Politics
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Cut defence spending to make us stronger and safer
There’s a simple solution to the problem of Chinese warships sailing around Australia: a reciprocal agreement – you don’t sail off our coast and we won’t sail off yours. Continue reading »
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China flotilla reporting misses the obvious
The failure of media to ask obvious questions was on full display as three ships from the Chinese People Liberation Army-Navy completed their circumnavigation of Australia. Continue reading »
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Going, going… to the highest bidder: Australia’s school system
Recent headlines confirm that it is now difficult to deal with the market forces that successive governments in this country have unleashed in our school system and which are now driving it in perilous directions. Continue reading »
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Imagine a secure Australia post-ANZUS and AUKUS
Let’s test Hugh White’s contention, expressed in The Saturday Paper on 8 March (‘Trump’s conduct on Ukraine prompts strategic reckoning”), that Australia will perhaps sooner rather than later have to confront the end of the US Alliance. Continue reading »
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Rethinking China
Just about everything that is uttered about China in the West is done so in the deeply underlying presumption that everyone out there, in the wonder lands of democratic Christendom, most assuredly believes that, as a godless communist state, China is inherently evil and that its singular ambition is to take over the world. Continue reading »
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A five-minute scroll
Chris Minns stands by the NSW hate speech laws. Kevin Rudd warns negotiations with Trump 2.0 administration will continue to be rough. Trump advocates for Tesla and Elon Musk. Zoe Daniels calls out some uncomfortable truths. Continue reading »
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Dutton has little faith in Medicare. Like Trump, he prefers culture wars
Peter Dutton does not really believe in Medicare. He is more interested in Trump-type culture wars than the health of Australians. Continue reading »
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Any old Chinese port in a storm: Anti-China Media Watch
Reports on the financial distress of Landbridge, the Chinese-owned company with a 99-year lease for the Port of Darwin, lack perspective and analysis. Penny Wong goes soft on China and ASPI goes unchecked. Continue reading »
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A poor start to the strategic examination of R&D
In 2024, in a context of declining R&D and productivity, the government appointed an independent expert panel to lead a “strategic examination” of Australia’s R&D system. In February the first discussion paper was released along with invitations to make submissions. Continue reading »
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Government funding increases entrench private school resource advantage
Government funding increases for Catholic and Independent schools have outstripped those for public schools since 2009 and entrenched a major resource advantage for them. New figures published by the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority show Catholic and Independent schools have a much higher income per student than public schools across Australia and in nearly Continue reading »
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Why is Israel such a big deal?
I’ll begin with a reminder, for the Zionists in the audience, of what antisemitism is. I grew up surrounded by adults with blue numbers tattooed on their forearms. My primary school teacher relentlessly picked on the three Jewish kids in her class. My high school refused to discipline a girl who punched me in the Continue reading »
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Maybe the inflation surge didn’t happen the way we’ve been told
According to Reserve Bank deputy governor Andrew Hauser last week, we’ve entered a world characterised not just by volatility, complexity and uncertainty, but also by “ambiguity” – a world where “you don’t know the model”, meaning that “judgment and instinct are as important as formal analysis”. Continue reading »
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Palestinian speech and the trials of Mark Dreyfus
“The label Zionist is used, not in any way, accurately. When critics use that word, they actually mean Jew. They’re not really saying Zionist, they’re saying Jew because they know that they cannot say Jew, so they say Zionist or words [such as] Zeo or Zio.” –Federal Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, October 2024 Continue reading »
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Escaping Thucydides’s trap: A discussion between Graham Allison and Henry Huiyao Wang
During the recently concluded Munich Security Conference, Professor Graham Allison from Harvard University met Dr Huiyao Wang, founder and president of the Centre for China and Globalisation based in Beijing, to discuss Dr Wang’s new book (“Escaping Thucydides’s Trap: Dialogue with Graham Allison on China-US Relations”) which is grounded on and develops arguments made in Continue reading »
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A five-minute scroll
Geoffrey Watson tells it like it is about Brendan Nelson having an undisclosed paid role with French arms dealer Thales while serving as a director of the Australian War Memorial. Netanyahu joins IDF forces in the takeover of Palestinian homes and posts about it. In our Parliament, just 11 voted No against criminalising “hate” speech Continue reading »
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How the West was lost
Europe’s panicked response to the shift in Washington’s priorities raises a number of intriguing questions, not least why its leadership was so ill-prepared for the second coming of Donald Trump. Continue reading »
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Catriona Jackson appointed editor of Pearls and Irritations
We are pleased to announce the appointment of Catriona Jackson as the editor of Pearls and Irritations from 17 March. Continue reading »
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Sad day for the US as it fails an ally
I don’t intend to move these round-ups into international relations. There are excellent Australian sources with a foreign policy orientation – Pearls and Irritations, the Lowy Institute and Australian Foreign Affairs. But events around Trump’s betrayal of Ukraine should have repercussions not only for our foreign policy, but also for our domestic policy, particularly in the way we Continue reading »
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Minority government – a problem of the current electoral system
In a recent lengthy article in Inside Story, Brett Evans discusses a credible Teal threat to the Liberals in Sydney’s Bradfield seat and raises the question: would minority government be so bad? Continue reading »
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Is Peter Dutton the tip of a Trumpist foreign policy for Australia?
In 1951 Australia turned to its newfound “great and powerful friend” America, consummating the move by signing the ANZUS treaty. ANZUS remains seriously misunderstood by most Australians, especially among the ageing ranks of conservative aficionados in Australia where it has the status of a holy cow. This is despite the fact that the treaty is Continue reading »
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Victoria’s government and opposition put Grand Prix ahead of their citizens
With the nation’s worst state debt and the looming budget, we hear almost weekly of the Victorian Government’s desperate funding cuts to essential services. While, for example, our nurses, childcare and aged care workers and our police are very much valued and needed, they appear to come a poor second in financial support to the Continue reading »
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Who’s who in the war business
“All murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.” Voltaire Continue reading »
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Australia’s defence: Navigating US-China tensions
A significant intelligence failure to detect live-firing by Chinese warships near Australia, has exposed Defence weaknesses, and the fact that when it counts, we are all alone. Continue reading »
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A five-minute scroll
Volodymyr Zelenskyy reports on the peace talks in Saudi Arabia, saying if President Trump can get Russia to agree, a ceasefire will take effect immediately. After weeks of reported antisemitic attacks, police reveal the events were an organised crime hoax. Malcolm Turnbull defends his free speech on 7:30 report while Israel, cutting off electricity is Continue reading »
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No apologies over fabricated terror plot from pollies or lobby groups
When it comes to antisemitism, politicians in this country are often quick to jump on the claim without waiting for evidence. With notable and laudable exceptions like the Greens and independents such as Tasmanian federal MP Andrew Wilkie, it seems any allegation will do when it comes to the opportunity to imply Arab Australians, the Continue reading »
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Australian immigration and the federal election
The Albanese Government has done a reasonable job in repairing the immigration train wreck it inherited from the Coalition. However, excessive caution and fear of being wedged has severely limited its achievements. In the forthcoming election, the Dutton Opposition can be expected to be short on policy, but to stoke up fears about border security Continue reading »
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How CIA propaganda infiltrated the pages of The Canberra Times in the Cold War
It was the mid-60s and The Canberra Times had a problem. Continue reading »
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Keir Starmer’s psychiatrist report leaked
Dr Edmund Freud of the European Centre for Political Pathologies recently completed a secret in-depth review of world leaders for the United Nations Security Council. His reports on President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Keir Starmer are now public, thanks to hackers, believed to be Russian, who have posted the findings on Tik-tok. Continue reading »
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The forgotten fascists
When The Skull sooled bother-boy Sukkar to “cancel” Attorney-General Dreyfus as he spoke about his family as victims of the Holocaust, a scatter of opposition back-benders appeared dismayed. Their ignorance of the 100 years of crossovers between fascism, antisemitism and the social classes represented by the Coalition and its predecessors, suggests that the civics-deficit does Continue reading »
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Power and alienation
The hollow man thought he had power over everything, a snap of the fingers was the sound of a king. Continue reading »
