September 16, 2016

JOHN MENADUE. The US pivot to the Pacific is off balance.

President Obama’s rebalance or pivot to the Pacific is struggling.

There have been some successes. Ever-loyal Australia signed up to US marines in Darwin and there may be more ‘cooperation’ to come!. There have been new US military agreements with the Philippines and Vietnam.

But there have been some important downsides, particularly as China has responded to what it sees as intrusion in to its historic area of influence.

Most significantly, President Obama’s proposed twelve-member Trans-Pacific Partnership pact, which deliberately excluded China, is in peril and will probably fail.

November 2, 2014

Walter Hamilton. Calling up the reserves.

Japan’s central bank, 18 months into a monetary stimulus strategy of unprecedented scale, has decided to dramatically raise the bet. Since an extra 60 trillion yen annually fed into the economy failed to do the trick, perhaps 80 trillion (A$800 billion) will work. The look on the face of central bank chief Haruhiko Kuroda when making the announcement resembled that of a World War I general who having spent 100,000 men to gain 100 yards sees no way forward except to spend another 100,000 for ‘total victory’.

September 26, 2024

A five-minute scroll

Penny Wong responds to Australia’s questions about Israel on SBS News, a US veteran speaks to his experience in Iraq 20 years ago, Israel media displays astonishing commentary, Francesca Albanese shares a must-watch documentary. The children of Gaza suffer beyond our belief and the president of Senegal speaks about the history of Palestinian oppression at the UN General Assembly. That’s our five-minutes on X.

December 27, 2016

WILLY BACH. Australia’s Collaboration in the CIA’s Secret War in Laos

US forces left Thailand in 1975-76 at the request of Thai authorities. SEATO was disbanded in 1977. Australia’s forward defence doctrine was quietly forgotten.

April 27, 2017

JOHN TULLOH. Trump's first 100 days - so what?

The media have been besides themselves in anticipation of Donald Trump’s first 100 days in the White House this weekend. It’s as if this is some magic marker by which to judge his next 1359 days in the Oval Office. It is meaningless.

July 12, 2016

PAUL BARRATT. Faulty intelligence, or a war pre-ordained?

In releasing his momentous report on 6 July Sir John Chilcot stated that the judgements about the severity of the threat posed by Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction – WMD – were presented with a certainty that was not justified. He also said it is now clear that policy on Iraq was made on the basis of flawed intelligence and assessments, which should have been challenged.

January 14, 2017

TONY KEVIN. The Rex Tillerson confirmation hearings, and wider issues

Rex Tillerson, Donald Trump’s nominee for Secretary of State and Trump’s best Cabinet choice so far, will probably survive his gruelling full day of confirmation hearings by the US Senate Foreign Affairs Committee last Wednesday 11 January (Washington time).

March 13, 2014

Frank Brennan SJ. Cardinal Pell at the Royal Commission

Last September I addressed the Canon Law Society of Australia and New Zealand on issues the Catholic Church would need to address with the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, and in the follow-up to the Victorian Parliament’s Inquiry into the Handling of Child Abuse by Religious and other Organisations.

I said: “Those who exercised high office in our Church before 1996 will need to apprise the royal commission of the clerical structures and culture which precluded them from taking further action to arrest child abuse in the Church prior to the institution of Towards Healing and the Melbourne Response.” At the moment, the royal commission’s focus is on Cardinal Pell and the Archdiocese of Sydney through the prism of the Ellis case. Now is the time for the structures and culture to be explained, not just to Catholics, but to all citizens.

December 16, 2013

Well-paid jobs or welfare? John Menadue

The Abbott Government’s confusion over Holden’s withdrawal from Australia reflects a much deeper hostility to the car industry. The main reason for this is that the car industry is highly unionised, pays good wages and has a high degree of alignment of interests between labour and capital. The right-wing finds that all quite offensive.

Yet the right-wing supports subsidies in other industries that have little merit. The subsidies to these other industries put the support of the car industry in the shade.

June 16, 2014

Richard Butler. The Dissolution of Iraq?

On June 10th, some 1,500 fighters from the Jihadist group ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria) seized Iraq’s second largest city, Mosul. Half a million citizens fled to the Kurdish areas. ISIS then moved further south, towards Baghdad, and took the cities of Tikrit and Samarra, a sacred Shia site.

On June 13th, the leading Shia cleric in Iraq, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, called on all Iraqi Shia to fight the invaders, who are Sunni.

May 21, 2016

DAVID STEPHENS. A review of Douglas Newton's five articles that take us behind the scenes in the Great War.

Douglas Newton confronts the really important questions about war

_David Stephens_ reviews five articles by Douglas Newton that take us ‘behind the scenes’ in the Great War

September 19, 2024

Jewish Council disappointed at Australia’s UN abstention, calls for strong international action to prevent Israeli war crimes

The Jewish Council of Australia says it is deeply disappointed at Australia’s abstention from a critical United Nations General Assembly resolution calling on Israel to end its occupation of the Palestinian territories within 12 months. The resolution passed with 124 votes in favour, highlighting global frustration with Israel’s actions.

November 14, 2013

The end of an era. Guest blogger: Michael Kelly SJ

It may be because I’ve been in Ireland and dealing with people who are the heirs of those responsible for most of the heritage and works of the Australian Jesuits. But I don’t think so. What struck me most deeply after a month or more among European Jesuits, and registering the scale of challenge to the Church as it is represented in the new Pope, is what a “fin de siècle” state the Church is in throughout all its moods and tenses.

August 13, 2016

CAMERON DOUGLAS. The new Thai Constitution!

Thais will vote in their first post-coup election towards the end of next year, after approving in a referendum a new constitution that will usher in an era of paternalistic democracy.

The referendum was held on Sunday, August 7, but even before the official results were declared one of the supporters of the country’s 2014 coup announced plans to set up a political party that would nominate coup leader and current Prime Minister, General Prayut Chan-o-cha, as the post-election prime minister.

August 19, 2016

DAVID STEPHENS. How we commemorate our wars in other people's countries.

‘We need to talk about how we commemorate our wars in other people’s countries – and our own’, Honest History****, 18 August 2016

“How would we feel if 1,000 Japanese turned up in Darwin wanting to celebrate the bombing of 1942.”

Apart from the Frontier Wars against Indigenous Australians, all of Australia’s wars, from New Zealand in 1845 to Afghanistan and Iraq now, have been fought overseas. Battlefields are overseas, graves are overseas, what Abraham Lincoln called ‘the mystic chords of memory’ stretch across oceans, we travel thousands of kilometres to distant lands to seek ‘closure’ over the last resting place of a distant relative who died perhaps a century ago.

November 14, 2016

FRANK BRENNAN SJ. A Welcome Deal and an Acceptable Legislative Compromise

The Turnbull government has struck a deal with the USA which provides hope at last for the 1600 proven refugees on Manus Island and Nauru. There’s still a lot of work to be done before these refugees, including children, can get on with their lives after three years of unnecessary, hopeless agony. I welcome the government’s decision, and await the further detail.

Sunday’s announcement was packaged in the usual Canberra wrapping with lots of military brass, restating the need to smash people smuggling rings, keeping the boats stopped, and turning back boats when it is safe and legal to do so. No boats have arrived in the last 840 days. 29 boats have been turned back.

November 5, 2016

Blowback for American sins in the Philippines - The Boston Globe.

In this article in the Boston Globe on October 15, 2016, Stephen Kinzer points out that President Duterte’s grievance ‘is rooted in history’. President Duterte asserted that the US had unjustly seized the Philippines in 1899 and waged a horrific military campaign to suppress native resistance.

Stephen Kinzer is a senior fellow at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University, USA. See link to article below.

June 4, 2016

Is this the vocational education and training system we need?

Hearing or reading about vocational education and training (VET) today, we expect it to be another story of rorts and wrongdoings. And it is an horrific story, a story of for-profit private providers accessing public funding and not delivering the education and training students expected. It is a story of a number of private providers using brokers to search out vulnerable and naïve prospective students, and signing them up to a lifetime’s debt with promises of free courses and iPads. How did we get to such a position in such a short time?

April 19, 2016

Mark Beeson. Australia still hasn't had the debate on why we even need new submarines.

Australia is about to make its biggest-ever investment in military hardware. Although we don’t know yet whether Germany, France or Japan will be awarded the contract to build our 12 new submarines, it is possible to make a few confident predictions.

What to expect

First, the actual cost of the submarines when completed will be much higher than the figure that is proposed now.

If cost were the only consideration, it would actually make more sense to let the successful bidder build them in their own country. But the construction is now seen as a de-facto industry policy for South Australia, a politically important state that has haemorrhaged manufacturing jobs of late.

April 16, 2020

JENNY HOCKING. ‘If I were to terminate his commission’: Sir John Kerr’s secret ‘Palace letters on Whitlam’s dismissal

_The final act in the landmark ‘Palace letters’ case seeking access to the Queen’s secret correspondence with the Governor-General, Sir John Kerr, relating to Kerr’s dismissal of the Whitlam government will play out in the High Court later this month.

April 29, 2016

Arja Keski-Nummi. Manus - “The Worst Angels of Our Nature”

The PNG Supreme Court decision has again thrown into stark relief the bankrupt nature of Australia’s asylum policy and the disingenuous way that both sides use trite slogans such as “ saving lives” and not “starting up the people smuggling business” as justification for their cynical and inhumane policies.

People working with asylum seekers and who have processed and resettled refuges from within and outside of Australia have all urged Australian political parties to find a way to return to a bipartisan policy based on treating all people with dignity and common human decency, even if in the end they are not found to be refugees. But this has fallen on deaf ears.

July 14, 2016

ROBERT MICKENS. Pope Francis clips Cardinal Pell's wings.

In the space of a week, Pope Francis reduced the responsibilities of Cardinal George Pell and rebuffed an initiative by Cardinal Robert Sarah. …

Pope Francis [also] did a pretty good number on Australian Cardinal George Pell by once more drastically reducing his powers as prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy (SFE).

The pope issued a new “motu proprio” last Saturday that essentially reverses a 2014 law that had given Pell’s office managing control over the Holy See’s real estate and investments portfolios.

February 8, 2016

John Menadue. ‘We don’t have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem’.

Treasurer Scott Morrison has been expounding the above philosophy of his for months. But he couldn’t be more wrong. Unfortunately the Secretary of Treasury has now followed up with nonsense that Australia should have a ceiling of 25% of GDP on government spending (I assume he is referring to Commonwealth Government spending).

Michael Pascoe ( Michael Pascoe on Page 21 of February 03, 2016 issue of Sydney Morning Herald) nailed the ideological clamour and suggestion that lower levels of government spending result in improved economic performance and that Australia has a high level of government spending that should be reduced.

August 18, 2014

John Menadue. Who triggered the disaster in Iraq?

George Bush and his neocons must bear the principal responsibility for the disaster which is continuing to unfold in Iraq. In Australian terms, the most guilty partners are without doubt the Howard Government and News Corporation.

The Howard Government’s decision to support the invasion of Iraq in 2002 was loudly supported by Tony Abbott. He said the invasion ‘was to liberate other people, to advance everyone’s interest and to uphold universal values that the coalition of the willing went to war in Iraq. If it’s possible to engage in an altruistic war, this was it.’

May 17, 2019

ANTHONY PUN: Chinese Australian Community Tribute to the late Hon Bob Hawke, AC.

On 16 May 2019, the nation mourns the loss of a great Prime Minister the Hon Bob Hawk, AC. The Chinese Australian community also felt the sad loss of a great humanitarian benefactor who almost single handedly, made a decision to allow 42,000 Chinese students to remain in Australia, despite stiff opposition from his colleagues. Beneficiaries of his legacy and magnanimous gesture should bow their head in silence for a minute to pay respect to the great Australian statesman and Prime Minister, Bob Hawke.

February 13, 2025

Jewish group opposes adoption of IHRA definition of antisemitism

The Jewish Council of Australia has said it opposes many of the recommendations made by a Parliamentary panel into antisemitism released on Wednesday.

November 10, 2013

Yes we can - zero carbon emissions within 10 years in Australia. Guest blogger: Ann Long

On Wednesday 6th November Kiama’s Ss Peter and Paul Social Justice Group, together with Transition Towns Kiama, hosted a presentation by Gillian King from Beyond Zero Emissions, which explained a fully costed blue-print for Australia’s transition to 100% renewable energy.

Beyond Zero Emissions (BZE), a not-for-profit research and education organisation, together with the University of Melbourne’s Energy Research Institute, developed the Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy Plan.

The Plan was launched in 2010 and was fully costed, at $8.00 per household per week, with implementation over 10 years. The plan details the commercially available renewable energy technology plus the infrastructure that would be needed to replace all fossil fuel generated electricity in Australia within 10 years. The plan depends on 3 components: - 12 Concentrated Solar Thermal Power Stations, Wind Turbine sources and improved infrastructure using High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) to transport current over long distances.

August 16, 2014

Frank Brennan SJ. We think we have a problem!

Eureka Street has run an article by Frank Brennan which highlights the far greater problems that the US has in managing its land border with Mexico. Frank Brennan also reflects on sending refugees to Cambodia, our locking up of children in Immigration detention facilities and the holding of 157 people including over 30 children in detention on a ship in the Indian Ocean for almost a month.

See link to the Eureka Street article below.

June 25, 2016

RICHARD WOOLCOTT. Foreign policy issues during and after the July 2 Election

The Turnbull Government and the Shorten Opposition have focussed on domestic issues in the election campaign. This is understandable but in the longer term the Government elected on the 2nd of July will need to address the greatly changed world of 2016.

April 23, 2014

David Stephens. Parochial commemoration of war.

Australians are not alone in the world in being parochial but we are very good at it, especially in the way we commemorate our men and women who die in war. The Australian War Memorial is missing many opportunities to expand our commemorative horizons and put our war deaths in context.

Under its legislation, the Memorial is ‘a national memorial of Australians who have died on or as a result of active service or as a result of any war or warlike operations in which Australians have been on active service’. The Memorial is also required to research and publicise ‘Australian military history’, defined as ‘the history of (a) wars and warlike operations in which Australians have been on active service, including the events leading up to, and the aftermath of, such wars and warlike operations, and (b) the Defence Force’.

November 29, 2013

A reflection on Pope Francis's Exhortation. Guest blogger: Frank Brennan SJ

Pope Francis has published his first and very prolix papal teaching document entitled Evangelii Gaudium (the joy of evangelisation). With a tone of delightful self-mocking he observes, “I am aware that nowadays documents do not arouse the same interest as in the past and that they are quickly forgotten.” On the scale of papal authority, the document is called an Apostolic Exhortation which comes in below an Encyclical. This gives the pope licence to be more free ranging, adding anecdotes and pastoral tips. Since the Second Vatican Council, there have been synods of bishops convened to discuss particular topics. In the past, the Pope has then written the synod document, ensuring Vatican control of the outcomes. Towards the end of Benedict’s papacy a Synod was convened on “the new evangelisation” which was often code for getting away from social justice and rediscovering pieties which might appeal to young people joining some of the new church movements which were replacing regular parish involvement. Francis says, “I was happy to take up the request of the Fathers of the Synod to write this Exhortation”. It has provided him an opportunity to roll out all the things he has been saying which have put a spring in the step of many Catholics who think this pope is good news, having a deep pastoral sense, a strong commitment to the poor, and a resolute conviction that Rome does not have all the answers. Trying to sum up the 50,000 words in a few phrases, I would say his message is: “The gospel really is good news especially for the poor and anyone who takes seriously the sufferings of the world. The church doors are open to everyone. We are not a ghetto. We engage with the world and he have something to say. Get out there. Do something to help your neighbour. Do it joyfully. Do it with passion. The Church is here to help, not to hinder. Church teachings won’t be changing any time soon. But don’t expect Rome to have all the answers. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. And do something to change the unjust economic structures of the world.” It’s refreshing that he liberally quotes statements by bishops’ gatherings from various parts of the world including Oceania. He takes decentralisation and subsidiarity seriously. He is doing it. How refreshing to have a Pope write: “Nor do I believe that the papal magisterium should be expected to offer a definitive or complete word on every question which affects the Church and the world. It is not advisable for the Pope to take the place of local Bishops in the discernment of every issue which arises in their territory. In this sense, I am conscious of the need to promote a sound ‘decentralization’.” Vatican monsignori in long flowing robes will be troubled to hear him say, “Mere administration can no longer be enough. Throughout the world, let us be permanently in a state of mission”.

December 25, 2017

Pope Francis, on Christmas Eve, says faith demands respect of immigrants.

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis strongly defended immigrants at his Christmas Eve Mass on Sunday, comparing them to Mary and Joseph finding no place to stay in Bethlehem and saying faith demands that foreigners be welcomed.

June 18, 2016

JOHN THOMPSON. The regional health “plan”.

The Minister for Health, Sussan Ley, advises that, as Member for Farrer, she represents some of Australia’s most remote and disadvantaged communities and therefore understands that access to health services, as well as people’s priorities, can differ significantly to those in our capital cities.

November 2, 2014

Frank Brennan SJ. The genie may be out of the bottle but it is still in the ecclesiastical kitchen.

The Vatican has now released the official English translation of the “relatio synodi”, the concluding document from the Synod of Bishops convened by Pope Francis to consider “pastoral challenges to the family in the context of evangelisation”. ( http://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2014/10/18/0770/03044.html)

In my last post ( https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/blog/?p=2565), I dealt with an earlier document, the “relation post disceptationem” which was the punchy and slightly provocative discussion paper put together by Pope Francis’s small hand-picked group charged with putting the issues for discussion on the table.

May 21, 2016

DAVID STEPHENS. Honest History’s Alternative Guide to the Australian War Memorial

Questioning the received view: Honest History’s Alternative Guide to the Australian War Memorial

Which word should we use to describe what happened on 25 April 1915: ‘landing’ or ‘invasion’? Why do we refer to dead soldiers as ‘the fallen’? Does the ‘freedom’ we are said to have fought for in our many wars include the freedom to have awkward views about how we should commemorate these wars?

May 7, 2015

Eric Hodgens. No Change in Priestly Recruits

The Melbourne Age said on Sunday 3 May that the Catholic Church was attracting more trainee priests.

SBS had a similar article.

Both are factually wrong. The last big year of seminary entries was 1968. Recruitment dropped steadily for 20 years and has been steady for the last 35 years.

Corpus Christi College is Victoria and Tasmania’s Catholic Seminary. It is typical of all Australia’s seminaries. Have a look at its entry numbers.

January 14, 2017

ANDREW FARRAN. Molan v. Woolcott: The rough and the smooth in regional diplomacy

Molan writes that this sensitive touch in relations with Indonesia is reflected in a long tradition of Australian diplomats putting Indonesia’s interests and the views of Indonesians ahead of our own. Indeed he implies that but for geography Indonesia would be of little or no importance to us at all.

December 30, 2016

ALLAN PATIENCE. From America into Asia

As Australia necessarily rethinks its alliance with the United States, it must simultaneously educate itself into Asia. There is just no other way.

December 2, 2024

A five-minute scroll

Jeffrey Sachs speaks of the covert war operation that underpins the fight in Syria. Lidia Thorpe speaks to a nation that needs to grow up. Activists in London speak to Middle Eastern Eye about their favourite journalists in Palestine in response to David Lammy. Images of the damaged sacred site of Apostle Simon Peter. Author Max Porter delivers a compelling thought experiment, if Bath was Gaza, while the IDF recruits young Australians. A young boy in a critical condition in the ICU at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital reminds us of the horror in Gaza as another week in our world begins, on X.

November 15, 2024

A five-minute scroll

As this week comes to an end, Australia votes in the UN General Assembly for permanent sovereignty for Palestine. Ben and Jerry’s to sue Unilever for silencing their voice, while the youngest MP in New Zealand raises the voice for Maori in the New Zealand Parliament. Israel bombs menace Beirut Airport while James Elder, UNICEF, advocates for the injured children of Lebanon and HUman Rights Watch call out war crimes.

August 17, 2016

BRIAN TOOHEY. The quality of intelligence advice.

A former top US intelligence official David Gompert has issued a sober warning to those who want to lock Australia into any future war with China. Speaking on Monday, Gompert said a war between the US and China could be so ruinous for both countries and the world that it might seem unthinkable, yet it’s not. He said,

“China and the US are at loggerheads over several regional disputes that could lead to military confrontation . . . If a crisis overheated, both have an incentive to strike enemy forces before being struck by them.”

Gompert, whom President Obama appointed as Deputy Director of National Intelligence in 2009, said China’s losses would greatly exceed those of the US in a war today, but the conflict could still be “prolonged and destructive, yet inconclusive”.

Others argue that an enduring victory could require a horrendous invasion to occupy large areas of the Chinese mainland, then win a decades long gorilla war.

August 13, 2016

ARJA KESKI-NUMMI. Our Devil’s Island

The Guardian recently ran a story regarding its Freedom Of Information request on boat turn backs, the subsequent denial of material, and its appeal to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) to review the FOI decision. At some point during the AAT hearing the Guardian found itself locked out of part of the hearing on putative “national security grounds”. This week the Guardian reported on some 200 incident reports from the Nauru offshore processing centre, many regarding the 49 children and the abuse of them by those who are supposed to be their “protectors”.

June 22, 2016

National Foundation of Australian Women. What are they saying to women? Election 2016

In the link below, NFAW analyses the party policies that are being presented at this election which are of interest and concern to women.

http://www.nfaw.org/what-are-they-saying-to-women-election-2016/

February 8, 2016

Stephen Duckett. Health in 2016: a cheat sheet on hospitals, Medicare and private health insurance.

We start 2016 as we started 2015 – with big challenges for the health system and uncertainty as to how governments will meet them.

The health care headaches in 2016 are, in fact, the same ones we faced a decade ago, albeit different in severity and symptoms. They include population growth, ageing and the rise of chronic disease; inequality in access to care and health outcomes; technological change (the good, the bad and the expensive) and the seemingly inexorable rise in health costs.

December 27, 2016

The media are misleading the public on Syria.

This article by Stephen Kinzer in the Boston Globe in February 2016 revealed how the media in the US misled the public about Syria. It is also true of Australia. We mindlessly follow the Washington media with its consensus and group-think, including a range of media outlets and so-called think tanks. Kinzer describes the coverage of the Syrian War as one of the most shameful episodes in the history of the American press. That shameless coverage continued all through the Syrian War. . It is another illustration of how our White Man’s Media recycles news and views from the US. It is now doing the same in the aftermath of Aleppo. John Menadue.

April 19, 2016

Editors, East Asia Forum. Australia's fraught decision on submarines

The submarine deal would fundamentally change the Australia-Japan security relationship.

Australia is about to embark on its single biggest ever military acquisition. The Future Submarine Program (SEA1000) will see Australia purchase 12 submarines to replace its ageing Collins-class fleet.

The SEA1000 has been a source of ongoing controversy with criticism over the lack of transparency of the process, debate about its strategic implications amidst the shifting regional geopolitical landscape, and questions about Australian economic interests and the creation of jobs in the local shipbuilding industry.

November 14, 2013

Cooking the books. John Menadue

Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey have decided that there wasn’t really a budget emergency or a debt crisis that they have warned us about for many years. Perhaps they may have also privately conceded, as they should, that the Australian economy was one of the best performing and best managed economies in the world during the years of the Rudd and Gillard Governments particularly through the Global Financial Crisis.

Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey however have now decided on another tack – cooking the books by announcing budget changes in the current year that hopefully can be attributed to the Labor Government. They hope that in the confusion the electorate will forget who is responsible for what. In this attempt to change the subject Joe Hockey is now suggesting that this year’s final outcome for the budget will be a deficit of $45 billion to $50 billion compared with the $30 billion announced by the Labor Government in August this year.

April 29, 2016

Douglas Newton. What we fought for: from Gallipoli to Fromelles, 1914-1916

Formal speeches about Australia’s Great War normally follow simple rules. The focus is upon military achievement, and defining national values – service, sacrifice, and mateship. Hardship and horror are added, giving lustre to military achievement. National awakening is emphasised: the diggers were ‘the founding heroes of modern Australia.’[1] Audiences are flattered: the Anzacs were ‘our mighty forebears.’[2]

But the objects of that war – the ‘war aims’ for which so many Australian lives were lost – are seldom mentioned. Ignorance of purposes is assumed. ‘Few of us can recall the detail,’ Tony Abbott told the Gallipoli Dawn Service in 2015, ‘but we have imbibed what matters most: that a generation of young Australians rallied to serve our country, when our country called.’ And fought for what? Generalities suffice. ‘It was for country, Empire, King, and the ideal that people and countries should be free.’ The diggers fought ‘for duty, loyalty, honour and mates: the virtues that outshine any cause.’[3]

September 18, 2024

A five-minute scroll

Our five-minute scroll on X today uncovered Craig Murray speaking to the UN about the UK’s security laws to control the narrative, Saffine Duggan speaking to ABC Radio National about life after the US seized her assets, Peter Cronau questioning if the police have crossed the line, while shop footage shows Israeli soldiers bullying a child, while pagers detonating across Lebanon and Syria injuring thousands.

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue's Public Policy Journal