June 21, 2022

The Crimes of Julian Assange!

The US wants to cover up the crimes that Julian Assange exposed. Assange…

July 8, 2021

A close run thing in Hong Kong in 2019.

What Hong Kong faced was an insurgency, the overthrow of the government, nothing less.

January 16, 2021

Humanity in medicine. The life of physician Dr Stanley Goulston

_Proverbs 22.v.6 states: Train up a child in the way he should go, and even when he is old he will not depart from it. I suspect Stans character was shaped by his deeply ingrained Jewish faith, the character of his father and father-in-law, the loss of a mother he never knew, an acute observation of inter-family relationships and a respectful obedience to authority.

January 13, 2021

Ashli Babbitt, a lost soul who died backing Donald Trump (BIG Jan 11, 2020)

Trump can channel the anger of large numbers of alienated people, but the anger and paranoia exists independently of him, even though he uses this rage for his own purposes. And even when Trump is gone, these angry people will remain in our society.

April 19, 2024

Sharing the benefits of technological progress

This is the first of three articles discussing how the benefits of technological progress are shared, and thus determine the distribution of income and influence our economic and social structures. This first article focuses on how these benefits have been shared historically.

September 10, 2023

As good as it ever got? Hurtling towards the environmental abyss

As we collectively hurtle toward the environmental abyss, its worth asking whether we have definitively passed the highwater mark of human development. If so, should baby boomers be wracked with guilt about their entirely underserved good fortune and failure to avert the imminent crisis? The answer to both questions is probably yes.

July 14, 2023

AUKUS: A US device to lock Australia into the anti-China coalition

Around a week ago the Financial Review confirmed what many observers had taken for granted: the US offered nuclear propulsion technology to Australia under the AUKUS arrangements in order to lock it into the anti-China coalition.

May 31, 2023

Have we turned a corner on growth in asylum applications?

Since international borders re-opened, asylum applications at the primary stage steadily grew from a low of around 618 in February 2022 to 1,786 in March 2023. While this was well below the peak in 2017-18 of around 2,500 per month, it would have been worrying the Albanese Government given the entry of the Coalition and Murdoch press into the public debate on asylum numbers.

May 27, 2023

In the eye of the hurricane, can we find truth?

To survive this critical century, we need to know the truth about it.

April 6, 2023

Strategic culture and the AUKUS echo chamber

Despite some brilliant analyses of the AUKUS agreement from credible and informed commentators, it is hard for critics to get a hearing, much less influence policy.

August 24, 2022

Labor should scrap the Stage 3 Tax Cuts for the rich

The Albanese Government should scrap the Stage 3 tax cuts for the rich. They are indefensible when public education and other critical human services face a funding crisis. New studies show that there are no trickle-down economic benefits from tax cuts for the rich. They only to boost inequality directly and indirectly.

June 1, 2022

Anglicans divided over same sex marriage

Since the Reformation we have been used to disunity in the Church being demonstrated through denominational loyalty around historical theological dispute and response. This is no longer the primary case. In the Church, as in politics, the deepening rift is between those who, for the sake of simplicity, insist truth is conveyed through fixed dogmatic assertion, usually on social issues, conservatives, and those who believe truth is encountered at the crossroads of faith and life, or to put it more piously, at the point where heaven and earth meet. The latter are commonly called progressives which, like woke, has become a weaponised term seldom owned by those to whom it is ascribed. (Neither adjective is absolute, relationships are invariably more complex). Both progressive and conservative leanings are present in every denomination. Christians often find more in common across denominational lines with those who share their views, conservative or progressive, than they do within their own denominational membership.

August 15, 2021

Afghanistan falling, a split-screen 9/11

What we see unfolding in Afghanistan echoes 1975 with the fall of South Vietnam and Cambodia after Americas withdrawal.

July 26, 2021

Human rights in Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and Israel to be examined.

President of Human Rights Council appoints Members of Commission of Inquiry

July 7, 2021

Controlling lobbyists is needed to increase trust in government

Good and bad government behaviour, the management of crises, lack of accountability, preferencing of mates, the favouring of powerful interests, undue influence and lobbying, they all impact on people’s trust in government.

December 13, 2020

The China Import Ban:The disturbing facts and figures.

_It is yet to be seen if Australias establishment will come to repair its diplomatic relationship with China anytime soon in order to avoid losing 39 percent of our export income and adding one million workers to the unemployment queues.

September 17, 2024

Why Netanyahu chooses war over peace

As protests grow, Benjamin Netanyahu clings to power in what appears to be a gambit to shape his own political and legal future, regardless of the cost.

September 29, 2023

The referendum: So little asked, so graciously, but seemingly too much

Why do so many of my fellow non-Indigenous Australians seemingly have such a deep aversion towards the Aboriginal peoples of this land? Sadly, I am compelled to ask that question as we approach a referendum asking for constitutional recognition of Australias First Nations and an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voice to parliament.

May 28, 2023

The swarm: International consultancies

Predatory capitalism has become visible across the world as neo-liberalism becomes fully transnational. Consultancies working to authoritarian rules have consumed big business by making executives richer. They may be set to engulf governments and even entire societies._

May 8, 2023

Is Treasury driving the Big Australia debate?

As the two major parties continue to debate which of them is pursing a policy of big Australia, Treasury has quietly forced both of them to accept its preferred long-term net migration target of 235,000 per annum net migration, that is the difference between long-term arrivals and departures, is the key driver of Australias population.

September 9, 2022

Asian media - the Bachelets report on Xinjiang went too far

In Asian Media this week a legal critique of the Xinjiang human rights report.

August 10, 2022

Its time to clean up the mess that is Australias higher education system

In recent Pearls and Irritations posts, James Guthrie, Adam Lucas and Alessandro Pelizzon have signalled the need for a Royal Commission into higher education in Australia. Their advocacy could not be timelier.

September 26, 2021

Why the US-led AUKUS security pact leaves Australia exposed

Signing on to a confrontational and provocative strategy to contain China exposes Australians to greater economic and security dangers and reflects a further loss of independence for Australia.

August 7, 2021

The net zero emission illusion

_With Covid, the government has shown itself manifestly incapable of leading or managing its core responsibilities, beset by corruption and secrecy. The climate challenge is far greater than Covid, and there are no vaccinations or quarantine against climate impacts, which from now on will increase inexorably in the absenceof decisive leadership.

October 24, 2020

Shaoquett Moselmane MLC returns to Parliament despite the media. (AMUST Oct 23, 2020)

Mr Shaoquett Moselmane MLC returned to the NSW Parliament on Thursday 22 October 2020 following months of controversy after the Parliamentary Privileges Committee exonerated him and cleared the way for his dignified return to the House.

May 13, 2024

Accepting reality: the future will not be made in Australia

With a couple of minutes Googling, your favourite Martian could be well informed on the role of government in the Australian economy from the moment of the arrival of the British colonialists. It’s been big.

July 11, 2023

American cluster bombs in Ukraine

According to the UN Human Rights Office, 9,083 civilians have been killed in 500 days of fighting in Ukraine, and 15,779 wounded. These figures are likely to increase dramatically once American cluster munitions are deployed.

July 2, 2023

A boycott of Israeli universities, who could possibly object?

In a significant, scholarly book Boycott Theory and the Struggle for Palestine, Dr. Nick Riemer describes Palestinian civil society as among the most strangulated and oppressed on the planet.

August 31, 2022

John F. Copper: Where are the Chinese students going?

According to recent data published in China and admission reports from U.S. universities, the number of Chinese students applying for study in American institutions of higher learning in recent months has fallen markedly.

May 25, 2022

Clive and the global right

It is easy to laugh at Clive Palmers stunts. Whether hes talking about creating a Jurassic Park or sending texts before an election claiming that Australia is giving control of all healthcare to the WHO, the temptation is to roll our eyes.

July 10, 2021

Saturdays good reading and listening for the weekend

What people in other forums are saying about public policy

December 31, 2020

China-Australia Relations Doomed (UWA PPI Briefings Dec 17, 2020)

The widening strategic differences between Australia and China and how these affect their bilateral relations is nothing new. In fact, the tide arguably changed as early as in 2017, to be constantly pushed further by an Australia that has grown more and more assertive and outspoken about what it believes.

September 10, 2024

Australian academic's bid to be heard over Age claims dismissed

On 3 July 2024, The Age’s Chief Reporter, Chip Le Grand, emailed, called and sent a text message to my phone, posing a series of bad faith, disingenuous accusations and loaded questions which cast me as a “holocaust denier” and anti-semite. “October 7 denial, like holocaust denial,” Le Grand wrote to me, “has taken many forms, including quibbling over the number of Israeli civilians killed, shifting blame for atrocities away from the perpetrators and on to Israel, greeting survivor stories with scepticism or demand for proof, or otherwise seeking to minimise, justify or qualify the nature of the atrocities carried by Hamas and other militant Palestinian groups.”

August 31, 2024

Dutton’s Trumpian certainties are swamping Albanese’s dithering

One full day during the Republican National Convention in the US last month was devoted entirely to the issue of crime. Under the title “Make America Safe Again”, it referenced a make-believe crime wave engulfing American cities.

August 21, 2024

The ABC of telling tales

ABC chair Kim Williams __reckons__ the Corporation should focus more on hard news than lifestyle fillers. While purging the pap, he might also look at how some stories get told, particularly to international audiences.

July 3, 2024

Last chance for the War Memorial

The Frontier Wars were fought in every part of the vast Australian continent from the 1790’s to the 1920’s. How could they be overlooked in local or even in global history? The ownership and control of a continental landmass was at stake. First Nations’ warriors bled and died on, and for, their own country. Why would we want to overlook them?

July 2, 2024

In Gaza, more Palestinians will be killed by starvation and disease than those killed by bombs

We are told that the high intensity phase of Israel’s war in Gaza is coming to an end. As world leaders contemplate new wars and a compliant media gets busy with freshly minted threats, there are fewer stories on Gaza. Let us not be lulled into believing that, for those besieged in Gaza, the worst is over. And let us continue to call for an end to their plight.

June 6, 2023

The real world shatters the myth of personal choice

When a government proposes a policy to improve our diet, it can trigger a gag reflex. Some people feel that deciding what to eat is purely a personal choice, and the nanny state should stay out of the way. No-one wants to be lectured, shamed, or forced to eat their greens. Perhaps it goes all the way back to battles for autonomy when we were toddlers, strapped into a high-chair and being force-fed peas.

April 8, 2023

What would you choose: a strategic battery industry, or AUKUS?

Australia has only a few months of fuel reserves and we are on the edge of a technological revolution in transport. So in a strategic sense anything we could do to secure our fuel reserves or find alternatives to petroleum based fuels would make us more secure.

September 8, 2022

Dunderheaded diplomacy: Australias funding offer to the Solomon Islands

What is it about Australian diplomacy that makes it so clumsy and dunderheaded? Is it the harsh delivery, the tactless expression, or the inability to do things with subtle reflection? On September 6, Australian diplomacy gave another display of such form with Foreign Minister Penny Wongs remarks about the Solomon Islands elections.

July 21, 2022

The Age of Women

Leadership by wise women is indispensable if we are to escape the catastrophe that male leadership is presently building for humanity.

July 17, 2022

Power, rules and camp followers

_Prime Minister Albaneses understanding of the outside world does not match his undoubted ability domestically…The contest between China and the USA is not about values but about power.

June 27, 2022

Public servants judge and jury over next-up political bosses

Spare a thought for Michael Coutts-Trotter, the Secretary of the NSW Premiers Department. He has been asked, in effect, to decide which of several versions of how John Barilaro was appointed on merit to a cushy $500,000 trade commissioner job in New York most closely approximates the truth.

September 20, 2021

What will the world look like by the time our subs are launched?

By the time Australia’s nuclear-powered submarines are ready, the world will have seen some dramatic economic realignments, according to predictions of GDP by country.

December 21, 2020

The economic conductor of the catastrophes of climate change and biodiversity loss

The human brain seems unable to grasp the magnitude of the global problems we face in moving to ways of sustainable living and governance systems which can deliver a secure future for our children.

December 7, 2020

Return to the Scene of the Crime and the SAS.

As written about on this site, four Aussies were also victims of SAS brutality, in 2014. Last weekend one of them, two friends and a Catholic priest returned to the Swan Island SAS training base where this happened.

November 26, 2020

What does a Biden presidency mean for Australian post-secondary education?

President-elect Joe Bidens anticipated quick alteration to American policy on climate change has received the greatest media attention in Australia because of its anticipated impact here, what about education? Although the election appeared to be a policy free zone, many of the Democratic Partys policies on education represent a significant change from the past four years.

March 15, 2020

MUNGO MACCALLUM.- Peter Dutton is human after all

It would be harsh and uncaring to admit a modicum of satisfaction at the news that Peter Dutton has contracted coronavirus.

September 20, 2024

The road to hell is paved with good intentions: Do not ban social media for kids

Social media platforms allow users to interact with others, have conversations, share information and create web content. There are many forms, including games, blogs, wikis, social networking sites, photo-sharing sites, instant messaging, video-sharing sites, podcasts, widgets, virtual worlds, and more. So, with the government considering a ban on social media for children where do we start this impossible task?

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal