November 4, 2023

The moral complexities of bombing a concentration camp full of children

Israel created Hamas - Now THEYRE DROPPING BOMBS ON A CONCENTRATION CAMP FULL OF CHILDREN.

March 1, 2023

Haaretz: Israel is now a formal, full-fledged apartheid regime

Following yet another Israeli Settler killing spree and the annexation of the West Bank, Israel is now a formal, full-fledged apartheid regime, writes leading Isreali newspaper Haaretz.

December 27, 2022

Best of 2022: The great game in Ukraine is spinning out of control

Former US National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinskifamously described Ukraine as a geopolitical pivot of Eurasia, central to both US and Russian power. Since Russia views its vital security interests to be at stake in the current conflict, the war in Ukraine is rapidly escalating to a nuclear showdown. Its urgent for both the US and Russia to exercise restraint before disaster hits.

January 31, 2025

Time to hold unprincipled politicians accountable

The deliberate extermination of a large population group or nation, aiming to eradicate their future, is genocide. According to the International Court of Justice, Israel’s war amounted to genocide resulting in the deaths of 48,156 Palestinians including 17,841 children. Both major parties have supported Israel’s war and the supply of intelligence and arms. It’s time to hold politicians who have supported genocide to account. At this election, say “no” to genocide by putting Labor second last and Liberals last.

December 28, 2024

From Auschwitz to Gaza, with a stopover in The Hague

Benjamin Netanyahu will not travel to Poland next month for the main ceremony marking the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp, over concern that he could be arrested on the basis of the warrant issued against him by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

October 9, 2024

Pope Francis' latest 'creations'

Pope Francis has just ‘created’ (appointed) twenty-one new cardinals, twenty of whom under the age of 80 will elect his successor. Among them is a bishop in Australia.

January 18, 2024

Australians at risk if they serve in the IDF

Australian citizens are at risk of being prosecuted under Australian law if they commit, or are complicit in crimes being perpetrated by the Israeli Defence Forces in Gaza.

March 24, 2023

Turning Damocles Sword against the people

In an unprecedented way, Australias government has now risked both the countrys prosperity and safety in the service of a foreign power, with the setting in stone of AUKUS by a Labor government.

February 10, 2023

The US sees China through the dark mirror of its own unbridled aggression

As China grows and prospers many in the US want us to believe that China will follow the same path that the US itself pursued-global military aggression, the overthrow of numerous governments around the world and persecution of minorities at home.

December 18, 2022

Is China Australia's biggest security threat?

No, its catastrophic climate change. Avoiding that threat needs co-operation with countries like China, not conflict. Australias challenge is to get our priorities right and be a constructive player in addressing the existential climate threat that all nations face.

January 29, 2022

Duplicitous Ukrainian government is no innocent victim of Russian bullying

Anti-Russian troops and militias have been determined to wipe out the two pro-Russian provincial holdouts approved by the 2015 Minsk agreement.

November 5, 2024

The United States empire is almost always at war

The US empire is addicted to a belief in its exceptionalism, grounded in aggression both at home and abroad, and finding it hard to admit mistakes.

March 15, 2024

Reversing Europes and Australias slide into irrelevance and insecurity

Europe and Australia are facing a common existential threat: a creeping irrelevance caused, on the one hand, by our failure properly to invest and, on the other hand, by our ill-considered slide from a strategic dependence on the United States to a non-strategic, self-defeating servility to Washingtons policy agenda.

February 26, 2024

After Ukraine: US readies "transnational kill chain" for Taiwan proxy war

The US senses that the clock is running rapidly down on its power. The question in Washington regarding war with China is not if, but when–and how.

January 26, 2024

It's okay! I am a Zionist

October 2, 2023

Rethinking China and the new world order

The world is now experiencing a new era of multilateralism. The Quad (India, US, Japan, Australia) now sits alongside the G20, the G7, and has been joined by AUKUS (Australia, UK, US), and the great new vision of the Indo Pacific. BRICS, around for almost two decades, looks like it might expand to become a gathering for the newly emerging global South. That is before we take on board the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Asia Pacific Economic Conference (APEC) and the collection of other acronyms that increasingly dot across the world.

January 16, 2023

HIMARS: Australia's missile fetishism

The announcement this month by the Albanese government that Australia would be acquiring HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System) batteries from the United States can be put down to a few factors. One is that sense of being left out of the club. If European states can have such launchers with seemingly devastating effect, why not us?

December 22, 2022

Canberra and Beijing The last fifty years of mutual benefits

The fiftieth anniversary, this year, of Canberras recognition of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) in Beijing as the sole legitimate government of China, has triggered many reflections.

February 9, 2022

Restore trust by letting the voters see who is paying the piper, in real time

In 2019 a billionaire spent $83.6 million to influence a federal election. Why in 2022 is our democracy still for sale?

October 24, 2021

Why we should halve carbon emissions by 2030

Net zero for carbon emissions in 2050 is meaningless without an ambitious target to halve these emissions in the next decade. In a two-part article, Michael Keating sets out why we need a more dramatic target.

October 6, 2021

Australia has proved fertile ground for US anti-intellectual propaganda

Cynical conservative strategies in US politics have well and truly made their way into Australian discourse just look at the demands of the rioters in Melbourne for Ivermectin.

March 7, 2025

The Australian jellyfish: Anti-China Media Watch

The Australian labels Albanese a “jellyfish” in the face of Chinese naval vessels, ironically the barbs came from a faceless columnist. Kudos to The Australian for keeping tabs on a US nuclear submarine in our waters, but the headline act for the Murdoch masthead was hosting its own event for weapons makers and China hawks.

February 3, 2025

Australia: a large land thinking small

At 7,688,287 square kilometres Australia is the sixth largest country in the world. It is the oldest continent, also home to the oldest continuing civilisation, the history of Aboriginal people reaching back some 75,000 years. Why then, has such a large nation, with such long existence and a civilisation, become so small in its thinking?

December 15, 2024

Environment: Global plastic pollution treaty talks collapse

Should we focus on the plastic or the pollution to eliminate plastic pollution? How to ensure that climate action produces a fairer, more inclusive, healthier world. Brush turkey urban population takes off.

October 26, 2024

“Systemic criminality”: The reality of Israel’s destruction of Gaza

“Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.” That is from the Facebook page of the deputy commander of Israel’s 749 Combat Engineering Battalion (the 749) Lieutenant Colonel Adi Bekore. Did he mean it? It seems, tragically for those Palestinians now deceased and those who have had their lives destroyed, and for humanity generally, he did.

October 11, 2024

Israel does not have a right to defend itself, as our PM keeps saying

_Israel has no right of self-defence against resistance to the illegal occupation. Israel cannot both occupy Palestinian lands, and then launch an attack on those lands by citing ‘self-defence’ when occupied populations resist. Neither can Israel treat those resisting in occupied territories as enemy combatants.

March 2, 2024

Environment: Putting a price on carbon: is it worth all the trouble?

Economic theory supports a price on carbon but implemented schemes struggle to deliver emissions reductions. China firmly in the EV driving seat. Climate action is failing to meet its targets globally.

January 29, 2024

The Australian government's pause of funding to UNRWA is irresponsible and shameful

Within 24 hours of an allegation made by Mark Regev, an advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to the BBC last Friday, that 12 employees of theUnited Nations Relief and Works Agencyfor Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) participated in the October 7 operation, foreign ministers of the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and a few other countries, jumped to announce they are pausing their fundingto UNRWA, thus collectively punishing millions of Palestinian refugees throughout the region.

January 19, 2024

Cowardly refusal to support South Africa at the ICJ

In response to South Africas suit before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) charging Israel with genocide in Gaza, Australian politicians have refused to support a significant international means of ending this slaughter of Palestinians. Instead, party leaders search for words to disguise cowardice, to camouflage the lack of courage required to avoid offending Israel or the U.S.

November 26, 2023

Regulatory certainty and entrepreneurship: Unlocking Australia-China climate collaboration

Entrepreneurs occupy a pivotal role in bridging the gap between Australia and China, especially when it comes to climate collaboration.

March 12, 2023

Albanese must state clearly what he means by sovereignty

Our prime minister declares firmly that Australian sovereignty will be maintained in the new defence arrangements. He must be asked to state clearly and publicly that should the USA go to war with China Australia will not necessarily follow but could remain neutral. If this is not the case, we do not have sovereignty.

February 8, 2022

How Xi Jinping became the real-life Dr Evil through the mainstream Western media

Endless negative news stories and opinion pieces about how bad China is in almost every way are bound to shape public perception.

January 25, 2022

Conservatives venerate January 26. Do they even understand how it happened?

The British government knew almost nothing about Australia, assuming it was uninhabited and available to be exploited.

March 11, 2025

Are America’s values our values anymore?

No issue in the forthcoming election is as important as Australia’s international identity and the crisis in the Western alliance about its senior partner, the United States. The alliance is fragmenting and, it appears, President Trump is daring Europe to defend Ukraine against Russian aggression independently. He wants NATO members to double their defence spending so they are no longer freeloading from America’s military spending. Other allies, including Australia, should do so too. At just the same time, he is beginning to wage economic war against most of Europe, Canada, and Australia,by swingeing tariffs, as a punishment, he claims, for stealing American jobs.

March 21, 2024

Que sera sera: Australia will be Australia; China will be China.

Penny Wong has a new mantra for Australia China relations.

November 9, 2023

The day after: Destroying Gaza will only yield future war

At the core of the cycle of violence in Israel and Palestine is the studied blindness of two people to see the other, to accept that they have a legitimate place on the landscape. Without such acceptance, this horrific war in Gaza will not be the last.

October 5, 2023

"Distorted perspective": Kishore Mahbubani corrects journalist's perception of China

“Thank you, I am really glad you asked that question, because your question captured very well the Anglo-Saxon medias perception of China and I would suggest to you, very bluntly, there is a distorted perspective of reality.” - Kishore Mahbubani.

February 15, 2023

The Defence Strategic Review and Australia's 'Alliance' obsession

How might the renown mid-20th century linguist Ludwig Wittgenstein have addressed the current defence strategic review?

December 17, 2022

Environment: melodrama and tragedy worthy of the great storytellers

Hard times lie ahead. Are the Great Expectations of renewable energy, ocean-based removal of CO2 and protein from microbes justified?

February 18, 2022

Ian McAuleys weekly roundup

Ian McAuleys weekly roundup of links to articles, podcasts and other media on current political and economic issues in public policy.

Commentary on Morrisons political weaponization of national security. A whos who of the demonstrators who came to Canberra. Independents striking out federally and in New South Wales. More perspectives on Russia and Ukraine. Class in Australia. Australias economic recovery employment growth without wage growth. Senators teach Frydenberg how capitalism works. And more.

December 3, 2021

The contemptible prosecution of Bernard Collaery is an assault on the rule of law

The Coalition’s vindictive legal campaign reveals its contempt for democratic rights and shows how easily prosecution can slide into persecution.

November 18, 2024

Detaching Australia from the death grip of the United States

Our challenge now is to detach Australia from the death grip of the United States and to pursue an independent future, which we are quite capable of doing. To do so we will need not only to remove the old sycophantic parties but also to root out the US ‘security’ zealots from our own secretive security establishment. They will not go easily.

October 24, 2024

Australia neither moral nor powerful

When did Australia lose its morality, and along with that loss, its status as a respected middle power?

October 22, 2024

US is spending $28 billion on Sinophobic propaganda to colonise your brain

Whoever owns the narrative owns the world – and things just got a lot tougher for those of us opposed to the metastasising brain cancer known as US influence campaigns – or “perception management”.

April 4, 2024

For Albanese, one Australian life matters more than 32,000 dead Palestinians

How Albanese doesnt swallow his tongue as he vociferously demands full accountability from Israel for the killing of Zomi Frankcom yet remains silent on 32,000 other killings is anybodys guess. He waved his metaphorical fist at Netanyahu and told of Australias outrage at Zomis death. But Albanese left out the bit about many Australians outrage at the indiscriminate killing of 32,000 innocent Palestinians; not just one of our own.

March 16, 2024

The US-dominated International Order is collapsing

History will prove that the Russo-Ukrainian war and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were catalysts for paradigmatic changes in the international landscape and the driving force behind the eventual demise of the US-led liberal international order.

March 13, 2024

Gaza, Assange, and the destruction of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

As we speak, international law is being openly flouted by powerful actors, [the US, the UK, and Israel] with devastating results for Julian Assange, and other political prisoners, for thousands of innocent civilians slaughtered in Gaza, and for the continued viability of international human rights and international law themselves.

January 25, 2024

NAIDOC Invasion Day Dawn Service livestream

Each year, the Victorian branch of NAIDOC live streams a powerful Invasion Day Dawn Service at 6:15 AM AEDT .

January 20, 2024

Is climate change too hard for democracy?

We have all heard that 2023 was the warmest year ever for the world, by some margin.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal