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The erosion of public trust in government has been a characteristic of liberal democracies in recent years. How much have the twists and turns in climate change policy over the past decade contributed to this in Australia? As a senior public servant during six prime ministerships, Martin Parkinson had a front-row seat from which to watch the inability of successive governments to tackle climate change. From an emissions trading scheme through to a National Energy Guarantee, this is a story of science and expertise ignored, short-termism, wasted opportunities, and international disappointment. Climate change demands both a local and a global response, just as do pandemics, mass migration, and ocean pollution. The increasingly urgent question is whether governments are up to the challenge or are prepared to bear the consequences of inaction or indifference. The history of climate change policy in Australia is a sorry story which should leave Australians demanding more courage and commitment from their political leaders.

In March 2020, schools and childcare centres across Australia were forced to close to control the spread of the recently arrived novel coronavirus (COVID-19). Families and carers suddenly had to adjust to long periods of home-schooling, disparities in the availability of technology, loss of social connections with friends and relatives, and an exhausting new balancing act of work, home and schooling commitments-- all in a confined environment. In the wake of the resulting emotional burnout, heightened by spontaneous lockdown measures and growing COVID-19 cases, we witnessed an exponential rise in youth anxiety, triggering a mental health crisis in children as young as those of kindergarten age. Three years later, what does the post-pandemic child look like? What does the future hold for the millions of young Australians whose formative years were so disrupted? And what help must we urgently provide to this generation of children who found themselves coping with a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic? In The Post-Pandemic Child, Kim Cornish takes us through the key challenges now faced by Australian children, including the return to in-person schooling and the ramifications of online teaching and missed years of social interaction. She also examines the short- and long-term consequences for this ' pandemic generation', and the priorities in enabling these children to regain what was lost during the early years of COVID-19.

Courts aren't just there to settle divorces, sentence law-breakers and resolve corporate disputes. A healthy legal system, one that ensures access, transparency and accountability, is fundamental to democracy. When the system works, the courts act as a check on government power, holding our politicians and bureaucrats to account. In Courting Power, Isabelle Reinecke, founder of Grata Fund, Australia's first strategic litigation funder and incubator, takes us through some of the public interest cases she has helped bring about-- from one launched by Torres Strait Islanders to establish the federal government's duty of care regarding climate change, to a High Court case on remote housing rights in the Northern Territory, and Doctors for Refugees' successful challenge to government gag laws. In a world of spin and puff, inattention and information overload, media deregulation and TikTok, evidence and accurate information have never been so important. The courts are perhaps the last remaining place where facts are primary and hyperbole is ignored. Courting Power is a timely reminder of how ordinary people can rely on them to keep the powers that be accountable.

The May 2022 election marked the great re-engagement of those ignored and patronised for too long on climate, integrity and gender equity. The electoral map has been dramatically redrawn. However, the triumph of the 'teals' was not entirely unexpected to those assisting their rise, such as Climate 200 founder Simon Holmes áa Court. As Australia entered its lost decade on climate action, he observed that conventional advocacy had become a case of diminishing returns, and that Cathy McGowan's election as a community independent in 2013 provided a template for direct political engagement. The result was Climate 200, a crowdfunded outfit intended to provide the money and expertise to better match the major parties and turbocharge the grassroots movement emerging in thirty-plus electorates. This is the story of how a team of inspired young tech-heads and older sages used their real and virtual-world experience to help a cluster of communities get the representation they wanted.

Gladys Berejiklian was one of Australia's most popular premiers. Forging a path for New South Wales through the difficult early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, she seemed unstoppable. But it all came crashing down. In one of the most staggering falls from grace in Australian political history, Berejiklian found herself embroiled in a major corruption inquiry that had enveloped the man with whom she was in a secret relationship. That same inquiry slowly expanded to focus on the conduct of Berejiklian herself. Journalist Paul Farrell takes us behind the scenes of the corruption investigation that brought down a NSW premier. He gives us a bird' s-eye account of how a case was built against her, and the relationship that ended her political reign. He also reveals how Berejiklian's popularity was shored up by powerful allies in media and political circles, and the tactics deployed by her office to silence critics. At the centre of all this is the national importance of trust, honesty and integrity, and how much Australians are willing to tolerate when it comes to the behaviour of their leaders.

Disregard the critics. Australia's ABC, at ninety years of age, is demonstrably more valuable to Australians now than it has ever been. The ABC's home-grown Managing Director, David Anderson, gives us a rare insight into the ABC he knows intimately: a cultural powerhouse where Australian identity is celebrated, democracy is defended, and a very Australian brand of creativity is encouraged to flourish. This is a challenging era for many public broadcasters, with news media consolidation, globalised entertainment streams, and unreliable social media. Yet the ABC has never faltered or lost its relevance: on the contrary. This book sets out why Australians turn to their ABC now more than ever for information and news, solace and entertainment, pride and patriotism. Anderson lays out how the ABC will continue to innovate and develop as our essential and beloved national institution over the years leading to its centenary in 2032, and beyond.

Australia's prosperity relies on the continent's extraordinary natural--primarily mineral--riches and good fortune. But economic, financial, environmental, geopolitical, and societal pressures now threaten the nation's high living standards. The COVID-19 pandemic is the first of many trials to come. Lacklustre reform proposals are mired in ideological necrophilia: ideas which have been tried and failed. Politics is trading insults and slogans. Institutions lack the quality, skills, organisational memory, and courage to deliver the required solutions. A disengaged citizenry are focused on preserving their entitled way of life, refusing to accept that the well of plenty is approaching exhaustion. Written in accessible, acerbic prose, Fortune's Fool cuts through these issues to expose Australia's current dilemmas and choices. It dissects the pandemic, global trends, Australia's narrow 'house and holes' economy and its dependency on China, spotlighting a political paralysis that must be overcome and the changes that are urgently needed. For Australians remotely concerned about their own future and their children's, as well as the country's, Fortune's Fool is essential reading.

The Morrison government's moral decline happened first slowly and then all at once. We suffered through 'Sports rorts' and 'Watergate' and an MIA PM, before the dissembling response to allegations of sexual abuse at the very heart of federal politics threw into stark relief the cynicism and moral bankruptcy of a government ready to abandon any semblance of integrity to save its own skin. But at a time when the country is crying out for leadership, the Labor Party seems paralysed, so terrified it may lose votes from its opponent's perennial wedging that, on key moral questions, it has failed to make the case to win them. Burning Down the House tells the story of how our political system went awry. Debunking the notion that we've ever had a two-party system, it examines how--with a recent dance card that has gone way beyond Labor and Liberal to encompass the Nationals, Greens, Centre Alliance and a whole host of RWNJs--Australia has now arrived at a place where a group of the most unlikely politicians contemplated the sort of Australia they wanted--responsible, humane, moral--and concluded that was not the Australia reflected in our current toxic politics. Into the breach has stepped a range of independents beholden to no-one but themselves and their electorates, ordinary Australians determined to burn it all down and build something new.

Why should we in Australia, or any country, care about poverty, human rights atrocities, health epidemics, environmental catastrophes, weapons proliferation, or any other problems afflicting faraway countries, when they don't, as is often the case, have any direct or immediate impact on our own safety or prosperity? Gareth Evans' answer is the approach he adopted when Australia's foreign minister. He argues that to be, and be seen to be, a good international citizen--a state that cares about other people's suffering, and does everything reasonably possible to alleviate it--is both a moral imperative and a matter of hard-headed national interest. The case for decency in conducting our international relations is based both on the reality of our common humanity, and a national interest just as compelling as the traditional duo of security and prosperity. Four key benchmarks matter most in assessing any country's record as a good international citizen: its foreign aid generosity; its response to human rights violations; its reaction to conflict, mass atrocities, and the refugee flows that are so often their aftermath; and its contribution to addressing global existential threats.

Over the past thirty years, the Internet has transformed virtually every area of human activity, social and economic. The bulk of these changes have been positive, allowing people to work, imagine and connect with each other in new ways. The boost to economic activity has been enormous. But along with the benefits have come new risks. Our children can learn and play on the internet, but they can also be bullied there, or unwittingly stumble across extreme pornography. For ordinary citizens, the Internet provides an unprecedented opportunity to comment and participate in public discourse; but the same digital platforms providing this opportunity can also be forums for the wide circulation of abusive, defamatory or grossly inaccurate material. And while the Internet has created vast new opportunities for businesses and consumers, it has disrupted many traditional forms of economic activity. The result is a rich set of policy challenges for governments.--from the publisher.

What is it about the culture and structure of Parliament House that has allowed sexual violence and harassment to flourish? Since the mid-1990s, the number of women in the Australian Parliament has increased, but unfortunately, they are still not being heard. And tragically, they are not always safe. As women, we believe in the power of politics to do good, and as feminists we recognise that politics is about power: getting it, holding onto it, and using it to improve citizens' lives. Women wielding power in Parliament House, women fighting for equality and an end to discrimination across our country, have made their mark and they have caused change. But the underlying problem of men's attitudes towards women, of men believing it is their right to assault or harass women, remains. For this to change, men will have to give up some of the harmful ways in which they use power--in the parliament and in our community. We are calling for actions to have consequences, and for an end to a culture of political impunity. We want to seize this moment to do the unfinished work--to make sure that women are not just in the room, but that they are safe there. We say enough is enough.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution, the digital disruption of business by the information and communications sectors, is well underway in Australia and around the globe. The COVID-19 pandemic has only accelerated the pace of change. We are witnessing a proliferation of new platforms and new markets, with AI replacing human expertise - we are seeing the transformation of the firm, how we work and the nature of society. These seismic changes are all impacting the global distribution of economic growth and income. And alarmingly, among the OECD economies, as a share of GDP, Australia's ICT sector is around half the average, and falling further over time - it is second-last, only above Mexico. Given the scope and speed of change, Australia is now confronted by a stark choice between becoming a tech innovator, and so a producer of economic profits and high-paying jobs, or stagnating. We are at a crossroads, and our policy choices today will determine whether we remain one of the wealthiest and happiest nations in the world, or see our global position continue to slide. In The Digital Revolution: A Survival Guide, Professor Simon Wilkie argues that, to preserve our status as one of the most desirable economies to live in, we need a policy revolution that addresses not just universal basic income, but tax policy, lifelong education, social inclusion and the nature of work. In short, the Fourth Industrial Revolution has the potential to usher in a period of sustained prosperity and increasing equality. But to achieve this demands no less than a rethinking of the social contract.In the National Interest is a new series in the Monash University Publishing list that is focused on the challenges Australia confronts. The series informs, influences and inspires public discourse. Showcasing experts both from within Monash and beyond, these short, thought-provoking and accessible books will address the major issues of our times, from public policy to governance and government.

The level of public frustration and disengagement with political leaders has never been higher. At the same time, the problems we need them to deal with, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, a crisis in aged care, and accelerating climate change, are immediate and urgent. Based on his experience working closely with a large number of ministers and their private offices, both at the federal and state level, and his time in the United States, Don Russell reflects on politicians, the political process, and the role of government, and explains why our political leaders are as they are. Drawing on his experience, including his involvement in the golden age of public policy of the Hawke/Keating years and his observations on Australia's early success responding to the pandemic, he suggests that there is a pathway that can lead to dramatically better outcomes for the country and more satisfying and longer careers for our politicians. People want their elected officials to be informed, to be capable and creative, to be able to devise solutions that work, and then to be able to explain those solutions and bring the community with them. They want their elected officials to lead.

For some time, Australia's democracy has been slowly sliding into disrepair. The nation's major policy challenges go unaddressed, our economic future is uncertain and political corruption is becoming normalised. It's tempting, but distracting, to point to the usual list of reasons, from the declining calibre of the political class to the growing polarisation of politics. But we can't understand the current predicament of our democracy without recognising the central role of Murdoch's national media monopoly. In Queensland, where national elections are determined, he owns thirteen of the state's fourteen newspapers. All his papers are loss-making and retained for political influence only; nationally, they act as a Liberal Party protection racket, providing zero accountability on Coalition corruption and incompetence. Together with the Liberal Party, the Murdoch media cultivates a climate of national anxiety, fear and anger through relentless campaigns on deficit, debt and the threat to Australia from ever-changing but always nefarious foreign interests. Their goal is an anxious Australia, reinforced by the latest campaign applications of political neuroscience, permanently predisposing the electorate towards the reassurance of having conservatives in power. For these reasons, there is no longer a level playing field in Australian politics. We won't see another progressive government in Canberra until we deal with this cancer in our democracy. Three more things must change for Labor to be returned to office. Labor must significantly broaden its political base; demolish the entire rationale for the conservative political project now that the Liberal Party has abandoned its position on debt, deficit and government intervention in the economy; and put forward a clear plan dealing with the challenges ahead: recurring pandemics; demographic decline; technological disruption undermining economic competitiveness and employment; the rise of China; and the continued economic and environmental devastations of climate change. All four tasks are essential. All four will require great political courage to bring about fundamental change. And now is the time for women and men of courage to act.--

Long-term population directions, in terms of both size and age composition, drive the destiny of all nations. While for decades we have worried about global overpopulation, it is far more likely that the period 1950-2050 will be an extraordinary population growth shock, culminating in severe population ageing and then decline. This shock will have four stages aligned with the stages of the life cycle of the baby boomers: childhood, adulthood, old age and death.Around ten years ago, the developed world as a whole entered the third stage of the population shock - old age. Over the next ten to twenty years, most of continental Europe, China, Russia and South Korea will join Japan as nations with sharply declining populations. The world and modern capitalism have never before been in such a situation.While Australia's population will continue to grow over the next forty years, we will age significantly. Economic growth will slow, government and household debt will rise, and inequality will accelerate. Against that background, how will government chart our population and economic future? --

"One in five Australian women has been the victim of a sexual assault. For these women, there is less than a 1 per cent chance that their rapist has been arrested, prosecuted and convicted of the crime. These are the bare numerical facts of system failure. We offer rape survivors a stark choice: go to the police, or remain silent. In recent times, the public pressure on survivors to report has increased, alongside a growing focus on two other options: civil action against the perpetrator, or going public. These evolving social responses are intended to offer an alternative to the tradition of silencing. However, each of these choices, for survivors, involves a further sacrifice of what they have already lost. The legal system's responses to rape were designed without survivors in mind, and they do not address, in any way, the questions that survivors ask or the needs they express. Simply put, on the systemic response to rape, we are having the wrong conversation."--

When Héritier Lumumba's Collingwood teammates called him 'Chimp', it showed a lack of respect. When the Prime Minister referred to Brittany Higgins by her first name in parliament, it showed a lack of respect. When senator Bill Heffernan referred to then prime minister Julia Gillard as 'deliberately barren', it showed a lack of respect. When the federal government refused permission to fly the Indigenous flag in the Senate, it showed a lack of respect. When Bettina Arndt defended a 56-year-old man who had repeatedly raped fifteen-year-old Grace Tame, now the 2021 Australian of the Year, it showed a lack of respect. So when did respect disappear? When did we agree to abandon our respect for expertise, for other people's experience and history, for the boundaries between the personal and the public, for facts as well as feelings? In a civil society, respect is a fundamental principle. Should the government of the day legislate respect? Should it lead the community or follow it? Victorian MP Jill Hennessy, in a passionate argument, exhorts us to reclaim the empathy that respect depends on.

As Australia comes to grips with accusations that some of its elite soldiers committed war crimes in Afghanistan, a catchcry for certain commentators is that the 'fog of war' explains, justifies, and possibly excuses the alleged atrocities that have come to light. The term seeks to capture the uncertainty regarding one's own capability, the adversary's capability, and intent. However, the 'fog of war' is woefully inadequate in explaining actions that were deliberate, targeted, and repeated. Abuses of power and the normalisation of deviance are at the heart of the 'cultural issues' that have long plagued the Australian Defence Force. In fact, this can be said of all institutions grappling with the same problems: histories of abuse and secrecy, sexual harassment, and problems of diversity and inclusion. It is always easiest to point a finger at a 'what' rather than a 'who, ' so 'culture' features prominently in analyses of what went wrong regarding the alleged war crimes committed by Australia's Special Operations Command. But does a focus on culture provide clarity or obscurity? Does it lead to or is it a barrier to accountability? How do you know when you've achieved cultural change?

The revelations and allegations of sexual harassment and assault in the Australian Parliament have prompted furious responses. Political leaders have attempted to limit the damage by referring to the lack of criminal charges, resisting a discussion of entrenched misogyny. Advocates for survivors of abuse see this as a continuation of the long history of normalising the abuse of woman, perpetuating it through legal mechanisms and the exercise of power. This impasse represents the workings of a 'rape culture' where the abuse of women is accepted as commonplace. Psychological theories of repression have been misused, contributing to the recycling of the so-called theory of 'false memories' whereby the recall of trauma is seen as invented, perhaps implanted by therapists. It is concerning that this complex issue is being ventilated by journalists, politicians, and lawyers without any clinical understanding of trauma, memory, and the implications for support. Women must not be represented as mentally unstable, untrustworthy, or ruled by their hormones while their abusers take refuge in legalisms, obfuscations, and the dark art of political calculus.

The exposés in early 2021 of sexism and sexual violence in Parliament House prompted women across the country (and some men) to take to stages, lecterns and social media to express their rage and demand action. However, while these events highlighted that violence against women is an ongoing issue in our community, in many ways the allegations and incidents should not shock us. They are part of women's daily lives. Violence against women has been called the 'shadow pandemic'; it is certainly an international epidemic. Since family violence was declared a national emergency here in 2015, little has been done nationally to change the tragic reality that one woman is killed by a current or former male partner every week. The lack of federal leadership and action can no longer be ignored, excused or explained away. Canberra's silence on violence against women has become deafening of late. The softly-softly response to allegations of abuse, harassment and sexual violence reflects a longstanding pattern of our political leaders not taking women's safety seriously. In Our National Shame, Kate Fitz-Gibbon reminds us that violence against women is not a private issue that needs bespoke, case-by-case solutions. It is a community-wide problem that, to be properly addressed, requires a dramatic shift in how we understand and respond to men's violence, and most importantly, the tackling of gender inequality in this country. Transformative national leadership must drive this. But do our political masters have either the will or the integrity to meet this challenge?

Why does Australia go through cycles of public policy boldness and timidity? The COVID-19 crisis has shown that the Australian political system has much more tolerance for policy innovation than appeared to be the case on the evidence of the previous twenty years. As another election approaches, though, the signs are that both major parties are keen for a return to policy caution. In Who Dares Loses: Pariah Policies, Wayne Errington and Peter van Onselen explain the political constraints on policymakers and the ways in which they are changing. This book also suggests alternative sources of revenue and spending reforms. In addition, it examines the limited debates over welfare, Medicare, and public broadcasting. Some of these ideas have been around for decades. Others are the product of new technology. What they have in common is that they are good ideas that have become pariahs when it comes to government action.

In Australia, corruption spends public funds in pursuit of power, rewards favour, and strips support from worthy programs. It silences journalists and those charged with upholding standards of integrity by depriving them of funding. Grift and stacking are commonplace as those chasing influence infiltrate the structures of power. Corruption rewards loyalty through appointments to office and by preferencing those within the favoured network ahead of others of equal or greater talent. It conceals itself through unfit-for-purpose access to information laws and processes, vague budget commitments, the assertion of unchecked executive discretion, a quick media cycle, and overburdened parliamentary committees. It undermines trust in government at a time when trust is vital to keeping us safe. Corruption allows mistrust to fester, offers nourishment to conspiracy theories, and engenders civil unrest. In Easy Lies & Influence, Fiona McLeod, a practising Senior Counsel and Chair of the Accountability Round Table, tells us what corruption can do, and why it's imperative that we address it.

The scandal involving Dyson Heydon, former justice of the High Court, confirmed that the scourge of sexual harassment in Australian workplaces was also to be found in the chambers of one of the seven most senior judges in the country. An unquestioning reliance on the calibre of the fine legal minds appointed to the High Court had blinded us to the reality that sexual harassment is as common in the legal profession as it is in corporate Australia and in all other industries. In particular, in the legal profession, a hierarchical structure and a culture of silence had served to perpetuate feelings of embarrassment, fear and shame on the part of victims. In Power & Consent, Rachel Doyle, a practising Senior Counsel for over a decade, argues that we need to understand the power relationships at the heart of the modern workplace. Sexual harassment is rarely a 'one off'. Perpetrators continue their harassment because they are not called to account for their actions. Silence and complicity allow recidivists to go unpunished and normalise the phenomenon of 'getting away with it'. Perpetrators must be taught what consent means. This book demands a new response to complaints of sexual harassment; one which recognises the power of strength in numbers, the probative value of multiple complaints, and the restorative power of grievances shared. It also calls for the imposition of new obligations: it asks bystanders to become participants and to take collective responsibility for supporting victims and stopping perpetrators.

Australia has enjoyed an unprecedented period of prosperity in recent decades, yet despite this there has been a widely reported loss of faith in politics and institutions. With the COVID-19 pandemic, Australia faces its most significant economic and social challenges in decades. How is politics placed to deal with these challenges and what is the capacity of our key institutions to do so? What are the lessons and warnings from history? In Challenging Politics, longtime politician Scott Ryan argues that the way we determine issues, the way we practice politics, and what we expect from politicians and government, is in flux. To some, the virtue of compromise has become the sin of sellout. The louder voices of fringe and single-issue movements attract attention, money and commitment, and apply litmus tests to those who seek to govern. This makes it more difficult for our institutions, and therefore our politics, to function effectively. The long-talked-about collapse of the centre isn't solely about extreme ideas. It is also about how our expectations of politics and our institutions have changed.--

Nature creates viruses. But people and politics create pandemics. And pandemics create new politics. In the 1980s, the toxic politics of the response to HIV/AIDS turned a serious but manageable viral threat into a global pandemic that took the lives of 32 million people and brought illness and suffering to millions more. In 2020, COVID-19 emerged into a world where many governments had failed to heed the lessons of the past, and so they were unprepared and unable to stop its global spread. But some countries had learned the harsh lessons of HIV/AIDS, and had contained SARS1, Ebola, Zika and MERS. When coronavirus hit, they knew what to do to save their people from avoidable infections and deaths. In Unmasked: the Politics of Pandemics, Bill Bowtell draws on his four decades of experience in the global and local politics of public health to examine why some countries got it right with coronavirus while others collapsed into misery and chaos. He looks closely at the critical weeks when poor planning brought Australia to the brink of disaster, until the Australian people forced their governments to put public health before politics. Unmasked reveals how and why our politicians failed us during the greatest public health crisis of this century to date.