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.

June 11, 2025

Trump’s attacks on Harvard: Cardinal Wolsey and the prologue to an Australian encounter? Part 1 of 2

The White House is now more accurately described as an Imperial War Room: from it, President Trump directs indiscriminate attacks on whatever is enraging him.

May 31, 2025

Richard Holden on securing Australia’s sovereign research capability

Richard Holden and Brian Schmidt addressed the National Press Club jointly this week. The following are full transcripts of the speeches.

The Economic Value of Ideas

Beginning in the 1990s, economists developed a framework for articulating the economic value of ideas.

June 22, 2025

Aboriginal-Chinese roots of reconciliation: China’s first cultural envoys in Australia

As Australia marked Reconciliation Week (27 May – 3 June ), a landmark exhibition at the National Museum of Australia reminds us that Indigenous–Chinese bonds helped forge the links between the two peoples long before Canberra and Beijing formalised diplomacy in 1972.

May 15, 2025

'A brazen, unprecedented power grab': Trump fires copyright office head

The reported firing of Register of Copyrights and director of the US Copyright Office Shira Perlmutter comes on the heels of Trump’s dismissal of Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden.

April 10, 2025

US tariff policies strengthening China's position in Asia

In geopolitics, there are no permanent friends or enemies, but there are permanent interests. While many countries in Southeast Asia have tried to maintain their economic ties with the US and China, President Donald Trump’s economic and tariff plans are inadvertently helping China strengthen its position in Asia.

May 27, 2025

Not many splashed in the short-lived teacup revolt

The squall in the great teacup of the Liberal and National Parties, and the (almost certainly temporary) suspension of the Coalition has been very diverting but will probably not matter much as the political year, or term of parliament progresses. A scrap between a badly beaten pair of parties may seem damaging in the short term, but is unlikely to change any immediate outcomes.

July 10, 2025

Who wants to serve on a jury? Is the jury system still the best we can do?

You may have been following the current criminal trial in Victoria where a woman is accused of murdering three people by serving them a meal laced with death cap mushrooms.

May 3, 2025

India, Pakistan trade threats after Kashmir massacre – Asian Media Report

In Asian media this week: Pakistan fears attack, India threatens “crushing blow”. Plus: China passes its first private-sector law; Trump needs a quick trade deal with Japan; Tariff plan: US wants to “reset world monetary order”; Singapore blocks foreign election posts; Bandung – when former colonies found a collective voice.

July 8, 2025

Should Australia legalise commercial surrogacy?

“Labour of Love”; “Magic Happens”; “The Greatest Gift”. These are just some recent Australian news headlines promising good news stories about surrogacy and happy families.

June 28, 2025

Zohran Mamdani's battle against the billionaire class and democratic establishment is just beginning

Noting that corporations, large landlords, developers, and donors “want to keep him out of the mayor’s office”, India Walton urged Zohran Mamdani’s campaign to “stay ahead of the messaging and stay on doors”.

May 22, 2025

There’s no country more important to Australia than Indonesia. Trouble is, the feeling isn’t mutual

Making Jakarta the first overseas visit has become a set piece for newly elected Australian prime ministers dating back to John Howard in 1996.

May 14, 2025

Samah Sabawi – Cactus Pear for My Beloved

This 2024 Penguin publication is a highly personal account of the history of Palestinian dispossession.

May 10, 2025

China touts new law as foundation for private sector growth

A week after the passage of a law on China’s private economy, officials said the bill would “unleash” the potential of the non-state sector.

July 9, 2025

US economic statecraft must catch up to its Taiwan strategy

Taiwan’s global economic role has made it indispensable to regional stability in East Asia and for the US’ strategic goals.

June 19, 2025

'No Kings Day' was historic. Now we need a powerful — and independent — movement against Trump

The huge, decentralised turnout for No Kings Day has shown that grassroots power can be a major force against the momentum of the Trump regime.

May 26, 2025

Thailand’s unwinnable war on scammers

In February 2025, Thailand unleashed an unprecedented crackdown to salvage its reputation as a gateway for transnational — typically Chinese-run — scam networks lurking in mainland Southeast Asia. Having rescued thousands from scam dens in Myanmar, Thailand could claim “mission accomplished”. But Thailand knows that rings hollow when syndicates remain fluid and the fight is multi-front, all while domestic cleavages persist and the geopolitical costs of leaning on China are rising.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal