John Menadue

  • I have watched and mourned as NSW national parks have been run into the ground

    MICHAEL MCFADYEN. Over the past 40 years I have visited probably more national parks in NSW than 99 per cent of the population, both for work and recreation. (more…)

  • HENRY SHERRELL. Assessing the effect of recent 457 visa policy changes

    On 18 April 2017, the Turnbull Government announced the abolition and replacement of the 457 visa program. A number of new visa eligibility criteria were introduced immediately, and formal abolition will follow on 1 March 2018, when the 457 visa is set to be replaced by the Temporary Skilled Shortage (TSS) visa. (more…)

  • GREG WOOD. The TPP-11 : Discarding Australia’s Sovereignty

    The latest iteration of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) now comprises 11 countries, the US not included given President Trump’s strongly stated, but not explained, aversion.  The agreement’s revised text won’t be made public until signature, scheduled to take place in Chile in early March. Wisely, the ALP Opposition in our Federal Parliament has said that it will make its judgement on it only after seeing that text. However it is clear that Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) provisions remain in the revised agreement, though apparently they have been tweaked.
     (more…)

  • JOHN MENADUE War and militarisation has become our new norm.

     War and militarisation has become ever present in so much of our public life. (more…)

  • PETER BROOKS. Tasmanian Labor takes on the gambling industry

    The Tasmanian election on March 3rd will provide a watershed moment in public health not just in Tasmania but for Australia as well. (more…)

  • JOHN MENADUE. We are joined at the hip to a country perpetually at war. Part 1

    Next week I will be posting articles asserting that we are running great risks in being tied to what Malcolm Fraser called our dangerous ally, an ally almost always at war.The risks,disasters and dangers predate Donald Trump . Think Vietnam and Iraq.

    In recent issues of Pearls and Irritations I have posted many articles, mainly by very credible Americans (Sax,Nichols,Bacevich)  about how America has never had a decade without being at war, how it has subverted and overthrown numerous foreign governments and has a military,industrial ,intelligence and political complex that depends heavily on continual wars. We have become part of that complex.

    I repost below an article by Andrew  Bacevich from December 29 2017- ‘When will America’s wars have their Harvey Weinstein moment’  He asks ‘What makes a Harvey Weinstein moment? The now-disgraced Hollywood mogul is hardly the first powerful man to stand accused of having abused women. The Harveys who preceded Harvey himself are legion, their prominence matching or exceeding his own and the misdeeds with which they were charged at least as reprehensible.’

    Other reposts on related issues will follow this week. (more…)

  • ‘We have to change capitalism’ to beat climate change, says world’s biggest asset manager

    Capitalism must change to avert climate change, according to the vice-chair of the world’s largest asset manager, Blackrock. (more…)

  • LEANNE SMITH. When did Australians stop caring about our national identity?

    In 1998 I was a freshly minted law grad who felt great purpose in joining the Harbour Bridge march for the first ‘Sorry Day’. I had just begun my first real job with the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, and my country was grappling with the Stolen Generation Report. It seemed the time was right for recognition and reconciliation, and I shared a sense of optimism about Australia’s identity and place in the world. (more…)

  • GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND …

    On Saturday Extra this 27th January Geraldine Doogue is discussing the cost of government consultants with Julian Hill, ALP member for Bruce and businessman Tony Shepherd; Changes to gambling laws with Charles Livingstone from Monash University and Sam Duncan from the Holmesglen Institute in Victoria; Supreme Court judge and author Michael Pembroke on his book Korea: Where the America Century began and A Foreign Affair discusses reforms in Saudi Arabia, diplomacy successes in South Korea, Vladimir Putin and the anniversary of the secret police and one hundred years since Woodrow Wilson’s 14 point speech with Anthony Bubalo, Lowy Institute, Kyle Wilson, ANU and Lauren Richardson, ANU.

    Companies that pay more tax deliver shareholders better returns. Writing in The Conversation Kerrie Sadiq and Bronwyn McCredie report on their research covering ASX200 companies from 2012 to 2017. They found that a higher percentage of tax paid by a corporation correlated with a higher dividend returns and that that share prices were more likely to increase.

    In a report on the quality of the advice given by financial advisers at the four major banks and the AMP, the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) has found that in three quarters of the customer files they reviewed the advisers had not demonstrated compliance with the duty to act in the best interests of their clients. They found that “10% of the advice reviewed was likely to leave the customer in a significantly worse financial position”.

    It’s time to revive the republican debate: we cannot keep pushing it off into the future. On Late Night Live, Phillip Adams interviewed historian Benjamin Jones, author of This Time: Australia’s Republican Past and Future.  Writing in the Canberra Times, John Warhurst calls on republicans to assert their case: they “must not be afraid to call out monarchist myths and needless distractions”.

    Donald and Melania Trump approached New York’s Guggenheim Museum, requesting a loan of Van Gough’s Landscape with Snow for the White House. The museum declined the Trumps’ request, but they did offer another exhibit, Maurizio Cattelan’s exhibit “America”, a solid gold toilet instead.

    Since bitcoins are not useful as a medium of exchange, or desirable in themselves, their true value is zero – John Quiggin in Inside Story.

    UK regulator has blocked Rupert Murdoch’s bid for Sky – the Guardian and the Economist.

    Massacres and protests: Australia Day’s undeniable history – Calla Wahlquist (Guardian)

    The Australia Day barbeque-stopper is the same every year – Paul Daley.  The whispering in our hearts.

    The government’s objective is the main problem with the NBN – Greg Jericho (Guardian)

    Sydney transport planners off the rails with metro plans – Canberra Times

    Tesla battery moves from showboating to making money – RenewEconomy.

    ​Why is Trump’s staff turnover higher than the 5 most recent presidents? – Brookings Institution

    One-percent of Australians own more wealth than the bottom 70 per cent combined – the Guardian

    I’m unapologetically pro-life and ashamed that Trump spoke at the March for Life – Haley Stewart

    The United States and Russian may find themselves in a nuclear arms race, again.

    The true author of “The Art of The Deal” says Donald Trump is more self-absorbed than you can possibly imagine.

    How Sydney’s transport system has gone off the rails – the Conversation.

    Mixed messages from the United States as Turkey attacks Syrian Kurds – the New York Times

  • MELISSA STONEHAM. Who wins when powerful health leaders align with the gambling industry?

    Last November, Australian casino giant Crown Resorts announced it had appointed former Federal Health Department head Jane Halton to its board.

    In the post below, Dr Melissa Stoneham laments the high profile move, asking why a health leader who had taken on the tobacco industry would now work for another industry that causes great harm to individuals and the community, and what Crown might hope to get from the appointment. (more…)

  • EMMA ALBERICI. Sugar tax and the power of big business: How influence trumps evidence in politics

    Australia markets itself as a liberal democracy committed to the principles of equality and fairness.  But in practice, those with clout or money or both can influence public policy in a way other members of the public cannot. (more…)

  • JOHN MENADUE. Cricket – grog and junk food!

    Over the holidays I have very much enjoyed watching on television Australia winning the Ashes series, although they seem to be exhausted after the celebrations and are performing poorly in the ODI series. The visual TV coverage on Channel 9 is outstanding. The camera crews do a great job. I enhance my enjoyment by minimising the audio content. Except for the opening and closing of each session, and at the fall of each wicket, I keep my TV console on mute. Channel 9 is destroying a well-earned cricket legacy. Perhaps the loss of Richie Benaud was the beginning of the end.

    But that is the good news. Unfortunately I can’t get away from the almost saturation picture coverage of junk food (KFC) and alcohol (XXXX and Canadian Club). Last year it was Victorian Bitter and Bear-Wine-and-Spirits or BWS.  (more…)

  • GRAHAM FREUDENBERG. Ode to Australia Day.

    Ode to Australia Day

    (In tribute to the late John Hirst and his masterpieces Freedom on the Fatal Shore)

    The heroes of famed Waterloo
    Or great Nelson’s mighty crew,
    If chance had gone a different way,
    Might well have peopled Botany Bay.
    The Duke himself, he called them “scum”
    Kept under by the lash and rum,
    Not from Eton’s playing fields
    But from poverty’s seething yields,
    So, too, our founders, if truth be told
    Soldiers and convicts – “undesirables” manifold.

    So Dutton, Hanson: shame on your smear
    Better than you have by boat come here.
    “True patriots all, for be it understood”
    “They left their country for their country’s good”. *
    Their founding service you might emulate
    Improve this nation – and emigrate.
    No good you do by staying here,
    Purveying hate and feeding fear.
    What of Australia do you really know,
    Of migrant waves who’ve made us grow,
    Since Phillip Britain’s flag unfurled
    To take possession of a stolen world?

    Graham Freudenberg
    26 January 2018.   (more…)

  • HARRY DEMPSEY. Will Trump snap Japan’s tenuous tightrope?

    The unhinged madman foreign policy of US President Donald Trump means Tokyo must walk a tightrope to manage the US–Japan alliance. On security policy, on trade and on North Korea, Japan will increasingly have to develop its own independent regional vision. (more…)

  • LEANNE WELLS. More Government tax incentives for health insurance?

    While in the real world consumers struggle to meet private health care costs, health funds are hoping for yet more government help. (more…)

  • JOHN MENADUE. Australia Day – a progress report.

    The Australia of today is vastly different to the Australia of my childhood with its widespread racism and sectarianism. It was socially suffocating. For those changes I am very grateful. There is a lot that we can be proud of.  No country has integrated newcomers as well as we have. But there have been failures and remedial action yet to be taken. We are yet to be reconciled to our indigenous brothers and sisters who watched the European boat arrivals in 1788. We are yet to take our share of responsibility for the displaced and persecuted people of the world.   (more…)

  • JIM COOMBS. Reverse Robin Hood: rob the poor to overstuff the rich.

    To take but two examples, Education and Tourism, it seems our economic system is designed to service the desires of the already well-provided-for.  (more…)

  • BERNARD KEANE. If milk prices went up like private health insurance …

    The forthcoming round of private health insurance (PHI) premium increases — touted by the government as the lowest in a decade — will mean premiums have risen nearly 80% since 2008, far ahead of inflation and a good demonstration of why PHI companies have racked up big profit increases in recent years. (more…)

  • CERIDWEN DOVEY. The mapping of indigenous massacres in Australia [New Yorker]

    From New York to Cape Town to Sydney, the bronze body doubles of the white men of empire—Columbus, Rhodes, Cook—have lately been pelted with feces, sprayed with graffiti, had their hands painted red. Some have been toppled. The fate of these statues—and those representing white men of a different era, in Charlottesville and elsewhere—has ignited debate about the political act of publicly memorializing historical figures responsible for atrocities. But when the statues come down, how might the atrocities themselves be publicly commemorated, rather than repressed?
    • The remainder of this article about the project to map the massacres of indigenous Australians, led by historian Lyndall Ryan,  can be found in the New Yorker.

     

  • ARTHUR STOCKWIN. Explaining one-party dominance in Japanese politics.

    In 1990 US scholar TJ Pempel edited a book titled Uncommon Democracies, which wrote about parliamentary democracies where a single party had been unusually dominant. These included Sweden, Italy, Israel, West Germany and Japan. Australia was also a candidate for entry to this group. Of the original members, Japan alone is left.  (more…)

  • GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND …

    Canberra Times journalist Crispin Hull writes about the harm of growing inequality, particularly where it results from government policies to opt out of shared health and education services, through financial support for private schools and private health insurance, rendering public services as residual services for the poor and indigent.

    Esther Rajadurai of the McKell Institute has produced a major report – Mapping Opportunity – on widening wage and income inequality in Australia, with extensive analysis of the causes of widening inequality and fine-grained analysis of regional data. It stresses the need for policies to restore social mobility. Writing in the Fairfax Press Mark Kenny has a short summary of the report – emphasising inequality on internet access.  Sam Crosby also of the McKell Institute, drawing on the report’s findings, urges Labor to commit to attend not only to people’s immediate needs, but also to a sustained policy of reducing inequality, including measures  that ensure a fair go and improve social mobility.

    “When is a dollar not a dollar? When you receive it tomorrow”. Jennifer Duke, writing in the Fairfax Press, explains a finding in behavioural economics about our inclination to save. As is well-known, we all find it hard to put aside some of our current income to save for future needs. But when it comes to income we have not yet received – a pay rise (remember them?) or a Christmas bonus, we are more willing to commit such income to saving.

    Tesla’s South Australian battery has surpassed expectations – RenewEconomy.

    Australian wind-solar investment hits record high as the NEG threatens to push it off a cliff.

    The evidence for the Tasmanian genocide of Aborigines – The Conversation.

    US officials briefed Jared Kushner on their concerns about Wendi-Deng-Murdoch – the Guardian.

    An Ancient Greek idea could foil Brexit’s democratic tragedy – Nicholas Gruen.

     

  • GRAHAM FREUDENBERG. His speech at the Graham Freudenberg Tribute Dinner- A REPOST from June 19 2017

    On 2 June, the NSW Branch of the Labor Party hosted a dinner for Graham Freudenberg, former speechwriter for federal and state Labor leaders, including Arthur Calwell, Gough Whitlam, Bob Hawke, Neville Wran, Barrie Unsworth, Bob Carr and Simon Crean. This is a transcript of his speech at that dinner – personal reflections and recollections of the people he has travelled with in his more than 40 years of service to the Labor Party and to Australia.
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  • JOHN MENADUE. The ongoing spin that Tony Abbott and the Coalition stopped the boats.- A REPOST from August 3 2017

    Peter Hughes and I posted two blogs in September 2015 (‘Slogans versus facts on boat arrivals’ Part 1 and Part 2) that pointed out first, that Tony Abbott kept the door open for tens of thousands of boat arrivals by opposing legislation that would have enabled implementation of the Malaysia Arrangement of September 2011. Secondly, we pointed out that Tony Abbott’s role in ‘stopping the boats’ was at the margins and vastly overrated.  (more…)

  • JOHN MENADUE. A Commonwealth Hospital Benefit to replace the $11b private health insurance subsidy.- A REPOST from October 18 2117

    The wasteful and unfair $ 11b  per annum cost to taxpayers of the subsidy to Private Health Insurance should be abolished and the savings used in two possible ways – part funding a Medicare dental scheme and/or part  funding private hospital care through a Hospital Benefit Scheme. In that Hospital Benefit Scheme, individuals could choose to access either a public or a private hospital in the same way that veterans do today.  (more…)

  • TIM HOLLO. Democracy is in crisis. Long live democracy!

    The consensus around liberal democracy is collapsing, in Australia and around the world, as citizens are being systematically disenfranchised and disconnected from our democratic role. Unless we radically reinvent and re-embrace much deeper forms of democracy, we stand to lose it altogether. (more…)

  • ANNE HURLEY. The Government just doesn’t get it when it comes to the NBN debacle

    As I was writing this article in response to Paul Budde’s speculation about life following the NBN roll-out in 2020, the Government released its response to the first report of the Joint Standing Committee on the NBN. Sadly, if predictably, the Government seems to still be clinging to the forlorn hope that somehow things will work out in the end.   (more…)

  • SHIRO ARMSTRONG. More to Australia-Japan security than bilateral defence ties.

    Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is visiting Japan . Whatever else is said, at the top of the agenda in his discussions with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will be managing relations with the United States and China. These are the superpowers that determine and underpin economic, political and national security for Australia and Japan in Asia.  (more…)

  • GREG WOOD. The China Australia FTA Meets the All Controlling State- A REPOST from September 25 2017

    During Premier Li Keqiang’s visit to Australia in March, Australia and China signed a “Declaration of Intent” to accelerate a review of the provisions governing services trade and investment in the bilateral China Australia free trade agreement (Chafta).  So far the declaration hasn’t generated frenetic activity:  DFAT set a six month deadline for submissions from interested parties. Delay is a positive  Beijing’s decisions of late point to regress in its approach to foreign investment and Australia needs to take careful stock.  (more…)

  • John Menadue. The Coalition, Barnaby Joyce rural poverty and rural health. (Repost from 16 January 2016)

    It is not surprising that independents are making headway in country electorates. But what is the ALP doing?   (more…)

  • PETER BROOKS. Movement on out of pocket expenses.

    Over the last few years much as been written on the issue of out of pocket (OOPs) medical expenses in Australia including a number of contributions in this newsletter. There has been a Senate enquiry and much coverage in the media. The issue of out of pocket expenses is not new – the Grattan Institute conducted a review last year pointing out their rapid increase and that they were impacting on the most vulnerable in society . While a recent OECD Report (https://www.oecd.org/…/Health-at-a-Glance-2015-Key-Findings-AUSTRALIA.pdf) showed that in Australia OOPs account for 20% of expenditure on health care , slightly higher than the OECD average of 19%. By contrast, out-of-pocket costs account for only 10% of health spending in the United Kingdom, 13% in New Zealand and 14% in Canada, which have similar government funded health systems. Out-of-pocket costs also comprise a low proportion of health spending in France (7%), whose health system is largely funded by social security.   (more…)