John Menadue

  • DYLAN McCONNELL. Was the SA blackout caused by wind or wind turbines?

     

    It has everything to do with wind – because that’s what blew over the transmission lines. But it has nothing to do with South Australia’s wind turbines. Transmission lines are large power lines that take electricity from generators to the smaller distribution lines that bring power to our homes.

    South Australia’s energy generation mix is mixture of wind, gas and some solar, and as of this year, zero coal. The state is connected to the rest of eastern Australia’s electricity market through two inter-connectors, one of which is down for service. (more…)

  • BOB KINNAIRD. The Coalition’s Backpacker tax and work rights package

     

    The Coalition’s backpacker policy announcement yesterday focussed on tax rates but also includes a significant expansion of work rights under Australia’s working holiday maker program (WHM or 417 and 462 visas). …. The Coalition’s main aim is to provide an increased supply of cheap and captive foreign labour to the agricultural sector on a long-term basis. But the new policy applies to WHMs in all sectors. (more…)

  • JAMES GERRAND. Cambodia Crackdown. Part 2 of 2.

    Part 2   Hun Sen’s Red Brotherhood

    Hanoi cannot be seen to be interfering in Cambodian affairs but the Vietnamese military has cemented close ties with the Hun Sen regime – none closer than with the Prime Minister’s personal Bodyguard Unit (BHQ), their go-to-man being the Deputy Commander Dieng Sarun. General Sarun’s shadowy Senaneak Youth League (read pro-CPP thugs) mounted the street protest that led to the brutal beating of two opposition MPs by several of his BHQ soldiers outside the National Assembly in October last year.   (more…)

  • JAMES GERRAND. Cambodia Crackdown – part 1 of 2

     

    Part 1 ‘Kill a Chicken to Scare the Monkeys’

    Around my regular haunts in Phnom Penh are daily reminders of Cambodia’s enduring capacity for political violence: in Kabko market my favourite street restaurant was the scene where political adviser Om Radsady was shot dead in 2003; in a similarly blatant daylight execution, trade union leader Chea Vichea was gunned down in 2004 among the news stands at the end of my street where I buy the Cambodia Daily each morning; and now whenever my tuktuk driver pulls in to the Caltex station on the corner of Mao Tsetung Boulevard, I suppose I’ll be forever reminded of Dr. Kem Ley’s body sprawled dead on the floor of the Caltex convenience store. (more…)

  • LINDA JAKOBSON. Beware the China alarmists out there

     

    The quandary over what to do about People’s Republic of China government influence in Australia has burst on to the political scene. For the past months there has been ongoing media commentary about the consequences of political donations by businessmen with Chinese connections; and a piece in The Australian Financial Review claimed that hundreds, if not thousands, of Chinese citizens in Australia are gathering information for Chinese authorities.

    These are contentious issues, ones that cause unease within the government, among public servants and citizens at large. (more…)

  • RICHARD WOOLCOTT. Australia’s Shambolic Policy on Syria – Up Shi’ite Creek Without a Paddle.

     

    We must get out of Syria.

    The war in Syria is extraordinarily complex. It really began in 2011 with the failures of the so-called Arab Spring.

    Now the core conflict is between forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and the rebel groups which oppose him. Both sides have split into several militias, which have attracted foreign fighters, including a number of Australians. (more…)

  • GREG DODDS. Australian sacrifice in Vietnam, it’s time to rethink the way we memorialise

    Mines are terrible weapons. They can still blow the leg off an innocent trespasser years after a conflict has ended. Dan Tehan, the Minister for Veterans Affairs demonstrated that, figuratively speaking, last month when he snarled at the Vietnamese that their cancelling the 50th anniversary service for the battle of Long Tan was “no way to treat mates”.

    The Vietnamese were ruthless, competent and game enemies but we’re now all mates? (more…)

  • PETER WHITEFORD. The $4.8 trillion dollar question: will an ‘investment approach’ to welfare help the most disadvantaged?

     

    Social Services Minister Christian Porter on Tuesday released a report on the lifetime costs of the social security system for the Australian population, putting it at close to A$4.8 trillion.

    The report was an initiative of the 2015-16 budget, when the government allocated A$33.7 million to establish an Australian Priority Investment Approach to Welfare based on actuarial analysis of social security data. (more…)

  • JOHN NIEUWENHUYSEN. Rising hostility to refugee movement.

     

    The inspiring poem by Emma Lazarus carved on the Statue of Liberty clearly reflects the ethos and caring spirit of a bygone era:

    “Give me your tired, your poor,
    Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
    The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
    Send these, the homeless, tempus-tost to me…” (more…)

  • The era of American global dominance is over.

     

    In The World Post of 15 September 2016, Graham E. Fuller spells out

    ‘the declining American influence. He says that the more Washington attempts to contain or throttle Eurasianism as a genuine rising force, the greater will be the determination of states to become part of this rising Eurasian world. … China is moving in stunningly ambitious directions in creating the new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. … The new Eurasianism is no longer about 19th century land and sea power. It is an acknowledgment that the era of western – and especially US – global dominance is over.’

    Graham E. Fuller is former Vice Chairman, CIA’s National Intelligence Council.

    John Menadue.

     

  • The creeping Americanisation of Australian healthcare.

    In this blog, I have repeatedly posted articles about the threat to Medicare in the $11 billion pa. subsidy which the Australian government provides to support private health insurance companies in Australia. We are sleep walking into the destruction of Medicare unless we reverse this trend. The US health system dependent upon private health insurance is the most expensive and inequitable in the world.  (more…)

  • RICHARD RIGBY. Japan steps up military activity in the South China Sea.

    The announcement in Washington, in the context of last week’s visit by Japanese Defence Minister Tomomi Inada, of stepped up Japanese Maritime Self-Defence Force activities in the South China Sea, including exercises with the US Navy, has to be one of the more ill-judged decisions taken regarding this contested area in recent times. It will do nothing to alter China’s claims or diminish its presence, but will provide oxygen to precisely those forces in China who see it being subjected to a campaign of encirclement and containment. It will further fire nationalist extremism, and not only add to existing tensions in the South China Sea, but almost inevitably lead to China escalating its activities in the East China Sea around the Diaoyu/Senkakus. (We’d better get used to not calling them islands, if we follow the logic of the Hague Tribunal concerning the nature of Taiping Island/Itu Aba. The latter clearly has more of the features necessary to be classified as an island than Diaoyu/Senkaku and yet was denied this status by the Tribunal. Still less can Japan’s absurd claims regarding Okinotori-shima (shima-island) be given any credence.) (more…)

  • GRAHAM FREUDENBERG: On the Irish and other undesirables.

     

    Australia sometimes seems to suffer a mysterious case of multiple-amnesia over immigration.

    We are a nation built on migrants, but we have forgotten that almost every new wave of immigrants has been resented and resisted by those already here, especially those who were migrants themselves. It started around the 1820s when the convicts hated the first free settlers ‘taking our jobs’. We have forgotten that, without exception, each wave of immigrants has been successfully absorbed to national and individual benefit. We have forgotten that particular groups aroused special animosity, yet integrated so completely in one generation that it would scarcely occur to them to regard themselves as being of migrant origin. Such is Australia’s perhaps unique capacity to integrate and be enriched. (more…)

  • Nauru and Manus – the costs of detention.

    In this blog, we have drawn attention many times to the inhumanity of our policies towards refugees and asylum seekers in Nauru and Manus.

    In addition to our immoral conduct, there is also the extraordinary cost of keeping asylum seekers in detention. In the link below, Peter Martin in the SMH yesterday, estimates the cost at $573,000 for each asylum seeker, each year.

    http://www.smh.com.au/comment/the-extraordinary-cost-of-keeping-asylum-seekers-in-detention-over-500000-each-20160914-grftcj.html

  • China and the South China Sea

    Last weekend Geraldine Doogue interviewed Richard Woolcott and Geoff Raby on the recent controversies about Chinese influence in Australia. Richard Woolcott was formerly Head of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and President of the UN Security Council. Geoff Raby was formerly Australian Ambassador to China.

    In this interview, both Richard Woolcott and Geoff Raby pointed to the need for a more balanced consideration of Chinese growing influence in the world. They highlighted that China is reacting to the declared US ‘pivot to Asia’ and to provocative US naval activities.

    Sam Dastyari may have been unwise in many things, but I think he was correct in pointing out that we should not involve ourselves in the dispute between China and the US over the South China Sea.

    See link ABC Saturday Extra interview:  https://radio.abc.net.au/programitem/pgml6mQJb6?play=true

    John Menadue

     

  • NIALL McLAREN. The Dangerous Folly of the “War with China” Scenario.

     

     

    Nick Deane “reflected on the troubled waters of the South China Sea,” concluding that we need to pay close attention to what our military alliance with the US may drag us into. War between the US and China would necessarily involve us, but not necessarily to our advantage. While for ordinary citizens, such an eventuality would be horror beyond comprehension, it doesn’t seem to trouble some of our leaders intent on spending a fortune on a dozen submarines with the capacity to interdict shipping in China’s near-coastal waters. The advantages of such projection of military power are not immediately clear but have doubtless been carefully tallied. (more…)

  • PETER WHITEFORD & DANIEL NETHERY. Where to for welfare?

     

    The Coalition’s proposed budget cuts would have a disproportionate impact on low-income groups, write Peter Whiteford and Daniel Nethery in this detailed analysis for Inside Story. (more…)

  • ADELE WEBB. He may have insulted Obama, but Duterte held up a long-hidden looking glass to the US.

    This article is part of the Democracy Futures series, a joint global initiative with the Sydney Democracy Network. The project aims to stimulate fresh thinking about the many challenges facing democracies in the 21st century.

    Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has taken his “bad manners” – having gained global notoriety with his election campaign insults earlier this year – to a new level.

    At a press conference at Davao International Airport on Monday, on his way to meet US President Barack Obama and other leaders attending the ASEAN summit, Duterte muttered a few short words in tagalog at the end of a lengthy and irritated reply to a local journalist. With those words, he again made international headlines.

    If that were all there was to it, we could rightly roll our eyes and move on. After all, Duterte’s language is vulgar; his slander of people and groups is liable to incite violence; and his determination to kill drug pushers (to fight “crime with crime”) an abuse of power. He should not be defended for any of this.

    But as someone who has spent a long time studying US-Philippine relations, I think there’s something more for us to see here. And if we want to judge the Philippine president (and, by default, the nation for electing him) from high moral ground, I think we have a responsibility to pay attention to it. (more…)

  • PATRICK McGORRY. We must settle the refugees before it is too late.

    In this article in the SMH, Patrick McGorry, the President of the Society for Mental Health Research, says;

    The time has come, before it is too late, to re-settle these fellow human beings and not just the children, but all of those who qualify as genuine refugees and who deserve a second chance for life.

    See link to article below:

    http://www.smh.com.au/comment/we-must-resettle-the-refugees-before-it-is-too-late-20160907-grav05.html

     

     

  • EVAN WILLIAMS. How to fix the Senate.

     

    Among the many self-inflicted wounds Malcolm Turnbull has sustained since the knifing of Tony Abbott, his biggest problem remains an unworkable and unpredictable Senate. The election result has raised once again a perennial question in Australian politics – how best to define the powers and proper role of the upper house. With sophisticated preference deals and refined techniques of voter manipulation now the norm, the Senate has become a minefield , not only for Turnbull but for both sides of politics – a rabble of conflicting interests and an obstruction to effective government. Can anything be done to reform it? (more…)

  • TONY KEVIN. ‘Putin meets Turnbull’: an interesting encounter at Hangzhou.

     

    Chris Ullmann’s ABC News report on main outcomes for Australia of the Hangzhou G20 Summit led with an account of an impromptu ‘encounter’ between Malcolm Turnbull and Vladimir Putin. Maybe they bumped into one another in the hotel lift or corridors? We don’t know which side initiated this conversation, but it could be a positive step towards normalising Australian-Russian relations.** (more…)

  • MARIAN SAWER. Democracy for sale?

     

     

    Since the 1980s Australia has become known for its laissez-faire or lackadaisical attitude to the role of money in politics. At the federal level Australia introduced public funding for political parties to reduce reliance on private donations, but corporate donations have continued to grow – reaching $202 million in 2013–14.

    Disclosure to the Australian Electoral Commission is required for donations of over $13,200 but there are no source restrictions or limits for donations. (more…)

  • NICK DEANE. Reflecting on Troubled Waters. South China Sea

     

    The dispute in the South China Sea should not, legitimately, involve Australia. We are only involved because we have such close military ties with the United States. War between the US and China is not inevitable, but dangerous, military escalation is taking place. If hostilities break out, the war will be on our doorstep. (more…)

  • PARIS ARISTOTLE. Rescuing people on Nauru and Manus Island.

     

    Statement from the Victorian Foundation for Survivors of Torture, regarding people transferred by Australia to the refugee processing centres of Papua New Guinea and Nauru. (more…)

  • WALTER HAMILTON. What’s in it for Putin?

     

    Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is pursuing a ‘fresh approach’ with Russia’s Vladimir Putin for resolving the territorial dispute that has prevented the two countries signing a peace treaty since World War Two. It is easy to see what Abe might hope to gain from a settlement, but no breakthrough can be expected unless it fits in with Putin’s own calculations. (more…)

  • GRAHAM FREUDENBERG. On race discrimination.

     

    Assent by silence made Hitler’s crimes possible.

    As Pastor Martin Niemoller wrote:

    First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out –
    Because I was not a Socialist.
    Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out –
    Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
    Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out –
    Because I was not a Jew.
    Then they came for me – and there was no-one left to speak for me. 

    The warning is as relevant as ever. The more we study how the Holocaust happened, the more we must realise how small steps of acceptance, acquiescence, rationalisation, political convenience and expedience, and above all, silence paved the path to hell from 1933 to 1945. For 80 years, we have glossed over the silent acquiescence of countries like the United States, Britain and Australia in the period after Hitler, for so long dismissed as just another ratbag, came to power by legal and constitutional means in Germany in 1933. (more…)

  • JULIA BAIRD. Australia’s Gulag Archipelago.

    In Dante’s view, the unfortunate souls who dwell in purgatory may suffer excruciating pain, but the promise of their final destination is clear: paradise. Those who languish on the remote, tiny islands — Manus and Nauru — that host Australia’s offshore immigration detention centers are not so lucky. (more…)

  • EVAN WILLIAMS. Film review: Truman

     

    Directed by Cesc Gay, Truman is a wonderful Spanish film about a couple of old buddies saying goodbye for the last time. One of them is dying of lung cancer, and the film traces their last four days together in Madrid. The good news is that Truman isn’t nearly as miserable as it sounds. In some reviews –and in the ads – I’ve seen it described as a “comedy-drama,” though the comic elements are often hard to discern. (more…)

  • RICHARD WOOLCOTT. Do we need a White Paper on Australia’s foreign policy?

    A White Paper could be useful if it is agreed to by the key ministers of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Defence, and Immigration and Border Protection ; and consistently applied by the Cabinet.

    A major problem which I see is that we seem to be in a period of fairly intense political and bureaucratic infighting over Chinese activity, especially on the South China Sea. My concern is that there are serious divisions within the Coalition and also divisions within the ALP. (more…)

  • ROSS BURNS. Looking for an end-game in Syria.

     

    Newspaper commentary on the Syria conflict has long struggled to provide new insights into the conflict. However, in an analysis published over the weekend in the New York Times, Max Fisher, adopted the novel approach of asking academic experts to comment on how other civil wars came to an end to see if any served as a precedent for Syria. (more…)