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 9, 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.

July 5, 2023

Careful what you wish for: Why a double dissolution over housing could spell trouble for the Greens

They can’t say they weren’t warned. Shortly before coming to office Anthony Albanese said, ‘I’ve been underestimated my whole life’.

April 3, 2023

Why was there a blow out in net migration?

This front-page story in _The Australian_ on the blow out in net migration has created a frenzy of finger pointing, most of it ill-informed.

May 13, 2022

Even if the Liberals win, Morrison won't

Since television arrived (and probably a bit before) it has become commonplace to describe Australian federal elections as presidential. All the focus is on the party leader. We talk about the Morrison government, the Albanese opposition. And when people go to the polls they are urged to vote for one or other of the party leaders to become Prime Minister.

September 17, 2021

Cavan Hogue: Chile coup was another example of Australian support for US interests

National Archives documents released last week revealed how closely Australia’s overseas spy agency worked with the CIA in the lead-up to the 1973 coup in Chile. Former diplomat Cavan Hogue reflects on the political and social environment at the time.

August 4, 2021

China threatens the West’s primacy, not its democratic systems

Some Western leaders, including Scott Morrison, have begun to describe the contest with China in starkly ideological terms, as a defence of democracy against authoritarianism. They say China threatens to replace the democratically-based “liberal international order” with a new order founded on the principles and practices of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which would endanger democratic societies everywhere. It is all very reminiscent of the old Cold War.

January 5, 2021

Stop playing with our lives, this is not a game

While it has proven very difficult to convince politicians that we have a climate change emergency on our hands, we might expect that bushfires and the pandemic would rock their complacency. And yet, the New South Wales government insists on taking a relaxed approach to the public health crisis when it comes to mass entertainments.

December 6, 2020

How Australia sabotaged its own interests in relations with China.

The destruction over the past five years of Australia’s mutually beneficial diplomatic and trade relationship with China was probably a successful ’Five Eyes’ information warfare operation, facilitated by the Australian political class’s own foolish arrogance and ignorance towards China. Australia is now back in the laager, an American strategic satellite and odd man out in the Asia-Pacific region and with a weakened economy.

November 25, 2020

Independent media winning the battle of the online audience

Independent media, online and print, continues to grow. Meanwhile, traditional media is under threat on many fronts, driven by stalling readership and declining revenue. News Corp, in particular, is losing out in the online audience stakes.

October 30, 2020

ASPI's Broadcasting Corporation?

Is ABC management complicit in letting senior on-air talent promote the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, and its sponsors, without declaring conflicts of interest?

April 2, 2020

Covid-19 and the role of expert advice

The response to Covid-19 has raised an important question about the role of expert advice in the formulation of public policy, and whether it can and should be independent advice.

June 12, 2018

NORMAN BAILEY. The Russian Gordian Knot begins to unravel.

Winston Churchill famously described the Soviet Union as “A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.” Many commentators and politicians say Vladimir Putin’s Russia is every bit as mysterious and enigmatic as its predecessor. An astonishing recent declaration by the president, however, at the Russian equivalent of the Davos conclave, in St Petersburg, casts a whole new light on the country’s involvement in the Middle East, which in recent years has become more and more extensive.

October 5, 2024

Japan's surprising new prime minister

Japan’s new prime minister, Ishiba Shigeru, has called for an Asian NATO. But salivating hawks should restrain the glee.

May 2, 2024

Resisting radical evil

_Ruling institutions — the state, the press, the church, the courts, universities — mouth the language of morality, but they serve the structures of power, no matter how venal, which provide them with money, status and authority.

August 23, 2023

Time to grow up? Australia is becoming a militarised US outpost

I hesitate to stray into the florid world of military strategists, senior public servants, cabinet ministers and assorted think tanks, but what on earth is going on with Australia’s so-called defence policy? The Albo government seems hellbent on turning Australia into a militarised outpost of the US whose ‘pivot’ to the Asia-Pacific region has led to the installation of all manner of hardware and personnel.

June 18, 2023

Environment: Two years left for a decent chance of keeping warming under 1.5ºC

Scientists establish annual dashboard of indicators of climate change to guide policymakers. Bushfires fatal for humans and invertebrates. Commercial sponsors sought for November’s COP meeting in Dubai.

July 8, 2021

When should mandatory vaccination be on the agenda?

Back in August 2020, when announcing that Australia had negotiated a deal to procure supplies of coronavirus vaccines, the Prime Minister was quizzed by Melbourne radio commentator Neil Mitchell about whether vaccination should be compulsory. The PM hedged his bets – he would ‘expect it to be as mandatory as you can possibly make [it]’. Fast forward almost year and national cabinet recently started down the compulsion path – mandating vaccinations for residential aged care workers.

January 11, 2021

Words matter: Was the attack on the Capitol a rally, protest or insurrection? (Center for Public Integrity)

What happened at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6? Depends on whom you ask. To some, the attack by hundreds of mostly white men and women was an insurrection. To others it was a coup.

December 24, 2020

We need the diplomatic skills of a ‘Chinese Morrison’

Tensions between China and Australia over trade and security hurt both countries. It is time that the great salesman Prime Minister Morrison went to Beijing to resolve misunderstandings.

April 15, 2024

Western misinformation and the so-called Xinjiang genocide

The UN Human Rights Report of August 31, 2022 says what’s happening in Xinjiang constitutes “crimes against humanity”. In plain English, this is saying it is not genocide under the UN Genocide Convention. It confirms an earlier Amnesty International report in 2021 to the same effect. Both are clear implicit rejections of unsubstantiated genocide claims.

August 1, 2023

Compromised by vested interests: UNCOP culture doesn’t match reality

At the end of a Retreat together on “Spiritual Leadership in Difficult Times”, a German social scientist asked me to help her to organise a Retreat for decision-makers at the next UNCOP - the annual UN Conference of Parties focused on preventing catastrophic climate change in ways that are just. Just, yes, especially towards those who have had the least benefit from a carbon economy but need help with adaptation, mitigation and support as regards the loss and damage already suffered.

July 16, 2022

Asia media for July 16

In Asia media this week: Abe’s key Indo Pacific role; rules-based order questioned; Thailand-Myanmar military links; no end to Sri Lanka turmoil; China talks about trade issues.

May 19, 2022

Morrison misleads again on migration

On the 160,000 migration program in 2021-22, the Australian Financial Review reports that Morrison said “we’re not even going to get close to that cap (sic) in the short term because we are seeking to rebuild the program, re-open the lines of people being able to come to Australia”.

May 12, 2022

Winning hearts and minds in the Pacific Islands

Suddenly the Pacific Islands have become a hot election issue. That is because the Solomon Islands agreed to China using its own security guards to safeguard Chinese businesses and projects from attack and looting in the wake of recognising China instead of Taiwan.

May 11, 2022

If I were the Minister for Immigration policy in the next parliament

_Under the Morrison Government we have seen the biggest wave of asylum seeker applications in Australia ever – at over 100,000. Coming by air it is almost twice as big as the fourth wave under the Rudd/Gillard Governments.

October 1, 2021

Anti-China hysteria lies at heart of action against IMF’s Georgieva

_IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva’s fall would prove the fund has mere trappings of multilateralism — leaving others to go their own way. .._Many in the US Congress want Georgieva out because she is not a sworn enemy of Beijing.

September 23, 2021

After initiating the coercion against China we are now with AUKUS in the front row in a new cold war.

Since we have decided to integrate our navy with America’s and be its ally in confronting China, we should expect to be viewed as an extension of a nuclear superpower and be targeted accordingly.

December 7, 2020

How to rate key players in Team Australia?

2020 has been a tough year. Let us take a look at the list, where they are at, what they have produced in 2020, and what we can expect in season 2021.

October 20, 2020

The wool trade: hostage to intransigence

Animal welfare groups object to the wool industry because of the process of mulesing, a treatment used to protect sheep from fly strike. They argue that mulesing is cruel and invasive regardless of whether painkillers are used. There is, however, an alternative to mulesing that is painless, bloodless and no less protective.

September 19, 2024

Gaza officials publish list of those killed in Israeli assault. The first 14 pages are babies

“This is a genocide of children,” said Heba Gowayed, a sociology professor at the City University of New York’s Hunter College.

July 13, 2024

Defending dissent in the Jewish community

The recent report by the Community Security Group (CSG) detailing 91 Jewish community incidents on university campuses until May 31, 2024, warrants a closer examination, particularly considering its implications and the nuances it omits.

June 28, 2024

Dutton’s nuclear pitch: Dog whistles and a crock of s**t

It has been demonstrated by the CSIRO, the International Energy Agency chief Fatih Birol and the former Chief Scientist (Finkel) that even allowing for additional expenditure on transmission and storage (battery, pumped hydro, thermal) renewables are cheaper and available in a shorter time frame than nuclear in the Australian context.

June 3, 2024

Biden on Trump: “No one is above the Law;” except for Israel’s Netanyahu

Biden ultimately does not respect the rule of law when it comes to Israeli actions and policies any more than Trump respects the rule of law when it comes to Trump.

May 12, 2024

Because of Israel, Jewish people are no longer ‘safe’

In this seemingly topsy-turvy world we live in, the charge of ‘antisemitism’ and its offshoot ‘antisemite’ have been hurled at anyone who dares suggest that there is something deeply flawed about the State of Israel.

April 30, 2024

Japan and North Korea: Time to talk?

In Northeast Asia a system of confronting military alliances – US/Japan/South Korea/Philippines vs China/Russia/North Korea – gradually takes shape, calling to mind nothing so much as the alliance system constructed in Europe in the decade leading up to 1914. The one today is no more likely to lead to peace and regional cooperation than was the other 110 years ago.

April 26, 2024

Michael Pascoe: Negative gearing to change – it’s ‘the vibe’

“There is a tide in the affairs of men. Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune”

September 15, 2023

China, innovation, and competition with the US

The real American terror is not that the Chinese economy will grow bigger than the American economy – if it is not already – but that the Chinese mixed economy model will prove superior to the rampant free-market, greed model US billionaires and their peddlers promote.

June 21, 2023

The discourse of dominance

I was rather amused, or to use the American expression “tickled pink”, when I read the article titled “Coexistance: the only realist path to peace” by Stephen M. Walt in Pearls & Irritations. The article’s claim to the “realist path” to peace would make sense only to those who have dominated others for so long (albeit only a blip in the history of the people whom the author is giving a talking to) that they have forgotten the language and discourse of equality.

June 5, 2023

The earth has Bipolar Disorder: and so do we

World Environment Day – June 5 – demands some sober reflection about the mess we humans have got ourselves into. And how the hell we get out.

April 9, 2023

Easter: A new beginning for wounded humanity and our depleted planet

An Easter reflection on romantic weddings, love, and our global context. Towards a ‘Calming of souls’ and a ‘lightness of being’.

August 25, 2022

Australian politics and the banality of immorality

One of the most striking aspects of the public response to the revelations about former Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s secret self-appointment to multiple ministries was that, after the initial expressions of incredulity, there was so little surprise that such an outrage could have occurred.

April 23, 2022

The deterioration in housing affordability and its impact on living standards

The huge increase in dwelling prices was made possible by ultra-low interest rates. Now the prospective rise in interest rates is likely to have a much bigger impact on many borrowers future living standards than previously experienced, and the demand for rental accommodation is also likely to increase faster than in the past.

September 22, 2021

The quest for small government comes at a cost to good government

The Coalition preaches that small government is best. But the reality is that government is not actually smaller under the Coalition — and what voters really want and need is good government.

September 13, 2021

Bruce Haigh: We have been used again by America, this time in Indonesia.

Indonesians wonder why we fear China so much, when they don’t?

July 30, 2021

How Reagan and US agencies made Murdoch a king.

Rupert Murdoch’s role in a secret project jointly financed by the US government and wealthy backers in the private sector to influence public opinion demands the attention of Australian lawmakers.

January 26, 2021

Survival Day 2021: What January 26 means to me

Many Australians believe that January 26 fails in its purpose. While it aims to unite, it actually divides us. Instead, the customary Indigenous theme ‘Always was, always will be Aboriginal land’ has the potential to unify.

December 16, 2020

Australia left behind as world leaders brush off Morrison’s empty climate gestures

Dozens of countries detailed new pledges to reduce emissions and drive green investment during a Climate Ambition Summit held over the weekend, without the participation of Australia after organisers saw through the hollow climate change rhetoric of the Morrison government.

December 13, 2020

Why go high?: Adam Shatz on America's defective democracy

_If we don’t descend into protracted court battles or armed clashes, Trump will leave office on 20 January 2021.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal