May 9, 2025

Four World War II myths: Ignoring China, downplaying Russia’s role

As the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II approaches in 2025, the vital contributions of China and Russia remain largely overlooked by the West, just as they have always been.

April 29, 2025

2025 is the crunch year in the scientific contest about accelerated warming

The record-breaking warming years of 2023 (1.5°C) and 2024 (1.6°C) were above expectations and shocked scientists.

June 24, 2025

Neocolonialism, media propaganda, never-ending wars: Served with ketchup and fries - Part 2

In the 20th-century the American empire realised it could no longer rely solely on military might despite its need to grow the Military Industrial Complex, which remains central to its economy and its political hegemony.

April 24, 2025

China's two 'secret weapons' in the tariff war

As of 15 April, the White House indicated on its website that tariffs on products imported from China could rise as high as 245%.

June 26, 2025

Add your name – Open letter to PM Re flagrant violation of international law by US and Israel in bombing Iran- 23 June 2025

Re flagrant violation of international law by US and Israel in bombing Iran

July 4, 2025

Dangers of renewed civil war in Syria

With 150 armed groups in Syria, the ruling HTS (al-Qa`idah) doesn’t control the country, while Israeli bombing intends to expose the weaknesses of the so-called central government in Damascus.

April 16, 2025

The Coalition commits to Christian Nationalism

The Republican Party thought it could ride the tiger of the Christian Right: instead, that movement swallowed the party whole.

July 1, 2025

Trump 2.0 alienates Southeast Asia’s next generation

US President Donald Trump’s second term has sent the global economy into a tailspin with a torrent of tariffs announced on 2 April.

July 5, 2025

What are working with children checks? Why aren’t they keeping kids safe at daycare?

Disturbing allegations have emerged about a Melbourne childcare worker, who has been charged with more than 70 offences, including sexual assault and producing child abuse material.

June 20, 2025

People of Pacific Rim say 'no' to US-China war

The Pacific and Pacific Rim countries have a geographical commonality. They are encircled by, or have a border with, the vast, blue, peaceful Pacific Ocean.

July 9, 2025

Trump’s budget and the 21st century great divergence

Donald Trump’s recently passed budget has the capacity to lay the foundation for a widening gap between the world’s two largest economies, the United States and China, and make China as great, comparatively, as it was before the industrial revolution.

June 27, 2025

Beyond complicity: Western accomplices to genocide in Gaza

After decades of unwavering support for Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine, it seems Western leaders can no longer avert their gaze from the horrific televised images of mass carnage and starvation in Gaza and brutality on the West Bank.

July 19, 2017

Trust is falling in Western democratic institutions

One clue to understanding the loss of trust in the professional integrity of the Western media is their unrelenting efforts to demonize Russian President Vladimir Putin.

June 23, 2025

How Albanese could save the world

Yes, it does sound a bit unlikely, but so does bringing order to an international order in crisis.

July 3, 2025

Australia, the UN and the future of humanity

The Albanese Government is now very well placed to encourage and assist the United Nations, to prevent human extinction, and make our planet habitable for future generations. It has also, now become very urgent that we take comprehensive action on the issues discussed below.

June 24, 2025

Peace no more war: A permanent solution for United Nations

It is so sad to see that wars keep flaring up here and there. We are all supposed to be living in a modern civilised, well governed world order under the GUIDANCE of the almighty PEACE Charter of United Nations designed by our farsighted forefathers after the Second World War.

April 22, 2025

If alcoholics don’t pick up the first drink, they can’t get drunk

Alcoholics Anonymous in Australia is celebrating its 80th anniversary with a national convention in Sydney this month. Ross Fitzgerald, who has been sober for 55 years, looks at the organisation’s history.

May 7, 2025

What just happened to the Greens?

Unlike many members of the Labor Party, I do not harbour a burning hatred for the Greens. Their values are admirable and, in many cases, indistinguishable from my own.

June 21, 2025

What if the UN Charter fails? A world without rules is closer than we think

“We the peoples of the United Nations are determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind…” — Preamble to the UN Charter, 1945

June 25, 2025

Americans don't want Trump's illegal war on Iran

We will all pay the costs of this war, though we can’t yet know how high they will be.

April 26, 2025

The myth of the US good cop

As Donald Trump destroys the old world order a new myth is taking hold: before Trump, it is said, America benevolently provided the defence for the Western world, policing rogue states and promoting international free trade.

April 11, 2025

China exposes US as targeting mobile communications

In March 2024, the United States and its Five Eyes allies sounded the alarm over “Volt Typhoon”, an alleged Chinese hacking group cast as a dire threat to Western critical infrastructure.

May 5, 2025

Andrew Bolt's cynical attack on faith

On Sky News (22 April), Andrew Bolt credited Anthony Albanese with a brilliant, if devious, election ploy.

July 8, 2025

Political unrest, French negotiations and decolonisation in New Caledonia

New Caledonia stands at a precipice. Political representatives from this French Territory are meeting in Paris to try to eke out an agreement over its political future in the dark shadow of the violence of 2024 that saw New Caledonia burn and 14 people — 12 Kanaks and two French military — killed.

May 2, 2025

Australian nationalism and sovereignty

There is little in the way of an Australian nationalism in contemporary Australia and to the extent there is, it is underpinned by racism.

April 7, 2025

Trump’s lying Band of Brothers

We know that Donald Trump is not fit to be sitting in the White House. He is a dangerously disordered president, and we have observed enough aberrant behaviour to fill a psychiatric text book.

June 14, 2025

Observations from Xinjiang

Having been fortunate enough to have made three separate trips to Xinjiang over 15 years, I believe some observations may be of interest to P&I readers.

June 18, 2025

Addressing our wicked problems

If there is one thing that the literature agrees on it is that wicked problems “…are particularly challenging as they transcend the borders of traditional policy domains, involve a wide variety of actors across different scale levels and resist our attempts to solve them”.

April 14, 2025

Cross the vengeful Israeli lobby at your peril

The “them” in the title of this article is the all-too-powerful, vengeful Israeli lobby in Washington DC and those who do its bidding.

June 17, 2025

Why targeted measures on Israeli officials won’t stop the war in Gaza

On 14 June 2025, five Western nations — Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Norway, and the United Kingdom — jointly imposed sanctions on two senior Israeli ministers: Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.

April 9, 2025

Averting Iranian nuclear crisis calls for return to diplomacy

The Iranian nuclear crisis has reached a critical point. The JCPOA**,** or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, an agreement reached in 2015 to keep Iran’s nuclear program peaceful, will expire in October.

April 23, 2025

Beyond fear and false choices: Why loyalty to the major parties is no longer tenable

It’s time for Muslims and allies to vote with principle, not fear.

May 8, 2025

Catholics, social policy and the Common Good

The federal election campaign of 2025 was an interlude. Politicians, advocacy groups and the commentariat all had their lists of issues, but where were the big initiatives? The grand narratives?

April 17, 2025

Australia’s innovation system needs new partners

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

May 6, 2025

Allied health devil in aged care reform detail

As Kathy Eagar discussed, positive reforms to the Australian aged care system are somewhat undercut by bigger costs for older people and increasing privatisation via the new Support at Home program.

July 2, 2025

Five books the Bible could do without

When ancient scriptures continue to shape modern ideology and policy, especially where harm is done, it becomes necessary to ask: do all parts of the Bible deserve to be treated as sacred?

April 25, 2025

A school debate that didn’t happen

The likelihood that Australia’s public schools will be fully funded hasn’t eased growing discomfort about our failed hybrid public/private system.

July 10, 2025

The end of multilateralism

The recent unilateral strikes by the United States on Iran’s nuclear development sites underline the fact that multilateralism is dead, and has been so for some time.

June 4, 2025

Why psychologists can't clearly say what they’re trained to do

I am a registered psychologist with extensive additional training in advanced trauma modalities. But under Australia’s current advertising guidelines for health practitioners, I am unable to say that clearly in public-facing communication.

May 3, 2025

A fistful of dollars: The dumbing down of Australian election campaigns

We are mugs. This seems to be the first assumption behind most Australian election campaigns.

June 23, 2025

The real national emergency: Endless wars, failing infrastructure and a dying republic

Seventy years after President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned about the cost of a military-industrial complex, America is still stealing from its own people to fund a global empire.

June 19, 2025

'Cakes of coal, volumes of gas': Australia accused of being climate wrecker as it seeks to host COP31

Australia has been “two-faced” by pushing to host the UN-backed COP31 climate conference in 2026 even as it has been approving massive new oil, gas and coal projects, an international climate group says.

May 9, 2025

The steady-state economy: Why we need it and how it could be progressed

A common factor underlying several of Australia’s major problems — housing, inadequate public transport, slow response to the climate crisis, loss of biodiversity, water shortage, pollution and deforestation — is the growth in consumption. Yet it is receiving negligible attention from the government and Opposition.

April 10, 2025

To Australia’s 'realists': Gnothi seauton (Know yourself)

In international relations, realism is a theory that views world politics as a competition among self-interested states vying for power and security within an anarchic global system, emphasising national interests and the potential for conflict.

July 30, 2025

Roundtable warning: When they say ‘modelling’ grab your bulldust detector

The warm-up for next month’s three-day economic roundtable has begun, and this week we’ll start hearing from worthies who know exactly what we should do to improve our productivity. What’s more, they have the modelling to prove it.

August 5, 2025

The time has come for a Palestinian nation

The political leaders of Israel have long spoken of an existential threat. Critics, and many of its well-meaning friends have offered suggestions about the reasonable or fair thing to do. But its enemies and many of its neighbours, Israel says, want the annihilation of the very idea of the Jewish state.

July 26, 2025

Which countries will pick sides in a US-China conflict over Taiwan?

Not only would few countries wish to get involved in such a conflict, it’s not clear that the US itself has an appetite for it.

July 21, 2025

Israel kills three in Gaza Catholic church sheltering elderly, children

At least three people were killed and 10 others wounded, including a priest, in Israel’s attack on the church.

August 3, 2025

Environment: Humans are the wisest mammals, but which have the most biomass?

The biomass of marine mammals is almost double that of land mammals. Clean energy investments are increasing but not quickly enough. Illegal gold mining wreaks havoc on the Amazon’s Indigenous communities and environment.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal