The ACT Labor-led Government might lead the nation in many worthy ways and it might, too, you might think, especially six months out from an election, be vigilant to avoid what many might see as an embarrassing own goal. But no… This is a column I never thought I’d write. In my last stint in Continue reading »
politics
I think if I hear again, in some attempt at a supposed even-handedness an interviewer ask a representative of the Palestinian people in this terrible time, ‘do you also oppose the actions of Hamas on 7th October?’ I will puke. That is not a pleasant prospect. There it was again the other day on ‘our Continue reading »
The UN Human Rights Report of August 31, 2022 says what’s happening in Xinjiang constitutes “crimes against humanity”. In plain English, this is saying it is not genocide under the UN Genocide Convention. It confirms an earlier Amnesty International report in 2021 to the same effect. Both are clear implicit rejections of unsubstantiated genocide claims. Continue reading »
The sponsored pass system for lobbyists to access Parliament House opens the door to undue influence and potentially corrupt behaviour. Facilitating such opportunities is both unwise and inappropriate. Lobbying can be an important means of informing Ministers and other parliamentarians about issues and the perspectives of particular groups in the community. It involves political communication Continue reading »
Liberal democracies remain shamefully complicit with Israel, despite its ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people. Students of world politics have long understood that when it comes to the strategic interests of leading states, international law is marginalised unless it is useful in waging a propaganda war against adversaries. Indeed, the United Nations was designed in Continue reading »
We need journalism that is committed to accurate and uncompromising investigation and not a spurious “impartiality” that hides brutal facts of occupation and genocide. Issues deemed by UK media to be too controversial to be made visible are simply not being covered in Israel’s war on Gaza. Since 1 February, there has not been a Continue reading »
Forty-nine years ago, the Australian Prime Minister and the President of Indonesia met in a tiny sugar town in North Queensland and tried to convince the world they were discussing beef cattle exports, and not the invasion of East Timor. They never fooled the locals who didn’t see much action on the cattle front, just Continue reading »
In a critical forum addressing the Migration Legislation (Removal and other Measures) Bill 2024, Kalyani Inpakumar, representing the Tamil Refugee Council, shed light on the troubling direction of the Albanese Labor Government’s migration and refugee policies. The implications of this bill are stark and unsettling. The bill, as outlined by Greens Senator Meereen Faruqi, carries Continue reading »
Visits to the historical sites of Israel and beyond provide stark reminders that the past – including the recent past – is always with us, with places and monuments marking conflicts of ideologies and conflicts of people. The region of the Levant – Israel, the Palestinian territories, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon – are blessed with Continue reading »
Iran has never had a nuclear bomb—why does Israel insist that it’s an imminent threat? It remains a classic moment in United Nations history. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used the dignified setting of a General Assembly speech in the fall of 2012 to raise the spectre of an Iranian nuclear bomb. He displayed a Continue reading »