Blog

  • MASSIMO FAGGIOLI. Are US Catholics too American to stand up to Trump?

    It also reveals a much more complex issue – the deep-seated fear of the state within American Catholicism and of the gap between US Catholicism and the global Catholic Church’s view on the state and of political authority. This creates a complicated situation for the Catholic Church in the United States and its role to be one of the voices that questions the trajectories of the nation under Donald Trump.  (more…)

  • And Jesus said unto Paul of Ryan …

    Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times on March 16, 2017, writes about a ‘discussion’ between Jesus and Paul Ryan, the Republican Speaker of the US House of Representatives. Ryan claims that Catholicism has shaped his political views. Is Nicholas Kristof’s account a parable or a parody.  John Menadue. (more…)

  • ALLAN PATIENCE. Is globalization ending?

    It is the fashion to declare that globalization is coming to an end. Evidence for this includes: nationalism being on the rise; protectionist policies making a come-back; borders being slammed shut; populist politicians multiplying at rabbit-like rates. Trump and Brexit, it is said, are the isolationist tips of two vast metaphorical icebergs that both represent populist hostility directed towards the idea of a world that would be one.     (more…)

  • RODNEY TUCKER. The Tragedy of Australia’s National Broadband Network.

    A National Tragedy

    Australia’s National Broadband Network is heavily dependent on a soon-to-be-obsolete technology (FTTN) that most of the world has rejected. The FTTN-based network was sold to the Australian public based on an underestimate of Australia’s broadband needs (Tucker, 2014), and continues to be justified using incorrect estimates of the cost differentials between FTTN and FTTP.

    The FTTN network performs poorly compared to FTTP networks used elsewhere in the world.  What is worse is that the NBN does not have a clear and affordable upgrade path.  FTTN is of limited value to some users, such as high-end users and small businesses, who require affordable access to higher speeds than FTTN can deliver. 

    In the meantime, the rest of the world is moving to FTTP and gigabit cities are thriving. Leaders in broadband delivery around the world are already planning for upgrades in their FTTP technology to even higher speeds. 

    This situation is nothing short of a national tragedy and a classic example of failed infrastructure policy that will have long-term ramifications for Australia’s digital economy.
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  • MUNGO MacCALLUM. Who is to blame for the last Liberal Party election failure – Turnbull or Nutt.

    Malcolm Turnbull will plough ahead pushing the doors marked pull and ignoring the lessons, not just from the last election, but from all the polling since.   (more…)

  • ROSS BURNS. After Khan Sheikhun

    The 4 April attack on Khan Sheikhun using CW (chemical warfare) weapons was almost certainly the work of Bashar al-Assad’s regime. This is the only explanation which ticks off all the boxes—means, motive and opportunity. The hastily assembled US retaliatory attack on the Syrian air base at Shayrat near Homs, however, might not have been particularly effective in addressing the problem of residual nerve agents in the hands of the Syrian regime.   (more…)

  • RAMESH THAKUR. Decoding the Trump strikes on Syria

    The use of chemical weapons in Syria and the US air strikes in punishment are part of the continuing descent into lawlessness by various actors with unforeseeable consequences in an already inflamed region.  (more…)

  • PATTY FAWKNER. The pattern of all life.

    For 13 billion  years, since the Big Bang until now, death has been part of life. We know that, and as Christians we believe that death is the prelude to new life. We call it the Paschal Mystery. But what do these words, Paschal Mystery, mean, asks Good Samaritan Sister Patty Fawkner?   (more…)

  • JAMES O’NEILL. Verdict First, Evidence Later: How the Australian Media Misrepresent Geopolitical Events

    The reporting of the tragedy from Syria is but the latest illustration of an all too common phenomenon: a pre-determined verdict on little or no evidence.   (more…)

  • MARK BEESON. What it is to be popular

    At a moment when the world needs informed responses to complex problems that transcend national borders, a retreat to nationalist tub-thumping is the last thing we need. Yes, there are important questions about who ‘we’ are and whom national public policies actually benefit, but they are unlikely to be answered, much less addressed by the current generation of populists.   (more…)

  • NICK BISLEY. Learning to live with a nuclear North Korea?

    North Korea perceives it is isolated in a world that is hostile to its existence. However loathsome the regime may be and however badly it misallocates resources to bolster the ruling elite, the reason for acquiring nuclear weapons is entirely rational: they are a vital means for North Korea to protect itself.  (more…)

  • ANNETTE BROWNLIE. Keeping Australia out of US wars

    It is time we, the people, asserted our sovereignty, took control of our foreign policies and reviewed the presence of U.S. bases and troops in Australia. It is time we started promoting genuine peace and security, human rights, a sustainable environment and our independence.  (more…)

  • WAYNE McMILLAN. David versus Goliath: reform and reinvention (Part 2 of 2)

    What Sally McManus’s is saying is correct, I agree with her conclusions about what has happened to workers over the last 30 years and what is becoming intolerable now in 2017. Across Australia in 2017, little or no wage growth, increased working hours, increases in casual jobs, a decrease in full time meaningful work, rising increases in household debt and rising inequalities in income and wealth is the bleak future facing Australian workers and their families. In the public sector, outsourcing and privatisation have meant an erosion of working conditions and rates of pay for workers. What can be done to rectify this alarming trend?   (more…)

  • SUE WAREHAM. How independent is the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

    ASPI’s oft-repeated claim of independence – immunity from the influence of the corporations who help fund the organisation – does strike one as rather naive for experts who might otherwise be seen as “hard-headed realists” in a tough world. Corporations are, after all, accountable to their shareholders to whom they must demonstrate that funds are spent in pursuit of profits. How then, could these corporations justify granting sponsorships to an organisation in which they have zero influence?  (more…)

  • MICHAEL THORN. Cricket Australia throw Aussie kids to the Lion

    Alcohol and sport sponsorship is a toxic marriage, an ill-fitting and dangerous partnership. Like sport and tobacco sponsorship before it, it is anachronism; a throwback to a less enlightened era.   (more…)

  • WAYNE McMILLAN. David and Goliath: One step forward, two steps back. (Part 1 of 2)

    Malcom Turnbull’s recent comment that he couldn’t work with Sally McManus the recently elected Secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) is just another excuse against strong union representation for ordinary waged workers. (more…)

  • DAVID PEETZ. How tax minimisation affects CEO pay

    Firms whose executives behave ‘unethically’, as proxied by not paying any company tax, are also likely to pay their CEOs an average of around a fifth more than firms of similar size and circumstances who do pay company tax.   (more…)

  • ALLAN PATIENCE. Where do we go from here?

    “Why do we experience such difficulty even imagining a different sort of society? Why is it beyond us to conceive of a different set of arrangements to our common advantage? Are we doomed indefinitely to lurch between a dysfunctional ‘free market’ and the much advertised horrors of ‘socialism’?” – Tony Judt, Ill Fares the Land   (more…)

  • TONY SMITH. Company tax cuts by any other name

    The federal government might have called its company tax cuts bill by another almost Orwellian name, but semantic disguises should not fool anyone. Tax cuts are being delivered to Australian business.   (more…)

  • EDITORS, EAST ASIA FORUM. The consequences of the Trump-Xi meeting in Florida.

    ANU East Asia Forum has posted a new item, ‘The consequences of the Trump–Xi meeting in Florida‘

    All eyes will be on Florida this week, where US President Donald Trump will ANU host an inaugural summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping.  (more…)

  • Building a regional refugee framework.

    The Asia Dialogue on Forced Migration (ADFM) expanded its membership, deepened its policy contributions to the Bali Process on People Smuggling, Trafficking in Persons and Related Transnational Crime (Bali Process) and developed its connection to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) at its meeting in Jakarta from 5-7 March 2017.   (more…)

  • RICHARD BUTLER. Fake news?

    Trump’s threats against DPRK and May’s against Gibraltar, as reported, are fake news. The US’ stance on nuclear non-proliferation of nuclear weapons is a fake.    (more…)

  • MUNGO MacCALLUM. Even in Malcolm Turnbull’s own terms, it is a fizzer.

    Well it wasn’t what was hoped for, and certainly not what was required; but it was better than nothing.   (more…)

  • BOB BIRRELL and DAVID McCLOSKEY. Sydney and Melbourne’s housing affordability crisis: no end in sight.

    Our projections show that, on these demographic assumptions, new migrants will add about 64 per cent to the need for extra dwellings in Sydney over the decade 2012 to 2022 and 54 per cent in Melbourne.   (more…)

  • TOM BURTON. Data rights for all.

    A proposed new legal right for consumers and businesses to control and access the data created about them is set to be one of the major reforms of this decade. Not everyone is supportive.   (more…)

  • TIM COLEBATCH. Old coal, no new gas: how to generate an electricity crisis.

     We need to set a timetable to reduce emissions from electricity generation, which now contributes a third of Australia’s greenhouse gases – and, by and large, the third that will be easiest and cheapest to reduce. We need price mechanisms to drive it.

    And we need the federal government to step into the gas market and stop domestic supplies being sent overseas. It has the power to put a moratorium on sales to overseas spot markets until the domestic crisis is fixed – and to tell Santos and its partners that if they don’t produce enough gas to meet their contracts, they can buy more overseas. We can’t let Australia’s energy-intensive manufacturing die because of policy mistakes.   

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  • JOHN MENADUE. Alexey Navalny has roused a democratic Russia. Turnbull and Bishop are too busy sleeping to care.

    In Australia we conjure Russia through the basest of filters: take your pick of Pauline Hanson expressing her admiration for Russia’s autocrat Vladimir Putin, or of the sometime boxer-sometime- Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s vows to ‘shirtfront’ said autocrat.   (more…)

  • DUNCAN MacLAREN. Article 50 triggered: the farce heats up

    Are you ready for another dose of Brexititis? This past week, PM May triggered Article 50, meaning negotiations can begin, after due examination by the 27 remaining states, between the exiting UK (or, at least, the parts that survive) and the EU but only as a body. The EU has forbidden the divide and rule of the UK pitting one EU member against another, an insidious act by what Guardian journalist, Antony Beevor, called last year “the most hated nation in Europe”. The terms of Mrs May’s letter didn’t win too many friends either.   (more…)

  • MUNGO MacCALLUM. Free speech, Newscorp and Mark Latham.

    What a craven capitulation to political correctness. What a surrender to the great values of Australian democracy, the most important of which, it needs hardly be said (although it has been incessantly by the free speakers of The Australian) is free speech.   (more…)

  • QUENTIN DEMPSTER. Wilful ignorance and the courage to explain

    The role of committed journalists, whether in a functioning democracy like Australia, or a country under a kleptocracy, totalitarian or politburo governance, is to tell the public what is really going on.  (more…)