The announcement last week of an impending Royal Tour provokes many considerations. Both international and domestic developments need to be taken into account. The global reconsideration of the legacy of centuries of European imperialism, of slavery, indigenous dispossession and economic exploitation represents the latest manifestation of the long process of de-colonisation. As a consequence Britain, Continue reading »
politics
Like Gaza, Ukraine is one of the great tragedies of the post-Cold War period. Like Gaza, it is the result of a deadly game pursued by great powers intent on inflicting maximum damage on each other, seemingly oblivious of the costs. The war is now well into its third year and with no end in Continue reading »
Sino-Australian ties show signs of great resilience, stability as leaders take positive approach. There is a prominent view in the Australian commentariat that bilateral ties between Australia and China are fragile. Or put more dimly, the differences in political systems and strategic preferences between Canberra and Beijing mean that “stabilisation” is simply “not possible”. According Continue reading »
Peter Dutton is a charlatan – an inveterate climate change denialist. A denialist now seeking to camouflage his long held denialism in an industrial fantasy – resort to the most dangerous and expensive energy source on the face of the earth – nuclear power. In advocating this, Dutton continues his party’s manic denialism, first articulated Continue reading »
The relationship between Australia and China, once characterised by regard and mutual curiosity, has recently been extremely turbulent. However, it was not always this way. This essay will examine the argument that the missed opportunities, evident mutual incomprehension, falling out, and apparent rehabilitation after the election of a Labor Government can be best understood in Continue reading »
Since when did PEACE become a political statement?? On Easter Friday, 28th March 2024 at 5.30 am, Sydney artists Justine Muller (me) and Raymond Lalotoa hung a 5-metre hand-painted banner with the words PEACE NOW and a white dove off the Kings Cross walkway, facing oncoming traffic from the Eastern Suburbs towards the CBD. (documented by Continue reading »
When I arrived in Melbourne from Scotland in 2004 to edit The Age, I was shocked that the country only had two major media owners. In the years since, that concentration of ownership has only intensified, with a swathe of outlets closing and many parts of regional and rural Australia rendered “news deserts”; left without Continue reading »
If Labor permits the next election to be a referendum about nuclear power, there’s a very good chance that Peter Dutton would win handsomely. For one thing it will be on ground of the Opposition’s choosing. For another, it would not be a poll about nuclear power for very long, but an open-ended referendum about Continue reading »
“I said on one of the Israeli channels… that he, Hitler, cannot live in the same world as long as one Jew still lives. This Islamo Nazism and the Jews cannot live together. Definitely, not in the same world, he [Hitler] said. But definitely not in the same country. That’s what I said. … And Continue reading »
Or 'Honey, I Cooked the Kids." Continue reading »