John Menadue

  • 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…)

  • MEREDITH BURGMANN. ASIO and dirty secrets.

    In commenting this week, Meredith Burgmann said that ‘my view is that the stories in my book (Dirty Secrets: Our ASIO Files. New South Wales Publishing, Sydney 2014) collectively represent ASIO as being improper, incompetent, irrelevant, inappropriate and intrusive.’

    The following are extracts from her book. (more…)

  • Anti-global backlash is realigning politics across the West.

    In the WorldPost, Nouriel Roubini writes “Across the West establishment parties of the Right and the Left are being disrupted – if not destroyed from the inside.  Within such parties, the losers from globalisation are finding champions of anti-globalisation that are challenging the formal mainstream orthodoxy.” (more…)

  • WALTER HAMILTON. Minamata Remembered

     

    This year is the sixtieth anniversary of the methyl mercury poisoning in Japan that caused ‘Minamata Disease’. Shocking images of victims captured by the American photographer W. Eugene Smith (his Tomoko Uemura in Her Bath perhaps the best known) have served ever since as a warning to the world of the threat from industrial pollution.

    Documents recently obtained by NHK television’s Close-Up Gendai current affairs program have revealed how politicians and bureaucrats colluded with the firm responsible for the pollution scandal, Chisso Corporation, to keep it afloat using public money while restricting compensation payments to victims. (more…)

  • MILTON MOON. Waiting for Godness -a narrative poem

    by Milton Moon.©

    I’m due to die sooner rather than later.
    My wife of sixty-seven years has already gone,
    her mortal remains,
    in ashes waiting for mine.
    Together they’ll go, somewhere
    as part of the seasons
    or the tides ebb or flow.
    She is still with me,
    I talk to her often,
    burning incense twice a day
    and telling her
    “incense is dispersed for the soul
    of the young girl.” (more…)

  • TONY KEVIN. A successful reawakening of serious Russian studies in Australia ?

     

    Doctor Dorothy Horsfield of Australian National University is to be congratulated for her vision and hard work in mounting the first serious academic Russian studies conference in Australia for many years, ‘Putin’s Russia in the Wake of the Cold War’, on 24-26 August, under the auspices of the Australian National University’s Humanities Research Centre in Canberra. (more…)

  • WALTER HAMILTON. Stand off in the East China Sea

     

    About eighteen months ago, while talking with a policy analyst at Japan’s Defense Ministry in Tokyo, I asked how the confrontation with China over the disputed Senkaku (or Daioyu) Islands in the East China Sea was affecting morale in the Self-Defense Forces.

    ‘I recently visited Sasebo,’ he replied, referring to the southern base of the SDF units designated to repel any Chinese attempt to occupy the islands. ‘The expression on the faces of the men was very different from what I’m used to seeing at Ichigaya,’ the district of Tokyo where the Defense Ministry is located. In the Ichigaya compound, a certain non-military air prevails; you’ll notice chirpy tour groups being shown around twice a day and snapping up souvenirs at the commissary. (I cannot imagine this at Russell Hill in Canberra!)

    What he saw in the faces of the troops at Sasebo was the tense and fixed expressions of soldiers and sailors who realize their next deployment might not be an exercise, but the real thing.  (more…)

  • ANDREW MACK. ‘National security’ and the Ausgrid bid

     

    On 19th August Federal Treasurer Scott Morrison confirmed his earlier decision to block the NSW government’s planned lease of 50.4 per cent of the New South Wales Ausgrid electricity distribution network to two Chinese companies: the Chinese government-owned State Grid Corporation of China and Hong Kong listed Cheung Kong International (CKI). Morrison based his decision on the Foreign Investment Review Board’s advice that these companies represented a threat to the ‘ national interest…on the grounds of national security’. When asked at a press conference what specific security threat was posed by the Chinese bidders Morrison replied: The only person who’s security-cleared in this room to hear the answer to that question is me’.

    The Treasurer’s cryptic media release and public comments leave many crucial questions unanswered. In particular, was the security issue the most important factor or were there other important considerations at play? What was this ‘exhaustive process’ and the major parameters applied? (more…)

  • ‘Racists aren’t welcome here: how we kicked a racist passenger off the bus.

    A nice story from The Guardian ‘Our better angels’ .  See link below.  John Menadue

    http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/19/racists-arent-welcome-here-how-we-kicked-a-racist-passenger-off-the-bus?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

  • DEE JARRAK. Is there a middle path to addressing Australia’s asylum seeker dilemma?

    Perhaps we could try to combine humanitarian principles with political pragmatism to find an acceptable “solution” to Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers.

    Offshore detention policies are falling apart, and a new documentary film, Chasing Asylum, is again arousing shame and anger at the appalling psychological and physical damage we inflict on people who have attempted to seek asylum in Australia.

    But then there’s a lot of righteous emotion on all sides of the asylum seeker debate. (more…)

  • EMMA CAMPBELL. Is South Korea still interested in unification?

    It is not easy being a young person in globalised South Korea. The intense competition that defines South Korea’s education system and the irregular employment market that awaits graduates has led to rising inequality, falling birth rates, insecure employment and high numbers of youth suicide.Beyond South Korea’s domestic wellbeing, globalisation and its accompanying economic insecurity also have implications for foreign affairs, particularly attitudes towards North Korea. (more…)

  • PETER GIBILISCO. Some key ideas for the next generation of disability activists.

     

    1.  Meritocracy

    Meritocracy is a belief that seems to me to still be alive and well in the senior management of disability support. It also seems to drive many aspects of public policy, particularly when appeals are made to “equal opportunity”.

    Advocates of a meritocratic approach to disability policy are still assuming that the base-line principle should be that people get out of the system what they put into it. That is why they seek to remove any barriers to people with disabilities’ “putting in”. It is a political vision – often articulated in terms of free market principles – that wants a future based on merit. Hence “meritocracy” (rule by those who gain merit) and is an alternative to aristocracy (the rule by those who inherit land), or more recently to a class-based “luck” of being born in the right place at the right time. But in 1998, Michael Young argued in an article titled Meritocracy Revisited, “meritocracy is even worse than aristocracy because it attempts to acquire plus points because it connotes power and privilege as merited rather than born with”. (more…)

  • JULIANNE SCHULTZ. You’ll miss it when it’s gone: why public broadcasting is worth saving.

    In an age of global media abundance, the notion that public broadcasting is a mechanism to address “market failure” is beguiling. It is also fundamentally wrong.

    Public broadcasters have a unique national responsibility to provide a public good to citizens, rather than the more narrowly defined and easily measured mission of commercial broadcasters, to engage consumers and maximise the return to shareholders.

    Public broadcasters provide a return that is more complex to measure, but with the increasing sophistication of “impact measurement”, not impossible. The exact nature of the outputs and outcomes varies from one country to another, but includes providing platforms for news, entertainment and education that foster a shared sense of national coherence. (more…)

  • Migration experts say it is unlikely closing camps on Manus and Nauru islands would re-start boats. We are beyond that point.

    See link below – article by Ben Doherty in The Guardian, 16 August 2016. It includes an interview with me, Peter Hughes and others, on the need to act quickly to process in Australia, the detainees presently held in Manus and Nauru.

     

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/aug/16/after-the-nauru-files-how-can-australia-go-about-ending-offshore-detention

  • GRAHAM FREUDENBERG on Brexit. ‘They are not laughing now’.

     

    ‘They are not laughing now’. So the UKIP leader Nigel Farage gloated in the European Parliament in July 2016. It was not the first time these exact words have been uttered, in the same spirit of vengeful vindication in a European parliament. (more…)

  • GEOFF HISCOCK. Long-awaited tax change raises tantalising prospect for Indian economy

     

    The tantalising prospect of a 10% growth rate is on India’s economic horizon in the next few years, now that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has won legislative backing for the long-awaited goods and services tax.

    On August 3, India’s upper house approved a bill to bring in a nationwide GST, creating a much simpler tax regime that will help create a unified market of 1.3 billion consumers. In theory, interstate trade barriers will come down, enabling the faster and cheaper delivery of goods across the country.

    But – and it is a massive but – there are numerous obstacles to the introduction next year of what most economists agree is the most important Indian tax reform for decades. Modi still needs more than half the states to approve a constitutional amendment, parliament will need to pass at least one more bill and a special GST council needs to be set up. (more…)

  • JEFF WATERS. ABC journalists and business.

     

    Yeah, sure, let’s ’embed’ ABC journalists in businesses, but don’t forget the unions, or Nauru.

    The recent review of ABC business coverage may have come down in favour of the National Broadcaster, but, as has been suggested in the media, any move to “job swap” or “embed” ABC journalists within private corporations is nonsensical. (more…)

  • ARJA KESKI-NUMMI. Our Devil’s Island

     

    The Guardian recently ran a story regarding its Freedom Of Information request on boat turn backs, the subsequent denial of material, and its appeal to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) to review the FOI decision. At some point during the AAT hearing the Guardian found itself locked out of part of the hearing on putative “national security grounds”. This week the Guardian reported on some 200 incident reports from the Nauru offshore processing centre, many regarding the 49 children and the abuse of them by those who are supposed to be their “protectors”. (more…)