September 3, 2025

Indonesian riots update

The riots in Indonesia have so far taken eight lives with 700 injured, according to Reuters.

August 4, 2025

The GST — past, present, future — and always tense

There’s little elegance in the way Australia approaches tax reform. It’s never a highway cruise.

July 22, 2025

Trump’s negotiation position diminishes as Albo sits him out

Anthony Albanese’s visit to China has exceeded everyone’s expectations, including mine, and arms him with extra weapons and arguments for when he meets President Donald Trump and United States officials, whenever that is to be. One can expect that Americans, and the advocates on The Australian will accuse him of weakening perceptions that Australia is firmly in the western camp. But he studiously said and did nothing that he has not said and done before, and one would have to parse each statement carefully to see evidence of any shift away from America, let alone movement towards the Chinese camp.

September 19, 2025

Blaming China won’t keep the lights on – or pay the power bill

Sky News is back on the beat with a familiar headline: “The $20,000-per-person climate tax: Cost of Australia’s green agenda to become astonishingly clear this week when new emissions targets are set.”

September 30, 2025

Will Hastie face his manifest destiny?

Assuming that Andrew Hastie is not taken from us by the apparently imminent Rapture, he may soon come up for judgment. It is very hard to imagine him leading the Liberal Party anywhere other than over a cliff.

September 25, 2025

Don’t mistake truth for hate, prime minister

Anthony Albanese says Palestinian children are taught to hate. My daughter’s first trip home proves otherwise.

September 7, 2025

Environment: Australian Government misleading people about our emissions reductions

Ignore the government rhetoric, Australia’s actual emissions are not falling. NSW Forestry Corporation facing 29 charges of illegal logging. Swift parrot habitat continues to be logged in three states. Trump swimming against the energy tide.

August 23, 2025

The real Gaza death toll is impossible to know today, but the minimum isn’t

Note: At the time of writing, a summary analysis similar to the one below was published in Current Affairs, attributed to “Lex Syd.” There are a few differences in our sources and analyses, but the numbers are the same.

July 19, 2017

ALISON BROINOWSKI. Beware, armed response.

If Turnbull’s plan becomes law – and the prospects of the Opposition stopping anything to do with ‘fighting terrorism’ are remote – we can expect a terrorist attack to trigger an emergency response from the Special Operations Command, whose officers will have to be trained to shoot to kill other Australians.

September 28, 2025

Environment: Arctic and Europe warming at double the global average

The Arctic and Europe are melting in the heat. Rapid renewable energy transition for Africa will bring multiple benefits and save money. NSW Planning Commission decides all emissions are significant, no matter how small.

August 31, 2025

Environment: Too much and too little water causing problems from the tropics to the poles

Three-quarters of World Heritage Sites are threatened by water issues. Habitat for orangutans or electricity for the people? Summer 2024 heatwave caused massive ice melt in the Arctic. Humans, dogs, foxes, SUVs, plastics, climate change – parenting is tough for beach nesting birds.

August 27, 2025

Malign AI could change Australian election results, says judge

Justice David Mossop of the ACT Supreme Court has issued a call to arms for lawyers generally, and the High Court in particular, to prepare for palpable threats to “a small, naive democracy like Australia”.

August 25, 2025

Israeli data shows 83% of Gaza war dead are civilians: Report

Leaked Israeli intelligence confirms one of the highest civilian tolls in modern conflicts.

August 26, 2025

Peace in Gaza needs a full accounting by both sides

Suppose that one day the states of Europe wearied of the prolonged slaughter, genocide and war crimes in Gaza and resolved to intervene to end the fighting and to bring about a settlement.

July 27, 2025

Environment: Judge says advocate and protest to make government responsible for climate damage

Federal Court says Australian government not negligent in failing to protect Torres Strait Islanders from climate change. Human-induced climate change triples current European heatwave deaths but who is responsible for the harm and damage?

July 25, 2025

BREAKING: Albo doesn’t yell at Xi — (part of) nation panics

Albanese in China: 6 days, 1 panda, 0 shouting. (Some) media outrage level: critical.

September 9, 2025

Albo is breaking the moral contract with voters

It seems impossible that the Coalition could hope to win government with policies more popular than Labor’s over the next two terms of parliament.

September 10, 2025

Courts brace for next wave of 'sovereign citizens'

When I wrote about the “ Cavalcade of the Cretinous” in February 2022, I thought the anti-vaccination early incarnations of “sovereign citizens” were just a hopeless joke (“Summernats without the sophistication”) that would quietly go away.

August 16, 2025

Why Trump lashes India but holds back on China – Asian Media Report

In Asian media this week: US hopes Beijing might lean on Putin. Plus: Work starts on Xi-Trump summit in China; Former first lady jailed on gifts-for-influence charges; Japan looks to become regional weapons supplier; Indonesia deploys ballistic missile system; Hong Kong “suffering climate whiplash”.

August 11, 2025

Too late

President Donald Trump and his supporters have turned the US Government into a juggernaut that uses cruel and often immoral and illegal means to amass power and protect and increase the wealth of a select few, notably Trump himself.

July 16, 2025

The Global South’s AI moment

If the Global South acts now, it can help build a future where algorithms bridge divides instead of deepening them – where they enable peace, not war.

July 13, 2025

Environment: Ocean acidification has left the safe zone for humans

Seven of the nine planetary boundaries have now been crossed. Civil society calls for major reform of COP meetings. Big banks fund Australian deforestation. China leaving USA behind in the energy transition.

September 1, 2025

The next pandemic is 'an epidemiological certainty'

The next pandemic disease outbreak is already on the way. Only its identity remains a surprise.

July 31, 2025

A violent Israeli settler and his Palestinian victim – only one is welcome in Trump's America

Relentless Israeli oppression and dismissive American policy embolden settlers and further degrade Palestinian life. As a friend of Palestinian teacher and human rights activist Adwah Hathaleen said of his killing, ‘This is how Israel erases us – one life at a time."

August 20, 2025

Open letter to journalists on the vast undercount of deaths and serious injuries in Gaza

Ralph Nader urges prominent journalists [listed below] to reject deliberate undercounting, and accurately report the number of Palestinian killed in the genocide.

August 19, 2025

The economic reform roundtable and taxation

Taxation is on the agenda of the Economic Reform Roundtable and, despite Albanese’s reluctance to consider tax changes, it will be impossible to achieve Labor’s goals without reform to raise more revenue.

August 13, 2025

‘I entrust you with Palestine’: The final testament of Anas al-Sharif

Anas al-Sharif, killed in an Israeli strike in Gaza, left behind a powerful farewell message – his final testament to his people, his family and the world.

July 20, 2025

Environment: Forget 1.5 degrees C, even 2 degrees C, while forests and peat disappear and natural gas booms

Peatlands are vital for human survival, but we are destroying the few that are left. Australia’s gas industry facing a volatile future. Chinese banks funding the destruction of tropical forests – not good for humans or tigers.

August 15, 2025

Breaking: Chilling ‘News Virus’ sweeps Australia

Chikungunya is a virus first identified in 1952 in what is now Tanzania, carried by mosquitoes, long since a globetrotter.

July 15, 2025

The politics of a police criminal organisation

In 1972, police at an Aboriginal settlement at Papunya, several hundred kilometres west of Alice Springs, closed down a travelling Slim Dusty concert after some of the young men somehow got access to alcohol and became drunk.

September 20, 2025

Cut emissions 70% by 2035? There’s only one policy that can get us there

Australia’s new emissions reduction target of 62–70% by 2035 is meant to demonstrate we are doing our part to hold climate change well below 2°C.

September 21, 2025

Environment: Technological revolutions revolutionise society

Technological advances spark social revolutions. Deforestation can have a net cooling effect. Warming makes droughts more severe. China leads the energy transition but still a long way from net zero.

August 24, 2025

Environment: Humanity’s big success: turning forests from saviours to spoilers

We’re destroying the ability of forests to mitigate global warming. Extreme weather events cause food price hikes and social unrest. Airlines are ignoring sustainable aviation fuel, but does it matter?

September 21, 2014

Secrecy and Propaganda.

Yesterday Richard Ackland in theGuardian.com highlighted the way that the media cooperated with the government in the propaganda about raids on potential Muslim terrorists in Sydney and Melbourne. Both the NSW and Commonwealth Governments spared no effort to highlight the raids. What a contrast this is to the secrecy of ‘on water matters’ in Operation Sovereign Borders.

Richard Ackland’s article can be found on the following link

John Menadue.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/19/sydney-dawn-counter-terrorism-raids-why-now-and-why-so-few-answers

July 20, 2017

ANDREW FARRAN. The Fall of Mosul and Raqqa opens the door for Australia’s exit from the Middle East

Now that ISIS has for all intents and purposes been driven out of Mosul and Raqqa the time has come for the Australian government to step back and review its diplomatic policies, and military commitments, in that region and focus back on the region of primary concern: East and Southeast Asia and the Southern Pacific**.** Whatever becomes of Trump himself there is little likelihood of the US reverting to the status quo ante as existing under the Bush and Obama administrations.

August 1, 2017

DUNCAN MACLAREN. The UK heads towards a cliff.

I_f Australia were the UK and heading for a suicidal plunge off an economic, social and cultural cliff-face, wouldn’t you be worried?_

October 5, 2025

When cricket turns political: The Asia Cup Final and a missing handshake

On 28 September 2025, the Dubai International Cricket Stadium hosted a tense Asia Cup final in which India defeated Pakistan, with young batsman Tilak Varma scoring a calm, unbeaten 69.

August 29, 2025

Chasing a chimera: The political dream of AUKUS that consumes reality

For the sake of taxpayers, let’s hope that the Audit Office is inspecting the AUKUS books closely.

August 12, 2025

Hundreds arrested in London for opposing ban on nonviolent group Palestine Action

“Let us be under no illusion,” said one organiser. “The government is criminalising the people of Britain for standing up against the biggest genocide of the 21st century, as it’s live streamed from Gaza.”

July 26, 2025

Former UN Aid chief calls Gaza genocide 'Worst crime of the 21st century'

“I am absolutely convinced that what’s going on in Gaza is a genocide, because the thing speaks for itself,” said Martin Griffiths.

July 22, 2025

How Chalmers can square the budget circle despite stagnant productivity

As if Treasurer Jim Chalmers didn’t have a big enough problem trying to improve the economy’s productivity, we now know Treasury has privately reminded him he’ll need to find additional tax revenue and reduce government spending to keep the budget “sustainable” – that is, to stop the government’s debt getting a lot higher.

September 17, 2025

Australia issues ‘terrifying’ climate warning

More intense global warming will bring “terrifying impacts” to human health, infrastructure, the environment, national security and the economy, the Australian Government has warned.

July 19, 2025

Common interests the basis for stronger China-Australia relations

Neither a port controversy nor any third-party interference cast a shadow over the trade and business focus of Albanese’s trip to China.

August 26, 2025

Palestine Action reaches beyond the capital cities

It was a common assumption during the darkest days of the US’ war on Vietnam that support for the war would dwindle once the body bags began coming home along “the low road” to small rural communities.

October 1, 2025

Trump’s Gaza peace plan welcomed by Arab and Islamic countries, the West

The Palestinian Authority joins regional leaders in welcoming US president’s 20-point peace plan to end the war in Gaza.

September 26, 2025

The world isn't even trying to phase out fossil fuels

This article highlights the global failure to address the most important requirement to minimise the climate threat, the phasing out of fossil fuels.

August 18, 2025

The US has changed. Australia hasn’t. It’s time to talk about where the relationship goes from here

Seven months after Donald Trump was inaugurated for a second term as US president, we are facing the most important moment in Australia’s foreign policy since the Iraq war. Australia needs to have a national conversation on the future of its alliance with the United States.

August 14, 2025

Israel bars entry of specialist medical teams into Gaza

As the world leaders produce yet more words and pass yet more resolutions on the genocide on Gaza, more than 12,000 children now are severely, dangerously malnourished as Israel continues to deny sufficient food into the Strip.

July 17, 2025

Federal Court rules Australian Government doesn’t have a duty of care to protect Torres Strait Islanders from climate change

The Federal Court has handed down its long-awaited judgment in a four-year climate case brought by Torres Strait Islanders.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal