February 14, 2018

Deeply Denying the American Reality. Part 1: Faces Australia Chooses Not to Recognise

The alliance with the United States is not now what it was thought to be at the beginning because the US itself is not now what it was thought to be. The problem was that, even then, it wasnt what Australian leaders thought it was. The rose-coloured view remains however: no evidence in official Australian thinking and acting that the US is almost self-evidently a dangerous actor. The indicators proliferate nevertheless; they suggest alliance partners exercise caution, prudence, continuous critical scrutiny and the avoidance of all measures presaging war.

July 17, 2021

Russias vaccine curse

The Sputnik V vaccine was an incredible achievement for Russian science. The measure of success, however, will depend on the ability to vaccinate a majority of the Russian population in order to reach herd immunity.

March 31, 2021

UK introduces Australian-style asylum system

Boris Johnson insists radical plans to reshape the way the United Kingdom treats asylum seekers are lawful, even as government lawyers prepare for a raft of legal challenges arising from the decision to create a two-tier system discriminating against boat people.

January 2, 2018

GEOFF DAVIES. Score voting: a simpler, less distorting measure of voters' will

Score voting avoids the vagaries and gaming that are intrinsic to preference ranking systems. It is simpler and more reliably reflects the will of voters. You have probably used it if you have completed a survey. We should use it in political elections.

April 1, 2021

US initiatives to restart the Afghan peace process

The US has become frustrated with the stalled Intra-Afghan peace negotiations. Whether the Taliban are committed to this agreement, and willing to seriously negotiate a political settlement involving Afghan-side demands, including specified electoral, constitutional, and judicial processes and human rights obligations, is unknown.

January 20, 2022

Uncertainty ahead: Xi Jinping faces a challenging 2022

After an uncertain year in 2021, the only dependable prediction for China in 2022 is that Xi Jinping will return for a third term in power.

February 5, 2018

IAN McAULEY. Has Labor lost its nerve on private health insurance?

In his Press Club address last week Bill Shorten made some unflattering remarks about private health insurance. But every indication is that an incoming Labor government will maintain, or perhaps even strengthen, support for private health insurance. An opportunity to reform health care by phasing out private health insurance and by redirecting its $10 billion annual subsidy will be wasted.

May 22, 2021

An intellectual populist precursor

Before Maggie Thatcher, Nigel Farage, John Howard, George Osborne and Donald Trump there was Enoch Powell.

September 4, 2021

Responsible shopping in Morley to mitigate climate change

An advertorial for the sustainable economy so desperately needed despite the Federal governments oft-quoted need for a return to business as usual.

April 26, 2021

Cheap shot to attack the central bank

Jim Chalmers, ALP shadow treasurer, has shown the dead hand of Hayek, probably inadvertently.The conclusion from Labors call for a thorough review of the RBA, is that Albanese and Chalmers have devised no fiscal policy to work in tandem with the RBAs decent remits.

July 24, 2021

The right answer to Jack's question can help use all that AstraZeneca

_Jack1 from Bathurst phoned into Life Matters this week. He thought to help the Covid vaccine situation by bringing forward his second AstraZeneca jab. But no one could tell him what effect that would have on the efficacy of his jabs.

October 12, 2021

What really happened not just in Wuhan to spark the COVID-19 pandemic

After months of advance publicity, book extracts and a Sky News documentary, most of us already know where Sharri Markson and News Corp believe the COVID-19 pandemic began.

January 24, 2018

JOHN MENADUE. Australia Day - a progress report.

The Australia of today is vastly different to the Australia of my childhood with its widespread racism and sectarianism. It was socially suffocating. For those changes I am very grateful. There is a lot that we can be proud of. No country has integrated newcomers as well as we have. But there have been failures and remedial action yet to be taken. We are yet to be reconciled to our indigenous brothers and sisters who watched the European boat arrivals in 1788. We are yet to take our share of responsibility for the displaced and persecuted people of the world.

June 12, 2021

Deepfake maps could really mess with your sense of the world

Satellite images showingthe expansion of large detention camps in Xinjiang, China, between 2016 and 2018 provided some of the strongest evidence of agovernment crackdownon more than a million Muslims, triggering international condemnation and sanctions.

March 8, 2022

Searching for peace in Ukraine

_Instead of searching for peace in Ukraine, western leaders and western news media have promoted US/European solidarity in opposition to Russian violence, a trend nurtured by enthusiasm for ways to arm Ukraine and punish Putin.

May 29, 2021

Australia's coal and gas exports in a net-zero future

The International Energy Agency (IEA) issued a report recently on how the world can achieve net-zero energy emissions by 2050. It was worrying news for Australias gas exports, and worse for our coal exports.

January 15, 2022

Hey, hey, USA! How many bombs did you drop today?

The US and its allies have dropped over 337,000 bombs and missiles on other countries over the last 20 years an average of 46 per day. Enough.

January 25, 2018

GRAHAM FREUDENBERG. Ode to Australia Day.

Ode to Australia Day

(In tribute to the late John Hirst and his masterpieces Freedom on the Fatal Shore)

The heroes of famed Waterloo Or great Nelsons mighty crew, If chance had gone a different way, Might well have peopled Botany Bay. The Duke himself, he called them scum Kept under by the lash and rum, Not from Etons playing fields But from povertys seething yields, So, too, our founders, if truth be told Soldiers and convicts “undesirables” manifold.

So Dutton, Hanson: shame on your smear Better than you have by boat come here. True patriots all, for be it understood They left their country for their countrys good. * Their founding service you might emulate Improve this nation and emigrate. No good you do by staying here, Purveying hate and feeding fear. What of Australia do you really know, Of migrant waves whove made us grow, Since Phillip Britains flag unfurled To take possession of a stolen world?

Graham Freudenberg 26 January 2018.

June 2, 2022

The Israeli Lobby mischaracterises the diverse, Australian Jewish community

A community as diverse, educated, and dynamic as Australian Jewry is bound to have a variety of opinions and outlooks.

March 14, 2022

Whilst the Ukraine war is local, its implications are global

I must confess. I did not predict the invasion of Ukraine. My mistake for being rational and assuming that all sides would sit down to negotiate peace.

April 24, 2021

Why Russia suddenly wants an ally in Pakistan

Russia seeks Pakistan’s support for its Afghan peace initiative but US and Turkey may beat Moscow to the geopolitical punch.

December 20, 2018

MICHAEL SAINSBURY Vatican names two reconciled bishops to head Chinese dioceses Catholic News Service, 17.12.18)

SYDNEY (CNS) – As part of its ongoing efforts to reconcile China’s Catholic communities, the Vatican recognized two previously excommunicated Chinese bishops as heads of dioceses.

October 7, 2021

The dark shadow of scandal still lurks four years after the Royal Commission findings

Unless all the implications of the sex abuse scandal are faced head-on, the Church will struggle to be identified for anything else.

March 7, 2021

Vaccine nationalism: Australia votes to deny Covid vaccines to poorer countries

Australia, the US, the UK and the European Union are refusing to waive intellectual property rights to Covid-19 vaccines so developing countries can produce the vaccine locally. This refusal, in the face of vaccine hoarding by rich countries, is likely to cause millions more deaths. It is also short sighted because long delays in global vaccination will enable more powerful variants to emerge.

October 2, 2021

Catholic Plenary awakens hope despite womens fading trust in the hierarchy

Andrea Dean was director of the office for women in the Catholic Church until the office and her position were defunded. Despite fading trust in the leadership of the church, the Plenary Council has awakened her hopes for change.

August 14, 2021

Misreading Dark Emu

Criticisms of the book Dark Emu and its author, Bruce Pascoe, continue to appear, and to become more puzzling. It is as if the overwhelming popularity of Pascoe and his message have disturbed comfortable convictions about Australian history shared across a wide segment of Australian society.

March 20, 2021

'Mr Sin' aka Abe Saffron had a little mate at ASIO headquarters

Abe Saffron, the king of Sydneys vice rackets, had a long friendship with Dudley Doherty, a top spy with the Australian Secret Intelligence Organisation (ASIO).

March 10, 2022

Australia's strategic fundamentals at risk from Ukraine war

_The big strategic question for Australia coming out of the Ukrainian war concerns the lessons China might draw and what impact that will have on US-China competition, and therefore Australias security.

March 20, 2018

JOHN TULLOH. Egypt - The rise of an Erdoan on the Nile.

These are sensitive times in Egypt. A leading sing__er was sentenced to six months in prison for joking about a song she was asked to sing Have you drunk from the Nile. Drinking from the Nile, she said, will get me schistosomiasis (aka bilharz__ia, a most unpleasant illness caused by parasites from contaminated fresh water). Meanwhile, the host of a state tv talk show has been detained for allegedly defaming the police. He noted their low salaries. This was not a good idea when the countrys president says insulting the security forces amounts to treason.

March 5, 2022

Erarings 2025 exit and Mike Cannon-Brookes/Brookfield AGL takeover could reduce power bills

The closure of Eraring power station and AGLs takeover bid are likely to reduce electricity prices for consumers as low-cost renewable energy and additional storage replace the retiring coal generators.

January 20, 2022

Token taxes: the gas industry's great royalties ripoff

LNG producers insist they bankroll crucial government services but the royalties they pay are paltry and the jobs they create are relatively few.

March 10, 2022

Vale, Craig McGregor, 1933-2022

My friend and mentor, Australian journalist, writer and cultural critic Craig McGregor, died on January 22, 2022.

March 31, 2021

Sleaze and self interest is everywhere

Who among us, eighteen months ago, could have believed the mess this country is now in?Few can doubt Australia is at a turning point in its history. The debacle is writ large.The current Cabinet reshuffle will please absolutely nobody and utterly fail to rescue Morrisons smashed reputation. It simply exposes the shallow pool of talent on the government benches.

February 5, 2022

The Climate Council misses the mark on agriculture's true impact

Much of the council’s reporting on the greenhouse gas emissions of agriculture is invalid or misleading and underplays the damaging effects of methane.

May 22, 2021

The unreality of the pledge for zero emissions by 2050

Orwellian Doublespeak is a language which deliberately distorts the meaning of words, using contradictory weasel words allowing an assault on reality. In the present, in order to pacify public opinion, authorities are pledging “zero emissions by 2050” (or some other date), an empty promise undermined by current investments in mining hydrocarbons, by large scale export of oil, gas and coal, and by the amplifying feedbacks of greenhouse gases accumulated in the atmosphere. Only intensive sequestration of greenhouse gases may potentially be capable of arresting global warming from reaching a calamitous level.

March 7, 2021

In our hands: Will we 'Reset' or return to the Dog Days?

As we emerge from the Covid recession, Ross Garnaut argues that Australia is facing a critical choice: change for the good or return to the Dog Days that preceded the recession. Garnaut’s book ‘Reset’ makes a major contribution to how that can and should happen.

March 9, 2022

One SWIFT motion and the Israeli occupation is over

Imagine that Israel is invading the Gaza Strip once more. The usual killing, destruction and ruin.

September 6, 2018

ANTHONY HOGAN. Can we start again please? Towards reform of the Catholic Church?

The Australian Catholics Bishops Conference have announced that they are open to change. This article scopes out what such an agenda for change might need to address.

January 16, 2022

Omicron's relentless spread demands a new response

The country is mired in a directionless mess and will continue to flounder without a new narrative and a policy response that emphasises protection.

August 28, 2021

What good may come from the plenary council

Anyone whos been an active Catholic for 80 years, as I have, may well have heard at different stages of life, 5 or 6 bishops extolling the achievement of the Council of Jerusalem but has likely never heard any bishop quote St. Lukes key words after much disputing.

March 20, 2018

MARCUS SPILLER. Immigration is not the cause of our urban challenge.

Our biggest cities, Sydney and Melbourne, are growing at around 100,000 people a year causing a bevvy of commentators including, Four Corners and the Grattan Institute, to question whether Australia is in a position to sustain its historically high immigration rates.

May 29, 2021

Why do Australians buy private health insurance?

All Australians have access to Medicare that covers free hospital treatment. So why do people still buy private hospital insurance? In April 2021, we surveyed Australians to ask them why they paid for private hospital insurance, and we found that many members purchased it for peace of mind, with this reason becoming more likely as Australians got older.

November 26, 2021

When the truth is inconvenient: how lying allows politicians to propser

The truth is becoming increasingly unimportant in our politics and Parliament and this bodes ill for civilised society and the survival of democracy.

March 5, 2022

Australia's doomed koalas

In a country expert in killing off mammal species at a rate exceeding that of others (to be fair, there are so many more to destroy, with more to come), Australians now face the prospect that the koala, one of its most singularly recognisable animals, has its days numbered.

October 11, 2021

Why South and South-East Asia must cooperate to prevent a new Cold War amid US-China rivalry

The AUKUS alliance is the latest US move to counter China, and this steadily militarising rivalry could turn South and South-East Asia into frontline states.

December 18, 2018

PETER DAY. From Classical Christianity to Quantum Christianity.

Christmas time is both very predictable and inexhaustibly mysterious.

March 6, 2021

Sea of scandal ready to engulf NSW Premier

His language may be mangled but its essential truth isnt. As Labor MP Kerry Hickey, now 60 and a former milkman, said: It just keeps coming. Things get worser and worser.

March 7, 2021

ASPI, sycophancy and the deepening corruption of Australias strategic mindset

Last month, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute announced that its Executive Director, Peter Jennings, had warned another ostensibly independent think tank, the United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission, that China may trigger a major military crisis over Taiwan in the coming year. The catalysts are held to be twofold: the forthcoming centenary of the Chinese Communist Party and the domestic turmoil in the US resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic.

April 27, 2018

JUSTIN GILLIS and HAL HARVEY- Cars are ruining our cities

We give up our public space, our neighbor-to -neighbor conversations and ultimately our personal mobility for the next car, and the next one. More and more countries and cities are turning to congestion taxes.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal