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Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal
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June 19, 2025

Sudan: The horrors intensify as millions are abandoned

A woman survivor of the current conflict in Sudan between two rival militaries, the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Force, each fighting for power since 2023, told UNICEF: “I could hear that little girl screaming and crying. They were raping her.”

April 7, 2025

Labor gains lead in post-budget Newspoll; would be one seat short of majority in YouGov MRP poll

Labor’s regaining of polling momentum has continued into the first week of the formal election campaign.

May 22, 2025

UN warns 14,000 Gaza babies could die in 48 hours unless Israeli blockade lifted

Aid allowed into besieged area described as “a trickle among a sea of need”.

May 17, 2025

Judge orders release of Georgetown scholar Badar Khan Suri from ICE detention

“My only ‘crimes’ making me a ’national security threat’ are my marriage to a United States citizen of Palestinian origin and my support for the Palestinian cause,” wrote Badar Khan Suri in an op-ed published on 13 May.

April 15, 2025

We have good reason to have hope at Easter

At least once in a lifetime, every human being is likely to experience pain of such calamitous proportion that it feels as if the world is coming to an end, but in truth it isn’t.

April 8, 2025

US LNG crippled as Australia seizes US$1.5b trade overnight

What happens when the world’s second-largest economy suddenly pulls the plug on billions of dollars in US energy exports without warning, without negotiation and without a single public signal? You get a global energy market in shock and Washington scrambling for answers._

July 3, 2025

UN report lists companies complicit in Israel’s ‘genocide’. Who are they?

The United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) has released a new report mapping the corporations aiding Israel in the displacement of Palestinians and its genocidal war on Gaza, in breach of international law.

June 3, 2025

The Australian Government needs to take strong action regarding the dire situation in Gaza

Here are extracts from a letter sent by AJDS to Penny Wong, the Australian Foreign Minister today [26 May]. It will also appear on social media. It has been slightly edited for the sake of brevity.

April 17, 2025

Australia urgently needs to get serious about long-term climate policy – but there’s no sign of that in the election campaign

The federal election should be an earnest contest over the fundamentals of Australia’s climate and energy policies.

July 7, 2025

Gunning for the Greens over Gaza - Part 2

The Greens have been prominent in condemning Israel’s ongoing mass murder and destruction in Gaza. The federal Labor Government adamantly sits on its hands while condemning the Greens. Whence the absence of principle and courage on the government’s benches?

May 14, 2025

The US war on science

Sadly, largely due to the media’s lack of interest in science and the drop in the number of journalists able to cover such a round, one of the most important stories about science — the Trump destruction of science — is largely being neglected.

June 16, 2025

There's something about Jacqui Lambie

Jacqui Lambie is no Cameron Diaz but the title of one of Diaz’s most loved films, There’s Something about Mary, might be a useful way of thinking about her. There is, after all, definitely something about Jacqui.

April 30, 2025

Voters looking at the least bad option

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has a very big problem this coming Saturday, election day; he is the most distrusted political leader in Australia according to an April 2025 survey by Roy Morgan.

June 13, 2025

The murky world of lobbying and the North West Shelf

It’s hard to explain to a young person how the Albanese Government could possibly have approved the North West Shelf gas project expansion last week.

April 16, 2025

The Thereafter

A few years ago, approaching Christmas, I received a phone call from a gentleman named Mark Feary. He was the curator of the Silvershot Gallery in Flinders Lane at the back of St Paul’s Cathedral in central Melbourne.

June 9, 2025

Palestinian genocide gets some big-screen time

Films and the internet are proving to be a valuable way for the message of the Palestinian struggle to be publicised.

July 8, 2025

China and renewable energy: The global impact

China’s _renewable energy program_ is not a local curiosity. It marks a tu__r__ning point in history with profound consequences for the rest of the globe.

May 2, 2025

Where has all the laughter gone?

In August, 1964, Norman Cousins, a former editor of the Saturday Review was diagnosed with a serious degenerative and painful disease of the connective tissue. He was given a one in five hundred chance of recovery.

May 28, 2025

I will always remember you, Ali Kazak!

I first met Ali Kazak soon after he arrived in Australia in the early ’70s when I was in my early twenties.

July 6, 2025

Mamdani’s magnificent primary win – What follows

People are asking about my reaction to Zohran Mamdani’s spectacular and decisive upset in the Democratic primary victory for Mayor of New York over ex-Governor Andrew Cuomo.

April 22, 2025

Trump versus a young man on a mission

Less than three months into the 48 that the world will have to endure his second presidency, Donald Trump is, on a charitable view, now pretty much a caricature of himself.

June 10, 2025

US unlikely to be able to hold its own against China

Were the US to come up against China in a war in the Pacific, indications are that Washington would have the worse of the exchanges.

May 11, 2025

At the ICJ, only US and Hungary back Israel starving Gaza

Thirty-seven states, the UN and international NGOs all condemned Israel’s denial of aid to the starving people of Gaza at the International Court of Justice in the first week of May.

June 30, 2025

Lattouf’s victory, our fight: Standing firm against intimidation

In April 2025, I posted a comment in The Age, sharing how, after 40 years in my Goldstein neighbourhood, I’d never felt unsafe until I was wrongly accused of antisemitism.

June 23, 2025

Trump most unpopular president in presidential polling history

Donald Trump is definitely exceptional – so exceptional that he is now the most unpopular president in the history of presidential polling.

June 21, 2025

Australia’s trade survival depends on beating Trump’s tariff contagion

How does Canberra cope in a world that threatens to spin off into competing blocs and help shape a world that preserves multilateralism, even if the United States is not a constructive part of it?

May 9, 2025

Aid to Gaza: Moral and political dilemmas for Australia

Amidst preparations for a renewed assault intended to allow permanent Israeli occupation of Gaza, Israel and the United States are also about to establish a mechanism through which humanitarian aid will henceforth be distributed exclusively by private firms protected by the Israeli military.

June 26, 2025

What the world thinks of Trump

It’s early days to find out what the world thinks of Trump and his war on Iran and then his ceasefire agreement – although, as would be expected, Israel and Australia have leapt to say they agree with it.

May 9, 2025

Exclusion of Ed Husic from the Albanese Ministry Statement

A showing of poor judgment, unfairness and diminished respect for the contribution of others.

October 16, 2018

LOGAN PAULEY. China stakes out a role for itself in post-war Syria.

As Syria’s civil war winds down, China is looking to establish itself as an economic, and possibly military, partner for the post-war period. 

May 19, 2025

Pope Leo XIV and some unfinished business

In its 2017 Final Report, the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse recommended changes to canon law, the most important of which was the abolition of the pontifical secret over child sexual abuse by clergy.

June 4, 2025

Freedom flotilla sets sail for Gaza carrying aid and demands: 'End the blockade. End the genocide'

“No matter how dangerous this mission is, it’s nowhere near as dangerous as the silence of the entire world in the face of the live-streamed genocide,” said climate activist Greta Thunberg, who is aboard the Madleen.

May 23, 2025

Can Murray Watt fix Australia’s broken nature laws? First stop, WA

New federal  Environment Minister Murray Watt is in  Western Australia this week to reboot nature law reform.  Reform stalled in the Senate last term, following stiff opposition from the state’s Labor government and mining sector.

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.

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