Last week at the close of the Pacific Islands Forum in Tuvalu I described the leaders’ discussions as frank and fierce. It is now well-known that the leaders debated the text of the Kainaki II Declaration for Urgent Climate Change Action Now for many hours. I do not want to comment on the tone of the debate, as many others have done that already. (more…)
John Menadue
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BRUCE ROBERTSON. Federal government needs to stop the magical gas merry go round (Renew Economy 19-8-19)
Hearing the New South Wales government rush through two import gas terminals approvals is like revisiting the fantasy world of Mary Poppins. (more…)
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PETER LEWIS. When it comes to choosing the US or China, perhaps our chickens are coming home to roost (The Guardian 20-8-19)
Essential poll finds Australians less emphatically American than many would have predicted – is economic self-interest winning?
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TONY WRIGHT. Spy versus spy: in Canberra, cover is where you find it. (SMH 16.8.2019)
I have wondered occasionally whether ASIO has a few grainy pictures of me sauntering to the front door of the forbidding embassy of the USSR in Canberra. (more…)
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CHRISTOPHER ALTIERI. Rarely has a Vatican official spoken so bluntly on abuse.
As Spring 2019 turned into summer, journalists, media relations professionals and communications experts gathered for four days in St Petersburg, Florida, to take part in the annual Catholic Media Conference. The event, sponsored by the Catholic Press Association of the United States and Canada, included a talk by the head of the disciplinary section in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), Mgr John Kennedy.
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DONNA AH CHEE. Given this history of strength and success, why do Aboriginal health dollars keep going to NINGOs? (Croakey 14-8-19)
Aboriginal community controlled health services have many advantages, including their power to advocate and shame governments into action, according to Donna Ah Chee, CEO of the Central Australian Aboriginal Congress. (more…)
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TREVOR WATSON. Hong Kong Chaos – Beijing weighs its options.
As Hong Kong’s anti-administration protests grow stronger and increasingly violent, fears of a Tiananmen Square style response by Beijing also mount. Trevor Watson looks at the difficulty faced by China watchers as they attempt to predict the next move by one of the world’s unpredictable regimes. (more…)
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GRACE BLAKELY. Why the rise of Boris Johnson is the last laugh of a decaying elite (New Statesman America 14-8-19)
Right-wing populism is a symptom of a crumbling capitalist order that no longer promises a better future for most people. (more…)
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ERIC SIDOTI. Re-Imagining Bi-Partisanship
Australians have become used to the idea that major reforms demand bi-partisan support. Yet bi-partisanship, as traditionally understood, is increasingly elusive with the result that genuine reforms are either watered down or abandoned on the assumption of failure. This is being played out before our eyes in the arguments for and against putting a referendum to the people on enshrining a First Nations’ ‘voice’ in the Australian Constitution as envisaged by the Uluru Statement From the Heart (May 2017). (more…)
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PETER DALY. Tackle clericalism first when attempting priesthood reform | National Catholic Reporter
In his 2018 “Letter to the People of God,” Pope Francis condemned the sins of sexual abuse and the abuse of power in the church. He linked those sins to clericalism. “To say no to abuse is to say an emphatic no to all forms of clericalism.”
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J.A. DICK Sacralizing Politics
It happens. A few days ago I was unfriended on Facebook by a fellow who fears I have ceased being a theologian and am now a political agitator. Actually, I don’t mind agitating a bit but I am still very much a theologian…..
If they are true to their calling, theologians must critique social movements and political positions, when they are unethical and promote false belief. It happened in the past and is happening today. And not just in the U.S.A……
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JOANNE SIMON-DAVIES. Housing in Australia (Australian Parliamentary Library 2.8.2019)
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) recently released data from 2017-18 Survey of Income and Housing (SIH). The SIH is a household survey which collects information on sources of income, amounts received, household net worth, housing, household characteristics and personal characteristics of persons aged 15 years and over in private dwellings throughout Australia (excluding very remote areas). (more…)
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SOPHIE VORRATH. Clean Energy Regulator slams Murdoch solar scare campaign (Renew Economy 12-8-19)
Australia’s Clean Energy Regulator has called out the Murdoch media for “inaccurate” reporting on the standard and safety of rooftop solar installations, following the release of its latest national data on solar panel inspections in 2018. (more…)
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GREGG BRAZINSKY. How Japan’s failure to atone for past sins threatens the global economy (The Washington Post 11-8-19)
Escalating trade tensions could roil global tech market
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TONY BROWN. Who calls the shots? Don’t mention the ‘C’ word
It should come as no surprise that those who trivialise our nation’s deadly alcohol toll or seek to inculcate and normalise alcohol into every aspect of Australia’s culture, regardless of the true cost, are the very same who profit from its promotion and consumption.
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INGA LASS. Language of love: a quarter of Australians are in inter-ethnic relationships (The Conversation)
Australians have become much more diverse over the last few decades. In 2018, 29% of Australians were born overseas, the most it has ever been since the late 19th century. (more…)
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AMITAV ACHARYA. Why ASEAN’s Indo-Pacific outlook matters (East Asia Forum 8-11-19)
After more than a year of deliberation, ASEAN adopted the ‘ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific’ (‘the Outlook’) on 23 June 2019. The Outlook then got an airing at the ASEAN Regional Forum meetings in Bangkok. The Outlook document ‘provides a guide for ASEAN’s engagement in the Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean regions’ and resembles an Indonesian-conceived plan. (more…)
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PHILIP GIRALDI. Israel Has “The Most Moral Army in the World”? (American Herald Tribune)
The creepy French “intellectual” Bernard-Henri Levy gets it wrong (more…)
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GIDEON RACHMAN. The Asian strategic order is dying. (Financial Times 6.8.2019)
When somebody is reaching the end of their life, they often suffer from lots of apparently unrelated ailments — fevers, chest pains, unlucky falls. Something similar may happen when a strategic order is dying.
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JESSICA MATHEWS. America’s Indefensible Defense Budget – Extracts-(The New York Review of Books)
With what former defense secretary Robert Gates termed a “gargantuan, labyrinthine bureaucracy” in the Pentagon, manufacturers and subcontractors for each weapons system carefully distributed across congressional districts and backed by aggressive lobbyists, members of Congress determined to protect constituents’ jobs, and military leaders loyal to the weapons systems they trained on and commanded, it is no surprise that the defense establishment has become extravagant, wasteful, and less agile, innovative, and forward-looking than it should be. (more…)
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PETER RODGERS. Dear Prime Minister – stay firm on Iran, give “strong leader” wise counsel
Advice for the PM as he prepares to visit America and is honoured by dinner with Donald. Let’s hope Morrison can distinguish clearly between US and Australian interests. (more…)
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CHRISTOPHER SHEIL & FRANK STILWELL. The continuing redistribution of Australia’s wealth, upwards
The recent release of the results of the ABS’s biennial survey of income and wealth met a critical response, perhaps due to a slip-shod press release. The official statistician’s headline read: ‘Inequality stable since 2013-14’. In summary, the ABS announced, ‘income and wealth inequality has remained relatively stable since 2013-14.’ The immediate difficulty was that neither the media release nor the official summary of the key findings included any statistics from the benchmark, the 2013-14 survey. To make sense of the news, commentators had to dive into the ABS’s data cubes, where they found a different story, particularly for wealth inequality, our main focus here. (more…)
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ANDREA GERMANOS. ‘July Has Re-Written Climate History’: Month Could Go Down as Planet’s Hottest Ever (Common Dreams)
“As temperatures rise, so will we,” says 350.org.
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MARTA KWASNICKA. Habits of the heart: the problems facing Polish Catholicism
“Really, there is nothing to talk about,” my mother said when I asked her about her conversion to Catholicism. When I did persuade her to tell her story, it had none of the tumult and drama of English nineteenth-century converts such as John Henry Newman or Gerard Manley Hopkins, who entered the Church in defiance of their roots and in the face of fierce disapproval.
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RAYMOND ZHONG. Vietnam is gathering the spoils of a trade war (The New York Times International)
No country on earth has benefited from President Trump’s trade fight with China more than Vietnam. (more…)
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Tugging our forelock again and again to our dangerous ally. An update
The US has coming calling again. Not an Admiral this time but the Pentecostalist Secretary of State Mike Pompeo . He is whistling us up as a faithful dog to join with the US in tackling the problems which Donald Trump created with Iran and presumably to soften us up to host missiles to protect the US marines and port facilities in Darwin. And Pine Gap. (more…)
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KIERAN NOONAN. Respecting Sacred Spaces
Can you imagine the uproar if, with the convenient burning of the roof of the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, the French Minister for Transport approved a plan to build a freeway through the Cathedral? Through the main transept to be precise. Four lanes, dual carriageway. ‘We suppose it will be a bit of an obstacle between the baptismal font and the main altar, but it will dramatically improve traffic movement in the city’. (more…)
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CONNY LENNEBERG. Youth Foyer model, an education first approach to tackling homelessness
The challenge that youth homelessness represents to our community is not intractable. In Victoria, we are seeing positive outcomes – and bipartisan support – for a new solution in the Education First Youth Foyer model developed by the Brotherhood of St Laurence in partnership with Launch Housing. Not only are these foyers helping young people build capacity to lead more positive independent lives, but they have also been found to make economic sense.
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DAVID ISAACS HOW TO RESPOND TO ANTI-VAXXERS
At the dinner table it is not uncommon to find that someone you know and like is vehemently opposed to routine childhood immunisation. Having worked in this area all my career as a paediatric infectious disease specialist and been a member of every Government immunisation advisory committee for the last 25 years, I have struggled with quite how to respond to anti-vaxxers. Here are some thoughts. (more…)
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HOWARD FRENCH. US at war with itself over China (World Politics Review, 31 July 2019)
America’s foreign policy establishment is at war with itself over the shape of the country’s approach toward a steadily rising China. For now, it is only an epistolary war. But as the debate deepens, its outcome will go far toward deciding how the United States responds to its most serious global rival for economic and geopolitical power for decades ahead. (more…)