October 17, 2021

Raise Warragamba dam, raise the risk to the environment

More housing, less habitat. More extinctions, less vegetation. With the raising of Australia’s largest urban water supply dam, Sydney would be further primed to emulate the flood disasters of Brisbane.

November 21, 2021

White Man's Media propaganda multiplier; the three global news agencies

Legacy media in the US, UK and Europe frames and conditions our thinking and actions. They frame and condition the stenographers in the Australian media.

November 14, 2021

Back to the future — governance in the Catholic Church

Catholics cannot afford to get bogged down in their own frequent failures to meet the challenges of the times.

October 31, 2021

Net zero and carbon neutrality: Unscientific myths for an us and them world

The world is not united by the goal of net zero emissions by 2050. Each nation and region will have its own trajectory.

August 14, 2022

Keith Mitchelson: What is wrong with western governments?

The imposition of neoliberalism as the theology of state has created a world-wide orthodoxy of government. Political leaders fear excommunication, or worse.

November 20, 2021

Wang Huning, the Chinese Communist who understands America

But does anybody in Washington DC understand China like Wang Huning understands America?

November 21, 2021

'Obscene': Pfizer, BioNTech, and Moderna rake in $5.4 million an hour

A few companies are making huge profits off COVID-19 vaccines while just 2 per cent of people in low-income countries have been fully vaccinated.

October 9, 2021

We need independents to hold the balance of power after the next election

The major parties are not serving Australia well, and voters know it. If independents held the balance of power in the House of Representatives, it would be a good thing for our democracy.

October 31, 2021

Farewell Chilcot and Barratt: public servants who truly served the public

Australian politicians could learn from two public officials — one who scrutinised the Iraq War, and one who sought change to the way we conduct war.

August 14, 2022

What does China's censor censor?

The Chinese trust their government media, but we distrust ours because they have, for so long, distracted us from important issues and lied to us about war. Lee Kuan Yew framed the issue around the Philippines’ media.

August 13, 2022

The truth at last for Kathleen Folbigg

_It was Emma Cunliffe’s 2011 piercing analysis of the 2003 NSW trial of Kathleen Folbigg for the alleged murder of her four children which opened the window on to her trial’s serious shortcomings.

June 20, 2021

Julian Assange and the collapse of the rule of law

Chris Hedges gave this talk at a rally Thursday night in New York City in support of Julian Assange. John and Gabriel Shipton, Julian’s father and brother, also spoke at the event, which was held at The People’s Forum.

August 14, 2022

Paul Nicoll: Uncertainty and confidence in the Brazilian election

At this stage, it appears most probable that most will opt for Lula.

June 20, 2021

Western media’s campaign to ignore the obvious

I’m not alone, there are hundreds, if not thousands of people like me posting, blogging and vlogging positively about China, many are Chinese citizens, many are not, one common factor with all of these people is that they are either ignored by Western media, or if they are considered at all, they are ridiculed and disparaged as being unreliable, accused of being paid, or as is often alleged on Twitter and YouTube, “coerced” by threats to our families to toe a certain CPC line and produce Communist propaganda.

January 2, 2022

Japan's powerful hawks kill damaging leaks in pursuit of North Korea

Japan’s commitment to a campaign to return citizens abducted by North Korea decades ago betrays its desire to ensure North Korea remains an enemy.

January 18, 2018

MICHAEL WEST. Treasury hides corporate welfare data.

There it was right on cue, at the cusp of the New Year weekend, a government press release about the cost of welfare bludgers trumpeted loudly across the press and the TV news bulletins.

November 28, 2021

Aged care advisory council needs strong nursing voices

Gobsmackingly, the new National Aged Care Advisory Council has been formed without any nursing groups represented.

March 19, 2018

STEVAN WONG,TRI NUKE PUDJIASTUTI, SRIPRAPHA PETCHARAMESREE and TRAVERS McLEOD Dialogue on Forced Migration ;Co-Chairs call for ongoing, coordinated action on Bangladesh and Myanmar.

The Asia Dialogue on Forced Migration (ADFM) concluded its sixth meeting in Sydney, Australia, this week ahead of the ASEAN-Australia Special Summit. The meeting focused on the humanitarian crisis in Bangladesh and Myanmar; efforts to address human trafficking, forced labour and modern slavery; and principles for sustainable and protection-sensitive repatriation and reintegration pathways.

December 20, 2018

BOB DOUGLAS. My Unsolicited Advice to Australia’s political leaders.

This week I cheekily wrote to the leader of the Federal Opposition seeking an urgent appointment before he embarks on his party’s convention this weekend. Because I doubt that I will get to meet with him, here is what I would like to say to him and to the leaders of each of the other political parties as well as the cross benchers.

March 21, 2021

Do we need to remove men from power?

As the Sex Discrimination Commissioner conducts an inquiry into federal parliament’s toxic culture, it is clear that her task is to diagnose misogyny and make recommendations for its removal. The easiest way to achieve this would be to remove men from positions of power.

November 28, 2018

GREG LOCKHART. On reading Peter Stanley’s review of Peter Cochrane’s Best We Forget.

I’ve just caught up with Peter Stanley’s review of Peter Cochrane’s Best We Forget: The war for white Australia, 1914-18_, which was posted on Pearls and Irritations on 15 November 2018. I mention this, because it provoked a response that I think deserves underlining: John Mordike’s 15 November reply, which pointed out that a main thrust of Stanley’s review is ‘wrong’. Coming to terms with this thrust will then lead me into a discrete criticism of Cochrane’s book._

November 28, 2018

America's permanent war complex: a comment on Porter's argument

A recent article by US commentator Gareth Porter raises many issues that should be of concern to Australians. That they will in all probability be ignored points to some wider changes needed in our society.

February 9, 2018

IAN WEBSTER. Welfare sanctions.

To save $204.7 million, the Government plans to impose draconian sanctions on those needing income support who miss appointments, or work interviews, or who don’t take up the jobs proposed for them. That can’t be the real reason, since the dollar savings count for nothing against the inestimable human and economic costs of these impediments. So much for “mutual obligation”.

July 22, 2016

ALLAN PATIENCE. Why the debates about Islam have gone off the rails

One of the persistent conceits of modern history has been the growing conviction that rational scientific enquiry will completely remove religious thinking from human consciousness for all time. Positivist fundamentalists like Stephen Hawking or so-called “New Atheists” like Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins have triumphantly echoed the Nietzschean declaration “God is dead” without understanding that this was Nietzsche’s anguished cry in response to modernity’s mindless stampede into what he believed was a ghastly post-mythic abyss. A similar despair engulfed one of the very greatest sociological theorists of modernity, Max Weber, who accused its protagonists of “disenchanting” the human experience by locking it up in an “iron cage of rationality.”

April 4, 2021

America Radiates Violence: Challenging the Politics of Isolated Incidents

_In light of the tragic violence that has unfolded once again in the form of mass shootings in Boulder, Colorado and Atlanta, Georgia, it becomes clear that another pandemic defines the United States–a pandemic of violence. The figures speak for themselves.

November 28, 2018

MEDIA ALERT. APPEAL IN ‘PALACE LETTERS’ CASE TO BE HEARD ON WEDNESDAY, 28 NOVEMBER 2018

Professor Jenny Hocking’s long-running legal action against the National Archives of Australia, seeking the release of the secret ‘Palace Letters’ about Gough Whitlam’s dismissal, heads back to court tomorrow. Professor Hocking’s appeal against the Federal Court’s ruling in March, which continued the Queen’s embargo over the letters, will be heard on Wednesday 28 November at 10.15 am in Court 1, Level 21, at the Federal Court of Australia, 184 Phillips Street, Sydney.

The appeal will be heard by the Full Court of the Federal Court, before Chief Justice Allsop, Justice Flick and Justice Robertson. Professor Hocking’s case will be led by respected Sydney barrister Bret Walker S.C. with Tom Brennan, instructed by Corrs Chambers Westgarth.

Professor Hocking says; 'The Palace letters case is of the greatest importance, not only because it brings into the open the secret letters between the Governor-General and the Queen at the time of Whitlam's dismissal, but also because it reasserts the principle of open access to vital historical documents held by our National Archives, the most significant repository of our national historical memory.’

Read this press release for further quotes and information on the case.

Additional background to the case can also be found at: https://chuffed.org/project/release-the-palace-letters

March 17, 2021

Liberal Party MPs line up to succeed Premier Gladys

Eight Cabinet Ministers are in the field of wannabees to become the 49th Premier of NSW.

March 12, 2021

Gladys Berejiklian continues to stumble

Watching life ebb from the premiership of Gladys Berejiklian requires a strong stomach because it is a most terrible experience, rather like seeing someone running out of breath.

October 31, 2021

Morrison’s plan has coal on the way out, with the future bright

We will have enough ultra-cheap, pollution-free electricity to power homes, vehicles and industry. All that’s needed is the courage to embrace it.

March 28, 2021

Cry me a scandal: Tear storms and showers of deceit in the Canberra Bubble

Linda Reynolds, the Defence Minister, is crying. Christian Porter, the Attorney-General, is crying. “Holidays” Morrison is bubbling away. It’s very depressing. I hope they are going to be OK.

January 17, 2018

JERRY ROBERTS. The Real World

A streak of idealism runs across the pages of Pearls and Irritations. That is good. Political comment without idealism is mere gossip but what are the chances of fulfilling ideals in the real world?

November 14, 2021

The tide is turning against democracy: a federal ICAC is essential

Corrupt conduct by elected officials has dragged trust in government to a record low — making necessary nation-changing reforms harder to achieve.**

October 24, 2021

Housing policy is a failure for young and old

Blaming Baby Boomers for the housing crisis is a diversion. What we need is a complete rethink of our housing supply.

March 11, 2021

The continuing mystery of the Belt and Road Initiative

It has been almost eight years yet enormous issues remain around the Belt and Road Initiative. Beijing knows them all but, with face saving widely recognized as the imperative of its foreign policy, prefers not to disclose them publicly. In fact, the BRI is not and never has been a strategy, but is an assemblage of constantly changing policy settings.

November 7, 2021

Climate facts: Debunking Scott Morrison's COP26 speech

Some of Scott Morrison’s claims in his COP26 speech were dubious, so the experts at the Climate Council have done his homework for him.

October 30, 2021

Saturday's good reading and listening guide

Ian McAuley’s guide to good reading and listening for the weekend has moved.

October 31, 2021

Foreign interference: Protective mechanisms in Hong Kong are legitimate and necessary

‘One country, two systems’ is key to Hong Kong’s success, notwithstanding the best efforts of the US and its partners.

March 25, 2021

Yes, Australia is a land of flooding rains. But climate change could be making it worse

Over the past three years, I’ve been working on the forthcoming report by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. I’m a climate scientist who contributed to the chapter on global water cycle changes. It’s concerning to think some theoretical impacts described in this report may be coming to life – yet again – in Australia.

January 11, 2018

JULIAN CRIBB. Highway to an endless energy future.

Australia is spoiled for choice among the array of energies we have to power our future, for centuries to come. Concentrated sunlight, huge reserves of coal, gas, hot rocks, wind, wave and tidal energy, not to mention uranium, thorium, biomass, hydro and other possibilities - thousands of years’ worth of energy in sundry forms.

February 9, 2018

PAUL RODAN. Colleges of Advanced Education.

Roger Scott’s trilogy on the state of higher education raised a number of important issues, several of which might have led me to the keyboard, but his observations about the former colleges of advanced education (CAEs) seem particularly worthy of further comment.

July 22, 2016

JOHN AUSTEN. High speed rail - here we go again.

Another proposal involving high speed rail Sydney-Melbourne recently surfaced; from CLARA (Consolidated Land and Rail Australia).

Extensive media reports noted an advisory board including former Trade Minister the Hon. Andrew Robb, ex Premiers the Hon. Barry O’Farrell and the Hon. Steve Bracks , and former US Transportation Secretary Ray Lahood. A figure of $200billion was mentioned, with a claim it will not rely on government funding.

So far the outline is sketchy.There are four website pages and a sub three minute video. The idea seems to be to create a series of new cities in inland NSW and Victoria linked to the state capitals by high speed rail. It is a decentralisation plan of which high speed rail is one aspect. Decades would pass before such a plan came to fruition, if ever.

November 21, 2021

Submarine sideshow: Does Australia even need a military?

There are many potential benefits to Australia not having any submarines — it should even consider it needs a military at all.

April 12, 2019

BRIAN COYNE The genius of Rupert Murdoch and why we all need to pay attention...

This is in response to the recent New York Time’s commentary on the Empire of Rupert Murdoch, P&I 5th April. Murdoch’s insight has been passed to many of the publishers of commercial media and political parties. It has damaged society and there’s no easy way for it to be countered.

October 24, 2021

After lockdown: can marvellous Melbourne ever be the same?

A sense of achievement is mixed with a sense of utter loss. Australia’s most liveable city has emerged proud and unbowed from its sixth lockdown, but signs of the damage are not hard to find.

October 23, 2021

Saturday's good reading and listening guide

Ian McAuley’s guide to good reading and listening for the weekend has moved.

November 8, 2021

Did PM mount a shoddy defence of his deception? We don't think, we know

Scott Morrison turned an accurate character assessment from Macron into a sledge against Australia, but the stain on his reputation will remain.

January 11, 2018

JOHN DWYER. The devastating effects of Trumpism on science and medicine.

While the “Fire and the Fury” surrounding the chaos at the White House dominates media reporting on the Trump presidency, the power of the office is being utilised to implement a myriad of bad decisions that will have very long-lasting effects. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the plans Trump has to slash funding for science and medicine.

January 10, 2018

ANNE HURLEY. Bad advice: why Mr Turnbull’s NBN is such a failure

These days you can’t buy a new car without airbags and ABS brakes. The Internet of Things is transforming the way we live our lives, run our businesses and grow the crops that feed the world. We’re developing autonomous vehicles and there’s talk about travelling to Mars. Yet millions of Australians are being sold broadband services using 50 year old copper wires. How did this come about? Why are we letting ourselves down so badly at a time when Australia needs to transform its economy now that the resources boom has passed by and we’re in the 21st Century where technology will underpin global economic development?

March 5, 2021

Porter a convenient target for rage but must be accorded fairness

No inquiry could come to any conclusion about the allegations. However, an inquiry that examines the impact of the allegations on the capacity of Christian Porter to hold office as the first law officer and as the person responsible for the administration of justice at the Commonwealth level is required.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal