July 16, 2023

Fact-checking claims on how best to expand access to dental services

The Federal Government has been urged to ignore advice from Private Healthcare Australia (PHA) suggesting that private health insurance funds have an important role in increasing access to dental services.

July 1, 2023

Om-washing sanitises Indias brutal track record in Kashmir

In August 2019, Modis government revoked the semi-autonomous status of Jammu and Kashmir. That was followed by a crackdown. Political activity was banned, politicians were placed under house arrest and the internet was choked. Meanwhile, as Sheena Sood has argued, the Indian army posts photos of its soldiers in yoga poses. And we are told that China is all bad and India is all good.

August 10, 2022

John Menadue: The Ukrainian / Zelensky propaganda war

Amnesty International has just released a report that drew attention to Ukrainian violations of International Law in its war with Russia. It quickly became a footnote in the propaganda war.

June 2, 2021

Distressing overreach on India Travel ban reveals little known but over-used dictatorial power

Individual ministers in the Australian government are wielding immense power by using delegated authority to issue non-disallowable determinations without any parliamentary oversight. Members of parliament approved this erosion of the democratic process with passage of the Biosecurity Act in 2015.

August 10, 2024

Armed conflict and multimedia at the Australian War Memorial

There is no doubt that multimedia technology can tell stories dramatically. These stories particularly resonate with a generation raised on video games and social media, which are now an intrinsic part of their lives.

June 18, 2024

Indonesia's carbon crisis: will Islam get dirty hands?

Nahdlatul Ulama (NU)(revival of the scholars) is Indonesia and the world’s largest Islamic organisation claiming almost 100 million members. If it digs coal it could become mega-rich. How dirty work marries with sending souls to paradise only Allah knows.

May 11, 2024

Budget to be used as a smoke screen for Migration Bill passage through Senate?

While the Senate Subcommittee came out in favour of a much amended Migration Amendment Bill 2024 … it is not too late to reject the premise of the legislation or to create a more coherent Bill, whose wider implications are intentional and more integrated, say advocates.

June 19, 2023

Ugandas version of Christianity

There are no genuine homosexuals in Uganda. They dont exist. And if it they do, its the fault of foreign (read Western) influence. If straight men are recruited into being homosexual, then it must be eradicated before it infects all Ugandan men. Stephen Fry went out of his way in 2022 to dispel such nonsense; even travelling to Uganda to confront those who held such unenlightened views.

June 12, 2022

Rural Policy is about to become much, much harder

As if crafting rural policy were not already difficult, the advent of Sky News Regional in 2021 is likely to render it much more difficult. Given its past performance, Sky News is likely to spread its commentators bigoted worldview to millions of Australians who dont already suffer access to it; and via its website to potentially tens or hundreds of millions of people worldwide.

October 1, 2024

David McBride and the Alexander Maconochie Centre prison in Canberra

The parlous physical and mental health of David McBride and disturbing revelations about conditions at the Alexander Maconochie Centre prison in Canberra are a national disgrace.

July 24, 2024

Five things we learned this week from Ted’s Talk and people who actually know stuff

The Ted Talk: Not reading the room? Chutzpah? Or maybe the Opposition energy spokesman Ted O’Brien was simply unaware that he wasn’t speaking to the local town hall meeting, Sky after Dark or the Institute of Public Affairs.

July 22, 2024

Silos are for grain, not for National policies

One of the characteristic features of modern western democracies is, as John Ralston Saul has pointed out, that it has focused on the development of narrow forms of expertise and then used reason to apply that narrow expertise to addressing specific social, cultural, economic and political issues. This is particularly true of the proliferating management elites produced by the also proliferating Business Schools in Universities across the West.

June 29, 2024

The Right's war to control education

The corporate world is afraid of youth demanding change, particularly as rapacious business practices look set to drive us over the climate cliff into a frightening future. One solution the Right has implemented is the Christian Classical Education movement.

September 4, 2023

Labors weakness for little rorts

When Labor next loses state office in NSW, it will almost certainly be entirely its own fault. One might have expected that the partys twelve years in the wilderness would have taught it something about restraint, and about the risks of reverting to its ancient, and traditional ways. Not a bit of it.

July 29, 2023

Timor-Leste: Gusmo government reverts to Tasi Mane petroleum project

Despite the adoption in early May this year of a new development plan by the last Timorese government, incoming Prime Minister Xanana Gusmo has declared that his government will implement the Strategic Development Plan adopted when he was Prime Minister in 2011. His calls for unity ring very hollow when he ignores the serious work of his predecessors.

July 26, 2023

Seven deadly sins in the Defence industry

If previous defence acquisitions are any guide, the enormous cost of nuclear-powered submarines for the Royal Australian Navy will almost certainly escalate well beyond the estimated but un-itemised initial price of $A368 billion. The record of corruption of the two US submarine builders suggests that the project will also probably suffer from mismanagement. The final bill is likely to be astronomical.

June 26, 2023

War propaganda: Western media suspends editor for publishing facts on Ukraine

If truth is the first casualty in war, then truth-seekers are surely next.

June 16, 2023

Weekly Roundup: Its corporate power, not wages, driving inflation

Another 60,000 houses needed; Its corporate power, not wages, driving inflation; and, Why would anyone want to migrate to Australia? Read on for the Weekly Roundup of links to articles, reports, podcasts and other media on current political and economic issues in public policy.

April 18, 2023

The crisis of academic values and governance in Australian universities

In Australia, public universities face a crisis that threatens the future of this country.

May 15, 2022

The erosion of Medicare

Large out-of-pocket costs for specialist consultations driven by inadequate indexations are undermining Medicare.

October 6, 2020

Oh dear, what will the neighbours say?

Widodos lacklustre leadership compounded by going soft on corruption and nuzzling up to the army - is opening space to big business, the military and faith fanatics with no interest in reform. This is worrying indeed and should be flashing alerts, particularly to Australia.

August 21, 2024

The US and Australia: drill baby drill/drill mate drill

A number of new studies highlight an embarrassing fact: Australia is playing a not insubstantial and growing role in slowing the reduction of global carbon emissions. By diligently increasing the development of unwanted new gas and coal fields we are only adding to Trump’s exhortation ‘drill baby drill’ with ‘drill mate drill’.

June 1, 2024

Australia’s great gas giveaway: How Australia gives gas to multinational corporations for free

According to the Australian Government’s Future Gas Strategy, gas is “critical” to the nation’s economy.

May 14, 2024

What happened to the politicians’ schools?

This year our federal members of parliament will vote on a new National Schools Reform Agreement (NSRA). Before voting they might consider what happened to the schools they once attended. Their alma maters reveal what went wrong.

December 12, 2020

Whats old is new again: Problems of the past and the future in Australia-China relations

The process of conceptualising a new framework for Australian strategic policy will again be full of tension between the pulls of history and the imperatives of geography; between what is and what we would wish to be, between experience which calls for prudence in protecting the national interest and hopes, even if tentative, that a better world can be made.

September 25, 2024

Secrecy Australia: big gap between official information and reality: Peter Cronau, Declassified Australia

Australia is blanketed in a climate of secrecy with over 800 secrecy offences criminalised with jail terms and large fines under nearly 200 pieces of legislation.

September 23, 2024

Israel is joining the first global AI convention; here’s why that’s dangerous

Over the last year Israel has weaponised AI in its genocide in Gaza, deploying AI-driven surveillance and automated targeting systems which has killed tens of thousands. Israel’s participation in the first global AI treaty raises serious questions.

September 20, 2024

Melbourne weapons expo protests

I’m guessing that anyone who reads Pearls and Irritations knows that Land Forces, Australia’s largest weapons expo, was held in Melbourne from 11 to 13 September in the face of strong opposition. Given the blanket coverage, it’s likely the great majority of those in the city also knew this was happening, as well as a great many across the country. Going by the coverage by the likes of Al Jazeera and BBC, and feedback we’ve had from Mexico, Indonesia, Colombia, and more, it’s reached plenty of international audiences as well. The country’s largest weapons fair has been well and truly held up to the light.

August 13, 2024

Working holiday makers – the ignored contributors to net migration

In the white-hot debate about the blow out in net migration and targeting of the student contribution to net migration, the contribution of Working Holiday Makers to net migration, which is not insignificant, has largely been ignored by both politicians and the media. Can that continue?

May 24, 2024

A population policy anyone?

Imagine you have been asked by the Australian government to draft its new population policy. You first ask to see the old policy but are told there isn’t one: immigration policy has been the de-facto population policy for as long as anyone can remember.

November 18, 2020

Ignoring diplomatic advice with disastrous consequences

Remembering Harold David Anderson OBE AO

David Anderson was a meritorious Australian who brought great distinction and much honour to his country. Anderson displayed strong ethical and moral courage in his realistic pessimism over Vietnam at a time when his views were not always welcomed in Canberra.

September 11, 2024

Thailand’s establishment strikes another blow against democracy

On 7 August, the Constitutional Court of Thailand dissolved the Move Forward Party on the basis of its attempts to amend the country’s lese majeste law, banning its executives from politics for a decade. Following the party’s dissolution, its members merged into the Thinkakhao Chaovilai Party and retitled it the People’s Party. Just a week later, prime minister Srettha Thavisin was dismissed by the same court after an ethics probe that was widely believed to have been politically motivated. The decisions mark the return of autocratic politics, led by the country’s royalist-military political establishment, and have extinguished optimism that Thailand might see a return to democracy.

June 3, 2024

Israel's Gaza hallucination

One reason Israel is constantly criticised, even from within its obedient posse of Global West backers, is that it has failed to articulate what it has planned for the “day after” the completion of its Gaza-cleansing, genocide project. The respected historian, Adam Tooze, recently revealed that future planning for “Gaza 2035” has, however, been a focus of intense, surreal Israeli attention.

May 25, 2024

Japan does not need Australian gas to keep the lights on in Tokyo

Released last week, the Australian government’s _Future Gas Strategy_ states that “our trade partners […] are relying on Australian gas to transition their economies to net zero”, but falling demand and over-contracting from Japan, our largest LNG export customer, raise questions over this claim.

September 2, 2023

Martin Flanagans The Empty Honour Board draws us in to an unnatural world

The boarding students were far from home and the variable consolations of family life. They were shackled with priestly companions, pledged to lives of celibacy, who also had been removed from their families in their early teens and isolated from society in religious institutions from which they were then turned out, with scant proper preparation, as teachers. How could things not go wrong?

May 9, 2022

Can Morrison cash any pandemic, or economic recovery cheques?

Once Morrison was in an advantageous position to exploit Australias apparently successful management of the coronavirus pandemic and the economic shutdown it involved. He lost much of his advantage by his conflicts with the states over pandemic management, local responses and his determination to restart the economy before the pandemic was under control, as well as by a host of failures over vaccine ordering and distribution.

January 9, 2021

Fitting end to the attempt to destroy our government of the people, by the people, and for the people

And so, we are at the end of a year that has brought a presidential impeachment trial, a deadly pandemic that has killed more than 338,000 of us, a huge social movement for racial justice, a presidential election, and a president who has refused to accept the results of that election and is now trying to split his own political party.

June 19, 2024

Chinese Premier and New Zealand Prime Minister agree to differ during friendly visit

The Chinese Premier Li Qiang visited New Zealand last week (June 13-15) and held talks that were generally agreed to be frank but friendly. It was the highest ranking visit by a Chinese official for seven years and coincided with the tenth anniversary of a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership between the two countries.

April 9, 2024

Crossbench is Labor’s real opposition

Albanese’s practice of preferring to govern and legislate through deals with the coalition rather than with Greens and Independents is plainly because of a theory or strategy of what is in Labor’s long-term interests. It presumably includes the fear that Labor itself could atomise, as the coalition has done, if the influence and power of strong independent voices, and, in the Greens the risk of an alternative left-of-centre governing party is given encouragement. Better the devil you know in two-party contests.

September 27, 2023

The Voice reveals the urgent need for truth reforms

The knowledge that the official AEC Yes and No campaign pamphlet sent to every home in Australia was not obliged to be factual is shocking.

July 20, 2023

OHCHR politicised to make anti-China claims on Xinjiang: new report

It isnt something we expect from an august body that forms part of the United Nations but, according to CO-WEST-PRO Consultancys recently released fourth paper, the report issued by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on alleged atrocities in Xinjiang is of substandard quality and is not a reliable source for popular claims made in the West about the Xinjiang situation.

June 2, 2023

The politics of inclusion and division - Weekly roundup

Inflation is coming down quickly; Prime Minister Albanese appeals to our best selves on the Voice; and Chinese-Australians a quiet immigration success. Read on for the Weekly Roundup of links to articles, reports, podcasts and other media on current political and economic issues in public policy.

February 14, 2021

Not knowing ones enemy: fundamental intelligence failures in Australia's Afghanistan and Vietnam

There are disturbing parallels between what occurred in Afghanistan and what occurred 50 years earlier in Vietnam. The accidental killing of innocents is one link. So, too, is the intelligence vacuum into which our expeditionary military tradition sucked us in both countries.

August 15, 2024

More support for the two-party system? High time for major electoral reform

The Government is planning to introduce a package of reforms to make it harder for Independent candidates to attract donations to win seats. This articles argues that it would be much better to concentrate on major electoral system reform: Introduce Proportional Representation - Party List.

September 26, 2023

Ukraine last chance for a negotiated peace?

The next few weeks could be Ukraines last chance to grasp the flower of safety from the nettle of war by negotiating a compromise peace with Russia that would safeguard its future statehood and sovereignty.

July 17, 2023

Lies, damned lies and school statistics

The recent exchange inPearls and Irritations between John Frew and Ross Fox about teaching severely disruptive students comes at a time of frenetic interest in school reform, sparked by two current high stakes reviews.

May 9, 2023

An open letter to Benjamin Netanyahu

At what point did you lose your empathy and compassion towards those outside your circle? Why are you able to feel for those around you yet not for other human beings who live close by and who have exactly the same wants and desires from life as you and your family?

April 15, 2022

Election 2022: The journalists delight and the avoidance of policy

_Now that the election has been called journalists-and not just those locked in the Canberra bubblewill be salivating with anticipation over what will happen over the next six weeks: all the gotcha moments, all the dirt, the denials, the photographic moments. Everything but the detailed policy statements.

April 26, 2021

Australia's rejection of International Criminal Court decision on Palestine

On 5 February 2021, the International Criminal Court (ICC) accepted that Palestine is a State Party to the ICC Statute, based on Palestines acceptance of its jurisdiction, the lack of objection from other states at the time, and the recognition of Palestine as an Observer State by the United Nations General Assembly the worlds universal international institution. The decision means that the ICC Prosecutor is competent to investigate and prosecute international crimes committed by all sides on the territory of Palestine as recognised by international law, i.e., the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza. _

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal