February 14, 2019

RUTH ADLER. Brexit uncertainties fuel speculation on Irish unification referendum

With weeks remaining until the 29 March deadline for a deal on Brexit, there is speculation that failure to reach agreement will result in increased momentum for a referendum on Irish unification under the Good Friday Agreement. Several Cabinet Ministers in Theresa Mays government are reportedly seriously concerned about the prospect, with one describing it as very real. Another has expressed concern that the British government risks sleepwalking into a border poll. Such a referendum would, however, be unlikely to succeed at the present time.

May 9, 2019

MASSIMO FAGGIOLI. The Catholic Church and nationalism: The shadow of the 'long 19th century'

Pope Francis’ visit to Bulgaria and North Macedonia may not be as sensational as his trips to the Arabian Peninsula or the United States. But it reveals much about the similarities in the life stories of Jorge Mario Bergoglio and Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli. The nine years Roncalli spent as the Vatican’s representative in Bulgaria (1925-34) were a decisive period in the formation of the future Pope John XXIII.

June 4, 2020

ALEX MITCHELL. We are not All in this together!

Since COVID-19 was officially recognised as a killer pandemic in March 2020, NSW people, and Australians generally, accepted the view that it does not distinguish between classes, colour, religion, gender or age. Then politicians, urged by bankers and the super-rich, began to use the coronavirus crisis for their own personal gain.

January 10, 2019

ALLAN PATIENCE. It's time for a constitutional reform commission

Acting on references from attorneys-general, the independent Australian Law Reform Commission and its state government equivalents review and recommend reforms to existing laws, and/or identify where new laws are necessary. When it comes to the Australian Constitution, the highest level of law in the country, the case for an independent constitutional reform commission along similar lines to law reform commissions has never been stronger.

January 9, 2019

GARRY EVERETT. A Legal Leap of Faith?

GARRY EVERETT. A Legal Leap of Faith?

In the Weekend Australian (5/6 Jan.19), Professor Greg Graven wrote an article entitled Taking a Legal Leap of Faith. In essence it is an examination of the key issues involved in trying to legislate in the matter of religious freedom. This is a disappointing contribution.

October 1, 2020

New Zealand National Party leader Judith Collins manages to smudge PM Arderns gloss.

With less than a month to go before the General Election on October 19 the latest polls in New Zealand show the Labour Government well ahead despite many commentators saying Prime Minister Arderns performance in the first TV election debate lacked lustre.

July 14, 2020

Australia and the USA as ambiguous mirror images (Part 2 of 2)

If Australian governments over the past three decades have been unrepentant in intensifying our alliance with the USA it is because many conceive us of having identical interests rather than just as having identical values? But does the identity of interests arise from a perception of identical values and historical development?

December 3, 2018

PATRICIA EDGAR. Kids Technology and the Future: Technology is not the enemy. The Need for Positive Media Literacy (Part 1).

The Information-technology Revolution is challenging the assumptions on which the education of children and the provision of their entertainment are based. The doomsayers argue the big companies Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, et al. despite their rhetoric of preventing evil and promoting global togetherness - are in fact exacerbating inequality, poverty, unemployment, invasion of privacy, breakdown in social cohesion, supporting political disruption and Donald Trump.

June 14, 2020

We may be stuck in our bigotry. Urgent change on many fronts needed

So much of our political mainstream has been based on bigotry and racist perspectives. We have always had the comfort of the US and UK accepting our attitudes on race. That no longer will be the case.

April 8, 2020

LAURIE PATTON. A virtual solution to 21st Century government

As most of us are holed-up in our homes working or studying online as a response to the Coronavirus a bunch of politicians are ignoring medical advice and gathering together in Canberra. Perhaps its time for a virtual parliament?

June 7, 2020

ANTOINETTE MITCHELL. From Trump Tower to The Violent Trumps of America

Its June 5, 1980, exactly thirty years ago, and the magnificent art deco Bonwit Teller building in Manhattan, is smashed to the ground.

September 5, 2020

Australia's fathers day shame

On this coming Father’s Day I want to salute three fathers whose sons, who have not broken Australian law, were and are betrayed by the Australian government: Terry Hicks, John Shipton and Khalil El-Halabi.

December 22, 2017

JENNY HOCKING. Harold Holt: The legacy is evident, 50 years after his disappearance.

It was a quintessential Australian death. On 17 December 1967, Australias 17th prime minister, Harold Edward Holt, waded into the churning surf at Victorias Cheviot Beach, defying a swift current and a strong under-tow that left others in his party refusing to enter. Within minutes Holt was swept up and out, like a leaf so quick, so final, and never seen again.

April 22, 2020

SEAN INNIS. COVID-19 HAS CHANGED OUR WORLD, IT IS UP TO US TO DESIGN A NEW ONE

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed our world. We need to approach the future consciously and deliberately, and not let a virus drift us into a world we might regret .

July 19, 2020

Eden-Monaro shows us the significance of the small players

Noel Turnbulls blistering critique of commentary on the recent by-election leaves us asking (like Julius Sumner Miller) Why is it so ?

September 6, 2020

An appeal to the Australian legal fraternity Lawyers4Collaery

International lawyers have banded together to support Julian Assange with an open letter to the British PM. Why haven’t Australian lawyers supported Bernard Collaery and Witness K with an open letter to our PM and Attorney-General?

June 17, 2020

Parramatta needs a Jack Mundey

Students always had some difficulty believing that I remembered the first traffic light turned on in Parramatta. The pace of change is such that memories vanish before they can be recorded. In the cradle city of Australia, development is about to obliterate significant features of the past.

July 22, 2020

We now know gas is far from the clean fuel it's claimed to be (SMH 16.7.20)

Australia’s recovery will be driven by gas says the prime minister. A task force headed by Andrew Liveris- a business figure with career doused in carbon- recommends subsidies to ramp up the industry.

September 14, 2020

The shrinking of the Australian mind (The Interpreter Sep 3, 2020)

Australian strategic decision-makers need lessons in our once-grand ambitions and accomplishments in world affairs.

April 19, 2020

CHRIS BREEN. Defend the right to protest - free the refugees.

On Friday April 10, in Melbourne, a safe car convoy protest organised by the Refugee Action Collective called for the urgent release of refugees in the Mantra hotel in Preston because of the threat of Covid-19. It was stopped by police and 26 refugee supporters were fined $1652 each - making $43,000 in fines.

December 1, 2019

JOHN CARLIN. The New Normal

Recently, President Trump was convicted and fined $2m for stealing $2.8m from a charity meant for war veterans. No one batted an eyelid. Boris Johnson continues to lie and the same thing happens. Now, in Spain, Vox, the Francoist Party won 50 seats in parliament on a platform of jailing its political opponents who support Catalan or Basque independence. Welcome to the new normal.

July 13, 2020

Australia and the USA as ambiguous mirror images (Part 1 of 2)

Australian governments still cling like a lichen to the USA in foreign policy, neoliberal values, a bi-polar view of the world (China vs. freedom) and so-call democratic values. But is Australia as close to the culture (s) of the USA as seems to be uncritically accepted and are these values really those which some believe unite us?

June 30, 2020

Multicultural Australia in danger in resurgent pandemic. Part 2 What we know but need to know more about and why.

The national medical bureaucracy needs to make one change to its data collection about COVID-19 that will be disruptive in the short term but very productive in the medium and longer term. It may save lives, reduce morbidity, protect social cohesion and help save the economy. But it hasnt. Why is that?

April 21, 2020

MICHAEL McKINLEY. Arse-backwards: Substituting the Strategic Dreamtime for the Berthold Brecht Principles of Strategic Analysis. Part 3 of 5.

Sometimes important strategic issues and questions are made more intelligible and transparent when viewed from the perspectives not normally associated with national security and defence policies. Now is one of those times.

June 22, 2020

Coronavirus, racism and Asian-Australian representation. Part 2 of a series on racism.

The emergence of the coronavirus in Wuhan China has led to a rise and return of racist and xenophobic attitudes in Australia towards Chinese-Australians and those of seemingly Chinese appearance. The fear, anxiety and uncertainty of the pandemic have fuelled ignorance and hate spreading beyond Chinese-Australians to other Asian-Australians with some now living in fear worrying whether their fellow Australians will accept and embrace them like before.

June 9, 2020

ABUL RIZVI. Forecast of Net Overseas Migration for the Decade of 2020s

The Prime Minister says the coronavirus crisis will drive net overseas migration in 2020-21 down by 85% of its level for 2018-19. But what would net overseas migration average during the decade of the 2020s under current policy settings?

April 26, 2020

MUNGO MACCALLUM Turnbull's Quo Vadis

So: eight modern Liberal PMs, one prematurely deceased, three (possibly) in the roll of faithful old boys and four definite apostates having left the building. Not much of a record of loyalty over the last 70 years.

April 19, 2020

DUNCAN GRAHAM. Mobocracy rules in Indonesia.

The videos are ghastly. Young men stripped to the waist, roped together in a line, shuffling forward on their knees. Their bodies are bruised and bloodied, their smashed faces creased with fear. Theyre not just the victims of kampong rough justice theyre also casualties of the Indonesian governments mishandling of the Covid-19 crisis.

June 1, 2020

The Light From the Southern Cross. A report on Catholic Church Governance

This confidential 208 page Report ‘promoting Co-Responsible Governance in the Catholic Church in Australia’ was commissioned by the Australian Catholic Bishops and Religious Superiors to review the Catholic Church’s governance and management structures. This followed the final report of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

July 15, 2020

The last chance to stabilise Earths climate

The aspirational Paris target of 1.5C maximum warming will be beyond our reach if the economy returns to pre-Covid normal. Technological solutions, although necessary, are not sufficient.

June 1, 2020

MARK J VALENCIA. The US refuses to see China as a military equal.

A recent US Council on Foreign Relations Report advising the US government how it should deal with China in the South China Sea is derivative, defective, dewy eyed and dangerous. It is particularly worrying because the author is a China expert that advises the Pentagon. As such, this report cries out for rebuttal.

May 25, 2020

JACK WATERFORD. Shooting ourselves in the boot again

The announcement of the international inquiry to be conducted into international management of the Covid-19 pandemic did not achieve any of the particular purposes initially said to justify Australias putting its head above the parapets and attracting Chinas ire for doing so.

June 10, 2020

Hong Kong autonomy and the National Peoples Congress (EAF, 9.6.20)

Hong Kongs future isgloomy,but it should not be written off yet. It plays a vital role in the interface between China and the rest of the world Its future is not and never could be autonomy and most Hongkongers understand that.It may be that outside forces have prompted some to make such demands and exacerbated tensions.

June 29, 2020

Why Australia needs to join global condemnation of Israel's annexation plans (SMH 25.6.20)

As early as next week, Israel proposes to forcibly annex up to a third of the Palestinian West Bank, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calling it “another glorious chapter in the history of Zionism”.

July 2, 2020

The strange case of Shaoquett Moselmane and the AFP and ASIO raid.

I was struck by these letters in the S.M.H. regarding Shaoquett Moselmane . Are we seeing a new McCarthyist wave of anti China paranoia?

June 17, 2020

Accelerating securitisation and militarisation in Australian politics: symptoms of democracy in decline.

As though these trends are not worrying enough in themselves, in the present, they need to be understood as effects rather than causes. And the causes are even more frightening.

July 7, 2020

The Coalition is just following orders

To understand how and why Australia has ended up where it has, with a series of governments which seem to become more and more damaging to our way of life, year on year, we need only to look back to 2013. If you think they are waging a relentless war on the nations most vulnerable, they are.

July 9, 2020

Avoiding a century of humiliation for ourselves.

The Century of Humiliation is indelibly imprinted in the psyche of modern China. Australias current position towards China is inviting our own century of humiliation as we ratchet up tensions alongside a United States whose hegemonic power is rapidly collapsing.

April 27, 2020

MUNGO MACCALLUM. Time to get back in the water

Finally, its safe to get back in the water well some bits of it, some of the time, as long as you behave.

July 27, 2020

The IPA, Tim Wilson, human rights and influence

That Tim Wilson used his Human Rights Commission email account for political purposes when he became the Human Rights Commissioner may seem trivial or utterly irrelevant as he calls it. Yet surely it risked compromising the independence of the Commission and represents a new form of politicization of the public service.

September 29, 2020

Chinese workers the worry, not spies

Indonesias foreign policy seems divorced from reality. Its called bebas-aktif (free and active) and supposed to mean no siding with world powers.

June 15, 2020

The Crisis in the Overseas Student Industry: How should Government respond?

The Australian Population Research Insitute, Research Report, June 2020.

February 11, 2018

The hidden state behind the latest batch of repressive legislation

From the back-reaches of the hidden state has come this latest batch of suppressive legislation ostensibly to protect our secrets and to counter surreptitious foreign influences. Instead it will facilitate yet again the tendency of Australian governments to commit to overseas military adventures, sometimes illegally, without proper Parliamentary consideration and pubic approval.

June 24, 2020

Australian history and the empire of the mind

Black Lives Matter has shone the spotlight on colonial-era crimes across the world. But Prime Minister Scott Morrison has reignited the history wars with his spurious claim that there was no slavery in Australia.

June 25, 2020

The ABCs five-year plan is spin for managed decline

Ita Buttrose and her ABC board have produced a glossy five-year plan to cover up the fact the ABC is in accelerating decline through Morrison government de-funding.

March 27, 2019

STUART REES, Brexit, A Democratic Absurdity

Fear, deceit, racism, illegalities and foreign interference contributed to Britain’s Brexit vote to leave the European Union. The referendum outcome resulted from a giant con trick, a democratic absurdity which should never have been taken seriously.

June 18, 2020

Premier Berejiklians last hurrah

Her planning was immaculate. She would vacate the Premiership, leave a strong economy, and install her Deputy Leader, Treasurer Dominic Perrottet, as the next Premier. Then everything fell apart.

January 28, 2019

CRISPIN HULL. Solution to ABC budget cuts. (Canberra Times 19.1.2019)

Here is an idea for how the ABC might deal with the inevitable round of cuts next Budget.

Clever bureaucrats when faced with funding cuts go for the jugular. They attack some popular vote-sensitive function and announce it will be cut. The backlash often results in a funding rethink.

September 13, 2020

Johnson's breaking of Brexit pledge is smart-arse duplicity (Irish Times Sep 11, 2020)

Everybody knows Boris Johnson can lie for England. To his supporters, it was one of his best assets.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal