December 24, 2022

Gathering for Christmas

The shopping centre carpark opposite was empty. It was lunchtime Christmas Day. Most people were at home or elsewhere with loved ones. Christmas Day is different.

November 15, 2022

Why is Albo so set on clipping Teal wings?

As Anthony Albanese might see it, almost all of his political good fortune has come from preferring his own judgment and instinct ahead of the advice and experience of others. He has a very long background in politics.

November 5, 2022

Asian Media – Rule of law declining internationally

In Asian media this week: Cambodia retains sorry legal status

March 8, 2025

Is it the US electoral system that is at fault?

The US as a new nation rejected the rule of the British monarch in a revolution and the newly created presidency was granted, ipso facto, monarchical power for four year terms. After a revolution it was deemed undesirable to have an hereditary monarchy, so a system was devised in which a president with a form of monarchical power could be elected for four years, with later constitutional amendments allowing only one subsequent term.

November 20, 2024

Trump’s election supports the case for a Department of Trade and Resources

The geopolitical danger in which Australia finds itself after the election of Donald Trump reinforces an argument made by Paul Barrett. His was to re-establish a free-standing Department of Trade and mine is to combine trade and resources as they were between 1977 and 1983.

October 21, 2023

Liberal Party falls into the dark world of far-right populism: Weekly Roundup

The Voice vote — a setback for reconciliation and for Australian democracy. Businesses behaving badly. Stan Grant and John Coltrane. Read on for the Weekly roundup of links to articles, podcasts, reports and other media on current economic and political issues.

November 24, 2022

The US military empire: a visual database

The United States of America, unlike any other nation, maintains a massive network of foreign military installations around the world.

November 13, 2024

Whatever Dutton wants, Albanese makes sure he gets

The Albanese Government’s obsessive enthusiasm for matching Coalition and News Corp demands with policy responses was on show twice last week. On both occasions it was enshrined in legislation, the first on immigration detention and the other on laws to restrict social media access.

December 4, 2023

Battle cry of the unbowed

Our voices will be thunderous, a storm that will not cease, A tempest of determination, a wind of lasting peace.

October 17, 2023

The Voice, a broken system and the righting of old wrongs

The cut-through of mercenary, racist and Trumpist tropes reflected in the “No” referendum campaign has many people, including refugees, alarmed.

March 28, 2023

Do universities with medical schools fail on fossil fuels?

The greatest threat to human health is environmental destruction, primarily due to climate change, and worsened by biodiversity loss and pollution. It needs addressing immediately by cooperative action throughout society.

October 19, 2022

The non-West coalesces

_Something recently happened in Vienna, where the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, now known as OPEC–Plus with the inclusion of the Russian Federation, convened for its first in-person session since 2020. It is something of epochal importance, though you will not know this if you rely solely on the reports carried in our corporate-owned media.

August 29, 2021

Why does the US behave like that? The core issue is the nature of capitalism.

I_n the last few years, there has been a remarkable increase in the readiness to question and criticise the behaviour of the US. We seem to be rapidly moving away from the idolisation and “All the way…” attitude that prevailed since World War 2. John Menadue documented the US’s record of thuggish behaviour well in his recent Pearls and Irritations article, referring to for instance the 70+ wars it has started since WW2._

February 26, 2025

Australians can now quickly review our nation's progress before selecting another parliament

Australian Community Futures Planning (ACFP) has recently released its second major report on the state of the nation – The State of Australia 2025.

December 16, 2024

Will Climate 200 be precocious and put out "Donfather's" wildfire?

Simon Holmes a Court tries hard to be politically unaligned, but I wonder if it is time for his baby, Climate 200, to grow up overnight and banish the scourge of our Two- Party-Preferred electoral duopoly (2PP).

December 12, 2024

Addressing misdiagnoses and gaps in Australia’s COVID-19 inquiry

The national report on Australia’s COVID response is long, at 877 pages (depending upon the format), with 4,647 footnotes. But long is not synonymous with comprehensive, and there are significant gaps in the report’s analysis and conclusions.

November 1, 2024

Cartoon commentary

February 8, 2024

Labor’s fuel-efficiency standards may settle the ute dispute – but there are still hazards on the road

Australia looks set to adopt fuel-efficiency standards after the Albanese government on Sunday revealed options for the long-awaited policy. The government says the reform would lead to more cars that are cheaper to run, eventually saving Australians about A$1,000 per vehicle each year.

January 25, 2024

Politics of division: a Democracy under siege this Australia Day

In recent years the approach of Australia Day has been seen by the mainstream media as a time for reporting on the antics of those politicians who are intent on dividing the nation, splitting us into patriots and non-patriots, Indigenous and non-Indigenous – to which this year they have added a new divisive line between the pro-Israeli and the pro-Palestinian. As each year goes by it’s as if the point of the day is merely to find new ways to prevent us thinking about what holds us together in our diversity. The overwhelming purpose of all the hoopla seems to be to pull us apart.

December 24, 2023

Christ is born in Gaza

Why was Christ born in a stable? Because the Israelis bombed all the houses. Truly. Every year Jesus is born, dies and is reborn. He is reborn into our world – that is part of what makes Christian symbology meaningful. This year Christ is a brown skinned Middle Eastern man about to be born in Gaza.

December 2, 2023

Australians disappointed because they thought they elected a Labor government - Weekly Roundup

The grand housing cartel, a couple from Point Piper resurrect Gough Whitlam’s ideas on urban development, CPI data confirms that the RBA can declare itself redundant, Australians disappointed because they thought they elected a Labor government. Read on for the weekly roundup of links to articles, podcasts, reports and other media on current economic and political issues.

October 10, 2023

Will referendum defeat foretell doom for Albanese?

There’s no spin or ex-post facto interpretation of the likely defeat of the Aboriginal Voice referendum able to disguise a resounding setback for Aboriginal Australians.

March 23, 2023

Next NSW government must do much more on water and climate

Yesterday, 22 March 2023, the planet observed World Water Day, which highlights the sustainable management of precious water resources and raises awareness of the 2.2 billion people across the globe who are living without access to clean and safe water.

March 31, 2022

China’s military expansion

China’s military expansion is modest .It was recently reported that there are now four Chinese military installations outside of China’s borders and Wikipedia was used to support the claim.

April 1, 2025

Trump cutting Vaccine Alliance funds could kill 1.2m children worldwide

“This isn’t fiscal responsibility. It’s a political decision to let preventable diseases spread – to ignore science, lend legitimacy to anti-vaccine extremism, and dismantle the infrastructure that protects us all.”

January 19, 2025

A garden of civilisations

Humanity stands at a crossroads, its future bound not to conquest but to synthesis. The world before us is not one of irreconcilable opposites locked in perpetual conflict but an intricate ecosystem of human Adaptive Systems, each defined by its strengths and vulnerabilities.

January 15, 2024

Unpacking the Jevons Paradox: how effectiveness gains in the NDIS lead to increased demand

Australia has just completed major reviews of two of its largest public expenditures – the NDIS and Employment Services. Each program manifests problems predicted by two lesser-known economic theories: the Jevons Paradox in the case of the NDIS and Goodhart’s Law in the case of employment services. Neither were mentioned in either review.

October 15, 2023

It’s time to break the impasse on rent controls

Rent controls may be off the immediate political agenda, but they are very much an issue for the nearly 30% of voters who rent. As more and more people face deep poverty and homelessness, the ethical imperative for revisiting rent controls is impelling. And yet, the recent negotiations between the government and the Greens revealed a conceptual stalemate crying out for attention.

January 31, 2023

The missing piece in the school reform debate

Student outcomes in literacy and numeracy continue to go backwards. Why? Missing from the list of causes for poor learning outcomes, as it is from every such list, is the ineffectiveness of the Learning Assistance Program.

March 15, 2024

Australia’s school system: OOPs!

“The quasi market-based nature of the Australian education system entrenches disadvantage.” The degree of socio-educational stratification among schools makes Australia an anomaly among comparable democracies. Inequity is at a level where an archaeologist delving in to the system might label it as Out-of-Place stuff!

November 2, 2023

Record asylum caseload at Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT)

With announcement of a strategy to address Australia’s burgeoning asylum backlogs, it is worth looking at the asylum caseload at the AAT. Addressing the backlog at the appeals stage is often critical to getting the asylum system working, as it should to help genuine refugees while deterring the unmeritorious.

October 23, 2023

Crushing the human connection: Managerialism does not deliver good care

Australia began its National Carers Week (15-21 October), poignantly, the very day after the nation voted ‘No’ to a way forward to giving Voice to their communities, which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples had asked for in the Uluṟu Statement from the Heart.

March 30, 2023

The USA's greatest threat

The biggest threat facing the USA is not the collapse of democracy. Even though a twice impeached former president talks of death and destruction if he is arrested, while New York’s Attorney General seeks his indictment.

March 5, 2023

China’s peace plan for Ukraine

Recent Chinese Government peace proposals offer new hope for political settlement of the Ukraine crisis.

February 2, 2023

White man's brutality and the educated middle-class

In Ukraine and in other parts of the world, Western violence and supremacy has been abetted by its educated more than any other group.

November 28, 2022

Give thanks and rejoice: reflections for ST Therese’s Parish centenary mass

Last weekend’s Faith column in The Sunday Age provided a nostalgic reflection on what might be called ‘Old Time Catholicism’ and ‘Catholic Culture’, which I well remember, looking back on growing up in St James’s Parish Gardenvale, in the 1950’s and 60’s.

November 12, 2022

"The fish has died": The demise of NSW public schools

Conditions in Australian public schools are at crisis level. In searching for a cause, there is a Chinese proverb ‘The fish rots from the head’. A clear-cut example is the Department of Education in NSW, where modern neo-liberal, rational management of a public service has failed under current leadership.

March 3, 2025

Trump Mk II, McKinley and late-imperialism

_Donald Trump’s first term as president tested the US’s political boundaries, but his second term has demolished them. A month in and his second presidency is already notable for upending US domestic democracy and completely recasting US foreign policy. Some of this was predictable.

February 3, 2025

Coalition mindlessness and the colonising of Australia

It seems that with every utterance from certain members of the political landscape, the humanity bar is lowered. The latest from ABC News to catch the attention of anyone with a modicum of common sense is a speech at a Church by the Deputy Leader of a would-be Australian government, Sussan Ley.

January 7, 2025

Steering without a compass or a map

In 1971, Time magazine decided that it might do a friendly cover story on newly installed Liberal prime minister, Billy McMahon, and asked for co-operation from his media office. The office asked that questions be submitted in writing. This was not from mistrust of Time – indeed the office was deeply conscious of what Jane Austen would call the magazine’s condescension in so honouring an Asian backwater. It was from mistrust of Billy, who was capable of almost any media stuff-up.

November 29, 2024

Women missing from strategic decision-making: A call for inclusive leadership

As conflicts rage across the world, one painful truth remains: women are still missing from the decision-making table. Decisions that shape the futures of millions continue to exclude half the population.

April 5, 2024

Commonwealth-State health reform: It’s time for a conversation about national priorities

The prospects for significant health reform looked good at the end of 2023. A mid-term review of the main Commonwealth-state agreement – the National Health Reform Agreement (NHRA) – had recommended that the focus of a new agreement, due mid-2025, should be broader than public hospital funding. States seemed to be on board and the Commonwealth put big money on the table at the National Cabinet meeting on December 6.

November 10, 2023

Medicare is changing for the better

Last week another important suite of changes to Medicare came into effect. Since the election of the Albanese government, we have seen a willingness by government to introduce a range of policies designed to update and strengthen Medicare to position it better for the future.

October 5, 2022

Peace, prosperity are ASEAN watchwords

Southeast Asian nations must call out US attempts to destabilise the region with anti-China rhetoric.

January 13, 2025

Ukraine war: President Trump confronts a decision

In less than two weeks, when Donald Trump takes office, he will confront sharply conflicting advice on Ukraine from pro-war and anti-war camps in his incoming administration. We cannot predict the outcome, but here is relevant analysis of the choices facing him.

December 19, 2024

A nuclear fantasy?

There is an air of unreality, and a substantial quantity of pie in the sky, about the nuclear power policy unveiled on Friday the 13th of December by Opposition Leader Peter Dutton. And as for costs and practicability, voters are faced with the Liberals’ reliance on economic modelling by a Canberra consultant versus scientific modelling by the CSIRO.

March 24, 2023

Ensuring equal access to elections

While voting is considered a universal right in Australia, barriers remain preventing many people exercising the franchise effectively. In the lead-up to the 2023 New South Wales state elections it seems clear that more should be done to enable everyone to vote comfortably.

February 18, 2023

Aston truths

I have never seen so much rubbish written about a forthcoming political event as I have seen about the forthcoming Aston by-election.

December 16, 2022

Deaths from heat waves can be prevented by community shelters

Australia has no national policy to prevent the rising death toll in heatwaves. The provision of insulated and air conditioned housing in many remote communities will take years. In the meantime heat shelters must be urgently provided.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal