September 25, 2021

AUKUS: A new acronym, an old story

Imagine this. A $US65 billion contract to build submarines. A dollar value more than the GDP of Croatia and 135 other countries. An agreement to have one of Australias allies to build those instruments of war torn up five years into the deal.

March 8, 2025

The Murdoch plague on world politics

Any company which had a history of illegality, incurred massive costs for those illegal actions, polluted public discourse and, made massive false claims about companies and institutions, the directors and managers would be facing summary sacking at an AGM. But in the case of News Limited all the evidence is that the company never learns from such lessons.

March 2, 2025

Can Kathleen Folbigg ever be adequately compensated for her wrongful conviction?

In 2023 Kathleen Folbigg was pardoned and released after 20 years of wrongful imprisonment; soon after, her convictions were quashed by the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal. There remain two further actions before this sorry saga can be declared closed: (a) the awarding of proper compensation and (b) a full inquiry, best done by a Royal Commission, into what really went wrong. Folbigg’s legal team is pursuing compensation. On what has been made public so far, there is little likelihood of a full inquiry and so yet again the criminal justice system will not learn from its mistakes.

November 18, 2024

Will AI become our servant or our master?

AI is already showing dangerous signs of delivering more harm than good. The motivations behind its creation show why.

November 9, 2024

Moderates begone: ‘TIS THE AGE OF THE DESPOT

Prabowo Subianto has got his diary right: First overseas handshake from the new President of Indonesia is for his bankers in Beijing, President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang. Trump can wait.

October 17, 2024

Great game on: China’s ascendency in Eurasia and the West’s Chussia anxiety

Dr Geoff Raby AO, Australian Ambassador to China 2007-2011, Chairman, Geoff Raby & Associates, will address the National Press Club of Australia on “Great Game On: China’s ascendency in Eurasia and the West’s Chussia Anxiety”.

March 2, 2024

Lord Botham and discrimination in cricket

Responses to the report of the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket (Holding up a Mirror to Cricket) commissioned by the England and Wales Cricket Board, continue to reverberate months after its release in mid-2023.

November 18, 2023

The time for slow has expired: Reduce reliance on consultants now

The excessive use of consultants and contract labour was one of the most damaging injuries sustained by the Australian Public Service in the 10 years or so before the 2022 election.

December 19, 2022

How Australia became the world's greatest lithium supplier

As demand soars for electric vehicles and clean energy storage, Australia is rising to meet much of the world’s demand for lithium. While this helps reduce the need for fossil fuels, it raises another question how can we source lithium sustainably?

November 8, 2022

Marles has a bob each way, backing PNG on Bougainville but not China on Taiwan

The angry reaction to Richard Marles comments should be a warning to Canberra about the need to settle past grievances.

March 16, 2025

Slaughterhouse Syria

The terrorists set loose on Syria more than a decade ago were slaughtering Alawis, and now they are systematically slaughtering them again – in their thousands.

March 9, 2025

Legitimising the erasure of Palestinians

“Physical violence can’t exist without violence of language.” Omar El Akkad

February 19, 2025

AAUP calls for urgent reform of university management

The Council of the Australian Association of University Professors has welcomed the announcement of a Federal Parliamentary inquiry into the quality of governance at Australian higher education providers.

December 28, 2024

Bill Sullivan and Iran - missed opportunities then and now

The last American Ambassador to Iran was William Sullivan, a debonair silver-haired Irish-American with much wisdom and diplomatic experience. If President Jimmy Carter and Secretary of State Cyrus Vance had followed his advice, Iran would probably not be US enemy number one as it is today. Maybe even an ally.

October 15, 2024

From Guernica to Gaza

The bombing of the Basque town of Guernica, in Spain, in 1937 “heralded a terrible new age of warfare” that, almost 90 years later, remains graphically notorious as a “wanton man-made holocaust”. Over the last twelve months, Israel has made exceptional progress towards crafting a similar enduring understanding of the hellscape it has created in Gaza.

February 26, 2024

Medicare is bleeding to death. Will Labor ever do anything about it?

GP visits are down 37% since the government took office. But all we get is spin.

December 23, 2023

Blue Christmas

A Meditation for Those who are Grieving Loss during this Christmas Season, 2023

November 19, 2023

The RBA is a moribund institution an incumbrance on the economy

For the last three decades the Reserve Bank of Australia has focused on just one economic goal a rate of inflation between 2 and 3 per cent. It is a goal they have pursued relentlessly since 1993, regardless of how effective or fair it is. Last Tuesday they increased the cash rate yet again. The Guardian summed up the pending possibility as A Melbourne Cup Day rate rise would not be tough on inflation, it would just be cruel.

March 23, 2023

Indonesias untouchables stay that way

The outcome of a massive police-caused tragedy on Indonesias Java Island got less media coverage than a silly white womans argument with a brown cop in Bali.

February 17, 2025

First AUKUS meeting of Trump 2.0: Business as usual

February 7 saw the first AUKUS meeting held between officials of the Trump administration and their Australian servitors since the changing of the guard in the White House. In attendance was the US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and his unbearably compliant Australian counterpart Richard Marles. From all general appearances, the sense was that a change of government in Washington would not herald the scuppering of a ludicrously wasteful project that will cost the Australian taxpayer in the order $400 billion (a modest assessment) for nuclear powered submarines the country does not need, nor ever will.

December 4, 2024

Cartoon commentary

March 13, 2024

Politicians at every level need to lose their booze

Last week on Brisbane radio I briefly canvassed a proposal that all our state & federal parliamentary buildings should be alcohol-free zones.

March 30, 2023

Land clearing: an environmental and human health disaster that must stop

Governments must come to understand that preservation of life support systems is more vital than many economic ones and they must develop the ability to explain this to the public.

November 26, 2022

Two meetings: Frascati and the Vatican

Catholics who are hoping for a more inclusive, less dogmatic and open Church will have been heartened by reports of two recent meetings.

March 23, 2025

Chief justice rebukes Trump over calls to impeach judges who rule against him

“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” said John Roberts, the chief justice of the US Supreme Court.

March 22, 2025

The limits of diplomacy

We live in a global community, and many of us enjoy the benefits. A far greater number have no such enjoyment, existing in disadvantage; in poverty, hunger, homelessness, oppression, violence of one kind or another- preventable travesties.

March 6, 2025

Reading al Nakba

The arrogance of early Victorian colonial settlement seems lost to amnesia. Maps of the time show the world as if diseased by a sprawling red virus – the British Empire. With the reach of the red went a blind and over-weening attitude of entitlement, a dictation of what would and would not be. Indigenous people were not engaged or consulted about what would decide their fate – there were a few significant exceptions to that “tendency”, including T.E Lawrence, aka “Lawrence of Arabia”, also known as “Ned”.

March 9, 2024

The sin of "hubris"

The sin of “hubris” is to shame and humiliate others for pleasure or gratification. Such narcissistic pleasures were considered offensive to the gods of ancient Greece; a case of breaching the boundaries between the human and divine realms.

December 7, 2023

'Apocalyptic' horror in Gaza called 'total failure of our shared humanity'

“How is it that these atrocities are beamed across the world for all to witness, and yet so little is done to stop them?”

November 28, 2023

The government will underwrite risky investments in renewables heres why thats a good idea

Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen last week announceda scheme to underwrite the risk of investing in new renewable energy generation and storage.

January 10, 2023

The future of Korean Democracy

The German government recently arrested 25 members of a conspiratorial right-wing group plotting to overthrow the government. One of those arrested was a member of a defunct German royal family that the group hoped to install as Germanys new leader.

November 13, 2022

ASEAN is less dysfunctional on geopolitics than it seems

This week, Washingtons attention will be squarely on South-east Asia.US President Joe Biden will travel to the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh to attend a summit with Asean,and then the broader East Asia Summit involving Russia, China, Japan, India and Australia, among others before continuing on to the G-20 in Indonesia.

March 15, 2021

How good is Scott Morrison? Or is it all marketing?

After a bad beginning with the bush fires, Scott Morrison has understandably claimed credit for Australias relatively strong performance in mitigating the health and economic consequences of the Covid pandemic in 2020. But looking to the future, how much substance is there, or is he just Scotty from marketing. So long as Morrison remains determined to maintain secret rather than open government we cannot expect any improvement. But unfortunately, this seems to be the fundamental nature of this Prime Minister, and he is unlikely to change.

February 20, 2025

Mike Pezzullo and the Murdoch comedy company

The editorial authorities at The Australian newspaper have splendid senses of humour if their indulgence of the laugh-a-line contributions of Peter Jennings, Greg Sheridan and Henry Ergas are anything to go by.

November 5, 2024

The Queensland elections and the youth crime crisis

_“The basic facts about youth crime in Australia, including Queensland, is that the number of young people getting into trouble with police has been going down every year.” - Ross Homel, Foundation Professor in Criminology, Griffith University.

October 22, 2024

How well is Australia doing on wellbeing?

The Australian Government has established ‘Measuring What Matters’, Australia’s first national wellbeing framework. It follows similar frameworks in SA, Victoria and the ACT, and one under development in NSW. Will these frameworks help to improve psychological wellbeing in Australia?

October 18, 2024

International students in Australia raise their voice in NSW politics

International student activists have succeeded in passing anti-transport discrimination motions at NSW Transport Minister Jo Haylen’s Summer Hill Branch.

February 16, 2024

Newington College

Have primary asylum applications peaked?

Primary level asylum applications fell marginally in September 2023 to 2,005 from a post-pandemic peak of 2,164 in August 2023. With the Government having announced a $160 million package to get the asylum system back under some control, can we now expect primary level asylum applications to have peaked?

March 16, 2023

Judicial coup threatens Israeli democracy

Israel is facing the most significant challenge to its existence since the establishment of the State in 1949.

February 18, 2025

Trump's and Musk’s monopoly board

Christopher Pyne, one-time Australian minister of the crown, gratuitously recommends Greenlanders embrace Trump’s desired purchase of Greenland on the basis they would be financially far better off. Hello, is everything to be valued exclusively in financial terms? Is this what human beings are all about?

January 20, 2025

Another BRIC in the wall: Indonesia joins BRICS+

Indonesia has just become the 10th full member nation of BRICS+, the first nation in South East Asia to gain such membership. The announcement was made, 1st January, by Brazil, currently holding the revolving chair of BRICS+.

December 13, 2024

Why Australian politicians are flocking to ‘Little Red Book’ to engage with Chinese voters

Wen Li, a graduate student living in Brisbane, ran for the seat of Mansfield as a Greens candidate in the recent Queensland election. Li promoted his policies on Xiaohongshu, one of the most popular Chinese social media platforms. When he lost, he posted a message on the platform announcing his desire to run in the next federal election.

March 8, 2024

Price-fixing to price-gouging

price-protection is, and must always, remain the very first and foremost plank in any fighting platform worthy of the name, and hang the public! Southern Grocer, 1912.

January 9, 2024

A cry from the heart

Prime Minister Albanese, dont wait 200 years to apologise for the brutality of a coloniser, be on the right side of history now, today.

December 29, 2023

What is a sustainable immigration level anyway?

Australia added 518,100 people through net migration in the 2022-23 financial year, according to new data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). This is a record high by a very wide margin. The strain is obvious to all, in the rental crisis and infrastructure crowding.

February 15, 2023

"Values capitalism Good luck with that Jim

Jim Chalmers Monthly essay is an attempt to prepare us for a shift in the coming budget, from the era of neoliberal domination to giving more attention to non-economic factors. But we need far more than that given we are headed for catastrophic global breakdown.

April 4, 2025

Electricity prices – government and Coalition policies compared

It’s not much wonder that the public is confused about electricity pricing when journalists and politicians use the terms “prices” and “bills” interchangeably, and when Opposition spokespeople deliberately lie about the reasons electricity prices are high and make up ridiculous claims about how electricity prices and bills would tumble if they were elected. Peter Dutton’s speech in reply to the budget added to that confusion.

March 10, 2025

The only enemy the US has in the drug war is itself

No one wakes up one day and says to him or herself that today is the day I’ll become a drug addict – society pushes people, in some cases high disposable wealth creates a sense of boredom from which the stimulus of recreational drugs is a form of escape, in others it’s peer pressure, we see others doing it, they encourage us to try and off we go down a slippery slope.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal