August 30, 2024

‘Price-gouging’ and ‘profiteering’ haven’t been major contributors to Australian inflation

Australia’s experience over the past three years of the highest inflation in 35 years is in large part — as it has been in other countries — the result of producers of goods and services, in both the private and public sectors, being able to pass on increases in costs to their customers or clients in the form of higher prices.

June 18, 2024

Across the US Empire, deranged shrieks drown out talk of peace

Historically ignorant strategists urge people to their deaths to sustain the illusion of American primacy. But the problem of dealing with a belligerent, crumbling, supremacist USA is the true geopolitical challenge of the age.

June 11, 2024

Biden’s distorted D-Day history seeks to rally others to his endless wars

President Biden’s bellicose nationalism was again on display during the D-Day commemorations. In a pair of addresses, Biden not only sacralised war and exalted the virtues of ‘the American’. In the finest populist tradition, he misrepresented the history of the Second World War to rally Europeans to never-ending-war. It all passed with little real deconstruction from the media.

April 24, 2024

Australia's group think epidemic and the Adelaide AUKUS fairytale

The idea that nuclear submarines can be built in Adelaide under AUKUS has the characteristics of the “group think” that led to invasion of Iraq in 2003, and has been described by former Foreign Minister Alexander Downer as a “bit of a fairytale”. “Some government in the future will make the obvious decision and not go ahead with the Adelaide build”, he said.

September 15, 2023

Group think: Paralysis and the missing ONI climate security report

On assuming office, one of Prime Minister Albaneses first actions was to task the Office of National Intelligence (ONI) to review the security threats posed by climate change. The report was finalised in late 2022 but not made public. Accordingly, a release the ONI report campaign has dominated climate-security discourse over much of 2023. Foreign Minister Penny Wong recently confirmed the report will not be released, but that its finding are informing policy making.

September 14, 2023

Imagine a day when the whole planet was at peace

The UN International Day of Peace is next week, September 21st. It is a day for rekindling our noblest aspirations. Imagine even a day when the whole planet was at peace. A day when our most attractive power, our capacity to love, was all one could see. A day when not one person was killed by hateful violence. A day when no one was fearful for their loved ones.

September 13, 2023

A funny thing happened on the way to Beijing: Reflections on spy recruitment practices

An innocent invitation to a conference could turn into a nightmare. Next month I shall be on my way to an Australian Studies conference in Beijing, but already I am nervous about my travel plans because of recent stories about the attitude of Australian spy agencies to information exchanges with China. Friends, if I fail to board the Qantas flight out of Hong Kong on 27th October, please alert Foreign Minister Penny Wong as soon as possible!

August 9, 2023

Marcus Strom: AUKUS is a mad, bad and dangerous war policy

Anthony Albanese likes to think of himself as a Bob Hawke unifying type. But if he keeps dragging us along this war path, he will be remembered as our Tony Blair.

August 6, 2023

Pearls and Irritations covers important stories that would otherwise be ignored

In an age when the mainstream media scene is monotone and superficial, Pearls and Irritations covers important stories that would otherwise be ignored, and offers a refreshing diversity of opinion. It needs your support to survive and grow.

July 29, 2023

Avoiding the same fate: Political Polarisation in the US Part 5

Australia must carefully monitor US domestic developments as a barometer of longer term risks to the reliability of our great and powerful friend, and to avoid being drawn into a US war against China. But the biggest lesson from the political polarisation in the US is that it is better to have lower overall economic growth but sustain a fairer society, than to go for broke while impoverishing ordinary citizens. The price of failing to do that is the risk of bitter polarisation, political violence, and democratic tensions.

April 26, 2023

Like justice, medical specialist care delayed is care denied

The statistics released by ABC journalist, Stephanie Dalzell on April 20, define a national disgrace and expose a massive hole in the once intact Medicare safety net.

September 23, 2021

Melbourne riots shake public trust in reliability of mainstream media

_There is strong evidence that Melbournes four days of street riots by angry young men claiming to be construction workers were fomented by right-wing extremists who used social media to radicalise unemployed or locked-down young men. They look to have modelled themselves on Trump supporters storming the Capitol.

September 1, 2021

Resilience via poetry, a South Sudanese story

Behind the stay-at-home Covid restrictions, the mental health of thousands is threatened. Cries for help multiply. To virus induced threats, including isolation if schools and universities stay closed, migrants must also deal with the trauma of past events plus the stigma of not always feeling accepted in a new country. Like Achol Arop.

August 30, 2021

"No Australian who has ever fallen in our uniform has ever diedin vain, ever" The PM and the AWM

Prime Minister Morrisons recentstatementto the ABC that No Australian who has ever fallen in our uniform has ever diedin vain, ever is glib, facile, devoid of any content and oblivious to the catastrophe in Afghanistan and to Australias role. It is little more than an arbitrary assertion that Australias wars, by definition, bring good outcomes that would absolve our leaders of any responsibility and accountability for disastrous outcomes from these wars.

July 20, 2021

A Flight with Henry Kissinger to Beijing that Changed the World

On this particular night in July 1971, we were told to get ready for a 3 AM departure.

April 18, 2021

Accountability in the public sector: Part 1

This two-part article is based on a speech that I gave to a webinar sponsored by the Centre for Public Integrity on 15 April about how the public service should contribute to the integrity and accountability of executive government. Part 1 discusses the broad role and capability of the public service to assist the government in policy development and its implementation.

November 25, 2020

Power and pain: an Australian citizens' encounter with the SAS

Outside of Defence circles not many Australians would have had a close physical confrontation with members of the SAS. Four peace activists did in 2014 when their trespass on the Swan Island military base was dealt with by two enraged SAS members.

October 21, 2020

China is not the urgent threat; climate change is

Spending priorities by the federal government are increasingly questionable, if not indefensible; they raise fundamental questions about the competence and intelligence of our policymaking elites.

October 1, 2024

The conveyor belt for terminally ill older people

The default for people who are older and near the end of life when they suffer an acute deterioration is often hospitalisation. They are placed on a conveyor belt - ambulance, Emergency Department (ED), hospital, often ending up on life support in the intensive care unit.

July 24, 2024

Cartoon Commentary

May 17, 2023

The dangerous idiocy of current Red Menace Journalism

Many contributors have exposed the blatant ethical corruption of recent journalism that presages combat with a rampaging China. Just as before, now again, there are interested parties more than happy to be the beneficiaries of the click-bait journalism on display. Eisenhower cautioned against complacency towards the military-industrial complex. To this we can nowadays add too much of the mainstream media (MSM) and the advertising industry.

August 15, 2022

Would Australian defence of Taiwan amount to the crime of aggression?

The Defence Ministers Cabinet colleagues must be able to rely him on to provide authoritative guidance on the legal use of military force. The public has a right to expect his statements on international law to be meaningful and correct. Richard Marles has not demonstrated that capacity.

July 3, 2022

Happy Birthday ABC. Where are you going now?

_The ABC celebrates its 90th birthday June 30th this year. There are few Australians alive today who were here at the birth. So, it is timely to ask what the future of our public broadcaster is, particularly given the BBC, its model and guiding star, is in trouble.

September 26, 2021

Without a clear strategy, Australia will not have a submarine navy. Part 2

We should be pleased to see the previous submarine contract cancelled, but not without a clear replacement program in place.

August 26, 2021

Opening with 70% of adults vaccinated, the Doherty report predicts 1.5K deaths in 6 months. We need a revised plan

One consequence of the escalating COVID outbreak in New South Wales has been increased political tension around the national plan for COVID reopening.

August 4, 2024

The Astana Declaration - a challenge to US world power

The 24th summit of heads of state of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) concluded on 4 July 2024 in Astana, Kazakhstan. Its communique emphasised the group’s determination to enhance its role in influencing world events, an unmistakable challenge to US world leadership.

July 20, 2024

What happens now that Israel has formally rejected a two-state solution?

Given the Israeli Parliament’s overwhelming rejection of a two-state solution the world needs to recognise that it is no longer possible, at least in the short and possibly medium term. It’s a mirage that opinion polls show most Israelis and Palestinians don’t want. Given their long acrimony, the sad truth is that each side wants to overpower the other and have only one nation.

June 7, 2024

The Greens correctly get up the noses of Labor, Coalition over Gaza

The Greens, a party with whom Labor may well have to negotiate with to form government after the next election, have the knack of getting up the noses of both Labor and the Coalition by accusing both major parties of doing little or nothing to effect an end to the slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza, senseless killing that has been going on in the name of self-defence since October 7.

September 21, 2023

The West attempts to downplay India assassination allegations

India appears to have taken a leaf out of Saudi Arabia’s book in dealing with its critics abroad, with the alleged killing by Indian agents of a prominent Khalistan activist in Canada recently.

September 9, 2023

Were going nuts, why wouldnt we?

It is no measure of health to be well adjusted in a profoundly sick society - Jiddu Krishnamurti

June 28, 2023

Could AUKUS be the catalyst?

It is difficult to recall a time in Australia which was more propitious than now for the launch of a new Australian Political Party.

June 11, 2023

Look out! Here come The Elders...

There is rising wrath, out there in Elderland. The Elders, it seems, are no longer happy to look on as a bunch of corporates and their political stooges pillage the planet and lay waste their grandchildrens future. With growing resolve, resources and organisation, older people are fighting back.

May 30, 2023

Democracy versus socialism in the US-China relationship

There are two major dimensions to the US/China strategic competition. One is ideology; the other is economics. Who will eventually win depends on who has a better combination of the two; discounting a war in which all will lose.

May 19, 2023

Confronting state capture

A radical approach to building an ecologically sustainable and socially just society.

April 10, 2023

Parachuted professors

In a who-cares-about-standards world, the appointment of some university professors looks very much like insider trading, secret patronage, and who you know, not what you know. How else to explain appointments as professors of public figures, seemingly agile enough to vault over the usual obstacles straight to the top of the academic hierarchy?

September 13, 2022

The other side of Elizabeth IIs reign: How to profit from plunder while disclaiming responsibility

Reactions to the death of Queen Elizabeth II from victims of atrocities during her reign were less than warm. Did the British Crown derive profits of plunder yet disclaim responsibility for colonisation, they asked? The Westminster shroud, in this regard, is thick indeed, a layer of forced exculpation.

April 21, 2022

Immigration of Nurses and Doctors

Australia must fix the design of employer sponsored visas to make them easier, faster and cheaper to use while increasing penalties for employers who misuse these visas.

September 27, 2021

South Korea is critical to Australias next minerals boom

Urgent cooperation between the Australian and South Korean governments to craft a cohesive trade framework for critical minerals is at the top of the agenda for Australian companies looking to take advantage of the critical minerals boom.

September 20, 2021

AUSMIN and AUKUS: Its even worse than you think

Nothing exemplifies the loss of national sovereignty, and the abandonment of strategic autonomy, like handing the war decision over to the US. The submarine issue is simply a blind. AUKUS just a distraction.

June 2, 2021

Australian academics open letter in solidarity with Palestine and call for action

As scholars, academics and students in Australia, a settler colony built on the dispossession of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, we stand in solidarity with Palestinians in their struggle for liberation and against Israeli settler colonialism. In the past month, Palestinians have faced brutal Israeli settler colonial violence in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of East Jerusalem and al-Aqsa mosque, the West Bank, Gaza, and in Palestinian cities and towns in Israel. This violence is rooted in a century of colonisation and Palestinian dispossession.

December 2, 2020

Three cheers for health workers who care for patients, communities and the planet

During the Covid crisis doctors and heath care workers have been a ’light on the hill’ for service and dedication to humanity. By September 2020 over 7000 around the world had died from Covid contracted at work.

October 29, 2020

There is a crisis in Australian democracy. Corruption is rampant.

While a number of institutions exist to scrutinise federal government and MPs, calls for establishment of a federal corruption watchdog like the Independent Commission Against Corruption in New South Wales or the Criminal Justice Commission in Queensland have never been louder or more justified.

June 29, 2024

The renewable opportunities behind the climate politics

The world has made up its mind on the move to renewables. All you have to do is listen to the markets, look at what global capital is doing and ask businesses here in Australia.

June 5, 2024

Israel’s forced starvation in Gaza has killed dozens of children

Israel’s forced starvation has caused the deaths of more children in central Gaza where conditions have been made worse by Israel’s closure of the Rafah crossing, further limiting aid and trapping sick and injured Palestinians.

July 6, 2023

Jenin: amid horrific escalation, its time we stopped being bystanders

The footage is harrowing. Drones launching missiles over peoples homes. The front doors of a hospital pelted with tear gas. Young children in tears fleeing their homes in the middle of the night, arms raised high in surrender. Israeli bulldozers ripping up roads. It is time we stopped being bystanders to these atrocities and stepped in to deliver a different future for young Palestinians - the same we demand for Ukrainians - one of self-determination, freedom, and security.

July 27, 2022

International accountability: Myanmar, the ICJ and the genocide question

The indomitable spirit of Raphael Lemkin, bibliophile, assiduous documenter of humanitys dark deeds and inexecrable conduct, is bound to be an unsettled one.

April 9, 2022

The missing social trustworthiness factor in the Budget and everywhere

We must discuss the need for a social contract that restores our trust in democracy and decent governance.

September 16, 2021

Vale the Doherty Model: Unloved by many and misunderstood by most

It is with great relief and pleasure that we announce the passing of DM, the Doherty Model.

July 29, 2021

ASPI, AZERIs, the ADF, and the Defence hierarchy

ASPIs Michael Shoebridge’s criticism of the professionalism and competency of the Defence hierarchy is serious. He paints the military and civilian hierarchy in Defence as hidebound, and infers they are placing service personnel and the nations security at risk. His analysis, however, displays a surprising degree of unfamiliarity with military affairs, and does not support his grave assertion.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal