September 11, 2021

Australian government's secrecy obsession and the role of ASIS in the overthrow of Chile's Allende

Freshly declassified National Archives documents show just how closely the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) worked with the CIA in the lead-up to the coup-d’tat in Chile in September 1973.

July 8, 2022

The journey from nuclear non-proliferation to prohibition and disarmament: roadmaps, roadblocks and speedbumps

This is the text of the address delivered by Ramesh Thakur at the launch ofThe Nuclear Ban Treaty: A Transformational Reframing of the Global Nuclear Order(Routledge, 2022) at the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation on Friday, 24 June 2022.

March 27, 2018

TRISTAN EDIS. How renewables trumped brown coal and gas over Australia's summer.

In reading some of the panic-stricken media commentary about the impending blackouts we were supposed to have this summer, you might have been led to believe that renewable energy doesnt contribute much at all to ensuring the lights stayed on.

March 5, 2020

MICHAEL WEST.-Ranking Australias billionaires as taxpayers (Michael West Media 28.2.2020)

_Community attitudes have changed. But what has not changed, and what must change, is the secrecy around the corporate affairs of Australias wealthiest old family business empires.

May 17, 2021

The End of Modis Global Dreams...and the Quad!

Indias prime minister advanced a muscular foreign policy, but his mishandling of the pandemic is an embarrassing step back. If India stumbles, the American dream of the Quad can never become a reality.

February 5, 2019

JAMES MASSOLA. The Australian priest helping trapped refugees the world ignores. (SMH 3/2/2019)

Mick Kelly remembers the phone call from his friend in Pakistan as if it was yesterday.

“He asked me to help out this one guy who was fleeing Pakistan, and on his way to Bangkok. That was more than five years ago,” Kelly recalls.

That friend - like Mick, a Jesuit priest - was asking for the Sydney-born Kelly to give a Pakistani Christian and would-be refugee help when he arrived in Thailand’s sprawling, unfamiliar capital.

“It all started by accident and has grown from there.”

April 29, 2022

Daryl Guppy: Remembrance of peace past

ANZAC day is a day to remember why peace is preferable to war. This year it was besmirched by the beating of the drums of war.

October 9, 2019

STEPHEN DUCKETT. Time to kill the Private Health Insurance zombies

Two zombie policies stalk the Private Health Insurance (PHI) policy world: A Hospital Benefits Schedule and Medicare Select. Heres why both should have been put to rest long ago.

July 27, 2021

Facing Years in Prison for Drone Leak. The Case Against US Assassination Program

The U.K.-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism, or TBIJ,estimates the total number of deaths from drones and other covert killing operations in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Somalia to run between 8,858 and 16,901 since strikes began to be carried out in 2004.

April 14, 2022

Bringing light out of darkness

There have been few lead ups to Easter in my experience more aligned with one of Easters central messages bringing light out of darkness than Easter 2022.

September 24, 2022

Biden keeps pledging direct US war with China over Taiwan

The president of the United States has once again committed the US military to direct hot war with China in the event of an attack on Taiwan, a commitment that was once again walked back by his White House handlers.

October 31, 2020

Tianshu Bai et al. Private or Public? The declining use of private healthcare in Australia (Melbourne Institute Oct 2020)

Australia has seen a steady decline in private health insurance (PHI) membership in the past five years. Since June 2015, the proportion of Australians with private health insurance has fallen from 47.4 per cent to 43.6 per cent in March 2020.

September 19, 2022

A feast of new reading outside the grip of corporate western media

_John Menadue has drawn attention to how our views of the world are dominated by white mans media.

September 26, 2022

Despairing China teacher in the US encouraged by social voices

Bias confirmation is nearly impossible to overcome, and if reinforced by subliminal anti-Chinese racism, even more so.

November 14, 2020

Does the McCarrick report exonerate Pope Francis? Yes and no.

Though Pope Francis was vaguely aware of rumors of sexual misconduct against former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick back in 2013, a Vatican report released on Nov 10 says Francis believed his two predecessors had properly handled the matter and that there was no need to revisit the claims.

May 3, 2022

The decline in Australian diplomatic skills

The Solomon Islands fiasco confirms what some of us have long known - the gradual decline in the quality of Australian foreign policy.

January 17, 2018

John Menadue. The Coalition, Barnaby Joyce rural poverty and rural health. (Repost from 16 January 2016)

It is not surprising that independents are making headway in country electorates. But what is the ALP doing?

September 21, 2022

The Sabra and Shatila massacre is personal

These last few days, as they do every year, weigh heavy on every Palestinians heart. For me, and my family, the heaviness is also personal.

June 10, 2022

Environment: Global climate report and watery things

The global climate in 2021 was not looking good, nor were dams, rivers, the Reef or seagrass.

February 10, 2020

PAUL MALONE. Australia's American view of the world

_The Australian medias view of the world is dictated by the US

November 29, 2017

MICHAEL KELLY SJ. Pope Francis and The Lady meet

The much-anticipated meeting between Pope Francis and Aung San Suu Kyi will disappoint those who expected an attentive focus on the Rohingya.

October 11, 2021

A strong federal integrity commission requires public hearings

The Coalition parliamentarians who don’t want a federal integrity commission to hold public hearings are among the very people that should be required to answer questions from an integrity commission.

April 20, 2022

Jacob Hornberger: Why not joint war crimes trials?

_The U.S. mainstream media is calling for the criminal prosecution of Russian president Vladimir Putin, as well as Russian military personnel, for war crimes committed as part of Russias invasion of Ukraine.

September 8, 2022

The private school dilemma are toxic cultures of misogyny and racism inevitable?

Knox Grammar School, one of Sydneys top private schools, has hit the headlines this week with several boys suspended or withdrawn after posting misogynistic, racist and anti-Semitic comments in an online private chatroom.

June 19, 2022

JOHN PRICE: James Madison on Parties

Madison: Federalist #10 … the trouble with parties

Right about the time the first fleet was sailing to Botany Bay, three of the American founders, John Jay, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison wrote a series of articles designed to explore the most controversial issues encountered by the constitutional convention in Philadelphia. They were published and widely read, as the authors intended, and they have been very influential ever since, whenever theres reason to think hard about problems of popular sovereignty and democratic theory. In the piece usually known as essay number 10, Madison addresses something he saw as a particularly acute problem for the new republic - how to tame the tendency of people to clump together into factions.

June 7, 2022

Who won the elections for the Northern Ireland Assembly?

Most of the reporting on the outcome of the elections in May for the 90-member Northern Ireland Assembly (NIA) has concentrated on Sinn Fins winning the highest number of seats and the highest proportion of first preference votes (FPVs). Some have called it historical and have referred to a seismic shift in the politics of NI, where unionists no longer dominate. A closer look at the figures suggests a more cautious approach is required.

June 6, 2022

There is nothing complicated in the truths about Israel regarding Palestine

Michael Eassons article in Fridays (June 3) Pearls & Irritations warrants a response. Entitled The Israeli lobby mischaracterises the diverse Australian Jewish Community, the piece attacks Bob Carrs comments on the Israeli lobby in Australia in an earlier piece. Easson presents a litany of misleading concepts designed to do only one thing pull the wool over the eyes of the Australian public.

April 6, 2021

The 'levee paradox': why has development in floodplains exploded?

In March we were reminded that flooding is a problem in Australia. It is a problem partly because of the way we accommodate our growing population on floodplains.

July 22, 2022

Richard Falk: Bidens blurred vision of Human Rights - China, Saudi Arabia and Israel

When the U.S. Government at the highest level criticised Michelle Bachelet, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, because she went to China on a mission to develop opportunities for cooperation with respect to the protection of human rights.

May 1, 2021

'We are still here': responding to Ageism in our society

Ageism is an attitude toward the aged in our midst that marks them out as a specific group demanding special recognition for their shortcomings and their demands. Old age is experienced individually; ageism removes that sense of individuality by insisting that the aged as a cohort are burdensome, costly, and politically awkward.

April 18, 2021

Investment in early childhood education provides greatest benefit

In Part 1 - Policy and Progress, I pointed out the problem of focusing on schooling and the myths of its contribution to economic growth. In Part 2, I emphasise the importance of teacher-led assessment and the fundamental importance of early childhood.

April 17, 2021

Education shouldn't be about contribution to the economy

The Coalitions education policy deals only with schools, ignores the critical early years of life and the nature of learning and wrongly asserts a link between student education achievement and economic growth. Funding has produced gross inequity and no educational gain.

May 2, 2021

Childcare and the federal budget: what about the childcare workforce?

Changes to childcare in its role as a workforce support are expected to be made in the next federal budget. Childcare is more than workforce support and without reforming the present market-driven system it is unlikely recommended changes will deliver anything except minimal short-term relief to an ailing system.

September 1, 2022

Joelle Gergis: Friday essay: I feel my heart breaking today a climate scientists path through grief towards hope

I have spent hundreds of hours trawling through countless UN reports and scientific papers until my eyes sting and I can no longer absorb any more information. I feel overwhelmed and saturated with sorrow. As a sensitive person with a difficult background, sometimes I find the reality of the world we live in unbearable. I just cant understand why we inflict so much pain on each other and our planet.

June 18, 2022

Oliver Frankel: Monthly digest on housing affordability and homelessness

This is the latest monthly digest of articles, research reports, policy announcements and other material about housing stress/affordability and homelessness.

September 23, 2022

Vanguard behind the country's achievements

The past century has witnessed the Communist Party of China leading a revolution, founding the People’s Republic and relentlessly pursuing economic development and social change for the better. The Chinese people have changed their fate, made great contributions to humankind, and are now on way to realising national rejuvenation.

March 3, 2021

Against the odds, South Australia is a renewable energy powerhouse. How on Earth did they do it?

Less than two decades ago, SA generated all its electricity from fossil fuels. Last year, renewables provided a whopping 60%of the states electricity supply. The remarkable progress came as national climate policy was gripped by paralysis so how did it happen?

April 21, 2021

Ive got the Anzac Day Blues

Australia has never been the maker of its own history. So said the legendry Manning Clark, who spent a life mapping the heart of our nation. From the utterly worthless Sudan campaign of 1885 to the atrocity-ridden Afghanistan War of 2001-2013, our people have been made to wade through blood in foreign lands to satisfy feckless sycophantic leadership at home and unfathomable geo-political intrigues festering far away.

September 3, 2022

Country that helps us is China, Africans say

YOUNG ADULTS FROM 15 African countries see China as the foreign power with the biggest positive impact on their lives, a new survey shows. More than 70% gave the Chinese an upbeat review. This matters. By 2050, 80% of the worlds youth will be from Africa.

June 1, 2022

What Scott did, and what Labor needs to undo: How to retain the Chinese-Australian Vote

Is there anything that you specifically think Anthony Albanese would do better? a journalist in the National Press Club asked Grace Tame, the 2021 Australian of the Year, and a fearless champion for women in Australia. Tame answered, All Anthony would have to do is none of the things that Scotts done.

May 16, 2022

Melvin A. Goodman - U.S. Intelligence boasting intensifies Russian-American proxy war

The New York Timess international affairs columnist Thomas Friedman is arguably the most influential editorial writer in the country. Last week, his editorial aptly warned the Biden administration of the huge unintended consequences of its unplanned and impromptu remarks regarding Russian President Vladimir Putin and the savagery of his tactics in Ukraine.

June 5, 2022

JOHN LANGMORE and ERIKA FELLER - Planning UN revitalisation

Reinvigorating multilateralism has been a growing concern of the United Nations (UN) for many years. The maintenance of international peace and enhancing the global rules-based order are core responsibilities under the UN Charter. A major problem is that many Member States are no longer, if they ever fully were, practicing what they say they believe. Multilateral cooperation through the UN institutions has been eroded.

February 27, 2020

NOEL TURNBULL. Who is the world's outstanding journalist?

Who is the worlds outstanding journalist? Its a question which seems particularly important given the current status of journalism; the rise of fake news online; and, the need for journalists to be constantly posting to get their employers online media figures up.

February 21, 2018

Whitlam had it easier on China policy

When Labor statesman Gough Whitlam opened relations with China it was a Maoist tyranny, more like todays North Korea than todays China. It was sunk in poverty. Its people could not travel overseas. They couldnt move from village to village without party permission. It was illegal to own a small business. And China ran revolutionary movements in Southeast Asia.

May 25, 2021

Radioactive trash - a tale of two Sydney suburbs

Australia is relatively clear of nuclear reprocessing waste problems. But the Sydney suburbs of Hunters Hill and Barden Ridge have radioactive wastes from uranium processing which have been sitting there for decades. A bill is now before the Senate addressing the issue.

February 28, 2018

RICHARD TANTER. Bad, bad BADA (aka Bipartisan Australian Defence Agreement)

One explanation popular in some thinktank and corporate circles for incoherence in Australian defence policy and inefficiencies in defence procurement attributes these problems to the influence of politicians and elections. If only politics could be got out of the way, so the argument goes, we could have an effective policy process and an efficient defence procurement process.

January 17, 2021

Saving US democracy from corporate America

Don’t be fooled by corporate statements defending the rule of law after the insurrection by Trump supporters at the US Capitol. Having long exploited constitutional order for its own gain, corporate America is not suddenly part of the solution; it’s part of the problem.

March 3, 2021

Brendan Nelson's Gold Brick Road. Part 3

Former Defence Minister Brendan Nelsons troubling hook-up with Boeing Defence.

May 31, 2022

Albanese should share the map and the driving with the teals

One has almost to go back to World War II to find the Australian Labor Party in a more theoretically advantageous position in seeking to pursue its legislative and executive government agenda. But if Anthony Albanese and Labor are to capitalise on their luck in times almost as difficult, they must take great care in managing their relationships with those with whom they have interests in common. Too close, too intimate, will be nearly as bad as being too careless of each others sensibilities.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal