October 20, 2021

The deniers at The Australian with their faux commitment to climate change. Part 1

Not so fast with the good news. To avoid disaster for the planet, we need tougher measures. Nothing short of embracing a war footing will be enough.

August 7, 2021

When shameful ignorance comes from a minister of education: an open letter to Alan Tudge

As a Palestinian refugee who was ethnically cleansed with my mother by Zionist terrorist groups,and separated from my father when I was a few months old,I am deeply distressed and disappointed,likemany in the community, to read your article in The Australian(Left’s anti-Zionism is just the oldest hatred in disguise, 5.8.2021)in which you are either deliberately or out of shameful ignoranceconflatinganti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, and showing a complete lack of knowledge of Zionism and the Palestine question.

June 12, 2021

The 'final' downfall of Israel was predicted by Einstein

It doesn’t take a genius to see that the failing Zionist project called Israel is coming apart at the seams. It was a genius, though, who predicted the demise of the fledgling state when he was asked to help raise funds for its terrorist cells.

October 14, 2024

What will follow the referendum?

It is not surprising that so many of us believed that after the Voice Referendum 2023 Indigenous people would be recognised in the Australian Constitution and their voices valued.

October 11, 2023

Our Central Land Council overwhelmingly asks you to vote YES

For over half a century the Central Land Council has fought for the voices of Aboriginal people from the heart of our nation to be heard. Our 90-member Council overwhelmingly asks you to vote YES, because we know that when decision-makers listen to our voices we end up with policies that help us, not harm us, and money is spent wisely. - Lesley Turner, CEO, Central Land Council, NT. _

March 25, 2023

Environment: Rapidly closing window of opportunity to achieve a safe, sustainable future

New IPCC report documents a threatening climate-present and a bleak climate-future. Alcoa failing to rehabilitate the lands it has destroyed once mining stops. Shortage of integrity not gas behind our gas problems.

January 5, 2022

Act now to overcome the Commonwealth litany of failure on COVID

The Commonwealth has learned nothing from this litany of previous mistakes and continues to ignore lessons learnt from overseas.

December 24, 2024

A Christmas meditation: 'Subtle is the Lord'

On September 16th, 1919, the already world-famous physicist, Albert Einstein, was conducting a seminar with graduate students at Princeton University in the United States. Suddenly one of his colleagues in the Physics Department burst into the room brandishing a telegram. It was from the Royal Society in London, from his friend and fellow physicist, Hendrik Lorenz.

December 6, 2024

Courage in public office and Australia's recognition of Palestine

“No room for robust debate” within ALP caucus. “There is so much courage that Australia could exercise. We could come out and be the real champions of human rights, and human life, that we claim to be - especially within the Labor party.” High profile Senator Fatima Payman and former Labor Senator Margaret Reynolds discuss courage in public office, Australia’s recognition of Palestine, Australia’s Voice, and the difficulties of standing up for one’s principles within a party political system.

March 31, 2024

A Plea for Gaza: Remember humanity & forget the rest.

If you are not outraged by injustice, you lose touch with your own humanity.

October 24, 2022

US Admirals driving AUKUS had conflict of interest: Washington Post

The Washington Post has disclosed that a group of US Navy admirals critical to shaping secret negotiations for the AUKUS nuclear submarine deal had undeclared conflicts of interests. This is indefensible and must be subject to a public review.

April 2, 2025

The personification of politics

Reducing the complexities of international politics to the idiosyncratic personalities of world leaders suggests the Western media believes concision is an antidote to the short attention spans of readers, viewers and listeners. They may be right about this._

February 15, 2025

Washington drops Ukraine, Israel backs down on Hamas demands

The two big stories in the news today are the Trump administration saying Ukraine is going to have to give up territory and NATO ambitions in order to secure a peace deal, while Israel appears to retreat from its ceasefire standoff with Hamas.

January 12, 2024

South Africa, beacon to the world, shames Australias enabling of Israeli genocide

Israel has just defended the indefensible in the International Court of Justice, in its quest to have the case brought by South Africa against it thrown out.

November 21, 2022

Marles pushes China Threat in PNG Rugby League talks

Defence Minister Marles and PM Albanese would like to see two Papua New Guinea rugby league teams join the Australian club competition as a way to counter Chinas growing influence. Instead of banging on about China, why not start a new regional competition including one or two Pacific Islands teams, New Zealand and Australia? Sport will deliver much better foreign policy dividend if it is not used as a crude geopolitical instrument.

January 5, 2025

Will the Cocos Islands become like Diego Garcia, hijacked by the US?

The 2000 residents of Diego Garcia were forcibly removed to make way for a giant US military base.

January 4, 2025

The dangers of 'victory'

Those currently celebrating the US and Israel’s decisive military victories against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria and possibly the defeat of Ansar Allah in Yemen may soon discover the pyrrhic nature of “reshaping the Middle East” in the interests of Western civilization.

December 7, 2024

To avoid recession, cut interest rates next week

Interest rates settings depend on forecasts of price inflation, wages and unemployment. There is now sufficient evidence to suggest that the Reserve Bank should begin to cut interest rates soon and arguably at its December Board Meeting. The balance of risks if it stays there much longer is that the economy will fall into a full recession.

November 9, 2024

Can Trump make the Planet Safe, as well as America Great?

Trump’s stated positions on major international issues, e.g. climate change and the value and importance of multilateral institutions, both political and economic, and on particular issues such as Ukraine, the Middle East and relations with China, give grounds for plenty of concern when compared with Australian interests and policies.

January 8, 2024

'Exceptional' country: Where is US leadership on Palestine?

The US proudly proclaims its exceptionalism and leadership of the free world, but in the latest Israeli-Palestinian flareup US leadership has been absent. A lasting peace settlement will require the US to take the lead in pushing forward the widely supported two-state solution.

October 29, 2023

The US doesn't hold the world together. It breaks it apart

The US is the ’essential nation’, the ‘indispensable nation’, its leadership ‘holds the world together’. This is the boastful humbug that President Biden gave us on his return from Israel, where he again affirmed his complicity with Israel in its decades of occupation, ethnic cleansing and genocide in Palestine. The US assumes a moral superiority it denies to others.

October 29, 2022

Environment: Cherish old trees, rivers and birds

The worlds old trees, Australias rivers and the USAs birds are in decline. The cause is the same everywhere - failing to respect nature.

October 2, 2021

Sunday environmental round up.

The rate of global warming set to double as fossil fuel use falls. Australias climate negligence threatening security. Children born today will be exposed to more extreme weather events. Patchwork deforestation creates more forest edges.

January 27, 2025

Genocide memorial day: A reflection on Palestine and Gaza

For those in Gaza, the war will not end when the bombs stop falling. The war will live on in their bodies and souls—in the limbs they’ve lost, in the haunting memories of screams and explosions, in the quiet moments that carry an unbearable weight.

November 23, 2024

Defending the U.S. from the Israel Lobby

Ultimately, this is the story of how the Israel lobby undermined America, wrecked the Middle East, and set a series of international crimes against humanity in motion.

March 31, 2024

The pigeon and the socks

In February PETA sprang into action to rescue a pigeon held in India which had been accused of spying for China. They secured its release.

March 12, 2024

Gazas agony: the hinge point in the loss of Western dominance

The scale of deliberate Israeli cruelty against the Gazan people over the past five months is still difficult for Australians to absorb. But internationally, akey political fact has clearly emerged: that Israel, the US and their supportive Western allies (like Australia, to our nations shame) have now shredded any moral standing on the issue of the war in Gaza.

February 25, 2024

Ukraine highlights our defence procurement shambles

The Ukraine invasion has thrown into sharp focus the massive failure of successive Australian governments defence procurement programs to strengthen our military capability.

October 13, 2023

The Constitution: Australia's Holy Grail

Will Australians take their divine constitution off its pedestal?

October 19, 2022

The Australian electorate is being misled by its media

A well informed electorate is a prerequisite to democracy. Yet, on China, Australians are being misled by our mainstream media.

February 5, 2024

The death of Lowitja ODonoghue

Lowitja ODonoghue was a great Indigenous woman. A very great one.

March 1, 2023

Dealers, bleeders, and a negotiated peace in Ukraine

After a catastrophic year of war, there is talk of a negotiated peace in Ukraine. But those suggesting that it should be explored are often instantly slapped down. Familiar rhetoric is deployed. A negotiated peace is supposedly impossible or dishonourable.

November 23, 2021

With campaigns against pandemic mandates the need for a human rights act has never been greater

After a pandemic response that required incursions on some human rights, the threat of governments expanding these powers further is high.

January 11, 2025

Blinded by political donations: Appeasing a rogue state and its extremist lobby

It seems like Western countries cannot draw lessons from their shameful past. Just as they appeased the Nazi and apartheid regimes, they are repeating their mistake by appeasing the Zionist regime in occupied Palestine while it’s waging a war of genocide against the Palestinian people.

January 10, 2025

Sudan: Beyond pessimism

In numerous journals and newspapers, death and destruction in Sudan is described as probably the greatest, certainly the most neglected, humanitarian catastrophe in existence.

March 8, 2025

Beyond the test: Reclaiming education for purpose, compassion and community

The current approach to education in Australia, as reflected in the New South Wales Bilateral Agreement and national funding models, underscores an increasing reliance on neoliberal principles. These policies prioritise efficiency, accountability, and standardised performance metrics, shaping education into a market-driven enterprise where schools and students are treated as economic units rather than as participants in a holistic learning process. While the Student Resource Allocation model aims to address funding inequities, its gradual implementation over a decade highlights the continued prioritisation of economic pragmatism over immediate and meaningful educational reform.

March 16, 2023

Paul Keating excoriates AUKUS as exercise in security policy stupidity

There are few who think as clearly, who are as articulate, and who are prepared to speak out in the face of incredible stupidity in Australian politics as Paul Keating. And, as he made clear in his address to the press club this week, AUKUS is nothing if not an exercise in security policy stupidity.

March 10, 2023

The betrayers of Julian Assange

I have known Julian Assange since I first interviewed him in London in 2010. I immediately liked his dry, dark sense of humour, often dispensed with an infectious giggle. He is a proud outsider: sharp and thoughtful. We have become friends, and I have sat in many courtrooms listening to the tribunes of the state try to silence him and his moral revolution in journalism.

February 3, 2022

French initiatives to calm Ukraine tension reduce invasion danger

As France works to de-escalate the crisis in Ukraine, the anti-Russian media will need to find another bone to chew on.

November 5, 2021

From our readers: Can independent MPs save our system?

In letters to the editor this week, the case for more independent MPs, Gladys Berejiklian at ICAC, and generational conflict.

October 13, 2021

Britain's 'enduring stranglehold' on Australia

Australia is still tied to British legal decisions from 1786. It should come as no surprise that the Uluru Statement of the Heart directly challenges Australia’s entrenched legal doctrine.

March 26, 2025

The last chapter of the genocide

Israel has begun the final stage of its genocide. The Palestinians will be forced to choose between death or deportation. There are no other options.

March 28, 2024

Stan Grant on Good Friday, Easter, and Gods absence in our suffering world

I never thought Id see an inspiring Easter reflection in the usually secular, The Saturday Paper. But last Saturday (March 23) there was Stan Grant, writing on the Christian feast.

March 11, 2024

Penny in Thunderland: Through the lurking glass

Like many APS officers I had dealings with ASIO on occasion. Following Mike Burgess’s playbook I cannot name specifics in the interest of National Security, but almost without exception I found ASIO activities to be conducted by a mob of arse-clowns; the old TV cartoon comedy of Spy-vs-Spy rang terrifyingly true.

February 22, 2024

Australian defence: from self-reliance to subsidising US war with China

Our leaders have rendered us Americas pawn, contractually. Australia has abrogated the right to choose peace with China. Dumbly. Unnecessarily. Deceitfully. For political ends. We once had a leader who put Australias security before the desires of a distant, powerful protector. What is the prospect of chancing upon another of Curtinian quality?

February 16, 2023

Murdoch propaganda pushes Australia to double its military budget for war with China

In the latest escalation inAustralia’s increasingly forceful campaignto manufacture consent for war with China,the Murdoch-owned Sky News Australia has aired a jaw-droppingly propagandistichour-long specialwhich advocates a dramatic increase in the nation’s military spending.

January 12, 2023

Follow the money: ASPI is a front for US propaganda

What is the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), what are its sources of funding, and why does it so consistently advocate for positions favourable to the United States and the weapons industry? Follow the money trail.

March 31, 2025

In Myanmar, tragedy follows tragedy

When the earthquake struck on Friday, I was at lunch in Bangkok with a group of journalists. The tables and chairs started shaking and the more senior among us at first thought we were having a bad dizzy spell.

January 24, 2025

The war didn't end with a ceasefire

What awaits the people of Gaza after the ceasefire? This is a question many Palestinians are asking after 470 days of genocide endured by the Gaza Strip, which has left behind blood and destruction unseen in the region’s modern history. The ceasefire agreement, which was finally reached, is merely the beginning of a new phase of suffering and pain for the Palestinian people in Gaza. But what does “ceasefire” mean for the people of Gaza who have lost everything?

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal