February 1, 2024

Scott Morrison: A blight on Australian politics

Former Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s departure from parliament is a vulgar reminder about where Australian politics went grossly wrong, and where its vulnerable, already trimmed sovereignty went.

February 18, 2025

Sourcing antisemitism: 'Paid actors’ and urgent questions to be asked

In a recent podcast, award-winning US journalist, author, and film maker Max Blumenthal underlined the importance of following up stories “that are on the public record, but not getting adequate attention”. A concerning example was explored in his podcast, titled “Australian Authorities: ‘Paid Actors’ Spreading Anti-Semitism from Abroad”.

February 10, 2025

The movement we helped build: From Ian Macphee to Zoe Daniel

I don’t know where you were at Christmas 2019-2020, when Australia was literally going up in flames and Scott Morrison was in Hawaii and wouldn’t hold a hose. I was on my couch, in the middle of what felt like my millionth existential crisis, wondering yet again: Where was the action? Where was the accountability and leadership on climate, fairness, and a better future for all of us?

March 5, 2024

The end of party politics

When so many Teals won in the last federal election they replaced some of the best Liberals. They were politicians who had done some good things within government, but when required by their Party they voted for bad policies in the spirit of party solidarity. Their electorates comprised voters who looked at key issues on an individual basis and chose to vote for politicians who were prioritising issues of most importance for the future of our world.

February 15, 2024

Greedy businesses deserve part of blame for cost of living crisis

The nation’s economists and economist-run authorities such as the Reserve Bank have not covered themselves in glory in the present inflationary episode. They’ve shown a lack of intellectual rigour, an unwillingness to re-examine their long-held views, and a lack of compassion for the many ordinary families who, in the Reserve’s zeal to fix inflation the blunt way, have been squeezed till their pips squeak.

January 20, 2024

Planet killer: world’s largest asteroid impact crater discovered in Deniliquin, Australia

Evidence for a 520 km diameter impact crater, 3 times larger than the Chicxulub crater left from the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs, has been discovered in Deniliquin, Australia.

January 13, 2024

The gloves are off

December 21, 2023

Kathleen Folbigg’s wrongful convictions: Quashed, but why did they happen?

The NSW Court of Criminal Appeal has adopted the findings of the inquiry of the Honorable Thomas Bathurst AC KC into the convictions of Ms Kathleen Folbigg. As a result, her five criminal convictions from 2003 have been quashed and she has been acquitted.

March 17, 2023

What does a “good” employment service look like?

This week, the House Select Committee on Workforce Australia Employment Services held one of its public hearings. During the opening remarks, the Committee chair, Julian Hill remarked that he had asked the Department of Employment what a good service model looks like, and they couldn’t answer. He said they looked like a bunch of “well-paid, gaping fish”. Harsh.

December 27, 2022

Abolishing the Administrative Appeals Tribunal: An unfortunate but necessary development

It is a sad indictment upon Executive government, that a costly charade is exactly what the AAT had become. The level of Executive interference with the constitution and operation of the tribunal had reached such a level that it had almost destroyed the tribunal’s reputation for impartial and independent decision-making.

November 9, 2022

How many ABC journalists will report from COP27 in Egypt?

Many loyal ABC supporters were puzzled that our cash strapped public broadcaster could afford the cost of sending 27 staff to London to report on Queen Elizabeth’s funeral, but at least some of us hoped this may signal a fresh direction in overseas news reporting and analysis.

November 9, 2021

Australia knows how to legislate a carbon price, and we can do it again

The Gillard government’s ill-fated clean energy bill was passed 10 years ago. Australians are ready for an even better successor.

March 31, 2025

Spooks under the microscope

In 2023, the federal government set up a review of the National Intelligence Community (the NIC). It was to report in the first half of 2024.

October 18, 2024

Monetary policy: The Australian Government must stop acting in the interests of US shareholders

Since the dawn of neoliberal policy time, at the start of the 1980s, the idea that the population must suffer short-term pain for the sake of longer-term gain has been frequently stated by government and senior public servants.

February 7, 2024

Albanese’s proposal doesn’t fix bracket creep for low income earners

The Albanese Government’s proposed change to the Stage 3 tax cuts is clearly a broken promise; or, put another way, where was the political courage to offer an alternative when Stage 3 was announced (well ahead of the 2022 election)? But for the purposes of this analysis, let’s put those genuine integrity issues aside.

December 8, 2023

The ALP and NZ’s U-turn on Indigenous affairs

The Voice referendum dominated the national discourse for much of this year. The result was a major setback for the government.

March 22, 2023

Guaranteed protection of home and hearth for next to nothing?

There is a simple, relatively costless government move that should give about half a million Australians confidence in homeland security.

February 16, 2023

Inherent tensions: alcohol, poverty, and the role of governments in remote Australia

A week or so ago, on a visit to the ICU ward in the Alice Springs hospital, the Federal Minister for Indigenous Australians, Linda Burney was shocked to discover that of the 16 beds in the ICU, 14 were occupied by Indigenous women who had been subjected to violent assaults. Alcohol is widely acknowledged to be an element in most if not all these cases.

February 24, 2022

Richard Bardon: ‘Red scare’ red herring torches Aus-China university collaboration

Australian universities are curtailing collaboration with scientists from or “linked to” China, on pain of having their grant funding rescinded under the Morrison government’s Australia’s Foreign Relations (State and Territory Arrangements) Act 2020.

October 18, 2021

Nuclear submarine operations in South China Sea endanger coastal countries

The accident involving a US nuclear-powered submarine in the South China Sea brings into scrutiny the ramifications of such an accident. The release of nuclear radiation could damage the food supply of many nations.

April 4, 2025

Australian election 2025: Status quo or what?

Voting in federal or state elections has invariably posed a dilemma ever since my family and I qualified as citizens almost a quarter-century ago, at a ceremony where we were handed out miniature editions of the New Testament alongside the sausage sandwiches.

March 9, 2025

Fool or fabricator? ABC in the spotlight

I can’t stomach reading the ABC news any longer. Their journalists must be either the most ignorant people on the planet or the most deceitful. The choice is not flattering.

January 20, 2025

“Black Myth” in the Festive Season: Write your own journey to the East

Dumplings on the dinner table, festive greetings everywhere, and an intriguing online adventure that keeps you hooked from start to finish.

February 9, 2024

Political Clod: Malcolm Turnbull and Nemesis

_From the time Kevin Rudd romped into office as Australia’s first Labor Prime Minister since Paul Keating, the life of Australian Prime Ministers has been dangerous. Party hacks, factional gangsters, and pollsters shadow, stalk and linger, attempting to note signs of the weakness. A decline in the polls is treated as genuine political calamity, the equivalent of a famine to an ancient, superstitious civilisation. And as for policy – what of it? Weak leaders will be cut down, their legacy laid waste.

January 5, 2024

The Trias Politica and Australian governance

In recent years a growing number of Australians have lost confidence in their system of governance, but few journalists and political theory academics have suggested alternatives. If Australia is to improve its governance system and its democracy, it should look to European alternatives.

November 20, 2023

Domestic and family violence: brave men are vulnerable not violent

Australian national and state governments are very good at holding inquiries and releasing reports aimed at tackling wicked problems. Top of today’s long list is Domestic and Family Violence (DFV), where all governments combined to produce another National Plan last year:

October 14, 2023

This is how you can support the people of Gaza

Dear distinguished readers, in response to the terrible situation in Palestine, please support an urgent appeal from the Palestinian Australian New Zealand Medical Association (PANZMA), to purchase badly needed medical supplies for the besieged people of Gaza.

February 17, 2023

Will Steffen: the dilemma of pioneer climate scientists

The name of Will Lee Steffen will stand tall as a pioneer earth systems and climate change scientist at our critical time when the life support systems of our planet are increasingly threatened.

November 28, 2024

ABC News' death rattle

I’d like to think that ABC News’ revamped online iteration is like an ancient Aunty’s death rattle. Surely, its demise must follow.

February 10, 2024

Dutton’s vision of a zero-government Australia: Weekly Roundup

How our cost of living can be eased with a Woolworths-AGL-Qantas merger, government promises political donation reform before 2045 election, Dutton’s vision of a zero-government Australia. Read on for the weekly roundup of links to articles, podcasts, reports and other media on current economic and political issues.

December 28, 2023

Plutocrats and political elites: The way we do things in the West

Western Australia is famously a long way from everywhere. Given our isolation, it’s not surprising that politics can be a bit parochial. While this may have been forgivable in another era, at this current historical juncture it’s becoming rather embarrassing.

October 4, 2023

Fearmongering: the media’s creation of fear in the general public

It has often been suggested that the LNP have always used an underlying fear and insecurity in the general public as a means of securing voting support on the basis that they offer better protection against external and internal threats. Typically, these threats are left vague, yet it is wholly evident that the main stream media is intent on ramping up China as an external threat and Middle East and youth crime gangs as an internal threat. Is Climate Change presented as a threat to our security? Rarely, and usually in an entirely non-systematic manner.

September 12, 2021

Foreign judges on Hong Kong's top court give backing to judiciary

One of Hong Kong’s greatest assets has always been the rule of law. What better way, therefore, for anybody wishing to harm Hong Kong than to undermine its legal system.

March 20, 2025

Deeper causes of the present genocide

Czeslaw Milosz, lawye__r, poet, acclaimed author, Nobel Prize winner for Literature 1980, and central figure in the Polish resistance during the Nazi occupation 1940-45, wrote this: ‘This book was written in 1951/2 in Paris when the majority of French intellectuals resented their country’s dependence on American help…Its subject is the vulnerability of the twentieth century mind to seduction by socio-political doctrines and its readiness to accept totalitarian terror for the sake of a hypothetical future. As such the book transcends limitations of place and of moment as it explores the deeper causes of today’s longing for any, even the most illusory, certainty’. ( The Captive Mind).

November 11, 2024

The Future of Australia's telecommunications sector

While successfully rolling out 5G mobile wireless technology and achieving high rates of penetration and quality services for smartphones, telecom providers like Telstra have faced significant investments in infrastructure. At the same time, they have struggled to raise prices and maintain profitability, particularly in the face of the broadband network rollout (NBN), which has come at great taxpayer expense and performed poorly by international standards.

October 16, 2024

A life of achievement in politics

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away there were purposeful, progressive and committed Labor Governments.

October 7, 2024

Gaza one year on: lessons for Australia

A few days after the Hamas breakout from Gaza last October 7, I raised the question of how far Israel might be permitted to advance along the road to moral turpitude. After almost a year now, there is no doubt that the answer is: a very long way indeed.

February 21, 2024

Government’s response to Long Covid inquiry an exercise in sophistry

Preparing government responses to reports from Parliamentary inquiries often involves finding a plausible excuse to reject a perfectly sensible suggestion. The Department of Health and Aged Care failed this task in its response to the House of Representatives Long COVID inquiry.

December 11, 2023

So why the secrecy?

Last month, Chris Bowen, the Climate Change Minister, delivered the second Annual Climate Change Statement to the federal parliament. The Minister’s address was in part detailed – especially when it came to the government’s many policy achievements – but less so when it came to the question of climate heating and national security.

March 12, 2023

Thank heavens for the FPA! Our very own Force Posture Agreement...

Just what’s needed to get me standing up straight, proud and strong! A session with a kindly chiropractor.

March 25, 2025

What the polls are and aren't telling us

Political junkies and the media are obsessed with opinion polls on the relative standings of the political parties. Movements within standard statistical margins of error are treated with great respect.

December 22, 2024

Is humanity’s destiny Winton’s dystopian world?

I turned 90 recently after a long retirement following decades as an academic and an aquatic scientist working on the zooplankton of Australian and Antarctic waters. But now, every day of my life, there’s something deeply corrosive that eats into my psyche and it’s nothing to do with any fear or dread associated with my forthcoming demise which may not be too far away.

January 21, 2024

A self-written obituary: Dr Mark John Valencia II

Mark was born and raised in the Boston area. His rough and tumble youth left an indelible mark reflected in his Boston blue collar accent, attitude and life-long membership of the Red Sox nation. He fell in love with Hawaii the moment he arrived in January 1969 to pursue a PH. D. in Oceanography at UH.

November 28, 2023

Australia isn’t giving everyone a fair shot

Giving all adults the chance to get vaccinated should be easy. Vaccines slash the risk of severe illness. They are very safe for people who are recommended to get them. Best of all, compared to other ways to improve our health, vaccination is quick, cheap, and easy.

March 8, 2023

In praise of women’s work: reflecting on International Women’s Day

Failure to appropriately value the work women do perpetuates their subordinate status.

March 6, 2022

John Cleese - Alert levels in response to the Russian threat

The English are feeling the pinch in relation to recent Russian threats and have therefore raised their security level from “Miffed” to “Peeved.”

February 14, 2025

The lawless West

The low regard in which the Global West is held is intensifying. The second Trump administration is not the cause of this. It is simply accelerating this ominous process by openly embracing a lawless, imperial contempt for primary international and metropolitan governance rules, norms and conventions in response to the persistent retreat of American global dominance. Meanwhile, the Global South clearly observes how America’s traditional allies remain overwhelmingly loyal — or silent — as the US persists in asserting its role as their exceptionally unworthy leader.

January 10, 2025

How to protest against the atrocities in Gaza

Remember the Vietnam War? The barbarism there cannot be compared with what we see almost daily in Gaza. But just looking on impotently will not solve the problem.

December 21, 2024

Reclaiming the radical spirit of the Eureka Rebellion

At 4am in the morning, Ballarat was dark and dismal. Nonetheless, about forty people, suitable dressed for the cold and the light drizzle, assembled at the Eureka Stockade Memorial Park to commemorate the 170th anniversary of the 1854 Eureka rebellion. The sky was clouded, and the Southern Cross was shrouded, but it was present in abundance on the flags, banners and clothing. The flag we should have had! The symbol of an independent Australia.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal