John Menadue

  • GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND …

    In an article in the Fairfax Press, Clancy Yeates points out that Australia’s big banks have “slashed loans to fossil fuel companies by almost a fifth in 2017, including a 50 per cent drop in their coal mining exposure”.

    On last weekend’s Saturday Extra, Geraldine Doogue interviewed Laura Dassow Wallis, author of Henry David Thoreau: A life. There is a common image of Thoreau as a hermit in the wilderness, but Wallis dispels this image. He was thoroughly connected with society, and was deeply concerned with the way, as capitalism advanced, public land was being taken from the community and enclosed. The appropriation of physical and metaphorical public space for commercial purposes continues to this day.

    On Saturday Extra this 3rd February Geraldine Doogue is discussing the unintended consequences of the government’s foreign interference bills on business activity and NGO’s with Elaine Pearson from the Human Rights Watch and Les Timar from the Australian Professional Government Relations Association; Lesley Russell, from the Menzies Centre for Health Policy discusses US business giants who have joined forces to form a company challenging the US health care system; as evidence is being collected of a Rohingya massacre from last August, Richard Paddock, foreign correspondent with the New York Times, traces the history of the Myanmar army and Geraldine Doogue travelled to Rwanda in January to see the silver back gorillas but also discovered a country reconciling the 1994 genocide, Geraldine speaks with Senator Apollinaire Mushinzimana and the head of the Rwanda Broadcasting Agency Arthur Asimwe.

    Many economists are predicting strong economic growth this year. But Ross Gittins, commenting on Australia’s stalled wage growth and the  diminished power of organised labour, writes: “Take away the real growth in wages and neither the economy nor jobs will stay growing strongly for long”.

    How Australia’s identity was militarised – Paul Daley in the Guardian.

    A former communist and a former Catholic activist combine forces to cast new light on the organisation that helped fuel the Labor split – Paul Rodan in Inside Story.

    “Qantas and other big Australian businesses are investing regardless of tax cuts” – the Conversation.

    We have entered the post-American era, writes Stan Grant

    Greg Jericho unravels the miracle of Roger Federer.

    Avoiding a US-Rissian military escalation during a hybrid war – Carnegie Moscow Center.

    A series of articles by blogger Umair Haque on why the American Dream is over.

     

  • JOHN THOMPSON. Private health insurers discriminate against country people

    Private health insurers have asked the Commonwealth Government to prevent patients paying for public hospital services through their private health insurance (PHI).  This would be grossly unfair for those people in non-metropolitan Australia who are enticed into PHI through the Medicare Levy Surcharge, but have no private hospitals in their region. More basically, the Government should abolish its $10 billion subsidy to PHI, and direct the savings to funding private hospitals more efficiently and equitably.   (more…)

  • SAUL ESLAKE. Defenders of housing status quo create ‘alternative facts’.

    The release last month of (albeit heavily redacted) Treasury advice to the Turnbull Government on the likely effects of the policies the Labor Opposition took to the 2016 election regarding negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount once again highlight the extent to which those defending the status quo in this area are willing to create their own ‘alternative facts’ in order to promote their arguments. (more…)

  • GEORGE RENNIE. The Revolving Door at the Infrastructure Club

    The revolving door of politics represents a particularly difficult problem for modern democracies. And when senior public servants leave their positions to work as lobbyists for the infrastructure industry – an industry that takes a lion’s share of government spending, and is afforded substantive protection from scrutiny by “commercial confidentiality” – that problem grows substantially.   (more…)

  • DAVID JAMES. Welcome to the Matrix of materialism

    A visitor from before the 20th century would be stunned to see the extent to which the world is now dominated by materialism. It has many dimensions. (more…)

  • I have watched and mourned as NSW national parks have been run into the ground

    MICHAEL MCFADYEN. Over the past 40 years I have visited probably more national parks in NSW than 99 per cent of the population, both for work and recreation. (more…)

  • HENRY SHERRELL. Assessing the effect of recent 457 visa policy changes

    On 18 April 2017, the Turnbull Government announced the abolition and replacement of the 457 visa program. A number of new visa eligibility criteria were introduced immediately, and formal abolition will follow on 1 March 2018, when the 457 visa is set to be replaced by the Temporary Skilled Shortage (TSS) visa. (more…)

  • GREG WOOD. The TPP-11 : Discarding Australia’s Sovereignty

    The latest iteration of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) now comprises 11 countries, the US not included given President Trump’s strongly stated, but not explained, aversion.  The agreement’s revised text won’t be made public until signature, scheduled to take place in Chile in early March. Wisely, the ALP Opposition in our Federal Parliament has said that it will make its judgement on it only after seeing that text. However it is clear that Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) provisions remain in the revised agreement, though apparently they have been tweaked.
     (more…)

  • PETER BROOKS. Tasmanian Labor takes on the gambling industry

    The Tasmanian election on March 3rd will provide a watershed moment in public health not just in Tasmania but for Australia as well. (more…)

  • ‘We have to change capitalism’ to beat climate change, says world’s biggest asset manager

    Capitalism must change to avert climate change, according to the vice-chair of the world’s largest asset manager, Blackrock. (more…)

  • LEANNE SMITH. When did Australians stop caring about our national identity?

    In 1998 I was a freshly minted law grad who felt great purpose in joining the Harbour Bridge march for the first ‘Sorry Day’. I had just begun my first real job with the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, and my country was grappling with the Stolen Generation Report. It seemed the time was right for recognition and reconciliation, and I shared a sense of optimism about Australia’s identity and place in the world. (more…)

  • GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND …

    On Saturday Extra this 27th January Geraldine Doogue is discussing the cost of government consultants with Julian Hill, ALP member for Bruce and businessman Tony Shepherd; Changes to gambling laws with Charles Livingstone from Monash University and Sam Duncan from the Holmesglen Institute in Victoria; Supreme Court judge and author Michael Pembroke on his book Korea: Where the America Century began and A Foreign Affair discusses reforms in Saudi Arabia, diplomacy successes in South Korea, Vladimir Putin and the anniversary of the secret police and one hundred years since Woodrow Wilson’s 14 point speech with Anthony Bubalo, Lowy Institute, Kyle Wilson, ANU and Lauren Richardson, ANU.

    Companies that pay more tax deliver shareholders better returns. Writing in The Conversation Kerrie Sadiq and Bronwyn McCredie report on their research covering ASX200 companies from 2012 to 2017. They found that a higher percentage of tax paid by a corporation correlated with a higher dividend returns and that that share prices were more likely to increase.

    In a report on the quality of the advice given by financial advisers at the four major banks and the AMP, the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) has found that in three quarters of the customer files they reviewed the advisers had not demonstrated compliance with the duty to act in the best interests of their clients. They found that “10% of the advice reviewed was likely to leave the customer in a significantly worse financial position”.

    It’s time to revive the republican debate: we cannot keep pushing it off into the future. On Late Night Live, Phillip Adams interviewed historian Benjamin Jones, author of This Time: Australia’s Republican Past and Future.  Writing in the Canberra Times, John Warhurst calls on republicans to assert their case: they “must not be afraid to call out monarchist myths and needless distractions”.

    Donald and Melania Trump approached New York’s Guggenheim Museum, requesting a loan of Van Gough’s Landscape with Snow for the White House. The museum declined the Trumps’ request, but they did offer another exhibit, Maurizio Cattelan’s exhibit “America”, a solid gold toilet instead.

    Since bitcoins are not useful as a medium of exchange, or desirable in themselves, their true value is zero – John Quiggin in Inside Story.

    UK regulator has blocked Rupert Murdoch’s bid for Sky – the Guardian and the Economist.

    Massacres and protests: Australia Day’s undeniable history – Calla Wahlquist (Guardian)

    The Australia Day barbeque-stopper is the same every year – Paul Daley.  The whispering in our hearts.

    The government’s objective is the main problem with the NBN – Greg Jericho (Guardian)

    Sydney transport planners off the rails with metro plans – Canberra Times

    Tesla battery moves from showboating to making money – RenewEconomy.

    ​Why is Trump’s staff turnover higher than the 5 most recent presidents? – Brookings Institution

    One-percent of Australians own more wealth than the bottom 70 per cent combined – the Guardian

    I’m unapologetically pro-life and ashamed that Trump spoke at the March for Life – Haley Stewart

    The United States and Russian may find themselves in a nuclear arms race, again.

    The true author of “The Art of The Deal” says Donald Trump is more self-absorbed than you can possibly imagine.

    How Sydney’s transport system has gone off the rails – the Conversation.

    Mixed messages from the United States as Turkey attacks Syrian Kurds – the New York Times

  • MELISSA STONEHAM. Who wins when powerful health leaders align with the gambling industry?

    Last November, Australian casino giant Crown Resorts announced it had appointed former Federal Health Department head Jane Halton to its board.

    In the post below, Dr Melissa Stoneham laments the high profile move, asking why a health leader who had taken on the tobacco industry would now work for another industry that causes great harm to individuals and the community, and what Crown might hope to get from the appointment. (more…)

  • EMMA ALBERICI. Sugar tax and the power of big business: How influence trumps evidence in politics

    Australia markets itself as a liberal democracy committed to the principles of equality and fairness.  But in practice, those with clout or money or both can influence public policy in a way other members of the public cannot. (more…)

  • GRAHAM FREUDENBERG. Ode to Australia Day.

    Ode to Australia Day

    (In tribute to the late John Hirst and his masterpieces Freedom on the Fatal Shore)

    The heroes of famed Waterloo
    Or great Nelson’s mighty crew,
    If chance had gone a different way,
    Might well have peopled Botany Bay.
    The Duke himself, he called them “scum”
    Kept under by the lash and rum,
    Not from Eton’s playing fields
    But from poverty’s seething yields,
    So, too, our founders, if truth be told
    Soldiers and convicts – “undesirables” manifold.

    So Dutton, Hanson: shame on your smear
    Better than you have by boat come here.
    “True patriots all, for be it understood”
    “They left their country for their country’s good”. *
    Their founding service you might emulate
    Improve this nation – and emigrate.
    No good you do by staying here,
    Purveying hate and feeding fear.
    What of Australia do you really know,
    Of migrant waves who’ve made us grow,
    Since Phillip Britain’s flag unfurled
    To take possession of a stolen world?

    Graham Freudenberg
    26 January 2018.   (more…)

  • HARRY DEMPSEY. Will Trump snap Japan’s tenuous tightrope?

    The unhinged madman foreign policy of US President Donald Trump means Tokyo must walk a tightrope to manage the US–Japan alliance. On security policy, on trade and on North Korea, Japan will increasingly have to develop its own independent regional vision. (more…)

  • LEANNE WELLS. More Government tax incentives for health insurance?

    While in the real world consumers struggle to meet private health care costs, health funds are hoping for yet more government help. (more…)

  • JIM COOMBS. Reverse Robin Hood: rob the poor to overstuff the rich.

    To take but two examples, Education and Tourism, it seems our economic system is designed to service the desires of the already well-provided-for.  (more…)

  • BERNARD KEANE. If milk prices went up like private health insurance …

    The forthcoming round of private health insurance (PHI) premium increases — touted by the government as the lowest in a decade — will mean premiums have risen nearly 80% since 2008, far ahead of inflation and a good demonstration of why PHI companies have racked up big profit increases in recent years. (more…)

  • CERIDWEN DOVEY. The mapping of indigenous massacres in Australia [New Yorker]

    From New York to Cape Town to Sydney, the bronze body doubles of the white men of empire—Columbus, Rhodes, Cook—have lately been pelted with feces, sprayed with graffiti, had their hands painted red. Some have been toppled. The fate of these statues—and those representing white men of a different era, in Charlottesville and elsewhere—has ignited debate about the political act of publicly memorializing historical figures responsible for atrocities. But when the statues come down, how might the atrocities themselves be publicly commemorated, rather than repressed?
    • The remainder of this article about the project to map the massacres of indigenous Australians, led by historian Lyndall Ryan,  can be found in the New Yorker.

     

  • ARTHUR STOCKWIN. Explaining one-party dominance in Japanese politics.

    In 1990 US scholar TJ Pempel edited a book titled Uncommon Democracies, which wrote about parliamentary democracies where a single party had been unusually dominant. These included Sweden, Italy, Israel, West Germany and Japan. Australia was also a candidate for entry to this group. Of the original members, Japan alone is left.  (more…)

  • GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND …

    Canberra Times journalist Crispin Hull writes about the harm of growing inequality, particularly where it results from government policies to opt out of shared health and education services, through financial support for private schools and private health insurance, rendering public services as residual services for the poor and indigent.

    Esther Rajadurai of the McKell Institute has produced a major report – Mapping Opportunity – on widening wage and income inequality in Australia, with extensive analysis of the causes of widening inequality and fine-grained analysis of regional data. It stresses the need for policies to restore social mobility. Writing in the Fairfax Press Mark Kenny has a short summary of the report – emphasising inequality on internet access.  Sam Crosby also of the McKell Institute, drawing on the report’s findings, urges Labor to commit to attend not only to people’s immediate needs, but also to a sustained policy of reducing inequality, including measures  that ensure a fair go and improve social mobility.

    “When is a dollar not a dollar? When you receive it tomorrow”. Jennifer Duke, writing in the Fairfax Press, explains a finding in behavioural economics about our inclination to save. As is well-known, we all find it hard to put aside some of our current income to save for future needs. But when it comes to income we have not yet received – a pay rise (remember them?) or a Christmas bonus, we are more willing to commit such income to saving.

    Tesla’s South Australian battery has surpassed expectations – RenewEconomy.

    Australian wind-solar investment hits record high as the NEG threatens to push it off a cliff.

    The evidence for the Tasmanian genocide of Aborigines – The Conversation.

    US officials briefed Jared Kushner on their concerns about Wendi-Deng-Murdoch – the Guardian.

    An Ancient Greek idea could foil Brexit’s democratic tragedy – Nicholas Gruen.

     

  • GRAHAM FREUDENBERG. His speech at the Graham Freudenberg Tribute Dinner- A REPOST from June 19 2017

    On 2 June, the NSW Branch of the Labor Party hosted a dinner for Graham Freudenberg, former speechwriter for federal and state Labor leaders, including Arthur Calwell, Gough Whitlam, Bob Hawke, Neville Wran, Barrie Unsworth, Bob Carr and Simon Crean. This is a transcript of his speech at that dinner – personal reflections and recollections of the people he has travelled with in his more than 40 years of service to the Labor Party and to Australia.
    (more…)

  • TIM HOLLO. Democracy is in crisis. Long live democracy!

    The consensus around liberal democracy is collapsing, in Australia and around the world, as citizens are being systematically disenfranchised and disconnected from our democratic role. Unless we radically reinvent and re-embrace much deeper forms of democracy, we stand to lose it altogether. (more…)

  • ANNE HURLEY. The Government just doesn’t get it when it comes to the NBN debacle

    As I was writing this article in response to Paul Budde’s speculation about life following the NBN roll-out in 2020, the Government released its response to the first report of the Joint Standing Committee on the NBN. Sadly, if predictably, the Government seems to still be clinging to the forlorn hope that somehow things will work out in the end.   (more…)

  • SHIRO ARMSTRONG. More to Australia-Japan security than bilateral defence ties.

    Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is visiting Japan . Whatever else is said, at the top of the agenda in his discussions with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will be managing relations with the United States and China. These are the superpowers that determine and underpin economic, political and national security for Australia and Japan in Asia.  (more…)

  • GREG WOOD. The China Australia FTA Meets the All Controlling State- A REPOST from September 25 2017

    During Premier Li Keqiang’s visit to Australia in March, Australia and China signed a “Declaration of Intent” to accelerate a review of the provisions governing services trade and investment in the bilateral China Australia free trade agreement (Chafta).  So far the declaration hasn’t generated frenetic activity:  DFAT set a six month deadline for submissions from interested parties. Delay is a positive  Beijing’s decisions of late point to regress in its approach to foreign investment and Australia needs to take careful stock.  (more…)

  • PETER BROOKS. Movement on out of pocket expenses.

    Over the last few years much as been written on the issue of out of pocket (OOPs) medical expenses in Australia including a number of contributions in this newsletter. There has been a Senate enquiry and much coverage in the media. The issue of out of pocket expenses is not new – the Grattan Institute conducted a review last year pointing out their rapid increase and that they were impacting on the most vulnerable in society . While a recent OECD Report (https://www.oecd.org/…/Health-at-a-Glance-2015-Key-Findings-AUSTRALIA.pdf) showed that in Australia OOPs account for 20% of expenditure on health care , slightly higher than the OECD average of 19%. By contrast, out-of-pocket costs account for only 10% of health spending in the United Kingdom, 13% in New Zealand and 14% in Canada, which have similar government funded health systems. Out-of-pocket costs also comprise a low proportion of health spending in France (7%), whose health system is largely funded by social security.   (more…)

  • PETER BRENT. Peter Dutton for Prime Minister!

    Peter Dutton is a household name. Most Australians would see the inaugural home affairs minister as tough and politically incorrect — proudly so — tolerating no nonsense from do-gooders and bleeding hearts. He doesn’t take a backward step; his often bellicose pronouncements about asylum seekers and migrants delight fans and incense opponents.  Dutton has run the government side of the latest News Corp–Coalition tag-team outrage campaign — the one about Melbourne’s “African crime wave.” He is, perhaps, the worthiest of today’s crop to assume the mantle of the legendary John Howard.  (more…)

  • JIM COOMBS. The Economics of Stop The Boats : A sense of Proportion.

    Why throw away money on preventing refugees when we should see the economic benefit they might bring ?   (more…)