January 16, 2021

We all need to get on board the campaign for First Nations Voice to Parliament

The Uluru Statements heart-rending plea, In 1967 we were counted, in 2017 we seek to be heard highlights its umbilical connection to the 1967 Referendum. However, this doesnt guarantee similar success for the call for a First Nations Voice to Parliament.

April 26, 2021

Reflections on those left behind in detention

Only a few weeks ago I stood at the Sydney Palm Sunday rally watching Thanush and Ramsiyar, two unbelievably brave young men, speaking to the crowd. These were the same men who I had walked into Parliament House with a month earlier, to deliver a petition of almost 37,000 signatures calling for the release of people seeking asylum and refugees held in immigration detention. This was just weeks after they themselves had been freed, after almost eight long years.

August 25, 2022

Ann Marie Murphy: Ukraine war highlights differences between Indonesian and US foreign policy frameworks

To many Americans who view Russias invasion of Ukraine as an unprovoked war that must be opposed, Indonesias high levels of public support for Russia may be perplexing. But divergent US and Indonesian views should not come as a surprise. The United States and Indonesia tend to perceive international events and one another through distinct ideological and normative frameworks due to their different international positions and historical experiences.

February 10, 2020

EDWARD ALDEN. Smaller countries lose in the USChina trade deal(EAF 9.2.2020)

Weakening rules put smaller economies such as Canada, Australia, the ASEAN nations and Latin America in an increasingly vulnerable position.

March 26, 2020

JOCELYN PIXLEY. Short selling society

As countries world-wide shut down, short-sellers scurry around like thieves in the night. Why are they dangerous and what could be done?

July 25, 2020

Wattle as Nation Brand - Enjoy the glow, love the symbolism

The recently announced Nation Brand, featuring an Aboriginal-inspired golden wattle blossom, is the latest recognition of our national floral emblem. The Nation Brand initiative is an opportunity for our emblem, with its ancient past, to lead us into a confident future. Are we up to the challenge?

June 3, 2022

How reliable is the 'research' of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch on forced labour in Xinjiang

My Paper concludes that, at best, the work of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch amounts to junk research.

February 4, 2020

NOEL TURNBULL. Didn't that go well?

Scottie from marketing called in Russel from marketing for help. And didnt that go well?

January 20, 2021

America is the new centre of global instability

Following the storming of the US Capitol, President Donald Trump is desperate for an exit ramp that will preserve both his fragile ego and his future political influence. Unfortunately, that conundrum leaves him with few options other than to foment even more chaos both at home and abroad.

March 21, 2018

SUE WAREHAM. Parliamentary debate on going to war is long overdue.

This week marks the 15th anniversary, on March 20, of one of Australia’s most disastrous foreign policy decisions our involvement in the invasion of Iraq. To characterise this as “our” involvement, however, does a great disservice to the millions of Australians who were vehemently opposed to the decision that was made by just one person, prime minister John Howard. The clear wishes of the people on this most significant of all decisions were ignored, and our elected representatives in parliament were not consulted. The situation was not an emergency and Iraq posed no threat to Australia. There was every opportunity for the exhaustive scrutiny of Howard’s plan that was critically needed. But it did not happen.

December 29, 2017

MICHAEL THORN. Countering vested interests A REPOST

That corporations wield enormous power is not news. That this power is wielded to benefit the corporation and its agents is not news either. Neither is seeking to counter the power of these corporations by public interest organisations, like the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education (FARE).

July 24, 2022

A review of "Waiting for Gonski"

The book Waiting for Gonski was published earlier this year on the 10th anniversary of the Gonski Report on school funding. It is a well-researched and well-written account of the history of the Gonski funding model, its flawed implementation including many special deals for private schools and its destruction by successive Coalition governments. It should be read by anyone concerned about the state of school funding and inequity in education.

June 27, 2022

Samuel Yang: Chinese investors fast abandoning Australia but still hold vast amounts of infrastructure, land and water

_Chinese investors are fast abandoning Australia as a frosty bilateral relationship dampens trade, with areport showing Chinese investment in Australia nosedived by almost 70 per cent last year to the lowest level since 2007.

January 29, 2020

RICHARD BUTLER AND RICHARD WHITINGTON. "Manufactured Consent". Think Tanks - two different animals.Part 4 of 4

In the last of this series examining the contemporary relevance of Noam Chomskys thesis on Manufactured Consent, Richard Butler says there is a sharp division between Think Tanks that mainly think and those that target specific interests.

July 17, 2022

The US, institutions and political violence

It is no longer completely ridiculous to ponder whether the US might be heading towards a new low level civil war.

February 18, 2020

MIKE SCRAFTON. The warning that wasn't on the submarines.

The Australians correspondent Robert Gottliebsen (The Australian 12 Feb 2020) has found a clear warning to the Australian nation buried in the ANAO audit report _on the Future Submarine Program.

February 15, 2018

Deeply Denying the American Reality. Part 2: Australias avoidance means complicity.

In any other context but the alliance, the facts attending the US global strategy at both the conventional and nuclear levels would be seen by Australian strategic analysts and policy-makers for what they are profoundly threatening developments and habits of mind which threaten international peace and security and the ecology of the planet. But this realisation, apparently, is beyond them. And the silence indicates not only complicity but a deep malaise.

October 3, 2020

Colombia's Strongman from Hero to Criminal

Today, violence in Colombia is once again spiralling out of control.

February 17, 2020

RICHARD BROINOWSKI. American delusions about the Philippines

When someone pointed out that President Duterte had just abrogated the bilateral Visiting Forces Agreement, Admiral Davidson conceded the point, but said it was up to ‘agile Australian diplomats’ among others to get it re-instated.

August 7, 2021

As US hits Biden's 70% vaccination goal, world's poor nations barely over 1%

Exposing stark global vaccine inequity amid a fast-spreading delta variant, White House officials said Monday that at least 70% of US adults are now at least partly vaccinated against the coronavirus - compared to just barely over 1% when it comes to the world’s poorest nations.

November 9, 2020

The High Court and Section 92 again

David Solomons item on the above - https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/palmer-loses-border-war/ - is headed Palmer loses border war. It is not just Palmer that lost the war; in one way or another, as Australians, we all have.

July 24, 2022

Customary barbarity: Britains SAS in Afghanistan

The insistence that there is a noble way of fighting war, one less bloody and brutal, has always been the hallmark of forces self-described as civilised. Restraint characterises their behaviour; codes of laws follow in their wake, rather than genocidal impulses. Killing, in short, is a highly regulated, disciplined affair.

August 29, 2020

D.H.Lawrence's Australian Climacteric

The Obscene Publications Act was promulgated in England and Wales on August 29, 1959. It paved the way for the Lady Chatterley’s Lover trial in October 1960 that cleared Penguin Books of publishing an obscene article without literary merit even though the plot revolved around a sexual act that was felonious for heterosexual couples. Reading D.H.Lawrence’s Australian novel Kangaroo shows us the origins of Lady Chatterley’s Lover.

June 8, 2021

Atmospheric carbon dioxide hits highest level in more than 4 million years

New data released on Monday showed atmospheric carbon dioxide reached a monthly average level of 419 parts per million in May, which is not only the maximum reading ever recorded since accurate measurements began 63 years ago but also the highest level the planet has experienced in more than four million years.

May 20, 2021

How the United States helps to kill Palestinians

The U.S. corporate media usually report on Israeli military assaults in occupied Palestine as if the United States is an innocent neutral party to the conflict. In fact, large majorities of Americans have told pollsters for decades that they want the United States tobe neutralin the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

January 29, 2020

NOEL TURNBULL. Hope despite climate change denialists indefatigability

There is no doubt about climate change denialists they keep shifting shape and keep manoeuvring to cast doubt on scientific reality irrespective of whatever events make their arguments look ridiculous.

November 30, 2018

GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND

A regular collection of links to writings and broadcasts covered in other media.

June 8, 2022

The problems with mandates - or lacking one

Within days of the election, the Greens were setting out the mandates they claim to have won. In particular, according to their leader, Adam Bandt, his party had a mandate to stop new coal and gas mines. He said it would introduce legislation in the Senate to block any new mines.

April 28, 2022

Keith Mitchelson: Climate change and International security - Why defence is Morrison's greatest policy failure

Scott Morrison claims to be Australias best defender. In reality he is its worst. His governments subservience to local and international oligarchs has seen it neglect real interest in Australias long-term security and wellbeing.

May 2, 2022

Attention Australia: The climate crisis is a health crisis too

After more than two years coping with a pandemic, the last thing we want to hear about is another global health crisis. But its becoming increasingly clear that as we continue to heat our fragile planet, we face a threat to public health that will eclipse even COVID-19.

April 16, 2022

Eric Hunter: What's God's answer?

The world watches as an extremely distraught Ukrainian man sobs in front of a camera after seeing his daughter and young granddaughter killed in the Russian missile assault on the city of Mauripol, “God, why have you visited this on me?” A good question and tragically ironic!

August 30, 2021

The Great Double Standard over Afghanistan

The Afghanistan War is a reminder of the double standard by which the US rules the world.

April 8, 2021

Hit jobs from the inside and News Corp attacks free speech of citizens

Coordinated attacks on the Reserve Bank, free speech for the Courier Mail … but not for citizens, and digging up dirt on Josh Bornstein.

September 8, 2021

Australians must ask why we haven't spoken out on Israeli squatter settlements

Australia ratified the Fourth Geneva Convention in 1958. So why do we question the ICC’s jurisdiction over war crimes committed in Palestinian territories?

August 30, 2021

Morrison: no supporter of great causes or freedom

Anything that Scott Morrison has to say about great causes and freedom in relation to any of his policies, let alone Afghanistan, are absurd and outrageous hypocrisy, utterly devoid of credibility.

August 8, 2021

Aliens, asylum seekers and human rights 115 years on

The Australian Government Public Sector Guidance Sheet concerning the Expulsion of Aliens proudly notes that Australia is a party to seven core international human rights treaties.But when John Howard famously said, in his 1999 election speech, that …we will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come, what he was really saying was We will decide who is entitled to Human Rights. Apparently being human is not a sufficient qualification.

June 26, 2021

US Catholic Bishops have President Biden in their sights over abortion rights

In what many observers see as a growing episcopal polarization, the US Catholic bishops, the USCCB, in their 2021 spring meeting, voted to advance their Communion document. The draft document passed by 75% of the bishops conference advances a push by conservative US bishops to deny President Biden communion because of his support for abortion rights.

March 14, 2020

PETER SAINSBURY. Sunday environmental round up, 15 March 2020

Teck Resources withdraws from an oil sands mining project in Alberta Canada and Equinor oil company pulls out of drilling for oil in the Great Australian Bight, even though the project has already received Australian government approval. Coronavirus is just one of a string of dangerous new infections caused by the clearing of forests by multinational agribusinesses. Ongoing coal mining in India is causing extreme human suffering as well as warming the planet.

January 17, 2019

GRACE BLAKELEY. The Latest Incarnation of Capitalism (Jacobin, September 2018)

Financialization isnt a perversion of an otherwise well-functioning system. Its just capitalisms latest survival mechanism.

February 16, 2020

ROSEMARY O'GRADY. It bodes well for the ALP's future

The successful outcome of Labor Leader Albanese’s nomination for office of a disaffected Queensland National was a deft move.

February 10, 2020

JENNIFER DOGGETT. Even with massive taxpayer hand outs private health insurance is in a death spiral.(Croakey 7.2.2020)

If private health care has a future within the Australian health system we need to find a better funding mechanism than PHI. This means one that is sustainable, fair and efficient and designed to meet the needs of todays health care consumers with chronic and complex conditions.

April 15, 2022

Erik Paul: Australia beating the war drums

Given Australias strategic alliance with the US and the militarisation of the continent in preparation for war against China, Australians should decide whether they want to go to war against China.

December 26, 2018

JENNY HOCKING. The Best of 2018: Royal distortions of history: why the Queens secret Palace letters about Gough Whitlams dismissal should be released.

The long-running Palace letters case over the Queens secret correspondence regarding the 1975 dismissal of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam heads back to court on Wednesday 28 November, with an appeal hearing before the full bench of the Federal Court in Sydney.

July 22, 2022

An update on Indigenous numbers in Australia

Some years ago, I wrote a piece asking, How many Aboriginal Australians are there? My beef at that time was that the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) wasnt collecting census data about Indigenous people in ways that met the High Courts criteria to be regarded as an Aboriginal (and presumably Torres Strait Islander) person. This continued to be the case in the 2021 census.

March 7, 2020

PETER SAINSBURY. Sunday environmental round up.

Three articles from the USA, all with relevance for Australia. Economist Jeffrey Sachs analyses the costs and timelines for decarbonisation; activist and writer Bill McKibben provides an overview of climate change and climate action at the start of the decade; and essayist Mary Annaise Heglar discusses the relationship between climate change and racism and oppression. Finally reports from the Victorian and NSW governments about their responses to the bush fires.

August 8, 2023

Beijing and Canberra should go with the grain of their improving relations

Based on its review of “the changes in the Chinese barley market” that it started in April this year, the Commerce Ministry on Saturday lifted the anti-dumping and countervailing duties it levied on imported Australian barley from May 2020.

January 2, 2019

MICHAEL THORN. The standard you walk past is the standard you accept - sports' addiction to alcohol, gambling and junk food advertising.

_No ad breaks, declares Fox Sports of its coverage of the Boxing Day cricket test in Melbourne. Well none, if you dont count the scoreboard endorsements, perimeter branding and other in-_g_ame adverts promoting one brand or another. All of them impossible to mis_s.

February 18, 2020

CHRIS MILLS. Is affordable, reliable and low-emissions Nuclear-generated electricity the path to Climate Management?

How on Earth will we power the Planet when the Sun is not bright enough, the wind is not strong enough, droughts have dried up pumped-hydro and burning fossil fuels will incinerate us?

March 5, 2020

DAVID MACILWAIN. The Beechworth Principles - setting demands for Integrity in Government

As claims the Federal Government is honestly serving and representing the people look increasingly hollow, Independent MP Helen Haines has presented a historic scheme to hold them to account in the Beechworth Principles.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal