John Menadue
Publisher and Editor
Callum Foote
Associate Editor
Subscribe to our newsletter
Author Archives: Andrew Farran
Section 92 case decided but Court’s reasons still awaited
If national unity and the Federation were endangered in 2020 it was thanks to the Commonwealth government, the States, and the High Court, which bypassed a fundamental principle of the Constitution designed to secure the Federation and prevent discrimination among … Continue reading
Posted in World Affairs
5 Comments
EU/China investment deal splits the West?
At a time when the United States and China are distancing themselves from each other’s economies, especially in the area of investment and high tech, while at the same time doing their best to undermine the global system for trade … Continue reading
Posted in China, World Affairs
10 Comments
Post Brexit? It is not pages of legal text that sustains communities. It is political commitment.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his government may have got Brexit across the line, and avoided the embarrassment and discomfort the country would have suffered had they not, but clearly they have not delivered on what was promised at the … Continue reading
Brexit on the threshold
What will become of Brexit in the next few days? The Chinese may wish their foe to live in interesting times. But nothing that the British and the Europeans could do for themselves could rival the chaos and pandemonium now … Continue reading
Posted in World Affairs
Leave a comment
Brexit: The cliff is being pushed further back!
The negotiators have been given a few more days to achieve what they haven’t been able to in more than four years. Has there ever been such a prolonged display of muddled statecraft – negotiations that affect people’s lives and … Continue reading
Posted in World Affairs
2 Comments
Brexit – denouement or disaster
As the process towards a post-Brexit agreement with the EU staggers towards its denouement (or otherwise) the gathering scene is looking increasingly bizarre. What has gone wrong to date is almost bound to go wrong again, as 31 December deadline … Continue reading
Posted in World Affairs
3 Comments
What’s the point of FTAs (including RCEP, with China?
With virtual fanfare the much heralded Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) Regional_Comprehensive_Economic_Partnership was signed this weekend with the ten nation ASEAN group in addition to Australia, China, South Korea, Japan and New Zealand. As with the former 12 nation Trans … Continue reading
Posted in World Affairs
4 Comments
The High Court and Section 92 again
David Solomon’s item on the above – https://johnmenadue.com/palmer-loses-border-war/ – is headed ‘Palmer loses border war’. It is not just Palmer that lost the war; in one way or another, as Australians, we all have.
Posted in Politics
3 Comments
The wool trade: hostage to intransigence
Animal welfare groups object to the wool industry because of the process of mulesing, a treatment used to protect sheep from fly strike. They argue that mulesing is cruel and invasive regardless of whether painkillers are used. There is, however, … Continue reading
Posted in Politics
Leave a comment
Britain facing two potential devastations
Britain is facing two devastations in short order – a further surge in coronavirus cases; and achieving coherence from its imminent departure from the EU. Both will have deleterious effects on future economic growth, though long term from Brexit more … Continue reading
Posted in World Affairs
Leave a comment
Rafferty has taken charge of the ministerial decision making process.
While confusion over the supervision of quarantined returning travellers by private security firms in Victoria may have arisen from exceptional circumstances, a broader question concerning the unfettered exercise of Ministerial (Executive) power has come to the forefront of governing in … Continue reading
The High Court must rule on State border controls before more businesses are bankrupted and family relations traumatised.
No government, whether Commonwealth or State, has primacy over movement across State borders. Primacy lies in the Federal Constitution which states in Section 92 that “trade, commerce, and intercourse among the States … shall be absolutely free”. A distribution of … Continue reading
Posted in Politics
9 Comments
Brexit – a crash landing in prospect
Brexit is done but its end-shape is not. The final stages of the post-Brexit negotiations are shrouded in mistrust, misrepresentations, and most recently an intended breach of international law. The real intentions of the negotiators, both sides, remain clouded.
Posted in Politics, World Affairs
1 Comment
Under the proposed Foreign Relations Bill the states might be down but they are not out
If Mr Morrison wants to ride roughshod over certain state interests in the external sphere he had better be prepared to brief counsel at the High Court.
Posted in China, Politics
Leave a comment
The longer term consequences of the pandemic may be fewer citizens’ rights
When we require a bureaucrat’s permission to leave the country, or to cross our neighbourhood’s State border, one far removed from any known instance of a viral infection, our rights and liberties are indeed slipping. They are doing so right … Continue reading
Posted in Politics
Leave a comment
Australia’s dubious record in supporting international law.
As the world descends into power politics, less powerful nations must place their faith, and potentially their security, in the retention and development of a credible international legal system. That credibility turns on the respect and observance given to it … Continue reading
Posted in World Affairs
Leave a comment
Section 92 of the Constitution lost to shortsightedness
It is a pity that the Commonwealth has formally dropped out of the Clive Palmer challenge in the High Court over State boundary closures as offending Section 92 of the Constitution – though prior to that it had made a … Continue reading
Posted in Politics
Leave a comment
Out of sight, out of mind. What’s happened to Trade?
Trade does not get the attention it requires as all external issues are viewed through the prism of the defence/intelligence agencies, subordinating the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade itself. This has become worse since trade was integrated into that … Continue reading
Posted in China, Economy
Leave a comment
Aristotle’s citizens and the Constitution
The renowned British economist Martin Wolf, writing in the Financial Times last weekend, has warned that a possible consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic is that “Democracy will fail if we don’t think as citizens”.By citizens he is thinking of a … Continue reading
Posted in Politics
Leave a comment
An uncertain six months for Britain, Covid-19 and Brexit. Part 1
Over the next six months Britain may face greater uncertainty about the cohesion of its social and economic fabric than at any time since the threat of German invasion in late 1940.
Posted in Economy, World Affairs
Leave a comment
Militarism and Popularism, a dangerous mix
Popularism in defence matters must have its limits. Being carried away on a wave of popularism may be exciting but when reality strikes the repercussions could be severe.
Posted in Defence and Security, Politics
Leave a comment
Regardless of the EU, the UK’s trading status is about to default to the WTO
The UK has already left the EU. That’s the reality. What remains to be decided, before 31 December, is its future relationship with the EU. But there is more to it than that.
Posted in World Affairs
Leave a comment
Regardless of the EU, the UK’s trading status is about to default to the WTO
The UK has already left the EU. That’s the reality. What remains to be decided, before 31 December, is its future relationship with the EU. But there is more to it than that.
Posted in World Affairs
5 Comments
ANDREW FARRAN. Brexit Britain – “The lonely little country”
Will Boris Johnson maintain his stance that there will be no extension to the transitional period for completion of the UK/EU Future Relations agreement even though the time remaining is well short of the time required to settle and formalise … Continue reading
Posted in World Affairs
1 Comment
ANDREW FARRAN. State border closures and Section 92
It is surprising that there has been little comment on, let alone challenge to, the extent of the States’ overreach with their Covid-19 border closures in the face of Section 92 of the Australian Constitution. This may be changing
Posted in Politics
6 Comments
ANDREW FARRAN. Pandemics, paradoxes and the Federal system
There is still a question as we continue to confront the coronavirus whether the Constitution with respect to health and education needs clarification so that the imposition of border closures, regional lockdowns, school closures, etc., and decisions having legal implications, … Continue reading
ANDREW FARRAN. Cleaning up after Brexit
Although Brexit is the name that within the UK Government can’t be spoken the hard truth is that it is not yet done and the doing may prove a messy business. The cliff that looms on 31 December is coming … Continue reading
Posted in World Affairs
1 Comment
ANDREW FARRAN. Wither Brexit and the Trade System under Covid-19?
Where can the suspended post-Brexit negotiations go from here when the very multilateral trading system, along with globalisation, is on its uppers, under the curse of the CaronaVirus pandemic? What will the negotiators be able to come to grips with … Continue reading
Posted in World Affairs
Comments Off on ANDREW FARRAN. Wither Brexit and the Trade System under Covid-19?
ANDREW FARRAN.- A New Constitutional Health Power for the Commonwealth
Could the Caronavirus (Covin-19) outbreak be a tipping point swinging the balance of Constitutional power with respect to health in favour of the Commonwealth, as happened previously with defence, income tax and civil aviation?
Posted in Politics
4 Comments
ANDREW FARRAN/GARY SAMPSON. Brexiting in Brussels – High Noon awaits?
As the UK/EU negotiators face up to the definitive stages of shaping their post-Brexit world, questions are being asked in London and elsewhere whether the Johnson Government is approaching these negotiations with serious intent having gone from “let’s get Brexit … Continue reading
Posted in Economy, Politics
4 Comments