November 22, 2020

We were warned about the Brererton report - it is still shocking

Scott Morrison warned us that we would be shocked by the Brereton report on alleged war crimes and this is one promise he has kept.

November 19, 2020

It is a gross injustice to Mr Moselmane. Beyond gross.

The attacks on Mr Moselmane began months before the raids, with journalists and shock jocks being backgrounded to demonise him. Sky News Peta Credlin broadcast If we really have foreign agent laws, why isnt Moselmane being looked at? She knew very well that he was being lined up. Another leak by his opponents. Another crime which will go uninvestigated. Not much moral courage to be seen.

October 19, 2020

Trump pressures South Korea over China

_When most around the world had battened down the hatches for a rough ride through the last days of the US Presidential election campaign, the Republic of Korea (ROK) has become seriously preoccupied again with the Trump administration.

March 22, 2020

MUNGO MACCALLUM.-Confusing and often self-contradictory messages on Covid-19

As so often with Morrison, there is no overall strategy simply a series of reactive measures which, he hopes, will do the job unless a next one is needed. and then another one, and another one

June 29, 2024

As Israel's Gaza genocide death-toll passes 38,000: recognising Palestinian State now critical

Currently, the Palestine issue has become a question of how to get Israel to vacate and stop controlling Palestinian territories. That requires Israel to accept that it cannot continue pretending Palestine does not exist. Thankfully for Palestinians, however, it looks like much of the world already recognises that Palestine is a state.

July 3, 2022

Its time for a top-down review of defence

Labor has a big reputation to protect on defence reform.At historic turning points in Australias security it was mostly Labor governments which turned up and delivered.

April 9, 2022

Environment: Terrestrial and coastal ecosystems destroyed by human activities

Seagrasses are the forgotten but valuable cousins of our coasts. Powerful farmers pay lots and lobby hard to avoid regulation, but methane emissions can be reduced.

September 9, 2021

John Menadue-At last,Australia backs Covid vaccine patent waiver. Better late than never

Peoples vaccines may yet become a reality. Lets hope so despite opposition by Big Pharma and rich countries.

August 9, 2021

The Morrison ship of state might be better scuttled

A significant number of Australians of essentially conservative disposition are getting to the point of thinking that the most urgent and important political priority of the next 10 months – even above completing the war against Coronavirus – should be the disposal of the Morrison government. It is urgent, they think, because the Australian model of government of law, by law and under the law might be destroyed if it is allowed to go on much longer.

April 4, 2021

Misogyny at the heart of our Australian parliaments

In the normal course of events, one might expect the Roman Church in Australia to have something to say about the sub-culture within the Liberal and Country Parties in Canberra, and about the treatment of women in our community. After all, this institution used to be the self-appointed guardian of morality and the police official responsible for identifying and controlling sins and peccadillos of a sexual nature.

January 24, 2021

Pompeo and Blinken are wrong: China is not committing genocide in Xinjiang

On his last day as US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo declared Chinas human rights abuses in the Xinjiang region constituted genocide against ethnic Uighur Muslims. This outrageous declaration was the last of many that Pompeo has issued in a deliberate attempt to destroy relations with China on his way out of office.

December 21, 2020

The New Neocolonialism in Southeast Asia

In the colonial era in Southeast Asia extending from the 15th to the late 20th century, the Western powers, (including America in the late 19th century) competed for, occupied and governed Southeast Asia. The former colonial masters continued to impose economic, political, cultural and other pressures to control or influence their former colonies. Now, just as they have finally begun to throw off their lingering colonial shackles, a new neocolonial era is in the offing, more conceptual than physical.

November 16, 2020

One does not accept for a moment that America is exceptional. (The Scrum Nov 9, 2020)

_A humane health-care system? NoBiden has already said so. A proper infrastructure program? No. A jobs program, a Green New Deal? No and no. On the foreign side, renovated, 21st century policies toward Russia, North Korea, China, apartheid Israel? No, no, no, and emphatically no. What about the Iran nuclear accordyes, that one, the one that matters? No again: Biden is far too in with the Israeli lobby to reverse the Trump administrations course, and anyone who expects otherwise is still dreaming.

September 13, 2024

Avoiding an 'exclusion' disaster in the Pacific – a different lesson from Ukraine

The most senior US officials, including President Joe Biden himself, refer to US alliances with individual or groups of countries in the Indo-Pacific as benign and defensive in nature. These references contrast with warnings about the possible “knock-on” effect of a Russian victory in Ukraine which, it is said, could encourage China to seek to incorporate Taiwan by force. However, an examination of the situation in Europe provides a different lesson for our part of the world; that is that building an alliance system which excludes the most important country in a region can have disastrous effects.

April 21, 2024

‘To Boldly Go’---but not so far as to replace the private sector

The Government’s foreshadowed bill for a “Future Made in Australia” has been met with two very different kinds of response, one positive, welcoming the prospect of initiatives from the Government to support and promote investment in forward-leaning projects and the “industries of the future”, the other negative, saying that governments should stay out of private sectors’ business, risk creating distortions if they don’t, and in Australia’s case that we shouldn’t try to compete with much bigger countries like the US and China, able to swamp any subsidies we might give our industries.

September 16, 2023

Australia: Made for free trade and a tax on rent

There is no more important issue in Australian taxation reform than replacing current arrangements by efficient mineral rent taxation. That requires large analytic effort and effective political leadership. Success would bring high rewards to the Australian polity, and I expect electoral rewards to the Government that is seen as being responsible for a good outcome.

June 11, 2023

Terrorists, Saudi Arabia, and the CIA

Documents publicly available make it clear that Saudi Arabian government officials assisted the two 9/11 hijackers, Nawaf Al-Hazmi and Khalid Al-Midhar, who crashed an airliner into the Pentagon. Newly released testimonies further reveal that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was aware of the activities of the two hijackers before the 9/11 attacks and suggest that the agency was seeking to use them to penetrate Al-Qaeda.

July 18, 2022

Our Defence Minister spurns realism, imperilling Australia

Behind the militarese the professionals know this means that Australia will cough up as much money and forces as necessary to fight China in a high-intensity war on Chinas doorstep.

May 17, 2022

Why this election campaign is so disappointing

Proposals for policy reforms in this country are most often hamstrung by the lack of government revenue required to implement them. Unless this impediment is overcome, many very worthwhile proposals for reform will continue to be ignored.

June 13, 2021

Australia's facile immigration policy debate

Australias immigration policy debates over the past 30 years have largely consisted of the usual suspects trotting out the usual lines.

May 11, 2021

Chinese Realities - Past and Present

The year was 1962. As Canberras first trainee in Chinese I had been placed on the Department of External Affairs China desk and told to monitor rising tension along the Sino-Indian Himalayan frontier. Beijing was complaining about repeated Indian frontier violations and warning there would be consequences if India went too far.

February 7, 2021

Murdoch & Morrison v. The ABC - GetUp fails a commendable mission

GetUp has added public broadcasting to environmental justice, human rights and other worthy issues. Through the just-released video, Murdoch & Morrison v. The ABC, its trying to arouse anger against the impact of News Corps never-ending siege of the national broadcaster

January 26, 2021

Bushfire Rorts: Coalition targets bushfire recovery funds for Coalition seats

Federal and state funds for bushfire recovery have been heavily skewed in favour of state Coalition seats with NSW State Labor picking up just 1% of $177 million handed out. The devastated Blue Mountains electorate, with a Labor MP, received nothing.

January 4, 2021

NARA Treaty debacle

Today our intelligence agencies and bureaucrats tell us that China is the enemy. But less than 50 years ago the same agencies and bureaucrats (or their predecessors) were warning us that the enemy against which we had to prepare was Japan.

March 2, 2020

MUNGO MACCALLUM.-Scott Morrison is not one to let a chance go by

Desperate for political rehabilitation after his negligence and mismanagement after the bushfires, our leader has taken full control of the situation.

September 19, 2024

The world’s chance to confront US-Israeli genocide

The UN General Assembly is set to debate and vote on a resolution calling on Israel to end “its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory” within six months.

September 11, 2024

China holds whip hand in Myanmar’s civil war

As civil war rages, Myanmar is the most fragmented it has been since 1949. Back then, the recently established post-colonial government was beset on all sides, its various detractors challenging its ideology and its composition.

September 4, 2024

Never mind the quality, feel the words

The paperwork signing late last month by Defence Minister Richard Marles and his Indonesian counterpart Prabowo Subianto in Magelang (Central Java) is being paraded as an extraordinary advance in relationships. It’s not.

July 26, 2024

10 principles for perpetual peace in the 21st century

The United Nations-based structures are fragile and in need of an urgent upgrade; we should consider this one at the U.N. Summit of the Future in September.

July 9, 2024

The Summit of the Future

The world’s geopolitical system is not delivering what we want or need. Sustainable development is our declared goal, meaning economic prosperity, social justice, environmental sustainability, and peace. Yet our reality is continued poverty amidst plenty, widening inequalities, deepening environmental crises, and war. To get back on track, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has wisely called for a Summit of the Future (SOTF) at the United Nations on September 22-23, a call that has been endorsed by the 193 UN Member states.

September 22, 2022

Asylum Seeker Policy Where to now?

One of the most complex and controversial issues the Albanese Government will deal with during the current budget process will be asylum seeker policy.

July 25, 2022

Wong challenged to support a humanitarian intervention in Myanmar

_A critical meeting occurs this week with representatives of the Myanmar diaspora, human rights officials, DFAT staff and the Foreign Minister Penny Wongs office which is expected to deliver a new policy approach from Australia on Myanmar.

July 6, 2022

Back to first principles on drugs

Just why is it so hard for politicians to see a better way forward in dealing with drugs in the community and to act on that vision? It is not for lack of evidence of what works to make things better and most of the community knows that.

April 20, 2022

The repeated lie that Morrison stopped the boats. An updated repost from March 11, 2021

_Our corporate media will not acknowledge that Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison didnotstop the boats. Despite clear evidence, the Canberra Press Gallery fell for the spin. With a tame media and cooperation by the military, the big lie was repeated time and time again and became accepted as fact. This was all before Donald Trump and his big lies.

September 8, 2021

When should the lockdown end?

Suppressing the virus will require much lower caseloads before lockdowns can lift, even if we meet vaccination targets.

August 1, 2021

What does Labor offer? Part 1

Labors repudiation of its previous opposition to the Governments Stage 3 income tax cuts, and its decision to drop its reforms covering the taxation of capital gains and negative gearing raises two major concerns.

June 10, 2021

Ageism and the secret to living a long life.

The Archibald is 100 and Peter Wegner has won the 2021 prize for his portrait of 100-year-old artist Guy Warren who commented, “One hundred years is a hell of a lot of experience. Ive survived the Great Depression, a war, Ive survived serious medical difficulties and Ive survived COVID touch wood. The secret to living a long life is you just have to keep living.”

January 21, 2021

Hurrah for double standards in corporate world

Sycophancy from Joe Hockey; double standards in the corporate world; one-sided coverage of the plan to force Google and Facebook to pay for news content; quarantine confusion, again… Mainstream media serves up the usual.

January 19, 2021

The continuing loss of plant, animal and reptile species has dire consequences

While cats provide much-needed companionship, they are also genetically programmed killers. Cats have devastating effects on biodiversity, which is vital for food security. ..Estimates are that domestic cats kill 61 million birds a year and those becoming feral kill more than 300 million birds plus countless small mammals and reptiles. By contrast the recent Australian bushfires killed 180 million birds.

December 16, 2020

What has happened to influenza (and everything else) during the COVID-19 pandemic?

By December 10 2020, there have been over 68 million cases of COVID-19 and over 1.5 million deaths worldwide. But there has been a dramatic reduction in influenza, a winter illness responsible for about 3000 deaths annually in Australia

December 3, 2020

Queensland's tightrope - keeping regions happy in face of pressure to cut emissions

Queenslands export income, mining royalties and the massive dividends from its state-owned energy enterprises have previously ensured that the State could service a heavy debt load and improve its social service provision without having to sell the bulk of its income-generating public enterprises.

December 1, 2020

Australia no longer an apostle, or exemplar, of good government

The OECD is also an academy and apostle of good government and good public administration. Clean public administration, open and accountable and subject to checks and balances, including integrity commissions. These are all things that the Morrison government, with the particular support of the hard-right Western Australian faction that Mathias Cormann has led, is opposed to, in both principle and practice.

November 17, 2020

Can it get worse after Trump?

When Joe Biden is in the White House and Donald Trump is back in his tower or at his resort, some things about the Trump years will be missed.

August 29, 2020

The Right Direction for China-US Relations (China-US Think Tanks Media Forum - July 9 2020)

Remarks by State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi at the China-US Think Tanks Media Forum.

August 8, 2024

Rediscovering Australia’s Asian destiny

Australia must awaken a spirit of enquiry and zest about our region and the belief that our destiny as a nation rests there.

May 15, 2024

A public interest defence must protect whistleblowers like David McBride

The jailing of military whistleblower David McBride, who exposed alleged war crimes by Australian troops in Afghanistan, for 5 years and 8 months by the ACT Supreme Court shines a light on a number of issues and one of them requires urgent consideration. The need for a public interest defence to protect individuals like McBride.

September 18, 2023

Taking the high ground: let kindness have its day

I lost any reservations about The Voice after seeing a movie.

August 7, 2023

AUSMIN death knell for diplomacy

The AUSMIN talks confirmed Australias status as a client state of the United States. Its shift has taken years but this is a significant change from the previous status of a friend, or ally, because it hands a significant slice of Australian sovereignty to a foreign power. The degree of military integration foreshadowed by Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin and enthusiastically endorsed by Australia’s Defence Minister Richard Marles suggests that future decisions around conflicts in the region will be made by America and rubber stamped by Australia.

June 4, 2023

Australia, little country lost

You could hear, when Biden squibbed the Quad, the Austral-Americans deflate.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal