May 4, 2025

Environment: Australia’s exported fossil fuel emissions are treble our total domestic emissions

Australia’s exported coal and LNG produce three times more emissions than 27 million Australians. The US wastes prime agricultural land to inefficiently produce energy for cars. Shed snake skin protects young birds. Kosciuszko benefitting from fewer feral horses.

May 21, 2025

What is education for these days?

Are we experiencing the end of universities? Will the role of academia be simply to service the status quo, not challenge it?

May 18, 2025

Trump’s attack on science risks dismantling a century of innovation

Restrictive visa policies, rhetoric targeting academic institutions and proposed budget cuts to scientific agencies mark the start of US retreat.

June 5, 2025

In one awful decision, Albanese has revealed his do-nothing plan

It didn’t take long for us to discover what a triumphantly re-elected Labor government would be like.

May 24, 2025

Remembering Race Mathews

Gareth Evans Eulogy, State Memorial Service, Melbourne Arts Centre, 23 May 2025

Race Mathews had a wonderfully rich and productive life, which he lived to the full for 90 years. He accepted his last years of declining health with serenity, and died — as I guess we all hope we will — peacefully and painlessly, surrounded by loving family. But none of that means that we — his family, friends and admirers — will mourn his passing any less, or miss him any less.

June 15, 2025

Environment: WA addicted to producing, burning and exporting gas

Albanese government eager to support WA’s gas addiction. Tasmania’s natural environment trashed by deer and loggers. Globally, one square kilometre of trees cleared every 10 minutes. Ecological and spiritual values converge in Chinese temples.

May 19, 2025

US decays; for Australia, independence beckons

Donald Trump is not an aberration, but rather a symptom of the disease, not its cause.

May 5, 2025

When the centre cannot hold: US polarisation is driving the word away

Once admired for its democratic institutions, cultural dynamism, and global leadership, the United States now finds itself in a different spotlight.

April 29, 2025

Aussie cardinals in short supply at papal conclave

The election to take place in the Vatican from next week is probably a lot more consequential than the one now taking place in Australia, even if there is a good chance that white smoke will be coming from the chimneys at the Australian Electoral Office earlier than those from the Vatican Apartments.

July 9, 2025

Australian childcare – do you reap what you sow?

The present crisis in the childcare industry in Australia has been in the making for the past 50 years.

June 18, 2025

Australia’s defence and intelligence agencies are US outposts

More than ever, Australia should have the objective capacity to determine its own defence and intelligence requirements, instead of being heavily influenced by American interests and perspective.

June 14, 2025

Biden’s advisers hid his decline – and the media didn’t dig hard enough

Last week, President Donald Trump ordered an investigation into “who ran the United States while President Biden was in office”, alleging top aides masked the “cognitive decline” of his predecessor. The announcement referenced revelations in a new book by journalists Jake Tapper (CNN) and Alex Thompson (Axios).

May 6, 2025

Dutton defeated in unexciting and uninspiring battlefield scrap

As a journalist, I have watched 21 federal elections and several more with a keen personal interest given that they closely affected my status, future or present, as a draft dodger.

May 1, 2025

The US has never been a reliable ally of Australia

The US is not, and has never been, a reliable ally of Australia.

June 28, 2025

Everybody is responsible for social cohesion, from politicians to teenagers on the street

On 3 June, Australia’s Home Affairs Minister, Tony Burke, issued a joint statement with Multicultural Affairs Minister Anne Aly, announcing the establishment of an Office for Multicultural Affairs within the Home Affairs Department.

June 27, 2025

Australian foreign policy is in the doldrums

Opinion polls indicate Australians are at last waking up to the fact that their country’s security reliance on Trump’s US is no longer tenable.

May 30, 2025

India–Pakistan conflict tests the limits of nuclear deterrence

The May 2025 India–Pakistan conflict marked a significant escalation of longstanding tensions that challenges the stability of deterrence between the two nuclear armed adversaries.

May 26, 2025

Australia’s billion-dollar blind spot

Australia now ranks seventh in the world for the number of publicly listed companies worth more than a billion US dollars.

June 29, 2025

Why Asia-Pacific should be rooting for Iran

Setting aside any thoughts I may have about theocratic rulers (whether they be in Tel Aviv or Tehran), I am personally glad that Iran was able to hold out against the US-Israeli attacks this month.

June 17, 2025

It took more than a century, but women are taking charge of Australia’s economy – here’s why it matters

For the first time in its 124-year history, Treasury will be led by a woman.

July 4, 2025

Food aid or firing squads?

In Gaza today, hunger has a price – and for far too many civilians, that price has been death.

May 8, 2025

Tackling Christian extremism in Australian politics

The election campaign was fraught. Reports of violent interactions at booths have circulated in recent polls.

June 1, 2025

Environment: Freshwater systems and grasslands, forgotten nature and climate heroes

Human activities are pushing many freshwater fish toward extinction globally and in Australia.

April 27, 2025

Vote for humanity: Caring for Palestine

As Australians hear the repetitive, carefully scripted announcements of the two major parties, voters are turning away from the blatant bribery of millions of dollars for marginal electorates and personal promises of tax cuts and cheaper petrol.

April 11, 2025

A statement by the minister for the environment in the new Australian Government

My fellow Australians: you cannot exist, and your grandkids will not exist without a safe, healthy, habitable Earth for us all to dwell upon.

June 25, 2025

Trump's overblown rhetoric cannot be taken seriously

The Iraq invasion and the bombing of Iran are acts of desperation — the conduct of a wounded, uncertain nation that went on the defensive when the Twin Towers went down and history arrived on its shores.

April 28, 2025

A minority Labor Government's policy agenda – Part 2

In this second part of this article, discussing the possible policy agenda for a minority Labor Government, the focus is on taxation and how to improve productivity – issues that are most difficult to agree on.

June 20, 2025

The United States must not be part of Israel's unlawful war on Iran

The US Constitution is crystal clear: there can be no offensive use of military force — against Iran or any other country — without an explicit authorisation from Congress. No such authorisation exists, and any US involvement would, therefore, be illegal.

June 8, 2025

Environment: 5% of animal species currently threatened by climate change

An Australian rodent was the first mammal to be driven to extinction by climate change. Renewables will supply almost all of global electricity’s 4% per year growth. Four personal behaviour changes could remove much of the average person’s carbon footprint.

June 6, 2025

Bogus charges of antisemitism are the new McCarthyism

The word antisemitism has become so debased that depending on who is using it, I might well take it as a sign that the accused is worth listening to.

May 25, 2025

Environment: Australians must defend our right to protest

Dissent and protest are under attack across Australia. Thawing permafrost is a problem for everyone, not just Arctic-dwellers. LNG produces more emissions than coal, oil or gaseous natural gas. Renewables rollouts are up, but so are energy-related greenhouse gas emissions.

May 13, 2025

Labor stops apologising for its social commitments

Some of the most memorable political speeches made in Australia have been made by politicians who are leaving office.

July 2, 2025

Flour instead of homeland: manufacturing the crisis and the end of the Palestinian dream

Since 4:00 p.m. on 14 May 1948, the Palestinian cause has been one of a homeland seized by force, a land torn from its people by Zionism through weapons and terror.

May 20, 2025

Inaccessible, indifferent, out of touch? A vice-chancellor’s non-response

In times of age old professionalism, it was reasonable to make requests to leaders of powerful institutions and expect a reply, but in times unduly influenced by the alleged efficiency of managerialism, public interests and requests are too often ignored.

April 9, 2025

An arresting American Gaza challenge

Recent US commentary backing President Trump’s extraordinary American Gaza takeover project has regularly stressed how critics should come up with a better plan.

June 24, 2025

Is there any hope for a fairer carve-up of GST between the states?

When the Western Australian Government handed down its state budget on Thursday, it showed a balance sheet solidly in the black with a $2.5 billion surplus. But, as it has for seven years, the state has received an outsized boost to its coffers from the federal government.

April 23, 2025

Crossbench pressure will lift and improve Albo’s game

Now that the danger of a Dutton Government has receded, a good many left-of-centre people would rather that Labor had less than an outright victory.

April 14, 2025

From margins to movement: Why Muslim votes matter

The current moment in Australian politics is revealing – not because it introduced something new, but because it exposed what has long been present and largely unacknowledged.

June 14, 2025

Tax concessions for super do not need a major rethink

Chris Murphy’s article in The Conversation on 3 June calling for a rethink of superannuation tax arrangements misrepresents the Henry Review’s recommendations for taxing super and overlooks the subsequent measures taken by the Gillard and Turnbull Governments.

April 16, 2025

Memo Dutton: Good economic managers don’t try to panic the punters

A problem in economics is that you can’t use the economy to experiment.

May 12, 2025

Can Albanese resist the temptation to fall for Trump’s flattery?

Without wishing to rain on the Australian Labor Party’s victory parade, when our prime minister was congratulated and praised by Donald Trump the day after Labor won the 2025 federal election, alarm bells should have been ringing to alert his advisers.

June 7, 2025

Ukraine attack will have no effect on outcome of war

The black eye given Russian security services will eventually heal while the artful destruction of a handful of bombers — like earlier high-profile, but misguided operations — will have zero effect on the war in Ukraine.

May 29, 2025

Palestinian genocide: No more selective indignation

Australians are joining the chorus of outrage at Israel’s escalating carnage in Gaza and the West Bank. They include Jewish Australians, but few of our political representatives.

April 12, 2025

How an imaginary expert crashed the world economy

On 16 December 1773, the Boston Tea Party (a protest against de facto tariffs on imports) marked the start of the American colonies’ liberation from British rule._

June 2, 2025

Message from the editor

In my first week as editor, back in mid-March, when open shoes were still viable in Canberra, I said that we at Pearls and Irritations do not pretend to be disinterested observers.

May 10, 2025

'Escalation risks catastrophe': Restraint urged as Pakistan hits back after Indian strikes

“An armed conflict between India and Pakistan would be catastrophic for the world and must be avoided at all costs,” US Congresswoman Ilhan Omar has warned.

May 7, 2025

Judaism and Zionism are not the same

No doubt about it. We live in a topsy-turvy world. How Kafkaesque can it get, when some of Zionism’s most fervent supporters have been politicians like Scott Morrison, Peter Dutton or — God help us — the Mad King of Mar-a-Lago?

July 1, 2025

NZ cities are getting hotter: Five things councils can do now to keep us cooler when summer comes

Stand in any car park on a sunny day in February and the heat will radiate through your shoes. At 30°C air temperature, that asphalt hits 50–55°C – hot enough to cause second-degree burns to skin in seconds.

April 25, 2025

Even in sickness, Pope Francis reached out to Gaza's Christians

For months, the pontiff spoke by telephone almost every night with people sheltering in a Catholic church in the battered enclave, a ritual he tried to keep up in the hospital.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal