Navigating a world of revisionist powers
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Navigating a world of revisionist powers

We are living in a world with three leading great powers — all with explicitly revisionist aims when it comes to the international rules-based order.

A carbon tax and some key policy challenges
Michael Keating

A carbon tax and some key policy challenges

A carbon tax will obviously help reduce carbon emissions and achievement of the net zero target, but it will also help raise the revenue needed to fund essential government services and promote Australia’s economic development.

Merchants of death
Julian Cribb

Merchants of death

In extending the life of Australia’s Northwest Shelf gas project till 2070, the federal and WA Governments have knowingly signed the death warrants of four million human beings.

John Menadue's book on Israel's war against Gaza

Israel's war against Gaza

Media coverage of the war in Gaza since October 2023 has spread a series of lies propagated by Israel and the United States. This publication presents information, analysis, clarification, views and perspectives largely unavailable in mainstream media in Australia and elsewhere.

Download the PDF
Freedom flotilla sets sail for Gaza carrying aid and demands: 'End the blockade. End the genocide'
Brett Wilkins

Freedom flotilla sets sail for Gaza carrying aid and demands: 'End the blockade. End the genocide'

No matter how dangerous this mission is, it's nowhere near as dangerous as the silence of the entire world in the face of the live-streamed genocide, said climate activist Greta Thunberg, who is aboard the Madleen.

International observers find Philippine mid-term elections not free and fair
Peter Murphy

International observers find Philippine mid-term elections not free and fair

In September 2023, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese met Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr to upgrade the relationship between the two countries from “comprehensive” to “strategic” partnership.

Marles' tough guy tosh hurts Australia
Kym Davey

Marles' tough guy tosh hurts Australia

china,  politics,  usa,  world

Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles is a provocateur. His hawkish language kindles military confrontation between the United States and the Peoples’ Republic of China.

China – A country on the move
Edward Down

China – A country on the move

I have just returned from a four-week holiday in China, my first visit ever. Wow!

Move to revoke Darwin port lease is a political decision
Daryl Guppy

Move to revoke Darwin port lease is a political decision

Moves to force divestiture of the port of Darwin damage Australia's standing as a reliable investment destination and represents a triumph of foreign influence on policy.

Why psychologists can't clearly say what they’re trained to do
Tess Nikitenko

Why psychologists can't clearly say what they’re trained to do

I am a registered psychologist with extensive additional training in advanced trauma modalities. But under Australia’s current advertising guidelines for health practitioners, I am unable to say that clearly in public-facing communication.

Appointing a new secretary of PM&C
Andrew Podger

Appointing a new secretary of PM&C

The appointment of a new secretary of PM&C demonstrates, perhaps better than anything else, the attitude of the prime minister, and the government as a whole, towards the public service. The secretary must form a close relationship with the PM, but must also recognise his or her key role in promoting the APS Values, including non-partisanship.

Christianity: the antithesis of Zionism
George Browning

Christianity: the antithesis of Zionism

Zionism has both secular nationalist roots, as well as religious messianic roots. But neither have any basis in Christianity.

Latest on Palestine and Israel

Freedom flotilla sets sail for Gaza carrying aid and demands: 'End the blockade. End the genocide'
Brett Wilkins

Freedom flotilla sets sail for Gaza carrying aid and demands: 'End the blockade. End the genocide'

No matter how dangerous this mission is, it's nowhere near as dangerous as the silence of the entire world in the face of the live-streamed genocide, said climate activist Greta Thunberg, who is aboard the Madleen.

Conflation and controversy over antisemitism definition
Henry Reynolds

Conflation and controversy over antisemitism definition

Antisemitism did not spring up here as suddenly and as localised as a field of mushrooms. It is, above all, a by-product of Israel’s endless onslaught on the people of Gaza which one and all can watch as a daily horror show.

The Australian Government needs to take strong action regarding the dire situation in Gaza
Australian Jewish Democratic Society

The Australian Government needs to take strong action regarding the dire situation in Gaza

Here are extracts from a letter sent by AJDS to Penny Wong, the Australian Foreign Minister today [26 May]. It will also appear on social media. It has been slightly edited for the sake of brevity.

Sea change in attitudes to Israel and Gaza
Noel Turnbull

Sea change in attitudes to Israel and Gaza

Profound changes in both public and elite opinion are often slow to occur but — once they start — they can shift dramatically and quickly.

It is time to take our indifference to the Gaza horror seriously
Julie Macken

It is time to take our indifference to the Gaza horror seriously

It is time to take our indifference seriously. I remember having a heated discussion with classmates when I was in my first year of high school. We had just had a history lesson on the rise of Nazi Germany and the murder of over six millions Jews, intellectuals, and communists. We were arguing about how many Jewish people we could have “rescued” from the gas chambers and what we would have done if we had been alive then, how we would never have let that slaughter happen.

Israel-Gaza: Has Albo finally found his backbone?
Peter Rodgers

Israel-Gaza: Has Albo finally found his backbone?

Every day since 7 October 2023 Israel has killed, on average, 92 Palestinians. It has injured and maimed countless thousands more.

Gaza: The day of reckoning is coming
Scott Burchill

Gaza: The day of reckoning is coming

The attacks by Hamas on 7 October 2023 licensed the very worst psychopathic tendencies, both within Israel and among its uncritical supporters throughout the diaspora.

Why Australia should recognise Palestinian statehood
Gareth Evans

Why Australia should recognise Palestinian statehood

The question for the Australian Government is, how can we most constructively persuade Israel to change course?

John Menadue

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Latest on China

Navigating a world of revisionist powers
Evelyn Goh

Navigating a world of revisionist powers

We are living in a world with three leading great powers — all with explicitly revisionist aims when it comes to the international rules-based order.

Marles' tough guy tosh hurts Australia
Kym Davey

Marles' tough guy tosh hurts Australia

china,  politics,  usa,  world

Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles is a provocateur. His hawkish language kindles military confrontation between the United States and the Peoples’ Republic of China.

China – A country on the move
Edward Down

China – A country on the move

I have just returned from a four-week holiday in China, my first visit ever. Wow!

More from Pearls and Irritations

Conflation and controversy over antisemitism definition
Henry Reynolds

Conflation and controversy over antisemitism definition

The Australian Government needs to take strong action regarding the dire situation in Gaza
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The Australian Government needs to take strong action regarding the dire situation in Gaza

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Time again for stewards to do a moral health check-up

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Pushing back with new urgency against neoliberalism

Sea change in attitudes to Israel and Gaza
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Sea change in attitudes to Israel and Gaza

Fundraising June 2025
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Fundraising June 2025

Labor's climate talk a lot of hot gas
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Labor's climate talk a lot of hot gas

Message from the editor
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Message from the editor

It is time to take our indifference to the Gaza horror seriously
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It is time to take our indifference to the Gaza horror seriously

Latest letters to the editor

Another reason why we should get a divorce from the US

Bob Pearce — Adelaide SA

“Piketty’s conclusion is that capitalism, if left unchecked, generates a concentration of wealth among a tiny minority and this has manifested itself in America. Piketty further argues that merit or hard work, the standard justification for inequality, has little to do with what has been defined as the 'new gilded age'. It has more to do with the nature of capitalism itself in which capital precedes labor, and where profit maximisation becomes the rational basis for human interaction and economic relationships. Piketty critiques the very structure and foundation of capitalism itself.” I’ve just paid $300 to a medical specialist...
Unis adopting IHRA definition of antisemitism

Margaret Callinan — Hawthorn VIC 3122

The decisions [to adopt the IHRA definition] were made from above as might be expected in a corporation by the board and the chief executive and just imposed from on high. But isn't this what our universities have become? With government funding cuts — who can forget in particular PM Morrison's contempt for education? — universities are now corporate-like entities. Free and rigorous thinking and debate are incompatible with reliance on donors who want specific outcomes. In this context, the government is just another donor, wanting to satisfy its lobbyists and donors. The pro-Israel, Israel can do no wrong,...
Antisemitism definition-2

Robert Richter — Victoria

Thank you Henry for drawing attention to the paradox inherent in the article you wrote. One of the starkest idiocies inherent in the panicked response of university administrators is the implicit invitation to consider Jewish students who oppose the developing genocide in Gaza as non-Jews thereby creatIng the notion that Jewish students demonstrating against the Netanyahu Government’s policy are somehow implicitly converted into “antisemites”! Reminds me of the excommunication of Baruch Spinoza from Jewish philosopher into pariah “non-Jew”, an interesting footnote being the Israeli rehabilitation of Spinoza as a great Jewish thinker by retrospectively reversing his banishment from...
Antisemitism definition

Brian Robertson — Maleny

I recently attended a performance of the “Armed Man” and for the first time noted the sequence of the music with a background montage of wars that have been fought all in the name of some God or other. The thing that struck me early in the performance was the Sanctus sanctifying the motive for war, the men sent to war believing in its sanctity and prepared to pay its price of sacrifice. Towards the end, the Benedictus offered neat rows of pure white crosses as a memorial to stupidity. Why do we persist in it?

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Employment 31 Finance 2 Health 1472 History 45 Immigration 945 Indigenous Affairs 371 Israel Palestine 1076
Media 1728 Podcast 43 Policy 138 Politics 17089 Racism 15 Religion 1207 Review 16
The Human Future 42 Our Top Five Each Week 1980 USA 403 World 1140

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