11 July 2025

The fanatic’s gaze: Louis Theroux and the West Bank settlers

He has made it his bread and butter for years: finding society’s kooky representatives, the marginal, the crazed and the touched.

9 June 2025

The Hegseth directive: Australia, spend more!

Australia’s obsequiousness before US power was again on show at the Shangri-La Dialogue, a security forum convened by the International Institute for Strategic Studies to discuss matters relevant to the Indo-Pacific.

2 May 2025

Yale, Ben-Gvir and banning Palestinian groups

Universities are in a bind. As institutions of learning and teaching, knowledge learnt and taught should, or at the very least could, be put into practice.

3 April 2025

Peter Dutton: The man who would be PM

It should never have been the case. Peter Dutton, leader of the Coalition opposition, is in with a chance to win the 3 May Australian election.

19 March 2025

Coalitions of the deluded: Starmer’s Ukraine peace plan

UK Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, has been getting ahead of himself of late. At Lancaster House earlier this month, he first proposed to some 18 leaders that a “coalition of the willing” might be cobbled together to protect Ukrainian territory should peace be struck in the Russia-Ukraine War.

17 February 2025

First AUKUS meeting of Trump 2.0: Business as usual

February 7 saw the first AUKUS meeting held between officials of the Trump administration and their Australian servitors since the changing of the guard in the White House. In attendance was the US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and his unbearably compliant Australian counterpart Richard Marles. From all general appearances, the sense was that a change of government in Washington would not herald the scuppering of a ludicrously wasteful project that will cost the Australian taxpayer in the order $400 billion (a modest assessment) for nuclear powered submarines the country does not need, nor ever will.

11 January 2025

The Merry telegram: How US aid and economic shock therapy deformed Russia

Just before last Christmas, the National Security Archive based at George Washington University, published an illuminating cable on US-Russian relations. Authored by political analyst E. Wayne Merry in March 1994 from Moscow’s US Embassy, it was sharply prescient – so much so that it had to be sent by the Dissent Channel to limit its incendiary worth. It’s theme: the failings and potentially insidious effects of US “shock therapy” for the post-Communist Russian economy, along with aid that was endangering, not just Russian pride, but the relationship between Washington and Moscow.

4 January 2025

Jimmy Carter, Israel and the apartheid question

The late centenarian, Jimmy Carter, occupied a difficult position in the line of imperial magistrates we know as US presidents. Coming to power in the aftermath of murderous US adventurism in Indochina and the debauching of the presidency by Richard Nixon (“when the president does it, it means that it is not illegal”), he took an axe to the welfare state, nourished the strapping, dangerous creature that would become neoliberalism, and made foreign policy decisions of disastrous consequence, punctuated by such successes as normalising relations between Egypt and Israel.

30 December 2024

Australian monopolies and iceless fokkers

He looked like a young, freshly sprouting Henry Kissinger, before complicity in war crimes began, and plagiarism became commonplace in allegedly relevant academic texts. The heavy-set flight attendant, his flabby covered jaw ever threatening to passengers, was apologetic, but firm in opinion. There would be no ice for anybody on this flight between the Queensland cities of Brisbane and Townsville.

29 December 2024

Jesting on the environment: Australian mining gets a present

How reassuring it is to be a mining magnate in Australia. Far more significant than royalty, such figures are the unelected captains of industry who know that governments will do whatever they can to accommodate their wishes and whims. True, the rhetoric might sometimes be sharp and seemingly at odds, especially when it comes to that great irritant known as climate change, but the business of Australia is mining, and so it remains.

20 December 2024

Australian state curbs protest against Israel, silences Palestinians

Observe the formula carefully. On the public broadcaster SBS, Jillian Segal, still fresh in her role as antisemitism envoy, made a suggestion in the wake of the December 6 attack on the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne. Australian “cities should not be utilised” for protests held in solidarity with Palestinians affected by the ongoing Hamas-Israel War. As with all contemptuous of any right to protest, Segal proposed that those wishing to gather for such a purpose be parcelled and segregated, preferably away from city environs. “There should be places designated away from where the Jewish community might venture, where people...

8 December 2024

The Melbourne synagogue fire: Antisemitism, political meddling and exceptional victimhood

In his ongoing campaign to pad and shield criticism of Israel in the conduct of its war of gross bloodletting in Gaza, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rarely misses a beat to attack critics. It has become clear that even mere disagreement from long standing allies suggests wobbliness and tilting in the direction of antisemitism.

4 December 2024

Absent justice: Australia’s Afghanistan war crimes investigations thin out

Small to middle-sized states often crow at undertaking what are vulgarly described as “world firsts”. Australia is certainly one of them, with governments and news outlets keen to announce on a weekly basis that something never previously done has been initiated, implemented, or discovered. A closer inspection shows such declarations to be premature.

30 November 2024

Another nail in the coffin for Australia’s phantom defence needs

The US submarine base was always going to come first, not for the sake of supplying useless boats for Australia’s phantom defence needs, but for keeping an ever watchful US imperium stocked.

22 November 2024

Satellite honours for AUKUS: Joe Courtney’s Order of Australia Award

Joe Courtney, who serves as Congressman for Connecticut’s second district, has received a rather curious honour. It has come in the form of a tribute from a US satellite – some would rightly say annexure or some other subordinate status. A press release from his office on October 22 announced that Rep. Courtney had been “appointed by the Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia as an Honorary Officer in the General Division of the Order of Australia (AO).”

20 November 2024

Faux electoral reform: Entrenching the Australian Party Duopoly

Australia’s establishment parties are running scared. The Albanese Labor government is particularly scared. Tumbling in the polls, increasingly weakened and choked (inexplicably) by the bruising tactics of Coalition opposition leader Peter Dutton, the sinking vessel that is this government is scrambling for existential remedies. One is to try, as much as possible, to limit the reach of independents and minor parties, those frightfully irritating creatures who have served to change the Australian electoral landscape by encouraging cooperation in Canberra.

5 November 2024

Perceptions of bias: The National Anti-Corruption Commission and Robodebt

From the outset, a question mark hovered over whether Australia’s federal National Anti-Corruption Commission would serve the purpose of shedding light on corruption in the public sector. The enacting legislation that brought it into existence, for instance, limit public hearings to “exceptional circumstances”, a reminder that transparency was going to be heavily conditioned.

29 October 2024

The Queensland contradiction: Reflections on a state election

Lock up criminally minded children and teach them a firm lesson. Mind your cars, mind your keys. Chat about the Olympics and moan about whether stadia should be built or refurbished. Mumble about water, dams, and roads. Bridges for cassowaries that are not used by those magnificent yet inconsiderate birds. Marvel at members of parliament with duplicate names such as Grace Grace.

8 October 2024

Dangerous registers: The folly of Journalism Australia

The nature, and agenda, of Journalism Australia is clear. It will segregate the washed and unwashed, granting dispensations and protections to the approved while lessening the protections for lesser scribblers.

2 October 2024

Supermarket pirates: The Coles-Woolworths racket

There are few economies on the planet more concentrated in terms of vital services and markets than Australia. The players and actors are few and far between, be they in banking, insurance, supermarkets, the media or the aviation market.

10 September 2024

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.

30 August 2024

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 risen in the polls on a drab mixture of resentment, loathing and fear. Such a political approach does not always work but has done so in the past.

13 August 2024

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?

11 July 2024

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.

27 June 2024

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.

19 June 2024

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 but to frustrate the public?

9 May 2024

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.

13 March 2024

Alice in Aukusland: America first and the stillbirth of Australian SSNs

AUKUS has become a stillborn project.

25 February 2024

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 and brimming with confidence: Scott Morrison. As always, he claims to have done so without a trace.

23 February 2024

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 Canberras policy towards refugees.

11 February 2024

Complicit: Victorian governments 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 Australias 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.

8 February 2024

Political Clod: Malcolm Turnbull and Nemesis

From the time Kevin Rudd romped into office as Australias 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 equivalent of a famine to an ancient, superstitious civilisation. And as for policy what of it? Weak leaders will be cut down, their legacy laid waste.

31 January 2024

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.

28 January 2024

The last flurry: The US Congress and Australian Parliamentarians seek Assanges 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 of 1917 would violate various precepts of justice. The proceedings hope to reverse the curt, impoverished decision by the remarkably misnamed Justice Jonathan Swift of the same court on June 6, 2023.

17 January 2024

Yemen and canal errors: when Australia misread the Suez crisis

Australias 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.

10 January 2024

Corporate murder: the Australian companies behind Gazas destruction

The American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organisation of some note, recently released a list of companies profiting from Israels 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.

8 January 2024

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 Australias policy landscape but boon for the US military industrial complex, be lanced by Donald Trump?

21 December 2023

Doomed frigates: Australia, defence and the problems of procurement

Its 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 with the French Naval Group, an agreement worth $90 billion was sunk before it ever set sail, erased by the AUKUS security pact announced in September 2021.

15 December 2023

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 Ignatieff.

5 December 2023

Vassals privilege: Exmouth and Australias 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 Canberras security but does much to confirm that Washington is keen to keep other powers in the Indo-Pacific in check and under chokehold, the most obvious candidate being the PRC.

14 November 2023

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 NACC, for one, already risks being hobbled by secrecy restrictions imposed by the Albanese government.

25 October 2023

Anthony Albanese: Australias 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 Albaneses sole purpose during his visit to Washington is to be the countrys uncritical undertaker, ensuring that remains of independence are buried, even as the minerals are extracted.

20 October 2023

War mongering through the Scott Morrison lens

The former Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison continues to maintain his role as the countrys 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.

10 October 2023

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.

7 October 2023

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 Washingtons 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 mood to look upon the desperate leader with sweet acceptance.

6 October 2023

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 Heralds North America correspondent on the passing of Californian Democratic Senator, Dianne Feinstein.

29 September 2023

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 Canberras 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 know their limits.

27 September 2023

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, the Australian founder of WikiLeaks risks a 175-year prison term.

19 September 2023

Overthrowing Allende: Australias 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 the world.

12 September 2023

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, its less a warming planet and global poverty than the threat posed by the Peoples Republic of China.