In February 2023, the number of asylum cases in Australia for the first time exceeded 100,000. Despite the intense attention on boat arrivals for the last decade, note that very few of these 100,000 asylum cases are boat arrivals. The bulk arrived during an intense period of labour trafficking of Malaysian and Chinese nationals from Continue reading »
International Relations
The relentless drive to war against China goes on. There is no longer any pretence that China is in the US sights and so Australia is prepared to spend whatever it takes to prove its fealty to Washington. No military outlay is too much, no threat to our economic future too risky for the Australian Continue reading »
AUKUS has landed – well, sort of. At eye-watering cost over an extraordinary time frame, Australia is to host the rotation of US and UK submarines before it acquires three to five single-owner pre-loved Virginia class submarines as the pathway to participating in the British design and construction of an evolved Astute class submarines in Continue reading »
Little that was distinctive about Penny Wong’s foreign policy has survived the signing of the AUKUS agreement. In her first speech to DFAT staff she observed that the department had lost influence under the outgoing coalition administrations and she intended to bring it back to the centre of government. And here we are now with Continue reading »
Lest we forget the consequences, today we recall the great lie of ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’ in Iraq which led to the smashing of that country and the slaughter of hundreds of thousand of innocent men, women and children. Peace Rally – Address, 18 March 2023 When the lie was revealed, our precious alliance with Continue reading »
I was recently sent an interesting article titled “Who Stands for Freedom” by the Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz. The article is a review of the book “The Big Myth” by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway. It raised a fundamental question: Does China have more true freedom than the United States? Stiglitz’s message Continue reading »
Israel is facing the most significant challenge to its existence since the establishment of the State in 1949. For the first time in its short history this is not a military threat of annihilation from an Arab neighbour with two of which (Egypt and Jordan) it has since formed peace treaties and a normalisation of Continue reading »
A couple of decades ago the phrase international best practice seemed to be on the lips of just about every business leader, business and economics journalists and the odd politician. In fact, much of it was a justification for various overseas study tours and traditional employer attempts to reduce wages and worsen working conditions. It Continue reading »
Although it is in America’s interests that we are urged to prepare for war against China within three years, the graphic image that accompanied the ‘Red Alert’ alert series in the Age and Sydney Morning Herald was designed to speak directly to Australia’s own deep and distinctive historic fears and sense of geographic isolation. Just Continue reading »
There are few who think as clearly, who are as articulate, and who are prepared to speak out in the face of incredible stupidity in Australian politics as Paul Keating. And, as he made clear in his address to the press club this week, AUKUS is nothing if not an exercise in security policy stupidity. Continue reading »