The 2018 US midterm elections has important lessons for Australia regarding drug law reform. In ballot initiatives and elections for office, voters often supported drug law reform with only one major defeat. Presidential election years generally have many more ballot initiatives on drug policy. (more…)
Category: Politics
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GARETH PORTER. America’s permanent-war complex. (The American Conservative, 15.11.2108)
What President Dwight D. Eisenhower dubbed the “military-industrial complex” has been constantly evolving over the decades, adjusting to shifts in the economic and political system as well as international events. The result today is a “permanent-war complex,” which is now engaged in conflicts in at least eight countries across the globe, none of which are intended to be temporary. The Department of Defence is no longer a war- fighting organisation. Its a business enterprise. War is being privatised. (more…)
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ABUL RIZVI. Morrison says ‘enough’ to a problem largely of his making.
Scott Morrison says ‘enough’ to the level of migration to Sydney and Melbourne (see here). Yet he fails to mention that it was his actions that brought about the surge in migration to Sydney and Melbourne in the first place. And more knee jerk decisions won’t help, either from the Commonwealth or the states. (more…)
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Decoupling the US from Asia (ANU East Asia Forum).
Maybe US Vice President Mike Pence didn’t mean to fire the opening shots in a new Cold War with China in his 4 October speech at the Hudson Institute, but the global policy community can be forgiven now for taking the proposition seriously. (more…)
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MIKE SCRAFTON. The Geopolitics of Lombrum Naval Base
It is difficult to find a strong, rational strategic argument for Australia’s to return to Lombrum Naval Base (or HMPNGS Tarangau) on Manus Island. Of course, not all of Defence’s activities have strictly military objectives or relate directly to the defence of Australia and in the Southwest Pacific Defence cooperation has been a major component of foreign policy and diplomacy. But even in that context an Australian naval presence at Manus Island makes little sense. The somewhat vague US decision to contribute to developing the base is even more obscure. (more…)
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TONY KEVIN. The diplomatic disaster that was APEC Port Moresby
There is still a lot we do not know about how and why the APEC Summit just ended in Port Moresby was such a diplomatic disaster, from which APEC may not readily recover anytime soon. (more…)
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MUNGO MacCALLUM. Another week, another stuff-up. Israel and Indonesia.
Bill Shorten and Penny Wong got it right last week: ScoMo’s pre-Wentworth thought bubble about moving the Australian embassy to Jerusalem should be dead, buried and cremated.
It was always a bad idea and if there was any doubt the Indonesians have tried to put it out of its misery with the simple tactic of taking Morrison’s cherished preferential trade deal with Jakarta off the table until our leader disposes of the remains. (more…)
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ERIC SIDOTI. Let the Privatisation Games Begin
Privatisation has been the source of ongoing debate in this country since at least the 1980s. For much of the intervening years though to question the virtues of privatisation – and the accompanying sanctification of competition and choice- has been treated as economic heresy. The threat of political excommunication strangled policy development. It’s to be hoped that we are witnessing the passing of those days as the welcome exchanges between John Menadue and Michael Keating in this revered blog might suggest. However, a genuine debate must go beyond the origins and the entrenched belief that privatisation is purely a matter of economic practice. (more…)
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JERRY ROBERTS. The Holy City.
The Jerusalem embassy is Scott Morrison’s first serious mistake as Prime Minister, but Australians think Tel Aviv is a subsidiary of Telstra so he may get away with it. It is the bread and butter domestic issues that win and lose elections. There may be subjects that interest Australians less than Middle Eastern politics but I can’t think of one. (more…)
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GEOFF DAVIES. Lest We Also Forget.
The women who tried to stop the slaughter; the vibrant young nation crushed; that a nation’s soul cannot be sponsored by arms manufacturers; the Australian war. (more…)
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CAVAN HOGUE. Where the bloody Hell are You?
Our current Prime Minister loves P R slogans and seems to believe that they are a satisfactory alternative to an understanding of a world that does not eat meat pies. To his credit, however, he has publicly criticised US trade policy which is at least standing up for Australian interests as he boasts he does. The same cannot be said for the Jerusalem fiasco. He is a member of the Pentecostal church which believes that Jesus will return in Jerusalem so we must support Israel. As he faces elections next year that is probably all that will save him. (more…)
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ANDREW FARRAN. Brexit: The Beginning of the End
Thursday 15th November was a most extraordinary day at Westminster where a besieged lady tenaciously stood her ground at the despatch box and stared down some hundreds of howling Parliamentary interlocutors (mostly of her own party) and remained totally unfazed in defending the 585 page Withdrawal Agreement she had negotiated with the European Union. (more…)
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ALISON BROINOWSKI. The latest hobgoblins.
On the eve of an APEC meeting, with impeccable timing, Australia’s lack of foreign policy independence was once again on display for our Asian neighbours: mimicry of US decisions, militarism abroad, securitised borders, containment of China, and fear of Islam. Indonesians and Malaysians recognise the pattern from long experience. Another terrorist event in Melbourne could not have been better timed to reinforce it. (more…)
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MUNGO MacCALLUM. China, The US and the Manus Island naval base.
APEC, Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation, was really Bob Hawke’s idea. The Prime Minister of the day envisaged it as a purely economic gathering, a meeting of finance ministers to deal with the growing impact of globalism and ensure dialogue and the rule of law between its diverse participants. (more…)
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GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND
A regular collection of links to writings and broadcasts covered in other media. (more…)
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RICHARD TANTER and BUSINES INSIDER INDIA. Darwin, the Marines, and touring the American empire of bases
The idea of ‘US imperialism’ may be seen as a fiction of the ideological left, or as an overblown presentation of the presence of a few US bases in different countries. But the US military does indeed operate on a global scale. Australia is far from a unique position in the US empire of military bases. (more…)
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FINTAN O’TOOLE. How Brexit Broke Up Britain (New York Review of Books, 13.11.18)
So, at long last, it seems that the negotiations on Brexit between the United Kingdom and the European Union have produced a draft agreement. We do not yet know what it contains but it will be a compromise that falls far short of the high expectations of June 2016 when the British voted to leave. It will tie Britain to the EU’s customs union and single market for an indefinite but probably very long time. Instead of making a glorious leap to independence, Britain will become a satellite orbiting the European planet, obliged to follow rules it will have no say in devising. (more…)
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JOHN MENADUE- Sacrifice is being politicised. Militarism is becoming the norm.
Remembrance is morphing into acceptance of conflict. The culture war about remembrance being waged by conservatives and the military is winning with little opposition. The never ending stories of Gallipoli, the Western front and Armistice go on and on. We are celebrating war on a scale that no other country does. Government ministers, Veterans Affairs, the Australian War Memorial and the media imbedded in the military complex can’t contain themselves. Public occasions are invariably backgrounded by numerous flags and the military, often regardless of the subject at hand.
So that we won’t ask the hard question WHY we fight in so many futile wars we immerse ourselves in HOW we fight. We are deceiving ourselves.
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PETER RODGERS. Morrison and Jerusalem – what a way to run a foreign policy!
Scott Morrison’s revelation last October that he was thinking about relocating Australia’s Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem should go down as one of 2018’s crassest comments. For the PM was not “thinking” at all. Casting the possible relocation as shock therapy for the non-existent Israeli-Palestinian peace process is a fraud. (more…)
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LAURIE PATTON. Time to ditch our dud NBN – beaten by the ‘All Blacks of Broadband’
The contrast could not be any starker. As warnings emerged that Australia’s telcos are seeing their profits squeezed by the end of NBN Co’s short-lived wholesale price discount (with the likelihood that retail prices will rise), across the ditch came word that New Zealanders are about so see their broadband speeds greatly increase while the price of connecting to the Internet comes down. How could this be? (more…)
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HENRY REYNOLDS. Has the Cavalcade of Commemoration Finally Halted?
With Remembrance Day behind us we may finally have some relief from the relentless commemoration of conflict which began twenty years ago and climaxed with the centenary of the First World War. Historians of the future may well wonder where this obsession with war came from and why we spent more on the centenary than any other comparable country. It has been one of the most striking features of both political and cultural life for the last quarter of a century. Despite the continuous and lavish expenditure of public money there has been almost total bipartisan support and few attempts to ask what it has all been for. The apotheosis of the warriors has lifted them far above sceptical assessment and even the normal cut and thrust of public life. (more…)
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GARRY EVERETT. A tale of two processes.
Last year I participated in a community consultation about increasing the water supply in south east Queensland. It was a very satisfying experience because of the process and skills of the consultants. This year I was invited to participate in a different kind of process. The Catholic Church has instituted a process for decision-making called a Plenary Council. (more…)
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MARC STEARS. Don’t give up on politics. It’s where the fight for the fair go must be won (The Conversation).
This article is the third in the Reclaiming the Fair Go series, a collaboration between The Conversation, the Sydney Democracy Network and the Sydney Peace Foundation to mark the awarding of the 2018 Sydney Peace Prize to Nobel laureate and economics professor Joseph Stiglitz. These articles reflect on the crisis caused by economic inequality and on how we can break the cycle of power and greed to enable all peoples and the planet to flourish. The Sydney Peace Prize will be presented on November 15 (tickets here). (more…)
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ANDREW FARRAN. Brexit: When is a horse not a horse? When it is a camel.
This note was prepared following a five hour emergency Cabinet meeting last night accepting the deal with the EU and a brief statement without details by the British PM, Theresa May, declaring that the draft Agreement was the best deal possible, was in the best interests of the British people, and better than no deal. Such detail as we have at this stage is based on well informed leaks to the British media. (more…)
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RICHARD BUTLER. What is History?
President Macron’s warning against growing nationalism and the need to ensure the preservation of values, as against unalloyed selfishness in international relations, was an important way to mark the Centenary of the end of the First World War. Trump was present, but certainly not listening. The show was not about him and, he couldn’t find his umbrella. (more…)
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PETER ARKELL. Choosing our head of state does not need to be difficult.
The Australian Republic appears to be coming back into the community’s discussion. The stumbling block for previous models seems to have been how the head of state will be chosen and even concern that we do not offend the Queen. Perhaps there is a solution that she would be pleased to step aside for. (more…)
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RICHARD BROINOWSKI. Will Japan’s Love Affair with Nuclear Power be Resurrected?
On Friday 11 March 2011, a tsunami knocked out emergency generators at Fukushima Dai-Ichi, resulting in melt-downs in three of six reactors, covering the countryside in eastern Honshu with radiation. Some isotopes were short-lived, others will be around much longer. Seven and a half years later, an endless torrent of sea water continues to be pumped into the damaged cores to try to keep them cool with no safe options for disposal or preventing leakage into the biosphere. Some of Japan’s most productive pastoral land around the reactors has been permanently poisoned against future use. (more…)
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DUNCAN GRAHAM.Jerusalem and a Free Trade Agreement with Indonesia
Now here’s the weirdest thing about the way we handle policy with the neighbours:
Canberra politicians are proven fumblers and bumblers when dealing with big Muslim-majority Indonesia. Yet at the Australian National University just a ten-minute bike ride across the lake are some of the world’s foremost experts, able to inform, advise and caution.
Instead we have policy on the run when Scott Morrison edged the idea that our embassy in Israel might shift 70 kilometres inland from the Mediterranean. Unsurpisingly he was caught in the slips.
The PM’s office has instant access not only to government think-tanks, but also leading academics. They speak slang garnered in kampongs while doing doctorates. They’ve savoured durians, recited dawn prayers, sweated through nights of wayang magic. In brief they can feel the nation’s pulse.
Last century Cornell in the US, and Leiden in the Netherlands, were the specialists on the archipelago to our north. Now Melbourne University, Monash, the ANU and to a lesser extent Murdoch in Perth and Flinders in Adelaide have taken over.
Does no-one in Parliament House have scholars on speed dial? ‘A quickie, mate … whaddya reckon? The boss might give Ambassador Chris Cannan a new pad in Jerusalem. Good idea – or what?’
Had the calls been made the profs would have been of one voice: ‘Are you joking? Indonesians will go spare … they back Palestine all the way. You’ll blow the whole Free Trade Agreement.’ (more…)
