September 12, 2025

Rupert Murdoch’s greatest scoop

On Wednesday 25 February 1976, The Australian published a sensational front page story headlined “Iraq promises $US500,000 to pay Labor’s debts/Whitlam in secret Arab election deal”.

September 27, 2025

Gas is not a climate policy

South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas has thrown himself into a fight that is not his own.

September 22, 2025

Assaults on free speech go into hyperdrive after Charlie Kirk killing

When you see me refusing to play along with the campaign to canonise Charlie Kirk or respect the emotional hysteria around his killing, this is the main reason why.

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.

August 22, 2025

A coalition of the willing in support of Palestinians

The situation faced by Ukrainians and Palestinians is vastly different, but at the same time similar.

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.

September 30, 2025

Seeking the positive-sum economy where everyone wins a prize

What is this “abundance” thing that progressive economists are suddenly banging on about after reading the latest American pop economics book? At last, one of them has explained it.

September 21, 2025

Trump cannot stop the collapse of the Epstein cover-up

On 7 July, the Justice Department and FBI announced that billionaire Jeffrey “Epstein harmed over one thousand victims” – mostly young females, many of them underage.

September 16, 2025

Out of darkness comes a shaft of cheer

The news from Indonesia this month has been dispiriting – natural disaster flooding in Bali and Flores, man-made maladministration, political chicanery, perpetual graft and rioting in the cities. The headlines imply the country is crumpling. It’s not, and here’s why.

September 1, 2025

Asia must learn from SEATO and build its own NATO

With China’s military assertiveness, North Korea’s expanding nuclear arsenal and defence collaboration between Russia, China and North Korea, there are growing questions about whether Asia needs its own version of NATO. Asia has endeavoured to establish such a structure in the past, with little success.

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.

September 19, 2025

Australia’s modest climate target: This is what collective failure looks like

Federal climate and energy minister Chris Bowen was right about one thing: Not many people would be happy with the federal government’s newly announced 2035 emissions target. Some would think it too high and others too low.

September 9, 2025

Thailand has another new prime minister and an opening for progress. But will anything change?

Thai politics is often chaotic. But this past week has been especially tumultuous, even by Thailand’s standards.

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.

September 13, 2025

Climate action can feel slow – but the fastest energy leap in history has begun

It’s increasingly common to hear from experts and the general public that the global shift away from fossil fuels is glacially slow, or even non-existent.

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.”

September 5, 2025

Speaking terrorism Part 1: The things we forget

Recent events in Australia and elsewhere have returned the word terrorism to prominence in the discourse of political violence.

September 4, 2025

Military experts warn of climate wars

“Accelerating climate disruption is the greatest threat to the human future: our safety and well-being, our homes and communities, and how and where we live and work,” a group of leading Australian military and security experts says.

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.

September 3, 2025

What goes around, comes around

With Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi attending the SCO (Shanghai Co-operation Organisation) meeting in China this week, we may be witnessing a tectonic shift in international relations, one which could undermine the basis of Australia’s relations with Asia.

August 31, 2025

Intergenerational equity is more important. But let’s not exaggerate the problem or be misled about the solutions

Treasurer Jim Chalmers identified three priority areas for tax reform he said had attracted support from his roundtable participants:

A fair go for working people, including in intergenerational equity terms,
An affordable, responsible way to incentivise business investment, and
A simpler, more sustainable tax system to fund the services people need.

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?

August 20, 2025

Trump is underwater

It is easy to be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of opinion polling coming out of the US.

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 4, 2019

ARTHUR CHESTERFIELD-EVANS. Government Inaction may be a significant cause of Australia’s 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.

August 1, 2017

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

Shorten has brought tax reform to the political arena. Let’s hope the Labor Party doesn’t go to water between now and the next election, because we need more public revenue and a fairer and less distortionary tax system.

July 18, 2017

HENRY REYNOLDS. January 26?

When we examine the violations of law when the British took possession of eastern Australia in 1788, it’s 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.

October 3, 2025

Israel intercepts Gaza Sumud Flotilla vessels: What we know so far

Despite carrying only a symbolic amount of humanitarian aid, the flotilla had pressed forward with its mission to establish a maritime corridor into Gaza.

September 25, 2025

Government is planning hardship for older Australians living at home

Aged care has again been in the media for all the wrong reasons. Two failures are attracting particular attention.

September 13, 2025

From 9/11 to 9/9: How recent events reshaped understandings of power and deception

On 9 September 2025, Israel struck Qatar. Two days later, the world marked the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the United States.

August 24, 2025

When water becomes war: The moral failure of global governance in the Middle East

Global powers that once justified their interventions in the Middle East with rhetoric about human rights remain silent when basic rights are violated through the denial of water.

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?

October 5, 2025

Exposing the language of oppression: Debra Dank's 'Terraglossia'

At demonstrations about the genocide in Gaza, it has been encouraging to see that speakers have acknowledged the traditional owners of unceded sovereign lands.

October 2, 2025

‘Stunning reversal’: New York Times poll finds US support for Israel has plummeted

“Though this was utterly unthinkable even five years ago,” said one journalist, “it’s now reflected in poll after poll, and is so entrenched it’s hard to imagine it can be reversed.”

August 30, 2025

'It is time to end this spiral of violence' - Greek Orthodox and Latin Patriarchate in Jerusalem

A joint statement by the Greek Orthodox and Latin Patriarchates of Jerusalem has called for an end to the killing.

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 31, 2025

A new foreign policy for Europe

The European Union needs a new foreign policy based on Europe’s true economic and security interests.

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 21, 2025

Understanding Donald J. Trump

I think I am in a bad dream and soon I will wake and find Donald J. Trump didn’t happen.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal