Alison Broinowski
Dr Alison Broinowski AM is a former Australian diplomat and a member of Australians fr War Powers Reform
Alison's articles (189 total)
The questions Hanson was not made to answer
Pauline Hanson’s National Press Club address gave the media a chance to test One Nation’s claims on racism, public broadcasting, nuclear power, AUKUS, defence spending and foreign policy – but too many of the hardest questions went unasked.
Trump goes shopping in the US Indian Ocean Island chain
President Trump is reportedly wanting to buy the Chagos Islands from Mauritius as his way of securing control of Diego Garcia. First, the United Kingdom must hand back their sovereignty.
Duterte’s trial should worry Trump
The court cases facing Nicolás Maduro and Rodrigo Duterte highlight the legal exposure of leaders who use violence, abduction and war as instruments of power – and raise hard questions about Donald Trump’s own vulnerability to international law.
War games behind the Iran Curtain
The US and UK governments continue to ignore their parliaments and public opinion, on the most important issue, going to war. Again Australia is on the wrong side.
Warpower is a write-off
Cheaper and more effective ways of waging war are emerging, but then there’s the American (and Australian) way that still sees the waste of horrendously expensive equipment.
Mission creep in the Gulf shows Australia hasn’t learned from past wars
Australia has again joined a US-led conflict with little transparency or debate, raising the risk of mission creep, economic costs and another drawn-out military failure.
Iran on the brink
After decades of US-backed regime-change wars across the Middle East, Iran now stands alone. A new conflict would deepen regional instability and test Australia’s willingness to say no.
Herzog greeted by mass protest despite limits on marching
Denied permission to march, thousands still gathered in central Sydney to protest the visit of Israel’s president. The demonstration revealed both the scale of public anger and the state’s increasingly fraught response to dissent.
After Gaza, the next target is Iran
US–Israel manoeuvring over Gaza is already widening the conflict. As Sudan burns and propaganda intensifies, Iran may be the next target — with Australia again at risk of being drawn in.
Israel, lies and videotape
We have heard a lot in the last two years and one month about Jewish Australians feeling unsafe or intimidated.
Australia can't get away with genocide
Australia repeatedly fights as the deputy sheriff in our ally’s wars. Afterwards, our contributions are forgotten and we continue to dodge blame for the disastrous results, including war crimes. Can we get away with this over Gaza?
The easy way or the hard way to the same result
National leaders deceive most people most of the time. Israel’s long, atrocious, US-backed assault on the Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon is the latest example, as are their joint attacks on Syria, Yemen, and Iran.
Palestinians out by 7 October?
No wonder Israel’s prime minister was grinning. He had his fourth meeting this year with President Trump. He also got what he came for: permission to finish the job.
Lies and hypocrisy are now the truth
Many governments that call themselves democratic and law-abiding are not. The United States has set the pace in the hypocrisy stakes for years. Its fascist tendencies are now clearly on display.
The UN turns 80
The most important agenda item for the United Nations General Assembly this month will be the future of Palestine. But Palestinian leaders will be unable to discuss it, because they will be absent.
Terrorists are them, never us
Almost as quickly as Anthony Albanese signed up for AUKUS, he has now agreed to join the United States in making Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) the 32nd terrorist organisation designated by Australia.
Eleven opportunities for Australia
The Pacific Peace Conference was held in Brisbane on 2 August 2025.
Watermelons in the rain
We knew a thousand police couldn’t arrest 90,000 of us, so the march for Palestine was always going to happen. An 11th-hour decision by Justice Belinda Rigg just made it legal.
Two remote islands with a common purpose
After a decades-long fight, Prime Minister Starmer in late May gave up Britain’s possession of the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean, while Australia keeps the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, our most distant Indian Ocean territory. The United States military has continuing use of both.
Build-up to the ultimate surveillance state has just begun
While most of us are transfixed daily by more horrific atrocities, potentially deadlier operations are likely to far outlast the genocide in Gaza.
Palestinian genocide: No more selective indignation
Australians are joining the chorus of outrage at Israel’s escalating carnage in Gaza and the West Bank. They include Jewish Australians, but few of our political representatives.
If I were foreign minister...
I don’t want to be Australia’s foreign minister, and here’s why: I would not be good at promoting Australia’s current foreign policy to the world. That’s also why I stopped being a diplomat in 1996.
Australia should inform itself as to who the real terrorists are
Australians may smirk at the embarrassment of Donald Trump’s neophyte administration over Signalgate. Particularly those old enough to remember how our allies punished Canberra for past intelligence scandals and pushed us to set up ASIO.
Hurry up and wait
One principle of American military affairs has been said since the 1940s to be hurry up and wait. That certainly applies to AUKUS, an agreement so urgent that in September 2021 Prime Minister Scott Morrison gave Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese only 24 hours to agree to it.
An open letter to ABC chairman Kim Williams
Dear Mr Williams, In June 2024, on assuming the chair of the ABC, you expressed a desire to see the organisation develop a clearer sense of purpose aligned with its charter and, having gained clarity about its purpose, it should seek to understand how that purpose can be embodied in its offerings.
Who feels unsafe and why?
When Parliament returns, the government will be pressed to enact a law making it a criminal offence to threaten violence against people or groups on racial or religious grounds, or to threaten them about gender identity or sexual orientation. Before February, we need to know more about what caused a recent spate of nasty incidents in Sydney.
Netanyahu intends to attack Gaza as soon as hostages are released
Expressions of delight at the ceasefire – which was preceded by an 11th hour Israeli onslaught in Gaza, killing at least 80 – are premature. Netanyahu has repeatedly said attacks against Hamas will resume after Israel gets some hostages back.
The US war on terror strikes home
Americans were shocked by two fatal events in the United States on New Year’s day 2025, and one was quickly called ‘Islamist terrorism’. Yet the US supports Muslim terrorist groups in Syria.
Are we the terrorists?
It’s ten years since the Lindt Café siege by a member of Islamic State who, despite multiple warnings, was not of concern to ASIO or the police. Yet Man Haron Monis’ attack had all the commonly accepted characteristics of terrorism.
If you want peace, don't prepare for war
In a series of baby but not blindfolded steps, our Government is making Australia ready for war. The latest of these appeared in the small print of a memorandum on 27 November.
The Forever War won’t end until we face the State terrorists
At the Imperial War Museum in London, there’s a moving display about Nazis and the Holocaust, the ‘ultimate human evil’. Seeing it in May this year, I wondered if eventually there will be an exhibition of the Palestinian genocide.
Ending Apartheid: Think local, act global
Boycotts, divestments and sanctions are back. Students are urging universities to reveal their investments and connections with Israel, and to end them. Local councils in Victoria and New South Wales have been quick to do the same.
Make aid reach Gaza, but not until children starve to death for another 30 days, says US
For years, the Israeli authorities have restricted food, fuel and essential supplies to the Palestinians in Gaza, turning the deliveries on and off at will. This contributed to the desperate Hamas outbreak on 7 October 2023. Since the beginning of this month, Israel has stopped almost all the deliveries.
Australia’s shame
Open Letter to Antonio Guterres on the Australian Government’s failure to publicly defend the office of the United Nations Secretary General.
Never ending war on terror keeps us anxious, fearful, committed
President Bush declared the War on Terror in 2001. Dr Alison Broinowski AM, Australians for War Power Reforms (AWPR), former diplomat and Author, argues that America and its Western Allies including Australia have been involved in multiple 'never ending' foreign wars with no declaration in sight of victory.
Julian Assange gets a positive hearing at last
Appearing in public for the first time since he returned in June to Australia from Britain’s Belmarsh Prison, Julian Assange will give his first official testimony since 2019 on 1 October.
Why we're still at war with terror
The talented comic song-writer Tom Lehrer, from a family of secular Jewish New Yorkers, complained during the Vietnam war that nothing was funny any more. He would agree now about the war in Gaza.
What will our US alliance get us into from November?
A Trump administration, and even a Harris one, will pose new challenges for Australia: sycophancy or independence? Non-alignment or more complicity in US wars?
Australia’s to-do list: stop supporting war, avoid becoming US satrap
Gathering in New York in September 2024, the world’s nations will be challenged to ‘end the scourge of war’, before it’s too late. All of them know that a nuclear cataclysm has never been so close.
Will the Republicans end deep state wars of imperial aggression? Don't bet on it...
The prospect of another Trump presidency and a JD Vance vice-presidency is welcomed by some and dreaded by others. A Democrat ‘October surprise’, and a presidency for Kamala Harris are possible. Even Trump in power may get Australia off several hooks. What neither of them is likely to do before election day, however, is commit to doing away with the unachievable AUKUS, the unwelcome Asian NATO, and the unwinnable war over Taiwan, as a RAND report described it in June .
Australian Leadership to end the war on Gaza: open letter to the Prime Minister
We write to express our extreme concern that Senator Payman has resigned from the Labor Government.
Australia, complicit in Israel’s horror, has no option but to respect ICJ ruling
Unlike the US and Israel, Australia is a signatory of the Rome Statute. It has no option but to comply with the latest ICJ decision on 19 July that the UN Security Council, the General Assembly and all states have an obligation not to recognise Israel’s occupation as legal and not to give aid or support toward maintaining it, writes Alison Broinowski.
Envoy Envy: “Sorry Mohammed”
Becoming the latest recruit in a well-organised global program, Australia has joined the 24 nations which have appointed envoys to combat anti-Semitism. We still await an envoy for resisting Islamophobia.
Labor’s fall: fast forward to disaster
The black and white banners unfurled from the battlements of Parliament House on 4 July made us remember 2003 when ‘No War’ appeared in red paint on the top sail of the Opera House. They lifted the spirits of all who then opposed Australia joining the war in Iraq and all who now want action from Australia to end the war against the Palestinians.
Unrepentant, independent stirrers in election year
Imminent elections in France, the United States, and the United Kingdom are affected by two long-running concerns: Palestine and the decline of the West. Responses to them will also affect the 2025 elections in Australia.
A lot of awful things can happen in a week
President Biden has now announced a ‘roadmap’ for Gaza that has been doing the rounds for weeks, and Australia has loyally supported it with a contribution of $A10 million. But much more time, money, and negotiations will be needed if the three-stage plan is to be a success.
Down-payments on our own destruction
Australians used to be scared off voting Labor by Coalition predictions of debt, deficit, and disaster. Labor used to shame Liberals and Nationals with promises of spending to end child poverty, close the indigenous gap, and create a clever country. All that was before AUKUS.
Australian moral failure on Gaza
For Australia, the urgent challenge is when will we act independently and not be associated with war crimes and genocide.
Faced with an Israeli Pariah, Wong decides on Palestinian statehood
Foreign Minister Penny Wong conveys Australia’s decision on Friday 10 May to the UN General Assembly on whether Palestine should be admitted as a full member. This, after years of conflict over Palestine between Labor and the Coalition, and disagreement within the ALP, is a definitional moment for Australia.
Do as I say, not as I do
Antony Blinken megaphoned the United States’ complaints about China in advance of his visit this week. They included Beijing’s unfair economic and trade practices, ‘industrial over-capacity’, and ‘genocide and crimes against humanity’ against Uyghurs.