Alison Broinowski
Dr Alison Broinowski AM is a former Australian diplomat and a member of Australians fr War Powers Reform
Alison's recent articles
16 May 2023
Limits, damned lies, and perception management
At a reconstruction site in Mariupol during President Putins visit in March, a woman cried from the back of the crowd, Its all lies. Her comment was later taken down from social media, though it wasnt clear who did that, nor whose lies she meant.
18 April 2023
Safe travels in no-go zones
The countries where its not safe for Australians to travel have multiplied, but not because of COVID. They include the places where we fought the war on terror.
11 April 2023
Australia prepares legal case for war over non-sovereign nation Taiwan
Australia is inventing an unheard-of way to go to war at the invitation of a non-sovereign nation an obvious reference to Taiwan. The Governments intent seems to be to have it ready for the conflict with China that US Generals keep telling us is coming.
4 April 2023
A boom-gate falls across the highway to reform
Reform has its limits. Even as the Labor Government makes good several of its promised changes in economic and social policy, the boom-gate has dropped on defence and foreign affairs.
24 March 2023
Out of touch, out of date, or out of their minds?
Our foremost practitioner of the quick and deadly put-down, Paul Keating, copped plenty of blowback after his National Press Club performance on 15 March.
20 March 2023
Here we stand: Twenty years after our first war of aggression
HERE WE STAND: We are standing here, as people were in Melbourne yesterday, to recall one of Australias worst days: the start of our first war of aggression.
3 March 2023
What our media dont tell us: Has the D-Notice returned?
Many Australians have turned to non-mainstream sources of news. They are often more reliable, and cheaper. Without them, the Nordstream pipeline sabotage of September 2022 would still be unexplained.
21 February 2023
Don't ask the government about the next war
This is war protest month, with more to follow. Will efforts against the Iraq war, that failed twenty years ago this week, succeed in heading off the next one?
10 February 2023
Wong surrenders to Canberra hawks, rejects war powers reform
Australias Foreign Minister, who advocates international law and better relations with Asian countries, has surrendered to the hawks in Canberra.
11 January 2023
Australia's 'optimal pathway' on AUKUS
Just in time, the fundamental faults of AUKUS are being exposed in Canberra and Washington.
19 December 2022
Expect epiphanies on Australian defence policy this March
In 2023, announcements from Canberra on foreign affairs, defence, and trade will come thick and fast. They can be expected to be regressive, in contrast to the Albanese governments positive domestic agenda.
1 December 2022
Enough is enough for Albanese on Assange: our allies may respect us if we say this more
The Prime Ministers surprise revelation that he has raised the case against Julian Assange with US officials and urged that charges of espionage and conspiracy be dropped opens up many questions.
8 November 2022
2022: Democracy takes a gap year, US hegemony is over
Nations holding their breath for democracy may suffocate. If the US is still the leader of the free world, its followers are dwindling, as several summits in November will show.
4 November 2022
Familiar and surreptitious ways to war
We have recently learned that Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton secretly installed senior US military officers in Australias Defence Department, at taxpayers' vast expense, and it appears that the present Government is complicit in perpetuating this arrangement.
15 October 2022
Ukraine military instructor decision echoes the lead up to Australias deployment in Vietnam
It would be no great surprise if Australians were to join British military instructors in training Ukrainians to fight. Defence Minister Richard Marles hinted at that when he visited the UK in September. The Australian personnel would join others from New Zealand, Sweden, the Netherlands and elsewhere who have been supporting Ukraines side in the war as trainers of civilians in using weapons, patrolling, and first aid.
4 October 2022
A decade in the making, an inquiry into how Australia goes to war
After years of public efforts to get politicians to concentrate on changing how Australia goes to war, the Albanese government has now responded by taking the first step.
2 October 2022
The Defence Strategic Review: National strategy or weapons shopping list?
Governments dont hold inquiries to get unwelcome answers. The Defence Strategic Review is no exception. So what does the Albanese government want it to achieve?
27 August 2022
Trust in the powers that be
Remember the Cold War I years, when Capital Hill in Canberra became a huge hole, at the bottom of which was a space designated as a bomb shelter?
1 July 2022
Independence day postponed, again
If Australians thought a new government would independently seek better relations with our regional neighbours, the Albanese team is already giving us reasons to be disappointed.
16 June 2022
Subcontracting war
In the year since last July, the Morrison Government spent almost $3.8 billion on consultancies. This paid to the big end of consulting town for more than 8400 contracts with Accenture, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG and PwC. Other consultancies are small but aspirational, often run by recently retired public servants. Where is the accountability, we ask? Hire a consultant to find out. When the Albanese government promised to cut consultancies back, the Murdoch media howled with outrage.
14 June 2022
The US / China blame-game
All wars are avoidable, not just the war in Ukraine, but a future war with China too. Most of Australias wars have been unnecessary, as historian Henry Reynolds has shown. A war with China would be both: avoidable and unnecessary. It would be more catastrophic for Australia than any we have fought.
11 May 2022
New voices for a new parliament
At first, the 2022 election looked like being another fake contest between two major parties which offered voters little new, and little choice, particularly on foreign affairs and defence.
14 January 2022
If America really is 'back', it needs to set an example on human rights and charity in Afghanistan
Over it's 20 year war in Afghanistan the US inflicted untold death and destruction.Now with sanctions and boycotts it is inflicting even more suffering. Yet it continues to preach about human rights abuses by China and others.
12 December 2021
The hypocrisy behind Biden's rallying call for democracy
The US president has urged the free world to guard against authoritarian threats to democracy, ignoring America's own history.
25 November 2021
Australia diplomacy: how to lose friends and influence no one
Australia's diplomatic missteps and lack of independence in foreign affairs and defence have brought a damaging loss of international trust.
14 November 2021
The origins of COVID-19: why we are still in the dark
The attempts to discover the truth about the origins of the pandemic have been undermined by secrecy, vested interests, suspicion, accusations and politics.
24 October 2021
The media hides the information we need about Julian Assange
Our mainstream media have treated Julian Assange as the bad guy for over a decade. Which is where the virus again raises its ugly head.
12 October 2021
What really happened not just in Wuhan to spark the COVID-19 pandemic
After months of advance publicity, book extracts and a Sky News documentary, most of us already know where Sharri Markson and News Corp believe the COVID-19 pandemic began.
4 October 2021
Losing Paul Barratt
Just before his major surgery in April, Paul Barratt emailed his friends and colleagues, quoting Captain Lawrence Oates: I am just going outside and it may be some time.
5 September 2021
White Man's Media-Why cleaning up the government and media is women's work
We let powerful global institutions control the narrative, and it's up to women to put a stop to it.
26 August 2021
Best we don't ask why we go to war.
Australia seems to hold more inquiries into itself than almost any other country. We inquire into everything, from Indigenous deaths in custody, child sexual abuse, and same sex marriage to bank misdemeanours, casino operations, pandemic responses, and alleged war crimes. Theres one exception to our obsession with self-scrutiny: Australias wars.
10 August 2021
Is cleaning up government and media women's work?
Most of those who brought us this Anthropocene age are white, grey, male, and stale. It is now the virocene, the envirocene, and the pyrocene age too, thanks to the younger and even richer men who are taking over from them.
25 July 2021
What are hostilities if not war?
Rarely is the United States not at war. Trump didnt start any wars, but he didnt end any either. Biden is keeping Americas enemies and adding new ones. Congressional control over how the US goes to war and what its called has again become a pressing issue.
8 July 2021
Virtuous and vicious virology
If virologists are independent seekers after scientific truth, dedicated to advancing human wellbeing, recent revelations about their profession make it look more like mud-wrestling.
7 June 2021
The Stench of COVID Coverups.
Most of us who read Pearls and Irritations are not virologists, mainstream media journalists, Americans, or Chinese. As the nasty details about the pandemic emerge, thats just as well, if we want the truth.
22 May 2021
Banging on about war. What for?
War used to be regarded as a failure of diplomacy. Now in Australia, we are being told to prepare for it. Why?
10 May 2021
Is News Corp back onto weapons of mass destruction?
Australians born in the last century remember how the war on terror began in 2001. The same con trick is being tried on us again, for war with China.
28 April 2021
Armenia, genocide, and Australia
For all our talk about not forgetting, Australia has a selective memory about Armenia and other atrocities.
18 April 2021
Out of this war, ready for the next?
Afghanistan has joined Australias list of lost wars, and its our longest. The Prime Ministers tears on announcing it may have been for that, or for Australias 41 dead, 249 wounded, estimated 500 veteran suicides, and innumerable cases of PTSD, at a cost of A$10 billion.
14 April 2021
Who wants war with Iran? Not Australia
Iran has resented the US ever since the CIA and MI6 overthrew Prime Minister Mossadegh in 1953. For its part, the US has wanted vengeance against Iran ever since the Islamic revolution ousted their ally and Israels, Mohammad Reza Shah. Iran is the last of the seven countries listed in 2000 by the Neo-conservatives to have their governments overthrown as part of their Project for a New American Century.
30 March 2021
Throwing stones in the Uighur glasshouse
On his last day at work for the Trump Administration, Mike Pompeo accused China of genocide against the Uighurs in Xinjiang province, which the Chinese Foreign Ministry vehemently denied. His successor as Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, supports the accusation and has repeated it.
14 February 2021
US government changes hands but Assange approach will stay the same
The Australian government's unwillingness to protect one of its own, coupled with Biden's contradictory remarks about WikiLeaks, means nothing is likely to stop the wheels of British and American justice grinding towards the predictable result.
1 February 2021
Why does Australia allow the US to choose our enemies?
Trump was right: the US fights forever wars, and only the names of the enemies change. America is never without an enemy, an heir and a spare. Military force remains the default American response to most problems. Australia needs to warn the new US administration that were not interested in illegal, expeditionary wars.
6 January 2021
Right outcome, wrong reasons on Julian Assange
British justice has been done, but it is hard to fathom.Assanges crime is different from the usual. He embarrassed the US by revealing activities recorded by Americans themselves, and the lawlessness of the US military that continues every day, all round the world.
17 November 2020
Can it get worse after Trump?
When Joe Biden is in the White House and Donald Trump is back in his tower or at his resort, some things about the Trump years will be missed.
22 October 2020
Darylgate: a Federal matter as well
A week is a short time in politics. In less than that time, an affair emerged that had lasted five years if you believe Gladys, or seven if you believe Daryl.
12 October 2020
Julian Assange and failure of mainstream media
On 18 September, a little over a year since Amal Clooney was appointed as the UKs special envoy for media freedom, she resigned. Among Clooneys barrister colleagues are Geoffrey Robertson, Jennifer Robinson, and Gareth Pierce, all of whom, at their Doughty Chambers human rights practice, are advocates for Julian Assange.
7 October 2020
It is time for a political solution to the Julian Assange persecution.
A travesty that passes for British justice has now run its course at the Old Bailey.