November 12, 2024

Trump's impact on the rest of the world, and Australia in particular

Somewhat surprisingly, careful analysis and modelling show that Trump’s crude attempt to Make America Great Again, mainly damages the American economy. The rest of the world, and Australia in particular, should proceed with their own business as usual.

October 27, 2024

Scientific discovery, Nobel Prizes and AI

Marie Curie discovered radioactivity, Alexander Fleming found penicillin: in the 20th century, their merit was clear when they received the Nobel Prizes. In 2024, the Physics and Chemistry Nobels are unusual, and show that the nature of discovery is changing with the advent of AI. How?

January 4, 2024

We are the Silence: How words bear witness in life and in death

In August of 2023, Yousef Maher Dawas, a young Palestinian author, wrote a story of hope and resilience, titled Kidney Transplant and Rebirth: A Palestinian Love Story. On the 14th of October, Yousef was killed by an Israeli missile strike, along with several members of his family. Remember his words. He was not a number.

March 13, 2023

The SMH and Age Red Alert is unwarranted and dangerous

The articles published last week by the SMH and Age under the heading, Red Alert, are deeply flawed. The intent seems to panic us into war. But the many assertions are not supported by evidence or credible argument.

February 17, 2023

The Abdication of Australian Sovereignty

Reducing the risk of Australia becoming trapped in an American war in Asia, again, requires the Australian government to give notice now to the United States that it wishes to withdraw from the Force Posture Agreement.

January 31, 2023

Explaining Israels oppression: cruelty, evil, apartheid and colonisation

On January 27, Israeli forces kill 10 Palestinians in Jenin, including two youths and an elderly woman. The following day a lone Palestinian gunman shoots dead seven Israelis as they leave a synagogue in a settlement in East Jerusalem.

February 28, 2022

Theres little understanding of Russian history in the mainstream media

What would the United States do if it had potentially hostile states threatening its borders, much as the Russians face the NATO military alliance?

October 13, 2020

Private Schools: Blessed are the rich

Last year Shores income was $87.54 million. It is a rich school for kids of rich parents. It is also a charity. Yes, just like Habitat Australia, in Mount Street, North Sydney, just down the road from the school, Shore is a registered charity.

January 5, 2025

Noam Chomsky, the voice silenced, the legacy unending

Voted many times by UK and US magazines as the most important public intellectual in the world, Noam Chomsky, scientist, linguist, human rights activist, suffered a stroke at age 95 and can no longer speak. Yet as 2025 begins, Chomsky at 96 gifts the world his examples of inquiry and dissent. These qualities he might say, remain the much needed means to strive for freedom, justice and peace.

December 29, 2024

Best of 2024: Electric vehicles will crush fossil cars on price as lithium and battery prices fall

If it wasn’t already clear, the writing is now well and truly on the wall for the fossil car makers: Just a week after BYD launched its $US15,000 “ Corolla killer” and with the world’s largest EV battery maker recently announcing it’s on track to cut battery costs in half this year, new research suggests the decline in EV prices may by happening faster than thought.

October 7, 2024

On election day, accountability takes centre stage

If the government and Opposition think they will not be held accountable, they should think again.

November 15, 2023

Ending Jewish Israels domination a re-humanising act: UN Special Rapporteur

Invoking a shared humanity, UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese called for a rehumanisation discourse in the Israel/Palestine conflict, in which ending Jewish Israels domination would be a re-humanising act for Jewish Israelis as well.

March 5, 2023

Ukraine anniversary

The anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine war gives us pause to reflect on recent global shifts which affect our security.

February 8, 2023

America the strong

The foundational story of the United States of America is its fight for freedom against tyranny. Every schoolchild learns of how the American revolutionaries fought bravely to be freed from the tyranny of King George III of England. They learn the indomitable freedom fighters heroic sayings, such as Give me liberty or give me death! and I regret that I have but one life to give for my country.

January 7, 2023

A feast of new reading: Volume 3

With changes in the world, the media landscape also changes. There are shifts in particular outlets and new outlets emerge. In this changing landscape, we need a few tools and guide posts for what will be a lively ride in 2023.

November 28, 2022

How the US is rupturing the Transatlantic alliance with Europe

We are at an inflexion point in world affairs in which the economies of Europe and East Asia are paying the price for a misguided US strategy to re-establish its position as leader of a unipolar world and defeat competition from China and Russia.

November 16, 2022

AUKUS and the corruption of Australias Universities

Our universities have become the industrial brothel-keepers to the nation’s fevered national security imaginary.

September 11, 2021

Afghanistan intervention marks the beginning of the US' decline

It is time to forget the idea that the whole world should conform to the principles and values for which America alone stands, no matter how admirable they may appear to be. It was never feasible and it is conducive of conflict.

January 4, 2025

The PM’s sham Barton preselection.

Angry, frustrated, insulted – these are some of the expressions Barton locals have used to describe this sham National Executive ‘preselection’ process, imposing the Prime Minister’s pick.

December 28, 2024

How we got to Gaza: a compendium

The linked article “How we got to Gaza 2024”, is a compendium put together by retired Adelaide historian CL Parkes. The source material is the work of such writers as Ilan Pappe., Robert Fisk, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, Shlomo Sand and Edward Said. Of course, there are others, and behind them all is the Holy Bible.

December 24, 2024

Christ wasn’t born in a stable so that Palestinians could be born in tents

I just attended a wonderful Christmas concert at St Mary of the Angels in Wellington – the Bach Choir, the Chiesa Ensemble and excellent soloists sent a thrill through my body. The final piece, Gloria by Antonio Vivaldi, triggered these thoughts.

January 12, 2024

Crossing +1.5oC: Toward an uninhabitable Earth

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)

December 9, 2023

Labor losers

The emptiness of modern Labor is now on full display: maligning refugees, promoting fossil fuels, tinkering around the edge of social crisis, pandering to the wealthy, condoning mass murder, adopting policies of Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison.

October 19, 2023

Do we do backbones?

We had high hopes

March 17, 2023

War mongering and the peace rally

Lest we forget the consequences, today we recall the great lie of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq which led to the smashing of that country and the slaughter of hundreds of thousand of innocent men, women and children.

November 20, 2022

Shaoquett Moselmane- A Principled Parliamentarian removed by NSW Labor

Many ask me why I am leaving the NSW Parliament. To be frank, certain political forces wanted me out. The decision was then taken to remove me. It was falsely put in the media that I wanted to retire. It was not true.

October 13, 2022

The War in Ukraine: A report from Moscow

At last count there was only one English speaker reporting the war from the Russian side. For this recent visitor to Moscow, Mr Putins war hardly seemed to exist. No soldiers are marching the streets. The TV featured endless food shows.

February 21, 2022

The Chinese dead cat in the ring

_If I were a major superpower wondering which political party of an unfriendly country I would prefer won an election, I doubt that I would choose the one most likely to be friendly or ni_ce.

October 28, 2021

Olympic movement must not buckle to China's critics

There have certainly been human rights abuses by Chinese authorities. But calls for a boycott of the 2022 Winter Games are misjudged.

March 6, 2025

Nuclear power’s global stagnation and decline

The current push in Australia to deploy nuclear power reactors once again contrasts an excessive optimism by nuclear proponents against the continuing stagnant situation of nuclear power worldwide. That contrast is the subject of our new report for the EnergyScience Coalition.

March 21, 2024

Podcast: Rifts in the art world over Gaza

Quentin Dempster interviews Australias living national treasure, Barry Jones, on the rifts in the Australian art world over Gaza, and the pathways away from violence and towards a political settlement in the Israel-Palestine conflict.

December 31, 2023

Different views of Australias population from agencies in the same portfolio

Three days before Christmas, Treasurys Centre for Population has without much fanfare issued its 2023 Population Statement.

March 28, 2023

If we spit the American dummy, what becomes of us?

Very simply, we have to shake out cobwebs and think for ourselves. While it sounds simple, it is actually hard when trying to separate from a dominant ally and the illusory truth effect which envelopes us daily.

February 25, 2023

Environment: humans must care for our travelling companions: earths animals, plants and ecosystems

Indigenous owned forests in the Amazon absorb carbon; non-Indigenous forests produce carbon. Chicken and pig factories are bad for the animals and bad for the climate.

February 15, 2023

CCTV cameras: of arrogance and ignorance

What motivated the Australian government when it announced that it would get rid of CCTV cameras on public buildings because they were Chinese devices? They are to be discarded not because they malfunction but because they function all too well.

November 18, 2022

Employers cry wolf once again

Low wage growth has held the Australian economy back. Contrary to the employers scare campaign, the Governments proposal to facilitate multi-employer bargaining offers the prospect of some improvement, especially for those employees whose bargaining position is weakest.

October 5, 2022

Optus privacy policy vague, full of holes

I was a midwife at Optus conception and birth. So it gives me no joy to watch Optus privacy predicaments. As a long time privacy law practitioner, I have a particular insight into Optus responses to the massive haemorrhage of the personal data of half the Australian adult population.

January 2, 2022

Liberals now a pitiful shadow of the party founded by Menzies

The threat to Australia’s democracy from a damaged right is growing with the Coalition government mired in deceit, corruption and ideological extremism.

January 7, 2025

South Korea back to the streets for democracy

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol’s abortive attempt to impose martial law has triggered a very serious constitutional firestorm and presented the US with an extremely complicated challenge. Yoon pathetically claimed he was responding to a growing North Korean threat “within his government”, but it was obvious that his dramatic move was born out of his frustration with the National Assembly.

November 22, 2024

Defying settler colonialism

Far from the killing grounds of Gaza, an incredible display of defiance to settler colonialism has broken out in, of all places, New Zealand. The two projects - Israel and New Zealand’s - are linked more than many would like to think. Palestinian leaders raise their voices in support of New Zealand’s Māori people at this critical moment.

November 8, 2024

The US on the road to fascism: a time to loosen our ties

The fascist trend in America’s politics portends a lasting erosion of the underpinnings of the ties which have bound Australia to its most important ally and provides a powerful reason for us to loosen these ties.

November 4, 2024

The 2-Israel Problem

Palestine’s problem is only partly expressed as a frustrated 2-State Solution; it might, more effectively be understood as a 2-Israel problem.

March 14, 2023

Scorpion thresher: Albanese trashes the moral core of his party

A White House fact sheet released as part of publicity for Australias decision to spend almost $400 billion on nuclear submarines is false. It claims, For over 60 years, the UK and the US have operated more than 500 naval nuclear reactors . . . without incident or adverse effect on human health or the quality of the environment. In fact, as discussed below, two US nuclear submarines sunk during that period with the loss of all lives on boarda loss most people would consider to have had a serious effect on human health.

March 29, 2025

China’s war is almost here: Anti-China Media Watch

_Mainstream media tells us exactly when China will invade Taiwan; it continues to run the false narrative that the Chinese naval ships fired missiles into the path of commercial airliners; and China, with a solitary overseas military base versus 800 US bases, poses a massive risk to our masters in Washington.

March 11, 2025

Give us a break, Alfred

It feels funny. Here I am, supposedly writing a book about the climate catastrophe as my house, street, town, and region are being buffeted by a category 2 cyclone. Cyclone Alfred.

February 3, 2025

'Never Again' means no Holocaust against the Palestinian people right now!

Mark Dreyfus wrote an article in, The Guardian (29 January 2025) entitled, ’ For my great-grandparents, for all Jews, for all humanity, I say never again ‘. Here is my response.

January 6, 2025

Best of 2024: 'Disingenuous theatre dressed up as major news': Why the ABC is losing credibility

ABC supporters across the country are dismayed and angry with the national broadcaster. The biggest threat to the ABC today is its craven and distorted performance in television current affairs reporting.

December 9, 2024

"WHY are we doing Netanyahu’s bidding?" Jeffrey Sachs on Syria, Assad and Putin

Professor Jeffrey Sachs, having become a staple of the disruptive discourse that is so valued on Uncensored, joins Piers Morgan yet again for a one-to-one interview on the state of the world. The most shocking development over recent days has been the rapid advance of Syrian rebel troops and their capture of the City of Aleppo. Sachs tries to explain that the conflict is extremely complicated, but that the main culprit is none other than Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

October 9, 2023

Australian Jewish Democratic Society statement on Hamas attacks

The Australian Jewish Democratic Society (AJDS) unreservedly condemns Hamas for its attack on Israel. 250 young people killed at a music festival is a massacre. That action and hostage-taking of civilians are war crimes.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal