John Menadue

  • Malaysian General Elections – Change or Chaos? Guest blogger: El Tee Kay in Kuala Lumpur

     

     

    The run up to the 13th General Election on Sunday May 5 has been described as the dirtiest in Malaysian history. For the first time in 54 years the Barisan Nasional (BN) Government led by Prime Minister Najib Razak fears it may lose its grip on power. For the first time the Malaysian voter has a choice of a credible opposition, the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) led by Anwar Ibrahim, which is mounting a strong challenge. Indications are that the main coalition partners of BN – the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA), the Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC) and the Gerakan may suffer severe losses or even be wiped out. The United Malay National Organisation (UMNO) may also lose some seats to the Pan Islamic Party (PAS) of the opposition coalition.

     

    The UM Centre for Democracy and Elections in a recent survey has put the PR ahead of the BN by 43% to 38%.

     

    There also seems to be a genuine concern amongst BN politicians that if they lose the elections, there will be accountability and retribution for past misdeeds. This has led to a change in strategy and the battle lines, unfortunately, are being drawn on racial and religious grounds. This has always been a disturbing tactic used by all parties to garner support of the disgruntled racists and fundamentalists.

     

    Fear mongering in the BN controlled media and in party propaganda is also raising its ugly head. The opposition is countering with an expose of BN excesses on the internet. Notably BN has at every election including this one resurrected the ghosts of May 13th 1969 when hundreds of people lost their lives in racial riots instigated by devious politicians which broke out after the elections. A film Tanda Putera (the Executioner Prince), a distorted version of the May 13th events, is being allegedly screened privately to Malay audiences to stir up hatred towards the Chinese.

     

    Numerous full page advertisements also appear in the media daily designed to instill fear in non-Muslims- that a vote for the opposition will be a vote for PAS and hudud law, dismemberment of limbs as punishment for certain crimes.. The opposition has been highlighting poor governance, mismanagement of public funds, bribery and corruption by BN governments at the State and Federal levels for decades.

     

    Of equal interest to the General Election is the battle for 12 State Governments which is being held simultaneously. Sarawak held its elections in 2011. Currently BN controls nine States and PR four. BN says it can win back 2 States and PR has hopes to retain its 4 States and capture at least 3 more BN States.

    It is difficult to gauge voter sentiment because there are no independent surveys, but if the crowd attendance at party rallies is an indication of public support, the Opposition has a great chance of winning at least another 33 seats in a House of 222 seats to obtain a simple majority. It could also win a number of States .At the very least PR may make substantial gains.

     

    As a casual observer of the Australian media I keep asking myself how a bombing in Boston is more important to Australia than an election in Kuala Lumpur?

     

     

  • A canary in the coal mine. John Menadue

    When environmental activist, Jonathon Moylan, sent a hoax email concerning Whitehaven Coal to the ANZ in January this year, there was outrage and tut-tutting by business journalists about his action.

    A few months later, it is becoming clear that the future of new thermal coal mines is doubtful. Australian resource companies have let over-optimism skew their investment decisions.

    Would any sensible investor take not only the political risk but also the financial risk of investing in new thermal coal mines in Australia?

    The case for continuing investment in coking coal for steel making remains strong, but not for coal to produce electricity. The case against thermal coal is growing.

    • The Australian Climate Commission this month reported that ‘levels of greenhouse gasses from the combustion of fossil fuels have increased almost 40% since the beginning of the industrial revolution, causing the earth’s surface to warm significantly. … All weather events are now occurring in a global climate system that is warming and moister than it was 50 years ago. This has loaded the dice towards more frequent and more severe extreme weather events’.
    • Professor Ross Garnaut warned recently that China was moving away from coal electricity generation to a new, less resource intensive phase of growth which would trigger a plunge in Australian mining investment. Last year, China bought 20% of Australia’s thermal coal exports worth $3 billion.
    • European consumption of coal has fallen to below 2007 levels and will fall further when new air pollution requirements apply from 2016.
    • The US Energy Information Administration shows that coal output in 2016 is likely to be lower than in 1990. Many US power companies using thermal coal have been shut down since 2009.
    • Bloomberg reported in February that Australia is unlikely to build new coal-fired power stations because of tumbling prices for renewable energy and the rising cost of finance for emission intensive fuels.
    • As a result of the Fukashima disaster Japan will need more thermal coal in the short term. But the Abe Government will progressively restart its nuclear reactors which have been closed since the disaster. These restarts will result in reduced output from coal-fired generators. Before the disaster about 25% of Japan’s power production was from nuclear energy.
    • The Climate and Health Alliance in Australia, in referring to a review by health experts at the University of Illinois said ‘the review adds to a suite of papers that point to the effects on human health of electricity generation from coal’

    Belatedly, we should acknowledge that Jonathon Moylan was telling us something about the future. The canary in the mine was more on the ball than those business economists who criticised him for his irresponsible behaviour.

    John Menadue

  • Is the ALP a political party or a suicide cult? John Menadue

    Friends overseas are amazed that with a world class economy such as ours, the Australian Government faces a rout. I try and explain that the government’s difficulties are self-inflicted; that it is tone-deaf on many political issues; that the Prime Minister is not being listened to and the public will not accept what she did to Kevin Rudd.

    How could Australia’s longest-established and most reputable political party be behaving like a suicide cult? Where are the wise men and women in the ALP to stop the Party going over the cliff?

    Australians are genuinely concerned about the prospect of Tony Abbott as Prime Minister. If he wins it would be by default. He has proved himself an effective political wrecker, but credible policies are hard to find.

    The government’s policy performance is far from ideal, but it has a lot going for it.

    • We have had six years of uninterrupted economic growth, even through the Global Financial Crisis.
    • The pre-eminent international mining advisory consultancy, Behre Dolbear, has rated Australia as the top country in the world for investment in mining and mining activity.
    • The roll-out of the NBN in more expensive, but it will give Australia a top-ranking technology compared with a fourth-ranking technology that the Coalition offers.
    • The carbon price which will be followed by an Emissions Trading Scheme is superior to the direct action and “soil magic” which the Coalition proposes.
    • The government continues to improve superannuation. The coalition opposes
    • It has launched the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
    • The Gonski school reforms are underway which the Coalition opposes.
    • The overall cost of living is growing at a slower rate than inflation. The National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling tells us “right across the board our research shows Australian households on average are better off. We really are a lucky country”

    The main policy disappointments of the government have been in health where we continue to muddle through and on asylum seekers where the government has failed to show courage and act decently.

    But it is not only policy differentiation. There is also the quality of the rival front benches.

    Beyond the present leaders, the Government has a very strong front-bench; Combet, Shorten, Butler, Clare, Wong and Dreyfus. Compare that with Brandis, Joyce, Bronwyn Bishop, Andrews, Abetz, Pyne and Morrison. By comparison it is talent-free at best and in some instances, a very ugly front bench.

    Is the ALP prepared to disappoint so many of its supporters and allow Tony Abbott to win by default?

    John Menadue

  • Tony Abbott keeps telling us that boat people are illegals and by inference, criminals. John Menadue

    Last week on radio Tony Abbott was at it again, repeatedly referring to illegals and illegal boats. It cannot be ignorance to keep calling asylum seekers illegals. He must know they are not illegals, but by using this language he inflates fear and hatred of people in distress.

    We cannot presume that boats are illegal because they are exercising passage through our territorial waters. The Law of the Sea makes that clear. And people seeking asylum are not illegals because of our commitments under Article 31 of the Refugee Convention.

    The Centre for Policy Development has just published ‘Refugee Facts’. It includes comments by the Australian Press Council to guide journalists about the use of terms such as ‘illegals’. It draws particular attention to some of the gross incitements to fear that New Limited publications have consistently used. See

    ”

    Ethical journalism on refugee issues

     The Australian Press   Council notes:

    “The legal status of people who have entered Australia by boat without a visa is complex and potentially confusing. Their entry is not legally authorised but is not a criminal offence. The Australian Government usually refers to such entrants as “unauthorised boat arrivals” or “irregular maritime arrivals” but they are also “unlawful non-citizens” under the Migration Act.”

    Read the complete guidelines here

    Journalists are advised to avoid describing people who arrived by boat without a visa in inaccurate terms. This can arise, for example, if the terms can reasonably be interpreted as implying criminality or other serious misbehaviour on the part of all or many people who arrive in this manner.

    Depending on the specific context, therefore, terms such as “illegal immigrants” or “illegals” may constitute a breach of the Council’s Standards of Practice on these grounds.

    Several recent adjudications by the Press Council have upheld complaints about the treatment of asylum seekers by media outlets.

    On 26 November 2011, The Daily Telegraph ran the following headline on its front page: ‘Open the Floodgates – Exclusive; Thousands of Boat People to Invade NSW’. The Press Council was asked to make an adjudication on this and concluded ‘that the use of the word “invade” was gravely inaccurate, unfair and offensive because of its clear connotations of forceful occupation’. It upheld the complaint for ‘an especially serious breach of its principles.’ The Council also concluded that use of the words “open the floodgates” and “deluge” were inaccurate and unfair.

    In adjudication number 1498 in June 2011, the Australian Press Council (APC) considered complaints about three opinion articles by Greg Sheridan that appeared in The Australian on 23 and 28 October 2010 and 5 March 2011.

    The APC upheld the complaint. The adjudication included the following comments on use of the term ‘illegals’:

    “The Press Council’s Guideline (No. 288) notes that the descriptor ‘illegal(s)’ is very often inaccurate and because it typically connotes criminality, it is unfair. It recommends that the use of the term ‘asylum seeker’ as a widely understood descriptor and generally a fair and a sufficiently accurate one. The Australian acknowledged that it was aware of this suggested usage. Indeed, the Council upheld a similar complaint against The Australian as recently as July 2009. Despite that, the disputed expression appeared in the three articles subject to this complaint. … The fact that some people may use what may be considered inaccurate terminology should not be used to justify inaccuracy or unfairness in reporting. The Council holds the view that opinion articles are no different to other articles in their need to ensure accuracy and to avoid unfairness and that these articles failed to do so. Accordingly this aspect of the complaint is upheld.”

    An article headlined ‘Boat people in our suburbs’ that appeared in the Herald Sun on 26 November 2011 was the subject of an adjudication in April 2012. The front page had a pointer to the article reading ‘Revealed; boat people to flood our suburbs’.

    The APC upheld this complaint. The Council concluded that “the words ‘flood the suburbs’ connoted an overwhelming, widespread and adverse impact on the general community. The implication was misleading and unfair, especially when made so boldly in the front page pointer and so prominently in the opening sentence of the article.”

     

    The APC guidelines are a vital point of reference for journalists and editors covering refugee and asylum seeker issues. As these recent adjudications make clear, the Council is inclined to take a dim view of sloppy and unethical reporting of asylum seeker issues, with a particular focus on terminology.

     

    Like Scott Morrison, Tony Abbott seems to have little concern for the “stranger” and the injury and injustice he inflicts on vulnerable people. I suggest that before he utters another word on asylum seekers and illegals, he reads

    The Refugee Convention Article 31 that makes clear that penalties should not be imposed on people who enter another country, seek asylum and do so expeditiously

    The APC guidelines and adjudications on the term “illegals”

    He might also look at Matthew 23 ‘I was a stranger and you took me in’.

    We are in for a very ugly political period…

    John Menadue

  • An Excel coding error with tragic consequences. John Menadue

     In 2010, just after the Greek financial crisis, two respected conservative Harvard economists, Reinhart and Rogoff, published a paper ‘Growth in a time of debt’ that said that once debt exceeded 90% of GDP, economic growth drops off sharply. Their thesis added great weight to those urging austerity on such countries as Greece, Spain and many others.

    Paul Krugman in the New York Times of April 18 has drawn attention to a major flaw in their ‘tipping point’ theory for national debt. According to Krugman, Reinhart and Rogoff, allowed researchers at the University of Massachusetts to examine the spreadsheets that helped produce this precise 90% ‘tipping point’. The researchers found that some data had been omitted, they highly questioned statistical procedures that had been used, but most importantly of all they found that Reinhart and Rogoff had made an Excel coding error.

    After corrections were made for these mistakes there was confirmation that there was a relationship between high debt and slow economic growth, which almost all economists agreed with, but there was no confirmation of the 90% ‘tipping point’.

    Unfortunately the Reinhart and Rogoff thesis has been influential in the conservative case for governments, particularly in Europe, to enforce more and more austerity on the public. Greece now has an overall unemployment rate of 27% and a rate of 59% for young people aged 15-24. In Spain the unemployment rate is 57% for the same 15-24 age group.

    Hopefully the flaws in the Reinhart and Rogoff analysis and thesis will force a rethink by the ideologues who keep espousing austerity to reduce deficits and debt, regardless of the tragic consequences for millions of people. There is surely no particular virtue in a government surplus or deficit. In some situations a deficit is more appropriate; in other circumstances a surplus is more appropriate. Surpluses and deficits are means to an end, particularly full employment and stable prices.

    But the conservative economists and commentators will surely think up other reasons for austerity at the expense of vulnerable people.

    John Menadue

  • The post-September struggle. Guest blogger: Red Pimpernel

    As the Labor Party lurches to a blistering defeat in September there is a lot of work going on to reframe it as a democratic and progressive organisation. Those that seriously believe in the ALP as a 21st century social democracy have begun quietly. The reframers know they will run into internal conservative opposition.

    It will be a debate that gives Labor members and supporters plenty to keep themselves busy as they contemplate the Abbott era.

    In NSW we have seen the beginnings of attempts to challenge monoliths of preselection power bases and union block voting. We have seen boldness borne of desperation in trialling new methods of engagement in preselections. In Victoria demands on the national executive to actually implement the many tomes calling for party democratisation and reform have been accompanied by deadlines for measures such as directly electing the state party leader.

    These are the tips of an iceberg reflecting serious attempts to raise questions about the culture and the operation of the Party.  Reassessment of values, aims and aspirations for what constitutes a progressive community and the role of the state to build it will underpin much of this debate.  Whilst the lid of discipline holds down much of this debate before 14 September it won’t last long after that date.

    Big questions are being framed up by every Labor parrot in the corner pet shop with a raft of Labor ex ministers ready to hit the ideas and book circuits.

    The large numbers of younger activists looking to the role of Government in building progress provides hope for comeback

    Debates on how Labor plans and regulates for sustainable growth to build the capacity of the State to deliver on the social justice and redistributive project that lies at its heart are being argued about – and not just in a 5 km radius of the Centre of Sydney and Melbourne

    Given that there will be a long bleak winter of Opposition to contemplate these existential questions it is better to set the parameters now for the ideological debate rather than await the hysterical recriminations and blame shifting that will inevitably follow after September.

    For a Party well used to being at the crossroads, the choices to be made soon will be defining

    All power to those who are promoting these debates.  They will need it.

     

  • There’s nothing basic about basic nursing care. Guest Blogger: Professor Mary Chiarella

    The Minister for Health and Ageing, Mark Butler has announced a new aged-care workforce compact which will result in 350,000 workers receiving supplementary payments of 1% over and above award increases. This amounts to $1/hour more for each worker – the lowest paid workers in the health care industry. Why is “intimate” nursing care, for the purposes of distinguishing it from technical nursing care, identified as not needing qualified nursing staff and relegated to care workers? Furthermore these care workers, the mainstay of our nursing homes and residential aged care facilities, may only have the support of a single registered or enrolled nurse to care for as many as 60+ patients.

    Yet today the people we see in our nursing homes would have filled a medical ward in the ‘70s. There will be increasing numbers of elderly people to look after, with chronic and complex care needs, so surely there is a need to rethink and recognise the complexity of intimate nursing care and have it performed by appropriately qualified nurses? For proper remuneration? I can’t remember who said it, but the elderly are the only group against whom we discriminate to which we will eventually belong.

    This intimate nursing work, described usually as ‘basic nursing care’ is, in reality, far from basic and you need skilled nurses to perform it well. When they do, its value and necessity transcends its physical messiness. Despite what those who don’t do this work might think, it is not basic—it is extremely psychologically complex. Cleaning patients who are soiled with excreta, blood, or vomitus, who feel ashamed of themselves for being ‘dirty’ or for ‘losing control’, and restoring both their hygiene and their sense of self worth in the process, requires the highest order of skill. Nurses know its worth, yet understand society’s abhorrence of its reality.

    But the paradox is to recognise that other people simply don’t want to acknowledge the worth and complexity of the work. Better to imagine it’s “basic”. It is also a given that nurses who do this work don’t discuss it. Nurses do things to other people which have the potential to strip them of their dignity. One of the reasons why, most of the time, nurses don’t do so is because what transpires behind the screens will never be discussed in public. Good nursing care is eminently forgettable. Nurses manage to be almost ‘invisible’ as they perform the most private of functions for the patient. Listen to this description as a nurse washes a patient’s genitalia.

    Jane is looking intently at the scrotum, lifting carefully the folds to ensure a thorough wash, and painting lotion gently on the grazed area. The penis is washed with equal care and their conversation continues throughout. They could have been having this conversation in a sitting room, it is so unselfconscious[1].

    Nurses, for entirely professional reasons, don’t discuss these aspects of their work. If we did, how could the next patient feel comfortable? The view that any ‘nice’ person can deliver this kind of care diminishes the sensitivity and skill required to manage such situations.  Maybe this is partly because nurses have always done this intimate work, and usually only changes to practice are considered to deserve increased pay. But this provides an unsatisfactory model for re-assessing work value when this work was never valued originally. Furthermore the nursing management of sensitive issues of the body is not granted the same status as  – say –a psychiatrist handling sensitive issues of the mind. Because it involves manual work, ‘getting your hands dirty’, it is considered to be menial or domestic. Yet to practise such work without intellectual engagement would be crass, and could cause psychological damage. If the courts and tribunals were to value this work similarly, the entire award system would need to be revisited.

    Can we finally acknowledge how complex and difficult this work is? Let us not just admire (oh they’re wonderful –I don’t know how they do it) but also reward the people who do it with more than $1/hour. Let us recognise that intimate care of people who are old and sick (and it might be us one day) is actually extraordinarily skilful and requires a great deal of sensitivity.

     Professor Mary Chiarella

    [1] Taylor B, Being Human: Ordinariness in Nursing Churchill Livingstone: Melbourne (1994).

  • The Wars we would rather forget. John Menadue

    Aboriginal Wars

    The Australian War Memorial records as follows:

    “When it became apparent that the settlers and their livestock had come to stay, competition for access to the land developed and friction between the two ways of life became inevitable. As the settlers’ behaviour became unacceptable to the indigenous population, individuals were killed over specific grievances. These killings were then met with reprisals from the settlers, often on a scale out of all proportion to the original incident. … It is estimated that some 2,500 European settlers and police died in this conflict. For the aboriginal inhabitants the cost was far higher: about 20,000 are believed to have been killed in the wars of the frontier, while many thousands more perished from disease and often unintended consequences of settlement. Aboriginal Australians were unable to restrain – though in places they did delay – the tide of European settlement; although resistance in one form or another never ceased, the conflict ended in their dispossession.” (www.awm.gov.au/atwar/colonial.asp)

    Where are the memorials to this tragic war?

    Maori Wars

    The State Library of South Australia records these wars as follows:

    “Between 1845 and 1872 just over 2,500 Australian volunteers saw service in New Zealand. The majority of these volunteers came from the colonies of New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania.

    The cause of all conflict between whites and the Maori people was land. … British forces were sent from Auckland to defeat and capture Maori Chief Hone Heke but the Maori chief and his warriors were skilled in the art of war, but it took [many steps including] a local militia and troops rushed in from Australia … to conclude the first Maori war.

    By 1860, the grab for land again sparked conflict between whites and the Maoris, this time in the Waitara River area. … Again, the Australian colonies were asked for urgent assistance. The colonies rallied and sent troops. The colony of Victoria even sent its entire navy which comprised the steam corvette HMVS Victoria. New South Wales also sent gun ships to support the troops.

    Only later war broke out again, this time in the Waikato area. And again Australian troops came to the aid of local British forces.

    Soon after the Waikato war, the New Zealand Government decided to form a more permanent force and actually recruited troops from among the Australian colonies. They were offered land in exchange for service in the armed forces. Some 3,600 Australians took up the offer. They were formed into the Waikato regiments.” (www.guides.sisa.sa.gov.au/content.php?pid=76180&sid=594745.  The Australian War Memorial has a similar account of Australian participation in the Maori Wars)

    Some may claim that all this occurred before Australia was federated and we were still colonies. I do not think that this can obscure the fact of Australian participation in the Maori wars. The first association between Australian and New Zealand forces was not at Gallipoli in 1915. It was in the Maori wars 70 years earlier.

    John Menadue

     

     

  • The blame game over schools: a way through the impasse. John Menadue

    The Commonwealth and the States will blame each other for failure to agree on Gonski ‘light’. It is a pattern we have seen so often over many years, particularly in health.

    Federalism is just not working for us. It has become an obstacle to good government. The Commonwealth financial dominance will continue. The States are poor but proud and reluctant to concede jurisdiction.

    Kevin Rudd threatened to hold a referendum in association with the 2010 election to give the Commonwealth power to fund and run State public hospitals. But he was persuaded not to persist as it was very likely that a referendum would fail. The Government’s health ‘reforms’ have since turned out to be a continuation of the muddle or a ‘dog’s breakfast’ as Tony Abbott used to describe divided responsibility and the blame game in health.

    But I suggest a compromise is possible that would improve the funding and operation of schools in Australia. We should establish a Joint Commonwealth/State Schools Commission in any State where the Commonwealth and a State Government could agree. It would require the political agreement of the Australian Prime Minister and at least one State Premier to get the ball rolling in a particular State. With political will such a Joint Schools Commission (JSC) would be relatively easy to establish. Hopefully with success in one State/Territory, others would follow.

    In my view, a Commonwealth takeover of Commonwealth funding and management of all schools in Australia would be the best course, but it is just not politically possible.

    The key features of a Joint Schools Commission in any State would be:

    • The JSC would consist of say three Commonwealth and three State representatives with an independent Chair from outside the State who would be appointed by the Federal and State Ministers for Education.
    • The JSC would pool all school funding from both the Commonwealth and State Governments. There would in effect be a single funder in the State.
    • The JSC would have a clear governance role in the coordination of all school funding, its distribution and oversight  within the state
    • Existing providers-public, private and Catholic – would continue to operate and provide services within the JSC state wide plan.
    • The administrative funding for the JSC would be kept to a minimum consistent with the JSC’s essential but limited responsibilities. The small increase in bureaucracy must be strictly contained. It would however be a small price to pay for improved state-wide funding, governance and performance monitoring of schools.
    • The JSC would be guided by principles agreed by the Commonwealth and the State Minister for Education, e.g. equal opportunity for all children, social solidarity and subsidiarity whereby administration would be as local as possible  consistent with State-wide standards.
    • There would be maximum transparency in the work and reporting of the JSC in order to involve public comment and public confidence in the process. There would need to be agreed dispute resolution procedures.

    Under such a proposal we would still have separate JSCs in each State/Territory. But it would be a significant advance on the divided responsibility and blame-game that dogs federalism in Australia

    With political goodwill between the Australian Prime Minister and at least one State Premier, I suggest that these bilateral type arrangements are the best and perhaps the only way forward to improve governance and funding for all our school children within a particular state.

    The Commonwealth Government should not provide any additional funding to the States except through an agreed JSC.

    Six years ago, I proposed a similar arrangement to address the blame game in health . I called my proposal a ‘Coalition of the Willing’.   (See publish.pearlsandirritations.com, Click on ‘health’, March 2007)  That proposal could be updated and applied in a Joint Schools Commission in any State where there is political agreement.

    John Menadue

  • Where has the Business Council of Australia been? John Menadue

    The BCA President, Tony Shepherd, was at it again on Wednesday 17 April at the National Press Club attacking the Government for many failures – a lack of focus, the need for politicians to sacrifice their jobs for the national interest and that old perennial of his, reform of the labour market. His comments were loudly supported by the Australian Financial Review which now reports on behalf of the business sector rather than about business.

    In my blog on March 14, (‘Productivity and Skills’ see below) I drew attention to the failure of the BCA to make its case on productivity and labor market reform. I also highlighted that whilst the BCA wanted to upskill the Australian workforce, it didn’t think that it should upskill itself, having in mind that there is hardly a senior executive or board member of BCA’s top 100 companies who can fluently speak an Asian language.

    It is true that the Government has not been performing well in recent months. Most of the problems are self-inflicted.

    There are policy problems ahead, but Tony Shepherd is wide of the mark in much of what he says.

    • Our partisan mining industry would not agree, but only a few days ago Behre Dolbear, a century-old and well-respected mining advisory firm based in the US, ranked Australia as the top country in the world for mining investment and activity. As the top-ranked country Australia was ahead of Canada, Chile, Brazil, Mexico and the US in that order. On the seven criteria that Behre Dolbear used for its ranking, Australia ranked equal first on its ‘economic system’; equal second on its ‘political system’; top on ‘social issues’; top on least ‘delays’ in decision-making; equal top on least ‘corruption’; equal top on ‘currency stability’ and an also-ran on ‘tax regime’. Overall it was a strong endorsement of Australia as the best place in the world for mining activity. I wonder if Tony Shepherd has read it!
    • Three separate rating agencies – Standard and Poors, Fitch Ratings, and Moody’s – have all ranked Australia in the top eight countries with a triple A rating.  Fitch Ratings was particularly complimentary about Australia’s economic management, a strongly performing economy, low public debt, a floating exchange rate, liberal trade and labour markets and with Australian banks among the strongest in the world. There are certainly reservations about rating agencies but Australia could hardly do better than the ratings most recently achieved
    • Under the Rudd/Gillard Governments we have had six years of uninterrupted economic growth even through the Global Financial Crisis.
    • Some of Tony Shepherd’s own member companies have not been performing well. The giants BHP Biliton and Rio Tinto have been badly managed, with world record write-offs of failed investments. Has Tony Shepherd taken them aside and told them to lift their game? What has he said to his colleagues about executive salaries and the need for sacrifice in the national interest?
    • Interestingly the IMF reported in January this year that the most wasteful Government spending in Australia came in the Howard years. It was not during the governments of Whitlam, Hawke, Keating, Rudd or Gillard. Has Tony Shepherd read the IMF report?

    In Japan last week I heard from many people their admiration about the strength of the Australian economy, particularly compared to their own. What the Japanese couldn’t understand was how the Australian Government was in political trouble.

    Last month Ken Henry criticized the quality of public debate in this country. I am sure Tony Shepherd’s contribution would not have changed his mind.

    We could do with a lot more rigorous policy analysis by the BCA

    John Menadue

  • Report of ‘Clerical celibacy in context’

        A few nights ago, some fifty people went to the Veech Library, at Strathfield, to hear a retired history professor, Ed Campion, give a lecture entitled Clerical Celibacy in Context.  The next day people telephoned the library to get copies of this lecture but there was none to be had because the lecturer performed without the safety net of a text.

    He started with the story of the Mass, showing how the clergy became more and more dominant in worship.  Parallel to this, their privileged civil status grew until by the time of Thomas Becket and Henry II they were a separate entity in society with their own courts, tax system and much besides.  This growth accentuated the division between clergy and laity, giving the clergy power over other Christians.  Clericalism was about privilege and power.  Prohibitions reinforced this distinction, keeping the clergy out of pubs and theatres, tonsuring their hair and dressing them in drab clothes, and barring them from trade, the money market, surgery and warfare.

    Compulsory celibacy was perhaps the most significant element in the development of a separate clerical caste.  Most history, especially grassroots history, is simply lost.  It is clear, however, that in the parishes the ban on clerical marriage was widely ignored.  The Norman Conquest (1066) brought into England Norman bishops eager to further the reform agenda of the papacy, who had supported the invasion for this purpose.  It was a slow process because bishops needed the coercive power of the Crown to succeed and Kings seemed happy to let priests keep their wives on payment of a fine.  The second Lateran Council (1139) drew a line in the sand for it made clerical marriage invalid as well as illicit – after that, a girl couldn’t marry a priest any more than she could marry a tree.  Spare a thought for the clergy consorts, Ed Campion urged:  the church treated them harshly in its attempts to clean up its act.

    But public opinion was against the consorts, as respect for monks and their vows grew alongside the development of education and regard for the law.  As well, there was an expansion in reverence towards the Eucharist when theologians went deeper into the mystery of Christ’s presence there.  This impacted on the lifestyle of priests:  the Body on the altar was the same as that born of Mary;  and since Mary was a virgin so the priest should be celibate.

    Then the Counter-Reformation came up with the idea of seminaries, where youths would be isolated from the world and enculturated as clerics.  The dominant culture of the seminaries, clericalism, is a source of the current sex abuse tsunami – clericalism that uses its power for personal gratification whether its targets are children or adults.

  • Privatisation on the wane. John Menadue

    From the days of Maggie Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and John Howard, the assumption has been that the private sector will grow in relation to the public sector because it is more efficient and contributes more to the public good. The political correctness of the political Right assumed that privatisation would carry all before it.

    But not any more. The market failures of many key players in the private sector are clear. It is not just Wall Street, but our own local giants, BHP, Rio Tinto and others, who have lost tens of billions of dollars in shareholders’ funds in recent years. There has been clear company overstretch and management failures.

    Campbell Newman, the Premier of Qld, has rejected the proposals of Peter Costello to privatise Qld energy and ports. He is clearly hearing the views of all Queenslanders who disliked the privatisation program of the previous Premier, Anna Bligh. As Campbell Newman put it recently ‘Queensland hearts are not in (privatisation) … it is a political reality’.

    Only last month, Essential Research reported that the public believed that the following industries would be better run by governments. (In all cases there was a significant “don’t know” response)

    • Electricity – 52% of respondents
    • Water – 69%
    • Trains/buses/ferries – 64%
    • Motorways – 66%
    • Community services like child protection – 75%
    • Hospital and health services – 71%
    • Schools – 68%
    • Prisons – 73%
    • Universities – 81%
    • Ports – 60%

    The evidence seems quite clear that the public does not want more privatisation without a very good case being made.

    Essential Research also reported recently that the three most trusted institutions in Australia are public institutions – The High Court, ABC and Reserve Bank.

    Some public institutions are much more efficient that their private sector counterparts. Because of scale, Medicare has administrative costs about one third of those of BUPA.  If we compare like with like, public hospitals are just as efficient as private hospitals according to the Productivity Commission.

    The Hawke and Keating Governments also took us down the privatisation path. But in retrospect, what has the privatisation of the Commonwealth Bank brought us in terms of public benefit. It now sits cosily alongside the other three major banking groups with little variation in the products it offers to the public.

    As CEO of Qantas, I was a reluctant supporter of privatisation because I came to the view that the government was not a good shareholder. Paul Keating deliberately set out to starve Qantas of equity in order to force privatisation. Has privatisation of Qantas been a success?

    Has the privatisation of Telstra by the Howard Government brought the benefits we were led to expect.

    I cannot see that Maggie Thatcher’s privatisation of British Airways has been successful. BA is a very ordinary performer. To make a financial and political success of BA’s sale,the Thatcher Government entrenched the market dominance of BA, helped get rid of competitors like British Midland, gave route advantages to BA particularly on the Atlantic and strengthened its control of gates at Heathrow. Aviation in the UK would have been advantaged much more if the market had been made more competitive.

    In the modern economy, we need to get the balance right between the public and private sectors. The community is quite clearly of the view that the balance has swung too far in favour of privatisation and private companies.

    Competitive markets are more important than ownership.

    John Menadue

     

  • Post card from Kyoto

    Kyoto is both an historic and beautiful city. Fortunately it was spared allied bombing during the last war.

    When our family first visited Kyoto and other parts of Japan in the 1960’s the exchange rate was about 400yen to the Australian dollar. It  made for not only wonderful holidays, but cheap holidays as well. We usually stayed at Japanese minshuku for less than $A 10 for dinner, bed and breakfast for an adult.

    Over the years, the yen strengthened considerably until it appreciated to about Yen 65 to $A1. To reverse this appreciation of the yen, the new Abe Government is flooding the economy with cash which has helped depreciate the yen to about Yen 104 to $A1.

    The hope of Abe is that with the depreciation of the yen, there will be new opportunities for Japan’s export sector. But will it succeed? To combat the previous strong yen, Japan has moved a great deal of its manufacturing offshore, particularly cars to the US. Much of Japan’s manufacture of electronics and IT has been shifted to Asia. So the depreciation of the yen is unlikely to help these Japanese firms that have already shifted offshore. With labour costs in the ROK about half those of Japan, the Japanese will have a lot to make up if its manufacturing and SME sectors are to become competitive again.

    The new debate in Japan, which is about the economy, has produced an unexpected benefit. In the months before Japan’s general election in December last year, the leader of the Opposition, Abe-san, and his Jimento Party were incessantly banging the anti-foreigner drum, a bit like Tony Abbott on asylum seekers in Australia. Abe and the Jimento were determined to head off the extreme nationalism of Ishihara, the Governor of Tokyo, and Hashimoto, the Governor of Osaka and seized every opportunity to beat the anti-Chinese drum. Now with a strong majority in the Diet and with Ishihara and Hashimoto side-lined, PM Abe can safely scale back his xenophobic posturing. Abe’s concentration on the economy will be a welcome change from the nationalist posturing and anti-Chinese sentiment that prevailed several months ago in Japan.

    Japan has been nervous, but not particularly panicked by the dangerous tantrums of the North Korean regime. Japan has put on alert its anti-missile batteries around Tokyo and has deployed AGIS destroyers into the Sea of Japan. Even with this Japanese response, I sense that the Japanese people expect the problem to blow over quickly. They have seen these antics from North Korea so much in the past – acting belligerently and then being rewarded by the US when it starts talking and acting ‘normally’.  In the past this tactic has been a clear winner for North Korea. It obviously hopes that by being reasonable in the weeks ahead it will persuade the US to ease sanctions and increase aid.

    Yet the North Korean action is to some extent understandable. After the American invasions of Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, any small power could come to the conclusion that only the possession of nuclear weapons would prevent a US attack. A price is being paid for the US abuse of power in the world.

    One consequence of North Korea’s erratic behaviour is that the US presence in north-east Asia is likely to be continued and possibly enhanced, particularly with its large bases in Japan. China is understandably concerned about the US presence in north-east Asia, but its failure to ‘manage’ North Korea means that it is encouraging a continuing US presence in the region.

    John Menadue

  • Reviving Malaysia. John Menadue

    As I pointed out in an earlier blog (27 March 2013), the Nauru/Manus ‘solution’ is not working to deter asylum seekers. The government foolishly adopted Tony Abbott’s proposal.

    With the failure of Nauru/Manus, the Minister for Immigration, Brendan O’Connor has spoken about the need to revive the earlier proposal on Malaysia. Last weekend the SMH published an editorial headed ‘Time to revisit the Malaysian plan’.

    Arja Keski-Nummi and I have consistently supported the Malaysian plan. We did not see it as perfect by any means, but it did provide a basis for developing a regional arrangement. We are glad to see that at last the merits of the Malaysian plan are being examined again.

    We wrote an article on 13 August 2012, entitled ‘Creating a safe place – Malaysia Mark II’. It was published in the Melbourne Age (see it on my website publish.pearlsandirritations.com, click on ‘refugees’ and go to article of 13 August 2012).

    The Government should urgently renew its efforts to negotiate an improved Malaysian arrangement and introduce legislation to implement it. Perhaps the Greens will think again. Their opposition to the Malaysian arrangement has delivered us the failed Nauru/Manus plan. The perfect became the enemy of the good.

    There are two important issues that we must keep in mind in dealing with the issue of asylum seekers. There is no one single ‘solution’. There must be a comprehensive package addressing the problems in source countries such as Afghanistan and Pakistan and in transit countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia.

    The second is that UNHCR must be an important partner in what we undertake. The UNHCR said that it would not have a bar of Nauru/Manus, but it will cooperate on an improved Malaysian plan.

    John Menadue

  • Fear of Asia. John Menadue

    This fear has been with us since European settlement – a small, relatively wealthy white community living on the rim of the large populations of Asia. This fear stunts our own human growth and is an obstacle to trusting relations with our own region.

    Although we have broken the back of ‘white Australia’, fear of Asia and the ‘yellow peril’ is still alive. We see it in so many ways.

    • Our uncritical alliance with the US and formerly with the UK stems from the fear of our region and the need for a strong external protector.
    • Politicians such as John Howard, Pauline Hanson, Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison, see fear of Asia and particularly demonising of asylum seekers as a potent political weapon.
    • The hostility to a small number of skilled workers on 457 visas.
    • The campaign against Chinese investment by Barnaby Joyce and others which is really a re-run of the campaign by Pauline Hanson against Japanese investment 25 years ago.

    These campaigns against our Asian neighbours are designed to appeal to our emotions, our feelings our prejudice. They are not directed to our intellects.

    We waste a great deal of effort in trying to improve our relations and understanding of Asia with more diplomatic posts in the region, more conferences and more articles. These activities operate at the intellectual and cerebral level, appealing to our logic and rational natures.

    Fear however is visceral, it is of the gut. It can really only be countered by experience and hopefully we come to a feeling that foreigners are not such a threat after all.

    An important driver in the ending of White Australia was the experience by many of us in studying and living with Asian students in Australia. We weren’t changed so much by intellectual arguments about our relations with the region, but by our experience of feeling comfortable and at ease in dealing with people from our region who were quite different to ourselves. Experience of the unknown, not argument or logic was the influential factor. So Australian students of the 1950s and 1960s campaigned to end ‘white Australia’. We felt comfortable with fellow Asian students. They were not a threat.

    For the same reason, I have been a strong supporter of working holiday programs in providing opportunities for young Australians to travel and work in Asia for extensive periods. Unfortunately recent Australian governments have not seen the long-term benefits of these programs. The first working holiday agreement in Asia was with Japan in 1980. We didn’t have another in Asia until the 1996 agreement with the ROK. In the last ten years, there have been another six working holiday agreements with Asian countries, but most of them have caps of 100 persons per annum. We still have no working holiday agreements with China, India or Vietnam.

    Many universities now provide opportunities for undergraduates and graduates to take up 12 months or more study at an Asian university or college. Over time, with these programs, if well developed, we will have a core of young Australians who have studied and experienced an Asian culture and society. It will be a visceral experience as much as a cerebral experience

    Studying foreign languages is also important if we are to ‘experience’ Asia. It is difficult to fully experience a foreign society, except through the language of that society. Yet unfortunately in Australia today Asian language study is in crisis. It is in decline. This trend must be reversed as soon as possible.

    By all means let us have our seminars and intellectual discussions about Asia. But the real focus we need in combatting our fears of Asia is for hundreds of thousands of young Australians to study, work and live in Asia for extended periods. Fear is visceral, not cerebral and experiencing the foreigner is the best way to break down our instinctive fear and reservation about the outsider and the person who is different. Importantly, we have to name the fear and what drives it, in all of us. Unless we do, we will be dissipating our energies on secondary intellectual issues.

     

  • More punishment for asylum seekers and refugees. John Menadue

    The Coalition has announced that in government, it would deny boat arrivals access to an independent review of their claims for refugee status.

    It is another way of punishing vulnerable people and winning political points.

    • There will be no change in appeal rights of asylum seekers who come by air. The punishment will only be for boat arrivals.
    • 82% of initial rejections for refugee status were overturned in 2011/12 by the Refugee Review Tribunal. This has been the pattern for several years. This suggests that there is some fundamental problem with the way primary decisions are made by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship.
    • One of the recommendations of the Houston Report was that the Refugee Status Determination system should be reviewed. DIAC says that it is doing this. The figures on overturning of DIAC decisions suggest that this is an urgent problem.
    • Over 90% of asylum seekers who come by boat are found to be refugees. But only 44% of asylum seekers who come by air are found to be refugees. Thus the Opposition proposes to penalise the group that historically has had much stronger claims to refugee status.

    The announcement by the Coalition is consistent with its policy of highlighting only boat people and punishing them wherever possible. It is obviously a policy that is paying political dividends for the Coalition.

    There is also I suspect a mistaken belief that by denying appeal rights to boat arrivals, it will act as a deterrent for boat arrivals. This is despite the fact there is no evidence whatsoever that policies to deter asylum seekers by receiving countries has any effect. The persecution and tragedy which asylum seekers face and which force them to flee their country has far greater force than any ‘deterrent’ policy that we can throw at them.

    Only last month on February 5, the Australian Parliamentary Library reported on ‘factors affecting asylum seekers choice of destination country’. The report pointed to the failure of policies designed to deter asylum seekers. It said

    ‘It is clear from the existing literature that opportunities for governments to curb asylum flows through policies of deterrents are extremely limited. Asylum seekers are often simply unaware of policy measures aimed at discouraging their arrival. Where they are aware of such measures, they respond to them in complex and often unpredictable ways. This represents a considerable challenge for policy makers charged with stemming the flow of asylum seekers and appeasing a public which is increasingly demanding for various reasons that the government “stop the boats”.’ (p.12)

    Once again politics and demonization of asylum seekers is put ahead of fact-based policies and the dignity of very vulnerable people.

    John Menadue

  • Tokyo postcard. John Menadue

    It is great to be back in Japan for cherry blossom. I first came to Japan almost 45 years ago and have been visiting regularly ever since. On our visits and residence in Japan, we stayed at scores of minshuku – Japanese B & B – across the country. It was a wonderful experience.

    Cherry blossoms have been early in Japan this year. Many locals say that it is due to climate change! I suspect that many Japanese are more concerned about their environmental pollution of dust out of China, soaring eastwards, first over Korea and then over Japan. A family member who recently stayed in Seoul for a couple of days said that the dust obscured the sun until about 2pm each day.

    We attended the Australian embassy cherry blossom celebration along with about 1,200 others last week. It is a great occasion for Australia to display its friendship and its produce. We established the first such celebration almost 35 years ago. It was then called a ‘wattle and cherry blossom day’. The cherry blossoms in the garden have always been beautiful, but in the early days we brought in wattle from the Commonwealth War Graves garden in Hodogaya.

    In the 1980s, the Australian government sold a large section of the embassy premises for $750 million to a large Japanese company. The capital gain was tax-free. Some of the money was used to erect a new chancery and staff apartments. I am yet to hear of anyone who admires what we built. The Canadians did it much better than we did. However, a lovely part of the garden was retained and is well used for embassy functions.

    I sense a much improved mood in Japan following the election of the Abe Government several months ago. After 25 years of stagnation, the Japanese are now much more optimistic. But time will tell whether the optimistic mood is justified. Major structural problems still face Japan – an ageing population and a refusal to seriously entertain immigration, a protected agricultural sector and serious governance problems whereby operators like TEPCO, the nuclear power operator at Fukishima, are much too close to government regulators. By flooding the economy with money and forcing down the Japanese yen, it is clearly causing difficulties for adjoining countries such as ROK. The depreciating yen will also increase prices of all imported energy and foodstuffs. But the mood has certainly improved, something I have not noticed for a long time.

    Knowledgeable Japanese that I have spoken to express admiration for the strength of the Australian economy – growth rates over many years averaging about 3%, inflation ranging between 2% and 3%, unemployment just over 5% and miniscule government debt compared with Japan with its very serious international debt problems. But Japanese express real surprise that with such a strongly performing economy, the Australian Government should be at such political risk in the coming September elections. I don’t think they quite understand when I tell them that so much of the damage to the Australian Government has been self-inflicted.

    John Menadue

  • Are most asylum seekers and refugees Muslims?

    Well, as a matter of fact, most asylum seekers and refugees are not Muslims.

    But I am sure that many commentators and a lot of the community believe that most are Muslim. The dog-whistlers like Scott Morrison feed on this assumption .According to Jane Cadzow in the Sun Herald he urged the Coalition parties “to ramp up its questioning … to capitalise on anti-Muslim sentiment”.

    Figures on this issue are extracted from the DIAC Settlement data base. One reason for the difficulty in analysing the figures is that a religious test is not applied to persons seeking refugee status, and neither should it. Ascertaining religious background often then depends on voluntary declarations.

    The Refugee Convention is blind to religion but the Convention recognises that religious persecution is a valid ground for claiming protection.

    But based on DIAC Settlement data the general picture becomes reasonably clear. For settlement purposes refugees are asked on a voluntary basis to declare their religion as it is likely to assist in settlement in the community.

    In the figures for the year from January 1 2010 there were 8,342 arrivals of refugees and other humanitarian entrants. The religious affiliations were as follows:

    • Christian 4,263 – 51%.
    • Muslim 2,223 – 26%
    • Hindu 1,125 – 13%
    • Other 731 – 10%
    • Total 8,342 – 100%

    In the period 1 April 2011 to 31 March 2012, humanitarian arrivals including refugees were as follows.

    • Christian 5,523 – 34%
    • Muslim 6,732 – 42%
    • Buddhist 445 – 3%
    • Hindu 1,089 – 7%
    • Other 2,255 – 14%
    • Total 16,044 – 100%

    These figures give a fairly reliable guide to the religious background of humanitarian entrants in recent years. The increase in Muslim arrivals in the year to 31 March 2012 is largely due to the persecution of Hazaras both in their own country Afghanistan and more recently in Pakistan. This trend is continuing.

    The pattern will vary from year to year, depending on the religious composition of the country where the persecution is occurring, and if a particular religious group is being persecuted.

    I would expect that the number of Christians currently facing persecution in the Middle East, particularly in Egypt and Syria, is likely to increase. Christians represent about 10% of the population in both countries the highest in the Middle East. If the Assad regime in Syria falls both minority Alawite and Christian communities are likely to be in jeopardy. Over a million Syrians have already fled to neighbouring countries.

    Christians in the Middle East, the birthplace of Christianity, have fallen from 20% in the early 20th Century to about 5% today.

    The religious pattern of asylum seekers and refugees is hard to predict. What is clear is that it is nonsense to assume that most of them to date are Muslim.

    John Menadue

  • The Asian Century – another smoko? John Menadue

    Chaired by Ken Henry, the White Paper, ‘Australia in the Asian Century’ was released five months ago, in October 2012. We have heard precious little about it since. Prime Minister Gillard appointed Craig Emerson, the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister on Asian Century Policy. I have not seen or heard anything from him that gives me confidence that an implementation plan has been drawn up and is being implemented.

    Will we go on ‘smoko’ again as we did after the Garnaut Report of 1989 on the challenge and opportunities we faced in North Asia and particularly Japan and Korea. (See ‘The Asian Century and the Australian Smoko’ which Greg Dodds and I wrote in April 2012 on my website publish.pearlsandirritations.com.)

    A key issue from the Asian Century White Paper is to ensure that the key institutions are keeping up with the modest bench marks that were set. The Henry Review of Taxation showed that policy and ideas are the easy part. The hard slog is implementation. We have not heard from Craig Emerson how the modest objectives spelt out are to be achieved. What are the bench marks along the way to 2025? Where are the champions of our engagement in Asia? Those champions will have to come from within our existing institutions, particularly in business, media and education. We have not heard from them.

    Commenting on PM Gillard’s pending visit to China, Minister Emerson said that in the White Paper ‘content is important, but even more important is the very existence of the White Paper’. I am not sure I understand what he means and I don’t feel the least bit reassured.

    The response of Minister Emerson was almost as unhelpful and ill-informed as the comment by PM Gillard when referring to the “Asian Century”, she said ‘we have not been here before’. That may be true for her, but she showed little knowledge of our history and what was set out for Australia in 1989 by Professor Garnaut. We have “been here before” but the Prime Minister obviously missed it.

    The barriers to our involvement in Asia are obvious. The first is our large companies with their Anglo-Celtic culture and clubbish directors who are failing to equip either themselves or their companies for Asia. The second is our media whose structure and coverage was laid down over a century ago. It is overwhelmingly focussed on the UK and the US. There is only token interest in our region.

    A central issue beyond these two institutional failures is our fear of Asia. The White Paper did not adequately address this issue. This fear of Asia has been with us since European settlement – a small white, fearful English-speaking enclave surrounded by large numbers of Asians. That fear of Asia is regularly exploited. The Liberal Party with its ‘stop the boats’ one-liners incites exaggerated fear of Asia. The National Party runs the same campaign against Chinese investment that Pauline Hanson ran in the past against Japanese investment.  The Greens bash Malaysia over its human rights. The Government gives lip-service to our relations with the region, but the effort is not there.

    So far the follow-up to the Asian Century White Paper is not encouraging. The Garnaut Report was influential for a number of years and then we largely forgot. Asian language learning in Australia today is worse than it was 20 years ago!

    Is anyone really driving the implementation of “Australia and the Asian Century”?

    John Menadue

  • Hazaras in peril. John Menadue

    There are an estimated 50,000 persons of Hazara background living in Australia. Many of their relatives and friends are being intimidated and killed regularly in Pakistan. It is not surprising that they are fleeing and paying people smugglers to get to safety in Australia or elsewhere.

    The Hazara are a Shia group who have traditionally been persecuted in Afghanistan. Their physical appearance also makes them ‘different’.

    For decades, Hazaras have fled to Pakistan for safety and reside mainly in the Quetta area of NW Pakistan. That has now changed with the Hazara in Quetta being specifically targeted by militant Islamist groups.

    Ben Doherty in the SMH of 29 March 2013 reported that there has been ‘an alarming increase in the rate and severity of attacks on Hazara in Pakistan. In eight attacks (this year) 216 Hazara have been killed and more than 300 injured”.

    Given the peril that Hazaras face in Pakistan, it is ridiculous to suppose that any ‘deterrents’ that we can conjure up in Australia will have any affect.

    It is not surprising that in 2011-12, Afghan citizens accounted for more than 40% of boat arrivals who were granted refugee status in Australia. Most would be Hazara. With the increased targeting and killing of Hazara in Quetta recently, an even greater number will be seeking our protection.

    Action on our own borders will have only a marginal effect. That is why Arja Keski-Nummi and I proposed more than 12 months ago, that Australia establish an Orderly Departure Program with Afghanistan and Pakistan to provide alternatives and less-risky pathways for asylum seekers in peril in Afghanistan and Pakistan and particularly for the Hazara with family in Australia. It is clear that there will be security problems for Australian officials administering orderly departure programs in those two countries. But the risks are manageable. Further, the risks are small compared with the risks that the vulnerable Hazara are facing every day of their lives.

    In 1982 when I was Secretary of the Department of Immigration, with Malcolm Fraser as Prime Minister and Ian Macphee as Minister we established an Orderly Departure Program with Vietnam, a former enemy. Foreign Affairs and Immigration officials negotiated the arrangement. Under this program, 100,000 Vietnamese came to Australia without having to pay people smugglers or risk their lives at sea.

    There is no single ‘solution’ to asylum seekers seeking protection in Australia or anywhere in the world… We need to act in source countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan, and in transit countries like Indonesia and Malaysia. But whatever we do, people flows will always be messy. Some asylum seekers will continue to come irregularly to Australia. We need to grow up and live with the fact that in this world there are over 25 million asylum seekers, refugees and displaced persons. And the number is increasing as we live in comfort and security in Australia.

    We have a moral obligation to help people in peril. We also have a self-interest. The history of 750,000 refugees that have come to Australia since WWII is a success story. Highly motivated refugees worked hard and established families. In education particularly, their children show a clean pair of heels to the Australian-born.

    John Menadue

  • The Boat People Obsession. John Menadue

    The Australian Parliamentary Library has again pointed to our obsession with boat people.

    In its 11 February 2013 Research Paper”Asylum seekers and refugees, What are the facts”, it highlights (p.8) that despite increases in boat arrivals in recent years, the number of ‘Irregular arrivals by sea’ to Australia is quite small compared with other countries.

    The chart below shows this quite clearly.

    Irregular arrivals by sea, selected countries

    Parliamentary Library, data source: UNHCR, All in the same boat: the challenges of mixed migration, UNHCR website.

    The chart shows dramatically that boat or sea arrivals in Australia are quite small compared with other countries. For example, in one weekend in 2012, more boat people arrived in Italy from Libya than came to Australia in the whole year. Yemen is one of the poorest countries in the world, but in 2011 it received over 100,000 boat people.

    We have lost any sense of proportion about boat arrivals in Australia.

    Despite all the evidence, the media has made no serious effort to counter the erroneous reporting that we are being ‘swamped by asylum seekers and boat people’. One-liners about the failure of ‘border protection’ are thrown around with little appreciation of the facts.

    The world is changing around us. Refugee numbers have increased dramatically from 1.5 million in 1951, to 15 million in 2011, with another 27 million people forcibly displaced from their homes. All borders are under pressure. We see this most dramatically today in people fleeing Syria and crossing the borders into neighbouring countries. Some will seek asylum in Australia probably coming by boat.

    But we have a phobia about boat people which is so easily exploited by opportunist political leaders and journalists who have little interest or knowledge of asylum issues and policies. Why is it that in the last ten years over 70% of asylum seekers to Australia have come by air, of whom about only 40% secure refugee status, but only 30% of asylum seekers have come by boat and with double the rate of successful refugee determination?

    I suggest there are several reasons for our phobia with boat people.

    • It is so easy for politicians to raise our fears of the ‘yellow peril’ when we see unkempt asylum seekers coming to Australia by leaky boat, whereas asylum seekers coming by air are more likely to be wearing suits, having made false declarations about their intentions in coming to Australia.
    • Lazy journalists find it much easier to tell their story with pictures of people on leaking boats than accessing airports and secure areas where asylum seekers come in dribs and drabs, all day, every day. The story is much harder to tell without pictures. Asylum seekers coming by air don’t provide easy photos.
    • The government has not seriously attempted to set the record straight by giving us a global picture of asylum seekers and the relatively small number that come to Australia. It has not tried to win the argument either based on fact or by appealing to our decency. I cannot recall Prime Minister Gillard ever putting a case for treating asylum seekers with dignity. She has responded to the prejudice that flows out of focus groups. She has left the field to the Alan Jones, Ray Hadleys and the Scott Morrisons of this world.

    Our obsession with boat people is out of all proportion to the problem we face, particularly if we consider the pressures on the countries set out in the chart above – Greece, Italy, Spain and Yemen

    The mode of arrival of asylum seekers is not important What is important is the total number. Countries with land borders will have asylum seekers coming on foot, by train, bus or car as in Syria today. Island countries like Australia will have asylum seekers coming by air or boat.

    John Menadue

  • The Pacific Solution has failed. John Menadue

    The Government fell for a dud Coalition “policy” that suggested that by re-opening Nauru/Manus the flow of asylum seekers by boat would be reduced or even cease. We recall that many times Tony Abbott said that on becoming Prime Minister, the first thing he would do would be to get on the phone to the President of Nauru to re-open the Nauru detention centre.

    Following the Houston Report and in a spirit of political compromise, the Government foolishly accepted the Coalition policy to re-open Nauru/Manus as deterrents to boat arrivals. It was part of a larger package.

    The figures are now clear that Nauru/Manus are not working as a deterrent and that great hardship is being inflicted on vulnerable people who are detained on Nauru /Manus.

    The Government announced the re-opening of Nauru/Manus in August last year with the associated ‘no advantage’ test. In the three months October, November and December 2012, the number of boat arrivals increased to 6,170 from2139 in the same months of the previous year. In the first three months of this year, boat arrivals have increased to 3028 compared with 1,802 in the same months of the previous year.

    The return of Sri Lankans does seem to be having an impact but that that has little to do with the so-called deterrents of Nauru/ Manus.

    The Secretary of DIAC told a Senate Committee in October 2011 that even the meagre benefits of Nauru processing in the past could not be repeated. He pointed out that Tampa and Nauru in 2001 did confuse people-smugglers for a period and boat arrivals largely stopped, although asylum continued to come by air. Importantly almost 1,600 of the 1,637 asylum seekers who were sent to Nauru and found to be refugees finished in Australia or New Zealand. The well-informed people-smugglers know quite clearly that even if asylum seekers are taken to Nauru/Manus they are very likely to end up in Australia.

    The Government foolishly decided to adopt Tony Abbott’s and Scott Morrison’s one-line rhetoric about Nauru/Manus despite the view that the Government had expressly many times before that Nauru/Manus would not work in the future.

    But where is the public debate now when the “policy” which Tony Abbott has so consistently proposed been shown to have failed so comprehensively.

    What a tragic mess it is. The cowboys win again at the expense of fact-based policies and vulnerable people. What a mistake it is to think that Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison have serious answers. One-liners – stop the boats, re-open Nauru – are not serious policies.

    The other parts of the Coalition’s Pacific policy are Temporary Protection Visas and turn-backs at sea. Evidence shows that when the Howard Government introduced Temporary Protection Visas, the number of boat arrivals increased and hundreds of women and children drowned at sea… We also know that the Royal Australian Navy and the Indonesian Government have very serious reservations about the risks and dangers of turn-backs at sea.

    Arja Keski-Nummi and I have outlined ways to minimize Nauru/Manus. See www.publish.pearlsandirritations.com, click on ‘refugees’ and go to paper of 31.8.2012 ‘Asylum Seekers, a way out of the present impasse’.

    John Menadue

  • Judge Murphy and Sexual Abuse in Ireland. John Menadue

    The Australian Royal Commission on Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse commences its hearings in Melbourne on April 3. If the experience of the four enquiries in Ireland is any guide individuals and intuitions in Australia face ordeals.

    Judge Murphy headed the ‘Commission of Investigation’ into sexual abuse in the Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin. Her report was released in 2009. Only a few months earlier, the Ryan Report was released which dealt with abuse in industrial schools controlled by Roman Catholic religious institutions in Ireland.

    Judge Murphy was recently in Australia and spoke at the University of Sydney Law School on her experiences in Ireland. Her speech can be found at http://sydney.edu.au/law/video/ (4 March 2013). Her presentation is disturbing but it is essential reading to understand what has happened in Ireland. She outlines many disturbing features-

    • The public outrage which followed her report and three others.
    • There was a tsunami of abuse
    • Ireland was ‘shaken to the core’.
    • There has been plummeting Catholic Church attendance.
    • Irish attitudes to such issues as contraception, divorce and abortion have changed beyond recognition.
    • The Catholic Church was more concerned to protect its reputation and assets than concern for the victims. The attitude of many in the Catholic Church was “don’t ask, don’t tell”
    • Boys were abused at a much greater rate than girls.
    • The Catholic Church was not ambushed as it suggested, as the Catholic Church took out insurance many years before in anticipation of the crisis becoming public and widespread.
    • The cover-ups by the Church were assisted by civil authorities.
    • Rome attempted to undermine the remedial actions which were finally undertaken by the Catholic Bishops.
    • The Irish enquiries went on for years.

    Ronan Fanning, a history professor at University College, Dublin, wrote an op ed on 6 December 2009 titled ‘The age of our craven deference is finally over … there are still rare events that not only deserve but demand to be described as historic. The publication of the Murphy Report is one such event; a truly historic landmark in the sad and squalid story of church-state relations in independent Ireland”

    All individuals and institutions need daily reform. The power brokers in the Catholic Church in Ireland badly failed the “lay faithful”

    Judge Murphy’s lecture is a very sober and sobering account.

    John Menadue

  • The Flow of Asylum Seekers to Australia follows world trends. John Menadue

    The Australian Parliamentary Library has just released a Research Paper showing that the flow of asylum seekers to Australia since 1999 follows the trends of asylum flows to OECD countries generally.

    Reading the Australian media one would think that we have a problem with asylum seekers that no other country has.

    At the Centre for Policy Development, in a report we issued in April 2011, we pointed out that the trend of asylum seekers to OECD countries, including Australia, showed that civil unrest and persecution in source countries are the major influences in asylum movements around the world and far more influential than the deterrent policies of any one destination country  including countries like Australia.(p 32)

    That assessment has been confirmed by the Research Paper by the Australian Parliamentary Library dated 11 February 2013, ‘Asylum seekers and refugees. What are the Facts?’ The Canberra Press Gallery is so absorbed in polls and politics, it has yet to read this important document which is right under its nose.

    The APL report says ‘Although Australia’s global share of asylum applications is small compared to many other OECD countries, in terms of fluctuations in asylum applications, the trend since 1999 reflects similar patterns. (The figures are 1999-2011. 2012 figures are not yet available.)

    The chart below shows clearly that the pattern of flows is similar for Australia and OECD countries.

    Australian vs OECD asylum inflows

    APL has drawn data from OECD,International Migration Outlook 2012 and the OECD website, Inflows of Asylum Seekers

    The Coalition and Tony Abbott continue to cite the decline in boat people after the Howard Government introduced the ‘Pacific Solution’ in 2001. But what is important is the total number of asylum seekers coming to Australia and other countries and not their mode of arrival. Boat arrivals did largely stop after 2001, but air arrivals continued at about 4,000 p.a.

    What the chart shows is that the decline in overall asylum seeker numbers coming to Australia after 2001 was very similar to the decline elsewhere. The number of asylum seekers going to OECD countries roughtly halved from 2001 to 2006. In the same period the number of asylum seekers coming to Australia also roughly halved.

    The number of asylum seekers seeking refuge in all countries, including Australia, began to rise again in 2006. This was due to the state of emergency that was declared in Sri Lanka in 2005 and the US troop surge in Iraq in 2007. In 2008, the Sri Lankan Government withdrew from a ceasefire with the Tamil Tigers and in Afghanistan, the Taliban rejected peace talks. The figures in the APL chart show that in broad terms asylum seekers seeking refuge in OECD countries has been similar to the trends we have seen in Australia since 2006 .  It was not due to changes in refugee and asylum policies by the Rudd Government.

    Obviously in comparing trends there will be some differences in leads and lags. There will also be variations due to the location of the persecution and conflict. For example Australia is more likely to be affected by persecution in our region, eg in Sri Lanka or Myanmar, rather than events in the Middle East which are likely to affect Europe much more.

    The APL  Research Paper shows that the driver of asylum seeker numbers are the ‘push’ factors – war and persecution – and not the ‘deterrent’ policies such as the Pacific Solution that we mistakenly are told was responsible for the changes in numbers seeking asylum in Australia.

    The APL Research Report nails the propaganda which is carried by the media – that Australia has a particular problem with asylum seekers. The problems we face are similar to those of the OECD as a whole. Furthermore the number coming to Australia is small by comparison with many other countries.

    John Menadue

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • The Medicine Lobby. Vested interests win again. John Menadue

    Professor Stephen Duckett of the Grattan Institute has just reported that ‘Australians are paying too much for prescription drugs. The cost of this overpayment is at least $1.3 p.a.’

    This is another example of the power of vested interests in the health sector and their ability to extract economic rents from the community. The other privileged players in the health sector include doctors, particularly specialists, and the private health insurance industry that extracts a $3.5 billion annual subsidy from the taxpayer.

    The Minister for Health and her department spend much of their time placating and appeasing the vested interests in the health sector rather than developing policies and administering programs for the benefit of the community.

    The Pricing Authority for pharmaceuticals makes recommendations to the Minister for Health. The authority is a non-statutory body established by the Minister. Of the six members of the committee, two are industry lobbyists from Medicines Australia and the Generic Medicines Industry Authority. It is not surprising with a headstart like that that the pharmaceutical sector is able to secure the sorts of privileges that Stephen Duckett has outlined.

    The Australian Pharmacy Guild is also infamous in the privileges it extracts from Goverments. New pharmacies in urban areas must be at least 1.5 km from each other. One consequence of this restriction of competition agreed to by APG and Australian governments is that the number of community pharmacies has remained substantially unchanged at 5,000 since 1993, despite large increases in population and PBS prescriptions. The consumer organisation, Choice, in 2005 commissioned a study by the Allan Consulting Group on these location rules. Choice commented that ‘the location rules provide little consumer benefit and only advantage existing pharmacy operators’. The PGA has also successfully barred pharmacies from operating in supermarkets. Australians don’t have a great love for the Coles/Woolworths oligopoly but they would love to see more competition.

    Canberra has over 900 full time lobbyists, many in the health field. They are seriously undermining good government Their power is exaggerated but politicians fall over themselves to oblige them.

    The ministerial/departmental model in health is not serving us well. It provides a fertile hunting ground for vested interests – the health  providers- who hold all the important cards. They cling to the Department of Health like limpets. Even enquiries like the National Health and Hospital Reform Commission, are invariably timid and anxious to appease sectional interests. This Commission was chaired by a senior executive of BUPA.  After six years of the Rudd/Gillard Governments there is little to show in real health reform. The muddle continues.. But the sectional interests must be happy that their. position is secure.

    Because of the failure of health governance to counter the lobbyists and sectional interests in health, I have proposed on many occasions that the Commonwealth Government should establish a permanent, independent, professional and community-based statutory authority, an Australian Health Commission, similar to the Reserve Bank in the monetary field. The Reserve Bank’s governance structure has made it almost impervious to lobbying. It is respected for its independence and professionalism. Just as the Reserve Bank is subject to guidelines determined by the Government, so an Australian Health Commission should operate within guidelines determined by the Government.

    The power of vested interests in health must be tackled. The Grattan Report provides yet another example of why this must be done.

    John Menadue

  • Does Australia care about what happens on its doorstep in Sabah? Guest blogger: El Tee Kay

    Almost a month ago two hundred of the self styled Royal Sulu Army, some heavily armed, landed in a small coastal village in Sabah, Malaysia. They came from the nearby Tawi Tawi islands in the southern Philippines. Their objective was to “persuade” the Malaysian Government to recognize their “hereditary” claim to Sabah for the Sulu Sultanate.

    The Suluk or Tausag tribes have traversed this narrow stretch of water as traders and pirates for centuries and many settled along the East coast of Sabah. The influx increased during the Moro uprising in the southern Philippines. This most recent invasion, it seems, has all to do with the Philippine claim to Sabah and reminiscent of President Marcos’s “Operation Merdeka” which was an attempt to launch 160 army trained Muslim youth from Sulu and Tawi Tawi to foment an uprising in Sabah in 1967. This plot went horribly wrong when this commando unit called the Jabidah found out they were to kill fellow Suluks. They mutinied and were apparently eliminated by their handlers. Coincidentally, Benigno Aquino Jr the father of the current Philippines President blew the cover of this covert operation and massacre.

    The Philippines has not dropped its claim to Sabah and wants Malaysia to have the case adjudicated by the International Court of Justice. Malaysia dismisses this on the grounds of “effective” and “a’titre de souverain”.

    The Manila government has said that the intruders and the Sultan will be charged under Philippine law but the Malaysian Government wants them to be tried in Malaysia. The opposing stands taken by the two Asean countries and the extradition process will be drawn out which will result in more political posturing.

    The Philippines will hold its midterm elections in May. In an earlier election “Sultan” Jamalul contested a senate seat in the former President Arroyo’s Team Unity and lost. It is speculated in Manila that the “invasion” of Sabah is politically motivated by the opposition to embarrass President Aquino.

    Malaysia will also hold its 13th General Election soon and as Sabah emerges as a key to forming the next government, both the Barisan Nasional and the opposition Pakatan Rakyat are accusing each other of treachery for political gain.  The Malaysian government has become prickly about criticisms of this long drawn out conflict and of its alleged mishandling of the incursion by a handful of invaders and the loss of lives of civilians and security forces. There is also the question of Muslim voter reactions to the use of force in dealing with the situation. President Aquino also has to deal with the influx of refugees to Tawi Tawi fleeing the conflict and the loss of Filipino lives and alleged mistreatment of its citizens by security forces.

    Fortunately neither the Philippines nor the Malaysian Governments’ have upped the ante. This is in keeping with ASEAN’s collaborative approach but there are fears that this spat could escalate into retaliatory terrorist activities within Sabah by Suluks which could further strain relations with Manila. Some of the “invaders” are said to be veterans of the Moro National Liberation Front who have relatives and sympathizers in both countries

    But a recent look at the Australian media suggested greater interest in a New York Court decision on sugar in drinks and a former British MP and his wife jailed for a traffic lie. Does Australia have a real interest in Asia unless it is for economic advantage?

    El Tee Kay, Kuala Lumpur

  • Confusion and Contradiction on Asylum Seekers in the Community. John Menadue

    Arja Keski-Nummi and I have described the services and lack of them for the 12,000 asylum seekers living in the community as ‘Kafkaesque’. The policies and rules concerning these asylum seekers have no sense or logic.

    • Some are living in the community on bridging visas with work rights and some without work rights.
    • Boat arrivals between October 2012 and August 2013 and released into the community have work rights but boat arrivals after August 2013 have no work rights.
    • Some have access to Medicare, but many don’t.
    • Some are in detention because they came by boat, while those who come by air, the much larger number, live in the community from the beginning.
    • Some cases for refugee status are being processed, but under the ‘no advantage’ rule those who came by boat after August 2012 have no processing of their claims.
    • Those who came by air, continue to be processed.
    • Some have access to the Assistance for Asylum Seekers in Australia scheme (mainly financial) and the Community Assistance Support Program (for people with complex needs). Many don’t have access to either ASAS or CAS.

    It is a mess. The above are only examples and could be added to.

    We need an urgent review of support services for asylum seekers living in the community. An important first step while the review is being undertaken is to grant work rights.

    A good model for the review is the Galbally Review which reported to the Fraser Government in May 1978 on the services needed to support migrants and refugees in the community. That report highlighted the important principles that should underlie multiculturalism but it also proposed a range of programs to assist migrants and refugees in their settlement in Australia. High on the list was English language learning, the telephone interpreter service, employment advice and assistance for women in the home.

    That report laid the basis for the very successful settlement services that endure to this day. We need to build on what we have achieved and support asylum seekers both equitably and efficiently in settlement in Australia even while their claims are being processed. We know from experience how we can do this. But we need new programs that fit the needs of today.

    The present confusion of programs is a mess. We need a mini-Galbally quite urgently.

    It offends almost every principle of equity, efficiency and good administrative practices for the present Kafkaesque type arrangements to continue for another day.

    John Menadue

  • Could this be a John XXIII moment. Guest blogger: Monsignor Tony Doherty

    Announced in every news outlet, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, an Argentinian Jesuit who is the first in his order and the first from Latin America has been named as the bishop of Rome – Pope number 266.

    In these early hours of the announcement, we are left with the crumbs of his story. Theologically conservative, we are led to believe. Socially active and human – left his Episcopal palace and lives modestly, catches public transport, a seventy-six year old who loves to walk, and interestingly cooks for himself. Never underestimate a man who cooks.

    More significantly there is some evidence that he has held the socially active and more conservative sides of the church in Latin America together as a bridge builder. A striking credential in a continent which has been famous for the birth of Liberation theology, a movement which called for powerful critique of social injustice and the primacy of marginalised people.

    Many in the Catholic church today ache for the personality of a John xxiii to bring some healing and future direction to a deeply wounded church.

    There may not be many around who can remember the excitement, now fifty-four years ago, when Angelo Roncalli , the first day in his job as Pope John xxiii walked out of the Vatican city and on his first pastoral visit, went to the local goal.  ‘Since you couldn’t come to see me’, the pope said, ‘I’ve decided to come and see you.’

    The walk was unprecedented, or at least broke the 100 year tradition of Popes not leaving the confines of Vatican City. This visit became more than an expression of human compassion, it in many ways defined the way he saw his future ministry.

    Within 18 months John xxiii was asking the Church to throw open the windows and let some fresh air into this stuffy place, as he convoked a General Council of the Church. The Catholic church has never been the same since those heady days.

    What has this to do with Jorge Bergoglio, the 266th incumbent in the Papacy?

    A fact that is frequently forgotten is that Angelo Roncalli was never seen as anything but theologically conservative. Indeed, one of my personal memories was that in my last years of seminary training, a dictate came from John xxiii that all major theological studies, previously studied in one’s own language, were to be studied in Latin. We had been used to Latin, but to have such subjects as Scripture and History studied exclusively in Latin seemed to seriously restrict any proper research. This was an issue of language and words.

     

    For John xxiii actions spoke much louder than words.  To address the question of race, he simply appointed the first black Cardinal. To address the question of the Roman Curia’s hold on the Church he invited bishops from every corner of the world to Rome for a Council to reflect on the future.  To address the divide between people of different religious beliefs, he invited representatives from every faith to be present at the council. To address the issue of women in the church (one must admit in a muted fashion) he invited women to attend the council as auditors. One of the few women present at the Council was an Australian Rosemary Goldie.

    There were words, of course, plenty of them. But for John xxiii it was perhaps the actions that were more significant.

    Is it too much to hope that Pope Francis will be like his namesake, that breath of fresh air, that young spirit from Assisi, a person acutely aware of the power of the symbolic action?

    In a gesture of turning away from his life of entitlement, a young Francis of Assisi, so the story goes, divested himself of his rich clothes and handed them to his confused father. An embarrassed bishop standing by hastily covered his naked body with a simple peasant’s frock, a replica of which members of the Franciscan order still proudly wear to this day.

    It is interesting to speculate what significance our new pope places on the name Francis. Will the Pope bring the horizon of the mind and the spirituality of that free spirit of Assisi to his immense responsibilities – or will the weight of the administration be too great?

    While speculating, and that is probably all we can do on this first day of a new pontificate, what symbolic action would be sufficiently strong to send a coherent message to the victims of child sexual abuse whose lives have been so deeply wounded, or to the women who feel so sorely disenfranchised in the church, or indeed to the people of this planet who live in dire poverty and hunger?

    It remains to be seen if this new Pope, a smart and experienced outsider that he is, a modest man who embraces a simple life-style, is equal to the task of reforming this damaged church and employ the immense symbolic power at his disposal.

    Monsignor Tony Doherty

     

     

  • Productivity and Skills. John Menadue

    For months, the Business Council of Australia and senior business executives have been banging on about the need to increase labour productivity. To achieve this, they have emphasised the need to amend the industrial relations legislation, ‘Fair Work Australia’ as essential to lift productivity. Many have seen it as an attempt by employers to rebalance the industrial relations framework in their favour and has little to do with productivity. Others would see it as political identification with the Coalition

    But this campaign by employers was not based on fact. Ross Gittins in the SMH 11 March 2013 has drawn attention to the most recent national accounts which showed that ‘Labour productivity in the market sector … (has) been improving at the rate of 0.5% or better for the last seven quarters … That represents an annualised rate of 2% a year … which compares with an average rate of 1.8% over the past 40 years.’

    The ABS has also released figures that show that labour productivity had improved 3.5 % in 2012 compared with 0.9% in 2011. The strong dollar appears to have forced many businesses to restructure and increase productivity in order to overcome rising costs

    More has to be done to lift productivity, but recent performance has not been too bad. Hopefully our major companies who spent so recklessly in the mining boom will continue to improve productivity by expanding output and reducing costs – starting with executive salaries. Marius Kloppers, the terminated CEO of BHP received a $75 m exit package!

    I have also spoken recently about the failure of Australian business executives to skill themselves and their companies for our future in Asia. At the most, there would be a handful of chairpersons or CEOs of any of our major companies who can fluently speak any of the key Asian languages. This failure is stark. It is obviously too late for them now, but it is not at all clear that they are recruiting executives for the future with the necessary skills for Asia. A recent survey by The Business Alliance for Asian Literacy, representing over 400,000 businesses in Australia, found that ‘more than half of Australian businesses operating in Asia had little board and senior management experience of Asia and/or Asian skills or languages.’

    Senior Australian business executives speak correctly about the need to upskill the Australian workforce. But they should start by setting an example by up skilling themselves.

    John Menadue

  • The Power of the Gambling and Liquor Complexes. John Menadue

    I remember speaking many years ago to an old friend, Justice Xavier Connor, after he had completed an enquiry for the Victorian Government on a possible casino in Melbourne. He recommended against it.

    He said ‘John, gambling and casinos everywhere in the world attract criminals and organised crime. It is like bees around a honeypot. Criminals are naturally attracted to gambling and casinos.’

    We have had warnings that the gambling industry has enormous power and influence. Look how easily it ran off the rails the attempts by Andrew Wilkie and Nick Xenophon to curb problem gambling in licensed premises in Australia.

    Only a couple of weeks ago, the brilliant young footballer, Ben Barba, withdrew from rugby league and admitted that he had serious personal problems with gambling and alcohol. The Canterbury Leagues Club was praised for the way it handled Ben Barba’s personal problems. But what of the culture of the Leagues Clubs, those pleasure domes of gambling and liquor, who cause so much damage not just to Ben Barba but also to thousands of others.

    We see saturation advertising of gambling and liquor in association with sporting events. We can get the odds for a bet on a game in progress from Sportsbet. Individuals are charged with match-fixing. Our Australian cricket team carries the logo of Victorian Bitter without blushing about the damage that liquor does in this country, way beyond the damage of illicit drugs.

    The liquor and gambling PR people work overtime telling us that they are committed to responsible drinking and gambling. Please spare us the hypocrisy! We are urged to forget the problem drinkers and gamblers who wreck their own lives and their own families.

    Fifty years ago, President Eisenhower warned Americans about the power of the military and industrial complex. Who in Australia is really concerned about the growing power of our gambling and liquor complexes?

    John Menadue