December 7, 2023

Mandrake

January 17, 2023

Netball Australia should and can do better with First Nations players

Although netball is highly popular among Australian girls, it also has a history of failing to retain and protect First Nations players.

November 1, 2022

Voters need collateral on the new Labor social contract

Even those who understand very well the whys and the wherefores of the bargain on offer from Treasurer Jim Chalmers would be wise to demand some collateral before they sign up to the bargain.

October 27, 2022

The IPA launches campaign to harass teachers. Why???

The IPA has become a culture war factory with barely any research to justify the label think tank and the tax perks it claims. Their campaign to harass teachers, however, is utterly self-defeating.

November 19, 2021

Brexit tensions push Britain and Europe closer to a damaging trade war

Complications over the Northern Ireland Protocol and pressure from Brexiteers are straining already fraught UK-EU ties.

December 24, 2024

Few voters think they have benefitted much from Labor in government

It goes almost without saying that much of the ordinary economic commentary ahead of the election, whether in the Murdoch media, the Fairfax media and the ABC, as well as among the senior bureaucracy and the business community (including Reserve Bank governors), will proceed on the assumption that any money spent on subsidies, tax breaks and incentives to business will be thoroughly justified as investments in Australian growth and development. Likewise with subsidies to coal, gas and the hydrocarbon industry.

October 30, 2024

Kevin is here to help US–China relations

With the United States and China locked in an ongoing battle and no solution in sight, Kevin Rudd from Queensland is here to help. His new book explains President Xi Jinping’s thinking and suggests a way forward. Are people paying attention? If they are, will they learn anything useful?

March 26, 2024

A victory against the flow of the tide

Under the Morrison and Albanese governments it may well be that the FoI Act has been more restrictively administered than at any time since it came into effect in 1982.

February 28, 2023

All over bar the shouting: the inevitability of a submarine farce

The AUKUS submarine fetish has colonised the minds of the Labor ministers and ejected practical commonsense.

February 18, 2023

The Liberal Party's extraordinary intervention in the 2022 election inquiry

The Liberal Party has made an extraordinary intervention into the parliamentary inquiry on the conduct of the 2022 Australian election.

January 12, 2023

Does racism explain our approach to global health problems?

To suggest that China and only China needs to provide negative COVID-19 tests, tests on arrival or even a complete ban of arrivals from China is a political and racist approach to a global health problem.

January 5, 2023

Friedreich's Ataxia: Impossible to cease its progression

I wish to write here in a frank and open way about the way the progression of Friedreichs Ataxia (FA) has severely impacted the proceedings of everyday life, I am now 60 years old and the progression is well advanced. I am writing from the standpoint of what those in my profession of sociology would say is participant observation.

October 21, 2022

In Asian media this week Xis China narrative largely true

In Asian media this week: different views on what Xi said and did not say in his national party congress report.

November 27, 2024

COVID 19 Response Inquiry Report: A comprehensive review despite its limited terms of reference

My recent review of the book, Australia’s Pandemic Exceptionalism, by Steven Hamilton and Richard Holden (H&H) highlighted its ‘convincing, frank and honest account’ in just over 200 pages, and encouraged the Health Department in particular to listen to its lessons. The official COVID-19 Response Inquiry Report by Robyn Kruk, Catherine Bennett and Angela Jackson ( KB&J) may lack H&H’s punchiness but is an equally impressive document that deserves careful reading not only by Health but across the Commonwealth and the States.

November 1, 2024

Survival of planetary life depends on decisions made now

Next month, UNCOP 29 is in Baku, Azerbaijan, from November 11. And as we speak, UNCOP16 on Biodiversity is continuing in Colombia. It would be wise to run them together, given the complementary goals of protecting biodiversity and preventing catastrophic climate change. But the importance of a successful COP29 can’t be overstated.

October 7, 2023

Silent thunder and the beauty of the Palestinian olive harvest

_In Northumbria, a majestic Sycamore Gap Tree has flourished at the site of Hadrians Wall for some 300 odd years. Last week it was cut down by some vicious, uncaring vandal.From the moment the trunk of that beautiful old tree hit the ground the thud of destruction turned into a thunder of condemnation across the world. The people who committed this heinous crime should be punished to the full extent of English law. But, what about the people who have destroyed, uprooted or burnt one million trees in Palestine?

March 22, 2023

The shipping lie

Defence Minister Richard Marles has now told us why we need nuclear submarines not to defend Taiwan or attack China, but to defend our merchant shipping. Sounds credible until one does the maths.

March 18, 2023

Slowing the roaring river of violence

Avulsion refers to river science and how a number of little incidents can slow the river’s flow and, over time, cause the river to go in a different direction - a fallen tree, for example, that slows down the river’s flow, causing further deposits until the resistance to flow leads to change. If enough of us resist the roaring river of violence by dropping our little deposits of prayers, meditations, songs, conferences and public advocacy, can we too help the river of life to flow in a healthier direction?

December 21, 2022

Christmas: the uncherished gift

In the irreverent Monty Python film: the Life of Brian, the crowd is listening to Jesus speaking, but because of the hubbub mishear what he says. Instead of "blessed are the peace makers" they hear "blessed are the cheese makers"__. The crowd wonders what this means; the phrase is symbolic says one, _"_it involves all in manufacturing."

January 14, 2022

If America really is 'back', it needs to set an example on human rights and charity in Afghanistan

Over it’s 20 year war in Afghanistan the US inflicted untold death and destruction.Now with sanctions and boycotts it is inflicting even more suffering. Yet it continues to preach about human rights abuses by China and others.

January 19, 2025

“Journalism is not a crime”: Gaza reporter slams international press as journalist death toll rises

As negotiators from Israel and Hamas continue discussions in Qatar about a possible Gaza ceasefire, we speak with Palestinian journalist Abubaker Abed, who spoke at a press conference of Gaza media workers last week urging the international press to speak up for their Palestinian colleagues. The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate says nearly 200 journalists have been killed in Israeli attacks since October 2023. “The world just keeps turning a blind eye and a deaf ear to what is happening,” says Abed from outside the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah. “It’s completely enraging and unacceptable.” His recent article for Drop Site News is headlined “What It’s Truly Like to Sleep in a Damp, Frigid Tent: A Report From Gaza.”

October 15, 2024

ACT’s Barr will struggle to overcome belief he has been in power too long

This ACT election is not an election about policies. Nor, by itself, about significant changes to the style of government.

January 10, 2024

The Search for the Palace Letters - a remarkable documentary

The Search for the Palace Letters is a remarkable documentary that follows the story of Professor Jenny Hocking, the historian who took on an epic legal battle against the Australian Government and HM Queen Elizabeth II in a landmark legal battle - and won. Aired on ABC earlier this week, you can view the documentary below.

November 28, 2023

Facism - the fear that's near

Could Australia face a fascist leader next door after the Indonesian Presidential election in February? Thats getting more likely as the polls harden, hoaxes flourish and slanders stir.

November 23, 2023

Executive overreach in Australia has reached the levels of an autocracy

Last week Australians were forced to suffer through the spectacle of their parliament being dragged to a new low as the Coalition hammered the Labor government for not being better prepared for the prospect that the Commonwealth might lose the most recent High Court case about whether indefinite detention of refugees is unlawful or unconstitutional.

March 27, 2023

The shame of missing a national mood

At least until the 1964 Freedom Rides, Australia had a Jim Crow system every bit as bad as in the American South.

January 6, 2023

Why is there a shortage of General Practitioners?

Why do we have a problem in recruiting General Practitioners and how can we overcome the shortage? The answer - to quote Aneurin Bevan, the Health Minister in the Post World War II Labour Government: By stuffing their mouth with Gold.

November 9, 2022

The ACT legislated to decriminalise possession of personal quantities of illicit drugs

By the time the ACT Legislative Assembly passed legislation on 20 October 2022 to commence the decriminalisation of personal quantities of all illicit drugs in October 2023, drug law reform was already well on its way around the world.

October 8, 2022

Truth-telling with Walpiri people at the heart of new opera

Jack Waterford warned recently that its time to get fair dinkum, or the Voice proposal will lose momentum and support. A way to do that is by taking a two-way approach to telling shared stories. Thats what the composer Anne Boyd is doing as she creates a musical language for the Australian landscape. Her new opera tells the story of Olive Muriel Pink (1884__1975), artist, Aboriginal-rights activist, anthropologist and gardener, whose work with the Walpiri people lives on in the Olive Pink Botanic Garden in Alice Springs.

March 25, 2022

The bell tolls: Brisbane's night of broken glass

_It happened 133 years ago. Yet the Chinese Question remains, having now mutated to the China Question. Meanwhile the burden upon the Chinese as scapegoats, at the altar of racial purity in the first instance, cultural cohesion a century later and of late national sovereignty continues unabated.

December 22, 2024

Imperial Australia still lives

It is almost exactly two years since I wrote more in sorrow than in anger about Australia’s neocolonial treatment of its offshore territories, especially Norfolk, Christmas and Cocos Islands. At the time, Australia had achieved the dubious distinction of being the last colonial power in the Pacific and Indian Oceans which had steadfastly refused to grant some level of democracy in the territories it purported to possess.

December 17, 2024

To defeat Dutton, Labor needs inspiration and leadership from its ‘mortal enemy’ – the Greens

Dutton’s nuclear plans provide an opportunity for a campaign Labor could win. But it won’t be won without girding for war. The need for some political alliance is greater given that neither Albanese nor his senior ministers, and the party organisation, have shown themselves up to serious political struggle on climate change.

November 16, 2024

Urgent case for statecraft on green iron and steel to secure Australia's future prosperity

A handful of years ago, South Australia’s Whyalla steelworks, owned by British industrialist Sanjeeev Gupta, was touted as the potential birthplace of an Australian green iron and steel industry. Today, the mounting crisis at Whyalla brings sharply into focus both the risks and opportunities of this pivotal moment in Australia’s energy transition, and the transition of the global steelmaking industry more broadly.

October 12, 2024

Sunlight needed to eradicate prison horrors

Reports of malfeasance involving staff at the Alexander Maconochie Centre, the ACT’s supposedly human-rights-compliant prison, are now too numerous and too frequent to lack substantial veracity.

April 5, 2024

The Commonwealth should get out of schooling

There is no government or agency or combination of them capable of conceiving and driving the kind and scale of change Australian schooling now requires. The ’national approach’ installed by the Rudd and Gillard governments fifteenyears ago has not worked and cannot. Its sponsor, the Commonwealth, should move or be moved to the margins or get out of schooling altogether.

April 3, 2024

Is China heading for some kind of currency crisis?

In the short term, no. But over the medium- to longer-term, the possibility of a Chinese currency crisis by which I mean an abrupt fall in the value of the renminbi against other currencies, prompted by large capital outflows, and possibly entailing large falls in the values of other Chinese assets cannot be dismissed.

February 21, 2024

Terra solitarius the true cost of young peoples loneliness

Were sleepwalking toward social catastrophe. Perhaps were there already terra solitarius. Almost anywhere you care to look research findings, news reports, general social chatter all signs point in the same direction: a society free-falling into mass disconnection, loneliness and isolation. The word epidemic is often used to describe this situation. Its a phenomenon sweeping over many rich, western nations.

December 20, 2023

Australia sleepwalking into catastrophic conflict with China

Gareth Evans review of Australias strategic relationship with the United States (Why Australia cant rely on the US to save it from China, 12 December) provides a timely wake-up call on the dangers of Australia sleepwalking into what would be a catastrophic conflict with China.

October 27, 2023

There is no looking away: The brutal rejection of the Voice

Unlike mainstream commentators, I don’t think there is anything the ‘Yes Campaign’ could have done to win the No voters. You can provide someone with information but can’t lead them to judgement. No voters knew what they wanted. No point questioning their choice.

January 21, 2023

George Pell: the Faith vs the Institution

Cardinal George Pells vision of a church beyond criticism, its edicts to be slavishly followed, and governed almost exclusively by elderly men sits very uncomfortably with Christs proclamation of the Kingdom of God and our contemporary world.

November 17, 2021

Money and policy are the keys to elevate Australia into top broadband league

_It seems Labor has bitten the bullet and decided that to have an overall better quality NBN, more money is needed to upgrade the fibre to the node to full fibre.

April 1, 2025

DeepSeek has changed China’s AI model landscape – what’s next?

The start-up has emerged as the unlikely winner of a dizzying domestic competition. Can it reshape the global market as well?

March 13, 2025

Is Peter Dutton the tip of a Trumpist foreign policy for Australia?

In 1951 Australia turned to its newfound “great and powerful friend” America, consummating the move by signing the ANZUS treaty. ANZUS remains seriously misunderstood by most Australians, especially among the ageing ranks of conservative aficionados in Australia where it has the status of a holy cow. This is despite the fact that the treaty is only an agreement to “consult” if ever Australia’s security is threatened. It is no guarantee that the US will come to Australia’s defence, whatever threat may arise.

March 4, 2025

The fate of US allies hangs in the balance under Trump 2.0

Kudos to President Donald Trump! He thinks he has solved the security problems in Europe and the Middle East. His ideas for peace by in Gaza via force and land grabbing, however, have not augured well with key powers in the region. The Arabs felt they have been betrayed by Trump who gave Israel carte blanche to deal with Iran, Syria, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon, for example.

February 28, 2025

The egg and I

You can tell a lot about a person by the way they boil an egg for breakfast. I’ve made a study of it. The conservatives wait till the water’s boiling before they put the egg in and hit the three-minute timer.

February 3, 2025

Australia’s cultural independence sacrificed on the altar of deregulation

What does the acquisition of iconic Melbourne independent Text Publishing by US-based multinational Penguin Random House tell us about the health or otherwise of the Australian book publishing industry?

October 7, 2024

The hierarchy of death

When Israel Defence Forces shelled the home of Quama, an eight-year-old Palestinian girl, and her family, the little girl was seriously injured. Because the IDF has been systematically devastating Gaza’s hospitals, her parents were unable to access a hospital with the necessary medical services. Quama was admitted to a maternity hospital which lacked both the services required to treat her injury, and the antibiotics to stop her leg becoming infected. So Quama’s leg was amputated.

February 1, 2024

AI is not to blame for Channel 9s misogyny humans are

Is there a word for when you are in a rage and in despair? Respair? Dage? Cause whatever that is - I am both in rage and despair as a woman who works in both politics and technology over the latest example of how the media treats powerful women; in this case Georgie Purcell, member of the Legislative Council for Northern Victoria. If we really want to change things and enable women to fully participate in societyincluding all levels of democracy- let’s start with misogyny, not technology.

January 11, 2023

MPs shilling for private interests

I have long been a fan of the British parliaments system of having independent commissioners for standards who review complaints that MPs have breached their Code of Conduct or the Nolan Committees set of standards of public life.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal