February 2, 2022

A diplomatic end to Ukraine crisis would need US to admit its hypocrisy

There is a diplomatic path to cool the talk of war in Ukraine, but it will require the US admitting that it overplayed its hand.

April 5, 2025

AUKUS – the bucktooth cousin hidden in election blather

In French, buck teeth are called dents à l’anglaise, literally “English teeth”. Stay with me. The connection to the old dart, France, and the dishonourable origins of AUKUS will be revealed.

March 30, 2025

Declare your city genocide-free: Lessons from New Zealand’s nuclear-free movement

I recently attended a demonstration outside both the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Israeli Embassy in Wellington.

October 29, 2024

NSW Drug Summit Mark II

The NSW Drug Summit in 1999 produced mostly modest outcomes, sidestepping some difficult but important issues. The prospects now for beneficial change should be better with the evidence gathered in the last 25 years – but are they?

January 8, 2024

Deploying to the Red Sea a test of US fealty

It is worth considering when exactly deploying our military assets in Australias interests becomes a test of fealty to the United States, and an act of mateship.

November 27, 2023

The Attorney who chooses his battles, too rarely

Mark Dreyfus is one of those who gives every appearance of being intimidated by the national security state.

October 16, 2023

The Wily Occidentals

Can Australia reconcile the American and Chinese strands of its foreign policy?

October 14, 2023

Australia must support Turkey's mediation offer to prevent Palestinian massacre

On 11 October President Erdogan of Turkey came out and made a speech offering himself as a mediator in the current conflict. The first step in any mediation process had to be an immediate ceasefire on the part of both sides. It is time for Australia to accept its independent responsibility and to support Erdogans proposal.

March 11, 2023

Authoritarianism pandemics: Belarus, Nicaragua and beyond

Nobel Peace Prize recipient Ales Bialiatski has been sentenced to 10 years in a Belarus prison for allegedly smuggling and financing actions which violated public order. At almost the same time Nicaraguan opposition leader Felix Maradiaga was released from prison, stripped of his citizenship and flown to the US.

February 17, 2023

The Japanese Ambassador in Canberra is being withdrawn

Journalists Matthew Knott and Andrew Tillett and other anti China hawks cultivated by Yamagami-san will be particularly disappointed that they will lose their anti China news feed as well as their sushi and sake.

October 3, 2022

Integrity commission: Will Australia avoid US, UK drift to illiberalism?

The UK and the US stand on the brink of something unthinkable a decade ago. Australians must fight to ensure that the proposed National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) resists the radicalised right and protects democracy against Competitive Authoritarianism.

March 11, 2021

Scott Morrison's rule of law

Lawyers around the country are shaking their heads in trying to understand just what the Prime Minister means by the ‘Rule of Law’.

January 12, 2025

A festering pile of power-seekers

A new year has rolled over and I, like many who care about peace, humanity and human rights, feel jaded and despondent. The world seems to be headed towards even more thuggery and greed than ever before.

December 18, 2024

Canberra’s cowardice leaves Australian women and children stranded in Syria

US diplomat Peter Galbraith insists the Australian Government and Opposition are exaggerating the dangers of even trying to bring 10 Australian women and 30 children home from Syrian camps. In an affidavit to the Australian High Court, Galbraith explained he had made 20 visits to camps in north-east Syria and had helped to extract several women and 29 children.

October 18, 2024

Cartoon commentary

October 15, 2024

Anthony Albanese has yet to grow into the prime minister’s job

The prime minister is a political operator rather than a visionary. His inability to persuade and sustain arguments is beginning to show.

October 13, 2024

The slow strangulation of truth

Over the years I’ve learnt to chew and walk at the same time. It’s taken a while, but I think I’ve mastered it. Being able and willing to condemn the actions of Hamas, and criticising Iran while also condemning the callousness of Israel’s incursions into Gaza, the West Bank and now Lebanon is something I think most reasonable people can and should do.

March 24, 2024

Playing the hunger games

The nightmare sprung to life: A gang. Worse, an Asian teen gang. An hour before dawn. Im alone. With a bike.

March 7, 2024

George Galloway's time has come

George Galloway is a British MP again, and its the moment hes been waiting for. His victory in a Rochdale by-election, he told Labour leader Sir Kier Starmer, is for Gaza.

February 27, 2024

What does Dutton stand for?

Dutton regularly proclaims what he opposes, but what he will do in terms of new policies mostly remains a mystery or alternatively will not work.

February 26, 2024

The new Pericles: Marles, master of the Seas

Thucydides has Pericles, the great Athenian statesman and strategist, observe that Mastery of the sea is no small matter. The Defence Minister should have been mindful of Pericles words as he launched the Enhanced Lethality Surface Combatant Fleet (ELSCF). Or he might have recalled Pericles caution that I am far more afraid of our own mistakes than I am of the oppositions plans.

February 14, 2024

Silencing Francesca Albanese

It was with a sense of disgust rather than despair that I read in the Jerusalem Post this week: “‘Antisemitic’ UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese banned from Israel.” Were being gas-lighted again and this is a chance to push back against the narrative that to support victims of Israel is to somehow be antisemitic.

January 12, 2024

Who is the war criminal?

John Howard took Australia into the devastating war of aggression in Iraq in March 2003 but has still not been held accountable.

October 31, 2023

Grim milestone: Civilian deaths in Gaza exceed those in Ukraine

The number of civilians killed by Israel in Gaza, in three weeks, has now exceeded the number of civilians killed by Russia in 19 months of the Ukraine war. How likely is it that Western mainstream media will deem this milestone newsworthy?

March 8, 2023

Lying to the public, penalty free

Whats worse? Misleading the House (of Parliament)? Or lying to Australian voters? The former can get you sacked if you are a Minister and has on quite a few occasions. The latter, even if you are caught out, will likely go unpunished could even help you keep your job.

February 14, 2023

Why did Australia oppose an ICJ advisory opinion on Israeli settlements?

Surely the Australian people are entitled to an explanation as to why in December last year the government voted against an International Court of Justice advisory opinion on the legality of Israels occupation of Palestine.

October 18, 2022

Towards a phase shift in flood management?

_The call by Murray Watt, Minister for Emergency Management, for a national discussion about new development in disaster-prone areas should be welcomed.

October 13, 2022

Features of a sustainable society

A sustainable society would have the following 12 features. It is better, not bigger and should receive a high score on the Sustainable Development Index and Genuine Progress Indicator.

October 4, 2022

Australia and China: A conversation with Paul Keating

La Trobe Universitys Ideas and Society Program is extremely pleased to be able to invite you to an online discussion between former Prime Minister, Paul Keating, and James Curran, a Professor of History at the University of Sydney and author of_Australia’s China Odyssey, on a question fundamental to the future of Australia - our relations with China and, thus, the United States._

March 22, 2025

The outlook for house insurance is much worse than we’re being told

The big news on house insurance this week was the response of the insurance industry’s peak body to a parliamentary committee’s extensive criticisms of its treatment of people claiming on their policies after the massive floods of 2022.

December 27, 2024

Social media firings, anti-union contracts and corporate surveillance: Are employers our biggest threat to free speech?

Free speech has become a political hobby horse in today’s world of increasingly divisive populism.

November 6, 2024

The ICJ advisory opinion and the UNGA response

A position paper has been published by the organisation BADIL in October, suggesting that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) decision on the illegality of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory further fragments the Palestinian people and marginalises their rights.

January 31, 2024

The Sleepwalker

January 14, 2024

Western democracy: failure of system

Western nations are always ready to proclaim their system of governance as superior, particularly in regards to China, dismissed as being authoritarian. Increasingly however, western liberal democracy finds itself under scrutiny with trust in government falling.

January 3, 2024

Goodish guy in bad company

Gibran Rakabuming Raka is smarter than his stolid Dad Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo, President of our huge neighbour since 2014. As Vice President Gibran could be a positive change agent - but that demands missionary zeal and the guts to challenge his dangerous leader. Does he have The Right Stuff?

February 24, 2023

The one hope for peace in the West Bank

Last Thursday, the Australian government condemned Israel for planting more settlements on the occupied West Bank: 10,000 extra units. Its a big step to criticise Israel because in Australia its organised friends are a powerful lobby. But this was a huge breach of international law. And, as Penny Wong pointed out, a deliberate blow to a two-state solution.

October 12, 2022

Kanjuruhan tragedy: Malang seethes with fury at police

The most widespread slogan stencilled on the Indonesian citys walls, scrawled on posters, splashed on bedsheets in red and draped from powerlines and bridges is Usut Tuntas.

October 11, 2022

Repatriation of Muslim families from Syrian camp

What? Let those terrorists’ spawn and their sly “Australian” mothers sneak out of that Syrian camp, and into our country? Never!

January 27, 2022

Boycott of Sydney Festival is not about artistic censorship

It was not the performance of the Israeli choreographers Decadance which was the concern but rather the funding from the Israeli government sought by the festival.

January 16, 2022

The war on terror sucked the US and us down a plughole

Following al Qaeda’s assault on the US, 90 per cent of Americans favoured retaliation. This impulse for revenge resulted in the suffering of millions.

January 28, 2025

Antisemitism: a vehicle for engendering anti-Palestinian racism

The promotion of antisemitism as a diversion from what is happening in Palestine is a deliberate activity which must be understood by all Australians, particularly voting age Australians.

January 13, 2025

Where is the 'mature debate' about the health impacts of nuclear power?

When it comes to nuclear radiation, there is a clear disconnect between the medical evidence and the views of the Coalition. Since the 1950s we have known there is a link between X-rays in pregnant women and leukemia and other cancers in their children. It is not for nothing there are signs in every radiology department asking if you are pregnant.

December 1, 2024

"A prelude to the end of humanity"

Palestinians are being intentionally massacred, starved, and stripped of everything needed to sustain human life. There are no words that can adequately convey the pain and depravity of this aggression. Those who cannot be moved by the pictures of dismembered and charred corpses will not be moved by some words. What sort of world have we descended into, asks Dr. Tanya Haj Hassan.

November 23, 2024

“Absolute savagery”: What is stopping Australia from holding Israel to account?

Why won’t you hold Israel to account? You don’t have to wait for the rest of the world. You can be the leaders, you can be the leaders to hold Israel to account, for the slaughter of tens of thousands of Palestinians, for the killing of Zoni Frankcom.” - Senator Mehreen Faruqi, addressing the Australian Foreign Minister, Senator Wong.

October 14, 2024

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

**The significance of US strategic bomber deployments:**Defence Minister Richard Marles played down revelations in late 2022 that up to six US B-52 strategic bombers are to be forward-deployed to Tindal Air Force Base, telling reporters at the time that ‘everyone needs to take a deep breath here.’ Marles implied that there was nothing new about the revelations given US bombers have ‘been coming to Australia since the 1980s’ and ‘training in Australia since 2005.’

December 16, 2023

Onward Christian soldiers

Hymn # 7,000 - Onward Christian Soldiers, Marching as to War

November 28, 2023

My name is Pazullius Vizier of Viziers

November 10, 2023

The Holocaust should be a lesson not a template

Jewish people exterminating men, women and children in a concentration camp is _______.

October 10, 2023

Selective enforcer: ICC must warn Israel on crimes against humanity

The International Criminal Court (ICC) faces a test of its credibility in how it monitors and deals with the conduct of Israel as it strikes back against the horrific attacks committed by Hamas.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal