September 15, 2024

Collaboration across government levels is essential to progress

John Menadue’s suggestion that Greens and Independents need to start thinking about their “bottom line” in preparation for a minority Labor Government is excellent. A key area for progress is collaboration across government levels. Despite talk for years and federal/state meetings, not much progress has occurred. In order to do better we need to look at what failed and what can be done better in future.

August 11, 2024

A compelling narrative on the resilience and enduring legacy of Chinese civilisation

George Yeo Yong-Boon, a distinguished former Foreign Minister of Singapore, offers a compelling narrative on the resilience and enduring legacy of Chinese civilisation. His reflections span China’s adept handling of the COVID-19 pandemic to its ancient water management systems, revealing a civilisation rooted in wisdom and adaptability.

July 20, 2023

Olmert calls on Biden to boycott extremist Israeli government

President Biden hosted Israeli President Isaac Herzog at the White House on Tuesday. Herzog is addressing a joint session of Congress, which a handful of progressive Democrats are boycotting.The same members of Congress also boycotted the address of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a far right Hindu nationalist who is implicated in an anti-Muslim pogrom.**

May 27, 2023

China panic: a wake-up call for Canadians

As Canada grapples with allegations of foreign interference by China, John Price writes that politicians would be wise to read Australian academic David Brophys new book: ‘China Panic: Australias Alternative to Paranoia and Pandering’.

April 28, 2023

Chinese scientists create sodium car

Breakthroughs set to make a big difference in energy sector

April 15, 2023

Blast from our sectarian past

Recently a writer for the Sydney Morning Herald claimed to have solved the mystery of why Sr Liguori fled her convent in Wagga Wagga one frosty evening in July 1920. In its day the Liguori affair was one of the most sensational episodes in Australias sectarian history. As the Herald writer notes, It seems every newspaper in Australia was fascinated with the story.

May 31, 2021

'This Is the Price of War': Israeli Newspaper Haaretz Publishes Photos of All 67 Palestinian Children Killed in Gaza Onslaught

“Conversations around Israel/Palestine are changing in Jewish communities across the globe,” said rabbi and author Abby Stein. “It’s about time.”

October 19, 2020

Why values matter in a crisis

A crisis is a test of leadership. A test of systems. And a test of relationships. But it is also a test of values.

October 8, 2020

Baptizing White Supremacy. An interview with Robert P. Jones

White Christians are not simplycomplicit in racism and white supremacy, argues scholar Robert P. Jones. Theyre actually culpable. Without their deliberate consent, white supremacy in America could never have been built.

July 2, 2024

Should Americans die for a single Filipino?

China and the Philippines are battling over control of contested waters in the Pacific. So far there has been no shooting, but there have been casualties. And the Biden administration has committed Americans to go to war if even one Filipino dies—or so Manila apparently believes.

July 7, 2023

Will the New York Times apologise for its Tiananmen coverage?

The New York Times has in recent years tried to redeem its reputation with a mea-culpa admission over its coverage of the blatantly transparent Iraq Weapons of Mass Destruction myth that enabled the 2003 invasion of Iraq. But over its key role earlier in cementing the Tiananmen Square horror story we have as yet had no admissions of guilt.

May 8, 2022

Notes for the new minister: arts and culture on a knife edge

Australia is at a tipping point. Our democracy is at stake, and cultural policy (or lack thereof), is an integral part of the crisis. Forty years of hollowing out the public sector, degrading the public service, and a winner-takes-all attitude to the electoral process fuelled it. The result is Australias embrace of authoritarian managed democracy, and the disappearance of the line between the needs of the public good and the demands of big donorsespecially, but not limited to, the fossil fuel industries.

June 30, 2024

Young Australians want more socialism, older generations are neutral: YouGov data reveals stark age divide

YouGov’s latest Public Data poll has revealed that younger Australians think Australia should be more socialist, however older Australians are more inclined to be neutral, neither favouring a more capitalist nor more socialist direction.

May 31, 2024

“Truly the stuff of nightmares”: unprecedented low in Antarctic sea ice recorded

Each winter the surface of the sea freezes around Antarctica, over a vast area, mostly to a depth of about one metre. But this is starting to change. Last year, the sea ice reached an unprecedentedly low maximum extent of only 17 million square kilometres.

October 2, 2024

Chinese economists were pleading for government action

Ren Zeping’s almost frantic call one week ahead of Beijing’s dramatic loosening of monetary policy.

September 13, 2024

Look at who is running Israel

In a recent significant article in the US journal, Foreign Policy, David E Rosenberg, the economics editor of Haaretz, clarifies how a minority of religious extremists have come to wield so much power in Israel today. It is a chilling, informative read.

June 14, 2024

Court of final appeal: Overseas judges must prioritise service over politics

The rule of law has always been fundamental to the success story that is modern Hong Kong, and its custodian is the judiciary.

September 5, 2023

Ukraine: Who is winning?

How is the war going? Two expert observers add to the confusion. Former British soldier Richard Iron, reflects on what he sees as the brittleness of Putins situation, thinks Putin could fall in a coup and predicts that Ukraine has a good chance of turfing Russians out of Ukraine altogether. American Professor John Mearsheimer, a professor at Chicago University and adherent of the so-called School of Realism thinks Ukraine has already lost the war.

August 14, 2022

The age of stupidity and enthusiastic folly - Australia, an endangered nation

_It is difficult to understand how weirdly Australia now conducts itself internationally, the postures it adopts. We have notionally a new government with a sense of social justice and a vision opposed to inequality. But it is promptly, a neocon enthusiast.

September 18, 2024

Cartoon Commentary

August 15, 2024

Israel's Australian 'hostages'

Hundreds of Australians’ family members holding valid Australian visas are being prevented from fleeing devastated Gaza - by the Israeli military, and the impotence of the Australian government.

September 18, 2023

Climate collapse - The grim silence of our leaders

None of us has previously witnessed a barrage of extreme weather events of the kind that has been devastating lives across the globe this summer.

August 16, 2023

US unilateralism gone mad, HK's Lee banned from APEC

So US-sanctioned, Hong Kong Chief Executive, John Lee, will not be allowed into the US to attend the forthcoming APEC annual conference. This is US unilateralism gone mad.

April 17, 2021

Sunday environmental round up.

Net-zero emissions: is it just greenwashing for business-as-usual? Despite the COVID-induced global economic slowdown, deforestation and the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouses gases both increased in 2020. Limited bleaching and death of corals on the Great Barrier Reef this summer.

June 26, 2024

Warmer ties could cool the planet: potential for Australia-China green energy collaboration

From the first handshake between Chinese president Xi Jinping and Australian PM Anthony Albanese at G20 in Bali in November 2022, to Australian trade minister the Hon Don Farrell’s visit to China in May 2023, the meeting with Xi in Beijing during Albanese’s China trip in November 2023, Chinese Foreign Minister H.E Mr Wang Yi’s visit to Canberra in March 2024, and including China’s Premier Li Qiang’s visit to Australia this month there’s evidence that Australia and China’s relationship is definitely warming up, after quite a lengthy cold spell. In fact, we have seen the highest number of ministerial-level people-to-people meetings between Australia and China than at any time in history.

June 18, 2024

Behold the world gently

The dead children don’t affect me like they used to.

August 17, 2023

US-dominated unipolar world order encounters more resistance from its victims

The United States has been going all-out to sanction and isolate Russia ever since the Russia-Ukraine conflict broke out in February last year. This, however, did not deter 49 of the 54 African countries from attending the Russia-Africa Summit on July 27.

May 16, 2021

People movement implications of deteriorating Australia-China relations

Over the past 35 years, people movement between Australia and China increased at an extraordinary rate. The deterioration of Australia-China relations, which has now been locked in by comments about war with China by new Defence Minister Peter Dutton (as well as the drums of war comments by his former Secretary Mike Pezzullo) and Chinas indefinite suspension of the China-Australia Strategic Economic Dialogue, will reverse that trend for the foreseeable future.

September 21, 2024

Australian film-maker refused entry into India

Australian film-maker David Bradbury has been refused entry into India, after flying into Chennai from Bangkok on 10 September with his two children, aiming to take a holiday.

August 17, 2024

China and the US are facing parallel economic conundrums

Mutual economic quandaries as both try to reshape their economies may force the two bitter rivals to learn to live with each other again.

April 16, 2024

US declines Israel's invitation to start WW3 (for now)

Iran has carried out its long-promised retaliation for Israel’s attack on its consulate building in Damascus, launching a massive barrage of drones and missiles which it claims hit and destroyed Israeli military targets, while Israel says they dealt only superficial damage with a few injuries. The US and its allies reportedly helped shoot down a number of the Iranian projectiles.

July 27, 2023

Chinas anti-Mario Draghi moment surprises markets

China is eschewing the former European Central Bank chiefs pledge to do whatever it takes to stabilise via monetary easing.

July 9, 2023

For Xi Jinping, economics and unification dont mix

While unification with Taiwan and building a strong economy are the twin pillars of the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, its dangerous to assume, as Washington does, that a faltering economy makes Beijing more aggressive towards the island.

July 2, 2023

How can China believe US really wants better relations when its actions dont match its words?

Blinkens trip was followed by Bidens insults, the promising Bali summit was followed by further China containment measures. Clearly, Washington has yet to show Beijing it is sincere in its efforts.

June 5, 2022

Platinum jubilees and republican questions

The platinum jubilee will bore and cause some to yawn. It might certainly agitate the republican spleen in the fourteen countries where Queen Elizabeth II remains a constitutional head of state. But the question remains: How does the institution this figure represents endure, if it should at all?

February 13, 2021

Upturn: A better normal needs a focus on health, not just healthcare

Professor Paul Torzillo discusses the lessons for healthcare i__n Upturn: A Better Normal After Covid-19_. The volume of essays would have benefitted from a more comprehensive analysis of what a better normal in health, rather than just healthcare, would look like. But the_ plea for ensuring the humanity of medicine will resound.

April 1, 2020

ABUL RIZVI.- Job-keeper allowance a gun to the heads of over 1 million temporary entrants

The job keeper allowance is a massive tourniquet for the Australian economy and society. But for over 1 million temporary entrants, the allowance is a gun to their head.

August 12, 2024

Gaza hellscape: Starmer recalibrates UK foreign policy for global justice

After the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct 7, Israel stopped the entry of food, fuel and medicine into Gaza. When asked by London-based radio station LBC’s Nick Ferrari on Oct 11 if the cutting off of power and water was appropriate, the Labour leader (now prime minister), Sir Keir Starmer, said, “Israel does have that right.” Although he qualified this by adding “everything must be done within international law”, people were aghast.

May 22, 2024

The slow-motion execution of Julian Assange continues

The ruling by the High Court in London permitting Julian Assange to appeal his extradition order leaves him languishing in precarious health in a high-security prison. That is the point.

September 14, 2023

Ukraine: Western military commentators finally accept the obvious

While not all politicians are yet there, the military and intelligence specialists, who are part of the western propaganda squads, have made their conclusions. From their mouth the truth is dripping to the media. While the headlines below may not express it, the content of those pieces, especially in the first four, is finally admitting the obvious. It didn’t work and the counter-offensive is done.

June 10, 2023

Gareth Evans: Truth of US fault in Jeju massacre must be conveyed

Gareth Evans, the former foreign minister of Australia received the fifth annual Jeju 4.3 Peace Prize presented by the Jeju 4.3 Peace Foundation.

September 19, 2021

In Indonesia: Pray, dont spray, papas hurt

Indonesian President Joko Widodo hasn’t gone so far as to ban outlets that publish unflattering portrayals yet. Watch this space.

February 6, 2021

Sunday essay: The slave societies of the Persian Gulf

The glittering city-states of the Persian Gulf are built on modern slavery. Behind the gleaming skyscrapers, the world-class air-conditioned malls, the luxury tourist attractions and the opulent villas lie racism, misery, sexual abuse, violent exploitation, even death.

May 15, 2024

Playing defence Mini-Me for the US will cost Australia dearly

The complaint by Canberra about the latest Chinese military flare-up close to China’s coast is not only hypocritical but highly escalatory.

May 25, 2023

60 Minutes Australia keeps churning out war-with-China propaganda

60 Minutes Australia has been playing a leading role in saturating Australian airwaves with consent-manufacturing messaging in support of militarising to participate in a US war against China.

July 12, 2024

All ‘commit’ and no ‘disagree’: the real reason why Labor’s solidarity pledge is not working

The Australian Labor Party’s solidarity pledge is being widely sledged in the wake of Western Australian Senator Fatima Payman’s resignation from caucus.

April 29, 2023

France bets on future by backing best global alternative

Recently, the former senior Singaporean diplomat and respected geopolitical consultant Kishore Mahbubani offered Australia some acute advice: Stop betting on the past. Mahbubanis article was figuratively bookended with visits to Beijing by President Emmanuel Macron of France (shortly before publication) and President Lula da Silva of Brazil (soon after publication).

June 20, 2024

The US is preparing for WWIII while expanding draft registration

So I guess we should probably talk about the way NATO powers are rapidly escalating toward hot war with Russia at the same time the US is expanding its draft policies to make it easier to force more Americans [to] go and fight in a giant war.

April 29, 2024

The song in our hearts and of our hearts

In the end as at the beginning all that really matters is how we treat one another.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal