Books in the In The National Interest series

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.