Delegates at Labor’s National Conference in August will have to pay more attention than usual to foreign and defence policy. Dissent on AUKUS is spreading, while Palestine is a promise to keep. The United Nations General Assembly in 1947 called for establishment of a Jewish state, which had been anticipated by the League of Nations Continue reading »
politics
Following the award of the Korean “Jeju 4:3 Peace Prize” to former Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans, it is good to note that Pearls and Irritations has taken up cudgels on the long-neglected question of the Jeju Island massacre of 1948 (articles by Heo Ho-joon and Alison Broinowski). And it is good to see Evans Continue reading »
Ten years ago, I wrote a book titled In Praise of Ageing. I found there is strong evidence that our attitude to life influences our longevity. But the obstacles we face today make slouching towards Bethlehem seem like a walk in the park. The old I wrote about, shared several characteristics. They are not just Continue reading »
The ABC is in trouble again as it abandons its cultural role to become “fully digital” by 2028. On Thursday last the ABC told a “pretty flabbergasted” political editor Andrew Probyn that he’d been made redundant along with 120 others, 41 of them in news, in a major cost-cutting measure. The purpose: so that the Continue reading »
The parliament wisely gave a treasurer the power to reign in the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) when it was not acting in the best interests of the Australians. Jim Chalmers should use it. Reserve Bank governors in Australia have never achieved the same mystique as Montague Norman, the Governor of the Bank of England Continue reading »
Near on a decade of neglect has left Australia’s national innovation system in a lamentable state, as the Academy of Science has observed. The most recent science funding tables show that government expenditure on Research and Development (R & D) as a percentage of GDP are at the lowest levels since records began. Further, that Continue reading »
An attempt by certain Labor affiliated left-wing unions to put a motion critical of AUKUS at the recent ALP Victorian State Conference was deferred by factional bosses even before it was put. That it was deferred tells us as much about the hierarchy ignoring the rank and file of the party as it does about Continue reading »
I was rather amused, or to use the American expression “tickled pink”, when I read the article titled “Coexistance: the only realist path to peace” by Stephen M. Walt in Pearls & Irritations. The article’s claim to the “realist path” to peace would make sense only to those who have dominated others for so long Continue reading »
Greens leader Adam Bandt has condemned Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for refusing to join the party in a drum circle to hash out the differences the two parties have over the Government’s housing policy. “When it comes to taking things... Read More ›