John Menadue

  • GRAHAM FREUDENBERG. American Malaise and Malice.

    The key to the Trump presidency is its malice. Trump daily mocks Lincoln’s noble intent: “with malice toward none”. There is now not a country or region in the world untouched by Trumpite malice, defined as the irrational desire to do harm or mischief, fuelled by a sense of imaginary grievances.Australia cannot expect to be exempt.   (more…)

  • SCOTT BURCHILL. What is going wrong and how did we get here?

    Despite the temptations of presentism and intemperate thinking, the forces which have brought us to the current political malaise have been around for some time.

    The ideological convergence of the major parties in our two party system has been underway for over four decades. Its most unfortunate consequence is that voters are robbed of meaningful policy choices in key areas which concern them:  the threat of terrorism, national security and defence, surveillance laws, foreign policy, immigration and asylum seekers. This is the serious negative effect of bipartisanship.  (more…)

  • ROB STEWART. Mal and Scotty’s Excellent Company Tax Cut Adventure.

    The Government’s full proposed company tax cuts package may eventually pass the Senate. If it does this will not be due to any “inevitability” or natural law of diminishing company tax revenue. And the tax cuts will not result in a win for “average hard working Australians.” Income and wealth inequality will continue to rise.  (more…)

  • BILL ROWLINGS. Pilgrim passages, tatters returns.

    ‘Open and transparent’ could scarcely be claimed as the style of Australian executive and bureaucratic rule. But even by our poor standards, the saga of the Office of the Information Commissioner has been a disaster of huge proportions. (more…)

  • JOHN MENADUE. Afghanistan – the graveyard of empires and the opium poppy.

    They have all failed to conquer Afghanistan – the Greeks, Indians and more recently, the British in the mid 19th Century and the Soviets in the late 20th Century. And now the US empire is failing to subdue the tribes of Afghanistan despite enormous cost of people and treasure. What has not received much attention is that the Taliban depends very heavily on the opium trade which finds its market in the US and other developed countries. That opium trade determines what happens in Afghanistan and not military intervention.   (more…)

  • JOHN MENADUE   The impotent and the pure!

    In the Batman bi election the Greens have correctly directed criticism at the cruel policies of the ALP and the Coalition on refugees in Manus and Nauru.But the Greens do not have clean hands either.   (more…)

  • NIALL McLAREN. ECT (electroconvulsive treatment) as high cost medicine in Australia.

    Recent articles by John Menadue on health costs in Australia have emphasised the high fees charged by private procedural medical specialists. In a paper to be published next month (McLaren, N., “ECT in Context,” Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry, April 2018), I examine costs associated with the use of ECT (electroconvulsive treatment) in psychiatry. This is a short version of that paper.   (more…)

  • How liberals can reclaim nationalism.

    In this article in the New York Times International Edition of 5 March 2018 Yascha Mounk argues that ‘instead of exhorting their fellow citizens to live out their nations highest ideals, many activists seem content with denouncing past and present injustices.. This has enabled the bigots and racists to bend the meaning of the nation to their own sinister ends’.   (more…)

  • HYLDA ROLFE. Summer of our disconnect .

    Hurrah-words don’t disguise the reality of the steady creep of business into our National Parks. When a world-status Park is involved, all sorts of phoney justifications for commercial incursions are trotted out. The pity of it is that so many of them emanate from within the Gamekeepers’ compound. But repetition does not generate conviction, and the natives are becoming restless.   (more…)

  • MICHAEL LAMBERT. Revisiting the South Australian Electricity Market.

    In the context of the current South Australian election campaign, it is opportune to revisit the state of play with the South Australian electricity market which in 2016 and 2017 was used at the national level as an ill-informed or, perhaps more accurately, a misinformed argument about renewable energy and climate change policy. (more…)

  • Michael Lambert: Trump’s Steel and Aluminium Tariffs

    President Trump has foreshadowed tariffs of 25% on all imported steel and 10% on all imported aluminium, reversing America’s historic commitment to free trade and proper governance in trade policy. It is also repeating an action taken by George W Bush in 2002 which completely failed and was reversed in 2003. (more…)

  • CATHERINE KING AND ANDREW LEIGH. It’s no wonder we’re questioning the value of private health care.

    Australians are questioning the cost and value of private health more than ever. (more…)

  • DAVID ZYNGIER. Spending more on private schools doesn’t guarantee success!

    It is often claimed as fact that private schools outperform public schools. New analysis of MySchool data and 2017 Victorian Certificate of Education year 12 results shows that public schools with similar Index of Community Socio-Educational Advantage (ICSEA) rankings or Socio-Economic Status have very similar or even better VCE results than private schools. However, these public schools achieve these results with far less funding per student.   (more…)

  • SCOTT BURCHILL. Class power in the US.

    All for ourselves and nothing for other people seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind (Adam Smith).

    Class is a Communist concept. It groups people together and sets them against each other (Margaret Thatcher).

    [Current opposition to free trade in the United States is] heavily influenced by perceptions that voters themselves now view trade issues in terms of a domestic class struggle, not as promoting exports and global integration (David Hale, economist). (more…)

  • GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND …

    In the Fairfax press Martin Myer of the Myer Foundation has an article “Rules around foreign donations threaten to cripple thousands of charities”.  It’s about legislation currently in Parliament, which ostensibly is designed to track foreign political donations, but which would actually place huge administrative burdens on organisations involved in policy advocacy and on their donors.

    The principles of taxation are complex: in 2009 it took five volumes of the Henry Review to explain tax reform. But on ABC Radio National The Economists website is a lively 28 minute discussion “The joy of tax” between three experts, telling you (almost) everything you need to know about tax and tax reform.

    Commenting on Tony Abbott’s rant calling for reduced immigration, Jessica Irving suggests that while at university he may have snoozed off at a crucial point in his economics lectures. Her article “Tony Abbott’s economic argument against immigration is flawed” dismisses the argument that immigrants take jobs from those who are already here, and she recommends that the government take up recommendations of the Grattan Institute to lower the discount rate governments use to evaluate infrastructure projects so that we can provide for a growing population.

    On Phillip Adams’ Late Night Live is an interview with Kate Raworth of Oxford University about the need for “An economics for the 21st century” to deal with problems of inequality, pollution and overuse of the earth’s resources.  She gives a convincing and empirically-based critique of the neoliberal idea that the workings of the market inevitability reduce inequality.

    Philosopher and author Damon Young writes on his blog and in the Canberra Times about “The deceptive story of virtuous homebuyers”.  We can engage with the yarn that all first home buyers are struggling, but in reality many have significant support from parents. The most disadvantaged are those who will never be able to buy real estate and will face a lifetime as renters, and “those excluded from stable housing altogether, by poverty and violence.”

    Love, justice and humility to abuse survivors – Robert Fitzgerald, Eureka Street (Audio).

    Is the British Establishment finally finished – the Guardian

    The book Xi Jinping wants people to read for all the wrong reasons – the Canberra Times.

    Malcolm Turnbull decides he does need an NBN connection of 100Mbps – buzz feed.

    Kevin Rudd protests that Clive Hamilton attacks are just not on – Canberra Times.

    Battered Barnaby Joyce all too belatedly bails out – Jack Waterford, Canberra Times

    Michaelia Cash’s slur on women staffers in Parliament this week further debased our already-degraded political system, forced Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull back into his post-Barnaby Joyce corner and further exposed a Coalition killing itself with its own mistakes, writes Michelle Grattan.

    Lessons in feminism via Jacinda Adern, Michaelia Cash and Bill Shorten – the Guardian

    Will Turnbull’s Snowy Hydro continue his war against battery storage – RenewEconomy

    On Saturday Extra this 3rd of March, Geraldine Doogue discusses primarily elections and leadership. Italy goes to the polls on Sunday under new electoral laws, writer Tim Parks explains; Germans find out on Sunday if Angela Merkel has been able to form a coalition with the SDP five months post the election, political analyst Mark Kayser discusses and Geoff Raby, former Australian ambassador to China talks about Xi Jinping’s grab for eternal power. Also academics Sarah Teo and Ralf Emmers from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore discuss Asia’s middle powers. And in the month of March Saturday Extra will be bringing a special series on emerging and established historians bringing in a new genre. ANU’s Tom Griffith explains what this is and Tony Hughes d-Aeth discusses his literary history of WA’s wheatbelt area.

     

  • JOHN MENADUE. The AMA did its best to scuttle Medicare over 40 years ago.

     This week I posted an article ‘Health Ministers may be in office but they are seldom in  power’  I pointed out how doggedly and often quite selfishly the provider institution-  mainly the AMA, the Pharmacy Guild of Australia, Medicines Australia and the parasitical Private Health Insurance funds-resist  almost all health reform unless it benefits provider interests. The public, patients and the community run a poor last. (more…)

  • JEFFREY A. BADER. Seven things you need to know about lifting term limits for Xi Jinping

    At its annual meeting beginning on March 5, the Chinese National People’s Congress appears poised to adopt a “recommendation” by the Communist Party that the two-term limit for president and vice president be eliminated. The change is of course not an expression of a preferred governance norm for longer terms, but rather a dramatic shift designed to permit President Xi Jinping to stay in power after his second presidential term expires in 2023. (more…)

  • DAVID MACILWAIN. Standing up Against America.

    Arguing that Australia should cut all support for US forces in Syria, and support the Syrian government and its allies in the fight against the terrorist insurgency. This starts with a recognition that the “White Helmets” are allies of Al Qaeda, supported by the US and UK. (more…)

  • Australians prefer government funding for dental care rather than private health insurance

    Polling released by Essential Report on February 27 2018 revealed that 48% of Australians favoured abolishing the taxpayer subsidy to Private Health Insurance (PHI) and using the savings to establish a Medicare Dental Scheme. 32% opposed such a change and 20 % did not have a view.   (more…)

  • RICHARD TANTER. Bad, bad BADA (aka Bipartisan Australian Defence Agreement)

    One explanation popular in some thinktank and corporate circles for incoherence in Australian defence policy and inefficiencies in defence procurement attributes these problems to the influence of politicians and elections. If only politics could be got out of the way, so the argument goes, we could have an effective policy process and an efficient defence procurement process. (more…)

  • ANNE HURLEY. Questions should be asked about the Coalition Agreement and its potential impact on the NBN rollout in rural Australia?

    Over the last few weeks we have been inundated with reports of the Barnaby Joyce saga. One aspect of the saga has involved a call for transparency in the provisions of the agreement between the Liberal Party and Nationals – the Coalition Agreement – pursuant to which they operate as the Government for all Australians.  (more…)

  • MARC HUDSON. The Nationals have changed their leader but kept the same climate story

    After Barnaby Joyce’s demise as Deputy Prime Minister and Nationals leader, and his replacement by Michael McCormack, we might wonder what the junior Coalition partner’s leadership change means for Australia’s climate policy. (more…)

  • GORDON DE BROUWER. Achieving balance in Australia’s strategic thinking

    A lot has been said about the challenge that Australia and other countries in Asia and the Pacific face in balancing their security interests with the United States and economic interests with China. The need to deal systematically with this challenge is sharpening as Beijing and Washington shift their conventional approaches to international relations. China has been more assertive in its foreign policy, especially in the South China Sea and in cyberspace. Meanwhile, there is concern that the United States under President Trump is abandoning its support for a rules-based and market-oriented global order and is championing an order that prioritises protectionism, unilateralism and the pursuit above all else of American interests. (more…)

  • JOHN MENADUE. Health Ministers may be in office but they are seldom in power

    The major barrier to health reform is the power of providers. A succession of Australian health ministers Liberal and Labor for three decades have failed in any serious health reform.  It is a very sorry story. Any Minister, Liberal or Labor who wants to reform health must be prepared to take on the providers.  Otherwise, we can forget serious health reform.  (more…)

  • RICHARD TANTER. Joined at the hip with Donald Trump and implications for Pine Gap and Australian sovereignty.

    In the repost below from 18 December 2017, Richard Tanter pointed out

    Apart from the multiple US–Soviet nuclear crises of 1983, there has probably never been a more important time for Australians to consider the immediate implications of hosting Pine Gap. In the event of war on the Korean peninsula, Pine Gap hardwires Australia into US military operations, whether Canberra likes it or not. … Pine Gap today is a US battlefield asset, and if President Trump’s threat to ‘totally destroy’ North Korea shifts from rhetoric to policy, Australia will automatically be involved in the second Korean War, unless the Turnbull government turns away from ‘joined at the hip’ rhetoric of alliance to join the German blanket rejection of its — and Canberra’s — ally’s belligerence.   (more…)

  • MATTHEW RICKETSON & RODNEY TIFFEN. The chronicler we deserve?

    Michael Wolff’s book owes a large debt to the ethically grounded work of the journalists he professes to disdain. (more…)

  • NICHOLAS GRUEN. Now is the time for complacency: Banking and Australian Policy Makers

    To quote Bank of England Governor, Melvin King in 2010 “of all the many ways of organising banking, the worst is the one we have today.” The Bank of England continues as a thoughtful critic to this day. As we’ll see below, our own central bank – the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) – not so much. 

    The fatal flaw in banking is that, although money is a classic public good, like the air we breathe or the radio spectrum, it’s privately created. Commercial banks like NAB or Westpac create money whenever they advance a loan. This private licence to print money creates four huge problems.  (more…)

  • HYLDA ROLFE. Summer of our disconnect. (Part 1 of 2)

    Some National Parks in New South Wales are taking a beating. On occasion, it’s difficult to distinguish the businesses that are officially sanctioned in them from the activities usually undertaken in normal commercial venues. Should they be there at all? It is time to sort things out.  (more…)

  • GARRY WOODARD. The role of strategic ambiguity in Australia’s China Policy

    For half a century, strategic ambiguity about the application of ANZUS to Taiwan served Australia well. Is it time to apply this policy more broadly? (more…)

  • DAVID NICHOLLS. We are the lobster

    An increasing feeling of unreality is pervading the social environment. It has an almost dreamlike feel to it. Or perhaps one should say should say, “nightmare-like”. (more…)