Our corporate media will not acknowledge that Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison did not stop the boats. Despite clear evidence, the Canberra Press Gallery fell for the spin. With a tame media and cooperation by the military, the big lie was repeated time and time again and became accepted as fact. This was all before Donald Trump and his big lies.
John Menadue
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Our failure in Asia as viewed nine years ago. The situation is now far worse.
Nine years ago, in the speech below, I was pessimistic about our understanding of Asia and our future. The situation has got markedly worse since then. (more…)
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Moral bankruptcy and cruelty in the treatment of the Biloela Family.
The government is hiding behind legislation as a reason for not doing anything. This is truly a morally bankrupt position as anyone who understands Immigration law knows. (more…) -
What has the US done that China hasn’t?
It might be the right time to make a list a list of things China did not do. -
The French submarine boondoggle is Australia’s biggest defence blunder. Our tame corporate media hardly noticed.
For the first time in over five years of delay and evasion the Secretary of Defence has at last told us that the Government is looking at an alternative to the French submarine. Our corporate media has failed to hold the government to account in its scandalous handling of the $90 billion French submarine purchase. For five years, the media has failed us. It is now rewarded in the new Media Code with 90% of the tax on Google and Facebook to be handed over to the three failing monopoly media companies. (more…)
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Intelligence agencies have helped precipitate the crisis in our relations with China (An updated post)
In Max Suich’s outstanding series in the Australian Financial Review, on 16, 17 and 18 May, on how we got into the pointless confrontation with China there is no doubt that much of the ‘intelligence’ came from US sources and that our naive and China ignorant intelligence agencies tagged along and served up US intelligence dressed up as their own. But in the end the Australian Government is responsible for the mess. (more…)
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Israeli deceit and US complicity in attacks on Palestinians
‘We are the only people on Earth asked to guarantee the security of our occupier.’..Hanan Ashrawi
‘America is behind this war and I am ashamed to be an American’…Anthony Hopkins. (more…)
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U.S. Foreign Policy Flow Chart
Here’s a handy U.S. foreign policy flow chart.
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Melissa Parke successfully settles defamation case against pro-Israeli commentator
Melissa Parke has successfully settled defamation legal proceedings with pro-Israeli commentator Colin Rubenstein over his claims that Parke had been anti-Semitic in her remarks on Israeli treatment of Palestinians. -
Lobby Land. The power of the health lobby. Health ministers may be in office but they are not in power. An update.
The major barrier to health reform is the power of providers- the health lobby. A succession of Australian health ministers Liberal and Labor for three decades have failed in any serious health reform. We have been going around in circles. It is very depressing. The new shadow minister Mark Butler could succeed as Minister if he can find a way to manage and neutralise the provider/lobbyists. But not otherwise. And don’t look the the Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing for much help. It was State Premiers, State Health Ministers and State Health officials who drove the fight against the pandemic, not the Commonwealth and its agencies.
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Why has there been a spike in anti-asian hate? The NY Times answers their own questions
A collage of panic-inducing anti-China headlines from the New York Times and other major publications can be seen as a factor in the rise of anti-Asian hate seen in western countries.
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Marise Payne and Kurt Campbell believe their own propaganda about economic coercion by China
The Australian Government and our tame media complain continually about China’s ‘economic coercion of Australia. But the conflict with China has in many cases been provoked by Australia. The US has not looked at the facts and stumbles in blindly. (more…)
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Will the Alaska meeting ease tensions or worsen relations between the US and China?
There is an important face to face meeting between the US and China on Thursday in Alaska. But our media seems disinterested.
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QUAD: A public relations exercise to disguise Big Pharma’s obstruction and to combat Chinese vaccine successes
QUAD (US, Japan, India and Australia) was regarded as a strategic bloc to contain China. However, the recent virtual meeting between President Biden and Prime Ministers Suga, Modhi and Morrison ,whilst highlighting the provision vaccines to the region was really about curbing Chinese vaccine successes- an expression of soft power. (more…)
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The Iraq war, the Murdoch war and media culpability
The media here thought the terrorism in Australia fell from the deep blue sky and had no relationship to the help John Howard gave to George Bush in the illegal and immoral invasion of Iraq. The Australian media continue to fail us badly over its coverage of the Middle East wars, terrorism and the continuing human disaster and political and sectarian confusion. (more…)
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Why dental care was excluded from Medicare and why it should now be included (an edited repost)
In 1974, the Whitlam Government decided to exclude dental care from Medicare for two reasons. The first was cost. The second was political. Whitlam felt that combatting the doctors would be hard enough without having to combat dentists as well. Forty-six years later, with Australia much richer and the proven success of Medicare, it is now time for dental care to be progressively included in Medicare.
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The French submarine boondoggle is Australia’s biggest defence blunder and compounded by media failure
Our corporate media has failed to hold the government to account in its scandalous handling of the $90 billion French submarine purchase. For five years, the media has failed us. It is now rewarded in the new Media Code with 90% of the tax on Google and Facebook to be handed over to the three failing monopoly media companies. (more…)
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Our C18th health workforce structure is riddled with demarcations, inefficiencies and antique work practices. (An edited repost)
Casual workers are fair game but the government is not prepared to tackle the very serious workforce inefficiencies in our large and growing health sector.
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Japanese Ambassador rapped over the knuckles by Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
But did he get the message? (more…)
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What is the Japanese Embassy in Canberra up to?
Is it trying to stoke anti-China sentiment in Australia? (more…)
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People in glass houses should be careful about throwing stones
A group of Australian journalists in their never-ending hostility to China keep throwing stones at China for human rights breaches in Xinjiang, but largely ignore Australian and other breaches. Their ignorance of China explains a lot. (more…)
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Australia: Clinging to a declining and aggressive US. An updated repost
Declining empires never go gracefully. And neither will the US empire – addicted as it is to a belief in its ‘exceptionalism’ and its grounding in aggression both at home and abroad.
The attack on the US Capitol reminds us how fragile our ally is. The civil war is unfinished business.Western media have sought to minimise this constitutional crisis- a democratic blip and nothing more!
Joe Biden will smooth a few rough edges but he won’t do much to arrest the decline. He will keep telling us that ‘America is back’ and leading again!
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Murdoch and his role in the Trump Presidency
Former prime minister Kevin Rudd dissects Rupert Murdoch’s role in creating the Trump presidency. “Donald Trump may have lit the match that detonated his country’s turmoil but it was Rupert Murdoch who diligently crammed the joint full of explosives.”
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Rupert Murdoch’s faulty memory. (edited repost from 21 Dec, 2016)
Rupert Murdoch has asserted many times that he has never asked anything from a prime minister yet the Guardian has proof that contradict that claim, as do I.
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How Murdoch, Abeles twisted the arm of the Hawke Government to help Ansett at the expense of Qantas. (Edited and reposted from 1.1.2019))
Rupert Murdoch repeatedly says that he has never asked a prime minister for anything. That is quite brazen. I know, from personal experience, that this claim is just not true.
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The Matthew Fisher Sarcoma Research Fund
My granddaughter Naomi’s husband, Matt Fisher, died of an aggressive sarcoma cancer earlier this month. He was aged 39. The sarcoma was diagnosed in February last year.
A research fund has been established to promote research at the Garvan Institute.
Would you consider making a donation? Click here.
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Media concentration in Australia and the Murdoch damage
It is important that any arrangements made for Facebook/Google/Twitter to pay media companies for content are made transparently and equally available to ALL online media publishers who meet (a very low) bar and wish to participate.No government should ever facilitate the handing over of money to tax shy oligopolies. (more…)
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The love affair that made America grate
Between rides and walks on the Trump Golf Course and embracing at the White House, Murdoch and Trump have debauched democracy.
