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Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal

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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.

December 22, 2025

Australia’s roads are full of giant cars, and everyone pays the price

Australia’s growing love affair with SUVs and utes is reshaping road safety. Larger vehicles don’t just cause more harm in crashes – they may also change how drivers behave.

February 3, 2026

Indonesia’s economy wobbles as policy ambition outpaces planning

Market volatility, investor unease and fiscal strain are exposing deeper risks in Indonesia’s economy – where policy ambition is running ahead of institutional readiness.

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.

February 11, 2026

Why Australia should consider boycotting the World Cup

International sport is never separate from power. When nations participate in global tournaments, they confer legitimacy on the political and institutional arrangements that make those events possible.

February 4, 2026

Israel and the return of settler politics in a lawless international system

Zionism emerged at the height of European settler colonialism and was realised just as the world turned toward decolonisation. Today, as international law loses force, Israel’s actions are again enabled by the prevailing global order.

January 9, 2026

Best of 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.

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.

January 17, 2026

Best of 2025 - Sudan cannot be an invisible tragedy

The end of violence must be a first step in the Sudan Civil War. And Australia has a key role to play.

January 16, 2026

Best of 2025 - The debate about net zero ignores the evidence

Those in the Coalition who are opposed to targeting net zero carbon emissions, argue that it will cost too much. But that claim is false and not supported by the evidence. How can they get away with it?

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.

February 5, 2026

Artificial intelligence as seen by two popes

As artificial intelligence reshapes work, culture and decision-making, two pontificates converge on a deeper concern – not technological progress itself, but the risk of reducing human life to efficiency, calculation and control.

January 11, 2026

Best of 2025 - 7 October 2023: What really happened? Part 1

At dawn, on 7 October 2023, Hamas fighters blast over 100 holes in the walls and fences that separate the Gaza Strip from Israel.

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.

December 18, 2025

2025 in Review: What this year taught us about life, loss and shared humanity

Amid violence, war and deepening polarisation, 2025 has shown that despair and passivity are choices too – and that human survival depends on rejecting dehumanisation in all its forms.

January 7, 2026

Best of 2025 - Courts brace for next wave of 'sovereign citizens'

When I wrote about the “ Cavalcade of the Cretinous” in February 2022, I thought the anti-vaccination early incarnations of “sovereign citizens” were just a hopeless joke (“Summernats without the sophistication”) that would quietly go away.

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 19, 2025

The Bondi Beach massacre: exploiting tragedy

The tragic massacre at a Hanukkah celebration in Bondi was followed by a rush to assign blame, inflame fear and curtail dissent.

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 9, 2025

The Bondi Beach massacre: exploiting tragedy

The tragic massacre at a Hanukkah celebration in Bondi was followed by a rush to assign blame, inflame fear and curtail dissent.

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 20, 2025

Shrinking East Asia needs a safety net

East Asia has led the global recovery since the pandemic, but deep welfare imbalances are now threatening the sustainability of its growth model.

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.”

January 16, 2026

Best of 2025 - How the Dismissal ripples reached Beijing: Some personal recollections

Life in Beijing in 1975 was not easy and the events leading up to the Dismissal of the Whitlam Government in November piled on the pressure. 

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, 2026

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.

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.

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