In the last few years, Australian and US foreign policy toward the Pacific has been framed as a benign influence, couched in money terms, offers and suasion. But in such offers comes that bit of intrusive steel, a less than subtle threat that gravitating into the orbit of another power, most notably China, will come with costs. (more…)
Binoy Kampmark
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Simon Crean: Advocate against war
He was a creature of workmanlike officialdom, a unionist, a federal Labor opposition leader never allowed to contest an election by the machinations of his own party, but still clear on one gloriously sane point. It takes a lot to oppose the squealing and hollering for war, and the late Simon Crean did that in 2003 in a number of speeches against the illegal invasion of Iraq. Some of these proved to be his finest. (more…)
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Even Henry Kissinger warns against war with China
Henry Kissinger, self-praised and adulated as a statesman of genius, foreign policy expert of prowess, recently warned the world that, to avoid world war three, America and China must learn to live together. They have less than ten years, he argues. He has also become a centurion. (more…)
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Stella Assange in Australia
For those familiar with the ongoing prosecution of Julian Assange by the United States, a brutal carnivalesque endeavour that continues to blight that legal system, there is not much to be said. Assange is a political prisoner who must be freed. But the task remains for those like Stella Assange to convince politicians and journalists to embrace that course. (more…)
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Scott Morrison and Australia’s Lobby Complex
The former Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, has been somewhat of an absentee in the Federal seat of Cook. Since losing the May 2022 election, he has been aggressively chasing up contacts and deals on the consultancy circuit, bellyaching about the usual talking points: the gruesome China menace; defence matters; and, just to round it off for good measure, additional iterations of the China menace. (more…)
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The edifice sports complex, AFL and Tasmania
Historically, Australian sport has been bosom-tied to corrupt administrative and state management. Administrators of the myriad sporting codes are typically conceited in assuming they provide a service for an increasingly obese populace. The sports personalities turn up and play; spectators turn up in their colours, pies and beers; the sporting hierarchs can then claim they are doing society a service. The logical equation that follows from this is revenue raising for the facilities – as long as the sporting body is not the one doing it. (more…)
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Cutting funding to the Independents: Insights from the Rugg case
Parliamentary representatives of all stripes deserve to have the necessary staffing and means to discharge their duties to constituents. (more…)
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Act of self-harm: US ‘Defund China’s Allies’ bill targets Solomon Islands
Lawmakers in the US Imperium are getting stroppy. China is on the rise. Russia is not folding. Iran and Saudi Arabia have decided, if not to bury the hatchet then certainly cover it. So it comes as little surprise that Congress now has, before it, the Defund China’s Allies Act (HR 2511), an instrument that is bound to pass and enchant the Empire’s followers in Canberra. (more…)
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AUKUS and militarising Australia’s universities
In a recent piece by Guardian Australia’s higher education reporter, an academic, who preferred to remain anonymous fearing institutional retribution, likened the modern Australian university to a supermarket. Students were the customers filing through the self-checkout counters; the staff, increasingly rendered irrelevant, were readily disposable. (more…)
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Quiet diplomacy’s failure: The Albanese government and Julian Assange
Prior to him becoming Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese made a number of declarations to the effect that the Julian Assange affair be brought to a close. The US effort to prosecute, nay persecute the WikiLeaks publisher, would finally be resolved. (more…)
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Toothless protections: the public interest disclosure act and Richard Boyle
Australian legal and political history is littered with examples of petty and vicious prosecutions, notably against those considered dangerous tittle tattles who give the game away and seek to shine some light on the unpalatable practices of those in power. (more…)
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Neo-colonial dreams: Australia eyes the Indian education market
Over the last week or so, Australian politicians and representatives of the university sector got busy pressing flesh in India, hoping to open avenues that have largely remained aspirational. It was timed to coincide with G20 talks in New Delhi, which has seen a flurry of contentious meetings traversing security, economics and education, all taking place in the shadow of the Ukraine War. (more…)
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China threat: Australia kowtows to US masters over pilot’s degrading treatment
The treatment of former US marine Daniel Edmund Duggan by Australian authorities in the service of their US masters has again shown that the Australian passport is not quite worth the material it’s printed on. (more…)
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Willing servant: Australia’s acceptance of US nuclear ambiguity
The AUKUS alliance is increasingly adopting a nuclear tone. First came the promise to furnish Australia with nuclear powered submarines, absent nuclear weapons, a point that did not dissuade critics such as Indonesia. Then came the announcement to deploy six B-52 bombers to the Northern Territory’s Tindal airbase, south of Darwin, an exercise underwritten by the Pentagon. (more…)
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Sinking notions: US lawmakers and Australia’s nuclear submarines
The implications for the AUKUS security pact were always going to be grave, significant, and unnecessary. It further subordinated Australia to participating in future conflicts; it has brought into question Australia’s own already whittled down sovereignty; and it has also raised the spectre of regional nuclear proliferation. (more…)
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HIMARS: Australia’s missile fetishism
The announcement this month by the Albanese government that Australia would be acquiring HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System) batteries from the United States can be put down to a few factors. One is that sense of being left out of the club. If European states can have such launchers with seemingly devastating effect, why not us? (more…)
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Shooting Afghans: Prince Harry’s apache moment
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Don Bradman, Cricket, and the Counter-Revolution
It would not be an exaggeration to call Sir Donald Bradman, cricket’s most metronomic and gluttonous of batsman (runs wise), a counter revolutionary. On the surface, cricketers like to imagine themselves to be above politics and devotees of a game so complex it would lobotomise any darting political mind. In practice, cricket has invited the most political and acrimonious of debates, straddling arguments between amateurs and professionals, to the debate about World Series Cricket and the need for decent pay for its participants. (more…)
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Country for bad dreams: vandalism on the Nullarbor Plain
“This is quite shocking,” declared South Australia’s Attorney-General and Aboriginal Affairs Minister, Kyam Maher. “These caves are some of the earliest evidence of Aboriginal occupation of that part of the country.” That evidence was subtracted this month by acts of vandalism inflicted on artwork in Koonalda Cave on the Nullarbor Plain, claimed to be the world’s largest limestone karst landscape and covering over 200,000 square kilometres. (more…)
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Australia disregards medical advice, introduces mandatory testing for Chinese arrivals
Australia’s Albanese government has taken the lead of countries in North America, Europe and Asia by introducing COVID-19 testing measures on arrivals from China. The decision was reached in variance to advice from the Commonwealth’s chief medical officer, Paul Kelly that there was no “sufficient public health rationale” for the measure. (more…)
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In the shadow of the military: Fiji’s elections
Fiji has gone to the polls three times since 2006, when the country had what has been termed the “coup to end all coups”, sounding eerily reminiscent of wars that supposedly end all wars. History suggests that where one takes place, another will follow in good time. (more…)
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US B-21 tempts the Australian security establishment
The United States does not need it. No air force does. But the lesson of the dazzle from the B-21 Raider Stealth Bomber is that what the US develops and acquires Australia must have. Such a lesson ought to be unlearned as quickly as possible, but there is little chance of it with individuals such as Richard Marles in the defence portfolio. (more…)
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It’s a season to be a warmonger
It’s the season to be jolly and appreciate wrapped presents with surprises that are not true surprises. And the Christmas present most appreciated for a good number of the thinktank military establishment in Canberra will be conflict with Beijing. If not now, then when? (more…)
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AUSMIN and Australia’s further militarisation within the US imperium
The Ausmin joint statement does little to dissuade the idea that Australia is moving, inexorably, towards a satellite, garrison state to be disposed of and used by the US imperium.
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Chinese-Australian voters emerge, reject anti-Asian hatred stoked by right-wing politicians
Asian-Australians are becoming an increasingly influential bloc in steering and influencing federal and state elections. Their significance has been noted by aroused psephologists, surprised pundits and the chattering classes since Anthony Albanese won the federal election in May this year. (more…)
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“Extreme overreach”: Bell report exposes Morrison threat to Westminster system
New report by Former High Court judge Virginia Bell is scathing of PM Morrison and head of department Phil Gaetjens for secret ministry appointments, but spares Governor General from scrutiny.
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Personalised politics: the Liberals meet their Jonestown in Victoria
The Victorian Liberal and National parties’ political strategy of targeting premier Daniel Andrews was a dismal failure, underpinned by policies that seemed to fall into a heap of vacuity. Their failure means that Victoria has no credible or viable opposition.
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Australia’s fake coal emissions certificates rort major trading partners
Companies responsible for testing the quality of Australian coal altered “40-50 per cent of the certificates” to make dirty coal look cleaner than it was and sell substandard products for higher profits to Australia’s export partners and underplay carbon emissions.
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From immunity to impunity: the lawsuit against Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman
For a country that has made human rights the glossy cover of its foreign policy rhetoric, this was not a good look. The Biden administration’s decision to grant Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman immunity from a civil lawsuit filed by the fiancé of murdered Saudi journalist and a human rights organisation simply stank. (more…)
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South Australia ignores Khashoggi murder, welcomes Saudi LIV Golf
Peter Malinauskas, the South Australian Premier, has been the latest convert to the LIV Golf circuit, showing little to no awareness that the lion’s share of the money is coming from a state responsible for the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.