January 2, 2022

Mangled by Macron: Morrison's French farce shows lack of character

Our prime minister is an embarrassment on both the national and the world stage. But few would be surprised at his latest escapade.

July 31, 2021

Labor's plan for an anti-corruption body

The ALP this week released an outline of the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) it would introduce if it were to come to power at the next federal election, a body based on the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) that has operated (mostly) successfully in New South Wales for more than three decades.

June 22, 2018

CHRISTINA HO, EDGAR LIU, HAZEL EASTHOPE. Higher density and diversity: apartments are Australia at its most multicultural.

Increasing numbers of city dwellers live in apartments. This is particularly the case for migrants. And that makes apartment buildings important hubs of multiculturalism in our cities.

January 13, 2025

The UN can end the Middle East conflict by welcoming Palestine as a member

The June 2025 UN Conference on Palestine can be the long-awaited turning point for the region.

October 4, 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.

November 27, 2022

Matching pay and responsibilities: are secretaries paid too much?

As the Government begins the difficult task of repairing the Australian Public Service (APS) pay and classification system, it also needs to change the membership of the Remuneration Tribunal then ask it to review secretaries pay having greater regard for their public sector roles and responsibilities. For too long the Tribunal has relied upon private sector comparisons and practices.

February 10, 2025

Why doesn't God save the day?

The catastrophic conflict between Israel and the Palestinians (the present “ceasefire” notwithstanding) has done nothing to relieve the centuries-old contradictions that exist between and within our three monotheistic religions: Judaism, Islam and Christianity.

January 12, 2025

Gaza: The modern Colosseum of humanity's dark legacy

In the 15th century and during the Renaissance, arenas in territories under the Roman Empire witnessed bloody and unequal battles. These arenas were often used by the wealthy and influential as a stage to showcase their power, secure their influence, and gain popularity among the public. At that time, the poor, prisoners, and the weak were forced to fight in these arenas as gladiators, often to the death – either as punishment or as a form of entertainment.

January 22, 2024

Is China an economic threat?

America insists on treating China as an economic threat, but the reality is that Chinas economic advancement has benefited us all. Instead, the stagnation of wages and manufacturing job losses experienced by Trump supporters in the US largely reflects the impact of technological change.

October 27, 2021

Bullies meet their match: Morrison team lurches from farce to disaster

Even though the world is now out from the shadow of Trump, Australia’s representatives are acting as if The Donald is still in the White House.

February 28, 2025

What can one now say about Israel without being smeared as an antisemite?

I read the definition of antisemitism adopted by Australian universities and my first thought was “we need a list”, not of what is considered antisemitic, but of what is not considered antisemetic. Now it would be helpful to have a prescriptive list of what one can say about Israel without being smeared as an antisemite. And I am not being facetious. Perhaps those who developed this definition could provide such a list. It would be a very short list. Nevertheless, it would be greatly appreciated by all those who are morally caught between the need to speak up against a genocide and the fear of losing their livelihoods and reputations.

November 20, 2022

The world votes for climate hell

Something of epochal importance happened in Egypt last week the most significant event since Cheops shoved up his triangular monument, four thousand odd-years ago at the dawn of civilisation. But the world media, true to form, missed it almost completely.

March 5, 2022

Environment: Medications damaging nature and humans

Prescribed drugs, government subsidies and deforestation are destroying nature. But nature fights back in Ecuador.

February 17, 2022

Macron more likely to be reelected than Morrison

Given their recent history, it is ironic that Macron and Morrison will come up for election at very close to the same time.

May 15, 2020

STEPHEN DUCKETT supports Pearls and Irritations.

I am both a daily reader of, and a contributor to John Menadues Pearls & Irritations.

November 25, 2024

Denial of Australian visa to anti-Palestinian racists disturbs some Liberal Party leaders

On 21 November 2024, the Australian government refused to grant a visa to former Israeli minister Ayelet Shaked, known for her anti-Palestinian views. She had been invited to attend a security conference in Canberra and other events organised by the Israeli lobby, Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC).

October 7, 2024

For those with eyes to see - the Israeli inflicted genocide that Israel is trying to hide

“Who are you filming for?”

March 18, 2024

A war on children: Gaza doctors no longer see normal-sized babies

Israel’s war on Gaza is a war on children, a war on their childhood and a war on their future. Children are dying at an alarming rate from malnutrition and dehydration and doctors are no longer seeing normal-sized babies.

January 3, 2024

Corporate media leaves out the very insights that made John Pilger a man not afraid to speak truth to power

John Pilger, the investigative anti-war journalist who spoke up for China and humiliated the western corporate media, has diedand every single report on this in the western media I have seen has carefully omitted this fact.

January 8, 2023

Australias DFAT blocks FOI request on Israel apartheid status

In November 2022, I brought a Freedom of Information (FOI) request for the Australian Government to disclose the basis of its non-acceptance of the reports that apartheid exists in Israel. Last week, DFAT rejected the request on the risible basis that to process it would unreasonably divert the departments resources.

March 2, 2022

New IPCC report shows Australia is at real risk from climate change, with impacts worsening, future risks high, and wide-ranging adaptation needed

_Climatic trends, extreme conditions and sea level rise are already hitting many of Australias ecosystems, industries and cities hard.

December 28, 2021

Vale Desmond Tutu: a teacher of the powerful and voice of the downtrodden

The South African archbishop and activist, who has died at 90, treated both pauper and sovereign with equal dignity and honour.

October 31, 2021

Scott Morrisons half-hearted U-turn on electric vehicles

Without the vision to invest in electric vehicles and transport technology, Australia is setting up its young people for a very limited future.

October 18, 2021

National Party is extorting the government for money and favours on climate change

After all the grandstanding, the National Party will make a deal on climate change policy. They are for sale.

April 3, 2025

James Curran's closing remarks to the Sovereignty and Security Conference on 31 March

The sense of urgency and rapid change that has pervaded the discussion today [31 March] has not obscured the fact that, as we know, this issue of the abrupt change in the relationship with the United States has been coming since at least Trump’s first term. And really from the disaster of Iraq and the 2008 global financial crisis.

February 20, 2025

Net zero emissions by 2050 is great for the fossil fuel industry

If national governments across the globe are prepared to put minimising the climate threat ahead of protecting the fossil fuel industry, they will have to make major changes to how the net zero concept is being applied. This will require carbon offsetting to be brought in line with its intended application, and a consequential major reduction in its use.

January 11, 2024

Nations urged to back ICJ case against Israel after experts confirm genocide underway

“How many more alarm bells have to ring and how many more civilians must unlawfully suffer or be killed before governments take action?” asked one human rights expert.

March 11, 2022

Weekly roundup Saturday 12 March

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

December 20, 2024

Reporting on a genocide: Questions for the legacy media

We are now 14 months into Israel’s live-streamed genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. Why have you failed so dismally to report Israel’s blatant, murderous campaign of annihilation with any depth or rigour?

March 25, 2024

Moral cowardice hinders pleas for a Common Humanity in Gaza

Faced with war across Europe, nineteenth century poet William Wordsworth asked, What a fair world were ours for verse to paint, if Power could live at ease with self-restraint? He was following sixteenth century John Donnes recognition of human interdependence, No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main

March 30, 2025

Four key myths that manufacture an immigration 'crisis'

A so-called Australian immigration crisis is a central election issue, but it’s based on misconceptions easily debunked by any examination of the evidence.

March 14, 2025

Dutton has little faith in Medicare. Like Trump, he prefers culture wars

Peter Dutton does not really believe in Medicare. He is more interested in Trump-type culture wars than the health of Australians.

October 19, 2024

Will Israel learn from its history or be doomed to repeat its mistakes?

Israel succeeded in what it is good at destroying, killing children and women and assassinating leaders, in killing Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. But the Israelis are only deceiving themselves if they think that through their crimes, they can accomplish success for their colonial project and force the Palestinian people to surrender.

October 9, 2024

Entering an age of social and security consequences

“I will not sacrifice Great British industry to the drum-banging, finger-wagging Net Zero extremists,” was the headline The Sun in London gave to a piece last week by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, defending the expenditure of 22 billion pounds on the cargo cult of carbon capture and storage. This headline captured the delusion at the core of climate-policymaking around the world: that there is an economically non-disruptive path out of the climate emergency. There isn’t.

February 27, 2024

Australian Civil Society submits statement on Gaza genocide to the International Court of Justice

As a signatory to the Genocide Convention, Australia is obliged to prevent any action that further risks the survival of the Palestinian people and failure to do so risks complicity in genocide. In the absence of a response from the Australian government to the ICJ ruling, at least 100 groups representing civil society are observing with concern Australias failure to act to prevent genocide in Gaza, and have made the following submission to the International Court of Justice.

March 14, 2023

AUKUS and the drive to war with China: Special Issue

A Labor government has puts guns before butter how extraordinary! Today, Pearls and Irritations has taken the unusual step of devoting our issue line up entirely to articles on the drive to war with China and the disastrous commitment of $368 billion dollars of Australias public funding to nuclear submarines.

October 7, 2022

Jeffrey Sachs: The US or its ally may have sabotaged Nord Stream.

Why does the US star economist suspect the USA and not Russia to be behind the leaks in the gas pipelines?And what awaits the German economy now?His answers.

October 23, 2021

Beyond repair: Alliance distortions of Australian national interest in foreign policy and defence. Part 1

Australian foreign and defence policy must be based on an understanding of national interest that reflects the real interests of all Australians.

December 28, 2024

The BBC’s civil war over Gaza

The BBC is facing an internal revolt over its reporting on Israel’s war on Gaza. Their primary battlefield has become the online news operation. Drop Site News spoke to 13 current and former staffers who mapped out the extensive bias in the BBC’s coverage and how their demands for change have been largely met with silence from management. At times, these journalists point out, the coverage has been more credulous about Israeli claims than the UK’s own Conservative leaders and the Israeli media, while devaluing Palestinian life, ignoring atrocities, and creating a false equivalence in an entirely unbalanced conflict.

December 19, 2024

Dutton's Economic Cons: household electricity bills to rise by $665 a year under Coalition

Like Trump, Dutton likes to portray himself as a strong man. But appearances are not everything, and Dutton is pretty much an economic policy vacuum.

March 6, 2023

How best to tackle inflation

After nine successive increases in the Reserve Banks cash rate, this article argues that it is time to pause. In addition, given the sources of increased inflation, more targeted measures are called for rather than the blunt instrument of further interest rate increases.

March 12, 2022

Environment: Wealthy are the major CO2 emitters

Victoria turns a blind eye to illegal logging while USA maps protected areas. Rich individuals and nations need to reduce their emissions and eliminate global poverty.

January 31, 2022

Press stunned as Ukraine leader points finger at West

The underlying issue is this: NATO promised not to expand eastwards. It has done so repeatedly. It is never called out for this.

October 21, 2021

Drinking the Hong Kong Kool-Aid Misrepresentation is now on display

Those behind the scenes who tried to use Hong Kong for their own aims not only failed but are comfortably sitting well away from the grief and anguish they sponsored.

March 16, 2025

US-Europe relations flipped by Trump

For most of the post-World War II period, relations between Europe and the United States have followed a consistent pattern regardless of changes in government on both sides of the Atlantic.

December 20, 2024

Hugh Marks does not have a background in journalism, yet becomes ex officio editor-in-chief of the ABC. Is he the right person for the job?

Aspects of Hugh Marks’s record as chief executive of the Nine Entertainment Company raise questions about his suitability for the position of managing director of the ABC, to which he has just been appointed.

December 13, 2024

Netanyahu and Australia

Netanyahu has demonstrated that he has the complete measure of the Labor-Coalition political class, that he only has to snap his fingers and bark an order and they will all do his bidding and follow his instructions with alacrity.

December 8, 2023

Taking steps to protect innocent civilians

October 31, 2023

Netanyahu invokes Genocide

Prime Ministers Howard, Rudd, Gillard, Abbott, Turnbull, and Morrison have signed a statement drafted for them by the Zionist Federation of Australia in support of Israel. In doing so, were they aware that on Sunday, in launching the ground offensive into Gaza, Netanyahu invoked a genocidal precedent for his war on Gaza?

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal