December 13, 2023

How to end the war in Gaza

It is urgent to end the loss of life and destruction in Gaza, but as the joint Statement by the Prime Ministers of Australia, Canada and New Zealand recognises, a sustainable ceasefire will require agreement to a balanced set of conditions consistent with eventually achieving a lasting peace based on a two-State solution. This is how to end the war in Gaza.

January 18, 2023

The Iraq war, Fallujah and Jim Molan

The late Jim Molan will be remembered for many things. Few will remember him for the widespread violence by Coalition troops under Molans command during the brutal assault on Fallujah and other Sunni cities during the illegal occupation of Iraq in late 2004.

December 5, 2021

Paying the piper: the lobbyists who need to be rigorously controlled

Australia’s lobbying laws only apply to a small part of the lobbying industry, do not identify who is lobbying who and the sanctions are laughable.

October 9, 2021

Sunday environmental round up

Thirty per cent of tree species are at risk of extinction, an issue of vital importance to city dwellers. Disasters are linked and compound each other and share human-induced root causes. Summer night-time temperatures rising. Angus Taylor touting positive energy.

March 28, 2025

Election to be called for May 3 - message from the editor

With the news that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will make the trip to Government House early today, and the election will be called for May 3, Pearls and Irritations begins its election coverage.

January 23, 2025

Truth telling about ceasefire in Gaza

We have all condemned fake news, and the lies continually spread on social media, but do we recognise that our political leaders and responsible journalists fail to promote truth telling in significant political debates which reflect the kind of society we have become?

April 3, 2024

The banality of evil redux

Hannah Arendts BANALITY OF EVIL report on the Eichmann trial failed to adequately address a key question. How could the German people not have known and how could they have let the holocaust happen?

November 7, 2023

Albaneses China visit: an ear to the future

Fifty years ago, the grainy black and white image of Whitlam with his ear pressed against the listening wall at Beijings Temple of Heaven, led to the joke: What is being said to Gough? Answer: Mei you! The ubiquities response then by Chinese service staff in restaurants and stores in those day, loosely, dont have any.

March 24, 2023

Xi Jinping in Moscow: A historic partnership in the making

Since 2010, Xi Jinping has met Vladimir Putin on 40 separate occasions, but this last visit may prove to be their most significant meeting yet. The stakes for both have never been higher.

November 24, 2022

Strike Force Guard: suppression of climate protest threatens us all

The totalising control that [NSW police] have on my life is crushing and it is clearly designed to be so, writes an activist in this collection of first-hand accounts of the suppression of climate protest by NSW police Strike Force Guard.

November 1, 2022

Prepping for a China war: the new arc of militarisation across northern Australia

In an arc of militarisation across northern Australia, successive Australian governments, in close concert with the United States, have responded to the rise of a newly assertive China in terms that constitute an almost historically irrevocable opposition to any accommodation with China as a regional great power.

March 29, 2022

The key lessons from the South Australian election

The first federal election lesson I would draw from the recent South Australian election is: the polls got it right. This combined with the significant differential in the performance of female candidates in the election could have a profound impact on the forthcoming federal election.

March 24, 2022

The new reality of climate chaos is upon us

The climate criminals are, of course, seeking to cover their tracks.

March 3, 2022

UKRAINE: Open Letter from Russian international relations staff and students

_Belowis the text of an open letter to President Putin protesting the invasion of Ukraine from students, alumni and staff of Moscow State University of International Relations (MGIMO), Russias elite institution specialising in international relations.

November 27, 2021

Omicron is fuelled by our failure to mount a coordinated global response

The new Omicron coronavirus variant is a wakeup call on the need to fully vaccinate the world’s poorest nations, and our own children.

October 10, 2021

With a five per cent vote the Nationals are holding us to ransom on climate change

What is the meaning of Australian democracy when a minor party, populated by extreme right-wing ideologists, can decide Australia’s position on arguably the most important policy issue of our time climate change?

October 5, 2021

'I don't need to know about that bit': Gladys Berejiklian, Covid, and the rancid politics of division

With NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro’s resignation the third in as many days the state government is in free-fall. The only surprising thing about Gladys Berejiklian’s resignation is that it didn’t come sooner.

March 27, 2025

A cautious responsible budget

Labor’s pre-election budget provides well-targeted cost of living relief within the bounds of responsibility, but the restoration of living standards is some way off.

February 25, 2025

What the Murdoch kids said on the stand in Project Harmony trial

When James Murdoch was considering marrying Kathryn Hufschmid, he invited her to meet his family while they were holidaying on a super yacht off the coast of Australia. During the holiday, she caught Rupert cheating at Monopoly. Murdoch just smirked and shrugged.

November 14, 2023

"We Are Spartacus": Resistance and the unmoving shadow of war

War today is an unmoving shadow. The bravery of David McBride and Julian Assange has allowed many of us, who might despair, to understand the real meaning of a resistance we all share if we want to prevent the conquest of us, our conscience, our self respect, if we prefer freedom and decency to compliance and collusion. In this, we are all Spartacus.

November 8, 2023

The moral abyss: Israeli doctors call for the bombing of hospitals

Even as the moral abyss that is the war in Gaza had seemed as if it could not deepen, it now appears to be a bottomless pit. It is reported that about 100 medical doctors belonging to a group called Doctors for the Rights of Israeli Soldiers signed a letter last weekend stating that it is an “obligation” for the army to target hospitals in Gaza allegedly used to shelter Hamas, and specifically calling for the bombing of the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza.

December 5, 2022

We are useful idiots for the US war industry and its followers in Australia

_America believes that it should run the world unchallenged in all dimensions of statehood.

January 18, 2022

How to learn from our Covid history (no, not with a royal commission)

What we have learnt from decades of experience about analysing what to do when things go wrong in healthcare should be applied to public health too.

December 5, 2020

Whats behind Chinas bullying of Australia? It sees a soft target and an essential one (The Conversation Dec 2, 2020)

As thediplomatic fallout continuesover thedigitally altered war crimes tweetsent by Chinas Foreign Ministry spokesman, Zhao Lijian, earlier this week, its important to note this inflammatory and offensive post is not an isolated case.

November 4, 2024

Netanyahu has been leading the United States into disaster after disaster after disaster

This is a US operation being carried out by Israel but with complete complicity by the United States and silence by Europe.

March 27, 2024

We need a Peoples Tribunal on Palestineand Gaza

As the UN Security Council finally overcomes the US calculated protection of Israels aggression in order to pass a ceasefire resolution in Gaza; the failure of the UN, the US and western media to give us the full and true story of the Palestinian tragedy has become clear. We cannot rely on compromised bodies such as the International Criminal Court and the media to hold those responsible to account. We need a Peoples Tribunal that is capable of investigating possible war crimes and genocide in Gaza.

December 21, 2023

The Red Sea: Think it through before jumping!

Last week the self-appointed strategic experts in the Opposition predictably were quick off the mark to criticise Prime Minister Albanese for taking time to carefully consider a US Navy approach (in public) for an RAN ship to be deployed to yet another US coalition of the willing in the Middle East. This time to mount an international response to attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea by the rebel Houthi regime controlling much of Yemen.

October 8, 2023

Palestinians, pushed beyond endurance, defend their homeland against violent apartheid

As a start, and a prompt, I once again call upon our government to recognise Palestine. Have the courage to stand up to Israel, and its primary backer, the United States. Oh, and another thing, Mr. Prime Minister, and Ms. Foreign Minister please dont purport to speak for all Australians when you say Israel has a right to defend itself.

December 9, 2022

The crushing of the Unipolar World in the Middle East

The unipolar world is dead and American control of the Middle East is a wreck.

November 25, 2022

Defence Strategic Review - Read all about it

According to the terms of reference Defence Security Review is now required to ensure that Defence has the right capabilities that are postured to meet the growing strategic challenges that Australia and its partner countries will face in the world in coming years.

October 25, 2022

Captive media: what does the submarine scandal tell us about our defence correspondents?

Why did no Australian media outlet tell us the easily discovered truth about the compromising of the integrity of the Australian submarine decision process revealed by US journalists last week?

October 13, 2022

A conversation with Paul Keating: Australias strategic interests, alliances and standing up for ourselves

Not many were given a continent, says Keating on the challenges and opportunities that Australia faces. We have to stop ignoring the realities of the region in which we are positioned.

February 2, 2022

Morrison's 'Australian Way' climate plan is criminally irresponsible

The Coalition’s worship of fossil fuels and inept policymaking are leaving Australia defenceless against its greatest threat: climate change.

October 11, 2021

Tony Abbott in a China shop: Former PM's ham-fisted Taiwan intervention

Former prime minister Tony Abbott’s poorly judged speech in Taiwan last week was inept diplomacy. The question is: who put him up to it?

February 13, 2025

Army was ordered to kill Israelis on 7 October, defence minister confirms

Israeli troops were ordered to shoot and kill captive Israeli civilians on 7 October 2023, Israel’s then defence minister has admitted, the Electronic Intifada’s Asa Winstanley reports.

February 16, 2024

Restoring Australias prosperity by becoming a superpower

The debate about climate change is far too often in denial. It needs to change to focus on the positives of how Australia can become a Superpower based on green energy and products that rely on green energy.

February 9, 2024

Israel's dignity will be damaged, Hamas will be crowned winner, but the war will end

The terms of the emerging deal with Hamas are being presented by Israel as entailing a “painful price.” It is based on the assumption that whatever is good for Hamas must be bad for Israel and whatever is bad for the Palestinians is good for us: a zero-sum game.

November 12, 2023

Our national failure to equip ourselves for Asia

Very few of the people briefing Anthony Albanese have much knowledge or experience of Asia. Many are Austral Americans as Paul Keating rightly calls them.

October 23, 2023

The Hayden Oration - 29 September 2017

Australias relationship with the United States is fine. What is not fine is the Austral-Americans in this country conducting themselves as though Australia is some branch office of the United States or worse than that, its lickspittle.

October 19, 2022

The Murray Darling Basin Plan has fundamental problems and needs replacing

After nearly ten years of the Murray Darling Basin Plan, implemented to ensure the river remains viable, there is overwhelming evidence that the Plan is ineffective and should be replaced.

September 4, 2021

JobKeeper: 'The biggest waste of Commonwealth money in Australian history'

Labor treasury and charities spokesperson Andrew Leigh spoke to ABC Canberra this week about the government’s JobKeeper program.

January 2, 2025

The continual cover up – Jenny Hocking on the strange disappearance of Gough Whitlam's ASIO file

And it is not just Gough Whitlam’s ASIO file that has been “culled” by the National Archives of Australia. The relevant Government House Guest Books at the time of the Dismissal have disappeared and the entire archive of Kerr’s prominent supporters, including Lord Mountbatten, was accidentally burnt in the Yarralumla incinerator.

January 13, 2024

International Court of Justice and the Global court of Public Opinion

South Africa has presented an overwhelming brief to the international Court of Justice, accusing Israel of genocidal motivation and demanding immediate cessation of such activity. The decision of the court will soon be known, but the opinion of millions, probably billons of the worlds citizens is known. Israel has crossed an uncrossable line.

December 23, 2023

Transcendence: Searching for light amidst horrors in Ukraine and Gaza

Is there any light in the Christian message in the face of the horrors in the Ukraine and Gaza? Apart from wishing peace on Earth does Christian belief actually change anything?

October 12, 2023

Israeli forces have killed 2400 Palestinian children since year 2000

While mainstream media and our own and other Western government’s cup runneth over in support of Israel, a deeper story of occupation, ethnic cleansing and apartheid underpins the decades-long suffering of the people of Palestine from successive Israeli governments that have been supported and funded by the US Government. While the bloodshed and loss of life on both sides is devastating, the lack of balance in reporting the facts behind the conflict, that we watch unfold in horror, is both predictable and complicit.

February 22, 2023

What are the possible endgames in the Ukraine war?

Prudent nations would do well to prepare for peace even in the midst of an armed conflict.

January 16, 2023

Japanese Ambassador breaches protocol, pushes Australia to embrace China threat

Asa nation Japan would not win many Nobel peace prizes.

April 1, 2022

Weekly roundup Saturday 2 April

Weekly roundup of links to articles, reports, podcasts and other media on current political and economic issues in public policy.

January 22, 2022

Herald indulges UK Foreign Secretarys demented remarks on China

Australia’s foreign and defence ministers are giving respectability to Britain’s lunge for old-time glory.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal