July 22, 2021

We can help restore confidence in the AZ vaccine

Public policy and personal reticence due to side effects continue to impede the use of Australias available and effective AstraZeneca (AZ) COVID-19 vaccine at a time when it is most needed, the now critical 6 months before sufficient supplies of alternate vaccines can deliver the desired 80% vaccination rate required to end the need for crippling lockdowns.

May 31, 2021

The federal governments Covid response: avoid responsibility for national quarantine

In its response to Covid, the Morrison government has achieved an almost perfect result in maintaining the Coalitions record since 2013 of doing nothing, achieving nothing, solving nothing. No big projects, no great initiatives or memorable policies. Failure to tackle key issues such as fire, climate change and Covid.

February 7, 2021

Biden China team puts militarist cart before the diplomatic horse

By doubling down on Trumps in your face pursuit of military domination, the Biden China team seems to be proffering more of the same to the region – instability and a drift toward confrontation and conflict.

December 13, 2020

The essence of war is to kill

A recent spike in the statistics has seen the number of suicides by Australias Afghanistan veterans pass 500. This is an appalling toll which raises many deep questions for us all.

November 10, 2020

November 11 - 'the other dismissal': the expulsion of Hugh Mahon from federal parliament

_This year, on November 11, marks the 45th anniversary of the dismissal of Gough Whitlam as prime minister. Yet November 11 is also the date of another dismissal not as well known as Kerrs coup but one which a hundred years ago ignited similar passions. It was the expulsion from the federal parliament of Hugh Mahon, the Labor member for Kalgoorlie.

November 2, 2020

Australias anti-China witch hunt isnt just harmful, it turns people against each other as governments escape scrutiny (SCMP Nov 1, 2020)

This isnt banter or trolling this is cancel culture that seeks to extinguish the opinions of those who dont conform to the view of certain politicians or media outlets. It is a phenomenon that has the ironic and harmful effect of undermining democratic values, including the right to free speech.

August 30, 2024

Missing the point: Chalmers, Dutton and the politics of division

A government is in trouble when it has to utter the banal and reiterate the damnably obvious. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is certainly struggling of late, a state of affairs all the more unspeakable given the calibre of his opponent. Opposition Leader Peter Dutton barely makes the grade of a two-dimensional politician, but has risen in the polls on a drab mixture of resentment, loathing and fear. Such a political approach does not always work but has done so in the past.

August 12, 2024

Compounded dishonour

The majority of American politicians, journalists, pundits and most commentators have decided that the war between the Zionist forces and the Palestinian resistance started on October 7th 2023. Not over 76 years ago, or more.

June 20, 2024

Cartoon Commentary

April 10, 2024

Fossil fuel’s war on protest

Madeleine King, Minister for Resources in the Albanese government, recently announced that she will curtail the ability of Australians to challenge resource corporation projects in court ( The West Australian 26/3/24). This attack on democratic rights is built on decades of disinformation shaping the global discussion on fossil fuels and climate change.

September 18, 2023

Australias secretive defence establishment: the real enemies of truth and freedom

Australia, with fewer secrets to hide,is more compulsively secretive than the US, China or NATO.

August 10, 2023

The suffering of Syrians and US sanctions

For Syrians, hope lies in the fact that given time and effort people outside their country will learn of the deleterious effect of sanctions, will question the justifications given for imposing them, and will see them as breaching human rights.

August 28, 2022

Do we need a Head of State?

_In the Claytons monarchical system that governs Australia, the Governor General has two roles: to symbolise the nation and to ensure the Constitution is protected. The current occupant appears to do neither particularly successfully.

August 7, 2022

Teow Loon Ti: Nancy Pelosi, the Straw that Taiwan clutched

Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan, delivered a resounding slap to the face of Xi Jinping and left, leaving the Taiwanese to pick up the pieces of the damage she did to the Taiwan/China relationship.

August 2, 2022

In the US you cant witness an execution if your skirt is too revealing

Joe Nathan James Jr was executed by lethal injection on Thursday,against the wishesof his victims family. He wasthe eighth personto be put to death in the US so far this year, and the second from Alabama.

June 20, 2022

If Albanese asks for Assanges freedom, Biden has every reason to agree: Bob Carr

Two years ago at my local ALP branch, I moved a motion urging the party to support dropping extradition proceedings against Julian Assange. Maroubra ALP is not inner city. It might be regarded as a bastion of the right. The motion was carried, near unanimously. After the debate, one member came up and said: I think Assange is probably a narcissistic bastard but hes ours.

July 13, 2021

Malaysia: toxic ideology more dangerous.

Many people think we are in for a quick regime change given that UMNO, the biggest party in the ruling coalition withdrew its support last week. It could not be further from the truth. I will try to explain why Muhyiddin administration is likely to survive the UMNO challenge but will remain politically unstable for some time to come.

September 16, 2024

Antisemitism tangle: Can ridicule depict reality?

Current responses to the Gaza “war” would seem to suggest that antisemitism is the priority issue, not the unending slaughter of Palestinians.

June 18, 2024

Espionage death sentence the latest challenge to China–Australia relations

Australian citizen Yang Hengjun’s death sentence for espionage in China has complicated the improvement of China–Australia relations. The case highlights concerns about China’s legal system, particularly regarding national security cases where the judiciary lacks transparency and independence. Despite international condemnation, China continues to issue numerous death sentences. The case also underscores the growing mistrust and espionage concerns between China and the West, which have implications for individuals and firms caught between the two sides.

June 11, 2024

South Africa’s post-election turning point

As the political hegemony of the ANC has frayed, elite forces have increasingly funded an array of opposition parties to shift power more in their favour, writes Eugene Puryear.

September 1, 2023

Australias fiscal challenge

Productivity growth will be less than projected in the Intergenerational Report, the budget deficits will be worse, and the Government should be setting the scene for raising more revenue.

August 4, 2023

Morrison is a symptom, not the cause, of the decline in Australian politics

_In focusing on Scott Morrisons shocking record in government, and/or on his pathetic and self-pitying response to Commissioner Holmes Robodebt report, we must not lose sight of the fact that Morrison is symptomatic of a great deal of what is so terribly wrong in contemporary Australian politics. He is not the cause of what is wrong. The focus on Morrison is deflecting attention away from the increasingly worrying conduct of the Albanese government and the alarming rate at which Australia is being entrapped into American militarism in the region.

June 28, 2023

AFP Commissioner has some explaining to do

Information provided to the Senate committee inquiring into inappropriate handling by PWC Australia of confidential tax information has revealed that AFP Commissioner Reece Kershaw and former NSW police commissioner Mick Fuller and now PWC partner met in July 2022. We are told that the purpose of the meeting involved discussion around Fuller via PWC Australia undertaking a comprehensive independent review of the AFP’s delivery of policing services to the ACT government. According to media reports, no minutes of the meeting between Kershaw and Fuller were made and the contract worth $750,000 was awarded without any tender being called.

May 21, 2023

Julian Assange: hung by the thread of ignorance

If you witnessed a war crime, what would you do? Since the US led capture of Julian Assange from the Ecuadorian Embassy into the UKs Belmarsh prison, he has served four torturous years of detainment. Julians family, their international team of lawyers along with a growing number of leaders, scholars, concerned citizens - and especially the Iraqi family members of the murdered, have watched on in horror.

August 29, 2022

Massive secret network was pushing the western narrative

The huge disinformation campaign ran for almost five years. The reputation of Chinese, Russians and Iranians was blackened..Falsified accounts pushed stories in tandem with US govt media VOA, RFE and others.

August 17, 2022

Why is Australia conducting provocative intelligence flights and activities off the China coast in support of the US?

_How would Australia react if Chinese ISR (Intelligence ,Surveillance,Reconnaissance) planes were similarly operating off its coast probing its defences and dropping sonobuoys to detect its submarines?

August 11, 2022

The Pelosi provocation-All Politics Is Local until it isn't

Years ago, one of Nancy Pelosis most noteworthy predecessors as Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Tip ONeill, uttered the famous phrase: All politics is local. These words may have been on Pelosis mind when she decided to go to Taiwan.

June 21, 2022

Anti-China is in the Australian DNA

Is there any hope for Australia-China relations? I have spent most of a 60 year career on the periphery of those relations - in Canberra, Hong Kong, Moscow and Japan, with some time in China mainly during the crucial Cultural Revolution period.

June 17, 2022

Alfred de Zayas and Richard Falk: The unjustified criticism of High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet's visit to Xinjiang.

An artificial atmosphere of hostility, sustained by geopolitical agendas, double standards, fake news and skewed narratives has made it difficult to tackle specific human rights problems particularly in Xinjiang.

August 9, 2024

The cost of living crisis is really a housing crisis

The evidence shows that the only households whose living costs have risen faster than their incomes are those homeowners with a mortgage. For the other two thirds of households, their incomes have risen faster than their living costs. Policy should therefore focus on why mortgage costs have risen so dramatically.

June 25, 2024

The cost of living and housing affordability

The cost-of-living crisis mainly reflects a decline in housing affordability. A consequence is that this crisis is much worse for middle-income people, who are typically middle-aged, and who are most likely to have a substantial mortgage.

April 30, 2024

Gaza and victimhood

The regimes in Israel and Palestine both claim to be victims in the violence that engulfs them. Interpreting the situation through “victimhood” assists in understanding the human forces that arise from age-old conflicts and that continue to cause so much horrific suffering.

July 16, 2023

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs: The failures of the Global Economic System

Of all of these four objectives that I call sustainable development. 1. Material Sufficiency; 2. Social Justice; 3. Environmental sustainability; and 4. Peace; were off track on all of them Prof. Jeffrey Sachs.

July 7, 2023

An Asia-Pacific NATO: fanning the flames of war

My country, the U.S., is unrecognisable. Im not sure who runs the country. I do not believe it is the president., says Jeffrey Sachs in a speech at a Saving Humanity and Planet Earth (SHAPE) seminar, Melbourne, Australia. U.S. actions are putting us on a path to war with China in the same way that U.S. actions did in Ukraine.

April 21, 2023

Wongs two card trick on Australians

Minister Wongs speech to the National Press Club demonstrates that when she lays her cards on the table they do not present truly. A mathematician would advise to multiply her claims by minus one. Australia is well along on a path to make, not avert, war with China. Peace holds no weight with this government. Australians must count on failed leadership from our leaders, henceforth.

September 26, 2021

When it comes to China, our media 'experts' need a lot of help

Since the AUKUS nuclear submarine deal our mainstream media experts have doubled down on the claim Beijing is expansionist. Since few of them can read or speak Chinese maybe I can help them.

June 22, 2021

Morrison-Naked in Cornwall with 'allies' backfilling the markets we have lost in China

Far from being a vindication of the Governments China policies, the G7 plus 4 meeting highlighted the abject failure of Australias reckless foreign policy towards China. Australia alone of the 11 nations present had no official contact with China and significant parts of its trade suspended, which others at the meeting are busily back filling.

October 20, 2020

What should Australian submarines do? Response to Brian Toohey

Brian Tooheys challenging post (19 October) concerns what we want our submarines to do. In light of the recent Defence Strategic Update, the ADF needs to build a force capable of deterring an attack by a major power.

August 21, 2024

Engaging Pillar 2 of AUKUS: losing self-respect and encouraging self-harm

Pillar 2 is a thing that AUKUS created: it appears at different times and with different meanings and possibilities and yet is not entirely, or even at all, predictable because the initial conditions and predicate logic on which it depends are themselves illusions or fabrications of the collective mind of those who constructed it in a national security strongroom to which only they have the keys.

August 20, 2024

The ICJ decision and the general assembly

Readers note that it is a month since the International Court of Justice (ICJ) handed down its advisory opinion on the Palestinian occupation (on 19 July). No doubt some are wondering what is happening. I am one of you.

July 30, 2024

Anthony Albanese: the weak link in the Albanese Government

Following the federal Cabinet reshuffle announced by Anthony Albanese on Sunday, the media focus was on him moving Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil and Immigration Minister Andrew Giles.

July 8, 2024

Israel, born illegitimate, seizes more illegal land in the West Bank

The birth of Israel on 14 May 1948 is said to be based on three related claims. Some people regard these claims as questionable. They form the basis for why Israel’s birth is said to be illegitimate.

May 2, 2024

Indian spies expelled from Australia in 2020

India, regarded as a friendly nation by Australia, operated what is being called a “nest of spies” in this country, the ABC reports, adding that the group was kicked out in 2020 after the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation discovered what they were up to.

April 30, 2024

Is Albo’s big new idea too late?

Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers have put their future in the Labor pantheon at high risk with their new protectionism. Sooner or later, a real Labor leader will emerge, and one of her first serious acts will be to turn the nation back towards its natural advantage in free trade. It will be harder for the backwards steps being planned by the Albanese government.

September 11, 2023

Okinawa is becoming a garrison state for war with China

I have come now to the bitter realisation that from no matter what angle you consider it, the Henoko New Base plan has become a solid block of injustice. Urashima Etsuko

July 13, 2023

NATO enlargement enthusiasts look to the Indo-Pacific

Lord Ismay, NATOs first secretary-general (SG), famously said the purpose of NATO was to keep the Americans in, the Russians out, and the Germans down.

July 3, 2023

Globalising NATO to preserve US dominance

The containment policy pursued by the United States during the Cold War years is back with a vengeance.

July 1, 2023

Environment: Invasive animals and plants are the main killers of our native ones

Invasive species, including pet cats, have been and remain the major cause of extinctions in Australia. Net zero emissions sounds good but is it just a greenwashing delaying tactic?

June 21, 2023

AUKUS and the division of Labor

Delegates at Labors National Conference in August will have to pay more attention than usual to foreign and defence policy. Dissent on AUKUS is spreading, while Palestine is a promise to keep.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal