Category: Politics

  • Japanese whaling – bad faith, bad science. Guest blogger: Walter Hamilton

    Australia and Japan are at loggerheads before the International Court of Justice not because they disagree over whaling but because they disagree and are both members of the International Whaling Commission. What may at first seem a fussy distinction is fundamental and important. It is only because of their mutual commitments under an international convention that the whaling dispute can come before the court in The Hague. In response to Australia’s complaint that it has been acting in bad faith by cloaking ‘commercial whaling under the lab coat of science,’ Japan has cited its continuing membership of the IWC as proof of a good faith commitment to multilateralism and consensus building. The accusation of bad faith is one to which Japan has taken particular exception, not assuaged by assurances from Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus that the ICJ case need not harm bilateral relations. In oral arguments before the court, the Japanese legal team has taken aim at Australian bad faith in the presentation of selective and distorted testimony and comments by Mr Dreyfus that, irrespective of the court’s decision, the government would continue to oppose Japan’s whaling program by, among other things, accommodating the activities of the radical Sea Shepherd group.

     Australian media coverage of the ICJ case has been patchy, at best, given the amount of space and time devoted to the antics of Sea Shepherd. Methodical argument in a court of law is necessarily less accessible to superficial minds. But the to-and-fro in The Hague has been quite as lively by way of sarcasm, rhetorical flourishes and the cut and thrust of cross-examination. Both sides have employed an impressive array of advocates including, on the Japanese side, leading Iranian, Scottish and English barristers.

     But what is the court asked to decide? What is it empowered to decide?

     The ICJ is asked to determine whether Japan is meeting its obligations under the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling, specifically whether its program of ‘scientific whaling’ meets the requirements set out under Article 8. Japan argues that research data it has obtained through the killing of whales could not be obtained any other way and that it has fully met requirements to notify the IWC and respond to the input of its Scientific Committee. According to Japan, the court is not competent to distinguish good science from bad but must determine simply whether the whaling convention has been followed. While Australia argues that Japan’s research does not fulfill essential criteria for a scientific program – specificity and apparent usefulness, the formulation and testing of hypotheses, and peer review – the narrow scope of the court’s competency and jurisdiction would seem, on the evidence presented, to make a ruling against Japan unlikely. The outcome is expected before the end of the year.

     Australia took a costly, high-risk gamble by bringing the case to the International Court of Justice. If Japan’s ‘scientific whaling’ is endorsed by the court, anti-whaling groups that pay no heed to anything other than direct action will claim vindication. If the Australian government continues to agitate against Japan, having lost the legal argument, it may appear a bad loser whose opposition to whaling lacks logic or scientific basis and rests merely on a presumption of cultural superiority – the very thing Japan alleges. But, on the other side of the ledger, is the modern obligation on nations with shared interests and joined together under an international convention to seek and respect the judgment of their peers. Here is the inestimable value of the exercise.

     Which brings me back to the importance of the two countries’ membership of the IWC. While the commission is not worth much at present, being deeply divided between pro- and anti-whaling factions, the alternative is unilateralism of the Sea Shepherd sort. Australia has a distinguished record of participation in multilateral responses to world problems. Since 1945, so has Japan. A compromise on the whaling issue was within reach at the IWC a few years ago, until zealous prohibitionists gained sway within both Labor and Coalition circles. Unilateralism is not a sound policy for a country like Australia (leave that to the North Koreas of this world). If it does not like the decision coming from The Hague, Australia’s worst course of action would be to leave the IWC or surrender prosecution of the argument to demagogues and free agents. Some Australian media outlets have selectively reported Japan’s comments before the ICJ to suggest it is ready to pull out of the IWC if the decision goes against it. As already pointed out, to the contrary, Japan insists its continued membership is proof of its good faith. It would puncture that argument by leaving, and the same goes for Australia.

    Walter Hamilton was formerly Correspondent for the ABC in Japan.

  • The Regional Settlement Arrangement with Papua New Guinea. John Menadue

    With some reservations I support the general thrust of the RSA with PNG. I do that largely for the same reasons that I supported the earlier proposed agreement with Malaysia.

    The RSA is in PM Rudd’s words ‘a hard line’ but I see it as the least worst option given the present intractable political impasse and the 850 souls who have been drowned at sea. Where were their human rights?

    The arrangement does offer the prospect of slowing or stopping boat arrivals whereas the revamped Nauru policy did not. Nauru was never going to work a second time because even after the ‘no-advantage test’ and delays in processing, persons knew that in going to Nauru they would finally finish up in Australia or New Zealand. Now they will be resettled in PNG. Furthermore Nauru as an island state a long way to the east would never be part of a regional solution.

    I supported the Malaysian agreement because it offered at that time the best prospect of building a regional arrangement. This has always been and remains for me the only sensible way forward. Furthermore UNHCR was prepared to work with Malaysia and Australia on the agreement.  I had several reservations about the agreement, including the cap on numbers, penalties and the risks to children. It seems that these concerns have been addressed in the RSA with PNG.

    What is important is not where processing occurs, but is it humane, fair and efficient.

    In the submission that Arja Keski-Nummi (former First Assistant Secretary, Refugee, Humanitarian and International Division of the Immigration Department) and I made to the Expert Panel on asylum seekers in July 2012, we said.

    Offshore/Regional Processing

    While the High Court ruled against the agreement with Malaysia there remains a place for considering the regional processing of asylum seekers….   

    In 1998, UNHCR at its Executive Committee (ExCom) envisaged the possibility of transferring people from one state to another for processing and made the following conclusion:

     No.85 (XLIX) : stresses that, as regards the return to a third country of an asylum seeker whose claim has yet to be determined from the territory of the country where the claim has been submitted, including pursuant to bilateral or multilateral readmission agreements, it should be established that the third country will treat the asylum seeker(s) in accordance with accepted international standards, will ensure effective protection against refoulement, and will provide the asylum seekers with the possibility to seek and enjoy asylum.

     The High Court found the agreement with Malaysia could not be upheld because Malaysia:

     1. was not a signatory to the refugee convention,

    2. did not have in place a system of refugee status determination,

    3. did not have in law guarantees against non-refoulement, and

    4. did not give people some legal status while on their territory. 

     In short it could not be found to provide Effective Protection. 

     If new agreements in the region were to be considered the key issue to tackle would be the question of effective protection.   For example, it could be made explicit that a person has Effective Protection if: 

    • people were given a legal status while they are in a transit country  
    • people had access to other rights such as work – supporting  livelihoods, education for children etc.
    • people could access a refugee determination process either within the legal  jurisdiction of the state or by UNHCR
    •  were not detained  and
    • the principle of non-refoulement was honoured

    If a country is willing to enter into an agreement with these provisos then effective protection could be said to have been achieved. 

     However the complexities of such an agreement would need to be negotiated and would demand careful assessment of the legislation required to bring this into effect. …

     Bali ministers have endorsed the concept of states exploring such arrangements. These opportunities should be pursued, not to “stop the boats” although no doubt that is the desire of many, but if done well have the potential to start the process of building a durable protection system in the region – one in which the protection outcomes for all asylum seekers can be significant…

     New initiatives are always controversial.  The Comprehensive Plan of Action for Indo Chinese Refugees (CPA) while today seen as a model of regional cooperation at the time was not without its critics. Host governments’ commitments to providing a protection space in the region were tested, resettlement countries’ commitments were regularly questioned, UNHCR was moving into unchartered territories particularly in the way it was to engage with Vietnam and in redefining its mandate. NGOs and powerful lobby groups were not happy. 

     If we are ever to achieve a regional cooperation framework it will take a considerable time and we need to work with what is available now step by step, difficult as these may be. (The full submission can be found on my web site. See below. Click on refugees etc.)

    At the press conference following the announcement of the RSA, the Australian Attorney General said ‘This arrangement will be entirely in accordance with Australia’s international and domestic law obligations. PNG is of course a signatory to the Refugee Convention and, as has been indicated by both prime ministers, PNG is going to withdraw the reservation that it had to the Refugee Convention in respect of people who are to be transferred from Australia. What that means is that all people transferred to PNG will have the full benefit of the rights that come to them under the Refugee Convention.’ (end of quote)

    It is to be hoped that this serves to address the High Court’s concerns. The earlier decision by the High Court and the subsequent parliamentary impasse was in my view a major setback for regional cooperation.

    The RSA is a bilateral arrangement which must become part of a framework of other regional arrangements. PM Rudd said that the RSA will be ‘part of our broader approach on regional cooperation arrangements’. We can’t ‘fix’ these problems on our own. There has to be burden-sharing as the arrangement with PNG is. This arrangement follows the announcement a few days ago that Indonesia will deny visa-free entry to Indonesia for Iranians.

    The regional conference being called as a result of PM Rudd’s meeting with President Yudhoyono must urgently consider processing centres in other regional countries in association with UNHCR and on the understanding that resettlement countries such as Australia will increase their refugee intake.

    Australia has already increased its humanitarian intake from 13,000 to 20,000 p.a. At his Brisbane press conference PM Rudd said that if progress is made on further regional discussions Australia would lift its intake again. The Expert Panel recommended that the intake be lifted to 27,000 over five years. I think it should be at least 30,000.

    In his statement PM Rudd said that he had spoken with the UN Secretary General about the RSA with PNG. But he did not mention the UNHCR which must be a key player in the arrangement with PNG. It has the necessary experience and credibility.

    There are a lot of important issues that must be addressed. What will happen in regard to family reunion of asylum seekers sent to PNG who have family in Australia? Will asylum seekers sent to PNG have appeal rights? Will they have work rights in PNG? Will they be detained in prison-like conditions similar to Christmas Island?

    The Australian government must also urgently redouble its efforts to negotiate orderly departure programs with Afghanistan, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

    The Greens have called the RSA ‘a day of shame’. But the real ‘day of shame’ was when the Greens voted in the Senate with Tony Abbott’s coalition to strike down the enabling legislation which would have allowed a renegotiated Malaysian Agreement to proceed. Since that time there has been chaos and failure of refugee policy in Australia. The Greens must bear heavy responsibility for this. As Gough Whitlam said in a different context ‘Only the impotent are pure’.

    The RSA has been obviously negotiated quickly. As PM Rudd said ‘many other steps lie ahead’. But this arrangement with PNG based on burden-sharing is a much more promising approach than the recent nonsense about amending the Refugee Convention and describing increasing number of refugees as really only ‘economic migrants’.

    A key test for the RSA must be – does it provide effective protection?

    The other key issue will be implementation.


     

  • Joining the dots on Asia. John Menadue

    The advocates of stronger ties with Asia spend a great deal of time with seminars and press statements about the importance of the region to our future. They are correct but they refuse to join the dots and advocate the changes on the really important issues impeding our relations with our region. Some of those impediments are symbolic and some are real. They include:

    • How can we expect our region to take us seriously when we have an English Queen as our head of state? Many Asians that I have spoken to are polite but shake their head with bemusement that we have a foreign head of state living in London.
    • Many in Asia are sceptical about our dependence on the US and allowing our foreign affairs and defence policies to be determined very largely by our relationship with the US at the expense of relations with regional countries. They have not forgotten John Howard’s reference to Australia as being the US’s ‘deputy sheriff’ in the region. Regional countries do place importance on the continuing role of the US in our region, but not in the slavish way that we do.
    • We have a clubbish Anglo-Celtic business sector that espouses better relations with the region but closes its ranks against persons with serious Asian experience or competence in the language.
    • The continuous demonization of asylum seekers is a disingenuous re-run of White Australia – appealing to our fear of the foreigner which was the key driver of White Australia in the past. Malaysia is continually bashed by the Greens, the Coalition and NGOs when it offered the prospect of building a regional arrangement for asylum seekers.
    • Our media reflects our overwhelming ties to the UK and the US.  Just look at the inflated coverage of the Boston bombings compared with the civil war broken out in Iraq with thousands of bombing deaths. By our own involvement in the Iraq war we have contributed to this catastrophe. But three deaths in Boston is much easier and cheaper TV footage.
    • We give lip service to the importance of Asian languages, but we are not prepared to fund it.
    • Working holiday programs with countries in our region which provide opportunities for young Australians to live and work in the region have been largely stalled for the past twenty years.

    So much of the public debate about our relations with the region is froth and bubble. We avoid the hard issues. If we address them we would really show a genuine determination to build our future in our own region.

    John Menadue

  • Regional cooperation is the key. Guest blogger: Rt Hon Malcolm Fraser

    Australia’s problems with asylum seekers and refugees are not unique. We are not the only point of destination.  There are around 30,000 in Australia, over 160,000 in Canada, 51,000 in Austria, 22,000 in Belgium, 74,000 in Netherlands with a population much less than ours, nearly 150,000 in the United Kingdom and 589,000 in Germany.  There is a massive move of a similar kind to Europe.  We are not the only destination.  It is a worldwide problem which requires regional and international cooperation. We cannot ‘fix’ it on our own.

    Asylum seeker and refugee movements by their very nature involve at least two countries – the country of origin and the country of destination. It will also invariably involve transit countries. Almost all asylum seekers seeking entry to Australia come in transit through Thailand, Malaysia or Indonesia.

    If we want to solve our problems, we must help other countries to solve their problems. There is no solution for Australia alone. Mandatory detention that we unilaterally introduced in 1992 is just not working to deter asylum seekers. The harsh deterrent measures introduced initially by Howard, but continued by the current government are cruel, horrendously expensive and are still unable to match the terror from which people flee. When the current government stopped assessing asylum seekers in October last year, over 90% of boat people from Sri Lanka were proven to be refugees.  When will we learn from our mistakes?

    There are two essential elements to regional cooperation and burden-sharing. The first element is that transit countries and particularly in our case, Indonesia, being prepared to hold and assist in the processing of asylum seekers. The second element is that resettlement countries must be prepared to promptly resettle people after they have been processed and found to be refugees.

    These two elements were the keys to what most people now regard as the successful management of the 1.3 million Indochinese who fled after the fall of Saigon in 1975. Building regional cooperation then was a slow and painstaking process. It was messy at times but it worked.

    Alongside those two essential elements, we need to keep several other factors in mind.

    • Transit countries such as Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia carry the heavy burden of about 800,000 people of concern to the UNHCR.
    • The US was a key player in leading the management of the Indochina outflow in the late 1970s and 1980s. It has now just joined the Bali process.
    • There were few regional signatories to the Refugee Convention in the 1970s and 1980s. That is still the case today. Our experience was that the participation of the UNHCR with its experience and credibility is essential in any regional processing and resettlement.
    • With our position on the Security Council, we should be working to gain greater UN support and to spearhead a campaign to get more countries to sign on to the principles of UNHCR.
    • Regional countries will need financial support to manage the processing of large numbers of asylum seekers whilst they are in their countries. Their own populations are likely to be disturbed by large numbers of asylum seekers. We are wasting huge sums through our policies of deterrence and detention, in places like Manus Island and Nauru.  It would be money better spent helping regional countries. Under the Comprehensive Plan of Action which developed during the Indochina outflow, Japan resettled few refugees, but it was a generous funder.
    • Alongside the US, Canada would need to be a key participant in an energised Bali process.
    • Australian governments up to this point have not pursued a truly regional solution involving sufficient countries, including some beyond the region, with sufficient energy.
    • Other resettlement countries should contribute according to their ability and means. For example in the Indochina resettlement program, Sweden took a large number of handicapped people. As a small country it was uniquely placed to help in this way.
    • Australia will need to lift its resettlement intake above the 20,000 p.a. at the moment.  This would assist in giving us creditability in persuading other people to participate.
    • In particular, we will need to take many more from Indonesia which so far we have not done.  This is critical to gain Indonesian cooperation which would be essential for a successful outcome.

     

    I am not sure that the meeting called by President Yudhoyono will provide a breakthrough. It could however be an important building block in the development of a robust regional arrangement based on burden-sharing with the two key elements I mentioned earlier.

    Only regional cooperation will work. We learned that the hard way during the Indochina outflow. Unilateral action and the posturing that goes with it will not succeed. What we need is good policy and less politics.  We need to restore the bipartisanship that had existed between the end of the 2nd War and the middle 1980s.  Good policy can only be built around regional cooperation.

     

  • Tony Abbott – one-liners won’t work. John Menadue

    Sorry if I keep repeating myself, but Tony Abbott keeps repeating his one-liners about stopping the boats. He provides little explanation about how or why his policies will work today.

    He tells us that John Howard’s policy stopped the boats and he will do the same. But John Howard’s approach was over a decade ago.  Since then the situation has dramatically changed.

    Certainly under John Howard the boats did largely stop, although asylum seekers continued to arrive by air at the rate of about 4,000 persons per annum. Furthermore if we look at the broader picture of asylum seekers around the world at that time we see that the number of asylum seekers fell between 2001 and 2004 as a result of a more peaceful Afghanistan and Iraq. Boat arrivals started arriving again from 2004, mainly because of the state of emergency declared in Sri Lanka and then the withdrawal of the Sri Lankan government from the cease-fire with the Tamil Tigers.

    But let us accept that the boats did stop for whatever reason.

    Tony Abbott’s one-liners have three elements.

    The first is to repeat the Pacific Solution and reopen Nauru and Manus. They were key parts of the Howard plan. Tony Abbott kept saying for a long time that the first thing he would do as PM would be to get on the phone to the President of Nauru and reopen the Nauru detention centre. There are many pitfalls in this one-liner about Nauru.

    • The secretary of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship told the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee of the Senate in October 2010 that the meagre success of Nauru would not work in the future. He said ‘dramatic high profile efforts (Tampa) together with the processing that occurred on Nauru were very much unknown to people (at the time). The people who were subject to it and the people-smugglers who were organising it were not able to predict what would occur. A point that I have often made is that what was unknown prior to the events of 2001 because known in hindsight. It became a certainty (that they would finish up in Australia or New Zealand). The key point is that it (Nauru) could not be replicated.’ He went on to say ‘our view (in DIAC) is not simply that the Nauru option would not work (again) but that the combination of circumstances that existed at the end of 2001 could not be repeated with success. That is the view that we held for some time and it is of course not just a view of my department, it is the collective view of agencies in providing advice in this area.’ What underlay the DIAC view was that 97% of persons on Nauru who were found to be refugees finished up in Australia and New Zealand.
    • Following the Expert Panel report, then-Immigration Minister Bowen and the Government foolishly endorsed its implementation in full, which included the re-opening of Nauru and Manus. What DIAC had advised years before came true. The number of boat arrivals coming to Australian since the reopening of Nauru and Manus has increased dramatically from 1,622 in the December quarter 2012 to 7,464 in the March quarter 2013.
    •  As warned, Nauru has not worked to stop the boats a second time around.

    The second one-liner of Tony Abbott is to reintroduce Temporary Protection Visas as the Howard Government had done. Unfortunately for Tony Abbott this policy didn’t work at all for John Howard. More people got on boats after TPVs were introduced with over 6,000 coming in 2001. Further, TPVs which denied family reunion resulted in more women and children taking to the boats. That is why when SIEVX was lost at sea in 2001, 82% of the 353 passengers who were drowned at sea were women and children.

    Tony Abbott’s third one-liner is to turn boats back to Indonesia if it is safe to do so. President Yudhoyono warned last week about such unilateral acts. In November 2011 the serving head of the RAN Admiral Ray Griggs told the Senate that turning boats around at sea was highly risky and the Navy personnel were bound by the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea. In 1979 when a similar policy was proposed, Malcolm Fraser rejected it because it would make Australia a ‘pariah’ in our region. Threatened with turn-backs desperate people are likely to scuttle their boats. It is also dangerous for RAN personnel.

    The three one-liners which constitute Tony Abbott’s policy on boats – re-open Nauru, introduce TPVs and turn-backs at sea – will not work. Times have changed. He has not thought them through He relies on empty one liners.

    My criticism of the Coalition’s unscrupulous policies and rhetoric does not imply acceptance of the government’s asylum and refugee policies. It is very plain that successive ministers have failed. They have not energetically pursued the only policy that will work – a robust regional policy.

     

  • Tony Abbott looks badly shaken. John Menadue

    Tony Abbott is obviously shaken by Kevin Rudd’s return. The coalition had been expecting to win by default and chose quite deliberately to provide as small a target as possible and release few policies. What “policies” there were were usually reduced to one liners. Tony Abbott left the dead wood in his shadow cabinet. He refused three debates with Kevin Rudd, something which opposition leaders would normally seize with both hands. And he refused to debate the three issues on which he has been staking so much, deficits, boats and the carbon tax. Then there was Kevin Rudd’s intervention in the NSW ALP branch. Then there was the agreement with President Yudhoyono to host a regional conference on asylum seekers in Indonesia. And to top that off the Indonesian President gave Tony Abbott a backhander about taking “unilateral” action on turning boats back to Indonesia. Then there was Kevin Rudd’s proposal to commence democratic renewal in elections for the leader of the parliamentary ALP. Through all this the opinion polls are trending very much in Kevin Rudd’s favour. Much is promised but can Kevin Rudd follow up and deliver?. Implementation is always the hard part. But it has all clearly unsettled Tony Abbott.

    Kevin Rudd’s action on ALP reform is in my view the most important of all. In my blog of June 25 headed ‘Julia Gillard’s greatest failure’, I referred to her unwillingness to lead the reform of the sclerotic ALP structure.

    She had her chance at the ALP federal conference in 2011 with the report prepared by John Faulkner, Bob Carr and Steve Bracks on ALP party reform. The proposed reforms were quite modest but Julia Gillard didn’t provide the leadership needed to really start the reform process. That failure stemmed from her dependence on the ALP machine and the factions which chose her as leader in 2010. Kevin Rudd then blasted the ALP Federal Conference for failing to “take some giant leaps forward” He was criticized by the union heavies and faction bosses. They did not want democratic renewal

    Kevin Rudd is not dependent on those machine people and factions, and it is not surprising that one of the first things he did was to intervene in the parlous state of the NSW branch of the ALP. The Federal Executive has set out an eight-point plan for reform.  With an election only weeks or months away, the ALP could scarcely sack the whole NSW branch, although I hope that down the track it will do so. Kevin Rudd has followed this up with a proposal that ALP members as well as members of the Parliamentary Labor Party should choose the leader. I don’t think unions should have a role in this.

    But a key issue ahead will be the role of unions at party conferences. Obviously their influence must be reduced particularly as their membership has declined to only about 18% of the workforce today. Rodd Cavalier suggests union representation at federal and state conference should be reduced from 50% to 15%. I am not sure what the figure should be. The unions do provide stability for the ALP. They provide significant financial and hands-on support. They are the largest and most significant group in Australia committed to social justice. Their influence has prevented Australia going down the path of economic and social inequality that is so appalling now in the US. Working people in that country are paying a very heavy price for the neutering of the trade union movement. Unions may be annoying from time to time but if Australia faced a major crisis I would rather be in their corner than with any other group.

    As the reform process gets under way particularly after the federal election, the role of unions, the participation of the rank-and-file in conferences and the selection of the parliamentary leader will be critical.

    Julia Gillard wouldn’t start the process. Kevin Rudd is making encouraging progress.  Tony Abbott looks flat footed. He and his coalition colleagues expected a cake walk. They didn’t really prepare.  They now look ill at ease with a new and energised Rudd Government

  • Ending the policy paralysis on refugees. John Menadue

    In my blog of July 6, ‘Asylum seekers … good news at last’, I expressed concern that it had taken so long for the government to take action and really put effort into the development of a regional framework. It has been obvious for years that this was the path we had to take. We cannot solve this problem unilaterally. As a result our public discourse got diverted into a whole range of divisive and secondary issues.

    There are several reasons why the government failed so badly in driving a regional framework.

    • It was spooked by Tony Abbott’s willful exaggeration and fomenting of fear in a way that I have not seen in public life for a long time.
    • Ministers and departments were so continually in crisis mode over boat arrivals that they lost sight of the key long-term strategic issue that needed to be addressed-regional cooperation
    • Under the rubric of small government, the policy expertise of many departments has been eroded. A great deal of policy work is now passed to organizations such as the Productivity Commission or contracted out to consultants, universities and accounting firms that don’t have much policy expertise or institutional  memory.
    • The policy void in government departments has been filled by political and inexperienced officers in ministerial offices who are driven by the 24/7 news cycle. Policy continuity and expertise is something they know very little about.

    In the refugee field, Arja Keski-Nummi and I highlighted this major gap or paralysis on refugee discussion in our submission to the Expert Panel.

    The inter-governmental and multilateral dialogue on displacement and people smuggling has grown over recent years. The Bali Process has had a positive impact on this.  But a great deal remains to be done on regional cooperation following the agreement between President Yudhoyono and Prime Minister Rudd.

    Unfortunately little attention is given to engaging with civil society in Australia (including NGOs) and yet in many ways such engagement holds one of the keys to supporting the development of a stronger refugee protection framework.

    It is both timely and important to start the process of developing a framework that engages civil society as an important partner in the process. ASEAN has led the way in such engagement with the model it uses for the development of the ASEAN Human Rights Instrument.

    A successful model has been used in the security dialogue in Australia. It has adopted the concept of a “Track 2” approach. This involves both government and non-government players as equal partners, recognising the complementary strengths that each brings to the table.

    While building such a dialogue takes enormous effort and commitment the dividends can be many:

    • it can remove from public contention to a neutral space the discussion on  refugees, asylum seekers, people  smuggling and displacement,
    • it gives all players a stake in the partnership and responsibilities in addressing the issues,
    • it promotes a rational public discourse with facts and reason

    As a first step a local track 2 dialogue on refugees could be initiated in Australia bringing together the key experts from government, the region, international agencies and civil society to map out approaches and strategies for the future. This dialogue would be funded by the Government but would not be part of Government.  The Minister should appoint the chair.

    The modest government funding for this should be provided as a matter of urgency and could be channeled through a university as is done for the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific (CSCAP) in the security dialogue or through an agency such as UNHCR or IOM that have strong  records in this type of work.

    This dialogue should be expanded into a regional approach sitting alongside or under the Bali Process.

    We need a much wider and better-informed dialogue on refugee issues than we have had in recent years. Because of the lack of an informed and robust discussion on refugee issues the government should not be surprised that it has made so many mistakes in this field. It badly needs to listen to a much wider range of informed advice. A ‘track two dialogue’ would be a great help.

     

     

     

  • Kevin Rudd – the anti-politician. John Menadue

    We often ponder why Kevin Rudd has remained so popular even through his three years in the wilderness.

    A blog ‘The Piping Strike’ explains to me the phenomenon better than others. It says ‘The uncomfortable answer is that Rudd is popular because he encapsulates the electorate’s distrust and even dislike of the political system’.

    The kid with the glasses in the library doesn’t seem like the normal politician. He is attractive because of that. This makes it hard for the political class, both politicians and journalists, when Kevin Rudd doesn’t play the game the same way as others. The more machine politicians and the media pile into Rudd, the more his anti-politician stance attracts people in the community.

    He was chosen as leader in 2007 not because the political machine liked him but because he seemed popular with the community. He made mistakes as PM but when he was seen as no longer any use to the machine – think Paul Howes and Bill Ludwig- acted to get rid of him. He wasn’t as easily controllable and predictable as they had hoped. Not surprisingly when he was chosen leader again, a few weeks ago one of the first things he did was to attack the control of the factional politicians and their minders in some of the big unions. Much remains to be done but quick action on the NSW ALP branch was entirely predictable. Kevin Rudd is not beholden to any party machine as Julia Gillard was. His strength as an anti-politician is in the community. And the community to date is clearly responding.

    Gough Whitlam bucked the party machine and survived because he was strong in the electorate. People outside the inner circle of politics loved what he was doing in confronting the factions and the party machine.

    Queenslanders, like Kevin Rudd have a particular reputation and earn respect by bucking the party system. Think Bob Katter and Pauline Hanson. Peter Beattie’s strength in Queensland was in part because he kept running against the ALP machine.

    Rudd’s non-party support is revealed not only in being mobbed in shopping centres, but also in the social media. He has 1.2 million twitter followers.  This is almost 10% of voters. Tony Abbott has 131,000 twitter followers and Malcolm Turnbull 170,000 followers. My grand-daughter tells me that these figures can be manipulated, but the scale of Rudd’s connection through social media is remarkable.

    Google searches in recent days reveal the same interest and enthusiasm for Kevin Rudd. Even talk-back radio listeners are showing interest.

    Kevin Rudd may not win the election but he has certainly thrown it wide open. His appeal is that he is a different sort of politician who is not beholden to the political system. The public so far seem to be responding. The machine politicians and the media don’t seem to understand. They look at politics through a different prism. The public distrusts the political system. So does Kevin Rudd or at least he doesn’t respect it the way that political insiders do. That is his appeal.

     

  • Asylum seekers – good news at last. John Menadue

    The joint communique issued yesterday by President Yudhoyono and PM Rudd is the best news that I have read on asylum seekers for many years. A regional framework is the only viable policy for the future. Individual countries cannot do it alone.

    The communique said

    ‘As co-chairs of the Bali Process, the two Leaders reaffirmed their commitment to continue to develop a regional solution, involving countries of origin, transit and destination which covers elements of prevention, early detection and protection to combatting trafficking in persons and people smuggling and other related transnational crimes. They stress the importance of avoiding unilateral actions which might jeopardise such a comprehensive regional approach and which might cause operational or other difficulties to any party. The Prime Minister of Australia welcomed Indonesia’s initiative to invite key origin, transit and destination countries to a conference to explore concrete operational and policy responses, including regional approaches and efforts to enhance border security, in addressing regular movement of persons.’

    President Yudhoyono added that ‘All countries in the region must share responsibility for asylum seekers and I have decided to host a ministerial meeting within a month to look at ways of dealing with the issue.’

    Together with others, and particularly Arja Keski-Nummi, I have been urging a regional response for several years. In August 2011, Arja Keski-Nummi, Kate Gauthier and I, in association with the Centre for Policy Development, issued a statement on ‘A new approach. Breaking the stalemate on refugees and asylum seekers’. This statement highlighted the importance of a regional response. The statement was endorsed by a wide range of prominent Australians.

    In our joint statement to the Expert Panel in July last year, Arja Keski-Nummi and I again emphasised the importance of a regional framework. There are also many articles on this subject on my website publish.pearlsandirritations.com.

    In my most recent blog of 1 July, I said ‘Regional cooperation was essential during the Indochina outflow … it is also true today. Australia should propose a regional conference on asylum seekers and displacement.’ I added that Australia should offer to host such a regional conference. Hosting by the Indonesians will be even better.

    My experience as Secretary of the Department of Immigration during the Indochina outflow convinced me that only regional burden-sharing can bring a lasting solution. That burden-sharing must not only be by the host countries such as Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, but also by resettlement countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Japan and the US. Importantly the US has just joined the ‘Bali Process’. US influence and clout is critical. It is also important to include Japan. During the Indochina outflow Japan, not surprisingly, did not take many Indochinese refugees. But it was a very generous funder.

    I keep asking myself why wasn’t this initiative taken years ago? We can only conclude a failure of ministerial and departmental leadership. Focused on boats, boats and more boats, ministers and departments retreated into crisis mode and were unable and perhaps unwilling to address the longer-term strategic issues.

    The meeting proposed by President Yudhoyono in a month’s time will build on the Bali Process. We need to be patient. But at last we are headed in the right direction.

    In the months ahead, Australia needs to keep several things in mind.

    • All this will take time and we must see it through. The Comprehensive Plan of Action (CPA) which flowed from the International Conference of 1979 concerning Indochinese refugees was the result of small steps over several years.  Australia did well as a contributor to the CPA but we didn’t have a particularly unblemished record. In 1995 Australia, together with other resettlement countries, terminated the CPA. We left regional countries with thousands of difficult cases. Many of them were handicapped people.  In Bali in 2002, we sought regional help with boatpeople. But when the boat arrivals fell away we lost interest. We revived the process again in 2009 when boat arrivals resumed. Regional countries could be forgiven for thinking that we have been fair-weather friends. We must not let that happen again.
    • The United National High Commissioner for Refugees must also be an active participant in building this regional framework. The UNHCR has expertise, experience and importantly, its good name will add to the credibility of the enterprise.
    • It is important at some stage to include civil society, mainly NGOs in the process. Along with governments, they are important players and have a wealth of experience. Their participation will also help depoliticise the building of a regional solution.

    The good news must now be followed by some hard work. But at last we are headed in the right direction and hopefully we can put behind us the toxic debate and futile policies of recent years.

  • The dispute over the islands – leaving well alone. Guest blogger: Walter Hamilton

     

    Which of China or Japan has the stronger claim to the Senkaku or Diaoyu islands in the East China Sea, the dispute that has driven their relations to the lowest point in 40 years?

    China’s case is that the islands, having been appropriated by imperial Japan, were forfeit when it surrendered to the Allies in 1945. Japan argues that China acquiesced in Tokyo’s annexation of the uninhabited islands in the 1890s and only changed its tune after oil and gas reserves were found nearby in the 1960s. From my reading of the facts neither argument can be sustained.

    The Potsdam Declaration of the surrender terms said “Japanese sovereignty shall be limited to the islands of Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, Shikoku and such minor islands as we [the Allies] determine.” The earlier Cairo Declaration – also cited by advocates of China’s case – was more polemical but less precise. The Allies’ war aim was to force Japan to give up territories “stolen from the Chinese, such as Manchuria, Formosa and the Pescadores,” adding that it would be expelled “from all other territories which she has taken by violence and greed.” Violence was not used to annex the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands (contrary to some accounts they were not acquired through the Sino-Japanese War) and greed is a shaky basis for apportioning blame in international affairs.

    When Japan accepted the terms of the Potsdam Declaration the surrender document signed in September 1945 set in train arrangements for the country’s demilitarization and occupation. It did not, however, place conditions on a future sovereign Japan – no more, say, than the surrender document General Percival signed in 1942 could be considered to bind the present government of Singapore.

    Some commentators treat the Potsdam Declaration as if it were a lodestone for determining the rights and wrongs of states’ actions in 2013. They argue that the Allies’ war aims were circumvented during and after the occupation by conservative forces in Washington and Tokyo and that that false outcome, frozen in time by the Cold War, can only now be put right as American power declines and China obtains the means to defend its interests. Since any argument mounted on the basis of the Potsdam Declaration also calls into question Japan’s sovereignty over the Okinawan islands, the fate of a few specks of land in the East China Sea may open a Pandora’s box.

    The international agreement more relevant to the case than either the Potsdam or Cairo documents is the San Francisco Peace Treaty of 1951, which specifically addressed the scope of Japan’s postwar sovereignty. Under the treaty Japan renounced “right, title and claim to Formosa and the Pescadores.” Some regard this provision as crucial because the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands traditionally were part of Formosa, or Taiwan. But early drafts of the treaty, which went into greater detail than the final document, did not treat the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands as part of Taiwan/China.

    Not only did the San Francisco Treaty fail to specify which state had sovereignty over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, Article 3 bestowed upon the United States trusteeship of territories south of 29 degrees north latitude including the Okinawan islands, as well as – in the view of Japanese and the American officials – the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands. Prior to the reversion of these territories to Japan in 1971, the PRC’s state-controlled media adopted the same perspective, notwithstanding that both China and Taiwan would challenge the legitimacy of the reversion (neither of the rival claimants to represent the government of China, communist or nationalist, had been invited to the peace conference).

    It is apparent that no existing international agreement clarifies the sovereignty question. The search for a solution, therefore, must focus back on how Japan and China managed the issue following the normalization of their relations in 1972 and why that modus operandi has broken down. In brief, the two countries preferred to let the issue rest in the background so they could get on with more important business. Now, for reasons to do with national pride, a shift in the regional power balance and the exigencies of internal politics, both find it useful to assert their claims and muscle up to each other. Claims of an imminent risk of military conflict, in my opinion, under-estimate the strategic patience of the two old rivals. There are inherent dangers in having patrol vessels shadowing each other in the disputed waters day after day but the situation currently seems to be under control.

    It is instructive, meanwhile, to look back at the preparations for the San Francisco peace conference and find that American officials identified “psychological disadvantages in seeming to fence Japan in” by imposing a continuous line around it. They felt that rigid territorial containment could prove provocative: an interesting perspective in light of the current debate on the best response to a resurgent China. The aspect I wish to stress is the value of ambiguity and flexibility as instruments of statecraft. They were once also the preferred tools of those charged with guiding Sino-Japanese relations. Diplomatic ambiguity, while much maligned, can derive from a commonsense refusal to second-guess the future; it can again serve the interests of all sides much better than the simplistic formulas of hardliners who dress up expediency as principle.

    Those who argue that the treaty planners of 1951 were irresponsible for failing to settle the territorial issue in definitive terms must believe nations will always act according to the prescriptions of previous generations. Patently this is not how the real world operates. China and Japan have changed dramatically since 1951; they have potent weapons, unimaginable back then, for future mutual support or mutual harm. It is beholden on responsible leaders to manage bilateral relations in the light of existing realities, not according to the dusted-off slogans and grievances of the past.

    Walter Hamilton reported from Japan for 11 years. His latest book is Children of the Occupation: Japan’s Untold Story

     

     

     

     

  • The ‘C’ Team vs. the Shadow Cabinet. John Menadue

    Tony Abbott has described the new Rudd Ministry as the ‘C’ team. He is very strong on one-liners, but is there much content behind them?

    Laura Tingle in the Australian Financial Review suggests that the new Rudd team could be a serious election contender because it focuses its strength on the likely key areas in the run-up to the next election. So let’s compare what Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott offer in ministerial talent.

    In Kevin Rudd’s team Anthony Albanese is a proven performer and will be much more effective than Stephen Conroy in making the case for the national broadband network.

    Tony Burke, who successfully negotiated the perilous waters of the Murray Darling Basin Agreement, even though two states still have to sign on. will be more politically savvy in Immigration than his predecessor Brendan O’Connor.

    Chris Bowen proved himself as the Minister for Finance, but his later administration of the Immigration portfolio was anything but successful. He replaces Wayne Swan as Treasurer.

    With the combination of good luck and good management, Wayne Swan can take credit for Australia being one of the most successful economies in the world, particularly through the Global Financial Crisis and its aftermath. Yet he was unable to convey that success story to the Australian public. He did not handle the mining tax well and allowed his commitment to a budget surplus to over shadow the strong performance of the real economy. Despite the government’s achievements in economic management opinion polls consistently showed that the coalition was believed to be a better economic manager.

    Bill Shorten in the Education portfolio can use his undoubted communication skills to explain the government’s policies on improving opportunities for all Australian school children following the Gonski Report.

    Mark Butler, a possible future leader of the ALP takes over the important but politically tricky area of climate change and carbon pricing.

    The big loss to the ministry is Greg Combet.

    Some renovation of the ministry was necessary.  In addition to failure on explaining the case for the NBN Stephen Conroy  failed to get even modest media reform passed in the parliament, This was despite the fact that there was a clear majority in both houses for sensible media reform. Rupert Murdoch and News Limited had so antagonised many members of parliament that reform was not only necessary but possible. Stephen Conroy missed the opportunity.

    Brendan O’Connor made no progress in Immigration and his transfer out of that area was necessary.

    Jason Clare and Kate Lundy promised much on drug reform in sport, but didn’t deliver.

    Joe Ludwig, son of AWU powerbroker Bill Ludwig, has gone completely after the fiasco of the live cattle sales to Indonesia.

    As Laura Tingle suggests, the ministerial changes are explainable in both political and performance terms.

    But what of the shadow cabinet of Tony Abbott? Relying on winning government by default he does not seem to have given much attention to the quality of his team or policy development.

    Clearly Malcolm Turnbull is a very strong performer and the most publicly acceptable face of the Liberal Party. The ALP must be hoping that it is too late for the Liberals to also make a leadership change.

    Joe Hockey, the shadow Treasurer is showing recently a more positive approach.

    Eric Abetz who is Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations has suggested that some asylum seekers should be treated the same way as paedophiles. He led the abortive attack on the OzCar affair and said that opposition to wood chipping was akin to treason.

    Scott Morrison the spokesperson on Immigration told us that asylum seekers are bringing disease and wads of cash. He spent the early part of his career promoting Australia as a wonderful tourist destination but now concentrates on telling people facing persecution what an awful country Australia really is as a safe haven. He dog whistles about the Muslim threat.

    Christopher Pyne the voluble spokesperson on education does not seem to have any policy on education funding.

    Greg Hunt, who is Shadow Minister for Climate Action offers us sketchy policies on direct action and ‘soil magic’ to reduce carbon pollution. Malcolm Turnbull described the party’s environmental platform as ‘crap’ that amounted to ‘an environmental fig leaf to cover a determination to do nothing’.

    Peter Dutton the Shadow Minister for Health is successfully keeping health policy a secret.

    Kevin Andrews in the Howard Government was responsible for the “Haneef affair” which cost Australia a lot in reputation and financial compensation.  He is shadow minister for families, housing and human services.

    Bronwyn Bishop who supported tobacco advertising has responsibility as shadow Special Minister for State and Minister for Seniors. She was suggested some years ago as a future Liberal Party leader along with John Elliott.

    Barnaby Joyce is the Shadow Minister for Regional Development, Local Government and Water. He was criticised by the Governor of the Reserve Bank for suggesting debt default by his own country.

    Then we have Sophie Mirabella, with responsibility for industry, innovation and science. She got her position from Tony Abbott by opposing Malcolm Turnbull on climate change. In announcing his retirement, Tony Windsor said that she was the Member of Parliament he would not miss.

    And then there is George Brandis the shadow Attorney General

    Time will tell but the signs are that the renovated Rudd Cabinet will perform better than a “c” team.

  • Japanese Pacifist Constitution in Danger. Guest blogger: John Woodward

     

    The Japanese pacifist constitution prohibits Japan from waging war. This restriction will be removed if the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has his way. And he is likely to succeed come the 21 July national election for the Upper House of the Japanese Diet (parliament).

    Abe’s government is riding high in polls since his Liberal Democratic Party election win in late December 2012. His government now controls more than 2/3rds of the lower house. After 21 July elections he is likely to have 2/3rds support in the Upper House. On a 2/3rds majority vote in each house the constitution can be amended in the Diet. A majority vote of the Japanese people in a referendum is also required. But the crucial first step for Abe is amending the constitution in the Diet.

    Abe’s goal is to amend Article 9 of the constitution, the pacifist provision. Article 9 proclaims that “the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes”. Abe has avoided amendment specifics.

    Abe’s tactic is first to amend Article 96. It states “amendments to this constitution shall be initiated by the Diet, through a concurring vote of two-thirds or more of all the members of each house and shall thereupon be submitted to the people for ratification, which shall require the affirmative vote of a majority of all votes cast, at a referendum or at special election such as the diet shall specify”. Abe’s first step is to reduce Article 96 requirement to a simple majority in each house – to make it easy to amend the constitution in the Diet in the future.

    Abe can then take the next step to amend Article 9 in the Diet.  On Abe’s agenda is a proposed change to Article 9 to enable Japan to engage in “collective self defence”. Many high placed American defence and former government spokesmen have publicly urged Japan’s engagement in collective self defence. For obvious reasons, it is the United States self interests for Japan to join the US in its wars.

    Japan has resisted to-date based on Article 9. Abe has made reference to the UN when speaking about constitutional amendment. His position will be to argue a collective self defence amendment of Article 9 is in line with the UN charter, Article 51, which affirms the right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a member of the United Nations. But is it a good reason to amend Article 9?

    Media polls are indicating support for constitutional amendment, but it’s far from clear what precise amendments are supported. If a poll question on collective self defence was put to the Japanese people, “Do you want your sons and daughters to fight for America in its wars”, one would expect a resounding no.

    With most media supporting constitutional change, and Abe’s constitutional amendments rammed through the Diet, how will the Japanese people vote? How will they become informed on the implications of amendments? These are the big questions facing the 21 July election and a referendum. At present, a lack of information and debate exists in Japan on these issues.

    John Woodward is an Australian lawyer resident in Japan

     

     

     

     

  • Back from the brink of disaster. John Menadue

     

    Many people and particularly women will be disappointed that our first female Prime Minister has been forced out. She has been most unfairly treated by the media. Things have been said about her by Tony Abbott and others that would not be said about a male Prime Minister.

    But my view is that a change to Kevin Rudd was desirable for several reasons.

    • Under Julia Gillard’s leadership the electoral prospects for the ALP were catastrophic. Tony Abbott’s majority could have been so large that it would take two and possibly three terms to turn it around.
    • The Australian public had stopped listening to Julia Gillard. Even excellent policy was not getting a hearing.
    • There will now be a real choice at the next election that will reassure many people who are genuinely concerned about the prospects of Tony Abbott as our next Prime Minister.
    • Kevin Rudd will be a much more effective opponent of Tony Abbott.

    I said in a blog recently that the ALP was increasingly looking like a suicide cult rather than the most successful political party in Australia’s history. The ALP has turned back from the brink. The ALP caucus has behaved rationally in forcing a change. The 11th hour changes will at least minimize the government’s losses at the next election.

    Kevin Rudd has certainly been a destabilizing influence since he was deposed three years ago by Julia Gillard and others. But it was a litany of her own political mistakes that in the end brought Julia Gillard down.

    • Getting rid of an elected Prime Minister in 2010 was certainly going to cost Julia Gillard a lot in public trust.
    • It was exaggerated, but she broke a promise given explicitly on the carbon tax, although she was not the first Prime Minister to break a promise. We all remember John Howard’s distinction between core and non-core promises. The media hammered her unmercifully over this issue.
    • Together with Wayne Swan she locked the government into an unnecessary commitment to a budget surplus this financial year.
    • She mishandled the announcement of the date of an election and there was confusion over ministerial resignations.
    • But the biggest political mistake in my view was her backing away from the reform of the ramshackle ALP organisational structure. She failed this test of leadership. The reform of the party machine still remains unfinished work.

    Her policy achievements have been considerable.

    • Despite the rage and angst of Tony Abbott, the “hung parliament” has been successful in passing key legislation and giving a voice to Independents and backbenchers. Tony Abbott has been the key figure in attempting to wreck the parliament. I wrote about this in my blog of June 2. In the hung parliament she proved herself a very good negotiator with the Independents.  The Independents were not impressed by Tony Abbott.
    • We have had six years of uninterrupted economic growth, even through the global financial crisis. Partly by good luck and partly by good management, we have one of the best performing economies in the world.
    • Economic growth is strong and inflation and unemployment are low.
    • Net government debt is lower at 12% of GDP than almost any other country. In Japan it is 134%, US 88%, France 84%, UK 83% and NZ 26%.
    • We are building a first class communication system in the NBN.
    • Superannuation is being progressively extended.
    • The National Disability Insurance Scheme and the Gonski Education Reforms will be historic achievements of the Gillard Government.

    The Gillard Government’s problems were overwhelmingly political and of its own making.

    We will have to wait a few days to see what Kevin Rudd does on some key policy issues, particularly on carbon pollution and asylum seekers.

    Hopefully on the latter, he can give us the leadership to move away from fear and xenophobia. It will not be easy with Tony Abbott intent on inciting fear and exaggerating the problem. But I believe Australians will respond to strong moral leadership.

    The key to improved policies for asylum seekers is first to take action in source countries such as Afghanistan and Pakistan to provide alternatives for people facing persecution so they will not have to take dangerous voyages by boat. The second is action with Indonesia and Malaysia, in full and active cooperation with UNHCR, to provide a regional framework for the holding and processing of asylum seekers.

    But whatever we do, desperate people will not necessarily play by our rules. The desperate asylum seekers in Syria for example won’t wait for government policies. They will act to save the lives of themselves and their families.

    The number of refugees in the world is increasing significantly. We must be realistic about that and accept greater responsibility. We cannot retreat into our shell.

    The Gillard Government ran for cover on this issue. Hopefully the Rudd Government will give us humanitarian leadership, even if tinged by some political pragmatism.

  • Taiwan shows the way in health insurance. John Menadue

    I have spoken and written many times about the inefficiency and inequity of the taxpayer subsidy of $3.5 billion annually to the private health insurance funds in Australia. These funds favour the wealthy; enable some people to jump to the top of the hospital queue; they have administrative costs  three times those of Medicare; they weaken Medicare’s ability to control costs and through gap insurance they have facilitated the largest increase in specialists’ fees in a quarter of a century in Australia.

    They have not taken the pressure of public hospitals .In fact they have made it worse by helping private hospitals pay vastly higher salaries to bid specialists away from public hospitals.

    Yet the vested interests and private sector ideologues want to extend PHI and take us down the disastrous US path.

    Taiwan however has shown the best way to go. It is so confident and proud of what it has achieved that it has taken advertisements in the latest edition of Foreign Affairs. Taiwan is about the same size as Australia with a developed capitalist economy.

    The Taiwan Government has consolidated all health insurance into a single payer. The plan has improved the quality of health care with rising life expectancies and falling infant mortality rates. The public rates the success of the Taiwan Health Service at 80%.

    Like all health systems, Taiwan has faced rising costs with new technology, new drugs and ageing, but it has contained costs effectively. Total health expenditure in Taiwan is only 6.5% of GDP, much lower than the median for OECD countries and Australia at 9% of GDP.

    Based on the core principles of equity, quality and efficiency, Taiwan is showing that a single payer is the key to a top-class health service and is the best means to control costs. The worst course for Australia to take would be to encourage the proliferation of taxpayer subsidised PHI funds that fail on both efficiency and equity grounds. But if the PHI industry has its way Medicare will be under threat and we will start journeying down the US path of multiple private health insurance funds that are unable to control costs and ensure equity.

    John Menadue

  • Julia Gillard’s greatest failure. John Menadue

    The Prime Minister’s greatest failure is her refusal to lead the reform of the structure of the ALP.

    That structure is controlled by a handful of faction and union bosses like Paul Howes. In return for protecting their positions, they are now repaying their debt to her by shoring up her precarious position.

    The last ALP federal conference considered a report by Steve Bracks, John Faulkner and Bob Carr for modest party reform. Julia Gillard failed to provide leadership on these reforms and the ALP is now paying a very heavy price.

    The rank-and-file of ALP members are appalled and disillusioned. As John Faulkner put it the ALP is a small party now growing smaller and an old party growing older. In the present impasse the ALP is behaving more like a suicide cult than the most successful political party in Australian history.

    There is only one person who could have broken through the impasse imposed by the self-interested faction bosses. That person was the parliamentary leader of the Australian Labor Party. Only the parliamentary leader has the status and the authority to lead the ALP in structural reform. No-one else can do it.

    In the appalling situation that the ALP faced in the 1960s and the early 1970s, there was only one person who could cajole, persuade and force the ALP machine to act against its own selfish interests. It was Gough Whitlam who stared down the faceless and witless men and forced change. He put his own job on the line on several occasions to overcome the internal opposition. He got rid of the faceless men. He engineered the sacking of the Victorian branch of the ALP that was a dead weight in the ALP organization. A similar sacking of the NSW branch should have occurred in the last twelve months to start restoring the ALP’s parlous position in NSW. But Julia Gillard did not lead the process of structural reform.

    What would be the key elements of a reformed ALP structure? Some of these were canvassed by Bracks, Faulkner and Carr two years ago.

    • An electoral college composed of members of the parliamentary ALP and branch members of each federal electorate council of the ALP to choose the parliamentary leader.
    • Selection of ALP candidates by ALP supporters in each federal electorate registered with the Australian Electoral Commission. Care would need to be exercised to avoid abuse. The present situation is unacceptable whereby only about 100 to 200 ALP members select the federal candidate in each electorate.  There are probably about 40,000 ALP voters in each electorate but their choice is limited by the ability of a hand-full of party members, with the help of branch-stacking from time to time, to choose the candidate.
    • The federal conference of the ALP should consist of a delegate from each federal electorate council in Australia (about 150) plus a lesser number of federal union delegates. The power of the state branches that are controlled by a hand-full of state union officials must be broken. We need a national ALP. At the moment we have a confederation of six state parties

    The existing factional bosses will resist these changes because reform will reduce their power. These bosses are content with a shrinking constituency as long as their own power is retained and entrenched.

    The ramshackle and unreprestative structure of the ALP often reminds me of the Catholic Church. Both need leadership at the top to force change.

    Julia Gillard has failed to lead the reform process in the ALP. She is the only person who had the clout and the status to do so. She has not done so.

  • Beware the debt and deficit trap and the European mistake. John Menadue

     

    The Europeans may at last be breaking free of the debt and deficit trap that has caused so much social and economic damage across Europe. Even the IMF is at last challenging the austerity mindset that took hold in Europe. There is a lesson for Australia in this.

    The Australian Government has allowed itself to be manipulated into a debt and deficit trap set by the Coalition. To head off Coalition and media criticism, it foolishly decided that it must get the budget into surplus this financial year. It succumbed to this pressure despite the fact that Australia does not have a serious debt and deficit problem.

    There is a risk that if the Coalition becomes the Government in September we will have established a mindset that favours austerity. That same austerity mindset has got Europe into a terrible bind with unemployment across Europe at over 11%. Youth unemployment, for people under 25 years of age, is double that general rate. In some countries youth unemployment is appalling – Spain 56%, Portugal 38%, Italy 38% and Cyprus 32%. These levels of unemployment amongst young people not only bring great personal hardship but also present the possibility of major social and political upheaval. At this stage, most of that social and political resentment has been directed against foreign workers, Muslims and outsiders. We have seen it particularly in the UK in recent days with anti Muslim clashes.

    The austerity drive, bringing with it the disillusement of the young is undermining liberal democracy and spawning a whole range of populist, nationalist and neo fascist parties across Europe; the Golden Dawn in Greece, the anarchist Five Star movement in Italy, the anti Arab National Front in France and the europhobic United Kingdom Independence Party.

    A great deal of this push for austerity in Europe has been supported and underwritten by conservative economists.  Rogoff and Reinhart, American economists sold us a bill of goods that once debt exceeded 90% it would trigger major economic collapse. It turned out that Rogoff and Reinhart made some major errors in their methodology, but conservative economists supported them and indulged their political ideology to try and rebut the Keynesian thesis that the boom is the time for austerity and not recession.

    The right wing of the Republican Party in the US joined in the clamour for austerity. Their argument was supported by ideologues who asserted that booms encouraged moral laxity and that it was necessary to ‘purge the rottenness from the system’ as President Herbert Hoover was advised in the lead-up to the Great Depression in the US. That moral judgement is fine for people who have little to lose. But many people suffer badly..

    Tony Abbott and the Coalition have been continually telling us about the perils of debt and deficits. With the Australian economy weakening as the OECD has just warned there is a risk that the Coalition will seek to imitate the austerity drive of the Europeans. That austerity drive has not reduced deficits and it has caused untold personal and social harm.

    There is a clear lesson to be learned from Europe about obsessions with debt and deficits in times of recession or a weakening economy. Beware on the austerity mindset.

     

     

     

  • The Vatican appeals in vain for decency towards refugees. John Menadue

     

    On June 6, the Vatican emphasized that governments protect refugees. It said that the world’s governments must give ‘absolute priority’ to the fundamental rights of refugees.

    Cardinal Veglio who heads the Pontifical Council for Migrants said:

    ‘Protection must be guaranteed to all who live under conditions of forced migration, taking into account their specific means, which can vary from a residency permit for victims of human trafficking to the possibility of being granted citizenship for those who are stateless.’ He added that policies in this area must be ‘guided by the principle of the centrality and dignity of every human person’.

    He spoke with ‘dismay that governments have adopted policies that subject refugees to confined detention, internment in refugee camps and having their travel and their rights to work restricted’. Those comments were not directed specifically to Australia but they apply to almost everything we do to humiliate refugees whether in respect of detention, travel or work rights.

    He referred specifically to the 4 million people who have been driven from their homes by the fighting in Syria.

    Despite the Vatican pleas, Cardinal Pell and Tony Abbott, our Jesuit-trained leader of the coalition, have said nothing in response.

    In Australia we tie ourselves in political knots over 20,000 asylum seekers who come by boat. But countries bordering Syria have opened their borders, hearts and pockets to help desperate people fleeing Syria. The number of “registered” Syrian refugees now stands at 1.6 million. Lebanon has taken 520,000 refugees, Jordan 475,000, Turkey 376,000, Iraq 159,000 and Egypt 79,000. There are also an estimated additional 2 million unregistered refugees. About a quarter of the population of Lebanon are now refugees who have fled Syria.

    The generous hospitality of these relatively poor countries stands in stark contrast to our miserable and selfish hostility to the very small number of people who are in desperate need and come to our borders. Inevitably some of the people spilling out of Syria will come to our shores. On the basis of their rhetoric to date Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison will call them illegals and criminals.

    Last week the UNHCR and 124 other organizations launched the largest humanitarian appeal ever for $US2.9 billion to support Syrian refugees. What a reflection it is on us that in our latest federal budget the Australian government proposes to spend $A2.9 billion on refugee detention services! What a perverse and selfish country we have become!

    The government shows very little leadership on this unfolding human tragedy in Syria and elsewhere. It consults focus groups rather than its own conscience. The coalition sees it as a political opportunity to exploit fear.

    Shame on Australia.

  • What is powering Japan’s foreign policy? Guest blogger Walter Hamilton

     

    Could it be they are handing out “macho pills” at the Japanese Foreign Ministry? Has it become de rigueur for the country’s diplomats to browbeat international forums? Are internal divisions within the ministry about to break out into open policy warfare? 

    There are at present enough straws in the wind to invite these questions.

    The metaphoric “macho pills” might explain the extraordinary outburst by Japan’s Human Rights Ambassador (and former Ambassador to Australia), Hideaki Ueda, during a recent UN committee hearing. He was responding to an African delegate’s criticism of Japan for not allowing lawyers to be present during police interrogations of suspects. As Ueda attempted to explain how his country was among the “most advanced” in this field, there were audible sniggers from unidentified attendees. “Don’t laugh! Why are you laughing?” protested Ueda. “Shut up! Shut up!” (The rant is viewable on YouTube.) Although one may make allowances for the wear-and-tear of spending too much time at UN talkfests, this was an ugly face to bring to a discussion on human rights. It might be best if Mr. Ueda goes off the pills. 

    The “macho pills”, meanwhile, are being crunched like sembei crackers over at the Prime Minister’s Office in Tokyo. When a former head of the Foreign Ministry’s Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, Hitoshi Tanaka, aired his concern in the press about an apparent shift to the right in foreign policy, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe gave him a shellacking on Facebook. Tanaka, he said, was “not qualified” to talk about diplomacy because he had previously shown a gross lack of judgement when handling the delicate issue of Japanese kidnapped to North Korea. Abe did not hesitate to reveal details of government discussions to which had been privy. 

    Reports indicate Abe is about to elevate Akitaka Saiki to the position of Vice Foreign Minister (the ministry’s top bureaucratic role), replacing an appointee who has been in the job only a year. Saiki is another who is well known to Australian diplomats. His elevation will not have been hindered by his previous support for Abe’s tough line on North Korea, a policy area in which Saiki has particular expertise. He is also a former Ambassador to India – a relationship Japan wishes to foster as a counterweight to China. Some reports suggest he takes a hawkish position on the Senkaku/Diaoyu territorial dispute, although that would simply reflect current government policy. The same reports are foreshadowing a larger clean out of positions in the Foreign Ministry to better align policymaking with the views of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. With the vexed question of constitutional change very much in play under the LDP’s leadership, the party and the government will want a unified diplomatic offensive to explain its tampering with the constitution’s pacifist clauses.

    The appearance of a ministry undergoing internal ructions – and of some elements within and without resenting the political whip hand – is becoming more of a spectacle day by day.

     

    Walter Hamilton is a former Tokyo Correspondent for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and the author of  “Children of the Occupation: Japan’s Untold Story”.

  • Our Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, deserves respect. Guest blogger: Chris Geraghty

    The leader of the opposition addressing a protest crowd in Canberra and a team of colleagues all standing in front of a large sign – “DITCH THE WITCH”

    Anthony Abbott continuing to grace the commercial radio station and be softly questioned by the commentator who refers to our prime minister as “JU-LIAR”, or who opined that “they (women) are destroying the place”, or who thought it might be a good idea to put our prime minister in a bag and leave her out at sea, or who had the appalling taste to state publicly at a Liberal Party function, that the prime minister’s recently deceased father had died of shame.

    Have you had a listen to her horrible voice? How long do we have to put up with her terribly Australian drawl? Seen her big bum? And her clothes? As if we haven’t been used to bald politicians, plain to ugly looking male members of parliament, badly dressed, with rasping, scratchy voices – and boring. All of these men able to pass under the radar because they belong to the club. This is what we expect from men – ordinariness. But a female prime minister cannot just be an ordinary member of the human race.

    She was hounded from pillar to post about some supposed and unethical impropriety she had been involved in years ago, as a young female solicitor. Day in and day out. But nothing emerged after all the huffing and puffing, all the digging. No substance to the allegations. No charges laid. Nothing proven. Just smear and innuendos. And in the end, no apology. Everything just left in the air to fester, to resonate with the public.

    A menu prepared for a political fundraising dinner. A menu announcing that the Liberal supporters present, together with Joe Hockey and Mal Brough, would be served “Moroccan Quail – Julia Gillard Kentucky Fried Quail – small breasts, huge thighs and a big red box”.

    Gross and offensive. An insult to any woman. Disgraceful, bad taste.

    And the proprietor of the restaurant, Joe Richards, would have us believe that this was only an in-house, no, an in-kitchen joke, and that the exclusively invited guests did not see the offending menu. The joke was never shared.

    Yes, pull the other one, Joe. The menu was printed just like any other standard menu. It contained other political references and other dishes. We do not yet know the identities of the other guests, what they saw, what they are prepared to say, what they were all served on the night in question. Were there any women on the guest-list, or was it an exclusively male night out? And after a false start, Malcolm Brough pleads ignorance and innocence. But he is not any longer a man who can be trusted after his prevarications about his involvement in the Slipper/Ashby affair. Justice Rares found he was not a trustworthy witness. His reputation for being loose with the truth where his future is involved has gone before him.

    Has any of our former prime ministers, or for that matter, any of our parliamentarians or public figures, been subjected to such abuse and humiliation?

    And now – is our prime minister’s partner gay? After all, it’s obvious. He’s a hair-dresser. What more need be said? I rest my case.

    Do you mind? Are there words to describe the grub who came up with this line of questioning? Has John Howard ever been questioned whether he was having a sexual relationship with his wife, or whether she might be frigid? Or Robert Hawke pressed to provide details of his private endowment? One only has to ask the question to understand how grossly indecent and offensive, how despicable such a line of interrogation really is.

    The whole unraveling scene is outrageous, undignified and clearly misogynistic. Commentators and colleagues of the opposition leader have continually crossed the line with impunity, and entered the world of sleaze. There was a time until quite recently when family and partners, personal beliefs, the private lives of public figures were off limits. No more.

    It is not good enough for Mal or Joe Hockey to claim they didn’t know. We’re not stupid.  Gullible members of the public. Not on your life. Nor is it good enough for the leader of the opposition to piously proclaim that we should all be better, that we should all abide by a higher standard, as if all politicians, on both sides of the divide, have been somehow grouped together with the abusers and offenders. I want Anthony to look Alan Jones, Malcolm Thomas Brough and the others right in the face and say – “You’re got to be better. You’re a grub, a low life. You are a disgrace. You offend my basic sense of what is right and proper. Until you can prove yourself better, much better that you are, I don’t want to be associated with you.”

    And don’t try and tell me that all this started when our prime minister promised not to tax carbon pollution and then, after establishing a stable minority government, broke her promise.

    The beginning of this descent into the gutter was when she was wrongfully, consistently accused by Anthony and his colleagues, of lying, just as they wrongfully persist in describing the boat people as “illegal” arrivals. The oppositional antiphon was taken up and enthusiastically chanted by the shock-jocks and peddlers of one-liners, and the untruth spread throughout the community at large.

    To accuse the prime minister of lying was nothing but a cynical distortion of the truth – in short, a lie. Abbott knew her broken promise was not a lie, yet he continued to proclaim the message. Unethical. Immoral behavior. He had studied moral theology in the seminary. He had attended Catholic schools, the nuns and the Jesuits. He had learnt his catechism. He knew what constituted a lie. One does not have to be an Einstein to know what a lie is. It’s wrong.  A sin. Saying something which, at the time you say it, you know to be false. Knowingly saying something which is untrue – that’s what a lie is.

    Our prime minister did not lie. She broke a promise, a promise which, in hindsight, she shouldn’t have made. But politicians do that often, and will continue to do so. Sometimes it is the only responsible thing to do.

    Julia Gillard, while working in a minority government for the welfare of the nation, has been the object of constant and vicious abuse, heaped on her like no other before her. How about a focus on policy, on substance, on the common good and a fair-go for all, on the Australian community and its future – on Gonski and education, on the NBN, the National Disability Insurance Scheme, the scourge of gambling, on refugees and their honourable treatment, on jobs and the economy, on a proper taxation regime, balanced and fair, on regulation of the mass media to make it more responsible and sensitive to the truth. Let’s lift our game out of the gutter, give our prime minister the credit and the respect she deserves, insist on the truth being spoken and reported, the whole truth and not just the trite one-liners, ignore the smartly crafted but empty slogans and begin to reflect on who can we entrust the future of our country to. Get the bottom-feeders out of Parliament, off the radio, out of the newspapers and the army and give us all a blast of clean air.

    As for me, the recent events have only gone to demonstrate how strong and classy our prime minister really is.

    Chris Geraghty

  • Are we serious about Asia? Guest blogger: Steve FitzGerald

    In my blog ‘On smoko’ of  2 April 2013 I again raised the issue of Australia’s continuing failure to equip itself for our future in Asia. I asked whether we would go on smoko again, as we had following the Garnaut Report of 1989. Professor Steve FitzGerald responded to this blog with some comments. I thought it would be useful to highlight again what he has said about the recently announced Asian Century Strategic Advisory Board. Incidentally, I was in touch with the Implementation Secretariat of the Asian Century Strategic Advisory Board on 5 April 2013. I asked how many of the Advisory Board can fluently speak an Asian language and their names. I am still waiting for a reply. Steve FitzGerald who was previously Australian Ambassador to China, wrote as follows:

    Smoko’s right! When you look at the recently announced Asian Century Strategic Advisory Board ( http://asiancentury.dpmc.gov.au/about/board), you have to wonder if they even understand what they are talking about.

    Why is there no one from Asia on the Board? Peter Varghese’s ancestry is Asian, and we should be pleased he’s there because he’s very bright and also independent-minded, but he’s there because he’s ex officio as the Australian head of DFAT. There are dozens of people in Asia who know Australia and would like to see it truly engage with the region, who are prepared to cast a critical eye over our endeavours and to be very frank in close quarters discussion. Kishore Mahbubani or George Yeo in Singapore for example. Or Dewi Fortuna Anwar in indonesia. The composition of the Board reflects a sadly insular thinking. Its discussion and advice can only be like listening to your own voice. I don’t see how you can be dinkum about engaging with Asia if you don’t include people from Asia in the strategic body that’s supposed to guide the way you do the engagement. Did it simply not occur to them? And if that was beyond their ken, surely there ought to have been some Australian Asians, to reflect the contemporary Australian demographic and show genuineness in their intent.

    What about the Board Members who are there? Apart from Peter Drysdale, where are the other seasoned Asianists who have studied and have deep knowledge and experience of the region? Where are the intellectuals (if that’s not too dirty a word) who’ve spent years thinking about these issues? Where are the people who’ve been working on the frontline of education and understand why so many attempts to put Asian languages and studies into the mainstream of schools and universities have failed? Why not some of the people from Asialink who did studies on the state of Indonesian, Japanese and Chinese studies a few years ago? Or someone like Colin Mackerras, who’s been round this track so many times he could save them fifty meetings on the subject and as many information papers? I know it’s not all about languages and studies, but just as an engineer can’t design a bridge without basic training and all the knowledge that’s gone into that training, so also you can’t design a total strategy for Asia without the equivalent in training, skills and knowledge on the part of the designers. Or what about Hugh White, strategic and defence expert yet one who in 2011 came up with the most innovative proposal for Australia’s Asian language learning challenge we’ve seen in a generation? Why not a couple of our high-ranking recently retired diplomats, who know so much more about Asia and what the engagement demands of us than just how to count the money? And what about young people? For example from among young Asian specialists in academia, or one of those who has studied an Asian language and done all the right things and can’t get a job that uses their skills, or one of the young Asian Australians who see this all from a different perspective? These are the ones who will live through the Asian century and have to live with whatever we make of it now, or don’t.

    Smoko anyone? Let’s just roll our own.

  • Doctors scared Maggie Thatcher. John Menadue

    Excuse me for dropping names but at a round table discussion with Maggie Thatcher in the late 1980s that I attended in Sydney she was asked “Now that you have fixed the work practices of the miners and the printers in the United Kingdom what are you going to do about the restrictive work practices of the doctors?” She replied. “I will leave that to the last session in my last term as Prime Minister” She never got around to it. And neither have we in Australia.

    The politically partisan Business Council of Australia has been campaigning for increased productivity through labour market reform. But it does not mention the health sector which has the most archaic work practices in the country.  They are a major economic burden and cost.  Based on Productivity Commission figures six years ago I estimated that workforce reform could save $3b per annum. I think that is a very conservative estimate.

    The Health sector is rife with demarcations and restrictive work practices. The waterfront 20 years ago was a model of efficiency compared with the work practices today in the health sector. Health is our largest industry, with about 600,000 employees or 7% of our civilian workforce. About two thirds of health expenditure is labour cost. More efficient workforce practices are essential. The problems arise not because of individual failure, but because of unwillingness to address the structural inefficiencies. Archaic work practices deny career opportunities, particularly for nurses and allied health workers.

    We need role-renewal and the creation of new types of health workers. We need up-skilling, multi-skilling, broad-banding and teamwork. Blue-collar workers have been fair game for workforce reform, but not professionals in health and the law. By comparison with countries like New Zealand, Canada, USA and the UK, we don’t have so much a shortage of doctors but a refusal of doctors to allow other qualified people to share their territory. The specialist colleges protect their territory in the name of quality of care. Only about 10% of normal births in Australia are delivered by midwives and 90% by obstetricians. In the UK midwives deliver 50% and in New Zealand it is 90%. We have only a few hundred nurse practitioners when we should have thousands. Many specialists treat public hospitals like a cottage industry in 19th Century England, coming and going at their convenience.

    Former Health Minister Nicola Roxon has shown that the Medical Benefit Schedule can be a lever to promote workforce changes. She commendably pushed the door slightly open for midwives and nurse practitioners. But the opportunities for much wider reform are enormous, There is a whole range of necessary changes e.g. nurses undertaking greater responsibility for prescribing, diagnosis and triage in hospitals, nurse anaesthetist complementing and  substituting for medically qualified anaesthetists, assistants in almost all specialist disciplines, enrolled nurses taking on some of the tasks presently performed by registered nurses, midwives substituting for obstetricians, practise nurses undertaking some of the work currently performed by GP’s. Pharmacies should provide basic health care as well as being shop keepers dolling out drugs. What about a nurse practioners in many of our 5000 community pharmacies? What about assistant physicians?  The highly skilled and experienced ambulance officers should be fully integrated into health services and expand their role. Why can’t they make home visits as they do in France?

    Many doctors but not all will resist in order protecting their territory. That resistance will be all in the name of patient safety

    There have been numerous enquiries on workforce reform including by the Productivity Commission and COAG but little progress has been made.

    There are enormous dividends in patient care and reduced costs in a thorough overhaul and change in work practices in health in Australia. The opposition will come from powerful providers as Maggie Thatcher knew very well.

    John Menadue

     

  • How about it Gina and Twiggy? John Menadue

    Since 1904 the brightest and best of young Australians have been winning Rhodes Scholarships to study at Oxford. Winners have included prime ministers, political leaders, a governor general, a Nobel Prize winner and high court judges.

    How about funding a substantial foundation to provide for the brightest and best of young Australians to study at the best universities in Asia – Tokyo, Beijing, Seoul, Hong Kong, Singapore and elsewhere.

    Your companies have been very profitable in exporting Australian owned ores to Asia. Your business futures and indeed Australia’s future is tied to Asia. But we lack the skills and understanding for the future in our region.  Rhodes-type scholarships for our region would be an enormous step forward.

    I am not aware of any of our major companies, including our mining companies, who have board members or senior executives who can speak any of the major languages of our region or have much experience of living and working in Asia. Business, like most institutions in Australia, is UK and US centric.

    We need to do much better in Asia. We need to change and our mining and resource company leaders could make a substantial contribution to making it happen.

    Last month a private US Equity firm, the Blackstone Group, made an historic announcement. Stephen Schwarzman from Blackstone announced in Beijing that a group of US companies were establishing a $US300 million scholarship for study in China. Schwarzman said that he hopes the new scholarship will rival the Rhodes scholarship in prestige and influence. The scholarship will pay all expenses for 200 students each year from around the world for a one-year Masters program at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

    Schwarzman has made a $US100 million private donation and is supported by major companies with interests in China – Boeing, Caterpillar, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Credit Suisse and the Bloomberg Foundation. Its advisory board includes Kevin Rudd, Condolezza Rice, Colin Powell, Henry Kissinger, Robert Ruben, Henry Paulsen and Yo Yo Ma.

    Surely Gina and Twiggy can persuade other business colleagues of theirs to set up a memorable scholarship for our future in Asia and for our young people.

  • Walter Hamilton. Australia – still a colonial relic in Japan.

    The two greatest calamities to befall the people of Tokyo in modern times were the September 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake and the March 1945 firebombing by American B-29s. In each case, many tens of thousands perished within a matter of hours.

     

    In Sumida ward, a working class area in the east of the city that suffered grievously on both occasions, a large Buddhist-style memorial hall, the Tokyo Irei-do (erected in 1930; rebuilt in 1951), links these two events – as though the whirlwind reaped by Japan in the Second World War was itself an act of God.

     

    Nearby is a museum that preserves relics of the earthquake destruction: stopped clocks, fused glassware, that sort of thing. Entry is free, and the day I visited a sprinkling of Japanese visitors were making their way solemnly past the exhibits.

     

    The museum is dimly lit and badly in need of refurbishment; there are myriad ways the objects could be better displayed and explained. But nothing about the Japanese treatment of history surprises me any more. Whether it is the glib denials of conservative politicians and media commentators or the whitewashed phrases of certain school textbooks – history is one of the most elusive and vulnerable commodities in contemporary Japan.

     

    As I wandered through the museum I came upon a large wall chart illustrating the foreign relief aid provided in the wake of the 1923 disaster. I happened to have recently researched this subject and discovered that the £75,000 ($5.4 million in today’s money) pledged by Australians in private donations ranked them, per capita, among the most forthcoming in the world. Their “spontaneous sympathy and generous aid” was applauded by such as the leader of the Japanese delegation to the Pan-Pacific Science Congress, which was meeting in Sydney at the time.

     

    I examined the wall chart with a sense of anticipation. The donated sums were shown as coloured columns rising above the countries named: Mexico, Panama, Peru, Sweden… My eye ran along the line. No Australia. How could it possibly be missing? Then I realized that the Australian contribution must have been absorbed within the sum assigned to “Britain and her possessions.” Alas, I reasoned, the fact Australia had been a sovereign nation for two decades had not penetrated all levels of Japanese officialdom by 1923. Wrong again. At the bottom of the chart was the date it was made: August 1958.

     

    While a small lacuna in the historical scheme of things, what are we to make of the fact that in 2013 Australia remains – in this Japanese memory at least – a “British possession”? It is surely a reminder that Australia continues to be perceived as culturally derivative and, to some extent, not quite authentic or sovereign. We may console ourselves with the thought that this old idea is suitably place among an ill-kempt collection of museum pieces. But, as we strive to confront the challenges of the “Asian century,” it is still a shock and a disappointment to find the stubborn anachronism on display at all.

  • The Miners’ Lament. John Menadue

    It is only a matter of time before the miners start lamenting that they did not seriously negotiate with Kevin Rudd over his Resources Super Profits Tax (RSPT).

    The mining industry has always favoured rent/profit taxes instead of royalties. What the mining industry really disagreed with was the rate of the Resources Super Profits Tax.

    The GST Distribution Review Report of October 2012 said the following.

    “Well designed rent-based taxes are likely to be more economically efficient than royalties, particularly in periods of low commodity prices or high costs. . .Other factors, such as the size, variability and timing of the return received by government, as well as administration and compliance costs, are also important considerations when choosing between alternative resource charging regimes. .. The commonwealth’s design of the Mineral Resources Rent Tax [MRRT] and the Petroleum Resources Rent Tax [PRRT] has created an opportunity for states to seek to increase their revenues at the expense of the commonwealth – an undesirable and unsustainable situation, which needs to be resolved.”

    Consider the ways that the mining industry now faces problems because of its failure to embrace the RSPT.

    • As the world economy and particularly China slows, export prices for Australian minerals are falling. The GST Review report mentioned above notes that since May 2012 “the spot prices for iron ore and … coal have fallen between 15% and 33%.” This trend has continued. There will be an increase in the production volume because of the increased capacity that the miners have installed. Because of this the miners are caught in a double whammy- export prices are falling which which will reduce income, but through an increased volume and value of sales there will be increases in royalties.
    • With the states squeezed for revenue, they will look increasingly to mining royalties to help their budgets. These increases in royalties are well under way. The royalty take of the states has increased five-fold from about $2 billion p.a. in the early 2000s. These royalty increases are likely to continue.
    • A lot of the recent high profits of the mining companies have ended up in dubious investments that are now being written off. Rio Tinto alone has written off $US35 billion since 2007 with more to come. BHP has also written off substantial investments. The high profits of the miners that were not effectively taxed also resulted in wage and cost blow outs that the miners will now have to wind back. Many of the large resource projects are de unionized. Yet that is where the big wages/cost blowouts have occurred. Managers must bear the responsibility. If they had been paying a super profits tax in the boom years, they may have been much more prudent. Some must have thought they were dealing in monopoly money.
    • An important part of the Henry RSPT package was that in return for the super profits tax on miners in boom times, there would be a reduction in the company tax rate to 25%. All businesses, including the miners, have missed out on this and continue to pay at the rate of 30%.

    The miner’s “victory” is likely to prove pyrrhic. At some point, they will have to return to   the table and negotiate tax changes.  Hopefully the federal government will handle it much better next time. All the key players will need to be involved.

    • The commonwealth government, which has a pre-eminent role in revenue raising on behalf of the community.
    • The state governments who depend heavily on mining royalties.
    • The mining industry that supplies the capital and expertise, and
    • The community which is the owner of the minerals and has a legitimate interest in ensuring that the whole community benefits over the long term from the extraction of its resources.

    .

    A recent Deloittes-Access report to the Mining Council of Australia which can be found online pointed out that because of falling commodity prices the mining sector would have done better under Kevin Rudd’s RSPT than under the present bowdlerised tax, the MRRT. The report said

    “Our analysis finds that the first two quarters of 2012-13 were indeed ‘bad times’. A slow-down in China hit commodity prices for six. That’s why the MRRT raised only $126 million over this period. However, had the RSPT been in operation, we estimate it would have generated negative net revenue of the order of $0.9 billion.”

    The miners seem to have already kicked an ‘own goal’. In the period mentioned by Deloittes they would have been better off under Kevin Rudd’s Resources Super Profits Tax.

    If commodity prices keep falling and the ineffient state royalties keep rising the miners may need to start praying for the Resource Super Profits Tax. What a tasty dish!

  • Was the ‘hung parliament’ all that bad? John Menadue

    We have been told many times since the 2010 election that the hung parliament was an abomination, it wouldn’t work and that it wouldn’t last. Denied government after the last election, the Coalition tried to make the government as well as the parliament as unworkable as possible. Paul Keating put it more colourfully “If Tony Abbott doesn’t get his way, he sets about wrecking the joint”.

    But here we are almost three years later with the parliament seeing out its full term.

    It hasn’t such a bad record as the Jeremiahs said. Let’s look first at some achievements.

    The establishment of the Parliamentary Budget Office was a major change. We will hear more about it during the election campaign. It will provide independent advice to the whole parliament, including the opposition, which was never available before on key budget issues. For a long time executive government, supported by a disciplined party system, has dominated the parliament. The information the parliament and we received was largely determined by the government. Rolling back domination of the parliament by the executive will be an important achievement. Hopefully the PBO is just a start in that process.

    There were many legislative achievements and I believe that the carbon tax was one despite the violence of the language and the opposition. Changes to the present carbon tax arrangements will be necessary but the carbon tax remains the best and most efficient way of reducing carbon pollution and global warming leading hopefully to an emissions trading scheme.

    For decades the tobacco lobby has brought great harm to hundreds of millions of people around the world. The plain packaging of cigarettes show that Australia is a world leader in rolling back the damage of tobacco.

    The National Disability Insurance Scheme may rank with Medibank and Medicare as one of the most important social reforms of the last 40 years.

    There was also the Murray Darling Basin Plan, paid personal leave and hopefully, the Gonski reforms even though they will be a paler version than what Gonski intended.

    The NBN has opened the way for a fast, world leading 21st century communications system.

    All the appropriation bills have been passed, which has helped Australia achieve one of the best performing economies in the world. In 2011 and 2012, 199 and 195 Bills were passed by the House of Representatives. Apart from 2009 this was the highest number since 1997 and above the annual average of 184.This was achieved despite the Gillard Government not having a majority in the House or the Senate

    In 2011 23 private member bills were presented, with the same again in 2012.The average number of such bills since Federation is four per year. 30% of all legislation was amended through negotiations between the Government the Independents and the Greens. The Independents, and particularly Tony Windsor and Robb Oakeshott performed with good sense and responsibility despite the vitriol often heaped on them.

    There were clearly some downsides.

    • The House of Representatives was often disorganised and with intimidatory language. Both parties have responsibility for that but the provocation in my view was mainly by the coalition. It was determined to prove that the parliament was unworkable and that the Government was illegitimate.
    • There were three Speakers. Not all performed creditably.
    • The shadow of Craig Thompson hung over the parliament but he is still there!
    • The mining tax was a mess.

    All in all I think the evidence is that the ‘hung parliament’ performed quite well in the circumstances. It has survived almost three years with considerable achievements to its credit.

    The next election is unlikely to produce a hung parliament. But I wouldn’t be disturbed if it did.

     

  • Catholic Health still leaves the impression that it wants to destroy Medicare. Joint Blog: John Menadue and Ian McAuley

    On Mar 14 John Menadue wrote, on this blog site “Does Catholic really want to destroy Medicare”.  Martin Laverty responded on 29 May.

    This is a further response by Ian McAuley and John Menadue. Together we have written many joint articles on health policy. See publish.pearlsandirritations.com.

    Catholic Health’s response through Martin Laverty identifies two problems with our present health care funding – inequities in health delivery and outcomes, and fragmentation of funding and care between Commonwealth and State Governments.

    Catholics Health’s proposed solutions to the two problems  are well off the mark, however, and their response – tailored health plans for the most disadvantaged and adoption of “Medicare Select” does not address the core issue identified in the original article “Does Catholic Health really want destroy Medicare?”  The core issue is avoided in the Catholic Health response. That issue is that if the 50% of Australians who have private health insurance took up the option under Medicare Select to transfer their $30 billion  plus entitlements  per annum in Medicare to their private health insurance it would be goodnight Medicare There is no doubt about it. Even a withdrawal of a lesser amount would still be crippling.

    It is understandable that Catholic Health should be concerned with the most disadvantaged. Martin Laverty must be well aware of what has happened in the USA, where hospitals under the umbrella of the Catholic Church, such as those nominally operated by the Sisters of Mercy, have become big profit-making enterprises with little if any connection to their original mission. http://livingwithmcl.com/BitterPill.pdf

    But turning over Catholic hospitals and other facilities to provide care for the “most disadvantaged” www.theage.com.au/national/catholic-health-plan-for-disadvantaged-20090818-ep4u.html is fraught with the curse of unintended consequences.

    There is an obvious appeal in directing such services to those most in need, but a system  reserved for the poor, or the “indigent” to use the US term, degenerates into a charity ward system. Catholic hospitals would become the hospitals for “losers”, for those without voice, and without the political influence to pressure governments to provide public facilities and public funding for all. The poorly funded US “Medicaid” provides a strong lesson we should heed.

    Whatever our means, we can all retain our dignity when we come through the same door to the same hospital or clinic.  There is merit, also if we pay for those facilities according to our means. Means-tested co-payments are a far more dignified way of achieving equity than provision of separate facilities. Perhaps Catholic Health can take guidance from Pope Benedict’s encyclical letter Caritas in Veritae  http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20090629_caritas-in-veritate_en.html  which stresses the virtue of civic solidarity, rather than segregation of society along a division between a supposedly self-reliant class and an indigent underclass.

    We have examined Medicare Select each way and every way and are still at a loss to understand Catholic Health’s enthusiasm for it – a proposal which has far more to do with entrenching high-cost financial intermediaries in the health system than with providing care or meaningful choice.  As stressed in  the original article of May14, it involves churning funds once through the tax system and then again through private insurers, offering “choice” when we have hardly any idea what our future health care needs will be.

    There is a strange contradiction in Catholic Health’s argument. It puts the case for a single funder – a strong case in our opinion – and then in an unexplained twist uses it to support a proposal where funding would pass through a plethora of financial intermediaries.

    The problem with Medicare Select is not that it’s “too radical” as suggested by Martin Laverty. Rather, it builds on a method of health-care funding, private insurance, that has demonstrably failed to contain costs and is inequitable. Just look at the disaster in the US.

    In defence of Medicare Select, Catholic Health refers to the Netherlands system, which, it is claimed, is operating successfully. The “success” of the Netherlands system has become an article of faith among those who see every retreat from public funding a success, regardless of the outcome.

    In fact, since the Netherlands compulsory private insurance system was introduced in 2006, health care expenditure has risen sharply – from 9.7 per cent of GDP in 2006 to 12.0 per cent of GDP in 2010 (the Netherlands Government is yet to provide later figures to the OECD). http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/social-issues-migration-health/total-expenditure-on-health_20758480-table1.  That’s the second-highest in the OECD – only the USA, where private insurance has had a longer period to wreak its damage, is expenditure higher, at 17.6 per cent of GDP.  To put Netherlands’ rise into perspective, if our health expenditure were to rise by 2.3 per cent of GDP we would be outlaying another $35 billion a year. That would be a high price to pay for expanded overheads and a dubious “choice”.

    Evaluations of Netherlands post “reform” health care arrangements point to anything but success. An evaluation published in the Journal of Health Politics and Law found opposition from both the public and health care providers, a failure by insurers to negotiate with providers (a common problem when providers can play off insurers against one another), and poor profitability among insurers, even though their premiums were rising steeply.  Another evaluation in the same journal found that while the new private insurance model offered more choice of insurers, the former Bismarkian system, to which 60 per cent of Dutch had belonged, offered more choice of providers. Kieke Okma of Leuven Catholic University says of the “reforms”:

    Originally presented as a means to help contain costs, the government now seems to see competition in health care as a goal by itself. While earlier reform documents emphasize goals like improved quality of care, innovation, efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and patient satisfaction, those elements receive less attention as competition has taken the front seat.

    If Catholic Health is seeking a European model of health care, it may turn its attention to Sweden, a country with strong traditions of Christianity and social solidarity, where the right-leaning Government has now wisely maintained the government as the single health insurer, but has introduced compulsory (and uninsurable) patient co-payments, and has encouraged the private sector to expand into service provision, including operation of private hospitals.

    It’s not hard to see our Catholic hospitals fitting into such a model – a model which would secure their strong role in the community, and allow them to provide their distinctive services – not just to those who can afford private insurance, as is the case now, and not just to the poor, as is their other vision, but to all Australians

    But Martin Laverty proposes something fundamentally different. Does the Stewardship Board of Catholic Health really want to go down the path he proposes?

    John Menadue and Ian McAuley

    References (not available on line)

    Pauline Vaillancourt Rosenau, University of Texas, Houston and Christiaan J. Lako, Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands “An Experiment with Regulated Competition and Individual Mandates for Universal Health Care: The New Dutch Health Insurance System” Journal of Health Politics and Law  Vol. 33, No. 6, December 2008

     

    Kieke G. H. Okma, Catholic University, Leuven, and New York University “Learning and Mislearning across Borders: What Can We (Not) Learn from the 2006 Health Care Reform in the Netherlands?” Commentary on Rosenau and Lako Journal of Health Politics and Law Vol. 33, No. 6, December 2008

     

    The Economist (Schumpeter column) “A hospital case: Sweden is leading the world in allowing private companies to run public institutions” The Economist 18 May 2013

  • Fear and Trust. Guest blogger: Michael Kelly SJ

    It was Arthur Augustus Calwell, Federal Leader of the Australian Labor Party before Gough Whitlam, who believed that fear was the most potent political weapon. He ought to know: he lost three elections because of it.

    The political correlative to fear is another emotion – the appeal to “trust me”. Creating or eroding trust is the common task and challenge of individuals and institutions in Australia, home to the most testing and suspicious populace in the world.

    It’s a tried and tested tactic in Australian public life – Paul Keating in his attack on Fight Back; the way the ACTU got Work Choices to be the millstone around the Howard Government’s neck; the mining companies on the profits tax; and Tony Abbott’s campaigns on asylum seekers coming by boat whom he still calls “illegals”.

    Maybe it’s our convict origins or the Irish instinct to bring everyone down to size or just the inherently secular nature of life in Australia where no orthodoxy has sway or hierarchy prevails.

    But individuals and institutions in Australia aren’t granted or allowed to assume trust and credibility simply in virtue of their office or proposed function. Australians are and always have been suspicious of authority and pretentions to it. Trust and credibility have to be earned.

    As we move into electioneering mode in the lead up to September, it will again become clear that politics is more about emotion and perception than it is about platforms and policies. That’s why trust and fear are so important to register and gauge, to recognize and manage.

    And so, as the litany of bungled policy initiatives and dumb promises about budget surpluses add to the popular suspicion that the Gillard Government is illegitimate – getting there only through back room deals among Labor politicians that showed scant regard for any popular mandate – the correlative emerges from the Coalition.

    “Trust me” because we won’t do anything stupid. We’ll develop a White Paper on the Carbon Tax before doing anything; we’ll get the Productivity Commission to review industrial relations before acting; we’ll review the GST with the States and have an external review of Treasury see why they got revenue predictions so wrong; and, the old chestnut, we’ll get an external audit of all government programs.

    The potent weapons of fear and trust can operate in at least two ways: use by agents and political practitioners to prosper their advancement and the demolition of their opponents or they can end up backfiring on the proponents and practitioners who first deployed them. And the play is already underway in Australia as can be seen in accusations of “unworthiness for office” because of past abuse of trust.

    Or so it seems to be going with appeals to trust him by Tony Abbott and accusations of untrustworthiness levelled at Julia Gillard. Trust and fear are rich currency for politicians to trade in, but it’s one where they can’t control the exchange rate.

    What is so important about registering the use and abuse of trust and fear is to recognise what it does to us, the electorate. Someone might invite us to trust, for example. But no one can claim to be trusted until others entrust themselves to you. The essence of trust, and fear for that matter, is that they are relational experiences.

    Political power and its legitimacy are essentially social because they only occur when I and we entrust ourselves, our prospects and our fortunes to those people inviting the trust.

    Australians have good reasons for suspecting politicians’ promises – from John Howard’s promise not to introduce a GST to Julia Gillard’s promise not to introduce a carbon tax.

    Long before Shakespeare adopted the phrase, we were all well advised to take a long spoon to sup with the Devil. Appeals to trust and accusations of untrustworthiness unlock the most ambivalent human energies from hope and expectation to contempt and despising.

    While we all should follow the warning of buyer beware, politicians, indeed all office holders, should take note too.

    Michael Kelly SJ

  • Asylum seekers and refugees – political slogans or humanitarian policies? John Menadue

    Australia has a proud record in accepting 750,000 refugees since WWII. But the mood has now turned sour. It is so easy for unscrupulous politicians to exploit fear of the foreigner. It is paying off politically. We no longer ‘welcome the stranger’.

    The continually repeated slogan ‘stop the boats’ is with us almost every day. One line slogans don’t make up a coherent policy. We need to look at the facts behind the empty slogans.

    •  In 2012 the US had 82 000 asylum claimants. In Germany it was 64 000, in France 55 000, in Sweden 44 000 and in Australia 16 000. In the same year refugee numbers in major receiving countries were Pakistan 1.7m, Iran 890 000, Syria 755 000, Germany 577 000 and Kenya 566 000. In Australia we had 23 000. refugees.
    • Asylum and refugee flows are driven by “push” factors, persecution and war in such countries as Iraq, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Syria. Deterrent policies in receiving countries have little effect.
    • Over the last 10 years more than 70% of asylum seekers to Australia have come by air and not by boat. What is important is the total numbers of asylum seekers not their mode of arrival. But all the public debate is about boat arrivals. Perhaps it can appear scarier! We hardly lock up any asylum seekers that come by air. They live in the community and can usually work. They have a success rate in refugee determination of just over 40%.
    • Boat arrivals are locked up and subsequently, and very slowly, released into the community. They have a refugee determination success rate of over 90%, but the government will not allow them to work when released into the community. The Coalition will deny review rights in refugee determination to boat arrivals but not air arrivals.
    • The Coalition has demonised boat arrivals as “illegals”, when they are not, they bring disease, and they carry “wads of cash” and introduce crime into Australia.
    • The Coalition has ‘dog whistled’ that most refugees are Muslims. In fact, in 2010 and 2011 26% and 42% respectively were Muslim. In those same years Christians represented 51% and 34% of refugees accepted into Australia. The number of Christians fleeing the middle-east, particularly from Syria and Egypt, is likely to increase in the years ahead because of persecution and war.  The Middle East, the birth place of Christ is squeezing out its Christian populations.
    • The Coalition has said that it will re-introduce its Pacific Solution.  That ‘solution’ has three elements.
      • Re-open Nauru despite warnings by the Department of Immigration that Nauru would not work again.as asylum seekers had learned very clearly from the Howard years that even if they were sent to Nauru they would, after a delay, finish up in Australia or New Zealand. 97 % of persons on Nauru who were found to be refugees came to Australia and New Zealand. The Government foolishly adopted this Coalition policy.   Since August last year when the Nauru/Manus option and the no-advantage test were adopted, the number of boat arrivals to Australia has increased.  Nauru/Manus is not only cruel. It is not working to deter boat arrivals…
      • The re-introduction of Temporary Protection Visas. The evidence from the Howard years is that despite the introduction of TPVs, boat arrivals increased in the years following their introduction. More people got on boats after TPV’s were introduced with over 6000 coming in 2001 All but 3% of TPV holders obtained refugee status. Further, TPVs which denied family reunion resulted in more women and children coming by boat. That is why when SIEVX was lost at sea in 2001, 82% of the 353 people who drowned were women and children.
      • Turn-backs at sea. Both the Indonesian Government and the Royal Australian Navy have warned against this. In 1979 when a similar policy was proposed, Malcolm Fraser rejected it because it would make Australia a ‘pariah’ in our region. Threatened with turn-backs desperate people are likely to scuttle their vessels. It is also dangerous for RAN personnel. Furthermore, returning boat-people to Indonesia would be returning them to a country which has not signed the Refugee Convention.
      • The Coalition claims that its ‘Pacific Solution’ will work. The evidence is clear that it won’t. It will also be dangerous and cruel.

    What should be the key elements of a humanitarian policy?

    • Increase the humanitarian intake to 20,000 p.a. which the Government has announced. The Coalition has declined to do so.
    • Abolish mandatory detention except for processing purposes and to check safety and health. No country in the world has mandatory detention the way we do. It is not working and is ridiculously expensive. Next year the total cost of detention related services and off shore asylum seeker management will be $2.97b. Both the Government and the Coalition agree on mandatory detention. Fortunately the Government is cautiously releasing detained persons into the community on bridging visas whilst their refugee claims are being assessed. The Government seems ashamed even when its policies are on the right track because of fear of a populist backlash.
    • Minimising Nauru/Manus by urgently working with Indonesia and UNHCR to establish a UNHCR processing centre in Indonesia.
    • Re-negotiate with the Malaysian Government in cooperation with the UNHCR for the temporary protection and processing of asylum seekers in Malaysia. UNHCR will cooperate with us on Malaysia but not on Nauru/Manus. The Greens have cooperated with the Coalition to defeat legislation that would allow Malaysia to be an important building block in a regional framework. They continually trash Malaysia which is doing more to assist asylum seekers and refugees than we are
    • A regional framework is what we need most of all and Indonesia and Malaysia are the key countries.
    • Negotiate Orderly Departure Arrangements with Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Pakistan to process asylum seekers in their own countries, many of whom have family in Australia. This provides an alternative to risking their lives at sea. We negotiated an ODA with Vietnam in 1983. Over 100,000 Vietnamese came to Australia under this arrangement. They did not have to risk their lives at sea.

    The government has failed in many respects.

    • It has failed to outline and promote a principled and humanitarian case for asylum seekers and refugees. Unfortunately the Government listens to focus groups rather than its own conscience. Malcolm Fraser showed that it could be done with the 150 000 Indo Chinese refugees who were settled in Australia. Another 100 000 came in family reunion. To be fair Malcolm Fraser was lucky to have Gough Whitlam and Bill Hayden as Opposition leaders who both broadly supported the refugee programmes. Julia Gillard is not so lucky. She has Tony Abbott grabbing every opportunity to exploit xenophobia. He is following John Howard who started us down this slippery slope- Tampa, children overboard and Nauru.
    • It succumbed to the nonsense from the opposition in re-opening Nauru/Manus.
    • It has been slow to introduce ODAs and cooperate with Indonesia to establish a processing centre in that country.
    • It has excised the Australian mainland from our migration zone which surely must be a gross breach of the spirit if not the letter of the Refugee Convention. This action not only diminishes Australia physically, it diminishes us morally.
    • Refusing to let asylum seekers on bridging visas in the community the right to work. How can a Labor Government which had at its core the right to work do this to vulnerable people! They will be forced into the grey economy and even crime.

    There is a lot that governments can do to improve the plight of asylum seekers and refugee’s situation but we also need to be mature enough as a country to accept that desperate people will not always play by our rules. They will cut corners.  It will always be messy. We need to accept that good policies and our best intentions will not always succeed in stopping irregular flows. We need to grow up.

    Generosity does pay off. We have settled 750,000 refugees since WWII. It has not been trouble-free but we can look back with pride what these refugees and particularly their children have contributed to Australia. We acted generously in receiving them and it paid off for us. Immigration, refugees and multiculturalism have been Australia’s great success story. Let’s stop spoiling it as we are doing today.

    “And if a stranger dwells with you in your land you shall not mistreat him  … for you were once strangers in the land of Egypt” Leviticus 19, 33/34

    This not just a moral injunction. It also in our national interest.

  • Myth-busting. John Menadue

    One after another, the opinion polls tell us that the Liberal and National parties are much better economic managers than the ALP. This is despite Australia having one of the best performing economies in the world by almost any measure; debt, economic growth, employment and inflation.

    Unfortunately for the Liberal and National parties and John Howard and Peter Costello in particular their records as economic managers have recently been taking a beating.

    First the International Monetary Fund.

    In January this year, as reported by the SMH on January 11, 2013, the IMF

    “identifies only two periods of Australian ‘fiscal profligacy’ in recent years, both during Mr Howard’s term in office – in 2003 at the start of the mining boom and during his final years in office between 2005 and 2007. The stimulus spending of the Rudd Government during the financial crisis does not rate as profligate because the measure makes allowance for spending needed to stabilise the economy. … The key finding is that Australia has few examples of economic recklessness compared to other developed states like Canada and Japan.”

    Joe Hockey attempted to rebut the IMF report. Perhaps he misunderstood what a ‘structural deficit’ is.

    Second, the Parliamentary Budget Office.

    In its just-released ‘Estimates of the structural budget balance of the Australian Government 2001-02 to 2016-17’ it outlines first what a structural budget balance is. It says

    “The structural budget balance (SBB) is a partial measure of the sustainability of the budget. It shows the underlying position of the budget after adjusting the actual budget balance for the impacts of major cyclical and temporary factors. The SBB reflects the impacts of underlying budgetary trends and discretionary fiscal policy decisions.”

    It then goes on to crunch the Howard Government’s economic performance. It says

    “Over two thirds of the five percentage points of GDP decline in structural receipts over the period 2002-03 to 2011-12 was due to the cumulative effect of the successive personal income tax cuts granted between 2003-04 and 2008-09. A further quarter was the result of a decline in excise and customs duties as a proportion of GDP. Significant factors driving this trend included the abolition of petroleum fuels excise indexation in the 2001-02 budget and the decline in the consumption of cigarettes and tobacco over the period.”

    Treasury reported very much the same on the structural deficit but Joe Hockey suggests that Treasury has become political and it cannot be relied upon for the figures it presents. So I have highlighted independent reports by the International Monetary Fund and the Parliamentary Budget Office.

    As Laura Tingle put it in the AFR on 23 May this year

    “All up, these reviews put the blame for much of the budget deterioration on the Coalition in government and credit at least some of the forecast improvement on savings Labor has implemented in office. As such, they don’t sit comfortably with many of the critiques of Labor’s budget management, nor does the Parliamentary Budget Office endorse the view that Australia’s debt position is of major concern.”

    Despite the evidence, the partisan business commentators and the opinion polls continue to tell us that the coalition is a better economic manager. The evidence is just not there to back up that view.

    The myths continue.

     

  • Japan: Renaissance? Guest blogger: Walter Hamilton

    After two decades mired in largely self-made problems (post-bubble depreciation; political instability; aging population; nuclear meltdown), Japan is suddenly feeling much better about itself. Anyone observing events could not fail to register the shift in the national mood. Are we witnessing a Japanese renaissance, a return to economic expansion? Will economic recovery ease the way for long-debated constitutional and political reforms?

    Japanese have a name for it: Abenomics. It hardly matters that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is neither an economist nor the principal driver of the stimulus plan (that role is performed by the new central bank governor, Haruhiko Kuroda), what makes the slogan important is that it trumpets one identifiable hero to a public that has long craved a strong leader, someone with a capacity to exercise power.

    I don’t say this on the basis of shopworn historical references to shoguns and samurai; I say so because opinion polls over the past several years have made it abundantly clear. The ousted Noda Cabinet, and those that went before it, did not lose public confidence because of unpopular policies. Japanese voters ditched them because they perceived they were unable to exercise power. Abe himself succumbed in 2007; an ineffectual leader, he stepped down as Prime Minister the first time around due to “illness”. In a stunning comeback, he appears energized, decisive and focused.

    Previous attempts at stimulating the Japanese economy relied on public works spending and near-zero interest rates. Abenomics involves a more dramatic form of monetary stimulus aimed directly at currency depreciation and igniting inflation: two conditions Japanese governments have usually shunned as dangerous, even unpatriotic. Since Abe’s patriotic credentials are not in doubt, what is going on?

    The central bank has undertaken to buy back huge volumes of government bonds, creating what appears to be another layer of debt for a country already burdened with massive public sector liabilities. But since Japan’s public debt is covered largely from domestic private savings, the strategy is not as reckless or contrived as it may sound – as long as confidence in recovery can be maintained. Abe and his team want to prod and coax the Japanese public to save less and spend more, and people tend to bring forward spending if they think prices will rise and/or they feel more assured about the future. This calculation lies at the heart of the government’s inflationary monetary policy.

    The other part of the calculation is currency depreciation. If a country starts printing money at an unprecedented rate, as Japan is doing, its currency can be expected to fall. The yen has dropped from 80-something to the US dollar to about 100 yen to the dollar. That trend is supporting the third pillar of Abenomics. A cheaper yen immediately benefits Japanese exporters, driving up profits and share prices. The Tokyo stock index has rebounded from 9,000-something to 15,000 in a short time.

    These circuit-breaking developments have made one class of Japanese much better off (on paper at least); and, for the rest, people’s hopes are raised about a flow through to higher wages. For someone earning $9 or $10 an hour, as do many part-time workers in the retail sector, the prospect is desperately appealing. The mainstream media, so recklessly negative about the former centre-left Noda government, finds nothing but virtue now in Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party. The Abe “magic” seems to be dazzling even practiced eyes. An Upper House election, due in July, may deliver a triumphant LDP the numbers necessary to push through constitutional change.

    Conservatives have long wanted to be rid of the “American” constitution presented to Japan during the postwar occupation, which renounces the right to wage war as a means of settling disputes. They intend to start by making it possible to rewrite the basic law through a simple parliamentary majority of votes, instead of the current two-thirds. Since it can be argued the constitution has formed the most effective political “opposition” to one-party rule in Japan for the past 66 years, such a move would severely weaken checks and balances within the system.

    Standing up to China over a long-running territorial dispute is the most conspicuous foreign policy manifestation of the Abe doctrine. Another important strand is Tokyo’s willingness to accept a significant deterioration in relations with South Korea for the sake of pandering to Japan’s right-wing nationalist fringe. Abe has set a low standard for public discussion of historical facts, effectively licensing other politicians and commentators to utter increasingly outrageous remarks on “comfort women” and other inflammatory issues.

    These are risky self-indulgences for a leader whose daring economic strategy depends upon building and maintaining confidence in markets, among consumers and with strategic partners. Abenomics is still only a slogan and a starting point. Unless and until it delivers to the real economy higher wages, improved competitiveness and a genuine sense of security for ordinary Japanese, nothing is assured. A grab for power by weakening the constitution and indulging in historical revisionism can still undo it all.

    Walter Hamilton spent 11 years as the ABC’s Tokyo Correspondent. He is just back from a six-week visit to Japan.