October 15, 2021

The cringe comes back: has Australia misunderstood its place in Asia again?

_With the ever-worsening Australia-China relationship, this may be the right time to examine what is it in the Australian cultural behaviour that has landed us in this predicament.

April 6, 2021

Easter in Indonesia: a time to be wary

Easter is different in Islam-dominated Indonesia. High on the facade of the Catholic cathedral and other churches in Malang, East Java stand statues of a welcoming Jesus. Beneath his outstretched arms parishioners got the extra protection of six-wheeled armoured personnel carriers, soldiers and police ready to intimidate potential bombers.

February 8, 2025

At this point, a minority government looks likely

With the election still somewhere between eight and 14 weeks away, it is too early to get much of a guide from the opinion polls about the probable outcome – except that a majority Liberal-National Party Government, the result most favoured by those who have already punted their money on the result with the various betting agencies, is the least likely.

January 30, 2025

Labor has unfinished business on tax - Its 2024 tax cuts have failed low-paid workers

In his address to the National Press Club on 24 January 2025, Prime Minister Albanese reflected on his Government’s decision announced a year earlier to change “the tax plan we inherited from the Morrison Government to make it better and fairer”. It is likely to be a major selling point in the coming Federal election.

January 3, 2025

A (very) personal theology of disability

Who am I? I am an old man. I use a wheelchair. I had polio in 1948. I cannot remember a time when I could walk and run like other people, or when I wasn’t obviously and visibly different. I have lived with pain. But I have had a good and conventionally successful life – a long and loving marriage, two wonderful adult children, grandchildren and a rewarding career.

April 1, 2024

Peacemakers for our wounded humanity

Has there ever been a more important time for peacemaking with a universal consciousness?

January 6, 2024

Genocide in Gaza

Most of the human rights mavens in the liberal mainstream have said little about Israel’s savage actions in Gaza or the genocidal rhetoric of its leaders. Hopefully, they will explain their disturbing silence at some point. Regardless, history will not be kind to them.

December 28, 2022

Labor’s environmental denialism

Australians are getting a clearer idea of the Albanese government’s approach to the environmental crisis and it amounts to the maintenance of its long-held environmental denialism.

December 3, 2021

Front-line nurses, burnt-out or on the brink.

Pre-Covid, the healthcare system was already struggling. It’s time to invest in primary care and best practices to take that weight off nurses.

April 5, 2025

Trump's absurd trade policies will impoverish Americans and harm the world

US President Donald Trump is trashing the world trade system over a basic economic fallacy. He wrongly claims that America’s trade deficit is caused by the rest of the world ripping off the US, repeatedly stating things such as, “Over the decades, they ripped us off like no country has never been ripped off in history…”

February 25, 2025

Wendy Turner wins Al Quds Peace Prize

“Don’t send that little red Pommie Commie up here again!”

December 22, 2024

Every day is Christmas: A Quaker perspective

The peace, goodwill, and love of Christmas aren’t confined to December—there’s an opportunity to see the sacred in everyday moments, all year round.

December 7, 2024

The demon in the mirror

Incoming US President Donald Trump will force us, as citizens of the ‘West’, to face the demon in the mirror.

November 23, 2024

Australia’s Israel Policy at the Crossroads: How much worse can it get before Australia takes a principled stand?

The horrific situation in the Middle East has landed Foreign Minister Penny Wong with a difficult and frustrating job. She is wedged between a so-far unacknowledged obligation to honour Australia’s legal commitments to condemn Israeli genocide and apartheid on the one hand, and on the other, a vociferous campaign by local Zionists and their supporters to back Israel’s military actions in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon.

January 9, 2024

AUKUS and an aggressive US imperium, its reach vast, its mind paranoid

Warmongering think tanks, self-appointed members of the military commentariat, and the whole stable of security-minded cognoscenti in the Anglosphere are terrified about one thing come November 2024. Will AUKUS, that boil on Australia’s policy landscape but boon for the US military industrial complex, be lanced by Donald Trump?

November 4, 2023

Decoupling in the knowledge production sphere threatens Australia's future

An intimate and complex understanding of China is now one of the most important prerequisites for understanding and furthering our national interests. For the two nations of China and Australia, to allow tensions and misunderstandings to provoke a decoupling in the knowledge production sphere –whether it be in the sciences, the social sciences or the humanities – would be extremely unwise, from the point of view of securing Australia’s future.

October 30, 2023

In the Chinese new era, what’s new is old

Industrial transformation has accelerated China’s rise as a global power. In the New Era, which was officially recognised in the Chinese national constitution in 2017, the narrative of national rejuvenation is writ large: it underpins the Community of Shared Future, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and China’s various soft power campaigns.

October 7, 2022

Indonesia suppresses data on critically endangered Orangutan habitat threats

Outsiders doing business in Indonesia are urged to be polite and follow cultural norms. That also goes for academics, and the ones in this story have been exemplars of courtesy. But that hasn’t stopped their findings from getting rubbished and motives trashed.

February 7, 2022

Counting of deaths in aged care, but no accounting for deaths in aged care

The death rate from Omicron in the elderly is staggering. And these are not “good deaths” whereby these elderly are surrounded by their loved ones.

January 25, 2022

An obliteration of ASPI’s 'Uyghurs For Sale' report: take two

You would think that, if an Australian think tank was warned they were contributing to violations of the human rights of an ethnic minority group, due consideration would be given to that warning. Not so when it comes to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), it would seem.

February 7, 2025

The return North, through the durée of the Palestinian Nakba

Al Jazeera’s reporter Hind Khoudary has in the last few days posted a report documenting her journey back to her home in northern Gaza.

October 10, 2024

Productivity growth has slowed: will it recover?

Restoring the rate of productivity growth is critical to future living standards, but unless technological change accelerates living standards may not increase as fast as we are used to in future.

February 24, 2024

Usual cruelties: Imbeciles who fear the borders

The imaginative faculties of standard Australian politicians retreat to some strange, deathly place on certain issues. In that wasteland, they are often unrecoverable. Like juveniles demanding instant reward, they find complexity hideous. Focus on the now, the punch, the bruising, the hurt. That, in sum, is Canberra’s policy towards refugees.

February 7, 2024

Too late? Climate change denial and the rise of fascism

“… but they can be sure that they won’t be recorded for their crimes in history – because there won’t be any history” (Noam Chomsky, 2023, in a letter to the author)

January 9, 2024

Summing Up: 'One of the best books I have ever read'

I am really enjoying reading Summing Up. It is one of the best books I have ever read. And I read a lot!

December 20, 2023

Ukraine: what did the government know and when?

As Australia’s expands its support to the NATO proxy war against Russia it is critical that the Parliament plays a role in determining when we become involved in overseas conflicts.

November 6, 2023

The rise of China’s “Australianists”: game-changing opportunity for bilateral relations

Vision, passion, and commitment of the forerunners in the Australian Studies community in China and Australia have paved the way for the emergence of such an exceptional intellectual community over four decades. It is a visionary and responsible question to ask: where should the community head in the next four decades?

December 21, 2022

"No relationship more important" than China for Australia

Xi Jinping is the only foreign head of state who has visited all Australian states and mainland territories, very warmly welcomed. Let’s not accept the blarney that he’s changed. He’s had to fight a lot and has a bad press in the west, engineered_. As Bob Hawke once said: “There is no relationship Australia has that is more important than our relationship with China.”_

December 12, 2022

Australia – the last colonial power?

It’s time to take a closer look at how the origins of Australia’s relationship with its three island territories is structured by past centuries of colonialism.

November 20, 2022

How to fix the broken system of public policy making

Last week the NSW Legislative Council introduced a standing order requiring that all government bills include a Statement of Public Interest (SPI). This is the first time in Australia that a public policy framework for interrogating bills has been given legal force. It’s a big breakthrough that other governments and parliaments should emulate.

November 8, 2022

Budget Repair: Tax increases or expenditure cuts?

The Treasurer wants a national conversation about how best to repair the Budget. But that conversation will only help if it is based on a realistic analysis of the difficulties involved in achieving lower spending and therefore why tax increases must be on the agenda.

October 8, 2022

The Government is undermining its own National Anti-Corruption Commission bill

Is the Government undermining its own National Anti-Corruption Commission in an attempt to prevent it being nobbled by a future LNP Government? And is it able to future-proof it?

March 8, 2022

The problem on the floodplain where we should not be building.

After Lismore’s horrific flood, we simply must reconsider our approach to development on floodplains.

October 7, 2021

Did China violate Taiwan's airspace? It's not that simple

The rush to panicked headlines by the American and Australian media about Chinese military manoeuvres over the Taiwan Strait revealed the shallowness of their understanding of the basic issues involved.

March 16, 2025

Environment: The folly of focusing on net zero

Governments and corporations have been tricking the public by focusing emissions reduction attention on net, rather than real, zero. Reducing methane emissions would reduce global warming quickly and cheaply. Bring back our swamps.

October 12, 2024

Australia’s evolving nuclear posture: avoiding a fait accompli (Part 1 of 2)

A monumental transformation: There has been a great deal of public criticism of Australia’s decision to acquire a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines (SSNs) via the AUKUS security partnership. The criticism has been both broad and deep, spanning political and industrial challenges, budgetary consequences, safety and environmental concerns, strategic risks, and the erosion of national sovereignty.

February 27, 2024

Amidst strategic stalemate, Ukraine war remains Vatican priority

Two years since the Russian invasion, Ukraine has faded from the headlines. But not in the Vatican and for the man who might be the next Pope.

November 7, 2023

Climate policy: The widening reality gap

The global warming problem seems increasingly insoluble. The past record shows growing gaps between ambition and achievement, decreasing time in which to act, and governments, including Australia’s, stubbornly sticking to policies that have failed to stop emissions growth. Clues to the reasons behind this can be found in the Treasurer’s address to the Economic and Social Outlook Conference, Melbourne.

March 10, 2023

We are being led to war with China to satisfy American hegemonic interests

As the American Empire is attempting to open up another war front with China and dragging us into it, the Doomsday clock is now 10 seconds to midnight. Can we resist?

February 25, 2023

Australian politicians in lock step with pro-Israeli forces over Adelaide Festival

It’s quite remarkable how quickly Australian politicians and ministers fell in lock step with pro-Israeli forces trying to sabotage the Adelaide Festival because I and Mohammad El-Kurd refuse to be silent on more than seven decades of systematic Israeli terrorism against us. The fact that some people think our words are too harsh means they either do not know the full extent of Israel’s daily barbarity and apartheid, or they do and support it, writes Susan Abulhawa in an interview with Pearls and Irritations.

January 27, 2023

The challenge for 2023: Taiwan and North Korea

It is self evident that the US: China relationship - with Taiwan at its core - will be the most pressing strategic issue for Australia in 2023.

December 8, 2022

Whitlam strengthened the public service. Can Albanese do the same?

The Whitlam government fostered a great strengthening of the public service and its policy capacity. Sadly, much of that has been lost with the excessive political controls of more recent governments. Can the Albanese Government reverse some of the decline?

October 18, 2022

In Ukraine, Australia has forgotten the lessons of Iraq, Afghanistan

_When a new Labor government was elected in May of this year there was a degree of optimism that their reform agenda would extend to foreign policy. Those hopes were not to be realised. The last Labor government to show a measure of independence in its foreign policy was the Whitlam government that ruled from 1972 to 1975. Among its brave foreign policy initiatives was to withdraw Australian troops from the Vietnam war.

January 28, 2022

Neoliberalism, risk management and government failure

This economic fad is riddled with hypocrisy. The ‘government off our back’ brigade is quick to put their hand out to government when in trouble.

October 21, 2024

Our vision of a republic must be an all-encompassing one

While most of us are fixated on why the King needs to travel to this country with his own supply of fresh blood or how many pomps his ceremonies will need, there are more serious issues raised by the visit to Australia of Charles Mountbatten Windsor, who by birthright holds central powers in Australia’s constitution.

March 2, 2024

Foreign agents have infiltrated our most secret government establishments

The mass media got itself into a flap this week (28, 29 Feb & 1 March) over ASIO Director, Mike Burgess’ claim that a former Australian politician “sold out their country, party and former colleagues” after being recruited by spies of a foreign regime.

October 15, 2023

Environment: On track for 2 degrees of warming within 20 years

Based on what’s actually happening rather than unfulfilled promises, the world will exceed 2oC of warming in the early 2040s and it doesn’t look like a comfortable place to be (not even for succulents).

January 21, 2023

The Ultra High Net Worth Individual’s strongest weapon: News Corp

We are at a crossroads. The Ultra High Net Worth Individual (UHNWI) class is creating a new international feudal order, assisted by the professional enabler class including politicians in pursuit of their money. One of those enabling mechanisms is the media. In Australia, News Corp serves as the strongest weapon in the creation of their desired world.

November 26, 2022

Interpreting and misinterpreting America’s mid-term election

No ‘red wave’, but some Democrats mused that they lost the election. Actually, they were serious. Had the Republicans attained their red wave, Democrat’s would not have had to worry about Joe Biden running again and the likelihood he will lose the next presidential election.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal