Binoy Kampmark
Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne.
Binoy's recent articles
31 August 2023
Plea deal pitfalls for the worlds foremost political prisoner
Julian Assange could hardly be blamed for considering a possible plea deal that would alleviate the immense suffering he has endured since becoming the object of state persecution. Terms less brutal than those he potentially faces anywhere up to a 175-year prison sentence in the cell of a US supermax can only be seen as appealing.
21 August 2023
The edifice of the consultancy-military-industrial complex is crumbling
The consultancy-military-industrial complex continues to reveal its sinister nature as serious questions are raised over conflicts of interest in the tender process for KPMGs $46 million REDSPICE contract with the Australian Signals Directorate.
6 August 2023
The ASPI interference machine: China is everywhere
Its hard to credit, but the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) continues its incessant grumbling about forms of interference across a number of areas of Australian political and economic debate. What stands out in this method of noisy declaration is the tactic of sidelining legitimate public debate. Such interference supposedly impairs the credibility of the argument, given that the argument is also being advanced by sinister external forces. Blame Johnny Foreigner, and you have scored a few points in your favour.
31 July 2023
Kits for killing: AUKUS goes to school
While Australians pride themselves, for the most part, in having stricter gun laws than most and not being warlike in disposition, their governing officials have increasingly thought otherwise. War drums are beating. The chatter about acquiring and building armaments is getting more frenzied. As a client state of the US imperium, firmly enmeshed in the security arrangements of the AUKUS agreement, Canberra is becoming increasingly interested in militarising the population and turning the country into a garrison state.
24 July 2023
The US Studies Centre: Washingtons mole in plain sight
Espionage, surveillance and monitoring in a society require guile, judiciousness, and care. Secrecy matters. Inserted agents assume roles for years as friends even as they are purloining your secrets. They are the charming thespians of treachery.
19 July 2023
Paternal Western interference in Solomon Islands drives Honiara towards China
In the last few years, Australian and US foreign policy toward the Pacific has been framed as a benign influence, couched in money terms, offers and suasion. But in such offers comes that bit of intrusive steel, a less than subtle threat that gravitating into the orbit of another power, most notably China, will come with costs.
28 June 2023
Simon Crean: Advocate against war
He was a creature of workmanlike officialdom, a unionist, a federal Labor opposition leader never allowed to contest an election by the machinations of his own party, but still clear on one gloriously sane point. It takes a lot to oppose the squealing and hollering for war, and the late Simon Crean did that in 2003 in a number of speeches against the illegal invasion of Iraq. Some of these proved to be his finest.
2 June 2023
Even Henry Kissinger warns against war with China
Henry Kissinger, self-praised and adulated as a statesman of genius, foreign policy expert of prowess, recently warned the world that, to avoid world war three, America and China must learn to live together. They have less than ten years, he argues. He has also become a centurion.
24 May 2023
Stella Assange in Australia
For those familiar with the ongoing prosecution of Julian Assange by the United States, a brutal carnivalesque endeavour that continues to blight that legal system, there is not much to be said. Assange is a political prisoner who must be freed. But the task remains for those like Stella Assange to convince politicians and journalists to embrace that course.
11 May 2023
Scott Morrison and Australias Lobby Complex
The former Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, has been somewhat of an absentee in the Federal seat of Cook. Since losing the May 2022 election, he has been aggressively chasing up contacts and deals on the consultancy circuit, bellyaching about the usual talking points: the gruesome China menace; defence matters; and, just to round it off for good measure, additional iterations of the China menace.
8 May 2023
The edifice sports complex, AFL and Tasmania
Historically, Australian sport has been bosom-tied to corrupt administrative and state management. Administrators of the myriad sporting codes are typically conceited in assuming they provide a service for an increasingly obese populace. The sports personalities turn up and play; spectators turn up in their colours, pies and beers; the sporting hierarchs can then claim they are doing society a service. The logical equation that follows from this is revenue raising for the facilities as long as the sporting body is not the one doing it.
4 May 2023
Cutting funding to the Independents: Insights from the Rugg case
Parliamentary representatives of all stripes deserve to have the necessary staffing and means to discharge their duties to constituents.
26 April 2023
Act of self-harm: US Defund Chinas Allies bill targets Solomon Islands
Lawmakers in the US Imperium are getting stroppy. China is on the rise. Russia is not folding. Iran and Saudi Arabia have decided, if not to bury the hatchet then certainly cover it. So it comes as little surprise that Congress now has, before it, the Defund Chinas Allies Act (HR 2511), an instrument that is bound to pass and enchant the Empires followers in Canberra.
16 April 2023
AUKUS and militarising Australias universities
In a recent pieceby Guardian Australias higher education reporter, an academic, who preferred to remain anonymous fearing institutional retribution, likened the modern Australian university to a supermarket. Students were the customers filing through the self-checkout counters; the staff, increasingly rendered irrelevant, were readily disposable.
5 April 2023
Quiet diplomacys failure: The Albanese government and Julian Assange
Prior to him becoming Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese made a number of declarations to the effect that the Julian Assange affair be brought to a close. The US effort to prosecute, nay persecute the WikiLeaks publisher, would finally be resolved.
28 March 2023
Toothless protections: the public interest disclosure act and Richard Boyle
Australian legal and political history is littered with examples of petty and vicious prosecutions, notably against those considered dangerous tittle tattles who give the game away and seek to shine some light on the unpalatable practices of those in power.
6 March 2023
Neo-colonial dreams: Australia eyes the Indian education market
Over the last week or so, Australian politicians and representatives of the university sector got busy pressing flesh in India, hoping to open avenues that have largely remained aspirational. It was timed to coincide with G20 talks in New Delhi, which has seen a flurry of contentious meetings traversing security, economics and education, all taking place in the shadow of the Ukraine War.
2 March 2023
China threat: Australia kowtows to US masters over pilot's degrading treatment
The treatment of former US marine Daniel Edmund Duggan by Australian authorities in the service of their US masters has again shown that the Australian passport is not quite worth the material its printed on.
17 February 2023
Willing servant: Australias acceptance of US nuclear ambiguity
The AUKUS alliance is increasingly adopting a nuclear tone. First came the promise to furnish Australia with nuclear powered submarines, absent nuclear weapons, a point that did not dissuade critics such as Indonesia. Then came the announcement to deploy six B-52 bombers to the Northern Territorys Tindal airbase, south of Darwin, an exercise underwritten by the Pentagon.
19 January 2023
Sinking notions: US lawmakers and Australias nuclear submarines
The implications for the AUKUS security pact were always going to be grave, significant, and unnecessary. It further subordinated Australia to participating in future conflicts; it has brought into question Australias own already whittled down sovereignty; and it has also raised the spectre of regional nuclear proliferation.
16 January 2023
HIMARS: Australia's missile fetishism
The announcement this month by the Albanese government that Australia would be acquiring HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System) batteries from the United States can be put down to a few factors. One is that sense of being left out of the club. If European states can have such launchers with seemingly devastating effect, why not us?
9 January 2023
Shooting Afghans: Prince Harrys apache moment
In his memoir Spare, Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, does his best to show how he was no ornament of the British Army, one merely there to make up the numbers.
7 January 2023
Don Bradman, Cricket, and the Counter-Revolution
It would not be an exaggeration to call Sir Donald Bradman, crickets most metronomic and gluttonous of batsman (runs wise), a counter revolutionary. On the surface, cricketers like to imagine themselves to be above politics and devotees of a game so complex it would lobotomise any darting political mind. In practice, cricket has invited the most political and acrimonious of debates, straddling arguments between amateurs and professionals, to the debate about World Series Cricket and the need for decent pay for its participants.
5 January 2023
Country for bad dreams: vandalism on the Nullarbor Plain
This is quite shocking,declared South Australias Attorney-General and Aboriginal Affairs Minister, Kyam Maher. These caves are some of the earliest evidence of Aboriginal occupation of that part of the country. That evidence was subtracted this month by acts of vandalism inflicted on artwork in Koonalda Cave on the Nullarbor Plain, claimedto be the worlds largest limestone karst landscape and covering over 200,000 square kilometres.
4 January 2023
Australia disregards medical advice, introduces mandatory testing for Chinese arrivals
Australias Albanese government has taken the lead of countries in North America, Europe and Asia by introducing COVID-19 testing measures on arrivals from China. The decision was reached in variance to advice from the Commonwealths chief medical officer, Paul Kelly that there was no sufficient public health rationale for the measure.
20 December 2022
In the shadow of the military: Fijis elections
Fiji has gone to the polls three times since 2006, when the country had what has been termed the coup to end all coups, sounding eerily reminiscent of wars that supposedly end all wars. History suggests that where one takes place, another will follow in good time.
15 December 2022
US B-21 tempts the Australian security establishment
The United States does not need it. No air force does. But the lesson of the dazzle from the B-21 Raider Stealth Bomber is that what the US develops and acquires Australia must have. Such a lesson ought to be unlearned as quickly as possible, but there is little chance of it with individuals such as Richard Marles in the defence portfolio.
12 December 2022
Its a season to be a warmonger
Its the season to be jolly and appreciate wrapped presents with surprises that are not true surprises. And the Christmas present most appreciated for a good number of the thinktank military establishment in Canberra will be conflict with Beijing. If not now, then when?
8 December 2022
AUSMIN and Australias further militarisation within the US imperium
The Ausmin joint statement does little to dissuade the idea that Australia is moving, inexorably, towards a satellite, garrison state to be disposed of and used by the US imperium.
5 December 2022
Chinese-Australian voters emerge, reject anti-Asian hatred stoked by right-wing politicians
Asian-Australians are becoming an increasingly influential bloc in steering and influencing federal and state elections. Their significance has been noted by aroused psephologists, surprised pundits and the chattering classes since Anthony Albanese won the federal election in May this year.
29 November 2022
Extreme overreach: Bell report exposes Morrison threat to Westminster system
New report by Former High Court judge Virginia Bell is scathing of PM Morrison and head of department Phil Gaetjens for secret ministry appointments, but spares Governor General from scrutiny.
28 November 2022
Personalised politics: the Liberals meet their Jonestown in Victoria
The Victorian Liberal and National parties political strategy of targeting premier Daniel Andrews was a dismal failure, underpinned by policies that seemed to fall into a heap of vacuity. Their failure means that Victoria has no credible or viable opposition.
23 November 2022
Australias fake coal emissions certificates rort major trading partners
Companies responsible for testing the quality of Australian coal altered 40-50 per cent of the certificates to make dirty coal look cleaner than it was and sell substandard products for higher profits to Australias export partners and underplay carbon emissions.
20 November 2022
From immunity to impunity: the lawsuit against Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman
For a country that has made human rights the glossy cover of its foreign policy rhetoric, this was not a good look. The Biden administrations decision to grant Saudi Arabias Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman immunity from a civil lawsuit filed by the fianc of murdered Saudi journalist and a human rights organisation simply stank.
18 November 2022
South Australia ignores Khashoggi murder, welcomes Saudi LIV Golf
Peter Malinauskas, the South Australian Premier, has been the latest convert to the LIV Golf circuit, showing little to no awareness that the lions share of the money is coming from a state responsible for the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
4 November 2022
A promise of violence: The AFP supplies the Solomon Islands
The Solomon Islands has become a regular feature in the defence and security news of Australias media sphere.
31 October 2022
The lunatics course: the Northern Territorys increased militarisation
Another call to arms has been issued by Washington. The venue that features the recipient of such lethal generosity is not new.
26 October 2022
Australias problem with torture
Casting a keen eye over the human rights obligations of a state is tantamount to rummaging through untended, mouldering laundry. Often, the promise to wash such neglected items has been delayed or postponed. The reasons are often many, and not always insensible. And whose right is it to go through such things anyway?
23 October 2022
Qatar FIFA World Cup: West silent on human rights
Competitors at the FIFA World Cup will grace stadia built in near-slave labour conditions and enjoy the receptions and hospitality of a state with a brutal penal system.
22 October 2022
Exit Liz Truss; enter lettuce
When are you going to govern? The only thing you have governed for the past year is your own survival. Jess Phillips, Labour MP, October 20, 2022
4 October 2022
Dated and fractured: Optus and data protections Down Under
Things are not getting better for Optus, a subsidiary of the Singapore-owned Singtel and Australias second largest telecommunications company. Responsible for one of Australias largest data breaches, the beleaguered company is facing burning accusations and questions on various fronts. It is also proving to be rather less than forthcoming about details as to what has been compromised in the leak.
1 October 2022
Australian media think that only China has a human rights problem
Australia has a mixed relationship with the United Nations Human Rights Committee. Irritation, dismissal and even the occasional openly hostile comment, have registered. But in 1994, the Toonen decision filtered through the Australian legal process, leading the federal government to remove archaically noxious provisions in the Tasmanian criminal code criminalising sodomy.
30 September 2022
Opportunistic interests: The US-Pacific Island declaration
If ever there was a blatant statement of realpolitik masquerading as friendliness, the latest US-Pacific Island declaration must count as one of them. The Biden administration has been busy of late, wooing Pacific Island states in an effort to discourage increasingly sharp tilt towards China. It has been spurred on, in no small way, by Beijings failure in May to forge a trade and security pact with Pacific Island countries.
29 September 2022
The rise of Trussonomics
Its impossible to know whether the new British Prime Minister is genuinely serious about constructive policy or not. She is certainly interested in greasing palms and calming the storms, if only to delay the inevitable. Having proven herself the shallowest of candidates to succeed her disgraced, not wholly banished predecessor, Liz Truss has leapt into economic policy as her starting point.
28 September 2022
A "backstab": Santos, drilling and First Nations Peoples
Federal Court Justice Mordecai Bromberg has been in the environmental news again, this time throwing a large judicial spanner in the works of Santos and its drilling efforts in the Timor Sea.
27 September 2022
Whitewashing at Shinzo Abes state funeral
Be careful who you praise and the degree of zeal you do it with. The slain Shinzo Abe, shot dead in Nara on July 8, towered over Japanese politics. In doing so, he cast a lengthy shadow. In death, this shadow continues to grow ever more darkly.
24 September 2022
I do not think, I know: Scott Morrisons submarine deception
When it was revealed that former Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison had not only shown contempt for his own government in secretly appointing himself, via the Governor-Generals approval, to five portfolios, the depths of deception seemed to be boundless. His tenure had already been marked by a spectacular, habitual tendency to conceal matters. What else would come out?
18 September 2022
Charles III, the billionaire and owner of the Oval cricket ground
Once the fixated adoration with the late Queen Elizabeth II starts cooling, the accountants of public welfare and decency will be stunned to realise the costs and wealth associated with the royal institution. Her successor, Charles III, is continuing in that vein, a jarring note of wealth and pomp even as prices rise and the hefty bills for citizens (should we say subjects?), bite.
15 September 2022
Queenly saturation
Turn on the television. Move to the screen. Switch on the device if you ever left it off. Queen Elizabeth II may have passed, but she is everywhere in very lively fashion, a spectral manifestation that has utterly controlled large chunks of a transfixed global media system.