World Affairs
-
Defence & Australian Strategic Policy Institute – Joined at the Hip
Following on John Menadue’s recent item in which he dissected the funding of Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) and the pervasive influence of the ‘Australia/US Defence and Intelligence Complex’ of which ASPI is a part, he questioned whether ASPI as a supposedly independent source of strategic advice could provide the advice necessary to get the Continue reading »
-
PATRICK McGORRY. We must settle the refugees before it is too late.
In this article in the SMH, Patrick McGorry, the President of the Society for Mental Health Research, says; The time has come, before it is too late, to re-settle these fellow human beings and not just the children, but all of those who qualify as genuine refugees and who deserve a second chance for life. Continue reading »
-
TONY KEVIN. ‘Putin meets Turnbull’: an interesting encounter at Hangzhou.
Chris Ullmann’s ABC News report on main outcomes for Australia of the Hangzhou G20 Summit led with an account of an impromptu ‘encounter’ between Malcolm Turnbull and Vladimir Putin. Maybe they bumped into one another in the hotel lift or corridors? We don’t know which side initiated this conversation, but it could be a Continue reading »
-
JOHN MENADUE. The new compradors in the China Australia relationship.
In this blog on 14 October last year I wrote. Compradors are sometimes described as those who help a foreign country exploit their own. I was reminded of this when I read that the ALP Caucus had compromised its concerns over jobs for Australians and was prepared to waive the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement Continue reading »
-
SPENCER ZIFCAK. Freedom of Speech and the Racial Discrimination Act
Within days of the July election result having finally been announced, forces within the Conservative faction of the Liberal-National party moved to re-open the debate on reform to S.18C of the Racial Discrimination Act (RDA). Section 18C makes it a civil offence to insult, offend, humiliate or intimidate a person on the grounds of Continue reading »
-
It’s Time to Close Australia’s Abusive Detention Regime
In the last few years, there have been countless official reports that have exposed abuses and recommended the closure of centres on Nauru and Manus Island. November 2014, the Australian Human Rights Commission’s National Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention uncovered numerous reported incidents of assaults, sexual assaults and self-harm involving children; March 2015, Continue reading »
-
NICK DEANE. Reflecting on Troubled Waters. South China Sea
The dispute in the South China Sea should not, legitimately, involve Australia. We are only involved because we have such close military ties with the United States. War between the US and China is not inevitable, but dangerous, military escalation is taking place. If hostilities break out, the war will be on our doorstep. Continue reading »
-
WALTER HAMILTON. What’s in it for Putin?
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is pursuing a ‘fresh approach’ with Russia’s Vladimir Putin for resolving the territorial dispute that has prevented the two countries signing a peace treaty since World War Two. It is easy to see what Abe might hope to gain from a settlement, but no breakthrough can be expected unless Continue reading »
-
MUNGO MacCALLUM. Undermining Malcolm Turnbull.
The baying pack of coalition backbenchers demanding the abolition, or at least the dilution, of the Racial Discrimination Act may be sincere crusaders for free speech. On the other hand they may be motivated by a desire to attack small-l liberals, of whom one is (or at least was) their own leader, Malcolm Turnbull. Continue reading »
-
JULIA BAIRD. Australia’s Gulag Archipelago.
In Dante’s view, the unfortunate souls who dwell in purgatory may suffer excruciating pain, but the promise of their final destination is clear: paradise. Those who languish on the remote, tiny islands — Manus and Nauru — that host Australia’s offshore immigration detention centers are not so lucky. Continue reading »
-
RICHARD WOOLCOTT. Do we need a White Paper on Australia’s foreign policy?
A White Paper could be useful if it is agreed to by the key ministers of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Defence, and Immigration and Border Protection ; and consistently applied by the Cabinet. A major problem which I see is that we seem to be in a period of fairly intense political and bureaucratic infighting over Continue reading »
-
ROSS BURNS. Looking for an end-game in Syria.
Newspaper commentary on the Syria conflict has long struggled to provide new insights into the conflict. However, in an analysis published over the weekend in the New York Times, Max Fisher, adopted the novel approach of asking academic experts to comment on how other civil wars came to an end to see if any Continue reading »
-
MEREDITH BURGMANN. ASIO and dirty secrets.
In commenting this week, Meredith Burgmann said that ‘my view is that the stories in my book (Dirty Secrets: Our ASIO Files. New South Wales Publishing, Sydney 2014) collectively represent ASIO as being improper, incompetent, irrelevant, inappropriate and intrusive.’ The following are extracts from her book. Continue reading »
-
TONY KEVIN. A successful reawakening of serious Russian studies in Australia ?
Doctor Dorothy Horsfield of Australian National University is to be congratulated for her vision and hard work in mounting the first serious academic Russian studies conference in Australia for many years, ‘Putin’s Russia in the Wake of the Cold War’, on 24-26 August, under the auspices of the Australian National University’s Humanities Research Centre Continue reading »
-
ALISON BROINOWSKI. A Foreign Affairs White Paper. What is there to inquire about?
We have just had a Federal election, so now the inquiry season has begun. The government already has a Royal Commission inquiring into the detention of children in the Northern Territory, it wants a plebiscite on gay marriage, the inquiry into institutional child abuse is still running, and the Opposition wants one on the Continue reading »
-
PAUL BARRATT. Would war powers reform really leave national security in the hands of the minority parties?
During a segment on war powers reform on ABC TV’s current affairs program Lateline (25 August – see http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-25/mps-call-for-iraq-war-inquiry/7786424 ) Australian Strategic Policy Institute Executive Director Peter Jennings expressed opposition to parliamentary involvement in decision-making about deployment of the ADF, saying: If you look at how parliaments are structured, you’re really saying that you’re Continue reading »
-
WALTER HAMILTON. Stand off in the East China Sea
About eighteen months ago, while talking with a policy analyst at Japan’s Defense Ministry in Tokyo, I asked how the confrontation with China over the disputed Senkaku (or Daioyu) Islands in the East China Sea was affecting morale in the Self-Defense Forces. ‘I recently visited Sasebo,’ he replied, referring to the southern base of Continue reading »
-
FRANK BRENNAN. Why Turnbull has no option other than a plebiscite on Same Sex Marriage
In The Australian Paul Kelly writing on the same sex marriage plebiscite said (23/8), ‘Lawyer and priest Frank Brennan, who has always argued the issue should properly be decided by parliament, told this column: “Contrary to Justice Kirby I have urged proponents of same-sex marriage to support legislation for a plebiscite because there is Continue reading »
-
RICHARD BUTLER. Nuclear disarmament – Australia’s Profound and Cynical Failure.
In 1995 Prime Minister Keating established the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. He did this because he was appalled at the intensity of the, mainly US/USSR, nuclear arms race. He wanted to find a safe way in which nuclear weapons could be eliminated, to which international agreement might be given. The Continue reading »
-
ANDREW MACK. ‘National security’ and the Ausgrid bid
On 19th August Federal Treasurer Scott Morrison confirmed his earlier decision to block the NSW government’s planned lease of 50.4 per cent of the New South Wales Ausgrid electricity distribution network to two Chinese companies: the Chinese government-owned State Grid Corporation of China and Hong Kong listed Cheung Kong International (CKI). Morrison based his Continue reading »
-
‘Racists aren’t welcome here: how we kicked a racist passenger off the bus.
A nice story from The Guardian ‘Our better angels’ . See link below. John Menadue http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/19/racists-arent-welcome-here-how-we-kicked-a-racist-passenger-off-the-bus?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other Continue reading »
-
IAN WEBSTER. Malcolm Turnbull and homelessness – reaching mentally ill people
This week our PM, Malcolm Turnbull, was admonished when he gave $5 to a homeless man in Melbourne. He was sorry if people thought he should not have done this. He said, “I felt sorry for the guy”….”there but for the grace of God go I.” George Orwell wrote after being ‘down and out’ Continue reading »
-
MUNGO MacCALLUM. Long Tan – minding our manners.
It is entirely understandable that Australian veterans were disappointed by the Long Tan commemoration stuff up; it is clear that the negotiations, such as they were, between the governments in Hanoi and Canberra were misconstrued, probably on both sides. It caused unnecessary grief and irritation, and this is to be regretted. But it is Continue reading »
-
EMMA CAMPBELL. Is South Korea still interested in unification?
It is not easy being a young person in globalised South Korea. The intense competition that defines South Korea’s education system and the irregular employment market that awaits graduates has led to rising inequality, falling birth rates, insecure employment and high numbers of youth suicide.Beyond South Korea’s domestic wellbeing, globalisation and its accompanying economic insecurity Continue reading »
-
PETER GIBILISCO. Some key ideas for the next generation of disability activists.
1. Meritocracy Meritocracy is a belief that seems to me to still be alive and well in the senior management of disability support. It also seems to drive many aspects of public policy, particularly when appeals are made to “equal opportunity”. Advocates of a meritocratic approach to disability policy are still assuming that the Continue reading »
-
RICHARD BROINOWSKI. The Battle of Long Tan turns Fifty
Some excitement was generated in the Australian press around 15 August when it was reported that the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Long Tan would be commemorated by Australians at the site of the battle at a rubber plantation in Phuoc Tuy Province. So it was – by a small and subdued Continue reading »
-
DAVID STEPHENS. How we commemorate our wars in other people’s countries.
‘We need to talk about how we commemorate our wars in other people’s countries – and our own’, Honest History, 18 August 2016 “How would we feel if 1,000 Japanese turned up in Darwin wanting to celebrate the bombing of 1942.” Apart from the Frontier Wars against Indigenous Australians, all of Australia’s wars, from New Zealand in Continue reading »
-
JOHN TULLOH. The uncertain future for Turkey and Erdogan.
My friend! Leave not my homeland to the hands of villainous men! Render your chest as armour and your body as bulwark! Halt this disgraceful assault! For soon shall come the joyous days of divine promise; Who knows? Perhaps tomorrow? Perhaps even sooner! A verse from the Turkish national anthem. More than ever Continue reading »
-
BRIAN TOOHEY. The quality of intelligence advice.
A former top US intelligence official David Gompert has issued a sober warning to those who want to lock Australia into any future war with China. Speaking on Monday, Gompert said a war between the US and China could be so ruinous for both countries and the world that it might seem unthinkable, yet Continue reading »
-
Migration experts say it is unlikely closing camps on Manus and Nauru islands would re-start boats. We are beyond that point.
See link below – article by Ben Doherty in The Guardian, 16 August 2016. It includes an interview with me, Peter Hughes and others, on the need to act quickly to process in Australia, the detainees presently held in Manus and Nauru. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/aug/16/after-the-nauru-files-how-can-australia-go-about-ending-offshore-detention Continue reading »