February 10, 2021

Scott Morrison's danger zone

Sovereignty isnt going to be protected by everyone joining hands and singing Danger Zone in the face of an advancing enemy. But Morrison makes a mockery of reality.

January 4, 2021

China's 'vaccine diplomacy': A global charm offensive. Winning hearts and minds!

As wealthy countries scramble to buy up the limited supply of big-name coronavirus vaccines, China is stepping in to offer its homegrown jabs to poorer countries. But the largesse is not entirely altruistic, with Beijing hoping for a long-term diplomatic return.

March 5, 2020

MICHAEL KEATING. Continuing economic stagnation

Wednesdays release of the national accounts for the December quarter reported better economic growth than many of the pundits feared. But there is no cause for celebration.

September 27, 2024

US, not Israel lobby, driving Albanese Government’s Gaza policy

Notwithstanding efforts to censure and bully journalists such as Antoinette Lattouf, Mary Kostakidis, John Lyons and Sophie McNeill, as well as grossly exaggerating anti-semitism on university campuses in an attempt to shut down pro-Palestinian encampments (and divert public attention from the genocide), I think it is a mistake to explain the Albanese Government’s Gaza policy shambles and moral degeneration as a testament to the power of the Israel lobby.

July 21, 2024

What have we learned from last year’s Optus outage?

Interestingly I started writing this article on the Friday afternoon the global CrowdStrike outage occurred. It is amazing to reflect on the similarities between the two outages. Both occurred because of a rogue software update and both showing our lack of resilience and ICT diversity. Issues like this need to be addressed in our underlying economic system, where low costs and short-term profits are prioritised over what are now becoming national and international existential issues.

April 18, 2023

Malcolm Fraser would have agreed with Paul Keating on AUKUS

Like so many Australians, I am very worried by our commitment to AUKUS. I agree strongly with many other critics that we have been placed in peril by our governments submarine agreement with the US and the UK.

September 22, 2021

Paul Keating: Morrison is making an enemy of China and Labor is helping him

The Liberals, having no faith in the capacity of Australians and all we have created here, could not resist falling back, yet again, to do the bidding of another great power, the United States of America.

August 4, 2021

Defence cooperation with the US at an uncertain time

Only by acknowledging China’s importance in the region while working with others to influence, if we can, their approach and actions can we achieve the peaceful, prosperous and stable region that we want to live in.

January 26, 2021

A Rightful Place, from colonisation to reconciliation

In the lead up to Survival Day this year, three key reports have been released, the interim Report to the Australian Government by the Indigenous Co-Design team on the Voice; the Human Rights Watch World Report for 2021; and the 2021 State of Reconciliation in Australia Report released last week by Reconciliation Australia.

June 7, 2024

Are you ready for WWIII? The Russians are

The Armavir Incident - the destruction on 23 May of a key part of Russia’s nuclear defence - means the Doomsday clock is ticking closer to midnight.

June 7, 2023

How JFK would pursue peace in Ukraine

Sixty years after Kennedy’s commencement address at American University, crucial lessons must still be learned about how to end dangerous conflicts in a nuclear world.

June 4, 2022

Well, thats it. Your life is over

The abrupt passing of a dear friend in a sudden moment is not only something I had not prepared for. I actually looked forward to seeing her on the weekend when we would meet up at Sunday Mass. But that wasnt to be and the sharp end was not negotiable.

April 11, 2022

What price democracy?

_For the second successive election, billionaire Clive Palmer is using his wealth to try to determine or at least significantly influence who will govern the country for the next three years.

September 16, 2021

The 'forever submarines' go nuclear

The nuclear submarine deal intensifies Australia’s military cooperation with the US. It will be up to our regional neighbours to decide whether, as Scott Morrison says, the deal will help and not hinder them.

August 8, 2021

Why Morrisons culture of secrecy is so damaging

As has been widely observed, Prime Minister Morrison is obsessed with secrecy. This obsession with secrecy damages both the policy capability of government and the integrity of public administration.

September 7, 2024

Unsuccessful asylum seekers now exceed those at primary and AAT stages

As has been the case every month since around 2015-16, the number of asylum seekers in Australia continued to set records, reaching 116,389 at end July 2024. The total number refused at both the primary level and at the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT), but not departed, is now a record of 43,499. On current policy settings, this number will continue to rise.

December 6, 2020

There were shocking Covid-19 infection rates in USA arrivals in March why were flights not shut down?

In early March this year, our experts should have gone in search of hard data. They would quickly have determined that the infection rate in USA arrivals was in dire contrast to the published USA rates.

November 9, 2020

China tells Australia to reflect on its own deeds as it imposes new import bans (SCMP 6.11.20)

Chinese importers advised to stop buying Australian barley, sugar, red wine, timber, coal, lobster, copper ore and copper concentrates. Foreign ministry says moves are justified and blames Canberra for downward spiral in relations.

October 6, 2020

Amnesty for Undocumented Workers

The ABC reports the Government is looking into an amnesty for undocumented workers to help address a shortage of farm workers.

September 30, 2024

Looming now in Indonesia: The age of uncertainty

There’ll soon be a new leader next door – ageing hardliner Prabowo Subianto. He’s Indonesia’s dark lord with a worrying past of alleged human rights abuses, yet overwhelmingly elected in the February national poll. He’ll take over on 20 October.

May 24, 2023

Reclaiming Australias strategic character

America feels above any need to explain its calamitous geostrategic actions. Of course, it has no obligation to. But its character is revealed as being comfortable with threat fabrication, on a grand scale. It is practised at making war on false premise. And appears energised by it, not repentant. Deception, including of allies, is integral to its geostrategic armoury.

April 8, 2023

Bruce Haigh: a farewell

Bruce Haigh, who died on April 7, was a diplomat, an adventurer, an artist and writer, a humanist, a romantic and a man with a deep love of his country, who mourned its fading ideals and values.

September 24, 2022

Is China Expansionist?

Chinas emergence as a great power has prompted many fears that it will start to become aggressive and militaristic. But while European powers have acted this way historically, Chinas own long history tells us that it wields power in a very different manner.

July 12, 2022

When words matter: Reviewing the Wong-Wang meeting

_Failure to recognise linguistic nuances partly explains the misinterpretation of the meeting by Birtles and other journalists.

April 13, 2022

How an influx of independents could change parliament for the better.( A repost from November 4, 2021)

_Voters disillusionment is much deeper than the current crop of leaders. There is something wrong with the system itself.

August 26, 2021

White Mans Media: controlled from afar and against the national interest.

The ownership and direction of a majority of the media, in Australia, is based in London and New York. They have no intrinsic interest in Australia and its welfare as a nation but only as a source of revenue and, as a piece of what they see as the western cause. They influence our foreign policy formulation, through their editorial choices and, we help them do it.

July 12, 2021

We have seen Morrisons best, and it wasnt much

The prime minister Scott Morrison is in a lot of trouble again. He will probably get out of it, with just a few more bruises and scratches, but the clock is running down on his leadership.

May 15, 2021

Sunday environmental round up.

Energy use is soaring in 2021 after COVID reduced demand in 2020. Renewables are approaching take-off in the USA, while the Australian government continues to load them with ballast. Call for health care services globally to reduce their large carbon footprint.

April 29, 2021

What will Frydenberg forecast for the budget in the 2021 Intergenerational Report?

Australias first four Intergenerational Reports made very different long-term forecasts of Australias budget balance and level of government debt driven largely by different assumptions of the real rate of economic growth. What will Josh Frydenberg forecast in his 2021 Intergenerational Report after forecasting budgetary nirvana in his 2019 ten year budget plan?

November 25, 2020

The Brereton Report: what the military can learn from the health system

_The Brereton Report makes for uncomfortable reading. Its findings and recommendations principally focus on individuals and their conduct, including unlawful acts, wilful misreporting, falsifying records, failing to exercise proper control over subordinates, giving false evidence and suborning colleagues to give false evidence.

November 1, 2020

Cartier watches and Morrison's pet rock.

Morrisons stalwart declaration of independence on climate changer sounded more like a petulant plea: stop the world, I want to get off.

October 29, 2020

Australia should show leadership on the nuclear ban-treaty

If Australia is committed to a rules-based order underpinned by international law, as it frequently claims to be, Canberra must sign the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

September 15, 2024

Legal responses to gendered violence in Australia

How do we address community concern about increasingly high rates of male violence towards women in Australia? As well as upholding the right of a defendant to a fair trial, should we also be considering the rights of the complainant in our legal processes?

September 10, 2024

Nelson Mandela warned us that 'the US has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world'

That warning was 20 years ago, but in the years since, the US has continued in its violent and aggressive ways, cloaking its violence and aggression with bromides about a rules-based international order and defence of democratic values. If only that was true.

July 2, 2024

Assange - the aftermath

On March 12 last year, former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr summed up why the Americans were determined to send the now free Julian Assange to a maximum security jail for over 170 years.

June 15, 2023

The case for recognising Palestine

Since a United Nations General Assembly Resolution vote in November 2012, Palestine has had the status of a state within the UN system. It is not a full member state but, like theHoly See, a non-member observer state. Australia after a heady debate within the Gillard cabinet abstained on that vote.

October 11, 2020

Witness K and Bernard Collaery: An Unjust Prosecution Gets Even Worse

The prosecution of former ACT Attorney-General, Bernard Collaery, and his client, Witness K, continues to play itself out before the ACT Supreme Court. This is a legal fiasco of the first order. The prosecution should never have commenced.

February 12, 2020

LAURIE PATTON. NBN latest: Oh dear, what can the matter be?

_Ive argued before, the only viable solution is to start replacing all the dud technology and that requires that we take the politics out and develop a bipartisan solution.

May 21, 2024

ICC delivers three surprises in overdue Netanyahu war crimes indictment

It had been widely anticipated that, to maintain any institutional respect, the International Criminal Court would have to indict some Israeli leaders, unavoidably including Prime Minister Netanyahu, in connection with the Gaza genocide and that, for balance, it would choose to indict at least one Hamas leader at the same time.

September 17, 2022

The Defence Strategic Review: Understanding Australias existing defence capability is critical

At this time, Australia should be able to rely on its own defence of the nations sea and air approaches, operating from infrastructure here. We have no reason to require US armed intervention for our security. That is a significant milestone coming after some fifty years of single-minded capital and activity programs. An example of tenacious public policy delivering big, complex outcomes.

August 30, 2022

Laurie Pearcey: Australias yellow peril fear is rooted in history

An early Australian leader said: the doctrine of the equality of man was never intended to apply to the equality of the Englishman and the Chinaman.

July 26, 2021

Did we all over-estimate what Scott Morrison had to offer?

_The prime minister is acquiring a reputation as a liar and a deceiver. Worse, his agenda is usually suspect.

June 24, 2021

ICAC wants real regulation of lobbying with its unfairness and the inherent risks of corruption.

ICAC tried 11 years ago to persuade the NSW Government to introduce a basic system to regulate lobbyists in the state, but only the bare bones of its proposals (essentially, just 5 out of 17 recommendations) were put into effect. It has now revisited the problem and determined a far more comprehensive scheme that would allow an independent official to monitor not only lobbyists but the ministers and government officials that they try to influence.

November 15, 2020

The rise of megaprojects

The era of megaprojects has well and truly arrived. But megaprojects run the risk of megaproblems.

October 3, 2020

Tamed Estate: Albanese follows Morrison's lead

This week we see that Albanese is following in Morrisons footsteps, with Morrison following the same path as usual. Meanwhile, Frydenberg is refining his dark arts, with Thursday nights drops receiving no critical coverage. We also have a brief look at abortive biased coverage on behalf of the Courier Mail.

February 9, 2020

DAVID WILLIAMSON. The Trump Card of the Right.

The political parties of the Left often still hold to the Enlightenment belief that we are rational creatures - that the person who has the best evidence based argument will win the debate. Sadly, as long as they do theyll keep losing.

October 2, 2024

Palestinian refugees in Lebanon: bombed to death, yet again by Israel

Innocent citizens in Gaza (80 % of whom are refugees), the West Bank, Lebanon and Yemen are being blown to bits in horrific numbers. But it is Palestinian refugees across the region who have been the principal target of this horrific American-Israeli war machine for over 76 years.

October 1, 2024

Israel’s goal: less defence, more domination

It was almost impossible to listen to Benjamin Netanyahu speak at the United Nations General Assembly without a feeling of despair and disgust.

June 12, 2024

Australia and the Israeli-Hamas War

We, the undersigned, urge the Australian Government to pursue a policy towards the Israeli-Hamas war which is more transparent, consistent and principled than currently is the case.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal