May 15, 2023

White Mans Media: Anti-China media beat ups continue

This time overpossible Chinese naval bases in the South Pacific.

April 4, 2023

Back to the future of a Cold War arms race?

While the AUKUS treaty has echoes of the tragic Iraq invasion of 2003, even closer comparisons can be found with the arms race of the 1980s.

May 24, 2022

Foreign policy needs priority and balance

In the 1972 film, The Candidate, Robert Redford played a United States Senate hopeful, who, having unexpectedly won, turned to his political strategist and asked, Marvin, what do we do now?

August 29, 2021

Crocodile tears by Morrison over plight of Afghans

The Taliban advance was swift; that was the point at which the Australian evacuation of at-risk personnel and their families should have begun. . Hiding behind intelligence is a poor excuse. US intelligence relating to Afghanistan has been as bad as their intelligence on Vietnam.

August 10, 2021

Morrison worries real conservatives even as he pleases business

It is not in the ordinary business community – among those with whom the coalition normally measures its stocks – that a strong sense of urgency about getting rid of the Morrison government runs strong. Many of these have done well under the Morrison government– and the Turnbull and Abbott governments which preceded it. Even the pandemic has led to an explosion of public cash going into it – and without much in the nature of red tape or accountability.

July 28, 2021

The ABC continues to deny right-wing bias by The Drum.

It is was with some sadness that I penned an article indicating what I saw as a right-winged bias by The Drum in its selection of some panellists. Since that article, I have continued to exchange correspondence with the ABC and I believe that the thread of responses mirrors the same tactics the Government uses to conceal obvious bias on their part. The ABCs tactics has been at first ignore, then deny and if that fails spin the story.

January 12, 2021

Fool's paradise: 'independent' advisers promote lie that transport infrastructure can lead a Covid recovery

A recent report for Infrastructure Australia confirms what many suspect some transport infrastructure projects should be shelved. Yet IA refuses to reassess any transport projects, including those it knows or should know are wrong.

November 16, 2020

Will President-elect Biden restore US leadership on refugees?

Biden told the audience of JRS supporters: The United States has long stood as a beacon of hope for the downtrodden and the oppressed, a leader in resettling refugees and our humanitarian response. I promise, as president, Ill reclaim that proud legacy for our country.

October 13, 2020

On behalf of victim-survivors: the church has to own this worldwide scandal

Some of Jesus-men have turned from fishing to lives of crime.

July 25, 2024

Palestinian factions agree to ‘national unity’ govt following China talks

The agreement follows a Knesset decision totally rejecting Palestinian statehood, and comes as ceasefire efforts remain stalled due to Israel’s position on continuing the war.

May 16, 2024

How Biden's state department would assess Hitler's extermination camps

Suppose the United States State Department was tasked during World War II to assess whether Adolf Hitler’s extermination camps violated international humanitarian law (IHL).

June 27, 2023

A new politics is coming, ready or not

Prime Minister Albaneses commitment to the bogus AUKUS deal stands in stark contrast to the ethical leadership of the late Simon Crean. At the time, Mr Creans opposition to John Howards craven commitment to the Iraq war was a rare and beautiful exception to the tradition of old politics in Australia. Can the country find leaders who will free us from the old politics forever?

July 1, 2022

Albanese's foreign policy

In early July 1971, as opposition leader in a conservative communist-fearing country, Gough Whitlam took the courageous step of visiting red China, a country then seen by many Australians as an invasion threat.

June 14, 2021

What actually is the G7? Is it a Western Club?

Climate change was a major theme and Australia was the shag on this rock. Morrison trotted out his usual line about doing what was in Australian interests which will not impress anyone outside of the naysayers back home.

June 6, 2021

Covid and aged care: When you are in a deep hole, the most important thing to do is stop digging.

The bottom line is that the needs of older people cannot be met unless aged care is better integrated with hospitals and health care managed by states and territories.

October 7, 2020

The Liberals Quietly Removed That Budget Surplus Mug From Its Store & We Can All Sip The Tea (Pedestrian March 10, 2020)

The Liberal Party has quietly removed a mug promoting a return to federal budget surplus from its official merchandise range, amid mounting speculation the Federal Government wont put the 2019-2020 budget Back In Black after all.

September 14, 2024

A wave of censorship – Israel is the last collapsing rampart of ‘Western civilisation’

Israel was created as a rampart of “Western civilisation” in the barbarous east, but now the rampart is at risk of being overwhelmed.

July 22, 2024

Zionist attempts to silence criticism running in top gear after ICJ ruling

Friday’s findings of the International Court of Justice on Israel’s conduct must be at the forefront of our legislator’s minds when they are pushed by the Israel lobby to enact the IHRA definition of antisemitism.

September 14, 2022

The Defence Strategic Review: Can we rely on the US?

Strategy: a plan designed to achieve a particular long-term aim. The strategic defence review is presumably intended to produce a plan that will guide decisions by the new Labor government on the acquisition of weapons and the use of other resources (such as people) to protect Australia against future threats to its people, its territory and its interests.

May 10, 2022

The Murdoch media has gone rogue again in the 2022 election (Updated repost from 27 Oct, 2017)

Denis Muller puts it this way in The Conversation

September 6, 2021

Vaccines: poor design, poor execution and Morrison failure

The prime minister has appointed an army general to lead the pandemic response, but we still don’t know when Australians will be able to declare victory over the virus.

January 10, 2021

Bojo and the undermining of Scottish democracy

The United States is not the only Western country having difficulties with its democratic credentials. Under Boris Johnsons chaotic regime, the UK has its own particular type of democratic deficit, especially concerning Scotland.

December 3, 2020

Where are the true, small-l liberal conservatives?

Australian conservatives seem to have lost some of their traditional commitment to institutions and the liberalism they protect.

November 4, 2020

Net-zero emissions by 2050: leadership or climate colonialism? (Canberra Times Nov 2, 2020)

How fast does Australia need to reduce greenhouse emissions to play its fair part in responding to the global climate emergency?

October 5, 2020

Scotty from marketing: A fact check

Trump is notorious for his lies, but it is time that a fact check was applied to Scotty from Marketing, too. Without it I doubt we can elevate the political debate from its present populism.

August 30, 2024

What happened to the surfers in Gaza?

Sometime in 2016 , soon after I’d joined the Northern Beaches Committee for Palestine, a group of us visited the then premier of New South Wales in his Manly electorate office.

June 20, 2024

A supine integrity agency is worse than useless; it is dangerous

An inactive integrity agency is not just a waste of money, it sits as another level of protection for public sector misconduct, writes Geoffrey Watson on the National Anti-Corruption Commission’s (NACC) decision not to hold those responsible for Robodebt to account.

June 9, 2024

The perils and promise of the emerging multipolar world

The world economy is experiencing a deep process of economic convergence, according to which regions that once lagged the West in industrialisation are now making up for lost time.

August 12, 2023

Environment: Biodiversity is decreasing but damaged ecosystems can be restored

Agricultural intensification is killing European birds. Europeans are killing Australias native rodents. Getting rid of invasive species and reintroducing native species can re-establish natural ecosystems.

April 25, 2023

The Defence Strategic Review is a claim to command civil society

The kind of strategic study Australia needs, to preside over this kind of defence staff college scribble, is one which gives a sense of our civil societys capacities, needs, aspirations and our neighbourhood. The Flippingbook is an entirely inappropriate, narrow minded, chauvinistic, militaristic thing that belongs in a country practising for fascism, the submergence of the civil power and civil society.

July 28, 2022

Will 2022 be the year primary health care takes a step up?

One thing primary care has a lot of is reports about reform. But despite a significant investment in reviews, consultations, and paper over the last five years, not a single cent has been invested in transforming these words on paper into policies which benefit patients and practitioners. Even though the previous governments ten-year primary care strategy was released on Budget night, no dollars were allocated for implementation.

July 14, 2022

Misconstruing Chinas demands, Australian media beat the drums of war

After three years in deep freeze, Australias relationship with China may be starting to thaw, with the foreign affairs ministers finally talking to each other.

July 1, 2021

Australian Media in the Asian Century.

This edition of ‘Australian Media in the Asian Century’ explores mainstream media coverage of the centenary for the Chinese Communist Party, UNESCO’s “in danger” listing of the Great Barrier Reef, abundant reports on the Miami building collapse and Australia’s Covid third wave in comparison to reports on Covid outbreaks in neighbouring countries, and ongoing tension between Australian universities and its Chinese students.

January 2, 2021

Reflections on and predictions for the Covid-19 pandemic as 2020 gives way to 2021. Part 2

If there is a brotherhood of man now is the time for it to manifest itself as we respond to the enormous challenge involved in overcoming the inequity that could stop us winning the struggle with a deadly virus. Of course in helping the less fortunate we will be helping ourselves.

December 16, 2020

The failure of Australian companies in Asia

Australian corporates are reluctant to enter into commercial relationships in foreign countries, particularly those in Asia, and this is at odds with our geographic location and our rhetoric.

December 1, 2020

Framing the Palace Letters by our National Archives

It doesnt need a conspiratorial mind frame to explain the Murdoch media, Morrison Government and National Archives synchronous framing of the Palace Letters just a realisation that such strategies are now so institutionalised that overt co-ordination is unnecessary.

October 11, 2020

US prison labour, foreign weapons-makers finance Australian government think tank ASPI

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute, a think tank owned by the Commonwealth and funded by the Defence Department, also receives millions from foreign governments, weapons manufacturers, and US corporations that have used or are using prison workers paid as little as 23 cents an hour.

March 20, 2019

CRISTA PONGRATZ-LIPPITT. Renowned reformer: 'Church has 5 years for a complete turnaround or it's over'

Father Helmut Schller of Austria says the sex abuse crisis shows urgent need to ‘desacralize’ the Catholic priesthood and empower the laity. .

September 14, 2024

ABC's belated reporting on 7 Oct helps justify genocide

Mick Hall analyses an Australian Broadcasting Corporation story — 11 months into a genocide — on the Israeli military’s use of the Hannibal Directive to kill its own citizens.

June 1, 2024

US politicians terrified of the ICC: "We are next" warns Lindsey Graham

Pro-Israel forces in Washington are trying to derail Karim Khan’s request for Israeli and Hamas arrest warrants.

May 11, 2024

Queen Rania of Jordan: What’s happening in Gaza is a war crime

This conflict has killed more children in five months than all the conflicts in the world in the past four years. Children have not been killed at this rate in any other time in history: the highest kill rate since the genocide in Rwanda in 1994.

May 2, 2024

Free Palestine’s Mandela -Twenty years in captivity

He is by far the most popular Palestinian leader alive today - and yet few people in the West even know his name. Everyone one in Gaza or the West Bank knows him. That difference speaks volumes about who dominates the media narrative that we are spoon-fed every day.

September 13, 2021

Coalition's game of chicken with China for political advantage

Does Australia continue to provoke and insult China not so much to hurt our biggest trading partner as to motivate our most important ally the United States to maintain a strong economic and military presence in the area?

August 17, 2021

Scott Morrison is no leader

Unlike the great Prime Ministers, Scott Morrison will not be remembered for his achievements. Instead, he will be judged by his unwillingness to take responsibility and provide the necessary leadership to adequately respond to the principal challenges facing this nation.

July 21, 2021

Reforming global trade rules for agriculture: The time has come

According to the recent G7 2021 Summit Declaration_: We stand united in our commitment to free and fair trade with a modernised rulebook and a reformed World Trade Organization. Nowhere is a modernised rules book more needed than for world agricultural production and trade. Without it, the consequences for Australian farmers will be dreadful. The timing to bring common sense to global agriculture is opportune, to say the least._

February 8, 2021

Stalemate in Australia-China relations

The People’s Republic of China continues to reject overtures for high-level ministerial dialogue while maintaining that Australia bears the lions share of responsibility to create a situation in which the relationship can be improved.

January 9, 2021

Noam Chomsky: Three major threats to life on earth that we must address in 2021

Large parts of the worldoutside of China and a few other countriesface a runaway virus, which has not been stopped because of criminal incompetence by governments.

January 1, 2021

Cabinet papers 2000: the Coalition before climate denialism, but on the path to offshore detention

Australian Cabinet papers from 2000, released today, reflect a relatively quiescent Australia where Islamic militancy and offshore detention were barely glimpses on the horizon, and climate science denialism was not a factor in cabinet considerations at all.

December 6, 2020

Australian voting in the United Nations on Israel reveals unpleasant realities

One of Australias best kept secrets by our media is our voting record in the United Nations on resolutions condemning the occupation of Palestinian land and human rights abuses by the State of Israel.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal