to refuse to recognise the dignity of the other.

    Dignity in one important aspect entails recognition of self, of one’s own inherent worth. But the individual cannot recognise her or his own worth, without recognising the worth of those others with whom they are engaged. An adult who denies to a child for whom she or he is responsible what the child needs to thrive is denying to himself what that adult needs to thrive, namely recognition of his own inherent worth. A community of persons who recognize their own inherent worth or dignity will want to protect others whose dignity they recognize, especially when that dignity is being violated. Such protection is a requirement of justice which is the basis of rights.

    Finally, the third element of the generally accepted notion of dignity also applies: the state exists for the sake of persons; persons may not be used as means for the benefit of the state and much less for keeping a political party in power.

    We can now return to the empirical investigation that Charles Foster requires. The report of the Australian Human Rights Commission on Children in Detention, “The Forgotten Children” clearly provides ample empirical evidence that the children in detention are not being adequately provided with the support that would enable them to thrive. Rather, the contrary is the case: they are being treated in ways that seriously damage their thriving.

    The case against the present policy of the Australian government regarding the detention of children can be summed up as follows:

    • The government is in violation of its international treaty obligations.
    • It is using the children as means to support its policies on refugees so as to remain in power, thus violating the due relationships between the state and individual persons.
    • Finally, those who support and implement these policies are violating the dignity of the children. In so doing they are denying their own dignity.   They make it impossible for themselves to recognise their own dignity. They also make it impossible for us, the citizens of Australia, to recognise their dignity.

  • Tony Kevin, Tony Abbott’s crassness could cost the Bali duo their lives.

     

    Let me first declare my biases. I believe that I honour and respect Indonesia’s values and culture. I oppose the death penalty in general. In this case, I would welcome an outcome that saved the lives of the last two members of the Bali Nine who now face execution In Indonesia, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, for the offence of smuggling drugs out of Indonesia in 2005. I believe every life saved from deliberate violent death affirms and enriches our collective humanity; and that the quest for consistency of action is the enemy of mercy. I also believe the murky AFP role in the history of the Bali Nine’s arrest as they were leaving Indonesia imposes a special moral obligation on Australia to do everything possible to try to save these two men’s’ lives now.

    Now let me comment on the Australian diplomacy surrounding this, as neutrally as I can. Over the years, Australian representations have had much success in securing commutation of sentences of many Australians accused of serious drug offences in Indonesia: most famously Schiapelle Corby, but also (in a very complex legal history – see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bali_Nine) the other seven members of the Bali Nine. Andrew and Myuran are the last two, and it is their tragedy that their sentences could not be commuted in time under the former President Yudhoyono.

    Under President Jokowi, lines have been drawn in the sand. Indonesia’s national honour is now strongly engaged. And Tony Abbott’s ill-judged recent public diplomacy, if it can be called that, has made matters far worse. Abbott has possibly doomed the two men, though I still hope not.

    For an informed current Indonesian elite perspective, I turned to Yohanes Sulaiman’s piece in The Conversation yesterday   https://theconversation.com/why-indonesia-is-likely-to-ignore-protests-and-execute-bali-nine-duo-37645. Sulaiman expects Indonesia to ignore protests and execute the two men, because the domestic political costs for Jokowi of granting pardon is too great;   because there is strong elite Indonesian support for the death penalty in major drug cases; and because of a strong nationalist backlash against foreign pressure. Tellingly, Sulaiman cites an Indonesian Professor of International Law’s critique of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon’s appeal in this case: where, he asks, was Ban when Indonesian migrant workers were executed in Saudi Arabia?

    The separate but coordinated appeals on 17 February by all six living former Australian prime ministers might of themselves have had some positive impact on President Jokowi, in light of the drama of the gesture and of Indonesian values of respect for age, wisdom and political seniority. The delay in taking the men to the execution island may have been a guarded initial response to those powerful appeals, from which I recall key words here:

    Kevin Rudd – “As a deep, long-standing friend of Indonesia, I would respectfully request an act of clemency.”

    Julia Gillard –   “I would find it heartbreaking if such extraordinary efforts to become of good character were not met with an act of mercy.”

    John Howard – “Mercy being shown in such circumstances would not weaken the deterrent effect of Indonesia’s strong anti-drug laws.”

    Paul Keating – “In this case, the penalty is out of all proportion to the crime.”

    Bob Hawke – “I call on the Indonesian government to show mercy and clemency … Justice should be based on human understanding… ”

    Malcolm Fraser – “We are very much opposed to the death penalty in Australia.”

    Unfortunately, Abbott may have the very next day, 18 February, destroyed this glimmer of hope by his crass and over-the-top linking of past Australian generous disaster relief aid to Indonesia to the fate of the two men. As in the presidential eavesdropping episode, well remembered by Indonesians, he compounded the error by his defiant refusal to admit afterwards that his linkage had been a threat: “No, I was just stating facts”.

    Abbott has now left Jokowi in the unpalatable position that any act of clemency could be seen as succumbing to Abbott’s thinly veiled blackmail.

    And where does this leave Abbott if Indonesia does execute the men? If Indonesia then experiences a major natural disaster while Abbott is still our PM, will he really announce: ‘No, we won’t help you, because you executed Chan and Sukamaran.”? I don’t think so: Abbott’s veiled threat is actually hollow. But it will nevertheless be long remembered in Jakarta as another notorious example of Australian arrogance and lack of manners. It may have spoiled whatever good the intervention of the six former prime ministers might have done.

    Chan and Sukamaran’s best hope now is for Abbott and his ministers – indeed, for any Australian politician – to say nothing more in public on the matter. Let Jakarta try if it can to find a way over coming weeks to deal with this further damaging episode in Australian –Indonesian relations: hopefully, in a way that spares these two last Bali Nine members’ lives.

     

  • John Menadue. Cover-up in the health system.

    There is an unacceptable refusal by many in the health sector to publish data and information about how services are delivered. There is a cover-up by powerful providers who don’t want transparency and exposure about the way they work.

    At the Bundaberg Hospital some years ago it was clear that surgeons had little confidence in surgeon, Jayant Patel. But they sat on their hands and did little to protect the public. It was left to nurses to blow the whistle and risk their careers.

    Judge Geoffrey Davies AO spoke of this problem in an address last October to 1,200 orthopaedic surgeons in Brisbane. The speech was reported earlier in this blog (7/12/15). It is very blunt about the performance of many orthopaedic surgeons.

    Extracts from the transcript of his speech follow:

     

    Why won’t you do something about incompetent surgeons?

    The Hon Geoffrey Davies AO

    You all know that, in your midst, there are incompetent surgeons; surgeons whom you would never recommend to your friends or family. They may have varying degrees of incompetence and for different reasons. But all are a danger. All can cause injury.

    Together you know who many of them are. But for various reasons you have done little individually and nothing collectively, to expose them or even to identify them confidentially for the purpose of retraining or limitation of practice.

    Patients are entitled to know, before they choose you for their surgery, rather than one of your competitors, not only how your fees compare with those of your competitors, but also how your success rate compares with that of your competitors; and that that latter information, in the case of much orthopaedic surgery, is recorded in your National Joint Replacement Registry.

    Why would surgeons who are otherwise honest and decent men and women and who are themselves competent, fail to speak out against what was plainly gross incompetence causing harm? The author of the Bristol Inquiry report described it as an “old boys’ culture”. But that is simply a euphemism. The true reason must surely be either a view that the reputation of your profession is more important than the health and safety of patients; or a view that the incompetence of your colleagues is none of your business. It can’t surely be a misplaced loyalty to your incompetent colleagues. It wasn’t in Bundaberg because none of the other doctors there really liked Dr Patel.

    If, individually, you don’t speak out, patients may be injured, possibly seriously.

    As you are aware, following my Inquiry, there is now a mandatory requirement that you notify the Health Ombudsman if you have a reasonable belief that another health professional has behaved in a way which constitutes a significant departure from accepted professional standards; and that such behaviour has placed the public at risk of harm. You do not appear to have responded to this obligation notwithstanding the freedom which it confers from any legal or administrative action. And the legislation invites you to notify in respect of less serious incompetence and, if you do, also offers you full protection against legal or administrative action provided your notification is made honestly.

    If, in those circumstances, you as individual surgeons will not act to protect the public from your incompetent colleagues, I have come to wonder how likely it is that your association or any other specialist association is ever likely to do so. However, as I shall point out, there are a number of ways in which it can and should do so.

    Surgeons who are the subject of multiple complaints Studies in 2006 in New Zealand and the United Kingdom both show a close correlation between complaints and preventable adverse events :

    -Two thirds of complainants had experienced adverse events; and
    -75% of those adverse events were preventable.

    And a study in 2012 of nearly 19,000 formal health care complaints against doctors, including surgeons, in Australia between 2000 and 2011 showed that two prior complaints over eleven years was a strong predictor of short term further complaints. It found that:

    – compared with doctors with one prior complaint over that period, those with two complaints had nearly double the risk of recurrence;
    – that risk increased substantially with each additional complaint.
    – and these, in turn, showed that complaint prone doctors could be identified early in their complaints trajectory.

    Together these studies show, in my view, a strong likelihood that those surgeons who have had, for example, two or more complaints within an eleven year period are incompetent.

    Evidence (also) show that incompetent surgeons are much more likely to be found among older surgeons than among surgeons in early or mid-career.

    There are three conclusions that can be reached from this evidence. The first is that the proportion of incompetent surgeons is likely to be greater in the older age group than in the mid-career group. The second is that this conclusion is not generally recognised or, at least, admitted within your profession. And the third is that there needs to be much greater scrutiny, than there is at present, of the performance of older surgeons, partly for these reasons, but partly also because there is likely to be much greater resistance, in your profession, to complaining about a once competent surgeon who is no longer so than there is about a younger incompetent surgeon.

    Individual notifications under the Legislation, like complaints by patients, can never uncover more than a small percentage of the total number of incompetent surgeons. That is why the primary responsibility for uncovering and dealing with incompetent surgeons must be upon those who can establish a system for such objective assessment.

    The view that the best way of determining competence is by assessment of actual operations appears to be rejected by you in a number of ways.

    First, you appear to ignore the fact that multiple complaints against a surgeon probably prove a pattern of incompetence.

    Secondly, you will not make participation in morbidity audits compulsory notwithstanding the overwhelming evidence of the benefit of such participation.

    Thirdly, you will not permit audits of either kind to identify and record the name of a surgeon the subject of adverse events notwithstanding the evidence that this would enable determination of a pattern of incompetence.

    And fourthly, you will not permit the NJRR to be used for this purpose notwithstanding that, as I believe, it can do so. If I am correct in that belief, I think that you have been acting improperly in failing to use it for that purpose. In saying that I appreciate that surgeons have been contributing data to the NJRR on the promise of anonymity. But that could and should have been changed before now.

    I cannot see how the imposition of a fine or suspension from practice for a period can, alone, be an appropriate remedy for incompetence. The surgeon should be retrained if that is possible. But in many cases, especially those of older surgeons, that will not be possible. In that case he must have his practice limited to exclude operations of the kind which he cannot safely perform or he must be prevented from practising. Suspension from practice, in whole or in part, is appropriate only while decisions are pending about retraining or limitation or ceasing practice.

    Why you won’t do something about incompetent surgeons?

    I regret to say that my answer to this question is not one which you will like. Yet all of the evidence that I have seen convinces me that I am right.

    What then is the answer to my question? I think that there are two.

    The first involves how you think and act individually.

    Many of you are concerned that disclosure of your own success rate or, more accurately, your failure rate might increase your risk of being sued. But realistically that is a risk for only a small minority whom you should want to see dealt with, for the health and safety of future patients.

    Many of you are also concerned that reporting another surgeon whom you believe is incompetent may rebound on you. I have said that I understand that. But that concern does not excuse you, particularly given the protection which the law now gives you.

    The second involves how you think and act collectively, as the AOA.

    Collectively you are, it seems to me, still primarily a trade union having the primary purpose of looking after the wellbeing of orthopaedic surgeons. And sadly you appear, so far, to have put that before the health and safety of patients.

    To change that you must make participation in morbidity audits compulsory for your members. You must require the recording of the names of surgeons involved in adverse events. You must use the results of these, and the results of complaints records to identify incompetent surgeons.

    And you must use the NJRR for this purpose.

    When I spoke at your annual conference in Adelaide four years ago I was still optimistic that you might, individually and collectively, do something about this serious problem. Despite your inaction since then, I remain optimistic. But time and public confidence are running out.

     

    Geoffrey Davies was a judge of the Queensland Supreme Court of Appeal for 14 years. He headed the 2005 inquiry into the Bundaberg surgeon Jayant Patel. 

    This speech was reported in The Australian on October 17, 2015.

     

     

     

  • John Menadue. Privatisation – a worn-out ideology.

    Voters are making it plain that they are not keen on privatisation. Economic research also tells us that the evidence in favour of privatisation is not conclusive.

    Conservatives claim that privately owned businesses are better managed than public ones, but I suggest that the main reason for increased productivity of businesses that are sold is not privatisation but the deregulation of the market, offered at the same time or in anticipation of privatisation.

    Essential Report in early February this year asked interviewees about their attitude to privatisation. Their responses to questions were as follows.

    • Selling off public utilities to private companies will help the economy. 25% agreed and 53% disagreed.
    • Selling government assets frees up money to reallocate to other services and infrastructure. 38% agreed and 44% disagreed.
    • Privatisation mainly benefits the corporate sector. 70% agreed and 13% disagreed.
    • Utilities like water and power supply is too important to be sold off. 72% agreed and 13% disagreed.

    As I mentioned in my blog on 4 February ‘Recent polling by Reach Tel for Stop the Selloff Campaign  reveals that 67% of people in Victoria and 74% of people in South Australia believe that they were worse off with privatised electricity networks.’

    The Swinburne Business School has studied closely the data on the effects of privatisation. It concludes that the evidence is ‘far from conclusive’ one way or another. This study was recently published in the Australian Economic Review.

    Overall I suggest that there is little evidence that privatisation has delivered improvements in living standards, but Conservatives and particularly financial advisers and underwriters who benefit from privatisation, keep spruiking about its merits.

    If we look at the big ticket privations in Australia, the story is mixed.

    Telstra was the largest privatisation but the improvements have come through increased competition and deregulation in the retail sector. If the wholesale arm of Telstra (exchanges, cables, etc.) had not been privatised – structural separation – we would be well on the way to a world class NBN. The privatisation of Telstra’s wholesale arm was an enormous mistake. We are paying dearly for it.

    Have we benefitted from the privatisation of the Commonwealth Bank? With the strong market power of the four banks today, there is little to distinguish the public contribution of the Commonwealth Bank.

    Has the privatisation of Qantas worked? The main public benefits have occurred because of market deregulation, the end of the two-airline domestic policy and increased international competition by allowing in more foreign operators. To make a political success of privatising British Airways, Maggie Thatcher fattened up BA before the sale by helping to get rid of some of BA’s competitors and by entrenching BA’s position on Atlantic routes and at Heathrow airport.

    Are we better off with the privatisation of our airports? Capital city airports are really natural monopolies with very little competition. They are able to exploit their market power by gouging consumers. Sydney Airport has been given a privileged position which will enable it to veto any effective competitor for a second Sydney airport.

    We had a clear message on privatisation from voters in both the Victorian and Queensland elections and asset sales will be a key issue in the pending NSW election.

    The NSW government is telling us that the only way to build infrastructure is to sell electricity assets. But with interest rates at record low levels it has never been cheaper than today to borrow. We don’t have a debt problem despite the shrill propaganda. Furthermore, Australian governments can borrow much more cheaply than private operators.

    The NSW government is warning that a plan by the Australian Energy Regulator to force NSW electricity networks to cut their share of household electricity prices by 30% from July 1 this year could threaten the safety and reliability of the state’s power network. What nonsense! The NSW government is opposed to this cut in prices because if it did so the profitability of the networks would be reduced and the return from the planned 49% privatisation would be significantly downgraded. The NSW government wants to fatten up the electricity utilities by denying price reductions to consumers.

    Privatisation is not a magic bullet as we have seen in so many instances. It is looking more and more like an ideological hangover. Voters are clearly not convinced.

  • Peter Day. Life is sacred, but ….

    The “other” is no longer a brother or sister to be loved, but simply someone who disturbs my life and my comfort … In this globalized world, we have fallen into globalized indifference.  We have become used to the suffering of others: it doesn’t affect me; it doesn’t concern me; it’s none of my business!      (Pope Francis)

    I had the misfortune recently of watching the Four Corners investigation into live-baiting in the greyhound industry – trainers were filmed using live rabbits, piglets and possums to instil the blood lust in dogs in order to improve their chasing/racing skills.

    I imagine there will be – it’s already started – an almighty avalanche of anger directed towards those who pursue cruelty in order to benefit financially – and justifiably so.

    Life is sacred – even the lives of rabbits, possums, and piglets.

    Similarly, there is an almighty howl of protest concerning the pending executions of drug traffickers Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran – and justifiably so.

    Life is sacred – even the lives of drug traffickers.

    And, what of those forgotten children in Australian immigration detention centres: again, much angst and chest beating – and justifiably so.

    Life is sacred – even the lives of ‘illegals’ and strangers and ‘queue jumpers’.

    Perhaps one day the mainstream media and the public might dare to pursue, also with moral courage, the plight of the unborn; tens of thousands of whom disappear without trace each year – I’m especially concerned for those victims of late-term abortions (i.e. 16 weeks and beyond).

    Life is sacred – even the lives of the tiny and ‘unseen’.

    In regards to the latter, a notoriously emotive and neuralgic issue, it is vital that we do not allow the bullying of religious nutters and moralists to justify a “we cannot afford to go there” approach – to justify shutting down debate.

    Indeed, is it not the case that in order to counter this rigid and unattractive polemic, and to ensure I am not seen to be in their camp; we have, as a collective, tended to gravitate towards the more comfortable and acceptable narrative of the so called ‘social progressives’; the one that espouses tolerance and individual freedom; the one that encourages a polite acquiescence – but at what price and at whose expense?

    Surely, in a world where whales and rabbits and old trees and heritage buildings are treated as precious, as of significant value – and rightly so, there is room for a mainstream and adult conversation about those other forgotten children.

    I am not in any way suggesting yet another unseemly finger-pointing exercise, nor am I advocating criminalisation. Indeed, compassion compels one to want to walk alongside a woman confronting such a choice, even to cry with her.

    Further, this issue cannot be reduced to simplistic labelling – i.e.  you’re either pro-abortion or anti-abortion, pro-life or pro-choice – left v right etc. It’s far more complex and layered than that.

    What I am advocating is a robust and reasoned, if sometimes heated, public conversation like those we have around those other conservation issues alluded to above.

    Perhaps such a conversation might begin with a question: “What does it mean to be human?”

    For now, at least, we seem to be mired in more of that globalised indifference which insists upon silence.

    Peter Day is a Catholic parish priest in Canberra.

     

     

  • Mary Chiarella. Luke Foley – Nurse-led clinics and primary health care.

    In 2011 I gave the last Oration for what was originally the NSW College of Nursing in the Great Hall of Sydney University. In it I advocated for nurses to be able to work to full scope of practice, particularly in the area of primary and preventive health care, in order to alleviate demands on our overstretched hospital systems. Given we currently have a significant oversupply of nurses in this country, especially in our new graduate population, this seems like an excellent time to deploy nurses into some of these roles, long overdue in Australia but commonplace in other parts of the world. . The first ever NSW College of Nursing Oration was given on the 15th September 1953 by M.I. Lambie, who was not only the first Orator for the College, but the first woman to give an Oration in the Great Hall of Australia’s oldest university. Miss Lambie was the New Zealand Nursing Adviser to the World Health Organisation (WHO) and Chair of the Expert Nursing Committee of WHO. Let me read to you her introductory words as she talks of the problems in health care in the developed world:

    These facts have caused increasing demands on hospitals; the rapid turnover in surgical beds together with the larger numbers of elderly and chronic patients has forced consideration to be given to the whole problem of hospitalisation by many authorities. The increased use of hospitals means automatically more staff or the better use of existing staff”[1]. 

    Plus ca change, plus la meme chose. She goes on to advocate for the growth in primary health care that is occurring in developing countries “putting more emphasis on the preventive aspect, which in turn will set an example to many of the older countries”. Well sadly not much yet, Miss Lambie, not much yet. I’m afraid the people you were advising didn’t take your excellent advice. Lots of us have been there.

    She goes on to say

    These are examples whereby preventive means, home education and treatment have reduced the demands for hospital beds. In fact it would not have been possible to treat in this mass way in an institution. The education of the home for this kind of treatment means, however, the preparation of a worker to carry out the program. Funnily we speak of this NEW approach to medicine, and yet in her Notes on Nursing, Florence Nightingale speaks of “the need to nurse the home as well as the family[2]. 

    So we come full circle in what is needed for health care in Australia, advocated by Florence Nightingale in the 19th century, advocated by the first NSW College of Nursing Orator, Miss Lambie in the 20th century, and advocated in the 21st century by the (then) Australian Nursing Federation[3]. Let us hope, in the promises of Luke Foley to introduce four nurse-led clinics in NSW should Labor win the next election, that the wise words of our nursing forebears do not have to wait another 62 years before somebody decides to act on them. This is so obvious a solution that one wonders why it is not commonplace, rather than tentative.

    Mary Chiarella is Professor of Nursing, Sydney Nursing School, University of Sydney.

    [1] Lambie IM (1953) First Annual Oration The changing scene in health work throughout the world in The 50th Anniversary Annual Orations Vol I NSW College of Nursing: Sydney, p.9

    [2]  Ibid, p.10

    [3] Australian Nursing Federation (2009) Primary health care in Australia: a nursing and midwifery consensus view ANF: Canberra

  • Warwick Elsche. Abbott and Credlin.

    It was on again – all last week. Apart from the uncertain future of Prime Minister Tony Abbott, all political talk was of Peta Credlin his Chief of Staff and unquestionably the most talked of, written about, high profile staffer in living memory – maybe ever.

    Over more than five years in Opposition and Government, the Prime Minister himself has lauded her importance in his office and the influence she wields on him and his decision making. Apart from normal duties she has been rewarded with the role of vetting Cabinet Papers from all Ministers, unheard of in previous administrations. Equally unprecedented is the place she has taken at the Cabinet table, where she reportedly feels free to speak if so moved.

    She had the power to vet and reject staff appointments by even the most senior Ministers and to determine what staff may travel overseas with Ministers.

    Such was her profile that Australia’s Security Organisation, ASIO, – not famous for its assessments – warned her to be more cautious with her own travel arrangements because of the vital role she played in Government. No shrinking violet, Credlin seems to share this view, having reportedly described herself as the girl who nearly won the 2010 election and did win in 2013.

    She is, say some, the brains behind the PM; others that she is merely a major influence on him. And “no” say more, who seem to share her assessment of herself. She is, to them, a key figure across the entire operations of the Government. Abbott, whose political judgement is currently under heavy questioning from both colleagues and the electorate, has added to the legend with paeans of praise both in public and private.

    The current hubbub over Credlin however is somewhat on a different note. Far from currently being seen as an ongoing Liberal celebrity, a significant majority of her former admirers are now viewing her in a different light. To them she is now viewed as a villain, a liability and a scapegoat for the Government’s current failings. At a time when her supposed talents for both boss and government are most in demand, she seems, despite the lofty reputation, to be coming up seriously short. And if Tony’s political instincts are so blunted as to leave him unaware of this, those of his colleagues do not appear to be. They now want her gone – a desire being expressed embarrassingly openly – NOW.

    Abbott’s own performance and fortunes from the time he took the Liberal leadership have been, on his own admission, linked almost totally with Credlin. Now, for the first time, the lofty reputation associated with Credlin is being questioned where it most matters – in the ranks of the Government itself. Her real worth to the Prime Minister is under close examination. After all, despite her vaulted influence, Abbott was left for more than four years pushing his universally unpopular Paid Parental Leave scheme. It was finally dumped when rejected by business, the electorate and his own Party. She argued with, not against, her boss against senior Ministers on the introduction of a six month initial ban on dole payments to the unemployed – a policy virtually guaranteed to get negative votes from every under -25 in the country and many others closer to the problem than are the comfortable Northern Sydney home environs of Abbott and his Treasurer Joe Hockey.

    Her reputed sharp political instincts failed to prevent his ludicrous decision to bestow a knighthood on Prince Phillip. In 18 months of Government she seems to have been unable to move the Prime Minister from his pathetic claims of achievement for his Government based on killing the Carbon Tax and the Mining Tax and stopping the boats. The last two of these accomplishments make no difference whatever to the everyday lives of any Australians.  On the Carbon Tax a more lively Opposition might pressure the PM to produce a single Australian family which has benefitted from Abbott’s promise of $11.00 a week once the tax was gone. This promised benefit is a theme Credlin allows him to continue although power bills nationwide show the $11.00 a week to be another Abbott fiction.

    Credlin, it seems, has also failed to appreciate that continued criticism of the previous Labor Government is neither some form of Government action – nor an excuse for inaction. At a time when polls are showing critical lows for both Abbott and his Government it is obvious this line is not working. Abbott badly needs something newer, something better. The electorate demands it and his parliamentary colleagues are joining in the push. But, between them, Abbott and his supposedly gifted lieutenant have been unable to produce anything to replace the whinge against Labor that he adopted from day one of his prime ministry. That theme, boringly overworked as it is, no longer works – look again at the polls.

    Given the dire poll position of both Abbott and Government and the growing threats to his leadership we would perhaps have expected to see Credlin at her best in the last couple of weeks. Tony and everybody else saw last week’s Press Club Address as an opportunity to suppress the growing dissatisfaction with his leadership and to reassure the country that he knew how to secure its future. But Abbott was provided with no inspiring message, no vision for the future, which might calm those now anxious about his leadership. Several times he told us Australia needed “a strong economy”. There was talk of “more jobs” but there was no outline whatever of how either of these might be achieved. There was much ”where to go” but no idea how to get there. Otherwise there was a jot of xenophobia and much more of the by now predictable overdose of criticism of his Labor predecessors.

    Is Credlin slow or is it Tony? Following his “near death experience” and promise to change and to listen, having refused requests (demands) for Peta’s dismissal, he must surely have employed his best resources on his road to recovery. But what have we seen? A continuation of his series of stumbles headed by a very unimpressive speech informing us of his narrow victory in which he included the very dubious assertion that there was no future threat to his leadership. This was followed by a stuff-up – bordering on deception – about the process to be followed in procuring Australia’s next submarine fleet when it is highly likely that in a matter of days it will be revealed that a Japanese submarine deal was a condition of the final signing of the Free Trade Agreement. Then he further isolated himself in his Party with the sacking of the insignificant but respected Philip Ruddock as the Chief Government Whip. Abbott claimed Ruddock had failed to inform him of the strength of back bench feeling about his leadership. No one wanted him removed. Credlin similarly failed to assess for Abbott the extent of the threat (doesn’t anyone in the PM’s supposedly efficient office read newspapers or watch TV)? Unlike with Ruddock there was a clamour for her removal. In what may prove another error of judgement, Ruddock went and Credlin stays. Then there was his inept disclosure in Parliament of evidence which would almost certainly be used in an upcoming terrorist trial. Then he put his popularity further at risk with an extraordinary attack on the internationally respected Human Rights Commissioner, Gillian Triggs.

    NOT A GREAT FIRST WEEK OF A REVITALISED PRIME MINISTER AND THE START OF “GOOD GOVERNMENT”.

    Under pressure, where is the evidence of the genius we have been told is running his office and where has this guidance taken the Prime Minister and his troubled Government in its first 18 months. We have a Prime Minister who, according to Newspoll, the poll most respected by both major parties, with a near record low approval rating of 24% and a record high disapproval rating of 68%. And what about the Government that Credlin and others have claimed she influences. The same respected poll has it trailing a rather colourless Opposition 57% to 43% – landslide territory – with a Primary vote at a Rudd-like level of 35%.

    If Peta Credlin, with her reputed influence and control of both PM and Government generally, has contributed in any way to the dire position in which both PM and Party find themselves, calls for her replacement can hardly be seen as unreasonable. If, on the other hand, she, is advising otherwise and being ignored, one can only wonder at the lofty reputation of control and influence and there would appear to be little reason for the PM not to appease his critical backbench by allowing her to go.

    But Abbott, in the old schoolboy marbles term, has chosen to “stick fats” with Credlin. Are we seeing yet another example of the Prime Minister’s poor political judgement?

    Warwick Elsche is Pearls and Irritations’ Canberra correspondent.

  • The Forgotten Children.

     

  • Jill White. Nurse Led Clinics for NSW.

    Luke Foley – great!

    Congratulations on committing to nurse led clinics as part of to a primary health care strategy to increase access to community based health care. The four nurse led clinics promised last week are a welcome adjunct to the current but often overstretched GP services.

    The ACT has led the way in nurse led clinics with the first, based in an emergency department, being evaluated as providing high quality safe and appropriate care; however where there was also easy access to medical care there was the risk of over-servicing lessening the cost effectiveness.  So with lesson learned the two new ACT services are in underserviced areas and are providing high quality care to a population which otherwise would have had difficulty in quick and affordable access to health care. Information on these services is available through ACT Health. It is a success story, ask the people of Belconnen and Tuggeranong.

    Our current NSW Minister for Health, Jillian Skinner, also has a public track record of commitment to improving community based services. So come on Jillian, match this promise and let’s not let party politics and election posturing get in the way of a really good idea for the health of the public.

    The past few weeks has clearly demonstrated that we are heartily sick of party based oppositional politics and if NSW does not want to risk going down the same path as Queensland or suffering the public disenchantment experienced by the Prime Minister this is the moment and this is the issue to demonstrate that the health of the public is a genuine bipartisan concern and that this is an excellent strategy. Let’s make these clinics a reality irrespective of any election and have a public commitment from both sides of politics NOW.

    I can’t let this topic go however without addressing Saxon Smith’s comment on behalf of the AMA in the SMH yesterday. He is quoted as saying “There is actually evidence suggesting nurse-led clinics can make the quality of the care worse”. What research? Conducted how and where and published in what peer reviewed journal? It is a glib and easy thing to say but where is the evidence? How does it stack up against the 20 years of rigorous, published, Australian based research which clearly demonstrates the safety and quality of the work of Nurse Practitioners?

    It’s always worth reminding ourselves  that the AMA is not only a professional body but it is also the doctor’s union and protecting income and turf is its job. We have 25 years of documented AMA opposition and scare tactics about nurses being able to work to their full scope of practice and making a broader contribution to community health.

    The vast majority of doctors in practice with whom I speak fully support an extension of the role of nurses in primary health care/ community care. They particularly understand the need to provide better access to underserved communities. This is work nurses want to do, are educated to do, and have the skills to do. Luke and Jillian please bring it on, make the commitment and don’t let better healthcare become a political football.

    Jill White was formerly the Dean of the Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery at Sydney University. 

  • Marie Coleman. Human Rights Commission and the forgotten children.

    In February 2015 the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse found that Cardinal George Pell, the former Archbishop of Sydney, had placed the church’s financial interests above his obligation to a victim of childhood sexual abuse.

    In February 2015 the Prime Minister of Australia, supported by his Ministers, has launched a blistering attack on a distinguished legal scholar and President of the independent statutory Australian Rights Commission, for a report which has found that both the Labor and Coalition Governments have failed to protect children in mandatory detention from abuse and mental and physical harm.

    Professor Gillian Triggs has found that Australia has been and remains in breach of its international obligations- under both parties. Among other straightforward and completely nonpartisan recommendations she has recommended that “An independent guardian be appointed for unaccompanied children seeking asylum in Australia” rather than the current position of the Minister for Immigration being both the guardian of such children, and the Minister responsible for their mandatory detention.

    The Royal Commission has been investigating historic instances of abuse, exploring the approaches which institutions responsible for such abuse have responded to reports of individual cases, as well as options for reparations.

    The thrust of the AHRC Report, The Forgotten Children, is to explore and document what have been the outcomes for children placed in mandatory detention, and to develop future policies and legislation which will prevent such dreadful outcomes ever again being visited on children.

    The Minister for Immigration, Peter Dutton MP, has asserted that the AHRC Report is irrelevant because any instances of maltreatment of children have been historical. The second leg of the Government’s response to the AHRC report seems to be that because Labor did it, then the Coalition’s actions, if harm has been done, are justifiable.

    The Opposition has essentially mumbled.

    The unpalatable situation is that neither Labor nor the Coalition has any way to escape from the fact that one outcome of their policies on immigration and refugees (stopping the boats) has been to put children through hell, and put Australia in breach of its obligations under international law.

    No equivocations about whether for an adolescent girl to go mad and cut herself on Nauru is better than drowning at sea, no claiming that this wouldn’t have happened if the Coalition had allowed Labor to send refugees to Malaysia, will alter the fact that neither Labor nor the Coalition has been able to articulate an acceptable , transparent and  legal method of dealing with the inevitable pressures from populations moving from political anarchy, oppression, assassinations and starvation in home countries.

    The cost of current off shore detention of refugees in 2014-15 was estimated by an Immigration Department official as $1 billion. Running the detention centre on Manus Island has cost taxpayers $632.3 million, and the operational cost of Nauru was $582.4 million, a Senate estimates hearing was told. That’s a billion dollars a year for the foreseeable future…without giving thought to the ultimate health costs for the treatment of health and psychological damages to the refugees. It doesn’t include other costs such as the role of the Australian Navy and Customs in ‘on water’ activities.

    Surely it isn’t beyond the capacity of this nation’s leaders to develop alternative strategies?

    Former NSW Premier Nick Greiner described as “awful” the fact that Australia was the only nation in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development that indefinitely detained children in mandatory detention.

    “The principle that Australia … finds it necessary to be virtually the only civilised nation that does this, I think is just abhorrent,” he said….”we now ought to look at the humanity of what we do”, he said.

    Last month NSW Premier Baird called on Mr Abbott, a close friend, to do more to accept refugees. Asked if children should be released from immigration detention, Mr Baird said “that’s something I’ve supported for a long time”.

    In an interview with 3AW, Mr Abbott said the commission should be ashamed of itself and that its report was a “blatantly partisan” and political exercise.

    He said the commission should acknowledge the government for stopping the flow of asylum seeker boats and dramatically reducing the number of children in detention.

    “I reckon the human rights commission ought to be sending a note of congratulations to Scott Morrison saying well done, mate,” Mr Abbott said, referring to the former immigration minister.

    Asked if he felt any guilt about the remaining 200 children still in detention, Mr Abbott was blunt: “None whatsoever.”

    “The most compassionate thing you can do is stop the boats,” he said.

    He said the only way to ensure there were no children in detention was to ensure there were no boats arriving.

    Numbers of children in immigration detention peaked at nearly 2000 in mid-2013 under Labor. There are now only about 200 children still detained.

    The Australian Human Rights Commission report wants actions taken to prevent such a situation ever developing again.

    “The human rights commission ought to be ashamed of itself,” Mr Abbott said, when asked about the report.

    So that’s all right. The Prime Minister thinks his policy is tops. A great policy in fact.

    As the distinguished PUP Senator for Queensland, Glenn Lazarus might put it ‘you can polish a turd, but it’s still a turd’.

    Marie Coleman AO PSM is a former senior Commonwealth Public Servant with a background in social policy.

  • Climate change – If only!

    Last Saturday David Cameron, the British PM, Nick Clegg, the Deputy PM and Leader of the Liberal Democrats, and Ed Milliband, Leader of the British Labour Party, signed a joint pledge on climate change.

    The three leaders agreed on three particular pledges

    • ‘To seek a fair, strong, legally binding, global climate deal which limits temperature rises to below 2 degrees centigrade.’
    • ‘To work together, across party lines to agree carbon budgets’
    • ‘To accelerate the transition to a competitive, energy efficient low carbon economy and to end the use of unabated coal for power generation.’

    If only Tony Abbott, Bill Shorten, Christine Milne and Clive Palmer could come to a similar deal!

    I have not seen this reported in any Australian mainstream media.

    For more information on this encouraging deal in the UK see link to the Guardian below.

    http://gu.com/p/45ng5/sbl

  • John Menadue.  Climate change and the rise and demise of Tony Abbott.

    Opposition to climate change was the vehicle for Tony Abbott to rise to the leadership of the Liberal Party. It is now making a major factor in his demise as Prime Minister.

    Tony Abbott regarded climate change as ‘absolute crap’ and in December 2009 he rallied the support of the  right wing of the Liberal Party led my Nick Minchin to overthrow Malcolm Turnbull as the leader. His victory margin was one vote. Malcolm Turnbull had been negotiating with Kevin Rudd for a bipartisan commitment on an emissions trading scheme.

    But with the leadership in his grasp and with the media and climate sceptics supporting him, Tony Abbott seized on the carbon tax and did what he does best, attack.

    We have never seen such a wrecking ball campaign on such an important issue as climate change and the associated carbon tax. He was joined in his exaggerated campaign against the carbon tax and climate change by News Corp and numerous right-wing ideologues posing as serious business people.

    This campaign was highly successful and in government he attacked every arm of government associated with climate change. But the ground was slowly moving around the world as one scientific report after another confirmed the growing threat of climate change induced particularly by coal-fired electricity generation. Even though the ground was moving, Tony Abbott continued to talk about ‘king coal’ and how the world would have to rely on coal for the rest of this century.

    Then came President Obama to the G20 meeting in Brisbane in November last year. This meeting of the twenty most powerful economies in the world was hoped to be a crowning success for its Chair, Tony Abbott. But it was not to be.

    Before arrival in Brisbane, Barack Obama had announced in Beijing an historic climate change agreement with the Chinese President. But there was more to come. Barack Obama took the platform at the University of Queensland and told the world that Tony Abbott was failing on climate change. Politely and clearly President Obama affirmed the science on climate change that Tony Abbott was denying.  He said that Australia faced longer droughts and more bushfires. He added that the incredible national glory of the Great Barrier Reef was threatened. He spoke of the increased production of carbon emissions and demanded that all countries step up and do more both nationally and internationally on climate change.

    Tony Abbott had tried to keep climate change off the G20 agenda. He failed. His PR people, including Julie Bishop, did what Tony Abbott does best – attack. They attacked our principal ally the US for daring to say these things in Australia about climate change.

    Lenore Taylor in The Guardian of 13 February 2015 put it this way. ‘An authoritarian leader’s need to attack, even annihilate critics can also be devastatingly self-defeating. Tony Abbott and senior ministers were deeply angry at Barack Obama’s show-stealing climate change speech during the G20 and in true authoritarian style launched an extraordinary onslaught on an ally. They briefed multiple News Ltd columnists to that effect, including graphic accounts of how they rang up afterwards and yelled at State Department officials for failing to give a “heads up” that the president was going to “dump on” the Prime Minister. Julie Bishop said the President clearly hadn’t read a briefing on all the excellent things Australia is doing to protect the Great Barrier Reef. Andrew Robb said the President had been misinformed.’

    The denial of climate change and the campaign against a carbon tax to reduce carbon emissions was a central factor in projecting Tony Abbott into the Lodge. But now our principal ally was telling him that he was wrong. President Obama catalysed for all that Tony Abbot was not only denying the science on climate change but that he was out of step with the world.

    In the opinion polls Tony Abbott had some minor recovery in the lead up to the G20 in November last year. From then on his personal and his party’s standing have slumped dramatically.

    Many factors, including personality, have played a part in Tony Abbott’s demise, but there is no doubt that climate change which facilitated his rise is the most substantial influence in his demise.

    Climate change will be written on his epitaph.

  • Don’t arm Ukraine.

    In July last year, Tony Abbott and Julie Bishop were eager to commit Australian police and Australian troops to Ukraine in the aftermath of the shooting down of MH17 by Russian separatists. Their plan didn’t work out as they hoped.

    I have carried blogs by Richard Butler and Cavan Hogue about the geopolitical risks of NATO and the West expanding to the border of Russia.

    As the war in Ukraine is now escalating, there have been increasing calls within the US for the arming of the Ukraine. John Mearsheimer in the New York Times of February 8 presents a compelling case for not arming Ukraine. He urges that the best outcome would be a neutral Ukraine. For NY Times article see link below.  John Menadue

    http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/09/opinion/dont-arm-ukraine.html?_r=0

  • Peter Day. The Lucky Country

    Beneath our radiant Southern Cross,

     We’ll toil with hearts and hands
    To make this Commonwealth of ours
    Renowned of all the lands.
    For those who’ve come across the seas,
    We’ve boundless plains to share.

    With courage let us all combine
    To advance Australia fair.     

                  (Our National Anthem, Verse 2)

    The nature of politics these past few years, especially that practiced by the two main parties, reminds one of a bitter marriage struggle – one destined for the courts. So consumed have ‘mum’ and ‘dad’ been by their anger, by their need for revenge, and by their need to win at all costs, they’ve forgotten the ‘children’.

    This toxic process, and breakdown of civility, leaves little room for those who cannot compete. So the children get pushed aside as the bickering gets louder, as pettiness replaces depth, and as power and fear leave love and compassion in their wake.

    This appears particularly pertinent in regard to those seeking asylum – especially children. Too often their voices are drowned-out by the self-centered tantrums and fear-mongering of our political parents.

    Such leadership is disappointing because it undermines sensible and reasoned public discourse. We become wedged by emotive opposites: It’s left versus right, bleeding hearts v cold hearts, queue-jumpers versus the desperate, “stop the boats” v ”let them come”.

    Beneath this canopy of emotion and fear, people tend to become more tribal than usual – more susceptible to propaganda as well. Thus, when we are told that our borders and lifestyle are threatened; our natural response is to build a wall to keep the ‘enemy’ out. Before we know it, we find ourselves living in a sort of gated community: one that covets security, prosperity and the status quo.  And anyone who threatens this way of life, “this tribe of mine”, is either refused entry or banished. 

    A Parable

        There was a Lucky Country that enjoyed freedom and prosperity, and lived in luxury every day.  At its doorstep arrived a fearful beggar; hungry and frightened after a long journey; covered with sores, and longing to eat what fell from the Lucky Country’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.

        The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The Lucky Country also lost its life and was buried.

        In its torment, it looked up and saw Abraham far away with the beggar by his side. The Lucky Country called out to Abraham, ‘Father, have pity on me and send the beggar to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this torment.’

        But Abraham replied, ‘Remember, in your lifetime you received many good things: freedom, prosperity, comfort; while this poor beggar received bad things: political oppression, poverty, abandonment. Now he is comforted here and you are in agony. 

        ‘And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’

        The Lucky Country answered, ‘Then I beg you, Abraham, send the beggar to my family, for I have 22 million brothers and sisters. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’

        Abraham replied, ‘They hear the stories, they hear the cries, they even hear the Word; let them listen to these.’

        ‘No, father Abraham,’ said the Lucky Country, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will change their minds and hearts.’

        Abraham said to the Lucky Country, ‘If they do not listen to all that is before them, they will not be convinced even if their Christ, who has Risen from the dead, speaks to them.’

    (Adapted from Luke 16:19-31)

    Of course, as a nation, we cannot simply say, “Everyone welcome, no matter what.” We do need an orderly migration process. We do have a moral responsibility to bankrupt the people-smuggling trade. We do need to make some tough calls. But we also need to ensure that the response to the ‘Lazaruses’ at our feet is not shaped by silly slogans and a kind of small-minded nationalism.

    And, while some have tried, none of us is in a position to take the moral high ground either. This is too complex an issue to be hijacked by the self-righteous.

    We are mostly a generous nation. We are mostly a fair nation. We are a Lucky nation. It behoves us, then, to reflect deeply, and humbly, about our obligations to the ‘beggars’ at our feet.

    It prompts the question: Can I forgo a little personal comfort in order to comfort someone else?

    Fr Peter Day is the Parish Priest, Corpus Christi, Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn.

     

  • Mercy, judgement, confession and reconciliation.

    In the Australian Parliament debate concerning possible executions in Bali, Shadow Foreign Minister, Tanya Plibersek, spoke about the second chance that her husband had received. Her husband, Michael Coutts-Trotter, is now a senior NSW public servant. He had been a drug dealer in the early 1980s. Tany Plibersek commented ‘I imagine what would have happened if he had been caught in Thailand instead of Australia where the crime was committeed.  … What would the world have missed out on? They would have missed out on the three most beautiful children we had together. They would have missed out on a man that spent the rest of his life making amends for the crime that he committed. ‘  Her husband commented, ‘I was afforded a second chance by our Australian justice system. I remain grateful for that every day.’

    In the US there has also been discussion about mistakes and recovery. The NBC News anchor Brian Williams stepped down from his post after he admitted that he had exaggerated a story from his coverage of the Iraq invasion.

    David Brooks, in the NY Times – see link below – has written what I sense is one of the most insightful articles about mercy, judgement, confession and reconciliation. Christians and particularly Catholics speak a lot about confession and reconciliation. But David Brooks in his article The Act of Rigorous Forgiving gives the best account that I can remember on this delicate but critical subject. David Brooks is not a Christian. He is Jewish.  John Menadue

    http://nyti.ms/1IJuwHo

  • John Menadue. Fairness, Opportunity and Security – Filling the policy vacuum

    I sense that there is great public concern that both the government and opposition keep playing the political and personal game at the expense of informed public discussion of important policy issues.

    We have become concerned about the trustworthiness of our political, business and media elite. Insiders and vested interests are undermining the public interest. Money is unduly influencing political decisions. There is gridlock on important issues like climate change and taxation.

    After a near death experience Tony Abbott has said the he is open to new thinking and ways of governing. ‘Good government begins today’  Time will tell. Bill Shorten has said that 2015 will be the year of ideas. I hope so.

    In this blog over the next few months I will be posting a series of articles on important policy issues. I posted a three parter on health policy on January 27, 28 and 29.

    There will be range of contributors.Some  have contributed in the past to this blog

    Each of the policy articles will be about 2000 words. They will not be “pie in the sky’ but realistic, given our political and financial constraints.

    It is planned that these policy articles will be published in a book by ATF Press in October/November this year

    Policy areas to be canvassed

    Economic policy

    Fixing the budget

    Taxation

    Federalism

    Productivity

    Job creation and participation

    Foreign policy

    Security, both military and soft power.

    Health

     Development of our human capital in the fields of education, science, research and development and innovation.

    Transport and infrastructure

    Population/migration/refugees

    Welfare priorities

    Retirement incomes

    Indigenous affairs

    Communications and the Arts

    Environment and climate change

    Inequality

    Role of government including tackling corruption and bad behaviour

    Democratic renewal – the lack of trust in government and the hollowing out of our political parties.

    Terrorism and internal security whilst protecting of our freedoms

     

  • Melanie Noden. The Forgotten Children.

    Earlier this week, a damning report by the Australian Human Rights Commission into children in detention was tabled, alleging extensive human rights violations. The Report clearly spells out the negative physical and psychological impact that policies of indefinite detention have on children and brings to light the concerns that many people already have about the treatment of asylum seeker children in Australia’s care.

    The Report recommends that a royal commission needs to be established to  examine the breach of the Commonwealth’s duty of care, focussing in particular on the use of force against children in detention, and allegations of sexual assault.

    Gillian Triggs, President of the Australian Human Rights Commission said,“It is troubling that members of the Government and Parliament and Departmental officials are either uninformed, or choose to ignore, the human rights treaties to which Australia is a party”.  

    The Report was issued after 1,129 children in detention were interviewed. It shows there were 233 recorded assaults involving children and 33 incidents of reported sexual assaults.

    The Report alleges human rights violations and says that children being detained indefinitely on Nauru are “suffering from extreme levels of physical, emotional, psychological and developmental distress“.

    Recommendations of the report are as follows:

    • all children to be released from Australian mainland detention and from detention centres on Nauru
    • laws be introduced to make sure children are not detained beyond health, identity and security checks
    • laws be introduced to give effect to the Convention on the Rights of the Child
    • No child to be sent offshore for processing unless it is clear that their human rights will be respected
    • An independent guardian be appointed for unaccompanied children on Christmas Island

    It is Gillian Triggs’ hope that the Report will, “…prompt fair-minded Australians, Members of Parliament and the Federal Government to reconsider our asylum seeker policies and to release all children and their families immediately”

    She also stated that, “It is imperative that Australian governments never again use the lives of children to achieve political or strategic advantage. The aims of stopping people smugglers and deaths at sea do not justify the cruel and illegal means adopted. Australia is better than this.”

    I and my colleagues in the sector welcome the recommendation to establish a royal commission to investigate what has been happening behind the closed gates of the detention centres to ensure clear parameters are established for future policy.

    To this effect, The Asylum Seekers Centre has joined the Refugee Council of Australia and other agencies in signing a joint statement calling for legislative change to ensure that children are not subject to immigration detention in the future.

    Melanie Noden is the CEO of the Asylum Seekers Centre, Sydney.

    The report can be found here:https://humanrights.gov.au/publications/forgotten-children-national-inquiry-children-immigration-detention-2014