October 11, 2025

Van Jones and the moral vacancy of American commentary on Gaza

The US pundit’s “dead Gaza baby” joke was not a slip of the tongue, but a window into a media culture that trivialises Palestinian suffering and deflects responsibility.

December 12, 2025

After the ATAR: keeping perspective and finding your next step

As ATAR results are released, there are practical ways for students and families to keep perspective, protect wellbeing and explore future options.

November 24, 2025

The China shift: Australia's universities in an age of suspicion

Over four decades, Australian universities developed strong teaching and research ties with China. But a wave of fear-driven policies and rising national security pressures has reshaped those relationships. Are we witnessing a retreat from engagement – or the start of a new era?

October 25, 2025

Trump, Xi and the ‘green paradox’: How China is building a climate-proof future

Ambitious transformation of the country’s energy consumption and urban planning makes economic sense too, analysts say.

October 28, 2025

Failure to cover: A week of collective omission by the Australian media

It’s worth restating at the outset what should be taken as read by everybody: genocides matter a lot.

October 13, 2025

Dying in prison

The political predilection for punishment is contributing to yet another stressor on prisons. As Australia’s prison population ages, so, too, do inmates risk dying inside.

November 29, 2025

Silencing Starlink over Taiwan would be a massive military challenge

Chinese scientists have modelled how Starlink could be jammed over an area the size of Taiwan – and found it would take an unprecedented scale of coordinated electronic warfare.

October 7, 2025

Charlie Kirk, Andrew Hastie and the 'Christian' West: Some Christian pushback

The horrific assassination of Charlie Kirk is being invested with all sorts of meaning, well beyond the personal tragedy it is for his family.

January 14, 2026

Best of 2025 - Whitlam dismissal secrets unearthed from the archives of the Canadian governor-general

This newly uncovered material, exclusively published by Crikey, is the first indication from Sir John Kerr himself that Queen Elizabeth II approved of the position he had taken during his dismissal of Gough Whitlam.

October 21, 2025

China-US critical minerals war an opportunity for Australia to get smart

As the Trump administration deepens its tariff trade war with China, the latter has placed fresh curbs on exports to the US of the rare earths and critical minerals indispensable to the production of clean energy tech, as well as defence, computing and AI capabilities.

January 6, 2026

Best of 2025 - Who’s afraid of big, bad China?

Be afraid, be very afraid. But not of China. To the contrary, the proper management of co-operative relations with China is essential to Australia’s future.

December 2, 2025

Selective humanity: Gaza’s donkeys or its children?

International law requires equal protection for civilians in war. Yet recent actions by Western states reveal a troubling pattern in how humanitarian principles are applied – selectively, politically, and at devastating human cost.

November 27, 2025

Australia’s Christmas double standards on Palestine

As Palestinians face another winter of displacement and bombardment, Australia celebrates Christmas while ignoring its own obligations under international law. If recognition of Palestine is to mean anything, the government must act – not look away.

January 10, 2026

Best of 2025 - Could the Teals win Senate seats in an expanded parliament?

Important discussions are taking place within the government and before the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters about increasing the size of the federal parliament.

November 28, 2025

Why Australia needs a political party for the under-40s

With most Australians increasingly voting outside the major parties, Ian Bowrey argues it’s time for a new political force that genuinely represents under-40s and plans for the country’s long-term future.

October 8, 2025

New school funding agreements deny full funding for public schools

The claim by the prime minister, premiers and their education ministers that public schools will be fully funded by 2034 is a blatant falsehood.

January 18, 2026

Best of 2025 - Losing the democracy sausage vibe

The last federal election saw a sharp rise in harassment and aggression at polling places, according to submissions from around the country. From death threats to deception, the once-peaceful ritual of casting a vote is under threat – and Australia needs to act.

December 5, 2025

Celebrating war crimes is a moral failure, not cultural pride

From ancient Rome to modern Melbourne, societies have repeatedly transformed civilian suffering into spectacle. Celebrating violence against the innocent is not a cultural quirk – it is a profound moral collapse.

October 16, 2025

Four reasons Australia's superannuation system isn't the world's best

When Australia embarked on its unique retirement incomes system in 1992, the World Bank was quick to encourage other countries to take the same approach to “averting the old age crisis”, claiming it would “protect the old and promote growth”.

November 12, 2025

Australia could be a world leader in tackling the climate emergency

My recent P&I article, “The world isn’t even trying to phase out fossil fuels”, explained why it is imperative that fossil fuels be rapidly phased out.

January 12, 2026

Best of 2025 - These are fighting words

As political violence escalates in the United States, chaos is spreading and democracy itself is under threat. The words of anger, ill-considered and increasingly crude, are accelerant on the American bonfire.

January 5, 2026

Best of 2025 - John Menadue in conversation with David Marr

In a wide-ranging discussion, P&I editor-in-chief John Menadue discusses a life full of achievement driven by conviction, and nominates seeing off the White Australia policy and establishing P&I as highlights. He is speaking with David Marr on ABC Radio National's Late Night Live.

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.

January 29, 2026

Australia Day debate hardens as middle ground disappears

Australians remain split on whether January 26 should remain Australia Day – but new survey data shows attitudes are hardening, with fewer people holding moderate views and more expressing strong opposition or support.

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.

January 19, 2026

Best of 2025 - We’re not about to go full Trump no matter what the culture warriors say

Strains on social cohesion cannot be dismissed as the embrace of multiculturalism has made the task of defining what holds the community together more challenging.

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.

February 6, 2026

In the outback, we’re listening for nuclear tests – and what we hear matters more than ever

As nuclear restraint frays globally, a little-known monitoring station in central Australia plays a crucial role in detecting nuclear tests and deterring escalation.

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.

March 7, 2026

Where are Iran’s allies? Why Moscow and Beijing are keeping their distance

Russia and China have condemned the US–Israeli attack on Iran as illegal, but both powers have drawn clear limits on their support, stopping well short of military intervention.

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.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal