November 7, 2021

Ghosts seen in a Glasgow graveyard during COP26

When you’ve seen the horrors of global warming first-hand, you become more frightened than if you have seen a ghost.

November 29, 2018

CHRISTIAN DOWNIE. Australian Energy Diplomacy.

In Australia, little attention has been given to the concept of “energy diplomacy”, including the way in which it might interact with foreign policy objectives.

March 28, 2021

The scandal of Packer's proposed Barangaroo Casino

The Packer family have only once faced public scrutiny in their pursuit of a casino license in Australia. In the early ’90s, Kerry Packer ran a very distant third to Showboat and Leighton Properties in his pursuit of the license to run a casino in Sydney. Kerry spent the next 2 years desperately trying to overturn the decision using every possible argument to blacken Showboat’s name. The memory of it reminds me of all the arguments Packer advanced to reverse Showboat’s victory.

January 10, 2018

DAVID BLOWERS. A high price for policy failure: the ten-year story of spiralling electricity bills.

Politicians are told never to waste a good crisis. Australia’s electricity sector is in crisis, or something close to it. The nation’s first-ever state-wide blackout, in South Australia in September 2016, was followed by electricity shortages in several states last summer. More shortages are anticipated over coming summers. But for most Australians, the most visible impact of this crisis has been their ever-increasing electricity bills.

November 7, 2021

Amnesty International’s hidden politics, not Hong Kong’s, is the real problem

As a human rights group, Amnesty has nothing to fear in Hong Kong. As a foreign political organisation, it doesn’t have much of a future.

February 24, 2018

QUENTIN GRAFTON and JOHN WILLIAMS. States’ dummy-spit over the Murray-Darling Basin Plan clouds the real facts

Given the outraged reaction from some state water ministers to the disallowance of an amendment to the Murray Darling Basin Plan, you would be forgiven for thinking that a heinous crime had been committed against farmers in upstream states.

February 13, 2022

Dave Lindorff. How can Blinken and the US accuse any nation of violating the 'Rules Based International Order'?

_Rules-based order? What the F**k is Blinken talking about? The US makes its own rules.

October 24, 2021

AUKUS, another wrong turn for our foreign policy.

The notion of treating Washington and Beijing in the same manner while pursuing our sovereign interests has been cast to the wind.

November 21, 2021

The climate bottom line: rich nations must step up

Financing lies at the heart of the rupture between wealthy and poor nations on climate: a levy-based framework to provide funding is now crucial.

October 24, 2021

It's time to test political candidates on Israel and Palestine

Australians must ask themselves if, given the Coalition and Labor’s support of Israel, they can vote for either of the major parties in good conscience.

October 9, 2021

Mishandling the COVID-19 pandemic the Javanese way

On the surface, it looks like Indonesia has the pandemic under control — a summery success story for the world’s fourth-most populous country. In truth, there’s a more wintery tale to tell.

March 7, 2021

Political stunt silences the Aged Care Royal Commission’s final report

Attempts to politicise the Aged Care Royal Commission report by Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Health Minister Greg Hunt underline the government’s failure to tackle the problems in aged care. The press conference, called at short notice with journalists given no time to prepare was a stunt to divert attention from the rape allegations against the Attorney General.

March 1, 2018

ANNE HURLEY. Questions should be asked about the Coalition Agreement and its potential impact on the NBN rollout in rural Australia?

Over the last few weeks we have been inundated with reports of the Barnaby Joyce saga. One aspect of the saga has involved a call for transparency in the provisions of the agreement between the Liberal Party and Nationals – the Coalition Agreement – pursuant to which they operate as the Government for all Australians.

February 22, 2018

GREGORY MCCARTHY. Australia’s iron(ic) curtain hurting China ties

2017 was earmarked to celebrate 45 years of Australian–Chinese diplomatic relations. Instead, Australia alleged that China interfered in its national affairs and the China Daily reported that an on-line poll had voted Australia as the ‘least friendly nation to China in 2017’. Likewise, a Global Times editorial accused Australia of McCarthyism and said that Australia had gone insane regarding the issue of China.

March 1, 2018

NSW Public Schools Benefit Under Gonski 1.0

New school funding figures show that public schools were the main beneficiaries of the Gonski 1.0 funding plan in NSW. Public schools received a funding increase nearly double that for private schools and it reversed the previous trend of large funding cuts to public schools. However, public schools in NSW remain significantly under-funded while private schools are over-funded.

October 24, 2021

EU, UK under fire for opposing a vaccine patent waiver due to Big Pharma lobbying

Rich nations’ refusal to take on the pharmaceutical industry could ‘prolong the pandemic indefinitely’, warned one campaigner.

October 10, 2021

The Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett is establishing an apartheid state

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has no intention of allowed the establishment of a Palestinian state. He has chosen apartheid.

February 5, 2018

MICHAEL MULLINS. The mission of a bank nerd.

The vigilance of nerds - or mavens - enhances the wellbeing of us all. Their scrutiny keeps businesses on their toes and non-nerds are less likely to be exploited. If everybody was a bank nerd, the banking royal commission would not be necessary.

March 19, 2021

While we can ‘celebrate small victories’ Catholic women deserve much more

When women question the status quo with openness, frankness and boldness, they are ignored or figuratively told to go away by male gatekeepers.

March 10, 2021

James Packer and the dispossession of Barangaroo

There seems little difference between the NSW Government kicking out public housing tenants from Millers Point and the Rocks in the vicinity of the planned Crown casino and the ruthless clearance and demolition of Palestinian villages to make way for Israeli settlements.

March 8, 2021

Your graces and my lord bishops of Australia: are you listening?

Ok. That’s it. Time to stand up. The alarm has sounded. Rub the sleep from your eyes, take off your embroidered nightshirts, do a few stretches and let’s get moving. No shilly-shallying. No dilly-dallying. Come on, just do it. Get out of bed. There’s work to be done. And the whole family’s depending on you to get going. Grace Tame is calling you out.

March 21, 2021

Memories of Chris Hurford

Chris Hurford was an old-fashioned social democrat, a true Labor man with great values who knew the labour movement could lift up the poor without hurting the rich and could support his Labor principles and his Catholic faith not on his sleeve but into action for social improvement.

January 22, 2022

From our readers: how to restore our damaged health systems

In letters to the editor: why we should have a Covid royal commission, supporting our inundated health systems, and the problem with SBS’s ads.

August 13, 2022

The Great Barrier to understanding the Reef

The Great Barrier Reef is a vast and complex ecosystem. Sometimes headline statements about its health can appear confusing and even contradictory.

February 5, 2018

JOHN AUSTEN. Newcastle port – some progress in undoing a privatisation fiasco

Pressure is mounting to overcome the ridiculous anti-competitive constraints on Newcastle port.

March 5, 2021

The French submarine boondoggle is Australia’s biggest defence blunder and compounded by media failure

Our corporate media has failed to hold the government to account in its scandalous handling of the $90 billion French submarine purchase. For five years, the media has failed us. It is now rewarded in the new Media Code with 90% of the tax on Google and Facebook to be handed over to the three failing monopoly media companies.

October 3, 2021

Australia must be more ambitious on climate, or the negative impacts will multiply

The challenge of decarbonising the economy is of equal magnitude to Australia’s submarine deal, and requires an equivalent bold response.

March 5, 2021

Money talks: What Australia can do about Myanmar’s crazy generals

A month has passed since the Myanmar generals’ coup. People in Myanmar have responded with outrage. Many countries reacted strongly and quickly. Even the notoriously deadlocked UN Security Council managed to find consensus to issue a statement. Our response has been tepid. It’s time to get off the fence.

October 25, 2021

AUKUS: the latest capitulation on defence by our born-to-rule elites

Conservative Coalition leaders have a history of committing Australia to overseas military adventures – and the ‘patriotic’ media have never questioned the propaganda.

October 17, 2021

Labor's British and Australian leaders are out of step with progressive opinion on Israel

Keir Starmer and Anthony Albanese express support for Israel while leading parties whose wider membership support the Palestinian cause. It is time for these leaders to back the party rank-and-file.

October 17, 2021

Political change and restoring democracy in Thailand

Thailand can learn from changes in power relations between the central bureaucracy and the Local Administration to bring about political change, and restore democracy.

March 5, 2021

Porter allegations: Accusations fly of 'trial by media'; AKA journalists doing their job

There was an outpouring of grief for the “trembling, tearful wrecks” of Cabinet Ministers forced on to sick leave, having to experience such ‘humiliating’ and ‘devastating’ claims. Some particularly callous commentary equated Porter’s life with that of the “ruined” life of the woman who died by suicide.

February 15, 2018

EMMA ALBERICI. There's no case for a corporate tax cut when one in five of Australia's top companies don't pay it.

There is no compelling evidence that giving the country’s biggest companies a tax cut sees that money passed on to workers in the form of higher wages.

October 17, 2021

AUKUS is a stab in the back and a big mistake

By becoming little more than a US outpost, Australia is progressively sacrificing its role as an independent actor in the Asia-Pacific region, and diminishing its clout accordingly.

January 23, 2022

Ukraine good, Russia bad: it's not as simple as reputable US media claim

_NATO expanded right up to Russia’s border in 2004, in violation of the promises made by the elder George Bush and Bill Clinton to Russian leaders Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin (Jacobin, 7/16/18).Those promises were made as part of the agreement for the reunification of Germany.

March 11, 2021

Gladitorial arena adds toxic element to politics. Part 1

Upper houses of parliament usually have a better gender balance. While often explained away by being a result of proportional representation, a better explanation is that the most ambitious men – the megalomaniacs – have no interest in being senators. They know the locus of power is in the lower house.

January 23, 2022

XI JINPING: Path for humanity is peaceful development and co-operation

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday delivered a special address to the 2022 World Economic Forum virtual session. Following is the full text of the address.

March 28, 2021

To achieve its goals china needs to show more restraint in the region

The much-anticipated meeting between top US and China foreign policy officials has come and gone with only the great gaps between the two to show for it. Despite growing US angst and opposition, China is proceeding apace toward its goal of regional and eventual world dominance.

January 23, 2022

Kazakhstan protests earn just a passing glance from the major players

While Russia had a heavy-handed response to recent Kazakhstani protests, China resisted putting boots on the ground.

February 21, 2018

Joined at the hip Mr Turnbull goes to Washington this week.. Part 1 of 2 Repost

We are a nation in denial that we are ‘joined at the hip’ to a dangerous ally. Apart from brief isolationist periods, the US has been almost perpetually at war; wars that we have often foolishly been drawn into. The US has subverted and overthrown numerous governments over two centuries. It has a military and business complex, almost a ‘hidden state’, that depends on war for influence and enrichment. It believes in its ‘manifest destiny’ which brings with it an assumed moral superiority which it denies to others. As the US goes into relative economic decline, it will be asking allies such as Australia for more help and support. We are running great risks in committing so much of our future to the US. We must build our security in our own region and not depend so exclusively on a foreign protector.

March 10, 2021

The “Chinese” are a very diverse group.

The so-called “Chinese Australian community” is a myth. It is a much less homogeneous group than widely assumed in public debate. Recognising differences within the group would not deny their commonality but instead, serve the ultimate purposes of multiculturalism and social cohesion.

February 6, 2018

ROBERT WILLIAMSON. New medicine will transform Australia's health system.

Medicine is changing. In Australia a baby born today will live, on average, for 90 years or more. The common infectious killer-diseases have been eliminated. The treatment of cancer is becoming a success story, far different from the horror with which cancer was viewed by my parents and their generation in the 1950s. Heart disease still kills people, but often in their 80s and not their 50s. The new medicine will put together information from a person’s DNA, their environment and diet, their habits and choices, and meld this into the new medicine, a medicine that will try to use this knowledge to prevent disease. That is the message of the analysis of the road map for “The future of precision medicine in Australia” report recently launched by the Australian Learned Academies of Australia (ACOLA).

January 25, 2018

JIM COOMBS. Reverse Robin Hood: rob the poor to overstuff the rich.

To take but two examples, Education and Tourism, it seems our economic system is designed to service the desires of the already well-provided-for.

March 5, 2021

Has Christian Porter been subjected to a ‘trial by media’? No, the media did its job of being a watchdog

Trial by media occurs either when media coverage prejudices the outcome of legal processes or when the media initiate an issue and then proceed to play prosecutor, judge and jury. Neither applies in the Porter case.

October 10, 2021

Plenary Council: The Church needs to change with the times

The Catholic Church needs a renaissance to be effective in its mission, as the Plenary Council faces the challenges of an evolving, complex world.

March 5, 2021

A tepid cry for change: Tanya Plibersek's book "Upturn" and Labor's prospects

In a world riven by crises, we need new ways of thinking, knowing, and relating. We also need courage. The challenge is huge. There will be no return to a pre-Covid-19 normal, which for many Australians meant poverty, hardship, and marginalization. This book had rich promise but is a missed opportunity. A comprehensive, coherent vision of a just society post pandemic society still needs to be written.

March 8, 2021

The WA election: the most one-sided contest in Australian history?

Next Saturday’s State Election in Western Australia will produce an unprecedented result if polling and anecdotal evidence are to be believed.

August 13, 2022

Australians will miss a once in a century opportunity if we shirk a referendum on an Indigenous voice

David Solomon has raised an important issue in Pearls and Irritations this week. He has suggested some opinion leaders may argue there is little point in a referendum to enshrine a Voice for First Nations in Australia’s Constitution because the Commonwealth parliament already has the power to legislate for creation of such a “Voice” and should simply act now to provide Indigenous communities with government support to improve health, education, employment and living conditions.

November 28, 2021

United Australia Party is invoking freedom to win votes. So is the prime minister

‘Freedom’ has been a rallying point for those disaffected by Covid restrictions, and Clive Palmer’s UAP is trying to capitalise on it.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal