Drug law reform is an issue that has been on the political agenda for decades, with varying degrees of urgency. Yet despite the overwhelming evidence for law reform and the sustained efforts of advocates from a range of sectors, most of the political and legislative changes required to reduce the harms associated with illicit drug use have not been achieved. (more…)
John Menadue
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HYLDA ROLFE. What’s in a name? The threat to our National Parks
For three years now, Sydney-based company Gap Bluff Hospitality Pty Ltd (GBH) has been revising an offer it made to NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) under which the company would assume a large share of the burden of repair and maintenance of former Defence and other buildings in the Gap Bluff and Green Point sectors of Sydney Harbour National Park at Watsons Bay NSW. While the financial terms of the offer were not made public, the deal envisaged the adaptation and use by GBH of several buildings in the National Park as an integrated event/function complex. The mountain laboured…. (more…)
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CHRISTIANE BARRO. Ninety years on, no justice for Australia’s last Aboriginal massacre.
Last Tuesday marked 90 years since the last recorded massacre of Aboriginal people in Australia. (more…)
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DEREK ABBOTT. Time to play to the ALP’s strengths
The outcome of the super Saturday by-elections have settled the question of Bill Shorten’s leadership at least until after the next general election. Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership also seems secure, if for no other reason than the lack of plausible alternatives. Both are unpopular and the by-elections (and polls) suggest that the electorate is sick of the focus on the leadership challenges and three word slogans masquerading as policy. (more…)
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DOUG TAYLOR. Drug Reform Series. Canada is set to become only the second country in the world to legalise marijuana.
Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, announced the move to legalise marijuana earlier this year. He said the move would take the market share away from organised crime and protect the country’s youth. (more…)
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GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND
A regular collection of links to writings and broadcasts covered in other media. (more…)
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WILLIAM FINNEGAN. California Burning.
On the northwestern edge of Los Angeles, where I grew up, the wildfires came in late summer. We lived in a new subdivision, and behind our house were the hills, golden and parched. We would hose down the wood-shingled roof as fire crews bivouacked in our street. Our neighborhood never burned, but others did. In the Bel Air fire of 1961, nearly five hundred homes burned, including those of Burt Lancaster and Zsa Zsa Gabor. We were all living in the “wildland-urban interface,” as it is now called. More subdivisions were built, farther out, and for my family the wildfire threat receded. (more…)
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Q&A with Michael Dillon: History and Indigenous Policy
In this Q&A, former senior bureaucrat Michael Dillon offers some very thoughtful insights into the last several decades of Indigenous policy-making and the role of historical knowledge in the policy process. (more…)
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PETER BAUME. Drug Reform series- Drug policy: None so blind
Current drug policy is based on the unrealistic belief that we can stamp out possession and use of illicit drugs, much like prohibition of alcohol in 1920s America. It also fails to account for the harm caused by our strictly punitive policy approach. (more…)
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TONY TRIMINGHAM. Drug Reform Series-Don’t punish drug users. Help them instead.
This is mostly a personal story, about my son Damien, who died from heroin use in 1997, at the age of 23. I feel sure that his death could have been avoided if we had at the time an approach to drug use that was based on harm prevention rather than punishment. (more…)
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RICHARD WOOLCOTT. An Updated Approach to Australia’s Engagement in the Asia and the South West Pacific.
The Australian Government and the Opposition must now base policy on three realities, namely that;
(a) Trump is essentially a unilateralist, despite the contradictory comments he often makes;
(b) United States involvement in Asia and the South West Pacific will be less active during Trump’s Presidency; and that
(c) China’s role in the Asia and the South West Pacific will be much more active in the decades ahead, including its ‘One Belt, One Road’ project. -
JOHN MENADUE. National Parks and the new squatters
The new squatters on public land are being given a leg-up, as they were in the 19th Century, to seize and occupy public land. By deliberately underfunding National Parks developer-friendly governments are putting commercial interests ahead of the public interest.
Our early wealthy and powerful squatters forced indigenous people off the land they had occupied for tens of thousands of years. The new squatters are taking over more and more of our public land – national parks, botanic gardens and public reserves.
There is currently an attempt by a latter-day squatter, aka developer – Gap Bluff Hospitality Pty Ltd – to in effect destroy the ‘peaceful enjoyment’ of the Sydney Harbour National Park by developing a series of quite inappropriate features for weddings, ‘bucks’ and hens’ parties’ and student formals. (more…)
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NICK BISLEY. Is there a problem with… the Quad?
At the sidelines of the 2017 East Asia Summit (EAS) in Manila, senior officials from Australia, India, Japan and the United States’ respective foreign ministries met under the aegis of the ‘Australia-India-Japan- United States consultations on the Indo-Pacific’. This was followed by a stage-managed meeting of the four countries’ naval chiefs at the Raisina Dialogue, a Track 1.5 process in India. The 2007 still-born Quadrilateral Security Initiative was back. (more…)
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Catholic bishops’ opposition to Donald Trump emboldens church liberals.
They may be disappointed. (more…)
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WILLIAM PESEK. Toyota driving into a fierce economic storm.
What GM used to be to America, Toyota is to Japan: a weathervane for macro trends. On Friday, the carmaker admitted it is downhill from now. (more…)
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JEFFREY SACHS. Trump is robbing America of what makes it great (Washington Post)
American prosperity since World War II has been built upon science and technology breakthroughs spurred by a powerful innovation system linking the federal government, business, academia and venture capital. U.S. innovation policy has been successfully emulated in Europe and Asia, most recently by China. President Trump’s trade war against China aims to slow China’s technology ascent but is misguided and doomed to fail; instead, American prosperity should be assured by doing what America does best: innovating at home and trading with the rest of the world. (more…)
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HELEN TYRRELL. Drug Reform series-Grasping the nettle: Prisons, drug use and the law
Every day people are imprisoned for drug-related crimes in line with ‘tough on drugs’ policies. It’s time to face the futility and unsustainability of this approach to drug use. (more…)
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KEITH HAMBURGER. Drug Reform series – punishment alone is not the answer.
Australian prisons are severely overcrowded. Much crime is drug related. Some 75% of prisoners have a substance abuse problem. The majority of prisoners are not rehabilitated by their prison experience as evidenced by high recidivism rates, particularly for First Nation people. A holistic, whole of community response is required founded in restorative justice and justice reinvestment. (more…)
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GINO VUMBACA. Drug Reform series-At last, a government sanctioned pill testing program
We are finally seeing in Australia the first signs of a recognition by government of the important public health benefits of sanctioned pill testing programs. Law enforcement alone will never overcome the problems that can arise from drug use. Much like needle and syringe programs, pill testing is a real-world response which is evidence based and rightly treats harm reduction as one of the primary objectives of drug policy.
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JOHN MENADUE. The Great Barrier Reef Foundation and crony capitalism
Just imagine if a Labor prime minister handed out a $444 million grant to a small reef ‘charity’ without any due process. The Murdoch media would be even more apoplectic than usual. There is a lack of transparency and probity in this case. The Chairman’s Panel for this reef charity is full of mates and cronies. (more…)
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TONY KEVIN. Australian foreign policy – Riding two horses.
Australian foreign policy at present seems to be trying to ride two horses at once: an inherently dangerous pursuit, requiring the skills of a trained and superbly fit circus acrobat. Are we really up to this, or should we be pursuing safer courses, with our feet more firmly planted on the ground? (more…)
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MICHAEL HART. Drug Reform Series – Drub Policy-an addiction to failure
A careful assessment of our policy towards currently illegal drugs and our struggle with the trade in these drugs brings forth a somber but frank conclusion about the war on drugs. It should stop.
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RALPH SECCOMBE. Drug Reform series-Production of illicit drugs – the balloon effect
Policy on illicit drugs should be developed on the basis that supply can never be cut off. Production is like a balloon: squeeze it in one place, but it will only bulge out elsewhere. This applies all the way to the consumer. There is no pricking this balloon under the present prohibition regime. While we naturally focus on harm suffered in Australia, we should not lose sight of the harm which international policies cause in countries from which we source the illicit drugs consumed here. (more…)
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ALAN KOHLER. Another fine energy shambles (The Australian, 07/08/18)
Years of cat-herding by those who actually know and care about Australia’s electricity market will come to fruition this week with the meeting of COAG energy ministers to discuss the National Energy Guarantee, and possibly make a decision about it. Or maybe not. (more…)
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LESLEY HUGHES. Cognitive Dissonance in the Big Dry
Climate change is worsening the drought now affecting huge swathes of the continent, bringing gut-wrenching misery for farmers and the communities they support. And what have some of the parliamentary representatives of those regions been up to? They have been trying to convince the Japanese to invest in more coal-fired power generation in Australia. (more…)
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BILL BUSH. Drug Reform series- High drug incarceration – harms manifest and benefits hard to perceive
At 160 prisoners per 100,000 of population, Australia’s prison rate in 2016 was more than 3 times the rate of the 1940s and 1950s. The steep increase correlates with an increasingly repressive drug policy and the closure of mental health institutions.
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MICK PALMER. Drug Reform series-The Blind Eye of History: from policing alcohol prohibition to policing drug prohibition
Australia has some unhappy laws which result in people using illicit drugs being severely punished. When thinking about this, one should recall laws used half a century ago to criminalise Aboriginal people who drank alcohol. (more…)
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RICHARD FLANAGAN. The world is being undone before us. If we do not reimagine Australia, we will be undone too
In the full transcript of his speech to the Garma festival, the author says the country can make itself stronger by saying yes to the Uluru statement (more…)
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SALIM MAZOUZ, FRANK JOTZO, HUGH SADDLER. Could the NEG bring down power prices? It’s hard to be confident that it will.
The final design document for the National Energy Guarantee (NEG), released this week, contains a range of claims about the policy’s ability to drive down both greenhouse emissions and electricity prices. But still there is precious little detail on how exactly these assertions are backed up. (more…)
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MARION McCONNELL. Drug Reform series-The long road to drug law reform
“What should I tell people about your son’s death”, asked our Minister. He was there to discuss arrangements for our son’s funeral. In my overwhelming grief it hadn’t crossed my mind, but now it immediately struck me. Our son had died from a heroin overdose. He is now tainted with shame. We, his mum and dad will also be made to feel the shame. Not something I ever thought my family would have to cope with. What should we do? How should we handle this? I need not have stressed because in an instant my husband replied in a sure but shaky voice: “Tell the truth”. (more…)