December 20, 2022

In the shadow of the military: Fijis elections

Fiji has gone to the polls three times since 2006, when the country had what has been termed the coup to end all coups, sounding eerily reminiscent of wars that supposedly end all wars. History suggests that where one takes place, another will follow in good time.

November 17, 2022

The way we were: Parliamentarians used to fight for peace...

Do you remember when Labor parliamentarians were vocal advocates in the Australian Peace Movement?

October 20, 2022

Australia needs an honest conversation about tax and budgets and Jim Chalmers is ready to talk

Jim Chalmers is a wily operator. Ahead of delivering his first budgetnext Tuesday, he has given himself room to do the things a treasurer needs to do.

December 11, 2021

Sunday environmental round up

Cooee Australia, stop producing fossil fuels and develop credible climate action plans. All nations must preserve ecosystems with irrecoverable carbon.

March 31, 2025

A suitable piece of real estate

Exactly 45 years ago, Dr Desmond Ball, a genuine academic researcher at the Australian National University in Canberra, wrote his seminal study of the American military and intelligence gathering “facilities” located in Australia._

December 30, 2024

Australian monopolies and iceless fokkers

He looked like a young, freshly sprouting Henry Kissinger, before complicity in war crimes began, and plagiarism became commonplace in allegedly relevant academic texts. The heavy-set flight attendant, his flabby covered jaw ever threatening to passengers, was apologetic, but firm in opinion. There would be no ice for anybody on this flight between the Queensland cities of Brisbane and Townsville_._

November 25, 2024

Health Department: Listen to these lessons from our COVID 19 experience

A review of Steven Hamilton and Richard Holden, Australia’s Pandemic Exceptionalism: How we crushed the curve but lost the race, UNSW Press

October 28, 2024

The Palestine Laboratory Podcast | Episode 1: Start-up Nation

Investigative journalist Antony Loewenstein questions the narratives he was taught growing up in the Jewish Diaspora as he traces the origins of Israel’s military-industrial complex, examining how Israel became one of the world’s leading arms and tech exporters. When a military force essentially creates a nation, can they ever be truly separated?

February 26, 2023

John Pesutto - What are his chances?

Election night TV coverages blur into one big indigestible mass as the years go by. Yet every now and again a few stand out.

March 2, 2022

Ivan Katchanovski.The hidden origin of the escalating Ukraine-Russian conflict-The Maidan massacre

The Ukraine-Russia conflict is now in its most dangerous phase since it began in 2014 after the Western-backed overthrow of the Ukrainian government.

January 31, 2022

Back to class: public school Covid protocols 'full of holes'

Teachers and students returning to school in NSW won’t find themselves in Covid-safe conditions, John Frew writes.

January 20, 2022

Confronting racism: the white privilege embedded in our institutions

The world is not equal or democratic when the rich and powerful who set standards, norms and rules are mostly white.

December 1, 2021

Tackling Jacindamania: Kiwi opposition looks for a better way to fly

Who can break Ardern’s grip on the New Zealand leadership? The National Party hopes a conservative business heavyweight will break its run of failure.

October 3, 2021

Insights from the Plenary Assembly where reaching out can be difficult

John Warhurst, a member/delegate at the Catholic plenary, is writing a daily blog on his thoughts from the assembly.

March 7, 2025

Downsizing of NOAA: consequences for the planet

News out of the US on the firing of public servants by the Trump administration has consequences worldwide. Downsizing of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will potentially impact many nations including our capacity to forecast extreme weather events and understand the consequences of climate change.

February 22, 2025

Uncle Robbie Thorpe to raise Australian genocide claim to the International Criminal Court

Having a legal action one has lodged with a court being refused is not usually the ideal outcome. Yet, the recent attempt by Uncle Robbie Thorpe to launch a private prosecution against so-called King Charles III for the crime of genocide being denied by the Victorian Supreme Court has cleared the way for the Krauatungalung elder to take the matter to a higher court beyond local borders.

February 19, 2025

Causes of peace… and war

Before attending a recent talk by Geoffrey Blainey entitled “The Causes of War”, I looked again at his monumental volume – “Causes of War”. The first sentence of Chapter One reads: “For every thousand pages published on the causes of wars there is less than one page directly on the causes of peace.” I agree.

November 12, 2024

BBC goes full Goebbels in support of Israeli soccer hooligans

“IDF will fuck the Arabs!”, “Why is school out in Gaza? There are no children left there!” Maccabi Tel Aviv football fans chanting on 8 November, as reported by The Times of Israel. Yet the BBC just compared them to Jewish victims of the Nazi pogroms. Why this story matters is because of the outsized influence of the BBC – its content is shared as gospel by countless other broadcasters.

October 17, 2024

Absence of care: AMC prison a drug “supermarket”; force applied with “regularity”, report staff

The ACT’s prison is run by a clique, with detainee bashings covered up, staff bullied into silence and the library better labelled “a supermarket” where any drug desired was freely available.

October 15, 2024

Imagine that we lived in a country that stood up for international law

Every day I imagine what it must be like to live in a righteous place. Really, what must that be like?

March 29, 2024

On the mystery of Easter, my life goes on

Here I write as a 62-year-old person, formulating the persistent issues of my life by giving my ongoing attention to Friedreichs Ataxia. I can hardly avoid doing this because it has so shaped my entire life since its onset when I was 14 - that means I have had to deal with it for nearly half a century - I never once dreamt or had nightmares that this condition would be partnering me so closely on lifes journey.

October 29, 2023

New data shows the Commonwealth Government is not pulling its weight on hospital funding

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare released its latest health expenditure data last week showing the Commonwealth share of government public hospital funding has declined to 41%. This will fuel state anger and make negotiations for a new funding agreement, to take effect in mid-2025, that much harder.

March 31, 2023

Robodebt and the APS

If the Australian Public Service and its satellite institutions were to last a thousand years, people will still say The Robodebt was one of its most dismal hours.

January 20, 2023

The dilemma of economic growth

Economic growth has been the holy grail of post-industrial society, but there is now mounting evidence that it needs to be slowed down for the sake of the environment. It is therefore a welcome sign that Mark Diesendorfreiterates the call for Limits to Growth which has been voiced since the 1970s - largely to no avail.

March 31, 2022

Tenancy rights offer opportunities for change

The threat of being unable to afford to buy a home is now supplanted by the fear of being unable to afford ever increasing rents.

February 23, 2022

Japan's Asian future in the 21st century

The case for Japan to move firmly away from being bound to serve the paramount interests of the US in East Asia and beyond - as seen, erratically, from Washington while emphasizing that Japanese interests are its foremost concern, is now demonstrably clear.

February 10, 2022

Dutton's posturing can only lead to military confrontation with China

As the US draws its allies in an encirclement campaign against China, Australia’s Defence Minister is adding fuel to the fire.

November 10, 2021

Australian War Memorial expansion is a disgrace beyond words

Words matter, and the way the Australian War Memorial’s spruikers talk about its expansion and displays speaks volumes.

October 19, 2021

Failure to stand up to the Nationals makes Liberal leaders the real villains

The modern Liberal Party created the conditions where the Nationals can threaten the Coalition at any time in pursuit of its own agendas.

October 19, 2021

One minute to midnight: only fresh thinking can tackle climate and biodiversity crises

The worlds biodiversity will continue to deteriorate even if temperature rise was arrested. The question for the Glasgow summit is whether our emission-driving economic system can respond.

August 28, 2021

Peeling the American Onion

It Ain’t Over ‘Til The Last Burger King Leaves Kandahar

March 18, 2025

It’s the banks, stupid

Why does Australia continue to have a rampant cost of living crisis? That’s the $300 billion question. The hard men of Australia’s economic press claim it’s because of inflated wages and low productivity. Yet evidence suggests it’s mainly because of our big four banks.

February 2, 2024

Americas displacement anxiety and the decade of living dangerously

The 2020s was once described by former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd as a decade of living dangerously. He was talking about the bilateral tensions between the U.S. and China. I would suggest that its a dangerous decade in large part because the collective west, led by the neocon political elite in Washington, are experiencing a protracted bout of displacement anxiety*.

November 5, 2023

Expose and dismiss the dominating Israeli narrative

For decades, the western world has been fed Israeli/Zionist narratives about their country being exceptional, Palestinians not existing or being less than human. False Israeli accounts have been swallowed by a compliant media andby politicians scared of being accused of being even slightly anti-Semitic.

October 7, 2023

Who stands at the Apex of the Unholy Trinity?

Culturally most events seem random. But sometimes there are a constellation of events that seem meaningful. Which makes this month’s triptych of Ted Gurner, Russell Brand and Rupert Murdoch so intriguing. Now who do these three remind us of? If one name doesn’t spring to mind, then really we are not paying attention.

March 17, 2023

The fiscal fallout of AUKUS

What are the budgetary implications of the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine deal?

October 31, 2022

The lunatics course: the Northern Territorys increased militarisation

Another call to arms has been issued by Washington. The venue that features the recipient of such lethal generosity is not new.

March 3, 2025

The AI that Silicon Valley fears: How DeepSeek democratised innovation

The Chinese company’s open-source model proves that innovation thrives on sharing, not Western Big Tech’s hypocritical monopolisation.

March 11, 2024

US cant beat China, so it should join it in the EV revolution

Efforts to keep Chinese electric vehicles out of the US will only hurt American consumers and manufacturers in the long run. Instead, the Biden administration should embrace learning from Chinese carmakers to improve innovation and competitiveness.

January 31, 2024

Finding a way forward: A review of Australia's relations with China

Lets not reject forty years of cooperation and exchange with China. Australia has greatly benefitted from trade, investment, cultural exchange and collaboration over these decades. Now, as the United States and Europe threaten to raise tariffs, erect barriers to exchanges and prioritise security concerns, it is time to remember when we espoused multilateralism and openness.

February 20, 2023

Fighting to the last Ukrainian

On Tuesday, General Mark Milley, chair of the American joint chiefs of staff declared, in effect, that Russian had been militarily defeated in Ukraine. Russia, he said, was now a global pariah, and the world remained inspired by Ukrainian bravery and resilience.

January 27, 2023

Economic growth and our environmental future

A spate of articles have argued protection of the environment is incompatible with population and economic growth. But they do not address how to stop this growth and its public acceptability, nor how more determined efforts to protect the environment can succeed.

October 16, 2022

COVID-19 border policies strengthen Japans Insular mindset

From April to August 2020, Japan implemented a re-entry ban for all foreign nationals, including permanent residents, with some exceptions. This came as a shock to many who considered Japan home since they found themselves either trapped outside the country or unable to leave to see sick family members or attend funerals.

January 6, 2022

A battle within the battle for Canberra: can ACT banish Liberals from Senate?

Could Liberal senator Zed Seselja be put to the sword by Canberrans at the 2022 election? A mix of scenarios emphasises the possibility.

November 12, 2021

Think tanks' call for 'freedom' really promises authoritarianism

Ideological think tanks campaigning for ‘freedom’ are really pushing us further into a competitive authoritarianism regime.

February 13, 2025

The Hasbara's foot soldiers

Supporters of the state of Israel have ready access to the pages of the mainstream media. Strangely their descriptions of the object of their devotion and of its actions bear no resemblance to reality.

January 9, 2025

The Varghese review of funding for strategic policy work: the triumph of the poverty of imagination

The Independent Review of Commonwealth funding for strategic policy work, conducted and authored by Peter Varghese is now published. It almost sparkles in places, but overall, it disappoints. Sadly, it delivers what was minimally anticipated.

December 9, 2024

Options for global trade

Australia and the United States believe China is hegemonic. China uses a different approach to international engagement, and that means Australia fails to understand China’s appeal to the region and the global south.

December 26, 2023

The need for theological reform

In the mid-1980s when I was at Boston College, a Jesuit university, one of the lecturers commented that the Catholic Church hierarchy was fearful of a schism in the church. Too late, he remarked, it is already here, informally. He pointed out that the majority of students at that Catholic university no longer believed the traditional story of a heavenly deity who locked people out of heaven because of the first humans disobedience. He also observed that they no longer attended the Churchs liturgy because its imagery and language are steeped in that story.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal