Many years ago, I tried to review Ronald Knox’s lifelong study of the numerous minor sects or branches of post-Reformation Christianity. He named it Enthusiasm. Despite my own enthusiasm for the treasures amassed in the book, I was unable to write a review. The riches were so abundant and differed so much that ten reviews would not have done justice to its totality. (more…)
John Menadue
-
ANDREW HAMILTON. Triggs champions common compassion (Eureka Street 12/6/2018)
Common compassion is an aspiration more widely praised as a gift of Western Civilisation than accepted and practiced. But once government trash it with impunity we are all the losers. (more…)
-
KARL HOWARD. The importance of community .
Communities are a fundamental requirement for the human condition; they consist of a group of people with shared interests, similar attitudes – often with aligned social values -resulting in delegated responsibilities. A community is a product of independent actors joining together, operating in a specific habitat, whether a neighbourhood, a gym, a workplace, or a place of worship. The single key tenet is that collective identity enriches the experience of each and every person, the members of that community. (more…)
-
HANS ZOLLER SJ. Protecting children in the Catholic Church
The issue of sexual abuse of minors committed by clergy is constantly returning to the forefront of media attention. (more…)
-
ALISSA J. RUBIN. An era of French strikes is ending (AFR 13/6/2018)
Nowadays, we have people who are too rich,” he said. “In the United States you do not care so much about equality, but we care about it,” says Bodiou, a retired civil engineer.“It does not mean we all have to have the same amount of money, but we all should get the same respect.” But, he adds, summing up a feeling that seems to be shared by many on the street around him: “Macron does not speak to those who are poor, who sleep on the ground; he speaks to the people in the digital world, to the entrepreneurs, to the educated.”
-
JOAN STAPLES. Foreign interference bills threaten civil society freedoms.
The government’s urgent pursuit of foreign interference bills prior to the July by-elections aims to wedge Labor for short term electoral gain. However as Labor agrees to support the bills, yet more of our political freedoms are being destroyed at great loss to our democracy. (more…)
-
JOANNE McCARTHY. Australia’s bishops still don’t get it – things have changed (SMH 13/6/2018)
Everything changed on December 15, 2017 when the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse presented its final report and recommendations to the Australian public. It’s a shame Australia’s Catholic bishops missed the memo. (more…)
-
SIMON ROUGHNEEN. How Beijing is winning control of the South China Sea (Nikkei Asian Review 13/6/2018)
Erratic US policy and fraying alliances give China a free hand.
-
PAUL KRUGMAN. Debacle in Quebec. (New York Times, June 9,2018)
For all their pomp, most multilateral summit meetings are boring and of little consequence. I once spoke to a State Department official who had a role in putting these meetings together; he described his job as “policing the nuances,” which gives you an idea about how much is normally at stake. (more…)
-
DANIEL RUSSEL. A Historic Breakthrough or a Historic Blunder in Singapore?
Kim Jong Un May Have Outwitted Trump at the Summit. (more…)
-
PEPE ESCOBAR. The key word in the Trump-Kim show
By reaffirming the Panmunjom Declaration, the US President has committed to bringing its military back from South Korea and thus a complete denuclearization of the South as well as the North. (more…)
-
HANS HENDRISCHKE and WEI LI. Chinese investment in Australia falls as political debate hits confidence
Chinese direct investment in Australia has declined, according to a new report by the University of Sydney and KPMG. In 2017, the value of investment fell by 11% in US dollar terms, from $11.5 billion in 2016 (A$15.4 billion) to $10.3 billion (A$13.3 billion). (more…)
-
NICHOLAS GRUEN. All finance requires is an upgrade for the internet age
The Financial Times has published a letter from Nicholas Gruen in response to Martin Wolf’s column about the Swiss ‘sovereign money’ referendum, previously reprinted on this blog). Mr Gruen’s letter is as follows:
Given the resounding ‘no’ from the Swiss Vollgeld or ‘sovereign money’ referendum, and notwithstanding Bob Sleeper’s relief, Martin Wolf’s central question from last week’s column remains. A decade after the devastation, where’s the “radical rethink” of finance?
-
GARETH HUTCHENS. Australia should not join US in South China Sea operations, says retired defence chief (The Guardian 21/2/2017)
Activities in the South China Sea continue to be in the news. Published below, are comments made in February last year by Sir Angus Houston, who was formerly Australia’s defence chief. John Menadue. (more…)
-
THE LOCAL. Italy demands apology for France’s ‘hypocritical’ criticism on migrants.
Italy on Wednesday summoned the French ambassador and postponed planned finance talks, in an escalating diplomatic spat with France over the handling of a migrant crisis in the Mediterranean. (more…)
-
TRAVERS MCLEOD. Fog of law in war not the Australian way
“We will never forget that 100 years ago a young and brave nation on the other side of the world made history by writing our history. Lest we forget.”
So ended French Prime Minister Édouard Philippe’s tribute to the Anzacs in April this year at the opening of the Sir John Monash Centre at Villers-Bretonneux. (more…)
-
SOPHIE VORRATH. Martin Green – Australia’s “father of PV” – beats Elon Musk to Global Energy Prize.
Australia’s “father of PV,” UNSW Scientia Professor Martin Green, has been awarded the 2018 Global Energy Prize, beating out a shortlist that included Tesla’s Elon Musk, and becoming the first Australian to win the $820,000 gong. (more…)
-
JULIAN BURNSIDE. The legality of off-shore detention
In 2002 Australia, along with more than 80 other nations, acceded to the Rome statute by which the International Criminal Court was created. The court is the first permanent court ever established with jurisdiction to try war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes of genocide regardless of the nationality of the perpetrators and regardless of the place where the offences occurred. (more…)
-
JAMES FERNYHOUGH. Revealed: This is how much ordinary Australians really earn. (The New Daily June 8, 2018)
A casual glance at the news in recent months may have left you thinking the average Australian earns almost $85,000 a year.
If that sounded insanely high to you, then your instincts were bang on. An ordinary Australian earns way, way less than that.
But it doesn’t appear to have stopped Treasurer Scott Morrison using the figure to sell his income tax cuts. (more…)
-
RENE PFISTER. Merkel’s dark view of the world we live in.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is watching with deep concern as the pillars of the postwar international order collapse. But what is she doing about it? (more…)
-
GREG HAMILTON. Little or no talent for getting it right.
A great Australian recently said: ‘we’re a helpless audience watching an awesome spectacle, powerless to act because we haven’t produced leadership with the courage to match the precipitous nature of the hour.’ The Rev. Ted Noffs got most things right. When his own church charged him with heresy, it proved the old axiom that a good deed never goes unpunished. Unfortunately, it’s the daily reality of our political system. (more…)
-
MARIAN SAWER. Foreign donations and beyond.
In the furore over Chinese political donations, the broader electoral reform agenda can easily be forgotten. Australia was once a pioneering democracy but it has fallen behind in protecting its reputation for electoral integrity and political equality. (more…)
-
PAUL WALDMAN. Trump’s effort to isolate us from the world is going great.
In 2013, before travelling to Moscow for the Miss Universe pageant, Donald Trump asked plaintively on Twitter whether Vladimir Putin would be attending, and “if so, will he become my new best friend?” Putin never showed, and President Trump is apparently still pining for the Russian president’s approval. Meanwhile, there may never have been a president of the United States who is so unremittingly hostile to America’s closest allies.
-
YANIS VAROUFAKIS. The Italian crisis was the left’s final warning: it must adopt a new, credible EU policy agenda.
It’s time to explain how the bloc, and the euro, could be run differently, democratically and sustainably. (more…)
-
NORMAN BAILEY. The Russian Gordian Knot begins to unravel.
Winston Churchill famously described the Soviet Union as “A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.” Many commentators and politicians say Vladimir Putin’s Russia is every bit as mysterious and enigmatic as its predecessor. An astonishing recent declaration by the president, however, at the Russian equivalent of the Davos conclave, in St Petersburg, casts a whole new light on the country’s involvement in the Middle East, which in recent years has become more and more extensive. (more…)
-
STEPHEN F COHEN. The Necessity of a Trump-Putin Summit.
Ten ways the new US-Russian Cold War is increasingly becoming more dangerous than the one we survived.
-
The missed opportunity, nine years ago, to curb foreign interference in Australian politics.
In 2009, Senator John Faulkner introduced legislation in the Senate which would have prohibited foreign political donations. The legislation was defeated by the Coalition in the Senate. A lot of ‘foreign interference’ in Australian political life could have been nipped in the bud if the Coalition had been serious about curbing political donations. Unfortunately, Anti-Chinese sentiment is now driving the debate on political donations. This could have been avoided.
See following, second reading speech in the Senate by Senator Faulkner.
-
ABHISHEK MOHANTY. Renaming the US Pacific Command: Why Indo-Pacific?
In a pivotal move projecting a new set of national interests, US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis, barely a day before the Shangri La Dialogue began, announced that the US Pacific Command will now be called the US Indo-Pacific Command. The name change, seen by observers as a tactical move against Chinese military and economic hegemony in the region, is just symbolic for now, as it won’t immediately result in any major alterations to the command’s maritime boundaries or assets in the huge area spanning from East Africa to America’s Pacific coast. (more…)
-
GARRY J. EVERETT. The culture of the church – some personal experiences.
Currently the Catholic Church in Australia, and in a number of overseas countries (e.g. Chile and Ireland), is experiencing a crisis in its culture. In Australia the Royal Commission into sexual abuse of minors has described this culture as toxic. The Commission also described the culture as excessively clerical in the sense that it is based on notions of priestly power, privilege and prestige, accompanied by lack of transparency and accountability, as well as failing to engage the lay people effectively. In Rome, Pope Francis has described the culture of the Catholic Church in Chile as “one of abuse and cover-up”. (more…)
-
TIM COLEBATCH. Underestimating China.
Let’s clear up any confusion about the size of the Chinese economy. (more…)