December 9, 2023

Environment: Health, budgets and the environment, all damaged by food and plastic waste

Food loss and waste harm the environment, human health and wallets. Chemical recycling of plastic not living up to its promise. Concerns about dead solar modules are unfounded.

November 22, 2021

The most remarkable aspect of Western attacks on China over Xinjiang is the unabashed hypocrisy

The US (abetted by the UK and Australia) in the so-called ‘‘War on Terror’’, has killed nearly 1 million Muslims in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria and Yemen.

November 13, 2024

Accusing the Palestinians of what they themselves do

With impudence, Israel and its lobby always accuse us Palestinians of what they do against us. They play the role of the victim, making the criminal a victim and the victim a criminal even as they commit one of the most heinous war crimes and genocide against humanity, with unprecedented hatred and sadistic brutality.

Turning tens of thousands of homes into gas ovens with their firebombs, burning people alive and destroying everything: residential buildings, hospitals, schools, universities, mosques, churches, cemeteries, museums, cultural centres, bakeries, banks, streets, parks and even the zoo. And yet they claim to be “civilised”, “the only democracy in the Middle East”, and have “the most moral army in the world”!

January 10, 2024

Gaza: Australian timidity, US hypocrisy

Just when will the horror that is Gaza today prompt the Albanese Government to acknowledge publicly that the war in the territory is now consumed by Israels blood-lust revenge and a hunger for ethnic reconfiguration? Is it too much to hope that the government can find a conscience of its own rather than mimicking the deceitful utterances of its US and Israeli friends?

October 15, 2023

The Palestinian pressure cooker

Geoff Pryor on Benjamin Netanyahu’s strategy towards Palestinians in Gaza_

March 8, 2023

For Australia, horror of war over Taiwan is not inevitable

Contributors to the War with China over Taiwan horror show which began in the Nine newspapers this week assume that a war between China and the United States is likely, and some of them then explicitly say that Australia would be involved. Australia should instead regard the Taiwan issue as one for us to sit out.

October 28, 2021

The US's assurances on Assange are worthless

Despite the pledge by US lawyers that the WikiLeaks founder could serve his sentence here, Julian Assange could still languish for years in a US prison.

March 15, 2025

AUKUS, Trump and independence

How should Australia respond when the US, our closest ally, is engaged in a very public and petulant global meltdown?

March 11, 2025

Universalism the panacea for Palestine

Defence of the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to self-determination is a collective responsibility fuelled by commitments to theory and ideology inherent in universalism. In domestic and foreign policies and in the conduct of personal relations, the values associated with universalism concern altruism and inclusiveness, each goal delivered in a spirit of generosity.

December 22, 2024

Think tank review: The sky is not falling

ASPI, [The Australian Strategic Policy Institute] Peter Jennings and your [The Australian] editorial writer have all breathlessly declared my review of think tanks has killed independent thinking and muzzled free thought. Since think tanks are meant to deal with facts, let’s start there.

November 28, 2024

Australia and the ICC arrest warrants

If Australia is to have any influence at all in resolving the horrendous carnage now taking place in the Middle East it needs to demonstrate that it acts independently of American pressure. The politicians who lament the fraying of our ties with Israel seem totally unconcerned about the impact of our position on countries far more significant to Australia, such as Indonesia and Malaysia, whose support for Palestine recognition goes far further than anything supported by the Albanese government.

February 28, 2024

I will no longer be complicit in genocide

My Name is Aaron Bushnell. I am an active duty member of the United States Airforce. And I will no longer be complicit in genocide. (Caution: Graphic Content)

January 29, 2024

Israel's mainstream brought us to The Hague, not its lunatic fringes

Isaac Herzog, Yoav Gallant, Israel Katz: Israel’s president, defence minister and foreign minister. The president of the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Joan Donoghue, chose to cite all three of them as evidence of suspicion of incitement to genocide in Israel.

February 23, 2023

Jeffrey Sachs' testimony at UN security council on the Nord Stream Pipeline destruction

Testimony ofProfessor Jeffrey D. Sachs University Professor at Columbia University UN Security Council Session on the Nord Stream Pipeline Destruction

February 6, 2018

DON AITKIN. Whose universities are they, anyway?

Roger Scotts extended rebuttal of Ross Gittinss excoriation of money-grubbing universities, and the publication of three books about the recent past and possible future of higher education, suggest that all is not well in academe. While all has never, at least since the end of the second world war, been well in academe (the AVCC first used the word crisis in 1947), may be true that the level of tension within higher education is notably high. The three books are Glyn Daviss The Australian Idea of a University, Stuart Macintyres No End of a Lesson, and my own Critical Mass. How the Commonwealth got into funding research in universities. All were published at the end of 2017.

February 11, 2025

Australia's silence on Trump's ICC sanctions is nothing but shameful

Last Friday 79 nations signed a statement condemning the announcement 24 hours earlier by genocide enabler US President Donald Trump, that he was imposing sanctions on officials of the International Criminal Court because they had issued a warrant for the arrest of architect of genocide of the Palestinian people, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

February 8, 2025

The Genocide Red Line Package – a litmus test for our legislature

In the period since 7 October 2023, serious questions have arisen as to whether the Australian Government is properly discharging its obligations under international law in light of Israel’s devastation of Gaza, invasion of Lebanon and the escalation of settler violence in the illegally occupied West Bank. In November 2024, Senators Lidia Thorpe and Fatima Payman introduced a package of 3 bills — the Genocide Red Line Package — aiming to require compliance by Australia with its international law obligations in relation to genocide, serious breaches of international law and illegal settlements in occupied Palestine.

January 16, 2024

Gaza's biblical apocalypse: America rudderless, Biden a foreign policy failure

Only an exceptional president could resist the endless war-profiteering of this mammoth war machine; alas, Biden doesnt even try.

January 11, 2023

Influential Japanese want us to join them in their long standing hostility to China

And the Japanese Embassy in Canberra is leading the anti China campaign in Australia. Penny Wong should have a serious discussion with the Ambassador.

November 14, 2022

Bad China makes good news stories but who benefits and who suffers?

Positive energy is in the air in anticipation of a possible meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, and many are evidently encouraged by the positive vibes from the recent telephone conversation between Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Australian counterpart Penny Wong.

October 28, 2022

The Pentagon builds a network in our Department of Defence amidst media silence

It is more than inter-operability and inter-changeability with the US military. Anthony Albanese and Richard Marles need to break up the American network in our Department of Defence that the Washington Post has exposed.

October 17, 2021

A good time to end negative gearing and taxpayer subsidised speculation in housing

There are many things wrong with both housing policy and tax policy, and the interaction of them predictably creates distortions in our housing market. It makes it impossible for many young people to own their own home.

December 29, 2023

The future will be decided by economic influence, not military dominance

America is falling into a trap. It thinks the future will be decided by military dominance, despite losing one war after another. China, on the other hand, recognises that the future will be decided by economics. (A repost from October 2023).

February 7, 2023

Australias National Security Strategy

To paraphrase former US President, Theodore Roosevelt, Australias national security is best achieved by talking softly while carrying a formidable stick as a deterrent.

October 9, 2022

Perrottet bites the Warragamba bullet, and we should be concerned

New South Wales Premier Dominic Perrottet has made a decision which has been on the cards for decades: his government will fast-track the raising of Warragamba Dam as a means of mitigating flooding on the Hawkesbury-Nepean river system. And we still keep building on flood plains.

November 25, 2021

The small talk about Albanese and small targets is wrong

The notion that the federal Labor leader is running a small-target strategy ahead of next year’s election flies in the face of the facts.

November 1, 2021

Business as usual: The price of Gladys Berejiklian's politics

The emotional and moral maturity of our politicians has been on trial at ICAC.

August 28, 2021

Remember Maos famine, forget Churchills racism: how the West colonised Asian minds- SCMP August 23 2021

In late June and early July, First Nations communities inCanadafound over 1,000 unmarked graves of children in Indian residential schools, which were run by the Roman Catholic Church from 1899 to 1997. This has led to activists burning Catholic churches and taking down statues of Queen Elizabeth II and Queen Victoria.

March 9, 2025

Jeffrey Sachs: Negotiating a lasting peace in Ukraine

Ukraine will have to cede more territory than it would have in April 2022 — when the US and UK talked it out of a peace deal — but it will gain sovereignty and international security arrangements.

February 7, 2025

The weaponising of ‘antisemitism’ is to hide the genocide

As expressed in the UN General Assembly, the vast majority of the world’s governments and peoples agree that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and now the West Bank. The main supporters of Israel — the US, Canada, Australia and NZ, the settler colonial states — have all expropriated their indigenous populations and find little disagreement with Israel doing the same.

October 29, 2024

At the altar of the rules-based order

It is time to abandon Australia’s fanatical commitment to the ‘rules-based order’ and embrace emerging realities for a prosperous and secure future.

March 12, 2023

The Australian retreat from Asia is becoming a rout

Eleven years ago I gave the speech below. I was then pessimistic about our understanding of Asia. The situation has got markedly worse since then, writ large in the unremitting attacks on China stemming from ignorance and parochialism, particularly in our White Man’s Media.

October 15, 2021

Scott Morrison shames Australia with abdication to the National Party

Scott Morrison has abdicated any pretence of leadership on climate change, allowing the National Party which has turned its back on farmers to hold Australia to ransom.

February 3, 2025

Barghouti, Saadat set for release in second phase of deal: reports

Israeli media has extensively discussed the implications of the recent prisoner exchange, emphasising the significant gains achieved by the Palestinian Resistance Movement, Hamas.

January 9, 2025

Dreyfus' trip to Israel makes a mockery of Labor's foreign policy

“The role of the attorney-general in Australia, even in these partisan times, is to uphold the rule of law,” as the former Chief Justice Sir Anthony Mason said. So how can it be in any way compatible with that duty for Mark Dreyfus, the current holder of the office, to head to Israel and meet with a government that is committing genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity?

October 28, 2024

A new global order has arrived

When justifying vast increases in defence expenditure, subsidies for so-called critical industries, foreign aid as an increasingly important element in the securitisation of foreign policy, governments and conservative think tanks never tire of telling the public that they live in the most dangerous of times.

March 17, 2024

Dead in the water: The AUKUS SSN delusion

The general theme of delusion and the particular theme of dead in the water as they apply to the entire AUKUS arrangements are provocations worthy of taking further.

December 11, 2023

Why Australia cant rely on the US to save it from China

While there is a measure of agreement among Australian policymakers, and those who influence them, about the severity of regional security challenges we will face in the years ahead, serious divisions persist between Government and Opposition, within the wider think tank, academic and media policy community, and to some extent within the Albanese Government. They relate to the extent and imminence of the security threat posed by China under Xi Jinping; the wisdom of further deepening Australias alliance dependence on the United States; how we should be prioritising our defence preparedness; and how much weight we should be giving to diplomacy over defence.

November 30, 2023

The death of Henry Kissinger: Statement by Paul Keating

Henry Kissingers death draws to a close the epoch of intellectualism in foreign policy to which he was committed following his early study of and belief in a system of organised strategic balance and restraint of the kind that emerged from the Treaty of Westphalia in the 17th century.

February 21, 2025

AI, power and the future of human autonomy – A growing divide

The rapid development of Artificial General Intelligence and advanced AI systems has ushered in a new era of technological capability. These systems are becoming increasingly sophisticated, capable of performing tasks that were once thought to require uniquely human intelligence.

February 18, 2025

The costs of impatience: A psychic disorder of modern capitalism?

In Australia at the federal level of government, we have some of the shortest election cycles in the world: often barely three years. This mitigates against even medium-term planning. A new government takes a year to learn the ropes of office, another year to govern before preparing for re-election in the third. And even if a government survives that long, the odds are its leader won’t.

February 1, 2025

Youth Justice: punishment or prevention?

In the last three years there has been a blizzard of new laws with respect to youth justice across Australia. While some laws have been welcome, a substantial number have been retrograde. In this category, laws with respect to young children have been the most controversial. This fact has attracted critical attention from a number of respected international and non-governmental human rights organisations.

April 2, 2024

ICJ order requires Israel to suspend its military operations in the Gaza Strip

The catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza is unremitting and in fact rapidly deteriorating. Given that the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip is now on the brink of famine, South Africa has requested the Court to indicate further provisional measures and/or to modify the measures indicated on 26 January 2024. Starvation, and the resulting loss of life in overwhelming numbers, clearly poses a threat to the right of existence of the Palestinians as a group, a right protected by the Genocide Convention, writes Judge Hilary Charlesworth.

March 16, 2024

Environment: Oil and gas making massive profits now but stormy waters ahead

Shrinking demand signifies rocky times ahead for many individual oil and gas producers but the industry will survive for decades yet. Emissions from farming and forestry aside, Australias emissions have been stagnant for 20 years. Feral pigs are destroying our wetlands and rivers.

November 2, 2022

B-52s at RAAF Tindal commits Australia to America's nuclear war plans

_Its difficult to avoid the conclusion that Australia is not just complicit in, but committed to, Americas nuclear war planning.

October 25, 2022

Lets not miss the basics in the Defence Strategic Review

It’s time to inter the Hollywood ANZUS which has deceived Australians into believing a US security guarantee is necessary and unquestioningly available should we be attacked.

April 4, 2025

Keating says Trump’s tariffs mean death knell for NATO and ANZUS

Former Australian prime minister Paul Keating says Donald Trump’s neo-Monroeism has made it clear that America now calls only the Western hemisphere home.

February 21, 2024

Today, every Palestinian is a target for death, extermination and genocide

We are rapidly approaching a critical juncture where the call to halt the Machinery of Violence will lose its significance.

October 27, 2022

The Albanese Governments first budget: so far so good

As best can be judged at this point of time, this Budget gets the balance right between the need to bring inflation down while avoiding a recession. But many difficult decisions lie ahead.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal