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

The community of expulsion.

In the International New York Times of October 6, Roger Cohen spoke of 'the community of expulsion'. He was referring not only to the expulsion of Jews and the diaspora, but also the expulsion of the Palestinians. He said Palestinians have joined the ever recurring community of expulsion. The words of Leviticus are worth repeating for any Jew in or concerned by Israel today: Treat the stranger as yourself for 'you were strangers in the land of Egypt'. For full article see link below. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/07/opinion/roger-cohen-for-israel-a-time-of-self-scrutiny.html

Wooki KIM, Discrimination against Korean school children in Japan today

On 29 August this year the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) which is under the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) made rulings on Korean schools in Japan. It said The committee encourages the state party [Japan] to revise its position and allow Korean schools to benefit, as appropriate, from the High School Tuition Support Fund, as well as to invite local governments to resume or maintain the provision of subsidies to Korean schools. Korean schools in Japan were established after the liberation of Korean people from colonial...

Malcolm Fraser. Without a ground force and an end point, the war against ISIS will be a farce.

In The Guardian, Malcolm Fraser has said 'Air power alone will not make a difference in Iraq. Barack Obama and his allies have the worst strategic understanding possible of what they claim is an existential threat ' See link to article below http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/08/without-a-ground-force-and-an-end-point-the-war-against-isis-will-be-a-farce

Understanding the goals of Hamas and Israel.

Jeffrey Goldberg in The Atlantic on 4 October 2014 said 'I remain partial to the view that American Jewry is threatened more by its own ignorance than by anything that may happen in the Middle East. But if Rabbis are going to speak about Israel, then they should speak with clarity ...'The article is available online below: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/10/understanding-the-goals-of-hamas-and-israel/381048/

Walter Hamilton. A Chandelier in the barracks.

In July 1940, five months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, Emperor Hirohito met with his military planners to discuss the details of Japans new southward advance policy. An apparently skeptical Hirohito asked them a series of questions, including whether the policy would involve occupying points in India, Australia and New Zealand. Although Japans supreme commander felt nervous about his countrys impending military adventure, he did not resist itas he had, for instance, in 1936 when his disapproval was sufficient to crush a military coup by disaffected elements of the Imperial Army. Both episodes show Hirohito to have...

John Menadue. Nelson Mandela's leadership.

You might be interested in this repost. John Menadue. In all the tributes and stories about Nelson Mandela, there was one that caught my attention. In his book The Long Walk to Freedom he said: A leader is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realising that all along they are being directed from behind. What I think he was saying is that leadership is a set of activities in which the South African people as a group were persuaded to make necessary but...

Edmund Campion. Australian Catholic Lives.

Fr Edmund Campion has just published a new book. A book review and information about the book can be found on the following link. John Menadue.   http://tintean.org.au/2014/10/06/australian-catholics-lives-by-edmund-campion

Geoff Hiscock. Abbott on the friendship trail with Modi

China rightly dominates most discussions of Australias economic outlook, but Tony Abbott has made it plain he also wants to be good friends with the other emerging Asian heavyweight, India. A tangible example came during his visit there early last month (September), when he handed over two ancient Hindu statues that allegedly were stolen from temples in Tamil Nadu and subsequently acquired by Australian art galleries. It was a gesture that prompted Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to express his gratitude and to say Abbott had shown enormous respect for Indias cultural heritage. Next month, the two...

John Menadue. Insiders and Outsiders.

You might be interested in this repost. John Menadue.   As social beings, we usually like to be part of the group, an insider. We are cautious about being outsiders, on the periphery. Yet being outsiders has some real advantages. Growing up in country towns in South Australia, I felt what it was like to be an outsider. As the son of a Methodist manse, I often felt an outsider in the socially conservative country towns of South Australia where we lived. I was able to join the group however through sport. As a university scholarship holder...

Mike Steketee. Abbott faces the reality of multicultural Australia

While many conservatives continue to hold to the Howard line against multiculturalism, Tony Abbott is adjusting to the reality that Australia is a multicultural country, writes Mike Steketee. The Australian Government will be utterly unflinching towards anything that threatens our future as a free, fair and multicultural society; a beacon of hope and exemplar of unity-in-diversity. This is how Tony Abbott expressed his defence of Australian values before the United Nations Security Council this week. Many, probably most, Australians will find his words commendable, if perhaps unremarkable. Yet not so long ago, he would never have put it...

Marilyn Lake. fracturing the nation's soul.

You might be interested in this repost. John Menadue.   During World War 1 Australia lost its way. Its enmeshment in the imperial European war fractured the nations soul. Marilyn Lake World War I had consequences for individuals as well as nations. HB Higginss life would be deeply affected by the British decision to invade the Ottoman empire in early 1915. As a member of the new federal parliament in 1901, Higgins had opposed Australian participation in the Boer War, fearing that this would set a terrible precedent for involvement in other imperial wars, whose purpose,...

Peter Day. The Middle East: it's important to talk.

David was a good Jewish man: faithful to his God; devoted to his family, and deeply connected to his land. Khalid was a good Palestinian man: faithful to his God; devoted to his family, and deeply connected to his land. Each year, in early spring, David and Khalid would meet for a chat at a small cafe. It always began with a respectful, silent handshake. Then, after a kindly nod towards the waiter, the pair would sit down. More silence would follow, usually a couple of minutes at most, until their coffee and sweet biscuits arrived. Then,...

John Menadue. Reform of our banking sector.

In my blog of May 30, 2014, Are our bankers listening or caring? I drew attention to a conference in London on Inclusive Capitalism. At that conference the Governor of the Bank of England and the IMF Chief both said that bankers regarded themselves as different and not bound by the need for economic and social inclusion that is essential in a modern society. Both the Governor and the IMF Chief said that the actions of the banks were excluding them from mainstream society. Just look at the combined salaries of our four bank CEOs, $35 m last year...

John Menadue. Stuck in a closed information loop

Conservatives who read and listen to News Corp media have a problem. They are encouraged to believe that the world is really like News Corp says it is. The inevitable result is a loss of reality. Paul Krugman in the New York Times on September 23 wrote of the problems of right-wing Republicans who keep complaining about the lazy jobless. He said In a nation where the Republican base gets what it thinks are facts from Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, where the partys elite gets what it imagines to be policy analysis from the American Enterprise Institute...

Mike Steketee. Buying favours of politicians.

You might be interested in this repost. John Menadue   If the staggering evidence before the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption has taught us anything, then it must surely be to end the charade that democracy can function properly when people are buying favours of politicians, directly or indirectly. The standard argument that political fund-raising is conducted at arms length and that the politicians making decisions are not involved or even aware of who the donors are, no longer has an ounce of credibility. The Chinese wall is rice paper thin. Geoffrey Watson, SC, a person...

Portraits of Humanity

An exhibition by Wendy Sharpe is planned for February/March next year. See details below and contacts for Wendy Sharpe and Lee Meredith of the Asylum Seekers Centre. JohnMenadue. Renowned artist, Wendy Sharpe, is developing a portrait exhibition to highlight our common humanity with asylum seekers. A previous Archibald winner and 2014 finalist, Wendy is drawing portraits of 39 refugees and asylum seekers as her contribution to creating public awareness and putting a human face to the issue. This is not about politics. I want to show our common humanity, she said. I want to show that they are people...

John Menadue. Great Teachers

There has been a lot of recent comment about the importance of good teachers; how they can be recruited, trained and rewarded. Let me tell you about two teachers who turned my life around. Many of us have had such experiences with great teachers. Professor W.G.K. Duncan at Adelaide University taught me Political Science in 1958. I was used to lecturers and teachers presenting facts and interpretations for me. I would write down my lecture notes with the intention of reproducing them at examination time. I was a passive learner. But in WGK, I had a lecturer who asked...

John Menadue. The dubious trade deal with Korea

In earlier blogs See July 6, 2014 Turbocharging our trade or mainly hype - I drew attention to the exaggerated benefits of bilateral free trade agreements. We now have 7 of them with more under negotiation, including with China and two signed but not yet in force. These FTAs are third-rate in promoting trade compared with multi-lateral agreements. The recent September Report of the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties on the FTA with Korea confirms my doubts about the net benefits of these arrangements. Peter Martin in the SMH of the 5th September 2014 said A...

Robert Manne. When the facts change I change my mind. What do you do, Sir. JM Keynes

You might be interested in this repost. John Menadue.   I have been a supporter of refugee rights since the mid-1970s, when with others I formed the Indo-China Refugee Association. During the period of the Howard government I wrote tens of thousands of words in defence of the asylum seekers fleeing from Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran. This interest arose from family history. Not only was I the child of refugees from Nazism. I very recently discovered that not long after my father was accepted by this country he wrote passionate articles in The Jewish News expressing, on the...

John Menadue. Postcard from Copenhagen I went to the wrong church.

I fronted up for Mass last Sunday or so I thought. The web had described the cathedral as small case c catholic rather than upper case C Catholic. It was the Protestant/Lutheran cathedral in Copenhagen. I missed the Eucharist but it was a moving encounter with my separated brothers and sisters. In 1536 when the absolutist Danish monarchy decided to follow Luther rather than Pope Paul III, they arrested the Roman Catholic hierarchy and almost swept the state clean of Roman Catholics. In a population of only five or six million in Denmark, there are now only about...

Andrew Kaldor. Are We Paying Too Much To Stop The Boats?

One of the claims that some commentators like to make about Australias asylum seeker policy is that it saves money. Its got to be cheaper to stop the boats than to have people coming to our shores that way to seek refuge. Right? Wrong. It is not easy to find the actual total costs of Australias policy of mandatory detention and offshore processing across all agencies because no government has ever provided a total figure. But the National Commission of Audit recently released data which shines a light on the huge and rapidly increasing costs of our policies. ...

John Menadue. Why health reform is so hard. Its about power.

You may be interested in this repost. John Menadue.   I have been actively involved in health policy for over twenty years. Throughout that period Medicare has been the shining light that has well and truly stood the test of time. But necessary health reforms are hard. They are deferred or avoided. Without ministerial leadership there is an enormous lethargy in the health system. The major reason I suggest for reform being hard is the power of insiders and the way they exercise that power. At one level there are those insiders that administer health services. Health...

Kerry Murphy. Kurds in the way.

Since the collapse of three divisions of the Iraqi army at Mosul in June 2014, it has been the Peshmerga, Kurdish militias, that have strongly opposed the apocalyptic death cult of ISIS in Iraq. Already Syrian Kurdish forces had strongly defended their territories in Syria. The relief of the besieged Yazidis on Mount Sinjar saw Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga forces and Turkish PKK forces help on the ground. The conflicts in Iraq and Syria are continuing to mutate and some of the results mean that western countries have to support groups such as the PKK previously labelled terrorists. The Kurds...

Walter Hamilton. A paranoid state?

The same question might be asked of many places on earth in these security-conscious times. On this occasion, however, the subject is Japan: a state several times removed, one would have thought, from legitimate concerns about an imminent threat from an alien creed enforced by a ruthless blood-cult. (Enough of that; you only have turn on commercial radio to know what I mean.) Japanese paranoia comes to mind for several reasons. I could hardly believe my eyes when watching the main evening current affairs program on NHK (the national broadcaster) the other night. During a story on last weeks...

John Menadue--We stopped the boats; we will now stop the jihadists

You may be interested in this repost. John Menadue   By linking boat arrivals and jihadists in the one sentence, a couple of weeks ago, Tony Abbott sounded very much like a dog-whistler that we can expect to hear more from in the future. He knows there is widespread, although a mistaken perception, that most boat arrivals were Muslims and that Muslim jihadist are a threat to Australia. A lot of dog-whistlers are going to feed on that perception. Scott Morrison has shown us what is likely to be in store. He told Jane Cadzow in...

Xanthe Emery: Family violence and immigration is the message getting across?

Family violence in Australia is at epidemic levels, with some horrific high profile cases dominating the news in 2014. Migrant women in Australia are extremely vulnerable to violence from their partners. Threats to cancel a womans visa are used to frighten, intimidate, and coerce her to stay in a violent relationship. More could be done to ensure that migrants are aware you dont have to remain in a violent relationship to obtain a visa. Visas for family members of Australian citizens, permanent residents, and some eligible New Zealand citizens will make up 32% of the migration programme for Australia...

John Menadue. What does Labor stand for? Part 5

Democratic Renewal At the same time as addressing overarching Labor principles that could guide Labor policies and programs, there are two immediate issues which must be given high priority. The first is democratic renewal in our public institutions, including the ALP Our democratic systems, almost everywhere, are under great challenge. We are increasingly alienated from our institutions. This suits the conservatives who implicitly seek to protect private corporate interests from public intervention. Loss of faith in parliament inevitably leads on to denigration and a loss of faith in government. Those that Labor has traditionally represented and...

Peter Day. An Open Letter to Cardinal Pell

Dear Cardinal Pell, In the lead-up to next months Extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the Family you and a number of your confreres are re-asserting the churchs longstanding exclusion of divorced and remarried people from communion. Your foreword to The Gospel of the Family appears to leave us with little doubt: outsiders are not welcome. As you have said, The sooner the wounded, the lukewarm, and the outsiders realise that substantial doctrinal and pastoral changes are impossible, the more the hostile disappointment (which must follow the reassertion of doctrine) will be anticipated and dissipated. Respectfully, I...

John Menadue. What does Labor stand for? Part 4

Ethical responsibility Those in prominent office should promote those qualities which draw on the best of our traditions and the noblest of our instincts. The duty of those with public influence is to encourage hope and redemption rather than despair and condemnation, confidence rather than fear. It is to promote the common good to encourage us to use our talents. It is to respect truth and strengthen learning to withstand the powers of populism and vested or sectional interests. This would set a tone of public discourse which nurtures public institutions Business cannot hide behind the...

Gaza, Israel and Palestine.

In the link below from AlterNet, published on 9 September 2014, you will find a very important analysis by Noam Chomsky. John Menadue.   http://www.alternet.org/noam-chomsky-real-reason-israel-mows-lawn-gaza?akid=12222.32110.TSqdYT&rd=1&src=newsletter1018632&t=2&paging=off&current_page=1#bookmark

John Menadue. What does Labor stand for Part 3

Citizenship We are more than individuals linked by market transactions. Our life in the public sphere is no less necessary than our private lives. As citizens we enjoy and contribute to the public good. It is where we show and learn respect for others, particularly people who are different. It is where we abide by shared rules of civic conduct. It is where we build social capital networks of trust. We need to behave in ways that make each of us trusted members of the community. Do no harm is not sufficient. Citizenship brings responsibilities ...

Will we ever learn?

In an article in the Washington Post - see link below - Katrina vanden Heuvel says 'Our interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan should have made one thing clear: we have neither the patience, the resources nor the willingness to wreak the violence needed to suppress the regional sectarian conflicts. For more than a decade, we have spent trillions, sacrificed lives and rained bombs on assorted targets from Pakistan to Libya. And the civil wars, tribal rivalries and sectarian violence have only increased.' Tony Abbott said that he agreed with Barack Obama's pivot to Asia. Tony Abbott spoke of...

Secrecy and Propaganda.

Yesterday Richard Ackland in theGuardian.com highlighted the way that the media cooperated with the government in the propaganda about raids on potential Muslim terrorists in Sydney and Melbourne. Both the NSW and Commonwealth Governments spared no effort to highlight the raids. What a contrast this is to the secrecy of 'on water matters' in Operation Sovereign Borders. Richard Ackland's article can be found on the following link John Menadue.   http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/19/sydney-dawn-counter-terrorism-raids-why-now-and-why-so-few-answers

John Menadue. What does Labor stand for. Part 2

From values to principles The purpose and role of a Labor Government could be to give expression to the values set out below to achieve as far as possible the common good. Values such as fairness, freedom, citizenship, stewardship and ethical responsibility would be generally accepted by most people. As the values are translated into practices however Labor makes a choice that can be further defined as principles that then lead to policies, e.g. the value of fairness can be expressed in the principle of a stronger link between contribution and reward- a link which has become...

Richard Norman, Suzanne Robinson. Health lessons from England.

While Australia and England share much of their cultural heritage, the countries have answered the challenge of funding health care in quite different ways. The Australian Medicare system is predominantly based around private practice and fee-for-service. The English National Health System (NHS) is based on capitation, in which doctors are paid a fixed amount to manage a group of potential patients irrespective of the actual level of care. Neither system is perfect, but each can learn from the other; after all, they both aim to achieve efficient, equitable, high-quality health services is the same. Fee-for-service vs capitation...

Philip Kokic, Mark Howden, Steven Crimp. 99.999% certainty humans are driving global warming.

There is less than 1 chance in 100,000 that global average temperature over the past 60 years would have been as high without human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, our new research shows. Published in the journalClimate Risk Managementtoday, our research is the first to quantify the probability of historical changes in global temperatures and examines the links to greenhouse gas emissions using rigorous statistical techniques. Our new CSIRO work provides an objective assessment linking global temperature increases to human activity, which points to a close to certain probability exceeding 99.999%. Our work extends existing approaches undertaken internationally to...

John Menadue. The Great Complacency

Professor Ross Garnaut has spoken many times about our great complacency and our unwillingness to undertake the types of economic and social reform that we saw in the Hawke/Keating periods and in the early days of the Howard Government think, GST. Have the golden days of reform gone forever? The former head of Treasury Ken Henry said that he has never known a period in which the standard of public debate on important issues is as bad as it is today. Ross Garnaut has spoken with obvious frustration about the diabolical problem of sensible policies on climate...

Rod Tucker. Broadband projects fail reality test.

In an article in The Conversation on 8 September 2014, Rod Tucker points out that the broadband projections will fail a reality test. He said 'If they [the Vertigan report] had used realistic data for growth in demand, their cost benefit analysis may well have shown that a FTTP network will provide Australia with the best long term value for money.' Rod Tucker is Laureate Emeritus Professor at University of Melbourne. See link to full article below. http://theconversation.com/broadband-projections-fail-reality-test-31341

Gavan McCormack. Disturbing trends in Japan Part 4

Friendship, states, peoples and Australia The government of Japan struggles to reconcile servile incorporation in todays US hegemonic project with Japans own nationalism, but the circle is not easily to be squared. Nationalism is distorted, denied and channeled into a correct history movement, beautiful Japan campaigns, and antagonism to China and Korea. The wave of xenophobic abuse of China and Korea, speculation about a possible war, and hate speech bullying of Zainichi resident Koreans, helps consolidate Abes support base and justify frontier militarisation. It constitutes the reverse side of his stealth revision of the constitution and promotion of military-first, US-serving...

Jane Tolman. I dont want to get Dementia.

Dementia is what many of us fear most, and the effective risk is largely related to age. The statistics say that at 65 years of age, only 2% have dementia. But this figure doubles with the passage of each five year period. By 90, the risk of having dementia is about one in four. Because of the survivor effect (those with the fewest risks will live to old age), the subsequent risk no longer increases at this rate. There is no guarantee that dementia can be avoided, whatever we do. But what does the evidence say about what strategies...

Gavan McCormack. Disturbing trends in Japan (Part 3 of 4)

Abe, the radical Nominally conservative, Abes political career has been devoted to an extraordinarily radical agenda, nothing less than revision of all three of the countrys basic charters: the Constitution (1946), the Fundamental Law of Education (1947) and Ampo (the 1951/1960 security treaty with the United States). He aspires to liquidate the post-war regime and replace it with a new and beautiful Japan. Abes party has from its inception in 1955 been committed to revising the constitution, especially Article 9, the declaration of state pacifism. The current LDP draft constitution (of 2012) widens state prerogatives while narrowing citizen rights...

Mike Steketee. Politics vs Science.

THE laws of physics are non-negotiable, observed Michel Jarraud, secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organisation, this week. https://www.wmo.int/pages/mediacentre/press_releases/pr_1002_en.html You wouldnt think so listening to the often frenzied debate about global warming or, according to Tony Abbotts senior business adviser Maurice Newman, what is really global cooling http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/were-illprepared-if-the-iceman-cometh/story-e6frg6zo-1227023489894 . Jarraud was commenting on the release of the WMOs annual greenhouse gas bulletin https://www.wmo.int/pages/mediacentre/press_releases/documents/1002_GHG_Bulletin.pdf , based mainly on data collected by 50 countries. It shows a 34 per cent increase in the warming effect of greenhouse gases between 1990 and 2013. Most of this is attributable to carbon dioxide, atmospheric...

Gavan McCormack. Disturbing trends in Japan (Part 2 of 4)

Shared values Much was made during the visit of the shared values that unite Australia and Japan. But are the values of Abe or his government really widely shared? From the time of his entry into the national Diet in 1993, Abe immersed himself in the historical revisionist cause, resisting moves towards formal apology for the war and compensation for war victims and objecting to what he and his colleagues refer to scathingly as a Tokyo Tribunal view of history. He believes Japan was unjustly blamed for the China and Pacific wars of 1931 to 1945. As his friend...

John Menadue. NATO, Ukraine and Russia.

Nato,Ukraine and Russia...Katrina vanden Heuvel Washington Post 10 September 2014 If the United States and Europe were thinking rationally, the NATO summit in Wales last weekwould have been an opportunity to discuss a lasting resolution to the violent crisis in Ukraine, which has claimed thousands of lives and crippled the country's economy. Instead, amida fragile cease-fire agreement between Kiev and pro-Russian rebelsin the east, the assembled world leaders used the summit for more belligerent talk and reckless saber-rattling, with their ultimate goal increasingly unclear. The...

Gavan McCormack Disturbing trends in Japan (Part 1 of 4)

These posts (published over 4 days) are extracts from an article by Gavan McCormack, entitled Partnership 135 Degrees East which will be published in Arena.org.au. Our best friend The current Japanese and Australian governments came into being in December 2012 and September 2013 respectively. Both are headed by conservative, neoliberal, climate-denialist, pro-American leaders, of similar age, who quickly established a close rapport. Following their first meeting, at an ASEAN summit in October 2013, Abbott declared Abe Australias best friend in Asia. In meetings that followed, in Tokyo in April and Canberra in July 2014, they resolved to transform...

John Menadue The Royal Commission into the Home Insulation Program - a dogs breakfast.

In an article in Eureka Street on 8 September, Fr Frank Brennan described the Royal Commission report into the HIP as a dogs breakfast. He described the reasoning behind Mr Hangers conclusion on commonwealth responsibility as bizarre. He added that the report was inadequate and flawed. See Frank Brennans comments at the end of this post. The pink batts issue has been dominated by party politicking, a relentless campaign by News Ltd and lazy journalism. The problems with the program were seized on at every opportunity to discredit the Rudd Government. I have long contended that the...

John Menadue. We warn the Tsar of Russia.

In September 1892, the headline The Hobart Mercury warns the Tsar did not threaten Russia sufficiently to attract a response or change its belligerent behaviour. I dont think the Tsar thought it necessary to respond to people who have an exaggerated view of their own importance The Hobart Mercury over-reached itself. Australian Prime Ministers, particularly when they need a diversion from domestic issues, often do the same. There has been a lot of beating the drums of war and macho posturing lately. Perhaps we will soon see Putin-esque photos of a shirtless rider on his bare-backed horse. Despite...

David Isaacs and Ian Kerridge. Asylum seeker's 'brain death' shows failure of care and of democracy.

The news that Hamid Kehazaei, a 24-year-old Iranian asylum seeker detained on Manus Island, has been diagnosed as brain dead following his transfer to the Mater Hospital in Brisbane is a tragedy. That it is a tragedy for this young man and his family is unquestionable The news but the extent of this tragedy may be much more pervasive than we realise. If the emerging details of his case are correct, Kehazaei developed septicaemia as a complication of cellulitis (skin and soft-tissue infection) arising from a cut in his foot. This, in itself, is disturbing. Severe infection...

Annette Brownlie. No new war in Iraq.

Both major political parties are once again standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the US, in support of what amounts to a new military intervention in Iraq. The process began with the dropping of humanitarian aid supplies to the Yezidi. It has now moved on to the delivery of weapons and munitions to Kurdish Peshmerga forces. Meanwhile, Defence Minister David Johnston has indicated that Australian armed forces (Super Hornet warplanes and C130s) are to be made available to support whatever action the US decides upon. All of this has happened with scarcely any discussion in or outside of the parliament....

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