June 28, 2025

China’s partnership with Muslim world is redrawing global landscape

Once seen as unlikely partners, this axis is now grounded in respect, sovereignty and a shared aspiration for a post-Western world order.

June 20, 2025

Humanitarian visa processing – Is it who you know, rather than what you know? Part 2

Is this how we want our visa processing system to run?

April 15, 2025

In a broken world, China-Japan-Korea co-operation is Asia’s backbone

By blending economic might, technological prowess and cultural bonds, co-operation can be elevated into a transformative, inspiring force.

May 22, 2025

Factional comfort gazumps innovation courage

Sandy Plunkett’s lament in the Australian Financial Review (15/5) over Ed Husic’s sacking as federal industry minister captures a familiar truth: innovation ministries in Canberra are often burial grounds for political ambition. Husic’s fall may have been sealed by factional headwinds, but the deeper problem is that “innovation” in Australia is rarely allowed to mean what it should.

April 7, 2025

Australia should inform itself as to who the real terrorists are

Australians may smirk at the embarrassment of Donald Trump’s neophyte administration over “Signalgate”. Particularly those old enough to remember how our allies punished Canberra for past intelligence scandals and pushed us to set up ASIO.

June 23, 2025

International survey shows 81% back forcing big oil to pay for climate destruction

“People are no longer buying the lies. They see the fingerprints of fossil fuel giants all over the storms, floods, droughts, and wildfires devastating their lives, and they want accountability,” said the head of one green group.

June 6, 2025

The threat to survival of our human species is now desperately serious

It is now, nearly three years, since I published an opinion piece in a number of Australian newspapers, entitled; “ Human Extinction isn’t Inevitable, Yet…”

May 1, 2025

Vietnam goes big in its sprint to 2030

Vietnam’s General Secretary To Lamo is leading an “era of national rise” towards 2030, striving for institutional reform and rapid economic growth to break Vietnam out of the middle-income trap.

May 8, 2025

Will Labor live up to the values of Australians?

In his victory speech on election night, Anthony Albanese emphasised his commitment to “Australian values”, singling out “fairness, aspiration and opportunity for all, the strength to show courage in adversity, and kindness to those in need".

June 12, 2025

South Korea’s president faces tough balancing act between allies, adversaries

Lee Jae-myung has to deal with a North Korea emboldened by strengthened ties with Russia and must consider the stances of the US, Japan and China.

May 27, 2025

Dee Madigan and the art of the possible: Branding progress or boxing it in?

In the pantheon of contemporary Australian political strategists, few have the profile — or the punch — of Dee Madigan.

May 20, 2025

Israel's new Gaza operation should be called 'Chariots of Genocide'

About 70 people from dawn to noon on Wednesday. Almost twice the number of those killed in the massacre at Kibbutz Nir Oz. Twenty-two of them were children, and 15 were women. The previous evening, 23 were killed in a hospital.

May 19, 2025

The Trump coalition wants to end democracy as we know it

Four groups aim to degrade our one-person-one-vote election system so a few billionaires and certain religious zealots can consolidate their political power.

May 28, 2025

Ley’s impossible task – Leading a party at war with its future

The future of the centre-right in Australia may depend on whether Sussan Ley can weather the current storm.

July 1, 2025

Murdoch’s News Corp has moved into the mortgage business. Where are the regulators?

If you want to advertise a house online in Australia, you don’t have many options. Just two companies dominate the market.

May 2, 2025

Marco Rubio and the death of diplomacy

There is no more important or prestigious cabinet position than the secretary of state.

April 28, 2025

Canada’s Asian dream after America First

In the six months since US President Donald Trump’s re-election, the relentless assault on core democratic principles at home and international institutions and norms has turned the world upside down and inside out for the United States, its friends, allies and adversaries.

June 23, 2025

Pregnancy as a death sentence

Genuine good news stories involving government initiatives are rare. Here’s an exception.

May 7, 2025

Thanks to Trump, China has the cards it needs to win the trade war

Trump’s actions have left nations feeling betrayed while accelerating China’s self-sufficiency. These, plus Beijing’s rare earth dominance, could spell victory.

May 8, 2025

Sino-Vatican ties likely to survive Pope Francis' passing

The death of Pope Francis on 21 April triggered widespread grief. A humble man whose political skills stood him in good stead, he inspired many. Although his doctrinal stances often upset traditionalists, few doubted his integrity.

May 3, 2025

RSL stands up for Welcome to Country while Dutton weaves and dodges

On 25 April, a group of Neo-Nazi protesters booed Uncle Mark Brown’s Welcome to Country at the Melbourne ANZAC Day Shrine service.

June 21, 2025

Australia must turn promising refugee pilots into bold policy to meet the moment

Today, on World Refugee Day 2025, close to one in ten Australians is a refugee or descendant of someone displaced.

April 23, 2025

Trump: the canker that cures?

A strong dose of home-grown fascism, of a uniquely American kind that no one else can be blamed for, may be just what the world needs to bump the US off the destructive path down which it has so often steered so many of its ever so sycophantic friends since World WarII.

May 28, 2025

Trump's second term is taking the US back to the bad old days

“Words mean just what I say they mean", Humpty Dumpty

July 5, 2025

US shift towards Pakistan may unsettle India and the South Asia balance

Islamabad welcomes the opportunity to hedge against China, but New Delhi may well go looking for other, more reliable partners.

May 9, 2025

Zionist lawfare comes for Australian journalist

The Zionist federation of Australia should be recognised as a duplicitous and malicious actor in Australian society and politics.

May 16, 2025

Support at Home: Immediate risks and urgent issues

Australia’s aged care system is gearing up for one of its biggest shake-ups yet. The Support at Home program, set to launch on 1 July, aims to merge existing in-home care arrangements into a single, streamlined, person-centred reform. Or at least, that’s the theory.

July 4, 2025

Iran: The things it won’t do to say

If Thomas Friedman’s fairytale world of light-versus-darkness were to evaporate, less noble motives for US and Israeli actions might be revealed.

July 7, 2025

The deep politics behind Trump’s presidency

It is not easy to find a coherent, positive message in the chaos Donald Trump is sowing, but let me try….

June 4, 2025

China – A country on the move

I have just returned from a four-week holiday in China, my first visit ever. Wow!

May 21, 2025

Australia’s opportunity to lead the world on human survival

_Now that the Australian election is settled, and the government has a handsome working majority, it is surely the moment for voters nationwide to engage actively with elected representatives to set a world-changing agenda in place.

April 9, 2025

Nuclear power is not safe, it’s more dangerous than ever

Media and campaign coverage of the rekindled pitch for Australia to embrace nuclear power has focused on the poor economics, the protracted timelines of implementation, and dubious real-world benefits as a climate strategy.

April 26, 2025

Worried about a ‘baby bust’? Then prevent pregnancy ‘wastage’

Hardly a day passes without anxiety-laden news stories about falling birth rates across the globe.

July 9, 2025

For the sake of food security, we must address population numbers

As a child, the thought of other children going to bed hungry upset me. Later, I began university studies in agricultural science with the naïve intent of ridding the world of hunger. It was all about increasing crop yields to ensure that the then 3.1 billion people might be fed.

April 11, 2025

It’s time to rethink socialist principles amid the ruins of neoliberalism

Socialist principles are an unloved entry in the contemporary lexicon of Western political thought.

July 2, 2025

Australia’s decision-makers are ignoring climate, hailing coal and impersonating Elvis

You could barely believe that there is a climate crisis going on. In the same week that climate scientists suggested the world will exhaust its remaining carbon budget within two years, carbon bombs are being set off left, right and centre, or allowed through regulatory hurdles on the promise of buying dodgy offsets.

May 5, 2025

Just not in time

Donald Trump’s tariffs and before-the-border barriers are a de facto self-imposed naval blockade of America that undermines the modern just-in-time economy.

July 10, 2025

Anti-tourism protests are not new. They happened in ancient Rome, 19th-century England and after World War II

This hot European summer, anti-tourism protests have made headlines, from Barcelona to Venice, Mallorca and the Canary Islands. The unrest is not confined to Europe, though.

May 27, 2025

Independence of Timor-Leste judiciary undermined; Doubts continue for Greater Sunrise

The government of Timor-Leste has attracted international media attention because of the proposal to pardon a notorious paedophile prisoner, defrocked Catholic priest Richard Daschbach, four years into his 12-year sentence.

April 29, 2025

The Fall of Saigon 1975: Fifty years of repeating what was forgotten (Part 1)

The first demonstration I ever went to was at 12, against the Vietnam War. The first formal history lesson I received was a few months later when I commenced high school.

June 3, 2025

Chinese jet shoots down France’s best fighter. NZ and Australia should pay attention

For the first time in history, the US and the Western world face a genuine peer competitor in China.

June 25, 2025

Faster than forecast, accelerated warming creates a climate time-bomb for the Albanese government

The physical reality of accelerating climate heating and faster-than-forecast impacts have mugged climate policymaking, which now needs to be rebuilt with up-to-date scientific observations and understandings, and a risk-management approach that gives particular attention to the most-damaging, plausible high-end scenarios.

June 16, 2025

Australia's dependence on the US does not end with Trump

Malcolm Turnbull’s recent Foreign Affairs essay, America’s Allies Must Save Themselves, is a good intervention in the debate about Donald Trump’s impact on global order.

June 26, 2025

Iran’s internet blackout left people in the dark. How does a country shut down the internet?

In recent days, Iranians experienced a near-complete internet blackout, with local service providers — including mobile services — repeatedly going offline. Iran’s Government has cited cyber security concerns for ordering the shutdown.

April 14, 2025

China doesn't need a free kick

Western and Australian observers are suggesting that Donald Trump just gave China a free kick to tilt Asia in its favour. Extending this inaccuracy, they broaden the free kick to include Australia’s Pacific family whose interests and cultures are very different to those of Asia.

June 14, 2025

An algorithm decides whether you have an online life or not

Recently, I lost a Facebook account I’d had for 17 years. It wasn’t just a social media profile — it was a living archive of my life.

April 15, 2025

How to lose friends and help rivals

If the US wanted to thrust Indonesia into the strategic political orbit of China, it couldn’t have found a better way than imposing a 32% tariff on imports from the archipelago.

June 17, 2025

The Israeli-Iranian conflict: geopolitical transformations and the role of Chinese and Russian support

In a world undergoing profound shifts toward multipolarity, the military escalation between Israel and Iran stands out as a clear indicator of the interplay between regional conflicts and the geopolitical interests of global powers.

April 28, 2025

What to do with an ex-president?

In an imaginary situation, members of Australia’s political and miliary elite were in court at the same time defending themselves against allegations of an attempted military coup.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal