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.

June 30, 2025

China is taking Silicon Valley’s market ‘hacks’ to a whole new level

From “blitzscaling” to leveraging network effects, China is using the same methods to dominate supply chain and disrupt markets.

April 30, 2025

The election and the social determinants of health

The Social Determinants of Health are the conditions in which we work, live, and play. We, as a society, choose these conditions and/or choose not to change them. They play at least as important a role in health outcomes as access to care.

April 27, 2025

Environment: Australian Governments sacrifice the environment for dollars and votes

The sham of biodiversity offsets for coal mining. Will the climate benefit if Australia hosts the COP in 2026? Albanese further weakens Australia’s outdated environmental protection laws.

June 10, 2025

Weaponising the Department of Justice: echoes of the Star Chamber

Instead of acting as a guardian of the law, the Justice Department will use judicial power to pursue political vendettas and silence dissent.

May 27, 2025

Trump inflicts cruelty on the disadvantaged – and seems to enjoy it

Perhaps the most despicable of the character flaws of Donald Trump is his cruelty and his apparent enjoyment of the same!

July 7, 2025

Lawsuit aims to end 'systematic' snatching of brown-skinned people by Trump agents

“These guys are popping up, rampant all over the city, just taking people randomly, and we want that particular practice to end,” one attorney in the case said of Department of Homeland Security agents.

May 9, 2025

India and Pakistan have fought many wars in the past. Are we on the precipice of a new one?

India conducted military strikes against Pakistan overnight, hitting numerous sites in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir and deeper into Pakistan itself. Security officials say precision strike weapon systems, including drones, were used.

April 15, 2025

Federal election: A different type of beauty contest

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton is fighting this election as if it were what some of my sisters in journalism would call a dick-measuring competition.

July 1, 2025

Switching from a failed vape and tobacco policy to a successful one

Australia’s health policy in relation to vapes is in disarray. Yet this deeply flawed approach is currently supported by all state, federal and territory governments.

May 1, 2025

The $60b energy boom hidden in Barnaby Joyce’s backyard

It’s the kind of economic windfall that regional Australia dreams of: $60 billion in investment, 4000 construction jobs, more than 5000 ongoing jobs, and enough clean energy to power half the country.

June 2, 2025

It is time to take our indifference to the Gaza horror seriously

It is time to take our indifference seriously. I remember having a heated discussion with classmates when I was in my first year of high school. We had just had a history lesson on the rise of Nazi Germany and the murder of over six millions Jews, intellectuals, and communists. We were arguing about how many Jewish people we could have “rescued” from the gas chambers and what we would have done if we had been alive then, how we would never have let that slaughter happen.

June 17, 2025

Australia’s quiet role in China-ASEAN dynamics

Southeast Asia’s strategic equilibrium is undergoing unprecedented stress tests.

June 7, 2025

US military waste contractor with flawed safety record backing Australian N-waste dump

A US military mega-contractor assisting an Australian company to develop a proposal for a nuclear waste dump in Central Australia has a flawed safety record in handling nuclear waste storage.

May 8, 2025

The global conversation on Western aid cuts

This year has seen massive changes for global development, with the United States, United Kingdom and other donors announcing cuts to foreign assistance. The Development Policy Centre has estimated that official development assistance, which peaked in 2023, will reduce by between 25% to 50% by 2027.

April 27, 2025

A minority Labor Government's policy agenda – Part 1

A minority Labor Government is widely seen as a likely outcome in the forthcoming election.

April 16, 2025

Why bagging China could deny Dutton crucial votes he needs to win

China seems to play a central role in American and Australian elections.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal