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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What Washington really thought of Whitlam before the dismissal
James Curran

THE DISMISSAL AT 50

What Washington really thought of Whitlam before the dismissal

The cloud of American involvement in the events of November 1975 is unlikely to ever clear. Especially while US presidential libraries continue to block access to critical documents that might shed light on the shenanigans.

The Dismissal was a calculated conservative plot: Albanese
The Hon Anthony Albanese MP

THE DISMISSAL AT 50

The Dismissal was a calculated conservative plot: Albanese

In a speech to mark 50 years since the day, Anthony Albanese says: The Dismissal was a calculated plot, hatched by conservative forces which sacrificed conventions and institutions in the pursuit of power.

‘Spooky fiddling’: Preparing the ground – Part 3
Jon Stanford

THE DISMISSAL AT 50

‘Spooky fiddling’: Preparing the ground – Part 3

There is profoundly increasing evidence that foreign espionage and intelligence activities are being practised in Australia on a wide scale… I believe the evidence is so grave and so alarming in its implications that it demands the fullest explanation. The deception over the CIA and the activities of foreign installations on our soil… are an onslaught on Australia's sovereignty. – Gough Whitlam, House of Representatives, 1977


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The debate about net zero ignores the evidence
Michael Keating

The debate about net zero ignores the evidence

Those in the Coalition who are opposed to targeting net zero carbon emissions, argue that it will cost too much. But that claim is false and not supported by the evidence. How can they get away with it?

Our lopsided and unfair tax system
Ian McAuley

Our lopsided and unfair tax system

There is something weird and unfair in a tax system that requires young and productive workers to subsidise the lifestyle of the old and idle.

Looking back on Remembrance Day
Nick Deane

Looking back on Remembrance Day

Remembrance Day should be one on which thoughts turn to peace. Instead it tends to lead us in the opposite direction.

The coming class war against Zohran Mamdani
Scott Burchill

The coming class war against Zohran Mamdani

Zohran Mamdani's win in New York City should be seen as a repudiation of everything the Democrats have been doing since the DNC shafted Bernie Sanders to get Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden nominated as the party’s presidential candidates in 2016 and 2020.

Australia could be a world leader in tackling the climate emergency
Ken Russell

Australia could be a world leader in tackling the climate emergency

My recent P&I article, “The world isn’t even trying to phase out fossil fuels”, explained why it is imperative that fossil fuels be rapidly phased out.

Andrew Forrest says real zero is already the 'winning business case' in three key fossil fuel guzzling industries
Sophie Vorrath

Andrew Forrest says real zero is already the 'winning business case' in three key fossil fuel guzzling industries

As the federal Coalition continues its interminable internal debate over whether net zero emissions is even a thing, let alone a thing it can get behind, new reports have found that “real zero” is both technically feasible and economically preferable to its carbon-lite alternative in numerous hard-to-abate sectors.

‘Absolutely pathetic’: Senate Democrats denounced for caving to GOP in shutdown fight
Jon Queally

‘Absolutely pathetic’: Senate Democrats denounced for caving to GOP in shutdown fight

“Let’s be clear – this proposal isn’t a compromise, it’s a capitulation,” said one progressive lawmaker in the US House.

The Second Dismissal
Jenny Hocking,  Matt Harvey

THE DISMISSAL AT 50

The Second Dismissal

In an extract from The Double Dismissal, Emeritus Professor Jenny Hocking, distinguished fellow of the Whitlam Institute within Western Sydney University, and Dr Matt Harvey, senior lecturer at Victoria University of Technology, describe the chaos that led to two dismissals on 11 November.

Latest on Palestine and Israel

10,000+ Palestinians buried beneath Gaza rubble in ‘world’s largest mass grave’
Brett Wilkins

10,000+ Palestinians buried beneath Gaza rubble in ‘world’s largest mass grave’

“We call on the world to send international teams to recover the bodies of the missing,” said the member of one civil society group. “We call on the world to provide the necessary equipment to recover the bodies.”

Making them pay: Wielding influence in a world with no shame
Jaron Sutton

Making them pay: Wielding influence in a world with no shame

One of the upshots of US support for Israeli criminality over the past two years has been the cowardly position adopted by US supplicant states who feel wedged by realpolitik and morality.

OFFICIAL – Israel’s proposed death-penalty law is a war crime
Greg Barns

OFFICIAL – Israel’s proposed death-penalty law is a war crime

Not satisfied it seems with the continued genocide of Palestinians, Israel is now looking to execute Palestinian prisoners by introducing a death penalty law.

Lancet study shows more than 3m years of human life lost in Israeli assault on Gaza
Jessica Corbett

Lancet study shows more than 3m years of human life lost in Israeli assault on Gaza

“To speak of three million years of human life erased is to confront the true scale of this atrocity – generations of children, parents, and families wiped out,” said the head of a US advocacy group.

Palestine’s future: Australians are outraged
Margaret Reynolds,  Stuart Rees

Palestine’s future: Australians are outraged

At an Australia-wide webinar on 31 October, David Spratt paid tribute to the late Ali Kazak, Palestine’s first ambassador to Australia.

Israel, lies and videotape
Alison Broinowski

Israel, lies and videotape

We have heard a lot in the last two years and one month about Jewish Australians feeling unsafe or intimidated.

108 years since the Balfour Declaration – a promise written in ink, fulfilled in blood
Refaat Ibrahim

108 years since the Balfour Declaration – a promise written in ink, fulfilled in blood

On 2 November 1917, Britain wrote with the ink of politics what it had no right to write with the ink of history.

The West’s double game on Gaza
Scott Burchill

The West’s double game on Gaza

In the aftermath of the attacks of 7 October 2023 and for months afterwards, Western governments that have been long-standing supporters of Israel — including the Australian Government — invoked “self-defence” to justify the severity of Israel’s response.


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

After Trump goes home
Geoff Raby

After Trump goes home

china politics usa world

If anyone had any lingering doubts about the change in the world order, the sight of President Trump pumping his fist into the air at the doorway of Air Force One, before turning his back on Asia to fly home, they should be put to bed now.

Australia-China policy: Guardrails, not walls
Marina Yue Zhang

Australia-China policy: Guardrails, not walls

An industry networking day in Canberra this week laid bare a simple truth: politics is still beating economics in Australia’s China policy.

‘Hawkish’ interpretations rise as US-China discourse gets lost in translation
Orange Wang

‘Hawkish’ interpretations rise as US-China discourse gets lost in translation

In an echo of the Cold War, mistranslations are testing already strained nerves in Washington and Beijing.


John Menadue

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Latest letters to the editor

What can be done?

Fiona Colin — Melbourne

What can be done about the “Conclave of the Pernicious”? COPs have been increasingly co-opted by fossil fuel companies, their apologists, and those who are unapologetic. The big four — US, China, Russia and India — who could make a huge contribution if they cared to, are absent. Though it must be said that China, the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, also leads the world on renewable energy, installing more wind turbines and solar panels last year than the rest of the world combined. Australia believes it has good credentials, even as we continue to cave to those...
Security services and government allegiance

Geoff Taylor — Borlu (Perth)

Jon Stanford makes a good case for Gough Whitllam. But I disagree with his view on Whitlam's sacking of ASIS head Bill Robertson in 1975. Whitlam had to ask Robertson twice to shut down ASIS work for the CIA in Chile seeking to install the murderous General Pinochet by destabilisation. (A future female Chilean government member had to escape here). Then in 1975 Foreign Minister Don Willesee had not been briefed that ASIS was running a spy in East Timor. Whitlam had every right to be angry. It was this sacking, not the petroleum nationalisation loans affair that Malcolm...
Whitlam's dismissal and the CIA

Daniel Dennis — New Farm, Brisbane

Many thanks for the great analysis by Brian Toohey regarding the US imperial project in Australia. The article is revelatory about the sheer reach of US intelligence gathering in this country, not just in its power over Australian control of its foreign policy settings but the US assumptions about how far it could intrude with impunity into our politics process. We have always connived in keeping a dependency relationship in place. It is no wonder the US has been able to take for granted our mirroring of US military interventions, not for a moment needing to doubt our automatic...
Lack of conviction when it comes to Palestine

Les Macdonald — Balmain NSW 2041

The likelihood of Australia doing the right thing and setting up its own Gaza Tribunal is next to zero. Our mainstream parties are so s**t scared of the Israeli lobby that their moral consciences have been placed in a safe for removal only when easier and more congenial issues can be confected. Any Australian politician who seeks to tell you we are moral leaders when it comes to the holocaust of the 21st century is either mentally unstable or lying. We are, in fact, morally absent without leave!



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