October 17, 2025

War without end, peace without justice

The Gaza war has become the most searing mirror of our century’s political and moral contradictions.

October 10, 2025

Do you see me? Do you hear me? Does what I say matter?

In an age when millions feel invisible to those in power, these aren’t rhetorical questions. They’re the foundational need that either builds democracies or tears them apart.

October 25, 2025

From proletariat to boxetariat: The new working class

When Holden shut its gates at Elizabeth in 2017, Australia lost more than a car factory. It lost a symbol of national self-belief that we could design, build and export complex, high-value goods from Australia.

November 21, 2025

US alliance holding us back

Australia’s US alliance is preventing the country from signing and ratifying the Treaty for Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, despite overwhelming public support for the government to do so.

January 12, 2026

Best of 2025 - Ignorance is complicity: Australia must end its arms trade with those committing crimes

Rayana Ajam is one of six talented young Australians who will travel to the UN General Assembly in New York next week as part of the Global Voices project.

January 5, 2026

Best of 2025 - Australia must defend International Criminal Court

If it were China or Russia, the imposition of sanctions and threats of harm to prosecutors and judges of the International Criminal Court would be front page news in Australia.

December 20, 2025

Chile swerves to the right and into the past

José Antonio Kast’s election marks the first time since Chile’s return to democracy that an admirer of the dictatorship has reached the presidency. The implications run deep.

December 4, 2025

A practical answer to Australia’s AI ethics vacuum

As Australia shies away from meaningful AI regulation, a new framework offers a practical way to embed human moral responsibility at the centre of AI use.

November 4, 2025

Death by plastic

“Mummy…Daddy, what are clouds made of?” Almost every parent has fielded the innocent, eager question, perhaps explaining about mist, fog, water vapour, raindrops. Today, if you said that, you’d be wrong.

October 27, 2025

The politics of democracy’s decline

A report on voter pessimism casts more light on why Australian democracy is failing. The answer is to deepen political debate.

November 24, 2025

Innovation talk, austerity walk: Australia’s failing science policy

Despite constant rhetoric about innovation, Australia is steadily dismantling its scientific capacity. Public schools, universities and the CSIRO are all under pressure – the result of decades of market-driven policy-making that prioritises short-term cost-cutting over long-term national capability.

November 22, 2025

Only a republic can reverse executive power creep

A democratic republic would end the structural uncertainties that allowed both the Whitlam dismissal and Scott Morrison’s many ministries, as well as bringing the Australian people into a new constitutional relationship.

October 6, 2025

Orwell foresees the 21st century

George Orwell completed his most famous novel 1984 in 1948, shortly before his early death at 46. A few years earlier, in a remarkable short 1945 essay, Orwell foresaw a future world order overseen by America, Russia and China.

December 1, 2025

The great failure of the property industry

In every era, certain industries become so large, so politically embedded, and so culturally unexamined that their performance ceases to matter.

November 26, 2025

Why Indonesia’s new criminal rules matter

Indonesia’s overhaul of its Criminal Procedure Code could modernise justice – or entrench a system where police power expands, judicial oversight shrinks and civic life becomes riskier. With the clock ticking towards implementation, the choices made now will shape Indonesia’s democratic identity for decades.

November 17, 2025

Violence in prisons isn’t a surprise: It’s inevitable

In recent months, we’ve seen prisons across Australia buckle under the weight of the very system they were built to uphold.

November 13, 2025

Stealing the breath of life

When you suffocate or drown, every fibre of your being cries out for the breath of life, oxygen. It is the body’s ungovernable response to the extinguishing of your flame.

December 3, 2025

What the ICJ’s climate law decision means for Australia

A landmark advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice clarifies that states have a duty under international law to prevent climate harm – with serious implications for Australia’s fossil fuel approvals and future litigation.

November 18, 2025

The last Boomer

Somewhere around 2075, even the longest lived baby boomer will die. But their story is not, in the end, a story about age.

December 9, 2025

The pecking order: how class blindness governs Australian schools

Australia prides itself on fairness and opportunity, yet an unspoken pecking order shapes who advances and who is blamed for falling behind. In schools and public institutions, structural inequality is dressed up as personal failure, with shame doing much of the work.

October 21, 2025

The onus is on Israel and its allies to end the genocide, not their victims

It’s actually never legitimate to withhold aid from starving civilians. It was never legitimate at any time.

January 14, 2026

Best of 2025 - The three core myths driving Israel’s war on Palestine

Israeli journalist Gideon Levy, one of the most outspoken moral critics within Israel itself, once summarised what he called the “three core values of Israeli society”: the belief that Jews are the chosen people; that they are the world’s ultimate victims; and that Palestinians are not equal human beings.

November 20, 2025

From Whitlam to AUKUS: Sovereignty silenced

When governor-general Sir John Kerr dismissed Gough Whitlam on 11 November 1975, Australia lost more than a government. It lost a measure of its independence a loss that still shadows our politics half a century later.

October 7, 2025

Loot boxes are still rife in kids’ mobile games, despite ban on ‘gambling-like’ features

In September 2024, Australia introduced a new classification approach for games with gambling-like content.

November 29, 2025

You can’t regulate your way to quality early childhood education

Recent safety failures have triggered tighter regulation in early childhood education and care. But compliance alone cannot deliver quality. Real reform begins with professionalising the workforce.

October 16, 2025

Trump and climate change

Donald Trump does not accept that climate change is a real and significant phenomenon. In fact, he has said those who propound it are perpetrating the “greatest hoax” in the history of the world.

October 30, 2025

Daydreaming about a legend: Review of Hawke PM: The making of a legend

David Day’s book Hawke PM is the latest in a long list of books covering the Hawke era and may well be the last we’ll see for quite some time.

December 10, 2025

Trump’s Ukraine peace deal would leave the country vulnerable to future Russian attacks

A US-backed peace proposal negotiated with Moscow but excluding Ukraine risks entrenching Russian gains and leaving Kyiv dangerously exposed.

October 24, 2025

Managing bullying or manufacturing shame? How neoliberal bureaucracy gets it wrong – again

When Education Minister Jason Clare announced the Anti-Bullying Rapid Review in early 2025, he spoke with the gravity such tragedies demand.

November 3, 2025

Vaping: A disruptive innovation of smoking and rapidly replacing cigarettes

Recognised as a concept over three decades ago, “disruptive innovations” are new and improved ways of meeting consumers’ needs that generally sweep away conventional approaches of market-leading firms by a process of creative destruction.

September 24, 2013

Fukushima - the trouble when regulators and operators are too close. Guest blogger: Walter Hamilton

Speaking in support of Tokyo’s bid for the 2020 Olympics, Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on 7 September that the situation at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power station was ‘under control’. Recent disclosures, however, about leaks of radioactive water from storage tanks at the site and the contamination of ground water flowing into the ocean make his claim appear brave at best and dishonest at worst. The ‘everything is fine’ stance means the government is still relying primarily on the operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., to see through the clean up and decommissioning process. Though TEPCO might be expected to know more than anyone else about the situation at Fukushima, its performance so far does not inspire confidence.

April 16, 2014

Kieran Tapsell. Things are improving.

Héctor Abad Faciolince, El Espectador, Colombia, 29 December 2013, http://www.elespectador.com/opinion/el-espantoso-mundo-vivimos-columna-466312

Summary: The world we live in is frightening, but it is less frightening than it used to be.

One of the best definitions of the word, “intellectual” that I have read is: “a person who has studied beyond his own capacities”.

There are those incapable of comparing the world of today with that of yesterday, of weighing up the gains and losses; their obsession consists in outraged criticism, arrogant moralising, scorn for any progress, enjoyment or happiness, in the conviction that there is no creature more repugnant that the human being, nor a place more inhospitable than the Earth.

January 7, 2018

A Human Rights Bill 2009

As part of our campaign for a national Human Rights Act, a Bill was drafted to ‘respect, protect and promote Human Rights for Australia’. This model Bill formed the core of our group’s submission to the National Human Rights Consultation, chaired by Frank Brennan SJ OA. See following draft of Human Rights Bill 2009.

July 13, 2015

Kerry Breen. The Australian Medical Association vs. The Medical Journal of Australia.

Troubles at the Medical Journal of Australia and the birth of ‘Friends of the MJA’

The Medical Journal of Australia (MJA) has been in existence for over 100 years and has become the most important national publication for every aspect of the health and health care of Australians. It is owned by the Australian Medical Association (AMA) and is published by the Australasian Medical Publishing Company (AMPCo), a wholly owned subsidiary of the AMA. AMPCo makes a profit on its Medical Directory* but, like other journals of medical associations around the world, makes a loss with the MJA. The loss is subsidised by the annual membership fees of AMA members and the current subsidy per member is believed to be approximately $80 per member. Annual membership of the AMA costs up to $1446. [*The Medical Directory is the only available comprehensive listing of all doctors, with information about qualifications, special interests, practice addresses, publications etc.]

January 7, 2018

JOHN MENADUE. A campaign from 2005, for a Human Rights Act for Australia.

In 2005, Susan Ryan, Spencer Zifcak, I and others, in association with New Matilda, launched a campaign for a Human Rights Act for Australia. This campaign is outlined in the following. It formed part of a submission to Frank Brennan SJ who was Chair of the Commonwealth Government, National Human Rights Consultation.

As a result of the campaign, a draft Human Rights Bill 2009 was developed.

September 18, 2013

Commodifying and dehumanising asylum seekers. Guest blogger Michael Kelly SJ

The rejection by the Indonesian foreign minister of Tony Abbott’s suggested ways of “stopping the boats” is only the latest assertion of how the Coalition’s policy on asylum seekers was never going to work. It might have made political sense at election time, allegedly in marginal seats though the results in western Sydney throw some doubt on that.

But now a factious Senate that will be difficult for a Coalition government to woo, a High Court to appeal to about the implementation of a policy that has all to many features similar to the one struck down when the “Malaysian Solution” failed and the unparalleled damage done by the policy to Australia’s standing in the region all indicate that, however loudly proclaimed and possibly significant at the polls, it was never a goer.

January 20, 2019

ANDREW FARRAN. Brexit: Running out of time or anticipating a delay?

What explains an unprecedented, disastrous political defeat ever of a government on the floor of the British Parliament (432/202, a loss by 230 votes), followed within a day by its reaffirmation in government - prevailing over a no-confidence motion by a healthy margin of 19 votes? Essentially the Tories still cannot agree on an outcome for Brexit but bunch up to prevent their worst fear, the possibility of a Jeremy Corbyn led Labour Government.

February 25, 2024

The pretense of justice meted out to Assange by the Rules Based Order has come undone

The approval of Julian Assange’s extradition is not only morally wrong, it appears to be wrong in law, and serious questions should be asked of the UK Home Secretary, as well as the Australian Prime Minister and Foreign Minister and the former incumbents of those positions.

March 4, 2015

Graham Freudenberg. Gough Whitlam Commemorative Oration.

You will see below what I think is a remarkable speech by Graham Freudenberg about Gough Whitlam’s contemporary relevance. This oration is much longer than I normally post on this blog, but it is an outstanding oration which I am sure you will enjoy. The Whitlam Institute will also be publicising this oration. John Menadue

THE WHITLAM INSTITUTE

GOUGH WHITLAM COMMEMORATIVE ORATION

“Contemporary Relevance, comrade”:

Gough Whitlam in the 21st century

July 24, 2013

Galahs and princes. Guest blogger: Walter Hamilton

What was that about Australia and the Asian Century? The umbilical cords still tie us to the past. John Menadue

From Walter Hamilton:

I had a choice today on the ABC Online News website of reading a story about a galah plague in a Queensland outback town or viewing the ‘first pictures’ (breathless pause) of a certain baby born in London the other night. I chose the galahs. Earlier in the day, sitting in the waiting room of a doctor’s surgery, I kept my head down and read my Kindle book as Channel Seven’s breakfast show replayed a clip of London crowd noise at least three times. Shamefully, the television station ignored the galahs – though no less melodious and far more relevant to an Australian audience.

January 14, 2016

Dennis Hemphill. Essendon Football Club

Their club failed them, but Essendon players can’t excape blame for doping ban.

Fingers are pointing again at the Essendon Football Club for its failures in the long-running supplements fiasco. This follows the Court of Arbitration for Sport’s (CAS) decision to ban 34 past and present players for one year for contravening the World Anti-Doping Code.

A club’s coaches and other officials are supposed to have a duty of care to ensure a safe working environment and practices that are compliant with the anti-doping code. But the club’s failings in this area have already been dealt with. The AFL penalised Essendon heavily in 2013 for health and safety shortcomings that were judged to bring the game into disrepute.

September 28, 2014

John Tulloh. Australia could fight another far away war in a better way.

It is sobering to consider that the 21st century is only 15 years old and a geographically isolated and peaceful country like Australia has already participated in two major conflicts - Afghanistan and Iraq - and fought skirmishes in a lesser one, the birth of Timor Leste. Now we are preparing to join another one far away in Iraq and perhaps even extend that to Syria.

It is just as sobering to consider a number of other facts:

September 25, 2014

Walter Hamilton. A paranoid state?

The same question might be asked of many places on earth in these security-conscious times. On this occasion, however, the subject is Japan: a state several times removed, one would have thought, from legitimate concerns about an imminent threat from an alien creed enforced by a ruthless blood-cult. (Enough of that; you only have turn on commercial radio to know what I mean.)

Japanese paranoia comes to mind for several reasons. I could hardly believe my eyes when watching the main evening current affairs program on NHK (the national broadcaster) the other night. During a story on last week’s International Whaling Commission meeting, a graphic appeared giving the reason why New Zealand had brought a motion to impose stricter conditions on “scientific whaling”. The purpose, said NHK, was to “cause Japan international embarrassment.” It’s believed the program, News Center-9, is closely monitored by NHK’s conservative president––a man who on taking up his job stated that it was not the business of a public broadcaster to contradict the government of the day––and, under pressure from above, nervous editors can go to absurd lengths to toe the line. By the way, I can report that whale meat has just been added to the menu at the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s headquarters in Tokyo. If that is not a snub to the International Court of Justice, which this year ruled against Japan’s whaling program, I don’t know what is.

March 31, 2014

John Menadue. Pity our diplomats.

It is not often that our diplomats in foreign posts receive or need our sympathy in the work they do. But just think of their present plight in defending the Australian Government’s behaviour in foreign policy. What we are seeing across so many countries is alarming. With many key countries, we are skating on very thin ice – and the ice will probably crack fairly soon.

Just consider what is happening.

April 14, 2013

Privatisation on the wane. John Menadue

From the days of Maggie Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and John Howard, the assumption has been that the private sector will grow in relation to the public sector because it is more efficient and contributes more to the public good. The political correctness of the political Right assumed that privatisation would carry all before it.

But not any more. The market failures of many key players in the private sector are clear. It is not just Wall Street, but our own local giants, BHP, Rio Tinto and others, who have lost tens of billions of dollars in shareholders’ funds in recent years. There has been clear company overstretch and management failures.

May 8, 2015

Joel Windle. School choice: parents follow the money.

If private schools offer little academic value over public schools, why do 35% of Australian parents continue to choose to pay the hefty fees rather than sending their child to the local state school?

Parents have a high regard for public schools

School choice is a dilemma for a minority of parents. My research with parents in Melbourne suggests that the preference for public schooling is strong even amongst those who end up sending their children to a private school.

November 30, 2015

Sebastian Rosenberg. Mental health changes.

Announcing the federal government’s response to the National Mental Health Commission’s review of mental health services today, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull emphasised the concept of patient choice.

The commission’s review was the latest in a long line of reports showing that for many Australians needing mental health care, their current choice is between getting no care or getting poor care.

The reforms announced today have the potential to change this appalling situation. But ultimately they should be judged on the outcomes they achieve for patients.

August 2, 2016

CAMERON DOUGLAS. The military coup and the Constitution in Thailand.

Thais will vote in a referendum on Sunday (August 7) to approve, or reject, a new constitution. This will be the post-coup government’s second attempt to implement a new national charter.

The constitution would usher in a form of parliamentary government but the military would retain the power of veto: the system could not be regarded as democratic as the word is understood elsewhere.

For Thais voting on Sunday, the effective choice is between more military rule and more military rule.

December 8, 2014

John Menadue. Tony Abbott did not stop the boats.

The data just does not support the never-ending claims by Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison that they stopped the boats. The under-resourced and uncritical media accepts the Coalition’s line.

I will come to the recent data, but first the evidence is clear that action by the Coalition along with the Greens in the Senate to prevent amendments to the Migration Act greatly assisted people-smugglers and boat arrivals from 2011 onwards.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal