June 6, 2025

China and the art of war

I have a love-hate relationship with China. As a university student, I was entranced by China’s history and rich culture.

May 4, 2025

Why extremists see gold in the migration debate

An immigration debate in an era of rising extremism is fertile ground for a noisy minority keen to distort the facts to sell their “white Australia”.

April 9, 2025

Making science great again – or not

In the US, the freshly installed administration of President Donald Trump is attempting to drastically reshape science. Here we focus on interventions that are relevant to epidemiology and public health.

April 28, 2025

Message from the editor

I’ll walk down to the local primary school next Saturday and cast my vote, but I will be in a minority. Most of my kids and both my parents would have already cast their ballots, along with two-thirds of the rest of the community.

June 21, 2025

IDF actions in Gaza directly contradict Jewish ethical tradition

The Israeli response to the Hamas attacks on 7 October 2023 has been massive and all-encompassing.

May 30, 2025

In the name of humanity, the barbarism in Gaza must stop

Over the last 18 months, the world has witnessed undiluted militarised cruelty targeting the entire population and the supportive natural habitat of Gaza – with not so much as an ounce of mercy or compassion, let alone justice, or sensitivity to issues of ecological viability.

May 22, 2025

David Littleproud cites nuclear energy disagreement as major factor in Coalition split

Nationals’ leader David Littleproud has singled out nuclear energy as a key reason for his party’s spectacular split from the Liberals, as both parties seek to rebuild following the Coalition’s devastating election loss.

May 7, 2025

Will the new pope be a Francis clone?

The 133 cardinals under the age of 80 have been in formal regular sessions in the Vatican most days listening to each other’s speeches and, more importantly, getting together in informal meetings in ecclesiastical colleges, restaurants, embassies, apartments, and pizza parlours in the Borgo near the Vatican.

June 4, 2025

A carbon tax and some key policy challenges

A carbon tax will obviously help reduce carbon emissions and achievement of the net zero target, but it will also help raise the revenue needed to fund essential government services and promote Australia’s economic development.

June 28, 2025

No time to dye: ABC’s China bias is licensed to kill credibility

The ABC has long held a reputation as Australia’s sober, publicly-funded bulwark against tabloid sensationalism – the broadcaster you turn to when you want analysis, not alarmism.

May 21, 2025

RCEP can aid in battle against global protectionism

The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, created to promote open trade and regional integration, offers a powerful platform to resist rising global protectionism.

June 14, 2025

Tasmania in the news for all the wrong reasons

It’s rare that the biggest news in Australian politics emanates from Tasmania.

June 13, 2025

Investing in Pearls

There’s a certain frisson as well as tension to this time of the year (June). It’s the time when those of us lucky enough (with enough) to have to make tax decisions can choose where to make a tax-deductible contribution that will, indeed et voila, lessen our tax bill while (possibly) benefitting a good cause.

June 11, 2025

Palestine and the gravitational politics of erasure

What we are witnessing in Gaza is not only a genocide of lives, but a systematic campaign to obliterate a people’s cultural identity, memory and future.

June 19, 2025

Stop Netanyahu before he gets us all killed

We could soon see several nuclear powers pitted against each other and dragging the world closer to nuclear annihilation.

July 5, 2025

Trump tariff deals with Japan, India bogged down – Asian Media Report

In Asian media this week: Trade pact sealed with Vietnam. Plus: Dalai Lama at 90 – the institution will continue; Region’s newspapers show disdain for NATO; China, Pakistan setting up new South Asian bloc; Canberra, Beijing squabble over project naming rights.

June 23, 2025

Message from the editor

One of the things that sets Pearls and Irritations apart is the calibre of our contributors.

June 22, 2025

Writers bearing witness in a time of genocide

I’ve been thinking a lot about an honours thesis I wrote more than 20 years ago, that thing you sweated through, that maybe your mother skimmed, that you stuck in the back of a cupboard somewhere never to be read or thought of again.

April 24, 2025

Trump’s shadow is all over this election

The president is bringing out the differences between political cultures and traditions in Australia and the US, especially in attitudes towards what government can and should do.

July 3, 2025

So... calling for peace isn’t enough, but dropping bombs gets a free pass?

When China submitted a draft UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Iran, the response wasn’t debate or discussion. It was suspicion.

May 14, 2025

Bowen confirmed as climate and energy minister, Watt gets environment

Chris Bowen has been confirmed as climate and energy minister in the new Albanese Government, while Murray Watt has been appointed minister for the environment and water as part of a reshuffle announced on Monday.

April 25, 2025

Pope Francis was a man from the peripheries

In the much-discussed novel and movie Conclave, the cardinals eventually elected a truly pastoral, caring man as pope, someone close to the people – just like Pope Francis.

April 12, 2025

Australia’s fading democracy calls for radical rethinking

Donald Trump has declared a global trade war and unsurprisingly America’s most faithful ally has not been spared.

April 8, 2025

Trump’s tariffs deliver a harsh truth for Australia

Too little thought has been given to the future of the Australian economy against the backdrop of a protectionist America.

June 30, 2025

Message from the editor

As I prepare the lists of articles for publication each day, I am very aware that many of our stories talk of death, destruction and cruelty.

June 18, 2025

The bamboo ceiling is still very much in place Down Under

Our business sector lacks the skills to do business in Asia. And instead of improving, the situation is getting markedly worse.

April 15, 2025

Managing overseas student policy is key to keeping migration numbers in check. If I was immigration minister, Part 2

Ever since Scott Morrison told overseas students to go home at the start of the pandemic and then stomped on the student visa accelerator once the pandemic ended, overseas student numbers have increased and policy has been fraught with constant changes to reduce the inflow of students.

June 24, 2025

Bombing Iran is part of the US' repetitive compulsion for war, war, war

“As we have seen yet again in recent hours, the political and media culture of the United States is heavily inclined toward glorifying the use of the US’ second-to-none destructive air power.”

June 3, 2025

Christianity: the antithesis of Zionism

Zionism has both secular nationalist roots, as well as religious messianic roots. But neither have any basis in Christianity.

April 30, 2025

Message from the editor-in-chief: Genocide is not newsworthy in The Australian

Our mainstream media have manufactured public consent to the genocide.The Australian has become a parody of a newspaper.

June 7, 2025

Build-up to the ultimate surveillance state has just begun

While most of us are transfixed daily by more horrific atrocities, potentially deadlier operations are likely to far outlast the genocide in Gaza.

May 25, 2025

Greg Sheridan piles on the Murdoch delusions

While Paul Kelly has written wisely about Donald Trump, many of his Murdoch colleagues appear discombobulated by the real estate developer’s return to the US presidency. Who can blame them? They’re not alone.

May 17, 2025

An open letter to Penny Wong seeking action on Palestine

Dear Minister,

Responding to war crimes committed against the Palestinian people

Congratulations on Labor’s achievement of another term of government. We hope this term will be one in which everything possible is done to promote, support and invest in peace, without which Australians - and others - cannot be secure.

April 14, 2025

Message from the editor

One of the challenges for all of us right now is knowing where to look. Every minute a new set of tumultuous world events takes place. If you stop to focus on one you get trampled by 25 others. It is tempting to just pull up the doona – but then you would be letting them win.

June 8, 2025

Gaza conditions 'worse than hell on Earth': Red Cross chief

“We cannot continue to watch what is happening,” said Mirjana Spoljaric. “It’s surpassing any acceptable legal, moral, and humane standard.”

May 16, 2025

Fear, censorship and repression are keeping Israelis in the dark about Gaza

The public’s indifference to what Israel is doing in the Gaza Strip is not just the result of a lack of care, but the result of the war Israel is waging against the possibility of knowing.

May 10, 2025

Dreyfus leaves little legacy

In his term as attorney-general, Mark Dreyfus failed to address many big issues.

April 26, 2025

Why has there been no discussion of asylum-seekers in this campaign?

Despite it being a perennial topic during Elections this century, neither major party wants to talk about asylum seekers this time around.

April 22, 2025

Message from the editor

Today, pre-polling opens across the country. The shape of campaigns in Australia has changed radically in the recent past.

April 13, 2025

Good migration policy pays — this is what it looks like

Migration can continue to be a transformative benefit for Australia if it can look past the myths to develop policy that will pay off.

May 8, 2025

Mainstream media and distorted Palestine reporting

Australia’s mainstream media have ignored and distorted the genocide in Palestine. A recent Australians for Humanity forum, chaired by former SBS newsreader Mary Kostakidis, and featuring Margaret Reynolds, Stuart Rees and Peter Slezak, tackled the issues and discussed what needs to be done.

June 1, 2025

Bridging now to next – seeking to rise from the ashes of the Voice referendum

During this Reconciliation Week (27 May – 3 June), with the theme Bridging Now to Next, the nation is aware that there is still unfinished business on the national agenda when it comes to the due recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians.

May 23, 2025

Time to end the silence

“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

Martin Luther King Jr.

May 9, 2025

The climate won’t change for the Liberals without more women and fewer oldies

If the Liberals have any sense, they won’t waste too much time blaming their shocking election result on Peter Dutton, Donald Trump, Cyclone Alfred, the party secretariat, an unready shadow ministry or any other “proximate cause”, as economists say. Why not? Because none of these go to the heart of their party’s problem.

May 27, 2025

China’s calm response to US’ impulsive tariffs gets noticed

Shortly after China and the United States announced tariff adjustment measures in Geneva, Switzerland, Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist Aron Solomon argued in a Newsweek article that the US now has an administration that “governs not with strategy, but with impulse”.

June 16, 2025

Message from the editor

It has been a big couple of weeks at Pearls and Irritations, featuring some of the biggest issues we have pursued strongly in the past few years: the AUKUS defence deal and the genocide in Palestine, both reaching turning points.

April 16, 2025

Politics with Michelle Grattan: Hugh White on what the next PM should tell Trump and defending Australia – without the US

The Trump ascendancy has forced international economic issues and the future strategic outlook onto the Australian election agenda, even if they are at the margins.

July 8, 2025

When the helping hand holds a machine gun

There’s no precise number of how many Palestinians have been starved to death by Israel’s embargo on food entering Gaza.

June 27, 2025

Twisting biblical narratives to suit aggression

You have to hand it to Benjamin Netanyahu; he can tweet a biblical story. But Jesus’ words on forgiveness still stand.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal