November 13, 2024

Trump’s America: ecstasy or agony?

Trump’s election victory is not the momentous or unexpected event many have made it out to be. It is, however, a sure sign of a slowly decaying society where frustration, anger and bewilderment are at epidemic proportions.

November 12, 2024

B-2 Bomber Strikes in Yemen and their significance for Australia

Australian territory has been used in supporting US B-2 bombers en route and in return from strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen on October 17, and highlights the profound strategic significance of this event for the future role Australia may play in US strategic bomber operations against China, in the Asia Pacific and beyond.

November 11, 2024

Trump victory increases hazards for climate and global health

The well documented and steadily increasing health problems globally, directly associated with climate change, have been discussed with appropriate alarm by many expert contributors to P & I._

February 27, 2024

Fractured consensus, fabricated facts, and the truth of Western wars

Why, when the majority of civil society opposes Australia going to war against China, and public confidence in the United States will and capacity to defend Australia is declining, do successive governments pursue AUKUS and a war with China over Taiwan with such enthusiasm?

January 13, 2024

2023 destroys global heat record as fossil fuel emissions boil the planet

“How many more records does it take before we phase out fossil fuels and deal with it?” asked one climate campaigner.

November 13, 2022

The scourge of hegemony

While it is obvious to most people that geopolitical tension in the Asia-Pacific region is rising, and that there is a real threat of a conflict between the power blocks in the world, much less credence is given to the idea that the problem is inflicted on us by the hitherto dominant economies of the world losing their grip on hegemony.

November 10, 2022

China has neither the intent nor the capability to attack us

We are being led in our anti-China hysteria by the United States which is not concerned that China will attack us, or even the United States, but is concerned that its world hegemony is being challenged.

October 27, 2022

Hong Kong is not the place to bet against

It is fashionable in some circles to say Hong Kong is finished because it is now just another Chinese city with diminishing attractiveness for global attention.

October 20, 2022

China policy: A casualty of Australias addiction to imperial power

Its now close to five months since Labor came to office, but little has changed in the governments position on China or the dangerous escalation in great power tensions.

October 7, 2022

Australia: An Electric Vehicle Battery manufacturing powerhouse?

Is it too late for Australia to enter the global market for Electric Vehicle Battery (EVB) manufacturing? It has become apparent that Australias exit in 2016 from local car production has made it more difficult for us to participate fully in one of the 21st centurys fastest growing, technically advanced and environmentally critical industries.

February 17, 2022

What we can expect from the coming Budget

It is to be feared that the forthcoming budget will be a mixture of spending bribes and unsustainable tax cuts. This is not what is needed to restore economic stability and the provision of essential government services.

April 5, 2025

Asia battered by Trump’s harsh tariffs – Asian Media Report

In Asian media this week: “Reciprocal” tariffs savage poor nations. Plus: Auto levies hand “keys to the future” to China; Myanmar military declares ceasefire but continues fighting; Black carbon pollution a threat to glaciers; US, India in nuclear power deal; Bitter times for Darjeeling tea industry.

March 10, 2025

Dutton's stuff-ups: N-plan could add up to $600 per year to bills by 2030

A new report has torpedoed Peter Dutton’s claim that the Coalition’s nuclear power plan for Australia would be 44% cheaper than Labor’s plan for renewables, finding instead that it would inflate average consumer electricity bills by up to 41% between now and 2030.

January 18, 2025

President Trump and Australia's National Security

Australia needs to try and persuade the Trump Administration that no country can expect to dominate our region and the benefits of cooperation. But if, as is likely, Trump refuses to accept a multipolar region then Australia must be prepared to act on its own and seek its security within Asia.

December 31, 2024

A year of scientific shock and awe

In 2024, faster than forecast change taught us new lessons about the climate system. In 2025, worse is to come, as political shock troops steer a course towards climate-driven societal collapse, writes David Spratt.

November 23, 2024

Will the Prime Minister now assert Australia’s independence and review his foreign and defence policies?

For some time now a considerable number of well-informed Australians have been warning Anthony Albanese and his government not to allow personal flattery and uncertain commitments to allow the United States to gain control of Australian foreign policy and defence policies.

March 17, 2023

Dear reader, are we unwelcome in this white man’s nation?

I am an Australian-born person of Chinese ancestry and have been disturbed by the alarmist fearmongering and drive to war with China from the media and the government. While I have been a faithful public servant and model citizen for many years, once again I am sadly returned to my childhood traumas and anxieties about being unwelcome and unworthy in this white man’s nation.

March 6, 2023

End-game for American exceptionalism?

The march to maintain hegemony is pursued with a sense of ’exceptional America’. But it is now taking place in a world without elbow room. The planet is imperilled. We have to call out folly, not run with it. I cannot see how, without regime change in Washington, trust in high level relations can be restored.

January 2, 2023

Can Taiwan avoid the fate of Ukraine?

With Russian armies attacking into Ukraine, many have assumed Taiwan faces a similar threat from Mainland China.

November 3, 2022

Australian submarine madness and the phoney China threat

Nobody knows what military threats to Australia from China or anyone else will exist in 2050. In these circumstances, it is folly to commit to spending over $200 billion on acquiring eight US designed nuclear attack submarines to deploy in support of the US on the China coast.

October 1, 2022

Australian media think that only China has a human rights problem

Australia has a mixed relationship with the United Nations Human Rights Committee. Irritation, dismissal and even the occasional openly hostile comment, have registered. But in 1994, the Toonen decision filtered through the Australian legal process, leading the federal government to remove archaically noxious provisions in the Tasmanian criminal code criminalising sodomy.

March 20, 2025

Trump is surveying Australian academics about gender diversity and China – what does this mean for unis and their research?

Shortly after taking office, US President Donald Trump issued executive orders banning federal funding on so-called “woke” research.

January 26, 2025

Environment: Accelerating towards a collision with the climate

Human societies are setting themselves on a collision course with climate-induced catastrophes. Lithium-ion batteries will soon be facing competition. How to deal with x and the conflicts it creates?

December 6, 2024

Can Australia and Indonesia provide leadership on climate change?

Almost certainly not, but someone really ought to try while it’s still possible.

November 14, 2024

UN Membership for Palestine now

On May 10, 2024, the UN General Assembly passed overwhelmingly, with only nine negative votes (Argentina, Czechia, Hungary, Israel, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea and the United States) a resolution which “Determines that the State of Palestine is qualified for membership in the United Nations and should therefore be admitted to membership in the United Nations” and “Accordingly recommends that the Security Council reconsider the matter favorably.”

April 5, 2024

Shattered wards, ill-timed hernias, and the moral bankruptcy of a nation

Pampered hernia patient Netanyahu is ultimately responsible for the destruction of more of the planets hospitals than anyone since the bombing of Hamburg during the Second World War.

March 3, 2024

Canberras endearment of ASEAN must be taken with a pinch of salt

When Australia looks out to the world, the first thing we see is the countries of ASEAN." - Australian Foreign Minister, Penny Wong.

February 11, 2024

Complicit: Victorian governments secret Israeli Defence Ministry MOU sparks outrage

Last month, news bubbled that the Victorian State government had inked a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Israeli Defence Ministry in December 2022. As Australias advanced manufacturing capital, we are always exploring economic and trade opportunities for our state especially those that create local jobs, a government spokesperson stated in January.

January 9, 2024

'Horror is growing by the minute,' says rights group, as Israel starves Gaza

“If current conditions persist,” said Israeli group B’Tselem, “there is significant risk that famine will be declared throughout the entire Gaza Strip within six months.”

December 1, 2023

The US cherry picks international laws that suit it

Defence Minister Marles, always singing from the same tired US song book, fails to recognise the difference between international law and a rules based international order (RBIO) that the US preaches. And there is a big difference. RBIO is code for US rules.

October 4, 2023

Australias aborted cultural decolonisation

Over the 50 years since Patrick Whites Nobel Prize, the progressive cultural nationalists, who borrowed Whites honour, challenged a tired old elite, and then generated a new cohort of tired old elites. They had broken with Britain, but embraced America and its fantasy of the universal progressive empire that dare not say its name. The Austral-Americans were born, and became the enforcers of todays sterile regime culture.

March 21, 2023

The global banking crisis and world economy

The banking crisis that hit Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) last week has spread. We recall with a shudder two recent financial contagions: the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, which led to a deep Asian recession, and the 2008 Great Recession, which led to a global downturn. The new banking crisis hits a world economy already disrupted by pandemic, war, sanctions, geopolitical tensions, and climate shocks.

November 24, 2022

Coming next year: one President indicted, another President impeached

And you thought the big digital entertainment in the months ahead is Donald Trumps return to Twitter.

February 12, 2025

Liberal Party is yet to heed the message sent in Werribee

State and federal oppositions will draw encouragement from the byelection result. But neither has shown voters a coherent and credible budget and economic strategy.

January 28, 2025

Donald Trump at the National Cathedral Washington

Addressing Donald Trump at the National Cathedral’s inauguration service, the Episcopal bishop of Washington, looking the incoming president in the eye, pleaded with him: “to have mercy on people who are scared and help those facing persecution”.

January 6, 2025

The release of the 2003 Iraq War cabinet papers and what we were not told

We are constantly assured that our governments don’t lie. But in this case the enormity goes beyond a mere cover-up to protect deemed “national security”. That war was a lie from beginning to end.

February 24, 2024

Environment: The wealthy cause climate change; the poor suffer its consequences

Richest 1% produce as many greenhouse gases as the poorest 66%. Climate denialists have a new lyric: sure, its happening - so what? but Australians are concerned about climate change and want action. No, its not OK to shoot a hippo.

November 28, 2023

Blood: The bitter harvest of breaching Resolution 2334

I have been troubled by the Wests media treatment of the October 7th military raid on Israel by the Palestinian people. Who is really responsible for the fact that the October 7 raid occurred?

November 23, 2023

War with China: Babbling incoherence and missing evidence

With the expansion of all services of the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) no matter that it is consistent with a defensive posture Chinas every strategic move now is rendered totally unacceptable after passing through a prism designed and issued on a complementary basis by the US.

Hyper-suspicion is the attitude and threat inflation is the product.

Whatever China does, regardless of its context, is automatically rendered an indication of a currently hostile mindset and, quite likely, future aggression.

October 19, 2022

How will our stretched housing market cope with surging immigration?

_Respected ABC commentator Alan Kohler has recently raised this issue in an article provocatively titled Labors immigration and housing policies are an explosive combination.

March 28, 2022

Will central Lismore be abandoned after yet another flood.

Now that the floodwaters have hopefully gone and communities are focusing on recovery, the question of relocation has become central in discussions about the future.

October 2, 2021

Between AUKUS and AUSMIN, Australia has crossed the rubicon

Through the combination of AUKUS and AUSMIN, Australia has locked in its strategic dependence on the US probably irreversibly, or in Prime Minister Scott Morrisons words forever.

January 4, 2025

Academics say China studies sector in 'crisis' amid a funding shortage and 'climate of fear'

China scholar Mark Wang still remembers a time in the 2000s when Australia’s China studies was vibrant and in a leading position in the world.

October 27, 2024

“The possessing of nuclear weapons is immoral”: Will US Bishops heed Pope's pronouncement?

Nihon Hidankyo, Japan’s nationwide organisation of atomic bomb survivors, was awarded the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize.

March 11, 2024

Siding with the oppressors: WOMAD defends Ziggy Marley, uninvites Palestinian artists

Two significant acts invited to play WOMADelaide 2024 have been treated in vastly different ways in recent months by the Director, Ian Scobie.

March 6, 2024

International law and Israels occupation: Understanding the ICJ advisory opinion case

Between Monday 19 February and Monday 26 February the ICJ heard oral submissions on the request for an advisory opinion in respect of the Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem. Make no mistake. This case is about as important as it gets. It raises the question of what does humanity mean, and where is the human race heading.

January 31, 2024

Stripped bare: The Albanese governments support for genocide

It is now very obvious that the Albanese government is determined to assist Israel in ensuring that the provisional measures ordered by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) are undermined and rendered unworkable.

January 3, 2024

From Gaza to Ukraine, US risks imperial and military over reach as China is winning the Global South

Having failed to see Beijing provoked into war over Taiwan or in the South China Sea, America itself has been dragged into war after war in Europe and the Middle East

December 12, 2023

UN honour, US shame

The nearly unanimous vote in the UN Security Council on Friday calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza is a moment of honour for the United Nations and shame for the United States. By voting to stop Israels war on Gaza by a vote of 13 yes, 1 no (US), and 1 abstention (UK), the vast majority put itself on the side of international law. The US stood alone against international law, with its sidekick and tutor in imperial brutality, the United Kingdom, dutifully abstaining.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal