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Author Archives: John Menadue
JOHN MENADUE. ‘Things you learn along the way’.
Occasionally friends suggest to me that I should write my autobiography. Ruefully I explain that I wrote ‘Things you learn along the way’ twenty years ago. The book sold about 8,000 copies but as far as I know is no longer … Continue reading
Posted in Arts and Reviews
5 Comments
JOHN MENADUE. The continuing litany of lies on boat arrivals and border protection.
I am sorry if I keep repeating what I have been saying for four years but when will we finally accept that we have been consistently conned and lied to about boat arrivals and border protection for a long time. … Continue reading
Posted in Refugees, Immigration
10 Comments
STEPHEN S. ROACH. Flailing at China (Project Syndicate 27.9.2019)
Despite years of denial, there can no longer be any doubt that the US is pursuing a bipartisan containment strategy vis-à-vis China. Whether justified or not, the real problem with this strategy is less the merits of the allegations leveled … Continue reading
Posted in Politics
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ROBERT FISK. The Crazed, Rogue Leader is in Washington Not Tehran (Counterpunch 2.9.2019)
History in the Middle East is unkind to us westerners. Just when we thought we were the good guys and the Iranians were the bad guys, here comes the ghostly, hopeless possibility of a Trump-Rouhani summit to remind us that … Continue reading
Posted in International Affairs
2 Comments
CATHY WILCOX. Standing by our trusted ally. (SMH 23.8.2019)
In the face of destabilising provocation.
Posted in International Affairs
3 Comments
ERNST WILLHEIM. The saga of Bernard Collaery and Witness K continues.
If you watched the program [ABC 4-Corners] you will already know this is a talk about some shameful events in Australia’s recent history. And I very much fear the shameful saga is about to continue. It is about Australian commercial … Continue reading
Posted in Defence/Security, Politics
9 Comments
TONY WRIGHT. Spy versus spy: in Canberra, cover is where you find it. (SMH 16.8.2019)
I have wondered occasionally whether ASIO has a few grainy pictures of me sauntering to the front door of the forbidding embassy of the USSR in Canberra.
Posted in Politics
2 Comments
JOANNE SIMON-DAVIES. Housing in Australia (Australian Parliamentary Library 2.8.2019)
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) recently released data from 2017-18 Survey of Income and Housing (SIH). The SIH is a household survey which collects information on sources of income, amounts received, household net worth, housing, household characteristics and personal characteristics … Continue reading
Posted in Housing
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RAMESH THAKUR. A nuclear world in disarray. (The Strategist 7.8.2019)
We are in a uniquely dangerous period in the atomic age. Geopolitical tensions have spiked in Europe, in the Middle East, on the subcontinent and in East Asia. The nuclear arms control architecture is fraying and crumbling, but no negotiations … Continue reading
Posted in Defence/Security, International Affairs
2 Comments
GIDEON RACHMAN. The Asian strategic order is dying. (Financial Times 6.8.2019)
When somebody is reaching the end of their life, they often suffer from lots of apparently unrelated ailments — fevers, chest pains, unlucky falls. Something similar may happen when a strategic order is dying.
Posted in International Affairs
2 Comments
JENNY HOCKING. ‘A tawdry distortion of history: How the Palace airbrushed Sir John Kerr’s Memoirs’
There have been dramatic revelations from the National Archives of Australia with the release of letters between the Governor-General Sir John Kerr and Buckingham Palace following Kerr’s dismissal of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. These letters provide remarkable and disturbing new … Continue reading
Posted in Politics
2 Comments
MICHAEL McKINLEY. Australia’s AUSMIN invitations: clean the driveway, wash the dishes. Again
In the course of the current AUSMIN talks Australia has once again been invited, by the United States, to assume a role for which it is well, indeed over-qualified for – namely to provide janitorial services in the aftermath of … Continue reading
Posted in Defence/Security
1 Comment
DENNIS ARGALL. The Pompeo view
US Secretary of State Pompeo said a couple of things in Sydney recently that were wrong in fact. He articulated an absurd philosophy about foreign investment, unaware that he’d just accused China of thinking something similar. His utterances of high-minded … Continue reading
Posted in International Affairs
6 Comments
MACK WILLIAMS. Alliance Management- Morrison’s First Challenge : Iran
The past week of the Australian-US Ministerial Consultations (Ausmin) talks has presented the Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, and his inexperienced ministerial team with the first serious test of how to manage the US alliance relationship. Despite the very difficult contemporary … Continue reading
Posted in Defence/Security
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EDWARD WONG. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Israel and Iran and The Rapture. (NYT 30.3.2019)
Yesterday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had dinner with Scott Morrison. They both believe in The Rapture when Christ will return to Israel with Jerusalem as its capital. Importantly at the moment we are being urged to join forces … Continue reading
Posted in International Affairs
3 Comments
STEPHEN S. ROACH. China’s Long View (Project Syndicate 26.7.2019)
Time and again, the long view in China has stood in sharp contrast to America’s short-term approach. Sun Tzu put it best in his ancient treatise, The Art of War: “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need … Continue reading
Posted in International Affairs
1 Comment
YANIS VAROUFAKIS. Jeremy Corbyn’s Finest Hour? (Project Syndicate 30.7.2019)
With Boris Johnson as UK prime minister, and his Brexit strategy crystal clear, the task of the Labour opposition is equally clear. It must expose the truth about Johnson’s no-deal option – namely, that it means a Trump-deal Brexit – … Continue reading
Posted in International Affairs
2 Comments
WILLIAM D. HARTUNG. The US Military-Industrial Complex on Steroids (TomDispatch 16.7.2017)
When, in his farewell address in 1961, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned of the dangers of the “unwarranted influence” wielded by the “military-industrial complex,” he could never have dreamed of an arms-making corporation of the size and political clout of Lockheed Martin. … Continue reading
Posted in Defence/Security, International Affairs
1 Comment
DAVID POPE on ‘The Freudenberg’. (Canberra Times 27.7.2019)
Posted in Politics
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THE HON BOB CARR. Tribute to Graham Freudenberg.
The speech arrived on the Premier’s desk already clipped into the black leather folder. Did my staff realise that coming from the pen of the master and being a speech of welcome to a US President I would be disinclined … Continue reading
JOHN MENADUE. Vale Graham Freudenberg
A dear friend and colleague, Graham Freudenberg, died this morning at the Redcliffe Hospital. He was admired and will be mourned by many people who knew him personally and a great number of people who knew him in public recognition … Continue reading
Posted in Politics
11 Comments
JACK WATERFORD. AFP needs a leader who is a character with character, not a bureaucrat with opinions (Canberra Times 20.7.2019)
The ‘old-fashioned cop’ type Dutton is said to want are mostly known for preferring their prejudices to the facts.
Posted in Politics
3 Comments
FINTAN O’TOOLE. Boris Johnson. The Ham of Fate (New York Review of Books, 17.7.2019)
When things are too serious to be contemplated in sobriety, send in the clown.
Posted in International Affairs
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MUNGO MacCALLUM. The Coalition’s conflict of disloyalties on health.
The private health insurance funds have effectively been on notice for 50 years, since the time of the moon landing.
Posted in Health
3 Comments
BE SEO. Australia is turning into a car park for dirty vehicles (AFR 15.7.2019)
Australia’s most popular cars emit between 8 and 42 per cent more carbon dioxide than their UK counterparts, raising concerns that the country has become a parking lot for dirty vehicles.
Posted in Economy, Environment and climate
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HUGH WHITE. Australia needs to give up its South Pacific dream (AFR 13-14.7.2019)
What can Australia do to restore and preserve our sphere of influence in the South Pacific, and deny it to China?
Posted in Asia, Defence/Security, International Affairs
1 Comment
MARTIN WOLF. Legacy of Bretton Woods is under threat (Financial Times 11.7.2019)
Trumpian populism is destroying 70 years of global economic co-operation. What can we put in its place?
Posted in Economy
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HUGH WHITE. Why Pacific nations would host a Chinese military base (AFR 13-14.7.2019)
Our neighbours’ commitment to values and interests shared with Australia might prove feeble in the face of Chinese persuasion.
Posted in Asia, Defence/Security, International Affairs
1 Comment
FINTAN O’TOOLE. Brexit Britain is wallowing in dangerous talk of national humiliation (The Guardian 15.6.2019)
The UK can only feel humiliated by the EU if it expects to be superior. This poisonous idea should be banished.
Posted in International Affairs
1 Comment
GEOFF RABY and IRVIN STUDIN. Can Australia think for itself?
Some years ago, in his usually provocative way, Kishore Mahbubhani published a polemic, Can Asians Think? It was his push back against the uni-polar moment and the perceived arrogance of the Washington Consensus. Asia was capable of working out its … Continue reading
Posted in International Affairs
2 Comments