Writer
Brian Toohey
Brian Toohey is author of Secret: The Making of Australia’s Security State.
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On the bandwagon: Australian media helps government peddle disinformation
There has, quite rightly, been criticism in the mainstream media of authoritarian states and their use of disinformation campaigns and cyber attacks. However, the US and its democratic allies decades ago pioneered the use of disinformation in their huge propaganda campaigns. China is just a beginner…. Continue reading »
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Group of Eight universities concede to ASIO, restrict vital research engagement with China
China is provoking every country in its region. But that is no reason to cut off all contact, including scientific engagement, especially if we want to avoid war. Brian Toohey investigates another sphere in which academic freedom is being restricted by government…. Continue reading »
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Exporting hydrogen the last throw of the dice for brown coal
Federal Energy Minister Angus Taylor’s backing for the Victorian-based hydrogen export plan, which he described as a “significant project”, defies financial credibility…. Continue reading »
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Australia’s plans for a $2 billion airstrip in the Antarctic is environmental vandalism
While Australia criticises other countries for their supposed expansionist policies, Australia is the most brazen of any country in asserting ownership of territory that doesn’t belong to it. And while Australia claims to be staunchly committed to the environmental protection of the Antarctic, its actions belie such a claim, with its proposal to build a… Continue reading »
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“Mind-boggling” waste revealed in the record rise in weapons spending (MWM Nov 30, 2020)
Australian governments and their defence leaders, with help from lobbyists, choose immensely complex, overpriced and overmanned weaponry. Wasteful spending has to end, writes Brian Toohey…. Continue reading »
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One Good Thing: Trump first president since Carter not to drag America into foreign wars
The seeds of civil war may be growing but one good thing to come out of Donald Trump’s four years in power is that he has not sent America into war overseas, joining the Democrats’ Jimmy Carter as the only other president since 1950 to show such restraint. Brian Toohey reports…. Continue reading »
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Our ‘extended’ state’s most powerful mandarin (SMH Oct 30, 2020)
Michael Pezzullo is by far the most powerful public servant in Australia. He created and runs the ever-expanding Home Affairs Department, he oversees a ceaseless avalanche of draconian new laws and he gives public speeches about what he sees as the global ‘‘duality of good and evil’’…. Continue reading »
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Australian submarines operating in the South China Sea is a very provocative and very bad idea.
In responding to my post (19 October) about the Morrison government’s plan to spend at least $90 billion on large submarines, Jon Stanford’s post (21 October ) argues that we should do what the Commander of the US Submarine Force wants with our submarines…. Continue reading »
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In for a penny, in for a pound: $90 billion for an obsolete submarine fleet
So much for Australian sovereignty. We are locked out of repairing key US components of our subs’ computer systems, and the Coalition has committed our submarine fleet to the extraordinarily dangerous role of helping the US conduct surveillance in the South China Sea…. Continue reading »
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Problems with new F-35 fighter planes shouldn’t fly under the radar (Canberra Times Sep 1, 2020)
Defence gives an average price of less than $126 million for Australia’s 72 F-35s when fully delivered. But the Australian Strategy Policy Institute estimates the sustainment costs to be triple those of the F-18 fighters it replaces…. Continue reading »
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ASIO and AFP have questions to answer
ASIO and the AFP have questions to answer in the wake of reported raids on the homes and offices of Chinese journalists and a Labor backbencher…. Continue reading »
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Australia’s national security laws leave us on a similar path to Hong Kong
Hong Kong’s new national security laws are attracting well-deserved condemnation. It’s a pity that there hasn’t been greater recognition that Australia’s own national security laws share some common features with those in Hong Kong…. Continue reading »
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Folly of following the Five Eyes Anglo-Saxon relic
The main countries comprising this electronic espionage group have made an abysmal hash of responding to the economic and health impacts of Covid-19. Yet the Australian government has chosen them to develop a “strategic” economic response to the Covid 19 crisis…. Continue reading »
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BRIAN TOOHEY. Reports of China spies and takeover plots are fanciful (SMH 5.12.2019)
Wildly exaggerated intelligence warnings about communist influence are not new in Australia. A US naval intelligence officer who was posted as an attache to the American embassy in the late 1940s, Stephen Jurika, reported back to Washington that communism was “rife in the highest governing circles” in Australia. … Continue reading »
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BRIAN TOOHEY. The man who thought he owned a Prime Minister
‘This is the gravest risk to the nation’s security there has ever been.’Sir Arthur Tange, 6 November 19751. Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, the son of a former solicitor-general, was initially attracted to the notion that Arthur Tange was a dedicated public servant. He later discovered that this public servant presumed he was entitled to withhold… Continue reading »
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BRIAN TOOHEY Chained to the chariot wheels of the Pentagon
The British monarchy has no say in Australian government decisions. It’s a different story with the head of the American Republic. A US president presides over a military-industrial-intelligence complex with a huge say in whether Australian governments go to war, buy particular weapons, host US-run military and intelligence bases and ban trade with certain countries…. Continue reading »
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Is Pine Gap for Arms Control or the US fighting machine?
Labor governments surrendered Australian sovereignty in other ways by agreeing in 2008 to renew the lease on North West Cape without any conditions on how US nuclear attack submarines could use the base[i]. This could include undermining China’s ability to deter a nuclear war.[ii] Labor subsequently agreed to let the US install long-range ground sensors… Continue reading »
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BRIAN TOOHEY. Teresa May’s rush to judgment on nerve agents
The British Prime Minister Teresa May failed to produce any evidence that the Russian state used a nerve agent called Novichok before she announced measures to punish the Kremlin. At least Tony Blair famously produced a “dodgy dossier” claiming Saddam Hussein possessed a deadly arsenal of chemical and biological weapons. The Bush White House peddled… Continue reading »
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BRIAN TOOHEY. ABC kowtow to government and ASIO on cabinet papers was gutless.
The ABC’s treatment of what it calls one of the “biggest national security breaches in Australian history” is a disgrace. It put the identity of its source at risk, but reported very little from the documents, preferring to talk at length about how it got them and handed them over to the government…. Continue reading »
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BRIAN TOOHEY. Could our new subs sink our new frigates?
Could Australia’s big new $70 billion submarines sink its big new $35 billion frigates? Could the frigates sink the subs? The questions are worth answering before we spend these huge sums on potentially vulnerable frigates and subs. The subs cost, in particular, is unnecessarily high due to the political decision to design and build bespoke… Continue reading »
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BRIAN TOOHEY. PM walks with energy dinosaurs
The person known as Malcolm Turnbull who took over as Prime Minister is gone. That’s the one who declared immediately after getting the job that Australians have a wonderfully exciting future provided they recognise “change is our friend, if we are agile and smart enough to take advantage of it”…. Continue reading »
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BRIAN TOOHEY. Building submarines in SA simply sinks Australian dollars
Despite claims to the contrary by the defence industry minister Christopher Pyne, this sector is not driving growth in the economy or jobs. A defence economics specialist Mark Thompson has debunked these claims in a careful analysis just released by Australian Strategic Policy Institute. Thompson concludes, “If we are going to use defence spending to… Continue reading »
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BRIAN TOOHEY. Prevention better than cure when it comes to terror
We shouldn’t trash our own values to support harsh anti-terrorism policies that don’t guarantee more security. There is a wealth of evidence about what does and what does not help to protect us from terrorism, and we’re doing too much of what doesn’t work…. Continue reading »
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BRIAN TOOHEY. How to repair neo-liberalism
The policy debate needs fresh ideas to fill the gap left by the lack of popular and political support for the neo-liberal economic agenda. Paul Keating, who championed that agenda, recently said neo-liberal economics “has run into a dead end and had no answer to the contemporary malaise”…. Continue reading »
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BRIAN TOOHEY. New Series. We can say ‘no’ to the Americans.
There is nothing wrong with pursuing Australia’s commercial interests and avoiding pointless military gestures demanded by the US. … Continue reading »
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BRIAN TOOHEY. The quality of intelligence advice.
A former top US intelligence official David Gompert has issued a sober warning to those who want to lock Australia into any future war with China. Speaking on Monday, Gompert said a war between the US and China could be so ruinous for both countries and the world that it might seem unthinkable, yet… Continue reading »
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Brian Toohey. The $50 b. submarine purchase.
Jon Stanford’s three-part series on the Turnbull government’s determination to spend $50 billion on big new submarines is a welcome contribution to understanding what’s at stake at a time of cuts elsewhere. The decision risks repeating the Hawke government’s disastrous mistake of rejecting a proven design in favour of the bespoke Collins class subs. Stanford’s… Continue reading »
