Writer
Binoy Kampmark
Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne.
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Showing one’s stripes: The MSO’s treatment of Jayson Gillham
Organisational management, especially when it comes to large entities, has little to recommend it. Arrange the schedules. Pamper sponsors and behave simperingly. Ensure a diet of pills to null the embarrassment. Mind the assets and fret over the brand. Sigh over ledgers and order spreadsheets. Continue reading »
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Missing the point: Chalmers, Dutton and the politics of division
A government is in trouble when it has to utter the banal and reiterate the damnably obvious. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is certainly struggling of late, a state of affairs all the more unspeakable given the calibre of his opponent. Opposition Leader Peter Dutton barely makes the grade of a two-dimensional politician, but has Continue reading »
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Starving the funding: how to cope with the Israeli war machine
Israel’s remorseless campaign in Gaza continues, with the ever-increasing risk of its spread to the north and the east. One of the reasons for such incessancy is the assurance Israel has in its support, one shored up by the strength of its lobbies in various Western states. What then, can we do? Continue reading »
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Owing truth to the dead: Israel’s desecration of war graves
When does it stop? Australia’s close ties with Israel continue to hold despite the incessant slaughter taking place in the Gaza strip, with the connivance of any number of allies and arms manufacturers who have priorities that are somewhat different from the aim of preserving life. Continue reading »
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The release of Julian Assange
It would be the political persecution of the 21st Century. A publicly orchestrated campaign of mobbing, libelling and black balling by the most powerful country on the planet of a publisher who, using novel technological means, enlivened a moribund fourth estate by linking, ever more closely, the leaking whistleblower and the scribbling journalist. Continue reading »
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The National Anti-Corruption Commission: a damp squib
In Australia, the demon of penal regulation clings in its stubbornness. Keeping government accountable and open to the suspicious eye of the public is a weary worn task that yields little by way of change. Secrecy remains addictive, even pathological. Reforms, to that end, remain cosmetic, patchy, and indeterminate. What is the public interest useful for Continue reading »
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Israel is morphing into a pariah state. Time to cut the cord
Washington’s attempts to attack and impair the workings of the ICC on Israel’s behalf merely serve to further isolate a declining America. Continue reading »
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Alice in Aukusland: America first and the stillbirth of ‘Australian’ SSNs
AUKUS has become a stillborn project. Continue reading »
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The despoiling of public life: Scott Morrison and authoritarian paranoia
There are few surprises regarding the final episode of Nemesis, the three-part account on how the Liberal Party, in partnership with the Nationals, psychotically and convulsively disembowel itself from the time Tony Abbott won office in 2013. Over the gore and violence concluding the tenures of Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull, one plotter rose, knife bloodied Continue reading »
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Usual cruelties: Imbeciles who fear the borders
The imaginative faculties of standard Australian politicians retreat to some strange, deathly place on certain issues. In that wasteland, they are often unrecoverable. Like juveniles demanding instant reward, they find complexity hideous. Focus on the now, the punch, the bruising, the hurt. That, in sum, is Canberra’s policy towards refugees. Continue reading »
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Complicit: Victorian government’s secret Israeli Defence Ministry MOU sparks outrage
Last month, news bubbled that the Victorian State government had inked a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Israeli Defence Ministry in December 2022. “As Australia’s advanced manufacturing capital, we are always exploring economic and trade opportunities for our state – especially those that create local jobs,” a government spokesperson stated in January. Continue reading »
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Political Clod: Malcolm Turnbull and Nemesis
From the time Kevin Rudd romped into office as Australia’s first Labor Prime Minister since Paul Keating, the life of Australian Prime Ministers has been dangerous. Party hacks, factional gangsters, and pollsters shadow, stalk and linger, attempting to note signs of the weakness. A decline in the polls is treated as genuine political calamity, the Continue reading »
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Scott Morrison: A blight on Australian politics
Former Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s departure from parliament is a vulgar reminder about where Australian politics went grossly wrong, and where its vulnerable, already trimmed sovereignty went. Continue reading »
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The last flurry: The US Congress and Australian Parliamentarians seek Assange’s release
On February 20, Julian Assange, the daredevil publisher of WikiLeaks, will be going into battle, yet again, with the British justice system – or what counts for it. The UK High Court will hear arguments from his team that his extradition to the United States from Britain to face 18 charges under the Espionage Act Continue reading »
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Yemen and canal errors: when Australia misread the Suez crisis
Australia’s assistance in striking targets in Yemen, obediently abiding by the direction of the United States and United Kingdom, had a certain curious resonance to another event that involved foreign shipping, the wounded pride of imperial powers, and meddling Arabs. Continue reading »
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Corporate murder: the Australian companies behind Gaza’s destruction
The American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organisation of some note, recently released a list of companies profiting from Israel’s current campaign in Gaza, including its operations in the West Bank, Lebanon, and Syria between October and December 2023. The list of nasty participants is impressive and familiar. Continue reading »
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AUKUS and an aggressive US imperium, its reach vast, its mind paranoid
Warmongering think tanks, self-appointed members of the military commentariat, and the whole stable of security-minded cognoscenti in the Anglosphere are terrified about one thing come November 2024. Will AUKUS, that boil on Australia’s policy landscape but boon for the US military industrial complex, be lanced by Donald Trump? Continue reading »
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Doomed frigates: Australia, defence and the problems of procurement
It’s becoming a force of habit. Initially, grand plans and hopes for those in defence. A future weapons program in the offing able to add new capabilities. Much anticipation and the inking of signatures with the relevant manufacturer. Then, mounting costs, technical faults, the disappointment, and revision. In the case of the Future Submarine deal Continue reading »
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Bernie Sanders and the eviscerated left
The Left, and certainly a number of broadly defined progressives, have a strange affinity towards violence and conflict. When the absurdly labelled Global War Against Terror was declared by the semi-literate US President George W. Bush, the use of torture and resort to illegal invasions had the support of such noted liberal figures as Michael Continue reading »
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Vassal’s privilege: Exmouth and Australia’s role in US space imperialism
The AUKUS arrangements between the United States, United Kingdom and Australia envisage the transfer of nuclear-propulsion technology and nuclear-powered submarines to the Royal Australian Navy – what policy wonks call the First Pillar. This does little to advance Canberra’s security but does much to confirm that Washington is keen to keep other powers in the Continue reading »
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Australia: Land of the persecuted whistleblower
In Australia, whistleblowers are feebly protected. They tend to muddy the narrative of perfect institutions, spoil the fun of having illusions, and give the game away. Despite recent amendments to the Public Interest Disclosure Act 2013 (Cth) regarding, for instance, the creation of a National Anti-Corruption Commission, public sector employees remain vulnerable to prosecution. The Continue reading »
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Anthony Albanese: Australia’s lobbyist for the US Imperium
Australian sovereignty should have been something of a pub joke prior to AUKUS. After it, it has become a dead letter. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s sole purpose during his visit to Washington is to be the country’s uncritical undertaker, ensuring that remains of independence are buried, even as the minerals are extracted. Continue reading »
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War mongering through the Scott Morrison lens
The former Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison continues to maintain his role as the country’s noisiest anti-Beijing figure. Still a federal member of the New South Wales seat of Cook (when will “sod” and “off” make union regarding him?), he is showing electors, each and every day, why his resignation is in order. Continue reading »
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As Palestine bleeds, Sydney Opera House drapes itself in the colours of apartheid
“We are fighting human animals and are acting accordingly.” – Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant. Continue reading »
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Flagging support: Zelenskyy loses favour in Washington
Things did not go so well this time around. When the worn Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy turned up banging on the doors of Washington’s powerful on September 21, he found fewer open hearts and an increasingly large number of closed wallets. The old ogre of national self-interest seemed to be presiding and was in no Continue reading »
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Vale Dianne Feinstein: Persecutor of Assange, servant of the US imperium
“She was the longest-serving female senator in US history, a trailblazer for women in politics and a champion for social justice and gun control.” So began a piece from the Sydney Morning Herald’s North America correspondent on the passing of Californian Democratic Senator, Dianne Feinstein. Continue reading »
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Mike Pezzullo: Despot in waiting……
One Mike Pezzullo a coup does not make. But a few such characters pose a serious question to the health and ticker of democracy. If Canberra’s most powerful bureaucrat can entertain thoughts about swimming deeply in a political process he should be viewing from the sidelines, then we are no longer dealing with appointees who Continue reading »
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Mission to free Assange: Australian Parliamentarians in Washington
It was a short stint, involving a six-member delegation of Australian parliamentarians lobbying members of the US Congress and various relevant officials on one issue: the release of Julian Assange. If extradited to the US from the United Kingdom to face 18 charges, 17 framed with reference to the oppressive, extinguishing Espionage Act of 1917, Continue reading »
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Overthrowing Allende: Australia’s special role in destroying a democracy
Every September 11, those in the United States mourn the 2001 attacks that reduced the Twin Towers to rubble and holed the Pentagon. Some 3,000 people perished. US President George W. Bush declared in a speech following the attacks that the US had been targeted for being “the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in Continue reading »
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The paranoia of China going global
Empires are anxious creatures, run by those predatory types with egos vast and awareness minimal. The awareness only gets pricked when risks are posed to the financial returns, military security, what might be called, at a stretch, their way of living. Such risks can come in many forms, and for the US imperium, it’s less Continue reading »
