August 28, 2023

Archives, access, and history: can the National Archives democratic function survive?

_How did the National Archives of Australia, whose core function is to collect, preserve, manage and make public Australias most significant historical records, become instead an obstacle to public access and a barrier to knowledge of our own history? Minister for the Arts Tony Burke must act to reverse the Morrison governments attack on the spirit of the Archives Act.

August 9, 2023

Hiroshima Day: do we really care about the serious possibility of another war?

Madrid, 6 August 1973fifty years ago. The son of one of Franco’s generals has summoned us, a gang of rowdy friends, to his absent father’s luxurious home. Lounging on gold brocade sofas, merrily we smoke dope and drink booze till we’re high as larks and tight as owls.

June 1, 2023

An open letter to Mark McGowan

WA premier Mark McGowan was rightly popular and admired as a consequence of his leadership, especially during the Covid crisis. Now he has a real opportunity to make an even more important contribution beyond state borders.

August 18, 2022

Following the war in Ukraine

To write in real terms about war is not to condone war. War is an inappropriate activity for a species calling itself sapiens.

July 12, 2022

Liu Xiaobo and his Nobel peace prize

Wednesday, 13 July 2022, will mark the fifth anniversary of the passing of Chinas human rights activist, Liu Xiaobo. The controversy surrounding his Nobel Peace award and his death is revisited.

June 6, 2021

Hong Kong is not dying after all.

On 25 May, the China Centre at Jesus College, Cambridge University, hosted a significant online, two-hour seminar on The Future of Hong Kong.

December 21, 2020

The China shock may provide a much-needed catalyst for change

In an opinion poll published in the Guardian online an astonishing 2/3 of voters either approved or strongly approved of the Prime Ministers conduct of the nations affairs.

March 12, 2019

JAMES O'NEILL. The Douma "chemical attack": still waiting for an apology.

On 7 April 2018 an alleged chemical attack took place in the city of Douma in the Syrian Arab Republic. Dramatic footage of the victims was widely broadcast throughout the western mainstream media. Particularly prominent were images of children foaming at the mouth and being hosed down.The footage for these dramatic depictions was almost entirely sourced from a group known as the White Helmets. They are invariably depicted in the western media as a form of civil defence organisation. They are in fact an arm of Britains MI6, trained by the British and financed by the UK and in the United States.

May 21, 2024

Courts protect crimes by agents of the state, punish whistleblowers

David McBride, for all his flaws, is a better, a more decent and honourable person than any of those he has discomforted or outraged.

April 27, 2024

If Avani Dias had been white, would Murdoch media have ignored her India ban?

Strange but true. A reporter from the state-owned broadcaster in Australia was booted out by India, purportedly the biggest democracy in the world, and the Murdoch media in Australia has ignored it in toto.

September 8, 2023

Warmth marks Sino-Australian talks ahead of Albaneses China trip

An affectionate sense of reunion and a warm group photo session were among highlights on Thursday in Beijing of the seventh Meeting of the China-Australia High-level Dialogue, the first such gathering of the two delegations since a meeting in 2020 in Sydney.

July 21, 2023

Nyet means Nyet: Russia's Nato enlargement redlines

Ukraine and Georgia’s NATO aspirations not only touch a raw nerve in Russia, they engender serious concerns about the consequences for stability in the region. Not only does Russia perceive encirclement, and efforts to undermine Russia’s influence in the region, but it also fears unpredictable and uncontrolled consequences which would seriously affect Russian security interests. Experts tell us that Russia is particularly worried that the strong divisions in Ukraine over NATO membership, with much of the ethnic-Russian community against membership, could lead to a major split, involving violence or at worst, civil war. In that eventuality, Russia would have to decide whether to intervene; a decision Russia does not want to have to face.

May 2, 2023

Cuts to preventive health are a false economy: they lead to sicker people and sicker budgets

The nation is bracing for austere budgets. Grim foreshadowing has prepared us for a challenging federal budget. The Victorian Premier has warned of very difficult measures in his states budget, and NSW has delayed its budget while the new cabinet grapples with tough choices.

July 10, 2022

Pardoning Witness K a no-brainer, but then what?

In this week of fiery church politics, perhaps Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus is doing as the Good Lord himself does moving in mysterious ways.

June 28, 2022

Oh, for a Prime Minister honest about Australia's security

How did it come to this? Australias defence policy has been baldly sacrificed to US interests via AUKUS with little public discourse.

August 16, 2021

Afghanistan is gone,what comes next?

After Vietnam, and the Chinese civil war that preceded it, we assumed that the lessons had been learned - that a rural-based guerrilla movement facing a corrupt government can prevail provided it has leadership and an ideology to cling to.

July 5, 2021

Grenville Cross-Rule of law in HongKong- Protecting criminal justice operatives from violence.

When the Hong Kong protest movement and its armed wing launched their insurrection in 2019, they realized that to make headway they had to target people involved in upholding criminal justice. From the outset, they systematically attacked the police, with petrol bombs, bricks and improvised weaponry, and then set about terrorizing their families. They doxxed officers, intimidated their spouses and children, and mounted late night attacks on police married quarters.

December 23, 2020

Brexit on the threshold

What will become of Brexit in the next few days? The Chinese may wish their foe to live in interesting times. But nothing that the British and the Europeans could do for themselves could rival the chaos and pandemonium now besetting them across the Strait of Dover. Regardless of deal or no-deal post-Brexit, disruptions to trade and supply chains will characterise life in that region and beyond for many months, compounded of course by a surging COVID-19 mutation.

November 9, 2020

Defence legislation re call-out of Reserves should not proceed

As currently drafted, the legislation to facilitate the call-out of the ADF Reserves contains too many risks for too little benefit. It should not proceed in its current form.

October 14, 2020

Coalition outsources role of government to business, the US

The Coalition acts as an agent of the business sector in domestic affairs and an agent of the US in international affairs.

May 12, 2024

Negativity and the Budget

The commentary that surrounds the Federal Budget is a noise of dissatisfaction and ‘negative bias’. The reality is that the ‘power of constant attack’ will make it harder to co-operate together, in bipartisan fashion, on crucial matters. Is there another way?

August 14, 2023

Pearls and Irritations: Australias best public policy forum

For some years, John Menadues Pearls and Irritations has been Australias best public policy forum informative and stimulating. Now there is an extra reason to read it: it offers alternative views.

May 21, 2023

FOI exposes RAAF Growler rip off

In March 2023, the Australian Defence Department confirmed the arrival of an F/A18G Growler aircraft to replace a similar aircraft which was destroyed in January 2018 while on a training exercise. It had flown less than 120 hours. The aircraft was powered by two General Electric F414-GE-400 turbofan engines. According to the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), the aircraft sustained catastrophic damage following an uncontained engine failure that subsequently caused a fuel fire. While some aircraft and mission systems were recovered, the aircraft worth $120 million on purchase was a write off.

July 21, 2022

A way forward with Labors climate change legislation

Effective action against climate change requires Labors legislation. Hopefully the compromise necessary to pass this legislation can be achieved if the target set is for the minimum reduction in carbon emissions required.

July 11, 2022

American authoritarianism and ANZUS

Australias major ally, the United States, may soon cease to be a democracy. The Supreme Courts decision to overturn Roe v Wade a decision opposed by a majority of Americans is just the latest example of a country hurtling towards minority rule. Today, it is abortion rights on the judicial chopping block. Tomorrow, it is voting rights.

April 25, 2021

Why wont Morrison accept his responsibility for quarantine?

WA State Premier McGowan has again called on the Commonwealth to accept its responsibility to develop national dedicated quarantine facilities as Australia has had for much of its past. But there appears to be little to no chance of that happening.

January 9, 2021

Hong Kong's future now lies with China

The past year and a half has transformed Hong Kong. Following prolonged, intense and often violent protest in 2019, COVID-19 drove activists off the streets in early 2020. This years passage of the National Security Law (NSL) by Chinas National Peoples Congress marked a new political phase. Opposition figures were put on the back foot and the central authorities in Beijing became more engaged in the citys politics.

April 29, 2024

Driving the dragon: China's adaptive policymaking

China’s economic policymaking over the past few decades is a fascinating example of adaptive planning and strategic foresight. From pivoting away from reliance on globalisation to emphasising domestic infrastructure and poverty alleviation, tilting towards the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and now focusing on “high-quality development” (simultaneously upscaling advanced manufacturing while deflating the property bubble), China has demonstrated a sophisticated capacity to recalibrate its economic policies in response to the changing global and domestic landscape.

April 25, 2024

ANZAC Day 2024: Better balanced assimilation or war reports fatigue?

Perhaps it is my imagination, but in the days immediately preceding Anzac Day 2024, there seems to be less media exhortation to observance than has been usual in recent years.

April 13, 2024

'Worst I have seen': 75% of Great Barrier Reef suffers coral bleaching

“We are really running out of time. We need to reduce our emissions immediately,” one expert warned. “We cannot expect to save the Great Barrier Reef and be opening new fossil fuel developments.”

September 29, 2023

Australia-China relations are stabilising

After three years pause, the Australia-China High-Level Dialogue held its 7th meeting in Beijing on 7 September. This continues the process of stabilisation in bilateral relations since the Albanese government came to power 16 months ago. A closed-door meeting where no extensive media coverage was possible, it was nonetheless understood that the two sides considered the resumption of the dialogue a good sign of progress and exchanges of views on major bilateral issues took place.

September 23, 2023

This Labor Government is utterly inadequate

The old parties have completely lost touch with their origins and purposes. They are corrupted or captured by big money and captured by the United States toxic vision of the world.

May 22, 2023

Government seeks to exempt SSN nuclear power plants from controls and protections

The government has a Bill before parliament which, if passed, would exempt the nuclear power plants on nuclear-propelled submarines from the requirement of two other Acts: the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Act 1998 and the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.

July 4, 2022

The Albanese governments policy on China so far is beyond disappointing

_Prime Minister Albanese is happy to begin his prime ministership by fawning on the U.S., Japan and NATO, while all three move further away from China as a systemic competitor, threat or worse.

September 21, 2021

How nurse practitioners have been shut out of the vaccine rollout

Privately practising nurse practitioners offer the best solution for vaccinated marginalised populations, but they have been excluded from access to Commonwealth emergency pandemic vaccines.

May 3, 2021

Morrisons day of reckoning may bring down his temples

Its all very well to have a prime minister who believes that he has been anointed by God for his task, and is thus above some of the checks and balances imposed by law and by custom on the mere mortals who have preceded him. Experience and the career so far of Donald Trump suggest, however, that a day of reckoning will come when either human chicanery or an act of omission by God deprives him of his mandate. Even assuming he goes with good grace, it is doubtful that the structures and styles he developed in government can or should endure.

September 1, 2024

The dangers of AUKUS, the FPA and nuclear submarines

Preparations for Australian involvement in a US-instigated war against China are proceeding steadily. Despite recent polls showing that a majority of the Australian people want to keep out of such a war and stay neutral, Australia’s subservient leadership continues to provide the US military with unimpeded access to our ports, airfields and military bases as they lock us ever more tightly into the US imperial war machine.

July 18, 2024

Jacinda Ardern joins programme by major U.S. think tank the Center for American Progress

Former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s new international role is leader of a project created by the think tank the Center for American Progress, known as CAP. Reactions to this apparently counter intuitive move have been varied.

July 12, 2024

Cartoon Commentary

May 20, 2024

The AIJAC propaganda machine

The Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) is a constant presence in Australia’s mainstream media. Its predominant role is to defend the state of Israel come hell or high water.

July 19, 2023

Paternal Western interference in Solomon Islands drives Honiara towards China

In the last few years, Australian and US foreign policy toward the Pacific has been framed as a benign influence, couched in money terms, offers and suasion. But in such offers comes that bit of intrusive steel, a less than subtle threat that gravitating into the orbit of another power, most notably China, will come with costs.

June 20, 2023

Our R&D system is in crisis. It's time to act

Near on a decade of neglect has left Australias national innovation system in a lamentable state, as the Academy of Science has observed.

August 22, 2021

How the plague squashes patriotism

It was weird, like the day after in a disaster movie. Empty chairs on a red carpet and mike stands sans mikes. Not a VIP within coo-ee, though their black limos were parked outside the Malang town hall. This was Indonesias national day, 17 August and no one was partying.

July 28, 2021

What goes around comes around: carbon tariffs bite our exports

In his excellent opinion piece, Ross Gittins points out that those posturing against the proposed EU carbon tariffs on our exports are the very people who struck down own effective national greenhouse action. They argued then that that unfair competition from countries who were not acting would impact our industries so its a bit rich now to call out the EU for a tariff designed to protect their emissions intensive trade exposed sectors from unfair competition.

November 17, 2020

What will Australia and Japan want from Joe Biden? (AFR Nov 16, 2020)

Mr. Morrisons foreign policy initiatives usually suggest determination rather than calibration. But todays visit to Tokyo is notable for both. In the time of Corona, it is gutsy in domestic terms -and considered international policy.

January 3, 2018

MICHAEL McKINLEY. Australia and the wars of the alliance: fragments for a coronial inquiry - Part 3: The United States military-A REPOST

Australias alliance wars their respective causes, conduct, and consequences - are overdetermined by the politics and strategies of the United States. In general, though they consist of few battlefield successes, the overall record is one of failed campaigns informed by repeatedly failed indeed, dead - ideas that for various reasons maintain their currency. The purpose of this and associated posts Parts I, 2, and 4 - is to conduct a limited coronial inquiry that is, to establish just how the death occurred.

August 3, 2024

A complex, fluid dispute in South China Sea

Amidst the spat with Beijing over safety of its troops on Sierra Madre at the Second Thomas Shoal, the Philippines is becoming increasingly stretched. Pooling all available resources to deal with one of the worst oil spills in many years in Manila Bay could mean playing down conflict with Beijing.

August 19, 2023

A 'Statement From The Heart' should always be cherished

How is it that the Uluru Statement from the Heart is even slightly controversial?

July 12, 2023

The Albanese Governments craven desire to bolster the alliance with Washington

When will Australians realise, as Paul Keating has been unerringly consistent in arguing, that they are part of the cosmopolitanism and complexity of Asia, and not a Western imagined community presided over by a fast declining America?

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal