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Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal
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December 16, 2025

AUKUS meets reality – what's not in the AUSMIN Media Release (Part 1)

Despite official assurances, the US submarine program is falling well short of its own targets, raising serious doubts about whether Australia will ever receive the Virginia class submarines promised under AUKUS.

October 9, 2025

Ian McEwan’s new novel explores resentment and vengeance in a fractured world

Ian McEwan’s new novel, his 18th in a long career of writing books that play with startling premises, bold ideas and big dilemmas, begins as a work of futurist fiction set in 2119.

November 26, 2025

Making First Nations prisoners visible in Labor politics

Despite Western Australian Labor’s rhetoric on equality and Closing the Gap, incarcerated First Nations people remain politically invisible. Without formal representation and lived-experience voices in party deliberations, meaningful reform is impossible. The 2027 State Labor Conference is the moment to change that.

November 7, 2025

The new political economy of innovation: Why Australian policymakers need better tools

When the Commonwealth Government reorganised its innovation responsibilities for the fourth time in a decade, public servants made jokes about updating their email signatures again.

November 20, 2025

A search for purpose, vision and identity in Australian universities

The Australian university sector has become disconnected from the national imagination and needs a compelling new vision for the future.

October 24, 2025

The crumbling illusion: Why American public opinion on Israel is shifting

For the first time in decades, the public in the United States and across the West has begun to see Israel’s wars and occupation for what they truly are: acts of systemic injustice driven by malevolence and impunity.

October 29, 2025

Is the Great Barrier Reef collapsing?

It’s the largest living structure on Earth, 3000 individual reefs, 900 islands, 1430 miles, and it may be collapsing.

November 15, 2025

The ‘othered’ genocide: Sudan’s suffering and the world’s indifference

Sudan is enduring the largest humanitarian crisis on earth, with more than 25 million people needing urgent assistance and nearly nine million displaced as entire cities are reduced to rubble.

November 3, 2025

The pearling past and the multicultural present: A story of connection and contribution

In the late 1990s, during a field study in Wyndham, a remote town in Western Australia, I met a small tourism operator whose story has stayed with me ever since.

November 1, 2025

Protest wave challenges Indonesia’s authoritarian drift

In late August 2025, Indonesia was shaken by a  wave of protests following the death of  Affan Kurniawan, a motorcycle taxi (“ojek”) driver who was struck and killed by a police tactical vehicle during demonstrations. His death became the spark for mass mobilisations across several cities.

October 20, 2025

APEC Summit opens a window for Korea – and for Australia

On 1 November, the leaders of the nations of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum will meet in the historic South Korean city of Gyeongju.

November 25, 2025

Massacres, memory and the Memorial: facing our most deadly war

The evidence is overwhelming – Australia’s Frontier Wars were real, deadly, and long, and a landmark new book lays it out in full. So when will the Australian War Memorial fully face the truth?

October 18, 2025

South Korea has missed the alternative media train

US alternative media is awash with stories on Israel and Gaza, Ukraine and Russia, and now Iran and Venezuela.

October 17, 2025

Grieving for the US

I recently viewed the 1997 movie Good Will Hunting. The final shot is a widescreen view of an old car driven through a verdant landscape, as the hero, who happens to be a mathematical genius (Matt Damon), drives into his future, having resolved his issues, seeking new opportunities in California.

November 13, 2025

Only Arabic: When 'multicultural' media turns to racial profiling

I recently noticed something troubling while watching a British drama on SBS On Demand. Between episodes — over two full seasons — I kept seeing advertisements about Victoria’s new bail laws.

November 8, 2025

Making them pay: Wielding influence in a world with no shame

One of the upshots of US support for Israeli criminality over the past two years has been the cowardly position adopted by US supplicant states who feel wedged by realpolitik and morality.

October 31, 2025

Continuation in China's five-year planning

The outline of China’s 15th five-year plan was released last week. Often the objectives of a new five-year plan are a disruptive departure from the previous five-year plan. They set new directions.

October 27, 2025

Boosting equity and safety for Australia's children

In Australia, 37% of students aged between about 5 or 6 and 18 years go to private schools which charge fees – but while those schools are private, they are not run for profit.

December 17, 2025

The market lie at the heart of public education policy

Treating public schools as competitors in an education marketplace shifts blame downward, obscures chronic underfunding and corrodes the very purpose of public education.

November 22, 2025

BBC and ABC targeted by conservative critics for the wrong reasons

Right-wing critics attack the ABC and BBC, but the real media bias is in ignoring Palestinian voices and defending power.

November 5, 2025

Moral inadequacy in national leadership

“Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do,” Voltaire

December 1, 2025

Uncertainties trail behind Japanese PM's strong start

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s early popularity rests on speculative public expectations, a fragile LDP–Ishin arrangement and her dependence on party heavyweight Taro Aso, leaving her authority vulnerable despite high initial approval ratings.

December 11, 2025

From partnership to pressure: why India–US ties have frayed

The downturn in India–US relations during Trump’s second presidency exposes deeper structural weaknesses in the partnership, from trade and strategic autonomy to diverging political priorities.

October 30, 2025

The fog of electricity price disinformation

The federal government should collect and make available data that shows comparative wholesale electricity costs on a global basis and where Australia sits. This information should show average spot prices, average industrial prices.

November 4, 2025

When will immigration return to 'normal'?

Despite assurances from Immigration Minister Tony Burke that immigration is “ trending back towards historically normal levels”, all indicators suggest it is once again overshooting Treasury’s projection. Indeed, it looks like the descent may have stalled and might rebound.

October 6, 2025

Individualism and desire – are we really in control?

In an age of influencers and online echo chambers, the French literary theorist and anthropologist René Girard (1923-2015) feels strikingly relevant.

November 6, 2025

Venezuela and Trump’s war to save the old order

“The past is not dead; it is not even past.” William Faulkner was right: past events continue to inform and shape our world.

November 18, 2025

Nuclear testing threatens global stability

Gareth Evans, Robert Hill, and Larissa Waters are among the Australian signatories of a statement calling on Trump to clarify that the US will not resume nuclear explosive testing.

November 21, 2025

Australia’s toxic algal bloom has killed 87,000 animals – and summer’s coming

An unprecedented toxic algal bloom in South Australia has devastated marine life, tourism and fishing. With no clear end in sight, scientists warn it may become a permanent feature of local waters – and research cuts risk making it worse.

October 15, 2025

From Gaza, Palestinians have reasserted their agency on the world stage

If we are to speak of a Palestinian victory in  Gaza, it is a resounding triumph for the Palestinian people, their indomitable spirit and their deeply rooted resistance that transcends faction, ideology and politics.

December 9, 2025

Gaza and the unravelling of the post-war world

The war on Gaza exposed deep cracks in international law, Western power, and the institutions meant to enforce them. From global protests to shifting alliances, a different world order is now taking shape.

December 3, 2025

UK–US drug deal risks turning the NHS into a casualty of Trump trade politics

A new agreement with the Trump administration would force Britain’s National Health Service to pay billions more for medicines to avoid tariffs – prompting outrage from MPs, health experts and patient advocates.

December 4, 2025

From coal to solar: a new manufacturing bet in the Hunter

_A company headed up by one of the legends of Australian solar research and development has won more than $150 million in federal Solar Sunshot funding to build a commercial-scale PV panel manufacturing plant in one of the nation’s biggest coal hubs – the New South Wales Hunter Valley.

October 14, 2025

The half-life of humiliation and the hunger for revenge

The trauma, humiliation and rage of those that survive are concomitants of the indiscriminate killing with impunity and the deracination of innocent men, women and children by the invaders and occupiers of a country.

November 11, 2025

Graham Richardson's environmental legacy

In the week that Labor is struggling to pass its environmental legislation, the death of Graham Richardson is a reminder that, as Labor environment minister, he oversaw the passage of the biggest suite of environmental legislation put forward by any minister or government before or since.

October 22, 2025

China’s FDI, not the BRI, drives a global green transition

Over the past few years,  outward Chinese foreign direct investment commitments in green manufacturing have grown rapidly and now  dwarf the Marshall Plan in their scale.

October 10, 2025

Campus leaders mobilise to battle Trump’s anti-education ‘Compact’ tooth and nail

“Workers, students, campus community members across this great country are coming together to fight for a higher education system that actually works for all – one that is affordable, strengthens freedom and democracy, and stands up to its public mission.”

November 8, 2025

Abandoning net zero: Farce, fantasy and falsehoods

Australian politics is now descending into a theatre of science-denying absurdity. A mainstream party is now embedded in denial of clear scientific evidence that renewables are the lowest cost option for Australia through to 2050.

October 18, 2025

From enmity to amity: Lessons from Cowra

The 24th of October 2025 is the 80th anniversary of the ratification of the UN Charter, which opens with a determination to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.

October 10, 2025

The Earth uncloaked – A catastrophe in slow motion

Woodman, spare that tree!

Touch not a single bough!

In youth it sheltered me,

And I’ll protect it now. – GP Morris 1837

December 16, 2025

It's never too late to help students learn to read – even in high school

Many students with reading difficulties are missed after the early years. New evidence shows targeted, evidence-based support can still make a real difference well into high school.

November 29, 2025

Why Australia should build AI to amplify human capability

Debates about artificial intelligence miss a crucial point: the real issue is not whether AI is powerful, but whether we use it to replace human judgment or strengthen it.

October 22, 2025

Indonesia-Australia economic partnership can power Indo-Pacific resilience

Amid intensifying great power rivalry, middle powers like Indonesia and Australia face a critical question – can economic co-operation help them hedge against strategic vulnerability?

January 14, 2025

Best of 2025 - From illusion to real peace: Trump’s test in Gaza and Ukraine

Real peace demands Palestinian statehood, Ukrainian neutrality and the courage to defy the war lobby.

November 15, 2025

Recovering moral imagination in a time of war

There is a moment in every conflict when language collapses. Words like justice, revenge, and security are repeated so often they lose their meaning.

November 13, 2025

Nuclear arms control and the Asia-Pacific

Since the end of the Cold War, the world has become complacent about the danger of nuclear war.

October 6, 2025

Nation's innovation surge continues a long tradition

Many in the West mistakenly think that China lacks innovation, but this view is outdated.

July 26, 2016

JOHN AUSTEN. The High Court - The Williams case and transport

This article expands on previous comments that the Williams (No. 2) case is reason to reconsider Commonwealth engagement in land transport. [1]

The challenge to Government spending programs

Williams (No. 2) was the third recent challenge in the High Court to Commonwealth Government spending.

Before these three cases it was widely assumed the Government could spend as it sees fit. Governments worked on that assumption using the equivalent of Jack Sparrow’s compass to guide them; Conservative administrations set course towards rural roads, Labor steered to cities.

The three High Court cases should consign the assumption, the compass and lack of proper Commonwealth direction to the deep. [2]

November 14, 2025

In Ukraine’s Pokrovsk, narratives have collided with brutal realities

Up to 5000 Ukrainian soldiers are in danger of encirclement in the key town of Pokrovsk by a powerful Russian war machine that has ground ever so slowly forward over the past 18 months.

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