April 28, 2025

A couple of seats that could go against the anti-Dutton grain

“The people have spoken.” “We have a clear mandate.” Really? In many cases, like the landslides of 1975 and 1996, the above quotes are undoubtedly true. But in others, like 1984 and 1998, I’m not so sure.

April 24, 2025

Yes, we do need a population plan

Abul Rizvi rightly argues that “ we desperately need a population plan to enable better planning for our future by governments at all levels, and businesses”.

April 23, 2025

Surreptitious Victorian native forest logging

The Victorian Government claims that it exited native forest logging in 2024. However, it has not legislated this exit. And, notably, logging is continuing through other nefarious and highly cynical means.

April 22, 2025

The great election silence

Australian elections are often marked less by what is promised or talked about, and more by absences. There’s much about tax cuts, but little or nothing about tax rorts, such as negative gearing. Policy area after policy area has such absences.

April 17, 2025

Trump: a ridiculous ego and incredibly ignorant

The analysis underpinning Donald Trump’s tariff policy is fatally flawed. Thus, it will fail to achieve its objective of restoring the living standards of his MAGA supporters.

April 22, 2025

Baseload power is functionally extinct

Much has been made of the notion that “renewables can’t supply baseload power”. This line suggests we need to replace Australia’s ageing coal fleet with new coal or nuclear. The fact of the matter is that, already, “baseload” is an outdated concept and baseload generators face extinction.

June 21, 2025

Beyond the rhetoric: Youth and anti-corruption efforts in Indonesia

If Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo was known for his Nawacita (nine goals), his successor Prabowo Subianto is introducing Astacita — an approach centred on eight strategic agendas, one of which focuses on eliminating corruption.

June 9, 2025

The Hegseth directive: Australia, spend more!

Australia’s obsequiousness before US power was again on show at the Shangri-La Dialogue, a security forum convened by the International Institute for Strategic Studies to discuss matters relevant to the Indo-Pacific.

June 19, 2025

Home Affairs and the bleak hole of humanitarian visa processing – Part 1

There is no shortage of evidence – vulnerable women in Afghanistan are in a dire situation as the Taliban continues to advance its stance on gender apartheid.

July 9, 2025

Two percent wealth tax on just 3000 billionaires could raise US$250b a year: Nobel economists

“Not only is it necessary to impose a stronger burden of justice on billionaires, but more importantly, it is possible.”

June 17, 2025

China is increasingly present in US Latin American backyard

From the time when US President James Monroe announced what has become known as the Monroe Doctrine in 1823, warning European states to stay out of the hemisphere, the US has considered Latin America to be its backyard.

May 23, 2025

The gardens of the starships

For centuries, the West has lived by the myth of the explorer. The ship leaving port, the map unfilled, the promise of something just beyond the horizon – this was our civilisational grammar.

July 3, 2025

India’s state and central governments still aren’t speaking the same language

The first rule of discussing language policy in India is to leave any expectations of a calm conversation at the door.

June 13, 2025

A naval force to escort humanitarian aid is an act of peace

In honour of a brave Gazan fisherwoman Madleen Kulab, the international aid boat of the same name was turned back to an Israeli port.

June 7, 2025

Australia doing nothing to attract American scientific talent

Australia has an historic opportunity to expand its scientific research and reap significant benefits.

May 30, 2025

On lone-wolf attacks: past, present and emerging

Ninety-nine years ago, on 25 May 1926, a man in his late forties walked down the street in the Latin Quarter in Paris.

June 10, 2025

What Trump is building is the problem, not the man himself

We treat Donald Trump as the primary obstacle to a smooth trade order but he is not the problem. What he is building is the problem because it replicates the rising mechanisms of democratically elected political fascism.

May 29, 2025

Japan needs diversity amid demographic decline

In Japan, diversity is increasingly becoming a demographic necessity rather than a policy choice.

April 14, 2025

Gaza's trees now bear a strange fruit

Nobody following the real news, and aware of the long history of colonial occupation, ever believed that Zionist Israel would proceed into the second phase of the ceasefire as agreed.

May 3, 2025

'I am not afraid of you,' freed Mohsen Mahdawi tells Donald Trump

A court’s order for the release of a detained student protest leader, said one lawyer, “is a victory for all people in this country invested in their ability to dissent and speak and protest”.

June 18, 2025

Israel uses Iran's enrichment program as pretext for regime change

The war against Iran is a chance to bolster Netanyahu’s fledging right-wing credentials. Tehran’s response to Israel’s offensive in the last two days has been muted.

May 5, 2025

The American Dream

“That’s why they call it the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it.” George Carlin. American humourist

April 23, 2025

Health and the election: Band-aids when surgery is needed

Health policies are out and there is little difference between the two major parties. The policies definitely help patients afford to see GPs and get medication.

June 10, 2025

Decommissioning rates show gas heating could be gone by 2032, but oil exec bonuses might suffer

While Peter Dutton lost the election and with it his plan to force gas exporters to reserve a portion of their gas for domestic Australian consumers, concerns around availability of gas are not going away. According to AEMO, Victoria, NSW and South Australia are on the verge of gas shortages by around 2028 to 2029.

June 1, 2025

Sydney Harbour Bridge walk – unsuspected joy and hope

At the end of reconciliation week it is time to look back at a extraordinary event. While Aboriginal people remained quiet and uncomplaining, most of our leaders showed very little interest in them. And “average Australians”, they believed, were right behind them. Didn’t social media and talkback radio prove that?

June 5, 2025

Shangri-la is not Shangri-la

Asia, and China’s relationship with Asia, is a more complex environment than that understood by Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump and many in the West. This Shangri-la dialogue sought false friendship, and portended little peace and tranquillity.

May 16, 2025

As costs rise, poll shows most Americans blame Trump

“Working families are seeing their grocery bills and other prices skyrocketing thanks to President Trump’s erratic trade policies, and they know full well who is to blame,” said one critic.

July 4, 2025

The Western allies of the US as vassal states

A vassal state is one that retains some autonomy at home but is effectively dominated by another power in its foreign affairs.

May 24, 2025

Labor bankrolls wealthy sportsmen, but underfunds a crisis of violence against women and children

On average, one woman is killed every nine days by a current or former partner in Australia. Twenty-four women and seven children reportedly have been killed by violence this year, with five deaths occurring since the federal election was announced.

April 25, 2025

Election looms, time to ramp up the China scare campaign: Anti-China Media Watch

Hampered by an underwhelming election campaign — where the Labor/LNP “uniparty” faces the harsh reality that the punters don’t think China is about to invade Australia — Murdoch media is going all out to put those commie bastards front and centre. There’s the inconvenient truth that the Australian military is gearing up to hit China with a barrage of US-made missiles; the Chinese Communist Party is meddling in the affairs of the Catholic Church; and a 60 Minutes report tells us Barbie has fallen victim to the Chinese.

April 9, 2025

Nuclear power: Fukushima’s lessons for Australia

In November 2011, eight months after the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear disaster, I travelled with Japanese colleagues to Iitate, a village some 50 kilometres from the stricken power plant._

June 3, 2025

The US dual economy: trending toward the periphery

Over the past 45 years, the United States has experienced deepening economic divisions between the rich and poor.

May 13, 2025

Indonesia's old guard wants its old world back

Anthony Albanese’s pilgrimage to Jakarta this week as the new prime minister follows the standard post-election Hi Neighbours goodwill wave. But this time the parades and handshakes may get blurred by heat from Indonesia’s simmering Constitutional crisis.

April 10, 2025

Will there be a war between China and the US?

Will there be a war between China and the US? This question suddenly gained popularity in early April 2024, mainly because, in response to Donald Trump’s so-called “reciprocal tariff” policy, China was the first country to impose strict countermeasures.

July 10, 2025

The housing crisis is everyone's problem

The housing crisis has been decades in the making but we cannot afford decades to solve it.

April 26, 2025

The Syrian genocide and its dangers for Australia

Members of the Australian Alawite community are receiving harrowing messages from their families and friends in Syria.

June 26, 2025

Beyond Iran: the precarious balance of global oil prices

The world is more resilient and energy-efficient than in the 1970s, yet broader structural vulnerabilities persist and could hit Asia hard.

June 11, 2025

Chinese flotilla fallout still has some attempting a beat-up

There is little or no evidence that China poses a direct military threat to Australia. However, the Sinophobes among political ranks and the commentariat are trying to ensure that Beijing will treat Canberra as a hostile entity.

April 16, 2025

When elephants clash: The strategic logic behind Trump’s tariffs and China’s response

The world is mesmerised — and unsettled — by US President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

June 24, 2025

War is the worst thing in the world

War is the worst thing in the world. It is the single craziest behaviour exhibited by humans. The most destructive. The most traumatising. The least sustainable. The least conducive to human thriving.

May 6, 2025

Trump is the symptom of a deeper American malaise

The US president’s disruptive policies reveal a superpower unsettled by its waning dominance.

April 29, 2025

Are voters really dumb?

Why do our political parties treat voters as if they are all dumb? Surely we deserve better than l.c.d. (lowest common denominator) politics?

July 8, 2025

Squad a strategic boon for India and the Quad

Manila is considering expanding the “Squad” — a security coalition focused on operational maritime deterrence comprised of the US, Japan, Australia and the Philippines — to include India and South Korea.

June 16, 2025

Misgivings in the heart of the defence state

On a quiet Wednesday night in Adelaide recently about 50 people met in a church hall to share concerns about the militarisation of their schools and universities.

June 30, 2025

OK Boomers not so okay

I was born in 1954, a year after the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. That makes me 71. It also makes me a baby Boomer, part of an ageing population, that, like Charles and Camilla, is increasingly seen as both irrelevant and privileged. Not to mention a burden on the public purse.

April 8, 2025

Trump's tariffs appear to be misdirected

President Donald Trump has said his recent raft of tariff measures amounted to “Liberation Day” for US traders and not a fatal blow for a global trading system that has served international commerce well for decades following the turbulence that existed prior to and up to the Second World War in the early 1940s.

June 4, 2025

Marles' tough guy tosh hurts Australia

Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles is a provocateur. His hawkish language kindles military confrontation between the United States and the Peoples’ Republic of China.

May 17, 2025

Water is a vital part of population policy

If ecological sustainability must be the basis for population policy, as argued by Jenny Goldie, then a vital ingredient for sustainability is water – the essence of life.

May 7, 2025

'Genocide in action' as 60-day blockade plunges Gaza into mass starvation

The two-month-long siege is a “clear and calculated effort to collectively punish over two million civilians and to make Gaza unliveable”.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal