May 24, 2022

Brutality, cynicism and unequivocal incompetence

On 21 May Anthony Albanese led the Australian Labor Party to a historic victory, winning government from opposition at an election for just the fourth time since the second world war. Labor appears set to form majority government with at least 76 seats and several seats still in doubt, taking 10 seats from the Liberal party with a 2 party preferred swing of 3.8% nation-wide. After 9 years in opposition this was a decisive victory for Labor and a transformative moment in our history.

May 26, 2021

People movement during Covid and emergence of a growing and permanent underclass

While Prime Minister Morrison initially told temporary entrants in Australia to go home, relatively few followed his instruction. His Governments new message to these people is to stay and work in largely unskilled jobs. This ignores the long-term consequences of a growing and permanent underclass that will have to be dealt with after the election.

January 24, 2021

Bidens economic centrism isnt exciting, but it's right for these divisive times

In an age of hyperpartisan politics, the Biden presidency offers a welcome centrism that might help bridge the divides. But it’s also Bidens economic centrism that offers a chance to cut through what has become an increasingly polarised approach to economic policy.

January 5, 2021

Responding to Callaghan: completing Australia's retirement income system

The Retirement Income Review (Callaghan) Report concluded that the Australian retirement income system is effective, sound and its costs are broadly sustainable.

December 27, 2020

Our aggressive and violent ally. An updated repost. Part 1 of 2

Declining empires never decline gracefully. And neither will the US empire - addicted as it is to a belief in its exceptionalism and its grounding in aggression both at home and abroad. Add to the mix that 70 million people voted for Donald Trump and 70% of Republican supporters believe that the election was stolen by the Democrats. A sick country! Joe Biden will smooth a few rough edges but won’t do much more.

October 27, 2020

Covid: How are we going? Facts and spin

Impressions can be more important than the facts that was the case even before Trump demonstrated that a good tweet is worth a thousand facts.

September 4, 2024

Burning the EV bridges with China is risky

While Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump are engaged in a tight presidential race by highlighting their differences, they share similar perspectives about China. They both hold the common belief that the imposition of higher tariffs will stimulate economic growth. However, the intricate network of tariffs implemented by both the Trump and Biden administrations is generating trade tensions, adversely affecting American consumers, and hindering innovation._

August 14, 2024

A timid PM, frozen in the glare of the Keating headlights

When the former Prime Minister, Paul Keating, recently claimed that Australia was losing its “strategic autonomy” and turning into “the 51st State of the United States”, the current Prime Minister froze in the headlights.

July 9, 2024

‘The Night Won’t End’: Biden’s war on Gaza

From air strikes to field executions, Fault Lines investigates the killings of civilians by the Israeli military in Gaza and the role of the United States in the war.

June 2, 2024

Environment: Government delivers climate rhetoric but not emissions reductions

Australia’s emissions reductions have stalled just when we need to be ramping up ambition and action. Concrete’s emissions set to be high for decades.

May 15, 2024

Three compelling reasons to exit ANZUS

How long can Australian politicians continue with the pretence that the American alliance aligns with the nation’s interests? Trump or Biden? It doesn’t really matter except for determining the path of America’s decline into illiberalism. ANZUS must be exited.

April 24, 2024

World’s biggest democracy expels ABC journalist but little noise in Australia

One wonders how the Australian mainstream media will react to the news that India, the so-called biggest democracy in the world, has thrown out ABC correspondent Avani Dias from the country.

June 16, 2023

Ukraine: Taking leave of our senses

My first article published here at Pearls and Irritations, titled Built on a tower of lies, described how positive feedback loops have created at a societal level an enormous tower of lies that guide public discourse. I further warned that if we failed to dismantle this tower the consequences would be traumatic. Unfortunately, the horrifically traumatic war in Ukraine has driven these positive feedback loops into overdrive. The inability for us in the collective West to unwind these lies, or in other words to be honest with ourselves, is a major reason why I believe we are witnessing the demise of the West as a major power bloc.

April 19, 2023

Australia adrift and a foreign minister all at sea

On Monday, Penny Wong delivered her much awaited address to the National Press Club. What a disappointment! So many words, and so little substance. One could dismiss the episode as just another case of a minister whos not up to the task. Unfortunately, the speech points to a deeper ailment a government oblivious to the dangers ahead, and incapable of steering the ship to safer waters.

September 28, 2022

A "backstab": Santos, drilling and First Nations Peoples

Federal Court Justice Mordecai Bromberg has been in the environmental news again, this time throwing a large judicial spanner in the works of Santos and its drilling efforts in the Timor Sea.

June 17, 2022

Environment: Can astronomical phenomena inspire us to solve earthly problems?

Forget war, climate change, famine and dysfunctional economics for five minutes, lift your eyes to the pre-dawn skies and see five of our planetary neighbours.

August 8, 2021

Australia's diabolical foreign interference laws

Australian laws criminal penalties of up to 20 years in gaol on anybody who engages in foreign interference. But the way the law is written makes it very difficult to determine precisely what activities the prohibition extends to.

May 13, 2021

War with China is not inevitable: A revolution in Australian foreign policy should be.

The Governments warnings that war with China is inevitable are propaganda. There is no such inevitability. A decision to go to war is taken by humans. It is not determined by an iron law of history. Key questions are: why are we being softened up for this war now; has the Morrison Government already decided that were to go to war with China? Australian foreign policy needs profound revision.

September 28, 2024

Sri Lanka voters reject privileged elite – Asian Media Report

In Asian media this week: New leader will aim to end crushing austerity. Plus: China unveils economic rescue package; Indonesia’s middle class is shrinking; Beijing-New Delhi ties key to Asia; Pope Francis wants to visit China; Thailand plans mass same-sex wedding party.

September 11, 2024

Forked tongue foreign policy

Asia posturing. At least the Americans discern no contradiction in Australian strategic policy, but the government continues to contort its messaging.

August 1, 2024

Peak China? Judge by outcomes not ideology

Distinguishing in part between cyclical and structural economic challenges facing China, (eg, real estate busts vis further urbanisation potential) Geoff Raby, AO, former Australian Ambassador to China, to APEC and WTO, is sceptical of arguments propounding ‘peak china’ economic growth.

June 9, 2024

The reckless brinkmanship with Russia just keeps on escalating

It’s damn near impossible to keep up with all the warmongering of the western empire these days.

May 17, 2024

Pro-human rights Jewish students facing intimidation from vigilantes linked to repressive Israeli state

Jewish students in Western countries are increasingly facing forms of transnational repression from vigilante groups linked to the repressive Israeli state. These groups are allegedly using violence and intimidation on university campuses in coordinated strategies to curtail freedom of speech.

September 20, 2023

There is more to the Xinjiang story than meets Western media eyes

According to independent observers who visited the region, Beijing has implemented policies to help Uygurs after crushing terrorist threat.

August 13, 2023

The moral emptiness of Albaneses politics

These days the politics in the Australian parliament is little more than puerile game-playing, echoing what goes on endlessly and tediously in the undergraduate political clubs in our universities. Its all about organising and winning the numbers. It lacks an ethical core, resulting in the country being paralysed by the politics of ennui and hopelessness. Prime Minister Albanese seems all at sea when it comes to changing this depressing political culture.

July 15, 2022

Weekly roundup Saturday 16 July

Weekly roundup of links to articles, reports, podcasts and other media on current political and economic issues in public policy.

July 6, 2021

AstraZeneca vaccine: let young people choose for themselves

Choosing the AstraZeneca vaccine involves weighing up the risks and benefits. Young people weigh these differently from older generations, and should be allowed to make informed decisions for themselves.

June 27, 2021

Respecting the distinct roles of the ADF and the APS

The ADF and the APS are institutions in their own right, and are not just subject to the Governments directions. Their roles should be respected, recognising their commitment to serving the public and their focus on impartiality and the longer-term interests of Australians.

January 13, 2021

The Government championing free speech is a red herring

The refusal of some social media to allow Donald Trump a platform to spread lies and incite violence is too little too late. Expressions of unease by senior Coalition figures about some dubious threat to free speech are no more than attempts to distract from the Governments chaotic policies.

December 29, 2020

Twenty-Twenty

I will not wish my life away,

But Twenty-Twenty I can say,

Was the worst I can recall,

Not just for me, but for us all.

November 11, 2020

Off the Ground: A new generation of foreign correspondents

Mazoe Ford is billed as the ABCs Southeast Asia Correspondent. Shes been reporting on the civil strife in Bangkok from Sydney.

October 18, 2020

Megaphone Madness: how reckless media impeded Victorias Covid-19 recovery

The media we consume influences our compliance with Covid-19 recommendations. Poor media coverage in Victoria is impeding the states recovery.

October 8, 2020

Private school funding model is deeply flawed

The Morrison Governments funding model for private schools introduced earlier this year is littered with flaws and will result in massive over-funding of schools. It should be replaced by a new approach.

September 25, 2024

Will the QUAD go the same way as SEATO – another lame duck?

Almost the first thing Anthony Albanese did after becoming PM was to jump on a plane for a QUAD meeting in Tokyo. He was accompanied by Andrew Shearer, the head of the Office of National Intelligence. Ever since, Albanese has been in the grip of our intelligence services which have been effectively colonised by the CIA and other US agencies. Diplomacy has been put in the freezer.

June 13, 2023

Propaganda, the drive to war, and the battle for the mind

A battle of ideas is being fought in Australia. And the front line is the drive to war and the demonisation of China. There is a battle but it is a one-sided affair.

May 17, 2023

The colonisation of the Australian strategic imagination

Interrogating the public record provides a fundamental challenge to the integrity of the Defence Strategic Review (DSR). It comes in the form of a reality which few wish to acknowledge: the captive Australian strategic imagination a phenomenon of which Peter Dean, Head of the United States Study Centre at the University of Sydney and principal author of the DSR, is the current leading example.

September 9, 2022

Silencing the lambs. How propaganda works in the West

_Isnt it time that writers who are meant to keep the record straight declared their independence and decoded the propaganda? The urgency is greater than ever.

July 3, 2022

Voices of insecurity of kinds of felt dispossession with implications for political disengagement and sometimes populism

In 2022 we have seen moves away from major traditional parties, even more in France than in Australia.

April 7, 2022

Scott Morrisons constant disingenuous role play as tradesman and labourer

The recent budget has underscored that the Coalition government has abandoned the needy, and the nations future. Whether an Australian is hunting for a job or displaced from disaster-wrecked town, they should expect almost nothing from our leaders.

June 23, 2021

Militarism has become the norm. We now even have an Army Lieutenant General heading the vaccine roll out

_What a reflection this is on the standing of the Australian Public Service and the Morrison Governments lack of interest in a robust and well functioning civil society. We invariably turn to the military.

November 5, 2020

While the US flounders, China plants ideas and friendship in Indonesia

Of all the corroded clichs used in reporting the US election, the rustiest claimed the whole world was watching.

January 28, 2020

JENNY HOCKING. High Court to hear bid to release the Queen's secret Whitlam dismissal letters.

As the Queen reels from one family crisis to another, Buckingham Palace would be looking on a little anxiously as the Palace letters case is heard by the full bench of the High Court next week.

May 13, 2024

Is New Zealand slurping the AUKUS Kool-Aid?

Drinking the Kool-Aid is not only believing a foolish and dangerous idea but acting on it leads to unnecessary self-destruction. It refers to the 900 American cult members who drank cyanide-laced Kool-Aid at Jonestown in Guyana in 1978 in an act of “revolutionary suicide”. Critics of AUKUS on both sides of the Tasman think our governments need to change their drinking habits.

July 26, 2023

The RBA is on a knife-edge between recession and inflation

Monetary policy operates with a lag. The pain from increased interest rates is only now starting to really bite. However, the substantial increase in interest rates is reducing demand and thus bringing inflation down. While on the other hand, further interest rate increases add to the risk of a recession. It is time therefore to pause further increases in interest rates.

April 18, 2023

A tainted Defence Strategic Review

P&I Editorial:

Conflicts of interest at the heart of AUKUS and the Defence Strategic Review (DSR) including the principal author of the DSR benefitting from US State Department funding designed to build support for AUKUS and the US alliance - demand independent investigation.

September 16, 2022

The demarcations and restrictive work force practices in our health 'system' are a public scandal

_Our eighteenth century health workforce structure needs a root and branch overhaul. But governments are too frightened to tackle health providers like doctors and pharmacists. Blue collar workers however are easy prey.

June 30, 2022

China, the U.S. and the South China Sea what could go wrong?

The U.S. and China continue their standoff in the South China Sea. Although they are struggling to set a floor and guardrails for their military interactions, there is much that could go wrong.

April 18, 2022

Derek Woolner & David Glynne Jones - From AUKUS to the Solomon Islands: Australias urgent need for a cohesive strategic policy

The major issue for Australia’s program to acquire nuclear propelled submarines has little to do with the vessels._

August 31, 2021

It is not obvious that Morrison would win a public relations battle with the states

Given the vaccine rollout debacle, Scott Morrison would struggle to convince voters he has handled the pandemic better than state premiers.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal