“I find it offensive that this country that committed genocide against us is now allowing our country to be used as a base to advocate genocide against Palestinian people.” This was the last thing that Krautungalung elder Uncle Robbie Thorpe (uncle of Senator Lidia Thorpe) said to the supporters waiting with him outside the Melbourne Continue reading »
politics
It is not surprising that so many of us believed that after the Voice Referendum 2023 Indigenous people would be recognised in the Australian Constitution and their voices valued. The Uluru Statement from the Heart was so much more than a request to be heard. It was a generous gift from First Nations offering all Continue reading »
Reports of malfeasance involving staff at the Alexander Maconochie Centre, the ACT’s supposedly human-rights-compliant prison, are now too numerous and too frequent to lack substantial veracity. Yet, even in the very teeth of the ACT election campaign, it seems they can be virtually ignored. There’s no votes, it seems, in the treatment of our most Continue reading »
Australia wants to constrain China, but without tying itself to America’s own ambitions and all that might mean. The central strategic axis of the Indo-Pacific region is – and for the foreseeable future, will remain – bipolar: a competition for primacy between the US and China. And while Australia has chosen where it sits, most Continue reading »
In 1949 Australia’s Dr H.V. Evatt was described as: “The most brilliant and effective voice of Small Powers – a leading statesman for the world’s conscience.” When will another Australian voice speak up in the name of humanity at the United Nations? If the Australian Government valued its historic role in the establishment of the Continue reading »
The leader of Australia’s Opposition, Peter Dutton, is aligning himself with a proposition about good and evil, civilisation and tyranny, that can only lead to the perpetuation of violence and the glorification of war, not its diminishment. The position of both men is dishonest, self-deluding and dangerous. Peter Dutton’s agreement with Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel Continue reading »
In Asian media this week: Europe’s China business chief says conflict unavoidable. Plus: US lacks strategy for China confrontation; Japan’s new PM calls snap election; Junta’s election “census” a counter-insurgency ploy; America’s Gaza failure shakes confidence in rules-based order; Seoul has no answer for Pyongyang’s dirty campaign. China and the EU are shaping up for Continue reading »
A monumental transformation: There has been a great deal of public criticism of Australia’s decision to acquire a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines (SSNs) via the AUKUS security partnership. The criticism has been both broad and deep, spanning political and industrial challenges, budgetary consequences, safety and environmental concerns, strategic risks, and the erosion of national sovereignty. Continue reading »
Australia, land of Altjira, of oceans wild and skies untamed, Where stories of the Jukurrpa are told in songlines proclaimed. Australia, land of Altjira, of oceans wild and skies untamed, Where stories of the Jukurrpa are told in songlines proclaimed. Yet underneath this broad expanse, this dust that shrouds our past in gold, Lies history’s Continue reading »