October 6, 2020

Cui Bono from the decline in Australia/China relations?

The dramatic decline in Australia China relations has paralleled the rise in the anti-China rhetoric from the Trump administration, capped by its naming of COVID as the China virus. Who benefits from this situation? Hint: its not China and its not Australia.

August 15, 2024

Politicians browbeaten and brainwashed by Zionism

Duly browbeaten by Zionists and Zionism, many Australian politicians fear to question Israeli terror. Evidence for that assertion has accumulated over years but was displayed last week in the lukewarm regrets expressed when an estimated 100 Palestinians were killed by Israeli bombs dropped on a school in northern Gaza.

July 22, 2024

Resisting US pressure for NZ to sacrifice itself to defend US hegemony against China

Twenty years’ ago the then leader of the conservative New Zealand National Party, Don Brash, got into hot water when a Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) official reported that he had assured a visiting delegation from the US Senate that if his party were elected to office NZ’s ‘nuclear-free policy’ would be ‘gone by lunchtime’.

May 8, 2024

Grotesque claims: Students revolt against Western media misinformation

Heralded as the largest this century, the pro-Palestinian student demonstrations in the US and globally are putting into stark relief the systemic failure of Western media and Governments to accurately and responsibly report on the Gaza conflict. As they did during the Vietnam war years, it is students who have refused to accept the way in which the Gaza war is portrayed by mainstream media.

July 2, 2023

Bob Carr: US must not go to war with China over Taiwan

“If the worst thing that faces the people of Taiwan would be what prevails in Hong Kong today, then we haven’t got a cause for war. Hong Kong still has substantially its own system and if that were the outcome that applied in Taiwan, then I can live with that,” says former Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs Bob Carr in an interview with Mark Bouris.

May 9, 2023

What Australias new gas tax will mean for new projects, the economy and the climate

In 2022, Australia exported a record 81.4 million metric tonnes of LNG, earning the industry $92.8 billion (when expected revenue was $44 billion). If all of these windfall benefits were taxed, the revenue could be used to completely rewire the nation and accelerate the shift to a clean energy future. This has not happened and the weak reform proposals by Labor do little more than scratch the surface.

April 17, 2023

The need for a new US Foreign Policy

US foreign policy is based on an inherent contradiction and fatal flaw. The aim of US foreign policy is a US-dominated world, in which the US writes the global trade and financial rules, controls advanced technologies, maintains militarily supremacy, and dominates all potential competitors. Unless US foreign policy is changed to recognise the need for a multipolar world, it will lead to more wars, and possibly World War III.

July 9, 2022

Shinzo Abe, his wife and North Korea

_Giving tribute to the deceased former Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, Prime Minister Albanese described him as a true patriot.

May 9, 2022

Addressing democracy's international decline

The theme of the American Society for Public Administrations annual conference in March was Democracy under Threat. This was in response not only to troubles in the US but to falling appreciation of democratic principles in other Western countries and the rise of authoritarianism elsewhere.

December 17, 2020

Why China has been exceptionally harsh on Australia (AFR Dec 17, 2020)

This is not a schoolyard, China is not a schoolboy, it hasnt slunk away, and nothing about our predicament is as easy as the government would like us to believe.

August 27, 2024

Israeli physicians have reminded us that the care and protection of Gaza’s children is a human obligation — will we heed their call?

The organisation Physicians for Human Rights Israel issued an urgent global appeal on 17 June on behalf of the children of Gaza, demanding “immediate and decisive action from the international community to prevent further loss of life and to address the dire and immediate needs of Gaza’s most vulnerable population”.

August 11, 2024

Environment: Zambia has lots of copper but will Zambians benefit?

The green transition needs copper but how do poor copper-rich countries reap the rewards? The hydrogen-energy balloon is floating away. Underground tanks help to manage flash floods. Big cats become the prey.

June 4, 2024

AUKUS: Beazley, Richardson, Dibb are old men pushing ignorant economics

On 28 May, a Defending Australia Summit was held in Sydney by “The Australian Newspaper” which showcased three former Australian defence officials who seemed confused by their old age and indulged in ignorant and historically romantic group think.

April 19, 2024

Coral catastrophe signals our own undoing

Five times in the history of life on Earth the corals have perished, swept from the board by conditions hostile to nearly all life. Each time, it has taken them millions of years to evolve anew. Each mass death of corals has been accompanied by the mass deaths of most other species, on land and at sea.

April 7, 2024

Podcast: Healthcare, Australia and the War on Gaza

Dr Sue Wareham OAM, President of the Medical Association for Prevention of War (Australia) talks with Helen McCue AM, recently awarded the Jerusalem peace prize for forty-one years of passionate advocacy and support for Palestine, through her work as founder of Union Aid Abroad APHEDA. They discuss the destruction of medical facilities in Israel’s war on Gaza, the shredding of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and the urgent need for Australian government and civil society to do everything in their power to stop the slaughter in Gaza and protect healthcare workers.

August 16, 2023

Reconstruction of war-torn Afghanistan, Ukraine will enrich China and US

At this moment in the economic cycle the Chinese economy is stalling whilst the US is experiencing a buoyant phase. However, there is another angle to their strategic rivalry that is more important than ephemeral shifts. Viewed through a longer lens both China and the US have economic aces up their sleeve. Both possess a counterweight that helps insulate them from low-growth traps.

July 6, 2023

The Wests international community consists of only 10 countries

China it seems, is nowhere near as isolated or feared by the international community as Western mainstream media would have us believe.

September 15, 2022

Labor, Palestinian statehood and the UN General Assembly

With the ALP platform now formally supporting Palestinian statehood the Albanese government soon faces a tricky question. When the UN General Assembly convenes in mid-September (UNGA 77) will Australia put its vote(s) on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict where its declared policy is?

July 4, 2022

Governments losing their way

Professor Peter Coaldrakes review of a Queensland public administration which has been losing its way since the Fitzgerald reforms of thirty years ago should be compulsory reading for politicians, for public servants, particularly senior executives, and for citizens sick of the way that modern government has let accountability and integrity slip by the wayside.

June 29, 2022

Mr Albanese goes to Madrid: Australia on the alliance path to Global Nato

While most eyes rest on the remains of Scott Morrisons failed attempt at a khaki election through last Septembers announcement of a backward-looking AUKUS alliance, prime minister Anthony Albaneses trip to Madrid for the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation summit points to a much more significant shift in Australias alliance with the United States - a global alliance of democracies, aka Global NATO.

April 30, 2022

If I were the Attorney General in the next government I would have three priorities

_Is it too much to hope that after the May 21 election we see an AG who energetically pursues three priority initiatives; A treaty with Indigenous Australia and a republic, a national human rights charter, and a substantial reduction in the cost of justice.

April 19, 2022

Reporting about Ukraine: peace difficult, war easy

In the grinding weeks of an Australian Federal election, something needs to happen to change the language, to prompt debate, to craft vision, and even generate excitement. That something could be the goal of peace with justice.

August 2, 2021

ASPI outsourcing our defence policy to the gun runners!

Australias strategic policy discourse takes place in a fog of claims about risk and the warning time, while the key issues are the balance and trajectory of military forces in the Asia Pacific and the strategic interests of the regional states. Recent exhortations to urgent actions and radical defence reforms are alarmist and confused, and are being used to promote the outsourcing defence policy.

May 20, 2021

Max Suich, China and the greatest example of our diplomatic self harm

How did it come to this? How did Australias foreign policymakers and their advisors manage to devise policies that have simultaneously enraged our most important trade partner, and made us even more dependent on an increasingly unpredictable notional guarantor of our national security? If our political and strategic elites had intentionally set out to undermine Australias economic security and exacerbate existing strategic vulnerabilities they could hardly have done a better job.

June 19, 2024

Stabilisation, but deeper relationship stymied by Australian mass media sinophobes

Chinese Premier Li Qiang’s visit underscores the significance of the Australia-China relationship, especially given China’s status as Australia’s largest trading partner. A deeper relation should develop, but that will take time. Trust needs to be reestablished not only at diplomatic and business levels, but also in the Australian mass media, whose China opinion writers have almost all become Sinophobes arguing that China is trying to subvert and attack its neighbours - including Australia, writes Percy Allan in an interview with China’s Global Times.

September 28, 2023

Why China is not a threat: Sinophobia Unites Americans

Hatred of China is now the single issue that unites Democrats and Republicans. Having a perceived foe helps unite a deeply divided America internally, unless, of course, it becomes a losing cause. This three-part series explores how US narratives on the China threat have become entrenched in the West, and why China is not a threat - unless we make it one.

June 14, 2023

Australia preparing for war- can it stop the rot?

As the new Australian Labor government took power following the 2022 election, its China policy barely changed and the China threat narrative continued unabated. I did not vote for the Labor party to see Australias government channelling the ousted Morrison Government!

July 19, 2022

The tragic obsession with the Chinese threat

Seven weeks in government, and still no sign that Labor in office is prepared to rethink the relationship with either China or the United States. The two are not unconnected. The link is their common addiction to the China threat thesis.

May 15, 2022

Widening inequity in access to health care is curable but it may take the Teal Independents to write the script

There is a large and widening hole in the Medicare safety net of which Australians should be ashamed. Far too many people can no longer afford appropriate access to specialist care for serious disorders. The focus provided by the federal election provides an opportunity to explain the cause and start the repair process.

September 1, 2021

The shameful global vaccine apartheid in 10 images

The single biggest moral and scientific failure during this global crisis is vaccine inequity.

January 24, 2021

Japans kow-towing to US is leading to ecological destruction on a majestic reef.

Japan, in consultation with the US, is trying to build a huge military facility for the US Marine Corps by reclaiming a large part of the wondrous, biodiverse Oura Bay. It is akin to Australia offering part of the Great Barrier Reef to the Pentagon to establish a military facility.

October 14, 2020

Pope Francis's new encyclical On Human Fraternity and Social Friendship

The new social encyclical of Pope Francis not only renews his strong critique of neoliberal forms of capitalism which result in growing and extreme inequality but is a plea for a return to the ideals of fraternity and solidarity, invoking the humanist ideals of Frances liberty, equality and fraternity.

August 22, 2024

Militant, independent unions can tame the concrete jungle of the building industry

Only a fool would think that removing the union from the equation will rid the building industry of criminality.

August 17, 2024

The Kursk offensive: a foolish move

Ukraine’s invasion (of Kursk) was a major strategic blunder, which will accelerate its defeat.

July 26, 2024

Will the Republicans end deep state wars of imperial aggression? Don't bet on it...

The prospect of another Trump presidency and a JD Vance vice-presidency is welcomed by some and dreaded by others. A Democrat ‘October surprise’, and a presidency for Kamala Harris are possible. Even Trump in power may get Australia off several hooks. What neither of them is likely to do before election day, however, is commit to doing away with the unachievable AUKUS, the unwelcome Asian NATO, and the unwinnable war over Taiwan, as a RAND report described it in June .

July 12, 2024

"Dark foreboding": Democratic Party campaign confirms skeptics' fear of US global role

The Democratic Party is waging its 2024 electoral campaign by focusing on two themes: first, a denunciation of all that Trump proposes to bring to the presidency, centring on the destruction of American democracy if elected, and secondly, a positive domestic record of the Biden years with several notable benefits for the American people including jobs and wages, climate, energy policy, social protection, gun control, and a stock market at record highs. What is missing from this rosy picture of America and even more so from Democratic Party advocacy is neither claims nor explanations of foreign policy, only a deafening silence.

July 28, 2023

Australia an international nuclear wasteland?

The spectre of an international nuclear waste dump in Australia hangs over AUKUS and what this secretive agreement commits Australia to. Does it oblige us simply to dispose of spent nuclear reactors from our submarines if and when we get them? Or is there a hidden agenda whereby we also take the expired nuclear reactors from US and British submarines? If so, could it lead to Australia becoming a dump for high-level waste from civil nuclear reactors around the world?

April 9, 2023

An Easter reflection: dreaming dreams, hoping against hope

Easter is a time for dreaming dreams and for hoping against hope. Pragmatists, even if they be religious believers, are unlikely to expend too much energy doing so. But with the state of our troubled world in Ukraine, Syria, Palestine, Yemen, Somalia, and Myanmar, it behoves us to take a breather and contemplate what peace might look like, or how we might get there.

July 25, 2022

Rupert falls out with Jerry and Donald

In the space of a few weeks Rupert Murdoch has dumped both Jerry Hall and Donald Trump. One dumped for threatening to cost him money and one because he can no longer deliver Ruperts other love-power.

July 18, 2022

Australia can safely improve its relations with China. Heres how

In 2012, the then-prime minister of Vanuatu Sato Kilman, was passing through Sydney Airport. Without warning, the Australian Federal Police swooped and arrested his Australian secretary on charges of tax evasion. Kilman was furious a staffer had been kidnapped and, back in Port Vila, threatened to tear up the agreement under which Australia trained his police, and invite China to take over.

April 21, 2022

Stagnating living standards under Morrison

Living standards have stagnated since the Coalition was elected to government, but in the Budget it is now forecasting an improved performance. How likely is this?

April 11, 2022

Labor scared of the shadow of a Murdoch paper tiger

I think the power of the ranting media News.com in particular is on the decline.

May 8, 2021

A nearly useless Government budget appeal to women voters!

This years budget has been designed to make the government more popular with women. After virtually ignoring our needs in last years budget and anger at workplace standards for female workers, it needed to act. With a coming election, this supposed improvement of funding of fee rebates for childrens services is offered as bait. However, the changes are imposed on a service that over the last four decades has shifted from the community-based family support service it was to a limited privatised economic industry, driven by badly designed subsidies targeted at market forces.

January 27, 2021

Vocational Education Trainers need vaccination priority - economic recovery may depend on it

Face-to-face teaching is vital for VET students, who are often from a lower socio-economic background and are most affected by the digital divide. As getting them back into the classrooms is a priority, their trainers should also be considered a priority group for the Covid-19 vaccine.

September 17, 2024

We can no longer ignore the poor oral health of older people

It is a sad reflection on medical care in Australia that the mouth seems somehow to be disconnected from the body. Doctors and nurses are poorly trained to examine the mouth and oral health is not funded under Medicare.

August 10, 2024

Political capitulation, moral failure

Anthony Albanese’s recent visit to the Gama Festival will certainly be memorable but not in ways that he will necessarily appreciate. It displayed, in a manner for all to see, his government’s final renunciation of the Uluru Statement From The Heart of 2017 and the attendant process of reconciliation.

July 1, 2024

Who is running the country?

Biden’s decline has been known to friends and insiders for months.

May 6, 2024

The State Department report on human rights

Blinken knew exactly what he was doing, he could have delayed the release but he chose, instead to release the State Department’s “ 2023 Country Report” on the eve of his arrival in China.

September 8, 2023

Nuclear submarines are now a core Labor value

Perhaps AUKUS should be renamed MAUKUS - the Morrison, Albanese, United Kingdom and United States agreement - to clearly identify those responsible. Indeed, it is surprising that neither Defence Minister Richard Marles nor Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy invited Australian Labor Party National Conference delegates to support a motion of appreciation to former Prime Minister Morrison for providing a ready-made defence policy for the Labor Government.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal