Pearlcasts
As we review 2025, the temptation is to look for neat summaries and settled conclusions.
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20 February 2026
The three big challenges facing Angus Taylor
Angus Taylor has assembled his shadow ministry, but unresolved tensions with the Nationals, policy baggage from the last election and doubts about his own authority leave his leadership exposed.
20 February 2026
AI, productivity and the long stall in living standards
Artificial intelligence may offer the best chance to lift stagnant productivity and living standards – but without deliberate policy choices, its benefits will be uneven and limited.
20 February 2026
Reverend Jesse Jackson's legacy on the Middle East
Tributes to Reverend Jesse Jackson rightly honour his civil rights leadership. Far fewer acknowledge his long, consistent support for Palestinian self-determination – and the political costs he paid for it.
20 February 2026
Shame hasn’t vanished. Care has
Public outrage fixates on the absence of shame among elites. But the deeper problem is cultural and structural – a political economy that has pushed care to the margins of public life.
20 February 2026
Universities expose racism’s scale – and the dangers of unequal responses
New national data shows racism is widespread across Australian universities. The challenge is responding fairly, without elevating one community’s suffering over another’s.
20 February 2026
Dual nationals in Israel’s military face growing legal scrutiny over Gaza
Newly released data shows that tens of thousands of Israeli soldiers hold foreign citizenship, placing Western nationals directly within the scope of international war crimes law over Gaza.
20 February 2026
Why Royal Commissions so often fail to deliver reform
Five years after the Royal Commission on Quality and Safety in Aged Care reported, its legacy offers hard-earned lessons about reform, funding, implementation and the limits of inquiry-led change.
19 February 2026
Scapegoating migrants is as old as history itself
Scapegoating migrants is designed to distract our attention from the truth and real issues – the abuse of corporate and media power and failure to tackle housing shortages for younger generations.
19 February 2026
How the United States built the world’s biggest military machine
Since 1945, one country has carried out a conventional military buildup unmatched in scale, cost and global reach. Claims about recent rivals distract from the historical record of how modern military dominance was built.
19 February 2026
Whistleblowers protect the public. Who protects them?
A former intelligence officer alleges preventable failures linked to the Bondi attack. His treatment highlights how weak protections silence whistleblowers in national security institutions.
19 February 2026
The ceasefire as a weapon: the genocide in Gaza continues in silence
Killings, arrests, displacement and aid restrictions have continued under the ceasefire. The violence has not ended – it has been reorganised and made less visible.
Read our series
Latest on Palestine and Israel
20 February 2026
Dual nationals in Israel’s military face growing legal scrutiny over Gaza
Newly released data shows that tens of thousands of Israeli soldiers hold foreign citizenship, placing Western nationals directly within the scope of international war crimes law over Gaza.
19 February 2026
The ceasefire as a weapon: the genocide in Gaza continues in silence
Killings, arrests, displacement and aid restrictions have continued under the ceasefire. The violence has not ended – it has been reorganised and made less visible.
18 February 2026
Muslim women face violence, prejudice, exclusion
Reported Islamophobic attacks in Australia have surged dramatically, with Muslim women overwhelmingly targeted. The failure of political leaders and institutions to respond meaningfully is deepening fear, trauma and exclusion.
17 February 2026
UN defends Rapporteur after coordinated European pressure campaign
UN warns of attacks on independent experts after European states target rapporteur over disputed Gaza remarks and sanctions.
13 February 2026
Iran’s comprehensive peace proposal to the United States
A regional peace settlement grounded in Palestinian statehood, international law and mutual security guarantees offers a real alternative to perpetual conflict.
12 February 2026
The Herzog visit and the Israelisation of antisemitism
Inviting Israel’s president to Australia in the wake of the Bondi attack has blurred the line between antisemitism and legitimate criticism of Israel, weakening rather than strengthening social cohesion.
12 February 2026
Cowardice dressed up as authority on Sydney’s streets
The violence surrounding protests against the visit of Israel’s president was not an accident of crowd control. It reflects a deeper political failure – where authority suppresses dissent rather than confronting uncomfortable truths about Gaza, protest rights and democratic responsibility.
11 February 2026
When peaceful protest is allowed to work, democracy works
Melbourne’s mass protest against the visit of Israel President Isaac Herzog showed how large, diverse crowds can assemble peacefully when police exercise restraint and common sense. Sydney’s response points to a deeper failure of judgment about protest, power and democracy.
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 PDFLatest on China
16 February 2026
Playing deputy sheriff on Taiwan comes with costs Australia will wear
Calls for Australia to take a more forward-leaning stance on Taiwan repeat a familiar pattern – moral symbolism paired with strategic vagueness. Past experience suggests the applause is loud, but the economic consequences are real and largely borne alone.
15 February 2026
A loneliness crisis is the price China is paying for rapid modernisation
China’s Spring Festival masks a deeper social problem. Beneath the world’s largest annual migration lies a growing crisis of loneliness shaped by migration, inequality and institutional design.
9 February 2026
Confucianism, not coercion – China’s long export of a governance philosophy
Claims that China is exporting authoritarianism rest on a shallow reading of both Chinese political tradition and how governance ideas actually travel. A longer historical view points instead to Confucianism – a philosophy that has shaped governance across East Asia for centuries.
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19 February 2026
The world is drifting back towards unconstrained nuclear danger
18 February 2026
US attitude towards Vietnam remains imperialist, not capitalist
Latest letters to the editor
Continued puerility!
Les Macdonald — Balmain NSW 2041
Vastly expensive but a failure in reality
Les Macdonald — Balmain NSW 2041
History is not conditional
Hal Duell — Alice Springs
Is it the regime or the west that must change?
Susan Dirgham — Viewbank