John Menadue

  • GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND …

    In an article in the Fairfax Press, Clancy Yeates points out that Australia’s big banks have “slashed loans to fossil fuel companies by almost a fifth in 2017, including a 50 per cent drop in their coal mining exposure”.

    On last weekend’s Saturday Extra, Geraldine Doogue interviewed Laura Dassow Wallis, author of Henry David Thoreau: A life. There is a common image of Thoreau as a hermit in the wilderness, but Wallis dispels this image. He was thoroughly connected with society, and was deeply concerned with the way, as capitalism advanced, public land was being taken from the community and enclosed. The appropriation of physical and metaphorical public space for commercial purposes continues to this day.

    On Saturday Extra this 3rd February Geraldine Doogue is discussing the unintended consequences of the government’s foreign interference bills on business activity and NGO’s with Elaine Pearson from the Human Rights Watch and Les Timar from the Australian Professional Government Relations Association; Lesley Russell, from the Menzies Centre for Health Policy discusses US business giants who have joined forces to form a company challenging the US health care system; as evidence is being collected of a Rohingya massacre from last August, Richard Paddock, foreign correspondent with the New York Times, traces the history of the Myanmar army and Geraldine Doogue travelled to Rwanda in January to see the silver back gorillas but also discovered a country reconciling the 1994 genocide, Geraldine speaks with Senator Apollinaire Mushinzimana and the head of the Rwanda Broadcasting Agency Arthur Asimwe.

    Many economists are predicting strong economic growth this year. But Ross Gittins, commenting on Australia’s stalled wage growth and the  diminished power of organised labour, writes: “Take away the real growth in wages and neither the economy nor jobs will stay growing strongly for long”.

    How Australia’s identity was militarised – Paul Daley in the Guardian.

    A former communist and a former Catholic activist combine forces to cast new light on the organisation that helped fuel the Labor split – Paul Rodan in Inside Story.

    “Qantas and other big Australian businesses are investing regardless of tax cuts” – the Conversation.

    We have entered the post-American era, writes Stan Grant

    Greg Jericho unravels the miracle of Roger Federer.

    Avoiding a US-Rissian military escalation during a hybrid war – Carnegie Moscow Center.

    A series of articles by blogger Umair Haque on why the American Dream is over.

     

  • JOHN MENADUE. We are joined at the hip to a country perpetually at war. Part 5

    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 pre-date Donald Trump.  Think Vietnam and Iraq.  

    In recent issues of P & I I have posted many articles about the US and its almost perpetual involvement in war.  I repost an article below “American Imperium – Untangling truth and fiction in an age of perpetual war” by Andrew Bacevich.

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  • JOHN MENADUE. It’s time for a Human Rights Act for Australia -A repost

    In Pearls and Irritations recently, Elizabeth Evatt (Why not protect all our rights and freedoms?) called for a Human Rights Act to protect all our rights and freedoms and not just freedom of religion. 

    The issue of freedom of religion is being examined by Phillip Ruddock and his ‘expert panel’. This issue is also being examined by a Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade.   (more…)

  • JOHN THOMPSON. Private health insurers discriminate against country people

    Private health insurers have asked the Commonwealth Government to prevent patients paying for public hospital services through their private health insurance (PHI).  This would be grossly unfair for those people in non-metropolitan Australia who are enticed into PHI through the Medicare Levy Surcharge, but have no private hospitals in their region. More basically, the Government should abolish its $10 billion subsidy to PHI, and direct the savings to funding private hospitals more efficiently and equitably.   (more…)

  • JOHN MENADUE. We are joined at the hip to a country perpetually at war. Part 4

    Next week I will be posting articles asserting that we are running great risks in being tied to the US, an ally that is almost always at war.  The risks pre-date Donald Trump.  Think Vietnam and Iraq.  

    In recent issues of P & I, I have posted many articles about the US almost perpetual involvement in war, the overthrow of foreign governments and a powerful military and industrial complex that depends for its profitability on continuing wars.

    I repost below an article by  Professor Tom Nichols ‘How America lost its faith in in expertise and why that matters’ It is a disturbing account about public ignorance in the US on the world and  foreign matter.   (more…)

  • SAUL ESLAKE. Defenders of housing status quo create ‘alternative facts’.

    The release last month of (albeit heavily redacted) Treasury advice to the Turnbull Government on the likely effects of the policies the Labor Opposition took to the 2016 election regarding negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount once again highlight the extent to which those defending the status quo in this area are willing to create their own ‘alternative facts’ in order to promote their arguments. (more…)

  • GEORGE RENNIE. The Revolving Door at the Infrastructure Club

    The revolving door of politics represents a particularly difficult problem for modern democracies. And when senior public servants leave their positions to work as lobbyists for the infrastructure industry – an industry that takes a lion’s share of government spending, and is afforded substantive protection from scrutiny by “commercial confidentiality” – that problem grows substantially.   (more…)

  • JOHN MENADUE. We are joined at the hip to a country perpetually at war. Part 3

    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 pre-date Donald Trump.  Think Vietnam and Iraq.

    In recent issues of P & I, I have posted many articles 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, and intelligence and political complex that depends on continual wars.  We have become part of that complex.  

    I repost below an article that I initially posted in July 2016 “Is war in the American DNA?”  
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  • DAVID JAMES. Welcome to the Matrix of materialism

    A visitor from before the 20th century would be stunned to see the extent to which the world is now dominated by materialism. It has many dimensions. (more…)

  • JOHN MENADUE. we are joined at the hip to a country perpetually at war. Part 2

    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 pre date Donald Trump. Think Vietnam and Iraq.

    In recent issues of Pearls and Irritations I have posted many articles about how America has never ever really had a decade of peace.how it has subverted and overthrown numerous governments and has a large military,business,intelligence and political complex that depends on never ending wars.

     Following the repost yesterday of an article by Andrew Bacevich I post below an earlier article by Jeffrey Sachs . THE FATAL EXPENSE OF US IMPERIALISM. Sachs argues that the scale of US military operations is remarkable and that the US has used force to influence who governs in dozens of countries.

     JEFFREY SACHS WRITES  The scale of US military operations is remarkable. The US Department of Defense has (as of a 2010 inventory) 4,999 military facilities, of which 4,249 are in the United States; 88 are in overseas US territories; and 662 are in 36 foreign countries and foreign territories, in all regions of the world. Not counted in this list are the secret facilities of the US intelligence agencies. The cost of running these military operations and the wars they support is extraordinary, around $900 billion per year, or 5 percent of US national income, when one adds the budgets of the Pentagon, the intelligence agencies, homeland security, nuclear weapons programs in the Department of Energy, and veterans benefits. The $900 billion in annual spending is roughly one-quarter of all federal government outlays. (more…)

  • 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.
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  • 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…)