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
11 August 2022
Alan Pears: Climate action will drive disruptive change, but we can build on past experience
Election May 2022 a new beginning for climate and energy policy?
10 August 2022
John Menadue: The Ukrainian / Zelensky propaganda war
Amnesty International has just released a report that drew attention to Ukrainian violations of International Law in its war with Russia. It quickly became a footnote in the propaganda war.
9 August 2022
Is the Liberal Party abandoning war talk on China?
Is Dutton also preparing to shift ground?
8 August 2022
How our White Man's Media frames and conditions our thinking and actions
Most political colonies have come to an end. But a colonial mind set continues in the media.
6 August 2022
Moon of Alabama - How Pelosi's visit hurts Taiwan
When Nancy Pelosi made her'woke' flight to Taiwanthe U.S. seemed to hope for a Chinese military reaction to it. It positioned an aircraft carrierandtwo amphibious landing shipsin the region. It also shipped additional fighter planes to Japan and South Korea.
6 August 2022
Andrew Bacevich: American Imperium - Untangling truth and fiction in an age of perpetual US wars (Repost from 1/1/2018)
'Republicans and Democrats disagree today on many issues, but they are united in their resolve that the United States must remain the worlds greatest military power. In its most benign form, the consensus finds expression in extravagant and unremitting displays of affection for those who wear the uniform. Considerably less benign is a pronounced enthusiasm for putting our soldiers to work keeping America safe. This tendency finds the United States more or less permanently engaged in hostilities abroad, even as presidents from both parties take turns reiterating the nations enduring commitment to peace.'
6 August 2022
Sameed Basha: Australia needs better terms with China, yet refuses to meet Beijing halfway
Australias government has rejected Chinas proposals for improving ties, claiming to be looking out for its own national interests. In reality, Canberra still views Beijing through the lens of the US-China great power game, which can only hurt its economy while boosting Americas.
4 August 2022
US military colonisation continues ---- To be updated---JM
The UK is preparing to transfer the sovereignty of Diego Garcia to the US and we are preparing Cocus Keeling for US military use.
4 August 2022
Gary Highland: Changing the parliament and changing the country
Kerrynne Liddle had to wait a nail biting 25 days to be confirmed as the final Aboriginal person elected to the Federal Parliament at the May 21 election.
3 August 2022
Kishore Mahbubani: The G-7, G-20 paradox
The G-7 countries are democratic domestically but are dictatorial globally. By contrast, the G-20 group, which has many autocratic regimes, represents a more democratic forum for governance.
3 August 2022
Katrina Watson: How to save General Practice
Im a recently retired specialist doctor and I keep an eye on medical affairs. They affect all of us, especially as we get older, and people still ask what I think.
2 August 2022
Our dangerous ally could drag us into war with China.
The most likely way we could get into a war with China is if we continue to act as a proxy or deputy sheriff for the US in the region. Nancy Pelosi is doing her best to provoke China.
2 August 2022
Koide Hiroaki: The shooting of Mr. Abe
Translated and introduced by Norma Field (Professor Emerita, University of Chicago). In the days and months following the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, Koide Hiroaki, for some 40-years a nuclear engineer at the Kyoto University Reactor Research Institute, became Japans preeminent scientific critic of nuclear power and of Abe government policy. On July 9, the day after former Prime Minister Abes assassination, Koide wrote and posted on the web the following essay, translated here with his permission and the addition of a brief introduction.
2 August 2022
In the US you cant witness an execution if your skirt is too revealing
Joe Nathan James Jr was executed by lethal injection on Thursday,against the wishesof his victims family. He wasthe eighth personto be put to death in the US so far this year, and the second from Alabama.
31 July 2022
Peter Brooks and Peter Lewis-Hughes: A possible roadmap for a national pandemic plan
The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted weaknesses and disconnections within Australian Health systems which significantly impacted on our ability to reliably detect and respond to this outbreak in a timely, effective and efficient manner.
30 July 2022
C.K Yeung: The Pelosi penalty
What penalty will China mete out to US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for a Taiwan visit? The key word here is penalty. Anything that could remotely benefit Pelosi is off the table.
30 July 2022
Keith Mitchelson: The thievery of British Petroleum started in Australia
Global oil companies like to be thought of positively. British Petroleum was initiated by a colonial Australian conman, and there is virtually no evidence of any improvement in its business culture since then.
30 July 2022
Gerald Sussman - Russia-Ukraine conflict: The propaganda war
We must remember that in time of war what is said on the enemys side of the front is always propaganda, and what is said on our side of the front is truth and righteousness, the cause of humanity and a crusade for peace Walter Lippmann, cited inShah 2005
28 July 2022
Manlio Graziano - United States: the end of an illusion of omnipotence
I do not accept second place for the United States of America. That simple statement, delivered to rousing effect by Barack Obama in his first State of the Union, in January 2010, managed to summarize the current American strategic horizon in a single sentence.
24 July 2022
John Quelch: When will Australia break the habit of sucking its thumb whilst clutching the imperial coat tail?
We need to develop the habit of thinking independently in our own national interests.
23 July 2022
Bob Ellis: The Duchessing of our PM
Duchessing as a term and the concept it embraces, derives from the early experiences of the British Labour Party.
23 July 2022
Richard Falk: When the centre does not hold in America
I find the prospect of civil wars less disheartening than the related drift toward fascism or the torments of anarchy.
22 July 2022
Richard Falk: Bidens blurred vision of Human Rights - China, Saudi Arabia and Israel
When the U.S. Government at the highest level criticised Michelle Bachelet, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, because she went to China on a mission to develop opportunities for cooperation with respect to the protection of human rights.
18 July 2022
Martin Kwan: Another anti China media furphy on Kiribati's withdrawal from Pacific Islands Forum
Some speculate that Kiribatis exit from the Pacific Islands Forum was a decision influenced by China. However, the more tenable view is that this has nothing to do with China. Offloading the blame on China will unhelpfully distract focus from the inner regional issues.
16 July 2022
NATO has an overriding institutional commitment to its permanent existence, if not expansion
This is a comprehensive, sobering review by Jonathan Cook who concludes that Washingtons greatest fear is that, as its economic muscle atrophies, Europes vital trading links with China and Russia will see its economic interests - and eventually its ideological loyalties - shift eastwards, rather than stay firmly in the western camp.
16 July 2022
Robert Hunziker: Chomsky and the United Nations warn of collapse
Its entirely possible that doomsayers of the world, though widely ridiculed, could be on target about the prospects for global societal collapse. But, of course, when? According to a recent Noam Chomsky interview, its an ongoing grind that will end with a thud.
13 July 2022
Jonathan Holmes: Pressing for freedom
An open letter to Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus QC.
13 July 2022
Raymond Newland: What ever happened to the casino control authority?
The Bergin Inquiry in NSW has recommended the creation of an Independent Casino Commission after allegations that high rollers which Crown Casino knew had a history of money laundering, lost $1.1 billion dollars to the casino since 2016, some of which was carried in plastic bags and shoeboxes. How did we get here?
12 July 2022
Geraldine Doogue - Catholic Churchs council moved by the spirit of progress
Death-and-resurrection moments might be the most accurate way to describe the scale of what unfolded at a rare high-level Catholic meeting of almost 300 representatives last week in Sydney.
9 July 2022
Climate emergency actions are needed not just promises
Labor didn't so much win the election gaining only 32% of the primary vote - they just didn't lose it quite as badly as the Coalition, scraping into government because they were not as reprehensible on climate and integrity.
5 July 2022
It's time for a Human Rights Act for Australia. We have waited too long
Our record in protecting our human rights is being seriously eroded in many areas -the right to silence, the right to a fair trial, the presumption of innocence, freedom from cruel and inhuman treatment and freedom from arbitrary detention.
30 June 2022
Peter Drysdale and Shiro Armstrong: Australia must find common purpose with China
Both nations depend heavily on a multilateral trading system. Strengthening it together is a way of managing their troubled bilateral relationship.
27 June 2022
Samuel Yang: Chinese investors fast abandoning Australia but still hold vast amounts of infrastructure, land and water
Chinese investors are fast abandoning Australia as a frosty bilateral relationship dampens trade, with areport showing Chinese investment in Australia nosedived by almost 70 per cent last year to the lowest level since 2007.
25 June 2022
John Brennan: UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, East Jerusalem & Israel
The United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, issues first report June, 2022..A WAY FORWARD. The question, I believe, is not to devise a means for persisting on trying to separate them, but to see whether it is possible for them to live together as fairly and peacefully as possible Edward Said, 1935-2003, born in the British protectorate of Mandatory Palestine; public intellectual, Professor of Literature and founder of the academic field of Postcolonial Studies.
25 June 2022
CRAIG MURRAY. Biden works to prolong Ukraine war
Why we live in a world where the goal of nations is to damage the lives of inhabitants of other nations is a question which continues to puzzle me.
25 June 2022
Dr Chris Brook: Courts getting science wrong: Again
Should forensic science be scientific? Seemingly not, if you ask the Victorian Court of Appeal.
24 June 2022
African youths make it clear they prefer China over US
The 2022 African Youth Survey released on Monday has sent shock waves across the world. China has surpassed the United States as having the biggest positive influence among African youths.
24 June 2022
Ann Wright: Largest ever US and Nato naval war drills in Pacific a threat to both peace and marine life
Military posturing in the Asia-Pacific also risks nuclear war and the potential extinction of the human species.
23 June 2022
The Teals will force the Greens to get smart at last
John Menadue asks whether the Greens can avoid the perfect obstructing the good. The Teals will force the Greens to Get Smart.
22 June 2022
Keith Mitchelson. How long, how long the climate blues
Chris Bowen has announced reconfiguration of the energy generation system will not commence until 2025. Can Labor and Australia wait that long?
22 June 2022
RYAN YOUNG. Elon Musk's gambit: Twitter and Free Speech
Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter has sharpened philosophical and epistemic differences over speech and content moderation. He will create an interesting natural experiment between different moderation approaches on platforms, if he is successful in changing the philosophical attitudes at Twitter.
21 June 2022
The scourge of lobbyists and a role for the Greens and Teal. A revised post from Jan. 3 2022
Regulation of the way we manage lobbying in Australia is an even more important issue than a National Integrity Commission. The lobbying of governments around the world by the fossil fuel industry is a major reason for the Climate Emergency we now face..
19 June 2022
A memory jogger that China and Australia once were allies. ( A slightly amended post update from September 7, 2014)
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sought to draw Australia into his enmity towards China and he did so in the Australian parliament recently. Unfortunately Tony Abbott allowed himself and Australia to be drawn into Shinzo Abes agenda of hostility to China which is not in Australias interest.
19 June 2022
JOHN PRICE: James Madison on Parties
Madison: Federalist #10 ... the trouble with parties Right about the time the first fleet was sailing to Botany Bay, three of the American founders, John Jay, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison wrote a series of articles designed to explore the most controversial issues encountered by the constitutional convention in Philadelphia. They were published and widely read, as the authors intended, and they have been very influential ever since, whenever theres reason to think hard about problems of popular sovereignty and democratic theory. In the piece usually known as essay number 10, Madison addresses something he saw as a...
19 June 2022
Roger Dargaville: Five policy decisions that led to today's energy crisis
If you arent a long-term energy policy news junkie, youd be forgiven for thinking todayscrisis arrived fairly suddenly. But we arrived here thanks to a series of policy decisions under previous governments state and federal that left Australias energy system ill-equipped to cope with the demands placed on it.
18 June 2022
Ilhan Omar says 49 million facing famine 'Should be the biggest story in the world right now'
A United Nations study finds that Russia's war on Ukraine and the intensifying climate emergency have pushed the number of people facing famine globally to an all-time high.
18 June 2022
Richard Heller: Universities can spearhead regional development & the distributed university model
Universities should take an expanded leadership role in regional development,the Distributed University model provides amechanism.
17 June 2022
Alfred de Zayas and Richard Falk: The unjustified criticism of High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet's visit to Xinjiang.
An artificial atmosphere of hostility, sustained by geopolitical agendas, double standards, fake news and skewed narratives has made it difficult to tackle specific human rights problems particularly in Xinjiang.