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…)
John Menadue
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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…)
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ANDREW PESCE. Patient Gap payments and Out of Pocket Costs. What needs to be done? Part 2
The first of this two article series quantified and explained out of pocket (OOP) cost in the Australian Health system.
Some areas of OOP costs are acceptable and there is no need to intervene. OOP costs for non PBS pharmaceuticals, for example, largely reflect discretionary spending on products with little proven impact on health outcomes. (more…)
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ANDREW PESCE. Explaining Gap Fees and their impact. What you knew and what you may not know Part 1.
There has been recent public and media focus on out of pocket (OOP) costs for Australians receiving health care, usually referred to as Gap fees. Minister Hunt recently announced his intention to establish a Website to publish doctors’ fees. This reflects and maintains the public focus on gap fees charged by doctors. This is indeed an important issue, for it may be a significant impediment to equitable access to necessary health care, a principle strongly endorsed by Australians. (more…)
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MAX COSTELLO. It was the best of days; it was the worst of days
July 30, 2019 was the best of days for Australia’s immigration detention centre detainees because, at last, a mainstream media outlet revealed that their cruel maltreatment involved apparent criminal offences under Australian law. It was the worst of days, because it revealed that the law’s regulator had not charged Home Affairs over an emblematic asylum seeker death by the 29 July deadline. (more…)
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CONCERNED CATHOLICS CANBERRA GOULBURN. ‘Break open the word’ on Plenary Council, bishops urged
The credibility and success of the most important event in the Australian Catholic Church in many decades, the 2020 Plenary Council, depends on an open and frank airing of the grave issues crippling the Church. Concerned Catholics of Canberra Goulburn calls on Australia’s bishops to publish all of the 17,457 submissions made from around Australia in preparation for the plenary.
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RICHARD TANTER. An Australian pathway through Pine Gap to the nuclear ban treaty
The Pine Gap Relay Ground Station could be closed, with appropriate notice of intent, without genuine disadvantage to US national security. This would provide a technically and strategically feasible pathway past the most important obstacle posed by Pine Gap to Australia becoming compliant with the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons(TPNW). (more…)
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EDWARD WONG. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Israel and Iran and The Rapture. (NYT 30.3.2019)
Yesterday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had dinner with Scott Morrison. They both believe in The Rapture when Christ will return to Israel with Jerusalem as its capital. Importantly at the moment we are being urged to join forces to counter the alleged Iranian ‘menace’ to Israel.
See below an article from Edward Wong on how Mike Pompeo’s beliefs are influencing US foreign policy, which we invariably follow. Odd indeed! John Menadue. (more…)
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DOROTHY HORSFIELD. Measures Short of War. Australian National University’s Emeritus Professor Hugh White’s Plans for Defending Australia
One response from a colleague to the contentious proposal by Professor Hugh White in his new book ‘How to Defend Australia’ that the government should seriously consider adopting a nuclear capability was the brief ‘Oh, for God’s Sake!.’ Underpinning such a comment is the prospect of the kind of dystopian nightmare that stalked the West’s Cold War MAD (mutually-assured destruction) containment doctrine. As Russia’s President Putin, among others, has suggested tersely, in a 21st century nuclear war ‘no one would survive.’ (more…)
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STEPHEN S. ROACH. China’s Long View (Project Syndicate 26.7.2019)
Time and again, the long view in China has stood in sharp contrast to America’s short-term approach. Sun Tzu put it best in his ancient treatise, The Art of War: “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the results of a hundred battles.” (more…)
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BINOY KAMPMARK. Militarizing Australia: Talisman Sabre and the US Military Build Up (American Herald Tribune)
Deemed the Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations strategy, the military method is a US Marine special, still spanking new, featuring “the amphibious landing of troops on islands for seizure and capture as part of a forward projection of sea and air power aimed at the mainland.” (more…)
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YANIS VAROUFAKIS. Jeremy Corbyn’s Finest Hour? (Project Syndicate 30.7.2019)
With Boris Johnson as UK prime minister, and his Brexit strategy crystal clear, the task of the Labour opposition is equally clear. It must expose the truth about Johnson’s no-deal option – namely, that it means a Trump-deal Brexit – and put forward its own plan to end Britain’s interminable ordeal immediately. (more…)
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CINDY YU. Is China Really the Enemy (The Spectator)
China is a nation with values deeply at odds with the West.
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JESSIE BATKIN-WALKERDEN. Homelessness: Why Early Intervention Matters
Early intervention is a vital piece of the complex puzzle, that is Australia’s homelessness. Long-term, appropriate and stable housing is becoming increasingly unattainable for many people. The current state of housing unaffordability leads to many people being at risk of becoming homelessness, or indeed being homeless. (more…)
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CHARLES LIVINGSTONE. The Crown allegations show the repeated failures of our gambling regulators (the Conversation 30 July 2019)
Regulatory failure has been a hot topic in Australia recently. Royal commissions into the financial and aged care sectors have revealed major regulatory failures.
The harm done by these oversights has been significant. Regulation is not just red tape. It protects the interests of those who put their faith, money, and in some cases, loved ones, into regulated institutions. (more…)
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FRANCES RUSH. No Protection – No Hope
A 39 year old man from Iran arrived by boat in 2013. He was not permitted to apply for a Temporary Protection Visa until 2017. For six years he has lived in fear and struggled with mental trauma. He has no protection, no income, no social support and no family. He believes he has no hope – and suicide is an option. (more…)
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WILLIAM D. HARTUNG. The US Military-Industrial Complex on Steroids (TomDispatch 16.7.2017)
When, in his farewell address in 1961, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned of the dangers of the “unwarranted influence” wielded by the “military-industrial complex,” he could never have dreamed of an arms-making corporation of the size and political clout of Lockheed Martin. In a good year, it now receives up to $50 billion in government contracts, a sum larger than the operating budget of the State Department. And now it’s about to have company. (more…)
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JOSEPH MARTOS. Can laypeople lead a parish? Look to Louisville for a thriving example.
In his recent book Worship as Community Drama, sociologist Pierre Hegy described an unusual Catholic parish whose identity he hid under the name Church of the Resurrection. When the book was published earlier this year and we read the chapter titled “A Lay-Run Parish: Consensus Without a Central Authority,” we could tell that it was about us.
I asked Hegy about possibly revealing the facts behind the chapter. He replied that sociological protocols had to be followed in the book, but these would not apply to an article in a newspaper. OK, here goes.
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PETER DAVIDSON. Multiplication’s the name of the game: infrastructure and Newstart trump tax cuts as an economic stimulus
When growth is slowing and interest rates are falling, the evidence indicates that a timely investment in social housing and an increase in Newstart are more likely to boost growth in jobs and incomes and provide better value than tax cuts, especially those going to high income-earners. Every dollar invested in social housing and Newstart not only improves lives, it also increases GDP by $1.20-1.30.
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PAUL MOSES. Putting Church above Children. The Vatican Fails to Comply with a UN Treaty
One way Pope Francis could move ahead with his aim of curbing clergy sex abuse in the worldwide Catholic Church would be to insist that the Holy See comply with the international human-rights treaty it signed to protect the rights of the child. Since nearly every country in the world (other than the United States) has signed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the 1989 treaty sets a clear international standard for Catholic bishops everywhere.
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JOHN MENADUE. Vale Graham Freudenberg
A dear friend and colleague, Graham Freudenberg, died this morning at the Redcliffe Hospital. He was admired and will be mourned by many people who knew him personally and a great number of people who knew him in public recognition of his work.
Throughout his long illness, he remained courageous and concerned for people around him, and particularly for the Labor Party that he loved. As he physically declined, the strength of his inner life became even more apparent. He was delighted that, in his last week of life he could see again ‘The Scribe’ on ABC TV.
His close friends and family, and Australians generally, have been privileged to know Graham Freudenberg.
John Menadue
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ERIC WALSH. Vale Graham Freudenberg .
The family of Graham Freudenberg, his influential political contacts, his many friends and admirers, the Australian Labor Party and Australia itself are diminished by his passing after a long illness. (more…)
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MICHELLE PINI. Newstart, wage theft and big fat ducks (Independent Australia)
“Having a go” just to put food on the table? Unless you’re a well-fed restaurateur or politician, it’s unlikely that you’ll “get a go” from this Government. (more…)
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MOHAMMED AYOOB. An ally, a partner and American unilateralism: on the U.S. response to Turkey’s S-400 deal with Russia (The Hindu)
There are major differences but also similarities in the U.S.’ response to Russia’s S-400 deals with Turkey and India (more…)
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GREGORY CLARK. China: A Maritime expansionist?
The call is for Australia to cooperate with the US to counter Beijing’s allegedly expansionist activities in the South China Sea. But was it not the US itself, in its 1951 San Francisco peace treaty with Japan – signed and ratified by Canberra and 47 others – who in effect gifted most of the South China Sea islands – namely, the Spratly and the Paracel island groups – to China? The US then organized a separate document with the Republic of China in Taiwan – the 1952 Taipei peace treaty – making it even clearer that these islands should be taken from Japan and in effect given to China. (more…)
