{
  "feed_info": {
    "title": "Pearls and Irritations - Top Five Weekly",
    "description": "Top 5 articles from the past week for Sunday newsletter",
    "feed_url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/topfive.json",
    "home_page_url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/",
    "version": "https://jsonfeed.org/version/1.1",
    "updated": "2026-04-22T13:03:21+10:00",
    "generated_at": "2026-04-22T13:03:21+10:00",
    "post_count": 5
  },
  "items": [
    {
      "id": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/the-middle-east-conflict-is-driven-by-competing-theocracies",
      "url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/the-middle-east-conflict-is-driven-by-competing-theocracies/",
      "title": "The Middle East conflict is driven by competing theocracies",
      "content_html": "\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Middle East conflict reflects competing theocratic mindsets in Iran, Israel and the US, where religious conviction is being used to justify violence.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat is driving the current Middle East conflict, causing untold pain and destruction to those in the firing line and unprecedented global disruption to the rest of us? Is it possible that the contestants, Iran on one side and the USA/Israel on the other, sing from the same song sheet? Although polar opposite, their values appear driven by theocratic mindsets which not only permit, but honour violence as a tool of enforcement. Are they in fact competitors for theocratic dominance?\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat Iran is a theocracy is not debatable. From its belief system, its citizens experience suppression of female rights, imposition of Sharia Law, and punishment of those who do not comply. It considers freedoms enjoyed in western culture to be a debasement of their understanding of what it means to be a child of God. In Iran there is no separation of religion and politics, indeed politics exists to enforce religious belief.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe constitution of most so-called Christian countries was formulated with a separation of politics and religion. In a Christian framework the role of faith is not to govern, or to seek preference, but to be the teacher’s teaching. In other words, the mission of Christians in any community is to be agents of Christ’s transformative love, grace and mercy – no more, no less.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIsrael does not claim to be a theocracy. Twenty per cent of its population are Palestinians. Many, perhaps most, of its citizens are secular, but Zionism – belief that this land has been given to them (from God?) – drives their identity and their military and political practice. What has been done, and continues to be done, to Gaza is now being done to the West Bank and Southern Lebanon. Its brazenness and contempt for international opinion, let alone international law, is breathtaking. Netanyahu has said in as many words \u0026lsquo;morality is weakness\u0026rsquo;.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere is no question that Zionism is front and centre as cause in this conflict. Would Iran be so keen to possess a nuclear bomb if Israel did not already possess that capability?\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNow the US. The US is not a theocracy, but many of the most vociferous of Donald Trump’s supporters are theocratic Christian nationalist believers, people to whom the President is indebted. Appointments made to the Supreme Court have moved the US in that direction. However, the most significant proponent of theocratic idealism is Pete Hegseth, Minister for War. The change of title from ‘defence’ back to ‘war’, reversing the move made by Harry Truman, underlines the legitimacy of proactive violence in the pursuit of ideals.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn making the change, Donald Trump argued that under the more passive title “we didn’t do much winning. With a department of war, we win.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePete Hegseth is affiliated with the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC), and attends Pilgrim Hill Reformed Fellowship in Tennessee. The Church is committed to ‘Christian reconstructionist thought’, namely the reordering of society under a biblical mandate and a conservative understanding of biblical law. In this understanding, government should exist to serve biblical law.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHegseth’s tattoos are revealing. \u003cem\u003eDeus Vult\u003c/em\u003e (God wills it) tattooed to his arm and the Jerusalem Cross tattooed to his chest make clear his veneration of the 12th century Crusades and the crusaders. Indeed, he claims those of us who live as descendants of European Christianity owe a great debt to the crusaders for the freedoms we enjoy. The use of the cross by Hegseth and the Crusaders subverts the symbol’s intent. It is an ancient symbol, representing the suffering of Christ for the world as told by the four Gospels.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere can be little clean skin left for further tattoos, but last year Hegseth added the word Kafir which refers to one who is not a Muslim.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhen confronted by the fact US armaments had destroyed a Girls School in Tehran, he invoked \u003cem\u003eDeus Vult\u003c/em\u003e, meaning that if this happened it would have been as God intended.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHegseth’s worldview brings him into direct and intended confrontation with the Islamic world: the Islamic world of the Crusades and the Islamic world of today. He clearly values violence as an appropriate tool in this confrontation, praying recently that each shot, each bomb, each missile would hit its mark with maximum effectiveness.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRecent protest marches brutally put down in Tehran and throughout Iran, indicate that Iranian leadership and direction is not supported by its people.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePolls in the US make it clear that the direction taken by Donald Trump as President and implemented by Pete Hegseth as Secretary for War, is not supported by an overwhelming majority of US citizens.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe exception is Israel. It appears most Israelis support the actions of Benjamin Netanyahu and the IDF.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe price Israel’s Zionist ambitions have imposed upon the Palestinian people is unbearable. The cost these ambitions are now imposing on the whole global community, should be enough for all to realise Israel has become a pariah state. “From the River to the Sea, everyone should be free” (that includes Jewish people), should be chanted from the roof tops, not least in Queensland where it is now a criminal offence.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTrump has never been clear about why he entered the war and is now far from clear what he hopes to achieve by the blockade. His claim to have ‘won’ may convince himself, but it convinces no one else. One can only hope that diplomacy will prevail and that an unintended outcome of this war will be regime change in the US, if not in Iran.\u003c/p\u003e",
      "summary": "The Middle East conflict reflects competing theocratic mindsets in Iran, Israel and the US, where religious conviction is being used to justify violence.",
      "date_published": "2026-04-18T00:59:25+10:00",
      "date_modified": "2026-04-18T00:59:25+10:00",
      "authors": [{"name": "George Browning"}
      ],
      "tags": ["israel-palestine","topfive","usa","world"],
      "_social_media": {
        "tweet_text": "The Middle East conflict is being shaped by more than geopolitics – it reflects competing theocratic worldviews that legitimise violence.\nFrom Iran to Israel and the US, faith and power are colliding, George Browning writes.\n#MiddleEast #Geopolitics #Religion #USPolitics",
        "tweet_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/the-middle-east-conflict-is-driven-by-competing-theocracies/",
        "linkedin_title": "The Middle East conflict is driven by competing theocracies",
        "linkedin_excerpt": "The Middle East conflict reflects competing theocratic mindsets in Iran, Israel and the US, where religious conviction is being used to justify violence.",
        "linkedin_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/the-middle-east-conflict-is-driven-by-competing-theocracies/",
        "facebook_text": "The Middle East conflict is driven by competing theocracies - The Middle East conflict reflects competing theocratic mindsets in Iran, Israel and the US, where religious conviction is being used to justify violence.",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Washington-.jpg",
        "author_names": "George Browning"
      },
      "_mailchimp": {
        "excerpt": "The Middle East conflict reflects competing theocratic mindsets in Iran, Israel and the US, where religious conviction is being used to justify violence.",
        "authors_string": "George Browning",
        "categories_string": "israel-palestine, topfive, usa, world",
        "pub_date_formatted": "Saturday, April 18, 2026",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Washington-.jpg",
        "newsletter_type": "topfive"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/chasing-ghosts-losing-votes",
      "url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/chasing-ghosts-losing-votes/",
      "title": "Chasing ghosts, losing votes",
      "content_html": "\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eNew research shows immigration is not driving voter anger, yet the Coalition is targeting it anyway – risking further losses in the diverse, urban seats it must win back.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere is a question worth asking before any analysis of Tuesday’s \u0026lsquo;Australian Values Migration Plan\u0026rsquo;: what problem, exactly, is it solving?\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTaylor’s announcement to the Menzies Research Centre was a calculated pitch to the One Nation flank – ICE-style deportation taskforces, social media vetting, a “safe countries” list, and “values” made legally enforceable. The language barely concealed its audience: migrants from liberal democracies, Taylor said, have a “greater likelihood of subscribing to Australian values” than those from “places ruled by fundamentalists, extremists and dictators.” Chinese Australians may have good cause to be concerned.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe premise was that immigration is a core driver of voter anger, and that the Coalition could recapture voters drifting to One Nation by hardening its position.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOur research, conducted with Accent Research across a nationally representative sample of 2,016 voters in March, tells a different story, and it is one the Coalition’s strategists should be reading carefully.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe wrong villain\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhen we asked voters who they blamed for rising prices and interest rates, only 6 per cent pointed to immigrants. Politicians led on 40 per cent, followed by CEOs of big businesses at 20 per cent. Nearly a quarter, 24 per cent, said no one in particular; it’s just the market.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe One Nation numbers are particularly instructive. Among One Nation voters, 59 per cent blame politicians and 9 per cent blame CEOs. Just 14 per cent blame immigrants, a figure that rises somewhat above the national average but still leaves immigration as a secondary explanation for the cost-of-living crisis even among the voters most receptive to anti-immigration politics. The primary emotion driving One Nation support is a profound institutional fury, not an immigration grievance dressed up in economic clothing.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis matters enormously for how we read Taylor’s play. The One Nation vote is, at its core, an expression of total distrust in the political class. Our data shows net trust in politicians at -90 among One Nation voters, an almost complete rejection of the entire institutional framework. The statement “almost anything is better than the way things are going now, I just want to vote for change” returned a net agreement of +81 among One Nation voters.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThey want to burn the system down. They are not, in the main, waiting for an immigration policy from the Liberal Party.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Coalition cannot compete with One Nation on this terrain. One Nation owns the institutional fury space. The Coalition will always run second here; an imitation cannot outperform the ‘real deal’. Aside from that, what Taylor announced this week is a policy designed to solve a problem voters are not primarily defining in the terms he has chosen, aimed at winning voters whose core grievance is with the political class itself, of which the Coalition is a conspicuous member.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe arithmetic of where elections are decided\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe 2022 election shattered the Coalition’s relationship with inner and middle metropolitan Australia. 2025 compounded it. Across the two elections, the combination of urban, diverse, university-educated and younger voters has cost the Coalition more than twenty seats, seats that are now, structurally, gone. Not marginal. Gone.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe data explains why. Australia has fundamentally changed who it is. As of the 2021 Census, more than half of all Australian residents, 51.5 per cent, were either born overseas or had at least one parent born overseas. In inner metropolitan electorates, that figure rises to nearly 66 per cent. In outer metropolitan areas, it sits above 61 per cent. The seats the Coalition must win back to form government are not filled with the Australia of 1996. They are filled with the Australia of now.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd Labor’s seats reflect this most sharply. Across the 94 Labor-held seats, the combined first and second-generation immigrant population averages 57.6 per cent. Across the 18 Liberal-held seats, it is 43 per cent. The nine National seats average just 23 per cent. These parties do not share an Australia. They represent fundamentally different demographic realities, and the Coalition’s policy settings are increasingly calibrated for the one that is shrinking.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere is another number worth sitting with. Inner metropolitan voters, the heaviest concentration of the immigrant generational cohort and the young, show the least pessimism of any geographic group in our survey. Thirty-four per cent say Australia is headed in the right direction, against 49 per cent who say the wrong direction. That gap is significantly narrower than in provincial Australia (24 vs 57 per cent) or rural Australia (28 vs 56 per cent).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUniversity-educated voters, who dominate these seats, are even less pessimistic: 37 per cent right direction, 44 per cent wrong, by far the most sanguine of any education cohort. These are not voters looking for a cultural restoration project. They are not the audience for Tuesday’s announcement. And they are the voters the Coalition cannot afford to keep losing.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe two diasporas and what they hear\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Coalition’s relationship with Indian and Chinese Australians was already in distress before this week. Our research tells us something important about what happens when these communities hear the kind of language deployed in Taylor’s announcement: they think he is talking about them. Not migrants in general. Not “those people.” Them.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is not an unreasonable reading. The “liberal democracies” framing was presented as a neutral values screen, but it lands with precision in communities that have watched their members face scrutiny, suspicion and periodic political targeting over many years. When you are told that people from certain places are less likely to share Australian values, you notice which places are being implied.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe demographic backdrop makes this politically acute in a way that is rarely acknowledged. India is now, at the national level, on the cusp of overtaking England as Australia’s largest overseas-born diaspora. When the ABS releases its annual population-by-country-of-birth data later this month, covering the year ending June 2025, India will almost certainly cross above England for the first time. As of June 2024, the gap was approximately 47,000 people: England at 963,560, India at 916,330. India has been growing at around 50,000 net per year. England has been declining by around 5,000 per year. The crossover is happening now.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn 1996, England’s diaspora was 956,680. India’s was 80,470. The country Taylor is implicitly invoking, the Anglo-settler Australia that imagines itself in the phrase “Australian values”, is not the country he is pitching to from opposition, and it is not the country he needs to win.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis shift has already played out at the state level, largely without political commentary. Victoria has had India as its largest overseas-born community since around 2019, with China overtaking England in 2021. In New South Wales, China surpassed England in 2016. Queensland’s largest overseas-born community has been New Zealand since the mid-2000s. England now leads only in Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe median age contrast is the final punctuation mark. The median age of England-born Australians is 59.6. For India-born Australians, it is 35.8. The Greek and Italian-born populations sit at 76.5 and 73.7, respectively. One diaspora is the future of Australia’s demographic and electoral landscape. A values-based immigration policy with implicit European reference points is not a plan for governing a country that looks like this one. It’s political suicide.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe generation problem\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLayer over this the generational data, and the Coalition’s predicament becomes structural rather than merely cyclical. Melbourne and Sydney’s inner metropolitan electorates lead the country in combined Gen Z and Millennial populations, Melbourne at 57 per cent, Sydney at 48.4 per cent, and Brisbane at 48 per cent.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThese are the electorates where the Coalition once competed and increasingly does not. Gen Z is breaking hard toward the Greens. Millennials remain Labor’s most reliable metropolitan constituency, despite a portion, particularly in outer-suburban and provincial areas, migrating toward One Nation under financial stress.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNone of these cohorts are responding to language that reads, to them, as a recycled version of a politics they have already rejected. The university-educated among them, concentrated in inner-city electorates with the highest immigrant generational density, are particularly unreachable through the values framing. The Certificate III-and below Gen Z and Millennial cohort, concentrated in rural and provincial seats, is more receptive, but these are voters the Coalition already holds, not the voters it needs to win back.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe trap\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe tragedy of Tuesday’s announcement is that the underlying concerns driving immigration scepticism are real and politically tractable. Housing pressure, infrastructure strain, pressure on wages in specific sectors, these are genuine grievances that cross ethnic and generational lines, including within migrant communities themselves. Our data confirms cost of living is the dominant frame through which voters interpret almost everything. Politicians are the primary villain in that story, not immigrants.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA serious Coalition pitch on immigration would start there, with the cost-of-living consequences of rapid population growth, with housing supply, with the wages and conditions of workers competing with large temporary labour pools. That pitch has a genuine audience, including within the diaspora communities the Coalition has been losing. What it cannot do is pursue that pitch through a values test that, in the ears of communities central to electoral arithmetic, sounds like something else entirely.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat the Coalition cannot afford to lose again are the voters it was still competitive for in 2019: the Chinese-Australian professional in Chisholm, the Indian-Australian family in Menzies, the university-educated Millennial in Wentworth. These voters did not go to One Nation. They went to Labor and the independents. Taylor\u0026rsquo;s announcement is a further signal to them about their place in the Coalition’s political imagination.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eChasing votes, you will not win, whilst losing votes you cannot afford. That is the electoral arithmetic of what happened this week, and the numbers on Australia’s changing demography won’t wait for the Coalition to work it out.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRepublished from \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://redbridgeintel.substack.com/p/chasing-ghosts-losing-votes\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eRedbridge Intel\u003c/a\u003e, 15 April 2026\u003c/p\u003e",
      "summary": "New research shows immigration is not driving voter anger, yet the Coalition is targeting it anyway – risking further losses in the diverse, urban seats it must win back.",
      "date_published": "2026-04-18T00:49:48+10:00",
      "date_modified": "2026-04-18T00:49:48+10:00",
      "authors": [{"name": "Kos Samaras"}
      ],
      "tags": ["immigration","politics","topfive"],
      "_social_media": {
        "tweet_text": "Immigration is not what’s driving voter anger.\nNew research shows distrust of politicians dominates – and chasing One Nation risks losing the voters the Coalition needs, Kos Samaras writes.\n#auspol #Politics #Election #Immigration",
        "tweet_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/chasing-ghosts-losing-votes/",
        "linkedin_title": "Chasing ghosts, losing votes",
        "linkedin_excerpt": "New research shows immigration is not driving voter anger, yet the Coalition is targeting it anyway – risking further losses in the diverse, urban seats it must win back.",
        "linkedin_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/chasing-ghosts-losing-votes/",
        "facebook_text": "Chasing ghosts, losing votes - New research shows immigration is not driving voter anger, yet the Coalition is targeting it anyway – risking further losses in the diverse, urban seats it must win back.",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Passport-with-denied-visa-stamp.jpg",
        "author_names": "Kos Samaras"
      },
      "_mailchimp": {
        "excerpt": "New research shows immigration is not driving voter anger, yet the Coalition is targeting it anyway – risking further losses in the diverse, urban seats it must win back.",
        "authors_string": "Kos Samaras",
        "categories_string": "immigration, politics, topfive",
        "pub_date_formatted": "Saturday, April 18, 2026",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Passport-with-denied-visa-stamp.jpg",
        "newsletter_type": "topfive"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/shock-horror-an-effective-parliament-in-our-time",
      "url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/shock-horror-an-effective-parliament-in-our-time/",
      "title": "Shock, horror! An effective parliament in our time?",
      "content_html": "\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eAn ACT Legislative Assembly committee has strengthened proposed sentencing laws by listening to expert evidence and improving the legislation.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe’re in a world where the lone superpower (at least for most of the past three decades) is being eclipsed, with an erratic and irrational president bypassing the legislative authority of Congress with deadly effect in matters military and budgetary.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe’re in a country where a supposedly reforming second-term government with a thumping majority is widely seen as glacial at best in its legislative approach, and the Opposition as ineffectual, at least at those moments when it’s not hopelessly divided.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSo, it’s heartening to live in a jurisdiction where, at least in one current instance, a parliament seems to be actually working, in the interests of all sections of the community, and, one hopes, with enough firepower to lead a government to alter course.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt’s not the most earth-shattering matter, but the progress of the \u003cem\u003eMagistrates Court (Indicative Sentencing) Amendment Bill\u003c/em\u003e 2025 through the ACT Legislative Assembly’s Legal Affairs committee is an example of how well a parliamentary system can function, at least so far.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIndicative sentencing allows a defendant to request an indication of the likely sentence to be imposed if they were to plead guilty. The ACT Government’s aim is to reduce the number of people on bail by creating greater transparency regarding sentencing outcomes and to enable defendants to make quicker decisions, reducing overall time taken to finalise proceedings. Such schemes operate in Victoria, Tasmania and the Northern Territory.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe committee heard from most of the major public-sector players in the ACT’s criminal-justice system – and has taken up virtually everything put to it.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMost stakeholders said the planned requirement for outright prosecutorial consent would undermine judicial independence and efficiency. The committee recommended that indicative sentencing be offered at the discretion of the magistrate alone.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Aboriginal Legal Service and ACT Law Society submitted strongly against a proposed section that would require the Court to consider whether the prosecution believed that there was insufficient information about the harm suffered by a complaint for the Court to give an indicative sentence. The committee specifically recommended that the offending sub-paragraph be removed from the Bill.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Society and ACT Bar Association submitted that family violence offences should be included in the scheme, saying “When properly implemented, indicative sentencing in family-violence cases can shorten proceedings, promote accountability from defendants, reduce the time victims spend in court, and limit exposure to cross-examination – all without diminishing the seriousness of these offences.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLegal Aid ACT added that Children’s Court matters should be included, saying it would be “highly valuable” because “uncertainty can be a deterrent” to pleading guilty for young offenders.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe committee’s first recommendation was that the scope of the scheme be broadened.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe ALS, among others, pushed for clarification that the court could impose not only an increased sentence, but also a more lenient sentence if warranted by a change of circumstances since the sentence indication.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe committee endorsed that stance, and many others, including that a plea could be withdrawn where the court revised an indicative sentence or where the Prosecution successfully appealed a sentence actually imposed as a result of the indicative-sentencing process.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRelatively unexceptional submissions from the Victims of Crime Commissioner, chiefly about being allowed to call people “victims” instead of “complainants” when guilt was to be admitted under the new process, were also taken up by the committee.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhy would a Liberal Opposition-led committee be so quick to take up so many recommendations to favour defendants when the local party has such a strong law-and-order brigade?\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA survey of the three individual committee members shows why.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe chair is Liberal Chiaka Barry, a Member of the Legislative Assembly only since 2024, but one who has worked in the criminal-justice system, including a considerable time in the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eShe knows of the complexities of those coming before the Courts. Indeed, her website declares: “I am committed to … being a strong advocate for reducing the impact of domestic violence and protecting the most vulnerable in our society”; and, as a senior legal officer with the Attorney-General’s Department “I contributed to shaping legislation and policies aimed at protecting our children from harm.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGreens Leader Shane Rattenbury, in the Assembly almost two decades, and long a minister, including being attorney-general, but now uncoupled from a coalition with Labor, brought substantial experience and political nous to the committee.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe third member was Labor’s Taimus Werner-Gibbings. Like Barry, he is another newcomer from the 2024 election. While he lacks the direct experience of Rattenbury and Barry, he joined in all the committee recommendations and, like Barry and Ratten, he holds a law degree – something the Territory’s current first law officer, Tara Cheyne, does not.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMs Cheyne’s government is to respond to the committee recommendations by 26 June.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLet’s hope she can persuade her ministerial colleagues to take up the progressive policy approach so neatly provided by the committee, after what was a truly conservative parliamentary process.\u003c/p\u003e",
      "summary": "An ACT Legislative Assembly committee has strengthened proposed sentencing laws by listening to expert evidence and improving the legislation.",
      "date_published": "2026-04-18T00:39:52+10:00",
      "date_modified": "2026-04-18T00:39:52+10:00",
      "authors": [{"name": "Andrew Fraser"}
      ],
      "tags": ["policy","politics","topfive"],
      "_social_media": {
        "tweet_text": "In an era of political dysfunction, the ACT has offered a rare example of a parliament working as it should.\nBy listening to evidence and improving legislation, a committee has delivered better justice outcomes, Andrew Fraser writes.\n#auspol #ACTPol #Justice #Law #Politics",
        "tweet_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/shock-horror-an-effective-parliament-in-our-time/",
        "linkedin_title": "Shock, horror! An effective parliament in our time?",
        "linkedin_excerpt": "An ACT Legislative Assembly committee has strengthened proposed sentencing laws by listening to expert evidence and improving the legislation.",
        "linkedin_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/shock-horror-an-effective-parliament-in-our-time/",
        "facebook_text": "Shock, horror! An effective parliament in our time? - An ACT Legislative Assembly committee has strengthened proposed sentencing laws by listening to expert evidence and improving the legislation.",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/ethos-and-the-act-le.jpg",
        "author_names": "Andrew Fraser"
      },
      "_mailchimp": {
        "excerpt": "An ACT Legislative Assembly committee has strengthened proposed sentencing laws by listening to expert evidence and improving the legislation.",
        "authors_string": "Andrew Fraser",
        "categories_string": "policy, politics, topfive",
        "pub_date_formatted": "Saturday, April 18, 2026",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/ethos-and-the-act-le.jpg",
        "newsletter_type": "topfive"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/on-asylum-the-coalition-is-offering-old-fixes-to-problems-of-its-own-making",
      "url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/on-asylum-the-coalition-is-offering-old-fixes-to-problems-of-its-own-making/",
      "title": "On asylum, the Coalition is offering old fixes to problems of its own making",
      "content_html": "\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Coalition’s asylum plan repackages familiar measures that have failed before, while sidestepping its role in creating a large and growing backlog of unsuccessful applicants.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe overwhelming focus on the Australian Values aspect of\n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.liberal.org.au/2026/04/14/coalition-launches-first-wave-of-australian-values-migration-plan\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eAngus Taylor’s Coalition policy announcement\u003c/a\u003e means relatively little attention has been given to the asylum policies Taylor announced. Sadly, these are predominantly a re-hash of old ideas and an attempt to deflect from the Coalition’s role in the situation we now face with a record number of unsuccessful asylum seekers who have not departed Australia.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTaylor’s asylum policy is to “shut the door to unauthorised migrants by implementing decisive measures to deter unfounded claims and enforcing Australian law. The Coalition will:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e● Introduce a Safe Country List to fast-track the refusal of unfounded protection claims from those places deemed safe countries.\n● Restore Temporary Protection Visas and Safe Haven Enterprise Visas as the dominant forms of onshore protection visas for people who come here unlawfully or under false pretenses (sic).\n● Provide extra funding to law enforcement to identify, deport and remove unlawful non-citizens who have exhausted their legal avenues but stay in Australia illegally.\n● Stop taxpayer money funding legal aid appeals of visa cancellations.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn announcing these policies, Taylor will want the Australian public to forget that he was Assistant Law Enforcement Minister when Australia experienced the start of the biggest labour trafficking scam abusing the asylum system in our history. The scam started with Malaysian nationals (Chart 1) and spread to Chinese nationals (Chart 2).\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"figure \"\u003e\n    \u003cimg src=\"https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/chart-1-asylum-appli.png\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\"\u003e\n    \n    \u003cfigcaption class=\"figure-caption\"\u003eSource: DHA website\u003c/figcaption\u003e\n    \n\u003c/figure\u003e \n\u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"figure \"\u003e\n    \u003cimg src=\"https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/chart-2-asylum-appli.png\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\"\u003e\n    \n    \u003cfigcaption class=\"figure-caption\"\u003eSource: DHA Onshore Protection Reports\u003c/figcaption\u003e\n    \n\u003c/figure\u003e \n\u003cp\u003eThe people who were brought to Australia under that scam are now a very large portion of the 65,000 unsuccessful asylum seekers Taylor now wants to deport. The scam was assisted by a significant reduction in immigration compliance resources and indeed a \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/opinion/2024/06/01/peter-dutton-abysmal-record\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003egeneral reduction in immigration integrity\u003c/a\u003e under Peter Dutton.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhile the trafficking scam appears to now be over, overall asylum applications continue to run at a higher level than before the scam started in 2015. Before the start of the scam, annual asylum applications (non-boat arrivals) were at less than 10,000 per annum. These peaked at 27,931 in 2017-18. In 2024-25, these were at 23,576.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAt the change of government in May 2022, there were 26,405 asylum applications in the primary backlog and 36,708 at the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT)/ Administrative Review Tribunal (ART). Sone 67,855 had been refused at the primary stage and not departed while another 31,147 had been refused at both primary and appeal stages and not departed.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Albanese government sought to address the situation by allocating an additional $160 million over four years into faster processing of asylum applications. This has meant that more applications are now being processed at both primary and appeal stages than there are new applications. Backlogs at both stages are falling.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHowever, relatively few unsuccessful asylum seekers are departing or being removed. As a result, the number of asylum seekers refused at both primary and appeal stages and not departed have increased to 65,927. It is these people Taylor now wants to deport.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUse of a list of countries that have been assessed as safe for asylum seekers to return to have been employed by a number of European nations. This mechanism has been subject to legal challenge and requires agreement of the countries involved.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAssuming the relevant legislation can survive legal challenge in Australia, it may be possible to include a small number of countries with an exceptionally strong human rights record on this list. This would enable marginally faster processing and may also deter asylum applications from these countries.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe idea is worthy of further investigation in the Australian context but it is unlikely that it could be applied to major asylum source nations such as China and India due to their respective human rights records.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLike Pauline Hanson, Taylor also wants to resurrect TPVs.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAustralia has experimented with TPVs for over 40 years. We have learned that these add significant costs to the visa system but do very little to deter either boat arrivals or other asylum seekers. Almost every person who has ever been granted a TPV has now become a permanent resident. Many are Australian citizens with Australian citizen children and grandchildren.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTPVs have become totemic for the Coalition even if they achieve very little that is positive. It’s more about appearing as tough as Hanson.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eExtra funding for law enforcement to deport failed asylum seekers\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere is no question we need to reduce the number of unsuccessful asylum seekers in the country. Additional funding to increase location, detention and removal of unsuccessful asylum seekers is essential. But two questions arise from Taylor’s announcement.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFirst, it’s not clear why the funding would be allocated to law enforcement agencies such as the AFP. These agencies have little knowledge of the visa system. Any effective measures to reduce the number of unsuccessful asylum seekers would need to be co-ordinated and run by the agency that runs Australia’s visa system such that the full breadth of options can be considered and a well-designed strategy implemented. This is not just a law enforcement operation. It’s not even primarily a law enforcement operation.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSecond, allocation of the funding to law enforcement suggests Taylor wants to copy Trump’s mass deportation program rather than develop a carefully crafted approach suitable to Australia’s circumstances.\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/aug/29/trump-immigration-ice-cbp-data\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eTrump’s mass deportation program\u003c/a\u003e has a current price tag of around $US100 Billion; has led to massive numbers of wrongful detentions and deportations; but only a relatively small increase in actual deportations. The cost per deportation would be eye-watering.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eStop taxpayer money funding legal aid appeals of visa cancellations\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe number of appeals of visa cancellations is a tiny portion of migration/asylum appeals to the ART. At end February 2026, there were 910 appeals against visa cancellations out of a total of 76,710 migration appeals and 38,865 asylum appeals. Only a portion of the 910 visa cancellations would be funded by legal aid.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhy Taylor wants to target legal aid for visa cancellation appeals is unexplained. Appeals to the ART that are unrepresented will only slow the resolution of these as the Tribunal will need to do more work to gather all the relevant facts on these appeals. That means the appellant remains in Australia longer. The opposite of what seems to be Taylor’s objective.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt highlights the overall superficiality of thinking in this segment of the policy.\u003c/p\u003e",
      "summary": "The Coalition’s asylum plan repackages familiar measures that have failed before, while sidestepping its role in creating a large and growing backlog of unsuccessful applicants.",
      "date_published": "2026-04-17T00:59:54+10:00",
      "date_modified": "2026-04-17T00:59:54+10:00",
      "authors": [{"name": "Abul Rizvi"}
      ],
      "tags": ["immigration","politics","topfive"],
      "_social_media": {
        "tweet_text": "The Coalition’s asylum plan revives measures that have repeatedly failed.\nIt also ignores its role in creating the backlog it now promises to fix, Abul Rizvi writes.\n#auspol #Immigration #Asylum #Policy",
        "tweet_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/on-asylum-the-coalition-is-offering-old-fixes-to-problems-of-its-own-making/",
        "linkedin_title": "On asylum, the Coalition is offering old fixes to problems of its own making",
        "linkedin_excerpt": "The Coalition’s asylum plan repackages familiar measures that have failed before, while sidestepping its role in creating a large and growing backlog of unsuccessful applicants.",
        "linkedin_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/on-asylum-the-coalition-is-offering-old-fixes-to-problems-of-its-own-making/",
        "facebook_text": "On asylum, the Coalition is offering old fixes to problems of its own making - The Coalition’s asylum plan repackages familiar measures that have failed before, while sidestepping its role in creating a large and growing backlog of unsuccessful applicants.",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/angus-taylor-april-2.jpg",
        "author_names": "Abul Rizvi"
      },
      "_mailchimp": {
        "excerpt": "The Coalition’s asylum plan repackages familiar measures that have failed before, while sidestepping its role in creating a large and growing backlog of unsuccessful applicants.",
        "authors_string": "Abul Rizvi",
        "categories_string": "immigration, politics, topfive",
        "pub_date_formatted": "Friday, April 17, 2026",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/angus-taylor-april-2.jpg",
        "newsletter_type": "topfive"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/electoral-laws-versus-free-political-speech",
      "url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/electoral-laws-versus-free-political-speech/",
      "title": "Electoral laws versus free political speech",
      "content_html": "\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe High Court has struck down a Victorian law favouring major parties, but the bigger test lies ahead – whether federal electoral changes unlawfully entrench incumbency and disadvantage challengers.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe High Court this year will decide on the validity of significant changes to Commonwealth electoral laws passed last year after a deal between the Labor government and the Liberal and National Coalition that will crucially limit campaign spending by minor parties and independents.\nF\nParties challenging the Commonwealth law had hoped that a decision on Wednesday this week by the High Court about a Victorian electoral law that favoured the major parties over independents and other candidates might deal with some of the issues they will be raising.\nF\nHowever it was not to be. Although the High Court was unanimous in overturning the Victorian law, the judges did not have to deal directly with the issues that will be argued in the litigation over the federal law.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis was partly because the Victorian authorities virtually conceded that their law exceeded constitutional limitations on freedom of political communication.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe High Court unanimously decided that a Victorian law that would have greatly benefited the Labor, Liberal and National Parties in coming state elections was invalid. The law would have allowed the three major parties to receive gifts from nominated entities far in excess of an indexed general cap on political donations of just $4,000 – $4,970 this election year.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe nominated entities of the major parties have assets of many millions of dollars. Under the law passed by the Victorian Parliament there would have been no cap on the donations they could make to their respective parties.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOver the past 30 years the High Court has held that the Constitution includes an implied freedom of political communication. The Victorian law was challenged on the grounds that it impermissibly burdened that implied freedom.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Court had to decide:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003col\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e Whether the law effectively burdened freedom of communication about governmental or political matters in its terms, operation or effect.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eWas the purpose of the law legitimate, in the sense that it was compatible with the maintenance of the constitutionally prescribed system of representative and responsible government,\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eWas the law reasonably appropriate and adapted to advance that purpose in a manner that was compatible with the maintenance of that constitutionally prescribed system of government.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ol\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe main challenge to the law was not about whether its purpose was legitimate but whether it placed the major parties in a privileged position over independent candidates or new registered political parties in respect of the sources of funds available to be used for political expenditure.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThose challenging the law claimed it involved an ‘abuse of incumbency’ and that purpose was illegitimate.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut effectively this was conceded in submissions by the Victorian Government. Its main concern was to limit how much of the part of the Act dealing with donation limits would be struck down by the court.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHowever the High Court decided it wasn’t possible to save any of the challenged law. Victoria will now have to bring in new legislation if it wants to limit political donations for the coming state elections.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAlthough the main challenge to the new federal law will be about expenditure restrictions rather than donations, the ‘abuse of incumbency’ argument is equally important.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe fundamental issue is whether the ‘maintenance of that constitutionally prescribed system of government’ allows for a system that seriously disadvantages minor parties and independents.\u003c/p\u003e",
      "summary": "The High Court has struck down a Victorian law favouring major parties, but the bigger test lies ahead – whether federal electoral changes unlawfully entrench incumbency and disadvantage challengers.",
      "date_published": "2026-04-17T00:54:28+10:00",
      "date_modified": "2026-04-17T00:54:28+10:00",
      "authors": [{"name": "David Solomon"}
      ],
      "tags": ["policy","politics","topfive"],
      "_social_media": {
        "tweet_text": "The High Court has struck down a Victorian law favouring major parties – but the bigger fight is still to come.\nFederal electoral changes that may entrench incumbency are now heading for a constitutional test, David Solomon writes.\n#auspol #HighCourt #Democracy #Elections #PoliticalReform",
        "tweet_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/electoral-laws-versus-free-political-speech/",
        "linkedin_title": "Electoral laws versus free political speech",
        "linkedin_excerpt": "The High Court has struck down a Victorian law favouring major parties, but the bigger test lies ahead – whether federal electoral changes unlawfully entrench incumbency and disadvantage challengers.",
        "linkedin_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/electoral-laws-versus-free-political-speech/",
        "facebook_text": "Electoral laws versus free political speech - The High Court has struck down a Victorian law favouring major parties, but the bigger test lies ahead – whether federal electoral changes unlawfully entrench incumbency and disadvantage challengers.",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/The-High-Court-of-Australia-Parliamentary-Triangle-Canberra-Australian-Capital-Territory-Australia-.jpg",
        "author_names": "David Solomon"
      },
      "_mailchimp": {
        "excerpt": "The High Court has struck down a Victorian law favouring major parties, but the bigger test lies ahead – whether federal electoral changes unlawfully entrench incumbency and disadvantage challengers.",
        "authors_string": "David Solomon",
        "categories_string": "policy, politics, topfive",
        "pub_date_formatted": "Friday, April 17, 2026",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/The-High-Court-of-Australia-Parliamentary-Triangle-Canberra-Australian-Capital-Territory-Australia-.jpg",
        "newsletter_type": "topfive"
      }
    }
  ]
}