John Menadue

On Phillip Adams’ Late Night Live Tony Moore of the National Centre for Australian Studies at Monash explains the Centre’s  “recovering the Australian working class” project. In arguing for a strong social wage he points out how means-tested benefits have contributed to “downward envy”.  Australia’s working class is not necessarily poor, but it is disadvantaged in areas such as health and education.

Transparency International has released its Corruption Perception Index 2017. New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland and the Nordic countries retain their lead rankings. Australia, which held 8^th place behind these countries in 2012, has slipped to 13^th place. Even the United Kingdom now ranks ahead of Australia.

On Australia’s stagnating real wages Ross Gittins writes that “the union movement has done too little to counter the alarmists telling their members they’ve lost the power to ask for more”.  Stagnating wages may be stoking workers’ disaffection with the Turnbull Government, to the Benefit of the Labor Party, but they’re doing nothing for people’s pay packets or the Australian economy.

Reports of journalism’s imminent demise are exaggerated, but politicians aren’t helping – the Guardian.

The IMF doesn’t share the Government’s heroic growth predictions – Greg Jericho in the Guardian..

Donald Trump is the worst of the worst – Michael Tomansky in New York Review of Books.

The real reason Americans don’t care about the cost of wars – The Nation.

Whatever Trump Is Hiding Is Hurting All of Us Now. He either believes Putin’s denials, or more likely, is afraid of what the Russians have on him – Thomas Friedman.

Turnbull’s US visit should prompt us to rethink our place in the world – The Guardian.

On Saturday Extra this 24^th February, Geraldine Doogue brings you the February edition of A Foreign Affair. It was recorded at the ANU on Wednesday evening in front of an audience. Menna Rawlings, the British High Commissioner, Michael Wesley, Dean of the College of Asia and the Pacific at the ANU and Bob Carr, former ALP Senator and Foreign Affairs minister are the guests. Former ALP minister Craig Emerson also joins Geraldine to discuss his life in politics. Rodger Shanahan, research fellow for the West Asia program at the Lowy Institute provides a where are we up to in the Middle East as the situation in Syria becomes worse and Andrew Rosser, professor of Southeast Asian Studies from Melbourne University discusses why the education system in Indonesia is being held back and what the implications are for Australian education providers. http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/saturdayextra/

Writing in the Canberra Times John Warhurst examines the wealth of the Catholic Church, a topic that has come to prominence in terms of its capacity to provide monetary compensation to victims of sexual abuse.

Phillip Adams interviews Professor Shae McCrystal of the Law Faculty at the University of Sydney, on Australia’s industrial relations system. McCrystal explains developments leading up to present arrangements and problems with the Fair Work Act.  She calls for restoration of aspects of the twentieth century arbitration system to compensate for workers’ loss of bargaining powers.

“The Australian Government should consider setting up, or at least subsidise, a major domestic and exporting cigarette industry in Australia, even if the subsidies go to foreign companies or that the domestic industry is run by foreign companies” writes Crispin Hull in the Canberra Times. Before you send him an angry E-mail, have a look at his well-reasoned argument.

Private health insurance is back in the news, with articles by Fairfax journalists Esther Han and Ross Gittins.  Esther Han explains why people are giving up private insurance, while Ross Gittins says private insurance is a “con job”: private health insurance is “such bad value that, when John Howard sought to prop up the private system, he had to make it subject to a tax rebate”.

Barnaby Joyce and the changing landscape of the news media – Tim Dunlop

Barnaby Joyce has leapt to international prominence – New York Times.

Labor’s energy spending spree has electrified the South Australian election – the Guardian

Daniel Ellsberg worries about nuclear war – New York Review of Books

On Saturday Extra the 17^th February, Andrew West fills in for Geraldine Doogue. Items include: cleaning up the cleaning business, an accreditation scheme for companies doing the right thing by their employees with UTS associate professor Sarah Kaine; what will be the geopolitical hotspots for the Trump government in 2018 with the University of Melbourne’s Timothy Lynch and University of Sydney’s Brendon O’Connor; how can the Centre Left combat rising populism, anti-immigration parties with Flinders University’s Rob Manwaring; journalist Anneliese Rohrer discusses the conservative/far right coalition ruling her country Austria and US academic Marie Griffith on why sex has fractured US politics. That’s Saturday Extra www.abc.net.au/rn/saturdayextra

Proposed here is whether the wise counsel of Jesus of Nazareth, Adam Smith, George Kennan and legions of other insightful souls might well provide a sound basis for solutions to the world’s self-made catastrophic disasters – a vitally crucial issue demanding action before ‘point of no return’ overtakes all.  (more…)

In 2016, Australia’s bilateral trade with China in goods and services topped AU$155 billion (US$122 billion), growing three times faster than world trade as a whole. China was Australia’s largest export market and largest source of imports. It was also the largest source of foreign investment for the third consecutive year. (more…)

It was Tony Abbott who bestowed the appellation “best retail politician in the country” on Barnaby Joyce. Even now, some continue to preface their comments about him by claiming he is possessed of some form of political genius. It is true that Joyce has been successful at the time-honoured Nationals tactic of demanding handouts for farmers despite a complete lack of policy rationale (beyond Joyce’s personal and, given recent events, now ironic vision of Australian agriculture as a rural idyll of white heterosexual families). Hundreds of millions of dollars have been wasted on irrigation infrastructure and concessional loans to farmers at Joyce’s behest. But a quick check of Joyce’s other career highlights suggests he has serially been a problem for his own side of politics.  (more…)