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Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal
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Letters
August 1, 2025

Americans' support for Israel's Gaza war hits record low, poll shows

Just 8% of Democrats and 25% of independents now back Israel’s campaign in Gaza, compared to 71% of Republicans, marking the largest partisan divide Gallup has recorded on the issue.

July 31, 2025

Tax, productivity growth and equality

Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ upcoming economic summit has triggered renewed debate over the links between tax, productivity, growth and equity. And inevitably arguments between the right and the left – can we understand both and find a way through? I hope so.

August 11, 2025

The recession door opens

This past week was punctuated by a perfect storm of negative US economic reports and events.

August 8, 2025

'Israel doesn't want journalists on the ground': CNN's Jeremy Diamond on the fight to enter Gaza

The foreign press corps in Israel has been battling — unsuccessfully — since the Gaza war began in October 2023 to be permitted access to the Strip in order to report on the conflict and the humanitarian situation there from the ground.

August 2, 2025

New ethical multilateralism of the fraternal economy program of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences

We have arrived at a pivot of history. The world system that emerged at the end of World War II is over. The seeming truths of an earlier age have become dangerous illusions of our own age.

July 23, 2025

Stephen Colbert’s firing: the critical unanswered question

Why now? It was either pandering to Trump, management’s incompetence, or both.

July 15, 2025

Australian parliamentarians urgently need lessons in international law

As the new Parliament returns this month, it is timely to ask just how many Australian parliamentarians need urgent instruction in international law and how it impacts on government decision-making which complies with the United Nations rules-based order developed by the efforts of so many nations since 1945.

July 24, 2025

Famine expert: Israel's starvation of Gaza most 'Minutely designed and controlled' since WWII

“This is preventable starvation,” said Alex de Waal. “It is entirely man-made.”

July 20, 2025

Military operations seen through Gauguin, the Colosseum and responsibility

Public policy in general, and the military operations given the titles “Swords of Iron”, “Gideon’s Chariots” (by Israel) and “Midnight Hammer” (by the Pentagon), more specifically, need to be understood in terms that transcend the purely strategic and which can be dismissed only at the risk of condoning barbarism.

August 9, 2025

How we at Physicians for Human Rights Israel decided that the Gaza war is a genocide

When examining all the factors together, we identify a clear pattern that indicates Israeli intent to kill Palestinians in Gaza. The systematic nature is the smoking gun.

July 29, 2025

'Everything beautiful in their lives is gone': US physicians read aloud the searing testimony of desperate doctors and patients in Gaza

“I have a cold. And in one hour, I’ll have finished a 24-hour shift, heartbroken again. I lost a cardiac patient because we had no medication.

August 4, 2025

ALP members demand more from PM on Palestine

As the genocide in Palestine continues, pressure on governments grows across the globe. In Australia, ALP members are demanding more from Anthony Albanese.

July 12, 2025

Netanyahu leaves Washington without a Gaza ceasefire, just like he wanted

Benjamin Netanyahu is sabotaging talks, hoping Donald Trump will blame Hamas if negotiations fail.

August 17, 2025

Fifty-five years on, Bertrand Russell's words are worth returning to

Believed to be one of the last things renowned philosopher, pacifist and public intellectual Bertrand Russell wrote, it is as relevant today as it was 55 years ago.

August 6, 2025

Australia should recognise Palestine. To not do so only rewards Israel’s crimes

Australia was among the first countries to recognise the state of Israel, but regrettably looks set to be among the last to recognise the state of Palestine. 

July 18, 2025

Despite denials, Australia has exported F-35 parts to Israel

Leaked documents show Canberra has been supplying Israel with the means to maintain F-35 fighter jets so it can continue its genocidal campaign in Gaza, Peter Cronau and Kellie Tranter report.

July 13, 2025

Kostakidis to go before court, after judiciary recognises anti-Zionism is not antisemitism

Mary Kostakidis should hold her head up high right now, because of all the Australian journalists who are honestly calling out the holocaust that Israel is perpetrating against the Palestinians.

August 15, 2025

Israeli officials reportedly held talks about displacing Palestinians to war-torn South Sudan

“If implemented, the plans would amount to transferring people from one war-ravaged land at risk of famine to another,” the Associated Press said.

August 5, 2025

Tens of thousands join march over Sydney Harbour Bridge

Editor comment: Australians in their tens of thousands stood up over the weekend and delivered a very clear message to the Albanese Government and the global community – the killing in Palestine must end. Across the world the action did not go unnoticed. This report is from the Times of Israel.

July 30, 2025

Silencing the mandate: US sanctions on Francesca Albanese a symbol of international law’s twilight

Imagine a scene worthy of Orwell’s worst nightmare: a United Nations envoy, appointed to report on human rights violations, excellently performing in her job despite formidable difficulties, and met with sanctions by one of the world’s most powerful nations. But this isn’t satire; it’s July 2025.

July 21, 2025

From media darling to persona non Grata: Greta Thunberg’s journey

Alan MacLeod looks at how the Swedish climate activist widened her focus to the capitalist system and Israeli genocide in Gaza and lost the attention of the corporate press.

July 28, 2025

Australia urged to investigate Australians in Israeli forces for Gaza war crimes

The Australian Federation of Islamic Councils (AFIC) has welcomed recent developments in Belgium, where Israeli soldiers were questioned under universal jurisdiction for alleged war crimes in Gaza, and similar legal actions reported in Canada, Brazil, Serbia, Thailand, and the Netherlands.

July 25, 2025

50 years of 'the meddling priest'

Not only is Frank Brennan Australia’s best known Catholic priest, but he has also contributed much to Australia’s public life, above all to those most marginalised.

August 13, 2025

Trump's fantasies and the American economy

Donald Trump’s bluster is likely to lead to lower American living standards and higher inflation. But his advisers want to keep their jobs, and won’t tell him that.

July 16, 2025

It’s time for another reforming and agitating attorney-general

Just last month Australia celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Whitlam Government’s Racial Discrimination Act (1975), without much fanfare it has to be said.

July 27, 2025

Let’s (not) choose sides and fight

It would be harder to stoke homicidal zeal if everyone understood that behind all our hostilities is the simple, though stark, reality that humanity faces climate change and resource depletion.

August 7, 2025

'Total war'

I was just nine when World War II ended. I still have quite vivid memories of that Wednesday in August 1945.

August 3, 2025

US Senate Dems vote to block arms sales to Israel – the tide is turning, says Bernie Sanders

“The American people do not want to spend billions to starve children in Gaza,” said Senator Bernie Sanders. “The Democrats are moving forward on this issue, and I look forward to Republican support in the near future.”

July 11, 2025

'It is not antisemitic to criticise Israel,' says Federal Court judge – and the Executive Council of Jewry agrees!

In the light of the revelations in the Lattouf v ABC decision about the way in which the Israel lobby hounded the ABC, the judgment in the recently decided Federal Court case Wertheim & Goot v Haddad is both significant, “interesting” and certainly more than revelatory.

August 19, 2025

Finance’s bleeding hearts think PwC has suffered enough

Has the Department of Finance entirely lost the plot? Has its thinking about the PriceWaterhouseCooper scandal — that the matter can now be swept under the carpet and PwC brought in from the cold — infected a police force itself compromised by its relationships with PwC?

July 14, 2025

Trump is single-handedly slaughtering America’s ‘exorbitant privilege’

The US president is systematically destroying faith in the dollar in global financial markets and among governments and central banks.

November 3, 2019

ARTHUR CHESTERFIELD-EVANS. Government Inaction may be a significant cause of Australias World-Leading Cancer Rates

Australia has the highest rate for cancer according to the World Cancer Research Fund[1]. At 468 /100,000 we are 7% ahead of NZ (who have 438), 33% ahead of the US (352), 40% ahead of Canada (334), 47% ahead of the UK (319), 59% ahead of Sweden (295) and 89% ahead of Japan (248)[2]. It might also be noted that Australia has gone from a rate of 383 in 1982 to 468 in 2019, a 22% increase.

July 31, 2017

IAN MCAULEY. Can Labor hold its nerve on tax reform?

Shorten has brought tax reform to the political arena. Lets hope the Labor Party doesnt go to water between now and the next election, because we need more public revenue and a fairer and less distortionary tax system.

July 17, 2017

HENRY REYNOLDS. January 26?

When we examine the violations of law when the British took possession of eastern Australia in 1788, its little wonder that a growing number of people are seeking a date other than January 26 to celebrate Australia Day.

August 8, 2025

Beijing steps up as Washington steps back

US President Donald Trump’s tariffs are having two broad impacts on the global economy – they are eroding international confidence in US leadership and disrupting global supply chains, and causing rapid geographic restructuring of international trade.

July 24, 2025

Economic reform must included industrial transformation - Part 1

For a while it looked like federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ Economic Reform Roundtable would turn into a tax summit, such was the clamour to revisit missed opportunities. And we have an abundance of those in Australia.

July 13, 2025

Mahmoud Khalil to sue Trump admin for US$20m over 'unconstitutional' detention

“There must be accountability for political retaliation and abuse of power,” said Khalil. “And I won’t stop here.”

August 4, 2025

Nuked: The submarine fiasco that sank Australia’s sovereignty

AUKUS is a classic case of the “tail wagging the dog". On the back of lies, a constructed inevitability of future conflict and political ambition, Andrew Fowler shows how the Morrison Government might have put the future of Australia’s national security at risk.

July 16, 2025

The Israel lobby stands loudly condemned for its silence

Reflect for a moment, as you read this piece, what is happening in Gaza.

July 17, 2025

Trump wants us to spend a bomb on defence. We should think twice

While I was on holiday, I had a kind of nightmare: suddenly, every rich country in the world — including us — is vowing to spend many billions more on defence each year. This will cost taxpayers an absolute bomb. Why exactly are we doing this?

July 26, 2025

When technology enslaves humans

The future of humanity will no longer be determined by humans – that much is already clear. Technology has taken charge of our destiny. The question is: can anything be done?

July 12, 2025

US, China and Australia – an open letter to the PM

Dear PM Albanese, on Monday 30 June, the Chinese Ambassador to Australia, Xiao Qian, had a letter published in The Australian entitled “China and Australia are friends, not foes. This should never have been in question.”  It’s best to read the full version on China’s Embassy website.

August 9, 2025

As Netanyahu moves toward full takeover of Gaza, Israel faces a crisis of international credibility

For all its claims of being a democracy that adheres to international law and the rules of war, Israel’s global reputation is in tatters.

July 18, 2025

Headline news: Australia and China

The People’s Daily of 16 July featured the meeting between President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in top position on page one.

August 2, 2025

New National Climate Risk Assessment – more omission than commission?

The Albanese Government will soon deliver Australia’s first domestically-oriented National Climate Risk Assessment, which was due in December 2024.

August 6, 2025

Albo's Palestine delay an act of moral cowardice

The Albanese Government’s failure to move to follow the lead of the UK, Canada and France in recognising the state of Palestine smacks of cowardice.

August 1, 2025

With the UK and France moving toward recognising Palestine, will Australia now follow suit?

One of the smallest and most exclusive clubs in the world belongs to states. The  US Department of State puts the number of independent recognised states at 197, while others count 200.

August 17, 2025

Restaurant reviews benefit restaurants

The question burns: What are Nine Publishing’s restaurant reviews in The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald trying to do? What is their purpose?

August 16, 2025

Europe: From great market to satellite continent

The tariff deal between the EU and US signals a major setback for Europe’s autonomy.

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