For all the talk of an industry in crisis, you have to hand it to the British media for their ability to get to the nub of a story. It was, one imagines, with a gasp of triumph that the Daily Mail was able to deliver a stinging blow to the president of the supreme court, Lady Hale, she of the spider brooch and the damning verdict on our prime minister’s prorogation wheeze. Via a stunned headline, the paper was this week able to reveal that Hale, who graduated top of her class at Cambridge in law, who was the first woman to be appointed to the Law Commission, and the second to be appointed to the court of appeal, was in fact an “ex-barmaid”. Truly, we must applaud this mighty organ’s dogged commitment to truth and scrutiny. (more…)
John Menadue
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DANIEL BRAMMALL. The financial advice changes nobody is talking about
The long-suffering consumer of financial services has plenty to be pleased about thanks to sweeping industry reforms. The initiatives mark the end of a gravy train culture and a renaissance in genuinely independent financial advice. They are reforms, however, of which the majority of financial planners and their clients are largely unaware.
Commissioner Kenneth Hayne examined some 10,000 submissions and conducted seven (very) public hearings to arrive at 76 recommendations addressing this problem of trust in financial services. Some of those recommendations have already been implemented by the government, and almost all of the rest will be underway before the end of June 2020, although most people do not realise it. (more…)
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LAUREN RICHARDSON. Japan’s deepening diplomatic crisis with South Korea (East Asia Forum 15-9-19)
Japan’s relationship with South Korea is not amicable at the best of times. Yet in recent months it has entered a rapidly descending diplomatic spiral of unprecedented depth and scope. Mounting bilateral friction over the intractable ‘history problems’ is steadily bleeding into the economic and security realms of the relationship. The result is a bilateral trade war with potential repercussions for the global supply chain of high-tech devices. (more…)
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JOHN MENADUE. From a Long Term Permanent Resident of Hong Kong.
The following report is from a long term permanent resident of Hong Kong who along with the rest of Hong Kong has watched the long Summer of Discontent, with disbelief at how rapidly the city has fractured and deteriorated. It analyses what is happening and why and is pessimistic about a solution to the current problem in the near future.The writer is a university lecturer who wishes to remain anonymous for reasons of personal and professional security. (more…)
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Thanks to guest editor, Ramesh Thakur.
During our three weeks holiday in the UK, Ramesh Thakur has been guest editor for Pearls & Irritations. Susie and I greatly appreciate his contribution.
In considering the future of Pearls & Irritations, we may find that guest editorship provides a possible way forward. Guest editorship provides a means of continuing the broad direction of Pearls & Irritations as well as providing an opportunity for guest editors to draw on their own unique background and experience.
Ramesh Thakur is currently Professor Emeritus at the ANU in the Crawford School of Public Policy. He was formerly the Director of the Centre for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament in the Crawford School. Educated in India and Canada, he was the Professor of International Relations at the University of Otago in New Zealand. From 1998-2007 he was Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations.
Many thanks to Ramesh and also to Ian McAuley who assisted on the sidelines.
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KISHORE MAHBUBANI. What China Threat? How the United States and China can avoid war (Harper Magazine 22-01-19) A Repost.
Quite remarkably ,of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council ,China is the only one among them that has not fired a single shot across its border in thirty years,since a brief naval battle between China and Vietnam in 1988. By contrast,even during the relatively peaceful Obama Administration, the American military dropped twenty six thousand bombs on seven countries in a single year. Evidently, the Chinese understand well the art of strategic restraint. (more…)
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JEFFREY BRAITHWAITE: How to improve the health system, part 2: learn from things going right as well as things going wrong
At the Australian Institute of Health Innovation at Macquarie University we have around 80 projects going on at any point in time. There are more than 180 people – doctoral and masters students, professional staff, researchers, visiting academics and associates – and dozens of partners, nationally and internationally. We are working on providing the evidence that supports practical and implementable change in the health system, delivering real benefits to people. (more…)
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JEFFREY BRAITHWAITE: How to improve the health system, part 1: support the staff
I hear many stories and over the years have conducted many studies about people’s experiences with doctors and hospitals. I access these in the course of my work as a health systems researcher and some simply come to me as a parent, husband, son, or friend. All can – at least potentially – be used to change the health system. (more…)
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PETER MILLER. Politicians who become lobbyists can be bad for Australians’ health
The ‘revolving door’ of people between government and the alcohol, tobacco and gambling industries is now recognised as an increasing threat to public policy making. In a new study by Deakin University researchers this revolving door has revealed for the first time the influence of lobbyists on public health policy.
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JOHN MENADUE. A updated post: A Commonwealth Hospital Benefit similar to the existing Medical Benefit to replace the $11b private health insurance subsidy.
The wasteful and unfair $ 11b per annum cost to taxpayers of the subsidy to Private Health Insurance should be abolished and the savings used in three possible ways – part funding a Medicare dental scheme, additional funding for public hospitals and/or part funding private hospital care through a Hospital Benefit Scheme. This third option may be more politically possible given the power of private providers who have an effective veto on reform. In that Hospital Benefit Scheme, individuals could choose to access either a public or a private hospital in the same way that veterans do today. (more…)
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JOHN MENADUE. A Repost and update: The scourge of lobbyists and crony capitalism.
Abuse by lobbyists is back in the news .The most recent appalling example has been Crown Resorts. With Ex Labor and Liberal ministers and officials on the payroll of Crown neither the Liberal or Labor Parties raised the Crown scandal involving ‘Chinese junkets’ and ‘high rollers’ receiving favourable treatment . They ran away from the scandal. It was left to Andrew Wilkie, other Independents and the Greens. (more…)
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BRET STEPHENS. Blessed Are the Refugees (The New York Times 13-9-19)
Under Donald Trump, America is ceasing to be the last best hope. (more…)
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HAJO DUKEN. Australian values
What a great and timely question Allan Patience asked on P+I on 7 August. Whilst I agree with him that most of the Australian value talk is simply humbug, I feel that, in times of Trump and Brexit, the Uluru Statement from the Heart and raids on the ABC, we more than ever need to have a serious discussion about what the values of a nation in general, and Australian values in particular, are and who determines them.
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JOHN MENADUE. We have surrendered our sovereignty to a very dangerous and violent ally. An update
As China reasserts its historical world role, its influence will grow in Australia and elsewhere. But that influence is minimal compared with the US which has ‘agents of influence’ thick on the ground in Australia. Our media ,including the ABC, is saturated with US content and a large part of it is controlled by an American citizen with close ties to Donald Trump. We have a reasonable degree of domestic political autonomy despite foreign ownership of our major companies but we have ceded effective foreign and defence power to the US military,industrial and intelligence complex. All our major political parties are happy to maintain our quasi colonial status.
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GILL HOFFMAN, KHALED ABU TOAMEH, OMRI NAHMIAS. Netanyahu Vows to Annex All Settlements, Starting with Jordan Valley (Jerusalem Post 11-9-19)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Tuesday that if reelected, he will apply sovereignty over all settlements in Judea and Samaria, starting with the Jordan Valley. (more…)
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JOHN MENADUE. ‘Things you learn along the way’.
Occasionally friends suggest to me that I should write my autobiography. Ruefully I explain that I wrote ‘Things you learn along the way’ twenty years ago. The book sold about 8,000 copies but as far as I know is no longer available.
The book covers many aspects of my life: The early days as a footloose son of the Methodist manse; seven years in the ‘wilderness’ working for Gough Whitlam in Opposition; working for Rupert Murdoch in his better days; Secretary of Prime Minister and Cabinet to both Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser, including the Dismissal; enjoyable family days in Japan as Ambassador; the most meaningful job of my life as Secretary of the Immigration Department during the Indochina Refugee Program; and a few years at Qantas where I found that Directors and my views were not necessarily the same.
See link below if you are interested in reading. (link also on home page ‘about John Menadue’.)
‘Things you learn along the way’.
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VICTOR GAETEN. Pope Francis’ Holy Diplomacy in Ukraine (UCA News 5-9-19)
Why Washington and the Vatican Don’t See Eye to Eye (more…)
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JAMES CHAPPEL. Weigel’s ‘Irony of Modern Catholic History’ in review.
The pope is far less in control of his flock than most people realize. This has always been the case: no leader in history, let alone one in charge of a billion people across the globe, has been able to claim absolute obedience. It is especially true, though, of Pope Francis, and especially true in the United States. Here, the standard-issue neglect of papal missives coincides with a well-financed effort to conquer the Catholic public sphere in the name of clerical conservatism and libertarian economics. Over the centuries, popes have had to deal with all manner of challenges to their rule, including military ones. And while some of those were devastating to the church, perhaps none were as corrosive as this one to the world the church calls home.
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RYAN MANUEL. The Hong Kong Government is as Leaderless as the Protesters (Foreign Policy, 5 September 2019)
A distant Beijing and a shifting protest movement make it hard to sit down at the bargaining table.
Bruce Lee didn’t like conventional fighting styles, finding them too rigid. Instead, like jazz musicians with their scales, he took his many years of repetitive training in various martial arts and riffed on them to try and take people by surprise, hitting them hard from odd angles. He was a street fighter, not a prizefighter. (more…)
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CÉSAR RODRIGUÉZ GARAVITO. Bolsonaro is a Regional Threat
President Bolsonaro of Brazil is behind a policy of clearing the Amazon rainforest for more cattle farming and agriculture. He claims that this is a matter for Brazil and no one else. The Amazon basin does not just belong to Brazil. Parts of it are in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela. The Amazon rainforest influences the weather patterns throughout the whole of South America. More importantly it is a significant source of carbon capture for the whole world. (more…)
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BEN EHRENREICH. The End of the Frontier Myth. – America can no longer run from its past (The Guardian 31-7-19)
The idea of the frontier in US history has been one of endless promise, but the reality has involved violence, even genocide. As this powerful study argues, its latest incarnation is Trump’s wall.
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KEVIN RUDD. Democracy overboard: Rupert Murdoch’s long war on Australian politics (The Guardian 7-9-19)
Australia has become a dangerously complacent country, dancing to the reactionary tune of the Murdoch press
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REBECCA TAN. How a conservative town in Australia set aside politics to rally for a family facing deportation (The Washington Post, 5 Sep. 2019)
Biloela, population 6,000, is a rural town in northeast Australia. When the town’s first — and only — set of traffic lights was built 10 years ago, residents were sent into a tizzy. Many families still work in coal mines or cotton farms. On weekends, people fish.
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AMJAD AYMAN YAGHI. The case of Mohammad El Halabi and the rabbit hole of Israeli “justice”
It’s been three years and there have been 119 court appearances. He has been separated from his family and lost his freedom.
Yet even though an Australian government inquiry has found allegations against him baseless, and his charges appear ever more outlandish as more is learned about the case, Mohammad El Halabi languishes in an Israeli prison, charged but not convicted, a Kafkaesque nightmare of the kind in which Israel – with its administrative detentions and separate laws for separate peoples – has become expert. (more…)
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LINDY EDWARDS. NSW Political Donations Scandal would not have been exposed at the Federal Level
To the seasoned observer of political donations in Australia, the most remarkable thing about the recent NSW Labor scandal is that is has been exposed and people are being pursued. At the federal level this behaviour would have gone under the radar. (more…)
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BRENDON KELSON. Letter to Minister for Veterans and Defence Personnel
The Hon Darren Chester MP, Minister for Veterans and Defence Personnel,
Dear Minister
$498M AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL EXPANSION
Thank you for Robert Curtin’s reply of 25 July 2019 to my letter to the Prime Minister of 19 June 2019. That reply rather missed the main points of my letter so I restate them here in hope of a more fruitful exchange. This is clearly a matter for the responsible Minister and the Government as a whole, not just for the Memorial. (more…) -
JOHN MENADUE. The continuing litany of lies on boat arrivals and border protection.
I am sorry if I keep repeating what I have been saying for four years but when will we finally accept that we have been consistently conned and lied to about boat arrivals and border protection for a long time. Our national policies on asylum seekers have been built on the shifting sands of government deception which the main stream media has failed to expose. Our borders are now less secure than ever before despite all the spin. (more…)
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MICHAEL LEAHY. The Catholic Weekly: seeking justice for Pell or waging a culture war?
As a former colleague in the seminary and priesthood, and friend, of Cardinal Pell, it gives me no pleasure to see him fall so dramatically from grace. Along with all Australians of good will, I want to see him get justice from our legal system.
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MICHAEL FURTADO. Playing Devil’s Advocate for the Catholic Plenary Counci.
On November 4, 1956, the Soviet regime violently suppressed the Hungarian Uprising. Earlier in that year, at the Twentieth Congress of the USSR Communist Party,Khrushchev had bitterly denounced Stalin, deceased three years prior, for his crimes.
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STEPHEN S. ROACH. Flailing at China (Project Syndicate 27.9.2019)
Despite years of denial, there can no longer be any doubt that the US is pursuing a bipartisan containment strategy vis-à-vis China. Whether justified or not, the real problem with this strategy is less the merits of the allegations leveled by US politicians than the incoherence of the Trump administration’s policies to address them. (more…)
