February 6, 2020

MAX HAYTON. New Zealand campaign for September Election Day intensifies.

New Zealands Labour Government announced an election will be held on September 19 and almost immediately revealed its plans for massive investment in infrastructure.

November 6, 2019

Australia could fall apart under climate change. But theres a way to avoidit (The Conversation, 06 November 2019)

_Four years ago in December 2015, every member of the United Nations met in Paris and agreed to hold global temperature increases to 2C, and as close as possible to 1.5C._The bad news is that four years on the best we can hope for is holding global increases to about 1.75C. We can only do that if the world moves decisively towards zero net emissions by the middle of the century.

June 27, 2022

The Greens are our best hope for the urgent climate action we need

The Greens have the right and the duty (a mandate if you will) to use the numbers in which they were elected by Australian voters, to go hard on getting the climate policy outcomes they proposed.

June 15, 2018

HANS ZOLLER SJ. Protecting children in the Catholic Church

The issue of sexual abuse of minors committed by clergy is constantly returning to the forefront of media attention.

April 2, 2020

STEPHANIE DOWRICK. Doing more in a time of less

_The losses in this time of COVID19 crisis are very real. Loss of life is worst beyond comparison.

March 4, 2020

PATRICK COCKBURN.-The Real Modi: Do the Killings of Muslims Represent Indias Kristallnacht? (Counterpunch 3.3.2020)

_President Trump said he was satisfied that Modi was working really hard to establish religious freedom.

May 5, 2021

Share the intellectual property on COVID-19 vaccines

Intellectual Property must serve the global good, rather than humanity serving the interests of a few private companies. And in the case of COVID-19, the global good is not in doubt: rapid worldwide immunization, in order to save lives, prevent the emergence of new variants, and end the pandemic.

March 25, 2020

JOHN TAN. John Mearsheimer: Foreign policy hawk? Controversial as ever. Part 1 (of 2):

His theory of offensive realism is the most aggressive of all foreign policy theories. He believes Chinas continued rise will likelylead to a muscular contest; and he has enraged the Israel Lobby in Washington. But his story is much more nuanced…

January 5, 2021

China enters 2021 a stronger, more influential power and Australia may feel the squeeze even more

Great power competition in the Asia-Pacific region has been building for years. But COVID-19 has turbo-charged the shifts taking place and China is finishing 2020 in a significantly stronger position compared with the US than when the year started.

October 5, 2020

China diplomat urges end to confrontation (AFR Oct 5, 2020)

One of Chinas top diplomats has called for an end to confrontation and abusive language in increasingly hostile exchanges between Australia and China, saying the relationship can be salvaged through better communication by both countries.

_She blamed the Australian media for creating an unfriendly atmosphere and stirring up anti-China rhetoric.

June 25, 2022

CRAIG MURRAY. Biden works to prolong Ukraine war

Why we live in a world where the goal of nations is to damage the lives of inhabitants of other nations is a question which continues to puzzle me.

March 26, 2020

JOHN TAN. John Mearsheimer: Foreign policy hawk? Controversial as ever. Part 2 (of 2):

He has enraged the Israel lobby in Washington with his book about the lobby and US foreign policy. He is persona non grata in many circles, but hes not taking a step back.

April 21, 2021

The repeated lie that Abbott and Morrison stopped the boats has become a 'fact'. It is just not true.

Our corporate media will not acknowledge that Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison did notstop the boats. Despite clear evidence, the Canberra Press Gallery fell for the spin. With a tame media and cooperation by the military, the big lie was repeated time and time again and became accepted as fact. This was all before Donald Trump and his big lies.

March 31, 2020

GREG LOCKHART.- Quarantined in the Jazz Age

A friend mailed me recently to ask if I was well and safely distanced socially. He also pasted the following letter and asked me if Id seen it. I hadnt.

March 3, 2021

Being Chinese in Australia: the good, the bad and the ugly

A snapshot of the life for Chinese-Australians shows three quarters say they are happy living in Australia, yet in the past 12 months one in five has reported being physically threatened or attacked.

March 24, 2020

JACK WATERFORD.- China's formidable achievement

China deserves credit, not abuse for epidemic management

November 2, 2020

Data Retention An act of blindness

A Parliamentary Joint Committee on Security and Intelligence (PJCIS) report into the Data Retention Act has made 22 recommendations that, if accepted, would lead to increased transparency, raise the threshold for when data can be accessed, and reduce overall access to our telecommunications data.

March 15, 2020

JOHN CARLIN.- Time of Opportunity

The Corona virus could be a time of opportunity for the human race.

August 18, 2021

Does the Great Retreat from Afghanistan Mark the End of the American Era?

Its not justan epic defeatfor the United States. The fall of Kabul may serve as a bookend for the era of U.S. global power. In the nineteen-forties, the United States launched the Great Rescue to help liberate Western Europe from the powerful Nazi war machine.

May 6, 2022

By what measure is Australias economy leading the world? We went searching

The Coalition’s repeated claims that Australia’s economy is one of the world’s strongest can be refuted by simply looking at the numbers.

January 13, 2021

How to respond in the US when your brand comes under political attack

While the American election is finally over, one company is still monitoring for potential damage after being caught up in false allegations of voting fraud.

June 16, 2022

Subcontracting war

In the year since last July, the Morrison Government spent almost $3.8 billion on consultancies. This paid to the big end of consulting town for more than 8400 contracts with Accenture, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG and PwC. Other consultancies are small but aspirational, often run by recently retired public servants. Where is the accountability, we ask? Hire a consultant to find out. When the Albanese government promised to cut consultancies back, the Murdoch media howled with outrage.

June 7, 2022

JAKE LYNCH: Anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism

The murder by an Israeli sniper of the Palestinian Al Jazeera journalist Shirin Abu Akleh, and the police attack on mourners at her funeral, are not incidental to Zionism, but integral to it. The Green Line that bounds the territory the rest of the world regards as belonging to Israel is purely provisional, with no formal border ever having been announced or acknowledged.

August 7, 2021

The gold medal for anti-Beijing hysteria goes to the NYT for its unhinged attack on Chinas Olympic success

Not even Chinas sporting excellence can pass without comment in the United States, as a highly critical article in the New York Times on Thursday demonstrated. Its typical of the hysteria culture thats now rife in America.

May 18, 2022

If I were Minister for Defence in the incoming government

The primary requirement is the courage to tell the nation that it it can and should stand up on its own two feet and shed its fear of abandonment, once and for all.

December 12, 2020

The Ticking Time Bombs of Nuclear Australia

Seventy years ago, in late 1950, a British Admiralty survey party was broiling in the summer heat of the Monte Bello Islands off the coast of Western Australia to report on their suitability as a test site for Britain’s first atomic bomb. Which would make the islands a great deal hotter, and radioactive as they still are.

May 24, 2021

Australias Pandemic Trap is Snapping Shut

The 2021-22 budget assumes a policy that Australias borders will remain more or less hermetically sealed until mid-2022. As recently as late last year, we were promised opening up by July 2021. Hermit Australia, Fortress Australia, name it what you will, the trap that the Morrison Government has led us all into is of their own making.

June 7, 2021

Pope Francis' reforms the Church's disciplinary system in response to royal commission

One of the main reasons for the Catholic Church shifting around abusive priests was because its disciplinary system was dysfunctional. Far more children were abused than would have occurred if it had a decent one. The Royal Commission made recommendations for change, and Pope Francis has adopted some of them, but he has retained two of the most harshly criticized canons.

June 7, 2021

What has the US done that China hasn't?

It might be the right time to make a list a list of things China did not do.

July 16, 2022

John Bolton admits he helped plan coups

John Bolton was the national security advisor to Donald Trump from 2018 to 2019. He worked in important roles for Republican Administrations in the US dating back to the Reagan era. He has now admitted that he helped plan coups.

March 22, 2020

ROBERT REICH.-America has no real public health system coronavirus has a clear run( The Guardian 15.3.2020)

Trumps response has been inadequate but the system is rigged anyway. As always, the poor will be hit hardest. Almost 30% of American workers have no paid sick leave from their employers, including 70% of low-income workers earning less than $10.49 an hour.

April 28, 2022

The Solomons have quite simply forgotten their place

The disciplines and sub-disciples of Political Science and International Relations are frequently embarrassed by their collective inabilities to provide comprehensive understandings of events ostensibly within their purview because, as disciplines, they suffer from constrained, even constipated imaginations.

August 25, 2021

There can be no freedom or equality without Justice

Out of the blue, my fellow Olive Kids board member, Amin Abbas and I received an invitation from Ron Finkel and footy great, Gareth Andrews, to discuss Project Rozana, an overseas aid initiative for children aimed at building bridges to peace between Israel and Palestine. What would usually be a wonderful opportunity to work with others to help Palestinian children in need, at the same time, raised for us some red flags.

May 5, 2021

The Other Swindled Partner

_What were you doing in 2004 as the Australian Governments fleecing of the Timorese people took shape?

April 22, 2021

It's not what they know, it's what they choose to tell us: reading the Australian War Memorial

Many more things happened in the past than are recorded in history. Some versions persist. Others have currency for a time, then get put aside, because fashions change or because the version does not fit political agendas or notions of what audiences expect. Some versions have been sanitised. Others are just suppressed. The Australian War Memorial has form in this regard, although there are some glimpses of change.

July 13, 2021

Dark Ostrich: the attack on Bruce Pascoe's Dark Emu

Academics generally do not like outsiders trampling through their patch. Angry people are prone to missing irony. Semantics can be tricky when translating between very different cultures. These three factors seem to explain a fair bit of the vehement critique of Bruce PascoesDark Emuin the new bookFarmers or Hunter-gatherers? The Dark Emu Debate, by Peter Sutton and Keryn Walshe.

November 4, 2020

Edward Said Memorial Lecture 2020 Video - Melissa Parke

The Israeli lobbies in Australia, Europe and the USA are attempting to silence those who speak the truth about Israel’s abuse of Palestinians’ human rights.

April 21, 2022

A Federal ICAC is needed to protect the environment and climate change laws

_The survival of democracy depends on checks and balances, the possibility of corruption being exposed through an Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) which will provide a vital check on rorting of the environment.

March 30, 2020

CHARLES LIVINGSTONE.- Crown and other casinos finally shut, but initial exemption suggests special status

Getting in early to stop the spread of the virus would have been good for the community, and from Crowns perspective good for the companys floundering reputation, as it faces multiple official inquiries. It would also have demonstrated that even special companies have to play by the rules.

September 9, 2021

Scott Morrison: anti-leader, absent leader, or maverick?

What sort of a leader is Scott Morrison? Most of us want our leaders to do well but does our PM have the capacity to do so? Has he grown as a leader in the role or not?

September 1, 2021

Pandemic federalism and the national plan

With each state and territory facing different Covid situations, Australia is left with not one pandemic, but several.

August 3, 2022

Lurching to The Right: The coalitions spooky response to a political horror show

_He tried his best.

January 29, 2018

Henry Reynolds. Militarisation marches on . A REPOST

_Th_e Australian military featured heavily again in our celebrations of Australia Day 2018. There were Army parades in Canberra and the Navy on show in Sydney Harbour.

The militarisation of Australia and the language of war has become the new norm. Is that what Australia Day should be about? What about our civilian achievements?

There was no attempt at least officially to seek reconciliation with Indigenous people.

This article by Henry Reynolds ’ Militarisation Marches on ‘was initially posted on April 18 2015. John Menadue

May 26, 2022

Big breakthrough in NSW governance

Last week the NSW Legislative Council took a big step to require more evidence and consultation-based government bills. It unanimously agreed that for every government bill (other than a budget bill), the Selection of Bills committee must report whether the bill is accompanied by a Statement of Public Interest that addresses the following questions:

July 22, 2021

Israel and Apartheid: Language matters

George Brownings critique of Israel as an apartheid state is highly critical of Labor Opposition Leader Anthony Albaneses refusal to deploy that label. Like Browning, I agree that words matter. Which is why I contest his commentary. This article highlights the background to Brownings remarks, offers a brief analysis of the apartheid analogy, and offers a social democratic perspective about the Israel-Palestine debate.

March 16, 2018

TIM LINDSEY and DAVE MCCRAE. Australian-Indonesia: strangers next door

At the weekend, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull will meet with President of Indonesia Joko Widodo (Jokowi)on the margins of the Australia-ASEAN Special Summit. Although Turnbull seems to have built the positive personal relationship with Jokowi that eluded Tony Abbott, managing the bilateral relationship wont be any easier for Turnbull than his predecessor.

June 6, 2022

Public service chiefs need trials before executions

Anthony Albanese needs some new departmental and agency leaders. The limitations of some of the existing ones are obvious. But the prime minister need not order some summary executions, as Tony Abbott, John Howard, Malcolm Fraser and Gough Whitlam did. Nights of the long knives often seem personal, sometimes vindictive, or in breach of the tradition of secure jobs. A patient, cautious Albanese can be moving with all deliberate speed on his primary agenda, leaving it to the new head of the service to visit the battlefield, shooting the terminally wounded, and applying balm to those of continuing value. Perhaps with a list of diplomatic vacancies in his back pocket.

March 4, 2020

STEPHEN LEEDER. Health guidelines may be necessary but are not sufficient for optimal medical care.

_There is a common belief that medicine in all it variety would be better practised according to strict rules and guidelines.

June 14, 2022

Amnesia over Ukraine

The West seems to have forgotten there are several precedents for a solution in Ukraine.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal