John Menadue

John Menadue is the Founder and Editor in Chief of Pearls and Irritations. He was formerly Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet under Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser, Ambassador to Japan, Secretary of the Department of Immigration and CEO of Qantas.

John's recent articles

GREG HAMILTON. The Class War Part 2: The Bludging Class.

Were paralysed by a state of cultural anarchy that marks the decline of the Enlightenment Age and its class war that will see one percent of the worlds population owning over two thirds of all wealth by 2030. Do we want to save ourselves from that? And if so, how do we go about it?

GREG JERICHO. Australia's middle class is being given a new look, and it's not pretty.

The real low and middle-income earners are being erased from the debate in an unhealthy and one-sided class war.

ANDREW WILKIE - The bugging of East Timor cabinet rooms (Hansard extract, 28 June 2018)

Australia bugged East Timors cabinet rooms during the 2004 bilateral negotiations over the Timor Sea Treaty. The operation was illegal, unscrupulous and remains unresolved. The perpetrator was the Howard government, although the Rudd, Gillard and Abbott governments are co-conspirators after the fact. I can explain today that the scandal has just gotten a whole lot worse, because the Turnbull government has now moved to prosecute the intelligence officer who blew the whistle on the secret operation, along with his legal counsel, Bernard Collaery.

ANTHONY PUN. The Chinese Australian communitys reaction to the passing of Australias new package of national security laws.

Letter from Dr Anthony Pun, OAM, National President, Chinese Community Council of Australia and Chairman of the Multicultural Communities Council of New South Wales.

GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND

A regular connection of links to writings and broadcasts covered in other media.

GREG HAMILTON. The New Class War Part 1: Foundations.

Humanity had a chance to avoid the class war now raging. It might have come from The Harvard War that was fought and lost in the early 1930s. Hardly noticed at the time, it gets no mention today, yet it had the most profound impact on our civilization of any since the ructions in Judea of yon.

MARGARET SCOTT. The Truth about the Killing Fields in Indonesia (NYRB 28/6/2018)

On a baking hot afternoon in 2010, Jess Melvin, a young scholar from Australia, walked out of a government archive in Banda Aceh carrying a cardboard box. It was brimming with three thousand photocopied documents from the Indonesian army, and Melvin could barely believe her luck. These documents prove what has always been officially denied: the Indonesian army deliberately planned the 19651966 massacre in which up to a million suspected Communists died, one of the worst but least-known mass killings of the twentieth century.

TIM BUCKLEY. India is bringing the coal era to an end.

On Tuesday last week, Tony Abbott, Australias ex-prime minister, was photographed in parliament clutching a document entitled, the Coal era is not over.

JONATHAN FREEDLAND. Inspired by Trump, the world could be heading back to the 1930s.

The US president tears children from parents, and in Europe his imitators dehumanise migrants. We know where such hatred leads.

Federal Court grants protective costs order to Professor Jenny Hocking in Palace Letters case (Media Release)

Emeritus Professor Jenny Hockinglast week secured an important decision on costsfrom the Federal Court of Australiain hercase against the National Archives of Australia seekingthe release of thePalace lettersabout the dismissal of the Whitlam government.

Exclusive: Facing U.S. blowback, Beijing softens 'Made in China 2025' message (Business News)

BEIJING (Reuters) - Beijing has begun downplaying Made in China 2025, the state-backed industrial policy that has provoked alarm in the West and is core to Washingtons complaints about the countrys technological ambitions, diplomatic and Chinese state media sources said.

TONY KEVIN. Turning a sows ear into a silk purse? Maybe. Australias new package of national security laws

The Australian parliament is about to pass a complex package of national security laws aimed at strengthening Australias protections against espionage, sabotage, (covert) foreign interference and (overt) harmful foreign influence on Australian political life. The real target is China, but Russia makes a convenient public scapegoat drawing on current US/UK precedents. The draft laws which now appear to have bipartisan support are significantly improved from the first government drafts released for public comment in December 2017. Nevertheless they take Australia in an illiberal direction.

ALAN BOYD. Asias millionaires leaving for safe havens, lower taxes.

Report says thousands of wealthy citizens are leaving Asia and the Middle East, mostly heading for new lives in Australasia, North America and Europe.

PETER RODGERS: Postcard from Doha: blockaders, bovines and billions

A year on, the Saudi-led boycott of Qatar appears stymied by the latters capacity to buy its way out of trouble. Qatars extravagant spending on the 2022 FIFA World Cup would make many a national treasurer weep.

JIM COOMBS: Class Warfare Bring it On !

CEDA survey Community Pulse 2018 Economic Disconnect perhaps tells us what we already know: The vast majority feel that they have got less than a fair share of our years of growth, and our working conditions have worsened, and they are right.

PATTY FAWKNER. Silence is golden and it also kills.

Will we be loyal to the silence or will we interrupt the silence that has left many Catholics feeling disenfranchised within their own Church.

STEVE LOHR China extends its lead as the top producer of supercomputers (New York Times 26 June 2018)

U.S. has worlds fastest, but rival surges ahead as the most prolific producer

DAVID P GOLDMAN. A tragedy in the making as the US confronts China (Asia Times)

The trade war is quickly moving to the next level of confrontation with suggestions that Trump has 'betrayed China'

STEVE CANNANE. Banking royal commission: 'Big four' accountancy firms 'heavily conflicted, should be under inquiry spotlight' (ABC 25/6/2018)

Australia's big four accountancy firms should be put under the spotlight of the banking royal commission, according to a British investigative journalist who has written an expose on their activities overseas.

JOSHUA GILBERT. All the farms a stage

As the ever closing climate change frontier looms upon Australian Shores, with signs already evident in most parts of the country, the question remains- when will our politicians act? After the failure and promises of Governments of the past, impending reforms that never come and budgets that get built and then pulled out under the feet of hopeful scientists and activists, many cling to catastrophic weather events and foreign influence to encourage change. Yet as the drought sets in over most of the country, not even political tours and tourism hopes are enough to bring the rain where we need...

GARRY EVERETT. Archbishop Coleridge and the culture of confusion.

It was disappointing to read the latest comments of Archbishop Coleridge of Brisbane on the topics of sexual abuse and the culture of the Church. The comments convey a certain confusion, which could imperil any attempts the Church might make to re-establish trust among its members, and between the members and society at large.

TOM FAWTHROP. Vietnam Mass Protests Expose Hanois China Dilemma

The huge nationwide protests that rocked Vietnam last week have highlighted Hanois headaches in dealing with China, both as a hostile power in the South China Sea and as a key trading partner and economic investor.

DENNIS ALTMAN. Australias dangerous obsession with the Anglosphere

Australias cultural obsession with the US and the UK has real impacts on our politics.

SAM BATEMAN. Reflections on the United States Navy

The U.S. Navy had a horror year in 2017 with tragic accidents and a major corruption scandal. Rather than the cause mainly being a budgetary one with inadequate resources allowed the Navy, deeper cultural issues might also be involved.

ROSS DOUTHAT. '#Me Too' comes for the Cardinal (New York Times)

The first time I ever heard the truth about Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the former archbishop of Washington, D.C., finally exposed as a sexual predator years into his retirement, I thought I was listening to a paranoiac rant.

DORINA POJANI, IDERLINA MATEO-BABIANO, JONATHAN CORCORAN, NEIL SIPE. Freeing up the huge areas set aside for parking can transform our cities.

Parking may seem like a pedestrian topic (pun intended). However, parking is of increasing importance in metropolitan areas worldwide. On average, motor vehicles are parked 95% of the time. Yet most transport analysis focuses on vehicles when they are moving.

JOHN MENADUE. Sydney Metro: A Forty Billion Dollar Deception?

Like all our big cities, Sydney needs better public transport. The Governments responsibility is to secure this with the best system, for the best price. But as a minimum, new investments cannot be allowed to threaten the productivity and growth potential of our existing public transport system and its commuters. Sydney Metro Rail is starting to show clear signs of failing us on all these counts. The Royal Commission into Banking shows us how official stories can change dramatically once confronted with a process where evidence can be compelled and witnesses protected. On its first day in...

The negative coverage of Islam in Australian media and particularly by the Murdoch media

CLIP

PETER DAY. Beware the Push-Me-Pull-You Syndrome in our Universities.

Thanks to Isaac Newton we know that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. And while Newtons 3rd Law specifically relates to objects and motion; it can equally apply to the spheres of culture and politics.

JOHN MENADUE. The ongoing class warfare .

Pauline Hanson usually votes for the wealthy end of town. She has done it again. Upper income earners will be the biggest beneficiaries over the next seven years with the recent tax cuts. Average total earnings for employees is about $62,000 a year. Moving to a flat marginal tax rate of 32.5% for incomes from a low $41.000 a year to a high of $200.000 is a massive attack on our progressive taxation system. It decisively favours the wealthy at a time when we are seeing disturbing increases in inequality. To defend this largesse for the...

JAMES FERNYHOUGH. This is how the biggest tax cut in history will affect you. (New Daily 21/6/2018)

Australias wealthiest5 per cent of taxpayers are set to receive a $7000 tax cut, after the Turnbull governmentsincome tax bill passed through the Senate with the help of Pauline Hansons One Nation.

ROBERT KAGAN. Trumps America does not care.

Since the end of the Cold War, it has widely been assumed that U.S. foreign policy would follow one of two courses: Either the United States would continue as primary defender of the international order it created after World War II, or it would pull back from overseas commitments, shed global responsibilities, turn inward and begin transitioning to a post-American world. The second approach was where U.S. foreign policy seemed headed under President Barack Obama, and most saw the election of Donald Trump as another step toward withdrawal.

JAMES FERNYHOUGH. Telstras bombshell announcement is huge news for consumers.

Telstrasbombshell announcement that itwill split in two is huge news for consumers, resulting in cheaper, faster internet. But experts say it comes 15 years and $40 billion too late.

SAM HURLEY AND KATE MACKENZIE. Climate horizons.

Companies are still lagging on modelling and disclosing impacts of climate change more business, government and regulatory action is required.

Vietnam: Investigate Police Response to Mass Protests.

Hundreds Detained in Sweeping Crackdown

BHIM BHURTEL. Nepal looks toward China as a measure of last resort

After an exchange of high-level trips between Nepal and India, Nepalese Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli is to land in Beijing on Tuesday for a five-day state visit. It will be his second state visit since his accession to the Prime Ministers Office after his partys landslide victory in the general election in November.

CHRISTINA HO, EDGAR LIU, HAZEL EASTHOPE. Higher density and diversity: apartments are Australia at its most multicultural.

Increasing numbers of city dwellers live in apartments. This is particularly the case for migrants. And that makes apartment buildings important hubs of multiculturalism in our cities.

JOANNE McCARTHY. Bishop breaks ranks on church report into child abuse royal commission (SMH 21/6/2018)

Bishop of Parramatta Vincent Long Van Nguyen has broken ranks with the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference to join reform groups and politicians calling for public release of a church report responding to the child abuse royal commission.

DAVID JAMES. Academics tangle with managerial oppressors.

The imposition of what is termed 'managerialism' or 'marketisation' on universities is almost entirely disastrous.

PETER RODGERS. Israel-Palestine - Vale the two-state solution; where to now?

With the two-state solution in the morgue, governments around the globe will need to consider anew the unpalatable realities of this long-running conflict.

FERGUS PEACE. Australias pitiless migrant policy is no model for Europe.

Italys refusal to let a migrant rescue ship dock feels alarmingly familiar to many.

RICHARD GLOVER. Move over, Emmanuel Macron. Australia has the true Trump whisperer. (Washington Post 19/6/2018)

Australia is the last U.S. ally standing. Weve escaped Americas new tariffs, our leader has yet to be labeled weak or a liar, and the United States has even agreed to accept some of Australias unwanted refugees. President Trump called that refugee arrangement the worst deal ever, but he has allowed it to be implemented.

2018 Lowy Institute Poll - Climate change, renewables and coal.

Despite the debate and political rhetoric, most Australians have not been persuaded to support coal over renewables for the nations energy security. Almost all Australians remain in favour of renewables, rather than coal, as an energy source. In 2018, 84% (up three points since 2017) say the government should focus on renewables, even if this means we may need to invest more in infrastructure to make the system more reliable.

SOPHIE VORRATH. Coal to be kaput in Australia by 2050, as renewables, batteries take over

Australias coal-fired generation capacity could be little more than a twinkle in Tony Abbotts eye by as early as 2050, when it will have been all but snuffed out by cheap renewables and battery storage, and household energy investments.

DER SPIEGEL Italy Sends a Jolt Through Europe.

Euro-skeptic Italian populists are posing a serious threat to the European Union. Following the drama over Greece and Brexit, the political situation in Rome could throw Europe into its next major existential crisis.

LEE JEON-HO. China adds to nuclear arsenal amid military modernisation drive

China now has 280 warheads, according to think tank, which calls nuclear states renewed focus on deterrence and capacity a very worrying trend

LOWY SURVEY-Donald Trump a 'critical threat' to Australia's interests as trust in US hits record low.

Australians' trust in the United States as a world leader has dropped to a record low as two out of five people consider President Donald Trump a critical threat to Australia's interests, according to the latest Lowy Institute poll. 43 percent of those surveyed thought that Chinese President Xi Jinping would act responsibly compared with only 30 percent for President Trump.

CAROL GLATZ. Dictatorships begin with taking over media, warns pope

Individuals are tempted to destroy by spreading scandalous news, Pope Francis said during Mass. Media outlets are also put in the hands of unscrupulous people.

GARRY EVERETT. The Catholic Church at the crossroads.

The cross has long been a radical and confronting symbol among religious groups. In a similar way, at the crossroads of life, we are challenged by choices which will lead us to either good or ill. The Catholic Church in Australia has reached the crossroads and there is an urgency to the choices that must be made. The old ways have run their course and new ways must be found.

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