Pearlcasts
As we review 2025, the temptation is to look for neat summaries and settled conclusions.
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8 January 2026
We've had 26 royal commissions. Their failures should caution us against a repeat
Calls for a royal commission after the Bondi shootings reflect public anger and distrust, but decades of experience suggest such inquiries rarely deliver lasting reform or accountability.
8 January 2026
Best of 2025 - What game is he playing? The PM and AUKUS
As the Australian prime minister prepares for his visit to the UN in New York next week, Robert Macklin looks into what Anthony Albanese might be hoping for on the trilateral security deal.
8 January 2026
Best of 2025 - Genocide betrays the living and the dead
Genocide scholars Damir Mitric and Jill Klein have deep personal and professional experience in genocide and repercussions across generations. As the world watches in horror as the genocide in Gaza continues, they bring us their story.
8 January 2026
Best of 2025 - UN at 80 – Rome is burning, governments are fiddling and the UN is ailing - Part 1
This year marks the 80th anniversary of the signing of the UN Charter. During these eight decades, much has been accomplished that calls for celebration. Yet, there is no denying that the United Nations is facing perhaps the greatest crisis of its 80-year history.
8 January 2026
Best of 2025 - Flawed Hero, flawed decision: The War Memorial’s institutional cowardice
The Australian War Memorial remains one of Australia’s most cherished national institutions, attracting a million visitors, mainly tourists, to Canberra each year.
8 January 2026
Best of 2025 - Blaming China won’t keep the lights on – or pay the power bill
Sky News is back on the beat with a familiar headline: “The $20,000-per-person climate tax: Cost of Australia's green agenda to become astonishingly clear this week when new emissions targets are set.”
8 January 2026
Best of 2025 - A smart productivity play: Stop subsidising loss-making native forest logging
On 7 September 2025, NSW set the proposed 476,000-hectare boundary for the Great Koala National Park and halted native-forest logging within it (plantation harvesting continues), with formal gazettal slated for 2026.
8 January 2026
Best of 2025 - FOI changes big backward step for government transparency
There has been much commentary, most of it critical, about federal Attorney-General Michelle Rowland’s recently introduced Bill that amends the Freedom of Information Act by restricting access through measures that will allow undermine a core democratic principles – accountability by government to the people it serves.
8 January 2026
Best of 2025 - Vale Pat Power, a true minister
The Australian Catholic Church lost one of its genuine leaders on Monday morning with the death of 83-year-old Bishop Patrick Power, retired Auxiliary-Bishop of Canberra Goulburn.
8 January 2026
Best of 2025 - Out of darkness comes a shaft of cheer
The news from Indonesia this month has been dispiriting – natural disaster flooding in Bali and Flores, man-made maladministration, political chicanery, perpetual graft and rioting in the cities. The headlines imply the country is crumpling. It's not, and here's why.
8 January 2026
Best of 2025 - Australia needs to diplomatically disengage from our 'dangerous ally'
It seems likely that our prime minister will meet Donald Trump at the United Nations General Assembly later this month.
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Latest on Palestine and Israel
8 January 2026
Best of 2025 - Genocide betrays the living and the dead
Genocide scholars Damir Mitric and Jill Klein have deep personal and professional experience in genocide and repercussions across generations. As the world watches in horror as the genocide in Gaza continues, they bring us their story.
7 January 2026
Best of 2025 - The Liberal Party and Israel
The Liberal Party is correct in claiming Australia’s relations with Israel are at their lowest point ever. The real questions to be asked are: who is responsible, and how much does it matter?
7 January 2026
Best of 2025 - Best of 2025 - Who is a terrorist?
Since 7 October 2023 there has been a growth of the use of the allegation of terrorism for propaganda purposes.
6 January 2026
Bondi, Christchurch and what a Royal Commission can – and can’t – do
After four ideologically driven attacks in six years, Australia is again asking how to respond. The Christchurch Royal Commission offers a nearby example of how inquiry, grief and prevention can be approached.
6 January 2026
Best of 2025 - Re-elected Albanese Govt must condemn Israel's brutality and cut ties
On 5 May, the Israeli Parliament approved plans to annex and occupy Gaza. These plans have been discussed for months. This is a blatant mission to ethnically cleanse Gaza, advancing Israel’s colonial intentions to take over the territory and rid it of Palestinians.
6 January 2026
Best of 2025 - Judaism and Zionism are not the same
No doubt about it. We live in a topsy-turvy world. How Kafkaesque can it get, when some of Zionism’s most fervent supporters have been politicians like Scott Morrison, Peter Dutton or — God help us — the Mad King of Mar-a-Lago?
5 January 2026
Best of 2025 - Australia must defend International Criminal Court
If it were China or Russia, the imposition of sanctions and threats of harm to prosecutors and judges of the International Criminal Court would be front page news in Australia.
27 December 2025
‘Australians for Humanity’ demand the invitation to Israel’s President be withdrawn immediately
The Israel President cannot be welcomed in Australia. The government he represents has been found by the International Court of Justice to have breached international law: the Netanyahu regime has committed a range of international crimes against humanity including war crimes, apartheid, illegal occupation and ethnic cleansing.
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.
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7 January 2026
Best of 2025 - If we want to win the Pacific, we must first listen – and stop blaming China for everything
A 9 September editorial in The Sydney Morning Herald, titled China and Australia in a high-speed race to win control of the Pacific, offered a vivid picture of the daily contest for influence in the region.
6 January 2026
Best of 2025 - Who’s afraid of big, bad China?
Be afraid, be very afraid. But not of China. To the contrary, the proper management of co-operative relations with China is essential to Australia’s future.
5 January 2026
Best of 2025 - Australia is one trade deal away from backing authoritarians, says Taiwan
In the grand tradition of diplomatic overreach, Taiwan's deputy foreign minister recently offered some sweet and spicy talking points to our media: semiconductors are tanks, China is akin to WWII Germany, and if Australia doesn't fast-track Taiwan into the CPTPP, we might all wake up speaking Mandarin under a fascist AI regime, as reported by News Corp and 7 News.
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7 January 2026
Best of 2025 - Rupert Murdoch’s greatest scoop
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Best of 2025 - The Liberal Party and Israel
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