October 28, 2024

A relay station of the western propaganda apparatus: Response to Alfred McCoy

In ‘Powder keg in the Pacific’ Alfred McCoy is wrong from the very first sentence. He confounds cause and effect, revises history, reverses belligerent and defender, and hard-packs his article through and through with US state department mendacity.

November 9, 2023

UN Special Rapporteur Albanese visits Australia as government refuses to back Gaza ceasefire

In her first report in October 2022, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Francesca Albanese recommended that UN member states develop a plan to end the Israeli settler-colonial occupation and apartheid regime. What message will she now bring to Australia?

October 10, 2022

No place for AFP in anti-corruption teams

The national secretary of the Australian Federal Police Association, Alex Karuana, may have had empires and AFP pay increases in mind when he sounded a caution about the national anti-corruption commission, about which he is generally enthusiastic. Yet theres the risk, he warns, that staffing the NACC may strip the AFP of critical expertise and operational capacity, thus weakening the AFP capacity to fight crime and win.

March 28, 2021

Australia's human rights failings seriously exposed

Every four years, all member states of the United Nations are required to submit their human rights record for review by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC). Australia had its turn in January this year. By any account, Australias record with respect to the protection of human rights remains relatively satisfactory. However, the recent interchange that took place between Australia and other member states of the UNHRC disclosed the existence of serious deficits in our protective responsibilities.

November 15, 2024

Environmental breakdown: We have been warned

Sometimes a single event can throw global problems into sharp relief. The recent flood in Spain is one such phenomenon. If past experience is anything to go by, however, the implications of this catastrophic ‘weather event’ are likely to be studiously ignored by those in a position to do something about them.

March 26, 2024

EPBC Act reform must offer a sustainable future based on science

The operation of democracy in Australia is incapable of addressing the impending environmental and climate crises because of conflict between tested truth and convenient lies.

January 27, 2024

The bloodied sands of time

Lost in the sands of Iraq…

February 22, 2023

Defence as an Australian paradox: explaining veteran suicides

It is absolutely essential that society inquiries into the fate of Australias war veterans. There are many reasons for our failure to rehabilitate veterans successfully, but unless we confront the nature of military activity, such investigations will remain superficial.

February 13, 2023

The Frontier Thesis and the middle kingdom

It goes without saying, and even better with saying, that America’s destiny is now tied up with China, which means so too is Australia’s.

January 12, 2023

When family and firm collide: escaping a royal horror story

At the heart of Prince Harrys latest salvo in the trans-Atlantic royal family breakdown, now clearly beyond repair, is his ultimate target the media-Palace relationship which has torn his family apart and which in its public disintegration now threatens the monarchy itself.

November 16, 2022

COP 27: Sleepwalking to global armageddon

An article in the prestigious journal Nature shows a dramatic increase in the likelihood of tipping points causing a runway disruption to the globes environment. Australia and other governments participating in COP 27 are nevertheless sleepwalking along a path which wrongly assumes a predictable manageable rise in temperatures.

November 4, 2021

How Scotty from Marketing seeks to deceive about climate change

The Morrison governments proposed response to the threat of climate change tries to reconcile different interests by deceiving them both.

March 20, 2025

Geopolitics, Australia-China-US relationship and its impacts on Australian-Chinese voting priorities

The recording to the UTS-Australia China Relations Institute panel discussion can be accessed via this link:

October 21, 2023

The morally righteous

The Lords Of Humankind are not morally righteous. They are Saturn devouring his children. And they do have human form.

March 9, 2023

Independent occupational shortage body for employer sponsored visas would not work

This editorial in the Sydney Morning Herald suggests an independent body should determine which occupations are in shortage for employer sponsored visas rather than using labour market testing. That would be a mistake.

March 2, 2023

Beyond words: Labors betrayal of Australia

From our Minister for Foreign Affairs Australians must expect ever more duplicity, more smoothing the path to war orchestrated by America, for Americas ends. Its a struggle for words to convey the enormity of what we face. It is beyond our politicians. Australia is being dragged into war. No doubt.

January 8, 2023

Where are China-U.S. relations going? Must watch interview

There is a battle in the US between so called hardliners, so called neocons or neoconservatives, and those who want cooperative relations with China.

November 26, 2022

Americas Taiwan endgame options

We could hardly expect, nowadays, that the US would ever have Chinas best interests at heart (or vice versa). But ultimately, neither does the US have the best interests of Taiwan at heart. It is the perceived hegemonic security interests of a fearful America that unquestionably dominate how America identifies what matters most of all: US geopolitical interests in Taiwan.

November 9, 2022

NSW police Strike Force Guard III formed to silence threats to fossil fuel driven political order

In NSW a special task force, Strike Force Guard III, has been established to target environmental groups in a concerted state attempt to silence anyone they view as a threat to the prevailing fossil-fuel driven political order. Conditions imposed on activists are now more severe than those meted out to some perpetrators of domestic violence or members of bikie gangs.

October 24, 2022

Author of The Australians editorial on Jerusalem: Identify yourself and defend your views

The Editorial appearing in The Australian entitled Labors Israel decision gets worse on the 21st of October demands an answer. The author of the Editorial is not identified but I would invite that person to identify himself.

October 1, 2022

The drumbeat of history sounds for the Monarchy

Australia is at an inflection point. The illusion of Pax Britannia is just that. The time for a historical reckoning has arrived. The gruesome facts of colonial violence and the heroism of past and ongoing Indigenous resistance can no longer be denied.

February 8, 2022

Losing control: Morrison out on his own on campaign trail

Scott Morrison will be on another one-man campaign none of his colleagues are much help and those who could be are focused on their own survival.

January 31, 2022

Turning away: will Australians render Grace Tame's judgment on Morrison?

The Australian of the Year was immune to the Prime Minister’s blandishments. He may find the voters in a similar frame of mind.

March 13, 2025

Sad day for the US as it fails an ally

I don’t intend to move these round-ups into international relations. There are excellent Australian sources with a foreign policy orientation – Pearls and Irritations, the Lowy Institute and Australian Foreign Affairs. But events around Trump’s betrayal of Ukraine should have repercussions not only for our foreign policy, but also for our domestic policy, particularly in the way we may be led or misled by the strongman “leader”.

January 10, 2025

Clive Palmer’s foreign investor claims against Australia now $420b

Clive Palmer’s latest claims as a Singaporean coal mine investor using foreign investor state dispute settlement rights in trade agreements to claim billions from the Australian Government join a growing global list of ISDS claims by fossil fuel companies defined by the UN and the OECD as threats to the global climate transition. Labor should speed up its policy to remove ISDS from trade agreements and support proposals for coordinated multilateral withdrawal from ISDS arrangements.

December 27, 2024

Apollo Go's robotaxi service in China a glimpse into future of transport

Since Baidu expanded its autonomous ride-hailing service Apollo Go in Wuhan in May 2022, the driverless taxi service has rapidly gained popularity among locals and visitors alike. It has become one of the city’s “must-try” experiences, drawing widespread attention from industry professionals both in China and abroad.

December 12, 2023

Governments must take drastic action on climate, not pander to the public, or were all doomed to boil

For truly effective measures to counter climate change, governments need to break from the ideological clutches of classical free market economics. Systemic change must be led by governments with requisite political power and intent, well-defined objectives, and authority to act without fear.

March 10, 2023

Who are the gang of five pushing Australia to war?

The Age and Sydney Morning Herald have failed to publish, except in the most cursory sense, the current or recent past associations of their gang of five experts who apparently believe Australia could be at war with China in as little as three years.

February 26, 2023

Defence strategy, climate change and the need for AUKUS in 2050

The AUKUS deal for nuclear submarines by 2050 indicates that government has little grasp of the likely chaotic state of the world after current trajectories on climate and environmental change have played out for the next 27 years. In turn this engenders insecurity over their knowledge and ability to deliver appropriate policies on these threats.

November 23, 2022

Victorian election: return of Labor government likely amid tightening polls

It is very difficult to get a clear picture of what is likely to happen in the Victorian election on Saturday.

January 24, 2022

Four strategies to help vaccinate the world against COVID-19

To bring the COVID-19 pandemic under control, vaccination rates in the most vulnerable countries need to increase.

March 14, 2025

Government funding increases entrench private school resource advantage

Government funding increases for Catholic and Independent schools have outstripped those for public schools since 2009 and entrenched a major resource advantage for them. New figures published by the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority show Catholic and Independent schools have a much higher income per student than public schools across Australia and in nearly every state/territory.

January 31, 2025

Why isn't a possible apocalypse at the top of political debate?

Last Tuesday night (2 am AEDT – 10 am US EST), the Doomsday Clock yet again moved its hands closer than ever towards midnight. ‘Midnight’ in this context means an event sequence that would destroy what we call ‘civilisation’, and probably involve the deaths of all or most humans as well as cataclysmic impacts on global ecosystems.

October 27, 2024

On not being in control, and learning to ‘Go Round’

“It was we who did the dispossessing. We took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life. We brought the diseases and the alcohol." - Paul Keating, Redfern speech.

January 29, 2024

The 2025 Federal Election - what are we to do?

For many of us a burning issue in our lives at this time is clearly what is happening in the Middle East or more particularly Palestine.

November 16, 2023

Beyond the mainstream media: The why of Chinese foreign policy

China is very important for Australia. The recent Prime Ministerial visit to Beijing, the first in seven years, underscores that. The fundamental question we need to ask ourselves across all the various sectors of Australias multi-faceted China-interested community is, are we getting China right? Do we know as much as we think we know? If were not, and if we dont, the potential for missteps and miscalculations are very high, and the implications for heightening tensions and divisions are very negative.

January 18, 2023

Historically, its Japan, not China, that invades other countries

With Japan just having taken over the presidency of the Group of 7 at the beginning of 2023, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has wound up a six-day visit to Britain, France, Italy, Canada and the United States.

March 15, 2022

Double standards by the International Criminal Court

Are the people of Ukraine more worthy and valuable than the people of Yemen?

January 23, 2022

Women's rights in Indonesia: progress amid the division

Resistance to proposed legislation against sexual violence underlines the uphill task faced by moderates seeking change in a male-dominated society.

January 29, 2025

“All I wanted was to bid my daughter a final farewell.” Hostages and the mainstream media

Watching footage of Palestinian parliamentarian and hostage Khalida Jarrar emerge from Israeli captivity was jarring – a far, muffled cry from the sense of happiness and relief most of us felt seeing the young female Israeli soldiers released by Hamas around the same time. What a study in contrast.

January 4, 2025

Can true nuclear independence be achieved without ending the US Alliance?

Australia’s historical commitment to nuclear disarmament is facing new challenges, as critics say the nation’s alliance with the United States is leading to a conflicted stance on nuclear non-proliferation.

November 5, 2024

Recall Rudd

The Foreign minister Penny Wong should recall Kevin Rudd as Australia’s ambassador to Washington.

March 11, 2024

No slowing the ACT rape merry-go-round

Litigation about the alleged rape in a ministers office at Parliament House in 2019 more than five years ago seems to continue to multiply, if with ever decreasing prospects of ever resolving any issues at the heart of the matter. This is something that is now, at law, unknowable in any sort of criminal justice sense, given that the accused man cannot be retried.

February 17, 2024

Hebron and links to todays far right Israeli politics

In July last year I went on a study tour to Palestine with the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN). I witnessed apartheid but also resilience and resistance. I met with Palestinian and Israeli women and men dedicated to a just outcome for Palestinians. Unlike our Western politicians they were walking the talk.

January 30, 2023

Voice vote may demand blood in the water

It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that the referendum on the Voice will be won not as a virtually unanimous offering to First Nations Australians but narrowly in an ugly, bitter and divisive brawl between older and younger Australians. Even a win will have the capacity to leave divisions in the nation, and in political parties that will endure for many years.

January 17, 2023

David McBride: the Army whistleblower. Read the full interview here

“When a soldier dies, the one thing we need to be able to do is to look their widow in the eye and say, Your husband didnt die in vain. If that is bullshit and their husband died for nothing, then that is an outrage.”

January 9, 2023

The States can act now on 'broken' GP system

State and territory first ministers are again pressing national cabinet to consider health care reform as its top priority at the first meeting for 2023. We have heard this song before.

November 1, 2021

A bitter bet: Crown reigns supreme, safe from effective oversight

Packer makes a convenient scapegoat for the disgrace of Melbourne’s casino. But an inherently dirty enterprise won’t be fixed by a board of cleanskins.

March 8, 2024

The CPC is brainwashing its members to not attack other countries says AI

Recently there was an interesting piece in the South China Morning Post on Communist Party orders cells to study Xi Jinping Thought and learn speeches SeeChinas Communist Party orders cells to make Xi Jinping Thought a priority, cadres must study presidents speeches, South China Morning Post.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal