January 17, 2021

Australias rule of law system leaves millions unprotected: Part 1

The rule of law system is not an amorphous single entity government but involves law-makers (such as prime ministers and other ministers), law-implementers, law-interpreters, and law enforcers. Their work has left unprotected several million vulnerable people. How? This part covers law-makers and law-implementers.

December 5, 2020

The Cancellation Continuum

_Cancel culture seems to have become the topic of the day, with critics lamenting its use to suppress free discussion, and defenders claiming that it is a necessary check on bias and hate speech.

November 3, 2020

Charlie Hebdo: free speech or provocation?

_Terrible events in France a teacher beheaded, stabbings of innocent bystanders, and the shooting of a Greek orthodox priest are recent examples of a clash of cultural identity systems that remain stubbornly alien to each other.

October 24, 2020

Securing an Asian NATO or destabilising Korea relations? (EAF Oct 15, 2020)

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo intended to meet his South Korean counterpart Kang Kyung-wha on 7 October. But the visit was cancelled after US President Donald Trump contracted Covid-19.

March 11, 2020

NOEL TURNBULL. Grand Prix's grand claims

There may well be a benign side to the Australian Grand Prixs consistent overstatement of how many people attend the event the potential number of coronavirus infections will be correspondingly reduced by the multiple by which the Grand Prix exaggerates its attendance.

February 18, 2020

PAUL LARIS. SAs Planning Code Consistency, democracy, or centralised chaos?

The SA governments attempts to streamline and centralise urban planning are shaping up as an electoral liability and may also fail to address the problems of urban infill development.

February 8, 2020

PETER SAINSBURY. Sunday environmental round up, 9 February 2020

_If wed started the transition 30 years ago, gas might (might!) have been a viable transition fuel but its certainly not in 2020 despite what the PM and his gassy friends say.

April 22, 2021

Pipped at the Post: How the government tried to sell Australia Post

Parliamentary privilege is far more than a means of protecting politicians from being sued for what they say in parliamentary proceedings. It is a powerful tool for any Australian seeking to hold governments to account. By giving evidence under privilege to a Senate committee, former Australia Post CEO Christine Holgate was able to expose the Morrison Government’s plan to cut postal services and privatise parcel deliveries.

March 19, 2020

ALISON BROINOWSKI. Outstaying our welcome in Iraq.

As US installations in Iraq come under increasing attack, the message that they are no longer needed is clear. Camp Taji near Baghdad, where a few hundred Australians are still based, has been hit by missiles in recent days. How much longer before they get out?

March 12, 2020

IBA. IBAHRI condemns UK treatment of Julian Assange in US extradition trial (IBA 10.3.2020)

According to his lawyers, Mr Assange was handcuffed 11 times; stripped naked twice and searched; his case files confiscated after the first day of the hearing; and had his request to sit with his lawyers during the trial, rather than in a dock surrounded by bulletproof glass, denied.

April 3, 2021

Christ is risen, He is risen indeed

During his final week of his life, Jesus world was savagely ripped away from him. And it all happened so quickly. He was arrested by the Roman troops in a security sweep of Jerusalem during the Passover celebrations. He was charged with sedition, convicted and sentenced to death as a criminal. He suffered an utterly humiliating death on a cross. It was an utter disaster for his family and followers.

August 5, 2021

Drone Whistleblower Daniel Hale Is a Truth-Teller in a Time of Systemic Deceit and Lethal Secrecy

_At times, nearly nine out of 10 people killed in so-called targeted strikes by the U.S. are not the intended targets; exposing the complicity of top U.S. government officials in a secret kill chain that decides who should be assassinated by drone strike; exposing that the U.S. government officially labels unknown people it kills as enemies killed in action.

February 6, 2020

Disadvantaged Schools in Australia Are Far Less Resourced than Advantaged Schools

Data from the OECDs Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in 2018 show that Australia allocates more and better quality teacher and physical resources to high socio-economic status (SES) secondary schools than to low SES schools. The gaps are amongst the largest in the OECD. The highest performing OECD countries generally allocate resources more equitably between low and high SES secondary schools than Australia does.

June 7, 2021

Australian barriers to electric vehicles and batteries

There are two significant barriers to the take-up of electric vehicles (EVs) in Australia publicly accessible charging infrastructure suitable for a large country, and Scott Morrison.

July 8, 2021

Chronicle of a Defeat Foretold Why America Failed in Afghanistan

In 2008, I interviewed the United Kingdoms then outgoing military commander in Afghanistan, Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith, in a dusty firebase in Helmand Province, where international troops had been battling the Taliban on a daily basis for territory that kept slipping away.

June 22, 2021

The climate change runaway chain reaction process

Amplifying feedbacks are leading to runaway global warming.

May 23, 2021

Morrison churlishly ignores scientific achievement

Scott Morrison’s churlishness is always on show when some Australian achieves great success in any area when Morrison’s perceived political enemies lurk.

April 14, 2021

If Australia needs nukes, who doesnt?

Sensible people are making the case for a nuclear-armed Australia. Given Australias other problems, the ruinous cost, and the dangers of proliferation, this is the last thing we should be considering.

March 30, 2020

STEPHEN LEEDER. The ambiguity of herd immunity and the coronavirus

In the US, the first formal clinical trial of a drug to treat coronavirus and of a vaccine give us a good moment to reflect on the immunology of this illness.

March 2, 2020

DOUGLAS LONDON.-Why the Taliban will never agree to a real peace deal (NYT29.2.2020)

_They know they are winning. Why would they concede anything?

February 25, 2020

JAMES O'NEILL. Assange Case Reveals True Colours of the So-Called Western Democracies

One is tempted to suggest that all Australians travelling abroad should have a warning attached to their passports: if you do anything to upset the Americans, dont expect our help.

September 19, 2021

Russian Duma elections mark a watershed moment in Russia-West relations

Russia, confident that it has seen off major US challenges to its sovereign independence, looks forward to its growing world role following significant elections on Sunday.

July 11, 2021

Hong Kong returns to its old self: economically rich but politically neutral

The city is not losing a democracy it never had but simply going back to being an apolitical community focusing on finance and trade, as it had always been, after a brief and anomalous period of intense and often violent politicisation.

April 14, 2021

Prince Philip: royalty remains central to Australian identity

With the death of Prince Philip on Friday the reaction in Australia’s media has been overwhelming. Stories about his humorous, and sometimes offensive, statements have been repeated ad nauseum and his service to the broader community in the Commonwealth lauded. This saturation coverage reinforces how powerful the image of the monarchy and a stable Britain is in the minds of the public and the mainstream media.

April 6, 2021

What would US-China war really mean?

Do the commentators who talk of war with China actually think about what this would mean?

March 29, 2020

An End To Global Capitalism

The raiding of supermarket shelves shows the influence of capitalism at its worst: competition, selfishness, exploitation by the successful raiders at the expense of those who could not compete or decided not to.

August 1, 2019

MASSIMO FAGGIOLI. Diaspora and the globalization of the Catholic Church.

The number of Catholics continues to drop in Germany. More than 216,000 of them decided to “leave the Church” last year alone by ceasing to pay the government-mandated church tax. This is just the latest example of what has become a slow, but steady pattern of defections from the Catholic Church in the Western world. Baptized members already began leaving in the first half of the twentieth century, but they have done so in even greater numbers over the past 60 years.

This does not mean Christianity is disappearing. But, almost everywhere, it shows that the Church is losing its tight control over the faith.

July 15, 2021

It's the vaccine rollout, stupid!

_Bill Clinton certainly had a feel for what worked in getting himself elected, and then re-elected. He knew that the electorate had one major concern, and all the other matters were just background noise. Cue Scott Morrison and his Government. The vaccine rollout, period. Fix that, and you are home. No more lockdowns, no more businesses going broke, no more daily press conferences, obsessively watching numbers of infections.

March 25, 2020

DUNCAN GRAHAM.-The wealthiest one per cent (all men) own half Indonesias total wealth.

Maruf Amin is a name few Australians would recognize. Before his election last year as Indonesias vice-president, the hard-right Islamic cleric showed minimal interest in his southern neighbour. Suddenly he wants Australian aid.

February 27, 2020

MICHAEL MULLINS. Jean Vanier and the abuse of celebrity power

Jean Vanier was the revered founder of the international network of L’Arche communities for people with intellectual disabilities. It was revealed at the weekend that he sexually abused six women in France between 1970 and 2005. Treating leaders like gods tends to have unintended consequences. In Vaniers case, it seems to have made him a cult leader, complete with an adoring and unquestioning constituency and loyal deputies.

March 11, 2020

TED TRAINER.-Why the rich and powerful want Assange silenced.

Now you will understand why it is so important to prevent people like Ellsberg and Chelsea Manning and Snowden and Assange from exposing the nasty things that are done to secure our empire.

March 30, 2020

CAMERON LECKIE. Catabolic Collapse: Round 2

COVID-19 is far from being the end of the world, but it does signify the start of the second cycle of a process known as catabolic collapse.

February 10, 2020

JACK WATERFORD. The sports rorts will taint the Canberra air for a long time.

We need an inquiry into how public service stewards provide dubious alibis for ministers

May 20, 2021

Will Australia spring the Thucydides trap?

The Thucydides Trap argument is that history demonstrates that war is practically inevitable between a rising hegemon, such as China, and a failing hegemon, such as the US.

April 5, 2021

The illiberal moment: ASPIs 'The Influence Environment'

Last years report from ASPI (the Australian Strategy Policy Institute) on Chinese-language media in Australia is a doubly unfortunate manifestation of the profoundly illiberal moment that has now become a worldwide phenomenon and which now clearly infects Australias relations with China.

January 23, 2021

There's nothing entrepreneurial about Rentier Capitalism, as it sucks up more of the wealth pie

‘Rentier Capitalism’ is a cracking thesis on a cruel economic order. Read it and youll start seeing rentiers everywhere, hearing them in every news bulletin, all involved in massive anti-competitive behaviour and impoverishing the rest of society.

April 2, 2020

NSW Labor should be streets ahead of the Libs

Premier Gladys Berejiklians Coalition government is regarded by voters as being among the worst in living memory. So why isnt Jodi McKays Parliamentary Labor Party in front by miles?

April 5, 2021

Labors National Conference reaffirms the Partys call for recognition of the State of Palestine

Labors 30th March 2021 National Special Platform Conference reaffirmed the Partys call for recognition of the State of Palestine.

February 4, 2020

MIKE SCRAFTON. Democracy and Ignorance-climate deniers and climate believers

Behind many of todays challenges is the problem of ignorance. Thats not to deprecate or disparage the intellectual capacity of citizens or their desire to be well-informed. The proliferation and complexity of knowledge and the segmentation of disciplines and expertise means there is just too much for anyone to absorb it all. This is a problem for policy setting in democracies; climate science is one example.

November 21, 2020

Soldiers vs warriors: a distinction between Australian and US troops and Kerry Stokes!

Whats the difference between a soldier and a warrior? And in what environment is the distinction in danger of being lost?

If Kerry Stokes wants to get involved he is entitled to but, if he does, he should also step aside from his role at the Australian War Memorial.

February 17, 2020

JACK WATERFORD. Morrison closes the books on black disadvantage gap

The annual February Closing the Gap statement by the prime minister of the day is becoming one of the major Caucasian political festivals.

June 29, 2021

Now is the time for all good women to come to the aid of the country.

About their forthcoming book,Enough is Enough, Kate Thwaites and Jenny Macklin state: the underlying problem of men’s attitudes towards women, of men believing it is their right to assault or harass women, remains. For this to change, men will have to give up some of the harmful ways in which they use power - in the parliament and in our community.They are right! In the federal parliament this means more women in more powerful positions arguing for major reforms that are now needed as never before.

March 26, 2020

CHIARA BOCELLI-TYNDALL.- Coronavirus in Italy a view from exile

On Sunday, February the 23rd my Australian husband and I was in Florence Italy, where we regularly enjoy an alternative residence, and lifestyle, to that of Basel Switzerland. We had tickets for a coveted opera performance of Donizettis Don Pasquale, that afternoon when we heard the news.

April 6, 2021

USYD's war on peace in education

The University of Sydney looks set to close its Department of Peace and Conflict Studies. What is the broader significance of this? Does it matter?

February 2, 2020

PETER BROOKS. Governments new out-of-pocket medical costs website - a missed opportunity

The long-awaited Australian Department of Health website designed to provide Australians with information on specialist medical costs, which went live on 30 December 2019, is (so far at least) a significant missed opportunity.

March 24, 2020

ALLAN PATIENCE. The coronavirus pandemic and the crisis of Australian federalism.

Despite the Prime Ministers daily press conferences in which he fatuously tries (as is his wont) to reassure all Australians that they are on the bridge to the other side of the coronavirus pandemic, confusion and fear continue to stalk the land.

August 20, 2022

Explainer: the complex question of Taiwanese independence

Strategic ambiguity the policy that has underpinned the Wests defence of Taiwan for half a century or more rests on another ambiguity…

May 15, 2022

The drums of war refuse to stop beating down under

While the war over invisible enemies remains an imagination, another war is tearing through civil Australian society: that of discrimination, racism and unnecessary suspicion.

March 31, 2020

TONY SMITH.- Virtual parliament or elective dictatorship?

As the Morrison Government responds incrementally to the Corona Virus epidemic apparently following expert medical advice there has been much comment about decisions to close businesses such as hairdressing salons. Sadly, the decision to shut down parliament received comparatively little discussion.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal