Edition 51
Fixing the System

- Published 2nd February, 2016
- ISBN: 978-1-925240-80-1
- Extent: 264pp
- Paperback (234 x 153mm), eBook
Australia has never been richer, its people better educated and the country better connected internationally, yet there is a widespread perception that systems and key institutions are broken. Interest groups flex their muscle and block each other. Risk management has paralysed the system. Commentators proclaim the ‘end of the reform era’. They lament the rise of a ‘new volatility’ in the nation’s electoral politics; the demise of the capacity and will to lead; and the paucity of debate of the problems and challenges facing Australia. They complain about the resistance to change and openness to bold new ideas, and the ability to talk frankly and fearlessly about the kind of society we want to build for the future. All this is happening in a world that is changing rapidly, but without a clear road map.
Edited by Julianne Schultz and Anne Tiernan, Fixing the System examines this chorus of complaint. It asks what is broken and examines the reasons how and why. It considers what needs to be done to revive the lucky country.
Time for a new consensus – Fostering Australia’s comparative advantages
Accompanying the print edition of Fixing the System is an exclusive e-book by Jonathan West and Tom Bentley in which they explore the economic, social and cultural changes in Australia over the last forty years, and suggest a new economic model for a more secure future.
It’s available to download for free here.
Reviews
‘This is commentary of a high order. The prose is unfailingly polished; the knowledge and expertise of the writers impressive.’ Roy Williams, Sydney Morning Herald
‘For intelligent, well-written quarterly commentary…Griffith Review remains the gold standard, cohering around simple but robust themes… [Fixing the System] should be compulsory reading for ministers and representatives in our various parliaments. It should also be well-thumbed by political journalists, the men and women who have become too comfortable wearing those race-callers’ hats.’ Honest History
‘For a single paper to work through a critique of contemporary economics, offer a sweeping but convincing narrative about Australia’s economic pathway since Federation, link development choices to social and political outcomes, and arrive at a vision of a potential future for the nation – all in just forty pages – is a dazzling achievement.’ Prof. Glyn Davis on Jonathon West and Tom Bentley, Time for a New Consensus
‘New @GriffithREVIEW about making government work better is a cracking read. Great stuff @AMTiernan @JulianneSchultz’ @davidadonaldson, writer for the Mandarin
‘This [essay] by @vanOnselenP in @GriffithREVIEW on political power and the demise of policy is excellent – must read.’ @SimonJCowan, CIS Economics commentator
Listen
As part of Sydney Ideas, political biographer Chris Wallace, former teacher GJ Stroud, journalist Ann Arnold and academic Tamson Pietsch join Griffith Review editor Julianne Schultz in a spirited discussion of how our institutions – political, social and legal – both support and fail us, and what we can do about it.
Contributors Vishaal Kishore, Chris Wallace and Patrick Weller discuss Fixing the System on 612 ABC Brisbane, with Kelly Higgins.
In this Edition
Beyond the nadir of political leadership
SHORTLY AFTER SEIZING the prime ministership in September 2015, Malcolm Turnbull told reporters covering their third leadership coup against a sitting Australian prime minister in five years that the culture of his administration would be ‘consultative’. He promised his Cabinet would ‘make decisions in...
The memory ladder
THERE APPEARS TO be a deep attraction to the naive idea that we can re-create ourselves and our societies at will, with no regard to who we are and where we’ve come from. A veritable Everest of blogs and posts and articles and books...
Need, greed or deeds
AT THE BEGINNING of the First World War, a fifty-something German academic, vigorous but not fit enough for the frontline, was appointed to the Military Hospitals Commission and told to organise several reserve hospitals in Heidelberg in quick time. On arrival, sociologist Max Weber...
The good old days
Over the last thirty years I have sought to explore how our top political executives exercised their power, whether they were prime ministers, ministers or departmental secretaries. My books include a study of the ways that the Australian Cabinets have changed over the past hundred and fifteen years, and two books on particular prime ministers, one from each side of the political divide. My interest has always been on how they do the job, how they define their responsibilities, what being prime minister means. Perhaps inevitably, when current circumstances are compared to, and placed in the context of, past leaders, it is the continuities rather than the differences that strike me as the most significant.
Avoiding the simplicity trap
AUSTRALIAN PUBLIC POLICY labours under the weight of illustrious ancestors. There was, in this country, a period that has been labelled the ‘Age of Mandarins’.[i] During the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s, titans such as HC ‘Nugget’ Coombs, Roland Wilson, John Crawford, Arthur Tange and...
Listening but not hearing
ABORIGINAL AFFAIRS – ONCE the subject of Australian innovation in policy and law reform attended to by the routine scrutiny of an informed and inquisitive Fourth Estate – are no more. Gone is the sophisticated knowledge of the William Stanner, Barrie Dexter and HC...
The limits of ‘new power’
IN THE PAST decade, using the internet to harness people’s passion and direct it in support of issues and causes has become an important part of civil society. And in that time the methods have evolved with the technology. What was once innovative –...
Bad news, inconvenient truths
IF NEWSPAPERS WERE reporting about anything else, the headlines would be telling of the apocalypse to come. But journalists have a habit of failing to report bad news about themselves and are particularly inept at revealing the serious difficulties of the organisations that pay...
Ruling, not governing
RULING IS A consequence of professional politicking. Yet it has also created unmatched instability in modern Australian politics. Professionalisation of political operations has come to dominate the way major Australian political parties function, and diminishes government and opposition alike. Tony Abbott sought to rule...
On institutions
I LOVE INSTITUTIONS. It is not a very fashionable thing to admit, I know. In our age of individual freedoms, mobile and flexible work, and myriad commercial opportunities for self-fashioning, institutions seem to invoke a world of constraint and bureaucracy with which many people would...
Capital O organising
THE UNION ORGANISING brand seems set to get a major makeover with news that Hollywood star James Franco is directing and starring in the film of John Steinbeck’s labour novel In Dubious Battle, a book described by former organiser Barack Obama as one of...
Economics of power
The only serious threat to the real interests of the United States can come from a failure to adjust sensibly to the newer world order. Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of Great Powers (Vintage, 1987) THE TRANSITION OF power among nation-states creates great complexity and...
Birth of a nation?
IN FEBRUARY 1902 – just thirteen months after the Australian colonies federated to become the world’s newest nation – a tall, slender woman from Portland, Victoria, was standing outside the door to the Oval Office in Washington DC. She had been summoned to the...
Strangers to the world
COMMENTING ON AUSTRALIA’S response to asylum seekers in the online version of Le Monde in July 2013, one reader remarked: ‘Ils sont étranges ces Australiens, étrangers au Monde’ (‘They are strange those Australians, strangers to the world’). Le Monde had reported on an agreement...
The collapse of values
THE ARRIVAL OF the MV Tampa in Australian waters in 2001 was misrepresented to the public as a threat to national sovereignty. The people on the Tampa were rescued at the request of the Australian government. They comprised for the most part terrified Hazaras...
Barriers to understanding
It’s hard to be literate and numerate without attending school; it’s hard to find work without a basic education; and it’s hard to live well without a job. Closing the Gap, Prime Minister’s Report (February 2015) THE APHORISM ‘IF it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’...
Stuff
WE GET TO vote just once every few years, but every single day we consume, we buy, we acquire. Stuff. And more stuff. Each item had to be made or manufactured and transported to us, all at vast cumulative cost to the world’s resources....
A half-formed nation
HAPPY BIRTHDAY OLLIE! I thought I’d drop you a line about life, the state of the planet and the future of our country. Don’t worry, it’s just a bicycle ride around stuff that we’ve mentioned in passing but not in writing. Yeah, I know, it’s...
Delivering on the grand bargain
IT WAS A lack of recognition and respect for Eddie Mabo’s Torres Strait Islander customs and traditions that drove him to take on the might of the Joh Bjelke-Petersen government. Mabo was a Queenslander from a humble background, though his legacy extraordinary and its consequences immeasurable.
Snow dome
IT LOOKED LIKE beer o’clock in a city pub on a Friday afternoon. Suits, noise, movement. But it wasn’t. It was 9 am in a suburban courthouse on a crisp April morning. So many men in suits, blokeing around, smiling, shaking hands, patting backs....
Teaching Australia
I AM THIRTY-EIGHT and tired. I’m only a third of the way through my class roll, a list that hurts my heart if I study it for too long. But I know what to do with these students. I’m an excellent teacher. I know how to bring them together. I am able to create a feeling of family and safety and security. In my classroom they know they can take risks and try new things and experience failure while being supported by me and by each other.
No permit for dignity
EARLY IN MY life in Australia, during the year I spent on a bridging visa that included no work permit, and with the little savings I had running out, I rejoiced when a new job offer finally came my way. My prospective employer, Boris,...
On being Australian
MY FATHER, ALEX Carey, a fourth-generation Australian, was a lefty and an activist, who worked long hours as a university lecturer. But despite – or perhaps because of – being a largely absent father, he was my childhood hero. I marched with him in...
Caius Atlas
THE BABY-NAME BOOK is the size of a pack of cards, left on top of a bin outside the port. I picture a pregnant woman reading it, circling her belly with her palm, looking up to see the ferry arrive which will take her...
I n t e r e s t i n g
NOT MANY PEOPLE like me. I have no friends. And I would like to know why. People begin friendly enough, at least not unfriendly, and nobody is rude to me, yet none have taken the next step, which is taking an interest in what...