October 4, 2020

Susan Ryan

Susan Ryan was more than a feminist icon and achiever, Labors first woman cabinet minister and the model for all those who have followed her.

September 11, 2024

Why I support state intervention in the CFMEU

The Haydon Royal Commission in 2014 revealed evidence that corrupt elements were infiltrating the CFMEU, NSW Branch. This grew steadily in the 10 years since and the branch is now rotten. In Victoria, the “strongman” leadership of John Setka and his close friendship with a “colourful identity” and building industry fixer, together with an influx of bikies, sent signals about where the branch was heading.

August 21, 2024

The end of Israel’s economy

As Israel’s genocidal war against Gaza continues unabated, the Israeli economy is facing a catastrophe. The physical destruction in Israel from the war has been minimal, but one thing has been destroyed: its future.

June 14, 2024

AUKUS and the Nuclear Agenda: the challenge for the labour movement

AUKUS is fundamentally part of a global program to reassert US dominance as its power fades. That is what AUKUS is about; it’s about tying Australia to that slowly sinking ship, the United States Empire. The Labor Government has been captured by this militaristic ideology, and it is our job to shake them out of it.

May 10, 2024

Australia must vote yes to Palestine at UN

The Jewish Council of Australia is horrified by what we are witnessing Israel do in Rafah. Israel’s ongoing violence in Gaza and the West Bank is the greatest impediment to peace for Palestinians and Israelis.

July 21, 2023

Australia may ban WeChat but for many Chinese Australians, its their lifeline

One morning in February 2021, I was woken by a WeChat call from my brother in China. Mum had died the previous night, he told me. I wasnt shocked to hear about Mums death she had been very ill for a couple of years.

May 25, 2023

The war in Ukraine was provoked and why that matters to achieve peace

By recognising that the question of NATO enlargement is at the centre of this war, we understand why U.S. weaponry will not end this war. Only diplomatic efforts can do that.

July 30, 2022

Ending the Ukraine and other wars: putting victims at the centre

A common response from Western nations to the Ukraine war is one of support for Ukraine or standing with Ukraine as it suffers ongoing attack from Russia.

July 29, 2022

Environment: Australias natural environment sick and getting sicker

Australias environment needs better governments and more respect. Mexican asparagus: nice but very naughty.

June 16, 2022

Support for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights who is under attack over Xinjiang visit.

Michelle Bachelet has announced she will not be seeking a second term as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Former UN rapporteurs, Alfred de Zayas and Richard Falk, are supporting her against the attacks she has received for her visit to Xinjiang in May, which includes unjustified demands for her resignation. Alfred de Zayas and Richard Falks words will resonate strongly with readers of Pearls & Irritations.

September 28, 2021

In defence of Australia's submarine decision

Swapping the expensive French conventionally powered submarines for nuclear submarines was the right decision, and it does not have to come at a cost to Australias independence.

June 3, 2021

Australian Media in the Asian Century: Bogans in a Monaro alarm business

You would not know it from the coverage of Scott Morrisons foray to meet Jacinda Ardern in Queenstown last weekend which was all about Anzac family trumping trade interests on China etc but the government is in a sullen defensive on its handling of China relations.

January 19, 2021

Reverse the decline in democracy through regular maintenance

First, eliminate career politicians. Extend parliamentary terms to five years and limit MPs to two terms. This allows plenty of time for them to try to implement their advocacy programs and ensure parliament is constantly refreshed with new ideas and policies.

November 26, 2020

Latest Findings on how well our Governments make Policy

For the third year running, independent research undertaken by two philosophically opposed Right and Left think tanks finds that basic standards of evidence and consultation-based policy making are only loosely followed by Australian federal and state governments. Nevertheless, there was an improvement on last years results.

November 9, 2020

Porter's integrity commission is designed to trick the public into thinking the Coalition is serious about tackling corruption

_Mr Porters proposed Commonwealth Integrity Commission, in the public sector division, will not be able to investigate supposed corruption, wont discover any corruption, and will certainly not expose any.

August 13, 2020

The Australian Catholic Church's silent treatment

Changing the culture of the church should be the major task for the Australian Bishops. After all, the first and only independent assessment of that culture, by the Royal Commission into the sexual abuse of minors, described the culture as toxic.

July 17, 2024

Albo’s envoys will entrench religious and political divisions for generations

Albanese’s advisers must have been smoking something when they decided that Australia should have envoys against antisemitism and Islamophobia.

June 21, 2024

Why won't the US help negotiate a peaceful end to the war in Ukraine?

For goodness’ sake, negotiate!

April 14, 2024

Environment: Oil and gas producers underreport methane emissions

How accurately are methane emissions reported and whose estimates can you believe? Who should be the last producers of oil and gas? What are Australia’s commonest birds?

July 30, 2023

Study warns climate-driven collapse of critical ocean current system 'much closer than we thought'

“It is very plausible that we’ve fallen off a cliff already and don’t know it,” said one researcher.

July 11, 2023

Hong Kong and the rose garden promise: Thoughts on the Fugitive Eight

Eight Hong Kong dissidents now living abroad are subject to arrest warrants, including Kevin Yam, a Melbourne-based lawyer, and Ted Hui, a former politician who now lives in Adelaide.

June 1, 2023

Without action, government apologies at historic Yoorrook Commission are hollow

Australia’s first Aboriginal-led Royal Commission recently completed a month of public hearings during which Commissioners questioned Victorian government ministers and senior bureaucrats about injustices against First Peoples in the criminal justice and child protection systems.

May 26, 2023

Frigates disaster a taste of the AUKUS catastrophe to come

When Australias Defence Minister, Richard Marles, talks imploringly in support of avoiding the valley of death scenario, Australians should listen. That is, until they realise he is not talking about avoiding the horrors of a modern war, but rather supporting the Hunter Class Frigate, a project in such difficulty that the picture of incompetence and mismanagement in the Australian National Audit Office report on the Department of Defences Procurement of Hunter Class Frigates (Report No.21 2022-23) and evidence presented during Parliamentary scrutiny is probably a kind interpretation of the reality.

September 5, 2022

Minister Tony Burke says IR system fails workers

_The jobs and skills summit produced some concrete outcomes in areas like migration, technical and further education, and workforce participation by older workers. Some processes based around tripartism (engagement between business, unions, and government) were established.

July 14, 2022

Mr Marles tugs the forelock in Washington

New Defence Ministers ritually wend their way to Washington to offer up jaded homilies. Full of hagiographic accounts of ANZUS and strained assertions of shared values, they often also display a submission to Americas strategic objectives. The new Ministers visit, however, foreshadows a dangerous abandonment of fundamental elements of national sovereignty by the Labor government.

August 10, 2021

Climate Movement Says 'Apocalyptic' IPCC Report.

**Greenpeace intends to use the new IPCC analysis as evidence in law suits against governments and corporations that continue to obstruct necessary change. G20 nations have provided $3.3 trillion in subsidies to the fossil fuel industry since 2015.

June 13, 2021

Chandran Nair.The world is woke to Western posturing and global white privilege

The Wests disingenuous position on Israel and its coordinated attacks on China have blown the cover of the liberal narratives it uses to hide a postcolonial, imperialist agenda Its hypocrisy has been further exposed by its hoarding of coronavirus vaccines and the systemic racism that prompted the Black Lives Matter protests and fuelled attacks on people of Asian descent.

January 26, 2021

Australias 'exceptional' human rights record

Leaders who consider their country exceptional are less likely to acknowledge any shortcomings. In light of recent criticism of Australias human rights record, will our leaders feel so ashamed of being labelled exceptional that they will look to implement standards of common decency considered central to a fair-go culture?

December 14, 2020

Undue influence? University grants questioned after ASPI US-funded research

The Australian Research Council launched an investigation into Australian academics solely on the basis of US government-funded research by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

December 9, 2020

Economic Recovery from Covid-19 while mitigating Climate Change

Green growth, based on technological change, is necessary but not sufficient for effective, timely, climate mitigation. It must be supplemented by reducing the material consumption of the rich countries.

August 19, 2024

Greens blast new conditions set by US and UK for AUKUS deal

The revelation that the US and UK have imposed additional conditions for their being part of the tripartite AUKUS deal with Australia has not gone down well in some quarters.

June 17, 2024

Shifting power: New Zealand on US decline

After meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken last April, New Zealand’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Winston Peters, said that the two countries had pledged “to work ever more closely together in support of shared values and interests.” In recent moves exemplifying this support, New Zealand has deployed a targeting team to a United States-led coalition conducting strikes against Yemen, extended its military participation in the US proxy war in Ukraine, and is considering membership of AUKUS, the anti-China military agreement between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

September 25, 2023

AUKUS consensus is collapsing under weight of Labor blunders

When Anthony Albanese addressed his federal electoral council on July 6 he rebutted criticism of AUKUS by saying Labor governments always have to prove themselves on national security.

August 17, 2023

Why is Australia afraid to call out rights violations in India?

Last month, news emerged that two Indian women belonging to the minority Kuki tribe in Manipur had been raped and then paraded naked in public.

April 20, 2023

The Asia-Pacific:strategic equilibrium, not primacy

When there has been so much loose talk about what would be a catastrophic war between the worlds two major powers, it is both significant and welcome that Foreign Minister Penny Wong has authoritatively stated her position that the Asia-Pacific is a multipolar region, and that this is Australias national policy at this time.

July 24, 2022

The flood problem, immigration and population growth

The management of weather-related emergency situations like floods is the responsibility of the states. But the policies and activities of the Commonwealth government can make big differences to the impacts of floods, either for better or for worse. This is clearly demonstrated via immigration policy and its impact on population growth.

June 25, 2022

Stepping back already from the integrity election?

Labor won government promising more accountability, so why disempower the crossbench?

June 6, 2022

Dutton and Trump politics

The mainstream media in Australia is currently whitewashing fascist politics. It is not just sycophantic, or lazy, journalism. It is dangerous.

September 12, 2021

What are the recent Chinese policy changes really about?

Something extraordinary seems to be happening in China recently, so extraordinary that many are scratching heads asking what this is all about?

December 21, 2020

The case for Australia keeping Victorias Belt and Road deal

While the dust of Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrisons overreaction to a satirical image tweeted by a Chinese diplomat and subsequent rhetorical clashes with Beijing has yet to settle, another much more pressing challenge has been put on Morrisons desk.

November 26, 2020

Is Rupert Murdoch going bust?

https://youtu.be/es_ERsWB4zQ

This video has been reposted from_Michael West Media_25 November 2020

July 27, 2023

Offshore refugee processing funding allegations: How did we get here?

The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age have published serious allegations about millions of dollars of Australian government funding for Offshore Processing Centres finding their way through contractors to bank accounts controlled by South Pacific politicians. This comes on top of a history of criticism by the Auditor-General on how providers were selected and contracts managed by the Department of Home Affairs. The blocking of the Labor governments Malaysia Arrangement by the Coalition and the Greens in 2011 was the strategic turning point that sent governments down the pathway to this sad destination.

July 25, 2023

The USS Canberra: A crass PR stunt

The commissioning of the new USS Canberra in Sydney amid accompanying fanfare and blanket Australian media coverage provided ample testimony to the extent that we are increasingly being taken for granted by the US civil and military leadership.

June 29, 2023

Illusory imperatives

AUKUS commits us to futile wars; an independent defence is possible.

May 12, 2023

War profiteers: Morrison, Sinodinos feed at trough of pro-war organisations

After leading a government that trashed Australias relationship with China, Scott Morrison and Arthur Sinodinos have joined Kurt Campbells US influence network cashing in on war talk.

[WITH AN URGENT NOTICE AT THE END FOR A CHANCE TO MOBILISE AGAINST AUKUS]._

May 7, 2023

B52s refurbished with cruise missiles are a threat to peace

Its not just the Australian senate that cannot know whether such missiles are conventional or nuclear, its also the receiving country. This uncertainty increases risks of nuclear war.

May 3, 2023

Are Australias climatesecurity risks too hot to handle?

The Australian government is keen to talk about defence, big submarines, China and national security. And renewable energy, big batteries, electric cars and big hydrogen. But put the two together security and climate and an odd thing happens.

August 20, 2022

The wisdom of Billy Wilder and western media collusion

A number of recent articles have highlighted the medias critical role in propelling the deterioration in relations with China, in Australia and well beyond.

August 14, 2022

Where now with climate?

_The governments Climate Change bill,_with its 43 percent emissions reduction target, has passed the House. Now, there is a huge agenda of things to do to reduce Australias greenhouse gas emissions.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal