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Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal
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October 15, 2018

IPCC -The various risks from global warming.

This a graph from the new IPCC report that the Coalition tried to sabotage. The below graph depicts a range of impacts to a variety of systems of different global temperature outcomes, from white (undetectable) to yellow (detectable) to red (severe impacts) to purple (severe and irreversible impacts with little adaptability):

It suggests we should book that trip to the Great Barrier Reef soon.

June 22, 2025

Chalmers hints at more tax reform – What should we do first? Part 1

In the first of a two-part series Saul Eslake examines what the top tax reform priorities should be.

May 27, 2025

The cost of conscience in post-October 7 Australia

Over the past 18 months, it has become harder and harder to speak publicly in this country if you are Muslim, brown, and pro-Palestinian.

September 14, 2025

The politics of extermination

In 1895, Theodor Herzl, the founder of the Zionist movement,  asserted: **“**We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our own country … expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly.”

August 1, 2025

Humanitarian propaganda conceals the real famine in Gaza

I wrote this piece from the heart of the ongoing famine in Gaza and the chaos orchestrated by the Israeli occupation to make life in Gaza unbearable.

April 27, 2025

If I were defence minister...

On becoming Australia’s new defence minister, I will advise cabinet at its first meeting that our nation is at a perilous, strategic crossroad.

October 2, 2025

Trump’s mongrel punt

In the Australian vernacular, a mongrel punt is an erratic kick forward of a football which leaves those participating in the game with an awkward choice between contesting possession (possibly at the cost of broken fingers) and waiting to see where the ball bounces.

May 19, 2025

Vale Ali Kazak

On Sunday afternoon, we received the very sad news that Ali Kazak has died in Thailand, en route to Palestine. An extraordinary campaigner and shaper of the Palestinian cause for all his almost 80 years, his loss will be sorely felt. Stuart Rees wrote this tribute to Ali for Pearls and Irritations last November. More will follow in coming days.

September 18, 2025

‘It is clear’: UN Commission finding confirms Israel committing genocide in Gaza

“To do nothing is not neutrality,” said the head of the commission. “It is complicity.”

July 19, 2025

Time for Foreign Minister Wong to put her foot down

In an ideal world, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) should be the government’s principal agency in seeing that relations with other countries best serve Australia’s interests.

June 26, 2025

Lattouf’s win over ABC a big victory for freedom of expression

Journalist and broadcaster Antoinette Lattouf’s win over the ABC in the Federal Court is a significant victory for freedom of expression.

September 9, 2025

In a Trumpian world, Australia needs friends like India

Images of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a huddle with the leaders of China and Russia do not presage the reordering of the international system.

August 21, 2025

'Full of tears', 1000 Palestinian children graduate from Gaza school for orphans

“The children wept, as no parents were there to share the moment – their parents had been killed by the Israeli army,” said one observer.

May 10, 2025

'This isn't me': Israeli war and healthcare collapse leave Gaza child unrecognisable

Under a tightening Israeli siege, Palestinian girl Rahaf Ayyad struggles with physical and emotional changes, as her mother fights for answers.

August 5, 2025

Urgency of Palestinian recognition

Of course, Netanyahu is angry about talk of Palestinian recognition. He runs a narrative that Palestine and Palestinians do not exist.

June 17, 2025

The illegal attack on Iran

Israel’s consistent attacks on Iran since 2023 have all been illegal, violations of the United Nations Charter (1945).

September 16, 2025

As Europe diversifies its defence, Canberra still clings to AUKUS

Anthony Albanese is about to pour more than $12 billion into a new AUKUS submarine base in Perth.

August 6, 2025

Palestine recognised

We are approaching the end game. There is a movement towards recognition of Palestine by major Western nations, namely France, the UK and Canada, and including, possibly, Australia and New Zealand.

July 11, 2025

Antisemitism envoy's report 'Trumpian'

The report of the Albanese Government’s antisemitism envoy, Jillian Segal, contains recommendations that will lead to erosion of freedom of expression and the right to protest.

June 16, 2025

Australian society and the conflict for Palestine

Australia’s symbolic actions on Palestine may not change the course of the conflict, but they matter deeply at home.

July 23, 2025

Australia and Japan cannot accept America’s war on China

Japan and Australia together must induce the US to face the reality of what it is asking.

June 1, 2025

Israel-Gaza: Has Albo finally found his backbone?

Every day since 7 October 2023 Israel has killed, on average, 92 Palestinians. It has injured and maimed countless thousands more.

October 3, 2025

Ben Saul on Palestinian recognition and the Trump plan

At the National Press Club this week, Ben Saul argued that Australia is more than a “modest middle power” and must step up on Palestine.

September 17, 2025

FOI changes big backward step for government transparency

There has been much commentary, most of it critical, about federal Attorney-General Michelle Rowland’s recently introduced Bill that amends the Freedom of Information Act by restricting access through measures that will allow undermine a core democratic principles – accountability by government to the people it serves.

September 6, 2025

People dumping in the Pacific

Australian governments of all stripes have long maintained a commitment to secure borders and an orderly migration program.

August 20, 2025

The city on a hill

Since President Trump’s inauguration, America’s friends and enemies — categories increasingly hard to define with precision — have been buffeted by the Administration’s policy vicissitudes.

May 6, 2025

Incoming immigration minister faces immense challenges

Whoever is appointed immigration minister in the second Albanese Government will face immense challenges from both a policy and political perspective.

September 28, 2025

Our age of unreason

We have lost that connection between reason and morality …. We have decisively lost our idea of the commonwealth as the anchor from which reason will make its case.

September 10, 2025

Xi targets Prabowo and ditches Trump

For the past decade, the _most geostrategic_ country in Southeast Asia and the world’s third-largest democracy has been wooed by Washington and Beijing.

August 25, 2025

Australia must defend International Criminal Court

If it were China or Russia, the imposition of sanctions and threats of harm to prosecutors and judges of the International Criminal Court would be front page news in Australia.

July 21, 2025

Fifty years since that little green card came into being

Gough Whitlam had to do plenty of hard yakka to introduce an universal healthcare system. Today, it is central part of Australia life, and one of our great policy achievements.

June 13, 2025

AUKUS: America saving us from ourselves

The decision by the United States to initiate a review of the AUKUS agreement might very well be the moment Washington saves Australia from itself. Saving us from the most poorly conceived defence procurement program ever adopted by an Australian Government.

June 11, 2025

Go-ahead for new carbon bomb marks Australia as enemy of the region

In planning its future release of up to 80 billion tonnes of planet-heating carbon, Australia has committed itself to the destruction of nations and wrecking of big cities throughout the Indo-Pacific Region.

May 11, 2025

The New Pope – Leo XIV

I thought it might be third time lucky, but I was wrong again. I backed the wrong horse as pope!

May 8, 2025

An economic reform agenda for Labor

The recent election was won by looking ahead. But a better economic future requires an economic reform agenda, and getting agreement will not be easy. However, there are encouraging signs that the government is up to the task.

September 3, 2025

A tale of two lists: How geopolitics shaped the attendance of China’s parade

On 3 September 2025, a large-scale parade will be held in Tiananmen Square to mark the 80th anniversary of what has been dubbed by Beijing the “Victory of the Chinese People’s War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War”.

May 29, 2025

The Coalition splits, maybe not

If there was ever any question about the dire state of conservative politics in Australia after the Coalition’s comprehensive election rout, the self-indulgent posturing of the past week leaves no doubt.

May 3, 2025

'Never again' for Jews, Palestinians and all humanity

A picture is worth a thousand words.

September 22, 2025

Recognition of Palestine: For and against

Australia is joining other nations at the United Nations General Assembly in endorsing a declaration backing a two-state solution, signalling its readiness to formally recognise Palestine in a bid to revive stalled peace efforts.

June 27, 2025

Australia’s media myopia

Australia’s media establishment has a problem and it’s not just about declining revenues or shrinking newsrooms. It’s about a fundamental failure to understand where we live and what’s at stake in our own neighbourhood.

April 26, 2025

The legacy of a Jesuit pope

Francis was a pope prepared to blur the edges of doctrine, or at least its application, opening the doors of the Church to all those seeking love, mercy and forgiveness.

_

April 16, 2025

Easter, triumph of life over death

On 11 April, P&I published a wonderful Geoff Pryor cartoon showing “first semester exam results” for a self-satisfied Donald Trump lying back comfortably in a lounge chair.

April 15, 2025

If I were housing minister…

If I were housing minister in the next Parliament, and if I could secure the PM’s backing to squarely face up to the overdue need for fundamental housing reform, I would have a busy schedule ahead.

August 14, 2025

The great human brain fade

Evidence is piling up that the human brain can no longer keep up with the overshoot crisis which human greed has engendered.

May 15, 2025

Multiple Western press outlets have suddenly pivoted hard against Israel

After a year and a half of genocidal atrocities, the editorial boards of numerous British press outlets have suddenly come out hard against Israel’s genocidal onslaught in Gaza.

August 10, 2025

The occupation and ethnic cleansing of Gaza was always Netanyahu’s intention

On 19 December 2023, in Pearls and Irritations I wrote: “Hamas is the excuse for the Israeli attack on Gaza. It is not the reason. The real Israeli reason and objective in Gaza is to drive out the population and destroy infrastructure as part of a long-term plan to expel Palestinians in Gaza and elsewhere. This settler colonisation has been ongoing since 1948, starting with the Nakba.”

July 25, 2025

On Jillian Segal’s report into combating antisemitism

_Several excellent critiques of Jillian Segal’s “Special Envoy’s Plan to Combat Antisemitism” have appeared, by Louise Adler (_The Guardian), Henry Reynolds (Pearls and Irritations), Nick Feik (Substack), Guy Rundle (Substack) and Jeffrey Loewenstein (Pearls and Irritations). I would like to add a few additional words.

July 15, 2025

Antisemitism in Australia: a 'pathology in our society'

There was much to read in the papers last Monday, the 7th of July. Three stories caught my attention.

July 3, 2025

The time has arrived for a comprehensive Middle East peace

The attack by Israel and the US on Iran had two significant effects.

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