November 25, 2020

West Australian Liberals gamble on youth

Like a football club hoping to climb up from the bottom of the ladder, the West Australian Liberals have gone for youth in their latest leadership selection.

November 23, 2020

An early test of strength in Indonesia

Just a year into its second five-year term, Indonesian President Joko Widodos government is under threat. Opposition is being powered by a hate group led by an incendiary preacher demanding the nation abandons democracy for a sharia state. How serious is the menace? Well know next week.

September 18, 2024

Would Trump or Harris keep the US out of new wars?

Donald Trump wants to end the conflict in Ukraine, but would have fewer guardrails in office. However, Kamala Harris might take a harder line on China than we think.

September 15, 2024

Are America’s right and left converging on foreign policy?

The interview of Jeffrey Sachs, a Social Progressive, by Tucker Carlson, a Social Conservative, makes riveting viewing since its an insight to where the polar enemies of American politics may be converging on their big picture view of US foreign policy.

July 15, 2024

The Tao of Terra: the fate of East and West are intertwined as never before

In our highly interconnected world, the fates of both the East and West are intertwined as never before. In the face of existential challenges, it becomes imperative for humanity to work together for the common good. Our survival now hinges on our ability to foster mutual understanding, promote global cooperation, and embrace our shared humanity.

April 9, 2024

The crimson thread of racism festers in the darker interstices of Australian culture

In 1890 Henry Parkes spoke of “The crimson thread of kinship running through us all.” He believed this “crimson thread” – evocative of blood – united all white people in the Australian colonies and bound them to Britain. The federation he was advocating for Australia was to be exclusively white and eternally British.

August 30, 2023

The Rights of Indigenous People

The 13th of September 2007 was an important day in the history of Australian diplomacy although few people have heard of it. That was the occasion when veteran Aboriginal activist Les Malezer addressed the U.Ns General Assembly as the Chair of the Global Indigenous Caucus and introduced the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People.

June 25, 2023

The United States faces a critical choice

Does it want to maintain its primacy or improve the livelihood of its people?

September 28, 2022

John Pilger's 2014 warning about Ukraine

_A silent coup has taken place in Washington and rampant militarism now rules.

September 17, 2022

The Defence Strategic Review: How not to think about security

In both Australia and China strategic debates are dominated by specialists with similar views, a situation epitomised by the forthcoming Defence Strategic Review. A fixation with traditional threats wastes resources, increases the risk of conflict, and makes addressing the immediate danger posed by climate change even more difficult.

September 7, 2021

Xi Jinping wards off China-style populism

The focus on egalitarianism and crackdown on conspicuous consumption is just Beijings way of dealing with the inequalities associated with globalisation that have disrupted Western politics.

July 5, 2021

The vaccine roll out is a much bigger debacle than the NBN rollout

December 22, 2020

Multicultural Australia?

Just what do we mean by multicultural? Who is part of multicultural Australia and who is not?

October 5, 2020

Lobby Land. Government gives in to mortgage broking lobbyists. Putting profits before people.

Unintended consequences. Its the clich consumer groups such as CHOICE are used to hearing from industry groups every time a major review recommends a change that would put people before profits.

October 4, 2024

On nuclear weapons, how long will Australia continue to be out of step with its nearest neighbours?

Last week, Indonesia, our biggest and closest neighbour, deposited its instrument of ratification of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) at the UN. This was a major international and regional development, a good-news story with a very positive impact on international security, but we’ve heard virtually nothing about it from our government and very little in the media.

July 1, 2024

The legacy media hate Julian Assange

It is often said that the reason the legacy media hate Julian Assange so much is that they are jealous of Assange’s rock star status. But it is much more than that. Not only did Assange make the MSM look dishonest; by reinventing Fourth Estate journalism with WikiLeaks, Julian Assange challenged the control of the narrative that is the source of the power of the legacy media.

May 30, 2024

Rafah massacre demonstrates urgent need to cut ties and sanction Israel

The Jewish Council of Australia renews our calls for the Albanese Government to use all possible diplomatic pressure to stop Israel committing the crime of genocide.

June 9, 2023

China and US power in Southeast Asia

Chinas power has replaced the United States in the eyes of most of our Asian neighbours, according to the latest Lowy Institute Asia Power Snapshot. What are the implications for Australia?

April 16, 2023

AUKUS as cultural cringe

_There are many cogent arguments against AUKUS, and Pearls and Irritation_s has featured most of them. For me the most galling is the re-emergence of the images of the Anglosphere, and the photos of Australian Prime Ministers beaming between the US President and the UK Prime Minister, as if nothing had changed since Sir Robert Menzies invoked our great and powerful friends.

August 15, 2022

The goading of China continues day after day. Pelosi was just the most recent deliberate provocation

The path to war in Asia crossing the Rubicon.

January 1, 2021

Reflections on and predictions for the Covid-19 Pandemic as 2020 gives way to 2021. Part 1

At a meeting recently in Texas the chairman of the International Association for the Promotion of SARS viruses addressed an enthusiastic audience. Representatives of all strains of COVID-19 currently having their way with humans were present. How much better is this than being confined to a dingy cave resting in a Bat, he laughed. How smart we were to pick a host whose behaviour is helping us to multiply and see the world?.

November 16, 2020

Australian charity in Indonesia can be a problem.

Until recently Indonesia presented itself to the West not as a Muslim country but through Bali, a land of smiling faces, exotic dancers, paradisiacal landscapes.

October 12, 2020

Theres one sure thing about Josh Frydenbergs budget it is shovel ready

Warehouses have been emptied to find the shovels (and the wheelbarrows, the backhoes, the bulldozers and the front-end loaders) needed to move the mountains of cash from the invisible lenders through the Treasury to the pockets of the punters.

June 10, 2024

Rebuilding the NDIS

660 000 Australians are participants in the National Disability Insurance Scheme, and 400 000 work in NDIS-related jobs. Our country needs the NDIS, but it’s expanded too quickly in recent years, as state-based services have withered on the vine. 11% of five- to seven-year-old Australian boys, and 5% of five- to seven-year-old girls, are now NDIS participants. At the current rate of growth, its cost could increase to as much as $100 billion a year by 2032. This is simply unsustainable. The Disability Royal Commission, the recent NDIS Review, and the Parliamentary Joint Standing Committee into the NDIS (of which I’m a proud member), have been clear that the NDIS needs significant reform.

June 10, 2023

Environment: Do CO2 emissions influence your life expectancy?

Military activities generate uncounted but large amounts of greenhouse gas. Ocean temperatures hit all-time peak in April. Victoria to end logging of native forests. And, do your personal CO2 emissions influence your life expectancy?

April 28, 2023

The nation state is on the skids

The 21st Century is changing much about the world that humans take for granted. Among the more shocking possibilities is that it will sound the death-knell of the nation-state as the main instrument of human self-governance.

August 19, 2022

The Anglican breakaway 'cult' - a swan that quacks like a duck must be a duck

In contemporary English, a cult is generally understood to mean a group committed to a particular or singular personality, ideology, or goal; one that distinguishes them from mainstream practice or belief.

June 23, 2022

The United States-the Pacific bully

_The US dominates the Pacific Islands to an extent China can never hope to achieve. With Australias support, the US is now engaged in an arms build-up in its Pacific territories and de-facto colonies in a little known boost to its containment of China.

December 23, 2020

Lets all shout out for our nurses in 2021

During COVID-19, it is the nurses who are predominantly in the front line. Doctors can come into a ward, see patients and then move on. The nurses stay there. They are the ones most exposed to infection. They put their lives on the line. And they are true professionals, to be valued and respected. Lets celebrate them

November 26, 2020

You'll need a vaccine whether you like it or not

Sixty-plus years ago when, as a student, I was making my first overseas trip, there was more hassle involved in getting the required international certificates of vaccination certificate (issued by the Department of Health on behalf of the World Health Organisation) than there was in obtaining a passport. The little yellow booklet also received more careful inspection by airline and immigration/quarantine officers, before travel and on arrival overseas, than did my passport.

September 28, 2024

Payslip harassment: Another scandal in the Australian welfare system

New revelations have exposed the continued abuse of vulnerable Australians by privatised employment services under Workforce Australia. Documents obtained under Freedom of Information by the Australian Unemployed Workers’ Union confirm that several providers are threatening job-seekers with payment suspensions to coerce them into handing over payslips. This is a clear breach of the guidelines, but the government has failed to hold these providers to account. The question continues: what is the point of a Labor Government?

September 20, 2024

What would a second Trump presidency mean for the global economy?

Donald Trump inherited a strong economy from President Barack Obama and managed it poorly.

August 18, 2023

Australia, alliances and deterrence: AUKUS will not make us safer

By entering the AUKUS Partnership in 2021, Australia has undertaken to co-operate with the United States and the United Kingdom, two nuclear-weapon states, with objectives that include acquiring nuclear-powered submarines that would be armed with conventional weapons. This has the potential to weaken both the Treaty on theNon-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), by setting a damaging precedent for other states, and the Treaty of Rarotonga.

August 17, 2023

AUKUS and the star-spangled kangaroo

How ever did it come to this!

July 31, 2023

Pearls and Irritations is required reading for all who mistrust the party line.

But it needs your financial support to survive and grow. With the mainstream media handcuffed to the firewall, our governments self-censored by ‘freedom’ of information, and the national interest ignoring the public interest, Australians need an online opinion site that’s free, accessible, informative, uninhibited, and quick to read.

May 18, 2023

Call for a Parliamentary Inquiry into the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine deal

The Australian Government has announced a four-decades long deal to acquire American and British nuclear-powered submarines, at an indicative cost of $268 billion to $368 billion.

June 28, 2022

Ukraine is the latest neocon disaster

The war in Ukraine is the culmination of a 30-year project of the American neoconservative movement. The Biden Administration is packed with the same neocons who championed the US wars of choice in Serbia (1999), Afghanistan (2001), Iraq (2003), Syria (2011), Libya (2011), and who did so much to provoke Russias invasion of Ukraine. The neocon track record is one of unmitigated disaster, yet Biden has staffed his team with neocons. As a result, Biden is steering Ukraine, the US, and the European Union towards yet another geopolitical debacle. If Europe has any insight, it will separate itself from these US foreign policy debacles.

September 2, 2021

The Age demeans itself as well as the Victorian public health team

The most disturbing aspect of The Age_s disappointing editorial yesterday is its undermining of the states public health messaging and compliance efforts._

November 23, 2020

Japan as Australias anti-China ally?

Governments lie - WMD threats from Iraq, communist invasion threats from VietnamNow they say the threat is from China, and that this time they are telling the truth.

October 2, 2024

How should Australia respond as Israel provokes war?

Israel, the Australian government’s ‘ steadfast friend’, has committed an act of terror against the people of Lebanon.

June 14, 2024

Walking into war with China: an American trap hidden in plain sight

There is no question that the path to war has been set against Russia and China. Nor is there doubt that the brunt will be borne by US allies, as the US has repeatedly proclaimed its “gratitude” to allies without which its geostrategy would be impossible. The question remaining is when war will require allies to shed blood.

June 8, 2024

AUKUS: An Australian tragedy

Euripides drama Medea about unpunished crimes infecting the Greek city-state contains some sobering lessons for Australia’s future in AUKUS.

May 24, 2024

ICC takes a scalpel to Western moral authority

With the surgical precision of a scalpel, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has severed what remained of the moral authority of the West.

April 16, 2024

The end of occupation: A state of Palestine at the UN

UNSC approval of the application for Palestine to become a full UN member state this week would necessarily lead to the end of the occupation. One UN member state cannot occupy the land of another. In the present circumstances, a US veto of Palestinian statehood would make America look ridiculous. It would be seen as a puppet of the State of Israel, incapable of thinking for itself and doing considerable injury to US standing in world affairs.

September 27, 2023

A year of lying about Nord Stream

The Biden administration has acknowledged neither its responsibility for the pipeline bombing nor the purpose of the sabotage.

August 24, 2023

The Voice: walking with the Australian people for a better future

For me, indigenous recognition wont be changing our constitution so much as completing it. Tony Abbot, 2015.

June 29, 2023

To tackle climate change, we need peace and also an accountable Defence department

Preventing wars, demilitarisation and promoting peace are vital strategies for tackling climate change, writes Dr Sue Wareham OAM, President of the Medical Association for Prevention of War. She also urges the Defence Department to lift its game on climate action, and to commit to improved measurement, reporting and scrutiny of military emissions.

April 30, 2022

Environment: Native forests out perform plantations in providing environmental benefits

Native forests deliver more benefits than plantations. Loss and damage, the unloved sibling in climate negotiations. China builds up its environmental legal system.

June 30, 2021

Rules-based international order camouflage for US exceptionalism

Bipartisan exceptionalism still predominates under Biden with rules-based international order at the core of his foreign policy prevailing over adherence to international law. China is stepping up its counter to US and Australian attempts to organise a new regional coalition of deterrence.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal