Pearls and Irritations

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  • Let them Work. John Menadue

    Last month, Bruce Kaye (guest blogger) and I wrote articles about the need for a change of government policy to allow asylum seekers to work. This is important for their dignity and self-respect and their integration into the Australian community. It would also be less costly to the Australian taxpayer and the Australian community.

    Today the Asylum Seekers Centre, Sydney, and fifty other organisations have joined together to call on the Australian Government to allow all asylum seekers to work, whether they came by air or boat.

    A press statement by the CEO of the ASC, Melanie Noden, follows:

    United call for all asylum seekers, regardless of mode or date of arrival, who are released into the community on a bridging visa to be granted the right to work.

    The Asylum Seekers Centre is proud to stand with over 50 organisations and 1200
    individuals across Australia who believe asylum seekers should have the right to
    work. The right to work is a basic and fundamental human right that we as a country
    should proudly and loudly uphold.

    CEO of the Asylum Seekers Centre, Melanie Noden, said finding work is of utmost
    importance to asylum seekers. “It restores their self esteem and provides them with
    the financial independence they so desperately need in order to start a new life. It
    also provides them with a connection to society and gives them the opportunity to
    contribute.”

    And it’s not just us who thinks so. ‘Not allowing people the right to work is a
    disgrace. We signed the Refugee Convention to protect people, not punish them.
    The only reason the Government has implemented this is to punish people. Asylum
    seekers are not illegal and should not be treated as such. Everyone should have the
    right to work,’ says former Prime Minister, Mr Fraser.

    As history has shown, having asylum seekers live on welfare, without any training or
    skill development for years, deliberately hinders their potential to gain employment
    when they do achieve permanent residency – and for boat arrivals 90.8% do become
    permanent residents.

    It is estimated that in 2013, 10,000 asylum seekers will be released nationally into
    the community without work rights. There is no guarantee of the level of support
    provided to these people. This will put strain on an already under resourced sector
    and will impact the mental health and self-agency of thousands of asylum seekers.

    John Menadue, Patron of the Asylum Seekers Centre, former diplomat and business
    leader says the present policy of denial of work is cruel, denies the dignity of people
    and does not deter future asylum seekers. “There is a persistent myth that refusal of
    work rights and other penalties will deter new asylum seekers and particularly boat
    people. But there is no evidence whatsoever that this deterrent works. In almost allcases asylum seekers are escaping appalling conditions, from the Taliban for
    example. Those situations are far worse than anything that we can throw at them.
    “But the burden on the individual is the greatest worry. Most asylum seekers have
    escaped from terror and violence and many are traumatised. To deny them work
    rights is likely to worsen their mental state. It makes it harder for others to help them
    if they are forced into idleness.
    “We need a breakthrough in this toxic political approach to asylum seekers.
    Australia can do better than this. We have shown it in the past.”

    The Government’s announcement in November last year prompted a group of
    concerned not for profit organisations, individuals, businesses and community
    groups to address the lack of right to work for asylum seekers. This includes those
    who have arrived post August 13, 2012 and are subject to the new policy and those
    who arrived prior to August 13, 2012 who have not been granted work rights.
    Today, we have sent letters to the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard and Minister for
    Immigration, Brendan O’Connor calling for the right to work for asylum seekers. As a
    group, the signatories to the united statement call for:
    • An undertaking from the Minister for Immigration to make a policy change
    extending the right to work to all asylum seekers released into the community
    on bridging visas, regardless of mode or date of arrival or stage in the refugee
    determination process.
    • The right to work is accompanied by the provision of basic employment
    support services to increase the asylum seekers chance of employment.

    To support asylum seekers and the work of the Asylum Seekers Centre, contact  http://givenow.com.au/asylumseekerscentre
    For a full list of agencies supporting the statement please see
    http://righttowork.com.au/take-action/supporters/

  • The Neverending Story. Guest blogger: Greg from Cottesloe

    Side show alleys have become smaller these days. They used to be the centre of attraction at the annual Royal Show with the boxing troupes, the bearded ladies and so on but even the shrunken lane of today still has a conjuror performing the old pea and thimble trick. The conjuror puts a pea under one of three thimbles then swirls them around with appropriate flourishes and invites a member of the audience to pick the one hiding the pea. Some honest but dim fellow steps forward and has a go but…no luck. He retires ruefully shaking his head and the conjuror’s patter goes on.

    Our bemused citizen here could well be the Australian Republican Movement. The Monarchist conjuror has in truth few assets to work with and he will exploit the plodding good nature of his adversary for all it’s worth. The conjuror’s first rule: NEVER accept the idea of a simple referendum question asking the people whether they want (some form of) a republic or to continue with the present structure. That would probably finish the game there and then. Those in the magic trade still gasp with admiration at the Howard/Minchin Flutter of 1999 which deftly avoided this core question but nevertheless convinced most people that the issue had been decided.

    After dodging that bullet, it becomes a bit easier for the conjuror. “It would be disrespectful to the Queen to hold such a referendum while she is still alive”. Fair enough, concedes our generous friend only to hear when he steps forward the next time that “We’ve got to do the Australian thing and give Prince (King) Charles a Fair Go”. Beyond that awaits Prince William and the radiant Kate protected by a slobbering media. Even our decent bloke is beginning to get the idea that he’s been had here, played for a complete mug.

    The political process could resolve this but the Prime Minister, in spite of Labor policy and her own professed position as a republican, has assured the country with a wagging finger that there’ll be none of this republic stuff during her term, as though describing distasteful behaviour by schoolboys behind the tennis shed. Has she won the Monarchist vote through this step into Liberal territory? Unlikely. As for the conjuror, he sits quietly in the background contemplating an untroubled future for the next decade at least.

    So what’s to be done? Upend the table? No, but let’s change games. A straightforward arm wrestle through a simple referendum would be a good start.

    Greg at Cottesloe

     

  • The Malaysian General Election. Will the fix be in again? Guest blogger El Tee Kay, Kuala Lumpur

    Australian Senator Nick Xenophon flew into Kuala Lumpur in mid-February. He was detained and deported back to Australia as he posed a “security threat” to the country. He was roundly condemned by the Malaysian Home Minister, the Election Commission and the media for his interference but received favourable support overseas and from the opposition parties, civil and human rights groups in Malaysia. He was blacklisted for participating in an illegal rally for free and fair elections in last April’s Bersih 3.0 rally and “tarnishing” Malaysia’s image. His summary deportation has cast further doubts about the fairness of the coming general election, probably in June this year.

    The government can usually ignore protests about unfair elections as it has great influence over radio and television channels. Many of the main English, Malay, Chinese and Indian newspapers are owned by supporters of the the Barisan Nasional (BN) the major governing party. The BN is a coalition of UMNO, MCA, MIC and some smaller parties.

    For 40 years, Malaysians have put up with rumors of election fraud but have been dismissed.  In 2004, the voters gave BN a strong mandate to support the new PM Abdullah Badawi after two decades of authoritarian rule.  Although the country was prosperous and peaceful, the ethnic minorities felt marginalized in government, business and education. Government affirmative action policies favored the Malays and Muslims and minorities felt deprived and discriminated against. The festering discontent was too strong to contain, and the Chinese and Indian partners in the BN, the ruling coalition, were blamed for not fighting for the rights of their constituents. UMNO (United Malays National Organization) too lost touch with the grass roots. It is alleged that UMNO Putras (the elite) got all the contracts and perks while the UMNO base was neglected.

    To try and beat back the opposition to its money politics the leader of Pakatan Keadilan Rakyat (PKR), Anwar Ibrahim was charged and later acquitted on what many regarded as trumped up sodomy charges.

    The opposition parties exploited this discontent in the BN. A large number of Chinese switched allegiance to the DAP (Democratic Action Party), and the Indians to PKR. PAS (Parti Islam Semalaysia) made inroads into the religious heartlands in the country where UMNO was strongest. The political advantage held by UMNO in gerrymandering in favor of Malay rural constituencies became less relevant as PAS mounted their challenge in these staunchly Muslim areas. In the 2008 elections, BN was devastated by the electoral swing to the opposition.  BN lost five States to the opposition and only strong support from Sabah and Sarawak saved them from losing the Federal Government.

    The next General Election has generated a tremendous interest .The opposition is optimistic about winning the Federal Government and several State governments. This will depend on whether the loosely knit coalition is able to stick together. Bickering over seat allocations, differences on religious and social issues, unless dealt with maturely, may cause an erosion of confidence amongst voters.

    Sabah and Sarawak still hold the key to success. They have 56 parliamentary constituencies and they have been loyal BN states. The predictions are that the BN will lose urban seats in Sarawak but the bulk of the rural seats are safe for the BN. This time Sabah is a problem. The presence of illegal immigrants in the State has been an open sore. For decades, the government has denied political gifting of citizenship to immigrants in exchange for their vote for the BN. Evidence presented at the Royal Commission of Inquiry recently confirmed that this occurred. In Parliament, it was alleged that about 700,000 immigrants were given citizenship and of these, about 200.000 were registered as voters. These numbers have changed the demographics of Sabah drastically and increased BN’s and UMNO’s dominance.

    The global scrutiny of the elections and pressure at home to deflect growing concerns of massive electoral fraud motivated the PM Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak to sign the Transparency International (TI) Integrity Pledge on Wednesday 20 February declaring that the governing parties would uphold integrity and reinforcing his commitment to fight corruption. The Opposition parties did not participate in this pledge and continue to insist that all members of the administration declare their assets and wealth. It is unfortunate the   pledge comes at such a late stage of the election process, but it is a positive message from the PM that “money politics”, a euphemism for corruption, a long standing scourge in UMNO politics, will not be tolerated.

    Money politics in other parties also is common where the “frogs” (party hoppers) are enticed to switch camps after the elections for large sums of money betraying their parties and their constituents. There have been cases where State Governments have fallen due to these turncoats.

    Senator Xenophon’s deportation may not have been unexpected. The bungling officials may have scored an own goal. It has only attracted more international attention which will no doubt please Anwar Ibrahim the leader of PKR and more broadly the coalition of opposition parties (Pakatan Rakyat). He needs to win an additional 34 seats. It is a big ask but not impossible.

    El Tee Kay, Kuala Lumpur

     

  • Prejudice compounded by ignorance. John Menadue

    The Scott Morrisons and Ray Hadleys of this world have had a field day vilifying one asylum seeker living in the community who came by boat. The prejudice is bad enough, but their ignorance is just as appalling.

    In the last ten years, 65,000 asylum seekers came to Australia. 47,000, or 72% of them, came by air. The fact is that those 47,000 who came by air all went directly to living in the community on bridging visas. Scott Morrison and Ray Hadley showed not the slightest interest. There is no campaign against the much larger number of asylum seekers who have come by air although one would expect that some of them would have committed offences in the same way as offences occur in the general community.

    But talk of boat arrivals living in the community and the prejudiced and ignorant go ballistic. Air arrivals are not detained in Immigration Detention Centres but released immediately into the community until their refugee status is determined. Furthermore, boat arrivals have twice the rate of successful refugee determination as air arrivals.

    The ‘debate’ about boat arrivals living in the community is mired in prejudice and ignorance. When will our Prime Minister stand up and make a principled case for decent treatment of asylum seekers. I have never heard her do it. Where are the values that the ALP used to espouse?

    Ignorance can only be countered by facts and the government is failing to properly inform the community. Prejudice must be tackled head on with beliefs about the value and dignity of every human being. Tony Abbott leads with opportunism. Julia Gillard continually runs for cover.

    John Menadue

  • ‘I was a stranger and you took me in.’

    ‘I was a stranger and you took me in’ (Matthew 25)

     Well not really, according to Scott Morrison.

    In her article in the SMH on 3 November 2012, Jane Cadzow describes Scott Morrison as ‘a devout Christian who worships at Shirelive, an American style Pentecostal Church. The Shirelive website says its members believe the Bible is the ‘accurate authoritative word of God’.

    Formerly, Scott Morrison belonged to Hillsong. In his maiden speech to the House of Representatives in 2008 he said ‘from my faith I derive the values of loving kindness, justice and righteousness’.

    I am confused.

    The Torah, which is a key part of the Jewish/Christian tradition places great store on welcoming the stranger. The Torah repeats its exhortation more than 36 times. ‘Remember the stranger, for you were strangers in Egypt’.  This caring for the stranger is repeated more than any of the other biblical laws, including observance of the Sabbath and dietary requirements…

    As Leviticus 19 puts it, ‘When an alien resides with you in your land, do not molest him. You should treat the alien who resides with you no differently than the native born among you; have the same love for him as for yourself; for you too were aliens in the land of Egypt.’

    The Gospel of Luke asks ‘Who is my neighbour?’ and then tells us the story of the Good Samaritan. Matthew’s Gospel tells us about the Holy Family’s flight from the ‘slaughter of the innocents’ to safety in Egypt. They were indeed fortunate asylum seekers in that the Pharaoh was generous and did not play to public prejudice by calling on his subjects to ‘stop the donkeys’.

    Scott Morrison has been hostile to strangers and demonises asylum seekers and refugees at almost every opportunity.

    • He has said that they bring disease ‘everything from tuberculosis and hepatitis C to chlamidya and syphilis’. This assertion was rejected by an infectious diseases expert, Dr Trent Yarwood.
    • He told 2GB Talkback radio audiences that he had seen asylum seekers bringing in ‘wads of cash …and large displays of jewellery’. Desperate people will bring whatever portable assets they have.
    • According to leaks from the Shadow Cabinet, and according to Jane Cadzow, Scott Morrison suggested that the Coalition ‘ramp up its questioning to … capitalise on anti-Muslim sentiment’. He used the dog-whistling defence that he was only listening to what people are saying ‘we’ve got to listen to what their concerns are’. But please, lend me a megaphone!
    • In early 2011 he complained about the cost of holding funerals in Sydney for asylum seekers who died in a shipwreck off Christmas Island. An eight year old, whose parents had both died in the shipwreck, was one of 21 people flown from the Christmas Island Detention Centre to attend the funeral ceremonies. Scott Morrison said these were ‘government-funded junkets’ and that the relatives would be ‘taking sightseeing trips and those sorts of things’. He later apologised for the timing but not the content of his remarks.
    • Only last month, he called on the government to suspend asylum seekers being released into the community on the basis of a single violent attack. Fairfax Media pointed out that these people were about 45 times less likely to be charged with a crime than a member of the general community.

    Time and time again, Scott Morrison injects hatred towards the ‘stranger’.

    Perhaps he reads a different translation of the Bible.

    That other biblical scholar, Tony Abbott has supported him every step of the way.

  • The Candidate. Guest blogger Chris Geraghty

    It’s frightening, isn’t it? I saw Cardinal George Pell on television recently claiming that his election to the top job was not impossible. He explained that because he’s a Catholic, a bishop, and a member of the College of Cardinals, he was a chance. Is that all one needs to be pope?

    The applicants for the biggest job on earth are gathering in the Vatican to be assessed, to go through their interviews, to do some politicking and count the numbers. The successful candidate must of course be a member of the masculine branch of the human race. Being a paid-up member of the episcopal workers’ union and therefore both ordained as a priest and consecrated as a bishop, he must not be of illegimate birth, disabled physically or intellectually, or deformed, or suffering epilepsy whether caused by some form of insanity or by possession of the devil (Canons 983-987 of the 1917 Code of Canon Law). Slaves and soldiers are also ineligible, though Julius II proved to be a fierce warrior during his reign.

    The relevant cohort of papal applicants is extremely restricted and warped. It’s a very limited field. We are not engaged here on a global search for the ideal candidate. Those who are not men, not celibate, not old, not members of the most exclusive club on earth are not suitable. Of course, married fishermen need not apply.

    We all have an interest in the man who would be pope. Catholics especially, even the young, even women, have a stake in the outcome and should have some say in what they want and what they don’t want. Secrecy does not guarantee that the Spirit is at work.

    The next pope does not have to be a renowned theologian – probably better if he’s not. Theology has developed into a very arcane and complicated science. The Church has plenty of them, many of whom live with tunnel vision in an ivory tower. Some of them have never lived in the real world. I’d settle for a man of simple faith, one who has developed a rich interior life of prayer and reflection, one who has lived a life and who possesses a sense of fun. That’s important. Laughter, smiles, dancing and rejoicing. Senior clerics are far too serious.

    I would hope that, unlike his predecessors, our new pope would take the time to answer his mail. For preference, I would like him to write short, pithy letters to us rather than the long, boring epistles or encyclicals popes have come to send out in the last few centuries.

    I want a man who is not programmed to talk in Vatican papalese but who is able to listen to the world and communicate with us in a language which rings true.

    I want a man of the world who can return our Church to the values and insights of the Gospel – simplicity, hope, freedom, poverty and to the message of inclusion. I certainly don’t want anyone who thinks he can order us not to discuss important topics such as the place of women in our organization. The successful candidate might ask us respectfully to do something or to refrain from doing something, but to order us about like serfs is now so uncool.

    Give me a friendly, pastoral man who doesn’t take himself too seriously, humble and down to earth, able, like Jesus, to set his people free and to re-gain our respect and confidence.

    Chris Geraghty

  • Normalising Crime

    There is a tendency to normalize crime in our own group, church or community by saying that the rate of crime in our own group is no worse  than in other groups. It is a view I have heard expressed recently in the Catholic Church.

    Cardinal Ratzinger used this argument at a conference in Spain in 2002..”..the percentage of these (sexual) offences among priests is not higher than in other categories and perhaps it is even lower…less than 1%of priests are guilty of acts of this type. The constant presence of these news items does not correspond to the objectivity of the information or to the statistical objectivity of the facts”
     
    My reading of the facts that I have seen is that he was wrong as are others  who seek to normalize crimes against children to say nothing about the betrayal of trust.
    Professor Patrick Parkinson of the Faculty Law at the University of Sydney has just released a sobering Paper “Suffer the Teenage Children. Child Sexual Abuse  in Church Communities”. Twice he reviewed the Catholic Churches protocol “Towards Healing”. He was a key adviser to the Catholic Church on  sexual abuse issues. He is a remarkably well informed commentator. He has seen the problems close at hand and over several years.
     As he says in his Paper he terminated his work with the Catholic Church over the failure of the Salesians in Australia to address  sexual abuse issues. He then called for a Royal Commission.
     
    In his Paper he acknowledges the patchy data on sexual abuse but the information pointed in one direction. The Catholic Church has a special problem which is outside the “normal”.
    He noted that  that at “a particular (Catholic) seminary in Melbourne 4.75 % of priests ordained between 1940 and 1966 sexually abused children” . Drawing on  US data he concluded that “the rate of conviction ( of these priests ) is much higher than in the general population”.
     
    In comparing the Catholic Church with other churches in Australia he concluded,”When all explanations have been offered the rate of conviction of Catholic personnel does seem to be strikingly out of proportion with the size of  this faith community compared with other faith communities”.
    In a later blog I will examine the issues that Parkinson suggests could explain the much higher rates of abuse in the Catholic Church.    Go to ssrn.com/abstract=2216264 for the Parkinson paper 

     The Catholic Church often distresses me, but I love it.

    John Menadue

  • Health care reform remains a prisoner of Federalism. Guest blogger: John Dwyer

    The intractable problem that sees a very wealthy country unable to provide cost effective and equitable health care is a political one. We are the only OECD country in which the provision of health care is illogically and inefficiently divided between two levels of Government. The Federal government is charged with funding, but not providing, Primary and Community care. The State governments are both funders and providers of our public hospital system and endless arguments (“the blame game”) revolve around the adequacy or otherwise of the contribution to hospital care from the Commonwealth. So 22 million people are served by nine departments of health with duplication costing us about $4 billion a year!

    Our Health system is sickness and hospital centric and unlike much of the rest of the world we have not changed our Primary care system to provide Australians with a care model that focuses on prevention. Such a system provides the “Win Win” situation where Australians would be healthier and the demand for hospital services would be reduced. The Productivity Commission reports that each year 700.000 admissions to public hospitals could be avoided by an appropriate community intervention! The States cannot pull the leavers to improve Primary Care and so relieve pressures on their hospitals and the Commonwealth seemingly does not know how to do it. The Federal government has no experience in delivering health care.  At this time when health care should be patient focussed with the spectrum of care from the doctor’s office to the hospital totally integrated (seamless) how frustrating is it that COAG has actually enshrined the separation of Primary and Community care from Hospital care?

    It’s an election year and we should again be pressuring our politicians to embrace the only solution to all this inefficiency and inequity. The Commonwealth should be the single funder of health, providing our health dollars to a single agency with appropriate expertise that would contract with various providers to deliver the required integrated system characterised by the features described above. John Menadue’s suggestion for a trial of a similar approach at State level where an agency with pooled Commonwealth and State money delivers integrated cost effective health care makes sense but even this, perhaps less difficult option politically, currently has no traction around the COAG table. The Australian public would have applauded Kevin Rudd proceeding along these lines. That same Australian public must keep such health reform strategies on the election year agenda.

    John Dwyer

     

     

  • Another misleading story about hospital costs

    The head of Ramsey Health told us in the AFR today that the “Productivity Commission report on public and private hospital systems found that the private sector was 30% more efficient”  It did not.

    Last year the CEO of the Private Hospitals Association said that private hospital costs are 32% lower than public hospitals. The same old hoary untruths keeps being repeated.
     
    The Productivity Commission concedes (p83) that it is hard to compare the costs of the two systems. However it went on to say that at a national level public and private hospitals had broadly similar cost per case mix adjusted separation in 2007/08. (Sorry for the jargon but it means comparing like with like).It added that significant differences were found in the composition of costs.
     
    Private hospitals often choose to point out that in certain areas they are cheaper. That is true for about 60% of surgery. Private hospitals are specialised in certain areas, particularly minor surgery. We have always known that the harder and more expensive work is left to public hospitals.
     
    The ultimate test of whether private hospitals are more efficient is whether they jump to treat public patients in private hospitals  on a casemix basis. The fact is they don’t. Years ago Jeff Kennett made an offer to private hospitals to treat public patients in private hospitals. They declined and despite their bravado today about being more efficient, they will still not put their misleading propaganda to the test.
     The CEO of Ramsay Health received a salary package of $ 31 m in 2014. That would partly explain why the costs of his company are so high.!
     
    I wonder if there are any scalpel sharp health correspondents who will examine the spin put out by Ramsey Healthcare?
    John Menadue


  • The Darkening Shadow of Hate Speech in Japan. Guest blogger,Tessa Morris-Suzuki

    Japan’s new Prime Minister, Abe Shinzō, has proclaimed Japan a regional model of “democracy, the rule of law, and respect for human rights”. Indeed, Japan has proud traditions of free debate and grassroots human rights movements. But ironically – and largely ignored by the outside world – the rights of minorities and the work of those who fight hardest for human rights are under growing pressure in Abe’s Japan.

    Japan signed the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, but refuses to introduce anti-hate speech laws. One reason, according to the government, is that such laws are unnecessary, since Japan’s penal code prohibits group defamation, insult, threatening behaviour, and collective intimidation.

    But the limits of this approach have been on display in recent disturbing incidents. On 9 February, for example, a group of racist demonstrators –  including members of the best-known hate group, the Zaitokukai – marched through an ethnically diverse district of Tokyo, shouting incitements to violence and carrying placards with slogans such as “Kill Koreans”. A large police contingent was on hand, but despite abundant evidence of group defamation, threats and collective intimidation, none of the demonstrators was arrested.

    Matters were very different, though, when, around the same time, a Zaitokukai member lodged his own complaint of victimization. His claim, made more than four months after the event, was that he had been “assaulted” when refused entry to a September 2012 meeting organized by Japanese grassroots groups seeking apology and compensation for the former “comfort women” (women from throughout the Japanese empire coerced into serving in brothels run by the Japanese military during the Pacific War). Those who attended the meeting remember it as a peaceful event, despite the presence of a few menacing Zaitokukai protestors outside. Regardless of this fact, and of the curious delay in the complaint, police responded zealously to the Zaitokukai member’s claim, bringing in four members of the “comfort women” group for questioning and descending on members’ homes to search for incriminating evidence.

    Many in Japan work very hard for “democracy, the rule of law, and respect for human rights”. But there is no rule of law if the instigators of violence are allowed to peddle hatred, while those who pursue historical justice are subject to police harassment. Democracy is left impoverished when freedom of hate speech is protected more zealously than freedom of reasoned political debate.

    Tessa Morris-Suzuki 

     

  • The blame game in health continues.

    Some weeks ago Victorian hospitals announced bed closures, job losses and elective surgery delays because of a dispute with the Commonwealth Government over the hospital funding formula. In an election year the issue seems to have been temporarily resolved by the Commonwealth stomping up more money.

    But it highlights the continuing malaise with divided. funding and operational responsibility for health care. The commonwealth has major responsibility for the Medical Benefits Scheme, the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, Veterans Health and Aged care. The states run hospitals but depend on commonwealth funding to do so. Broadly, the commonwealth provides 43% of health funding in Australia, the state and local governments 26% and non-government, including individuals, 31%.
     
    The divided  funding and responsibilities was described many times as a “dogs breakfast” by Tony Abbott when he was Minister for Health.
     
    One important objective of a good health service must be to keep patients out of expensive and often forbidding large hospitals – a state responsibility. But the funding of health services to keep patients out of hospitals is largely in the commonwealth’s hands – particularly general practice and aged care. If all services were better organized in the community there would be much less pressure on the emergency departments of public hospitals.
     
    Some improvements were made by the Rudd and Gillard Governments but most of it was muddling through. Kevin Rudd suggested a referendum for the commonwealth to take over state hospitals. Opinion polls suggested the public supported doing this, but Kevin Rudd backed down. My preferred option would be for the commonwealth to take over all healthcare from the states, but I canot see any prospect of this happening politically. The states remain poor but proud.  Neither can I see the commonwealth abandoning the field to the states.  That would be disastrous!
    A practical compromise, which I proposed six years ago, would be to establish a Joint Commonwealth State Health Commission in any state where the commonwealth and the state could agree, with the commonwealth providing financial inducements for any state that would sign on. 
     
    It is envisaged that the Joint Commission would have agreed governance arrangements with dispute resolution provisions. It would have joint funding from the commonwealth and the state and would be responsible for the planning of all health services in the state. The Joint Commission would buy health services from existing suppliers – commonwealth, state, local and private.
     
    If a political agreement with one state is achieved I am confident we would see a big improvement in the cohesion and integration in health services in that state. Once the benefits in one state are secured the model could hopefully extended to other states.
     
    Unfortunately, last year the commonwealth passed up an opportunity for long term reform in Tasmania.The Tasmanian hospitals were in a financial and operational mess.The commonwealth declined to use its financial leverage and handed out more money without  reform.
     
     
    John Menadue

     

  • What the Subtitles Say. Guest blogger Greg from Cottesloe

    Here’s a popular generalisation. Subtitles or dubbing? Americans prefer dubbing of foreign films because it demonstrates that even Shaolin monks can speak English with a Bronx accent if they try hard enough. The fact that the lips keep on moving seconds after the voice stops merely adds to the mystery and allure of these foreigners. The smart set however likes subtitles because they add to the je ne sais quoi of the foreign experience of going to a film festival at the Cinema Paradiso.
    Dubbing or subtitles, they provide both access to foreign films and to foreign news and opinion, albeit that the latter is observed more in the breach on Australian TV.
    But our TV stations, including the ABC and SBS, have found another use for subtitles; helping us understand English that they believe we might find hard to understand in the middle of mainstream English programmes. The subtitles seem to be there to deal with strange accents, speech defects and loud ambient noise.
    Ostensibly this helps migrants, the elderly and the deaf better enjoy their TV – all worthy stuff if it stopped there. But it doesn’t stop there; not only foreigners with thick accents but even our own aborigines get subtitled, have their version of our common language branded as inferior and barely intelligible to the rest of us. On the other hand, regional UK accents seem to be OK for migrants, the elderly and the deaf. Some of these brogues are so thick you could cut them with a knife but they nevertheless escape the sneer of the subtitle. Some are even heard from announcers on the ABC.
    So what’s going on here? Is this an honest attempt to improve communication in a multicultural Australia? If so, let’s see more subtitles to help the migrants and others understand what’s being said by some non – Australian but native speakers of English with a rich syrupy accent. And I for one would strongly prefer to listen really, really closely and directly to what aborigines are saying without the patronising help of subtitles.
    There’s another explanation of course, the idea that subtitles are a quiet assertion of white Anglo superiority. All white and Anglo speakers of English are by definition correct while a dark skin automatically puts you under the neon sign of subtitles.
    Would this idea be news to aborigines and many migrants, I wonder?
    Greg from Cottesloe

     

  • The Greens and Asylum Seekers. How the ‘perfect’ became the enemy of the ‘good’.

    The policy ‘purity’ of the Greens has helped deliver us Nauru and Manus where asylum seekers are suffering. Furthermore, and as the former Secretary of the Department of Immigration told us last year, the Nauru/Manus approach would not work again to deter asylum seekers. That now seems tragically borne out by more tragedies at sea

    In the Senate last year, the Greens voted with the Coalition to defeat Government legislation which would have allowed cooperation between the Malaysian Government, UNHCR and the Australian Government on processing in Malaysia. This legislation was in response to the High Court striking down the Malaysian agreement.  As a result of the combined actions of the High Court and the Greens in the Senate, we saw a three-fold increase in boat arrivals.

    The Greens say that they believe in a regional framework on asylum seekers, as we all do. But they rejected a key building block, the agreement with Malaysia, which would have been a feature of a developing regional framework. As a result of the collapse of the Malaysian Agreement, the Government sided with the Coalition and amongst other changes, agreed to the reopening of Nauru and Manus which many had hoped was dead and buried for ever. The Greens stood aside and preferred to throw rocks

    The Greens must bear a heavy responsibility for what is now happening in Nauru /Manus and at sea. They played to the gallery of some of the NGOs rather than working on an acceptable compromise involving Malaysia. The ‘perfect’ became the enemy of the ‘good’.

    The UNHCR has said that it will not have a bar of Nauru / Manus. In contrast the agreement with Malaysia was described by the Regional Director of UNHCR in Australia to the Australian Parliament on 30 September 2011 in the following terms.

    ‘Many persons of concern to UNHCR stand to benefit from this program (with Malaysia) by having their status regularised. It would mean all refugees in Malaysia would, in addition to their registration and ID documents from UNHCR, be registered with the government’s immigration data base and thus protected from arbitrary arrest and detention. It would also mean that all refugees in Malaysia would have the right to work on a par with legal migrants in the country. This would also entitle them to the same insurance and health schemes as documented for legal migrant workers.’

    For Malaysia this agreement was quite remarkable progress. This is in a country that has a burden of much larger numbers of refugees than we have and is much poorer. But because the Agreement with Malaysia was not enshrined in law it was discounted.

    The Malaysian Agreement is now in abeyance. It would need to be updated and revised, beginning first in the Australian Parliament. And of course, its effectiveness would depend on good implementation. There is no doubt however that if implemented well it would be a significant step forward.

    The asylum seekers languishing in Nauru / Manus are paying a heavy price for the posturing of the Greens with their policy purity.

    John Menadue

  • Sexual abuse in the Catholic Church

    ‘There is nothing on this earth as ugly as the Catholic Church

    And nothing so beautiful’ (Cardinal John Henry Newman)

    A letter to fellow members of St Mary Magdalene’s Parish, Rose Bay

    I have found great beauty in the Catholic Church. Inspired by the Eucharist, I joined the Catholic Church over 30 years ago. That inspiration remains. Despite its failures the Church remains for me the greatest influence for good in the world. I am grateful for its worldwide works of justice, mercy and charity. At the local parish level I have found wise and generous leadership along with a pulsing, lively and loving community of believers. I hold in highest affection the women and particularly the Sisters in the Church who day after day “keep the show on the road”. I will never leave this Church. But I am greatly disturbed by the state of affairs into which we have allowed the Church to drift.

    The problem of Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church

    This abuse is the ultimate in the violation of the human person, the human spirit and the soul. It is an appalling betrayal of trust by priests, religious and some lay people. Many parents were too ashamed to report rapists to the police.

    Sexual abuse is an awful part, but it is only a part of a wider problem – the systemic abuse of clerical power.

    The former president of the Australian Bishops’ Conference, Philip Wilson, said only recently that the abuse crisis is ‘the biggest crisis in the history of the Catholic Church in Australia”.

    This abuse has stemmed from many factors and influences.

    • We have a male Church; a very patriarchal church. Sexual abuse is largely but not entirely a male problem. Blokes get the rank and glory and make most of the mistakes
    • Obligatory celibacy.
    • The mystique of priesthood – ‘Yes Father, No Father’. Adult Christians should behave as adults and recognise both the strengths and weaknesses in each of us.
    • The issue of abuse was made public by the secular media and not the Church. The secular media has done the Church a great service.
    • Both John Paul II and Cardinal Ratzinger (Head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and later Benedict XVI) ignored the issue. They were silent or defensive. This is an unpalatable fact that we must face. The cardinals and bishops gave loyalty to silent Popes. Criminality was allowed to fester. Our leadership let us down. The Vatican lost touch with the Church of the Faithful.
    • The Vatican was able to do this because it was not really accountable. The Curia lives in a remote thought bubble. It could hardly be said to comprise “servants of the servants of God”. Problems continued because power and control flowed from the top, as in all absolute monarchies.
    • Many of the hopes of Vatican II have been allowed to run into the sand…. synods of dioceses, local bishops’ conferences, global collegiality and much more.
    • The faithful were ignored or remained quiet. Maybe we have got the church today that we deserve. It is certainly not the church that Christ wants. We should remember that the early Catholic Church in Australia was a lay Church. Priests and the hierarchy came later.
    • It would be a mistake to shrug our shoulders and say that these horrific crimes against children can be left to the new Pope. The evidence is that the silence and avoidance under John Paul II was continued under Benedict XVI.
    • Too often the Church passed the problem to the police and lawyers when it was fundamentally a moral and governance issue for the Church itself.

    ‘The problem’ is not a passing issue. The Royal Commission will be with us for at least three years and probably more.

    Expressing sorrow and contrition will be essential, but it will not be sufficient. The apology by Kevin Rudd and the Australian Government and people to the Stolen Generation and indigenous people was genuine and heartfelt. We all felt better about ourselves. But has much changed as a result? Indifference seems to have won the day! Will it win again in this crisis in the Catholic Church?

    Until there is genuine reform, the church will continue in its trauma.

    The whole Church, including the large majority of priests and religious, is tainted by this scandal.

    Many Catholics are discouraged.

    At the local level we are in a sense living in a parallel church that is out of alignment with the hierarchical church.

    What could we do in the parish?

    1. Continue to express sorrow for the damage the church has done to so many people. This should be expressed consistently in Prayers of the Faithful. The prayers should extend to those giving evidence to the Royal Commission that they find the courage to speak fearlessly. There should be regular reports on what the parish is doing about the issue.
    2. Establish a fund to ensure that people who have been damaged are properly advised and referred to professionals in the field. Appoint a lay person – perhaps a parent – to co-ordinate this work.
    3. Elect, not select, members of the parish council and the finance committee.
    4. Appoint a parish group to consult with the Archdiocese on future appointments of the parish priest
    5. Issue a statement by the parish on how we would like to see the church reformed. This would presumably include such matters as the selection of bishops, women in the church and obligatory celibacy. This would be forwarded to other parishes, the archdiocese and the papal nuncio.
    6. Call specifically for annual archdiocesan synods which have a majority of lay people. The Anglican model could be helpful.
    7. Make a submission to the Royal Commission focusing on the issue of accountability, not just within the Catholic Church, but in all organisations dealing with young and vulnerable people.
    8. Cooperate as much as possible with other parishes.
    9. Organise a series of parish/public meetings on abuse. Possible speakers – Bishop Geoffrey Robinson, Christine Kenneally., Danny Gilbert and Frank Sullivan.
    10. Review the extent to which money raised in the parish is paid to the archdiocese. We should be very careful about paying parish money to organisations that are not accountable to us. This leverage should be exercised. Perhaps it is the only real leverage we have.

    Christ will not abandon the Church, but we must be resolute and courageous in the crisis we face. This is unknown territory. There will be risks, but there will be rewards if we can build a reformed Church. It will then be a Church of greater beauty and less ugliness.

    Peace be with you

    John Menadue

    13 February 2013, Ash Wednesday

  • Work rights for asylum seekers. Guest blogger: Bruce Kaye

    Having had direct experience of asylum seeker hosting it has become obvious at the ground level that the ‘no work’ policy introduced in August last year by the Federal Government is creating confusion and misery for the asylum seekers and frustration and despair for those involved in hosting.

    As citizens, my wife and I are happy to continue to provide this hospitality.  These people are in great need.  However it seems to us that the Government’s policy of not allowing these people to work simply makes it impossibly hard for them to live in the community at the end of their six weeks of homestay hospitality.  Not able to work they are driven into poverty, or the black economy. In any case dependence on Government resources is perpetuated instead of wages being earned and taxes paid.

    In order to live in the community they must be able to work.

    The new policy from August last year may look tough in the current political games of one upmanship, but it is inhumane and cruel and it simply will not achieve any effective settlement process for these people.  The longer they are forced into dependency and almost certain poverty by this new policy the harder it will be for them eventually to integrate into our society as contributing citizens.

    From where we are as hosts the new policy makes our contributions seem quite fruitless.  Extending humane personal hospitality to asylum seekers stands out in stark contrast to the cruel policy of the government.  As citizens and hosts that is a stark contradiction that is painfully embarrassing.

    Our experience on the ground shows the post August policy to be counter productive and makes us as Australian citizens feel really quite ashamed of our government.

    Bruce Kaye

  • The asylum seekers that we don’t talk about

    In the last ten years, 65,000 asylum seekers have come to Australia. 47,000 or 72% of those came by air. Only 28% came by boat. In the last five years, we received 47,000 asylum seekers, of whom 28,000 or 62% came by air. Only 38% came by boat. In only one year, in the last ten years, 2011-12, did we have more boat arrivals (7,379) than air arrivals (7,036). Air arrivals are fairly steady at about 5,000 to 7,000 p.a. whilst boat arrivals fluctuate more.

    Yet for years our whole debate is about boats, boats and more boats. As Fran Kelly on the ABC put it recently, ‘boats are coming thick and fast’. The fact is that many more asylum seekers come by air then by boat.

    Why does our public discussion focus overwhelmingly on boat arrivals? I suggest two reasons. The first is that the media is overwhelmingly focussed on the toxic politics of asylum seekers, rather than the facts and the policy implications. It is so easy to play to the latent fear in all of us and in our community about boats arriving on our doorstep. The media has little interest or understanding of the critical issues and features of the world wide flows of asylum seekers and refugees. It is domestic politics from beginning to end.

    The second is that stories about boat arrivals with scruffy looking asylum seekers in yellow vests are much easier to illustrate. Pictures are always available, often old file pictures. But asylum seekers coming by air through our international airports between 6am and 10pm at the rate of about 100  every day of the year are more difficult to locate  and even harder to get pictures about. But they are trickling through all the time with little public or media interest. The lazy media works on the proposition that if there are no easy pictures there cannot be a story.

    How do asylum seekers come to Australia by air? In 2011-12, 40% came on student visas and 35% on visitor or working holiday visas. Some had genuine plans as students and visitors. Many did not. With the help of ‘agents’ they are persuaded to make false claims about their intentions in coming to Australia and are issued with visas. That is how they get into the country. Once here they then apply for refugee status.

    Where do most of these air arrivals seeking asylum come from? In 2011-12, 17% came from China which is always top of the list, 13% from India and 10% from Pakistan. Southern China has a particularly active people-smuggling network.

    How do air and boat arrivals compare in refugee determination? In the last 4 years the final refugee determination rate for air arrivals was 46%. For boat arrivals it was 89%. That is not to say that there are not many deserving asylum seekers amongst air arrivals. But we focus our attention and hostility towards boat arrivals who have double the ‘success rate’ of air arrivals in refugee determination.

    Our politicians and our media have a lot to answer for in the way that public debate is skewed in this country against boat arrivals.

    John Menadue

  • Minister! Let them work.

    There is a growing number of asylum seekers living in the community who are not allowed to work. The new Minister, Brendan O’Connor, could put his stamp on the portfolio by immediately making a decision to allow almost all asylum seekers to work. The present policy of denial of work is cruel, denies the dignity of people and does not deter future asylum seekers.

    The number who are not allowed to work is growing as the government, quite rightly, is releasing from immigration detention and into the community, asylum seekers on bridging visas. There are presently about 7,000 asylum seekers in immigration detention, of whom about 5,000 are adult males. Potentially and hopefully many of these people will be released progressively into the community. In future as more boat people are released into the community so work rights will become more important.

    Official figures are hard to find, but it seems that releases of asylum seekers from detention into the community are running at an average of about 1,000 per month. In some months, it is much higher.

    I am a patron of the Asylum Seekers Centre in Sydney. Currently 46% of our clients have no work rights. That proportion and the total number is increasing rapidly. It is up dramatically over the last 12 months where more and more of our clients come by boat rather than air. Basically, asylum seekers who come by air are allowed to work but those who come by boat are not allowed to work. What a nonsense this is, particularly as boat arrivals have about double the rate of successful refugee determination as those who come by air.

    Asylum seekers living in the community are already placing heavy strains on the NGO’s that are struggling to help. These strains will increase on such organizations as Red Cross and the Asylum Seeker Centres.

    But the burden on the individual is the greatest worry. Most asylum seekers have escaped from terror and violence and many are traumatised. To deny them work rights is likely to worsen their mental state. It makes it harder for others to help them if they are forced into idleness. They are often humiliated within their family.

    In this situation, desperate asylum seekers are likely to feel they have no other choice but to take up work illegally. In this situation they are often exploited. This will give the Scott Morrisons, Alan Jones and the Ray Hadleys of this world another opportunity to demonize ‘illegals and criminals’.

    There is a persistent myth that refusal of work rights and other penalties will deter new asylum seekers and particularly boat people. But there is no evidence whatsoever that this deterrent works. In almost all cases asylum seekers are escaping appalling conditions, from the Taliban for example. Those situations are far worse than anything that we can throw at them.

    Beyond denial of work rights, there are many other hardships and handicaps forced upon asylum seekers. They often have limited accommodation help and some have no access to Medicare. Under the government’s policy of ‘no advantage”, many could be waiting in the community for five years.

    The ‘support’ arrangements for asylum seekers in the community are chaotic and quite arbitrary. Arja Keski-Nummi and I have described them as Kafkaesque. (See article in publish.pearlsandirritations.com) These arrangements are a mass of contradictions wrapped up in confusion. But one thing the Minister could do, and do quickly, would be to cut through this confusion and allow almost all asylum seekers to work. Taxpayers would benefit. Allowing asylum seekers to work in the community would be far cheaper than keeping them locked up in those hellholes of Immigration Detention Centres. Those centres chew up enormous amounts of money as well as very vulnerable people.

    Historically Labor governments have espoused the dignity of labour and the self-esteem personally and in the community that goes with hard work. Where are those values today?

    Asylum seekers are not criminals. They are courageous people who have taken great risks in escaping persecution for the sake of safety for themselves and their children.  Asylum seekers and particularly their children, become great citizens and contributors to this country.

    Minister, please grasp the nettle and let asylum seekers work. Start a breakthrough in this toxic political approach to asylum seekers .Australia can do better than this. We have shown it in the past

    John Menadue

  • Corporate bullies

    Public debate and the development of good policy are being steadily corrupted by the success of powerful lobby groups to quickly close down debate and force retreat by the government. This tactic is assisted by a timid government and a media that has little understanding of policy issues, and is only too prepared to recycle the handouts from powerful groups.

    Last week we saw this bullying in full view. The government floated the suggestion that the concessions handed out to wealthy retirees in tax concessions by Peter Costello in 2007 should be reconsidered. The superannuation lobby went into immediate attack. Pauline Vamos, the CE of the Association of Superannuation Funds in Australia said that for people to have a really comfortable standard of living throughout their retirement, they should have at least $2.5 million as the balance in their superannuation account. Ian McAuley has estimated that this would give the retiree a tax-free pension of about $160,000 p.a. Such a retiree would normally not have a home mortgage and the cost of raising children and their education.  In the face of this nonsense by Pauline Vamos and others, the government quickly retreated and said that it had no intention of taxing any capital sums in superannuation. Tax avoidance won the day, quickly and comprehensively.

    In the SMH last week, Ross Gittins wrote about the ‘four industries that rule Australia’ – superannuation funds, miners, bankers and the gambling industry.  I would have added the health industry.

    In 2009, the miners ran a highly successful and cheap advertising campaign ($22 million) to defeat the Rudd Government’s resources super profits tax. They also helped to get rid of the Prime Minister! The industry saved itself an estimated $66 billion over five years. We have now been left with a wimp of a mining tax.

    In 2011, under pressure from Independent Andrew Wilkie, the government undertook to introduce strong legislation to help addicted gamblers. But the licensed clubs and the gaming industry went to work and won the day.

    Ross Gittins has pointed out that through acquisition the four major banks have increased their market share from 74% to 83%. They make record profits and continually trouser additional savings by not passing on fully to customers the cuts in official interest rates.  They ignore both the treasurer and the shadow treasurer. They have real power.

    Then there is the health lobby – the AMA, private health insurance and the Pharmacy Guild who successfully restrict competition, protect restrictive work practices or secure increased government subsidies. The public debate is about what the government needs to do to buy off the specialists, the pharmacists and the private health funds.

    The lesson is clear; the large and wealthy groups with their lobbying power can derail public debate and secure concessions for themselves at the expense of the public interest. Too often the government runs for cover at the first whiff of grapeshot.

    There is a public register that lobbyists must complete. It is quite inadequate. As a starter, the public needs to know who the lobbyists and corporations are seeing, particularly ministers, parliamentarians and senior members of the public service, together with the nature of those discussions. That information should be updated weekly. It would be a small but important step in making transparent how corruption of good policy is occurring.

    John Menadue

  • The Bad Samaritan. Guest blogger Greg at Cottesloe

     
    You don’t have to be Christian to get it about helping sick or injured strangers but the parable of the kindly Samaritan does have its limits. What happens when the Samaritan notices the packet of smokes and the crumpled betting tickets? Irritation then becomes outrage – could that be a bottle of liquor in his pocket? And how can anyone be reading rubbish like that? “Thank God I stopped to help him. We’ll fix him up in no time. Let’s start with…….” Most people have started to feel uneasy before this point, sensing that simple kindness is changing into a darker something else.
    Unfortunately this sense of moral prudence doesn’t extend to our international behaviour. Outright wars of conquest are banned under the UN Charter but “limited” actions to “help” others squeeze around this barrier. And they are politically attractive; they unite the simple elements of the Right who just like blowing up foreigners with the secular evangelists of the Left who cannot tolerate a world where their ideas do not reign.
    Democracy is mandatory (a whiff of paradox here?) and for that, read Western liberal democracy. Guided democracy or mass democracy need not apply. And even liberal democracy is only acceptable if it delivers the right answer. Putin in Russia and Ahmadinejad in Iran both won elections where there were few restrictions on voting, opposition groups were allowed to rally and the two victory margins were clear but not ridiculous. Yet they remain very much works in progress for our own ayatollahs.
    For a great analysis of this ideology, see  http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/02/01/the-good-intentions-that-pave-the-road-to-war/  by Diana Johnstone.
    For people who are wedded to evidence-based policy, the enthusiasts for “humanitarian intervention” are strangely blind to the scorecard. Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya have hardly worked out well and Syria is supposed to be the next triumph. The idea that people there might prefer security over freedom is repugnant and is hardly discussed.
    Christ is a risky source of quotes to justify human enterprise. If only he had shut up and left off at the Good Samaritan parable. Unfortunately he went on to say other awkward things like “Do unto others…”, “Physician, Heal Thyself” and so on. In this context, does that mean that people here who are so relaxed and comfortable about our Army doing a big resto job in Afghanistan would have no problem with foreign armies coming into Australia to fix up our indigenous policies (and us)? I suspect not.
    Let’s continue to give to the poor and destitute, both personally and nationally. But understand you’re helping them buy their life back, not tossing them in your own shopping trolley.
    Greg at Cottesloe

     

  • Teaching ‘medical English’ in Vietnam. Guest blogger Kerry Goulston

    Vietnamese medical students realise that English is the international language of Medicine.  They can read it well—all have Laptops or i-pads and have easy access to radio and TV- but they know that they have problems in understanding spoken English and in speaking it. It is a language very different from their own but in schools and at university English is taught by other Vietnamese. Few can afford private tuition in spoken English as they are poorly paid.  Young healthcare workers aspiring to gain scholarships overseas to further their studies realise that there is a need to improve their skills to gain acceptance in other countries. This applies to Europe, USA and of course Australia.  Australia has become a favoured country in this respect: it is much closer than the US and Europe, the time zones are similar and many Australian tourists visit Vietnam every year.
    For the last six years, twice a year, groups of Australians  have travelled to Vietnam – mainly Hanoi – to run a  four-day course in “medical” English.  Each course, managed by the education department of  a hospital, is heavily over-subscribed.   Small groups of 8-12 with two Australians teaching pronunciation, grammar,colloquialisms and medical terminology, use role-playing clinical scenarios in an interactive fashion.  Not all the teachers are  doctors — many are from other professions or are lay people.  Inn September 2012 two Australian Vietnam Vets volunteered to join the group – one had recently had a joint replacement and played the patient to the Vietnamese doctor.
    All the Vietnamese healthcare workers participate actively and feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.  Sounds of  laughter  come from each of the three rooms used concurrently – it is amazing that both Australians and Vietnamese share the same sense of humour.
    The four day course is structured so that the Australians each have 2-3 half days off to relax and see the sights.   The Australian  group is disparate  and interact among themselves at dinner and at a 4-star hotel where they all stay.

    They have the opportunity to mix socially with their Vietnamese colleagues and tour the overcrowded hospitals. This month a concurrent  session is being run by Australian nurses for Vietnamese nurses over the four days.
    Each course is fully evaluated  and the results help improve the next visit. Welcoming and closing ceremonies, presided over by the Hospital Director, involve mutual exchange of gifts and short speeches. The  two Australian Vietnam Vets gave an emotional speech thanking the Vietnamese for their warm welcome-saying “once we were enemies and it means a lot to us now to be friends”.
    All the Australians pay their own fares and accommodation. The hospitals and university provide transport, teaching venues and equipment.
    The visits allow mutual friendships to develop and are rewarding for both teachers and participants. It’s an excellent example of helping people without telling them how to run their own lives.
    Kerry Goulston, Professor Emeritus in Medicine, University of Sydney

  • Sport and Markets. Guest blogger: Ian McAuley

    We are all suitably shocked by Justice Minister Jason Clare’s announcement of the findings of the Australian Crime Commission’s investigation into the use of prohibited substances and links to organized crime in sports. I heard his solemn announcement as I was driving home, past our local croquet club, and wondered if any code was exempt.

    Sport in Australia has never been entirely clean. Most people of my age have enough stories from the racetracks to bore our dinner guests for hours. But we also recall an era when league football was an outlet for suburban tribalism, when a player for Collingwood or Port Adelaide actually lived in Collingwood or Port Adelaide, when white-clad cricketers played on green grounds surrounded by white fences, and when the only signs of commercialism were the vendors of Four’n Twenty or Adams Pies.

    Over the years, however, sports have transformed from community activities to market activities. They have become part of the entertainment “industry”. In fact, government regulators, lawyers and insurers have done their best, through liability requirements, to make life hard for those who are old-fashioned enough to think sport is something that comes together through voluntary activity.

    With the financial stakes so elevated, is it any wonder that corruption has been attracted to sport?

    In 1944  the Austrian economic philosopher Karl Polanyi, in his work The Great Transformation, warned that the postwar era could see a change in the relationship between markets and society. Throughout history markets had been contained within society, subject to society’s norms, and often confined to certain physical or temporal domains. The transformation he warned about was the reversal of that order, when we would come to live in a “market society”. That transformation, which gathered pace with the election of the Reagan and Thatcher Governments, is now well advanced.

    Will our politicians see the sport corruption problem in this broad context – a context which would require them to think about the expansion of financial incentives throughout our society?

    Whatever our politicians do, I think the local croquet club will come through clean. The cars parked around their ground are modest. No one has bought advertising space on their white dresses. And no health insurance firm has bought sponsorship rights to interrupt spectators’ enjoyment.

    Ian McAuley

     

     

  • Japanese Amnesia. Guest blogger: Susan Menadue Chun

    In the Washington Post articles http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/japan-must-face-the-past/2013/01/25/7a9b9244-6713-11e2-85f5-a8a9228e55e7_story.html  Jennifer Lind describes how Japanese conservative politicians have been playing a potentially dangerous game in disputes with neighbouring countries. The dispute arises mainly because of Japan’s inability to acknowledge its past aggression.

    The current Japanese hostility to neighbours is in part designed to distract national attention away from the country’s economic woes. Fortunately, Prime Minister Abe did not antagonise the ROK on territory issues as feared on Takeshima Day on 3 February 2013.(Takeshima/Dokdo are the disputed islands between Japan and ROK). Hopefully, it is a sign that Prime Minister Abe is becoming more moderate. He may even decide not to make any more visits to the Yasukuni Shrine which commemorates Japanese war criminals and others.

    The present hostility to neighbours may only cause short-term damage in Japan’s relations with neighbouring countries. However, there is the likelihood of continuing long-term damage as a result of Japan’s reinterpretation of history which is taught in schools under the direction of the Department of Education. After World War II a new and standardised national identity was created through the school curriculum. This curriculum reinterpreted history. As a result, the majority of Japanese adults, including conservative politicians themselves, have not had access to the teaching of a comprehensive view of history. They fail to comprehend why Japan’s neighbouring countries continue to be angered over Japan’s denial of the past on such sensitive issues as comfort women. The modifying of history through textbooks has indeed affected the Japanese public. It has caused a collective amnesia. It is likely to continue as conservative politicians are now proposing to further revise school texts to reflect their nationalistic view of history. The current damage could be made worse and reconciliation with neighbours could become all that much more difficult.

    The problem runs deeper than the current indiscretions of conservative politicians. The problem is endemic as a result of 60 years of Japanese reinterpretation of history.

    Susan Menadue Chun

    Tokyo, Japan

  • New leadership on Asylum seekers

    Yesterday, Crikey published an article by Arja Keski-Nummi and me on the opportunities for the new Minister for Immigration to break the impasse on asylum seekers. You can find it at my website publish.pearlsandirritations.com.

  • Can the media spell ‘policy’?

    A friend of mine, Ian McAuley, has drawn attention to an election study by the ANU’s Institute for Public Policy Trends. It covers elections 1987-2010.

    The study shows conclusively that our media is badly out of touch with what the public wants. For the 2010 federal election campaign, the study asked voters what were the most important considerations in their voting decision. 52% said ‘policy issues’. 25% said ‘parties as a whole’. 15% said ‘party leaders’. 8% said ‘candidates in my electorate’.

    The media and particularly the Canberra Press Gallery keep pushing personalities, leaders and politics when clearly the public wants to hear about policy.

    Policy is harder to understand and explain. It is so much easier for the media to serve us up a diet of politicians and politics.

    I would have hoped that the ABC would do better, but watching or listening to its flagship programs on TV and radio, I get the same diet.  At the moment it is leadership, leadership, leadership.  I turn off more and more.

    We will have a new government after September. We also badly need a new Canberra Press Gallery that can at least spell the word ‘policy’ even if it cannot explain what it means!

    John Menadue

  • Cricket – Junk food and BUPA

    I used to be a grafted-on cricket watcher. But I am being weaned off. One reason is that there is so much cricket on TV that the quality suffers.

    I mostly turn off the audio and although the camera work is superb, I can’t turn off the unhealthy diet of fast-food and beer advertisements that Channel 9 and Foxtel overwhelm me with from first ball to stumps. I thought sport had something to do with encouraging healthy lifestyles. But the endless Kentucky Fried Chicken, Macdonalds, Pizza Hut and Victorian Bitter advertisements do just the reverse.

    But my real irritation is with the BUPA ads that give me pointless information about the heart rate of players and the nonsensical suggestion that by spending money with BUPA I will  be a ‘healthier you’. Advertising by BUPA is subsidised by the Australian taxpayer. The $3.5 billion p.a. tax subsidy that the private health funds receive goes, in theory, to policy holders, but in practice to funds like BUPA. Without that taxpayer subsidy very few would buy BUPA’s products.

    BUPA boasts that it has about a 30% market share of private health insurance. With the industry subsidy totalling $3.5 billion p.a., that represents a subsidy by taxpayers of over $1 billion p.a. for BUPA.

    Like other wasteful private health funds, BUPA pretends that it offers choice, but it sells practically identical products – choice without variety. One reason why we have a relatively good and low cost health scheme is that Medicare is a strong single payer. Private health insurance has  crippled efficient and equitable healthcare in the US because private funds like BUPA do not have the power or willingness to control costs. Advertising campaigns like BUPA’s take us further down the disastrous  US path.

    BUPA  and other health insurance funds floated  ‘Medicare Select’  to the Rudd Government. This  would have encouraged  many people to opt out of Medicare. It would have been goodnight to Medicare. Companies like BUPA favour the wealthiest, they increase the usage of health services, they undermine Medicare’s ability to control costs and quality and their administrative costs are three times those of Medicare. They have not taken pressure off public hospitals. ‘Gap insurance’ provided by companies like BUPA has triggered the largest increase in specialist fees in a quarter of a century.

    As taxpayers and citizens, we should be aware of  the damage that companies like BUPA are wreaking on health services in Australia. Why should taxpayers money be used not only to disrupt my enjoyment of cricket on TV, but also to cause so much damage to health services in this country.

    Together with Ian McAuley I have written many articles on this subject. See www.johnmendue.com and click on ‘health’.

    John Menadue

  • Handle with Care. Guest blogger: Greg from Cottesloe

     
    When I was a kid, the pictures on Saturday afternoons were a highlight of the week. Before the main feature, the cartoons and even the Pathe newsreel would come one of the top favourites, a government warning on the danger of keeping unexploded ammunition in homes. Mortar bombs often featured; unlike bullets and other aimed projectiles, they don’t miss and they wound anyone that’s exposed. These films had names like Not Worth Dying for and started with a picture of a mortar bomb on the mantelpiece, went to pipe smoking Dad accidentally knocking it over, the house going up with a roar, just the thing to put kids in the right frame of mind for the next episode of Gunsmoke.
    Germain Greer has long been an icon on the mantelpiece of the Left and of Feminism but they might need to have a look at those old government films. Her article in last weekend’s AFR tackles Australia’s alleged love of plain speaking and inflicts casualties on all sides. Greer is non denominational; everyone gets a serve regardless of gender, age, education, ethnicity, etc. And this on the One Day of the Year set aside for mass smugness and feeling mightily pleased that we are not anyone else.
    But it’s when we go dipping into the Rozella biscuit tin of history looking for precedents of our general fabulousness that we come up against some problems. Australians seem to have been more collectivist, more taciturn and instinctively aware of the limits on individual expression in the past and this hasn’t travelled so well to the present  A former Malaysian Trade Minister once commented that Australians often told her how much they liked plain speaking but how they seemed to lose their enthusiasm for it quickly enough when they were on the receiving end.
    And then there are the comparisons with the Americans. One of the staple cliches is how quietly spoken and unobtrusive we are as travellers compared with loud and pushy Americans but any time spent flying around Asia these days is going to make that notion questionable at least. A recent online article on doing business with the US advised Australians to be less aggressive and boastful, to “get the tickets off themselves”. If we’ve got the Americans telling us to tone it down, something is amiss in the self image department.
    So let’s keep that mortar bomb on the mantelpiece – even if it’s a bit fat and old – and give it a good toss around every now and then. It might go off but then that’s what it’s designed to do.
     Greg from Cottesloe

  • Federal Election bits and pieces

    There was nothing new in the timing of the next election announced by Julia Gillard. There wasn’t much doubt that it would be some time in August or September. There may be a marginal benefit for the government in the early announcement. It has some major policy issues to outline – Gonski reforms, national disability and how they are to be funded. Having the resources of the bureaucracy in outlining these issues will be a considerable advantage. Furthermore, oppositions have been inclined to make themselves small targets and hide policy until late in the day. That will now be much harder for the Coalition.

    I suspect that one issue in Julia Gillard’s mind is the timing of the interim report by the ICAC in NSW on mining leases and Eddie Obeid. The ICAC evidence is extremely damaging to the ALP although it’s hard to imagine that the ALP vote can fall much further after it was almost wiped out at the last state election. The best way to make a new start in NSW would be for the federal executive to dismiss the NSW ALP state office.

    The Liberal Party has obviously been trying to remake and reposition Tony Abbott. At the moment he doesn’t seem to know if he is coming or going as he struggles with his new image.

    In the lead up to the election, Sportsbet in the SMH and perhaps other papers, carried a full page advertisement of Tony Abbott and Julia Gillard. There was the thought bubble from Tony Abbott ‘I am going to win big on election day’. The thought bubble over Julia Gillard said ‘only if you back me at sportsbet.com.au’. I wonder if Sportsbet had permission from either Tony Abbott or Julia Gillard to use them in this advertisement? If they gave their approval I would be disappointed. I recall many years ago that a major car manufacturer used Arthur Calwell’s face and name to advertise its product. He took his hat around and got some major financial settlements.

    Whoever wins the election, many must hope for a rejuvenation of the Canberra Press Gallery. It is badly out of touch with the Australian community as Julia Gillard’s misogyny speech indicated. In its group-think, it is all about politics and personality. Policy comes a sad last.

    John Menadue

  • It happens every day (Guest blogger: Fr Michael Kelly S.J.)

    It happens every day. People in public life try to grab hold of and change the public narrative about themselves, those they represent or lead. For most of the second half of last year, the Prime Minister had charge of the public narrative, leaving the Opposition Leader flat footed as he tried to capitalize on the Coalition’s lead in the opinion polls.

    He failed. Julia Gillard made a policy announcement here, called a Royal Commission there, published a report on anything from disability insurance to the place of Australia in the Asian Century.

    The PM looked in command and to be driving the agenda. Tony Abbott was playing catch-up all the time as he weathered the storm of attacks on his alleged “misogyny” and said no with ever less effect to everything.

    In recent weeks I’ve been developing a media and communications strategy for the Catholic Church’s two national agencies dealing with sexual abuse – the Professional Standards Committee that engages with victims of abuse and the newly established Council set to interface on behalf of the Church with the Royal Commission on sex abuse.

    A desultory task you may say. I agree. I was asked to get involved by the bishop responsible for Professional Standards and on the newly established Council. Why. Simply because these agencies, one of which has been running for 15 years, has no media and communications strategy or protocols. Little wonder that the Church has been and been seen to be like Tony Abbott vis a vis Julia Gillard.

    And the Catholic Church has a special problem: the fact is the Church is a verbal metaphor with no legal or effective operational coherence. It is the antithesis of a “command and control”, centralized authority structure as it is often perceived to be. It’s in excess of 200 separately incorporated entities who choose to cooperate or don’t.

    Back to the public narrative. There’s really only one way the Catholic Church is going to get beyond the mess it’s in over sexual abuse – a particularly destructive own goal that has developed through a combination of ignorance and cowardice on the part of Church leadership and mendacity and diabolical cunning on the part of a criminal element incubated in the institution.

    That way is transparency, accountability and the confession of failure and the seeking of forgiveness.

    But only actions will have any effect in this public narrative of ecclesiastical failure. Anything in the way of actions that vindicate suspicions of cover-up will just send the narrative into a downward spiral.

    Actions like opening all records to access, welcoming an independent audit of current child protection procedures in the Church or providing visible evidence that Church institutions have amended their ways – such as offering a national 1800 number for victims to use or for the general public make complaints or offer suggestions – will not only display good faith but allow the public narrative to move beyond recriminations and mistrust.

    Guest blogger: Fr Michael Kelly S.J.

     

     

  • Nova Peris and the Captain’s pick

    Julia Gillard’s action in parachuting Nova Peris into the Northern Territory senate seat  is understandable. The ALP machinery is so decrepit and undemocratic that occasional use of power by the  parliamentary leader  is necessary.

    Party members have left the ALP in droves over the years. It is a ramshackle organisation that is so easy to manipulate by faction heavies. With so few party members it is remarkable that there isn’t more branch stacking and manipulation in preselections. Apparently only about 230 party members voted in the preselection for Senator Crossin for the Northern Territory Senate. But there are over 30,000 ALP first preference voters in the subsequent senate election. So a small group of party members foisted Senator Crossin on ALP supporters.

    But Julia Gillard’s intervention is only a bandaid. She had a great opportunity at last  year’s ALP Federal Conference to put her weight behind substantial  reform. The party was considering the report of John Faulkner, Bob Carr and Steve Bracks to start the process of reform of the ALP. Prime Minister Gillard did not provide the leadership necessary. Almost a decade earlier Bob Hawke and Neville Wran also proposed reform of the ALP machinery, but little was done.

    Gough Whitlam showed that with a party machine controlled by factions and state secretaries it is only the parliamentary leader who has the heft to break through the vested interests who are more concerned about retaining power in the machine than in advancing good policy to enthuse its rank and file and win elections.

    If Julia Gillard had used her ‘captain’s pick’ 12 months ago to lead the reform of the ALP, the organisation would be in much better shape today and the parachuting in of Nova Peris would be much less necessary.

    An exercise of the captain’s power at that time would have included the sacking of Sussex Street. If that had been done there would have been a dramatic lift in the party’s standing in NSW, particularly in western Sydney.

    Nova Peris’ selection will help but it is really small beer compared with the wider reforms that are necessary. Only the parliamentary leader can do it.

  • Rio Tinto – Corporate Governance and Asia

    Since 2007 Rio Tinto has written off $US 35 billion in failed investments. It must be a world record. There are probably more write-downs to come with its investments in Mozambique coal and in aluminium in North America.

    Tom Albanese has been sacrificed but the remainder of the Rio Tinto board are apparently unscathed. They have been too lax with shareholders money that they have washed so comprehensively down the drain. The boards of some of our mining companies in the mining boom must think that they are playing with monopoly money. Booming commodity prices and demand lulled them into being careless on major investment decisions. They became very gullible. Not only have they been lax in investment decisions but they have been careless in allowing costs to balloon.

    The board of Rio Tinto oversaw the company’s operations in China when the iron ore price quadrupled. But in the business euphoria, Rio Tinto took its eyes off the ball and left local staff in charge. Four of Rio’s staff in China admitted to bribery in a Chinese court. They are now languishing in Chinese jails for up to 14 years. This sorry performance was described by our former Ambassador in Beijing, Geoff Raby, as a ‘management failure’. He was being polite. It was a debacle. So far it is not clear that any senior executives or board members have been held accountable.

    Sam Walsh was on the board of Rio at the time he headed Rio’s iron ore division, with its substantial trade with China. He is now the CEO of the whole organisation replacing TomAlbanese.

    It is also suggested that the problems in Mozambique related in part to Rio’s management style, including its relations with the Mozambique government. Rio did not appoint Portuguese speaking executives in Mozambique to manage the business.

    Our large mining companies have an excellent record as geologists, explorers and people skilled at digging up and transporting minerals but they are yet to demonstrate business skills particularly in countries that are culturally and linguistically different. I do not know of any major Australian mining company that has a board member or CEO who can fluently speak at least one of the languages of our major customers – China, Japan and Korea. Few would have even a cultural understanding of how business is conducted in these countries.

    These large companies pontificate about sovereign risk when the Australian government attempts to introduce reasonable tax regimes. These companies also tell us that we should all be raising our productivity with upskilling and improved work practices. But they don’t practice wheat they preach.

    The disasters which Rio Tinto has brought upon itself were predictable.

    John Menadue