September 13, 2021

When politics fail: The folly in under-funding the ABC's international services

The ABC is under such constant pressure and threats from government (as well as relentless attacks from hostile media and other organisations such as the IPA), its not surprising that public attention is almost exclusively on the domestic service.

January 14, 2021

Media in the Asian Century. An Australian anti-China hawk helped draft US Strategic Framework for the Indo-Pacific

“In many ways (Australians) were ahead of the curve in understanding influence operations and interference in domestic systems,” one senior US official told me. “They were pioneers and we have to give a lot of credit to Australia. The official singled out former Australian senior intelligence advisor John Garnaut for praise…'

January 7, 2021

David and Goliath battle over community alcohol harms is under way in the NT

There is a David and Goliath battle being waged in the Northern Territory as health and social welfare organisations and Indigenous leaders battle business behemoths and the Territory Government over the issuance of new liquor licences.

January 3, 2021

The shabby treatment of nurses by medical doctors.

A collection of recent articles about the dismissal of the key role of nurses by the Medical Benefits Schedule Review Taskforce. The doctor dominated Taskforce is determined not to understand that nurses hold the health system together

December 15, 2020

How Morrison repeatedly baulks at the vision thing and the moral thing

The unwillingness of the Morrison government to see the 2019-20 bushfire disaster as some sort of turning point was deliberate. That refusal to provide any sort of lead, or leadership, or to show some imagination about a new economy, and a new society, was again evident during the Covid-19 crisis.

November 12, 2020

Can Biden deal with greatness, or white supremacy?

Biden’s political victory in the Presidential elections is only half the story. He now has the challenge of convincing almost half the American population that nostalgia for some mythical greatness based on white supremacy and religiosity is not in their best interests. The Spanish civil war.. can be understood, as the moral and military confrontation between those nostalgic for the old Catholic empire and the liberals of modern Europe.

October 25, 2020

Shaoquett Moselmane, Dan Oakes and Julian Assange: what price justice? What about the media?

Under the guise of a phenomenon called security, currently interpreted as suspect any pro-China sentiment, or dont reveal murder by US forces, sinister theatrics play across Australia. These reveal Shaoquett Moselmane MP as one victim, ABC journalist Dan Oakes another, and in Londons Belmarsh security prison sits Julian Assange.

August 1, 2024

The sudden collapse of the Biden puppetry

Joe Biden has finally agreed to quit his re-election pursuit. I, for one, am not celebrating. Biden could have become a great American president, but instead he chose a foreign policy trajectory that effectively made him the most inept American president in modern history.

September 12, 2023

Heres what the U.S. is doing to prepare for war in Asia

Preparations for the United States to launch a war against China are far more advanced than many people realise. And when you look at just how much work has been done, it no longer looks like a matter of if, but more of a question of when.

September 15, 2022

Climate change, weather elements and natural disasters: what links?

Over the past couple of years, the idea that humanly-created climate change is real and worrying has become increasingly accepted in Australia. Few scientists now argue the opposite point of view, the commentariat has largely followed suit even News Corps opposition is no longer a matter of policy and polls suggest that scepticism and denialism are in retreat in the popular mind.

January 17, 2021

Ongoing Trumpism Australian influence predictions probably overblown

Kishor Napier-Raman posed a question about the Australian political future when he wrote (crikey 15 January 2021) that: The question is no longer whether Trumpian politics are on the rise in Australia, its now a question of how severe the damage will be.

December 23, 2020

BBC & ABC threatening hearts and minds

Apropos the times, in Covid-Speak government propaganda and liesspread by compliant media are a war-mongering contagion and the onlyvaccine is the Truth.. and where do you get it? At principled alternativemedia sites like Pearls & Irritations. They save lives.

December 8, 2020

Corruption in Indonesia: Ants after sugar

Corruption is heavy stuff so lets lighten with an old Indonesian joke:A farmers goat is stolen so he reports to the police.Theyll investigate if he pays.The fee is a cow.The theft is neither solved nor the bovines returned.

November 2, 2020

What if climate change is merely seen as Gods will?

The line between faith and fatalism can be blurry, but it raises an important question for a Pentecostal prime minister leading a nation that is fast becoming a global outlier on the subject of energy policy.

October 7, 2020

The Budget: record spending, but very little for First Nations peoples

So unless youve been off the grid or in a bunker since January, the 2020 Budget has been offered up by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg last night (5 months late) with the historic backdrop being the cold, hard economic reality of living with a global pandemic.

August 16, 2024

The Green Party's vision for a better Australia

Many are disillusioned by the uncaring policies and actions of the two old parties, Labor and the LNP, to the real needs of the Australian public today. Greens believe everyone should be given ‘a fair go’, not just fussing over a pandered elite and multinational corporation lobbies. Read exclusive AMUST interview with Max Chandler-Mather opening up on strong potential for Greens to change the face of Australian politics back to a caring institution.

May 21, 2023

Australia: The clever country?

In the 1980s, then Prime Minister Bob Hawke told us we should try to become the clever country. Instead, we have become the stupid country. We now have the trade pattern of a poor developing nation. It is obvious that the decade of Coalition government has moved us away from that goal, giving us instead a country that is less caring, less fair, less focussed on community and less able to respond to accelerating climate change.

September 26, 2022

PM attending controversial Abe State funeral a diplomatic mis-step

Mr Albanese is coming to Tokyo for the September 27 state funeral of former Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe. Does our PM know or care about Abe’s background? Two thirds of Japanese people oppose the state funeral.

August 21, 2022

John Queripel: The blind side to western wars and western war crimes

_The calls mount for the Russian leader to be dragged before a War Crimes Tribunal, while everyone from international sporting bodies to businesses and banks is busy sanctioning Russia. Yet, the three world leaders responsible for the illegal Iraq war of 2003 have still not been held to account

August 9, 2022

Ausmin and Aukus: It's even worse than you think. Australia is now openly a cog in Americas war plans

_Nothing exemplifies the loss of national sovereignty, and the abandonment of strategic autonomy, like handing the war decision over to the US. The submarine issue is simply a blind. AUKUS is just a distraction.

April 11, 2022

Don't swallow the prunes - ADF's inter-service rivalry on display

Admiral Prunes unabashed bid for Navy funding has provided a window in to inter-service rivalry in the ADF. Also, it gives an unfortunate glimpse of the confused thinking infecting Defence.

September 16, 2021

Australia should learn from Korea on managing a relationship with China

China was the elephant in the room for the discussions Marise Payne and Peter Dutton had with their Korean counterparts in Seoul. Koreas extremely complex bilateral relationship with China is so different from our own.

July 6, 2021

Xi Jinping's CPC centenary speech: Is there cause for alarm?

A speech to commemorate 100 years of the Communist Party of China by its leader Xi Jinping prompted another flurry of anxiety in the Australian media over the China threat. But former diplomat Colin Heseltine argues Xis speech was aimed at a domestic audience and departed little from standard lines on national security issues.

October 7, 2020

No-one hypoxic or hospitalised with COVID-19 should have the power to launch nuclear weapons

President Trumps failure to delegate authority during his illness is a danger to the world.

March 1, 2020

KEN HENRY. A longer term look at the labour market.

The unemployment rate is relatively low and the participation rate relatively high. So the employment ratio is close to historically high levels. But that doesnt tell us everything we need to know about the strength of the labour market.

September 5, 2024

The West truly doesn't see Palestinians as human

You never see the dehumanisation of Palestinians in Western society exhibited so clearly as when something bad happens to Israelis during the genocidal assault on Gaza.

June 16, 2023

The generational divide in Australian politics is widening

Opposition to the AUKUS deal among rank and file Labor supporters and similarly aligned voters is increasing by the day.

July 19, 2022

AUKUS contrived to foster the unrealistic and unattainable aims of American foreign policy

In all of my experience, AUKUS is the worst example of abuse within the so-called American alliance.

September 22, 2021

What does the ALP stand for?

Apart from Paul Keating and a few others I do not know what the Australian Labor Party (ALP) now stands for on key issues.

September 6, 2021

Agriculture industry condemned to becoming a growing centre for exploitation and abuse

The Senate report on temporary migration makes many excellent recommendations, but also misses opportunities.

December 28, 2020

Replacing Cruelty to Refugees with Aspirations from 1948

If politicians re-learn the principles which dignified the rule-based order, launched in 1948 with passing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, this should affect the chances that 2021 will not see a repeat of the cruelties of 2020.

December 7, 2020

Immigration detention in 2020: dont look away

Grief, happiness, outrage: they all diminish with the passage of time. The bright colours of emotion dull as we become accustomed to new realities. I remember the shock when I first visited the immigration detention centre at Villawood almost two decades ago.

October 26, 2020

To those that have more will be given: Education resource gaps in Australia

New evidence shows that education resource gaps between disadvantaged and advantaged schools in Australia are among the largest in the OECD and the world. This is a shameful record for a country that regards itself as egalitarian.

October 4, 2020

Lobbyland: How the lobbies hijacked school education

In all areas of public policy there are groups that engage in advocacy and lobbying to influence public opinion and to advance their special interests. These groups have been obvious and successful over half a century of increasingly privatised school education.

March 28, 2019

TONY SMITH. Disability and disenfranchisement: the social construction of political disadvantage

T__hanks to the determination of disability advocates such as Senator Steele-John, national attention is being drawn to ways in which society fails people with disabilities. Indeed, in our general disregard for the needs of Australians of different abilities, we exclude many people from full participation in social, economic and political life. The difficulties of voting in the 2019 New South Wales election show how we construct social disadvantage. Aspects of the election were discriminatory enough to amount to disenfranchisement.

August 12, 2024

Fossil fuel industry propaganda blamed as record heat scorches planet

“We need to tackle the root cause and get serious about reducing record levels of greenhouse gas emissions,” said the head of the World Meteorological Organisation.

June 24, 2024

Choosing the path of diplomacy

Sino-Australian ties show signs of great resilience, stability as leaders take positive approach.

May 19, 2023

Polarisation and dysfunction in Washington

I enjoyed seeing Susan Glasser in The New Yorker take precisely my view of the polarisation and dysfunction in Washington and how it must be seen as an influence on US behaviour.

June 30, 2022

The West is white

When the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991 Gorbachevs vision of a common European homeland from the Atlantic to the Urals did not prevail. Rather than retract ,NATO expanded. Russia was too weak to halt the process but was useful as a potential adversary. Suggestions that it could actually join the alliance were peremptorily dismissed. NATO was far too useful for the Americans as the means to perpetuate their dominance of Western Europe. And without the Soviet Union the members of the alliance could be called on to join the global campaign against terror and go to war in Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan, places in many cases they knew little about.

August 16, 2021

The National Party in the service of the mining lobby.

The National Party has ceased to be a political party in the ordinary sense of the word. Instead it has become a wholly owned subsidiary of big mining and energy lobbies.

June 15, 2021

COVID cuts highlight intellectual bankruptcy of Coalition higher education policies. Part 1

Aus__tralian universities are in crisis, a crisis that has been a long time in the making, but is becoming increasingly obvious as the countrys borders remain closed to international students and the rivers of gold that had flowed from them rapidly evaporate.

January 23, 2021

The strategic thinking behind the EU-China investment deal

Washington was understandably perplexed that a China-EU investment agreement was concluded a few weeks before the Biden administration, especially a president who has been advocating for multilateralism and the restoration of trust and an alliance with the EU.

December 27, 2020

Hamlets glass and the Brereton Report: the radical reality of Australias security culture

It is almost an invariable rule that the citizens of nation-states in their generality, and Australia in particular, are obsessed with security and fascinated with violence; equally, they are illiterate in understanding their own traditions and practices. And when they ostensibly honour international law, rules-based orders, add peace, they require a more suspecting glance than they are accorded. An iconic play provides the invitation.

December 3, 2020

Between the Lines on China: Geoff Raby

Transcript of Geoff Raby’s appearance on Tom Switzer’s Between the Lines on ABC.

November 8, 2020

Australian foreign interference laws.Rupert Murdoch and Duong Di Sanh

_Murdoch is an American, but he has a major impact on our elections, and works insidiously, for example, to sabotage efforts to get Australian Governments to act effectively against climate change. His empire also works surreptitiously at undermining that most important Australian democratic institution, the ABC. We all know that nothing will be done about Murdoch - the laws of Australia are not enforced without fear or favour.

June 22, 2018

SAM HURLEY AND KATE MACKENZIE. Climate horizons.

Companies are still lagging on modelling and disclosing impacts of climate change more business, government and regulatory action is required.

June 21, 2024

Climate emergency strikes Islam’s holy ritual, with nearly 600 dead of heat stroke in Mecca

As the temperature in Mecca reached 125.24° F. (51.8° C.) on Tuesday, word leaked out that nearly 600 pilgrims had died of heat stroke and 2,000 have been hospitalised for treatment. A virtual clinic treated more thousands remotely. Some 324 of the dead were Egyptians, while dozens were from Jordan.

June 13, 2024

Only on Palestine, words speak louder than actions

“When will you finish them?” These aren’t words you normally hear while waiting in line for a coffee in the Sydney CBD.

September 11, 2023

G-7 and BRICS visions of the future: Coercive unipolarity or cooperative multipolarity

When the Cold War ended in 1991, the West, and particularly the United States, found itself at a fork in the road. One road led to peace, justice, cooperation, nuclear disarmament, a revitalised UN, inclusiveness, pluralism, human rights, multilateralism, fair trade, regulated markets, food security, energy transition, sustainability, and humane governance. The other road led to militarism, intervention, warmongering, nuclearism, conflict, sanctions, regime-changing interventions, multiple trends toward inequality, predatory neoliberal globalisation, hegemony and geopolitical primacy.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal