February 8, 2024

Judgment Day: Final retribution for the ecocidal psychopaths

100 Fossil Fuel CEOs directly and knowingly threaten all life on Earth.

January 23, 2024

Does the Australian public want a republic?

One reason why the Republic referendum failed and why the result of another one is uncertain was confusion over just what the issues are. Like the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War, our lot spent so much time fighting among themselves they had no time left to face their opponents. We need to identify the issues and consider the behaviour patterns of human animals.

December 21, 2023

Gaza cannot be a mere holding pen. A new ghetto

Gaza can only succeed as an entity as part of a genuine Palestinian state. It cannot be allowed to be a mere holding pen, a new ghetto. The whole of the West Bank must be combined with Gaza as the Palestinian state. It must be a state with real sovereignty, with free and open borders with all neighbouring states, and with real security. Real security means freedom from incursions by Israel, whether by land, sea or air. - Paul Heywood-Smith, 2004.

December 15, 2023

Netanyahu and the anti-semitism industry

Antisemitism is an ancient European pastime. But post-World War II we have seen the birth of the Antisemitism Industry people who have made it their job to call out antisemitism, even where it might not exist.

January 25, 2022

Slow and steady Albanese may not outdistance that wily hare Morrison

The public does not know Albanese well enough to have a feel for him. Thats why his electoral shyness is a liability. This is the second of two articles.

November 2, 2021

Three years after Hayne, the robber barons are back in charge

In banking scandals, Crown casino and half a dozen other such disasters, the cover-up begins with government, now skilled at evading accountability.

March 28, 2024

The Cross: What do we bring to the Cross this Holy Week 2024?

The Cross speaks to us of how we find God in places where compassion is needed.

February 10, 2024

Spruiking armaments manufacturers at Last Post ceremony: beyond the pale

If anyone ever imagined that commemoration of our war dead was not an opportunity to make political points look no further than the Daily Last Post ceremony at the Australian War Memorial at the recent opening of Federal Parliament.

October 31, 2022

The rise of Rishi and the contradictions of multicultural Britain

Rishi Sunaks spectacular rise in British politics has understandably drawn a great deal of global attention. His achievements are indeed for the history books: the first ever non-white British Prime Minister of Indian heritage who is also a practicing Hindu; the youngest in more than 200 years.

October 14, 2024

Uncle Robbie Thorpe vs the State of Israel

“I find it offensive that this country that committed genocide against us is now allowing our country to be used as a base to advocate genocide against Palestinian people.”

October 11, 2024

The unsustainable costs of war

In a world of simultaneous military and environmental crises our capacity to finance both has become unsustainable. Globally, military expenditure over the past decade has been rising at double that of GDP, reaching an all-time high of $2.4 trillion in 2023.

March 29, 2024

Nuclear energy everywhere costs an arm and a leg

The contribution of nuclear power to electricity generation is the lowest for thirty years and its price twice that of renewables.

December 13, 2023

The greedy jaws of national security

With some honourable exceptions, most of the media and the parliament enthusiastically support almost everything the Director General of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Mike Burgess has to say. Although Burgess is not an extreme hardliner in the Australian intelligence world, many of his statements should not go unchallenged.

November 14, 2023

The Federal lobbying code is toothless and it has failed

Commercial lobbying is a multibillion dollar industry in Australia. A code of conduct which allows our Defence Minister to discuss defence business with a global contracting firm in cabinet, then take a job with that firm nine days after leaving politics, is a code which is corrosive of public trust in democracy.

February 27, 2023

How will we know the migration system has been fixed?

The Minister for Home Affairs, Clare ONeil, has declared Australias migration system is broken. It is unstrategic. It is complex, expensive and slow. It is not delivering for business, for migrants, or for our population.

November 2, 2022

With nuke-capable B-52s coming, Albanese is now the new Deputy Sheriff for the US

Former Liberal prime minister John Howard used to be often contemptuously referred to as the deputy sheriff for the US in the Pacific region when George W. Bush was in power.

March 3, 2022

Russia's Plan C..and Plan D in Ukraine and Putin's future in Russia

As the Russo-Ukrainian War takes a darker turn it is important to emphasise this essential point. This is a war that Vladimir Putin cannot win, however long it lasts and however cruel his methods.

September 18, 2021

There are much greater threats to Australian security than the Chinese military

As a middle power, Australia should be strengthening international organisations and a global community, rather than treating our alliance with the US as the foundation of our foreign policy.

March 5, 2025

Medicare skullduggery

Prime Minister Albanese has announced an $8.5 billion boost for Medicare to make bulk-billing available to all adults, not just concession card holders. Within hours, the Leader of the Opposition matched Labor’s bid. Both leaders are acutely aware that health care affordability is a critical issue for the electorate. In his commentary on P&I March 1 Ross Gittins states “Medicare has more problems than just out of pocket payments’.

March 21, 2024

Australia entrapped in war against China for America

The Australian Governments bipartisan planned war on China must dominate the next election. Australias democracy is currently dead to war, and to America. But the ballot box is the only recourse for Australians.

January 24, 2024

Who leaked sensitive legal material to a Murdoch columnist?

In the 20th century a series of UK investigations, including the Leveson Inquiry, demonstrated that Murdoch newspapers had engaged in phone hacking, police bribery and resort to dodgy private investigators.

January 4, 2024

Israeli General killed Israelis on 7 October and then lied about it

Last week, Israels Channel 12 releasedpreviously unseenfootageof an Israeli tank firing at a civilian home in the settlement, just a few miles east of Gaza. The new evidence shows that the Israeli commander on the scene, Brigadier General Barak Hiram, lied to a top Israeli journalist about what happened in the kibbutz that day, after Palestinian resistance fighters launched a large-scale assault on Israeli military bases and settlements across the boundary from Gaza. This amounts to an attempted cover-up by a senior military officer, with media complicity.

October 6, 2023

China-US in disinformation warfare Asian Media Report

In Asian media this week: America must show it has answers to global problems. Plus: Thai government talks of gun control; Australia-China de-coupling is impossible; Myanmar militarys killing, torture and rape; Cold War returns to Korean Peninsula; Chinas EV makers have edge over US.

March 27, 2023

FOI exposes Australias attempts to protect Israel on apartheid status

Foreign Minister, Penny Wong has asserted that Australia does not accept that Israel is an apartheid State. Freedom of information (FOI) documents have exposed that this position is not based on DFAT legal advice. The concerns of many Australians that their government, through trade and other dealings, or by even visiting Israel, might be making them an accomplice in a crime against humanity have been left unaddressed in order to protect Israel.

February 28, 2023

Ukraine: Is it almost over?

Despite celebrating 12 months of surviving the Russian onslaught, promises of more money and military equipment (including tanks) from the West, and a chorus of support for the courage and resilience of the people, the war appears almost over for Ukraine.

December 29, 2022

World gives cold shoulder to people from Gaza

The Netherlands appears to discriminate against Palestinians based on where they live.

October 22, 2022

Is opposition to abortion and homosexuality really a religious view?

Recent events surrounding the on-and-off again CEO of the Essendon Football Club have highlighted the question of what rights should be accorded to religious beliefs.

February 20, 2022

The Quad: its the US playing catch-up with China, but where does it lead?

For the emergence of a sustainable and mutually tolerable Pacific strategic system we should be aiming to make that system inclusive, not split down the middle with Quad.

July 31, 2021

Australian Government must ensure cases of sexual assault against Australian women by U.S. marines in NT are investigated thoroughly and the perpetrators face Australian courts

SBS News has uncovered three cases of sexual harassment/assault on women in the NT by U.S. marines. The cases have not been thoroughly investigated and there has been no trials in Australian courts. The Australian Governments SOFA Treaty with the United States Government gives Australian authorities the right and duty to deal with such alleged assaults by U.S. marines in Australian Courts. The Australian Government should ensure this is done.

April 1, 2025

Will things fall apart? Can the centre hold?

Community independents, including Teals, are expected to do well at the May election. Their capacity to widen the space in the middle ground of politics is a measure of both Labor and Coalition ineptitude.

March 21, 2025

Three reasons Victoria has joined Tasmania, SA as a beggar state

The Commonwealth Grants Commission’s annual updates of its recommendations as to how the revenue from the GST should be carved up among the states and territories almost always contain a few surprises – pleasant for some, and unpleasant for others, since carving up a pie is, by definition, a “zero sum game”.

February 6, 2025

Public servants' pay: Lambie's on the money

Senator Jacqui Lambie is incandescent about the salaries of secretaries of Commonwealth departments and she wants to “slash” them from their million dollar levels (approx) to no more than $438000, the current pay for the Commonwealth Treasurer.

March 8, 2024

Israel and Judaism part company

Every religion is rooted in core beliefs or dogmas but is judged or weighed by the character it espouses and the values with which it identifies. Belief is verified or condemned by the way life is lived. Christianity is known to espouse love your neighbour as yourself or, do to others as you would have them do to you, or, do not judge, or forgive others etc. By those critical of any value in religious expression it is rightly weighed by the lived quality of these characteristics. Often, Judaism has shamefully been characterised in the negative, such prejudicial characterisation rightly called antisemitism. I wish to do the reverse, to speak of the essential virtue of Judaism which has clearly been abandoned by the State of Israel.

January 17, 2024

Australia: A rogue state?

To initiate a war of aggression has been described as the supreme international crime. If a regional war breaks out in the Middle East, triggered by the illegal recent strikes by the USA and UK against the Houthis, Australia could well be complicit in the commission of the supreme international crime.

November 30, 2023

Small nuclear reactors: a history of failure

Dozens of small modular reactor designs are being promoted but precious few will reach the construction stage and the likelihood of SMRs being built in large numbers is negligible.

January 13, 2022

Fools rush in: Morrison's latest and worst Covid fiasco

What kind of fool am I? The government has made mistake after mistake on COVID. It was silly of me to assume it wouldnt botch Omicron too.

October 17, 2021

The remarkable story of Japan's North Korean abductees

Nearly two decades after North Korea retuned five people it abducted to their home country of Japan, efforts to silence those who challenge the government line continue.

November 8, 2024

When life gives you oranges...

While the result of the US election is bleak in some ways, it may ultimately lead to a more independent Australian foreign policy—one that centres on regional needs rather than simply following American interests.

March 17, 2024

Government shock as subordinating foreign and defence policy to US strangely unpopular with voters

A recent Essential Poll published in The Guardian proves yet again that silly questions often get silly answers.

February 13, 2024

Germany and critique of Israel: My sacking from the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology

It is apparently antisemitic to engage in a comparison between Israel and Nazis. This is, in a nutshell, what has put me at odds with Max Planck Societys lawyers. What to me is a fair, intellectual critique of Israel, for them is antisemitism according to the law in Germany.

February 4, 2024

Medicare: Taking a history, making a diagnosis, and prescribing some reforms

Former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam was a man with a mission. Many missions, obviously. But one maybe stood out above all others: the creation of a universal national healthcare system.

January 25, 2024

Rejecting Palestinian sovereignty sets a path for future conflict

We believe that recent statements by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu rejecting the possibility of Palestinian sovereignty, effectively sets a path for Israel in which future conflict with Palestinians is inevitable.

January 22, 2024

The ghost of Julian Assange

Despite being detained, silenced, and hidden from public view in the maximum security Belmarsh prison for the past five years, as the day of his extradition draws near, the spectre of Julian Assange looms ever larger over the politics of the AUKUS lands.

February 11, 2023

Environment: Young people unimpressed by boomers environmental and social neglect

All countries are failing to look after their environments and their people. Long haul flights will continue to generate most CO2. The worlds youth are not happy.

January 20, 2023

Defend independent media: Pearls and Irritations needs your support

Pearls and Irritations needs your financial support to keep improving and growing.

February 2, 2024

John Menadue: filling the policy vacuum ABC Listen

John Menadue has had a long and distinguished career in both the public and private sectors. These days hes an active blogger holding and advocating strong views on a range of issues. In this conversation he discusses Australia in 2016 which he says is a far better place than the one he grew up in. However, he argues, the need for further change and policy reform remains.

January 28, 2024

The agony of Michael Gawenda

Michael Gawenda, former editor of The Age and Walkley award-winning journalist, published his memoir ‘My Life as a Jew’ last year. Actually, its only part memoir, since much of it is reserved for polemics against Jews and Gentiles who are critical of Israel. The rest traces his life journey from an anti-Zionist Bundist youth to his current familial love for Israel and the Jewish people.

November 6, 2023

Australian PM's China visit helps normalise relations, says Andrew Robb

Former Australian Trade Minister Andrew Robb, in an exclusive interview with Peoples Daily Online, said he viewed the upcoming visit of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to China as another step toward normalising political relations.

January 3, 2023

Labors environmental denialism? Should we limit population and economic growth?

The call for a steady state global and national economy and even degrowth is a distraction unhelpful to the environmental cause. The challenge is to inspire and sustain ingenious strategies to decouple economic growth from environmental harm. The sorts of programs championed by Environment Minister Plibersek are heading in the right direction_._

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal