July 30, 2017

SPENCER ZIFCAK. What's Wrong with Peter Duttons New Super Ministry? The Preparation, the Institution, and the Politician Perhaps?

Peter Dutton is to be given a fiefdom the new, massive Department of Home Affairs. Peta Credlin responded immediately by saying that the creation of the new department had the stink of a prime minister whos under pressure and has to be seen as doing something. Thats unfair.

July 27, 2017

MAX HAYTON. New Zealands General Election, September 23 2017.

Therell be no revolution this time. Polls show New Zealand voters are as contented as a herd of freshly milked cows. The election will produce a government that will be either centre-left or centre-right. Either way, the winner will probably need help from minor parties.

July 26, 2017

TONY SMITH. The Masked Man on Horseback.

When Prime Minister Turnbull announced changes to the way Australias security is conducted, he was accompanied by a member of the military. There is nothing unusual about that except that the soldier was masked. The Prime Minister seemed to miss the irony in this masking which made our defenders resemble the people who are portrayed as threatening our security.

July 16, 2017

Road reform, bureaucracy-style: no economic benefit, higher prices for users and an easier ride for unaccountable agencies

From time to time our newspapers pen articles about road reform. They raise the need for spending to be more efficient and less guided by the electoral pork-barrel and for more value to be visible to motorists. The call for efficiency is particularly understandable as tax revenue become scarcer: the Westconnex motorway project in Sydney would almost fund the latest Gonski education reform package. Westconnex would also fund almost half of Australias latest submarines purchase[i].

July 23, 2017

MUNGO MacCALLUM. A peace deal between Malcolm Turnbull and Tony Abbott!

The new Liberal Party Federal President Nick Greiner is aiming for the Nobel Peace Prize, and hes doing it the hard way.

July 12, 2017

KEITH JOINER. Australias 13th Submarine: The Barracuda F model

I_n building our new submarines there is a choice between a fast process with comparatively fixed designs and a rolling design processwhich would be slower but would be more likely to match Australia’s evolving defence requirements and provide more continuity and retention of expertise._

July 24, 2017

Big business influence wanes as public rejects 'bizonomics'

In this article in the Fairfax media on 24 July 2017, ROSS GITTINS refers to the debate in Pearls and irritations about neoliberal economics. John Menadue

The collapse of the “neoliberal consensus” is as apparent in Oz as it is in Trump’s America and Brexitting Britain, but our big-business people are taking a while to twig that their power to influence government policy has waned.

July 25, 2017

The parliamentary eligibility law is an ass but it is the law.

Australias restrictive eligibility criterion for entering Parliament is out of touch with modern reality but, as long as it is the law of the land, it has to be enforced and be seen to be impartially enforced.

July 30, 2017

RICHARD BUTLER. Off With Their Heads

Article 44 of our Constitution defining who may or may not run for Parliament needs authoritative interpretation because its hopelessly out of touch with todays Australia. This need not augur a grotesque Hansonite event reiterating that non-Christian barbarians are at the door.

August 1, 2025

Temu and Shein: cheap and very nasty

A garbage truck full of textiles is dumped in landfill every second. Sixty percent of the materials used in the fashion industry comes from plastic in one form or another. The production of nylon and polyester that is used is highly energy-intensive and relies on fossil fuels in the production process.

August 14, 2025

How transparent is Australian aid?

Aid, by its very nature, is harder to monitor than domestic spending. This makes transparency integral to good aid practice. Transparency makes it easier for the donor public to track how their taxes are being spent.

July 24, 2025

Prabowo’s economic agenda faces a fiscal stress test

Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s first 100 days have seen a shift towards initiatives driven by national security and ambitious populism, most notably the Free Nutritious Meals program, along with rice and fuel subsidies and tax breaks, all aimed at stimulating consumption and achieving self-sufficiency. Yet slowing growth, weak tax revenues and efforts to limit VAT increases are tightening the budget. Meanwhile, the creation of new ministries and the Danantara sovereign wealth fund have added overhead costs and off-budget spending. Together, these measures strain Indonesia’s fiscal space and raise concerns about the long-term sustainability of Prabowo’s security-focused agenda.

July 10, 2017

MACK WILLIAMS. North Korea ICBM threat to Australia.

The DPRKs recent ICBM test raises some extremely serious concerns for Australia which will need to be carefully considered by the Australian Government before it rushes off into decision making on the run as has been the case in the past week of hyperventilation. Any attraction of the DPRK to include Australia as a target for its ICBMs would derive more from US defence presence in Australia than from any factors inherently Australian.

August 12, 2025

Barnaby Joyce: From spoiler to saviour?

As a member of John Kerin’s staff, Gordon Gregory was, in effect, an adviser to the ALP. With this article he demonstrates his broadmindedness and naïveté by offering advice to the Liberal Party and to Barnaby Joyce. Simply put, it is this: “Euthanase the National Party and go it alone”.

July 17, 2025

Funding models for primary health: Revolution, not evolution, required

One of the authors was recently asked to be part of a panel for a discussion whose title was “Funding models for primary health: evolution not revolution” and where one of the questions asked (in advance to be fair) was “How far did I think we should go on funding alterations to optimise the scope of practice changes that have been proposed, without upsetting too many interest groups to the point where it becomes unproductive for all parties?”

August 3, 2017

It's high noon on the roof of the world

The territorial standoff in the Himalayas is a lose-lose proposition for both India and China.

August 8, 2025

Gendered violence in war isn’t a flaw. It’s a feature

When people ask, “Why are children always the first to suffer in war?” I find myself thinking about Gaza.

August 11, 2025

NSW Premier and the right to protest

Great Labor leaders are usually good communicators, persuasive, with a commanding presence.

August 4, 2025

Palestinians have a history of oppression long before 7 October, 2023

It would seem that most journalists and political commentators remain stuck on the terrible attack by the Hamas brigades (formally Islamic Resistance Movement) into Israel on 7 October 2023.

August 6, 2025

Bringing government back – but not all the way

The Albanese Government wants Australians to believe that the era of market dogma is over.

July 11, 2025

Suggesting a Nobel for Trump is a Netanyahu obscenity

Intent on stroking one another’s outsize egos, two thugs in the White House smirk at the latest ingratiation-beyond-belief feature of their alliance.

July 29, 2025

The principal barrier to a rapid energy transition

With the dead-end nuclear energy scenario binned during the present reign of the Labor Government and rapid technological change facilitating renewable energy solutions, we must now come to grips with the principal non-technical barrier to a rapid transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy.

August 15, 2025

An open letter to the Jewish Board of Deputies

I am part of a small group of people who intended to hold an event to discuss the situation in Gaza. Shortly before our event was scheduled, the Jewish board of Deputies pressed our venue operators to cancel the event. This incursion into our right to gather was a striking example of the ethos that informs so much of the Zionist lobby’s methods of silencing any departure from what is perceived as pro-Israel lines of argument. Thus:

August 7, 2025

Can Corbyn’s new party in Britain prompt a Turnbull comeback?

When former prime minister Birgitte Nyborg started a new political party in Denmark during season 3 of Borgen, her fictional initiative reflected changing times in Denmark.

July 22, 2025

Failures in privatised care starkly illustrate the inevitable failure of neoliberalism

The failures of privatised child care and aged care have starkly illustrated the inability of markets to deliver quality service. The failure applies to all human services.

August 5, 2025

To meet 21st century challenges, business regulation needs urgent reform

A new parliamentary term in Canberra for a re-elected government with a huge majority is a timely opportunity for long-term policy and regulatory reform. One necessary focus is the ecosystem for business success in society under 21st century conditions, in an age of existential threats.

July 16, 2025

Humanity is ‘risking catastrophe’: UN

The full spread of the impending crisis facing humanity is, at long last, emerging into daylight with the publication by the United Nations of its 2025 Global Risks Report.

July 28, 2025

We have turned the Nagasaki 80th into a celebration of Israeli genocide

Israel’s key enablers, the G7, plus Australia and New Zealand, have succeeded in muscling Israel back onto the invite list for the commemorations in Nagasaki on 9 August. Last year Israel was excluded, triggering a refusal by these countries to attend in 2024. Does the ‘personal’ invitation that Nagasaki has just sent to Israel represent a triumph of Western diplomacy or a sick joke?

August 18, 2025

Trump’s attacks are driving what BRICS was meant to do: encourage co-operation among non-Western powers and reduce dependence on the US

At first glance, US President Donald Trump’s renewed “America first” agenda seems aimed at the heart of the BRICS bloc of developing nations.

August 16, 2025

What is the Yokohama Commonwealth War Cemetery and what was Australia's response to it?

Anniversary events commemorating the end of the Asia Pacific War continue to focus on populist themes of victory, defeat, military prowess, 80 years on.

December 21, 2018

TED TRAINER. The case for De-growth -- will continue to be ignored.

A De-Growth movement has emerged, mainly in Europe, in response to the fact that global levels of production and consumption are now grossly unsustainable. A vast literature documenting this has accumulated over almost fifty years. But the official world of politicians, governments, economists and media completely ignore it and devote themselves to growing the economy that is, to accelerating us to our doom.

July 19, 2025

Slaying the juggernauts

Barbara Preston’s recent reflection on Australia’s school funding system offers a quietly devastating insight into the paradox of public education reform._

July 18, 2025

There's nothing 'liberal' about the Liberal Party

It’s becoming increasingly untenable to describe the Liberal Party as “liberal” in either of the ways that term is used in modern politics. No wonder voters are confused about what the party stands for.

July 25, 2025

Defenders of rules-based order: not who you thought

On Tuesday, a committed group of over 1,000 activists rained on the Government’s parade, using the day of the opening of Parliament to protest Australia’s ongoing complicity in the Israeli Government’s genocidal actions in Gaza.

July 26, 2017

Talisman Sabre just confuses strategic thinking for Australia

The recent joint US:Australian Talisman Sabre joint military exercise has added further confusion to the challenge of determining sensible Australian strategic thinking. US talk of a joint expeditionary force to combat IS terrorism in SE Asia camouflages an attempt by senior US military to draw Australia into a much closer US embrace.

August 9, 2025

Trump and Kennedy are destroying global science. Even Einstein questioned facts – but there’s a method to it

Eight months into Donald Trump’s second term as president of the US, truth and science are again under attack – with global consequences.

August 13, 2025

Are you happy?

What do Finland, Denmark, Iceland and Sweden have in common?

August 2, 2025

The moral correctness of a conscientious 'flotilla'

Lest anyone imagine that the recent attempt by a ship containing aid for distressed Palestinians was without precedent, they should consult a cartoon in the Sydney Morning Herald of 28 July 1995 by Alan Moir.

July 26, 2025

From steam power to silicon: the unequal legacy of empire and innovation

From the steam engine to the internet, many of the world’s most significant scientific and technological advancements have emerged during the height of powerful empires. The British Empire—and more recently, the United States—have stood at the forefront of this global transformation.

July 23, 2025

Progressive patriotism fails the independence test

Anthony Albanese’s recent John Curtin oration sparked hope among some that Australia might pursue a more independent foreign policy.

July 15, 2025

A warning from the past about the United States of today

The Trump administration’s actions at home and support for horrors abroad raise the question: is America becoming a fascist police state?

July 30, 2025

LDP’s historic electoral defeat upends Japan’s politics

Japan’s political landscape changed significantly on 20 July 2025 with the triennial upper house elections delivering a stinging blow to the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its coalition partner, Komeito.

July 21, 2025

Spare more than a thought for Iran’s protesters

Members of the National Council of Resistance of Iran ask the world to take notice of impressively brave protests against a cruel and repressive Iranian regime.

July 31, 2025

It shouldn't have taken this much for mainstream voices to start speaking up about Gaza

Israel’s top human rights group B’Tselem has finally declared that Israel is committing genocide, as has the Israel-based Physicians for Human Rights.

July 27, 2017

TED TRAINER. Terrorism and Our Empire: Some Neglected Questions.

There is a very strong tendency to avoid asking some key questions about terrorism, thereby maintaining various myths and delusions that prevent a number of unpleasant realities from being faced up to.

July 25, 2017

LOUIS COOPER. President Trump's 17-page list of changes to the North American Free Trade agreement [NAFTA] are causing some political problems for Canada's Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau.

NAFTA came into force on January 1 1994. It replaced the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement. NAFTA’s basic premise was to ignore the international borders and reduce or eliminate tariffs for much of the trade between Canada, the United States and Mexico. For the most part, it has been beneficial to the North American economies and the average citizen, but harmful to a small minority of workers in industries exposed to trade competition.

August 3, 2017

DAVID CHARLES. The Australian media's emphasis on the downsides of technological change has implications for innovation, growth and living standards.

There is systematic tendency in Australia compared to many countries in Asia for the mainstream media to place greater emphasis on the potential downsides of technological change rather than the upsides.

August 3, 2017

JULIAN CRIBB: When optimism spells disaster...

One of the most dangerous threats to the human future in this, the Age of Perils, is … optimism.

August 1, 2017

HANS J OHFF. Horse for Courses: Nuclear and Diesel-Electric Submarines

Arguing for a review into nuclear-powered submarines former PM Abbott laments that the RAN will take delivery of a class that will have less power, less range, less speed and less capability and that it will come into service about a decade later than would be optimal at a time when strategic circumstances are changing against us.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal