February 18, 2023

Weekly roundup: 12,000 asylum-seekers are still in limbo

House prices are falling, a by-election in Aston, and 12 000 asylum-seekers are still in limbo. Read on for the Weekly roundup of links to articles, reports, podcasts and other media on current political and economic issues in public policy.

February 14, 2023

Not every liberal wants Dutton to win in Aston

Peter Dutton faces a stern test of his leadership and his strategies in preparing for a by-election in the Melbourne outer suburban seat of Aston. It’s in Victoria, where the Liberal Party has been on the nose, as most recently demonstrated in November by the swingeing repudiation of the party in favour of “Dictator” Dan Andrews at the state election.

January 2, 2023

How Jiang Zemin quietly changed the nature of China’s government

Chinese Leader Jiang Zemin, who just died at the age of 96, made changes that altered the nature of the country’s government and the course of the global economy, affecting people worldwide, although few people realise it.

December 14, 2022

Lehrmann case: pointing finger at police blows smoke over manifold incongruities

Over 14 years as a criminal defender in Canberra and the region, I’ve had hundreds of clients, perhaps a couple of thousand. I’m still waiting for the first one who will get the decided benefit of having the police “run dead” in his or her matter.

March 23, 2022

Western media hypocrisy in reporting from Ukraine

For eight years Ukraine’s military and ultra-nationalists militias have felt free to try to ravage the two Donbas hold-outs, beginning with the total destruction of a large modern airport of Donetsk.

March 11, 2022

Giving peace a chance in Ukraine

_The final possibility would be a negotiated peace whereby the parties address the main issues in contention and come up with treaty language to resolve them.

December 18, 2021

Bilateral bright spot: the future of Australian studies in China

The largest Australian studies community in the world is in China. This augurs well for Beijing-Canberra relations, despite current tensions.

December 7, 2021

It's about opportunity: a lesson on capitalism for the party of capitalism

Morrison’s theme that can-do capitalism beats don’t-do government is nonsense. Labor can respond by exalting government’s role, writes Michael Keating.

October 15, 2021

Waking up to the Coalition's climate change dinosaurs

While the press debates whether the prime minister will go to COP26, members of his government are living in a world where they believe their constituents aren’t worried about climate change.

September 12, 2021

In a liberal capitalist society, Charlie Teo exemplifies the freedom and the potential of the entrepreneur

Does the unease about well-known neurosurgeon Charlie Teo arise from jealousy? Or is there something wrong with the wider social system?

January 3, 2025

Infanticides kill the future

While self-described experts might express surprise about the results of the elections in the USA, the signs of a likely swing to the right have been plain enough. Among many sickening images in 2024, the sight of Congress standing to applaud an Israeli leader responsible for the genocide in Gaza symbolised fascist sympathies.

December 27, 2024

Whose right to exist? The challenge of evangelical beliefs to self-determination across the Pacific

The Pacific Islands’ voting patterns on Palestinian self-determination reveal the complex interplay of geopolitics, development incentives, and shifting religious dynamics. The rise of evangelism, intertwined with Christian Zionist theology, has increasingly influenced foreign policy decisions, underscoring the cultural and demographic transformations shaping the region’s stance on global issues.

December 17, 2024

Are we the terrorists?

It’s ten years since the Lindt Café siege by a member of Islamic State who, despite multiple warnings, was not of concern to ASIO or the police. Yet Man Haron Monis’ attack had all the commonly accepted characteristics of terrorism.

March 19, 2024

The Vampire Ball is ending for the US Empire

“Empires don’t just fall like toppled trees. Instead, they weaken slowly as a succession of crises drain their strength and confidence until they suddenly begin to disintegrate" - historian Alfred W. McCoy.

October 20, 2023

Only parliaments are able to set up integrity bodies, but politicians hate and fear them

The Victorian government has just acted to ensure that the Independent Broad-based Anti-Corruption Commission (IBAC) is neutered by a subtle gambit in the crafting of the advertisement seeking applicants for the position of Commissioner.

March 29, 2023

AUKUS a test of NZ's independent foreign policy

The AUKUS nuclear submarine deal presents New Zealand with a difficult dilemma. On one hand old allies are forming a military alliance to confront an emergent China, ramping up their AUKUS relationship and their rhetoric magnifying China’s threat. On the other hand is New Zealand’s long standing carefully nurtured relationship with its major trading partner.

March 4, 2023

The Windsor framework: oven-ready fudge

More than three years after Boris Johnson got Brexit done with his ‘excellent’ and ‘oven-ready’ deal, his second successor Rishi Sunak may have actually baked it, but only after changing the recipe from cake to fudge. But is there enough fudge to go around?

March 9, 2022

Advertising and election gimmicks: New submarines in the 'I don't think, I know' era.

In an election year pledges are made to be broken; promises are made to seduce, not convince. When the subject matter involves fictional submarines, even greater care should be taken.

January 27, 2025

Parliamentary review defends university’s core functions against corporatisation

Finally. Someone in government gets it.

December 7, 2024

Attack on Ripponlea Synagogue: As faith leaders we stand together

Reflection after ‘A Suspicious fire ion the Synagogue on Glen Eira Avenues around 4:15 am, Friday, 6 December. As faith leaders we seek to stand together at times like this.

January 30, 2024

Enough is enough for Gaza and Assange

The International Court of Justice has responded rather toothlessly to South Africa’s appeal to the Genocide Convention. In less than a month, a similar result can be expected when Britain’s Royal Courts of Justice hear for Julian Assange’s last appeal against extradition to the United States.

January 13, 2024

That word terrorism…

The term terrorism has become a fighting word in the arsenal of a declining world empire known as the United States of America. Its leaders’ endless talk of terrorism is in reality a desperate swansong, an indicator of the downfall of the United States as a global empire, its slow but irreversible disappearance from the headlines of world history, or so it seems to me.

December 30, 2023

Mungo MacCallum: The collection

“He who laughs has not yet heard the terrible tidings…". A collection of stories from the late, great, veteran political reporter Mungo MacCallum: Australia’s true journalistic believer.

https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/mungo-maccallum-the-patience-of-our-first-nation-while-remarkable-is-not-inexhaustible/

https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/mungo-maccallum-cook-and-the-continuing-culture-wars/

https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/mungo-maccallum-in-the-secret-world-secrecy-is-always-the-default-option/

https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/mungo-maccallum-labor-accepts-ritual-humiliation/

Read more at Mungo MacCallum’s P&I author page, here:

https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/author/mungo-maccallum-decd/

March 24, 2022

Work with China, not against it

_Most Western commentators take comfort in describing the tensions between the United States and China as the inevitable rivalry of two superpowers. But this camouflages an uncomfortable truth: that we are moving from a Western-constructed world into a post-Western world, with China leading the charge.

March 22, 2022

The West with its double standards is deluding itself about its moral prestige and geopolitical prowess

_News stories from the leaders of Aukus are just too much these days. They would have been amusing if the issues at hand weren’t so serious, even tragic.

February 14, 2022

Israeli apartheid.If it looks like a duck, walks and talks like a duck, it is a duck

While hard-line Israeli lobbyists defend their beloved colonial regime and continue their denial that Israel is an apartheid state, Israeli politicians, Knesset members, writers, journalists… are admitting that Israel is an apartheid state.

November 13, 2021

What a relief to hear an Australian leader talking sense at last about China

The complex state of Beijing-Taipei relations that the anti-China hawks do not understand or probably worse don’t want to understand.

July 25, 2021

Afghanistan: The graveyard of empires was one of the greatest follies of US foreign policy.

The US-led war in Afghanistan looks to be ending, and not a day too soon. America’s father, Benjamin Franklin, wisely wrote: “No good war; no bad peace.” Yet for 20 years, the United States waged all-out war against this small, remote, impoverished state whose only weapons were old AK47 rifles and the boundless courage of its fierce people.

January 18, 2024

Failure after failure: the first chapter in the sad history of the attempts to introduce a broad-based carbon price in Australia

The January release of the Cabinet papers for 2003 reminds us of the failure of the second attempt to introduce an economy wide carbon price in Australia through an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). It marks the ascendancy of the energy and resource sectors in influencing the Coalitions climate change policies. This decision to reject emission trading set the pattern for the failure to develop a bipartisan consensus on the best way to manage climate change.

January 16, 2024

Climate adaptation: government action on life support systems is lamentable

The foundation for effective climate change adaptation must be the preservation of ecological life support systems for humans and all other species. We must prioritise the protection and expansion of water, biodiversity and ecological services to provide food security for future generations instead of environmentally damaging industries, especially fossil fuels.

December 5, 2023

National Cabinet should fire the starting gun on national health reform

In April, National Cabinet agreed to hold a dedicated meeting on health reform by the end of the year. Based on media coverage this week, it might be a battle about NDIS and GST funding instead. Who pays for what is important, but it will be a missed opportunity if a funding fight displaces discussion of health reform.

National Cabinet’s mandate is to tackle issues of national significance with “genuine partnership”. Health reform certainly fits the bill. The system is groaning under pressure everywhere from GP clinics to emergency departments. And federal and state governments hold different pieces of the puzzle, so they will have to work together to achieve the real change that is needed.

October 11, 2023

As Palestine bleeds, Sydney Opera House drapes itself in the colours of apartheid

“We are fighting human animals and are acting accordingly.” - Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.

March 19, 2023

Blasts from the past

Wellington 26 January 2035: Ten years ago this week the first nuclear-armed missile landed on Australian soil, remembered as Invasion Day. Duncan Graham recalls what happened.

January 4, 2023

The Liberals’ review of Chinese-Australian voters betrays more blind spots

The Liberal Party’s problem with Chinese-Australian voters became apparent after its loss in the May 2022 federal election. Post-election number-crunching reveals that in 15 seats with large concentrations of Chinese-Australian voters, the swing against the Liberals was 6.6 percent, in contrast to 3.7 percent in other seats.

November 16, 2022

Depicting the Frontier Wars at the Australian War Memorial: why it is a bad idea

The issue of recognition, exhibition, explanation and duly respectful commemoration of the conflict between invading colonial ‘forces’ and this country’s First Nations peoples at the Australian War Memorial has had growing exposure of late.

November 10, 2022

WMO climate report shows 8 hottest years on record with global targets nearly 'Out of Reach'

New WMO report released on first day of UN climate summit that the last eight years are the eight hottest on record.

October 2, 2022

What kind of Republic? Who will campaign for it?

The passing of the Queen has reawakened the Republic issue. A quite varied number of responses appeared in the media recently. That is a most heartening by-product of a sad event.

February 3, 2022

Australia is more corrupt than ever, but the media stays quiet

Australia has a deteriorating global corruption ranking — and the mainstream media is ignoring it entirely.

March 17, 2025

It is time to put the nation on the couch

Imagine if we took the psychological health of our nation seriously. Not the health of individual citizens — though that is vital — but rather if we took the mental health of the nation seriously. What would it look like and is it even possible to do that, to understand that a nation has a psyche that can be healed and hurt? And if so, how would we address ourselves and each other as we lie down on the analyst’s couch?

November 21, 2024

Renewables superpower or climate coward? Albanese needs to make a choice before election

A major new report has detailed the “extraordinary economic opportunity” for Australia to replace its coal and gas exports with decarbonised commodities, and reap six to eight times more than the typical revenues it earns from fossil fuels, and help other major economies to meet their own climate goals.

February 27, 2024

Australia's First Nations still looking over the 1788 chasm

More than four months after a crushing defeat in the Voice referendum, and soon after the Closing the Gap report confirmed that there was almost no progress in improving Aboriginal lives last year, Aboriginal players in the yes case are moving towards an inquest into how their case went so terribly wrong.

December 12, 2023

Is this what Australia has become?

On the eve of International Human Rights Day when invited to support the existing international rules-based order the United States’ leadership failed. Not only did their veto prevent a cease-fire in Gaza, but this powerful nation could not even offer an alternative path to protect humanity. Does the United Nations matter to the Australian Government? Will Prime Minister Albanese have the courage to confront Australia’s friend and ally about its diplomatic intransigence?

November 17, 2023

The Bank of Moral Credit has insufficient funds

October 23, 2023

It’s time to tell the truth

The past few months, as Australia debated the Voice proposal, have been incredibly challenging for First Peoples. Now we must find ways to move forward together.

March 24, 2023

Will there be a reprise of the White Australia Policy?

With the publication of the series, “RED ALERT” in the two leading newspapers in Australia, predicting that China will invade Australia in three years, the constant push from the ASPI, and the increasingly strident rhetoric from the China hawks in both major political parties, will the Australian security apparatus be encouraged to re-establish a “Chinese Section” to place under surveillance the over 1 million Australians with Chinese ancestry?

February 19, 2023

How can this be happening?

The first anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine approaches. No direct dialogue has yet been established between the warring parties. Just more hostility. More weapons, always more weapons and therefore more dead people.

February 10, 2023

Pulitzer prize-winning Hersh: evidence US behind Nord Stream Pipeline sabotage

Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh published a story Wednesday alleging that the United States was behind the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline system last year, citing a source “with direct knowledge of the operational planning.”

December 18, 2022

Will First Nations warriors be commemorated by the new AWM?

It is time to embrace the courage of our nation’s warriors from both pre and post Federation who died defending their country and commemorate them at the Australian War Memorial.

October 26, 2022

Some overlooked questions about the Medicare fraud hullabaloo

The ABC’s 7.30 Report is not inclined to sensationalism. Why on earth then did they turn a possibly valuable story on Medicare into a sensationalist one?

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal