Xi Jinping in Moscow: A historic partnership in the making
Since 2010, Xi Jinping has met Vladimir Putin on 40 separate occasions, but this last visit may prove to be their most s…
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Out of touch, out of date, or out of their minds?
Our foremost practitioner of the quick and deadly put-down, Paul Keating, copped plenty of blowback after his National Press Club performance on 15 March. Continue reading »
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The Voice: Newscorp’s dangerous zero sum games
As the wording of the Voice referendum question is released, the Murdoch media’s “news” drives resentment with propaganda as constant as drums of war. The pounding message for its audience is that every development is a zero sum game, one that only defrauds this “conservative” base. Continue reading »
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Japan in diplomatic offensive – Asian Media Report
In Asian Media this week: Japan woos Global South to counter China. Plus: Xi’s Moscow visit – China plays it cool; Would Anglosphere nations welcome others in Aukus?; US Mid-East power waning; Sri Lanka gets aid, with conditions; media present differing views on China. Continue reading »
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Why the Coalition likes wrecking constitutional reform – Weekly roundup
Why the Coalition likes wrecking proposals for constitutional reform; a politicised and enfeebled public service; and people versus poker machines in the NSW election. Read on for the Weekly Roundup of links to articles, reports, podcasts and other media on current political and economic issues in public policy. Continue reading »
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ASPI takes exception to media scrutiny
ABC’s Media Watch backs down, following complaint from Australian Strategic Policy Institute, after it aired a segment of Channel Nine political reporter Chris O’Keefe berating both ASPI and Nine Newspaper over the Red Alert series. Continue reading »
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China’s big foreign policy plays leave Australia in the cold
The Chinese Communist Party’s 20th Party Congress in October last year may be seen with the efflux of time as a watershed event, not so much for the extension of Xi Ping’s tenure in the job, but for subsequent sharp policy resets. Continue reading »
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AUKUS – “These are the horrors”
AUKUS. This is a horror for which I now fear for the lives of my children and their children. Every time a Labor member of parliament or senator puts foot outside their office to appear in public, turns up at a public meeting, we need to ask them: why have you betrayed us? Why have Continue reading »
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The Federal Labor Caucus did not endorse AUKUS
The $368 billion AUKUS deal raises many more questions than we have had answered to date. Continue reading »
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Will there be a reprise of the White Australia Policy?
With the publication of the series, “RED ALERT” in the two leading newspapers in Australia, predicting that China will invade Australia in three years, the constant push from the ASPI, and the increasingly strident rhetoric from the China hawks in both major political parties, will the Australian security apparatus be encouraged to re-establish a “Chinese Continue reading »
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Sydney transport: formidable task ahead for NSW Labor?
In NSW, Labor is favoured to end the Coalition’s 12 years in office at the forthcoming election. If it wins it faces a formidable task. Continue reading »
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Ensuring equal access to elections
While voting is considered a universal right in Australia, barriers remain preventing many people exercising the franchise effectively. In the lead-up to the 2023 New South Wales state elections it seems clear that more should be done to enable everyone to vote comfortably. Continue reading »
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Indonesia’s untouchables stay that way
The outcome of a massive police-caused tragedy on Indonesia’s Java Island got less media coverage than a silly white woman’s argument with a brown cop in Bali. Continue reading »
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Averting the grandest collision of all time
If Thucydides were asked about what’s happening in relations between the US and China today, what would he say? That was the question posed to me at the Davos World Economic Forum in January. I responded that he would say that this is a classic Thucydidean rivalry in which the two parties are right on Continue reading »
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Josh Wilson’s welcome concern: AUKUS will cost the earth
Comment by Hon. Melissa Parke on AUKUS 22 March 2023. I welcome the speech given by Josh Wilson MP, my successor in the federal seat of Fremantle, in the Australian parliament on 20 March in which he raised concerns regarding the AUKUS agreement. I also welcome the contributions from former Prime Minister Paul Keating last Continue reading »
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Guardian Essential Poll: AUKUS support collapses, 3-in-4 oppose
Reflecting the diminishing public support for the AUKUS deal, a new Guardian Essential Poll has found that only one quarter of Australians support paying the $368bn price tag to acquire nuclear submarines. For decades Australians were gung ho about going to war – almost any war. Today – despite the best efforts of the Nine Continue reading »
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Critical Decade: is the government concerned about the future?
We all want a better future for our children, and our grandchildren. The Government however seems unconcerned whether there is going to be a future at all. Continue reading »
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The myth of Australian sovereignty
As AUKUS propagandising gathers pace, the Australian public is being softened up to believe that whatever else the arrangement entails (and that still mostly remains a mystery), there will be no compromising of Australia’s sovereignty – none whatsoever. History teaches us that such reassurances can be dangerously hollow. Continue reading »
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