John Menadue

  • ANDREW GREENE. Spies need scrutiny, new NXT senator warns.

    Federal Parliament lacks the power to properly monitor Australia’s “growing” intelligence community and the billions spent on their clandestine activities, the country’s newest senator has warned.  (more…)

  • JIM COOMBS. Get a better court, eh, what?

    The electors rightly regard the “citizenship saga” as a pile of nonsense. It did not need to be so, but the High Court was not up to its job. Worse, latter day xenophobia is being fed by the “security industry” to interfere with our freedoms and our capacity to deal with other nations (except the US). (more…)

  • JOAN STAPLES: Incredulous disbelief at Gary Johns to head charities regulator.

    The appointment of Gary Johns last week as director of the regulator, the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC), has created incredulous disbelief and concern amongst NGO leaders.  For decades, Johns has been proactive in criticising the public advocacy of NGOs and even their very existence. (more…)

  • MARGARET BEAVIS. Will the Nobel Peace Prize change Australia’s double speak?

    On December 10th the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to ICAN – the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear weapons –  which was founded here in Melbourne in 2006. The Nobel Committee made the award “for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons.”   (more…)

  • ROSS BURNS. The Art of the Pushover

    There are perhaps no negotiations more fraught, or with higher stakes, than those surrounding Israel-Palestine. Has the self-professed “world’s greatest deal-maker” dropped the ball after making his first major play in the region? (more…)

  • GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND …

    Looming in the New Year is debate over the Government’s anti-lobbying legislation, dressed up as a move against foreign influence. Fairfax journalist Peter Martin warns that if the Coalition gets its way, when the next election comes around charities would be prevented doing anything that may be seen as attempting to influence how people vote.  (The Murdoch media, although it is foreign-owned, and the Minerals Council would still be fee to influence how people vote, because they are not charities.) ABC political reporter Anna Henderson comments on the government’s appointment of former Keating-era Labor MP Gary Johns as the new charities commissioner, “a staunch critic of charities that conduct public advocacy work”.

    Peter Martin also warns us not to get too excited about promises of income tax cuts. His basic message is that the Commonwealth budget cannot afford a significant tax cut. Wage rises forecast in recent budgets, which would have allowed for cuts to compensate for bracket creep, haven’t occurred.  Perhaps another reason for fiscal tightness is that many corporations are paying no tax, in data presented by the ABC’s Emily Clark.

    German pilots are refusing to deport asylum seekers – the Independent

    Amazon’s track record may signal a change in Australian industrial relations – TheConversation

    Turnbull’s department head says Tony Abbott damaged the public service.

    Government’s social security cuts seem all toughness and no love – Ross Gittins

    Lesley Russell describes how commercialisation and the greater dominance of private providers has led to lower standards in aged care.

    Ross Gittins writes about voters rejecting the fruits of neoliberalism, privatisation and many other economic reforms.

    In a time of deep political, social and economic uncertainty for everyone (except the ultra-rich), Noam Chomsky and Robert Pollin provide some theoretical and practical guidance for the left. This Truthout interview is an effort to help reimagine a realistic social order in an age when the old order is dying but the new has yet to be born.

  • GRAHAM HAND. No, Gladys, build it and they will not come

    The NSW Government has announced it will knock down and rebuild Allianz Stadium at Moore Park at a cost of $700 million and the Olympic Stadium at Homebush, only 17 years old, at a cost of $1.6 billion. However, there is little ‘business case’ evidence that new stadiums would make a material difference to attendances at football games, although Sports Minister, Stuart Ayres argues, “With better quality facilities, more people will come and attend matches.”   (more…)

  • PETER BROWNE. Historian of the present.Ken Inglis

    When I visited Ken Inglis early last month, a few weeks before he died, I found him engrossed in the day’s edition of the Sunday Age. It was perhaps eighty years since he’d begun reading the papers as a schoolboy in the inner-Melbourne suburb of Preston, and during that time he’d become one of Australia’s most highly (and warmly) regarded historians. But his passion for the press — his fascination with the way it recorded “the history of the present”, as the historian Timothy Garton Ash calls it — was undiminished. And not just newspapers — on the table beside his bed were copies of the New Yorker, the magazine that helped shape his style and fuel his remarkable curiosity. (more…)

  • KATHARINE BETTS AND BOB BIRRELL. How do Australian voters’ view the level of immigration? TAPRI and Scanlon compared

    There has been growing controversy about Australia’s level of overseas immigration. In the year to March 2017 Australia’s population is estimated to have grown by a massive 389,100, some 231,000, or 60 per cent of which was due to net overseas migration. For the last few years around two thirds of the net growth in migrants have been locating in Sydney and Melbourne. (more…)

  • LARRY JAGAN. Suu Kyi should heed Pope’s suggestion on UN role

    Pope Francis’ visit to Myanmar last week was an overwhelming success and may provide the much needed spark to ignite the government’s peace process and its efforts to bring reconciliation to the country’s violence-torn western region of Rakhine. The Pope’s message was loud and clear: the only way forward for Myanmar was “love and peace”, the title used for his visit. (more…)

  • FRAN BAUM. Beyond the social determinants: a manifesto for wellbeing

    Last week the Australian Health Policy Collaboration launched their Health Tracker by socioeconomic status, which is a report card on the health of adult Australians  in relation to chronic diseases, risk factors and rates of death, by quintiles of disadvantage. (more…)

  • TIM COSTELLO. A striking lack of ambition.

    The Turnbull Government’s white paper on Australian foreign policy has raised as many questions as it has provided answers. Much comment has focused on its failure to resolve, or even point to a resolution of, the tension between Australia’s unwavering adherence to US hegemony and the undeniable rise of China as a global and regional power. (more…)

  • PETER GOSS. How to achieve excellence in Australian schools: a story from the classroom

    A new Gonski review is examining how to achieve educational excellence for Australia’s 3.8 million school students. The success of the review will ultimately depend on whether its recommendations lead to better practice in the classroom. And the best way for policy makers to improve classroom practice is to develop a more adaptive education system. (more…)

  • ROSS GWYTHER. A sledgehammer for a walnut ?

    Unbeknown to most Australians, a court case has been underway in Alice Springs over the past few months with implications far and wide.  Employing a sixty year old law drafted during the height of the anti-communist 1950s in Australia, the Federal Government has called for seven years jail for each member of a small group of people known as the Pine Gap Peace Pilgrims, whose only offence was singing and praying in the grounds of Pine Gap in 2016. (more…)

  • JOAN STAPLES. Government targets international philanthropy for civil society.

    A Bill expected to be introduced by the Government this week, may deliberately create confusion by linking foreign donations to political parties, with foreign donations to civil society organisations.  It is expected to propose banning both. (more…)

  • FRAN MARTIN. Overstating Chinese influence in Australian universities

    Both Australia’s national government and its security agency ASIO have expressed concerns over the influence that the Chinese government exerts on Chinese student groups studying at Australian universities. They have also accused Beijing of using those groups to spy on Chinese students in Australia. (more…)

  • DONELLA JOHNSTON. Why women should run the Catholic Church.

    You know an idea is starting to become mainstream when you read about it in the Australian Women’s Weekly. (more…)

  • GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND …

    Australian shareholders should be told of climate risk to profits, says think tank

    Triple J did the right thing: we need a new Australia Day – Henry Reynolds in The Conversation

    Banks warned of ‘regulatory action’ as climate change bites global economy – the Guardian

    Why South Australia must, and will, lead world on renewables – RenewEconomy

    Stephen Hawkings promotes smart drugs – Jon Stewart in Forbes magazine 

    Behrouz Boochani exposed Australia’s evil on Manus. The shame will outlive us all | Richard Flanagan – the Guardian.

    “The cost of living is soaring: look at electricity prices for example.”  That’s a common belief, held by many people struggling to make ends meet, but Ross Gittins reminds us that the source of the struggle is low wage growth, not inflation (The real reason you’re feeling the pinch, Fairfax press 20 Nov).  Low wage growth and low inflation are both attributable, in large part, to intense competition and technological change.

    Marrying across Australia’s Catholic-Protestant divide in the old days – the Conversation

    South Australia’s Royal Commission into water theft may be just the tip of iceberg for the Murray Darling Basin – Jamie Pittock in the Conversation.

  • MICHAEL LAMBERT. The Productivity Commission on Improving Productivity and Health Reform PART 2 OF 2.

    In part 1 yesterday, I outlined the five key areas or themes where the Productivity Commission believes that reform is essential and would deliver major benefits to individuals, the community and the economy. These five themes are summarised below.   (more…)

  • BRUCE WEARNE A Suggestion to the Ruddock Committee

    The discussion of Freedom of Religion in relation to proposed changes to the Marriage Act should not avoid analysis of how the current Act refers to a wedding ceremony’s “monitum”. The Marriage Act decrees that the “Monitum” must be announced when a marriage is conducted by one authorised to do so. But how now will a new “monitum” function under the proposed changes to the Act? How will the Act’s view of the wedding ceremony be configured?   (more…)

  • DAVID WATTERS AND COLLEAGUES. An open letter to the Australian Parliament regarding the health of asylum seekers and refugees on Manus Island

    (The following letter appeared in the MJA Insight on 27 November 2017)

    WE are senior Australian clinicians who write in our individual capacity to express our concerns about the ongoing health and well-being of the former detainees still based on Manus Island and now in alternative accommodation. They, like all human beings, have a universal right – enshrined in the United Nations charter – to health and well-being. Their political and citizenship status should not affect this right. All politicians regardless of their political party should respect the human right to health and themselves be strong advocates of “health for all” without discrimination. (more…)

  • MIKE WALLER. The Royal Commission we really need – into Australia’s public administration.

     As Terry Moran has recently pointed out, our system of public administration is in serious trouble.  The last fundamental look at Australian federal public administration was some forty years ago – the Coombs Royal Commission.  We urgently need a successor to Coombs’ forensic and thoughtful approach, but this time addressing the necessary reforms of all levels of government. (more…)

  • TERRY MORAN. Back in the game. Part 2 of 2.

    Active and effective government

    I want to highlight two messages from the attitudes research that I referred to in Part 1.  First, the health of our democracy can’t be divorced from the health of our public institutions and our public sector.  Second, getting back in the game means investing in an Australian Public Service (and a Victorian Public Service) that can think for itself, not smothering it with a dominant microeconomic paradigm that no longer works and the community no longer supports.   (more…)

  • MICHAEL LAMBERT: The Productivity Commission on Improving Productivity and Health Reform. Part 1 of 2.

    The Productivity Commission (hereafter the Commission) has recently released a very substantial and potentially important report, Shifting the Dial, and associated supporting papers. It was produced in response to a reference from the Treasurer for the Commission to investigate the state of productivity improvement and ways that government can enhance productivity performance. This is to be a five yearly review. The report is a most welcome contribution to public sector reform with major potential benefits to the community and represents a strategic and fundamental approach to public sector reform.  (more…)

  • BENJAMIN VENESS. NSW commits to improving health of doctors-in-training

    NSW has finally committed to addressing systemic problems with medical training in a bid to improve the mental health of doctors-in-training.   (more…)

  • Myanmar Is Not a Simple Morality Tale

    In this article published in the  on November 25, 2017, Roger Cohen writes about the dilemma of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.  He comments ‘The West made a saint of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. The Rohingya crisis revealed a politician.’  
    (more…)

  • TERRY MORAN ‘Back in the Game’ Part 1 of 2

    The policy pendulum is swinging away from a consensus on the primacy of light touch regulation of markets, the unexamined benefits of outsourced service delivery, a general preference for smaller government, and a willing ignorance of public sector values and culture because they’re not always compatible with efficiency as viewed by Treasuries. 

    Replacing this consensus is an increasing acceptance of a larger role for government, including involvement in service delivery, more effective regulation and bolder policy initiatives.   (more…)

  • LYN GILBERT. Healthcare-associated infections are important and often avoidable.

    Hospital, where you go to get better, can have the opposite effect and high on the list of hazards is infection acquired while there.   Progress has occurred  but more needs to be done.  IT opens up great possibilities for scaling mountains of data that could improve patient welfare and save wasted money.  (more…)

  • HANS J. OHFF. Nukes, the strategic advantage or otherwise.

    In a reply to Paul Dibb’s and Richard Brabin-Smith’s piece ‘Australia’s management of strategic risk in the new era’, Hugh White observes :  ‘…so much of the investments we’re now committing to in massive warship programs make no sense. [The] ADF that could defend Australia independently from China would be very different from the ADF today, and the country and economy that could sustain such a force on protracted operations would be very different too.’  Australia’s learned defence planners and strategist know that the corollary of a decline in US global supremacy is the continuing rapid rise of China and a more adventurist Russia. The Trump Administration’s demand for an increase in US nuclear strike capability will not reverse this trend.  (more…)

  • ELIZABETH EVATT. Why not protect all our rights and freedoms?

    The proposal to legislate for freedom of thought ,conscience and religion, as provided in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights is a half measure which would leave other rights and freedoms without equivalent protection. And it may not produce the result which is aimed at. (more…)