Top 5
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AUKUS designed to remove public resistance to Australia stationing US nuclear submarines
The real reason for the AUKUS submarine deal might well have been the U.S. wish for a port and base in Australia from where it can send its own nuclear submarines to harass China. The offer to Australia to buy nuclear submarines was likely only made to remove Australian public resistance to the stationing of Continue reading »
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Easter Message: Power, control, autocracy, Empire…
…. not the path to a life of harmony and peace. The 1924 Hibbert Journal published what appears to be the earliest printed version of a very well-worn joke with the final punchline: “a gintleman with a face like your honour’s can’t miss the road; though, if it was meself that was going to Letterfrack, Continue reading »
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The ‘Senior Advisor and Principal Author’ of our Defence Strategic Review is a Director of the United States Studies Centre
Serious questions must be asked about conflicts of interest among Australian government advisors in both AUKUS and the Defence Strategic Review. Continue reading »
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Unpacking the Philip Medicare Review
Following “revelations” of $8 billion Medicare “rorts” in the Nine newspapers last spring, Health Minister Mark Butler commissioned Dr Pradeep Philip to conduct a review of Medicare integrity and compliance. His report has now been publicly released, and subject to vastly different readings. Continue reading »
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On the passing of Dr Yunupingu AM (1948 – 2023)
Not long after six am on Monday the third of April news began to flow south from Yolngu heartland. The most significant Aboriginal leader of our generation had passed. Continue reading »
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Election reflections: The Liberals should ditch the Coalition with the Nationals
There are some important lessons for the Liberal Party to learn from their recent series of election losses. There is no necessary law of political gravity which means that a party which has entered a losing sequence needs or will continue to do so. But if you keep making the same mistakes it is most Continue reading »
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Penny Wong’s double standards
Why is Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong vocal about Australian-Chinese journalist Cheng Lei, jailed in China, but silent on Australian journalist Julian Assange, jailed in the UK? Continue reading »
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“Swimming between the flags” on Climate policy threatens our future
At the last election, the Labor Party adopted a climate policy of “Swimming between the Flags”. This resulted in electoral success but it represented an unthinkable future for humanity. Continue reading »
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Please sir I want some more. The case for needs-based funding for the Northern Territory
When unpacking the way in which national funds for front line services such as homelessness are handed out, arguably little has changed for modern day Darwin since the garrison town was bombed in 1942. Continue reading »
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Australia isn’t a real nation, it’s a US military base with kangaroos
One of the many, many signs that Australia is nothing more than a US military and intelligence asset is the way its government has consistently refused to intervene to protect Australian citizen Julian Assange from political persecution at the hands of the US empire. Continue reading »
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The reality that supports the recognition of the Voice
Some opponents of the voice are motivated by concern that it undermines the human universalism which is at the heart of liberalism and the heart of Australian democracy. This argument deserves respectful consideration but is not a reason to oppose the voice. Australian democracy has to deal with Australian reality. Continue reading »
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AUKUS: a collection of views not found in our Washington dominated media
AUKUS: signed and sealed by the Liberal government when it joined the pact in September 2021, the spoils of which have been delivered by the Labor Government in March 2023. The Labor Government and Australia will pay a heavy price for what is being done in our name. We are being humiliated by our own Continue reading »
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Investigating the terrorist attack on Nord Stream is a matter of Germany’s sovereignty
Who was behind the terrorist attacks on Nord Stream? Continue reading »
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Robodebt and the APS
If the Australian Public Service and its satellite institutions were to last a thousand years, people will still say “The Robodebt was one of its most dismal hours”. Continue reading »
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Contesting the progressive case for no
Last month, the Djab Wurrung, Gunnai and Gunditjamara Senator Lidia Thorpe, cut ties with the Greens. In moving to the crossbench, she claimed it was her intention to represent the “black sovereign” movement in the Parliament – a movement that had strong grassroots in Australia, “full of staunch and committed warriors”. Continue reading »
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New obesity treatments offer hope, but can we afford them?
Worldwide obesity has tripled since 1975. WHO surveys tell us that more than 2 billion adults, 18 years and older are overweight and of these nearly 800 million are actually obese. 39 million children under the age of 5 were overweight or obese in a 2020 survey and it is estimated that 400 million children Continue reading »
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‘Dispirited, disingenuous, and divided – can the liberal party survive?’
The Liberal party is broken. Riven by ideological differences, petty personal feuds and bitter factional disputes, the party which once dominated the Australian political landscape so completely, is today uncertain of what it stands for and incapable of working it out. Continue reading »
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AUKUS gets awkward Down Under
A controversy threatens to blow the alliance’s nuclear submarine deal out of the water, writes Maddison Connaughton in a new article for Foreign Policy. Continue reading »
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IPCC: a gamble on earth system failure
The fact that the IPCC incorporates in its core business risks of failure to the Earth system and to human civilisation that we would not accept in our own lives raises fundamental questions about the efficacy of the whole IPCC project. If low risks of failure are taken as a starting point, “net zero 2050” Continue reading »
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FOI exposes Australia’s attempts to protect Israel on apartheid status
Foreign Minister, Penny Wong has asserted that Australia does not accept that Israel is an apartheid State. Freedom of information (FOI) documents have exposed that this position is not based on DFAT legal advice. The concerns of many Australians that their government, through trade and other dealings, or by even visiting Israel, might be making Continue reading »
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Insanity: governments betray what climate science demands
No one knows what was on the mind of Labour leaders discussing emission limits while approving near one hundred new coal mines and gas wells, thus betraying future generations and eroding the life support systems of the planet. Continue reading »
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The Voice: Newscorp’s dangerous zero sum games
As the wording of the Voice referendum question is released, the Murdoch media’s “news” drives resentment with propaganda as constant as drums of war. The pounding message for its audience is that every development is a zero sum game, one that only defrauds this “conservative” base. Continue reading »
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China’s big foreign policy plays leave Australia in the cold
The Chinese Communist Party’s 20th Party Congress in October last year may be seen with the efflux of time as a watershed event, not so much for the extension of Xi Ping’s tenure in the job, but for subsequent sharp policy resets. Continue reading »
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The Federal Labor Caucus did not endorse AUKUS
The $368 billion AUKUS deal raises many more questions than we have had answered to date. Continue reading »
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Josh Wilson’s welcome concern: AUKUS will cost the earth
Comment by Hon. Melissa Parke on AUKUS 22 March 2023. I welcome the speech given by Josh Wilson MP, my successor in the federal seat of Fremantle, in the Australian parliament on 20 March in which he raised concerns regarding the AUKUS agreement. I also welcome the contributions from former Prime Minister Paul Keating last Continue reading »
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Guardian Essential Poll: AUKUS support collapses, 3-in-4 oppose
Reflecting the diminishing public support for the AUKUS deal, a new Guardian Essential Poll has found that only one quarter of Australians support paying the $368bn price tag to acquire nuclear submarines. For decades Australians were gung ho about going to war – almost any war. Today – despite the best efforts of the Nine Continue reading »
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Raising of Warragamba Dam ‘spun’ in New South Wales election campaign
An interesting comment was made this month about the New South Wales Coalition’s intention to raise Warragamba Dam in order to store floodwaters and thus mitigate the problem of flooding downstream. The comment as retailed by ABC Online came from the Liberal MP and candidate for the seat of Hawkesbury in the coming state election, Continue reading »
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We’ve long said no to US. A yes now could be nuclear
It’s Parliament House, Canberra, on a Sunday afternoon. There is a meeting of the national security committee of cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, about a crisis in the Taiwan Strait, where the US and China are in air and naval combat. There’s an inflection point when someone – a minister or the PM Continue reading »
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Goodbye to Ukraine? US prepares public for defeat
The New York Times report of 8th March that ‘Intelligence Suggests Pro-Ukrainian Group Sabotaged Pipelines, U.S. Officials Say’ elicited two sets of responses. Continue reading »