October 19, 2021

The Nationals and their dangerous search for relevance

_Every deputy covets their moment in the sun. This can usually be arranged without harm. In the case of Barnaby Joyce little appears to come without harm.

October 11, 2021

The overseas student and immigration nexus: Where to now?

As the government faces pressure to bring overseas students back into the country, if it wants a high-quality education sector it should be wary of those only interested in maximising student numbers and short-term profits.

December 14, 2024

Damned if you do: Jim Chalmers cops the blame for no recession

Government spending is keeping Australia out of recession, just as last week’s feeble GDP numbers tallied 7 consecutive quarters of negative growth. Michael Pascoe reports on the moaning business lobby.

February 19, 2023

Asking the question: making the first move in Voluntary Assisted Dying

On the 28th November 2023 the Voluntary Assisted Dying Act 2022 (NSW) (the NSW VAD Act) will come into force.

February 3, 2023

Chalmers radical idea - economics is about human well-being: Weekly roundup

Treasurer Chalmers has the radical idea that economics is about human well-being; NSW Labor moves to the right of Coalition; and in spite of fires and floods, Australians have poor knowledge of climate change. Read on for the weekly roundup of links to articles, reports, podcasts and other media on current political and economic issues in public policy._

December 27, 2022

A watchdog without bark or bite

There was a time when Australias principal statutory review agencies such as the Commonwealth Ombudsman and the Human Rights Commission were fiercely independent and effective agencies protecting individuals from the excesses of executive government and promoting the democratic rights of all citizens.

January 7, 2022

Quelle horreur! Paris poaching in our paddock leased to Washington

An ancient European power is putting more energy into courting a paramour 11,500 kilometres distant than the young swain next door.

December 9, 2021

Labor and independents can end a political reign of error

Anthony Albanese’s best chance of election victory is to appeal to the better nature of Australians and to replace his deputy.

November 27, 2021

Sunday environmental round up.

On land and sea, humans need to do a better job protecting the environment and our rights to enjoy healthy environments.

October 5, 2021

Will Catholics get what they want from the Plenary Council?

Will the bishops take their leadership role seriously? We cannot go on with business as usual.

March 21, 2021

Does Aung San Suu Kyis detention violate international law?

The International Court of Justice cannot deal with what the military is doing to the people of Myanmar today because Daw Suu and the NLD failed for five years to ratify or accede to the Rome Statute. They have no one to blame but themselves.

November 4, 2024

Community's voice: Shaoquett Moselmane for Barton

Mr Shaoquett Moselmane, a popular politician amongst the Sydney’s multicultural community has been urged to nominate for the preselection for the federal seat of Barton recently vacated by Linda Burney. Community leaders have called on the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to endorse him.

October 12, 2024

All-out China-EU trade war looming – Asian Media Report

In Asian media this week: Europe’s China business chief says conflict unavoidable. Plus: US lacks strategy for China confrontation; Japan’s new PM calls snap election; Junta’s election “census” a counter-insurgency ploy; America’s Gaza failure shakes confidence in rules-based order; Seoul has no answer for Pyongyang’s dirty campaign.

March 8, 2024

Top science body warns of worst coral bleaching event in history

The top scientific body that monitors the worlds tropical coral reefs, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), has warned that “We are literally sitting on the cusp of the worst bleaching event in the history of the planet.”

February 24, 2023

North Korea able to strike US mainland Asian Media report

In Asian Media this week: Pyongyang using Pacific as firing range. Plus: opposing views on Asian security; democracy-vs-autocracy a false division; Chinas population to plummet; Thailands global standing at low point; man-made threat to sea life.

February 25, 2022

The US is seeking revenge for its failure in Afghanistan by starving the people

Nation states are habitually doomed to defeat their best interests. Conditions of mad instability are fostered. Arms sales take place, regimes get propped up or abandoned, and the people under them endure and suffer, awaiting the next criminal regime change.

February 23, 2022

Biden's Indo-Pacific strategy and China

After a year in preparation, President Biden has eventually issued his Indo Pacific Strategy (IPS) which seeks to present a comprehensive US approach to the region linked back to his pre-election vision of a foreign policy for middle America.

January 17, 2022

China is deftly outmanoeuvring US across the Indo-Pacific region

Beijing understands that economic security created through trade is more enduring than when done through military superiority.

July 3, 2021

Australia is suffering from a defense information dearth

Australias defence reporters are being denied access to senior Department of Defence officials under a clampdown imposed by new Defence Minister Peter Dutton.

March 27, 2025

Budgets: black holes, black ink or black magic? – part 2 of 2

In part 1 of this two-part series I gave a brief overview of the contemporary mainstream attitude to central government budgets, and argued that the constant fear of inflation in the post-1970s era has a lot to do with the dominant theory. But this mainstream view is strongly contested within the economics profession.

March 19, 2025

Coalitions of the deluded: Starmer’s Ukraine peace plan

UK Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, has been getting ahead of himself of late. At Lancaster House earlier this month, he first proposed to some 18 leaders that a “coalition of the willing” might be cobbled together to protect Ukrainian territory should peace be struck in the Russia-Ukraine War.

March 14, 2025

Why is Israel such a big deal?

I’ll begin with a reminder, for the Zionists in the audience, of what antisemitism is. I grew up surrounded by adults with blue numbers tattooed on their forearms. My primary school teacher relentlessly picked on the three Jewish kids in her class. My high school refused to discipline a girl who punched me in the nose because I was Jewish. When I was in my 20s, a man beside me on the bus lamented audibly to his friend that it was a pity Hitler didn’t burn us all. I know what antisemitism is. And I know what it is not.

October 14, 2023

Engaging with China despite rising tensions

The challenges of engagement when international tensions rise go beyond defence and security considerations. The benefits, however, are vitally important and deserve continued investment. It is essential therefore to consider carefully the terms of engagement the sometimes conflicting principles that should guide engagement.

February 2, 2023

Opus Dei: A Catholic sect

Opus Dei is a sect. Its spirituality doesnt free the spirit, but enslaves it.

November 11, 2022

Batteries of gravity and water: 1,500 pumped hydro sites identified

In eight years, Australia wants to befour-fifths powered by renewables. Solar and wind investment is pouring in. But to firm the renewables and overcome the intermittency, we need overnight energy storage. Thats why theres so much interest inpumped hydro.

January 23, 2022

The neoliberal footprints of the coronavirus

This was not a ‘black swan-type event’. The coronavirus has conspicuous neoliberal footprints with respect to its origin, spread and consequences.

January 2, 2022

Lobbyland: The scourge of powerful special interests and lobbyists

Lobbyists have exceptional access to our Parliament and politicians, and they’re not acting in the public interest.

February 27, 2025

Albanese’s golden moments: If only he hadn’t let them pass him by

Police in Victoria last week arrested a woman over unprovoked attacks against two Muslim women wearing hijabs in a northern suburbs shopping centre near Epping.

January 15, 2025

How the Israel-Palestine narrative changed in Australia

For most of the post-war years, there was bipartisan support for Israel in Australia, with the ALP especially proud of H.V. Evatt’s role in the establishment of the Jewish state at the United Nations. And there has always been an influential pro-Israel faction within the party. The Liberals were never hostile to Israel but, for most of this period, they were not the natural home for Australian Zionists.

January 7, 2025

The West and the rest: how genocide in Gaza will usher in the end of ‘his-story’

Since the beginning of this century — triggered by the United States’ illegal invasion of Iraq, its occupation of Afghanistan, and aided by the turbocharged arrival of the digital age — there has been significant growth in interest among those in the non-Western world around issues related to their colonial past.

December 9, 2024

Is it possible to have an ethical conversation about the Middle East?

For those living far away from the Middle East – for example, in countries like Australia – it seems that everyone has a strong view about the events occurring there. What’s more, everyone is convinced their view is the morally correct one. In all discussions, ethical-sounding language abounds: depending on the perspective, we might hear references to “human rights”, “freedom”, “self-defence”, “security”, “terrorism”, “war crimes”, “humanitarian aid”, “human shields”, or even “genocide”.

January 20, 2024

Classic LNL: Phillip Adams talks with John Menadue

John Menadue talks to Phillip Adams about being an outsider, about his career in politics, particularly about the criticism surrounding his decision to continue as Head of the Department of Prime Minister after the dismissal on 11 November, 1975 and about his deep spiritual beliefs. Originally broadcast on 12/10/99.

December 8, 2023

Why isnt China a Democracy?

U.S. President Joe Biden, the Western media, and American academics seek to rally Western democracies against China, allegedly the leader of the worlds authoritarian countries. They charged that China is not democratic. Is this charge true? How so?

February 22, 2023

Infrastructure policy Pearl Harboured

The Governments response to the independent review of Infrastructure Australia involves a surprise attack on public policy which should be rebuffed.

January 16, 2023

Are allegations of bogus asylum claims valid?

Hannah Dickinson, an asylum lawyer from the Asylum Seeker Rights Centre, is reported in The Canberra Times to have rubbished suggestions people are seizing on huge backlogs of asylum applications to lodge bogus claims for protection.

March 9, 2022

Failed diplomacy led to war in Ukraine. It could happen again over Taiwan as the US goads China

As the war wages on in Ukraine, our hearts go out to the innocent men. women and children who are killed, maimed or displaced by the war

February 14, 2022

No wonder Canberrans are enraged: there's no vaccine for a cabal of craziness

We demand the freedom to infect others! The anti-vaccination demonstrations are dour, sour and disingenuous.

February 3, 2022

Cry havoc: US and UK leaders trying to con Europeans into war in Ukraine

Anglosphere media are uncritically regurgitating Washington and Downing Street propaganda and failing to recount actual Russian-Ukrainian history.

January 11, 2022

SBS continues to alienate and betray its audience

The taxpayer-funded broadcaster’s use of advertising within programs, and its determination to increase this, runs counter to its charter and shows contempt for its viewers.

December 19, 2021

In spying on East Timorese, Australia forgets its neighbour's sacrifices

Australian forgetfulness of the wartime friendship and suffering of the Timorese people was crowned in 2004 by a grubby act of government greed.

November 25, 2021

Bishops' opposition to equal opportunity laws exposes their own teaching

By opposing Victoria’s Equal Opportunity Bill, Catholic bishops’ demonstrate the tension in their church’s teaching on discrimination.

July 31, 2021

The Nordics are way out in front for happiness in the COVID era

_It may be surprising but a lot of people in the world are happier in the midst of COVID and lockdowns than they were although Australia is a slight exception.

March 28, 2025

The PBS is under fire from US drug giants. There’s not much they can do

The drug companies have bought both American political parties. They have not bought Australia.

February 26, 2025

Trump has ruled out allies, implying too that with AUKUS we have bought a ‘pig in a poke’

What President Donald Trump has been saying about his friends and our allies recently clearly suggests that both the AUKUS arrangement (it is not a treaty), along with last month’s down payment of some $US500k, has been and will prove to be a terrible mistake.

February 6, 2025

Sound the alarm: ABC at risk

The Federal Parliament has yet to pass a law ensuring five-year funding for the ABC. If it doesn’t get passed, it leaves the national broadcaster open to cuts and threats should the government change.

December 29, 2024

A chairman and a president walk into a bar: Review of Donald’s Inferno

Only in Australia could such an edgy political satire be put on stage. Sharp and witty, Donald’s Inferno, written and directed by Jon-Claire Lee, was launched in Sydney this month to a modest but discerning audience. Buried in its wacky story, the comedy pulled no punches in its description of current tensions between the Chinese Mainland and Taiwan. It concluded with a surprising message of hope.

December 21, 2024

Anti-Semitism, a pandemic of concocted claims

In response to arson on a Melbourne synagogue, ill informed politicians, ignorant media commentators and a bully Israeli Prime Minister have rushed to declare this crime is not only anti-Semitic but an act of terrorism. A year of pandemic like claims about a rise in anti-Semitism has reached a climax in interpretations of the meaning of this synagogue fire.

November 20, 2023

Use of immigration detention needs to be dramatically curtailed

The use of immigration detention in Australia has expanded well beyond its original intended purpose. It has become a political tool, a convenient proxy for dealing with issues that should be dealt with in other parts of government and a vehicle for delivery of immense cruelty. There was a certain inevitability that the High Court would eventually stop governments from misusing it.

October 18, 2023

The Global South: A new North Star

We live in surprising times.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal