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 2, 2024

AI is not to blame for Channel 9’s 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 society including all levels of democracy - let’s start with misogyny, not technology.

January 12, 2023

MPs shilling for private interests

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

December 29, 2022

The US is addicted to greatness – and haunted by its loss

If the US is to craft a new political culture less obsessed with grandeur and more in touch with reality, it must start with the young.

January 31, 2025

The APS has more work to do to address Robodebt revelations: Review of Mean Streak by Rick Morton

Towards the end of his book, after referring to the NACC initial decision not to investigate alleged misbehaviour and to the completion of the APSC’s code of conduct investigation, Rick Morton states:

‘a large group of the senior management of the Australian Public Service … would like that to be the end of things, as if robodebt was the result of a few bad actors and not the inevitable crisis that springs from a sclerotic institution.’

It is a conclusion that, sadly, I largely agree with.

October 28, 2024

How can we make retirement villages better for residents?

Recently, the matter of retirement villages has come to the fore in the media, led by investigative journalist Adele Ferguson on ABC 7.30 Report. Ferguson’s report and case studies raised the question of “what protections should be put in place to protect the residents from the avarice of owners and operators of retirement villages?”

February 3, 2024

‘Fire arrow’ missile: Is Kim ready for war? – Asian Media Report

In Asian media this week: Debate gets serious about North Korea’s intentions. Plus: Another Thai progressive party beaten by the court system; Pakistan’s shameful history of removing PMs; India’s Hindu temple celebration will help government; HK’s security law at sprint stage; Interest surges in Oppenheimer’s devastation

January 10, 2024

Release the full report on Mike Pezzullo’s misdeeds

It is time for Albanese to take the public into his confidence. He has an instinct for secretiveness that almost matches that of Scott Morrison.

November 21, 2023

Wedge alarm, the Labor panic button

November 5, 2023

Why does "Mental Health Reform" default to "Compliance and Control"?

‘Mental Health Reform’ has been a phrase bandied about for over 30 years in Australia. And while well intentioned, hopefully expressing the ‘Care and Concern’ felt by politicians, bureaucrats and health practitioners, it has always ended up defaulting to ‘Compliance and Control.’

October 1, 2023

Getting the facts right on departmental tenure

Commentary on the tenure of Secretaries of Commonwealth Government departments is becoming perilous territory as those wading into it continue to make basic errors of fact.

February 16, 2023

Fixing APS remuneration will be a long journey

Katy Gallagher’s recent rejection of an ATO supported pay increase was entirely justified if the Government is to move away from agency-based remuneration to an APS-wide approach.

February 24, 2025

'Activist judges': in the US and Australia, the Right intends to make the law its slave

One of the key strategies used by the transnational authoritarian Right to subvert democratic projects is “playing the refs.” Their strategists work to discredit journalists and media platforms that hold them to account. They tarnish academics, civil servants, agencies and charities that are expert in their inconvenient fields. Fact-checkers are made to look partisan, so nobody is left to call out lies. One target in America and Australia is the judiciary which they disparage with the label “activist judges".

February 12, 2025

The lost generation: Gaza’s children and their stolen futures

Rasha was 10 years old when she wrote her will. In simple words, she asked that her belongings be given to those in need if she didn’t survive. A child, too young to dream of death, yet old enough to know it was coming. She was killed soon after.

February 11, 2025

The eternal dance: East, West, and the future of human civilisation

In the grand tapestry of history, no thread is brighter than the one connecting East and West. This intricate exchange of ideas, trade, and philosophies — what we might call the Tao of Terra — has shaped our world in profound ways.

January 25, 2025

After the theft of a continent, welfare benefits beat work

Land rights now! By a strange quirk of fate, I was working in the Minister’s Office in 1976 when Parliament passed the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act. Great was our pride, and our expectations. In terms of securing title to land and sea the Act has been highly effective. But in terms of creating assets for wealth generation, and lifting household incomes, and providing the means for people to participate in the economic activity of the Country, not so much.

December 21, 2024

No Christmas presents for public schools

There are no Christmas presents for public schools in new interim funding agreements between the Albanese Government and the major states.

March 23, 2024

How the American left is becoming more stupid - Weekly Roundup

The ideas of Peter Dutton and Jürgen Habermas, the government shifts ground on intergenerational politics, a fact check on law’n’order fearmongers, and How the American left is becoming more stupid. Read on for the weekly roundup of links to articles, podcasts, reports and other media on current economic and political issues.

December 5, 2023

The honeymoon is over

March 16, 2023

Canberra has a revenue problem - with no obvious solutions

Before the election I wrote our leaders were dancing on the edge of calamity shutting their eyes to the obvious gap between the Commonwealth’s revenue stream and its growing spending commitments. Decades of giving long term tax reductions funded by short term spurts of revenue, usually from mining, had come home to roost. Albanese, spooked by the 2019 Shorten election loss, had wiped anything resembling tax reform from the platform and backed the Coalition initiated Stage 3 tax cuts which will primarily advantage the wealthy.

December 5, 2022

We are overdue for a hybrid Aboriginal-Western map of juvenile justice

Highly troubled Aboriginal youth offenders are rolling down the road of Western justice at everyone’s peril and which Four Corners has exposed as perpetrating great harm. It’s about time we followed a different hybrid Aboriginal-Western map – one that is relevant, properly funded, and respected.

November 9, 2022

Labor will struggle with deficit and debt until it raises taxes

There’s something strange about the recent federal budget. It reveals remarkably quick progress in getting the budget deficit down to nearly nothing. But then it sees the deficit going back up again. Which shows that, as my former fellow economics editor Tim Colebatch has put it, Rome wasn’t built in one budget.

December 23, 2024

Australia's faltering research and development funding and efforts

Michael Lester in conversation with Professor Ian Chubb AC—policy adviser at the Australian Academy of Science (AAS), former Chief Scientist of Australia, and former Vice-Chancellor and Deputy Vice-Chancellor of several universities—now appointed to lead a once-in-a-generation review of Australia’s faltering research and development funding and efforts.

December 30, 2023

A thousand children have undergone amputations without anaesthesia in Gaza

The Palestinian death toll from ongoing Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip has surged to 20,674, the Health Ministry in the territory said yesterday.

December 19, 2023

Biden unable to slow the Israeli slaughter

Israel is a nation not greatly given to following advice, even from its great and powerful friends and guarantors, unless and to the extent it accords with its own judgment of where its national interest lies. That’s partly because it sees itself as being surrounded by enemies, ever in a desperate position, and bound to suffer if it adopts the wrong strategies and tactics. What better discipline, or morale, than understanding that any one of their strategic or tactical mistakes could end their country’s existence.

December 1, 2023

The Sheraton incident and John Ryan: ASIS Cold War Warrior

John Edmund Ryan, OBE was a former soldier, career diplomat and acting director of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS). He entered Australian folklore on 30 November 1983 when an ASIS team raided Melbourne’s Sheraton Hotel, during a training exercise. The subsequent political controversy engulfed the federal labor government and it claimed Ryan’s career, with his early retirement. This is an extracted related obituary, forty years after the raid.

March 14, 2023

We don’t need subs or war with China

The pussies in Labor are reluctant to differ by a millimetre from the coalition on defence, foreign affairs and national security lest they be accused of treason.

February 1, 2025

DeepSeek’s success challenges assumptions about Chinese tech companies – and the US-China competition

The release of the new DeepSeek-R1 artificial intelligence (AI) model has shocked the tech world.

January 27, 2025

Political opportunity and the non-religious

As we are now a few short months away from the next federal election, politicians and their advisers are desperate to identify segments of the electorate that could decide a closely run race. Among other things, party strategists seek to appeal to the historical links between religion and voting preferences.

November 20, 2024

Faux electoral reform: Entrenching the Australian Party Duopoly

Australia’s establishment parties are running scared. The Albanese Labor government is particularly scared. Tumbling in the polls, increasingly weakened and choked (inexplicably) by the bruising tactics of Coalition opposition leader Peter Dutton, the sinking vessel that is this government is scrambling for existential remedies. One is to try, as much as possible, to limit the reach of independents and minor parties, those frightfully irritating creatures who have served to change the Australian electoral landscape by encouraging cooperation in Canberra.

October 25, 2024

Nobel messages from East Asia, 2024

Early in October 2024, the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced the award of two major prizes: the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize to the Japanese grassroots peace organisation Nihon Hidankyo (Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organisations), and the literature prize to the Korean novelist, Han Kang. From both winners came messages addressed to our troubled times. There is little early indication that they would be heard.

February 10, 2024

Australian authorities breach UN Convention on rights of a child

Any Australian parent and grandparent would be aghast by the actions of the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and Victoria Police involving an investigation into a 13 year old autistic boy who was charged in 2022 with terrorism offences. The boy had an IQ of 71.

February 9, 2024

An opportunity for parliamentarians to work for peace

“If wars can be started with lies, peace can be started with truth,” Julian Assange:

Petition EN5846 to the House of Representatives calls on the Australian government to suspend Australia’s ‘autonomous sanctions’ on Syria. A considered, conscientious response to the petition could have major implications for Australia’s foreign and defence policies.

February 24, 2023

China war pornography and hypoxia: Anticipating the Defence Strategic Review

Many government reviews or reports are leaked in part for reasons of bureaucratic politics and the Defence Strategic Review (DSR) is no exception.

February 14, 2023

For richer, not better: the prostitution of the Australian War Memorial

There has been a flurry of mention of the Australian War Memorial (‘AWM’) concerning the removal of Chinese-made security cameras from Government buildings . The new Chair of the AWM, Kim Beazley AO, announced that it would so do, out of ‘an abundance of caution’ (codespeak for ‘this is complete BS but we will do it to shut you up’).

January 5, 2023

Myths and facts about China’s current COVID-19 situation

The Chinese government refined its COVID-19 prevention and control measures recently, ushering in a new phase of the country’s efforts to prevent and control the disease. The refined measures are in line with people’s wishes, conducive to China’s economic and social development and world economic recovery, and will inject more stability and positive energy into today’s volatile world.

November 30, 2022

“Extreme overreach”: Bell report exposes Morrison threat to Westminster system

New report by Former High Court judge Virginia Bell is scathing of PM Morrison and head of department Phil Gaetjens for secret ministry appointments, but spares Governor General from scrutiny.

June 6, 2021

Slouching towards Jerusalem: Australia as an Israeli apologist

“The Australian government has become an apologist for Israeli war crimes and a wrecker of sacred international humanitarian law principles.”

December 6, 2024

A call to all Christians in Australia to strive for a just peace in the holy land

In the Name of Christ, Our Peace - The time has come for people of faith to hear the cries of the people of Palestine, Gaza and Lebanon and to do everything in our power towards the ending of the death and destruction they are suffering.

November 22, 2024

When the system fails

As someone who has spent most of my life working with people for whom the system is profoundly broken, I wrestle with the same question that many middle-class people do: Why do so many disenfranchised people support figures like Donald Trump, whose policies often seem designed to further entrench inequality? The answer, I’ve come to realise, isn’t as simple as ignorance or irrationality—it’s about living in a system that fundamentally doesn’t work for them, a reality that can be hard for us in the middle class to fully grasp.

November 15, 2024

Putting the mouth back into Medicare

How would it be to walk into a general practice with a toothache and be triaged to see the oral health therapist, who assesses and then develops an oral health care plan? They are then qualified to provide dental treatment but may also involve a GP or dentist across the corridor for further assessment. It is time to dream this could become a reality if Labor is prepared to embrace the mouth, gently.

November 5, 2024

Perceptions of bias: The National Anti-Corruption Commission and Robodebt

From the outset, a question mark hovered over whether Australia’s federal National Anti-Corruption Commission would serve the purpose of shedding light on corruption in the public sector. The enacting legislation that brought it into existence, for instance, limit public hearings to “exceptional circumstances”, a reminder that transparency was going to be heavily conditioned.

December 1, 2022

The Voice of an obstructionist, willfully ignorant National Party

The National Party’s decision to campaign against a voice to parliament is destructive and wilfully ignorant. Contributors to this decision ignore a history of Indigenous punishment and powerlessness. They criticise a referendum process which has not been published but which they pretend to know. They attribute to the Uluru Statement goals which it does not have.

November 12, 2022

Weekly roundup: Trump does poorly, Morrison takes blame for Robodebt

Will we do better at Sharm el-Sheikh than Glasgow? Australia’s feudal rental market; Trump does poorly; and Morrison takes the blame for Robodebt. Read on for the weekly roundup of links to articles, reports, podcasts, and other media on current political and economic issues in public policy.

March 2, 2025

Environment: Governments like docile populations, that’s why they intimidate activists

Governments want you to feel powerless, but the tools for change are in our hands. Australia’s economy is failing to decarbonise. Burning trees to produce electricity is phoney environmentalism.

November 8, 2024

If you think the immediate future under Trump is horrific, just imagine the alternative

WTF just happened? is a question being asked around the world after the US Presidential election.

February 20, 2024

Keeping it in the family

Why did well over half the 200-plus million Indonesian registered electors choose disgraced general Prabowo Subianto as their next President? Duncan Graham has some answers.

January 4, 2024

Gaza: Israel’s hideous “final solution”

In Gaza, the 16 year old ghetto of two million people that Israel created, it seems that we are looking at Israel’s own hideous “final solution” with their collective punishment of a whole civilian population, their catastrophic genocidal practices and their mass ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. After decades of a systematic, sustained and strategic oppression, the Israeli policy appears to be nearing its final completion.

November 25, 2023

Adolf Eichmann would have been acquitted if tried under Australian law: Weekly Roundup

Something’s happening in renewable energy, the government embraces the National Party’s established approach to infrastructure funding, if you can’t find a rental on land take a cabin on a cruise, the Albanese government is slow to act because it has to clear all significant policy through Dutton, and why Adolf Eichmann would have been acquitted if he had been tried under Australian law. Read on for the weekly roundup of links to articles, podcasts, reports and other media on current economic and political issues.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal