Australia today faces multiple challenges. They include the fact that we are unlike any other continent with species and ecosystems that are found nowhere else. If we don’t look after ourselves, who will? There is global warming and climate change, and its impact on so much that we take for granted; an economy heavily reliant on what we dig up and sell, in a world less eager to buy. There is the spread of artificial intelligence and automation, and the impact on work and people; there is the increasing requirement to understand ever more sophisticated data, and its wise use; a growing need to grapple with almost unfathomable technologies rushing fast from the world of research into our lives. There is health care: pandemics, epidemics, complications from the spread of antibiotic resistance to bacteria, and how to keep a growing population in good health.
John Menadue
-
PURNENDRA JAIN AND TAKESHI KOBAYASHI, LDP MEMBER. Political dynasties dominate Japan’s democracy
Hereditary political succession is not limited to monarchical and autocratic systems of government. Politicians from families that have previously occupied high office take top positions in many democratic countries. In Japan, hereditary politics show little sign of abating. (more…)
-
Mapping the division of Malaysia.
Nation’s parliament set to ratify new boundaries to boost the government’s electoral prospects. (more…)
-
EAST ASIA FORUM. Moritomo scandal miseries
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has led a rollercoaster, but often charmed, political life. After being forced to resign prematurely during his first stint as prime minister in September 2007 due to a stinging July 2007 upper house election defeat and a bowel illness, Abe managed a rare political comeback. In December 2012 he led his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to victory and back to government. (more…)
-
Good reading and listening for the weekend …
April 4 will mark 50 years since the assassination of Martin Luther King. In the ABC’s Religion and Ethics Report, Andrew West interviews Jonathan Rieder and Anthea Butler, two authors who have written about King’s life, ideas and legacy. West reminds us that King had “a very tough message about the poverty and violence that propped up racism, and that made the powerful very uncomfortable”.
“It’s time to finally eradicate all sales incentives for bank staff to push loans on to customers” writes Jessica Irvine reporting from the banking inquiry. Warning – her story in The Age contains harrowing accounts of exploitation of vulnerable people.
“How to make free trade fair”. On Late Night Live Phillip Adams interviews economist Dr Jim Stanford Director of the Australia Institute’s Centre for Future Work. What political advocates have come to call free trade agreements “in many cases have nothing to do with actual trade” says Stanford. He outlines the asymmetry of such agreements, pointing out that Investor State Dispute Resolution agreements establish “kangaroo courts that allow companies to sue governments”.
In a week where the idiotic behaviour of a sporting team has dominated our media, even Ross Gittins has weighed in to the issue. But he puts it into perspective: “I can’t see why people are so shocked to discover our cricketers have been cheating. Surely that’s only to be expected in a nation that’s drifted so far from our earlier commitment to decency, mateship and the fair go.” He goes on to remind us about our government’s treatment of asylum seekers and the unemployed, about widespread tax evasion, and about how unscrupulous businesses treat those who are further down the food chain.
Lying in Politics: Reflections on The Pentagon Papers – Hannah Arendt, New York Review of Books (1971).
No free lunches so why are we feeding foreign multinationals’ profits? – Ross Gittins in the Canberra Times.
Cricket Australia Chairman, Peever, ducks for cover – Canberra Times.
In Saturday Extra with Geraldine Doogue this March 31st, a discussion about women and power with Kimberly Dennis, Associate Professor, Department of Art & Art History and Program in Sexuality, Women’s & Gender Studies Rollins College, Marguerite Johnson, Professor of Classics, University of Newcastle and Susan Ryan educator, Former Age Discrimination Commissioner, and first female Labor Minister; A Foreign Affair with Jacinta Collins from the National Security College, ANU; Euan Graham, Lowy Institute and Brain Doolan, former CEO of Fred Hollows Foundation; The New York Times is going back in time to right the wrongs of all the remarkable women who missed out on an obit and writer Caroline van de Pol growing up in Broadmeadows, Victoria.
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/saturdayextra/
Japanese PM asks China to explain secret meeting with Kim Jong Un – Free Press Journal.
Steve Cohen vs Peter Jennings debating the new cold war. http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/betweenthelines/russia/9601114
Australia insincere about engaging with Asia – Global Times
-
PETER DAY. Cricket’s lost trophy
OMG: Disastrous. Unbelievable. Shameful. Disgraceful. What the…! (more…)
-
IAN BUCKLEY. Finding Solutions to Humankind’s Neoliberal/Mercantile Crises.
In resolving the crises brought on within current neoliberal economies, a widespread recognition of their historical derivation from the mercantile political economy that Adam Smith described and condemned (1776) is crucial for effective understanding of this system, its corrupt roots and its persistence; likewise for its urgently-needed transformation to a just economy that works harmoniously for all.
(more…) -
UTA MIHM. How to avoid excessive surgery out-of-pocket costs
Tips on negotiating with your doctor and shopping around for a surgeon who doesn’t charge excessively. (more…)
-
MICHAEL LIFFMAN. Tribalism, anti-racism, and over-reach
Living, as the world does, with slavery, colonialism, brutal civil conflicts, and the Holocaust still casting the blackest of clouds over us, the principle of ‘anti-racism’ has – rightly – been developed to become an incontestable foundation of our ethics and morality. This is as it should be, and arguably can be seen as one of the major advances in humanity’s faltering progress towards a more ethical global order. (more…)
-
ROBYN J WHITAKER. Jesus wasn’t white: he was a brown-skinned, Middle Eastern Jew. Here’s why that matters
I grew up in a Christian home, where a photo of Jesus hung on my bedroom wall. I still have it. It is schmaltzy and rather tacky in that 1970s kind of way, but as a little girl I loved it. In this picture, Jesus looks kind and gentle, he gazes down at me lovingly. He is also light-haired, blue-eyed, and very white. (more…)
-
NICOLAS SENÈZE. Rediscovering the role of Mary Magdalene as ‘apostle of the apostles’.
Turning Mary Magdalene into a sinner obstructed women’s place in the church. (more…)
-
PETER DAY: “Crucify him! Crucify him”
This Good Friday there will be two Passion ‘plays’ proclaimed throughout the world: The Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ According to John, and The Passion of Our Lauded Cricket Captain According to Us. (more…)
-
SCOTT BURCHILL. On the Russian gas attack
Given the “sexing up” and outright distortions of dodgy intelligence about Saddam Hussein’s “WMD” in 2002-3 by both the UK government of Tony Blair and US administration of George W. Bush, one can only be astonished at the credulity of those in the Fourth Estate who don’t even feel the need to ask for evidence in the case of the Salisbury gas attack on double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia.
-
FRANCIS SULLIVAN. CEO Truth Justice and Healing Council.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse’s comprehensive and confronting final report rightly focuses on the Catholic Church, with one of the 17 volumes dedicated solely to that institution. The litmus test for the Church leadership in the coming months and years will be the degree to which they act on the Royal Commission’s recommendations. (more…)
-
MICHAEL LAMBERT. An Update on the National Electricity Market and the National Energy Guarantee.
The Council of Australian Governments (COAG) Energy Council meets in the second half of April to consider a report from the Energy Security Board on the proposed initial design of the National Energy Guarantee which seeks to address both emissions reductions and improved reliability in the National Electricity Market. (more…)
-
TOM SWITZER. Skripal: the West escalates, but where is the proof?
Australia, the US, and several EU nations joined forces with Britain this week to expel Russian diplomats from their nations. The decision is based on the widespread view that the Russian regime of Vladimir Putin is responsible for the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter in England earlier this month. (more…)
-
MATTHEW FISHER. Malcolm Turnbull in denial on climate change: The Uses and Abuses of Complex Causation.
It is commonplace for political and corporate leaders to obfuscate public debate on issues they want to avoid by applying simplistic, linear concepts of cause and effect to events that have multiple causes. In the case of climate change, one wonders how long the media and the public are going to let leaders like Malcolm Turnbull and others get away with this blatant piece of cynical misdirection. (more…)
-
TRISTAN EDIS. How renewables trumped brown coal and gas over Australia’s summer.
In reading some of the panic-stricken media commentary about the impending blackouts we were supposed to have this summer, you might have been led to believe that renewable energy doesn’t contribute much at all to ensuring the lights stayed on. (more…)
-
DR WARWICK YONGE. Corporate medicine: Illness or cure?
Australia has a unique mix of private, public, for profit and NFP stakeholders in its health system. This structure derives significantly from Constitutional issues. Corporate medicine now occupies a significant part of the health landscape. Is this a cause for concern? (more…)
-
ROB STEWART. Wage Rises in the Neoliberal New World Order- Bad policy and bad politics
Neoliberals are often wrong but never in doubt. In pursuing its corporate tax cut agenda the Government is attempting to shift the industrial relations paradigm – linking private sector wage rises to public sector funding cuts, despite the fact corporate coffers have rarely been in better shape. (more…)
-
RANJANA SRIVASTAVA From a frontline clinician: here’s what’s wrong with private health insurance
My patients often pay thousands of dollars annually for their cover, but it’s not cost-effective in many cases (more…)
-
GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND …
A conservative commentator revolts against Fox News – Max Boot, Washington Post
The monstrous strategic mistake that took Australia to war in Iraq – Kevin Rudd, Canberra Times.
A plea to the Queen to disclose the palace letters for the sake of Australian democracy – the Guardian.
Suicide note shows Japanese official’s fear of being blamed for land sale scandal：the Asahi Shimbun
Cambridge Analytica facebook influenced US election – the Guardian.
On Saturday Extra the 24th of March, Geraldine Doogue speaks with SMH’s economics editor Peter Martin about the continuing tax discussion; William Davies from the University of London on what the Brexiters really want; Harvard professor of philosophy Michael Sandel talks about his visits to China and the thirst young Chinese have for moral discussions in a GDP driven society; emeritus professor of politics Robert Manne talks about finding his voice after throat cancer and the politics of today; and professor of history Grace Karskens discusses her quest to bring alive the history of the Hawkesbury-Nepean River. http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/saturdayextra/
-
BRAD CHILCOTT. Do you expect a return on your compassion?
In 2014, two Vietnamese high school students were suddenly taken from my local community and put into a detention facility. They’d received a letter from the Department of Immigration stating that their presence in the community ‘was no longer in the public interest’. (more…)
-
JAMES FERNYHOUGH. Half of Australians with private health insurance say it isn’t worth it
Half of Australians with private health insurance say it is no longer worth the expense, a new survey commissioned by comparison website iSelect has found. (more…)
-
HAROLD LEVIEN. How to Solve our Housing Crisis.
Federal Government policies are primarily responsible for the housing crisis facing Sydney and Melbourne first-home buyers and renters. Yet this Government virtually ignores fist-home buyers. Indeed it pursues policies which drive very many out of the housing market into exorbitant rentals. One policy, annual tax concessions to housing investors, cost $12 billion last year. (more…)
-
PAT POWER. Quo Vadis? The Plenary Council of the Catholic Church in Australia
The Plenary Council planned for 2020-21 gives rise to great hopes and some anxiety as the Catholic Church in Australia and indeed worldwide faces the greatest challenge of the modern era. As a church “always in need of reform” we are continually confronted by the need to “read the signs of the times” and to respond in the light of the Gospel. (more…)
-
JIM COOMBS. MEMO to Kenneth Hayne: the ‘four pillars’ of the system you are reviewing are NOT set in stone. As they crumble it is worth looking at what went before.
The present four pillars of the banking system are not a necessary evil or inevitable. History tells us why. (more…)
-
ANNE HURLEY. Former Internet Australia directors support NSW Business Council call for a National Broadband Service Guarantee
Last year the NSW Business Chamber conducted a statewide survey of members. It has since called for changes it believes will help save business an average $9000 per year resulting from problems related to the NBN rollout. Four former directors of Internet Australia, the NFP peak body representing Internet users, have come out in support of the call for a National Broadband Service Guarantee. (more…)
-
PETER BROOKS and IAN KERRIDGE The Royal Australasian College Of Physicians Examination Debacle Leaves Serious Unanswered Questions.
The Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP), comprising more than 16,000 medical specialists, advises governments on matters of health and medical care, and has a respected voice in the community. However, its raison d’être is to train specialist physicians. 8,000 aspiring physicians are now in training. Assessing their road-worthiness includes a high-stakes, high-stress, ‘barrier’ examination.
This year’s exam, offered at 20 centres in Australia and New Zealand, was computer-based.It was a debacle. (more…)
