November 25, 2022

Anwar new PM but how long will new Malaysian Government survive?

Yah, man but how long laaa? A Malaysian friend told me yesterday when I asked him about the news that Anwar Ibrahim had been sworn in as Malaysias 10th Prime Minister.

November 6, 2022

The battle over development and democracy in the South Pacific

United States-Australian policy toward China demonstrates an increasing tension over what development and democracy means for people of the South Pacific. There is wide agreement that over the last forty years China has been exemplary for its rate of growth. Until relatively recently, this favourable assessment has been made by linking growth with development and ignoring that the country is ruled by an authoritarian regime.

October 14, 2022

China: How do I fear thee? Let me count the ways

A deep-seated ontological fear is complicating any possible moves towards restoring some semblance of normality in relations with China. There are many strands in this tangled skein. Let me try to pick some of them apart.

October 7, 2022

Massive shortage of early childhood teachers demands skilled migration reform

Increased availability of high quality and affordable early childhood education is central to the Albanese Governments strategy to increase labour force participation rates, particularly participation of women.

February 19, 2022

Sunday environmental round up

Electric cars sales are booming but so are coals, strongly supported by the banks. The Kyoto and Pari agreements fail to keep tabs on military forces greenhouse gas emissions.

February 14, 2022

The Americans are coming! ASIO looks away as hate groups gain foothold

What does our security agency have to say about an insurgency linked to local fanatics who take their cues from Trump and the Republican right?

October 25, 2021

How Australia could halve carbon emissions by 2030

Australia needs to cut its emissions by 45-50 per cent by 2030. Australia can realise this near-term target and grasp the opportunities that it also presents.

December 2, 2024

Are you better off? If not, why not? Productivity, income distribution and the cost of living crisis

While lifting the rate of productivity growth is the obvious solution to the cost of living crisis, judging by the experience of most developed economies, it is not obvious how to restore productivity growth.

October 25, 2024

A five-minute scroll

Israeli propaganda revealed by the BBC, AL Jazeera uncovers the UK and US supported airbridge. We witness the kindness of rescuers as they excavate a survivor. At Brics 2024 Venezuelan President Maduro says a new world is possible while the question will Trump be better for Palestine than Biden is answered. In Melbourne a Students for Palestine activist is arrested. Five minutes on X.

October 10, 2024

"Acceptance" of Israel's extreme brutality and "concern" at the slaughter of Palestinians are irreconcilable

Like most of the US allies, Australia is caught between a rock and a hard place.

March 26, 2024

The United States, China, and the Future of the Global Order

Happy to have engaged in a provocative yet always civil dialogue with the famous China expert Orville Schell at the Asia Society in New York on Thursday, 21st March. Hope you will enjoy it too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIfb7BUiqHY

January 1, 2024

Plodding Labor will rue its missed opportunities

Labor will have already has squandered its time and its opportunities. It needs leadership of guts and vision, not timidity, caution and mortal terror of offending anyone.

October 11, 2023

The suffering people of Ukraine and Palestine- what a contrast!

This cartoon depicts the double standards of world leaders and the media to the suffering people of Ukraine and the brutality inflicted for decades on the people in Israeli occupied Palestine.

October 10, 2023

Dutton creates confusion and division on the Voice

Peter Dutton is urging us to reject the unique opportunity to reconcile with the original inhabitants of this land.

March 13, 2023

China: decoupling from the West and winning the long game

With the re-opening of China and with the ending of Covid restrictions, a new confidence seems to be surging through the country. While the next two years are seen to be a particularly dangerous time, with the real prospect of armed conflict with the US, beyond that it is felt that Chinas time will have come. Australians are now largely denied this view since the timorous Australian media is no longer present in China.

February 1, 2022

Delivery failure: the private sector is no place for essential services

The politically driven demise of well-run public institutions has had damaging consequences, with the COVID pandemic providing a wake-up call.

November 8, 2021

Move on, mate: Morrisons performance demeaned us all

Our leader’s many flaws make even more urgent the need for an integrity watchdog, which would shoot down his blustering evasions.

December 5, 2024

Can Australian political leaders enjoy their holiday season while Palestinians starve?

How much longer can the Australian Government hide from the horrific atrocities that continue in Gaza?

December 23, 2023

This Christmas, live the choice of healing, not harm

Out of our hearts can come thoughts that are pure and beautiful or evil intentions, murder… What we think and let influence our thinking shapes our words and actions, for good or ill. How important therefore are the choices we make! The choice to nurture love with words and actions that bring healing as compared to the choices which just cause more harm. Frankly, people who cannot control their capacity for angry violence should be in therapy, not in political power.

November 12, 2023

Pivoting away from Chinas manufacturing power threatens global supply chains

While the US and its allies prioritise reducing supply chain risks, reshuffling away from China, repercussions from decoupling or de-risking might pose greater concerns than the risks themselves. Such actions could bifurcate the global economy, leading to fragmented supply chains and divergent technology standards. This could hinder global economic recovery, dampen investment flows, and impede collective efforts to address climate change.

March 18, 2023

Environment: Trees good. Plastics bad. Why dont governments turn it around?

Trees are good for the climate and human health. Plastics are bad for the environment and bird health. Where are the good governments when you need them?

January 15, 2023

Americas cruel game with Australia

Australias security policy is a mess. We have been betrayed by our national leaders. Without exception, from Prime Minister Gillard on - with Anthony Albanese shaping up to join - the sell-out to Americas war neurosis is complete. Our leaders have been party to the fabrication of China as a military threat to Australia, by inviting a US military offence against China to settle here and be developed.

October 10, 2022

Jeffrey Sachs urges dialogue amid rising Taiwan-China tensions

Jeffrey Sachs, who has been named this year’s Tang Prize laureate for Sustainable Development, has urged Taiwan and China to commit to dialogue to find a peaceful resolution in the midst of rising tensions between the two sides.

March 6, 2025

Is there a shift in our appreciation of dissent?

Since the Israel/US alliance went into full-throttle war machine mode in the name of Israel’s right to self-defence, fissures have appeared in the global community, delineating various camps. Roughly speaking: those who support Israel, those who condemn Israel, and those who question Israel.

February 7, 2025

Silence on 'evil' China: Anti-China Media Watch

While the big China threat remains AI platform DeepSeek, The Australian reminds us that the true “evil” is Canberra not doing anything about China’s threat to national security, and Nine Newspapers remind us that LNP politicians taking money from rich Chinese-Australians are good, while their benefactors are likely up to no good.

November 27, 2024

A triumph for greed over commonsense and humanity

For the third year in a row the nations of the world, meeting in solemn climate conclave, have vowed to cook their children and grandchildren alive.

March 28, 2024

Extradition looms for Julian Assange

The UK High Court has delayed the extradition of Julian Assange to the US for a further three weeks, requesting the United States give assurances that Assange will be protected by First Amendment free speech rights, that he wont be discriminated against as an Australian citizen, and that he will not face the death penalty. The High Court judgment said that if those assurances were not given by the United States, leave to appeal will be given to Assange, and there will then be an appeal hearing.

January 12, 2024

Western Empire bombs Yemen to protect Israel's genocide operations In Gaza

The US and UK have reportedly struck over a dozen sites in Yemen using Tomahawk missiles and fighter jets, backed by logistical support from Australia, Canada, Bahrain and the Netherlands. A statement from President Biden asserts that the strikes against targets in Yemen used by Houthi rebels are a direct response to unprecedented Houthi attacks against international maritime vessels in the Red Sea.

January 12, 2023

Australia: Rights failings tarnish regional credibility

The Australian government must reduce indigenous incarceration and stop subsidising fossil fuels.

March 24, 2022

Keep calm and carry on with President Widodo

Therell be few Valentines Day greetings and faux flower mall displays in Indonesia two years hence. Thats not because Muslim scholars will again warn followers not to celebrate values that are considered to be against the Islamic Sharia.

March 13, 2022

What has gone wrong with Australian journalisms commitment to free speech?

The decision of the National Press Club to withdraw the invitation to the Russian Ambassador to speak at the club is the latest move taking Australia to a new low in lack of commitment to free speech.

October 10, 2021

The AUKUS defence deal is almost wholly symbolic

The AUKUS pact may make strategic sense Australia, after all, needs to seek partnerships. But at present, it’s almost wholly symbolic.

July 31, 2021

The right reasons for saying no to nuclear first use

Washington is once again debating whether to declare that it will never be the first to use nuclear weapons. There are good reasons why it should. But it would not be right tosuggest that a no-first-use policy would cost the United States nothing strategically.

December 24, 2024

Peace on earth, goodwill toward men (and women) – unless they’re Palestinians, of course

Why do American Christian evangelists support Israel’s genocide in Gaza?

November 21, 2024

“A nation based on mercantilist plunder”

Australia has a reputation for egalitarianism. It is not deserved.

February 9, 2024

US Intervention to end the war in Gaza

What is almost universally agreed is that an enduring peace settlement for Palestine must be based on a two-State solution. However, getting that settlement accepted will require active intervention by the US to broker the deal.

December 9, 2023

China seeks harmony not hegemony

China has a continuous civilisation for 5,000 years Sun Yeli, CPC central committee member said when launching the World Conference on China Studies in Shanghai. The challenge is to promote understanding of this continuity and the way it shapes current policy. Civilisation is more than culture. Its the way China approaches the world and that is very different from the way Western countries think about the world.

December 2, 2023

Environment: Rich investors make profits from killing leopards, tigers and rhinos

Western financial institutions are funding the extinction of threatened species. Many EV batteries make lights work.

November 21, 2023

Crown successfully overturns Nuremberg war crimes principles in Australian court

In direct contradiction to the 1945 Nuremberg trials, the Crown successfully argued in the prosecution of Afghan Files military whistleblower David McBride for breaching the Defence Forces Act that the sole duty of an Australian soldier is to follow orders_. An Australian soldier does not serve Australia, or the Australian people or the public interest__. The final blow for McBride fell last Thursday, when the court was closed down under Australias National Security Act, and a large contingent of men in suits confiscated all the files that the Defence had planned to use to argue McBrides public interest defence._

March 14, 2023

Red Alert: news media Sleep-Walking into US war propaganda

One of the best-known writers on public opinion, Walter Lippmann, tells us that every conflict is fought on two fronts: the battlefield and the minds of people via propaganda. We must remember that in time of war what is said on the enemys side of the front is always propaganda, and what is said on our side of the front is truth and righteousness.

February 21, 2022

So was it the most-watched or least-watched Winter Olympics?

There were global campaigns from the United States to make the Beijing Winter Olympics the least-watched Winter Olympic Games in history.

October 14, 2021

Nuclear submarines: We don't know the costs and we don't know the risks

The nuclear submarine deal with the US and the UK upends Australia’s carefully thought out forward planning in defence, without a clear explanation to the nation of the ramifications.

September 4, 2021

Quarantine, what quarantine? Nicole Kidman, expats and white privilege

The unsaid but common understanding about foreigners in many parts of the non-Western world is that there is one group of them who can get away with a great deal: white people.

October 28, 2023

Australia left isolated as neighbours demand protection of civilians at UNGA

Many Australians will be ashamed that our nation has failed to speak and vote unequivocally at the United Nations during this crisis. As a nation we cannot continue to pretend that Israel has a right to defend itself while Palestine has no such right and is being systematically destroyed.

March 7, 2023

The defence establishment and Fairfax take on China

Hysteria over a supposed immediate China threat is being peddled by the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age in the first of a series of three reports titled Red Alert. Not since Menziess days, have we seen anything like the papers dramatic image of an air force fleet emerging from a supersized China to dominate a tiny Australia. This is ridiculous beyond belief.

February 13, 2023

Australias national security strategy: no room for peace, arms control?

In contrast to Labor politicians such as Paul Keating, Bill Hayden, Gareth Evans and Gough Whitlam, the four part series recently published by Keating and Stanford on Australian national security sees no place for arms control measures and peace initiatives.

November 28, 2022

Taiwan voters consider President Tsais hostile relationship with China to be fool hardy

_Those vested in the ’the coming war with China’ may need to rethink.

November 27, 2022

Taiwan reunification: US benefits from cross-straits divisions

Although the United States often expresses concerns over the possibility of Taiwan being reunified with its motherland by force, it claims to support consensual reunification. This, however, could not be further from the truth, and its own national interests dictate otherwise. It benefits enormously from cross-Straits divisions, and the last thing it wants to see is their removal.

October 18, 2022

Paul Keating has warned us that 'our strategic sovereignty is being outsourced to another country, the US'

_‘Worried about Australian sovereignty? Don’t bother, it’s gone.’

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal