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.

April 11, 2025

ABC has Four Corners with just one angle: Anti-China Media Watch

In the midst of a federal election campaign, China is front and centre, with the major parties falling over themselves to look tough on national security. The mainstream media is once again aiding and abetting the political narrative without any serious analysis; Albo and Dutton are going to swipe back the Port of Darwin from its CCP-linked owners, but the mainstream media is clueless as to how that will happen; Tony Abbott tells his former chief of staff we’re being bullied by China; and a heavily-promoted Four Corners program fails to scale the great wall of objectivity.

June 6, 2025

Bougainville wants independence. China’s support for a controversial mine could pave the way

Bougainville, an autonomous archipelago currently part of Papua New Guinea, is determined to become the world’s newest country.

May 25, 2025

Urgent appeal to the conscience of humanity: Stand with Gaza

An appeal from Sami Khader, MA’AN’s director-general. The MA’AN Development Centre was established in January 1989.

May 13, 2025

Productivity with purpose: Roy Green, structural reform and Australia’s place in the world

Roy Green’s recent article on productivity reform offers one of the most cogent and hopeful visions for Australia’s economic future.

May 3, 2025

Major YouGov poll has Labor easily winning a majority of seats in election

A YouGov MRP poll has Labor clearly winning a majority of seats in the federal election – 84 of the 150 seats in the House of Representatives.

October 14, 2018

MARGARET O'CONNOR. Changing the culture of the church.

What is the good of drawing up, on paper, rules for good behaviour, if we know that, in fact, our greed, cowardice, ill temper, and self-conceit are going to prevent us from keeping them? I do not mean for a moment that we ought not to think, and think hard, about improvements to our social and economic system. What I do mean is that all the thinking will be mere moonshine unless we realise that nothing but the courage and unselfishness of individuals is ever going to make any system work properly. It is easy enough to remove the particular kinds of graft or bullying that go on under the present system; but as long as men are twisters or bullies they will find some new way of carrying on the same game under the new system. You cannot make men good by law, and without good men you cannot have a good society.

April 23, 2025

Explainer | What happens after Pope Francis’ death?

Following Pope Francis’ death, key rituals commence, including sealing his flat, destroying the ring, and funeral arrangements.

June 20, 2025

Strategic security partnerships in the region

In reading analyses of how we can develop the seemingly logical argument by Paul Keating and others that Australia should be seeking its security in Asia rather than from Asia, the issue of official and personal contact in building such ties always seems to be neglected.

June 9, 2025

Dozens of big industries want to plug in to Australia’s first 100 pct net renewable (wind and solar) grid

The death of manufacturing? It’s a constant refrain among the conservative nut jobs on Murdoch’s Sky After Dark and within the far right elements of the federal Coalition, who insist that more wind and solar will be the death of industry in Australia.

May 16, 2025

Cartoon commentary

May 2, 2025

Nine's feeble bid for a China poll beat-up fails miserably: Anti-China Media Watch

Chinese Communist Party-linked minions are being employed to quash Dutton’s hopes of electoral victory; LNP senator free to make spy allegations; Chinese-built tugboats threaten our sovereignty; and the awful truth emerges – most Australians don’t fear China.

June 13, 2025

AI and robotics expected to play a big role in China’s next 5-year plan

China is likely to leverage advanced technology to boost manufacturing, achieving self-sufficiency while becoming an indispensable exporter.

May 28, 2025

Indonesia remembers the coming of democracy, 27 years later

The shadow of Soeharto’s past now seems to loom over the nation, threatening the civilian supremacy we fought so hard to establish.

April 28, 2025

A hillbilly White House and the wisdom of peasants

In 2016, US Vice-President J.D. Vance published a best-selling memoir titled Hillbilly Elegy. Curiously, he explained on the Fox News network recently that China’s pivotal influence on American consumption was due to the US borrowing “money from Chinese peasants to buy the things those Chinese peasants manufacture” (YouTube link here). Let’s consider the sort of individuals in question.

June 16, 2025

Is Marles the right fit for defence?

P&I readers don’t need to be told that Defence Minister Richard Marles is floundering when trying to make security links with Indonesia seem as though they’ve “never been in better shape”.

May 23, 2025

From campaign genius to nation-builder? Paul Erickson and Labor’s long game

Paul Erickson is a name rarely heard outside political circles, yet his influence runs deep.

May 20, 2025

Time for Catholic Bishops to speak up for Palestine

An open letter to Catholic Bishops. Please speak up.

May 5, 2025

Sustaining hope when war is normalised

What follows is a link to my talk given on 24 April at the Canberra gathering of the Medical Association for the Prevention of War.

May 19, 2025

Radio New Zealand’s report on its Israel-Gaza coverage is not credible

Radio New Zealand’s decision to conduct a review of its Israel-Palestine coverage post-7 October 2023 is commendable.

June 26, 2025

Israel's 'weaponisation' of food is a 'war crime': UN

“It is weaponised hunger. It is forced displacement,” said one UN human rights official. “All combined, it appears to be the erasure of Palestinian life from Gaza.”

May 31, 2025

Freer movement: Pacific priorities for Labor in its second term

Is the Labor Government going to take aid more seriously, and think more globally, in its second term?

April 29, 2025

Only a third of Australians support increasing defence spending: new research

National security issues have been a constant feature of this federal election campaign.

April 10, 2025

Boiling the frog of constitutional reform

The case to sever the constitutional link between Australia and the UK monarchy is self-evident to most. And, to be clear, this link is expressly to the monarch of the UK in that capacity, not to some titularly separate notional monarch of Australia.

May 11, 2025

Environment: Will Labor now protect our environment? If not now, probably never

The world is getting hotter, seas are rising more quickly, oceans are heating faster and freshwater is getting saltier, but Labor’s first-term environmental performance provides little optimism for its second, even though Australia leads the way with solar energy generation.

June 24, 2025

Iran retaliating against US inevitable as window for diplomacy narrows: analysts

Tehran’s options include striking US military assets with ballistic missiles and exiting a nuclear treaty to “save face”.

May 21, 2025

How should Australia respond to the starvation of Gaza?

It has now been more than two months since Israel began to block the entry of food and medicine to Gaza. According to the World Food Program, about 1.94 million people across the Gaza Strip experienced high levels of acute food insecurity between 1 April and 10 May 2025, including nearly 244,000 people facing catastrophic food insecurity.

May 17, 2025

Our humanity is lost under the rubble in Gaza

It is a Sunday evening, and I am shopping online. But there is a difference.

June 23, 2025

Regime change wouldn’t likely bring democracy to Iran. A more threatening force could fill the vacuum

The timing and targets of Israel’s attacks on Iran tell us that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s short-term goal is to damage Iran’s nuclear facilities in order to severely diminish its weapons program.

June 15, 2025

Perhaps Marles should ask the US why it is building up forces around China

It now seems taken for granted that Australia needs to spend a lot more on its military.

May 7, 2025

Who’s afraid of big, bad China?

Be afraid, be very afraid. But not of China. To the contrary, the proper management of co-operative relations with China is essential to Australia’s future.

May 18, 2025

Environment: Nations ignoring the need for a just transition to zero carbon

Eliminating greenhouse gas emissions is dangerously slow, but doing it in a fair, just and inclusive manner is all but non-existent. Climate change’s many harmful outcomes for women and girls includes more child marriages. Fishing doesn’t have to kill mammals and birds.

July 6, 2025

The takeaway from the Venice Biennale saga: the art world faces deep and troubling structural inequality

Creative Australia’s decision earlier this year to rescind the selection of artist Khaled Sabsabi and curator Michael Dagostino as Australia’s 2026 representatives at the Venice Biennale sent shockwaves through the arts sector.

July 2, 2025

Southeast Asia needs to ramp up its trade links with Europe

Southeast Asia faces rising US tariffs and pressure to limit Chinese links, prompting a search for stronger European trade ties. While Europe offers promising opportunities, ASEAN must navigate complex bilateral deals that may risk regional cohesion. Closer EU ties can diversify markets and investments, but will not replace China’s role in supply chains. To fully benefit, Southeast Asian nations must drive domestic reforms, enhancing resilience and inclusive growth amid global trade uncertainties.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal