July 29, 2023

The star-spangled kangaroo

A new US warship has been ushered into service in Sydney. The ship is called the USS Canberra to honour the military union of the United States and Australia, and, if thats still too subtle for you, it has a literal star-spangled kangaroo affixed to its side.

July 17, 2023

Thai elections without democracy

Although it may come across as dramatic and unprecedented, Move Forward Party (MFP) leader Pita Limjaroenrats ordeal in trying to take office as prime minister after winning the May 14 election is par for the course in Thai politics over the past two decades.

April 4, 2023

Chinese-Australians' political awakening was a big factor in Labor's win in Aston

A few acquaintances of mine decided to give up their Chinese citizenship before last year’s federal election after living on permanent visas for more than a decade.

September 17, 2022

Personality and power in Brazils elections

Brazil has the largest population and economy in South America and is a member of BRICS. It is as important to the continent as Indonesia is to South-East Asia. Brazils national elections will be on 2 October. Elections will select the President, the Congress, a third of the Senate, State Governors and State Legislatures. If there is no clear victor, there will be a final round of voting on the two leading Presidential candidates on 30 October.

February 11, 2021

Banks that listen to their customers will go places

Loyalty to banks used to be a big thing in the days of yore. But the Banking Royal Commission certainly skewered any reason to remain loyal. And there are options for those looking for an ethical bank that listens to their customers.

November 26, 2018

ANTHONY PUN. A response to Kim Wingerei -. Its Time for Ethical Politics

Lord Actons Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely is still valid today. Man is born innocent and in his acquisition of power, goes astray when unguided by morals and ethical principles. True wisdom is the ability to exercise power with moral and ethical dignity. If these abilities are lost, the people need re-education in moral and ethical philosophy.

September 16, 2023

Korean Catholics continue fight against coal power

South Korea is among the nations with the highest coal power generation.

June 12, 2023

Are human rights abuses of the Chinese judicial system worse than that of theland of the free? A difficult call

Doing the rounds on YouTube is the case of a black American Tyshon Booker arrested when he was 16 for being present (with a gun) at a murder which he did not commit (the murderer confessed). He was given a 51 year minimum sentence. This case is, of course, is only the disgraceful tip of the human rights abuses embedded in the USs state and federal judicial systems. Given the penchant for US officials to persistently raise human rights abuse with their Chinese counterparts what level of hypocrisy is involved here?

September 25, 2022

Global university rankings: what function do they serve?

Under the influence of New Public Management, Australias public universities have increasingly engaged in management by numbers for performance measurement. The accompanying proliferation of metrics has been used to discipline academics, bolster the ranks of senior managers and build tens of billions of dollars in assets. One of the more prominent metrics to which universities now dedicate disproportionate time, energy and resources is global university rankings (GURs).

February 1, 2021

Inspirational heroes abound discover and promote them

Gellibrand MP Tim Watts draws on his family experience his children, Hong Kong Chinese wife and in-laws for his book The Golden Country: Australias Changing Identity__. A modern response to Donald Hornes 1960s Lucky Country, Watts see our future as a golden country, reflecting a largely Asian Australia.

March 26, 2020

ALEX MITCHELL: Mark Latham goes all nuclear again!

Mark Latham, former Federal Labor leader who now sits in the State Legislative Council as head of Pauline Hansons One Nation in NSW, is running a one-man campaign to end the ban on uranium mining which came into force in 1986. Is he flogging a dead horse?

May 9, 2024

Palestine is the ‘red pill’ for America’s Gen Z

Like the previous Vietnam generation of baby boomers, US university students are waking up to the atrocities their government commits or helps its client states to commit around the world.

April 15, 2024

How the left became cheerleaders for US imperialism

Figureheads like the Guardian’s George Monbiot have wrecked the left’s ability to think critically, encouraging an analysis of power politics more suited to the playground.

April 12, 2024

China’s property market is at risk of an overcorrection, not oversupply

There is no risk of China’s property sector woes spreading into a financial crisis but there is a policy-induced housing crisis and restrictions must be further eased. The property market must be stabilised to restore public confidence and spur private consumption, so economic growth can reaccelerate.

August 15, 2023

Indonesia has what we lack - a day of unity

Its banners and bunting season in Southeast Asia as our neighbours celebrate independence. Singapore finished its wavings on 9 August and Malaysias moments of pomp will come on 16 September. Like Australia, both won sovereignty through diplomacy.

September 22, 2022

The Monarchy is facing a legitimation crisis

In monarchical systems there is always a legitimation challenge when the crown passes from one generation to the next. Whether it becomes a legitimation crisis depends on a number of factors.

August 2, 2021

Big pharma monopolies gauging over vaccination prices whilst refusing access to poor countries

_Wealthy nations including Canada, Australia , Germany, and the United Kingdom continue to oppose the TRIPS waiver

July 4, 2024

Jonathan Pie: 2024 Election Specials - the Conservatives

UK news reporter Jonathan Pie pulls no punches as he gives a brutally honest view of the UK Conservative party as the UK rolls into election day on Thursday 4 July.

April 19, 2024

Terra nullius 2.0 – what AUKUS means for First Nations peoples

Australia will essentially become America’s military launch-pad into Asia. However, Ben Abbatangelo writes, little has been said or written about the drastic and disproportionate impacts it will have on First Nations communities in Australia.

September 7, 2023

John Pilger: "America has hung a noose around the neck of China"

In March of 2016 the renowned Australian journalist and filmmaker John Pilger published an article titled A world war has begun. Break the silence. which urgently warned of the US empires aggressive escalations against Russia and China. Re-reading parts of it in 2023 is like watching someone placing flags next to recently planted seeds that would eventually grow into the towering problems our world now faces.

June 23, 2023

The resurgence of China-Australia trade

Prosaic economic factors, not politics, are driving the growth in China-Australia trade, ensuring China will only become more important as Australias trading partner of choice," writes James Laurenceson.

August 17, 2022

Anti-Chinese press vitriol in press gallery

From 2004 to 2014, I ran a program on behalf of Sydney University to send highly-motivated Australian media students to English-language newspapers around Asia. They were to work as professional journalists, researching and publishing their own stories about local events. On return to Australia, their experience was designed to equip those who joined Australian media outfits with a sophisticated insight of their host countries. Funding came from the Myer Foundation, then DFAT.

June 14, 2022

Sooner or later, the integrity commission will take out a Labor minister

One of the reasons why some of Labors old hands, particularly on the right, regard the prospect of integrity legislation with less than complete enthusiasm is that sooner or later probably sooner than expected and maybe even before the next election it will be the instrument of the downfall of a Labor minister.

May 12, 2022

The track record of Peter Duttons incompetence

_Failing up is a common phenomenon in many organisations - not least those concerned with national defence and security.

June 2, 2021

The digital media farce continues as nothing changes

Nine Entertainment is the latest of the old media companies to announce deals with Google and Facebook. For a fraction of what they once thought they deserved, and without any of the benefits to consumers which the Digital Bargaining Code bill purported to provide.

April 28, 2021

Perspectives from the floor of a medically supervised injecting centre

I have worked at New South Wales only Medically Supervised Injecting Centre (Uniting MSIC) for more than seven years and have been giving care to people who inject drugs for over a decade.

January 28, 2021

A gas-led recovery leads to dangerous atmospheric methane

A US study showed that children born within a mile or two of a gas well were likely to be smaller and less healthy. High levels of methane reduce the amount of oxygen breathed from the air, with health consequences. And still the Coalition pushes its fracking plans for the nation.

May 16, 2024

Israel’s willing executioners

Hundreds of thousands of people are being forced to flee, once again, after more than half of Gaza’s population took sanctuary in the border town of Rafah. This is part of Israel’s sadistic playbook.

May 14, 2024

“Burn down the United Nations” chant Israeli mob in UNRWA HQ attack

This evening, Israeli residents set fire twice to the perimeter of the UNRWA Headquarters in occupied East Jerusalem.

April 17, 2023

Inequality on steroids: The distribution of economic growth in Australia

Since the global financial crisis there has been a fundamental change in the operation of the Australian economy. Since World War Two, the majority of the benefits of economic growth have flowed to the bottom 90 per cent of income earners. However, as shown in Figure 1, between 2009 and 2019 the top 10 per cent got almost all of the gains of the latest recovery: that group secured 93 per cent of the income growth in that period.

September 12, 2023

The paranoia of China going global

Empires are anxious creatures, run by those predatory types with egos vast and awareness minimal. The awareness only gets pricked when risks are posed to the financial returns, military security, what might be called, at a stretch, their way of living. Such risks can come in many forms, and for the US imperium, its less a warming planet and global poverty than the threat posed by the Peoples Republic of China.

September 5, 2023

Everything you know about China being a threat is untrue

We, Westerners, impose our sense of individualism onto a society that has a sense of communalism. We are bothered by it. But this is not something the Chinese people need rescuing from. China is not your enemy, the people telling you China is your enemy, are you enemy.

July 19, 2023

An American system of state sanctioned forced births?

Labels have power. They shape the way we know the world. They allow people to see actions with greater clarity or distort our understanding to make things unrecognisable.

July 11, 2023

Yellens Beijing visit: US-China economic reality is starting to bite

On China, Biden is faced with both a political problem, represented by his secretary of state, and an economic reality, represented by the Treasury secretary. Yellens visit suggests economics may be starting to play a larger role in the bilateral relationship, but the US will need to demonstrate consistent sincerity to see improvement in ties.

July 3, 2023

Oh the weaponising: another symptom of decline

Weaponise is the word de jour in America. Aside from the crude partisan employment of the term by Trump and other American politicians, it has subtly found its way into mainstream publications. Such loaded terms corrupt analysis by imposing implicit judgements that obviate the need for serious thought. Once condemned for weaponising, it cannot then be conceded that the target of the accusation can have legitimate reasons for their actions.

May 28, 2023

China and the axis of the sanctioned: how Americas divide-and-rule strategy in the Middle East backfired

A photo Beijing released on March 6th of Chinese President Xi Jinpings foreign minister Wang Yi delivered a seismic shock in Washington. There he was, standing between Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Irans National Security Council, and Saudi National Security Adviser Musaad bin Mohammed al-Aiban. They were awkwardly shaking hands on an agreement to reestablish mutual diplomatic ties. That picture should have brought to mind a 1993 photo of President Bill Clinton hosting Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO chief Yasser Arafat on the White House lawn as they agreed to the Oslo Accords. And that long-gone moment was itself an after-effect of the halo of invincibility the United States had gained in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the overwhelming American victory in the 1991 Gulf War.

May 3, 2021

Please, no war with China

In an unprecedented speech, a senior public servant has floated the possibility, and even necessity, of Australias taking part in a war against China. This is profoundly shocking and worrying and is symptomatic of a new low in our relations with China.

December 19, 2020

Fever Pitch: Whos an Enemy of the State?

The character of our own government at present is imbecility, said Samuel Johnson to James Boswell.

February 20, 2020

ALISON BROINOWSKI. Organised violence: the US and China compared

The world has seen the rise and fall of some 150 empires. That number doesnt even include the United States, whose unacknowledged empire includes more than 800 military bases in some 70 countries.

April 26, 2024

Worse than the Nakba: A wilful, deliberate, total genocide in Gaza

Lies and impunity paved the way for the worst time in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Hanan Ashrawi says Gaza is “worse than even the Nakba, because it is a wilful, deliberate, total genocide”.

September 2, 2023

Petrodollar be warned: Three Persian Gulf energy powers just joined BRICS

The BRICS revealed its geopolitical priorities when it added three Persian Gulf states to its once exclusive roster of members. Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE have been strategically included to put an end to the petrodollar.

August 14, 2022

Chegg, cheating and Australian Universities

The note on Radio Nationals Background Briefing on the morning of July 31 was sombre. A student, who did not divulge his real name (he is professionally pseudonymised as Ramesh), talks about services that aid him in his study. Aid is less accurate than do given that he is working gruelling night shifts in the fast-food industry, he is incapable of making morning classes at the said unnamed university. Flipping burgers in greasy splendour takes precedent.

April 29, 2021

Killed and abandoned: the children of Afghanistan

US and Australian troops are preparing to leave Afghanistan with a debilitating legacy for millions of children. Simultaneous with news of troop withdrawals, Prime Minister Morrison has spoken of his taste for a laying on of hands as a means of healing. The children of Afghanistan would regard these events as at best confusing, and at worst, more betrayal and hypocrisy.

June 12, 2018

GREG HAMILTON. Little or no talent for getting it right.

A great Australian recently said: were a helpless audience watching an awesome spectacle, powerless to act because we havent produced leadership with the courage to match the precipitous nature of the hour. The Rev. Ted Noffs got most things right. When his own church charged him with heresy, it proved the old axiom that a good deed never goes unpunished. Unfortunately, its the daily reality of our political system.

August 19, 2024

While the world discussed the Games, Israel was focused on rape

In the second and last week of the Paris Olympics, most of the world was discussing sporting performances and medal tallies.

June 24, 2024

What kind of people threaten prosecutors?

Without naming names, a joint statement by 93 countries in a show of support for the International Criminal Court is an unmistakable rebuke of the lawlessness of US and Israel.

April 9, 2024

Losers whinge, winners rule

A tip to take a wee shot at understanding the way of doing politics in Indonesia: Suspend rationality. Now imagine PM Anthony Albanese offering Scott Morrison a ministry - choice from five. Not such a smart move for Down Under but OK for next door.

May 11, 2023

Hong Kongs recovery: Greatest threat is parochialism

In January, the Finance Secretary Paul Chan went to Davos as part of an effort to encourage the world to join the government in its embrace of a new start for Hong Kong and to sell its numerous inherent strengths. Combined with efforts that coincided with the full opening-up of Hong Kong and recent visits to the Philippines, Vietnam, the UAE and Saudi Arabia by the Chief Executive, it was a much needed and timely reaffirmation of the governments acute awareness of Hong Kongs current optics problem and the need to forge new relationships.

May 15, 2021

Review Essay: David Kemp. A Liberal State. How Australians Chose Liberalism over Socialism 1926-1966

David Kemp’s multi-volume studies of settler-colonial Australian Liberalism since 1788 have been carried out with support from the Menzies Research Centre and funding from the Cormack Foundation, which is registered as an ‘associated entity’ of the Liberal Party with the Australian Electoral Commission. But does the latest volume forget to factor in Australia’s regional challenges in the mid twentieth century?

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal