In a wide-ranging discussion, P&I editor-in-chief John Menadue discusses a life full of achievement driven by conviction, and nominates seeing off the White Australia policy and establishing P&I as highlights. He is speaking with David Marr on ABC Radio National’s Late Night Live.

David Marr: I’m David Marr, coming to you from Gadigal Land in Sydney. Now, I want to make one thing clear right from the start that John Menadue is not retiring. He has turned 90 and he’s stepping back a little from one or two of his ventures, but he is not retiring. It’s the stepping back that gives us our excuse for sitting down with him now to reflect on one or two of the lessons his long life has taught him in business, public service, and lately the media.

John Menadue was in there at the start of so much that shapes this country still. The Murdoch press, the Whitlam Government, the collapse of White Australia, the Hawke Government. Then he set up the think-tank, the Centre for Policy Development, launched the online weekly New Matilda and is proprietor, a rather grand term, but deserved, of the online site Pearls and Irritations from which he is, as I say, stepping back a little. To tell us what he’s learned along the way, John Menadue joins us from our Canberra studio.

John, welcome to Late Night Live.

John Menadue: Thank you, David. Very glad to be with you.

DM: Now, John, in a life so filled with success, there’s a failure there right back at the start that I suspect explains a lot about your career. You stood for Labor in the seat of Hume in the election of 1966 and failed. How?

JM: The feeling in Australia at that time was in favour of the war in Vietnam. Arthur Calwell was the leader of the Labor Party. He took a very principled position in opposing that war and Australian involvement in it. I was a candidate on the losing side in 1966. The tide turned in ‘69 and ‘72, but I’d gone on to other things by then. It was a useful lesson for me to get out in the electorate and listen to people.

The main opposition I got as a Labor candidate was in the railway workshops in Junee. I would have thought that would have been a natural support base for me. But there was a hostile community who feared the yellow hordes coming from the north and taking over Australia.

DM: You never stood for election again. You put that aside as a possible career path.

JM: Yes, I have. Other opportunities came along, working for Rupert Murdoch after I left Gough Whitlam. That was, for me, a quite exciting period. That was in what I would call Rupert’s better days, particularly in the launching of The Australian newspaper. Rupert was open to ideas, supporting Labor, of course, in the ‘72 election. So that opened new opportunities for me.

I found in life that you get to certain stages or certain turning points when suddenly things make sense. That’s a vocation. For example, I came from White Australia in the country towns of South Australia, and I roomed with three Malaysian students. I’d never confronted or thought about race and White Australia. White Australia was a given. And rooming with those three Malaysian students back in the mid ‘50s was an eye-opener.

DM: This was at university?

JM: University, yes, university college. It confronted my ignorance. From that time on, I’ve been concerned about race issues, relations with our own region, of course, including now China.

That was a turning point. I decided, that’s right for me. That’s what I’ll do. It’s like turning on a switch. The enthusiasm and energy come. And in my life, I’ve had many of those occasions. I think everyone does. Suddenly, something makes sense for us to change.

DM: Let me throw some footnotes in. So, you had been, before standing in the seat of Hume, Gough Whitlam’s private secretary. So, Gough was at that stage, well, he was not even leader of the opposition at that stage, was he?

JM: He was a contender, the deputy.

DM: And then you stood, lost, and then you moved to Murdoch. In those days, you were both in your 30s, you and Rupert Murdoch, both in your 30s. And he set about transforming newspapers in Australia. What were his ambitions? What did he achieve in those years?

JM: The Australian at that stage, establishing that was a great achievement. We’d had all those parochial state newspapers. The Australian now has become a disgrace. But it was very important in those early days. I found Rupert very open to ideas. I discussed things with him. I had a very close personal association with him.

When I went to London on a visit, I stayed with him at his cottage in the Cotswolds. He cooked my breakfast and drove me to church. I was close to him. It was quite exciting what Rupert was doing. I remember he said to me, that if you’re going to be successful in the media, you need to get into the three major English-speaking markets, US, UK and Australia. News is important, but sport and entertainment are vital.

The importance of entertainment has been a key factor in the way he’s developed his media. But he always remained extremely interested in politics. When I was with him, I remember he mentioned the possibility that he might run as a candidate for Parliament, presumably based on his home at Cavan, just outside Canberra.

DM: For what party?

JM: He didn’t say, but at that stage, he was very close to Jack McEwen, the leader of the National Party. It was sheer speculation on Rupert’s part. He would never have done it, I’m sure. And if he had tried, he’d [have been] very frustrated after the first six months. But he conveyed to me in that unlikely way that he was very keen on politics. He was, and still is.

Politics is something of an aphrodisiac for Rupert. He’s extremely interested in politics and events since then. When I spoke to him about the dismissal and other issues, that interest in politics has always been there. But clearly, he’s become much more conservative.

DM: What happened to him? I mean, in 1972, he was backing Labor. The Australian newspaper, The Australian transformed newspapers in Australia, changed The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald profoundly. They had to keep up with this modern, intelligent national broadsheet.

You say he was close to McEwen, the leader of the National Party, the Country Party, but he was also very close to many figures in Labor. What happened to him? Why did he become, by 1975, so profoundly hostile to Labor?

JM: He was halfway there in 1974, the election which Whitlam won. Rupert then went down the middle. He had one editorial supporting Labor and another editorial giving the case for the Liberal Party. By ‘75, he was very concerned about the way the Whitlam Government was performing, particularly over the economy. He was clearly influenced by the business community, the things he was hearing from them.

He decided, at that stage that Gough was no longer a winner and that the tide was turning. The Liberal Party, with Malcolm Fraser at the time, was an indication of what was going to happen in the future. So, he changed.

When he went to England and then to the US he became very much influenced by Maggie Thatcher and then Ronald Reagan and the neoconservative people who had a very right-wing view of the role of the economy, of the role of business and the minimal role of government. I think they were big influencers.

Maybe it’s a personal comment but a person who stabilised Rupert in those early stages was his wife, Anna Murdoch. And they divorced. Rupert lost a stabilising influence in his life.

The combination of all those factors and Rupert [has] become way out now on the extreme of the right and running an organisation which is doing enormous damage to societies in which he operates.

DM: Can you believe it is now 50 years since that day in November 1975 when you were head of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet for Gough Whitlam when you discovered that your boss had been sacked and that you had, courtesy of the governor-general, a new boss.

And I can never forget one of the details of that day, that at a certain point you had a phone call from Fraser’s office to remind you that you were the Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, and he wanted to see you. And you, is this correct? You left Gough’s presence and went to this new man.

JM: Yes, that’s right. After I got a word of the dismissal from David Smith, the Official Secretary for the Governor-General telling me that the Whitlam Government had been dismissed. I rang Fred Wheeler, secretary of Treasury and Alan Cooley, the chairman of the Public Service Board, to inform them. Then I got a message from Gough’s driver that Gough wanted to see me at the Lodge.

When I got there Gough was eating a steak, seemed to be enjoying it. The first thing he said to me, “Comrade, that bastard Kerr has done a Game on me”, referring to the sacking by Governor Game of the Lang Government in New South Wales in the ’30s. There was a discussion with Gough as to what might be done with a no-confidence resolution against the Fraser Government. Colleagues came, and then my secretary, Elaine Miller, rang me after I’d been with Gough, I suppose for about 25 minutes.

And she said, “The Prime Minister, Mr. Fraser, wants to see you.” I told her, “Tell him you can’t find me,” which was a standard way of avoidance. I was trying to get my head around what was happening. And about 10 minutes later, she rang again and said, “John, this is a quote from Malcolm Fraser. The Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser wants to see you urgently.” So, I decided that I should leave Gough and go and see Malcolm Fraser, the new Prime Minister.

I was still trying to get my head around all this. Off I went to Parliament House. Malcolm Fraser was in his office on the Opposition side with all his colleagues. It was a hubbub of noise and activity. We met, shook hands, and slowly I was getting to understand my role, that I was serving, not the person, but the prime minister and acted accordingly.

I didn’t stay with him for very long. I went back to the department, to prepare material for the swearing-in of the Fraser ministry, next morning. I had another meeting with Malcolm Fraser late that day. I had a drink with him at the Commonwealth Club.

He invited me to have dinner with him at the Club, but I decided that I’d had enough for the day, and I limped home for consolation with my family. It was a day I didn’t expect.

DM: No, it was a day a nation didn’t expect. And you know, in a couple of months’ time, we’re going to be going back through ‘75 in extraordinary detail. I’m a ‘75 nutter. I mean, I was a very, very young journalist at The Bulletin and the editor’s secretary came around to my cubicle and said, “The Governor-General,” she was a Canadian, wonderful woman. The governor-general sacked the prime minister." And I said, “No, look, it doesn’t work like that.” But she insisted and she was right. Do you think conservative Australia, its politicians in particular, learned a lesson from the sacking? Do you think we can now say they would never try that again?

JM: No, I can’t say they wouldn’t try it again. Gough performed a public function in the criticism he made of Kerr afterwards. In future, if a governor-general tried to do that again he/she would suffer the same ignominy as Kerr suffered. But there’s no change in the Constitution. I think politicians have learned something.

But there was, and still is, a born-to-rule view by conservative interests in politics and in business that a Labor Government is an aberration. Bob Hawke did something to ameliorate that. But there is still a view that a Labor Government is an interloper. Things have improved in that regard, but the “born to rule” attitude is still there.

What I personally learned from the dismissal is that the great and the good cannot be trusted. I grew up believing that people like governors-general, justices of the High Court and the Queen, the Palace were all trustworthy people.

I concluded after that I’d been naïve. They were not trustworthy, particularly the governor-general. Other experiences I’ve had in dealing with a chief justice has confirmed my view that I need to be more careful in whom I trust. And that was the great learning experience for me. Out of it, I became more radical in my political views.

At my age, one is supposed to become more conservative. As the years have passed, I’ve become much more radical in my political views and the need for fundamental reform in so many parts and institutions in Australia.

DM: This is Late Night Live on ABC Radio National, and I am talking to John Menadue about his life and times, partly to mark his 90th birthday of a few months ago. But as I say, this man has not retired. John, if Fraser had come to power in the ordinary way, by winning an election, would he be remembered very differently today?

JM: I think he would have been. Malcolm Fraser turned out, from my experience, to be a surprisingly good prime minister. That was not a way many people in the Liberal Party and conservative ranks viewed him.

He was very conscious that he had divided Australia in a very fundamental way. As a result, he was more accommodating to the trade union movement, particularly to Hawke and others. He felt that he had to mend fences. So, he was very cautious on reform or change as conservatives would have liked him to have been.

But from my experience on issues such as race, White Australia, refugee programs, his attitudes towards the Americans, there was a lot to commend Malcolm Fraser that I didn’t expect.

One of the most meaningful jobs that I had in public life was secretary of the Immigration Department. When I was finishing the end of my term in Japan, Malcolm visited and he said, “John, when you come back to Australia, what do you want to do?” And I said, “I want to come back and help bury White Australia.” And he said, “You’re on.”

I came back from Japan, and I was heading the Immigration Department within three months. In the Indochina Refugee Program, followed by family reunion and another special program, we took about 250,000 Indochinese. That was a memorable and decisive change.

Gough Whitlam and the Labor Government had, through the Racial Discrimination Act made racism illegal including in migration.

Technically that ended White Australia, but it was never put to the test because there was very little migration to Australia during the period of the Whitlam Government. But Malcolm Fraser put it to the test, and he succeeded. In working with him and with Ian Macphee at the time, I found that very meaningful. It pleased me because I’d had a background of concern about racism and White Australia going back to my university days and sharing a room with those three Malaysian students.

I found Malcolm Fraser and Ian McPhee extraordinarily good to work for. They were very receptive in ways that I didn’t expect. Malcolm was also very cautious about the Americans. He insisted that if any country had overflight of Australia or based aircraft in Australia, they could not carry nuclear weapons unless the Australian Government agreed.

Malcolm made it very clear that if the Americans were operating over Australia or from Australia, they would never be able to carry nuclear weapons without his government’s approval. That was consistent with Malcolm. He very much stood for Australian sovereignty. I wish the present government would do the same.

DM: John, to what extent do you think Malcolm Fraser’s views on race, which were so like your own, but I wondered to what extent they were shaped by the fact that he had a Jewish grandfather?

JM: I think it was a factor. He never spoke about it, but his grandfather on the male side was Schultz, a German Jew. But the Jewishness comes through the female side. I think that connection was a factor. I never heard him talk about it. And I think with the farmers and supporters in Western Victoria, he probably decided politically it wasn’t something to talk about.

I think also when he went to Oxford, Malcolm was an angular, awkward sort of bloke. The English upper-class boys at Oxford didn’t have much sympathy and empathy with a fellow like Malcolm Fraser.

The people that he endeared himself to and reciprocated with were black students from Africa. He had a soft spot for Africans from that experience. He showed that throughout his life in his attitudes to race. He was very good on that issue, land rights and so on. And apartheid.

DM: Faced down his party over apartheid.

JM: That’s right. Yes. And Maggie Thatcher over Southern Rhodesia.

DM: But John, to what extent do you see Australian politics now still distorted by race?

JM: We’ve made a lot of progress, but our performance with our Indigenous people, the surprising and regrettable loss of the Voice referendum, indicates that we’ve still got a long way to go. The Albanese Government has gone low-key, almost underground on Indigenous matters, bridging the gap.

That’s unfinished business in Australia. You eloquently describe it in your book Killing for Country, and it’s still happening. That influence is still with us. We’re supporting the government of Israel, which is killing for country as well.

But I think we have a long way still to go, domestically, on the way that we manage relations with the Indigenous people of this country.

I remember some years ago; I was heading an inquiry for the South Australian Government on health issues. I had a meeting with some Aboriginal women. At the end of my presentation, a very senior and well-known “auntie”, as they were called, spoke to me and said, “Mr Menadue, thank you very much for what you’re trying to do about health amongst my people.” But she said, “Whenever I speak to them about their health, they say to me, ‘Auntie, with our prospects in life, what’s the point of being healthy’?” It floored me, and it still does.

That lack of esteem, confidence about their future is critical. We have contributed to that, so we need to address Aboriginal and Indigenous disadvantage on a whole range of issues. We have destroyed their confidence and self-esteem and the future that they might have for themselves and the rest of the Australians.

DM: John, do you think it is race, in part, that makes Australians seem unconfident or reluctant to engage with the countries around it, to engage with our region?

JM: That’s one factor, undoubtedly. I think David, the abolition of White Australia was a big help to us. But the treatment of our Indigenous people and our hypocrisy of talking about other countries’ human rights, whether they be in Tibet or Xinjiang or wherever, shrieks with hypocrisy and doesn’t work in our region.

The other important reason is that our media and our politicians are still in a London-Washington cul-de-sac. They think and act as Austral-Americans. That’s a term that Paul Keating has used to describe those Australians whose attitudes are framed by Washington. These Austral-Americans are deeply entrenched in our legacy media. And right across Australia, the Americanisation of our media, politics, think-tanks, intelligence agencies and business. They are everywhere. Our attitudes and behaviour are framed by our historic legacy. That means that we really shut out and remain ignorant of our own region.

The media, of course, is the worst of all in that regard. We are well informed about Donald Trump and America, but know very little about Indonesia, Malaysia and China. So, it’s not just Indigenous issues that have kept us blinded to our own region, it’s the way we’ve clung like limpets to the Anglosphere, first London and now Washington.

DM: But I wonder to what extent you think that money has a role here, and I mean the collapse of advertising revenue for the press. There are fewer foreign correspondents in Indonesia, in India. Well, China won’t let us in, of course. And news flows almost free of charge from London and America.

JM: Yes, it is. The one organisation that could be doing it much better, of course, is the ABC. Government funding is a difficulty. But in terms of our own interest, I’m not sure what the staffing of the ABC is in London. Do we really need an office in London anymore? Surely a large office in Jakarta would be more important than an office in London.

John Lyons was giving us very good reports from Israel and the genocide there. But now, apparently at his request, he is whipped off to Washington. That’s the story of so much of corporate life in Australia. We focus on the US.

That Americanisation is everywhere. It’s in our films, it’s in our media, it’s our politicians. It’s in most of our major companies that are owned by Americans. They frame public life in Australia almost completely. And it’s very hard for politicians and others to put their hands up and say, we want to develop better relations with our own region. We are terribly ignorant of our region. That’s where our future is. It’s not with Washington or London.

DM: But we do have to report Washington superbly, do we not? Isn’t that a fundamental obligation of the press?

JM: It is, but what is reported so often is domestic trivia out of America as if we’re a state of the United States. Certainly, what Trump and America does in terms of our own region and our own interests is very important to us. But I think so much of this is caught up with US domestic trivia about shootings in schools, floods and some odd behaviour in American domestic life. And our media is filled with it all the time. The ABC has a program called Planet America. Why the hell are we doing that? I just don’t know.

DM: But John, that’s analysis of US politics. I mean, I don’t know whether you watch it, but that’s what it is.

JM: I do pick it up. When I do watch, there are a lot of domestic issues in the United States.

DM: Yes. John, what happened to that movement for Australians to learn the languages of our region? There was a time when everybody was learning Bahasa, everybody was learning Japanese, people were learning Mandarin. But that seems to have gone. What happened to that?

JM: The name for that is John Howard.

DM: Explain.

JM: After the reforms of the Hawke /Keating Governments and previously the Whitlam Governments, John Howard told Australians to relax and be comfortable again. He dog-whistled about too much Asian migration. And children overboard.

Progress had been made. The Garnaut report on the Northeast Asian Ascendancy and interest in Asian languages in schools and the universities was encouraging.

John Howard was a major political influence in turning a lot of that down and sometimes turning it off. And we’ve had a collapse, as you say, of language learning across the universities. And it’s going to be very hard to turn it back on. We’ll keep trying though, but we’ve lost a lot of territory and a lot of time.

DM: On ABC Radio National, this is Late Night Live, I’m David Marr, and I am talking to John Menadue, who I suppose in shorthand these days we say is the proprietor of the online site Pearls and Irritations.

John, going back to your time as a bureaucrat, you were a bureaucrat as secretary to a number of departments over a number of years.

How does somebody with your experience look at a scandal like Robodebt? Could it have happened in your time?

JM: One must be careful about talking about the golden days of the past, but I don’t think it would have. Although I was one of the first of “jobs for the boys”, there was an ethic  in the public service of responsibility. Senior public servants would have spoken up and warned the government that what it was doing was illegal.

A lot of the problems stemmed from the Fraser/Hawke days. The previous arrangements were probably too rigid in terms of the ability to respond to a new government, which was what Whitlam felt.

DM: Because you were appointed for, well, almost for life, were you not?

JM: I was appointed for life. It didn’t work out quite that way.

DM: You chose another life.

JM: Yeah, that’s right. That was very largely of my choosing. Salary didn’t matter. There was the pleasure and meaning in doing what I thought was a worthwhile job. But now secretaries are appointed for a term.

DM: Are you saying that that has changed the relations between governments and bureaucracy?

JM: The Public Service Commission doesn’t have the influence that they used to have. There are some very good people still in the public service in Australia. They’ve been undermined a lot by the doling out of so much work to consulting companies, the Big Four accounting firms. But there’s still a lot of good sense and good people in the service.

If they’re given their head, they’ll continue to give good advice to the government. But Robodebt was clearly an enormous mistake. That could be pinned, in part, on Scott Morrison, who said policies are for the government, so you’re just there to implement. Some of them took that to mean that government could do illegal things, and we wouldn’t speak up.

DM: John, at some point and why, I ask, you decided that you would concentrate on, I suppose, forming public opinion, setting up a think-tank, setting up a media presence. Why did you do it? What were your hopes? And do you even now retain a fundamental faith in persuasion?

JM: Yes, I do. Graham Greene said, “the only unforgivable sin is despair”. There’s a lot of ways in which we could despair today. But I hope I’ve kept the passion and the determination to correct and reform what I see. I’m a member of the Catholic Church. I’m a member of the ALP. I’m concerned about both. I live on the fringe of both.

I don’t go near the centres of power. I’m hoping that with persuasion and energy, it’s still possible to reform. And the present government is showing some signs, but not many at the present time.

The media to me has been very disappointing, the legacy media. While I’ve got some years left, I’ll continue to pursue media opportunities to ensure that we can put out articles and writers both from Australia and overseas that can bring to Australian people possibilities for the future that we should keep in mind and not get caught up in the backwash of the United States, the contempt and fear of China, the problems of climate change which is the biggest confronting issue which we have in this world at the present time.

I remain optimistic. I’m not going to despair. I’m probably like Dylan Thomas, raging about the dying of the light, but hopefully I can age gracefully as well and give way and encouragement to people who will take my place.

DM: If I’ve got this right, it seems to me that one of your real drivers is that we should be paying more attention to ourselves. Is that correct? Is that what you see?

JM: We are. I think by nature we are selfish. That’s a feature of everyone. I remember some years ago Muhammad Ali was speaking at Oxford. He was asked, “Give us a poem”. And he said, “I, We”. And sat down. That’s a good poem. Its advice, for me and for everyone is that we have our individual interests to pursue, but we are also part of a wider community that we have to serve gracefully if we can.

DM: Yes, I was being a bit clumsy, John. What I really meant was that Australians need to pay more attention to themselves as Australians, rather than living in what you call the backwash of the United States. That we don’t kind of respect our own problems and challenges enough.

JM: I’m sure that’s right. What Paul Keating calls Austral-Americans that dominate so much of our media, think-tanks and business. They are fronts for American interests. They see themselves and act as Austral-Americans. The media is the worst cul-de-sac where all that occurs. Their thinking is framed by propaganda out of America. And successive Australian Governments tug the forelock to America time and time again. Just think AUKUS.

We’ve allowed US military bases in this country, which Whitlam and Fraser would never have allowed. Our sovereignty has been clearly prejudiced in recent years. It really started, surprisingly enough, from the Gillard Government, at least in the defence area. Until then, we had developed a self-sufficient defence capability in Australia.

That followed the Nixon doctrine after the end of the Vietnam War, where the Americans said, we can’t be involved in every skirmish in our region. But short of a major attack, countries of the region would have to look after their own defences. And that’s what we did for 35 years.

But the Gillard Government was keen to get Obama to visit Australia in 2010. As part of the sweetener for an Obama visit, we agreed with the help of Kim Beazley that Australia would allow the rotation of American Marines through Darwin.

From that has followed, under Conservative and Labor governments the US military colonisation of Northern Australia. I remember Gough Whitlam saying to me, Comrade, the only time that we should allow foreign bases in this country is in an emergency or by United Nations request.

We now have a string of US bases. One is to develop on the West Australian coast a US base for US nuclear-powered and probably nuclear-armed submarines. Tindal in the Northern Territory is becoming a US military base for aircraft that will be able to carry nuclear bombs and with range to strike China. The Cocos Keeling airport is also being upgraded for American purposes.

We are shedding our sovereignty. Richard Marles, our defence minister, has a love affair with the United States. Anthony Albanese has shown some signs that he’s unhappy with the military colonisation of Australia. He hasn’t yet scrapped AUKUS, but he’s indicated that in the event of a war between America and China over Taiwan, we wouldn’t commit ourselves in advance. But what he should be saying now publicly and privately that in no circumstances will we ever be involved supporting the Americans in a war over Taiwan.

There are some things that Albanese has been doing, which are hopeful indications of change. I hope that he can strengthen that position, but most importantly of all, scrap AUKUS as fast as he can.

DM: Let’s get to AUKUS in a second. I was just wanting to say that I wanted to ask whether you see the behaviour of Trump, particularly in relation to Ukraine and in relation to Israel, gives Australia an opportunity to get out of lockstep with the US in a way that we haven’t had for a long time.

JM: I’m sure that’s the case. We can be very critical of the crazy behaviour of the Trump administration, but its behaviour, is a warning sign to Australia. To some extent, Trump is just a symptom of the American malady. But Trump does provide us with an opportunity, carefully, to extricate ourselves from the overzealous commitment which we have to the United States.

There’s no doubt that Australians are increasingly sceptical about Trump. I saw a figure the other day that about two-thirds of Australians have less confidence in Trump’s America. The signs are that Australians are coming to terms with the fact that we need to change our attitudes towards the United States. Trump will help in doing that.

One strange feature also is that Trump is being derided for suggesting that he might be interested in a Nobel Peace Prize.

DM: Oh yes. And derision in that I can understand.

JM: But if that’s what Trump would like and if he could produce peace with justice in Ukraine and in Gaza, we should swallow our pride about Trump winning a Nobel Peace Prize. If that’s the incentive for him, it would be a great service. But with the Trump administration there are many, many downsides.

DM: John, as a media proprietor these days, can you please explain why you’ve called your website Pearls and Irritations? Explain the name, sir.

JM: It stems from my days in Japan and its artificial pearling industry. Put a grain of sand or some outside element into the shell and to protect itself from the intruder the shellfish produces a pearl.

And that’s what it is, Pearls and Irritations. My late wife, Susie, used to say that she was the pearl, and I was the irritation. But it’s not a bad name, although it’s a bit of a mouthful.

DM: It’s a great name. As a media man these days, how do you think the Australian media has gone reporting the biggest story in the world, Gaza?

JM: It’s a disgrace. Across the board. Where does one start? The major media have been backers for Israel and its support by the US. Words like genocide, occupation, ethnic cleansing are either avoided or are censored from discussion.

DM: Still?

JM: Yes, as far as I can see. The ABC says that it will allow the word genocide if someone else uses that word, but it won’t use it the word itself. The media believe, and want us to believe, that the current genocide started on 7 October with the Hamas attack on Israel. Israel is an occupying power and Palestinians/Hams have a right to resist.

DM: That’s not true of all the media though, John.

JM: Some, yes. I find it hard to distinguish any that have stood out and been prepared to use words like genocide and ethnic cleansing. John Lyons did for the ABC. But most fail to go back and give us the history going back decades, perhaps almost 100 years, how Israel has progressively occupied, taken over, murdered, displaced people on a large scale, and that 7 October was like the pressure cooker blowing up in response to decades of oppression and killing.

It didn’t all start on 7 October. The Netanyahu Government wants us to believe it all started on 7 October, with Hamas. It didn’t. From the beginning, Netanyahu was not really about Hamas. He was about ethnic cleansing. And it goes back decades.

And we’re seeing, dreadfully now, what Netanyahu is about all along. He is not about Hamas. That is the pretext. His objective is the expulsion of all Palestinians from their homeland.

DM: John, as a former diplomat and as a man of government for so many years, what do you think of the prime minister of Israel calling the prime minister of Australia a weak man?

JM: It’s brazen for Benjamin Netanyahu to be criticising our prime minister. Netanyahu is an indicted domestic criminal for fraud and bribery. He is also an internationally indicted criminal for war crimes and crimes against humanity. If he came to Australia, he would be arrested and taken to The Hague for trial.

The Australian prime minister is proper in calling for the recognition of Palestine and exclusion of some right-wing colleague of Netanyahu’s. Although I do wish that Prime Minister Albanese had been much stronger over the last 18 months in calling out the genocide that Israel has been inflicting on the Palestinian people.

DM: John, the last question. Do you keep souvenirs of your career? If you do, what’s the souvenir that you most value?

JM: I guess two things. I think the first is, as I mentioned earlier, working with Malcolm Fraser and Ian Macphee on a major refugee program and helping to end White Australia. I take considerable pride in that, although there’s been a bit of slippage since then.

The second is Pearls and Irritations. How many days I have ahead on Pearls and Irritations remains to be seen. But I’m pleased with what we’ve done. We need to expand by engaging more in social media.

I’ll probably keep raging at the dying of the light like Dylan Thomas, but I hope I can also age gracefully and encourage people around me to step up and for me not to be concerned that people may no longer listen to me. I’m quite pleased that I can still do a few more things, God willing.

DM: John, thank you for very elegant words.

I have been speaking to John Menadue, who in his career has worked with Gough Whitlam, with Malcolm Fraser, as Ambassador to Japan. He has worked for so many of the people who have shaped this country, including for a time back then, with Rupert Murdoch.

John, thank you so much.

JM: Pleasure. Thank you.