August 26, 2025

Cutting through the spin – Ten logging 'myths' in the new ABARES report

Australia’s native‑forest debate has long been characterised by falsehoods generated by industry and arms of industry such as parts of government. 

October 4, 2025

'They need to get cracking': Bowen on renewable targets and LNP’s 'poor decisions' in Queensland

Federal Energy and Climate Minister Chris Bowen says he is not ready to give up on the country’s ambitious renewable energy targets for 2030, but concedes that energy companies “need to get cracking” to ensure enough wind and solar projects are delivered on time.

September 17, 2025

We’re going up in the financial world, but no one’s noticed

Economists like us to think they’re coolly rational in all things. Nah. They’re just as susceptible to fads and fashions as the rest of us.

September 1, 2025

Immobilising confirmation of atrocities in Gaza

Stefan Tarnowski is an assistant professor and anthropologist based at Cambridge University. His most recent article published by the London Review of Books is Plausible Deniability.

August 25, 2025

Yet another example of cultural vandalism by Thai military forces

As part of a Cambodian parliamentary observation team, I visited the border village of Anseh in Choam Ksan district in Preah Vihear province on July 30.

August 13, 2025

The Great Barrier Reef is the litmus test for the forthcoming 2035 emissions reduction target

Coral reefs are highly vulnerable to climate change. That’s why, for years, conservationists have advocated that Australia’s climate policy be tied to the future of the Great Barrier Reef.

July 11, 2025

What are the chances for peace in Ukraine right now?

What makes it so difficult to find a solution? Is Russia a threat to Europe? Five questions for Eurasia expert Anatol Lieven.

August 19, 2025

Australia’s first National Climate Risk Assessment has been a long time coming

The Australian Government’s soon-to-be-released first National Climate Risk Assessment (NCRA), which will be focused on domestic climate risks, has received some recent media coverage here and here. Here is the story on the long evolution of the NCRA and what to expect.

February 8, 2018

IAN VERRENDER. Why global markets are in free-fall

It was always going to be a tough ask. How to remove all that stimulus, all those trillions of freshly minted dollars in emergency money from an economy, without causing conniptions on financial markets?

August 2, 2025

Australian media persists with a misguided and tragically ineffectual strategy – the way to prevent suicide is not to talk about it

Statistics are cold-hearted methods to gauge the “success” of suicide prevention strategies, yet they are the only tool available to measure the number of Australians who take their lives each year.

September 4, 2025

Australia should halt plan to deport refugees, migrants to Nauru

Last week, the Australian Government struck a A$400 million (US$260 million) deal with Nauru to deport 280 people to the small Pacific island nation. It is also proposing new legislation to strip those facing deportation of their basic procedural rights.

September 29, 2025

Legitimacy or leverage? The battle over what recognition really means

When Britain, Canada, Australia, France and others moved in quick succession to recognise the State of Palestine, observers described it as a “cascade” – a diplomatic avalanche that broke a Western taboo and forced an international conversation about statehood, occupation and impunity.

August 6, 2025

Syria’s minorities under siege

The drive by Syria’s Sunni Islamist rulers to stamp their authority over religious and ethnic minorities has hit a stumbling block in the southern province of Suweida.

September 24, 2025

Ex-bishop questions if Coalition is committed to Mideast peace

Former Anglican bishop of Canberra Goulburn, George Browning, has criticised federal Opposition leader Sussan Ley over a letter she sent to members of the Republican Party who had written to Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, attempting to stop him from recognising a Palestinian state at the UN this week.

August 30, 2025

I fear ignorance about China

The United States and its allies like Australia, have become terrified by the prospect of their citizens learning more about China through the exchange of ideas and people. They apparently do not trust their citizens to assess information from multiple competing sources and reach an acceptable conclusion.

July 22, 2025

Out beyond right-doing and wrong-doing there is a field. Let me meet you there (Part 2)

Out beyond ideas of right-doing and wrong-doing there is a field.

Let me meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass,

The world is too full to talk about. (Rumi)

August 27, 2025

This is what happens when money dies

Israel has blocked the transfer of currency into Gaza; the result is catastrophic.

August 12, 2025

Ukraine must be included in Trump-Putin peace talks, says Sanders

The senator said the negotiations could be “a positive step forward” after three-and-a-half years of war.

July 21, 2025

Orientalism and casus belli in the Middle East

There can surely have been few times in recent history when Edward Said’s seminal notion of Orientalism has had more tragic and pointed immediacy and relevance than now.

July 28, 2025

Francesca Albanese’s bravery merits the Nobel prize

Richard Falk, international law scholar and former UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories Since 1967, talks about the July 2025 U.S. sanctions imposed on current Rapporteur Francesca Albanese. Well known for her criticism of Israel’s Gaza offensive and her classification of genocide which now includes wilful mass starvation, Albanese has become the most embattled Special Rapporteur to date. Falk himself was no stranger to such pressures during his own 2008-2014 tenure.

September 26, 2025

Koalas, carbon credits and the fine print of conservation

We congratulate the NSW Government for establishing the Great Koala National Park, which will protect a nationally significant koala population.

September 22, 2025

Perceptions of Islamophobia and antisemitism: The Australian perspective reflecting global trends

After 7 October 2023, debates about antisemitism and Islamophobia in Australia intensified.

September 19, 2025

Occupying to end the genocide

I was arrested on Monday (15 September) for the first time in my life, for occupying the office of my local MP, the Labor member for Fraser, Daniel Mulino.

September 11, 2025

Indonesia’s protests hit a brick wall of elite unity

The eruption of protests across Indonesia from 25 August expressed pent-up anger at the greed and hubris of political elites, prompting comparisons with the 1998 mass mobilisation that helped end Soeharto’s dictatorship.

September 10, 2025

Savage American justice

Imagine you are a country faced with drug smuggling by a nearby neighbour. As a government, what might you do about this?

August 7, 2025

The end of jobs?

By the 2040s, half to three-quarters of human society may be out of work, replaced by AI and sleepless robots.

October 3, 2025

Australia’s mental health services are buckling due to rising demand, staff shortages and patient violence

Interventions such as formal support systems are needed for Australia’s exhausted, overwhelmed mental health nurses.

July 26, 2025

Lies, damn lies and Zionist lobby pronouncements

Reaction to the release and the contents of the Segal report on antisemitism in Australia is at the level of existential damage to social cohesion in Australia.

August 5, 2025

Is the Northern Territory Government knowingly endangering First Nations children and young people?

It should be impossible to ignore heartbreaking evidence of the effects of structural racism on Aboriginal children and young people, particularly those caught in a fully discredited punitive system in the NT that now includes “torture” plus risks of death as well as trauma.

October 2, 2025

China is likely to surpass its new emissions target. Australia should emulate its energy plan

In an address to the UN General Assembly last week, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced China’s target to reduce carbon emissions by 7-10% from their peak by 2035, with the goal of achieving even higher levels.

September 12, 2025

Australia’s media coverage of a military parade in Beijing confounds engagement

The 3 September military parade in Beijing, celebrating victory in World War II, is not a cause for hysterical histrionics. In Beijing, there was no equivalent to waving of the Nazi “Blood Banner” (Blutfahne) as in the intoxication of the 1934 Nuremberg rally.

August 8, 2025

Call for national action to prevent 'torture' or death of incarcerated First Nations children

Paediatricians in the Northern Territory see the dire effects of entrenched structural racism on Aboriginal children on a daily basis.

September 30, 2025

Shark nets do protect human life

In the well orchestrated war against shark nets in NSW, truth has long been the first casualty. The fatal shark attack on a 57-year-old man at Dee Why Beach in Sydney on 6 September is arguably the second.

August 16, 2025

Where is the outrage? Israel's systematic mass assassination of journalists

The killing of Al Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif is shocking but that it is a culmination of planned mass assassination of journalists by the Israeli Government is an outrage.

September 16, 2025

Attacking Qatar shows Israel doesn’t want a Gaza ceasefire

Netanyahu keeps changing his position on a Gaza ceasefire, using different ploys to keep the war going.

July 29, 2025

The new Commonwealth office of Multicultural Affairs unveiled

A new Commonwealth Office of Multicultural Affairs has been established within the Department of Home Affairs.

July 25, 2025

The Australia Group at 40

By the end of World War 1, more than a million people had become victims of chemical warfare and more than 100,000 of these casualties died shortly after their exposure to CW agents.

September 6, 2025

Australian writers shocked and ‘disgusted’ by closure of 85-year-old literary journal Meanjin

After 85 years of continuous publication, Meanjin, Australia’s second-oldest literary journal, is closing.

September 6, 2025

Australian writers shocked and ‘disgusted’ by closure of 85-year-old literary journal Meanjin

After 85 years of continuous publication, Meanjin, Australia’s second-oldest literary journal, is closing.

September 9, 2025

'Like us': Australia’s uneasy dance with immigration

Over dinner on a recent group tour in Australia, conversation turned to the wave of anti-immigration demonstrations and political statements that have flared across the country.

September 13, 2025

Palm Beach, Florida: latitude, 26.7 N – Gaza City: latitude, 31.5 N

In Palm Beach, there lives a man who, when not living in the White House, enjoys the balm of temperate climes. He lives in a mansion, extravagant and luxurious. He wants for nothing.

October 1, 2025

Turmoil in tummies, pains in purse

The road to Indonesian hospitals is paved with good intentions and vomit.

July 30, 2025

The essential reader on Donald Trump

To learn the whole dreadful story of Donald Trump’s ascendancy to the presidency, one could not do better than to read Thom Hartmann’s forthcoming book, “The Last American President: A Broken Man, a Corrupt Party, and a World on the Brink”.

September 5, 2025

The shrinking US Navy submarine force – Implications for AUKUS Pillar 1 (Part 1)

The US Navy’s attack submarine force had been predicted to reduce to 49 in 2030.

September 2, 2025

RSL tries to tackle its troubles

The RSL has been a significant force in Australian politics, but it’s clear it is now suffering from a range of problems.

July 23, 2025

Effective philanthropy: A model partnership

Effective philanthropy is hard to achieve. It’s difficult to access money for a worthy cause but also difficult to give money away effectively with impact.

July 18, 2025

Even Ken Henry’s best ideas can’t fix a system addicted to growth

“Growth for growth’s sake is the ideology of the cancer cell.” – Edward Abbey

August 28, 2025

ABS decision to reuse biased, coercive Census religion question puts human rights in the spotlight

In about 12 months from now, Australians will again be asked to fill in a Census form that seeks information on all kinds of important questions.

August 22, 2025

Capping Australia’s biggest fossil subsidy is the productivity reform we can’t afford to ignore

Australia’s biggest fossil fuel subsidy is hiding in plain sight. The diesel Fuel Tax Credit (FTC) scheme — a taxpayer-funded rebate mostly benefitting big miners — is costing Australians tens of billions, fuelling emissions, and damaging productivity growth.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal