Pearlcast EP 1

Launching Pearlcasts

The 50th Anniversary of the Dismissal of the Whitlam Government

We kick off with a topic close to our hearts, the 50th anniversary of the Dismissal of the Whitlam Government. We have three of the best sources in the nation taking part: our editor-in-chief John Menadue – the living link to the scandal and the nation’s top public servant at the time; Jenny Hocking, author of The Palace Letters and Australia’s pre-eminent Dismissal historian; and Brian Toohey, the journalist who has dug deepest into the darkest elements of the events.

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Indigenous businesses are driving jobs and economic success
Noel Turnbull

Indigenous businesses are driving jobs and economic success

A new report shows Indigenous businesses are major employers, highly competitive, and delivering strong outcomes – often without reliance on government procurement.

A long-overdue update to Australia’s broken environment laws
Justine Bell-James,  Euen Ritchie,  Phillipa C. McCormack,  Yung En Chee

A long-overdue update to Australia’s broken environment laws

After years of delay, Australia will reform its broken environment laws. The deal brings real improvements, but key risks remain.

How the social media ban could harm African diaspora youth
Claire Moran,  Melanie Baak

How the social media ban could harm African diaspora youth

New research shows Australia’s under-16 social media ban risks harming African diaspora young people by cutting off vital spaces for identity, belonging and connection.


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Gaza’s true death toll could be 126,000 or even higher
Brad Reed

Gaza’s true death toll could be 126,000 or even higher

New research suggests Gaza’s death toll may be far higher than widely reported, with devastating implications for life expectancy, poverty and accountability.

Hong Kong tower fire – contractor for fire-hit Tai Po project has record of safety offences
Lam Ka Sing

Hong Kong tower fire – contractor for fire-hit Tai Po project has record of safety offences

The contractor behind renovation work at the site of Hong Kong’s worst fire in decades had previously breached safety requirements for construction projects on multiple occasions.

Why false beliefs feel safer than the truth
John Frew

Why false beliefs feel safer than the truth

People clinging to falsehoods is not a failure of intelligence, but a deeply human attempt to protect emotional stability in an overwhelming world.

A Chinese visit, a security panic, and a silent media
John Queripel

A Chinese visit, a security panic, and a silent media

The visit of China’s third-ranking leader should have prompted serious discussion about diplomacy and economic relations. Instead, Australia’s media fixated on security theatrics and fed a familiar cycle of fear.

Silencing Starlink over Taiwan would be a massive military challenge
Stephen Chen

Silencing Starlink over Taiwan would be a massive military challenge

Chinese scientists have modelled how Starlink could be jammed over an area the size of Taiwan – and found it would take an unprecedented scale of coordinated electronic warfare.

Why Australia should build AI to amplify human capability
John H Howard

Why Australia should build AI to amplify human capability

Debates about artificial intelligence miss a crucial point: the real issue is not whether AI is powerful, but whether we use it to replace human judgment or strengthen it.

You can’t regulate your way to quality early childhood education
Roger Chao

You can’t regulate your way to quality early childhood education

Recent safety failures have triggered tighter regulation in early childhood education and care. But compliance alone cannot deliver quality. Real reform begins with professionalising the workforce.

Why Labor can’t be bold without confronting tax reform
Michael Keating

Why Labor can’t be bold without confronting tax reform

If the Albanese government wants to deliver lasting reform – in education, healthcare, housing and climate – it will have to confront the hardest political question of all: how to raise the revenue to pay for it.

Latest on Palestine and Israel

Gaza’s true death toll could be 126,000 or even higher
Brad Reed

Gaza’s true death toll could be 126,000 or even higher

New research suggests Gaza’s death toll may be far higher than widely reported, with devastating implications for life expectancy, poverty and accountability.

The ceasefire that isn’t: 400 violations in 40 days
Refaat Ibrahim

The ceasefire that isn’t: 400 violations in 40 days

Israel has violated the ceasefire in Gaza hundreds of times since October, using vague or unverified justifications to carry out strike in a recurring pattern of escalation and impunity.

The UN embraces colonialism: the Security Council and the US Gaza plan
Craig Mokhiber

The UN embraces colonialism: the Security Council and the US Gaza plan

The Security Council's backing of the Trump plan for Gaza ignores international law, punishes the Palestinians, and rewards those responsible for genocide.

UN Members complicit in genocide
Chris Hedges,  Francesca Albanese

UN Members complicit in genocide

UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine Francesca Albanese discusses why, in her most recent report, she called out more than 60 nations for their collective-crime roles in the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

UN approval of Gaza ‘Stabilisation Force’ slammed as ‘Denial of Palestinian self-determination’
Brett Wilkins

UN approval of Gaza ‘Stabilisation Force’ slammed as ‘Denial of Palestinian self-determination’

CodePink said the plan “will leave Palestine in the hands of a puppet administration, assigning the United States, which shares complicity in the genocide, as the new manager of the open-air prison.”

Gaza winter catastrophe repeating in tents that resist neither wind nor rain
Refaat Ibrahim

Gaza winter catastrophe repeating in tents that resist neither wind nor rain

The seasons change, but for those fighting for survival through wet winters and baking summers in Gaza's tents, the suffering remains.

Israeli settler attack on West Bank mosque draws international condemnation
Al Jazeera Staff

Israeli settler attack on West Bank mosque draws international condemnation

Calls for justice grow as Israeli settlers set Hajja Hamida Mosque ablaze in latest attack on Palestinians in West Bank.

Trump’s ploy at the UN is American imperialism masquerading as a peace process
Jeffrey D. Sachs,  Sybil Fares

Trump’s ploy at the UN is American imperialism masquerading as a peace process

The Trump administration is pushing an Israeli-crafted resolution at the UN Security Council aimed at eliminating the possibility of a State of Palestine.


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

Latest on China

A Chinese visit, a security panic, and a silent media
John Queripel

A Chinese visit, a security panic, and a silent media

The visit of China’s third-ranking leader should have prompted serious discussion about diplomacy and economic relations. Instead, Australia’s media fixated on security theatrics and fed a familiar cycle of fear.

Silencing Starlink over Taiwan would be a massive military challenge
Stephen Chen

Silencing Starlink over Taiwan would be a massive military challenge

Chinese scientists have modelled how Starlink could be jammed over an area the size of Taiwan – and found it would take an unprecedented scale of coordinated electronic warfare.

Self-interest is now the main driver of Britain’s Asia policy
Bill Hayton

Self-interest is now the main driver of Britain’s Asia policy

There are a great many reasons why the UK government should pay more attention to the Asia-Pacific, but that does not mean that it will.


John Menadue

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More from Pearls and Irritations


Latest letters to the editor

Sinister semiotics

Bernard Corden — Spring Hill QLD 4000

Further to the recent article from Marian Sawer and subsequent letter from Margaret Callinan it is worth taking a look at the front cover of this week's edition of The Spectator Australia entitled 'Drill, baby, drill.' It features a pasquinade of a distraught looking opposition leader attempting to construct her own gallows using a substandard drill with menacing caricatures of Angus Taylor and Andrew Hastie hovering in the background. The sinister semiotics is reminiscent of those deplorable red top rag headlines – Gotcha (The S*n, 1982) and The Truth (The S*n, 1989), which were published by the scrofulous...
Failure to address climate change

Fiona Colin — Melbourne

Adrian Rosenfeldt offers a philosophical perspective on the current brouhaha over ‘net zero’: the “net zero project” reflects “the deeper human philosophical desire for certainty rather than scientific necessity”…“What appears to be a neutral scientific framework rests on a false metaphysics: the belief that complex, uncertain realities can be mastered through perfect measurement and fixed ideals.” The “neutral scientific framework” offered nations a rallying point and a goal on which to agree and work towards. This was not “false metaphysics”, more like nuts-and-bolts peace treaties, trade agreements and international cooperation agreements. It was not “moral arithmetic” but painstaking, historical...
Climate, numbers, targets and anxiety

Richard Barnes — Melbourne

Let us be clear: unless we, humankind, act urgently and radically, we will soon experience societal collapse. We will certainly experience existential anxiety as we starve, seek shelter and battle over dwindling resources. I agree that numbers and targets are unhelpful, but not in the sense that the author intends; they allow our leaders to pretend to act while kicking real action down the road, and to create false comfort in the face of the worsening crisis. They allow us to count “land not cleared” as a reduction in CO2 emissions; to include future “carbon capture” at scale in...
Excluding nature from economics is irrational

Jenny Goldie — Cooma NSW

Julian Cribb reminds us of the quote from that great Canadian environmentalist, David Suzuki: “Nature, the air, the water, the soil, the biodiversity that allows us to live (are) not in the economic system.” Excluding nature from economic thought is indeed irrational. Cribb also cites William Ripple who warned in 2017 that: “We are jeopardising our future by not reining in our intense material consumption and by not perceiving continued rapid population growth as a primary driver behind many threats. This was agreed wisdom 50 years ago yet seems to have been forgotten. Consumerism and population growth are applauded...



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