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  "feed_info": {
    "title": "Pearls and Irritations - Weekly Feed",
    "description": "Articles from the past week (Wednesday, April 15, 2026 to Wednesday, April 22, 2026)",
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    "updated": "2026-04-22T13:03:21+10:00",
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    "post_count": 55
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    {
      "id": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/the-return-of-great-power-relations-a-world-of-bounded-orders-part-2",
      "url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/the-return-of-great-power-relations-a-world-of-bounded-orders-part-2/",
      "title": "The return of great power relations: a world of bounded orders – Part 2",
      "content_html": "\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eIn the second part of his piece for the Foreign Policy Rethink series, Geoff Raby examines how China is constructing a competing global order and reshaping the institutions that underpin international relations.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn 2019, leading realist international relations theorist, John Mearsheimer, suggested that great power rivalry in a multipolar world might resolve into a pattern of ‘bounded orders’. He posited that in such a world, stability might be achieved with states loosely coalescing around two or more leading states with whom they share important affinities.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHe was careful, however, to argue that these would not be mutually exclusive blocs which would inevitably lead to conflict between them as security could only be achieved by the defeat of the other. When he initially suggested bounded orders as a theoretical proposition, as an offensive realist he also dismissed the idea quickly and returned to his main proposition that war between great powers was inevitable. At the time, he also did not identify the US and China as leaders of their respective orders. Subsequently, he has done so.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA bounded order is where a group of countries align with a major power with whom they share values and broadly similar or compatible systems of political and social organisation. Importantly, there will be a set of trans-national institutions, rules and norms that underpin respective economic and investment dependencies.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUnlike mutually exclusive ‘blocs’, states can and will need to cooperate across orders on some issues affecting the global commons. They also are different to more traditional spheres of influence which are defined primarily by their spatial relationship with the dominant power. Accordingly, they are not restricted to contiguous territories, can be global, and are defined by their mutually supported trans-national institutions.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMoreover, states may overlap depending on the degree of convergence with the dominant power’s norms, values and form of political and social organisation. Before the election of Trump, it would have been reasonable to suggest that the more democratic and liberal a state was the more closely it would align itself with US leadership. That may be less so now.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFollowing the events of 3 January 2026, many middle powers may begin questioning the extent of their alignment with US values and approaches to international relations. Previously, China’s order may not have been a comfortable place for them, but the institutional arrangements China has been constructing may now start to look more attractive.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eChina’s institutional entrepreneurship\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eChina been constructing its order in front of our eyes for over two decades. In the west, there was a myopic, ‘nothing to see here’ attitude as China set about deliberately crafting the institutional arrangements to underpin and give coherence to its order. It is now no longer possible for lesser powers to look away.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTogether with its deep trade and investment flows, China has engaged in a systematic, deliberate process of trans-national institution building. Jointly with Russia, from the early years of this millennium, it led the institutionalisation of Eurasian multinational security cooperation with the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSimilarly, while Russia initiated early cooperation among several emerging economies as a forerunner of the BRICS, China has been the main driving force. The BRICS Bank, renamed as the New Development Bank, is headquartered in Shanghai. ‘De-dollarisation’ of international payment settlements has emerged as a priority objective for the BRICS, attracting a great deal of international interest, especially among the Global South.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe highest profile initiative has been the Belt and Road (BRI) which was originally intended to re-cycle China’s massive foreign reserves and excess infrastructure construction capacity. It has since become the principal means by which China orders its foreign trade and investment priorities. The BRI has been pursued on a hitherto unimaginable scale, but it has also been controversial with accusations of ‘debt-trap’ diplomacy, waste and corruption. China also established the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) to complement the BRI.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eChina holds regional neighbours close to itself through a delta of free-trade agreements. The first was with ASEAN in 2003 which, in 2025, was renewed, expanding into new areas, including digital trade and AI. Seeking to take geostrategic advantage from the weakening of Russia’s position in Central Asia post the invasion of Ukraine, China has struck several bilateral security and military arrangements with the Stans, previously the almost exclusive preserve of Russia. In 2023, China convened the first summit of the C+C5 group (China plus the five Stans), with a permanent secretariat established in Xi’an intended to coordinate security issues between them. Russia was excluded.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe international system, therefore, now involves heightened competition between multilateral and a host of plurilateral and mini-lateral institutions. Increasingly, these are aligned with either the US-led or China-led orders.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWhither multilateralism?\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn this world of bounded orders, legacy multilateral institutions associated with the UN and Bretton Woods will still play a role in addressing concerns over the global commons. Climate change and arms control are two obvious areas. Global rules on AI, space and the polar regions might be others. Efforts are also continuing in the WTO to maintain some continuity in global trade rules, despite the US’ open disregard.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe positions states take in multilateral institutions, however, will be increasingly shaped by their respective orders. China still sees advantages for itself in certain parts of the multilateral system as a means of simultaneously advancing its interest while deflecting criticism of its behaviour. China remains a significant participant in the UN system: a major funder of peace keeping and holds many senior positions across the UN’s various organisations. China is well positioned to continue to align its order with its objectives in multilateral institutions, the principal features of which are to preserve territorial integrity and to emphasise economic development over the west’s liberal, humanist concerns.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn 2024, a report by the Washington based Centre for Strategic and International Studies found that the Global South was increasingly aligning with China in UN bodies, while US influence continued to wane. In the year since Trump moved back to the White House, these trends have become more pronounced. The abrupt abolition of USAID, for example, has been a major factor in weakening the US’ actual and moral authority.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eChina has successfully sought positions as head of UN specialised agencies to align its activities with BRI objectives and to continue to restrict Taiwan’s involvement in such organisations. In 2025, China held four out of 15 specialised agency heads and nine deputy positions. The African group, with 28 per cent of UN votes, has been a key to expanding China’s representation and influence in the UN. African states have also been substantial BRI participants and beneficiaries.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe future relevance of multilateral institutions is probably more challenged today than at any time since the end of the Second World War. Nevertheless, middle and small powers will continue to look towards multilateralism to provide some restraint on great powers. But in important areas, such as trade and arms control, the multilateral system is in secular decline in terms of its capacity to influence the behaviour of powerful states.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA shift is underway from a hegemonic multilateralism to one which is pluralistic, contested and hence negotiated. This is well advanced within the trade field, where the WTO has been largely marginalised, replaced by a plethora of bilateral, regional and mini-lateral arrangements which set norms and make rules.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eChina senses great opportunity at this time of realignment of the international system. As \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/3/22/xi-tells-putin-of-changes-not-seen-for-100\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eXi Jinping told Vladimir Putin\u003c/a\u003e in March 2023:\n“Right now, there are changes in the world – the likes we have not seen for 100 years – and we are the ones driving those changes together”.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePart 2 of this 4-Part series is republished from \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.globalneighbours.org/en/studies/the-return-of-great-power-relations-what-can-middle-powers-do\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eGlobal Neighbours.org\u003c/a\u003e, 13 February, 2026\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"related-article-card\"\u003e\n  \u003ca href=\"/post/2026/04/the-return-of-great-power-relations-what-can-middle-powers-do-part-1/\" class=\"related-article-card__image\" aria-hidden=\"true\" tabindex=\"-1\"\u003e\n    \u003cimg src=\"https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/President-elect-Donald-Trump-and-Vice-President-elect-JD-Vance-arrive-at-the-60th-Presidential-Inauguration-300x190.jpg\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\"\u003e\n  \u003c/a\u003e\n  \u003cdiv class=\"related-article-card__body\"\u003e\n    \u003cp class=\"related-article-card__label\"\u003eRead Part 1 below:\u003c/p\u003e\n    \u003cp class=\"related-article-card__title\"\u003e\n      \u003ca href=\"/post/2026/04/the-return-of-great-power-relations-what-can-middle-powers-do-part-1/\"\u003eThe return of great power relations: What can middle powers do? Part 1\u003c/a\u003e\n    \u003c/p\u003e\n    \u003cp class=\"related-article-card__excerpt\"\u003eAs part of the Foreign Policy Rethink series, Geoff Raby examines how Trumps shift to great power politics is reshaping the global order and forcing middle powers to rethink their strategy.\u003c/p\u003e\n  \u003c/div\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e",
      "summary": "In the second part of his piece for the Foreign Policy Rethink series, Geoff Raby examines how China is constructing a competing global order and reshaping the institutions that underpin international relations.",
      "date_published": "2026-04-22T10:30:54+10:00",
      "date_modified": "2026-04-22T10:30:54+10:00",
      "authors": [{"name": "Geoff Raby"}
      ],
      "tags": ["china","politics","usa","world"],
      "_social_media": {
        "tweet_text": "China has spent decades building the institutions of a new global order – and the shift is now impossible to ignore.\n\n\nIn the second part of his piece for our Foreign Policy Rethink series, Geoff Raby explains what this means.\n\n\n#auspol #ForeignPolicy #China #Geopolitics",
        "tweet_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/the-return-of-great-power-relations-a-world-of-bounded-orders-part-2/",
        "linkedin_title": "The return of great power relations: a world of bounded orders – Part 2",
        "linkedin_excerpt": "In the second part of his piece for the Foreign Policy Rethink series, Geoff Raby examines how China is constructing a competing global order and reshaping the institutions that underpin international relations.",
        "linkedin_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/the-return-of-great-power-relations-a-world-of-bounded-orders-part-2/",
        "facebook_text": "The return of great power relations: a world of bounded orders – Part 2 - In the second part of his piece for the Foreign Policy Rethink series, Geoff Raby examines how China is constructing a competing global order and reshaping the institutions that underpin international …",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/brics-kazan-russia-2.jpg",
        "author_names": "Geoff Raby"
      },
      "_mailchimp": {
        "excerpt": "In the second part of his piece for the Foreign Policy Rethink series, Geoff Raby examines how China is constructing a competing global order and reshaping the institutions that underpin international relations.",
        "authors_string": "Geoff Raby",
        "categories_string": "china, politics, usa, world",
        "pub_date_formatted": "Wednesday, April 22, 2026",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/brics-kazan-russia-2.jpg"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/poorly-designed-campaign-finance-laws-weaken-our-democracy",
      "url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/poorly-designed-campaign-finance-laws-weaken-our-democracy/",
      "title": "Poorly designed campaign finance laws weaken our democracy",
      "content_html": "\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe High Court’s ruling on Victoria’s electoral laws shows how poorly designed campaign finance rules can undermine both fairness and the reforms they were meant to achieve.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere is an unfortunate irony in the High Court striking down Victoria\u0026rsquo;s electoral funding laws, proving the adage, garbage in, garbage out. Legislation that was ostensibly designed to clean up politics has instead left the state in a sort of limbo, where elements of the law that were designed to fix the integrity of elections are now gone because overall the scheme was poorly designed and hastily implemented.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSound familiar? The Federal campaign finance laws were ticked and flicked and concerns about their design ignored in similar fashion. Persistent efforts by the federal crossbench and integrity organisations to engage with the government were spurned. The law was rushed through parliament with unseemly haste.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe federal laws have many flaws, flaws that were raised at the time of drafting, yet the government had zero interest in listening, let alone addressing them.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe unanimous ruling in the case brought by independent candidates Paul Hopper and Melissa Lowe that key provisions of the Victorian Electoral Act are unconstitutional is, on one level, a victory.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe court found that the law’s “nominated entity” carve-out, a mechanism that solely benefited major parties, impacted the implied freedom of political communication entrenched in the Constitution. The ruling rightly reaffirmed a core democratic principle, the political playing field cannot be tilted to favour those already in power.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut it is also a cautionary tale. While the law was flawed, even discriminatory, its underlying ambition was not.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBecause the 2018 Victorian rules were a package deal, the court could not strike down the nominated entity carve out alone; they had to strike out an entire section of the legislation, covering not only the major parties’ ‘slush funds’, but also transparency of donations, donations caps and public funding.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHad the Government designed campaign finance and transparency rules that ensured greater integrity and fairness, without the loopholes that entrench incumbency, none of this would have happened as the plaintiffs warned the government in 2024 when they sought a resolution.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn short, this could all have been avoided. But for the government’s intransigence it need never have gone to Court.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI had publicly said many times before, well designed caps are good for democracy – the operative words being “well designed”.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAustralians are rightly uneasy about the role of money in politics, and there is broad support for caps, transparency, and public funding models that reduce the risk of policy being shaped by those with the deepest pockets and easiest access.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe problem in Victoria was not the goal. It was the execution.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe laws looked and sounded like incumbency protection. Garbage in.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat design flaw proved fatal. Garbage out.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere are likely implications for the fairness of other electoral laws across the country. The High Court’s decision sends a clear signal, if these laws are not fairly designed, if they privilege incumbents, limit participation in our democracy or tilt the playing field further in favour of the major parties, they are vulnerable.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA separate challenge to federal campaign finance laws, brought by Zoe Daniel and Rex Patrick, is already underway. Climate 200 supported both the Victorian and the Federal challenges.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe deeper issue here is not whether a law is constitutional or not. It is about the legislative process and whether law-makers are designing laws to benefit the public or themselves.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGood electoral law is hard. What the Victorian ruling demonstrates is that getting it wrong can produce a raft of unintended consequences, or even a vacuum, with the entire campaign funding and disclosure regime invalidated.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd that may be a worse outcome for the public, for politicians and for democracy.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA well-designed system of donation caps and public funding can enhance democracy, but it must meet the Constitution\u0026rsquo;s test of fairness as made clear by the High Court in this week’s decision. It can broaden participation, reduce reliance on vested interests, and ensure that elections are contests of ideas rather than bank balances. But those systems must be genuinely fair and constitutionally robust.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThey cannot be a protection racket for incumbents and major parties, especially when fewer and fewer Australians are voting for major party candidates.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe temptation for governments, particularly those facing rising electoral competition, is to treat electoral law as just another self-preservation tool. This High Court has put the major parties on notice that they will not wear it.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe lesson here is that campaign finance reform must be fair, and designed following a proper process of consultation. Australians deserve well designed laws that strengthen our democracy, built on a genuine commitment to fairness, not just between major parties, but for everyone who participates in the democratic process.\u003c/p\u003e",
      "summary": "The High Court’s ruling on Victoria’s electoral laws shows how poorly designed campaign finance rules can undermine both fairness and the reforms they were meant to achieve.",
      "date_published": "2026-04-22T10:25:11+10:00",
      "date_modified": "2026-04-22T10:25:11+10:00",
      "authors": [{"name": "Simon Holmes à Court"}
      ],
      "tags": ["politics"],
      "_social_media": {
        "tweet_text": "Victoria’s electoral laws were meant to clean up politics – instead they collapsed under their own design flaws.\n\n\nWhen laws favour incumbents, they risk failing altogether, Simon Holmes à Court writes.\n\n\n#auspol #Democracy #ElectoralReform #Politics",
        "tweet_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/poorly-designed-campaign-finance-laws-weaken-our-democracy/",
        "linkedin_title": "Poorly designed campaign finance laws weaken our democracy",
        "linkedin_excerpt": "The High Court’s ruling on Victoria’s electoral laws shows how poorly designed campaign finance rules can undermine both fairness and the reforms they were meant to achieve.",
        "linkedin_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/poorly-designed-campaign-finance-laws-weaken-our-democracy/",
        "facebook_text": "Poorly designed campaign finance laws weaken our democracy - The High Court’s ruling on Victoria’s electoral laws shows how poorly designed campaign finance rules can undermine both fairness and the reforms they were meant to achieve.",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/paul-hopper-and-meli.jpg",
        "author_names": "Simon Holmes à Court"
      },
      "_mailchimp": {
        "excerpt": "The High Court’s ruling on Victoria’s electoral laws shows how poorly designed campaign finance rules can undermine both fairness and the reforms they were meant to achieve.",
        "authors_string": "Simon Holmes à Court",
        "categories_string": "politics",
        "pub_date_formatted": "Wednesday, April 22, 2026",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/paul-hopper-and-meli.jpg"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/australias-military-occupation-of-new-guinea-1914-1921",
      "url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/australias-military-occupation-of-new-guinea-1914-1921/",
      "title": "The forgotten war Australia would rather not remember",
      "content_html": "\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eMichael Piggott\u0026rsquo;s \u0026lsquo;New Feller Master: Beyond the Trenches Australia’s Neglected WWI Story\u0026rsquo;, details Australia’s occupation of New Guinea and challenges familiar national narratives – confronting uncomfortable truths about power, race and legacy.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTwo days after it declared war on Germany on 4 August 1914, Britain asked the Australian government if it would mind, awfully, taking over the Germany colony in New Guinea on the understanding that any territory gained would “be at the disposal of the Imperial Government for purposes of an ultimate settlement at conclusion of the war.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOf course, the Australian government obliged. In smart time the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force (ANMEF) was formed and soon troops were on board the converted P\u0026amp;O liner, \u003cem\u003eBerrima\u003c/em\u003e, and headed north in the company of a naval force of a dozen ships.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWithin a couple of days of the ANMEF’s arrival in New Guinea on 11 September 1914, the main German garrisons had been captured. Thirty New Guineans, six Australians and a German were killed in the action. The terms of capitulation were agreed with the Germans on 17 September and the ANMEF occupation of New Guinea – a territory about the size of Victoria with a population of around 400,000 – began. It endured until May 1921.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"figure size-full wp-image-465730 alignleft\"\u003e\n    \u003cimg src=\"https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/piggott-cover.png\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid\" alt=\"\" width=\"350\"\u003e\n    \n\u003c/figure\u003e The story of the ANMEF has now been retold in a splendid, sparkling book by the librarian, archivist and historian Michael Piggott, titled \u003cem\u003eNew Feller Master: Beyond the Trenches Australia’s Neglected WWI Story\u003c/em\u003e. Piggott explains that the title derives from the proclamation announcing the ANMEF, the Pidgin version of which repeatedly referred to the new regime as “new feller master”.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePiggott says his book is “not a conventional battle history” as “there was so little actual fighting, the occupation so long and the aftermath even longer”. Rather its focus is on the “backgrounds, attitudes, ideas, behaviour, and self image” of the Australians involved, how they approached their tasks and the trailing effects of their experiences for themselves and their families. Equally the book deals, often with startling explicitness, with the effects of the occupation on New Guineans and the German colonists. It touches on the inheritance of the ruthless mining of phosphate in the now independent country of Nauru.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePiggott’s book is no casually tossed off military potboiler. It is a thorough, scrupulous sociological consideration of Australia’s occupation of New Guinea developed over many years of study. And it avoids the migraine-inducing jargon of those prepared to own up to be being sociologists. Indeed, the book is a model of clarity enlivened by wryness and occasional whimsicality.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe author has combed through official records, public reporting and, he says, “microhistories of themes, incidents, campaigns and mini-biographies.\u0026quot;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNothing seems to have been left to chance and the book takes the trouble gently to correct big and small slips in earlier histories. For example, Charles Bean is chided for titling his 1946 summary volume of Australia and WWI as \u003cem\u003eAnzac to Amiens\u003c/em\u003e, “an alliterative title” Piggott says “which dishonestly started too late and ended too early. Still ‘ANMEF to Rabaul’ would never have worked.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Australians who occupied German New Guinea “were neither equipped, qualified nor experienced for their role” Piggott says, notwithstanding that on their journey to it the troops were given “lectures on personal hygiene, international law and bayoneting”.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe various leaders of the ANMEF had, in Piggott’s judgment “a quality of inertia about them.” That’s not all. When in the early stages of the occupation, a German medical practitioner and several German plantation owners caned an Australian Methodist missionary they suspected of being a spy, the ANMEF commander, Colonel William Holmes, arranged for a reciprocal public flogging of the German floggers. Matters may not have much improved when Holmes was replaced by Colonel Samuel Pethebridge KCMG who was moonlighting as Secretary of the Department of Defence.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePerhaps the most bracing chapters in \u003cem\u003eNew Feller Master\u003c/em\u003e are those dealing with the Australian occupiers’ relations with New Guineans. The chapter headings give the flavour - “Being Racist”, “Being White”, “Looting Like a Soldier” and “Looting Like a Coloniser”.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePiggott says Australian “attitudes towards New Guineans were almost entirely negative, if occasionally qualified” and that they reacted towards the locals with “disgust, exploitation, corporal punishment and rape.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhen it came to looting, Pethebridge saw the Australians as “champions” and when he ordered the baggage of some returning troops to be searched, he said he was threatened with mutiny and that some officers “considered their personal honour was impugned.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAfter studying soldiers’ “native curio collecting”, Piggott cites Christine Winter’s conclusion that “New Guinea was Australia’s greatest war trophy.” Piggott claims that “for sheer self-interest the calculated plundering of New Guinea has few parallels. And thinking of phosphate, nothing comes close.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOf the consequences for the families of the occupiers “back home” few may be as tragically poignant as those for Eva Moffatt. Her son, Able Seaman Robert Moffatt was shot in the spine in an attack on a German wireless station on 11 September 1914. He died and was buried at sea. Eva, who was widowed, had had ten children two of whom had died. Then she got the telegram about Robert. Through a long period of devastation, Eva walked Sydney streets at night, slashed her wrists and in 1918 was found drowned in a disused quarry.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“So often” Piggott writes “the cruelties of war continue in peacetime and leave one lost as to know how to respond. Even so we might puzzle over the unsettling link between Moffatt’s burial at sea and Eva’s name being Ophelia recalling a Shakespearean fictional suicide by drowning.” Hamlet had a lot to answer for.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn a sense Piggott’s history of the ANMEF takeover and long occupation of New Guinea is a narrow story that’s been drowned out by, especially, the furies of attention given to the ANZACs at Gallipoli, a strategic and military disaster that even an historian of Hew Strachan’s standing believes, Lord save us, “forged” Australia’s “national identity”. By contrast and in a real sense the ANMEF story is as wide as a mile and full of contemporary meaning in many senses, including, for good or ill, about enduring aspects of the character of Australians.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePiggott’s telling of this story is masterful and engaging. It’s a gem that deserves lots of readers\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMichael Piggott – \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.bigskypublishing.com.au/new-feller-master/?srsltid=AfmBOopm8hZhqj9ze7Dqfs6YFBxEaI1tLxSibVyFryesREQvkm6bKVeP\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003e_New Feller Master: Beyond the Trenches Australia’s Neglected WWI Story_.\u003c/a\u003e Big Sky Publishing 2026\u003c/p\u003e",
      "summary": "Michael Piggott's 'New Feller Master: Beyond the Trenches Australia’s Neglected WWI Story', details Australia’s occupation of New Guinea and challenges familiar national narratives – confronting uncomfortable truths about power, race and legacy.",
      "date_published": "2026-04-22T10:10:56+10:00",
      "date_modified": "2026-04-22T10:10:56+10:00",
      "authors": [{"name": "Paddy Gourley"}
      ],
      "tags": ["review","politics"],
      "_social_media": {
        "tweet_text": "Australia’s WWI story isn’t just Gallipoli.\n\n\nA new history of the New Guinea occupation reveals a more complex and troubling legacy – one that still resonates today, Paddy Gourley writes.\n\n\n#auspol #History #WWI #Australia #ANZAC",
        "tweet_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/australias-military-occupation-of-new-guinea-1914-1921/",
        "linkedin_title": "The forgotten war Australia would rather not remember",
        "linkedin_excerpt": "Michael Piggott's 'New Feller Master: Beyond the Trenches Australia’s Neglected WWI Story', details Australia’s occupation of New Guinea and challenges familiar national narratives – confronting uncomfortable truths about power, race and legacy.",
        "linkedin_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/australias-military-occupation-of-new-guinea-1914-1921/",
        "facebook_text": "The forgotten war Australia would rather not remember - Michael Piggott's 'New Feller Master: Beyond the Trenches Australia’s Neglected WWI Story', details Australia’s occupation of New Guinea and challenges familiar national narratives – confronting …",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/machine-gunners-and.jpg",
        "author_names": "Paddy Gourley"
      },
      "_mailchimp": {
        "excerpt": "Michael Piggott's 'New Feller Master: Beyond the Trenches Australia’s Neglected WWI Story', details Australia’s occupation of New Guinea and challenges familiar national narratives – confronting uncomfortable truths about power, race and legacy.",
        "authors_string": "Paddy Gourley",
        "categories_string": "review, politics",
        "pub_date_formatted": "Wednesday, April 22, 2026",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/machine-gunners-and.jpg"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/lovin-democracy-youre-probably-doing-all-right-then",
      "url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/lovin-democracy-youre-probably-doing-all-right-then/",
      "title": "Lovin’ democracy? You’re probably doing all right, then",
      "content_html": "\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eAustralia remains one of the world’s stronger democracies, but rising economic stress and inequality are shaping how people feel about it.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJournalists realised long ago that people find bad news more interesting than good news. I think this is because we search our environment for threats to our wellbeing so we can do something about them. Fortunately for the news media, it’s rarely hard to find something new to worry about.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut you can have too much of a bad thing. Unless we leaven the bad news with something nice, we risk having our customers wonder why they’re paying to be depressed.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe good souls at the \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://grattan.edu.au/report/for-the-people-future-proofing-australias-democracy/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eGrattan Institute\u003c/a\u003e have been researching the state of our democracy, but the best I can do is report that the news is mixed.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe first bit of news is bad: the number of democracies had been growing in the last decades of the 20th century, but since then, the number’s been declining. According to America’s \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.v-dem.net/publications/democracy-reports/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eV-Dem Institute\u003c/a\u003e, by last year the world was down to only 31 liberal democracies out of the 179 countries assessed, with almost three-quarters of the world’s population living in autocracies.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe figures aren’t helped by the United States – soon to be renamed the Kingdom of Donald. The status of what used to be the poster child for democracy has been lowered from “liberal democracy” to “electoral democracy” thanks mainly to the way Trump has been gathering power to the presidency, weakening America’s much-lauded “checks and balances”.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe good news, however, is that our status as a liberal democracy remains unchanged. According to Grattan we are “one of the world’s leading democracies, consistently ranking highly on international measures of democratic health, as well as on a suite of economic and social measures – including life expectancy, human development, employment and [national income per person].”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIf you’re wondering why an economic commentator like me is writing about democracy, it’s because although we tend to keep our democracy in a separate box to our economy, the two are interrelated. It’s no coincidence that most of the rich countries are democracies and most of the liberal democracies are rich.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA key issue is social trust. The more we trust each other to keep our promises and live up to the claims we make, the more smoothly and less expensively an economy grows and prosperity increases.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor instance, have you ever noticed that people pick up their bag from an airport luggage carousel without any official there to check they haven’t pinched someone else’s bag? The knowledge that almost all of us can be trusted speeds up the process and saves the airlines – and their customers – money.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe ability to trust people to do the right thing reduces an economy’s “transaction costs” – the cost of buying or selling something – leading to more transactions.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd it’s a fair bet that people who live in democracies rather than autocracies find it easier to trust each other and “the system”.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGrattan’s report takes stock of the health of our democracy. “The good news,” it says, “is that Australians’ support for democracy has been consistently strong – even growing over time. Only a small share of the population is discontent or disengaged with the system, and the data [does] not suggest either has been spreading.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSo what’s the bad news? It’s that people who aren’t doing well in the economy are less likely to be happy with the way our democracy is treating them.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSurveys conducted by economists at the \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://politicsir.cass.anu.edu.au/research/publications/erosion-hope-social-and-financial-wellbeing-and-relationship-political\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eAustralian National University\u003c/a\u003e show that Australians are increasingly pessimistic about the future, with declining trust in government and institutions.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAlthough official economic indicators were good, a survey conducted early last year showed that people’s satisfaction with their life had fallen to levels last seen during the pandemic. More than a third of Australians reported experiencing financial stress.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“Economic perceptions are strongly associated with political attitudes,” the academics conclude. “We find that national economic assessments in particular are stronger predictors of confidence in government, satisfaction with democracy, and populist sentiment.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“Those who perceive the national economy worsening are significantly less satisfied with democracy, more distrustful of government institutions, and more receptive to populist narratives,” they find.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAustralians who believe life was better 50 years ago and will worsen over the next 50 years showed lower trust in government and stronger populist attitudes. But although younger Australians expressed greater optimism, they remained less politically engaged.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOf all the survey’s participants, only a third expressed confidence in the federal government, down from more than half in 2023. Half the respondents believed life would be worse in 50 years, while only 16 per cent believed it would improve.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDissatisfaction with housing, rising prices and Australia’s environmental policy are all central to explaining the public’s pessimism about the future.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eElsewhere, the academics discovered a very strong relationship between people’s views on income inequality in Australia and their views on democracy. Only half of those who thought the distribution of income was very unfair were satisfied with democracy.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe authors of the Grattan study say we face three big risks to confidence in our democracy. First, the rise of online social media is “fragmenting our fact base, and making misinformation and extreme views more salient in people’s daily lives”.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSecond, global political tensions and the rise of anti-democratic forces overseas are testing Australia’s social cohesion at home.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd third, the heightened probability of economic, social and environmental shocks increases the challenge democratic governments face in delivering better outcomes to their people.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGood point. The fact is that the nation’s smarties are expecting tough times ahead. The climate is expected to continue changing, which will bring, among other things, more extreme weather events. There could be hiccups in our transition from fossil fuels to renewables.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd the latest “shock” to our economy, from the ill-judged Iran war, is unlikely to be the last to come our way. Let’s hope our democracy can survive the challenge.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRepublished from the \u003cem\u003e\n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/lovin-democracy-you-re-probably-doing-all-right-then-20260421-p5zps8.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eSydney Morning Herald\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/em\u003e, 22 April 2026\u003c/p\u003e",
      "summary": "Australia remains one of the world’s stronger democracies, but rising economic stress and inequality are shaping how people feel about it.",
      "date_published": "2026-04-22T10:05:03+10:00",
      "date_modified": "2026-04-22T10:05:03+10:00",
      "authors": [{"name": "Ross Gittins"}
      ],
      "tags": ["politics"],
      "_social_media": {
        "tweet_text": "Lovin’ democracy? You’re probably doing all right.\n\n\nNew research shows Australians who feel economically secure are far more likely to trust institutions – while pessimism is fuelling disengagement, Ross Gittins writes.\n\n\n#auspol #Democracy #Economy #Trust",
        "tweet_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/lovin-democracy-youre-probably-doing-all-right-then/",
        "linkedin_title": "Lovin’ democracy? You’re probably doing all right, then",
        "linkedin_excerpt": "Australia remains one of the world’s stronger democracies, but rising economic stress and inequality are shaping how people feel about it.",
        "linkedin_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/lovin-democracy-youre-probably-doing-all-right-then/",
        "facebook_text": "Lovin’ democracy? You’re probably doing all right, then - Australia remains one of the world’s stronger democracies, but rising economic stress and inequality are shaping how people feel about it.",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/This-is-the-Australian-Parliament-House-in-Canberra.-Which-was-the-worlds-most-expensive-building-when-it-was-completed-in-1988.jpg",
        "author_names": "Ross Gittins"
      },
      "_mailchimp": {
        "excerpt": "Australia remains one of the world’s stronger democracies, but rising economic stress and inequality are shaping how people feel about it.",
        "authors_string": "Ross Gittins",
        "categories_string": "politics",
        "pub_date_formatted": "Wednesday, April 22, 2026",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/This-is-the-Australian-Parliament-House-in-Canberra.-Which-was-the-worlds-most-expensive-building-when-it-was-completed-in-1988.jpg"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/tune-in-turn-on-and-drop-out-the-case-for-legalising-psychedelics-is-stronger-than-ever",
      "url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/tune-in-turn-on-and-drop-out-the-case-for-legalising-psychedelics-is-stronger-than-ever/",
      "title": "Tune in, turn on, and drop out: the case for legalising psychedelics is stronger than ever",
      "content_html": "\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eDecades of prohibition have failed to stop psychedelic drug use while blocking research and treatment options, raising questions about the basis of current laws.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Tune in, turn on, and drop out.\u0026rdquo; Timothy Leary, the Harvard psychologist and champion of psychedelic drugs, first uttered that iconic phrase 60 years ago. A year later California became the first jurisdiction to prohibit LSD. But last Saturday, President Donald Trump (of all people) directed that his administration move quicker to review certain psychedelic drugs.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe global push to criminalise psilocybins, LSD and other similar drugs from the late 1960s onwards was, and still is, based not on public health grounds, but ignorance, prejudice and fear by law makers.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs we now know, Timothy Leary was right. His research at Harvard, with his colleague Richard Alpert that commenced in 1960 was called the Harvard Psilocybin Project. Psilocybin is a hallucinogen found in some species of mushrooms (LSD is a chemical formulation).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHarvard University’s biography of Leary – that they have anything on him is to their credit given US President Richard Nixon called him the \u0026ldquo;most dangerous man in America\u0026rdquo; – says the project was seeking to document the effects of psilocybin ‘on human consciousness by administering it to volunteer subjects and recording their real-time descriptions of the experience.’\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLeary and Alpert came under fire for sloppy research ethics but they were onto something.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd Leary was blamed for what was said to be a booming drugs culture in the US and elsewhere (including Australia) in the 1960s. Leary was no angel. He was narcissistic by many accounts and took on the guru role with devoted followers. He veered away from serious academic work.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut Dr Rick Doblin, the founder of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies takes the sort of nuanced view of Leary that the record supports. Doblin, in an interview with \u003cem\u003eWired\u003c/em\u003e said that he thinks “the crackdown on psychedelics happened because psychedelics were going right. They motivated people to get involved in social justice activities, protests. And Tim did a lot of good work generating people to have those kinds of experiences. I think, on balance, he did way more good than harm. Though I fault him for twisting the data in his studies.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe consequence of the criminalising of LSD, pscilocybins, ketamine and MDMA has, of course, not been to stop people using it, but to handing over the market to the colour black.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMore importantly, though, is instead of governments allowing researchers to follow up Leary’s work – and therefore potentially to benefit millions of patients who suffer from mental illness, including veterans of wars who have lived with chronic PTSD often with tragic consequences – the law has been used to treat users of these drugs as criminals.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs we now know these drugs, along with ketamine and MDMA ‘are now being systematically evaluated for their capacity to address treatment-resistant depression, substance use disorders, PTSD, and existential distress’, a recently published article in \u003cem\u003eProgress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology \u0026amp; Biological Psychiatry\u003c/em\u003e observes.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTo Australia’s credit the Therapeutic Goods Administration in 2023 approved the use of psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression and MDMA for PTSD. A step in the right direction.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThese are not the only drugs which have been irrationally banned over the years and which are now being discovered to be of real value in treatment of health conditions. Cannabis is another.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAgain, imagine if lawmakers and their friends in the media, religion and the medical profession had seen cannabis for what it was and is – an alleviator of pain and a very pleasurable drug that reduces anxiety. Instead of responding to it in a crazed and utterly irrational manner until recent years (albeit in Australia most politicians still bizarrely buy the ‘gateway drug’ nonsense about cannabis) societies could have been permitting its use through a regulated and taxed market for consumers, as they have been over the past two decades in the US, Canada, Uruguay and elsewhere.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGovernments and international bodies misuse the law to enshrine prejudice and because they pander to misplaced fears. There is also the fact that they refuse to respect bodily integrity and privacy in the shape of people being able to have access to mind experiences that enhance their lives.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd what of LSD and pscilocybins as a recreational drug? According to the Alcohol and Drug Foundation, 12.2 per cent of Australians aged 14 years and over have used psychedelics one or more times in their life. That’s around four million people.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhy not legalise then? As the economist David Henderson, a research fellow at the US think tank, the Hoover Institution, argued back in 1991, “Most of the problems that people think of as being caused by drugs are not caused by drugs per se. Rather, they are caused by drug laws.” Regulated access to LSD and pscilocybins for non-medical uses reduces health and crime risks.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut to return to Leary. He once said; \u0026ldquo;The moment you stop questioning is the moment somebody else starts answering for you.\u0026rdquo; Amen to that.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe author has previously advised advice to Mind Medicine Australia – a body advocating for use of psilocybins and other drugs.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e",
      "summary": "Decades of prohibition have failed to stop psychedelic drug use while blocking research and treatment options, raising questions about the basis of current laws.",
      "date_published": "2026-04-22T10:00:07+10:00",
      "date_modified": "2026-04-22T10:00:07+10:00",
      "authors": [{"name": "Greg Barns"}
      ],
      "tags": ["health","policy","politics"],
      "_social_media": {
        "tweet_text": "Psychedelics were banned on fear, not evidence.\n\n\nDecades later, research is revealing their potential for treating depression, PTSD and more, Greg Barns writes.\n\n\n#auspol #Health #DrugPolicy #MentalHealth",
        "tweet_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/tune-in-turn-on-and-drop-out-the-case-for-legalising-psychedelics-is-stronger-than-ever/",
        "linkedin_title": "Tune in, turn on, and drop out: the case for legalising psychedelics is stronger than ever",
        "linkedin_excerpt": "Decades of prohibition have failed to stop psychedelic drug use while blocking research and treatment options, raising questions about the basis of current laws.",
        "linkedin_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/tune-in-turn-on-and-drop-out-the-case-for-legalising-psychedelics-is-stronger-than-ever/",
        "facebook_text": "Tune in, turn on, and drop out: the case for legalising psychedelics is stronger than ever - Decades of prohibition have failed to stop psychedelic drug use while blocking research and treatment options, raising questions about the basis of current laws.",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/mushroom-and-psilocy.jpg",
        "author_names": "Greg Barns"
      },
      "_mailchimp": {
        "excerpt": "Decades of prohibition have failed to stop psychedelic drug use while blocking research and treatment options, raising questions about the basis of current laws.",
        "authors_string": "Greg Barns",
        "categories_string": "health, policy, politics",
        "pub_date_formatted": "Wednesday, April 22, 2026",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/mushroom-and-psilocy.jpg"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/non-discrimination-is-a-core-australian-value-we-must-defend-it",
      "url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/non-discrimination-is-a-core-australian-value-we-must-defend-it/",
      "title": "Non-discrimination is a core Australian value. We must defend it",
      "content_html": "\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003ePolicies which link migration to “values” undermine a fundamental principle of Australia’s immigration system – fairness without discrimination.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLast week, as Angus Taylor announced the Coalition’s new migration plan I was reminded of a time sitting in Parliament House with Sarya, \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.afr.com/technology/the-refugees-who-could-solve-australia-s-tech-skills-crisis-20211105-p596bu\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003ea Syrian software engineer who had just settled in Australia through a visa pilot program run by Talent Beyond Boundaries.\u003c/a\u003e We were watching Question Time from the public gallery, and I glanced over expecting to share a chuckle at the political theatrics playing out below. I was shocked to see her clearly moved, with tears welling in her eyes. When I quietly asked if she was okay, she whispered: \u0026ldquo;we are above them, if only we had this in Syria”.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSarya meant it literally and figuratively. In Australia’s Parliament, the public gallery sits above the House Chamber. But more than architecture, she explained to me later that she was moved to see democracy in action, and the simple fact that leaders must answer questions and defend their positions under public scrutiny. Sarya knew from lived experience that this does not happen everywhere, and she wasn’t taking it for granted.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI have spent 20 years working with refugees and migrants settling in Australia. I now run a program with universities across the country supporting refugee students to study and build new lives here. Sarya\u0026rsquo;s reaction that day is not unusual. In my experience, the people most committed to democratic values of equality and rule of law are very often those who have lost them, or come close to losing them, and made the agonising decision to leave their home country because of it.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe central thesis of the Coalition’s newly announced immigration policy is that Australia should discriminate against migrants based on their purported values. Angus Taylor argues there are good migrants who adopt Australian values, and bad migrants who don’t – and good migrants are more likely to come from liberal democracies rather than those \u0026ldquo;ruled by fundamentalists, extremists, and dictators”. On this basis, Taylor singles out 1700 Gazans currently in Australia on visas as a \u0026ldquo;high-risk cohort\u0026rdquo;, requiring a retraumatising “reassessment”.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is wrong. Country of origin does not predict commitment to democratic values. It is also a contradictory argument. Non-discrimination is a core Australian value. Permanent visa applicants must sign a values statement committing to the ‘fair go’, defined as embracing ‘mutual respect, tolerance, compassion for those in need and equality of opportunity for all’. Demonising and projecting nefarious intentions onto whole groups of migrants based on their country of origin is the antithesis of this.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is not an immigration policy guided by values. It is a racial and religious profiling dressed up in the language of values.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt has been heartening to see government ministers step up to defend Australia\u0026rsquo;s migrant and refugee communities and reassert the importance of a non-discriminatory immigration program. They are right to do so.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNon-discrimination is the cornerstone of Australia\u0026rsquo;s modern immigration system. The case for it is practical, as well as moral. We need diverse international talent to fuel productivity. We need more young working-age migrants to support an ageing population. And we know what a discriminatory immigration system costs us. The White Australia Policy restricted our labour supply, isolated us from growing regional markets, and subjected migrants to humiliating tests at the border. It was a policy that hurt Australia as much as it hurt migrants.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut if government leaders are going to defend non-discrimination, they need to demonstrate the commitment in practice. Last month, the Albanese Government banned Iranian nationals holding visitor visas from travelling to Australia. Whatever the justification, a blanket restriction targeting the nationals of a single country with no individual assessment is by definition discriminatory.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn my experience, migrants and refugees often have a sharper perspective on what this country stands for than those of us born here. Australian born nationals often take it for granted. Refugees generally do not.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eVolunteers in the program I run know it is a privilege to meet and learn from people from different backgrounds and welcome them to our shores. That is the Australia most of us recognise. We must all defend the non-discriminatory basis of our immigration system.\u003c/p\u003e",
      "summary": "Policies which link migration to “values” undermine a fundamental principle of Australia’s immigration system – fairness without discrimination.",
      "date_published": "2026-04-22T09:45:42+10:00",
      "date_modified": "2026-04-22T09:45:42+10:00",
      "authors": [{"name": "Steph Cousins"}
      ],
      "tags": ["immigration","policy","politics"],
      "_social_media": {
        "tweet_text": "Non-discrimination isn’t optional – it’s a core Australian value.\n\n\nEfforts to tie migration to “values” risk replacing fairness with profiling, and weakening the system they claim to protect, Steph Cousins writes.\n\n\n#auspol #Immigration #Refugees #Democracy",
        "tweet_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/non-discrimination-is-a-core-australian-value-we-must-defend-it/",
        "linkedin_title": "Non-discrimination is a core Australian value. We must defend it",
        "linkedin_excerpt": "Policies which link migration to “values” undermine a fundamental principle of Australia’s immigration system – fairness without discrimination.",
        "linkedin_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/non-discrimination-is-a-core-australian-value-we-must-defend-it/",
        "facebook_text": "Non-discrimination is a core Australian value. We must defend it - Policies which link migration to “values” undermine a fundamental principle of Australia’s immigration system – fairness without discrimination.",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/mulitcultual-group.jpg",
        "author_names": "Steph Cousins"
      },
      "_mailchimp": {
        "excerpt": "Policies which link migration to “values” undermine a fundamental principle of Australia’s immigration system – fairness without discrimination.",
        "authors_string": "Steph Cousins",
        "categories_string": "immigration, policy, politics",
        "pub_date_formatted": "Wednesday, April 22, 2026",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/mulitcultual-group.jpg"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/tehran-demands-hundreds-of-billions-in-reparations-who-will-pay",
      "url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/tehran-demands-hundreds-of-billions-in-reparations-who-will-pay/",
      "title": "Tehran demands hundreds of billions in reparations. Guess who will pay?",
      "content_html": "\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eIf Iran succeeds in extracting reparations for the US–Israeli war, it would mark an historic shift in how power and accountability operate in the international system.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIf Iran succeeds in extracting reparations for the damage done to it in the US-Israeli war, it will be a world historic moment.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIran may be bloodied but it remains unbowed and is \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://en.irna.ir/news/86127330/Iran-demands-compensation-from-five-regional-countries-over-war\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eseeking compensation from Arab states\u003c/a\u003e over ‘direct involvement’ in the US-Israeli war of aggression. Iran sent a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres this month outlining its claim against Bahrain, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Jordan. They also intend to apply a transit toll on the Strait of Hormuz as an instrument of restorative justice.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUnder international law – if anyone still pays attention such things  – the Iranians have a strong case. What will determine if justice is done, however, is victory over the aggressors.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOver 100 US-based international law experts, professors, and practitioners have released a letter stating that the \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.justsecurity.org/135423/professors-letter-international-law-iran-war/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eUnited States and Israel violated the UN Charter\u003c/a\u003e by launching strikes on Iran on 28 February.  The signatories include leaders of prominent international law associations and former Judge Advocates General – the top legal advisors to the US armed forces. They cite the complete lack of evidence of an imminent Iranian threat that could support a self-defence claim.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUnder international law the aggressor is responsible for all the destruction that follows. The white-dominated western countries like the US, Australia and New Zealand should stop banging on about the illegality of Iran taking control of the Strait and address the root causes of why it did so.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSo what is the case against the Arab states? In the early days of the war, radar systems operating from these countries were fully engaged in the war. Thousands of US troops were operating from 14 US bases in their territories. Attack planes, refuelling planes and aerial surveillance planes all operated from bases like Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd Air Base, as reported by \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/saudi-arabia-and-uae-inch-closer-to-us-israeli-war-on-iran#:~:text=Earlier%20this%20month%2C%20Elbridge%20Colby,US%2DIsraeli%20war%20on%20Iran.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003e_ Middle East Eye_\u003c/a\u003e. Major western outlets such as the \u003cem\u003eWall Street Journal\u003c/em\u003e and the \u003cem\u003eNew York Times\u003c/em\u003e documented missile launches and multiple other ways Jordan and the Gulf States were directly involved in the war despite the mainstream media portraying them as innocent bystanders and victims of Iranian aggression. Trump and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth have both described the Gulf States as fighting “shoulder to shoulder” with the US and Israel. In filing their letter with the UN the Iranians have also provided satellite and other data to support their claim.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIran argues that the Arab states, under international law, are co-belligerents. The UN’s International Law Commission \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://legal.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/commentaries/9_6_2001.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eArticles on State Responsibility\u003c/a\u003e (2001) defines the concept of \u0026ldquo;Aid or Assistance\u0026rdquo; in the commission of an internationally wrongful act. It is not hard for Iran to prove that these states did not maintain neutrality.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn reality, for Iran to get justice, deterrence and reparations, there is no international body or court to turn to; it must win by making a continuation too painful for the aggressors. There are signs it might just succeed. Iran has achieved something few on the western side anticipated: the \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/us-military-bases-gulf-useless-after-iranian-strikes-experts-say\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003edestruction of most of the US bases\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMark Lynch, director of the Project on Middle East Political Science at George Washington University told \u003cem\u003eMiddle East Eye:\u003c/em\u003e “The bases around the region are suffering real damage, and I think it\u0026rsquo;s very unlikely that we\u0026rsquo;re ever going to go back and put our Fifth Fleet back in Bahrain. It\u0026rsquo;s too vulnerable. This is the physical architecture of American primacy, and Iran has essentially rendered it useless in the span of a month.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe war on Iran is a long way from finished. Even if the ceasefire holds, the Israelis and Americans will see this only as a stage in their multi-decade project to wreck Iran as a major regional competitor.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAt the end of imperial wars, the victims are traditionally made to pay. In the 19th Century, the British fought the Chinese over the latter’s resistance to the British government’s lucrative opium trade into China. The imperialists won and imposed the infamous Unequal Treaties on China, including awarding to Britain the island of Hong Kong. Queen Victoria even shamelessly named a stolen Pekingese dog “Lootie” after the British sacking of Beijing’s Summer Palace, one of the great cultural crimes of history.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhen the US war on Vietnam ended, decades of harsh US sanctions on their victims began. As the US moved towards accepting it had lost the war, Nixon promised $3.3 billion in reconstruction aid under the Paris Peace Accords (1973). The Americans never paid a cent. The US also pressured the IMF, World Bank, and UN agencies to block Hanoi\u0026rsquo;s applications for loans, seriously retarding reconstruction.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhen the slave revolt in Hispaniola (present day-Haiti) drove out the French, the western powers returned in force a few years later and imposed harsh “reparations” for being dispossessed of their stolen land and humans.  From 1825, Haiti was forced to pay 150 million francs to France to compensate former slaveholders for their \u0026ldquo;lost property.\u0026rdquo; This debt was only fully paid off in 1947, permanently crippling the nation.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe US-Israeli war on Iran is something different. Iran, like the Vietnamese, the Algerians and the Indians may have what it takes to prevail over imperial aggression. Iran may have something different: the power to impose reparations on the aggressor.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAcross the west we are subjected to the astonishing chutzpah of leaders decrying the “illegality” of Iran’s declaration of sovereignty over the Hormuz Strait in response to the war launched against them.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThese same leaders stood silent and complicit and lifted no more than an eyebrow as hundreds of Iranian schoolchildren were killed, hundreds of billions of dollars in infrastructure destroyed, and leader after leader were assassinated.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCowards, all of them, they at best offered whispered rebukes when Trump threatened the destruction of Iranian civilisation in a single night. But tax a barrel of oil and “Oh my god, this is intolerable!”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIran has every right to insist on reparations but they will only come about if Iran succeeds in imposing its position on the belligerents. The Israelis and Americans are unlikely to face justice at the ICC or ICJ, so reparations must be extracted from the other enabling states like the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Germany and France. It is an elegant solution.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOne thing the Iranians will hopefully recover soon is their stolen money. Experts estimate more than $100 billion remains blocked in foreign banks (including in the US, Qatar, South Korea, and Iraq).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe should remember that since 1979 the western world has grievously damaged Iran’s economy via sanctions and the weaponisation of international trading systems, as well as blocking its integration within the community of nations.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIf Iran succeeds in extracting reparations, it will be a world historic moment. It will be an achievement that will benefit countries around the globe which are assailed by major powers. Nuclear powers like the US and Israel should respect the territorial integrity of non-nuclear states. They have done the opposite – and should face consequences.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor these reasons and more, I hope the Iranian government succeeds in its historic mission to preserve the territorial integrity of the sovereign state of Iran and that they can receive just compensation for the terrible crimes committed against them.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI will give the last word to Mohaddeseh Fallahat, a mother who spoke to the UN Human Rights Council this month about \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.aljazeera.com/video/newsfeed/2026/3/27/grieving-iranian-mother-tells-un-about-children-before-school-attack#flips-6391880391112:0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003elosing her daughter to a US airstrike at Minab\u003c/a\u003e at the very start of the US-Israeli war on Iran:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“As they walked out the door, they simply said, Mum, come pick us up after school. That simple sentence now repeats in my mind a thousand times. Each time my heart burns with pain. No mother ever thinks she will send her child off to school with a smile, only to be met with silence.”\u003c/p\u003e",
      "summary": "If Iran succeeds in extracting reparations for the US–Israeli war, it would mark an historic shift in how power and accountability operate in the international system.",
      "date_published": "2026-04-22T09:30:09+10:00",
      "date_modified": "2026-04-22T09:30:09+10:00",
      "authors": [{"name": "Eugene Doyle"}
      ],
      "tags": ["politics","usa","world"],
      "_social_media": {
        "tweet_text": "What if the aggressors had to pay?\n\n\nIf Iran succeeds in extracting reparations from the US–Israeli war, it could mark an historic shift in global power and accountability, Eugene Doyle writes.\n\n\n#auspol #Geopolitics #Iran #InternationalLaw",
        "tweet_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/tehran-demands-hundreds-of-billions-in-reparations-who-will-pay/",
        "linkedin_title": "Tehran demands hundreds of billions in reparations. Guess who will pay?",
        "linkedin_excerpt": "If Iran succeeds in extracting reparations for the US–Israeli war, it would mark an historic shift in how power and accountability operate in the international system.",
        "linkedin_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/tehran-demands-hundreds-of-billions-in-reparations-who-will-pay/",
        "facebook_text": "Tehran demands hundreds of billions in reparations. Guess who will pay? - If Iran succeeds in extracting reparations for the US–Israeli war, it would mark an historic shift in how power and accountability operate in the international system.",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/un71135206-260407-me.jpg",
        "author_names": "Eugene Doyle"
      },
      "_mailchimp": {
        "excerpt": "If Iran succeeds in extracting reparations for the US–Israeli war, it would mark an historic shift in how power and accountability operate in the international system.",
        "authors_string": "Eugene Doyle",
        "categories_string": "politics, usa, world",
        "pub_date_formatted": "Wednesday, April 22, 2026",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/un71135206-260407-me.jpg"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/the-return-of-great-power-relations-what-can-middle-powers-do-part-1",
      "url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/the-return-of-great-power-relations-what-can-middle-powers-do-part-1/",
      "title": "The return of great power relations: What can middle powers do? Part 1",
      "content_html": "\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eAs part of the \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://johnmenadue.com/series/foreign-policy-rethink/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eForeign Policy Rethink\u003c/a\u003e series, Geoff Raby examines how Trump’s shift to great power politics is reshaping the global order and forcing middle powers to rethink their strategy.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWith the inauguration of President Trump in January 2025, US foreign and strategic policy shifted abruptly. It was not just a return to the policies of Trump 1.0 of treating the US’s traditional allies and alliances casually, sometimes disdainfully, and tolerating some of the world’s despots. Instead, it was a profound shift which absolutely prioritised great power relations over alliances, emphasised homeland security over external threats to US interests, although these still matter, and returned the western hemisphere to the centre of US foreign policy concerns. At the same time, the long-standing priority previously given to Europe was downgraded together with a reallocation of strategic attention and resources towards the Indo-Pacific.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe US intervention in Venezuela on 3 January 2026, the extraordinary rendition of President Maduro to the US, and subsequent more assertive demands on Denmark to concede the territory of Greenland to the US are most recent manifestations of this profound shift in world affairs. Understanding the implications for middle powers has become even more urgent.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTrump is now signalling a clearer, at times more brutal, definition of ‘America First’. This should come as no surprise for Trump has largely done what he said he would do. Through the twists and turns of his policies, and the so-called TACO (‘Trump always chickens out’), a clear and consistent direction emerges: relationships are transactional. It is a zero-sum world in which the ‘art of the deal’ must always be to the benefit of the US. This is the agenda of Trump’s political base, the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe sentiments driving this movement have a number of dimensions: globalisation is treated suspiciously and autarchy favoured; multilateral institutions are disregarded, ignored, de-emphasised, undermined and disrupted; tariffs and financial policies are instruments for forcing certain behaviour on other countries; bilateral deals are pressed on others, such as the US-Russia proposed peace plan for Ukraine or in Gaza, with the EU effectively relegated to the role of bystanders; and the ‘art of the deal’ crowds out traditional liberal concerns in international relations, such as human rights, freedom of belief and religion, just treatment of minorities, and respect for territorial integrity.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHow middle powers position themselves in the new multipolar order has become a pressing issue for foreign and security policy. The diplomatic challenges for middle power diplomacy are substantial and differ between countries and regions.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI argue that middle powers now find themselves having to balance between a stridently unilateralist US, which places much less weight on alliances, and a revisionist China that is well advanced in shaping an international order that reflects its own priorities as the ascendency of Trump 2.0 has accelerated changes to the global order, and hence the need for middle powers to position themselves in ways which protect and advance their interests.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis series outlines an agenda for activist middle power diplomacy in a multipolar world, while recognising the constraints.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e**Is MAGA here to stay?\n**\nSome analysts, still hankering after the fast-receding international liberal order, nurture hopes that it will return when Trump is no longer in power.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn view of the disruption to the world order in Trump’s first year in office, one can hardly imagine what changes will occur in the next three years. Absent Trump, it is most unlikely that the international order will simply default back to Trump ex-ante. Trump’s disruption arises from deep, socio-economic stresses in the US, and as such are structural. In any event, with China’s continued rise and growing weight in global affairs, the world system, with or without Trump, would have looked very different in 2029 than it did in 2025.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe three drivers of the MAGA movement are: Trump himself, immigration, and America First in every domain, but especially the economic. While Trump is indeed a dominating, and the dominant force, others, such as Vice President JD Vance or Trump family members, could perpetuate his influence beyond his personal leadership.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eConcerns over immigration may abate if the current administration’s policies are successful, but fear of ‘the other’ is always at hand to channel the politics of grievance. A consequence of this deeply-rooted America First movement prevailing over US domestic politics is a return to an international order based on great power relations.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e**G2 World\n**\nEarly signs of Trump’s reordering of US security and foreign policy priorities towards the western hemisphere and great power relations were dramatically displayed when, having flown across the Pacific to South Korea to have a bilateral meeting with President Xi Jinping, he flew back to Washington immediately after that meeting, turning his back on all the other regional leaders gathered there to attend the APEC Leader’s Summit.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd in case there was any doubt about the change in the world order after Trump turned his back on APEC, Trump declared on his social media post that he had a ‘G2’ meeting with Xi Jinping. Before the meeting, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform ‘the G2-meeting was convening shortly’ with President Xi. Afterwards \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://insidestory.org.au/and-then-there-were-two/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003ehe posted\u003c/a\u003e, ‘My G2-meeting with President Xi of China was a great one for both countries’.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA G2 was first proposed by US economist Fred Bergsten in 2005, as a way of managing the international economy. At the time, China rejected the concept. As a developing country, it did not want to assume responsibility for providing global public goods, preferring to work through multilateral agencies, such as the WTO or UN. Moreover, it felt that it would be locked into an unequal relationship with the US as a junior partner, when it sought equality, if not pre-eminence. It was also \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://thediplomat.com/2025/11/why-china-is-still-not-interested-in-the-offer-of-a-g2/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003econcerned about attracting negative reactions\u003c/a\u003e, especially among the developing world, or Global South.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAlthough China has still not officially endorsed Trump’s G2, following the Trump-Xi meeting the official position has been to stress Beijing’s willingness to work cooperatively and constructively together on a range of issues affecting their bilateral relations without formally distancing itself from the G2 concept. Analysts in China tend to point to Trump’s statement as being significant for shifting the \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/11/us-china-power-shift-a-g2-world-asian-media-report/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003erelationship with China\u003c/a\u003efrom one of competition and possible conflict to one of cooperation and treating China as an equal in global affairs.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eInternational relations expert, \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://thediplomat.com/2025/11/trumps-g2-moment-dawn-of-a-new-world-order/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eMuktedar Khan wrote\u003c/a\u003e:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“The Trump-Xi meeting in Busan is laden with structural consequences . . . By casting this meeting as a G2-Summit, Trump has effectively re-defined the global order”.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhile this may well overstate the longer-term significance of Trump’s resurrection of the G2 concept, its immediate and enduring significance is that China is being recognised as an equal with the United States in leading the global order.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e**The ‘Donroe’ Doctrine\n**\nReflecting this shift in US strategic thinking, the\n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-National-Security-Strategy.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eUS National Security Strategy (NSS)\u003c/a\u003e published in November 2025 provided a comprehensive statement of US security priorities and how the Administration viewed the world. It was a sharp break from that of previous US Administrations, including Trump 2017.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAt its core, it elevates the western hemisphere to the US’ top security priority. This so-called ‘Donroe’ Doctrine channels the early nineteenth century Monroe Doctrine. Essentially, it seeks to exclude other powers from the western hemisphere and demands that states within the region do whatever they can to roll back foreign influence, as has happened with the pressure for China-linked investors to divest in the Panama Canal and related port infrastructure.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHowever, large regional powers, particularly Brazil, can be expected to continue to push back against US economic and political pressures to restrict Chinese economic and strategic influence. Still, Trump did not hesitate to interfere in \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62gd8e1e5do\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eBrazil’s internal affairs\u003c/a\u003e when he (unsuccessfully) sought to prevent former Brazilian President, Jair Bolsonaro, from being imprisoned.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn early January 2026, US actions in Venezuela taken against the basic precepts of international law will have put all countries in the region on notice that the rules of the game have been changed in the US’ favour. At the same time, it has sharply divided the region. Argentina’s President, Javier Milei, has strongly backed Trump’s actions while Brazil’s President, Lula da Silva, has condemned them in equally strong terms.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe NSS also states that the US will remain ‘engaged with Asia’, saying it will seek to maintain a favourable balance of power over China, rebalance trade, and support Taiwan given that its geographical location is important for maintaining open shipping lanes and access to the South China Sea. Gone, however, are the usual US concerns about defending democracy in Taiwan, and no mention is made of human rights or minorities such as those in Xinjiang and Tibet.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe NSS sets out clearly the philosophy that will guide US foreign and security policies – ‘flexible realism’. In a break with the past century of US foreign policy thinking, the paper states that the US seeks good relations with others and does not intend to ‘impose on them democratic or other social change that differs widely from their traditions and histories.’\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn the starkest statement yet that the US has given up its long-standing belief in US exceptionalism and its mission to remake the world in its own image, the NSS states that ‘the affairs of other countries are our concern only if their activities directly threaten our interests.’ Moreover, the paper clearly prioritises the nation state ‘against the sovereignty-sapping incursions of the most intrusive transnational organisations’.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor middle powers, especially US allies, the demands are now unmistakable. They are expected to do more to defend themselves and their regions. European states are said to be at risk of becoming ‘unreliable allies’. The US wants to settle the Ukraine conflict without the involvement of Europe and seeks to end ‘perceptions of NATO as a continually expanding alliance’.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Kremlin will be delighted with all of this. It seems there is also a convergence between the White House and the Kremlin’s view that Europe is in ‘civilisation decline’, although for Trump and his advisers this is predominantly an issue of immigration. The European populist right could have hardly wished for more encouragement from the White House. The strategy sums up the choice for middle and small powers in the bluntest of terms:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“. . . all countries should [decide] whether they want to live in an American-led world . . . or in a parallel one in which they are influenced by countries on the other side of the world”.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis demonstrates clearly that the US now regards the world order as being bipolar.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePart 1 of this 4-Part series is republished from \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.globalneighbours.org/en/studies/the-return-of-great-power-relations-what-can-middle-powers-do\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eGlobal Neighbours.org\u003c/a\u003e, 13 February, 2026\u003c/p\u003e",
      "summary": "As part of the Foreign Policy Rethink series, Geoff Raby examines how Trump’s shift to great power politics is reshaping the global order and forcing middle powers to rethink their strategy.",
      "date_published": "2026-04-22T00:59:37+10:00",
      "date_modified": "2026-04-22T00:59:37+10:00",
      "authors": [{"name": "Geoff Raby"}
      ],
      "tags": ["politics","usa","world"],
      "_social_media": {
        "tweet_text": "In the third of our Rethinking Foreign Policy series, Geoff Raby argues middle powers now face a stark choice in a world shaped by US unilateralism and China’s rise.\nHow should countries like Australia respond?\n#auspol #ForeignPolicy #Geopolitics #China #USA",
        "tweet_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/the-return-of-great-power-relations-what-can-middle-powers-do-part-1/",
        "linkedin_title": "The return of great power relations: What can middle powers do? Part 1",
        "linkedin_excerpt": "As part of the Foreign Policy Rethink series, Geoff Raby examines how Trump’s shift to great power politics is reshaping the global order and forcing middle powers to rethink their strategy.",
        "linkedin_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/the-return-of-great-power-relations-what-can-middle-powers-do-part-1/",
        "facebook_text": "The return of great power relations: What can middle powers do? Part 1 - As part of the Foreign Policy Rethink series, Geoff Raby examines how Trump’s shift to great power politics is reshaping the global order and forcing middle powers to rethink their strategy.",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/President-elect-Donald-Trump-and-Vice-President-elect-JD-Vance-arrive-at-the-60th-Presidential-Inauguration.jpg",
        "author_names": "Geoff Raby"
      },
      "_mailchimp": {
        "excerpt": "As part of the Foreign Policy Rethink series, Geoff Raby examines how Trump’s shift to great power politics is reshaping the global order and forcing middle powers to rethink their strategy.",
        "authors_string": "Geoff Raby",
        "categories_string": "politics, usa, world",
        "pub_date_formatted": "Wednesday, April 22, 2026",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/President-elect-Donald-Trump-and-Vice-President-elect-JD-Vance-arrive-at-the-60th-Presidential-Inauguration.jpg"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/a-prime-time-hit-job-on-renewables-falls-apart-under-basic-facts",
      "url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/a-prime-time-hit-job-on-renewables-falls-apart-under-basic-facts/",
      "title": "A prime-time hit job on renewables falls apart under basic facts",
      "content_html": "\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eSpotlight\u0026rsquo;s TV report on renewables and EVs collapses under basic fact-checking, highlighting how misinformation is shaping Australia’s energy debate.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe recent Senate inquiry into climate and energy misinformation and disinformation unveiled some shocking evidence about the nature of attacks against climate science, renewable energy, EVs and other green technologies.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://reneweconomy.com.au/indefensible-fossil-fuel-lies-have-crippled-climate-action-so-why-did-senate-inquiry-have-to-pull-its-punches/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eAnne Delaney wrote last month, \u003c/a\u003emultiple submissions detailed coordinated “astroturfing” campaigns, including fake social media accounts impersonating real Australians to manufacture opposition to renewable energy projects, alongside widespread use of misleading political advertising.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eExperts told the inquiry that digital platforms are amplifying false and distorted claims through opaque algorithms, while the rapid rise of artificial intelligence is accelerating an explosion of deceptive content.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDisturbingly, such campaigns have also become a feature of some mainstream media, and it seems our major TV networks are no exception.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eSpotlight\u003c/em\u003e, the so-called flagship current affairs program on the 7 network, dedicated more than an hour on Sunday evening on a report into the supply chains feeding into the renewables and EV industries, with a particular focus on cobalt mines in the Congo, and also activities in Australia. It was amplified on Murdoch and social media.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt fell over at the very first fact-check. “Every battery, every electric vehicle, every piece of so-called clean energy technology today” uses cobalt, reporter Liam Bartlett claimed at the start of the program.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWrong.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNearly every big battery installed in Australia these days uses (LFP) lithium iron phosphate chemistry, which means no cobalt, and no nickel (that’s relevant because Bartlett did a similar hit job on the nickel industry last year, using that as a platform to attack EVs and renewables).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTesla, the biggest supplier to big batteries in Australia, now uses only LFP batteries for grid scale batteries. No cobalt. The two big batteries at Liddell and Tomago being built for AGL Energy by Fluence are LFP. No cobalt. A spokesperson for Fluence said all its batteries in Australia use LFP. “We don’t use cobalt.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFinland-based Wartsila, which is building the country’s biggest grid battery at Eraring for Origin Energy, also uses only LFP for its battery projects in Australia. No cobalt.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt’s a similar story with EVs. Tesla, for instance, uses only LFP chemistry for most of the variants of its best selling Model Y and the Model 3. No cobalt. It uses NMC chemistry (which does include cobalt) only in “performance” variants, which amounts to about 10 per cent of sales.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHome batteries, which are now being installed at record rates in Australia, are the same. New market leader Sigenergy uses only LFP chemistry, so no cobalt, as does another market leader Sungrow, and most others.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBartlett claims to be appalled by the conditions in some cobalt mines in the Congo, and the nickel mine in Indonesia. And so he should be. So should everyone.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut the inconvenient truth is that these mines have been operating for decades, and cobalt has been used widely in many industries.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe mineral is essential for the iPhone that Bartlett presumably uses, for the laptop he writes his stories on, for the jet engines that flew him from Australia to Africa, and for widespread use in medicine (hip and knee replacements), the petroleum industry, the manufacture of tools, for construction, for cosmetics, and even ceramics.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe use of cobalt in EV and grid batteries is relatively new, and is already moving on. Where it is used, most EV makers are at pains to point out that the mineral does not come from such mines, and they produce blockchain style tracking reports to underline their claims.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut Bartlett did not seem particularly interested in balance, or inconvenient detail. His story had three major themes – he doesn’t like the Chinese, he doesn’t like renewables and EVs, and he doesn’t like federal Energy and Climate Minister Chris Bowen.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“Bowen’s fanatical approach, aided and abetted by a conga line of true believers and latte-sipping Teal supporters is now set to send the country into bankruptcy,” Bartlett wrote in an op-ed also published on 7’s website.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHe appeared to have former Greens leader Bob Brown on his side when discussing the Rosebery zinc, copper and lead mine in Tasmania, which had been seeking approval to pipe waste across the Pieman River into a new tailings dam they wanted to build in the Tarkine (also known as Takayna).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBrown and his eponymous foundation have been leading calls to have the Tarkine declared a national park, and given World Heritage status, such is the value of its ancient forests and fauna. Brown has been appalled by the incursions already made by the mining industry into the area.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe problem is that Rosebery has been operating for nearly a century (it was opened in 1936), long before renewables and EVs were a thing. And the good news is that – since the interview with Brown in front of a giant Myrtle tree in the Tarkine forest – the mine owner MMG has changed its plans.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt now proposes a new tailings dam on its side of the Pieman River, out of the Tarkine wilderness area. It was a massive victory for the Bob Brown Foundation, whose blockades of MMG machinery drew more than 2,000 forest defenders and led to more than 100 arrests since 2021.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe change was \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-02-22/tailings-dam-new-approach-from-mmg/106372128\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eannounced in February,\u003c/a\u003e two months before the program went to air. There was no mention of that development when the program went to air on Sunday, although MMG did confirm this in a statement to the program that was published on the \u003cem\u003eSpotlight\u003c/em\u003e website.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBartlett also interviewed Steve Nowakowski, once a senior office holder at the now disbanded Rainforest Reserves, a lobby group that advocated nuclear power and was the subject of searing criticism in the Senate inquiry.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNowakowski, a cartographer, has been widely amplified in the Murdoch media and has been accused of grossly exaggerting the impact of wind and solar farms on the Australian landscape. A map published by Rainforests Australia included wind farms that did not in fact exist.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe real target of Bartlett, however, was Bowen. Bartlett wrote on the \u003cem\u003eSpotlight\u003c/em\u003e website that “the myopic green dream of energy minister Chris Bowen and his co-cabinet ideologues has left us all exposed.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHe wondered:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“If the war with Iran has done nothing else, it’s given us all a real-world, real-time lesson in what truly runs our lives.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“A brutal reminder of which fuels actually matter and what government must do to protect the chain of supply and hence the livelihoods of its people.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“But why do we need reminding at all? How can it be that such an energy-rich nation manages to find itself vulnerable in an energy crisis?”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe answer to that last question is simple. Australia needs to decrease its reliance on fossil fuels, not increase it. And if the environment is in any way important – which it is – then the transition must happen as quickly as it can.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBartlett – who was global head of TV, creative visual at oil giant Shell in London from 2013-2015 – is clearly an environmentalist at heart. But perhaps his anger and his outrage should be vented towards the industries that benefit most from these appalling mining conditions.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn the case of the Indonesian nickel mine, it was the steel industry, in the case of the Congo cobalt mines, it is just about everything else. Perhaps he should join the Bob Brown Foundation.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRepublished from \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://reneweconomy.com.au/wild-attack-on-batteries-and-renewables-by-7s-spotlight-program-falls-over-at-the-first-fact-check/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eRenew Economy,\u003c/a\u003e 21 April 2026\u003c/p\u003e",
      "summary": "Spotlight's TV report on renewables and EVs collapses under basic fact-checking, highlighting how misinformation is shaping Australia’s energy debate.",
      "date_published": "2026-04-22T00:54:23+10:00",
      "date_modified": "2026-04-22T00:54:23+10:00",
      "authors": [{"name": "Giles Parkinson"}
      ],
      "tags": ["climate","media","politics"],
      "_social_media": {
        "tweet_text": "A prime-time TV report on renewables and EVs fell apart at the first fact-check.\nMisinformation is distorting Australia’s energy debate – and being amplified in mainstream media, Giles Parkinson writes.\n#auspol #Energy #Climate #Renewables #Media",
        "tweet_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/a-prime-time-hit-job-on-renewables-falls-apart-under-basic-facts/",
        "linkedin_title": "A prime-time hit job on renewables falls apart under basic facts",
        "linkedin_excerpt": "Spotlight's TV report on renewables and EVs collapses under basic fact-checking, highlighting how misinformation is shaping Australia’s energy debate.",
        "linkedin_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/a-prime-time-hit-job-on-renewables-falls-apart-under-basic-facts/",
        "facebook_text": "A prime-time hit job on renewables falls apart under basic facts - Spotlight's TV report on renewables and EVs collapses under basic fact-checking, highlighting how misinformation is shaping Australia’s energy debate.",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/solar-and-battery-facility.2WWKPBH.jpg",
        "author_names": "Giles Parkinson"
      },
      "_mailchimp": {
        "excerpt": "Spotlight's TV report on renewables and EVs collapses under basic fact-checking, highlighting how misinformation is shaping Australia’s energy debate.",
        "authors_string": "Giles Parkinson",
        "categories_string": "climate, media, politics",
        "pub_date_formatted": "Wednesday, April 22, 2026",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/solar-and-battery-facility.2WWKPBH.jpg"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/the-diesel-shock-shows-why-government-must-help-freight-electrify",
      "url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/the-diesel-shock-shows-why-government-must-help-freight-electrify/",
      "title": "The diesel shock shows why government must help freight electrify",
      "content_html": "\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eAs diesel prices surge, freight operators face mounting pressure, highlighting the urgent need for immediate support and a longer-term shift to electrified transport.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eVoters may not blame Anthony Albanese for Donald Trump’s foolish decision to whack their access to fuel. But they do expect him to fix it.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe trucking sector is right to be frustrated at the time it is taking for promised government support to be delivered to freight operators with urgency when their diesel bills now hitting their inboxes have doubled in a month.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut Angus Taylor and Matt Canavan, members of a government which bent over backwards to sabotage electrification, are being deliberately and dangerously disingenuous when they dangle suggestions before truckers that economically viable reserves of oil would be available if only we would start drilling.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe fact is that Canavan, when he was Resources Minister, issued exploration licences for the Great Australian Bight. But the licences were handed back because the companies found it geologically too difficult and too expensive.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEqually, exploitation of the Bowen Basin would already have proceeded had promoters and investors thought it economically viable.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe fact is that China, having absorbed the lessons of the supply shock of the Global Financial Crisis, now nearly two decades ago, kickstarted electrification of its transport sector.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSuch is the success that last year alone China put 250,000 electric trucks on the road, double the size of Australia’s entire truck fleet.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBack here, the government’s ad campaign is asking consumers to “play their part” to reduce their fuel use. Unfortunately, 80 per cent of passenger transport runs on petrol, which is not interchangeable with the diesel our road freight operators depend on.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEven among the minority who drive diesel cars, a 10 per cent reduction in driving would free up less than 1 per cent of national diesel demand.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEven in good times, freight operators run on incredibly tight 1-2 per cent average margins. They are the archetypal small businesses which politicians love to invoke. Ninety eight per cent employ fewer than 20 people. Seventy per cent own only a single truck.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd these are not good times. Insolvency rates were already up 40 per cent year on year in November last year. One in 12 freight businesses closed their doors. And now that the price of diesel has almost doubled we need to get serious both about supporting trucking companies through this crisis and helping them avoid the next one.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere are powerful levers within the government’s reach to strengthen our energy sovereignty and reduce our dependence on imported diesel. The most important of which is helping freight operators afford the switch to electric.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eElectric trucks are 1.5-2.5 times more expensive to buy, but much cheaper to run – up to 85 per cent cheaper under real world conditions. Over the operating life of the truck those savings outweigh the higher purchase cost.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTo help small-and-medium businesses climb over the upfront cost hurdle the Prime Minister could mobilise existing funding within the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency. It’s off budget so deploying it won’t worsen the deficit, or crowd out more immediate support options.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe’ve already seen this work with lower interest loans and residual value support at the centre of a landmark $70m CEFC deal with Volvo in December. But it needs to be scaled up to higher levels of support and made accessible to the smaller fleet operators who need it most.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAt scale, this type of support would be sufficient to get enough electric trucks on the road so that by 2030 we could be saving one billion litres of diesel a year. That\u0026rsquo;s almost half the diesel used by our entire farming sector.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAt this moment everyone has a stake in it. Because every litre of diesel saved by someone who can go electric, is a litre left over for someone who can’t.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs we get asked to think about the small steps we as individuals can take to preserve fuel in this crisis, remember this: far bigger pay offs are at the Prime Minister’s finger tips if he takes up the mantle.\u003c/p\u003e",
      "summary": "As diesel prices surge, freight operators face mounting pressure, highlighting the urgent need for immediate support and a longer-term shift to electrified transport.",
      "date_published": "2026-04-22T00:49:11+10:00",
      "date_modified": "2026-04-22T00:49:11+10:00",
      "authors": [{"name": "Bruce Hardy"}
      ],
      "tags": ["politics"],
      "_social_media": {
        "tweet_text": "Diesel prices are surging – and freight operators are being squeezed.\nShort-term support is critical, but the real solution lies in electrifying transport, Bruce Hardy writes.\n#auspol #Energy #Transport #CostOfLiving",
        "tweet_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/the-diesel-shock-shows-why-government-must-help-freight-electrify/",
        "linkedin_title": "The diesel shock shows why government must help freight electrify",
        "linkedin_excerpt": "As diesel prices surge, freight operators face mounting pressure, highlighting the urgent need for immediate support and a longer-term shift to electrified transport.",
        "linkedin_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/the-diesel-shock-shows-why-government-must-help-freight-electrify/",
        "facebook_text": "The diesel shock shows why government must help freight electrify - As diesel prices surge, freight operators face mounting pressure, highlighting the urgent need for immediate support and a longer-term shift to electrified transport.",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/electric-trucks.jpg",
        "author_names": "Bruce Hardy"
      },
      "_mailchimp": {
        "excerpt": "As diesel prices surge, freight operators face mounting pressure, highlighting the urgent need for immediate support and a longer-term shift to electrified transport.",
        "authors_string": "Bruce Hardy",
        "categories_string": "politics",
        "pub_date_formatted": "Wednesday, April 22, 2026",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/electric-trucks.jpg"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/louise-adler-on-howard-jacobsons-howl-a-novel-overtaken-by-ideology",
      "url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/louise-adler-on-howard-jacobsons-howl-a-novel-overtaken-by-ideology/",
      "title": "Louise Adler on Howard Jacobson’s Howl – a novel overtaken by ideology",
      "content_html": "\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe review that the mainstream media would not run – Louise Adler on Booker-Prize winner Howard Jacobson\u0026rsquo;s latest novel Howl.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.penguin.com.au/books/howl-9781787336452\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003e_Howl_\u003c/a\u003e is a jeremiad, a 300-page essay on the immutability and inevitability of antisemitism thinly disguised as a novel.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHoward Jacobson admits to being half-mad after Oct 7th, but empathy, reason and fact have been swept aside in this, his 18th novel. It is sad that this myopia, a condition of collective narcissism, has blinkered one of Britain’s finest contemporary satirists. But it was Jacobson who once observed that Jews are smitten with our own tragedy.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA line from Allan Ginsberg ‘s 1960’s poem \u003cem\u003eHowl\u003c/em\u003e provides the novel’s epigraph “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness”. Set in suburban London, Jacobson’s protagonist, Dr Ferdinand Draxler, is the headmaster of a primary school. With a predilection for grammar, he has a lot to contend with – his deputy is a recent convert to Judaism who sports an ostentatiously oversized yarmulka, his brother – once a follower of the Haredi sect – has become an atheist, his Oxford educated daughter, Zoe, now specialises in antizionism, and his formidable Mutti survived Belsen.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"figure wp-image-465650 size-medium alignright\"\u003e\n    \u003cimg src=\"https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/howl-cover-187x300.jpg\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid\" alt=\"\" width=\"187\"\u003e\n    \n\u003c/figure\u003e Draxler is undone when he sees Zoe at a pro-Palestine march, a \u0026ldquo;Carnival of Gore”, tearing down a poster of an Israeli hostage. He is affronted by students and staff confused that their headmaster sees Oct 7th as a pogrom devoid of context or history. That atrocity simply confirms his enduring expectation that the Holocaust was never going to be the end of antisemitism. His Mutti, a tough survivor, is less sentimental, less prone to fatalism while Draxler, the “keeper of the flame”, insists that the Holocaust is his and his daughter’s inherited legacy.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe narrative, frequently alluding to actual events, is fuelled by half-truths and myths. It is surprising to read a writer of Jacobson’s fierce intelligence so determined on prosecuting the case that Jews are exceptional, so bound by moral laws that he can’t untangle facts from propaganda.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn an article criticising the BBC’s “anti-Israel bias“ \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/dec/03/charging-jews-with-genocide-declare-them-guilty-precisely-what-was-done-to-them-middle-east\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003ehe argued that\u003c/a\u003e “genocides don’t leaflet the population they want to destroy with warnings to stay out of harm’s way”. One can only wonder whether the Palestinian parents of 20,000 murdered children agree. Jacobson and his protagonist are so preoccupied with antisemitism that they are inured to atrocities committed in their name.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJacobson was never one for the cool calmness of perspective – writers who have a talent for the riff rarely are. He has lost much of his sense of humour; but then he would say that this is not a time for jokes and he’s right. We are all now at the mercy of autocrats, grifters and hacks, and in these dark times \u003cem\u003eHowl\u003c/em\u003e offers readers a polemic disguised as a novel.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI thought Jacobson’s subject was men but I was wrong – his subject has always been Jews and Jewish identity with masculinity as an entertaining side order. As he pointed out in his Booker prize winning novel, \u003cem\u003eFinkler\u003c/em\u003e, \u0026ldquo;talking Jewishly about being Jewish was being Jewish”. I don’t begrudge Jacobson his obsession, indeed I am susceptible to it too. However, in \u003cem\u003eHowl\u003c/em\u003e his vision is so severely circumscribed as to create a world where justice and humanity succumb to collective self-absorption.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJonathan Swift wrote to Alexander Pope \u0026ldquo;the chief end of my labours is to vex the world rather than divert it”. Jacobson is as vexed as the world he inhabits. He is beside himself, but as Danny Kaye would say, it’s his favourite position.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDraxler, channelling Jacobson, is arguing for uncertainty, viewing the demonstrators as dogmatists easily led by lefty academics who have taken over the grove of academe, “ ignorant armies (who) pitched their encampments of know-nothingness across the lawns of learning”.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAccording to Jacobson our people were chosen “to be standard bearers of ethical refinement, discrimination, reason and law”. It is hard not to give a hollow laugh, when reminded of the Star of David being carved into a Palestinian face and Tik Tok memes of IDF soldiers looting Gazan homes or torturing Palestinians in Sde Teiman prison.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn the past Jacobson has written about holocaust porn, a catalogue of wildly inaccurate, often obscene fictionalised narratives about concentration camp life – the dressmakers, the librarians, the musicians and the tattooists. \u003cem\u003eHowl’s\u003c/em\u003e protagonist prodding his resistant Mutti about her time making cakes for the Beast of Belsen veers uncomfortably close to voyeurism, caressing the horrors of the past in the service of a political project.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDraxler sees antisemitic graffiti everywhere, hears people shouting gas the Jews, reading Roald Dahl on the tube. Yes, antisemitism has flourished since Oct 7th. Some explain it as an eternal hatred, others as a 19th century phenomenon, the result of Catholic teachings, or the consequence of diaspora Jews almost universal allegiance to the Zionist project.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe novel is a disturbing testament to the effect of Zionist identification on the minds of those afflicted by this allegiance.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJacobson has produced a narrative that wouldn’t be out of place among the submissions to the royal commission, where, in similarly harrowing accounts, narrator-victims describe the experience of total psychic decompensation resulting from the mere sight of a Palestinian flag on a university campus. This is histrionics in the service of political propaganda. Stories like these of “victimhood” are disturbing, certainly; but they don’t make for compelling literature.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJacobson says \u003cem\u003eHowl\u003c/em\u003e is a novel, not a march. It is, in reality, a march in prose.\u003c/p\u003e",
      "summary": "The review that the mainstream media would not run – Louise Adler on Booker-Prize winner Howard Jacobson's latest novel Howl.",
      "date_published": "2026-04-22T00:44:16+10:00",
      "date_modified": "2026-04-22T00:44:16+10:00",
      "authors": [{"name": "Louise Adler"}
      ],
      "tags": ["review","israel-palestine"],
      "_social_media": {
        "tweet_text": "Howard Jacobson’s latest novel Howl is less fiction than polemic, driven by ideology and anger in the wake of October 7, Louise Adler writes.\n#Books #Literature #Politics #Israel #Gaza",
        "tweet_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/louise-adler-on-howard-jacobsons-howl-a-novel-overtaken-by-ideology/",
        "linkedin_title": "Louise Adler on Howard Jacobson’s Howl – a novel overtaken by ideology",
        "linkedin_excerpt": "The review that the mainstream media would not run – Louise Adler on Booker-Prize winner Howard Jacobson's latest novel Howl.",
        "linkedin_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/louise-adler-on-howard-jacobsons-howl-a-novel-overtaken-by-ideology/",
        "facebook_text": "Louise Adler on Howard Jacobson’s Howl – a novel overtaken by ideology - The review that the mainstream media would not run – Louise Adler on Booker-Prize winner Howard Jacobson's latest novel Howl.",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/howard-jacobson-c.jpg",
        "author_names": "Louise Adler"
      },
      "_mailchimp": {
        "excerpt": "The review that the mainstream media would not run – Louise Adler on Booker-Prize winner Howard Jacobson's latest novel Howl.",
        "authors_string": "Louise Adler",
        "categories_string": "review, israel-palestine",
        "pub_date_formatted": "Wednesday, April 22, 2026",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/howard-jacobson-c.jpg"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/study-warns-of-terrifying-atlantic-ocean-current-collapse",
      "url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/study-warns-of-terrifying-atlantic-ocean-current-collapse/",
      "title": "Study warns of terrifying Atlantic Ocean current collapse",
      "content_html": "\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eNew research shows a critical Atlantic Ocean current system is weakening faster than expected, raising the risk of irreversible climate disruption.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe global climate crisis is causing a critical Atlantic Ocean current system to weaken much sooner than previously predicted, according to a study published on Thursday. If it stops, scientists say it could pose catastrophic consequences for Europe, Africa, and the Americas.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is one of the most important current systems in the world for maintaining the delicate balance of the global climate. It helps to keep colder regions like Europe and the Arctic mild by moving warm water northward and pushes large amounts of carbon deep into the ocean, keeping it out of the atmosphere.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eScientists have feared AMOC’s decline for some time. Previous studies have \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/apr/11/critical-gulf-stream-current-weakest-for-1600-years-research-finds\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eshown\u003c/a\u003e it to be at its weakest point in 1,600 years. But research published this month suggests that a collapse may come much sooner than anticipated.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOne study, \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adx4298#sec-3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003epublished\u003c/a\u003e Thursday in the journal \u003cem\u003e\n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.commondreams.org/tag/science\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eScience\u003c/a\u003e Advances\u003c/em\u003e, used climate models and current data to predict the decline in the coming decades.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eResearchers found that the system is on course to slow by more than 50 per cent by the end of the century and could pass a significant tipping point by mid-century, at which point its decline would become irreversible.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“We found that the AMOC is declining faster than predicted by the average of all climate models,” said lead researcher Valentin Portmann, of the Inria Research Center of Bordeaux South-West. “This means we are closer to a tipping point than previously thought.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA major driver of its slowdown has been the rapid melting of Greenland’s freshwater ice sheet into the Atlantic, which has diluted denser saltwater, making it harder to transfer northward.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHe explained: “The more rapidly Greenland melts, the more freshwater floods the North Atlantic. This disrupts the sinking process, effectively applying the brakes to the entire system.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis research followed another study \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adz7738#sec-3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003epublished\u003c/a\u003e last week by scientists at the University of Miami, which found that AMOC has been weakening at four latitudes in the Atlantic.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eProfessor Stefan Rahmstorf, a leading AMOC researcher at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, who was not involved in either study, called it “an important and deeply concerning result” that “confirms that the ‘pessimistic’ climate models – those projecting a severe weakening of the AMOC by 2100 – are the most accurate.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“The most dramatic and drastic climate changes we see in the last 100,000 years of Earth history have been when the AMOC switched to a different state,” Rahmstorf explained.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA shutdown of the current system poses what Canadian climate activist and marine conservationist Paul Watson \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://captainpaulwatson.substack.com/p/a-climatic-shift-that-could-plunge\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003edescribed\u003c/a\u003e as a “domino effect of climatic upheavals.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eScientists have projected that temperatures in northern Europe could \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.carbonbrief.org/ocean-current-collapse-could-trigger-profound-cooling-in-northern-europe-even-with-global-warming/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eplummet\u003c/a\u003e dramatically, with winters in London sometimes reaching below -20°C (-4°F) and those in Norway reaching -48°C (-54°F). It also threatens to dramatically \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://research.liveable.world/p/issue-7-tipping-points-what-happens-when-the-world-s-weather-engine-seizes\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eshorten\u003c/a\u003e growing seasons, putting food security in peril for hundreds of millions of people.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTropical storms in the North Atlantic would also become more severe. As the current slows, \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.aoml.noaa.gov/study-finds-amoc-increases-flood-risk-along-the-us-southeastern-coast/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003esea levels\u003c/a\u003e are expected to rise, and the greater temperature difference between cooling Europe and the warming tropics can fuel more \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-01377-8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eintense hurricanes\u003c/a\u003e and increase the risk of flooding in major coastal cities.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“We must avoid this collapse at all costs,” Rahmstorf said. “The stakes are too high; this isn’t just about Europe’s climate, but the stability of the entire planet.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSuch a dramatic change in the flow of global heat could scramble temperature and rainfall patterns worldwide, putting some areas at greater risk of drought and disrupting the monsoon season that fuels agriculture in many regions.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt also risks becoming self-perpetuating, as the large amounts of carbon \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://phys.org/news/2026-04-amoc-collapse-southern-ocean-carbon.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003ereleased\u003c/a\u003e from the ocean could further accelerate AMOC’s collapse. Research \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://phys.org/news/2026-04-amoc-collapse-southern-ocean-carbon.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003epublished\u003c/a\u003e last week found that carbon emissions from the Southern Ocean alone could increase global temperature by about 0.2°C.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“The science is clear: The AMOC is teetering on the edge of collapse, and the window to act is closing,” Watson said. “Yet global leaders remain paralysed by short-term politics and denial.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe conclusion of the most recent United Nations climate summit, COP30, has been \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/cop30-corporate-power\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003edescribed\u003c/a\u003e as woefully insufficient to address the mounting climate emergency. The roadmap for action released by the host nation, Brazil, \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.commondreams.org/news/cop30-fossil-fuel-phaseout\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eexcluded\u003c/a\u003e any mention of the phrase “fossil fuels” after the conference was overrun by industry lobbyists.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“The time for half-measures is over,” Watson said. “The choices we make in the next decade will determine whether future generations inherit a manageable climate or a world plunged into chaos.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRepublished from \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"http://commondreams.org/news/amoc-collapse-study\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eCommon Dreams\u003c/a\u003e, 16 April 2026\u003c/p\u003e",
      "summary": "New research shows a critical Atlantic Ocean current system is weakening faster than expected, raising the risk of irreversible climate disruption.",
      "date_published": "2026-04-22T00:39:11+10:00",
      "date_modified": "2026-04-22T00:39:11+10:00",
      "authors": [{"name": "Stephen Prager"}
      ],
      "tags": ["climate","politics","world"],
      "_social_media": {
        "tweet_text": "A critical Atlantic Ocean current is weakening faster than expected – and could reach a tipping point within decades.\nThe consequences would be global, Stephen Prager writes.\n#Climate #ClimateCrisis #AMOC #GlobalWarming",
        "tweet_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/study-warns-of-terrifying-atlantic-ocean-current-collapse/",
        "linkedin_title": "Study warns of terrifying Atlantic Ocean current collapse",
        "linkedin_excerpt": "New research shows a critical Atlantic Ocean current system is weakening faster than expected, raising the risk of irreversible climate disruption.",
        "linkedin_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/study-warns-of-terrifying-atlantic-ocean-current-collapse/",
        "facebook_text": "Study warns of terrifying Atlantic Ocean current collapse - New research shows a critical Atlantic Ocean current system is weakening faster than expected, raising the risk of irreversible climate disruption.",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/atlantic-ocean-curre.jpg",
        "author_names": "Stephen Prager"
      },
      "_mailchimp": {
        "excerpt": "New research shows a critical Atlantic Ocean current system is weakening faster than expected, raising the risk of irreversible climate disruption.",
        "authors_string": "Stephen Prager",
        "categories_string": "climate, politics, world",
        "pub_date_formatted": "Wednesday, April 22, 2026",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/atlantic-ocean-curre.jpg"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/on-immigration-weve-heard-this-before-and-we-were-wrong-then-too",
      "url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/on-immigration-weve-heard-this-before-and-we-were-wrong-then-too/",
      "title": "On immigration, we’ve heard this before – and we were wrong then too",
      "content_html": "\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eWarnings about immigration echo almost word for word the fears once directed at post-war arrivals – fears history has already discredited.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNewspapers and politicians say the current wave of immigration is “testing our assimilative powers”. The government must adopt a “more selective intake”. Recent arrivals are incapable of adopting our values. Some are “uncivilized”; “like animals.” The vast majority, at least according to one journalist, speak no English. They are a security risk, an economic liability, and a threat to our way of life. The “massive influx” must stop.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut of course this is not Australia in the 2020s. This was Australia in the 1940s, and the animus was directed at southern Europeans, and Jews. We wanted “more Australian babies” (sound familiar?) and more British migrants. At a pinch, the ‘Balts’ would do – at least they were blonde-haired and blue-eyed. As for the rest: too many, too foreign, and not white enough.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe know what happened next. Displaced persons, refugees, and immigrants were the catalyst that allowed Australia to emerge from its long cocoon. They became leaders in research, in the sciences, in the arts. They helped design the Snowy Mountains Scheme, and then they built it with their bare hands. Along the way, and in their less than lavish free time, they were instrumental in developing Australia’s ski-fields, including setting up the first tow-bars and the first ski lodges.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt’s a tiny thing, granted, but worth dwelling on because it shows that the flow-on benefits of immigration go well beyond the expected return on investment. For additional examples, consider the zucchini, the laksa, and the flat white.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSo in his latest intervention on the subject of immigration, Angus Taylor is 100 per cent right to remind us of the achievements of his grandfather, William Hudson, first commissioner of the Snowy Mountains scheme. With technical staff in short supply, Hudson found the workers he needed in the refugee camps of Europe and brought them to Australia. Two-thirds of all the workers on the Snowy came from overseas. He looked after them and ensured that they were treated with care and compassion. The results of that care and compassion are everywhere around us.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTaylor cites this as an example of good immigration policy, which it was, but he ignores the fact that the grandfather’s workforce was subject to exactly the same fear campaigns that the grandson is seeking to stoke now.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMany of the men and women who arrived in Australia after the war were highly educated – though this did not prevent them suffering all manner of racial abuse. On the other hand, many did not speak English; for some of them it remained a struggle throughout their lives. That was not out of wilful hostility. Coming to Australia, where they didn’t know the language or the culture, was a sacrifice they made in order to give themselves and more importantly their children the opportunity of a better and a safer life. This sacrifice was painful but necessary for the betterment of the next generation – not just their children, but the next generation of Australians, too. It still is.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhen Angus Taylor chooses to recycle the anxieties of the 1940s, he is not celebrating his grandfather’s legacy. He is betraying it. Sir William was capable of looking past the stereotypes and the neuroses of an insular society, and to understand the long-term potential that immigrants offered this country. Taylor refuses to do so. More than that, he is insulting millions of Australians whose own parents’ and grandparents’ struggles deserve more than this casual dismissal.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e(Quotes about post-war Australian immigration policy drawn from the pages of Smith’s Weekly, 1947-48.)\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e",
      "summary": "Warnings about immigration echo almost word for word the fears once directed at post-war arrivals – fears history has already discredited.",
      "date_published": "2026-04-22T00:34:31+10:00",
      "date_modified": "2026-04-22T00:34:31+10:00",
      "authors": [{"name": "Desmond Manderson"}
      ],
      "tags": ["history","immigration","politics"],
      "_social_media": {
        "tweet_text": "Australia’s immigration debate is echoing the same fears heard in the 1940s.\nHistory shows how wrong those claims were then – and why they matter now, Desmond Manderson writes.\n#auspol #Immigration #Australia #Politics",
        "tweet_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/on-immigration-weve-heard-this-before-and-we-were-wrong-then-too/",
        "linkedin_title": "On immigration, we’ve heard this before – and we were wrong then too",
        "linkedin_excerpt": "Warnings about immigration echo almost word for word the fears once directed at post-war arrivals – fears history has already discredited.",
        "linkedin_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/on-immigration-weve-heard-this-before-and-we-were-wrong-then-too/",
        "facebook_text": "On immigration, we’ve heard this before – and we were wrong then too - Warnings about immigration echo almost word for word the fears once directed at post-war arrivals – fears history has already discredited.",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/william-hudson-plaqu.jpg",
        "author_names": "Desmond Manderson"
      },
      "_mailchimp": {
        "excerpt": "Warnings about immigration echo almost word for word the fears once directed at post-war arrivals – fears history has already discredited.",
        "authors_string": "Desmond Manderson",
        "categories_string": "history, immigration, politics",
        "pub_date_formatted": "Wednesday, April 22, 2026",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/william-hudson-plaqu.jpg"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/when-prisons-expand-policy-has-already-failed",
      "url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/when-prisons-expand-policy-has-already-failed/",
      "title": "When prisons expand, policy has already failed",
      "content_html": "\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003ePlans to convert a Covid quarantine facility into a prison reflect a justice system responding to pressure with infrastructure instead of addressing the drivers of incarceration.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhen quarantine camps become prisons, something has already gone wrong.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Western Australian Government’s consideration of converting the Bullsbrook Covid quarantine facility into a prison reveals a justice system now operating beyond planning and into improvisation.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhen governments begin repurposing unused pandemic infrastructure as prisons, it is no longer reforming. It is reacting.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe proposal comes in the context of custodial infrastructure under acute pressure. The state’s prison population has experienced rapid and “\n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.oics.wa.gov.au/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/00.3-Media-Release-Annual-Report-2024-25-EMBARGOED.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eunsustainable\u003c/a\u003e” growth over the past two years, ballooning by more than 1,000 prisoners in just two years. Facilities are overcrowded, people are sleeping on floors, staff are stretched. By \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://johnmenadue.com/post/2026/01/penal-populism-and-the-unravelling-of-justice/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003ethe admission\u003c/a\u003e of those working within it, capacity is approaching its limits.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd so the response is to look for more beds.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut this is precisely the problem.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe logic is deceptively simple: more prisoners require more capacity. Yet this logic treats imprisonment as a fixed demand rather than a policy outcome. It assumes that rising prison numbers are inevitable, rather than produced; shaped by bail laws, policing practices, sentencing settings, and political choices.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe result is a reinforcing cycle: overcrowding drives emergency expansion, and expansion normalises higher imprisonment. And so it continues.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Bullsbrook proposal sits squarely within this pattern. Built at significant public expense as a quarantine facility during the pandemic, the site now stands largely unused. Faced with prison overcrowding, government has turned to this idle asset as a potential solution.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe key pressure in Western Australia’s prisons, however, is not simply a lack of beds. It is the rapid growth of remand populations (people held in custody awaiting trial). Many are there due to tightening bail conditions and risk-averse decision-making, often in response to family and domestic violence.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis matters because remand populations are not easily accommodated in repurposed, low-security facilities. As the prison officers’ union has pointed out, the Bullsbrook site would require substantial modification to function as a prison at all, and even then, it may not meet the needs of this rapidly growing cohort.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn other words, the proposed solution does not match the problem. Rather, it reflects an inherent policy failure: the tendency to respond to pressures within current justice settings through infrastructure rather than strategy.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBuilding or repurposing custodial facilities is politically tangible. It demonstrates action. It reassures the public that something is being done. But it does not address the drivers of incarceration. It does not reduce inflow. And it does not make communities safer in any sustained way.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIf anything, it entrenches the very dynamics that produced the crisis.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis pattern is not unique to Western Australia. Justice systems have become increasingly reliant on custodial responses, even as evidence accumulates that imprisonment is a blunt and often counterproductive tool for addressing complex social harms.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNowhere is this more evident than in the over-representation of Aboriginal people in custody. Despite decades of policy commitments, including Closing the Gap, incarceration rates continue to rise. Custodial responses are expanding in precisely the areas where it is already failing.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe conversion of Bullsbrook into a prison would sit within this trajectory. It would add capacity without reducing demand. It would absorb pressure without resolving it. And it would risk further normalising a level of incarceration that should, by any reasonable measure, be unacceptable.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere is another path.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eInstead of asking how to increase prison capacity, government could ask a different question: how do we decrease the number of people entering custody in the first place?\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe task is obvious: reduce demand.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis means examining the upstream decisions that drive remand numbers. It requires reforming bail settings, bolstering diversion, implementing \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://johnmenadue.com/post/2026/02/punishment-control-and-the-suppression-of-restorative-justice/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003ecommunity-based restorative justice\u003c/a\u003e, and investing in housing, employment and community stability.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThese are not abstract ideas. They are practical, evidence-informed strategies that have been implemented in various forms across jurisdictions. What is often lacking is not knowledge, but political will.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe temptation, particularly in a climate of “tough on crime” rhetoric, is to prioritise visible, immediate responses. A prison can be announced, funded, and built. Its impact is measurable in beds. Demand reduction, by contrast, is slower, less visible, and requires coordination across portfolios.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut the long-term outcomes are vastly different.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA policy approach that invests in reducing demand can stabilise and eventually reduce prison populations. Whereas an approach that focuses only on expanding capacity will find itself, repeatedly, in crisis.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Bullsbrook proposal is therefore more than a site-specific decision. It is a fork in the road.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOne path leads to continued expansion: more beds, more pressure, more normalisation of incarceration. The other leads to reform: a deliberate effort to understand and reduce the drivers of imprisonment, and to build a justice system that is both more effective and more just.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIf a quarantine camp becomes a prison, it will not be the result of careful planning. It will be the outcome of a policy approach that has run out of options and has yet to recognise that the solution lies not in expanding custody capacity, but in changing course.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe warning is already there. The question is whether government changes course or builds its way deeper into the problem.\u003c/p\u003e",
      "summary": "Plans to convert a Covid quarantine facility into a prison reflect a justice system responding to pressure with infrastructure instead of addressing the drivers of incarceration.",
      "date_published": "2026-04-22T00:29:17+10:00",
      "date_modified": "2026-04-22T00:29:17+10:00",
      "authors": [{"name": "Jane Anderson"}
      ],
      "tags": ["politics"],
      "_social_media": {
        "tweet_text": "Turning a quarantine facility into a prison won’t solve overcrowding.\nThe real issue is a justice system driving rising incarceration – and failing to address its causes, Jane Anderson writes.\n#auspol #Justice #Prisons #CriminalJustice",
        "tweet_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/when-prisons-expand-policy-has-already-failed/",
        "linkedin_title": "When prisons expand, policy has already failed",
        "linkedin_excerpt": "Plans to convert a Covid quarantine facility into a prison reflect a justice system responding to pressure with infrastructure instead of addressing the drivers of incarceration.",
        "linkedin_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/when-prisons-expand-policy-has-already-failed/",
        "facebook_text": "When prisons expand, policy has already failed - Plans to convert a Covid quarantine facility into a prison reflect a justice system responding to pressure with infrastructure instead of addressing the drivers of incarceration.",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/bullsbrook-covid-qua.jpeg",
        "author_names": "Jane Anderson"
      },
      "_mailchimp": {
        "excerpt": "Plans to convert a Covid quarantine facility into a prison reflect a justice system responding to pressure with infrastructure instead of addressing the drivers of incarceration.",
        "authors_string": "Jane Anderson",
        "categories_string": "politics",
        "pub_date_formatted": "Wednesday, April 22, 2026",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/bullsbrook-covid-qua.jpeg"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/australian-foreign-policy-requires-remaking",
      "url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/australian-foreign-policy-requires-remaking/",
      "title": "Labor’s foreign policy no longer matches the world it faces",
      "content_html": "\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eIn the second on our Rethinking Foreign Policy series Kym Davey says Labor’s foreign policy platform is out of step with current realities – clinging to US alliance settings while ignoring its own commitment to self-reliance and the opportunities of the Asia-Pacific.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn July the Australian Labor Party will hold its 50th National Conference in Adelaide. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Defence Minister Richard Marles will be expecting a tame, media friendly and lifeless event. Their objective will be to administer a strong dose of policy futility to Labor’s delegates and supporters.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBy contrast, the efforts of delegates will be critical to Australia’s future on an issue that most voters are allowed to ignore – Australia’s foreign policy. Central to those concerns is the absurdity of Labor’s international relations. At Chapter 7, \u003cem\u003eAustralia’s Place in a Changing World,\u003c/em\u003e three clauses standout in the current 2023 platform. The first describes the United States as Australia’s “enduring partner” and asserts that America is our closest security ally “formalised through the ANZUS Treaty”.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOnly fools and the uninformed would consider the US an “enduring partner” in the Trump era. Displaying his malignant narcissism, Trump’s cowardly bombing campaign and his threat to obliterate the entire civilisation of 93 million Iranian people leaves America now accused of waging aggressive war. This is the “supreme international crime” condemned by the judgement of Nazis at Nuremberg in 1946. Those proceedings bequeathed the rules based order that Labor leaders love to cite.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn this age of fickle alliances, Labor continues to emphasise the security of ANZUS. The NZUS component lapsed in 1986 over the issue of non-declared US nuclear armed ships visiting New Zealand ports. It has been reworked as a bilateral defence and security agreement only. But Australia still clings to the 1951 agreement, although it merely requires consultation between the US and Australia in the event of a foreign act of aggression.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs the war in Ukraine and the treatment of NATO and other allies have shown, America no longer sees itself bound by the security commitments it made after 1945. Citing ANZUS as a protective treaty is a distortion promoted to encourage herd think. It’s a fake security blanket for incurious Australians. It should be called out for what it is not and consigned to an exhibit in the National Museum of Australia.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe second commitment in the 2023 ALP National Platform identifies our relationship with China as one “of great importance to Australia, to our region and to the world”. This, of course, is undeniable because our prosperity and the major drivers of our economy depend on China’s status as our largest trading partner. China purchases one-third of all Australian exports, supports some 570,000 Australian jobs and generates bilateral trade worth over $200 billion annually.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDespite its importance, Penny Wong reduces the relationship to a smug slogan, repeated ad nauseam: “We will cooperate with China where we can, disagree when we must, and engage in the national interest.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIf we in Labor see ourselves as realists dealing with the world as it is, we would at least apply the same “cooperate where we can, disagree where we must” principle to all our foreign policy relationships, including the US. We don’t. In 2026 we should. And, as Paul Keating and many eminent Australians have said for years, we know we can forge goodwill in Asia and use diplomacy and statecraft to make our security the region where we live.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe third commitment deserves to be known much more widely by the Australian people. Under the heading, _Self-reliant defence and peacemaking, _the ALP Platform states, unambiguously:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLabor’s defence policy is founded on the principle of self-reliance. Australia’s armed forces need to be able to defend against credible threats without relying on the combat forces and capabilities of other countries.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat declaration deserves scrutiny in the current climate of muddle and maladministration in Australia’s defence policy. Where, one might ask, does the $368 billion AUKUS nuclear powered submarine project fit within the parameters of armed forces self-reliance? AUKUS thoroughly enmeshes Australia into American military systems via asset procurement, joint training and shared technology platforms. Add to that Pine Gap, the Tindal RAAF base, US Marines in Darwin and the HMAS Stirling naval base. All of this is deep “reliance on the combat forces and capabilities” of another country.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA prominent example of one domestic alternative is Sam Roggeveen’s \u0026lsquo;\n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.blackincbooks.com.au/books/echidna-strategy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003e_Echidna Strategy_\u003c/a\u003e\u0026rsquo;. It’s a defensive military capability that would utilise technologies to make our maritime approaches inaccessible by deploying advanced underwater sensors, submarines, missiles and cyber defences. The approach proposes a move to a non-aligned foreign policy, working collaboratively in our region to reduce the threat of armed conflict, especially between the US and China. It also involves cultivating closer cultural and security ties with neighbouring countries in the Asia-Pacific region. These are the elements that should underpin urgent foreign policy reform in Australia.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eParadoxically, the failure of the Voice referendum in 2023, again denying justice to First Nations Australians, suggests a reason for our historical reluctance to seriously engage with Asia. Writing about how the Australian nation invented itself after 1788, Dr Peta Stevenson relates the fascinating hidden details of Australia’s Indigenous-Asian history. In \u003cem\u003e\n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://kimberleybooks.com.au/p/history-the-outsiders-within-telling-australia-s-indigenous-asian-story\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eThe Outsiders Within\u003c/a\u003e,\u003c/em\u003e she documents the stories we are told and what has been left out of the nation’s official narrative. Her thesis is that “presumed membership of a privileged national community is not self-evidently good”.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnyone who has travelled extensively or lived in Asia will know how we are still regarded as an island of white privilege walking in the shadow of the United States of America. Stevenson makes a sobering observation about those attitudes, noting that the 21st century “invaders”, the objects of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation racism, are now identified as migrants, asylum seekers and refugees. Their demonisation is, she says, entirely logical given the refusal of white Australia to confront its original theft of Aboriginal land. That in turn creates anxiety that we might also become the victim of theft by our neighbours. Hence our deep historical paranoia about invasion from Asia.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIronically, it is those same neighbours we have turned to now when our economy is under direct strain from the effects of Trump’s war in Iran. We have always been wary of our great near neighbour, the mostly Muslim peoples of Indonesia. Yet it is Indonesia that has moved first to offer fertilisers and urea to support our agricultural sector. And that other great historical nemesis, China, is assisting us in keeping supplies of aviation fuel flowing to our transport sector. Singapore, South Korea, Malaysia, Brunei and Japan have all given us supply assurances for the refined petroleum products we depend on to sustain modern life. In turn, Australia is offering a secure supply of LPG to Singapore and others. Prime Minister Albanese is now lauding the merits of regional cooperation with Asia.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSurely the scales are beginning to fall from Australian eyes. Diminishing US military advantage, geopolitical overreach and a shift in the moral, social and rational behaviour of the declining American empire are now obvious. It is reasonable to conclude that the rampant militarism of America poses manifest risks to our national security. Any Australian who is not seriously sceptical about the “enduring partnership” with the US is in denial.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt’s time Labor recognised the truth and transformed our foreign policy to reflect the new realities of the world. Our future is in the Asia-Pacific. As the Prime Minister said recently, “we won’t find our future security in the past”.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe 2026 ALP National Conference in Adelaide is the opportunity for the Labor rank and file to demand a fit-for-purpose defence and foreign policy.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e_Next in Policy Foreign Rethink is Geoff Raby. _\u003c/p\u003e",
      "summary": "In the second on our Rethinking Foreign Policy series Kym Davey says Labor’s foreign policy platform is out of step with current realities – clinging to US alliance settings while ignoring its own commitment to self-reliance and the opportunities of the Asia-Pacific.",
      "date_published": "2026-04-21T00:59:54+10:00",
      "date_modified": "2026-04-21T00:59:54+10:00",
      "authors": [{"name": "Kym Davey"}
      ],
      "tags": ["defence","economy","politics","usa"],
      "_social_media": {
        "tweet_text": "Labor still frames the US as an “enduring partner” – while committing to defence self-reliance and deeper regional ties.\nThose positions no longer align with reality, Kym Davey writes.\n#auspol #ForeignPolicy #AUKUS #ANZUS #Geopolitics",
        "tweet_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/australian-foreign-policy-requires-remaking/",
        "linkedin_title": "Labor’s foreign policy no longer matches the world it faces",
        "linkedin_excerpt": "In the second on our Rethinking Foreign Policy series Kym Davey says Labor’s foreign policy platform is out of step with current realities – clinging to US alliance settings while ignoring its own commitment to self-reliance and the opportunities of the Asia-Pacific.",
        "linkedin_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/australian-foreign-policy-requires-remaking/",
        "facebook_text": "Labor’s foreign policy no longer matches the world it faces - In the second on our Rethinking Foreign Policy series Kym Davey says Labor’s foreign policy platform is out of step with current realities – clinging to US alliance settings while ignoring its own …",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/marles-wong-usa-dec.jpg",
        "author_names": "Kym Davey"
      },
      "_mailchimp": {
        "excerpt": "In the second on our Rethinking Foreign Policy series Kym Davey says Labor’s foreign policy platform is out of step with current realities – clinging to US alliance settings while ignoring its own commitment to self-reliance and the opportunities of the Asia-Pacific.",
        "authors_string": "Kym Davey",
        "categories_string": "defence, economy, politics, usa",
        "pub_date_formatted": "Tuesday, April 21, 2026",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/marles-wong-usa-dec.jpg"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/why-has-populisms-influence-increased-politically",
      "url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/why-has-populisms-influence-increased-politically/",
      "title": "Why has populism's influence increased politically",
      "content_html": "\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eClaims that rising inequality is driving populism overlook the evidence – stagnant wages and falling living standards are the more likely cause.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePopulist prejudices and demands are too often a threat to our democratic values and social cohesion. Allan Patience is right when he \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/understanding-populism-from-below/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003ewrites in a recent article\u003c/a\u003e, that we need to better understand what motivates populism if we are to respond effectively to it.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHowever, Patience then goes on to assert: “the most devastating motivation arises from the rapid growth in socio-economic inequality in all of the so-called ‘advanced’ economies. This is true of Australia where inequality has grown exponentially over the past four or so decades”.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePatience follows with the further assertion that this rise in inequality is due to the hollowing out of Australia’s economy through deregulation, privatisation and unparalleled levels of profiteering and rent-seeking by corporate bosses and their political accomplices, etc. etc. Finally, he lists a series of economic policy-making failures since the 1980s that he asserts “are exacerbating socio-economic inequalities in Australia today, producing a new kind of _lumpenproletariat _– an underclass of misinformed, disenfranchised people”.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMy problem with all these assertions is that Patience provides literally no evidence which links increasing inequality with the rise in populism. Equally missing is any evidence or discussion of why inequality has increased and when.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn this article, I will discuss why and when inequality increased and why that is not the main cause of the rise in populism. Instead, I think the evidence is that it is the stagnation of real wages which has given rise to increasing populism, but in Australia’s case at least, that wage stagnation is not related at all to any increase in inequality.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWhy and when did inequality increase?\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn our book, _Fair Share, _Steven Bell and I discuss the findings from the extensive international literature and statistical evidence which explores the increase in inequality that started in the late 1970s or early 1980s – depending on which country.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn all countries there is widespread agreement that the increase in inequality was mainly driven by technological change, principally in the form of automation. During the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, technological change hollowed out middle-level jobs throughout the OECD. That change in the job distribution then automatically showed up as an increase in inequality everywhere. Globalisation also played a role, but it was much less important.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat is equally important, however, is how different governments responded to the hollowing out of middle-level jobs caused by technological changes. The extent of any rise in inequality in response to technological change depends on the labour market and especially how relative wages in turn respond.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn the US, for example, the cost of getting a university degree meant that over this period of three or four decades the number of graduates stayed the same, while the wage premium for a graduate doubled. On the other hand, the relative wages of less-skilled labour fell, with Nobel Prize winner, Joseph Stiglitz finding in 2015 that “the typical American man makes less than he did 45 years ago (after adjusting for inflation)” – a complete denial of the American Dream.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBy contrast, in Australia, governments supported the expansion of higher education and training, so the number of graduates doubled while the graduate wage premium hardly changed. More generally, wage relativities have not changed much in Australia over the last 40 years or so.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe consequence was that inequality rose by much less in Australia than in America. Also, although middle-level jobs have been hollowed out, the real wages and living standards for those in employment largely rose, and rose for everyone at much the same rate, over time.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHowever, since the Global Financial Crisis in 2007-08, productivity growth has slowed everywhere, including Australia, and that has slowed real wage growth. Furthermore, in Australia productivity is still lower today than it was back in 2019, just before Covid, and as would be expected, real wages are also lower.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eInterestingly, the obvious explanation for lower productivity growth since the GFC is that technological progress has also slowed. Furthermore, that would be consistent with the finding that that inequality has not risen since the GFC in 2007-08. Thus, according to ABS data, the standard measure of inequality – the Gini coefficient for equivalised disposable household income –  was 0.336 in 2007-08, compared to 0.333 in 2013-14 and 0.324 in 2019-20 (the latest year for which data are available, with a fall in the Gini coefficient indicating a decrease in inequality).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSo why has populism risen?\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eContrary to Patience’s assertions, the rise in populism cannot be blamed on government policies.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn particular, investment in human capital and increasing the education and skills of the workforce is critical to both realising and sharing the potential benefits from innovation and technological change. And the evidence is that Australia has done quite well in this regard.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor example, the proportion of Australians with a tertiary qualification increased quite rapidly during the years of most rapid technological change. More specifically, this proportion rose from 27 per cent in 2000 to 43 per cent in 2015, and it was not just an increase in qualifications for young people. Over that 15-year period from 2000, the proportion of those aged 25-34 with tertiary qualifications rose from 31 per cent to 48 per cent, and even for those aged 55-64, the proportion with tertiary qualifications also increased substantially from 19 to 34 per cent.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNor has government gotten smaller, whatever the rhetoric of conservatives. In last year\u0026rsquo;s Budget, Australian Government Payments were projected to be 27 per cent of GDP. Except for a couple of Budgets during Covid, this is the highest since the first years of the Hawke Government. On the other hand, neither did Australian Government Payments ever get very low, representing as much as 24 per cent of GDP in the last year of the Howard Government, and almost always higher ever since.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSo if we can’t blame governments for the rise in populism, what is the explanation. Nor can we blame inequality, as inequality has not increased in Australia during the last 20 years, which is well before populism went up and One Nation’s vote started to rise.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eInstead, the most likely explanation for the rise of populism is the decline in living standards since Covid that so many of these relatively uneducated and unskilled workers have experienced. Indeed, when we look at the timing of when populism started to rise, it largely coincides with when real wages and living standards started to stagnate or even fall.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThus, in America Trump’s MAGA movement was big enough more than ten years ago to get him elected in 2016, but the real wages of many Americans had been stagnating for quite a long time by then. The same association between wage stagnation and the rise of populism seems to be equally true for European countries like Britain, France, Italy and Hungary.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn contrast, in Australia real wage stagnation is much more recent, and most probably that is why the surge in support for One Nation is only very recent also, and much later than in these other advanced economies. The problem is that the cure depends on increasing the rate of productivity growth, but that mainly depends on increasing innovation and technological progress. So governments must ensure that the benefits of technological progress are fairly distributed.\u003c/p\u003e",
      "summary": "Claims that rising inequality is driving populism overlook the evidence – stagnant wages and falling living standards are the more likely cause.",
      "date_published": "2026-04-21T00:54:32+10:00",
      "date_modified": "2026-04-21T00:54:32+10:00",
      "authors": [{"name": "Michael Keating"}
      ],
      "tags": ["economy","politics"],
      "_social_media": {
        "tweet_text": "Populism isn’t being driven by rising inequality.\nIt’s being driven by stagnant wages and falling living standards, Michael Keating writes.\n#auspol #Economy #Inequality #Wages #Politics",
        "tweet_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/why-has-populisms-influence-increased-politically/",
        "linkedin_title": "Why has populism's influence increased politically",
        "linkedin_excerpt": "Claims that rising inequality is driving populism overlook the evidence – stagnant wages and falling living standards are the more likely cause.",
        "linkedin_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/why-has-populisms-influence-increased-politically/",
        "facebook_text": "Why has populism's influence increased politically - Claims that rising inequality is driving populism overlook the evidence – stagnant wages and falling living standards are the more likely cause.",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/populism-in-australi-1.jpg",
        "author_names": "Michael Keating"
      },
      "_mailchimp": {
        "excerpt": "Claims that rising inequality is driving populism overlook the evidence – stagnant wages and falling living standards are the more likely cause.",
        "authors_string": "Michael Keating",
        "categories_string": "economy, politics",
        "pub_date_formatted": "Tuesday, April 21, 2026",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/populism-in-australi-1.jpg"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/it-takes-two-to-make-alliances-and-the-us-may-run-away-first",
      "url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/it-takes-two-to-make-alliances-and-the-us-may-run-away-first/",
      "title": "It takes two to make alliances and the US may run away first",
      "content_html": "\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eAs US commitment to alliances wavers, Australia faces urgent questions about its security, independence, and place in a rapidly shifting global order.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDonald Trump is letting it be known that he is considering pulling the United States from NATO, and perhaps some of America’s alliance relationships. This is in part because of his anger, embarrassment and frustration that his European allies, and even some of his Asian allies such as Japan, South Korea and Australia did not automatically follow the US, or Israel for that matter, into his war against Iran. His fury was redoubled when many of the European nations, including England, gave chapter and verse explanations about their reservations, ones also being voiced in the US.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe war aims were far from clear, the reasons for it were being made up and changed as Trump went along, the urgency never explained. Trump had no exit strategy. His bombast, and, even worse, the noise coming from the Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, was a distinct turnoff, and, in any event never reflected the truth of the conflict.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTo Europe it looked precisely the sort of conflict in which the US has become enmired and enmeshed, and generally defeated, since Korea. It was not a war that US allies had helped plan. It was not a war about which they were consulted. Most had made their opposition clear well before bombs were hitting schools or popes were becoming agitated. No one felt any sort of instinctive duty to stand by an old friend.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTrump may hope that NATO countries, learning that he is serious, might fall into a heap of apologies, with renewed unwilling military investment, and reparation presents such as Greenland. But I doubt he has his hopes up. The disdain is mutual.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHe has been disparaging European and NATO leaders for decades and has talked of walking away from NATO before. He has been increasingly indifferent to Ukraine’s interests in its defence against a Russian invasion and has made it clear that he expects Europe to assume the whole burden, if it wants to. He, and the Vice President, JD Vance, seem not to care much about Ukraine.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTrump has hurled the insults and abuse, and European leaders have become increasingly frank with their populations about their reservations concerning the value of the US as a great and powerful ally. Especially under Trump. But Europe has seemed quite conscious that even a more steady, steadfast and patient successor American president will be unable to restore the old status quo. Unlike Australia, most NATO countries have had a dialogue with the citizens and their neighbours about their concerns with American government.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe NATO countries and alliances Trump is talking of walking away from have not lost their desire for collective security, even if they have declining faith in whether America will be by their side. They fear Russian aggression. They understand that the western alliance embraces Asia and Pacific nations as much as Europe and the Atlantic. Increasingly they are thinking about practical ways of drawing into their plans Australia, Canada, and key western-oriented nations such as South Korea, Japan, and Singapore. They maintain close relationships with countries such as the ASEAN countries and India who are also concerned about mutual defence in superpower politics.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eEurope, NATO, Japan, Korea and Australia are discussing defence arrangements if Trump walks away from NATO\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAustralia and other Asian powers are closely involved in informal contingency discussions. They are well aware of NATO thinking about possible future western security arrangements that do not involve the US, let alone US military leadership. In some respects people are hardly talking about anything else. The personality, the moods and the character of Trump are key national security questions.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe scenarios include America picking up its toys and going home to be a truculent isolationist state, the US retaining an eye on its hegemonic interests but no longer much concern with collective security, and even the US playing some sort of lone ranger.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNo one assumes that the US will change sides, or totally disengage, or that it will stop pressing most of its interests in the Pacific neighbourhood. But they do expect that American policy will remain erratic and unpredictable, on the existing Trump model. It assumes the US will decline to take up a lead role as an international citizen, let alone with a chequebook. It’s assumed the US will become increasingly indifferent to international human rights concerns, and matters of the environment, the international movement of peoples, the functions of United Nations agencies and international development matters.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIf there is any serious break-up, it is unlikely that it will follow any initiative, ideas, or even outbreaks of courage or common sense coming from Australia. It is already clear that the governing Labor Party does not have the stuff for that. Indeed, during the period in which the US has become estranged from old friends, the Australian political, intelligence and defence establishment has moved closer to America, but without any sign that our servility is building up credit in the bank.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHard thinking about the future of US engagement with the world necessarily involves considering the future of the ANZUS and AUKUS agreements, and the risk that either or both could simply be torn up in a fit of American anger at Australia, or at the world.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTrump has very elastic ideas about when and whether treaties are for the long or the short term. He is often described as transactional in relation to his relationships and his values, but this involves little sense of enduring friendships and relationships. It’s more a matter of “what have you done for me lately?” The working assumption is that the benefits of deals or arrangements flow primarily towards the US, and that they are up for renegotiation if the flow changes.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere are big opportunities in the way that the US is nursing its wounds. Australia is being pushed by circumstance towards a more independent defence and foreign policy, whatever the feeling in some quarters that we must stick close to nanny. But what if the initiative for some split up is not to be an Australian one, but an American one? What if western nations still want viable security arrangements and relationships, even if America doesn’t want to play?\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRight now, Australia can flirt with non-American friends without being accused of being disloyal or panicking.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAmerica, after all, is doing exactly the same thing at their end, and will not be asking our views about their options. America’s more craven fifth columnists here may hope that Australia emerges at the other end even more closely connected to America, but it won’t happen simply because they want more sucking up. And they cannot deny the real possibility that America may consciously go another way without any regard for old associations or agents in place here. Trump is not sentimental about such matters.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt’s a debate now being forced on us, not of our own choosing. An independent assessment of where our defence and foreign policy interests are usually begins as a question of whether we’d be better off going it alone. But what’s now involved is more a matter of alternative arrangements if the old ones become unworkable.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis debate assumes we’ll be looking for new friends in continuing security arrangements. These new friends will be old and reliable friends in new roles, people with whose strategic thinking and defence doctrines Australia is familiar. The impetus for talking about it, locally, or in conversations with others, need not be (though it should be) factored around domestic issues of pride, and nationalism, our geography, and culture. It’s about judging our own future national interests. It need not be seen as a declaration of independence from an overbearing and ailing former partner who has become too eccentric, so much as a simple adaptation to a new reality forced on us by external pressures.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAlbanese and the Labor party could engage in such a debate, and in such a transition without being seen (other than by \u003cem\u003eThe Australian\u003c/em\u003e and the Strategic Policy Institute) as surrender monkeys. In just the same manner as discussing a future national defence policy, it is, after all, simply prudent planning. It’s acknowledging that the world is changing rapidly, that there are new challenges and threats, and new opportunities to define our place in the region.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eParticularly if, or as, old realities cease to be, and some of our partners walk away. Presiding over such a discussion need not involve the government’s repudiation of its nuclear submarine deals, although the deal may collapse as a consequence of decisions made elsewhere and imposed upon us.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI think that it would be a sign of our regional maturity if Australia made such a decision independently of talk of aligning itself with NATO, Japan and Korea. Likewise I do not think it inevitable that an honest discussion will always have Australia in formal alliance relationships with nations permanently pitted against Russia and China, or even potentially Israel. But it is plain that Albanese and his colleagues are up to only tiny steps, not grand ones.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTimorous Albo could use NATO as an excuse\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt should, of course, be occurring with a real dialogue between government and the Australian population, as well as with friends and neighbours. And even with nations in the region, such as China and potentially India with whom we have potential differences. Consultation is not simply a matter of talking behind closed doors with “stakeholders” – those with a vested interest in the status quo. It involves being open to new ideas – always a challenge for Albanese.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAustralia under Albanese may have managed the trading and security relationship with China more successfully than previous conservative governments. Yet Albanese and the Foreign Minister, Penny Wong, and even the odd defence chief cannot help making ritual hostile noises about China, mostly to placate US opinion. One would think from the chatter of the stakeholders that Australia now sits in the default position of thinking it would join the US in defending Taiwan if China attempts to invade. Two years ago, the working assumption was otherwise, and, if the position has changed, it has not been discussed with the primary stakeholders – the Australian people. It is an effect of the secretive way that defence policy is being made. It would not enjoy majority Australian support, and would be very damaging to Australia’s short, medium and long-term national interests.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe should look to recent conflict in Iran, in Palestine and in Ukraine. In each, our great and powerful friend had access to overwhelming superior force, whether by themselves or with Israel. In none of these wars has that power yet prevailed in changing the power structures. In none have threats and tantrums, whether directed at Popes, US Allies, or even at the supposed enemy, worked much either.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEven if Albanese is too timid and frightened to organise such a debate, he must recognise that things have changed dramatically over recent months. There’s no longer a general international conspiracy to keep quiet about Donald Trump or his Cabinet Ministers, in the hope that he will not be provoked. No longer any value in hiding in the hope that he might not notice you and thus avoid imposing a new tariff. If all the nations Australia holds in greatest regard are focused on what to do about Trump, will they see an Australian unwillingness to offend as cowardice? Is our silence a failure to attend to our own sovereign interests?\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAlbanese made a very bad mistake in initially embracing the American and Israeli war in Iran. He was the only American ally (apart from Israel) to do so. He quickly backpedalled when he found himself alone in no-man’s land. He had at least the common sense to avoid offering Australian assistance (or Australian lives) to the US, despite reproaches from Trump. Trump’s desperation to get oil moving past the Strait of Hormuz will increase as it impacts on world economic health and stock markets. Australian involvement with European nations in a plan excluding the US, assuming it goes ahead, is another matter, perhaps a dress rehearsal for just the new combinations and arrangements on the drawing boards. Loyalty is a two-way street.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRepublished from \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/9225848/jack-waterford-us-may-leave-nato-forcing-australias-rethink/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eThe Canberra Times\u003c/a\u003e, 18 April 2026\u003c/p\u003e",
      "summary": "As US commitment to alliances wavers, Australia faces urgent questions about its security, independence, and place in a rapidly shifting global order.",
      "date_published": "2026-04-21T00:49:27+10:00",
      "date_modified": "2026-04-21T00:49:27+10:00",
      "authors": [{"name": "Jack Waterford"}
      ],
      "tags": ["policy","politics","usa","world"],
      "_social_media": {
        "tweet_text": "What happens if the US steps back from its alliances?\nAustralia may need to rethink its defence, alliances and independence in a rapidly changing world, Jack Waterford writes.\n#auspol #AUKUS #ANZUS #Geopolitics #Defence",
        "tweet_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/it-takes-two-to-make-alliances-and-the-us-may-run-away-first/",
        "linkedin_title": "It takes two to make alliances and the US may run away first",
        "linkedin_excerpt": "As US commitment to alliances wavers, Australia faces urgent questions about its security, independence, and place in a rapidly shifting global order.",
        "linkedin_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/it-takes-two-to-make-alliances-and-the-us-may-run-away-first/",
        "facebook_text": "It takes two to make alliances and the US may run away first - As US commitment to alliances wavers, Australia faces urgent questions about its security, independence, and place in a rapidly shifting global order.",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/3D0013F.jpg",
        "author_names": "Jack Waterford"
      },
      "_mailchimp": {
        "excerpt": "As US commitment to alliances wavers, Australia faces urgent questions about its security, independence, and place in a rapidly shifting global order.",
        "authors_string": "Jack Waterford",
        "categories_string": "policy, politics, usa, world",
        "pub_date_formatted": "Tuesday, April 21, 2026",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/3D0013F.jpg"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/duniam-contradicts-taylor-on-coalition-immigration-policy",
      "url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/duniam-contradicts-taylor-on-coalition-immigration-policy/",
      "title": "Duniam contradicts Taylor on Coalition immigration policy",
      "content_html": "\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eRecent comments from Coalition Shadow Immigration Spokesperson Jonno Duniam expose inconsistencies in the party\u0026rsquo;s immigration policy, raising questions about feasibility, cost, and intent.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCoalition Shadow Immigration Spokesperson Jonno Duniam made major changes to the Coalition’s recently announced immigration policy during \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.skynews.com.au/australia-news/politics/it-is-broken-coalitions-immigration-policy-stress-tested-as-jonathon-duniam-goes-toe-to-toe-with-sky-news-host-andrew-clennell/news-story/231259982862df3bbf0434ba31170eb4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003ethis short interview with SkyNews’ Andrew Clennell.\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHis responses highlighted the ‘thought bubble’ nature of the policies announced to date. But were the changes to policy he announced deliberate or was he just expecting the usual softball SkyNews interview and got caught out by Clennell’s probing questions? There would be merit in the changes Duniam announced during the interview being checked with Angus Taylor who appears to have a different view.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSocial media vetting for Australian values\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe \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\" \u003eCoalition policy\u003c/a\u003e states that the Coalition will:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“Make compliance with the Australian Values Statement a binding requirement for visa holders”.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“Enable visas to be refused or cancelled where individuals fail to uphold these values”.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“Establish an Enhanced Screening Coordination Centre within the Department of Home Affairs. This would also see social media screening of visa applicants \u003cem\u003emove from an as needed risk basis to become a standard feature of vetting\u003c/em\u003e” (my emphasis added).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA clear emphasis in the Coalition policy is a shift from the current risk-based use of social media vetting to it becoming ‘a standard feature of vetting’. But during the interview Duniam said:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“You\u0026rsquo;d operate on a risk-based approach and those individuals coming from riskier jurisdictions would certainly receive a greater deal of attention than those coming from a less risky jurisdiction…This is about weeding out people who are going to come here and incite hatred, incite violence”.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSo which is it? A standard feature of vetting or a risk-based based approach? It can’t be both. Three things about Duniam’s statement.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt is the first time that I can recall the Coalition has used the words “risk-based approach to vetting”. This is a clear differentiation from the written policy. Is Duniam backing out of the commitment to \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.skynews.com.au/australia-news/politics/it-is-broken-coalitions-immigration-policy-stress-tested-as-jonathon-duniam-goes-toe-to-toe-with-sky-news-host-andrew-clennell/news-story/231259982862df3bbf0434ba31170eb4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003emaking social media vetting a standard feature of visa processing\u003c/a\u003e because it would cost a fortune and achieve very little?\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSecond, he talks about “weeding out people who are going to come here and incite hatred, incite violence”. That it is precisely the objective of the current character test. The existing test could of course be applied more rigorously. That would cost time and money. Would the Coalition allocate more money to that, because during Peter Dutton’s time as Immigration Minister funding for both visa processing and immigration compliance was massively cut back leading to huge backlogs and massive abuse of the visa system by labour traffickers? Dutton did deport more NZ citizens when they came out of jail but that is a very different issue.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eApplying the existing character test more rigorously is very different to testing people on their alignment with ‘Australian Values’. While we all agree we should keep out people who would incite hatred and violence, there will be massively divergent views on what is a breach of Australian Values. For example, Trump supporters will have a very different view on what constitutes respect for the rule of law and support for democracy from non-Trump supporters.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThird, Duniam says nothing about which jurisdictions would be more or less risky. According to Angus Taylor people from non-liberal democracies are more risky. So a strong Trump supporter from the USA would be less likely to support Australian Values than someone from say China or an asylum seeker escaping the theocracy in Iran?\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWould a Trump supporter in Australia who is a strong critic of ‘liberal’ judges and legal judgements made in the USA (as Trump regularly does) be subject to visa cancellation and deportation because they breached the core Australian Value of commitment to the rule of law? Imagine trying to sustain a visa cancellation of a strong Trump supporter on this basis. It would be a legal nightmare. As George Brandis once said, sometimes you just have to let people be bigots.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEveryone would agree migrants should have Australian Values. Past governments have tried to promote Australian Values through measures such as the Menzies Government’s ‘good neighbour’ program which encouraged local communities to share Australian Values with new migrants. It wasn’t by beating these into people.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMaking English language an obligation for permanent residents\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAngus Taylor says he would \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://thenightly.com.au/politics/angus-taylor-vows-to-deport-foreigners-who-fail-to-live-by-australian-values--c-22138586\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003emake learning English “an obligation for permanent visa holders, not an option\u003c/a\u003e”. But during the interview, Duniam is reported to have said:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“there would be no English requirement for permanent residency, adding that it would not be a basis for rejection or deportation and that people needed to be supported to learn the national language”.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDuniam may not realise that there are actually very significant English language requirements for skill stream permanent visa applicants. I was in the area of the Immigration Department that implemented most of these during the second half of the 1990s. Going beyond that to the family stream or the humanitarian program would be nonsense. Requiring someone who marries an Australian citizen to sit an English test before they get a partner visa would horrify most decent Australians as would requiring humanitarian entrants to sit an English test.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDuniam’s statement is to a large degree a reflection of current government policy and was precisely the policy of the former Coalition government. So how would making English “an obligation for permanent visa holders, not an option” as Taylor wants, be different from the long-standing policy of both major parties?\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eApart from the dog whistling effect, that remains a mystery.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAsylum seekers and deportation\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Coalition’s asylum seeker and deportation policies are essentially \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/on-asylum-the-coalition-is-offering-old-fixes-to-problems-of-its-own-making/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003ea re-hash of old (largely failed) ideas and Trump’s mass deportation policy\u003c/a\u003e. On this, Duniam’s responses to Andrew Clennell were highly contradictory (as tends to be the case with thought bubble policies).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn respect to the Coalition’s deportation policy, Duniam says:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“the 65,000 we talk about are people who have come, done their visa duration… and they have no further rights to being in this country…They have absolutely no reason to be here. They should go. Yes, it is a task to have these people removed and we\u0026rsquo;ll have more to say about how we would resource those functions but of course there are existing capacities.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDumiam concedes that:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“I\u0026rsquo;m not going to pretend this has just happened in the last four years.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe fact is the bulk of the 65,000 came during the \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\" \u003ebiggest labour trafficking scam abusing the asylum system in Australia’s history\u003c/a\u003e that took place from 2015 to 2019. Part of that time, Angus Taylor was Assistant Law Enforcement Minister.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere is no question the situation of the 65,000 unsuccessful asylum seekers currently in Australia needs to be addressed. But that requires a carefully crafted policy response not a thought bubble.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn response to Clennell’s question on the resourcing and detention centre capacity need to deport such a large number of people, Duniam said:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“That\u0026rsquo;s not something we\u0026rsquo;ve announced thus far and of course we will have more to say about a range of elements relating to our immigration policy,”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut he then went on to say:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“It\u0026rsquo;s not an announcement I\u0026rsquo;m going to make today. What we\u0026rsquo;ve announced thus far is the resourcing and capacity.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe fact is the Coalition has said nothing about the resourcing and capacity needed other than to admit they will need more of it. The reality is that mass deportation is complex and difficult, as Trump is finding out. Just announcing the Coalition will have lots more deportations is not policy – it’s a thought bubble and dog whistle.\u003c/p\u003e",
      "summary": "Recent comments from Coalition Shadow Immigration Spokesperson Jonno Duniam expose inconsistencies in the party's immigration policy, raising questions about feasibility, cost, and intent.",
      "date_published": "2026-04-21T00:44:13+10:00",
      "date_modified": "2026-04-21T00:44:13+10:00",
      "authors": [{"name": "Abul Rizvi"}
      ],
      "tags": ["immigration","politics"],
      "_social_media": {
        "tweet_text": "The Coalition’s immigration policy is full of contradictions.\nFrom social media vetting to deportations, key elements don’t add up, Abul Rizvi writes.\n#auspol #Immigration #Policy #Australia",
        "tweet_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/duniam-contradicts-taylor-on-coalition-immigration-policy/",
        "linkedin_title": "Duniam contradicts Taylor on Coalition immigration policy",
        "linkedin_excerpt": "Recent comments from Coalition Shadow Immigration Spokesperson Jonno Duniam expose inconsistencies in the party's immigration policy, raising questions about feasibility, cost, and intent.",
        "linkedin_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/duniam-contradicts-taylor-on-coalition-immigration-policy/",
        "facebook_text": "Duniam contradicts Taylor on Coalition immigration policy - Recent comments from Coalition Shadow Immigration Spokesperson Jonno Duniam expose inconsistencies in the party's immigration policy, raising questions about feasibility, cost, and intent.",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/jonathon-duniam-c.jpg",
        "author_names": "Abul Rizvi"
      },
      "_mailchimp": {
        "excerpt": "Recent comments from Coalition Shadow Immigration Spokesperson Jonno Duniam expose inconsistencies in the party's immigration policy, raising questions about feasibility, cost, and intent.",
        "authors_string": "Abul Rizvi",
        "categories_string": "immigration, politics",
        "pub_date_formatted": "Tuesday, April 21, 2026",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/jonathon-duniam-c.jpg"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/as-warnings-mount-over-trump-cuba-pays-the-price",
      "url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/as-warnings-mount-over-trump-cuba-pays-the-price/",
      "title": "As warnings mount over Trump, Cuba pays the price",
      "content_html": "\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eA renewed US oil embargo on Cuba is deepening hardship on the island, reflecting a long-standing pattern of intervention driven as much by ideology as strategy.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOn 16 April, P\u0026amp;I republished an article about \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/urgent-warning-to-congressional-leaders-trump-is-psychologically-unstable-and-dangerous/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eDonald Trump’s mental state\u003c/a\u003e from the American progressive magazine \u003cem\u003eCommon Dreams\u003c/em\u003e. In it, Professor Jeffrey Sachs from Colombia University and several eminent psychiatrists and health workers appealed to Congress and senior Cabinet members to hold urgent consultations regarding President Donald Trump’s fitness for office.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTheir concerns were not only about Trump’s decision to go to war against Iran, his illegal kidnapping of Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela and his public musings about taking over Canada and Greenland, but also his oil embargo against Cuba.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis embargo has already damaged the capacity of Cuba’s 11 million people to survive, and the situation can only get worse. Food is spoiling for lack of power to refrigerate food, rat-infested rubbish is rotting in urban streets, hospitals, even with their own generators, are unable to operate, public transport is grinding to a halt for lack of diesel fuel, the poor and elderly are becoming beggars as they poke through rubbish in search of the odd aluminium can to sell for food.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd by all informed accounts, Trump has imposed the embargo, not for any altruistic reasons, but to destroy the government and return the ownership of properties nationalised by Fidel Castro into the hands of their previous American owners.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is an aggressive and illegal ambition which has its own rationality, echoing the aims of a number of American leaders before Trump. At the end of his term in office in 1961, the year which coincided with Castro’s coup d’état against Fulgencio Batista, President Eisenhower considered invading Cuba, ostensibly to restore ‘democracy’, but more to restore nationalised property to its American owners. Meanwhile John Foster Dulles, Eisenhower’s Secretary of State patronisingly asserted that Latinos were child-like people who had no capacity for self-government.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePresident Kennedy supported the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in April 1961, but only by Cuban exiles in Miami. According to records, his feelings were a complex mixture anti-communist determination, cautious hesitancy regarding US credibility, and ultimate reluctance to commit US forces if the plan went wrong.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePresident Nixon held similar prejudices to Eisenhower and Dulles. He didn’t even profess to want to see restoration of human rights, declaring that Latinos showed preference for dictatorial government rather than democracy. John Connally, a Texas oil executive appointed as Nixon’s Treasury Secretary was among the first US officials publicly to muse about cutting off Cuba’s oil supply. The effect, he said, would be devastating to them within a month or six weeks.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTo refute Dulles et al. the Cubans have strong aptitude for equitable self-government. They have a higher literacy rate than Americans, and a higher life expectancy – or they did before Trump so unreasonably imposed the current oil embargo. There are few landless farmers. Historic buildings in Havana, state-owned, have been restored by the government, the upper floors of which are used to house elderly people and for free child care.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd Cuba’s medical system is among the best and cheapest in the world, a system promoted by satirist Michael Moore in his 2007 movie _Sicko. _In it, he shows how 50 million Americans cannot afford health insurance and those who have it are frequently denied coverage for certain treatments. Moore exposes American vested commercial interests who condemn universal health care as ‘socialised medicine’. He takes a group of 9/11 rescue workers to the US base at Guantanamo Bay to see if they can get the same free high-quality medical treatment as prisoners. When they cannot, he takes them to Havana where they do get it free from Cuban medical professionals.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCuba’s international health system remains an admirable national achievement. Despite its impoverishment, the country still had the capacity in 2026 to send 24,000 medical professionals to 56 countries in Latin America, Africa and the Caribbean. This was and remains a major diplomatic and economic initiative, predictably criticised by the United States as exploitative because of the proportion of doctors’ salaries retained by the Cuban government.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe tragedy, still to play out, might be that under Trump’s destructive oil embargo, the Cuban government led by President Miguel Diaz-Canel and Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez may not have the capacity to continue it.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNor would the destruction of its health system be Cuba’s only casualty under the embargo. During my time in Havana during the mid-1990s, I grew to admire the capacity of Cubans, their inventiveness and stoicism, and their ability to make do with extremely limited resources. I also experienced at first hand how Washington’s prohibition on US companies to trade with Cuba was so destructive. An Australian example was a Queensland sugar milling company that had a profitable commercial business selling equipment to Cuba until taken over by a US company, forcing it to terminate its sales. Indeed, Cuba’s sugar industry is a shadow of its former strength.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn my view, I would hope that the appeal from Jeffrey Sachs and his psychiatric colleagues to senior executives in the American government to examine President Trump’s capacity to govern would be a step taken in the right direction. But given the visceral anti-Cuban sentiment of Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the religious right-wing views about holy war held by Secretary of Defence (War) of Pete Hegseth, I doubt that anyone in Congress or out of it would have the guts to do it.\u003c/p\u003e",
      "summary": "A renewed US oil embargo on Cuba is deepening hardship on the island, reflecting a long-standing pattern of intervention driven as much by ideology as strategy.",
      "date_published": "2026-04-21T00:39:28+10:00",
      "date_modified": "2026-04-21T00:39:28+10:00",
      "authors": [{"name": "Richard Broinowski"}
      ],
      "tags": ["politics","usa","world"],
      "_social_media": {
        "tweet_text": "A renewed US embargo on Cuba is worsening conditions on the island.\nIt reflects a longer pattern of intervention shaped by ideology as much as strategy, Richard Broinowski writes.\n#Cuba #USPolitics #Geopolitics #ForeignPolicy",
        "tweet_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/as-warnings-mount-over-trump-cuba-pays-the-price/",
        "linkedin_title": "As warnings mount over Trump, Cuba pays the price",
        "linkedin_excerpt": "A renewed US oil embargo on Cuba is deepening hardship on the island, reflecting a long-standing pattern of intervention driven as much by ideology as strategy.",
        "linkedin_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/as-warnings-mount-over-trump-cuba-pays-the-price/",
        "facebook_text": "As warnings mount over Trump, Cuba pays the price - A renewed US oil embargo on Cuba is deepening hardship on the island, reflecting a long-standing pattern of intervention driven as much by ideology as strategy.",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/cuban-president-migu.jpg",
        "author_names": "Richard Broinowski"
      },
      "_mailchimp": {
        "excerpt": "A renewed US oil embargo on Cuba is deepening hardship on the island, reflecting a long-standing pattern of intervention driven as much by ideology as strategy.",
        "authors_string": "Richard Broinowski",
        "categories_string": "politics, usa, world",
        "pub_date_formatted": "Tuesday, April 21, 2026",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/cuban-president-migu.jpg"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/fyou-cant-rush-peace-the-fatal-flaws-in-the-us-iran-talks",
      "url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/fyou-cant-rush-peace-the-fatal-flaws-in-the-us-iran-talks/",
      "title": "You can’t rush peace: the fatal flaws in the US–Iran talks",
      "content_html": "\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe collapse of recent US–Iran talks highlights how flawed negotiation design – not just substance – can doom peace efforts from the start.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe challenges of structuring a peace process that can overcome 47 years of mutual grievances between the US and Iran were highlighted by the recent talks between the US and Iran in Pakistan.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAlthough the international community still knows very little about the peace talks – facilitated by Shehbaz Sharif, the Prime Minister of Pakistan – some obvious red flags appeared in the morning-after news reports, as JD Vance, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner flew home less than 24 hours after their arrival in Islamabad.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs the \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/12/world/middleeast/iran-united-states-negotiations.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003e_New York Times _reported\u003c/a\u003e: “Vice President JD Vance summed up the failure of 21 hours of negotiations with Iran in one sentence: ‘They have chosen not to accept our terms.’ To Iranian officials, that line reflected their biggest problem with the talks: The United States they argue, had not come to negotiate.” As Javid Zarif (who led the Iranian negotiating team on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, negotiated by the Obama administration to keep Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, but later torn up by Trump) wrote on X: “No negotiations — at least with Iran — will succeed based on ‘our/your terms.’ ”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis highlights that, as expected, the talks took the form of a “\n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://unitar.org/sites/default/files/media/publication/doc/practice-peacemaking.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003ehard-bargaining\u003c/a\u003e” (also called distributive bargaining) approach to negotiation where the parties seek to achieve a zero-sum (win-lose) outcome rather than a positive sum (win-win) outcome. Too often, however, they end up with a lose-lose outcome, as occurred in this situation. In hard-bargaining, parties present their positions (i.e., their preferred solution to the issues) as demands – the Iranians offered a 10-point plan; the US, a 15-point plan – both exchanged before the talks began, a tactic that is \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://peacemaker.un.org/sites/default/files/document/files/2022/08/manualunmediatorsun2010.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003enot recommended by experienced peacemakers\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn the lead-up to the negotiations, it was initially reported that indirect, “\n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://peacemaker.un.org/sites/default/files/document/files/2022/08/manualunmediatorsun2010.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eproximity talks\u003c/a\u003e” were planned – where the third-party mediator moves back and forth between the delegations, who are placed in close proximity to one another in nearby, but separate locations. This typically tends to be a much more productive means of negotiation than direct talks, as it represents each party talking to and negotiating with the impartial third-party mediator, rather than the other party, allowing each delegation to avoid the confrontation and aggravation of dealing directly with its adversary. Moreover, it allows the mediator to try out various possibilities for creative solutions by using a “\n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://peacemaker.un.org/sites/default/files/document/files/2022/08/manualunmediatorsun2010.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eone-text procedure\u003c/a\u003e” to develop a text that is controlled by the mediator and continuously adjusted to address each party’s concerns and allow the mediator, over time, to get ever closer to agreement .\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOn the day, however, after brief separate meetings by US and Iranian delegations with the Pakistani Prime Minister, direct talks were convened. Unlike the common wisdom that it is good to have the parties talking to one another, \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://unitar.org/sites/default/files/media/publication/doc/practice-peacemaking.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003ethis kind of negotiation\u003c/a\u003e is not helpful to constructive problem solving. Instead, it is likely to break down into confrontational exchanges, whereby each party simply reiterates its positions and demands – and typically issues threats and ultimatums and employs other pressure tactics to try to force the other to concede, causing each to become ever more entrenched in its positions and more resistant to new ideas.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnother problem was the totally unrealistic expectation that was created for the talks – the idea that an agreement settling decades of serious grievances between the US and Iran might be negotiated within a weekend. A much more realistic approach would have been to schedule talks to be held over a much longer time-frame or to schedule additional rounds of talks.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe continuous, marathon nature of the talks are also not a good way to structure peacemaking negotiations. The talks began soon after both delegations arrived (the US delegation had traveled for 18 hours) and lasted all afternoon and most of the night. Indeed, such a schedule is not at all conducive to constructive outcomes, as the parties were tired upon arrival and became ever more exhausted and stressed as the talks continued, reducing their ability to listen to and understand the other party’s issues and concerns and to even to consider or create any new, innovative possibilities that could help bridge differences or create trade-offs.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMoreover, such a format offers no time for the delegations to engage in discussions with their own team or reflect on the exchanges that have occurred at the table between the parties. As confirmed by the \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/12/us/politics/jd-vance-pakistan-iran-war-talks.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003e_New York Times_\u003c/a\u003e_,_ at the end of the talks: “Exhausted and frustrated after 21 hours on the ground, Mr Vance provided few details, took three questions and departed.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Iranians, for their part, \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/11/jd-vance-dispatched-to-negotiate-iran-peace-with-few-cards-to-play\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eare actually known\u003c/a\u003e for their “long-winded, relentless approach to deal-making,” which the Iranian Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, has called “market style,” meaning “continuous and tireless bargaining.” This is why it is important to have an experienced mediator who knows how to control the process and who will structure negotiation in a paced manner, over a number of days, with breaks during each day and time to sleep and rest overnight.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt also appeared that Vance was not plenipotentiary in having full authority to take independent action, since he reportedly broke off negotiations on multiple occasions \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2026/04/11/us-iran-islamabad-hormuz-ceasefire/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eto phone President Trump\u003c/a\u003e, perhaps because, over Easter, \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/12/us/politics/jd-vance-pakistan-iran-war-talks.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eTrump\u003c/a\u003e said that: “If it doesn’t happen, I’m blaming JD Vance . . . if it does happen, I’m taking full credit.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://unitar.org/sites/default/files/media/publication/doc/practice-peacemaking.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eoverriding issue\u003c/a\u003e that is often neglected by well-meaning, but unseasoned third-parties, as well as by inexperienced delegations, is their total focus on the substance of a negotiation – to the neglect of the process. Although substance is, of course, important, the process of how negotiations are structured is crucial to finding an acceptable outcome that achieves agreement on substance. Parties need a constructive process to help them engage in meaningful problem-solving, especially where there is no trust and they have a long-term hostile relationship.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhere the peace process goes from here is uncertain. Trump has already announced that the US will carry out a naval blockade of Iranian ports. It will, of course, help greatly if the cease-fire can be maintained and extended beyond the two weeks, since the longer a cessation of hostilities is in place, the more time there will be for additional meaningful talks to occur.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOne thing that is certain, however, is that all of those working to promote an end to the war in Iran (Pakistan, Türkiye, Egypt, and other regional partners, as well China, the United Nations and others) have a huge challenge ahead of them in crafting a process that will allow for an integrative approach that will have a chance of resolving this long-standing, intractable conflict.\u003c/p\u003e",
      "summary": "The collapse of recent US–Iran talks highlights how flawed negotiation design – not just substance – can doom peace efforts from the start.",
      "date_published": "2026-04-21T00:34:41+10:00",
      "date_modified": "2026-04-21T00:34:41+10:00",
      "authors": [{"name": "Connie Peck"}
      ],
      "tags": ["politics","usa","world"],
      "_social_media": {
        "tweet_text": "The failure of US–Iran talks wasn’t just about substance.\nIt was about a flawed process – rushed, confrontational and poorly structured, Connie Peck writes.\n#Iran #USPolitics #Diplomacy #Geopolitics #Peace",
        "tweet_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/fyou-cant-rush-peace-the-fatal-flaws-in-the-us-iran-talks/",
        "linkedin_title": "You can’t rush peace: the fatal flaws in the US–Iran talks",
        "linkedin_excerpt": "The collapse of recent US–Iran talks highlights how flawed negotiation design – not just substance – can doom peace efforts from the start.",
        "linkedin_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/fyou-cant-rush-peace-the-fatal-flaws-in-the-us-iran-talks/",
        "facebook_text": "You can’t rush peace: the fatal flaws in the US–Iran talks - The collapse of recent US–Iran talks highlights how flawed negotiation design – not just substance – can doom peace efforts from the start.",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/jd-vance-islamabad-c.jpg",
        "author_names": "Connie Peck"
      },
      "_mailchimp": {
        "excerpt": "The collapse of recent US–Iran talks highlights how flawed negotiation design – not just substance – can doom peace efforts from the start.",
        "authors_string": "Connie Peck",
        "categories_string": "politics, usa, world",
        "pub_date_formatted": "Tuesday, April 21, 2026",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/jd-vance-islamabad-c.jpg"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/new-detection-tech-could-make-aukus-submarines-obsolete",
      "url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/new-detection-tech-could-make-aukus-submarines-obsolete/",
      "title": "New detection tech could make AUKUS submarines obsolete",
      "content_html": "\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eChinese researchers have developed a new gravity-based detector that could be used to find submarines and render the proposed AUKUS submarine redundant.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eChinese technological advance is very likely to put another downer on the AUKUS submarine program. As I have previously detailed in _\n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2024/12/the-aukus-delusion-just-got-worse/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003ePearls and Irritations\u003c/a\u003e, _the Chinese have been researching how to detect submarines using high-energy microwave synthesis technology. Now, as reported in \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://interestingengineering.com/military/chinas-sensor-detect-hidden-us-nuclear-submarines\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003e_Interesting Engineering_\u003c/a\u003e, they are working on how to pinpoint ‘monsters of the deep’ by means of a gravity-based detector.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLed by Zhang Yingzi, a team from North University of China is building on previous breakthroughs made at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The current research places China at the forefront of developing this technology.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat makes this gravity-based detector such a breakthrough is that unlike traditional submarine detection methods – sonar, radar or magnetic – which can be partially thwarted using the right countermeasures, this method cannot be deceived. A heavy object like a submarine cannot be hidden in terms of its gravitational effects. Mass cannot be turned off, reduced or absorbed. \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe method works using a highly sophisticated magnetometer called a superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID), a device that may be able, by picking up tiny changes in gravity, to find submarines.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMagnetometers are not new. You no doubt will have walked through one at airport security or seen one being used by someone combing a beach in search of lost coins or jewellery. A SQUID magnetometer operates at a whole other level: it is an extremely sensitive instrument able to measure miniscule changes in gravitation.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSQUID magnetometers have been used in neurology and cardiology to detect minute magnetic fluctuations. Super sensitive, they can measure magnetic fields 100 billion times weaker than that required to move a compass needle.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe device is effectively a frictionless floating mass that moves when gravity changes even very slightly. The device works by suspending a small object in mid-air and eliminating (as much as possible) any effects of friction upon it. Reliant on superconductivity, it needs to be cooled to temperatures near absolute zero. \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePrior to the work of Zhang’s team, the technology’s cost had been exorbitant because each device needed to contain at least six ultra-sensitive superconducting magnetic gradiometers, all equipped with a pair of superconducting coils. It was thought this was necessary to accurately detect submarines hundreds of metres below the surface and to estimate their location, speed and other physical characteristics. What Zhang’s team did was to design a probe that uses a single superconducting magnetic gradiometer to achieve a tenfold increase in sensitivity compared to those in use by anti-submarine forces across the globe.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSuch ultra-sensitive movement detection is perfect for gravity detection, thus giving the technology its military use. When gravity changes even marginally (that is when an object moves nearby), this causes the device to move ever so slightly, measuring differences in gravity across space. The minuteness of variation is impressive. Assuming a \u0026lsquo;background\u0026rsquo; gravity of say 9.800000000, when a submarine passes by the device, the reading will change to something like 9.800000002. This is a very tiny difference but enough for the detector to notice something is going on. \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe device has already been tested outside highly controlled laboratory settings, which is important because these detectors are very sensitive to interference, such as footsteps, passing vehicles, wind, waves and earth tremors. If the technology can be proven in these kinds of \u0026lsquo;signal dirty\u0026rsquo; environments, then it is likely to work well on ships, aircraft, and drones.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhile still not sensitive enough to be used for things like submarine detection, but once fully developed, the device is expected to be able to detect things like the current 18,750-ton US Ohio-class submarines. The Virginia class submarine, the first step in the AUKUS program, weighs 7,900 tons, and the proposed successor AUKUS-class submarine, which will weigh about 10,000 tons, are both significantly smaller than the massive Ohio class. However, one can assume that Chinese technology will advance to the point of using the same, even more highly calibrated technology, to make their detection possible. \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGiven that the estimated timeline sees Australia acquiring Virginia class submarines not until the mid-2030s, with the AUKUS class acquisition date anyone’s guess, it can be assumed that any US, British or Australian submarines will by then be easily detectable. One hates to think of $368 billion (and counting) wasted on a project that, by the time it is delivered, technology will have made redundant. But when one is speaking of possibly as long as 30 years that very likely will be the case. \u003c/p\u003e",
      "summary": "Chinese researchers have developed a new gravity-based detector that could be used to find submarines and render the proposed AUKUS submarine redundant.",
      "date_published": "2026-04-21T00:29:10+10:00",
      "date_modified": "2026-04-21T00:29:10+10:00",
      "authors": [{"name": "John Queripel"}
      ],
      "tags": ["china","defence"],
      "_social_media": {
        "tweet_text": "A new Chinese gravity-based detector could make stealth submarines obsolete.\nThat raises serious questions about the long-term viability of AUKUS, John Queripel writes.\n#auspol #AUKUS #Defence #China #Geopolitics",
        "tweet_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/new-detection-tech-could-make-aukus-submarines-obsolete/",
        "linkedin_title": "New detection tech could make AUKUS submarines obsolete",
        "linkedin_excerpt": "Chinese researchers have developed a new gravity-based detector that could be used to find submarines and render the proposed AUKUS submarine redundant.",
        "linkedin_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/new-detection-tech-could-make-aukus-submarines-obsolete/",
        "facebook_text": "New detection tech could make AUKUS submarines obsolete - Chinese researchers have developed a new gravity-based detector that could be used to find submarines and render the proposed AUKUS submarine redundant.",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/2P902HE.jpg",
        "author_names": "John Queripel"
      },
      "_mailchimp": {
        "excerpt": "Chinese researchers have developed a new gravity-based detector that could be used to find submarines and render the proposed AUKUS submarine redundant.",
        "authors_string": "John Queripel",
        "categories_string": "china, defence",
        "pub_date_formatted": "Tuesday, April 21, 2026",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/2P902HE.jpg"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/plan-b-insulating-ourselves-from-the-us",
      "url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/plan-b-insulating-ourselves-from-the-us/",
      "title": "Plan B: insulating ourselves from the US",
      "content_html": "\u003cp\u003e_P\u0026amp;I today begins a major new series - rethinking Australia\u0026rsquo;s foreign policy. The United States is becoming more erratic and less reliable, and Australia must respond by insulating itself – strengthening regional ties, rethinking defence settings, and reducing strategic dependence, according to John Menadue. _\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTrump and Netanyahu are the most dangerous persons on the planet. US policy in the Middle East is not driven by oil. It is driven by Netanyahu. And allies in the Gulf are paying a very heavy price for allowing US bases on their soil. The same fate might be ours with northern Australia becoming a US military colony.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTrump defaces almost everything he touches. His behaviour and language suggest psychological disturbance. Penny Wong speaks of a “much more unpredictable US”. And so does Andrew Hastie, telling us that the Iran war is “a huge miscalculation” by Trump.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTrump’s damage is likely irreversible. The US does not negotiate in good faith any more, as the Iranians have found three times over nuclear issues.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe need regime change in Washington more than Tehran. But in the meantime, we must minimise risk. Appealing or sucking up to Trump will not work. He bullies the weak and confronting him will provoke a dangerous tirade as the Europeans have found.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA change in our relationship with the US should not be couched in terms of our rejection but Asian engagement. Or, as I read recently, countries such as Australia should insulate rather than isolate themselves from the United States. Prudent risk management may be an even better description.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTo propose US rejection would immediately lead to predictable attacks from our media which is a platform for Washington’s view of the world. Our intelligence, defence agencies, and think tanks also have a vested interest in the American alliance. They have been on the Washington drip feed for so long – mainly through the Five Eyes – that they cannot envisage Australia as other than a locked-on vassal of the CIA.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere has been a shift in Australian attitudes towards the United States. Recently the US Study Centre found that \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10-16/polls-no-alternative-united-states-ally-trump-negative/105895536\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eonly 16 per cent of Australians\u003c/a\u003e think that Trump’s second term has been good for Australia. In 2025 only 42 per cent of Australians believe that the alliance makes Australian more secure. This is a 13-percentage drop from 2024 and the lowest level since USSC polling began in 2022. Nearly one third of Australians now believe the alliance makes us less secure, a figure that has almost doubled since 2024\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe government must lead a public discussion about insulating ourselves from the US. Penny Wong has articulated for us a way forward in her proposal of the four Rs – Region, Relationships, Roles and Resilience – in which the US alliance rather than being a foundational pillar is embedded within a wider web of diversified partnerships with regional relationships elevated to equal importance.\n**\nWhat can we do to insulate ourselves from US folly?**\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe mustn’t waste a good crisis. They provide an opportunity to lay down new markers. We should have rejected Trump’s Board of Peace for Gaza quickly, wholeheartedly supported Canadian Prime Minister \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://johnmenadue.com/post/2026/01/canadian-prime-minister-mark-carney-world-economic-forum-speech/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eMark Carney’s speech\u003c/a\u003e on the role of middle powers, and dissociated ourselves immediately from the folly of the Israeli-inspired US attack on Iran.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eUS bases\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe have a swarm of US bases on our soil. The most significant is Pine Gap, which is currently very active in supporting Israeli attacks in Gaza and US attacks on Iran. As \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://johnmenadue.com/post/2026/03/australias-six-pathways-to-the-war-with-iran-part-1/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eRichard Tanter wrote, i\u003c/a\u003en September 2024 one of the key US corporations supplying personnel for NSA operations at Pine Gap advertised for a Farsi speaking US citizen for a top secret role working from Alice Springs with the US military in the Persian Gulf.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNo doubt that person and other Farsi speakers were critical in the US attack on Iran.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe should insist that Australians have access to all signal intelligence at Pine Gap. No signal intelligence - no bases.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe ALP platform is clear, “Labor’s defence policy is founded on the principle of self-reliance. Australia\u0026rsquo;s armed forces need to be able to defend against credible threats without relying on the combat forces and capabilities of other countries”.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDoes that policy now guide the Labor government? Will we just get weasel words at the next ALP Conference in Adelaide?\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat can be done to minimise the risk of these US bases?\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe could, as the Spanish Government has done, bar the use of US bases without our permission. We would need to make that clear in advance, particularly over Taiwan. It would be too late once the shooting starts. There is a good precedent. In Parliament on 3 March, 1981, Malcolm Fraser said “the Australian government has a firm policy that aircraft carrying nuclear weapons will not be allowed to fly over or stage through Australia without its prior knowledge and agreement. Nothing less than this would be consistent with the maintenance of our national sovereignty.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe could insist that US bases cannot be used for illegal purposes or in breach of our commitments to the UN Charter.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe War Powers Reform group has urged our parliament to legislate, requiring both Houses of Parliament to vote before our troops or bases can be used in hostilities. A poll by Essential Research in April 2023 found that \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://warpowersreform.org.au/opinion-polls/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003e90 per cent\u003c/a\u003e of those surveyed thought parliamentary approval should be required to go to war.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAUKUS\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt will be politically difficult, but we must find a way to exit from AUKUS. The cost is horrendous for submarines that will be too late, may never arrive, and are not for the defence of Australia. A comprehensive review of defence including AUKUS would be useful. We had an ANZUS review in 1983.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe cannot fund $360 billion for AUKUS – the equivalent of six times our annual defence expenditure – and develop at the same time a self-reliant defence posture. Trump may even welcome the end of AUKUS to provide relief to US shipyards.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eInvesting in our region\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe need to actively engage with our own region, something we’ve talked about for decades but have never seriously embraced. We are often seen as a western outpost with a British Head of State.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe new alliance with Papua New Guinea and the renewed defence cooperation treaty with Indonesia are very welcome. The latter is a reinstatement of a very similar treaty that Paul Keating negotiated with President Suharto in 1995.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNo strategic or defence relationship is more important than our relationship with Indonesia. That relationship must anchor our regional relations.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe need to significantly lift our diplomatic capabilities in Asia. For far too long our intelligence, security and defence personnel have dominated advice to governments. US focused, they have a lot of information but poor judgement. We should not be led by the nose by the Five Eyes.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOur successes in APEC, Cambodia and East Timor show our diplomatic capability when associated with strong ministerial leadership, as we had with Keating and Gareth Evans.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe current fuel crisis points the way for more active collaboration with countries in our region. Too often we wait for a cue from the US.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUnfortunately, we are less Asia-ready then we were 30 years ago. At the time of the Hawke-Keating governments we were making progress in Asian language learning, media interest in Asia and cultural exchanges with Asia. But Asian language learning and education funding at university is collapsing. The national policy on Asian languages has run into the sand. Our legacy media, including the ABC, is still embedded in our historical relationships with the UK and the US.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOur retreat from Asia has become a rout. It requires urgent attention\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eChina\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe must develop a more constructive relationship with China, particularly in such fields as renewable energy and regional trade – for example the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) which is a major multilateral free trade agreement between 12 countries does not include China. The US has withdrawn.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe ignore China’s Belt and Road initiative which now includes more than 150 partner nations. BRICS was founded by, India, Brazil, South Africa, China and Russia. Other members now include Indonesia and Egypt.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs Chandran Nair has proposed we need to explore other China initiatives. China has proposed a \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://un.china-mission.gov.cn/eng/czthd/202512/t20251210_11769936.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eGlobal Governance Initiative\u003c/a\u003e aimed at reforming global governance to make it more just, inclusive and effective. As part of this, it has established a “Group of Friends of Global Governance” at the UN, comprising 43 founding member states, intended to work within and strengthen the UN-centred system.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is but one of many recent initiatives that China has proposed.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/12/understanding-china-governance-socio-economics-global-influence\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eChandran Nair\u003c/a\u003ehas described our China challenge on P\u0026amp;I, “given China\u0026rsquo;s size, scale and vast potential, its rise will inevitably generate challenges…. An inter civilisation dialogue between China and the rest of the world is not only an imperative for academics but critical for world leaders and thinkers striving towards a more peaceful world.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMany countries may not want to be like China. But they know that China shows respect and listens. China has a vision for the future, but the West doesn’t.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAt the same time, we must insulate ourselves from the erratic behaviour and decline of our “dangerous ally”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIncrementalism and managerialism won’t cut it. It requires boldness and courage. With a large majority, the Albanese government has a lot of political credit in the bank. Is it prepared to spend it?\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eTomorrow in Rethinking Foreign Policy Kym Davey says the upcoming ALP National Conference is the opportunity for the Labor rank and file to demand a fit-for-purpose defence and foreign policy.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e",
      "summary": "P\u0026amp;I today begins a major new series - rethinking Australia's foreign policy. The United States is becoming more erratic and less reliable, and Australia must respond by insulating itself – strengthening regional ties, rethinking defence settings, and reducing strategic dependence, according to John Menadue. ",
      "date_published": "2026-04-20T00:59:45+10:00",
      "date_modified": "2026-04-20T00:59:45+10:00",
      "authors": [{"name": "John Menadue"}
      ],
      "tags": ["china","defence","politics"],
      "_social_media": {
        "tweet_text": "The United States is becoming more unpredictable – and more dangerous.\nAustralia must insulate itself by strengthening regional ties and reducing dependence on US power, John Menadue writes.\n#auspol #ForeignPolicy #Australia #US #Geopolitics",
        "tweet_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/plan-b-insulating-ourselves-from-the-us/",
        "linkedin_title": "Plan B: insulating ourselves from the US",
        "linkedin_excerpt": "P\u0026amp;I today begins a major new series - rethinking Australia's foreign policy. The United States is becoming more erratic and less reliable, and Australia must respond by insulating itself – strengthening regional ties, rethinking defence settings, and reducing strategic dependence, according to John Menadue. ",
        "linkedin_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/plan-b-insulating-ourselves-from-the-us/",
        "facebook_text": "Plan B: insulating ourselves from the US - P\u0026amp;I today begins a major new series - rethinking Australia's foreign policy. The United States is becoming more erratic and less reliable, and Australia must respond by insulating itself – …",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/trump-ntanyahu-usa-2.jpg",
        "author_names": "John Menadue"
      },
      "_mailchimp": {
        "excerpt": "P\u0026amp;I today begins a major new series - rethinking Australia's foreign policy. The United States is becoming more erratic and less reliable, and Australia must respond by insulating itself – strengthening regional ties, rethinking defence settings, and reducing strategic dependence, according to John Menadue. ",
        "authors_string": "John Menadue",
        "categories_string": "china, defence, politics",
        "pub_date_formatted": "Monday, April 20, 2026",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/trump-ntanyahu-usa-2.jpg"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/aukus-and-the-sunk-cost-trap-beneath-the-surface",
      "url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/aukus-and-the-sunk-cost-trap-beneath-the-surface/",
      "title": "AUKUS and the sunk cost trap beneath the surface",
      "content_html": "\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eAs warfare shifts decisively toward autonomous and distributed systems, Australia’s massive investment in nuclear submarines risks locking in a costly and inflexible strategy.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.minister.defence.gov.au/speeches/2026-04-16/speech-national-press-club\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eRichard Marles gave a polished performance\u003c/a\u003e at the National Press Club. Smooth, confident, practised. He spoke about drones, autonomy and the changing character of war. He sounded modern. But beneath the language of innovation sat an older and much heavier reality: Australia is still tying itself to one of the slowest, most expensive and least adaptable military projects in its history.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat is the contradiction at the heart of AUKUS.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMarles is not unaware of autonomous systems. He referred to uncrewed capabilities and undersea warfare. But that only sharpens the question. If Defence now openly accepts that autonomy, robotics and distributed systems are transforming warfare across all domains, why is Australia still betting so much on a tiny fleet of immensely costly, crewed nuclear submarines that will arrive deep into the 2030s and 2040s?\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is not a minor procurement issue. It is a question of strategic judgement.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe case for AUKUS rests on the assumption that large, crewed nuclear submarines will remain among the most valuable assets in the maritime battlespace for decades to come. That may prove true. But it may also prove disastrously wrong. The point is not that submarines are already obsolete. They are not. The point is that Australia is making an extraordinary long-term bet in a technological environment changing far faster than the program itself can adapt.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat should make any serious government cautious. Instead, Canberra behaves as if the matter is settled.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHistory offers a warning. In the early twentieth century the great powers poured fortunes into dreadnought battleships, symbols of industrial might and naval prestige. They were not instantly useless. But new technologies and new operational realities quickly eroded their dominance. Military establishments had invested too much money, too much institutional pride and too much doctrine to rethink the model in time.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat is the real relevance of the dreadnought analogy. Not that history repeats mechanically, but that states often mistake the apex of one era’s military technology for the foundation of the next.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat danger is obvious with AUKUS. Nuclear submarines are a mature technology. Autonomous undersea systems are not. They are improving quickly in endurance, sensing, networking and mission range. Underwater communications remain difficult. Swarming underwater is far harder than in the air. Human-crewed submarines will not simply vanish. But the direction of travel is unmistakable: the future undersea battlespace will be more distributed, more robotic, more sensor-saturated and more hostile to concentrated, exquisite platforms.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn that context, the problem with AUKUS is not merely cost, although the cost is staggering. It is rigidity. Australia is locking itself into a force structure designed around a handful of elite assets whose strategic rationale may narrow before they even enter service. The more expensive the platform, the more reluctant commanders will be to risk it. The more politically symbolic it becomes, the less usable it may be in practice.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA submarine that cannot be risked is not a deterrent. It is a shrine.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is where the drone discussion matters. Marles is happy to speak about drones as an addition to the force, as a supplement, as evidence that Defence is keeping up with change. But what if they are not a supplement? What if they are part of a broader shift that should force a rethink of the whole investment model? What if the lesson of autonomous warfare is not “buy some drones as well” but “stop spending so much on vulnerable prestige systems with decades-long delivery horizons”?\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat is the debate Canberra does not want.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBecause once that question is asked seriously, AUKUS stops looking like strategic vision and starts looking like strategic inertia dressed up as alliance management. It begins to resemble what it has always partly been: not simply a defence project, but a political project, a way of binding Australia more tightly to Washington, advertising resolve, and cloaking dependence in the language of technological sophistication.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe tragedy is that Australia does need a serious debate about maritime defence. We do need to think hard about sea denial, choke points, infrastructure protection, autonomous systems, missile strike, industrial capacity and strategic geography. We do need to prepare for a harsher region. But none of that requires blind faith in a single gold-plated answer.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIndeed, the lesson of technological disruption is the opposite. In periods of rapid change, resilience comes from adaptability, diversity and strategic humility. It does not come from placing one colossal bet and then building the national security establishment around defending it from criticism.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat is why Marles’ performance was so revealing. He spoke the language of future warfare while defending the procurement logic of the past. He praised disruption while protecting orthodoxy. He acknowledged change without following its implications to their conclusion.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAustralia may yet acquire nuclear submarines that serve a useful role. But that is not enough to justify the present scale of commitment. For nearly $368 billion, Australians are entitled to more than polished rhetoric and alliance piety. They are entitled to ask whether this fleet will still make sense in the world for which it is actually being built.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat question is not anti-defence. It is the essence of defence thinking.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd the more insistently Canberra avoids it, the more AUKUS looks less like insurance against the future than a monument to an ageing strategic imagination.\u003c/p\u003e",
      "summary": "As warfare shifts decisively toward autonomous and distributed systems, Australia’s massive investment in nuclear submarines risks locking in a costly and inflexible strategy.",
      "date_published": "2026-04-20T00:54:11+10:00",
      "date_modified": "2026-04-20T00:54:11+10:00",
      "authors": [{"name": "Stewart Sweeney"}
      ],
      "tags": ["defence","politics","usa"],
      "_social_media": {
        "tweet_text": "AUKUS risks becoming a sunk cost in a rapidly changing military landscape.\nAs warfare shifts toward autonomous systems, Australia may be locking itself into an outdated and enormously expensive strategy, Stewart Sweeney writes.\n#auspol #AUKUS #Defence #Geopolitics",
        "tweet_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/aukus-and-the-sunk-cost-trap-beneath-the-surface/",
        "linkedin_title": "AUKUS and the sunk cost trap beneath the surface",
        "linkedin_excerpt": "As warfare shifts decisively toward autonomous and distributed systems, Australia’s massive investment in nuclear submarines risks locking in a costly and inflexible strategy.",
        "linkedin_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/aukus-and-the-sunk-cost-trap-beneath-the-surface/",
        "facebook_text": "AUKUS and the sunk cost trap beneath the surface - As warfare shifts decisively toward autonomous and distributed systems, Australia’s massive investment in nuclear submarines risks locking in a costly and inflexible strategy.",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/marles-npc-april-202.jpg",
        "author_names": "Stewart Sweeney"
      },
      "_mailchimp": {
        "excerpt": "As warfare shifts decisively toward autonomous and distributed systems, Australia’s massive investment in nuclear submarines risks locking in a costly and inflexible strategy.",
        "authors_string": "Stewart Sweeney",
        "categories_string": "defence, politics, usa",
        "pub_date_formatted": "Monday, April 20, 2026",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/marles-npc-april-202.jpg"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/albanese-and-anwar-align-behind-popes-call-for-peace",
      "url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/albanese-and-anwar-align-behind-popes-call-for-peace/",
      "title": "Albanese and Anwar align behind Pope’s call for peace",
      "content_html": "\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eAustralia and Malaysia have signalled support for a diplomatic path through escalating global tensions, backing Pope Leo’s call for peace and restraint.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAmid growing global unease over escalating conflicts, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim found common ground in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday 16 April, uniting behind Pope Leo’s forceful call for peace, justice, and an end to ongoing attacks on Iran and Lebanon.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe meeting comes against the backdrop of intensifying conflict involving the United States and Israel in Iran and Lebanon, alongside a worsening global energy crisis linked to tensions in the Strait of Hormuz. While both leaders navigated complex geopolitical sensitivities, their joint stance reflected a clear endorsement of moral leadership over militarised responses.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSpeaking at a joint press conference, Albanese praised the Pope as a “thoughtful, dignified, and extraordinary person” whose voice carries global significance. His remarks were widely interpreted as an implicit rebuke of Donald Trump, who recently launched a public attack on the pontiff, accusing him of being “weak on crime” and “terrible for foreign policy,” even sharing an AI-generated image depicting himself in religious imagery.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnwar Ibrahim framed his support for the pope in both moral and interfaith terms highlighting a convergence between Muslim-majority Malaysia and Australia’s Catholic-rooted leadership by saying, “I think any reasonable or sane person, and even I as a Muslim and Malaysians generally, certainly support the position taken by the Pope.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Pope’s remarks, delivered during a visit to Cameroon, have resonated globally. Condemning what he described as a world “ravaged by a handful of tyrants,” he criticised leaders who spend billions on war while neglecting education, healthcare, and reconstruction. Without naming specific countries, his message was widely seen as a critique of the US-Israeli military campaign and broader patterns of global militarism.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“Peace is not something we must invent,” the Pope declared. “It is something we must embrace by accepting our neighbour as a brother and sister.” His words stand in stark contrast to escalating rhetoric from Washington, where Trump has defended the war as necessary to counter Iran’s influence.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe conflict has disrupted global supply chains, with fears mounting over access to oil, fertiliser, and food. Anwar confirmed that Malaysia would prioritise domestic needs but could provide Australia with preferential access to surplus fuel through its state energy giant, Petronas.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAt the same time, Malaysia defended its continued economic engagement with Iran and Russia, rejecting unilateral sanctions not endorsed by the United Nations. Anwar emphasised that his government’s primary obligation was to protect national interests, even as it uses diplomatic ties to advocate for de-escalation and freedom of navigation in critical waterways.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOn Gaza, the two leaders found further alignment. Anwar praised Australia’s recognition of Palestine and its calls for humanitarian relief, describing Canberra’s stance as meaningful within the region.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBeyond immediate policy implications, the symbolism of the meeting may prove more enduring. In an era marked by polarisation and conflict, the sight of two leaders – separated by faith but united in principle – standing together in defence of a global religious figure’s call for peace carries weight.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs war rhetoric intensifies and alliances harden, the joint message from Kuala Lumpur signals a quieter but significant countercurrent: a push for dialogue over destruction, and a reminder that moral authority still holds power on the world stage.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRepublished from \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.amust.com.au/2026/04/albanese-and-anwar-unite-behind-popes-call-for-peace-against-warmongering-tyrants/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eAMUST\u003c/a\u003e, 17 April 2026\u003c/p\u003e",
      "summary": "Australia and Malaysia have signalled support for a diplomatic path through escalating global tensions, backing Pope Leo’s call for peace and restraint.",
      "date_published": "2026-04-20T00:49:03+10:00",
      "date_modified": "2026-04-20T00:49:03+10:00",
      "authors": [{"name": "Zia Ahmad"}
      ],
      "tags": ["politics","religion","world"],
      "_social_media": {
        "tweet_text": "Albanese and Anwar have backed Pope Leo’s call for peace amid escalating global tensions.\nTheir stance signals support for diplomacy over militarised responses, Zia Ahmad writes.\n#auspol #Geopolitics #MiddleEast #Diplomacy",
        "tweet_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/albanese-and-anwar-align-behind-popes-call-for-peace/",
        "linkedin_title": "Albanese and Anwar align behind Pope’s call for peace",
        "linkedin_excerpt": "Australia and Malaysia have signalled support for a diplomatic path through escalating global tensions, backing Pope Leo’s call for peace and restraint.",
        "linkedin_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/albanese-and-anwar-align-behind-popes-call-for-peace/",
        "facebook_text": "Albanese and Anwar align behind Pope’s call for peace - Australia and Malaysia have signalled support for a diplomatic path through escalating global tensions, backing Pope Leo’s call for peace and restraint.",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/albanese-and-anwar-e-1.jpg",
        "author_names": "Zia Ahmad"
      },
      "_mailchimp": {
        "excerpt": "Australia and Malaysia have signalled support for a diplomatic path through escalating global tensions, backing Pope Leo’s call for peace and restraint.",
        "authors_string": "Zia Ahmad",
        "categories_string": "politics, religion, world",
        "pub_date_formatted": "Monday, April 20, 2026",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/albanese-and-anwar-e-1.jpg"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/trump-administration-insiders-struggling-to-maintain-public-sector-capability-and-integrity",
      "url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/trump-administration-insiders-struggling-to-maintain-public-sector-capability-and-integrity/",
      "title": "Can the US public service survive the Trump era?",
      "content_html": "\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003ePublic administrators in the United States are exploring how to reshape the civil service as a pillar of American democracy.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLast year I reported in \u003cem\u003e\n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.themandarin.com.au/311083-trump-insiders-struggle-to-maintain-public-sector-capability-integrity/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eThe Mandarin\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/em\u003e on the challenges public servants in the US were facing under the new Trump administration, whose determined attacks on the ‘deep state’ targeted the very public service it was relying upon to deliver its policies and programs. Then, at the 2025 annual conference of the American Society for Public Administration, I observed, amongst the anger and despair, and fear, some very thoughtful discussions of possible strategies to rebuild public confidence in the civil service as an institution in American democracy. These included its non-partisanship and merit-based employment.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe atmosphere at this year’s ASPA conference in Los Angeles last month was no less charged. Concerns about the undermining of the merit principle, disregard of ethical standards and of longstanding legal and institutional constraints, and loss of capability, were universal, though mostly expressed in the side discussions.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe formal presentations and discussions generally avoided direct criticisms of the Trump administration. Instead, they explored issues such as models of leadership character, responsible use of public resources, and strategies for improved capability and performance. This provided a powerful contrast with some of what is continuing to happen under the Trump administration and, despite the current climate, offered some constructive advice for public administration practitioners and scholars.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePerhaps the most powerful presentation was by senior Washington journalist and author, Garrett Graff, who spoke movingly about Robert Mueller, the former FBI Director who died the day the conference began. Graff did not mention President Trump’s statement on Truth Social that night (‘Robert Mueller just died. Good. I am glad he’s dead.’). He merely described in detail Mueller’s character and record of service, having interviewed him many times.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMueller was a strait-laced son of a Second World War veteran; he himself served in the Vietnam War. He was first appointed FBI Director with a 98 to zero endorsement by the US Senate and reappointed with a 100 to zero Senate endorsement. As Director, he applied five key principles:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003col\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e‘Make your bed’: a classic military discipline for order before getting on with the job.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e‘Don’t kill the messenger’: listen carefully to advice, seek the truth, rely on people who are not afraid to say what they think and who don’t see their job is to try to protect you.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e‘Take care of your people’: make sure you have the best, hire those who themselves have good teams with people who complement each other, never tolerate meanness.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e‘Always wear a white shirt’: when leading big changes retain totems of continuity from the past, don’t change everything all at once, emphasise areas of stability, get acceptance of change.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e‘In the end, it’s not what you do but how you do it’: act honestly and with integrity, not allowing any grey areas in this, recognise that, once lost, good reputation can never be regained.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ol\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGraff went on to spell out the pillars of US success Mueller had always supported, including the rule of law, a merit-based civil service, scientific research, free trade and a network of international alliances. The contrast with Trump’s character and policies could not have been more stark.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFormer Georgian Congresswoman, Carolyn Bourdeaux, spoke about the importance of fiscal responsibility and the failures on both sides of politics in the US to address this. Indeed, she said the hardest thing in politics is to say ‘no’ to your own Party – she had experienced ‘sledgehammer’ criticism from the Left of the Democratic Party.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePaying interest on debt now represents 20 per cent of federal expenditure in the US and is projected to reach 25 per cent by 2030. The debt, Bourdeaux said, represents the biggest intergenerational transfer ever in the US. She called for greater willingness to ‘work across the aisle’ and for closer links between Congress and the public, including through local discussions to help constituents understand the problem and accept the need for repair. That repair must include measures to rein in growth in the sacrosanct social security and health expenditure areas as well as to increase revenues (which have fallen in recent years from 19 per cent of GDP to 17 per cent).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBourdeaux’s refreshingly honest analysis rejected the growing polarisation in the US and offered more constructive ways to address America’s failings. She called for greater citizen engagement and highlighted the importance of responsible media and a capable civil service and academia, whose tenure she said was intended to allow them to speak truth to power and to show courage.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn a lower profile panel discussion, a senior civil servant in the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), Rebecca Ayers, demonstrated the ongoing responsibility of the civil service to support the elected government, while also upholding the values of impartiality and a merit-based civil service – quite a challenge in the Trump administration. She spoke of last year having to close programs and reduce staff by 40 per cent, in line with Presidential Orders, contrasting this with the forward-looking work OPM was now doing.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhile avoiding commenting on continuing Trump administration controversies, including politicisation and down-sizing, Ayers showed her professionalism before a sceptical audience. Bravely, she suggested that the infamous Project 2025 guiding many leaders in the Administration in their attacks on the ‘deep state’ had some similarities with the 2021 recommendations by the National Academy of Public Administration (closely linked with ASPA).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAccordingly, she and OPM were looking for a shift from a compliance management culture to a performance and serving-the-public culture. This required acknowledgement that classification structures and recruitment processes in the US had been ‘frozen’ in legislation set more than 30 years ago.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWith the pendulum now swinging back to centralisation, there were opportunities for useful reforms particularly around recruiting and developing talent and workforce planning. Unsurprisingly, her claims were challenged but I was impressed that such a professional dialogue remained possible.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMost of those I spoke to at the conference think there will be a shift back towards responsible democratic government. The chances are that the Democrats will regain control of the House of Representatives after the mid-term elections later this year. This will allow Congress to stall some of the more extreme initiatives proposed by the Trump administration.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTrump’s Supreme Court is showing signs that it may not be as compliant with his actions as he wants. Whatever the result of the 2028 Presidential election, some shift back towards respect for the various institutions of democratic government is regarded as likely, amongst this audience at least. With over two years to get their act together, the Democrats must have a reasonable chance of victory in that election.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut nearly everyone equally emphasised the risk that this pendulum shift might not occur. A Democrat win in the mid-term election is by no means certain, particularly given the extent of gerrymandering that is reducing the number of winnable House seats, plus the measures being taken that will make voting more difficult. The possibility of Trump challenging a loss is also real, and even of ignoring legal confirmation of a loss. Nor would anyone entirely rule out Trump finding a way to stay in power after 2028.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEven if there is a pendulum shift later this year or after the 2028 election, there is a risk it will be limited. Trump appointments to the judiciary will remain in ascendancy. The core MAGA base is considerable and strong. America has a long tradition of suspicion about government and a distrust of institutions. It also has a history of repeated long periods of isolationism and ‘America first’; there seems little reason to assume a reversal of the current attitude any time soon.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eASPA conference attendees are hardly representative, of course. Moreover, the conference is a huge event – run over five days with over 1400 participants including more than 500 from 37 countries outside the US, mostly Chinese academics – so that my observations necessarily come from a minority of the presentations made. Nonetheless, they involved many experts in government and many apolitical insiders.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRepublished from \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.themandarin.com.au/311185-what-australia-can-learn-from-international-public-administration-developments/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003e_The Mandarin_,\u003c/a\u003e 15 April 2026\u003c/p\u003e",
      "summary": "Public administrators in the United States are exploring how to reshape the civil service as a pillar of American democracy.",
      "date_published": "2026-04-20T00:44:40+10:00",
      "date_modified": "2026-04-20T00:44:40+10:00",
      "authors": [{"name": "Andrew Podger"}
      ],
      "tags": ["politics","usa"],
      "_social_media": {
        "tweet_text": "US public servants are grappling with how to rebuild trust and integrity in government.\nThe future of the civil service may shape the future of American democracy, Andrew Podger writes.\n#auspol #USPolitics #PublicService #Democracy",
        "tweet_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/trump-administration-insiders-struggling-to-maintain-public-sector-capability-and-integrity/",
        "linkedin_title": "Can the US public service survive the Trump era?",
        "linkedin_excerpt": "Public administrators in the United States are exploring how to reshape the civil service as a pillar of American democracy.",
        "linkedin_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/trump-administration-insiders-struggling-to-maintain-public-sector-capability-and-integrity/",
        "facebook_text": "Can the US public service survive the Trump era? - Public administrators in the United States are exploring how to reshape the civil service as a pillar of American democracy.",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/close-up-US-congress-dome.jpg",
        "author_names": "Andrew Podger"
      },
      "_mailchimp": {
        "excerpt": "Public administrators in the United States are exploring how to reshape the civil service as a pillar of American democracy.",
        "authors_string": "Andrew Podger",
        "categories_string": "politics, usa",
        "pub_date_formatted": "Monday, April 20, 2026",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/close-up-US-congress-dome.jpg"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/above-are-the-policies-below-are-the-people-who-apply-them",
      "url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/above-are-the-policies-below-are-the-people-who-apply-them/",
      "title": "How China really works – rules from above, reality from below",
      "content_html": "\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Chinese Government is often described as ruling with an iron fist, but the way rules and policy are interpreted on the ground can be quite different.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDuring Covid, our international school in Beijing was instructed that all students and teachers must wear masks throughout the school day. In practice, this rule proved unworkable, particularly for the youngest children. Most students and staff carried masks in their pockets or wore them loosely around their necks. Yet whenever local Education Bureau officials were due to visit, a hurried email would circulate reminding teachers to enforce the rule. Children as young as three or four would quickly put on their masks and chant, “The Education Bureau is coming!” In doing so, they demonstrated an intuitive grasp of a fundamental principle of Chinese governance: policies may come from above, but their application is shaped below.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis dynamic long predates Covid. As early as the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), the central state sought to extend control over taxation, population and public order without significantly expanding its bureaucracy.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOne solution was the ‘lijia’ system, which organised households into groups responsible for collective compliance. In theory, if one household failed in its obligations, the entire group could be punished. In practice, local communities quickly learned how to adapt. Records were adjusted, births and deaths selectively reported, and household registrations sometimes rotated or fictionalised. Local officials were often aware of these practices but tolerated them so long as taxes were paid and order maintained.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat emerged was not open resistance, but a stable pattern of negotiated compliance.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFamily planning policies provide a more recent example. During the era of the One Child Policy, it was not unusual to encounter families with multiple children, particularly in rural areas. Parents developed creative ways to navigate restrictions: children might be registered late, disguised as relatives, or hidden during inspections.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFines were sometimes imposed, but their enforcement varied widely, and negotiations were common. Statistical evidence reflects this variation. In major cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, compliance was relatively high at about 80 per cent, while in provinces like Guizhou, Yunnan and Tibet it was closer to 20 per cent. Distance from central authority, combined with local conditions and administrative discretion, created space for flexible interpretation.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHowever, this system of informal adjustment is not without limits. The Great Leap Forward (1958–1962) illustrates what can happen when the balance between central policy and local adaptation breaks down. During this campaign, local officials reported exaggerated grain production figures under political pressure. These inflated numbers were treated as real, leading to procurement targets that far exceeded actual output.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAt the village level, people responded in familiar ways – hiding grain, reducing visible production, or shifting to less detectable crops. Under normal circumstances, such adaptations might have mitigated the effects of unrealistic policies. But during the Great Leap Forward, ideological rigidity and political fear sharply constrained local flexibility. Officials who questioned targets risked punishment, and coercive extraction intensified. As a result, the usual bottom-up corrections failed, contributing to widespread famine.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDespite its importance, this pattern of negotiated compliance is often overlooked in western reporting on China. Policy announcements are frequently presented as if they are implemented uniformly and immediately across the country. Headlines such as \u0026lsquo;Beijing has ordered\u0026rsquo; or \u0026lsquo;China has imposed\u0026rsquo; suggest a level of centralised control that obscures the reality on the ground.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe roles of local officials, village cadres and ordinary citizens in shaping how policies are applied tend to disappear from the narrative. This may reflect structural factors: many journalists are based in major cities, face language barriers in rural areas and operate under editorial pressures that favour simplified portrayals of China as a highly centralised state.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSuch simplifications are not only misleading but can also have practical consequences. For businesses operating in China, success often depends on understanding the gap between official policy and local implementation. The education sector provides a recent example. Under the Double Reduction Policy, authorities sought to reduce academic pressure by limiting homework and examinations. In response, many schools adapted by reclassifying homework as “projects” or exams as “quizzes,” thereby maintaining elements valued by parents while remaining within the spirit – or at least the wording – of the regulations. Schools that managed this balance effectively were better able to retain students, particularly during periods of economic uncertainty.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUnderstanding China requires more than simply reading official policy statements. It demands attention to how those policies are interpreted, negotiated and reshaped at the local level. While directives from Beijing may appear strict or sweeping, their real-world impact is mediated by countless individual decisions. Local officials weigh political expectations against practical realities; citizens balance compliance with personal needs; and both operate within networks of relationships, customs and incentives.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis human layer of governance – pragmatic, adaptive and sometimes contradictory – is not an anomaly. It is a longstanding feature of how China functions. Policies provide a framework, but their meaning is ultimately determined through everyday practice. Recognising this helps explain both the resilience and the variability of Chinese governance. It also serves as a reminder that, in China as elsewhere, rules alone do not define reality; it is the people applying them who bring them to life.\u003c/p\u003e",
      "summary": "The Chinese Government is often described as ruling with an iron fist, but the way rules and policy are interpreted on the ground can be quite different.",
      "date_published": "2026-04-20T00:39:29+10:00",
      "date_modified": "2026-04-20T00:39:29+10:00",
      "authors": [{"name": "John Hopkins"}
      ],
      "tags": ["china","politics"],
      "_social_media": {
        "tweet_text": "China’s system isn’t as rigid as it looks.\nPolicies may come from Beijing, but how they work in practice is shaped on the ground, John Hopkins writes.\n#China #Governance #Politics #Geopolitics",
        "tweet_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/above-are-the-policies-below-are-the-people-who-apply-them/",
        "linkedin_title": "How China really works – rules from above, reality from below",
        "linkedin_excerpt": "The Chinese Government is often described as ruling with an iron fist, but the way rules and policy are interpreted on the ground can be quite different.",
        "linkedin_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/above-are-the-policies-below-are-the-people-who-apply-them/",
        "facebook_text": "How China really works – rules from above, reality from below - The Chinese Government is often described as ruling with an iron fist, but the way rules and policy are interpreted on the ground can be quite different.",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/xi-waves.jpg",
        "author_names": "John Hopkins"
      },
      "_mailchimp": {
        "excerpt": "The Chinese Government is often described as ruling with an iron fist, but the way rules and policy are interpreted on the ground can be quite different.",
        "authors_string": "John Hopkins",
        "categories_string": "china, politics",
        "pub_date_formatted": "Monday, April 20, 2026",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/xi-waves.jpg"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/465278-2",
      "url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/465278-2/",
      "title": "Australia’s school system is driving inequality – not fixing it",
      "content_html": "\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eAustralia’s school system has become a self-reinforcing cycle of inequality, and without structural reform, the divide between advantaged and disadvantaged students will continue to widen.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt seems that the Albanese Government is contemplating better policy ideas than those found amongst the usual low hanging fruit. Advocates for policy breakthroughs, including those seeking structural reform of our framework of public/private schools, are almost certainly paying close attention.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCollectively, our schools are characterised by unfairness, segregation, and growing achievement gaps, problems which impact other areas of social policy and contribute to multiplying costs. Schools should certainly be in the queue for policy attention.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGiven the scale of existing problems, it seems odd to restate why action is needed. Individual schools aside, our evolving school framework has created the most wicked of social problems. Worse, it exists within a vicious circle, captive to an enormous regressive feedback loop. The casualties among young people, schools and communities, continue to mount. It is now possible to argue that schools are the nurseries for social inequality.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is illustrated in the diagram below, which shows how the key drivers are found in the way the whole framework operates. Yes, schools have never been equal, but much of the current inequality, especially the unlevel playing field on which schools operate and compete, derives from both policy and negligence going back to the 1970s.\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"figure alignnone size-full wp-image-465400\"\u003e\n    \u003cimg src=\"https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/bonner-chart-educati.png\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\"\u003e\n    \n\u003c/figure\u003e \n\u003cp\u003eOur equity and fairness problems have changed as governments have come and gone, but what is described at each stage around the cycle is enduring – and will be familiar to those with even a passing interest in schools. After half a century, the problems depicted are now too big to ignore.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe sequence illustrated in the cycle hasn’t been lock-step, many stages overlap. Any stage can be a starting point – what matters is that the flow continues.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe cycle helps explain what we have created, and understand what went wrong – and why reforms to date haven’t fixed it. The resulting drama, with multiple impacts on families, schools and communities, plays out in full view in just about every Australian community. It includes the stress within some families over school choice, and the discontent in others without any choice. The fallout from our dog-eat-dog system impacts on family well-being, health and housing, urban transport and quality of life.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWell-known is the dollar cost of exercising school choice. With each passing decade even more public and private funding is found to feed a process and structure which has always been highly contested and which clearly doesn’t deliver. Families have looked to the bank of grandma and granddad, to cashed-in superannuation – or have just become resigned to more family debt.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt all further distorts the schooling system. An entire industry of coaching is available for those who seek access to any low-cost test-entry school. Well-resourced schools offer scholarships, effectively ensuring that the school is available to \u0026hellip; some students. Higher-income families might relocate to the drawing area of a preferred public school, almost without exception located in a high SES suburb.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe distortions don’t end there. The fact that high test scores have become the go-to measure of school quality means that the most influential actors/stakeholders in school education focus on that – at a cost to everything else schools achieve for their students, including high-engagement and a secure post-school pathway.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUnsurprisingly, the winning schools are not interested in broadening the rules of the game, including measures of school achievement. Their voting families are unlikely to support any change which might even seem to reduce their advantage – and the various school authorities are unwilling to risk their purpose (and careers) by pushing for essential structural reform.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA range of vested interests – including school, system and industrial peak groups –have gained a disproportionate influence over policy. Self-interest and financial challenges also ensure that structural change is usually not on the radar of think tanks and the philanthropic sector. Many school reformers confine their concerns to what happens within schools, preferring remedies which will attract political and funding support.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThese groups haven’t kept up with the growing scale and impact of the regressive cycle. The enrolment divergence between high and low SES schools, mainly but not only between the school sectors, is no longer a steady linear drift. Since around 2017 it has become exponential, a compounding acceleration.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis difference matters. Incremental deterioration might be addressed by the familiar within-school reforms. Their advocates make a lot of noise and attract superficial media attention, but the external problems created and driven by the regressive cycle can only be slowed and reversed by structural reform.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere are glimmers of hope. Governments around Australia have committed to better understand and provide advice to Education Ministers on socioeconomic diversity, its impact on schools and student learning and approaches to addressing these impacts.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt’s too little, too late. Anyone equipped with a computer, the data and the research can complete the task in a few days. As it currently stands, the commitment looks like a proposal to slowly do very little, while ignoring possible solutions.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe timidity of governments stands in contrast to the impetus now being generated by outsiders. The work undertaken by Australian Learning Lecture is illustrative. \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://all-learning.org.au/app/uploads/2023/04/12121-ALL_Concise_Common_Framework_Web_A4_FA.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eIts_ Choice and Fairness, a common framework for all Australian schools_\u003c/a\u003e, presented the problems and the solutions. In response to the interest, the next step was to send a team to Canada to research the possibilities, best encompassed in their report \u003cem\u003e\n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://all-learning.org.au/app/uploads/2025/08/12905-ALL_LessonsfromCanada_FullReport_Digital_FA.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eLessons from Canada: an equal school system is possible\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThese are not the first or the only efforts to shift thinking – but a global search for best practice is a timely admission that we got it wrong – and we must now reach beyond our shores for a viable pathway to something better.\u003c/p\u003e",
      "summary": "Australia’s school system has become a self-reinforcing cycle of inequality, and without structural reform, the divide between advantaged and disadvantaged students will continue to widen.",
      "date_published": "2026-04-20T00:34:45+10:00",
      "date_modified": "2026-04-20T00:34:45+10:00",
      "authors": [{"name": "Chris Bonnor"}
      ],
      "tags": ["education","policy"],
      "_social_media": {
        "tweet_text": "Australia’s school system is reinforcing inequality, not reducing it.\nWithout structural reform, the divide between students will keep widening, Chris Bonnor writes.\n#auspol #Education #Inequality #Schools",
        "tweet_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/465278-2/",
        "linkedin_title": "Australia’s school system is driving inequality – not fixing it",
        "linkedin_excerpt": "Australia’s school system has become a self-reinforcing cycle of inequality, and without structural reform, the divide between advantaged and disadvantaged students will continue to widen.",
        "linkedin_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/465278-2/",
        "facebook_text": "Australia’s school system is driving inequality – not fixing it - Australia’s school system has become a self-reinforcing cycle of inequality, and without structural reform, the divide between advantaged and disadvantaged students will continue to widen.",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/busy-schoolyard-blur.jpg",
        "author_names": "Chris Bonnor"
      },
      "_mailchimp": {
        "excerpt": "Australia’s school system has become a self-reinforcing cycle of inequality, and without structural reform, the divide between advantaged and disadvantaged students will continue to widen.",
        "authors_string": "Chris Bonnor",
        "categories_string": "education, policy",
        "pub_date_formatted": "Monday, April 20, 2026",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/busy-schoolyard-blur.jpg"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/the-feminisation-of-the-workforce-and-its-implications",
      "url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/the-feminisation-of-the-workforce-and-its-implications/",
      "title": "Women are reshaping the workforce – but power hasn’t followed",
      "content_html": "\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eWomen are increasingly dominant across education and the workforce, but leadership, workplace structures and social attitudes have failed to keep pace.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGirls outperform boys in final school exams across all advanced economies, with maths differences a diminishing exception. In Australia women dominate university enrolments (58 per cent) and course completions (60.8 per cent); they outnumber men in health, education, engineering, agriculture and environment, society and culture, and the creative arts. More women are remaining in the workforce (there was a record female participation rate of 63.5 per cent in 2025), despite inadequate provision of childcare.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis trend is reshaping the economic landscape, both narrowing gender gaps and creating new challenges for male workforce participation.  The decline of traditional blue-collar, male-dominated jobs in manufacturing has meant economic growth has become more reliant on service industries, where women are dominant. The trend is reinforced by the needs of an ageing population requiring care and with the willing workers predominantly women. An AI revolution is pending: entry jobs for many professions along with low-level routine jobs could be decimated.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWomen provide an equivalent pool of talent to men, yet they report quite different work experiences. In male-dominated fields, they feel isolated at work and can be passed over for special assignments and promotions. Young women rarely see themselves reflected in leadership or technical roles. CEOs, surgeons, engineers, financiers and construction managers are still overwhelmingly male. “You cannot be what you cannot see”, said Susan Coyle on her recent appointment as Army Chief. Breaking the cycle starts with showing girls they can belong in these spaces. Employers can help by recognising the potential of their female workers at an early career stage.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA world where women dominated could see profound shifts in corporate culture, political priorities and daily life. They would prioritise collaboration, long-term sustainability and social wellbeing. Studies have shown that female-led teams and organisations often experience less violence and bullying, more dialogue and communication, though they may also lead to new forms of workplace power dynamics and social imbalances.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWith more women in leadership, there would likely be a push for better childcare, flexible working hours and stronger parental leave policies. Crucial to such change will be family-related paid leave – Sweden has mandated that half available parental leave must be taken by men; re-education of human resource managers; and a shift in general workplace culture to respect female staff members and encourage upward mobility.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAt a major bank Don Edgar advised in the 1990s, a senior woman who, despite managerial resistance, worked from home after the birth of her first child still brought in more investment income than her male peers. In the end, the measure of performance was what mattered.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAlso in the \u0026rsquo;90s, building firm Lend Lease found that providing a childcare centre in their office headquarters (for both employees and outside community members) improved job satisfaction and productivity. Recognising the realities of social change and adapting to them trumps outmoded prejudices and gender-based assumptions.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOnly 32.5 per cent of women are in key management roles; 19 per cent of CEOs are women and 33 per cent board members. Despite their lower numbers and the tenacity required to make it to the top, women are demonstrating they have the skills to manage complex jobs. Recent reports from the \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.wgea.gov.au/publications/gender-segregation-in-australias-workforce\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eWorkplace Gender Equality Agency\u003c/a\u003e show that companies with more women in key decision-making roles often see better financial performance, higher profitability and better crisis management than companies led by men. Research from the \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.mq.edu.au/macquarie-business-school\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eMacquarie Business School\u003c/a\u003e suggests female leaders often nurture employees better, creating better reward systems and higher employee engagement.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEven though the gender pay gap persists across the board, a ten-percentage point increase in women in key leadership roles has led to a 6.6 per cent increase in the market value of Australian-listed companies, worth over $100 million. Companies with a female CEO have shown a 5 per cent higher market value.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs of early 2024, only about 10.4 per cent of Fortune 500 CEOs are women. Globally, female CEOs represent just over 5 per cent of all CEOs, with Norway having the highest at 13.4 per cent. Recent reports show that in some regions, including on the Australian stock exchange, the number of female CEOs has stagnated (from 26 in 2023 to 25 in 2024). Women frequently encounter a \u0026lsquo;broken rung\u0026rsquo; on the corporate ladder, making it harder to reach managerial and, consequently, CEO positions.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGiven much of the future workforce will be female, there will be a growing demand for equal opportunities and more flexible workplace arrangements to improve the work-life balance. Recruitment firms will have to review tactics to bring in the best talent from the overall pool of human capital. Even those women who remain single and do not have children will have caring responsibilities for ageing parents. Aged care policies and programs will need to reward firms that assist.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBased on current trends and ideological patterns observed, the emergence of a workforce dominated by women is triggering a severe, reactionary backlash from the \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.unwomen.org/en/articles/explainer/what-is-the-manosphere-and-why-should-we-care\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003emanosphere\u003c/a\u003e, with narratives of male victimhood, intense misogyny and disengagement from professional or social structures. Women’s economic empowerment is considered a direct loss for men.  The manosphere thrives on a \u0026rsquo;natural hierarchy\u0026rsquo; where men should be at the top. The reaction is not a resignation to new trends but an aggressive push to re-establish traditional patriarchal power.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhile the rise of women in the workforce is a marker of progress toward equality, it also demands new social strategies to ensure the engagement of all workers across industry. There is an urgent need to support men who want to break into female-dominated industries. In health care and social welfare, women now make up 79 per cent of employees.  At just 2.7 per cent of the workforce, men in early childhood education are an endangered species.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAttitudes are changing. Seventeen per cent of men have become the ‘primary carer’ of children (up from 12 per cent in 2022). They are eligible for 24 weeks paid leave at the minimum wage rate, plus one year on unpaid leave if wanted. It is not clear if well-educated professional men are particularly involved in this trend.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWith so much upheaval in the national and global economy, the turmoil in immigration, the growing need for carers in the childcare, health, disability and aged care sector, it is imperative we utilise human capital regardless of sex and outmoded assumptions about the role of women.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs Mamma Cass used to sing:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;There’s a new world coming, And it’s just around the bend.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e",
      "summary": "Women are increasingly dominant across education and the workforce, but leadership, workplace structures and social attitudes have failed to keep pace.",
      "date_published": "2026-04-20T00:29:50+10:00",
      "date_modified": "2026-04-20T00:29:50+10:00",
      "authors": [{"name": "Don Edgar"},{"name": "Patricia Edgar"}
      ],
      "tags": ["economy","employment","politics"],
      "_social_media": {
        "tweet_text": "Women now dominate education and much of the workforce.\nBut leadership, workplace structures and attitudes have not kept up. It's time for employers and governments to introduce policies that optimise all human talent, regardless of gender, Don Edgar and Patricia Edgar write.\n#auspol #Workforce #Gender #Economy",
        "tweet_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/the-feminisation-of-the-workforce-and-its-implications/",
        "linkedin_title": "Women are reshaping the workforce – but power hasn’t followed",
        "linkedin_excerpt": "Women are increasingly dominant across education and the workforce, but leadership, workplace structures and social attitudes have failed to keep pace.",
        "linkedin_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/the-feminisation-of-the-workforce-and-its-implications/",
        "facebook_text": "Women are reshaping the workforce – but power hasn’t followed - Women are increasingly dominant across education and the workforce, but leadership, workplace structures and social attitudes have failed to keep pace.",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/women-in-business-c.jpg",
        "author_names": "Don Edgar, Patricia Edgar"
      },
      "_mailchimp": {
        "excerpt": "Women are increasingly dominant across education and the workforce, but leadership, workplace structures and social attitudes have failed to keep pace.",
        "authors_string": "Don Edgar, Patricia Edgar",
        "categories_string": "economy, employment, politics",
        "pub_date_formatted": "Monday, April 20, 2026",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/women-in-business-c.jpg"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/how-the-greens-could-win-25-per-cent-of-the-vote",
      "url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/how-the-greens-could-win-25-per-cent-of-the-vote/",
      "title": "How the Greens could win 25 per cent of the vote",
      "content_html": "\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Greens need to get out of their own bubble and do some very serious soul searching if they are ever to have broad appeal, argues a co-founder of the Queensland and Australian Greens, Drew Hutton.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn the early 2000s the Australian Greens conducted several focus groups asking the question: who are most likely to vote for the Greens? The answer was unequivocal. Potential Greens voters were young, university educated and left leaning. That conclusion has guided Greens electoral strategies ever since and targeted seats have tended to be those that met these criteria and, because such people were a significant proportion of the voters in inner-city electorates, these were the seats that were targeted. At various times over the last few years, therefore, Greens candidates have won seats in inner-city electorates in most capital cities.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis has had what I would regard as both good and bad results. The good results are obvious. Greens have won seats, at local, state and federal levels in inner-city electorates.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe bad is less obvious but, in my view, something that should concern the party. Because the party’s policies and messaging have focused clearly on this demographic, and because the culture of this demographic has so thoroughly permeated the Greens, the party has, in effect locked itself into a constituency that is young, highly educated, left-wing and living in inner-city metropolitan electorates. Consequently, they are always in the race for these seats at election time, but other voters don’t see them as having any relevance for them.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eElection results and opinion polling reveal the truth of this. The 18-34 vote can be as high as 30 per cent, especially in the inner city, but this figure drops sharply in older age groups until I could probably name the seventeen people around Australia in the over 65 age group who indicate in polls that they would vote Greens so that the overall vote is in the range of 10-13 per cent.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSimilarly, the vote in inner-city electorates is often in the high twenties and even early thirties but this often drops down to single digits in country and outer metropolitan seats. If the ALP was to lose support dramatically, the Greens overall vote might rise, as it has in the UK, but, failing that, the party is likely to remain in the 10-13 per cent range for the foreseeable future and is always vulnerable to a Teal or progressive independent.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Greens should be able to benefit from the declining public trust in democratic institutions. This decline can be easily identified and even measured. Nearly 50 per cent of Australians are now voting outside the major parties and many of these are deeply, and perhaps permanently, alienated from the traditional parties of government – the Liberal National Party and the Australian Labor party, and one in four Australians are saying they will vote for an anti-systemic party like One Nation.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMany people look at scandals like Robodebt where ordinary working class folk often had their lives turned upside down by bureaucrats and politicians who failed to understand that they were supposed to work in the public interest and then held a NACC inquiry that absolved these bureaucrats and politicians from any blame.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe process by which many ordinary people have become alienated from democratic institutions and the main parties of government has coincided – not accidentally – with the increased commodification of everyday life and the impact of neoliberalism.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe withdrawal of services like banks from communities, especially in rural and regional areas, the re-naming of the public service with the term public sector, and the market and private interest mentality that goes with that, and the seeming lack of any moral centre at all levels of government are just some of the factors leading to this alienation. The knowledge class that runs these parties seem to be oblivious to these developments and think a few policy shifts at election time will fix the problem.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAll that has major ramifications for the Greens. They have policies that could be crafted to appeal across both knowledge class, that makes up about 25 per cent of the population, and the traditional working class that makes up 45-50 per cent, but are so absorbed with identity politics and so entrenched in the culture of the knowledge class that they are incapable of communicating anything meaningful to people in the traditional working class other than their utter disdain for them.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEven worse, the Greens continue in the belief that they embody a moral superiority that, sooner or later, everyone must recognise and have no idea of the dislike that many Australians, outside the party’s own cultural bubble, feel about them. The reaction by the Greens and the left generally to the rise of One Nation has been to accuse the party and its adherents of being “racists” and “bigots” without recognising that many of the issues driving this surge are ones that the Greens could easily address if they had a clearer perspective. It was not too many years ago when this would be possible but that was before a post-modern, identity politics world view came to dominate the party’s thought processes.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFirstly, the party should retain, and even increase, its stance on the environment. This means a concern not only with climate change but also with nature conservation. Australians of all sorts of backgrounds want strong policies on the environment. Secondly, they need to give identity politics a rest. Gender extremism is a huge turn-off for most Australians, especially those concerned about the rights of women and the protection of troubled children. Thirdly, they need to emphasise a love of country. Peter Mallinauskis was right; most Australians do love their country, and it is up to progressives to give that meaning – love of the unique landscapes and wildlife, our fascinating communities and vibrant cultures and our democratic freedoms. Too many progressives either dislike their country or think expressing love for it is necessarily right-wing. Anthony Albanese once used the term “progressive patriotism” but then, for some reason, dropped it like a hot potato. The progressive party that gives that term some clear, dynamic meaning, as One Nation has done from their right-wing perspective, will make headway at the ballot box with people who haven’t previously considered such a vote.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFourthly, the Greens should make it clear they oppose neoliberalism and frame that opposition in terms working Australians can relate to, especially the imposition of the market into areas of people’s lives where it is unacceptable. The widening of the gig economy is an obvious target. Managed properly, the Greens could double their current vote but this won’t happen without some character and courage being shown by current or prospective leaderships.\u003c/p\u003e",
      "summary": "The Greens need to get out of their own bubble and do some very serious soul searching if they are ever to have broad appeal, argues a co-founder of the Queensland and Australian Greens, Drew Hutton.",
      "date_published": "2026-04-19T00:59:46+10:00",
      "date_modified": "2026-04-19T00:59:46+10:00",
      "authors": [{"name": "Drew Hutton"}
      ],
      "tags": ["politics"],
      "_social_media": {
        "tweet_text": "The Greens have locked themselves into a narrow inner-city base.\nWithout broadening their appeal beyond that demographic, their vote is likely to stagnate, Drew Hutton writes.\n#auspol #Greens #Politics #Election",
        "tweet_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/how-the-greens-could-win-25-per-cent-of-the-vote/",
        "linkedin_title": "How the Greens could win 25 per cent of the vote",
        "linkedin_excerpt": "The Greens need to get out of their own bubble and do some very serious soul searching if they are ever to have broad appeal, argues a co-founder of the Queensland and Australian Greens, Drew Hutton.",
        "linkedin_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/how-the-greens-could-win-25-per-cent-of-the-vote/",
        "facebook_text": "How the Greens could win 25 per cent of the vote - The Greens need to get out of their own bubble and do some very serious soul searching if they are ever to have broad appeal, argues a co-founder of the Queensland and Australian Greens, Drew Hutton.",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/greens-senators-and.jpg",
        "author_names": "Drew Hutton"
      },
      "_mailchimp": {
        "excerpt": "The Greens need to get out of their own bubble and do some very serious soul searching if they are ever to have broad appeal, argues a co-founder of the Queensland and Australian Greens, Drew Hutton.",
        "authors_string": "Drew Hutton",
        "categories_string": "politics",
        "pub_date_formatted": "Sunday, April 19, 2026",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/greens-senators-and.jpg"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/cricket-in-crisis-as-usual",
      "url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/cricket-in-crisis-as-usual/",
      "title": "Cricket has survived every crisis – but this one may be different",
      "content_html": "\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eCricket has adapted and survived for centuries, but a new struggle over control – combined with climate pressures – may test the game in ways it has not faced before.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCricket is always in crisis. Some say it was lucky to survive beyond the Victorian era. During the 1950s and 1960s it became boringly defensive as rates of scoring plummeted and the game’s entertainment value declined. Then in the 1970s it was roiled by the Packer revolution, which was a war between ‘establishment’ and private control and became a battle between Tests and one-dayers for spectators. Now there is a battle between cricket run by national boards and by franchise-based T20 tournaments of great popular appeal. Climate change might also pose problems.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCan the game survive its latest challenges? Cricket has survived many crises by adapting and evolving. The changes it has gone through have kept it alive and popular but challenges remain, as they always have.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCricket developed into what we today might recognise as cricket during the latter decades of the eighteenth century in the south of England. Nobles and the gentry largely fashioned it. Then the game spread to London, where business interests became involved, and in the 1800s it spread further to northern England and the working class. It became the game of the people in England.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOn the wave of colonisation it spread to Australia, the Indian sub-continent, Africa, the Caribbean and New Zealand. Outside the Caribbean, it never quite took hold in the Americas.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor a time cricket was highly popular, though the rise of ‘Association football’ (soccer) in England threatened its hegemony in the early years of the twentieth century. It survived, though, and crowds for major games (county cricket in England and inter-state fixtures in Australia) were sometimes of several thousands. Even club matches drew spectators in numbers. ‘Test’ matches between the best players at national level were very popular, especially games between England and Australia which produced a great and enduring international rivalry.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAfter World War II, though, the game entered a difficult period and by 1970 it was in trouble in terms of popular appeal. A ‘win-at-all-costs’ or ‘loss avoiding’ mentality permeated Test cricket in particular, defensive sieges leading to drawn matches becoming common. Crowds declined. But one-day cricket, one innings per side, emerged in England and quickly gained a foothold. The entertainment factor returned, results within a single day were welcomed by many and crowds came back. But the one-day game threatened to a degree the longer form.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe competition between the short and long forms was resolved via a challenge to the game by Australian media magnate Kerry Packer, who also broke the monopoly power of the main cricketing boards by buying up the best players. Cricket was rejuvenated, over two decades it became professionalised in Australia and England and the rest of the cricketing world followed. Both one-day and Test cricket survived and became as much symbiotic as competitive with each other; innovations in the short form made their way into the long one, scoring rates in Tests improved and Test cricket regained public favour. Traditionalists feared the rise of the abbreviated game, but it became fundamental to the revitalisation of Test cricket.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe game expanded. In 1926 there were only three nations (England, Australia and South Africa) playing Test cricket in the form of four- or five-day (or longer) matches. By 1976 the West Indies, New Zealand, India and Pakistan had joined it. By 2026 Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, Ireland and Afghanistan had been admitted. South Africa, expelled during the early 1970s because of apartheid and problematic in promoting rebel tours while on the outer, had long since been brought back.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAfter 2000 a new form of expansion developed with the invention of a very short form of cricket. This was Twenty-20, in which each side batted for only 20 overs in games that were over in only three and a half frenetic hours. Crowds and TV audiences flocked to it and franchises were established to tap the money streams it generated. A problem of balance developed, with Test cricket and its first-class nurseries threatened. The Test form is unlikely to expand its membership further and may indeed contract. No less an authority than Greg Chappell has suggested that by the 2040s only half of the twelve countries now playing Tests will still be doing so.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBy contrast, there are now more than 100 countries with organised men’s T20 cricket and 79 with T20 cricket for women. Cricket’s centre of gravity has shifted fundamentally.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe rise of T20 cricket has not been without problems. For a time gambling and match-fixing created a scourge, and the integrity of some matches was called into question. That even seeped into Tests.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe looming crisis today is over control of cricket. The contenders are the T20 franchise owners, many of them Indian billionaires, and the national boards. Boards that still run T20 leagues are considering privatising them. However that goes, Chappell suggests the boards and the International Cricket Council as controlling bodies will be on their last legs by 2040. Cricket might be losing control of itself.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBig capital might soon control the game virtually completely and T20 might dominate the entire ecosystem. The game’s very tools - bats, balls and pitches - could be subjected to purely commercial dictates.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd there is a suggestion that the game will eventually struggle against climate change. Increased temperatures, with accompanying unpredictable weather, might become existential threats.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSo far, the game has faced down its problems, adapted to changing times and retained a place in people’s affections. But its challenges in the past were largely internal to the game itself, whereas the ownership crisis and climate change come from outside. These are very large influences and difficult to manage. In the current circumstances it is not easy to be optimistic about cricket’s long-term future.\u003c/p\u003e",
      "summary": "Cricket has adapted and survived for centuries, but a new struggle over control – combined with climate pressures – may test the game in ways it has not faced before.",
      "date_published": "2026-04-19T00:54:08+10:00",
      "date_modified": "2026-04-19T00:54:08+10:00",
      "authors": [{"name": "Chas Keys"}
      ],
      "tags": ["politics","world"],
      "_social_media": {
        "tweet_text": "Cricket has survived crises for centuries by adapting.\nBut a new battle over control – between boards and franchise owners – may reshape the game’s future, Chas Keys writes.\n#Cricket #Sport #Governance #T20",
        "tweet_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/cricket-in-crisis-as-usual/",
        "linkedin_title": "Cricket has survived every crisis – but this one may be different",
        "linkedin_excerpt": "Cricket has adapted and survived for centuries, but a new struggle over control – combined with climate pressures – may test the game in ways it has not faced before.",
        "linkedin_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/cricket-in-crisis-as-usual/",
        "facebook_text": "Cricket has survived every crisis – but this one may be different - Cricket has adapted and survived for centuries, but a new struggle over control – combined with climate pressures – may test the game in ways it has not faced before.",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Cricket-bat-ball-arena.jpg",
        "author_names": "Chas Keys"
      },
      "_mailchimp": {
        "excerpt": "Cricket has adapted and survived for centuries, but a new struggle over control – combined with climate pressures – may test the game in ways it has not faced before.",
        "authors_string": "Chas Keys",
        "categories_string": "politics, world",
        "pub_date_formatted": "Sunday, April 19, 2026",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Cricket-bat-ball-arena.jpg"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/environment-class-and-race-fuel-climate-collapse-in-northern-territory",
      "url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/environment-class-and-race-fuel-climate-collapse-in-northern-territory/",
      "title": "Environment: Class and race fuel climate collapse in Northern Territory",
      "content_html": "\u003cp\u003e_ From devastating floods in the Northern Territory to the global failure to curb fossil fuels and the human cost of shipbreaking, environmental damage is accelerating – and hitting the most vulnerable hardest._\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eClimate catastrophes here and now in the NT\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMost of my weekly titbits are based on statistical information about what’s currently happening or expected to happen as a consequence of climate change and destruction of our natural environment. But the consequences of our negligence are already having devastating effects on people’s lives.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is well illustrated by Amanda Parkinson’s recent article, \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/indigenous-affairs/2026/04/10/inside-the-northern-territorys-brutal-evacuation-shelters\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003e_Collapsing from the Top_\u003c/a\u003e, about the effects of the extensive and devastating floods that have brought displacement, misery and chaos to many in the Northern Territory since November last year.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe strength of Parkinson’s writing lies not in her descriptions of blocked roads, interrupted power supplies and inundated homes and town centres – we can see that on our TV screens. Rather it is her identification of who is most affected by the floods and who make up nearly all the residents of the evacuation centres – tick the box saying “Aboriginal families and communities” for both – and her descriptions of the conditions in the evacuation centres.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMost importantly, Parkinson asks, “Why the floods?” and “Why the appalling conditions in some of the centres?” In response, she points the finger straight at the NT government, aided and abetted by the Commonwealth government turning a blind eye when it suits them.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI don’t think that she ever uses the word “racism” in the article but it’s difficult to avoid the conclusion that this plays a considerable part in why Aboriginal communities are most exposed, most vulnerable and least able to cope.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor example, three-quarters of households in remote communities had their electricity supply disconnected at least ten times in a year; 90 per cent were disconnected at least once.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSuch numbers do not represent individual poverty or fecklessness; they display callous disregard by the authorities for understanding what is going wrong at the local and policy levels and what needs to be done to fix it.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eParkinson also points out the incongruity of the NT already being one of the regions most affected by climate change and the Territory government aggressively pursuing policies that make the situation worse by rapid expansion of gas extraction – “doubling down on the industries driving the collapse”.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe NT’s priorities are well exemplified by the appointment last year of Stuart Knowles as the \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://territorycoordinator.nt.gov.au/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eTerritory Coordinator\u003c/a\u003e, “an independent statutory role established to champion transformative projects that fuel private sector investment, job creation, population growth, and industry advancement in the Northern Territory”. Knowles is a former executive of INPEX, a Japanese oil and gas company.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn some ways most shockingly, Parkinson describes not simply the overcrowded conditions in some of the temporary accommodation centres (that may, to some extent, be expected at least in the short term) but the dreadful ways in which the displaced Aboriginal people are being treated there – ten-foot fences around the centres, evacuees having to wear identity wristbands and sign in and out, locked showers with only cold water, not being allowed visitors without government approval, little control over access to food, medication or services, for example.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI’ll finish with Parkinson’s own words:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“This is the story of climate collapse in the Northern Territory. It is a story of class and race.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“The inequality is structural. It is poverty, concentrated in remote Aboriginal communities, where about three quarters of people live below the poverty line.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“The Territory’s budget depends on the poor staying poor. While successive governments speak of self-determination and thriving Aboriginal communities, the reality is different. It does not serve Darwin’s northern suburb voters, where most of the Territory’s budget is spent, for that to truly occur. Instead of reducing dependence on the Commonwealth, the NT government entrenches it.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRenewables on the rise but so are fossils\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGlobally, \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.irena.org/-/media/Files/IRENA/Agency/Publication/2025/Mar/IRENA_DAT_RE_Capacity_Highlights_2025.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003erenewable power capacity\u003c/a\u003e is currently growing at about 15 per cent per year. In 2024, the global renewable power capacity was 4,448GW, representing 46 per cent of total capacity. Within renewables, in 2024 solar provided 42 per cent of capacity, hydropower 29 per cent and wind 25 per cent. Over three-quarters of the growth in renewables in 2024 was attributable to solar, which experienced a 32 per cent increase. Of the total growth in renewables capacity in 2024, China was responsible for 64 per cent.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe figure below provides a snapshot of the annual growth in capacity among non-renewables and renewables over the last 20 years and the share of all power provided by renewables.\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"figure alignnone size-full wp-image-465358\"\u003e\n    \u003cimg src=\"https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/renewables-share-of.png\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\"\u003e\n    \n\u003c/figure\u003e \n\u003cp\u003eIf we focus on \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/sep/07/china-fossil-fuel-us-climate-environment-energy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eChina\u003c/a\u003e (where would we be in the global transition if it weren’t for China), the next figure demonstrates that in 2000 non-renewables, principally coal, provided marginally over three-quarters of all China’s power generation capacity, with the rest being provided by hydropower. By 2024, however, non-renewables had fallen to well under half of all power and solar and wind had surged.\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"figure alignnone size-full wp-image-465357\"\u003e\n    \u003cimg src=\"https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/chinas-power-capacit-1.png\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\"\u003e\n    \n\u003c/figure\u003e \n\u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSo far, so good, but all in the power garden is not quite so rosy as these data might have us believe. The unadulterated figure below now also displays the actual amounts of power capacity provided by each of the sources between 2000 and 2024. Renewables have increased by about 1.8 TW, which is great, but non-renewables have also increased considerably, by about 1.2TW, and the annual increase of non-renewables showed no signs of abating in 2024. This is the story that really matters for global warming.\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"figure alignnone size-full wp-image-465356\"\u003e\n    \u003cimg src=\"https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/chinas-power-capacit.png\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\"\u003e\n    \n\u003c/figure\u003e \n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDangerous knackers yard for old horses of the sea\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"figure alignnone wp-image-465354\"\u003e\n    \u003cimg src=\"https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/shipbreaking-1024x725.png\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\"\u003e\n    \n\u003c/figure\u003e \n\u003cp\u003eIn 2025, 321 ships were dismantled piece by piece; by weight 85 per cent were \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/02022026/toxic-colonialism-on-the-bay-of-bengal/?utm_source=InsideClimate\u0026#43;News\u0026amp;utm_campaign=ae2b737d58-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2026_02_07_11_09\u0026amp;utm_medium=email\u0026amp;utm_term=0_29c928ffb5-ae2b737d58-327928653\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003edismantled on three beaches\u003c/a\u003e in Bangladesh, Pakistan and India. This will probably be the fate of many of the 68,000 ships that currently transport over 90 per cent of global trade, many of them ageing “dark fleet” vessels trading illicitly to avoid sanctions.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe doomed vessels are rammed at full speed into the beach at high tide. Local communities, who often depend on the industry as their only source of income, then go to work, with little occupational protection, dismantling the behemoths. Older ships contain toxic heavy metals, radioactive materials, asbestos and hazardous paints which, with any remaining oil, are washed away by the twice daily tides, with obvious consequences for the local marine and coastal ecosystems. Local villages also now flood more often because mangrove trees have been cut down to make space for the shipbreaking beaches.\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"figure alignnone size-full wp-image-465353\"\u003e\n    \u003cimg src=\"https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/shipbreaking-2.png\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\"\u003e\n    \n\u003c/figure\u003e \n\u003cp\u003eNot only is this terrible for the environment, it’s also bad for the health of the wreckers. The International Labour Convention calls it the most hazardous work in the world – that’s a big call because there’s some pretty determined challengers.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn 2025, 11 workers died and 62 were injured from falls, crushing and fires in South Asian shipbreaking operations, although many incidents no doubt go unreported. Many of the injuries lead to long term disabilities. All of the workers and local communities are exposed to a cocktail of toxic substances that cause, among other things, mesotheliomas and other cancers\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA policy advisor at \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://shipbreakingplatform.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eNGO Shipbreaking Platform\u003c/a\u003e says, “We are witnessing a system that is based on double standards, that is being built to serve an exclusively wealthy elite”. He refers to the largely unregulated and unsafe wrecking industry as “ a systemic global failure. A failure linked to the greed of mainly the Global North, that for money exports toxics to vulnerable countries. It’s a new form of colonialism. A toxic colonialism and toxic trade at its best. Until the fatally flawed beaching method of ships is banned, the weak health and safety laws and destructive environmental practices of South Asia’s shipbreaking yards will remain a dumping ground for the Global North’s toxic waste”.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCapacity vs Generation\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI’ll finish by emphasising that the data I presented above concerned the capacity to generate power, not the actual power generated. Many power stations, renewable and non-renewable, in China and throughout the world, operate well below their capacity. And in fairness to China, I should point out that in 2025 \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-coal-power-drops-in-china-and-india-for-first-time-in-52-years-after-clean-energy-records/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003ecoal-powered electricity generation\u003c/a\u003e fell by 1.6 per cent, even as demand increased by 5 per cent. This is what we need to see.\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"figure alignnone size-full wp-image-465352\"\u003e\n    \u003cimg src=\"https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/china-growth-in-coal.png\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\"\u003e\n    \n\u003c/figure\u003e \n\u003cp\u003eThe photos below (\n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/sep/07/china-fossil-fuel-us-climate-environment-energy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eleft\u003c/a\u003e and \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/15012026/inside-clean-energy-solar-dominance/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eright\u003c/a\u003e) suggest part of the reason why China is making the transition from fossils to renewables at unprecedented speed:\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"figure alignnone size-full wp-image-465351\"\u003e\n    \u003cimg src=\"https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/renewables-china.png\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\"\u003e\n    \n\u003c/figure\u003e",
      "summary": "From devastating floods in the Northern Territory to the global failure to curb fossil fuels and the human cost of shipbreaking, environmental damage is accelerating – and hitting the most vulnerable hardest.",
      "date_published": "2026-04-19T00:49:16+10:00",
      "date_modified": "2026-04-19T00:49:16+10:00",
      "authors": [{"name": "Peter Sainsbury"}
      ],
      "tags": ["climate","politics"],
      "_social_media": {
        "tweet_text": "Climate damage is already here – and inequality is shaping who bears the cost.\nFrom NT floods to fossil fuel growth and toxic shipbreaking, the impacts are immediate and uneven, Peter Sainsbury writes.\n#auspol #Climate #Environment #Energy",
        "tweet_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/environment-class-and-race-fuel-climate-collapse-in-northern-territory/",
        "linkedin_title": "Environment: Class and race fuel climate collapse in Northern Territory",
        "linkedin_excerpt": "From devastating floods in the Northern Territory to the global failure to curb fossil fuels and the human cost of shipbreaking, environmental damage is accelerating – and hitting the most vulnerable hardest.",
        "linkedin_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/environment-class-and-race-fuel-climate-collapse-in-northern-territory/",
        "facebook_text": "Environment: Class and race fuel climate collapse in Northern Territory - From devastating floods in the Northern Territory to the global failure to curb fossil fuels and the human cost of shipbreaking, environmental damage is accelerating – and hitting the most vulnerable …",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/bangladesh-ship-brea.jpg",
        "author_names": "Peter Sainsbury"
      },
      "_mailchimp": {
        "excerpt": "From devastating floods in the Northern Territory to the global failure to curb fossil fuels and the human cost of shipbreaking, environmental damage is accelerating – and hitting the most vulnerable hardest.",
        "authors_string": "Peter Sainsbury",
        "categories_string": "climate, politics",
        "pub_date_formatted": "Sunday, April 19, 2026",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/bangladesh-ship-brea.jpg"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/friendship-honey-and-the-simple-life-100-years-of-winnie-the-pooh",
      "url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/friendship-honey-and-the-simple-life-100-years-of-winnie-the-pooh/",
      "title": "Friendship, honey and the simple life: 100 years of Winnie‑the‑Pooh",
      "content_html": "\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eA century after its creation, Winnie-the-Pooh endures not just as a children’s classic, but as a gentle meditation on friendship, community and how to live well.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eIsn’t it funny\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003cem\u003eHow a Bear likes honey\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003cem\u003eBuzz buzz\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003cem\u003eI wonder why he does\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJust over a century ago, the satirical writer and playwright A.A. Milne, suffering from the after-effects of fighting in the trenches of World War I, started writing some poems for his only child, Christopher Robin.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThey were published in a collection, \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/821003.When_We_Were_Very_Young?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_23\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003e_When We Were Very Young_\u003c/a\u003e and they caused a literary sensation for a reading public looking for comfort in difficult times.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTwo years later, Milne followed up with the stories of the Hundred Acre Wood in his book \u003cem\u003eWinnie-the-Pooh\u003c/em\u003e, based on the tangle of scrub and trees at the bottom of his garden and populated by Christopher Robin’s toys.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWinnie-the-Pooh, Piglet, Rabbit, Eeyore, Tigger, Kanga and Roo, and Owl, each distinctive characters in their own right, chatted and played, going on adventures, solving problems, presided over by Christopher Robin, the wise child who knows what to do.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNot every critic loved it: “Tonstant Reader fwowed up” wrote the acerbic Dorothy Parker in her \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1928/10/20/far-from-well\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003e_New Yorker_ Constant Reader column\u003c/a\u003e. She found the stories saccharine and cloying. But for those who enjoyed the simple humour, cameraderie and warmth of the stories, Winnie-the-Pooh and his friends became part of the children’s literary canon. And so they have remained to this day.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eWinnie-the-Pooh\u003c/em\u003e has been translated into over 50 languages, including Bengali, Swedish, Polish and Latin (with the wonderful Winnie Ille Pu). In Poland, a Warsaw street, \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kubusia_Puchatka_Street,_Warsaw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eUlica Kubusia Puchatka\u003c/a\u003e, was named after Winnie-the-Pooh by the children of the city.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn 1961, Disney \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://natlawreview.com/article/once-and-all-pooh-belongs-to-disney-disney-s-trademark-rights\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eacquired the rights to Winnie-the-Pooh\u003c/a\u003e, resulting in a popular television cartoon and merchandising. In China, in 2018, a film version of \u003cem\u003eWinnie-the-Pooh\u003c/em\u003e was banned after internet memes compared his gentle laziness \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/07/china-bans-winnie-the-pooh-film-to-stop-comparisons-to-president-xi\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eto the President, Xi Jinping\u003c/a\u003e. More than \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/winnie-pooh-became-household-bear-180967090/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003e20 million\u003c/a\u003e copies of the books have been sold worldwide.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eWinnie-the-Pooh\u003c/em\u003e contains a perfect mixture of sweetness and sharp observation, shifting between light and dark, between funny and tragi-comic. The stories of Pooh and his friends, each one flawed but also delightful, demonstrate the ups and downs of life, held in a delicate and optimistic balance.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTake, for instance, the depressive toy donkey, Eeyore, continually miserable yet somehow contented in his misery, bouncy toy tiger, Tigger, causing mayhem with every move, or timid Piglet, Pooh’s best friend. All (along with Pooh) have problems that are solved with one another’s help and particularly with the help of the boy-hero, Christopher Robin. Problems occur, are solved, and life carries on.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eA romance of community\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Winnie-the-Pooh stories are what we might think of as a romance of community. The inhabitants of the 100 Acre Wood show resilience and resourcefulness in dealing with difficulties, largely because they deal with them together.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThey are also pastoral, set in a comfortable and nonthreatening rural place, offering readers (often weary urbanites) a holiday from their busy lives. And as such, they allow us to gently contemplate what makes life tick, and what makes life worth living.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis philosophical streak runs through all Milne’s work for children: in his follow-up to \u003cem\u003eWinnie-the-Pooh\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003e\n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/387241.Winnie_The_Pooh?from_search=true\u0026amp;from_srp=true\u0026amp;qid=TuTrjPJhkC\u0026amp;rank=2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eThe House at Pooh Corner\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/em\u003e (1928), and his second collection of poems, \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/821000.Now_We_Are_Six?from_search=true\u0026amp;from_srp=true\u0026amp;qid=rxYrCzuE4j\u0026amp;rank=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003e_Now We Are Six_\u003c/a\u003e (1927). In 1929 he adapted another children’s classic, Kenneth Grahame’s \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5659.The_Wind_in_the_Willows?from_search=true\u0026amp;from_srp=true\u0026amp;qid=xfQzDC8Spn\u0026amp;rank=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003e_The Wind in the Willows_\u003c/a\u003e, for the stage. Also a pastoral, featuring anthropomorphised animals rather than toys, it promoted the English countryside as a space for gentle reflection on the good life and friendship.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Wind in the Willows\u003c/em\u003e has a wild quality. Such wildness does not impinge greatly in the Pooh stories: the characters are toys rather than animals and the god-figure is Christopher Robin.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAsked, for instance, to help resolve a squabble between Eeyore and Tigger, after Tigger’s loud sneeze has frightened Eeyore into falling into the river, Christopher Robin concludes: “Well, … I think – I think we all ought to play Poohsticks”. This is a simple game in which players drop sticks on the upstream side of a bridge over running water and wait to see which one emerges first. (\n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/50-things/no.-19-play-pooh-sticks\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eSee: How to Play Pooh Sticks)\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLiving in the moment\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhy is Winnie-the-Pooh called Winnie-the-Pooh? The name Winnie comes from a North American black bear at the London Zoo, which was brought to Britain \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://historycollection.com/the-tragic-true-origin-story-of-winnie-the-pooh/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003efrom Winnipeg, Canada\u003c/a\u003e. Like many London children, Christopher Robin was taken to the London zoo to see the animals, and he shortened the name Winnipeg to “Winnie”. “Pooh,” on the other hand, came from a swan, \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://pooh.fandom.com/wiki/Pooh_%28Swan%29\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eencountered on a family holiday\u003c/a\u003e. This mixture of inside-joke and idiosyncratic names created by a very young child adds to the book’s whimsy.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn their appeal to the good life and emphasis on friendship and community, these books have struck a chord with readers well beyond the nursery. Best known in this vein is Benjamin Hoff’s book \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48757.The_Tao_of_Pooh?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_15\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003e_The Tao of Pooh_\u003c/a\u003e, a philosophical work that connects the behaviour of Pooh and friends with the principles of \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/daoism/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eDaoism\u003c/a\u003e, which emphasise the importance of simplicity, naturalness and effortlessness.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn this regard, the innocent everyman Pooh exemplifies the ability to live in the present moment, and to live a life of simple “being”.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs such, he is the valuable sounding-board for the other characters, beset by life difficulties and behavioural dysfunction: the hyperactive Tigger, the depressive Eeyore, anxious Piglet, busy Rabbit and so-on. He offers solutions to their problem, without criticising them, in doing so providing stability for them and for readers.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCertainly, when one visits the 100 Acre Wood, one is aware of entering a place of calm, of smallness, a place attuned to nature where the oddities of human character and behaviour are distilled into small, funny, calming stories. It is a world close to beauty, but also tolerant of imperfection.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAccording to Daoism, the secret of life lies in accepting things according to their true nature, neither blaming nor praising.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWhat of Christopher?\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt helps, too, that Pooh Corner is visually lovely: the illustrations by E.H. Shephard present Pooh and friends as cute and appealing, while remaining faithful to the toys that inspired them.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePictures such as one where Pooh and Piglet climb a gate together show the odd-couple balance of their friendship – brave Pooh, fearful Piglet – trusting one another in difficult circumstances.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eChristopher Robin Milne had a somewhat difficult time as a child thrust into the spotlight when the books found fame. It is hard enough having one’s childish cuteness paraded around family and friends; harder still when one’s reputation precedes one.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn adult life, Christopher Robin owned a successful bookshop and before he died in 1996, he did reach a measure of \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.gylesbrandreth.net/blog/2020/8/19/now-we-are-100-the-truth-about-christopher-robin\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eacceptance of his father’s work\u003c/a\u003e. In 2001, Disney Corporation \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.upworthy.com/the-real-life-christopher-robin-accepted-a-tiny-payment-from-disney-thats-still-changing-lives/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003epaid a large sum of money\u003c/a\u003e to Milne’s estate and other rights holders of \u003cem\u003eWinnie-the-Pooh\u003c/em\u003e. His wife Lesley and daughter Clare decided the money should be used to fund a charity supporting people with disabilities. The \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://claremilnetrust.com/about-the-trust/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eClare Milne Trust\u003c/a\u003e has been in operation since 1999.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e2026 will be a year of busy celebration for \u003cem\u003eWinnie-the-Pooh\u003c/em\u003e. Disney, unsurprisingly, will \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/news/winnie-pooh-100/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003elaunch new merchandise\u003c/a\u003e. An \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.homerton.cam.ac.uk/events/100-years-100-acres\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eacademic conference\u003c/a\u003e on 100 years of the 100 acres will be held at the University of Cambridge.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor the rest of us, it may be time to dig out our childhood copies of Milne’s books, to spend a little time with old friends from these best of old stories, hanging out in the 100 Acre Wood, doing not very much and thinking a little about life.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRepublished from \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://theconversation.com/friendship-honey-and-the-simple-life-100-years-of-winnie-the-pooh-276175\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eThe Conversation\u003c/a\u003e, April 14, 2026\u003c/p\u003e",
      "summary": "A century after its creation, Winnie-the-Pooh endures not just as a children’s classic, but as a gentle meditation on friendship, community and how to live well.",
      "date_published": "2026-04-19T00:39:44+10:00",
      "date_modified": "2026-04-19T00:39:44+10:00",
      "authors": [{"name": "Elizabeth Hale"}
      ],
      "tags": ["arts","review"],
      "_social_media": {
        "tweet_text": "A century on, Winnie-the-Pooh still resonates.\nIts stories offer a gentle meditation on friendship, community and living well, Elizabeth Hale writes.\n#Books #Literature #WinnieThePooh #Culture",
        "tweet_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/friendship-honey-and-the-simple-life-100-years-of-winnie-the-pooh/",
        "linkedin_title": "Friendship, honey and the simple life: 100 years of Winnie‑the‑Pooh",
        "linkedin_excerpt": "A century after its creation, Winnie-the-Pooh endures not just as a children’s classic, but as a gentle meditation on friendship, community and how to live well.",
        "linkedin_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/friendship-honey-and-the-simple-life-100-years-of-winnie-the-pooh/",
        "facebook_text": "Friendship, honey and the simple life: 100 years of Winnie‑the‑Pooh - A century after its creation, Winnie-the-Pooh endures not just as a children’s classic, but as a gentle meditation on friendship, community and how to live well.",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/aa-milne-and-christo.jpg",
        "author_names": "Elizabeth Hale"
      },
      "_mailchimp": {
        "excerpt": "A century after its creation, Winnie-the-Pooh endures not just as a children’s classic, but as a gentle meditation on friendship, community and how to live well.",
        "authors_string": "Elizabeth Hale",
        "categories_string": "arts, review",
        "pub_date_formatted": "Sunday, April 19, 2026",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/aa-milne-and-christo.jpg"
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    {
      "id": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/from-feminism-to-the-manosphere-where-to-now",
      "url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/from-feminism-to-the-manosphere-where-to-now/",
      "title": "From feminism to the manosphere – where to now?",
      "content_html": "\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003ePatricia Edgar reflects on a lifetime shaped by feminism – and asks why, despite its gains, relationships between men and women now feel more fractured than ever.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere is a growing awareness in the west that things have gone rather horribly wrong in the relationships between the sexes.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eResearch is showing fewer young people want or can’t find a partner; they are more reluctant to marry and bear children, so the population replacement birthrate is at 1.5 and falling; more young people are reporting loneliness and mental illness than the elderly; reports of domestic violence are escalating: and dating sites, one of the few places to meet a partner, are both an intentional marriage ritual and a meat market that commodifies its users.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSenator Matt Canavan, the new leader of the Nationals, among others of the political right, knows things are amiss for the society and the economy, with birth rates dropping at an alarming rate. But his solution is akin to the early twentieth century idiom \u0026ldquo;Close your eyes and think of England\u0026rdquo; advising British women to endure unwanted sexual intercourse by distracting themselves with patriotic duty. It symbolised marital submission, apathy toward sex, and the resignation to unpleasant duties, like housework, cooking and cleaning. He doesn’t say these words but that is the nostalgic fanciful world he and a growing group of conservatives, evangelicals and the red pill brigade conjure up.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI grew up in that world. Now in my 90th year I have lived through the positive revolution feminism brought but have also seen the disruptions. Here I reflect on what has led to this unease between the sexes when I continue to believe what most of us want in life is companionship and a partner to live alongside through challenging times.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI was born the third girl to a father who wanted a son to carry on the family name, take camping and fishing, and share men’s business. I wasn’t told I was a disappointment, but I was aware. I thought I couldn’t be what I wanted to be, a lawyer, a pilot, someone in charge of something. The only role models in the remote town of Mildura in 1937 were the men who ran everything, like my father, and the women, like my mother, who stayed at home, bore the children, cooked, washed and took care of the house, went to church, the CWA, the Red Cross, and did meals on wheels. Their day out was to have afternoon tea.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eYet I absorbed the idea through films I saw and books I read that I need not live that life, and it was my mother, who rarely gave advice, who told me, “You do what you want to do, Patricia.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI liked my boyfriends, I did want to marry and have children, but I intended to work as well. In essence all I wanted was a fair go and for the burdens of life to be equally shared in a partnership. That was what I understood feminism to be about: equal opportunity and equal status. Surely decent men couldn’t object to that, and decent men did not.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI became a teacher – fully qualified, but paid less for the same work than a man. I had to resign from the teaching roll when I married and could not be superannuated. The discrimination women experienced was overt; we were considered inferior beings.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThese were the days when it was legal to specify gender and age in job advertisements. An example: \u003cem\u003eWanted Special Girl Friday, bright young bird, aged between 20-35, who likes doing lots of interesting things. Put on a pretty face and apply as our receptionist, telephonist, and coffee girl. Charming young boss and lots of fringe benefits. You will need to be well groomed and efficient.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMy epiphany, the most important book I ever read, was by Simone de Beauvoir, _The Second Sex. _I was 23. I understood then the problem I felt was not within me, but within society and decided to do my bit to try to bring about change.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI was married then, with two little girls, and teaching part time at the Council of Adult Education. I asked the boss if I could teach a course on The Changing Role of Women. He thought I was nuts. I pleaded. It proved to be the biggest day time class the CAE had run. More than 100 women came in their hats and gloves, all feeling the problem that had no name.  It was 1966. \u003cem\u003eThe Female Eunuch\u003c/em\u003e would be published in 1970.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Joy of Sex\u003c/em\u003e, written by Dr Alex Comfort, published in 1972, subtitled \u003cem\u003eA Gourmet Guide to Lovemaking\u003c/em\u003e, liberated attitudes toward sex. It was a publishing phenomenon that sold more than 12 million copies worldwide. Women discovered they could orgasm.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn 1974 I published with Hilary McPhee, \u003cem\u003eMedia She\u003c/em\u003e, a book exposing the way the mass media exploited women in advertising, films, television, cheesecake and journalism. That book was a minor sensation, featuring on the ABC’s national program \u003cem\u003eMonday Conference\u003c/em\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePrime Minister Gough Whitlam (1972-75) further transformed women’s expectations of the role they could play in society. He established an Office for the Status of Women and appointed women to governing boards in the community and the arts. I was a beneficiary of this policy, appointed as the first woman to the Australian Broadcasting Control Board. The same year the United Nation’s General Assembly named 1975 as International Women’s Year.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhitlam made tertiary education free in Australia and many women with families went back to school. These life-changing social and economic changes were revolutionary. There would be no turning back. Women now make up 60 per cent of domestic students in our universities and gender pay-gaps although not yet equal are closing.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs we women were beginning to understand new options for living our lives, the contraceptive pill, which became available in the 1960s, transformed sexual relationships. Women had unprecedented control over their reproductive choices – they were freed from the constraining fear of pregnancy, thus the traditional social contract of marriage sex and reproduction went out the window.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs women gained more autonomy, embracing their newfound rights, women’s fashion choices changed; they mimicked men’s suits with wide shoulder pads, the heels went up, the hair came down and more flesh was exposed symbolising their empowerment and individuality. And men felt they no longer had to make a commitment. They could play the field. Sex was a commodity, and feminism morphed away from broad civil rights to a focus on sexuality. Bodies were weaponised by both sexes.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePromiscuity was curbed when herpes exploded as an epidemic in 1979-80 and AIDs came to public attention in 1982-3. The grim reaper public health campaign ads in 1987 so frightened viewers they were taken off air three weeks into a six-week campaign. They sent the message AIDS could infect everyone not just marginal groups, so young men and women after playing around, chose to settle down with one partner.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAround this time opportunities, for the young and the separated, to meet others at social events were disappearing; church attendance declined and many community groups dissolved. The Internet became available in the early 1990s, and online video games attracted most boys, playing alone or in groups for hours on end. Porn sites flourished, exploiting violent interactions with spanking, strangling and hitting women featuring, and many men were addicted. Social media gained traction in the early 2000s. Smartphones were predominating by 2010s with texting replacing speaking.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFamily traditions, sexual mores, gender expectations and the means of communication had all been upended by the time Gen Z was born. Covid was still to come. But it wasn’t just the young people who were perplexed.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe confusion regarding sexuality was exemplified by the publication of \u003cem\u003eFifty Shades of Grey\u003c/em\u003e. Originally self-published as an ebook and print-on-demand in paperback in June 2011, the book sold like billy-o, becoming the fastest selling paperback in publishing history. It was the story of a romance between a virginal 21-year-old and a handsome billionaire – who has everything a woman could possibly want, including power, looks and muscles – and her sexual awakening by Mr Christian Grey who is equipped with all tools required to explore bondage, discipline, sadism and masochism (BDSM) within the relationship.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA fiery public dispute erupted between the critics who saw it as a modern consensual fantasy romance; a story of self-discovery and sexual exploration; and those who saw it as a toxic, controlling, and potentially abusive relationship promoting dangerous dynamics. Most readers and viewers of the three films that followed were married women over thirty, raising questions about the conduct of sexual activity. Did this mean violence in sex was now normalised? Was pain meant to be part of the sexual routine? Is this what women wanted? For some of the blokes watching porn this message reinforced what they had been watching; they thought choking was part of the routine. Reports of domestic violence have been soaring since.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe most egregious example, difficult to comprehend, was the case in France where a husband doped his wife, Gisele Pelicot, and marketed her for rape to countless men. She somehow found the courage to tell her story publicly in a book, _A Hymn to Life. _\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJulia Gillard – elected in June 2010 – was the first female Australian Prime Minister. During her term she was subjected to extensive sexist abuse, unprecedented in Australian political history, about her body shape, her clothing, her family, and her lack of children. A measure of the tone used against Gillard was that the influential shock jock Alan Jones said on air: \u0026ldquo;The woman\u0026rsquo;s off her tree and quite frankly they should shove her and [Greens leader] Bob Brown in a chaff bag and take them as far out to sea as they can and tell them to swim home.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGillard’s renowned \u0026ldquo;misogyny speech\u0026rdquo; was delivered in parliament during Question Time on 9 October 2012 in response to opposition leader Tony Abbott\u0026rsquo;s sexist attitudes towards the PM. She famously stated, \u0026ldquo;I will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man. I will not. Not now, not ever\u0026rdquo;. The 15-minute speech went viral and signalled to the nation we were in a diabolical and shameful gender war at the highest level of government.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe #MeToo movement, a campaign dedicated to fighting sexual harassment, sexual assault, and rape culture emerged. While the phrase was originally coined in 2006, it gained worldwide prominence in 2017 as a viral hashtag prompting a massive cultural shift, encouraging women to share their stories demonstrating that sexual misconduct was not an isolated issue, but a systemic, widespread problem and the perpetrators were escaping consequences. I had my say as well:  \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://johnmenadue.com/post/2021/04/anything-goes-in-canberra/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003e_Anything goes in Canberra_\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe #MeToo movement had significant social, legal, and cultural impacts worldwide. Companies implemented greater safeguards, better anti-harassment policies, and mandatory training to prevent future misconduct. Hundreds of prominent men in entertainment, politics, media, and sports lost their jobs or faced legal consequences after being publicly accused of misconduct. The movement helped break the silence surrounding sexual violence but provoked a severe backlash with the rush to judgement and cancel culture that followed. The LGBTIQ+ sub-groups all claimed recognition and for their voices to be heard. Confusion reigned.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThese changes brought a strong emphasis on personal boundaries. The assumption of consent as a fundamental right reshaped dating and relationship dynamics but progress in rights meant disturbing complexity for individuals adapting to changing social norms.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSome years ago, my grandson told me, following a hurtful experience with a young woman, “My generation’s fucked!” I responded with disbelief, with reassurance and denial. Then he introduced me to Andrew Tate and the manosphere which I recognised as a repulsive, ugly, brutal, misogynistic, violent environment that threatened the development of young men and fuelled conflict between the sexes. He assured me all young men were familiar with Andrew Tate.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI could see this as a by-product in what has become a battle of the sexes fuelled by the #MeToo Movement and a warped interpretation of second wave feminism.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCovid coincided with the rise of #HimToo and the manosphere with its anti-feminist rhetoric where it was argued that #MeToo had created a “witch hunt”, unfairly targeting men, ignoring false accusations, and threatening due process. They see men as the victims of modern feminism with its “female privilege,” and forcefully assert domination and masculinity, in loud voices – the \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/14/the-red-pill-reddit-modern-misogyny-manosphere-men\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003ered pill\u003c/a\u003e. They have no idea how to cope with rejection. Anger and aggression are the response.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe know much has changed in recent decades since the feminist revolution of the sixties and seventies – socially, economically, culturally – and those shifts have reshaped how people relate. Men and women no longer have clearly defined roles. They are not sure what’s expected of them as they try to adjust to new norms.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHousing costs, job insecurity, and the rising cost of living mean young people delay relationships; they date more cautiously. They’re more selective because the stakes feel higher. Immigration has brought differing cultural values into the dating mix. Social fragmentation into tribal groups add to the complexity.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe unemployed male or disadvantaged male finds it more difficult to meet a partner in the turmoil of today’s marriage market. It seems to them women want it all, so they retreat to the gym and social media where dating apps amplify extremes, and the manosphere thrives.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFeminism at its core is about equal rights and opportunities. But online fringe voices on both sides frame relationships as: men vs. women; winners vs. losers; oppressors vs. oppressed. The media generally highlight the extremes and the problems.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFeminism did force society to confront patriarchal practices. Change has brought friction, but therapy and abuse are not the answer. Research continues to show most men and women still want relationships; most still value love, partnership, and family, most don’t hate each other; most disagreements come from misunderstanding, not ideology\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBuilding connection between genders in the modern era does require moving beyond traditional roles and adopting a partnership model based on mutual respect and shared effort. Each one should pursue their own goals inside and outside of the relationship. A healthy, modern connection is formed by two complete individuals. I found such a marriage and partnership, as have many others, and many of my best friends and supporters have always been men.\u003c/p\u003e",
      "summary": "Patricia Edgar reflects on a lifetime shaped by feminism – and asks why, despite its gains, relationships between men and women now feel more fractured than ever.",
      "date_published": "2026-04-19T00:39:08+10:00",
      "date_modified": "2026-04-19T00:39:08+10:00",
      "authors": [{"name": "Patricia Edgar"}
      ],
      "tags": ["history","politics","world"],
      "_social_media": {
        "tweet_text": "Feminism transformed society – but relationships between men and women are now more strained, uncertain and contested.\nAfter a lifetime on the frontlines, Patricia Edgar asks what comes next.\n#Feminism #Gender #Relationships #Society",
        "tweet_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/from-feminism-to-the-manosphere-where-to-now/",
        "linkedin_title": "From feminism to the manosphere – where to now?",
        "linkedin_excerpt": "Patricia Edgar reflects on a lifetime shaped by feminism – and asks why, despite its gains, relationships between men and women now feel more fractured than ever.",
        "linkedin_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/from-feminism-to-the-manosphere-where-to-now/",
        "facebook_text": "From feminism to the manosphere – where to now? - Patricia Edgar reflects on a lifetime shaped by feminism – and asks why, despite its gains, relationships between men and women now feel more fractured than ever.",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/people-blurred-c.jpg",
        "author_names": "Patricia Edgar"
      },
      "_mailchimp": {
        "excerpt": "Patricia Edgar reflects on a lifetime shaped by feminism – and asks why, despite its gains, relationships between men and women now feel more fractured than ever.",
        "authors_string": "Patricia Edgar",
        "categories_string": "history, politics, world",
        "pub_date_formatted": "Sunday, April 19, 2026",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/people-blurred-c.jpg"
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    },
    {
      "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"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/the-bad-the-worse-and-the-need-for-glee",
      "url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/the-bad-the-worse-and-the-need-for-glee/",
      "title": "The bad, the worse, and the need for glee – Message from the Editor",
      "content_html": "\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eIt has been a week where a number of world ‘leaders’ have exceeded even the lowest of expectations. Clearly the lion in this fight is Donald Trump as Jesus, but there are some other really notable, local contenders.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLiberal leader Angus Taylor put in a strong bid when he launched the party’s ‘Australian Values Migration Plan’. Channelling his inner Tony Abbott, Taylor said: “Those who migrate from liberal democracies have a greater likelihood of subscribing to Australian values compared to those migrating from places ruled by fundamentalists, extremists, and dictators. In that vein, the Gazan cohort of 1,700 people here on visas presents a high risk to our nation.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt is worth reading \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.liberal.org.au/2026/04/14/leader-of-the-oppositions-address-to-the-menzies-research-centre\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003ethe whole speech\u003c/a\u003e, but he added that: “Past governments blindly repeated mantras about Australia being the world’s most successful multicultural society – and diversity being our strength. Such doctrines saw us open our borders to people who – far from wanting to join and contribute to Australia – have wanted to take from Australia and even change Australia to suit them.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHe announced there would be a values test and social-media screening.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhile the policy was thin on detail, it was strong on rhetoric, and quickly slammed by groups all over the nation, including former Prime Minister Paul Keating, who on P\u0026amp;I \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/angus-taylor-and-the-liberal-partys-moral-decline/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003esaid\u003c/a\u003e it took the Liberal Party back to “its default political policy: racism”.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt is absolutely clear what Taylor is doing, or at least trying to do. Like Abbott (remember ‘Stop the Boats’) he is appealing to our worst instincts, stoking fear and hate for political gain.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut you will be glad to know that not only is the policy revolting, it is just plain dumb. According to \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/chasing-ghosts-losing-votes/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eKos Samaras\u003c/a\u003e, immigration is not the all-consuming concern for voters that Taylor assumes. His new research says that immigrants are not the primary cause of voter worry and anger. Even One Nation voters have bigger fish to fry – they are much more unhappy with institutions, business and politicians.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd of course all this took place in a week where fear mongering and hate took a big knock, with the landslide election defeat of Hungarian dictator Viktor Orbán.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNot that Taylor’s mate Abbott read the global room. The former Prime Minister leapt to praise Orbán on Elon Musk’s X platform. He said: “Viktor Orbán has been a very consequential PM – probably the most consequential Hungary has ever had. … I thought he was dead right to defy the EU, on illegal immigration especially. Why should a sovereign nation be bullied by Brussels into policies that would jeopardise its future as a distinct people? Under Orbán, Budapest became something of a haven for conservative intellectuals…”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eClearly Abbott sees himself as one such, as a non-resident fellow of the conservative think tank the Danube Institute in Budapest.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSo that takes me to my best bit for the week.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMany things made me smile this week, but the wide, make-your-face hurt smile came watching a middle-aged man \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/reel/DXFrKfdnzjd/?igsh=MnRlMWN6aW9mejRq\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003edance\u003c/a\u003e – really dance. That man was Zsolt Hegedűs, senior member for the victorious Hungarian Tisza Party that shoved Orbán out of power. Hegedűs was joined by huge crowds celebrating Tisza’s supermajority win. A joyous release for a whole nation, summed up beautifully by a man in a suit jacket and sensible shoes, busting some moves in glee.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"instagram-embed\" style=\"display:flex;justify-content:center;margin:1.5rem 0;\"\u003e\n  \u003cblockquote\n    class=\"instagram-media\"\n    data-instgrm-captioned\n    data-instgrm-permalink=\"https://www.instagram.com/reel/DXFrKfdnzjd/?utm_source=ig_embed\u0026amp;utm_campaign=loading\"\n    data-instgrm-version=\"14\"\n    style=\"background:#FFF;border:0;border-radius:3px;box-shadow:0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15);margin:1px;max-width:540px;min-width:326px;padding:0;width:99%;\"\u003e\n    \u003cdiv style=\"padding:16px;\"\u003e\n      \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/reel/DXFrKfdnzjd/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"\n         style=\"background:#FFFFFF;line-height:0;padding:0 0;text-align:center;text-decoration:none;width:100%;\"\u003e\n        View this post on Instagram\n      \u003c/a\u003e\n    \u003c/div\u003e\n  \u003c/blockquote\u003e\n  \u003cscript async src=\"//www.instagram.com/embed.js\"\u003e\u003c/script\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIt is a nice way to end the week, a reminder that one minute you’re surrounded by tyranny and darkness and the next you are dancing like it’s 1999.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIf you haven’t subscribed for a daily or weekly newsletter you can do so \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://johnmenadue.us14.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=8074bf8ebb1d809ea8da4b14a\u0026amp;id=0c6b037ecb\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003ehere\u003c/a\u003e for free. We are utterly independent, with no corporate or government funding, and no ads, so please also consider supporting our work \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://johnmenadue.com/page/donate/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003ewith a donation\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e",
      "summary": "It has been a week where a number of world ‘leaders’ have exceeded even the lowest of expectations. Clearly the lion in this fight is Donald Trump as Jesus, but there are some other really notable, local contenders.",
      "date_published": "2026-04-18T00:54:18+10:00",
      "date_modified": "2026-04-18T00:54:18+10:00",
      "authors": [{"name": "Catriona Jackson"}
      ],
      "tags": ["media","politics","world"],
      "_social_media": {
        "tweet_text": "From migration fear campaigns at home to political shifts abroad, this week shows how leaders are still trading in division.\nBut voters don’t always buy it, Catriona Jackson writes.\n#auspol #Politics #Democracy",
        "tweet_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/the-bad-the-worse-and-the-need-for-glee/",
        "linkedin_title": "The bad, the worse, and the need for glee – Message from the Editor",
        "linkedin_excerpt": "It has been a week where a number of world ‘leaders’ have exceeded even the lowest of expectations. Clearly the lion in this fight is Donald Trump as Jesus, but there are some other really notable, local contenders.",
        "linkedin_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/the-bad-the-worse-and-the-need-for-glee/",
        "facebook_text": "The bad, the worse, and the need for glee – Message from the Editor - It has been a week where a number of world ‘leaders’ have exceeded even the lowest of expectations. Clearly the lion in this fight is Donald Trump as Jesus, but there are some other really notable, …",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/hungarian-election-w.jpg",
        "author_names": "Catriona Jackson"
      },
      "_mailchimp": {
        "excerpt": "It has been a week where a number of world ‘leaders’ have exceeded even the lowest of expectations. Clearly the lion in this fight is Donald Trump as Jesus, but there are some other really notable, local contenders.",
        "authors_string": "Catriona Jackson",
        "categories_string": "media, politics, world",
        "pub_date_formatted": "Saturday, April 18, 2026",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/hungarian-election-w.jpg"
      }
    },
    {
      "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"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/another-interest-rate-rise-will-tip-australia-into-a-recession-we-dont-have-to-have",
      "url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/another-interest-rate-rise-will-tip-australia-into-a-recession-we-dont-have-to-have/",
      "title": "Another interest rate rise will tip Australia into a recession we don’t have to have",
      "content_html": "\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eA sharp fall in confidence and rising fuel prices point to a potential downturn, but traditional policy responses risk making the situation worse.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAfter a gradual recovery from the substantial fall in real incomes and the rapid increases in interest rates during the three years following the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Australian economy now appears to be in the early stages of another, potentially significant downturn.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAlthough there is as yet little hard statistical evidence to confirm that, this week’s news of plummeting consumer and business confidence provides an ominous signal.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Westpac-Melbourne Institute index of consumer sentiment dropped \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.westpaciq.com.au/economics/2026/04/consumer-sentiment-april-2026\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003e12.5 \u003c/a\u003eper cent in April, the largest single-month decline since April 2020, immediately after the onset of the pandemic, to its lowest level since September 2023, just after the 12th of what would ultimately be 13 increases in the RBA’s official cash rate, and only 4.5 points above that April 2020 level, which was in turn the lowest since the recession of the early 1990s.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAlmost certainly, the fall in consumer confidence is in response to the sharp increase in petrol and diesel prices and apprehension at the possibility of fuel shortages.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePerhaps surprisingly, consumer confidence fell by more among people who own their homes outright and among renters than among people with mortgages – suggesting, possibly, that people are more worried about falling house prices than about higher interest rates. Also surprisingly, there was a much larger drop in confidence among people earning over $100,000 a year than among lower-income earners (perhaps they’re worried about the impact on the share market). Less surprisingly, consumer confidence fell much more among younger people than older ones.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNational Australia Bank’s measure of business confidence also plummeted in March to its lowest level since April 2020.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhile measures of consumer and business confidence are not ordinarily reliable proxies for harder indicators such as retail sales, employment or business investment, big movements in consumer and business confidence such as those reported this week usually do presage significant turning points in the economy.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd that’s consistent with economists’ expectations that the spike in fuel prices since the outbreak of Gulf War III – and the fact fuel prices have stayed high despite the apparent suspension of military hostilities in the Gulf – will likely result in a significant downturn in economic activity, as well as an increase in inflation.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom the perspective of the Reserve Bank and the Treasury, and at the highest levels of government, the appropriate response to these developments is far less clear-cut than it was at the onset of the global financial crisis 18 years ago, the pandemic six years ago, or in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine just over four years ago. Though the increases in costs for fuel, airfares, and a growing range of other goods and services will add to both headline and underlying inflation, prompting speculation about the inevitability of a third successive increase in interest rates at next month’s Reserve Bank meeting, that is not necessarily a done deal.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat’s because unlike the unexpected rebound in inflation in the second half of last year which prompted the two recent rate rises – the current surge in inflation isn’t the result of “excess demand”, for which higher interest rates is the normal remedy.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAdditionally, the impact of the current surge in fuel prices on household finances is, in aggregate, very similar to that of an increase in interest rates – albeit distributed differently across individual households. That is, higher fuel prices mean that households who have little choice about how much fuel they use have less to spend on other goods and services, which reduces aggregate demand for those other goods and services in much the same way as higher interest rates mean that those with mortgages have to devote more of their incomes to paying interest and thus have less to spend on other goods and services.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSo raising interest rates in response to the first-round impact of higher fuel prices on inflation would be doubling up – and increasing the risk of a recession.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Reserve Bank should only increase interest rates if it judges there is a serious risk that people and businesses have begun to expect that inflation will remain permanently higher – because history tells them that if inflationary expectations do become entrenched at higher levels, people and businesses will start to behave in ways that make it more likely that inflation will become permanently higher, as it did after the oil shocks of the 1970s.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut it is too soon to make that judgment as yet.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor its part, the federal government – and probably state governments – will be tempted to offer additional cost-of-living relief to households, to help alleviate the impact of higher fuel and other prices on household budgets. They must resist. If governments throw cash at households – especially in an untargeted way, as they did with their electricity bill rebates between 2023 and 2025 – that will offset the effect higher fuel prices are having on household demand for other goods and services. This would give the RBA less reason to think that demand for those other goods and services will ease without further interest rate rises.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSo, if the federal and state governments want to help reduce the risk of further rate hikes – and hence the risk of recession – they should do as little as politically possible by way of providing cost-of-living relief in their upcoming budgets.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd they should also resist the temptation to support additional wage increases – which in current circumstances would also likely result in further price increases, in turn increasing the risk of further increases in interest rates. That’s a tough message for workers – but the point is that the benefits (to households) of additional wage increases are now likely to be taken away from those households with big mortgages in the form of higher interest rates.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eInstead, the focus of upcoming budgets should be – as Treasurer Jim Chalmers and others have indicated – strengthening Australia’s resilience to shocks like the present one, reducing intergenerational inequity through tax reform and other methods, and boosting productivity.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRepublished from the \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.smh.com.au/by/saul-eslake-hve5e\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eSydney Morning Herald\u003c/a\u003e, 16 April 2026\u003c/p\u003e",
      "summary": "A sharp fall in confidence and rising fuel prices point to a potential downturn, but traditional policy responses risk making the situation worse.",
      "date_published": "2026-04-18T00:44:23+10:00",
      "date_modified": "2026-04-18T00:44:23+10:00",
      "authors": [{"name": "Saul Eslake"}
      ],
      "tags": ["economy","politics"],
      "_social_media": {
        "tweet_text": "Falling confidence and rising fuel prices point to a potential downturn.\nBut raising interest rates or handing out relief could make things worse, Saul Eslake writes.\n#auspol #Economy #Inflation #InterestRates",
        "tweet_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/another-interest-rate-rise-will-tip-australia-into-a-recession-we-dont-have-to-have/",
        "linkedin_title": "Another interest rate rise will tip Australia into a recession we don’t have to have",
        "linkedin_excerpt": "A sharp fall in confidence and rising fuel prices point to a potential downturn, but traditional policy responses risk making the situation worse.",
        "linkedin_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/another-interest-rate-rise-will-tip-australia-into-a-recession-we-dont-have-to-have/",
        "facebook_text": "Another interest rate rise will tip Australia into a recession we don’t have to have - A sharp fall in confidence and rising fuel prices point to a potential downturn, but traditional policy responses risk making the situation worse.",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Shopping-basket-with-Australian-flag-market-basket-or-purchasing-power-concept.-3D-rendering.jpg",
        "author_names": "Saul Eslake"
      },
      "_mailchimp": {
        "excerpt": "A sharp fall in confidence and rising fuel prices point to a potential downturn, but traditional policy responses risk making the situation worse.",
        "authors_string": "Saul Eslake",
        "categories_string": "economy, politics",
        "pub_date_formatted": "Saturday, April 18, 2026",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Shopping-basket-with-Australian-flag-market-basket-or-purchasing-power-concept.-3D-rendering.jpg"
      }
    },
    {
      "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"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/what-is-the-25th-amendment-and-could-it-be-used-to-remove-trump-from-office",
      "url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/what-is-the-25th-amendment-and-could-it-be-used-to-remove-trump-from-office/",
      "title": "What is the 25th Amendment and could it be used to remove Trump from office?",
      "content_html": "\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eRenewed calls to invoke the 25th Amendment have put the spotlight on how it works – and why it may be ill-suited to dealing with a president accused of mental incapacity.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUS President Donald Trump’s recent intemperate exchanges with the pope, his depiction of himself as a Christ-like figure and his \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.theage.com.au/world/north-america/the-american-people-want-us-to-come-home-trump-hints-at-end-of-war-20260407-p5zlpm.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003ethreat to wipe out\u003c/a\u003e the civilisation of Iran have raised questions about his mental capacity to carry out his job.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis week, former CIA Director John Brennan \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/apr/12/ex-cia-director-oust-trump-25th-amendment\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003ejoined calls\u003c/a\u003e for the \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-25/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003e25th Amendment of the US Constitution\u003c/a\u003e to be invoked to remove Trump from the presidency, which he said was “written with Donald Trump in mind”.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSo what is the 25th Amendment and how would it work?\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWhat does the amendment say?\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe amendment is designed to clarify some constitutional ambiguities in the event the president is unable to continue in the role. The first three sections of the amendment are straightforward and uncontroversial.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSection 1 simply states that if a vice president succeeds on the death or resignation of the president, they become president (that is, not merely acting president).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSection 2 provides the mechanism for filling a vacancy in the vice presidency.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSection 3 provides for the president to temporarily hand over the powers and duties of office to the vice president during a period of incapacity (for example, such as undergoing anaesthetic).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSection 4 is a much more complex and potentially difficult arrangement to relieve a president of the duties and responsibilities of office temporarily. The 25th Amendment tackles the problem of presidents who are unfit to continue in office, but don’t recognise their disability.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt is this section of the amendment that is currently making news because of the reaction to Trump’s recent social media posts and behaviour, and the efforts of some leading figures in Washington to invoke the 25th Amendment provision to remove Trump from the presidency.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe disability clause\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSection 4 of the amendment works like this. The vice president and a majority of departmental heads declare to the speaker of the House of Representatives and the \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.senate.gov/about/officers-staff/president-pro-tempore.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003epresident pro tem of the Senate\u003c/a\u003e – the Senate’s second-highest ranking official – that the president is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office”. If approved, the vice president becomes acting president until such time as the president submits “a written declaration to the contrary.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAfter that declaration is made, the president resumes the powers and duties of office unless the vice president and a majority of the heads of the executive departments challenge the president’s response within four days.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIf that happens, Congress has 21 days to debate and decide the issue by a two-thirds vote of both houses.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt should be noted the amendment refers to “a majority of the principal officers of the executive departments” and not the Cabinet, as is often mentioned when the disability clause is reported in the media. Trump’s Cabinet consists of 21 members, only 15 of whom are principal officers of executive departments.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSo, if the disability provision were to be implemented, the vice president would need eight of the department heads to join him.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe process also depends on the willingness of just one person – the vice president – to implement it, because the procedure doesn’t work with only a majority of the departmental heads.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFinally, even if the amendment was implemented, it wouldn’t actually remove Trump from the presidency. He would remain president, albeit relieved of the powers and duties of office for a temporary period. And JD Vance would only have the title of acting president.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eHow would it work in Trump’s case?\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEven assuming the very unlikely possibility that Vance and eight of the 15 department heads would be willing to implement it, there would be a lot of uncertainty about how the 25th Amendment would work against Trump.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe major weakness of the amendment in Trump’s case would be the provision that allows the president to override the determination of the vice president and the majority of department heads by simply informing Congress that “no inability exists”.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNo medical evidence is required, and the amendment doesn’t define “inability”.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhatever his mental state may be, Trump is not physically disabled, so there would appear to be no physical impediment to him signing a piece of paper declaring that “no inability exists.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe amendment doesn’t even require Congress to review the president’s “no inability exists” letter. Trump would be restored to the presidency the moment he transmitted the document.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor the process to be taken further, the vice president would have to move against Trump a second time, both houses of Congress would have to debate Trump’s mental state, and super-majorities in both chambers would be necessary to relieve Trump of his duties again. It would risk the 25th Amendment turning into a constitutional crisis.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAll of this means any claim the 25th Amendment was “written with Donald Trump in mind” must be questioned. It may be appropriate for a president who is suffering major physical disabilities, such as Woodrow Wilson following his stroke in 1919, or James Garfield’s slow lingering death in 1881. But it is less well equipped to deal with a president who may or may not be mentally incapacitated but is physically able to fight back.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe 25th Amendment is about dealing with the temporary disability of a president not a method of impeaching the president by other means. Impeachment remains the only constitutional way of holding a president to account.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRepublished from \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://theconversation.com/what-is-the-25th-amendment-and-could-it-be-used-to-remove-trump-from-office-280732\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eThe Conversation\u003c/a\u003e, 16 April 2026\u003c/p\u003e",
      "summary": "Renewed calls to invoke the 25th Amendment have put the spotlight on how it works – and why it may be ill-suited to dealing with a president accused of mental incapacity.",
      "date_published": "2026-04-18T00:34:40+10:00",
      "date_modified": "2026-04-18T00:34:40+10:00",
      "authors": [{"name": "John Hart"}
      ],
      "tags": ["politics","usa"],
      "_social_media": {
        "tweet_text": "Calls to invoke the 25th Amendment against Trump are growing.\nBut the Constitution makes it difficult to remove a president on mental incapacity grounds, John Hart writes.\n#auspol #USPolitics #Trump #Constitution",
        "tweet_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/what-is-the-25th-amendment-and-could-it-be-used-to-remove-trump-from-office/",
        "linkedin_title": "What is the 25th Amendment and could it be used to remove Trump from office?",
        "linkedin_excerpt": "Renewed calls to invoke the 25th Amendment have put the spotlight on how it works – and why it may be ill-suited to dealing with a president accused of mental incapacity.",
        "linkedin_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/what-is-the-25th-amendment-and-could-it-be-used-to-remove-trump-from-office/",
        "facebook_text": "What is the 25th Amendment and could it be used to remove Trump from office? - Renewed calls to invoke the 25th Amendment have put the spotlight on how it works – and why it may be ill-suited to dealing with a president accused of mental incapacity.",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/donald-trump-leaves.jpg",
        "author_names": "John Hart"
      },
      "_mailchimp": {
        "excerpt": "Renewed calls to invoke the 25th Amendment have put the spotlight on how it works – and why it may be ill-suited to dealing with a president accused of mental incapacity.",
        "authors_string": "John Hart",
        "categories_string": "politics, usa",
        "pub_date_formatted": "Saturday, April 18, 2026",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/donald-trump-leaves.jpg"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/insider-confirms-us-worked-with-al-qaeda-to-fight-the-syrian-government",
      "url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/insider-confirms-us-worked-with-al-qaeda-to-fight-the-syrian-government/",
      "title": "Insider confirms US worked with Al Qaeda to fight the Syrian government",
      "content_html": "\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eNew insider claims revive long-standing questions about whether US policy in Syria involved working with extremist groups – and what that means for how the war is understood.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOver the years, in writing columns for \u003cem\u003ePearls and Irritations\u003c/em\u003e, the \u003cem\u003eCanberra Times\u003c/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eSydney Morning Herald,\u003c/em\u003e I’ve occasionally stuck my neck out and said things that were at odds with conventional wisdom.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI know such columns can be easily dismissed, but what’s the point of being an independent columnist if you don’t set out your conclusions based on the facts and figures before you?\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOne such case was my suspicion, from about 10 years ago, that despite all the terrorist attacks by ISIS and al Qaeda, the Americans were not fully committed to challenging them and were in fact playing a duplicitous game.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn the \u003cem\u003eSydney Morning Herald\u003c/em\u003e of 10 October 2015 \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.smh.com.au/opinion/usa-takes-complicated-position-on-syria-20151008-gk4k8f.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eI pointed out\u003c/a\u003e that the Americans were two-faced. Their public position was that they were against Islamic State.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“But here’s where the difficulty arises – the Americans support forces that devote much of their time to attacking the Syrian government, rather than Islamic State. Tajamu Ala’Azza and Liwa Suqor al-Jebel, for example, have received CIA training and been supplied with anti-tank rockets which they have used to attack Syrian government armour over the past year.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“On top of that, according to reports in \u003cem\u003eWashington Post\u003c/em\u003e, the US Central Command has confirmed that in late September American-trained Syrian fighters in the New Syrian Force gave at least a quarter of their US-provided equipment to al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“From a Syrian government point of view the US backed “moderates” are in alliance with the extremists and as much the enemy as Islamic State itself.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn April 15 2016, \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.smh.com.au/opinion/open-season-a-threat-for-the-protected-20160415-go7bwo.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003ein another article I asked\u003c/a\u003e: “Does one arm of the US government know what the other is doing? You have to ask this when you see the administration claiming it supports the ceasefire in Syria while it is also shipping tons of weapons to fuel the conflict.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI then went on to quote reliable reports that the Americans were helping ship weapons to rebel groups seeking to overthrow the Syrian Government which was fighting ISIS and Al Qaeda.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA key player during the time of the Syrian civil war was Hillary Clinton, who was US Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013 and then became the leading Democratic Party’s candidate for president in 2016. She was as much opposed to the Syrian Government of Bashar al-Assad as to the terrorist organisations of Al Qaeda and Islamic State.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNow Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa, who previously went by the name, Abu Mohammad al-Julani and led Al Qaeda and Islamic State forces in Syria, is President of Syria.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAccording to British journalists Cathy Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy, in their book, \u003cem\u003e\n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/jul/01/exile-review-osama-bin-laden-al-qaida\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eThe Exile\u003c/a\u003e,\u003c/em\u003e in his first few months as the leader of Jabhat Al-Nusra, commonly called the Nusra Front, Julani led his foot-soldiers in the merciless killing of hundreds of innocent civilians. He later changed his strategy to promoting individualised terrorism, or lone wolf attacks.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWith his record, one would think that this might cause some concern in the west, where both IS and Al Qaeda were supposedly pariah organisations.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut not so. His government has been recognised and Sharaa/Julani has been embraced.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut now we have insider confirmation that the US did work with Julani’s Al Qaeda/Islamic State offshoot organisation, Nusra Front, to topple Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian government.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor years, there were hints of this.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBack in October 2012 the \u003cem\u003eNew York Times\u003c/em\u003e reported: “Most of the arms shipped at the behest of Saudi Arabia and Qatar… ..are going to hardline Islamic jihadists” and in November 2012 David Ignatius reported in the \u003cem\u003eWashington Post\u003c/em\u003e that Free Syrian Army (FSA) representatives had told the State Department that, “most of the injured and dead FSA are Jabhat al-Nusra.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe inside confirmation now comes from none other than President Trump’s former counterterrorism chief, Joe Kent, who resigned as head of the US National Counterterrorism Centre in protest against the US-Israeli war on Iran.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt’s worth quoting in detail what Kent told \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2412323882526245\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003e_MintPress News_\u003c/a\u003e in an interview on Friday 27 March.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHe said the current Iran conflict was the third in a series of wars waged by the US on behalf of Israel. The first was the Iraq war, and the second the Syrian civil war.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe United States decided that it was going to work with the Israelis, but also decided that it was going to have to work heavily with the Sunni population on the ground in Syria to create an uprising.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“And that’s where ISIS came from,” he said. “We worked directly with Al-Qaeda.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“Hillary Clinton’s emails confirm this. The operations that we were doing to support the so-called Free Syrian Army – and there were some moderates there – but the most effective guys initially were Al-Qaeda and then eventually ISIS.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“Now obviously ISIS got out of control, and they started plotting attacks in Europe, they started plotting attacks in America. They took over large swathes of Iraq.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“So, we then had to go back and put out once again the brush fire that we had started and go after ISIS and that’s where I lost my late wife.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“But Israel was the driving factor in that. We took down Saddam who was the strong man against Israel. We then had to go in and take out Assad who was the strong man against Israel as well.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“And now this is the third phase. We’re going into Iran to take out that strong government for Israel.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAsked about Julani, the man installed in place of Assad, Kent said the US had “screwed the whole thing up.”  He recalled that Julani was in ISIS initially and was in Al Qaeda in Iraq fighting against the US.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“We had him in jail; [he] joined ISIS, broke off from ISIS,[was] hand-selected by Bin Laden’s right-hand man, Ayman Zawahiri to lead Nusra, and then they rebranded [him].”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eKent said the number one way for a jihadist to fool Americans was to put on a suit and get a good PR company “and then apparently we’ll believe anything you say.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eKent agreed that Julani had been photographed holding heads and concluded “He’s a thug.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWhite Helmets\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn recalling the Syrian civil war and the other Middle East wars that have followed, it’s worth remembering the White Helmets, an organisation that fed the western media videos of its workers conducting humanitarian work from regions controlled by Al Qaeda/IS/Nusra Front forces.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFew viewers would have been aware that the White Helmets were formed in Turkey by a former British army officer, James Le Mesurier, and largely funded by western governments, including those of the US and UK. This raised the question of why these governments chose this organisation rather than the internationally recognised non-partisan Red Cross/Red Crescent. And it also raised the suspicion that the White Helmets – which had a state-of-the-art communications centre in Turkey and received $100 million in grants from the UK Foreign Office, Japan and USAID – was primarily a propaganda front organisation. This is now given credence by the fact that today it is nowhere to be seen in the wars that rage in Gaza, Lebanon or Iran.\u003c/p\u003e",
      "summary": "New insider claims revive long-standing questions about whether US policy in Syria involved working with extremist groups – and what that means for how the war is understood.",
      "date_published": "2026-04-18T00:29:21+10:00",
      "date_modified": "2026-04-18T00:29:21+10:00",
      "authors": [{"name": "Paul Malone"}
      ],
      "tags": ["politics","usa","world"],
      "_social_media": {
        "tweet_text": "Did the US work with the very forces it later fought in Syria?\nNew insider claims revive long-standing questions about US policy and its role in the rise of ISIS, Paul Malone writes.\n#MiddleEast #US #Syria #Geopolitics",
        "tweet_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/insider-confirms-us-worked-with-al-qaeda-to-fight-the-syrian-government/",
        "linkedin_title": "Insider confirms US worked with Al Qaeda to fight the Syrian government",
        "linkedin_excerpt": "New insider claims revive long-standing questions about whether US policy in Syria involved working with extremist groups – and what that means for how the war is understood.",
        "linkedin_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/insider-confirms-us-worked-with-al-qaeda-to-fight-the-syrian-government/",
        "facebook_text": "Insider confirms US worked with Al Qaeda to fight the Syrian government - New insider claims revive long-standing questions about whether US policy in Syria involved working with extremist groups – and what that means for how the war is understood.",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/ahmed-hussein-al-sha.jpg",
        "author_names": "Paul Malone"
      },
      "_mailchimp": {
        "excerpt": "New insider claims revive long-standing questions about whether US policy in Syria involved working with extremist groups – and what that means for how the war is understood.",
        "authors_string": "Paul Malone",
        "categories_string": "politics, usa, world",
        "pub_date_formatted": "Saturday, April 18, 2026",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/ahmed-hussein-al-sha.jpg"
      }
    },
    {
      "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"
      }
    },
    {
      "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"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/angus-taylor-and-the-liberal-partys-moral-decline",
      "url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/angus-taylor-and-the-liberal-partys-moral-decline/",
      "title": "Angus Taylor and the Liberal Party’s moral decline",
      "content_html": "\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003ePaul Keating says Angus Taylor’s embrace of “values” politics marks a return to racism, abandoning the Liberal Party’s traditions in favour of base political appeal.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Liberal Party, battling an extreme version of itself – One Nation, has again fallen back to its default political policy: racism.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAngus Taylor, announcing a policy at primary odds with an immigrant nation, says a Liberal government under his leadership will adopt Trump ICE-style policies to weed and ‘boot out’ people who fail to adhere to ‘national values’ and who are responsible for the erosion of national culture including the Balkanisation of communities.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd, to hammer the point, sitting beside Taylor at his policy launch was Mr Racial Opportunism himself; John Winston Howard, late of anti-Asian migration in 1988 – the picket fence suburban racism of his first round as Liberal leader, and the wilful anti-humanitarianism of his electorally-driven Tampa atrocity of 2001.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAngus Taylor, for base political reasons, has elected to walk away from the best instincts of the Liberal party – the party of Robert Menzies, of Harold Holt, of Malcolm Fraser, of Andrew Peacock, of Brendan Nelson, of Malcolm Turnbull.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAngus Taylor came to the Liberal leadership with a reputation of being mainstream Liberal; that is, a keeper of the Liberal party’s best longer-term instincts both in social and economic policy.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd many people, myself included, wished him well in consolidating the Liberal base and in fighting One Nation with a conservatism anchored in principles. If not righteous, decent.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut by adopting racism with its shabby appeal to differentiation and primal instincts, Angus Taylor marks himself out as a political leader unworthy of the leadership of a party that has managed Australia for the greater part of the last century and which celebrated the country’s unifying values.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRacism is not simply immoral and abhorrent, it is absurd. The notion that some of us are in some way different to the rest of us – in some way born differently, of some alien biology.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe two-party system has served Australia well over the last century and more. But more than that, it has superintended the development of a country where notions of equality and justice have underpinned the flourishing of one of the most open and decent societies in the world.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe blight of Pauline Hanson is that her dumb bigotry offers a fantasy. The fantasy that Australia in the modern age can return to a monoculture. A monoculture which fails to acknowledge or accept that a continent of our scale is able to turn its back on the multilateralism of neighbouring states or on the vitality of their societies. And, more than that, shun them while disparaging any contribution they may make or bring to us as migrants.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHow dispiriting for the rest of us is Angus Taylor’s cowardice in not even attempting to stand and argue for principles that have been integral to Australia’s strength – principles his party has long championed.\u003c/p\u003e",
      "summary": "Paul Keating says Angus Taylor’s embrace of “values” politics marks a return to racism, abandoning the Liberal Party’s traditions in favour of base political appeal.",
      "date_published": "2026-04-17T00:49:51+10:00",
      "date_modified": "2026-04-17T00:49:51+10:00",
      "authors": [{"name": "Paul Keating"}
      ],
      "tags": ["immigration","politics"],
      "_social_media": {
        "tweet_text": "The Liberal Party is again turning to racism as a political strategy.\nIn chasing One Nation, it is abandoning the principles that once defined it, Paul Keating writes.\n#auspol #Politics #Immigration #LiberalParty",
        "tweet_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/angus-taylor-and-the-liberal-partys-moral-decline/",
        "linkedin_title": "Angus Taylor and the Liberal Party’s moral decline",
        "linkedin_excerpt": "Paul Keating says Angus Taylor’s embrace of “values” politics marks a return to racism, abandoning the Liberal Party’s traditions in favour of base political appeal.",
        "linkedin_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/angus-taylor-and-the-liberal-partys-moral-decline/",
        "facebook_text": "Angus Taylor and the Liberal Party’s moral decline - Paul Keating says Angus Taylor’s embrace of “values” politics marks a return to racism, abandoning the Liberal Party’s traditions in favour of base political appeal.",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/taylor-howard.jpg",
        "author_names": "Paul Keating"
      },
      "_mailchimp": {
        "excerpt": "Paul Keating says Angus Taylor’s embrace of “values” politics marks a return to racism, abandoning the Liberal Party’s traditions in favour of base political appeal.",
        "authors_string": "Paul Keating",
        "categories_string": "immigration, politics",
        "pub_date_formatted": "Friday, April 17, 2026",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/taylor-howard.jpg"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/trump-has-turned-the-pope-into-an-adversary-and-exposed-himself",
      "url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/trump-has-turned-the-pope-into-an-adversary-and-exposed-himself/",
      "title": "Trump has turned the pope into an adversary – and exposed himself",
      "content_html": "\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eBy targeting Pope Leo XIV, Donald Trump has exposed the limits of political power when confronted with a moral authority it cannot silence or absorb.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA moral voice can be ignored, refuted, or co-opted. What it cannot easily be is named as an adversary by the most powerful office in the world — unless that voice is already cutting too deep.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhen Donald Trump chose to target Pope Leo XIV directly, in two brief but unmistakable statements (one posted on Truth Social, one delivered aloud to a reporter), he did something his predecessors had avoided: he brought a pontiff into the arena of American domestic polemic as an obstacle to be disciplined. That gesture, more than its content, is the event worth reading.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTrump’s message was blunt. Leo, he said, is “bad at foreign policy,” should “get back on track,” should stop “hurting the Catholic Church,” should be grateful to the president himself. He opposed the pope to his own brother, Louis Prevost, a Trump supporter, dragging into the polemic the most intimate register of family affection. The subtext was clearer than the text: I do not want a pope who criticises the President of the United States.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe first thing to say about this attack is what it is not. It is not a sign of strength. Political power turns on a moral voice only when it has failed to contain it. If Leo were irrelevant, he would not be worth a sentence on Truth Social. He is being named precisely because his word has begun to leave a mark – in the conscience of American Catholics, in the European chancelleries, in the very military apparatus that, weeks earlier, had felt the need to summon the Apostolic Nuncio, Cardinal Christophe Pierre, to the Pentagon. To attack the pope is to concede that the pope matters.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is the paradox at the heart of the episode: by trying to delegitimise Leo, Trump certifies his weight. The attack is a tragic acknowledgment of reach. It is the gesture of an administration that cannot assimilate a voice it cannot silence, and therefore tries, awkwardly, to push it out of the field of legitimate speech.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe most tempting frame – \u0026lsquo;Trump versus the pope\u0026rsquo; – is also the most misleading. It is a narrative that offers the clarity of a duel and the banality of a talk show. But it deforms what is happening. Leo has never named Trump. Not once, in weeks of increasingly pointed interventions, has the name of the American president crossed the pope’s lips. The asymmetry is not accidental: it is the signature of his strategy. Leo is not aiming at a person but at a structure – the mental, spiritual and political machinery that makes war thinkable, acceptable and, in the end, inevitable. Trump activates that machinery with particular intensity; he does not own it.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat we are witnessing, then, is not a clash of personalities but the friction between two operating systems. On one side, a grammar of force: deterrence, national exceptionalism, the “providential” use of power, a re-theologisation of politics in which God is enlisted to bless the strong.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOn the other hand, a grammar of the Gospel: dialogue, moral limits, international law, the inviolable dignity of the innocent, the refusal to drag the name of God into the language of death.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThese two grammars cannot be reconciled by diplomatic formulas. They can only be acknowledged and measured against one another. Trump’s post, in its crudeness, performs exactly that measurement.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLeo’s response, given on the flight to Algeria, is itself a small masterpiece of tone. He refused the bait. “I speak of the Gospel,” he said, and “I will continue to speak out loud against war.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHe added that he does not see his role as that of a politician, that he does not want to enter into a debate with the president, and that he is not afraid of the Trump administration. He warned, with evangelical precision, against those who “abuse” the message of the Gospel.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNo counter-polemic, no wounded pride, no strategic ambiguity. By stepping outside the logic of reply, Leo steps outside the trap. Whoever engages Trump on Trump’s terms has already lost the moral register and accepted the rhetorical ring. Leo stays where he is: at the pulpit, not in the arena. That is what makes his freedom disarming – disarming in the literal sense, because it strips from the aggressor the only weapon that could have worked, which is the pope’s descent into the same grammar.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe deepest consequences of this episode will be felt not in Rome but in the United States, and not next week but over the coming years. The attack forces a clarification that the American Catholic community has postponed for decades. One cannot, at the same time, accept the magisterium of a pope who says that God blesses no army and adhere to a rhetoric that consecrates national force. The two positions are no longer compatible, and the president’s outburst has made that incompatibility visible to everyone.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe reactions confirm it. The US episcopate, including voices usually aligned with the conservative side of the spectrum, has expressed “dismay” at the “denigrating” language used against Leo. This is not a progressive chorus: it is a pastoral one. Archbishop Timothy Broglio, former head of the Military Services and president of the bishops’ conference, had already judged the conflict with Iran unjustified. Cardinals Cupich, McElroy and Tobin have been speaking for months of the most serious moral debate on American power since the end of the Cold War. The attempts, in some conservative Catholic media, to soften or contextualise Leo’s words now appear out of step with the bishops themselves.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA partial decoupling of American Catholicism from partisan identification is becoming plausible, especially among the young and among Latino communities. With it, a renewed centrality of the bishops as moral interlocutors, and the possibility that the Church in the United States may begin to rediscover itself as a community of discernment rather than a cultural tribe. Surveys already suggest the direction of travel: Leo enjoys a cross-partisan favourability that no American political figure can today claim.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe attack also reveals something about the administration’s misreading of the Holy See. Successive White Houses have known how to deal with popes who could be framed as “foreign”: the Argentine, the Polish, the German, the Pole who confronted communism, the Latin American who confronted capitalism. There was always a cultural distance that made it possible to describe papal criticism as an outside voice failing to understand America. With Leo, that shortcut is closed. He is American, he speaks the language from the inside, he knows the reflexes, the liturgies, the temptations. His word arrives without the filter of foreignness, and this is precisely what the current administration appears unable to metabolise.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAt the same time, Leo is not reducible to America. He carries with him Peru, the missionary experience, an ecclesial sensibility that is irreducibly international. He embodies an America already inhabited by the world, not an America walled against it. His pontificate is becoming, almost against its will, a counter-narrative about what the United States could be: a country of genuine religious freedom, of the rule of law, of generosity toward refugees, of leadership grounded in legitimacy rather than coercion. The refusal to join the \u0026lsquo;Board of Peace\u0026rsquo; – which Cardinal Parolin described, with diplomatic understatement, as containing “points that leave one somewhat perplexed” – is the clearest institutional expression of this distance. The Holy See is not willing to become the chaplain of a project of power.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThree factors converge to make this a moment of real, not rhetorical, danger. American action in the Middle East appears improvised and strategically empty, which breeds frustration and pressure for escalation.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe attack on the pope has the shape of an outburst, not of a considered gesture: the outburst of an executive that cannot dominate a moral voice. And the erosion of the president’s credibility – within both conservative Catholic circles and parts of the MAGA coalition – is already measurable. Cornered figures do not necessarily become quieter. This is why Leo’s posture is not a luxury of style but an act of responsibility: calm, precise, unintimidated.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe longer-term question is whether American Catholicism will accept the invitation that Leo’s very existence extends to it. His figure breaks the schema. He is the American pope who cannot be enlisted for America. He is the son who interrogates the house from within, without disowning it.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTrump’s attempt to discipline him is, in this sense, the last reflex of an older assumption: that the Catholic Church in the United States is, at bottom, a domestic constituency. Leo is quietly dismantling that assumption – not by confrontation, but by presence.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn the end, what Trump’s attack reveals is that Leo XIV has become the one figure in the current international landscape whom raw power cannot assimilate and cannot ignore. He has no army, no treasury, no electoral base. He has a pulpit, a tradition, and a tone. And yet he has reached the point at which the most powerful political office in the world feels compelled to name him as an obstacle. That is not a defeat for the Holy See. It is the most precise measurement of its weight.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe freedom of Leo XIV is of a particular kind: disarmed and disarming. It has no weapons to surrender and therefore cannot be forced into surrender. It does not seek confrontation and therefore cannot be dragged into confrontation. It judges the exercise of power by a criterion that power does not control, and precisely for this reason, it unsettles those who would like the moral field to be as governable as the military one.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTo attack such a voice is to admit that it cannot be bought, silenced, or enrolled. In a time in which war has begun, once again, to be fashionable, the fact that a pope is being publicly contested by a president of the United States is not a scandal to be lamented. It is, in its own sober way, a sign that the word has arrived where it needed to arrive.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRepublished from \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.ucanews.com/news/when-power-names-the-pope-the-meaning-of-trumps-attack-on-leo-xiv/112790\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eUCA News\u003c/a\u003e, 14 April 2026\u003c/p\u003e",
      "summary": "By targeting Pope Leo XIV, Donald Trump has exposed the limits of political power when confronted with a moral authority it cannot silence or absorb.",
      "date_published": "2026-04-17T00:44:59+10:00",
      "date_modified": "2026-04-17T00:44:59+10:00",
      "authors": [{"name": "Antonio Spadaro"}
      ],
      "tags": ["politics","religion","topfive","usa","world"],
      "_social_media": {
        "tweet_text": "Donald Trump’s attack on Pope Leo XIV signals more than a political clash – it reveals the limits of power when faced with a moral voice it cannot control.\nIn refusing to engage, the pope has shifted the terms of the conflict entirely, Antonio Spadaro writes.\n#USPolitics #Religion #Trump #Geopolitics",
        "tweet_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/trump-has-turned-the-pope-into-an-adversary-and-exposed-himself/",
        "linkedin_title": "Trump has turned the pope into an adversary – and exposed himself",
        "linkedin_excerpt": "By targeting Pope Leo XIV, Donald Trump has exposed the limits of political power when confronted with a moral authority it cannot silence or absorb.",
        "linkedin_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/trump-has-turned-the-pope-into-an-adversary-and-exposed-himself/",
        "facebook_text": "Trump has turned the pope into an adversary – and exposed himself - By targeting Pope Leo XIV, Donald Trump has exposed the limits of political power when confronted with a moral authority it cannot silence or absorb.",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/trump-whitehouse-apr.jpg",
        "author_names": "Antonio Spadaro"
      },
      "_mailchimp": {
        "excerpt": "By targeting Pope Leo XIV, Donald Trump has exposed the limits of political power when confronted with a moral authority it cannot silence or absorb.",
        "authors_string": "Antonio Spadaro",
        "categories_string": "politics, religion, topfive, usa, world",
        "pub_date_formatted": "Friday, April 17, 2026",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/trump-whitehouse-apr.jpg"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/the-war-on-renewables-is-really-about-protecting-fossil-fuel-profits",
      "url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/the-war-on-renewables-is-really-about-protecting-fossil-fuel-profits/",
      "title": "The war on renewables is really about protecting fossil fuel profits",
      "content_html": "\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eAs global fossil fuel prices surge amid conflict, attacks on Australia’s energy transition are intensifying – driven by industry interests that stand to lose from cheaper, more reliable renewables.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA funny thing happened on the way to the global energy markets last month. Even as Donald Trump made threats of war crimes and genocide, and the wiping out of a whole civilisation, and caused oil and gas prices to surge across the globe, the far right lobby and the outrage industry in Australia barely blinked.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eInstead, it became obsessed with something and someone entirely different – Chris Bowen, Australia’s federal minister for climate and energy.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBowen has been a key target of the far right and the enablers of the fossil fuel lobby in Australia since he took the job in 2022, and he was central to setting Australia’s ambitious renewable energy target of 82 per cent by 2030, and ramping up of its climate goals.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor that, he has been awarded the alliterative moniker “blackout Bowen” – even though his critics would struggle to nominate a single outage that he could possibly be associated with.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAustralia’s grid, despite the repeated failures of its ageing coal-fired generators, has become more, rather than less, reliable even as – or because – it becomes more renewable.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBowen’s latest perceived crime is to suggest that more wind and solar, and more EVs, might be a sensible course of action given the costs of fossil fuels, their tenuous supply lines and, of course, their damage to the climate and human health.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“The one form of energy which Vladimir Putin or a Middle Eastern crisis cannot interrupt is the flow of sun and the flow of wind – that cannot be interrupted,” Bowen said soon after the outbreak of the war and as the implications on the supply of fossil fuels became clear.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“Australia is rich in sun and wind,” Bowen said at the opening of the Powering Our Suburbs forum in Sydney.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“Renewable energy is the cheapest form of new generation in this country. The sun does not send a bill. Geopolitics can’t stop the sun shining in Australia. No war can stop the flow of wind to our country. It makes sense to use what we have in abundance.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCue a collective melt-down in the Murdoch media – the ring-leader of the attacks on Bowen and his support of renewables, for EVs, and even for driving one – and an assault on his reputation through articles, opinion pieces, cartoons, and most loudly and absurdly on Sky After Dark.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere might be method to their madness. The attacks on Bowen are increasing now – in number and intensity – because the fossil fuel industry and its political chorus sense an opportunity to exploit the consumer angst over soaring diesel and petrol prices.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe far right appears convinced that if it can achieve regime change in the federal climate and energy department, then the government would lose its most forceful voice in advocating for the science, and respecting the economics and engineering, and the expertise of the CSIRO, the market operator and other key institutions.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd by “far right” we mean pretty much anyone not in or to the left of our centrist Labor federal government. Old fashioned conservatives and small-l liberals have all but disappeared from the political screen.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe conservative political discourse has moved so far to the right that even former policy chiefs at the climate-denying Institute of Public Affairs and their fellow travellers are now regarded as “moderates.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd I’d challenge anyone to distinguish the key climate and energy policy differences between Liberals, the Nationals, and One Nation. They all agree that Australia should drop its net zero target for 2050, make vague references to nuclear, and want to keep burning coal.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTo reach that conclusion requires you to do the opposite of Bowen and ignore the science, the economics and the engineering, and the expertise of the CSIRO, the market operator and other key institutions. On those key points, the three right wing parties essentially share the same platform.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe attacks on Bowen took a new turn late last week when Seven’s Liam Bartlett created a spectacle at a media conference in Sydney, hungry for a set of “grabs” for his latest assault on green energy and EVs.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBartlett seemed convinced that renewables were the cause of the global fuel crisis, and invited Bowen to resign and rethink his climate policies. Bowen did not accept the invitation.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBartlett – who was global head of TV, creative visual at Shell International in London from 2013-2015 – is no fan of the green energy transition. A few years ago he reported on the disgraceful environmental practices at a nickel mine in Indonesia, arguing that it meant that EVs were dirty and polluting as a result.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIndustry experts said there are two problems with that conclusion. The first is that most EV batteries now are LFP batteries, and contain no nickel.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe second is that where EV batteries do use nickel – such as in NMC batteries – they require a significantly higher grade of nickel than that produced at that Indonesia mine. The steel industry uses it a lot, but has not attracted the opprobrium of Bartlett and his fellow travellers.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSocial media clips promoting his latest report for Seven’s \u003cem\u003eSpotlight\u003c/em\u003e (to be broadcast this weekend) suggest a focus on cobalt mines in Africa.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBowen is not expecting a fair hearing. Asked at a later press conference what he thought of the program, Bowen replied:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“Clearly, \u003cem\u003eSpotlight\u0026rsquo;s\u003c/em\u003e doing a story on renewable energy. I don’t expect it to be fair and balanced. I think that was shown by his (Bartlett’s) questions and his comments on Wednesday,” Bowen said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“He’s entitled to do that. Another part of the democracy is I can choose which media I interact with. I don’t choose to interact with \u003cem\u003eSpotlight\u003c/em\u003e. I’ll always interact with serious shows and serious journalists. \u003cem\u003eSpotlight\u003c/em\u003e is not one of them.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJust to be clear, cobalt is not used in LFP batteries for EVs, but it is in NMC batteries. And it has been used for decades and in large quantities for laptops, mobile phones, jet turbines, drills, plastics and ceramics and, yes, magnets for wind turbines and other electrical equipment.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere seems little doubt that the conditions in some of those mines appear to be a disgrace. That’s an opportunity for Australia, because it has nickel and cobalt resources in bulk, and already supplies nickel to the likes of Tesla.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMany EV makers, such as Polestar, now provide blockchain technology to trace how cobalt was transported from mines to the finished car, and it also traces other minerals such as nickel and lithium – so called “at risk” minerals because of the potential for human rights violations and environmental damage.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSuch a shame then, that the fossil fuel industry does not follow suit. Fossil fuel producers, and their supporters, demand a free pass on carbon emissions and other harmful particulates, and argue that climate science is either hoax or an obsession of the world’s “elites.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAccording to Clare Walter, the annual health cost of diesel combustion alone in Australia is $6.2 billion. The coal industry gets a free pass on its climate impacts and air pollution. Business groups say climate-driven natural disasters will cost Australia $73 billion a year by 2060.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn the meantime, super profits are falling in. According to Transport \u0026amp; Environment, if current conditions are maintained until the end of 2026, refiners and distributors will pocket excess profits of €32 billion, with a further €54 billion flowing to crude oil producers and oil-producing nations.\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"figure alignnone size-full wp-image-465142\"\u003e\n    \u003cimg src=\"https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/est-lng-windfall.png\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\"\u003e\n    \n\u003c/figure\u003e \n\u003cp\u003eThe Australia Institute \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://australiainstitute.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/P1983-What-the-Middle-East-war-means-for-Australians-and-gas-companies-Web-1.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003ealso estimates\u003c/a\u003e that the total super profits for the Australian LNG industry alone since the Ukraine invasion triggered a similar surge in prices in 2022 at more than $112 billion. And that does not include what has and will happen in 2026.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eClearly, then, the fossil fuel industry has a lot to lose from an accelerated green energy transition and a lot to gain from the current crisis. The rest of the world has a lot more to lose if the energy transition is stopped or slowed. But you probably wont hear many Murdoch or Seven journalists making a scene or sounding indignant about that.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd here is just one final thought. As energy analyst and climate commentator Ketan Joshi noted in a LinkedIn post, if the world had gotten on with the job of the green energy transition at the pace it had agreed at Paris, rather than slowed by the fossil fuel lobby, the situation might look quite different now.\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"figure alignnone size-full wp-image-465141\"\u003e\n    \u003cimg src=\"https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/oil-demand-would-be.png\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\"\u003e\n    \n\u003c/figure\u003e \n\u003cp\u003e“If the world had followed ambitious climate scenarios, global oil demand would be at least 20 per cent lower than it is today – about the same volume of oil that flows through the Strait of Hormuz,” Joshi says.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFortunately, we still have a few corporates with genuine ambition, like Fortescue, that could make a difference and shine the path to a cleaner future with their goal of eliminating gas and diesel from their giant operations within a few years.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd we still have some ministers – state and federal – who care enough to try and help us get there. Their policies are not always perfect, sometimes far from it, but it’s no time to show them the door for the sake of a Big Oil earnings bonanza.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRepublished from\n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://reneweconomy.com.au/this-lobby-barely-blinks-when-trump-threatens-genocide-but-is-in-meltdown-when-bowen-talks-wind-and-solar/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003e_ Renew Economy_\u003c/a\u003e, 15 April 2026\u003c/p\u003e",
      "summary": "As global fossil fuel prices surge amid conflict, attacks on Australia’s energy transition are intensifying – driven by industry interests that stand to lose from cheaper, more reliable renewables.",
      "date_published": "2026-04-17T00:39:27+10:00",
      "date_modified": "2026-04-17T00:39:27+10:00",
      "authors": [{"name": "Giles Parkinson"}
      ],
      "tags": ["climate","politics"],
      "_social_media": {
        "tweet_text": "As fossil fuel prices surge, attacks on renewables and Chris Bowen are ramping up.\nThe backlash says more about protecting fossil fuel profits than fixing Australia’s energy system, Giles Parkinson writes.\n#auspol #Energy #Renewables #Climate #FossilFuels",
        "tweet_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/the-war-on-renewables-is-really-about-protecting-fossil-fuel-profits/",
        "linkedin_title": "The war on renewables is really about protecting fossil fuel profits",
        "linkedin_excerpt": "As global fossil fuel prices surge amid conflict, attacks on Australia’s energy transition are intensifying – driven by industry interests that stand to lose from cheaper, more reliable renewables.",
        "linkedin_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/the-war-on-renewables-is-really-about-protecting-fossil-fuel-profits/",
        "facebook_text": "The war on renewables is really about protecting fossil fuel profits - As global fossil fuel prices surge amid conflict, attacks on Australia’s energy transition are intensifying – driven by industry interests that stand to lose from cheaper, more reliable renewables.",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/chris-bowen-c.jpg",
        "author_names": "Giles Parkinson"
      },
      "_mailchimp": {
        "excerpt": "As global fossil fuel prices surge amid conflict, attacks on Australia’s energy transition are intensifying – driven by industry interests that stand to lose from cheaper, more reliable renewables.",
        "authors_string": "Giles Parkinson",
        "categories_string": "climate, politics",
        "pub_date_formatted": "Friday, April 17, 2026",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/chris-bowen-c.jpg"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/italy-breaks-with-israel-as-public-anger-forces-a-political-shift",
      "url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/italy-breaks-with-israel-as-public-anger-forces-a-political-shift/",
      "title": "Italy breaks with Israel as public anger forces a political shift",
      "content_html": "\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eItaly has suspended military cooperation with Israel after months of mounting public anger.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Italian government has suspended a military cooperation agreement with Israel in response to its attacks against Lebanon in recent weeks, which have killed hundreds of people.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eItaly’s right-wing prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/14/world/middleeast/italy-israel-defense-pact.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eannounced\u003c/a\u003e on Tuesday that it was suspending an agreement with Israel that dates back to 2003 and involved cooperation between the two countries, which traded military equipment and shared technical data.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“In view of the current situation, the government has decided to suspend the automatic renewal of the defence agreement with Israel,” Meloni said on Tuesday.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt marks a dramatic shift in policy for Italy’s government, which has until recently been one of Israel’s closest allies in Europe. Amid the genocide in Gaza, Meloni has faced pressure both from opposition parties and from the public to cut ties with Israel for more than a year.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe relationship appears to have finally frayed with the events of the past several weeks, when Israel launched an invasion of Lebanon that has involved the displacement of more than 1 million people, the razing of entire villages, and the aggressive bombing of civilian areas.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTension between the two countries hit a boiling point over the past week, when the Italian government \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20260414-italy-suspends-defence-agreement-with-israel-as-lebanon-attacks-stoke-tensions\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eaccused\u003c/a\u003e Israeli forces of firing warning shots at Italian UN peacekeepers, which caused damage to a vehicle but resulted in no injuries.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eItaly was also among several European countries that \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://x.com/DropSiteNews/status/2042264331824316647\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003ecalled\u003c/a\u003e for Lebanon’s inclusion in last week’s ceasefire agreement between the US and Iran. Meloni accused Israel of “disrespecting” the two-week truce when it launched the most devastating \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.commondreams.org/news/israel-lebanon-civilian-slaughter\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eattack\u003c/a\u003e yet on Lebanon the day after the ceasefire was reached, which killed and wounded more than 1,400 people, including many civilians.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThough Meloni has been an ideological ally of US President Donald Trump, she has grown increasingly critical of the American president. On Monday, she condemned what she called “unacceptable” \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.commondreams.org/news/pope-leo-trump-criticism\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003einsults\u003c/a\u003e from Trump against Pope Leo XIV, who criticised the war in Iran.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTrump responded with his own shots at Meloni: “I thought she had courage. I was wrong,” he said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMeloni is also facing mounting pressure from her own people over Italy’s relationship with Israel, which could loom large as she faces reelection in 2027.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNearly three out of four Italians said in a September survey that they believe Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute a genocide, and 59 per cent said they wanted Italy to cut ties with Israel. During the fall, \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.timesofisrael.com/with-gaza-a-rallying-cry-in-italy-a-growing-number-justify-hostility-against-its-jews/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003emillions\u003c/a\u003e of Italians took to the streets to rally in solidarity with Palestinians and support the Global Sumud Flotilla as it carried humanitarian aid to besieged Gaza.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis anger has been seized on by the opposition. Last week, during a heated exchange, the Parliament erupted in applause after opposition lawmaker Angelo Bonelli took Meloni to task for “failing” to condemn or distance herself from Trump or Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“You are stubbornly short-sighted and fail to grasp where the world is heading,” Bonelli said. “A world where the logic of war is dictated by two criminals.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eResponding to Israel’s attacks on Lebanon on Wednesday, Bonelli asked the prime minister: “200 people were killed as if it were nothing. What is your response? What are you doing? Do you have the courage to take action?”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRiccardo Magi, a member of the centre-left opposition party More Europe, \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://x.com/riccardomagi/status/2044047204386578446\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003ewrote\u003c/a\u003e on social media that by suspending Italy’s defence agreement with Israel, Meloni had “finally realised that something is happening in the Middle East.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“After years of massacres by Israel against Palestinian civilians, in which our government simply decided to look the other way, today Meloni has suddenly decided to suspend the memorandum between Italy and Israel, as the opposition has been demanding for a long time,” he said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHowever, he cautioned that the decision was “not about a renewed humanitarian spirit on the part of our government,” but rather “pure electoral convenience.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“It is not enough for us, and we believe sanctions are necessary against Netanyahu and his ministers, including a ban on entry into the territory of the union,” he said. “The illegal occupation of Gaza, together with the wars provoked in the area without any consideration for the lives of civilians, is now a point of no return. Israel must stop.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRepublished from \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.commondreams.org/news/italy-suspends-israel-defense-deal\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eCommon Dreams\u003c/a\u003e, 14 April 2026\u003c/p\u003e",
      "summary": "Italy has suspended military cooperation with Israel after months of mounting public anger.",
      "date_published": "2026-04-17T00:34:36+10:00",
      "date_modified": "2026-04-17T00:34:36+10:00",
      "authors": [{"name": "Stephen Prager"}
      ],
      "tags": ["israel-palestine","politics","usa","world"],
      "_social_media": {
        "tweet_text": "Italy has suspended defence ties with Israel after months of public pressure and mass protests.\nThe shift reflects a deeper political realignment driven from the ground up, not just diplomacy, Stephen Prager writes.\n#Israel #Gaza #Italy #Geopolitics",
        "tweet_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/italy-breaks-with-israel-as-public-anger-forces-a-political-shift/",
        "linkedin_title": "Italy breaks with Israel as public anger forces a political shift",
        "linkedin_excerpt": "Italy has suspended military cooperation with Israel after months of mounting public anger.",
        "linkedin_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/italy-breaks-with-israel-as-public-anger-forces-a-political-shift/",
        "facebook_text": "Italy breaks with Israel as public anger forces a political shift - Italy has suspended military cooperation with Israel after months of mounting public anger.",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/prime-minister-giorg.jpg",
        "author_names": "Stephen Prager"
      },
      "_mailchimp": {
        "excerpt": "Italy has suspended military cooperation with Israel after months of mounting public anger.",
        "authors_string": "Stephen Prager",
        "categories_string": "israel-palestine, politics, usa, world",
        "pub_date_formatted": "Friday, April 17, 2026",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/prime-minister-giorg.jpg"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/iran-war-rights-and-wrongs",
      "url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/iran-war-rights-and-wrongs/",
      "title": "Iran war: rights and wrongs",
      "content_html": "\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eInternational law rulings on Israel’s occupation place clear obligations on all states, yet Australia continues to back US and Israeli military action in Iran.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe are in the middle of what is called ‘the Iran War’. The Australian people, led by their politicians and press, consider themselves to be on the side of the western world – in this instance, that is the US and Israel – and that side is the right side to be on. Are the Australian people wrong in so considering?\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLet us consider some historical international instruments. We could go back to 1948 but for the purposes of this article, we can start with Security Council Resolution (SCR) 2334.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSCR 2334 was adopted by the Security Council on 23 December 2016. The resolution passed 14-0 with one abstention, that of the US. The vote was taken in the last month of the Obama administration. The resolution asserted the illegality of all settlement activity in the territory occupied by Israel in 1967 and demanded the immediate cessation of such activity. The Council stressed that such cessation was essential for salvaging the two-State solution. The reference in the Resolution to “occupied Palestinian territory” included Gaza. Israel immediately announced that it would not comply with its terms.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe can move forward to 19 July 2024 and the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), made up of the world’s most eminent judges on international law. That opinion stated that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory is illegal and must be ended as soon as possible. It found that Israel was an apartheid state. Settlements must be evacuated and reparations paid. All states (necessarily including Australia) must conduct themselves in their dealings with Israel in accordance with the rulings.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIsrael’s response was again to reject the ruling. The ruling went back to the General Assembly.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOn 18 September 2024 the General Assembly overwhelmingly endorsed the findings of the ICJ. Despite US and other western efforts to derail the resolution, 124 countries voted in favour (two-thirds of the world) while only 14 voted against. The resolution was adopted in an Emergency Special Session “with respect to the maintenance of international peace and security” (Art.18, r.2 of the UN Charter) and was thus not an ordinary UNGA resolution but carried extra weight.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSignificantly, the resolution placed demands on all states to implement the resolution by participating in a military embargo of Israel and in boycott, divestment and sanctions to bring the occupation to an end.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMore precisely, states were called upon to act by the Advisory Opinion and resulting General Assembly resolution. For western powers, that meant ceasing continuing arms sales, diplomatic cover and trade status. Further, all states are under a legal obligation to impose sanctions on Israel, and to not recognise as legal the situation arising from the illegal occupation of Palestinian territory.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUnfortunately, apart from a few minor actions, such as sanctioning seven violent settlers in the West Bank,  Australia has failed in its obligations. It is perhaps incumbent upon me to acknowledge that Australia has recognised the State of Palestine. However, that appears to be little more than symbolic. It has not recalled its ambassador to Israel, nor expelled Israel’s to Australia. It has imposed no sanctions, trade, cultural, sporting. Perhaps the most damning complicity is Australia’s participation in the global supply program for the Lockheed-Martin F35 fighter. The F35 has been prominent in the bombardment of Gaza. Australia’s Future Fund also has shares in Israeli defence contractor, Elbit Systems.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSo, where does the Iran war stand in all of this? The big picture is that behind all that happens in the Middle East is the Palestine issue. We know that Israel advocated for the war and US participation. There can be no doubt that Israel did so because, unlike Australia and other western nations, Iran complied absolutely with the international law rulings detailed above. It may be that Iran can be said to have gone a little further, by giving material support to Palestinians resisting the illegal occupation. Should Iran be condemned for that? The answer is no. The right of Palestinians to resist, including by arms, is well recognised. Palestinians are so resisting through the Palestinian organisations, Hamas and Hezbollah. Is a country such as Iran precluded from providing material assistance? Clearly not – Israel has received material assistance from all and sundry. The US has provided something in the order of $4 billion dollars annually to Israel for its military forces. The UK and Germany are other prominent providers of military assistance to Israel.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs an aside, Palestinians who resist an illegal occupation are not – as our press would have it – terrorists!\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIran, then, should be recognised as complying with international law in its conduct in relation to the Palestinian issue; and it is beside the point that there are certain features of Iranian society that we in Australia take objection to, such as the repression of dissidents.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eReturning to the question I asked in the first paragraph of this article, there is clearly a case for suggesting that the Australian people are wrong in siding with the US and Israel. In the event Australia should consider what it might reasonably do to assist Iran in that country’s present predicament. At the least Australia should withdraw its stated support for US and Israel’s military action against Iran.\u003c/p\u003e",
      "summary": "International law rulings on Israel’s occupation place clear obligations on all states, yet Australia continues to back US and Israeli military action in Iran.",
      "date_published": "2026-04-17T00:29:06+10:00",
      "date_modified": "2026-04-17T00:29:06+10:00",
      "authors": [{"name": "Paul Heywood-Smith"}
      ],
      "tags": ["politics","usa","world"],
      "_social_media": {
        "tweet_text": "International law rulings on Israel’s occupation impose clear obligations on all states – including Australia.\nYet Australia continues to back US and Israeli military action against Iran, Paul Heywood-Smith writes.\n#MiddleEast #Iran #Israel #auspol #InternationalLaw",
        "tweet_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/iran-war-rights-and-wrongs/",
        "linkedin_title": "Iran war: rights and wrongs",
        "linkedin_excerpt": "International law rulings on Israel’s occupation place clear obligations on all states, yet Australia continues to back US and Israeli military action in Iran.",
        "linkedin_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/iran-war-rights-and-wrongs/",
        "facebook_text": "Iran war: rights and wrongs - International law rulings on Israel’s occupation place clear obligations on all states, yet Australia continues to back US and Israeli military action in Iran.",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/UN71062460_9-17-24_ED_31251_c.jpg",
        "author_names": "Paul Heywood-Smith"
      },
      "_mailchimp": {
        "excerpt": "International law rulings on Israel’s occupation place clear obligations on all states, yet Australia continues to back US and Israeli military action in Iran.",
        "authors_string": "Paul Heywood-Smith",
        "categories_string": "politics, usa, world",
        "pub_date_formatted": "Friday, April 17, 2026",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/UN71062460_9-17-24_ED_31251_c.jpg"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/were-soaking-in-it",
      "url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/were-soaking-in-it/",
      "title": "We're soaking in it",
      "content_html": "\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eHuman waste is overwhelming rivers, oceans and ecosystems worldwide, driving pollution, disease and ecological breakdown on a planetary scale.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEvery day humans produce more than a megatonne of excrement and then distribute half of it around the Earth without treatment. We are literally poop-bombing the planet, and every human we add contributes to the pile-on.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLittle wonder that our rivers, lakes, harbours and marine parks are becoming dangerously unusable, undrinkable, unswimmable and infested with blooms of toxic algae, disease-causing bacteria, parasites and other noxious lifeforms. We are up to our eyes in the brown stuff.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe average person is said \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://biologyinsights.com/how-much-do-you-poop-in-a-lifetime/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eto produce 128g of faeces a day\u003c/a\u003e, so eight people produce a kilo, and eight billion produce a billion kilos of ordure, a million tonnes a day, or 365 megatonnes every year. The rich, of course, produce a lot more poop than do the poor, as the average rich person swallows 35,000 more meals over their lifetime than does a poor person, besides having larger serves. This tends to emerge in the \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://data.worldobesity.org/rankings/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eWorld Obesity Index\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTreated, partly-treated or untreated, most of our sewage or its nutrient-rich effluent, ends up in the local river, creek or groundwater, and thence flows into the nearest ocean according to a survey by the \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://unu.edu/inweh/tools-and-resources/global-wastewater-status\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003euniversities of Utrecht and the United Nations.\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBroadly speaking, this is what we do with poo:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eHigh-income countries: ~74 per cent of wastewater is treated\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eUpper-middle-income countries: ~43 per cent treated\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eLower-middle-income countries: ~26 per cent treated\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eLow-income countries: ~4.3 per cent treated,\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ewhich, geographically, looks like this:\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/wastewater-treatment.webp\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\"\u003e\n    \n    \u003cfigcaption class=\"figure-caption\"\u003eFigure 1. World wastewater treatment rates. Source: UNU\u003c/figcaption\u003e\n    \n\u003c/figure\u003e \n\u003cp\u003eHowever, what looks superficially like an unsavoury local water issue is rapidly emerging into something much bigger – a major planetary pollution threat. The poop-bombing of the Earth.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe world’s \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://cribb.substack.com/p/rivers-of-death\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003erivers are in crisis\u003c/a\u003e. The \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://worldsrivers.appspot.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eInternational Rivers website\u003c/a\u003e and \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.theenvironmentalblog.org/2025/07/most-polluted-rivers-in-the-world/#3_Domestic_Sewage_Open_Defecation_Broken_Infrastructure\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eGlobal Rivers Report\u003c/a\u003e list rivers with the poorest water quality on the planet – including the Mekong (SE Asia), Citarum (Indonesia), Ganges (India), and Yamuna (India) – the pollution usually including raw sewage as well as industrial waste.\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/river-pollution.png\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\"\u003e\n    \n    \u003cfigcaption class=\"figure-caption\"\u003eFigure 2. Worlds most polluted rivers and their catchments. Source: State of the World s Rivers 2026\u003c/figcaption\u003e\n    \n\u003c/figure\u003e \n\u003cp\u003eThe \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.theenvironmentalblog.org/2025/07/most-polluted-rivers-in-the-world/#3_Domestic_Sewage_Open_Defecation_Broken_Infrastructure\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003e2025 Rivers report\u003c/a\u003e notes that, even in countries where sewage is treated “In many cities, raw sewage flows directly into rivers due to old, leaky, or nonexistent treatment systems.“ This is increasing global contamination levels.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“Cities like Delhi, Dhaka, and Manila treat less than 30 per cent of their wastewater. Combined with stormwater, this floods rivers with pathogens, pharmaceuticals, and microplastics. For example, the Yamuna River in India receives more than 800 million litres of untreated sewage per day from Delhi alone.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe result is a rise in cases of cholera, typhoid, hepatitis, eye and skin diseases. Over 100,000 deaths a year are attributed to polluted water in the Ganges and Yamuna rivers alone.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOne area that is becoming heavily polluted, according to a team of \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0964569126000591\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eAustralian scientists, are coastal marine parks\u003c/a\u003e, the cornerstone of global ocean conservation. Coral reefs, seagrass beds, mangroves and other vital fish nurseries are being overloaded with nutrients from human sewage and wastewater, they say.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eStudying water quality in 1,855 marine parks worldwide, the researchers found that the parks were consistently more polluted than unprotected areas of sea, pointing to careless human waste management. Around 55 per cent of the world’s coral reefs and 88 per cent of its seagrass ecosystems are exposed to wastewater pollution, they said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe main pollutant is nitrogen, which acts as a fertiliser in freshwater and marine ecosystems, promoting the growth of algal blooms and seaweeds which smother the corals. Climate change has accelerated problem, providing the warmer conditions and stratification of the water column that, with added nutrients, cause algae to explode.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFuelled by human waste and fertiliser runoff, \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230110-the-pollution-causing-harmful-algal-blooms\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003etoxic algae are taking over lakes, rivers, reservoirs and coastal zones\u003c/a\u003e around the Planet, such as the \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.the-microbiologist.com/news/algal-blooms-intensify-in-global-large-lakes-over-the-past-two-decades/5211.article\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eGreat Lakes of North America\u003c/a\u003e, and picturesque \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://news.sky.com/story/tourist-numbers-turning-lake-windermere-green-researchers-say-13130945\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eLake Windermere in Britain\u003c/a\u003e. In a worst case scenario, this process could return the Earth to its state two billion years ago \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://cribb.substack.com/p/humanity-sailing-into-a-stagnant-ocean\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003ewhen algae ruled the planet\u003c/a\u003e and conditions were unfit for higher life-forms.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBritain is a shocking example of the sewage dilemma, where the privatisation of public water authorities led to reckless profiteering by the private corporations that now run it, and a massive increase in the discharge of human waste into its rivers, \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://kit.riveractionuk.com/sewage/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003e84 per cent of which are now in poor health\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.nku.edu/~longa/haiti/kids/feces_value.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eThe average human produces 4.5 kilograms of nitrogen\u003c/a\u003e (N), more than a half kg of phosphorous (P), and 1.2 kg of potassium (K) a year in their waste (urine and faeces). This is an invaluable resource that is hardly used globally today, except as an environmental pollutant.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://openknowledge.fao.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/0c79f9df-b2eb-43cb-9b84-977efea5b197/content\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eThe world fertiliser industry\u003c/a\u003e produces around 100 million tonnes of raw N per year, worth over $40 billion, without which a human population of 8.3 billion could not possibly be sustained. Fertilisers are the primary reason that humans have overpopulated the Earth.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHowever, we also produce 37 million tonnes of raw N in our waste, which is mostly thrown away into the environment where it causes untold harm. If converted to fertiliser this would be worth around $15 billion, and feed nearly three billion people. Unfortunately, this \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301479718311824\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003ecolossal waste is increasing\u003c/a\u003e, not decreasing.\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/pb-2025.png\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\"\u003e\n    \n    \u003cfigcaption class=\"figure-caption\"\u003eFigure 3. Nutrient flows are among the most serious threats to a habitable Earth. Source: Stockholm Resilience Institute 2025.\u003c/figcaption\u003e\n    \n\u003c/figure\u003e \n\u003cp\u003eThe \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/planetary-boundaries.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eStockholm Institute’s Safe Planetary Boundaries\u003c/a\u003e (above) show that nitrogen and phosphorus (‘biogeochemical flows’) are among the most dangerous assaults humans are making on a habitable Earth – worse even than climate change or extinctions.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt’s not that humans are adding any extra N and P to the Earth system, but rather we are massively concentrating these pollutants in both space and time, to the point where they are going to start rendering the planet uninhabitable, either by us or other large animals. In this we risk turning our world back onto a place fit only for microbes and algae.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat will be history’s verdict on a civilisation that can invent artificial intelligence – but hasn’t the brains to manage and recycle its own waste?\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNature’s verdict is already plain. It is telling us we cannot survive in the long run if we continue to soil our own nest.\u003c/p\u003e",
      "summary": "Human waste is overwhelming rivers, oceans and ecosystems worldwide, driving pollution, disease and ecological breakdown on a planetary scale.",
      "date_published": "2026-04-17T00:24:56+10:00",
      "date_modified": "2026-04-17T00:24:56+10:00",
      "authors": [{"name": "Julian Cribb"}
      ],
      "tags": ["climate","politics","the-human-future"],
      "_social_media": {
        "tweet_text": "Human waste is no longer just a sanitation issue – it’s a growing planetary crisis.\nUntreated sewage is polluting rivers, oceans and ecosystems, fuelling disease and environmental collapse, @JulianCribb writes.\n#auspol #Environment #Climate #Pollution #Water",
        "tweet_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/were-soaking-in-it/",
        "linkedin_title": "We're soaking in it",
        "linkedin_excerpt": "Human waste is overwhelming rivers, oceans and ecosystems worldwide, driving pollution, disease and ecological breakdown on a planetary scale.",
        "linkedin_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/were-soaking-in-it/",
        "facebook_text": "We're soaking in it - Human waste is overwhelming rivers, oceans and ecosystems worldwide, driving pollution, disease and ecological breakdown on a planetary scale.",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/water-testing-river.jpg",
        "author_names": "Julian Cribb"
      },
      "_mailchimp": {
        "excerpt": "Human waste is overwhelming rivers, oceans and ecosystems worldwide, driving pollution, disease and ecological breakdown on a planetary scale.",
        "authors_string": "Julian Cribb",
        "categories_string": "climate, politics, the-human-future",
        "pub_date_formatted": "Friday, April 17, 2026",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/water-testing-river.jpg"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/urgent-warning-to-congressional-leaders-trump-is-psychologically-unstable-and-dangerous",
      "url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/urgent-warning-to-congressional-leaders-trump-is-psychologically-unstable-and-dangerous/",
      "title": "Urgent warning to Congressional leaders: Trump is psychologically unstable and dangerous",
      "content_html": "\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003ePresident Trump exhibits what forensic mental health experts have identified as the “Dark Triad” of personality traits: narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. What this represents is a constitutional emergency.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe following letter was sent to the bipartisan leadership of Congress on Monday, 13 April, 2026 in regard to recent rhetoric and actions taken by US President Donald J Trump.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSenator John Thune\u003c/strong\u003e\nSenate Majority Leader, US Senate\n**\nSenator Charles E. Schumer**\nSenate Minority Leader, US Senate\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRepresentative Mike Johnson\u003c/strong\u003e\nSpeaker of the House, USHouse of Representatives\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRepresentative Hakeem Jeffries\u003c/strong\u003e\nHouse Minority Leader, US House of Representatives\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDear Senate Majority Leader Thune, Senate Minority Leader Schumer, Speaker Johnson, and House Minority Leader Jeffries:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe write to you today with a sense of urgency that we do not use lightly. The behaviour and rhetoric of President Donald Trump have crossed a threshold that demands the immediate and bipartisan attention of Congress. This is not a partisan assessment. It is a judgment grounded in observable fact, consistent professional assessment, and the constitutional responsibilities that your offices carry.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePresident Trump exhibits what forensic mental health experts have, across dozens of independent assessments, identified as the “Dark Triad” of personality traits: narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. Rather than constituting a clinical diagnosis, this trait-based assessment is grounded in behavioural observation and is particularly useful for assessing the level of danger an individual poses in a political leadership position. We do not offer this as a clinical verdict. We offer it as the considered judgment of a substantial body of professional opinion, based on well-researched evidence that is consistent, accumulating, and impossible to dismiss.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat makes this more than an academic matter is what predictably happens when this personality structure collides with immovable obstacles. The clinical literature is clear: individuals with Dark Triad profiles, when confronted with situations they cannot control or escape, do not recalibrate. They escalate. The psychological imperative to relieve narcissistic collapse overrides strategic calculation, concern for consequences, and ordinary self-restraint. Rage surges to domination. Impulsivity overrides caution. The urgent need to extinguish psychological pain eclipses every other consideration.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe are watching this dynamic unfold in real time.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe President’s recent public communications have been, by any normal standard of political discourse, alarming. His posts demanding that Iran “open the fuckin’ strait, you crazy bastards” and his threat to bomb Iran “back to the stone ages,” adding that “a whole civilisation will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” are not the rhetoric of calculated geopolitical pressure. They are the expressions of a man in profound psychological distress who is reaching for the most extreme retaliatory threats available to him. That these statements were addressed to an adversary in the context of an active military confrontation makes them not merely shocking but profoundly dangerous.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePresident Trump has now ordered a US naval blockade of Iran – an action that has sent world oil prices soaring and placed the United States in direct opposition to the international community. His ongoing actions carry the potential to trigger a global economic catastrophe, draw in regional and great powers, and ignite a wider conflict with consequences that no one can bound. These orders are being issued without adequate deliberation, without congressional authorisation, and in a context in which the President’s judgment is, by every visible measure, severely compromised.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe urge three specific actions.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFirst, Congress must immediately retake its constitutional authority over war.\u003c/strong\u003e The bombing of Iran and the initiation of a naval blockade – acts of war under both US and international law – cannot be authorised by presidential fiat. Article I of the Constitution vests in Congress the sole power to declare war and to regulate commerce with foreign nations. The Framers intended Congress to deliberate upon and be accountable for precisely such consequential actions. Congress must assume its constitutional authority now, before further escalation renders the question moot.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e**Second, congressional leadership – on a bipartisan basis – must convene urgent consultations **with senior administration officials, including the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the Secretary of State, and the Director of National Intelligence. The purpose is not routine oversight. It is to create a circuit breaker capable of preventing escalation toward catastrophe, including the potential use of nuclear weapons. Those officials have their own constitutional and statutory obligations. Congress should insist on those obligations and provide a forum in which they can be exercised.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e**Third, Congress should formally initiate consultation with the Vice President and Cabinet regarding the President’s fitness for office under Section 4 of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment. **We do not prejudge the outcome. We are not calling for the President’s immediate removal. We are calling for the process that the Constitution itself provides for this contingency: when a President’s capacity to discharge the duties of office is in question and poses a potential imminent danger to the nation. The Amendment exists because those who drafted it recognised that the question of presidential incapacity would occasionally arise, and that it required a constitutional answer rather than a political improvisation.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe recognise the gravity of what we are asking. We ask it because the gravity of the situation demands it.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA President who publicly threatens to destroy a foreign civilisation, who launches a bombing campaign and then imposes a naval blockade without congressional authorisation, and who shows every behavioural sign of a personality in acute crisis is not merely a political problem. He is a constitutional emergency. The mechanisms for addressing such an emergency exist. They were placed in the Constitution and its amendments for moments precisely like this one.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe war with Iran will not wait. The escalation dynamics of this active military confrontation will not wait. The psychological conditions driving the President’s decisions will not improve under pressure – they will worsen.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe urge you to act without delay. The Constitution gives you the tools. Your oath of office assigns you the responsibility.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRespectfully,\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eJames Gilligan, M.D.\u003c/strong\u003e\nClinical Professor of Psychiatry, New York University School of Medicine\nAdjunct Professor of Law, New York University School of Law\nFormer Faculty of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School\nFormer President, International Association of Forensic Psychotherapy\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePrudence L. Gourguechon, M.D.\u003c/strong\u003e\nFormer President, American Psychoanalytic Association\nFormer Vice President, World Mental Health Coalition\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eBandy X. Lee, M.D., M.Div.\u003c/strong\u003e\nPresident, World Mental Health Coalition\nCo-Founder, Preventing Violence Now\nFormer Faculty of Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School\nFormer Faculty of Law and Psychiatry, Yale School of Medicine\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eJames R. Merikangas, M.D.\u003c/strong\u003e\nClinical Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science, George Washington University\nResearch Consultant, National Institute of Mental Health\nCo-Founder, American Neuropsychiatric Association\nFormer President, American Academy of Clinical Psychiatrists\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eJeffrey D. Sachs, Ph.D.\u003c/strong\u003e\nUniversity Professor, Columbia University\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRepublished from \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/is-trump-psychologically-unfit\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eCommon Dreams\u003c/a\u003e, 14 April 2026\u003c/p\u003e",
      "summary": "President Trump exhibits what forensic mental health experts have identified as the “Dark Triad” of personality traits: narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. What this represents is a constitutional emergency.",
      "date_published": "2026-04-16T00:59:34+10:00",
      "date_modified": "2026-04-16T00:59:34+10:00",
      "authors": [{"name": "Jeffrey D. Sachs"},{"name": "Bandy X. Lee"},{"name": "James Gilligan"},{"name": "Prudence L. Gourguechon"},{"name": "James R. Merikangas"}
      ],
      "tags": ["politics","usa"],
      "_social_media": {
        "tweet_text": "A group of senior experts is warning that Donald Trump’s conduct now poses a constitutional emergency.\nIn a letter to the bipartisan leadership of Congress, they have urged Congress to act urgently to prevent escalation and uphold its constitutional responsibilities.\n#USPolitics #Trump #Constitution #Geopolitics",
        "tweet_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/urgent-warning-to-congressional-leaders-trump-is-psychologically-unstable-and-dangerous/",
        "linkedin_title": "Urgent warning to Congressional leaders: Trump is psychologically unstable and dangerous",
        "linkedin_excerpt": "President Trump exhibits what forensic mental health experts have identified as the “Dark Triad” of personality traits: narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. What this represents is a constitutional emergency.",
        "linkedin_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/urgent-warning-to-congressional-leaders-trump-is-psychologically-unstable-and-dangerous/",
        "facebook_text": "Urgent warning to Congressional leaders: Trump is psychologically unstable and dangerous - President Trump exhibits what forensic mental health experts have identified as the “Dark Triad” of personality traits: narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. What this represents is a …",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/donald-trump-13-apri.jpg",
        "author_names": "Jeffrey D. Sachs, Bandy X. Lee, James Gilligan, Prudence L. Gourguechon, James R. Merikangas"
      },
      "_mailchimp": {
        "excerpt": "President Trump exhibits what forensic mental health experts have identified as the “Dark Triad” of personality traits: narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. What this represents is a constitutional emergency.",
        "authors_string": "Jeffrey D. Sachs, Bandy X. Lee, James Gilligan, Prudence L. Gourguechon, James R. Merikangas",
        "categories_string": "politics, usa",
        "pub_date_formatted": "Thursday, April 16, 2026",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/donald-trump-13-apri.jpg"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/values-based-citizenship-is-vague-selective-and-dangerous",
      "url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/values-based-citizenship-is-vague-selective-and-dangerous/",
      "title": "Values-based citizenship is vague, selective and dangerous",
      "content_html": "\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eAngus Taylor\u0026rsquo;s plan to tie citizenship to “Australian values” rely on vague definitions and risk embedding double standards, exclusion and anti-foreign sentiment.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOpposition leader Angus Taylor proposes to legislate the right to Australian citizenship based on subscription to “our values”. I have two problems with such talk of values. First, the promotion of national values usually hides anti-foreign feeling and even racism. Second, the very term “value” is so woolly and imprecise that it can be generally sprayed around to avoid being pinned down as to its actual meaning.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTalk of values has a long history. The Romans upheld \u003cem\u003eMos maiorum\u003c/em\u003e, usually translated as “the ancestral code”, referring to conservative morals and practices, famously speared by Prudentius in the fourth century as “the superstition of old grandpas”.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn contemporary times, I remember the superstition of Grandpa Lee Kuan Yew, which he called “Asian values”. Like the Romans, Lee preached the importance of respect for elders and authorities and decried young people’s desire for greater personal freedom, which he said reflected undue influence from the west. His ultimate aim was for the People’s Action Party to remain in power.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn the West, no country discusses values more than the United States. American values derive from the history and culture of the nation, notably the American Revolution and the American Enlightenment. Although not formally defined, these values generally comprise liberty, individualism and limited government, with an emphasis on the Bill of Rights and various amendments to that bill. The present Trump administration has demonstrated a great lack of respect for such values.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJohn Howard, the ultimate Australian conservative, not surprisingly, was a strong believer in values. Speaking to the \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://australianpolitics.com/2000/11/22/john-howard-distinct-enduring-australian-values.html/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eMelbourne Press Club\u003c/a\u003e in 2000, he defined these as four qualities: self-reliance, “a fair go”, pulling together, and “having a go”. This was an early attempt by the conservatives to specify the unique and essential values of Australia.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt was clearly based on what Howard saw as the failings of citizens of other countries – lazy, expecting to enjoy privileges without accepting responsibilities, and fundamentally not being team players. Without the comparison with others, the values themselves were just high-sounding platitudes.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSome of the Howard values remain in the list that is now mandated for use in Australia by the \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/help-support/meeting-our-requirements/australian-values\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eDepartment of Home Affairs\u003c/a\u003e, but the set is still far from precise. Values in the current list include: respect for individual rights, freedom of religion, the rule of law and democracy, and a belief in Howard’s “fair go”. All applicants for permanent or temporary visas must read and sign a document to indicate that they accept these values. Those born here or whose arrival in the country predated the introduction of this requirement might benefit from referring to the list. It is usefully available on the departmental website in 40 languages.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.liberal.org.au/our-plan\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eAngus Taylor says\u003c/a\u003e that a Liberal Coalition government would introduce three pillars to lift future immigration standards, “First, putting Australian values first. Second, shutting the door to people who abuse our immigration system. And third, showing a red light to radicals.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs Michelle Grattan reports in \u003cem\u003e\n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://theconversation.com/coalition-would-toughen-scrutiny-of-migrants-values-and-wants-new-assessment-of-those-from-gaza-280462\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eThe Conversation,\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/em\u003e he told the Menzies Research Centre this week that if elected, his government would legislate to make compliance with the Values Statement grounds for deportation. There would be a rule book containing a “prescribed set of behaviours”. He instanced such behaviour as not believing in equal rights for men and women or entertaining a wish to establish “parallel legal systems”.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTaylor’s values are ridiculously woolly and imprecise. To believe in something or to wish to set up something is not the same as taking action in accord with a belief or a desire to initiate something. Lawyers will have a field day. My real issue with Taylorism however is its unspoken underlying anti-foreignism and racism.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe sad fact is that not all Australians would pass a test based on the Australian Values Statement. The Sovereign Citizens movement in Australia has been gathering strength in recent years, as evidenced by the recent death of police killer Dezi Freeman in Victoria, an Australian citizen. Brenton Tarrant, who pleaded guilty to 51 murders and 40 attempted murders of worshippers at two mosques in Christchurch in 2019 is also a homegrown Australian. Both clearly contravened the spirit and the letter of the Values Statement, but they seem to enjoy a sacrosanct status by virtue of their nationality at birth.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIf they were migrants, according to Taylor, they would be deported. Why does he propose a double standard?\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere are many reasons why migrants come to Australia. It is not the case, as Taylor suggests, that those who come from democratic countries are more likely to uphold Australian values. On the contrary, those who come from places where they have experienced discrimination, persecution or the deprivation of democratic rights, are likely to place a higher value on these things than those people who have grown up in relative safety and security. They will almost certainly work to uphold these values.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGive us all a fair go, Angus!\u003c/p\u003e",
      "summary": "Angus Taylor's plan to tie citizenship to “Australian values” rely on vague definitions and risk embedding double standards, exclusion and anti-foreign sentiment.",
      "date_published": "2026-04-16T00:54:20+10:00",
      "date_modified": "2026-04-16T00:54:20+10:00",
      "authors": [{"name": "Jocelyn Chey"}
      ],
      "tags": ["immigration","policy","politics"],
      "_social_media": {
        "tweet_text": "“Australian values” are being used to justify tougher citizenship rules – but the concept is vague, selective and open to abuse.\nThe risk is not stronger standards, but exclusion and double standards, Jocelyn Chey writes.\n#auspol #Immigration #Citizenship #Politics #Australia",
        "tweet_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/values-based-citizenship-is-vague-selective-and-dangerous/",
        "linkedin_title": "Values-based citizenship is vague, selective and dangerous",
        "linkedin_excerpt": "Angus Taylor's plan to tie citizenship to “Australian values” rely on vague definitions and risk embedding double standards, exclusion and anti-foreign sentiment.",
        "linkedin_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/values-based-citizenship-is-vague-selective-and-dangerous/",
        "facebook_text": "Values-based citizenship is vague, selective and dangerous - Angus Taylor's plan to tie citizenship to “Australian values” rely on vague definitions and risk embedding double standards, exclusion and anti-foreign sentiment.",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/angus-taylor-c.jpg",
        "author_names": "Jocelyn Chey"
      },
      "_mailchimp": {
        "excerpt": "Angus Taylor's plan to tie citizenship to “Australian values” rely on vague definitions and risk embedding double standards, exclusion and anti-foreign sentiment.",
        "authors_string": "Jocelyn Chey",
        "categories_string": "immigration, policy, politics",
        "pub_date_formatted": "Thursday, April 16, 2026",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/angus-taylor-c.jpg"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/health-a-symptom-of-gutful-response",
      "url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/health-a-symptom-of-gutful-response/",
      "title": "Private health insurance is a painfully bad deal – and a costly one",
      "content_html": "\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eAustralia’s private health insurance system is heavily subsidised, increasingly unaffordable and delivers poor value – especially for those on lower incomes.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLast week I was asked by someone on a very modest income whether it was worthwhile keeping private health insurance.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI replied that, for someone in their circumstances, almost certainly not. The starting point is that what we have in Australia is not private “health” insurance, but rather private “hospital” insurance. It does not cover medical services. Indeed, it is illegal for an insurer to provide insurance for the cost of medical services beyond the Medicare scheduled fee.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis leaves people on low incomes with, in effect, worthless insurance coverage. Facing the need for a medical procedure, they might well be able to jump the queue by going to a private hospital whose fees are covered by the insurance, but the fees charged by specialists, particularly surgeons and anaesthetists, put the medical treatment in that hospital beyond the reach of those on low incomes.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere is no point in buying insurance for a bed in a private hospital if you cannot afford the medical treatment in that hospital.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn Australia, at least, the low-income patient can turn to the public system. That works well for serious illness and accident for which treatment is free, good quality, and timely. But it is hopeless for elective, or non-urgent treatment such as knee- and hip-replacements for which waiting times stretch into months or even years.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt was not always the case. In the first decade and a half of Medicare (1984-1999) treatment in the public system was free, good quality and timely – so much so that people very reasonably abandoned private insurance. It sank to about 30 per cent of the population in 1999.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt should have been allowed to sink to nothing. If everyone had to rely on the public system, no politician aspiring to re-election would have allowed the system to get into its present-day state. The literate, articulate, demanding well-off people would rise up.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eInstead, however, a series of measures by the Howard Government massively subsidised private health insurance so the public system could be neglected, and the middle classes could rely on the private system.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut now that is under threat because no-one thought to control specialists’ fees. Their skills and services are extremely rare so, unregulated, they can charge pretty much what they like. Even people on fairly good incomes now greet specialists’ fees with horror. Their fees are often more than treble the Medicare scheduled fee. And they cannot be insured for.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe two 1999 changes were for the government to subsidise premiums through the tax system (via a 30 per cent rebate) and to impose a penalty (the Medicare surcharge) of up to 1.5 per cent of income for those without private cover. These are the main reasons people keep private cover.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt had nothing to do with health. It was an ideologically driven attempt to undermine and destroy Medicare.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTreasurer Jim Chalmers should look at these measures in the Budget. The rebate is costing about $7 billion a year. The exemption from the surcharge is costing about $3 billion a year. The $10 billion is, in effect, a straight transfer from the less-well-off who rely on the public system to the better-off.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt is a bloated, unjustified subsidy for a grossly inefficient “industry”. Private health insurers account for just $20 billion of Australia’s $270 billion annual health-care spending. For that, taxpayers are paying $10 billion in subsidies. It is a bad deal. It is inept public policy. It is unfair. And it should end.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBy all means have a private element in our health system. But it should be genuinely private, not one propped up by government huge subsidies and which benefits a decreasing number of people.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePeople expect government to improve and increase government services, not make them worse through decades of malign neglect and deliberate policy decisions which favour the well-off. And it is not just health.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSmall wonder a lot of voters have “had a gutful” and are openly saying so. That resentment is easily exploited.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe trouble is that One Nation’s exploiting of the resentment and nostalgia for some idyllic Australian past and scapegoating Muslim immigrants misses the point.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHaving a race-based immigration system will not help the health system. One Nation’s health policy is a great big nothing-burger.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOne Nation’s appeal to nostalgia is misdirected. Voters’ nostalgia is not for an ill-defined time past. Rather it is for specific things, like a health system without queues and big co-payments; an education system in which money is fairly distributed so all get a chance to get a good education; less inequality; and reasonable job security.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut unless the mainstream parties fix these things, populists will thrive and it will take a long time for voters to wake up to their shortcomings. It took Hungarian voters 16 years, for example. And Americans were silly enough to line up for a second helping in 2024.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe uber-wealthy understand this very well. It explains why Australia’s richest woman, Gina Rinehart, is such a big supporter, directly and indirectly, of One Nation and why Clive Palmer set up his own party.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe last thing these people want is for a populist party that actually does something about the root causes of the resentment they are exploiting. That would mean greater taxes on the very wealthy and an attack on inequality.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe uber wealthy have always wanted to influence political power to their advantage. The donations are not given to people in power so that they might direct public resources in the broad public interest. To the contrary.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRinehart’s support for One Nation should give those struggling with the cost of living, including medical costs, pause for thought.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn the meantime, Chalmers should be looking through all government hand-outs, rebates, and subsidies and ask whether the money could be better or more fairly spent elsewhere?\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt is a double-edged sword. On one hand he should be ramping up the Medicare scheduled fees to ease patient charges. But he should also make sure the increases are passed on. And he should certainly be questioning whether specialists who charge treble the Medicare schedule fee or more ought to be even allowed to remain in the Medicare system unless they get their fees under control.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRepublished from \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.crispinhull.com.au/2026/04/13/health-a-symptom-of-gutful-response/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eCrispin Hull.com\u003c/a\u003e 13 April, 2026\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis article first appeared in \u003cem\u003eThe Canberra Times\u003c/em\u003e and other Australian media on 14 April 2026.\u003c/p\u003e",
      "summary": "Australia’s private health insurance system is heavily subsidised, increasingly unaffordable and delivers poor value – especially for those on lower incomes.",
      "date_published": "2026-04-16T00:49:52+10:00",
      "date_modified": "2026-04-16T00:49:52+10:00",
      "authors": [{"name": "Crispin Hull"}
      ],
      "tags": ["health","policy","politics"],
      "_social_media": {
        "tweet_text": "Private health insurance in Australia is heavily subsidised – but delivers poor value and deepens inequality.\nBillions in public money are propping up a system that leaves many worse off, Crispin Hull writes.\n#auspol #Health #Medicare #Economy #Inequality",
        "tweet_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/health-a-symptom-of-gutful-response/",
        "linkedin_title": "Private health insurance is a painfully bad deal – and a costly one",
        "linkedin_excerpt": "Australia’s private health insurance system is heavily subsidised, increasingly unaffordable and delivers poor value – especially for those on lower incomes.",
        "linkedin_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/health-a-symptom-of-gutful-response/",
        "facebook_text": "Private health insurance is a painfully bad deal – and a costly one - Australia’s private health insurance system is heavily subsidised, increasingly unaffordable and delivers poor value – especially for those on lower incomes.",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/private-hospital-roo.jpg",
        "author_names": "Crispin Hull"
      },
      "_mailchimp": {
        "excerpt": "Australia’s private health insurance system is heavily subsidised, increasingly unaffordable and delivers poor value – especially for those on lower incomes.",
        "authors_string": "Crispin Hull",
        "categories_string": "health, policy, politics",
        "pub_date_formatted": "Thursday, April 16, 2026",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/private-hospital-roo.jpg"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/a-very-dark-picture-imf-warns-trumps-iran-war-could-unleash-global-recession",
      "url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/a-very-dark-picture-imf-warns-trumps-iran-war-could-unleash-global-recession/",
      "title": "‘A very dark picture’: IMF warns Trump’s Iran war could unleash global recession",
      "content_html": "\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe war on Iran is disrupting energy supplies, fuelling inflation and raising the risk of a global downturn, with the poorest countries set to suffer most.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe International Monetary Fund warned Tuesday that the US-Israeli war on Iran could slow global economic growth, stoke inflation, and increase the possibility of a worldwide recession and energy crisis.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe illegal war of choice on Iran being waged by US President Donald Trump and the government of \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.commondreams.org/news/icc-arrest-warrant-netanyahu\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003efugitive\u003c/a\u003e Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has already had wide-ranging negative impacts on the global economy, from soaring fuel prices caused by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz to supply chain disruptions and financial market volatility.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHowever, a major global economic crisis has thus far been averted. That could soon change.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“Despite major trade disruptions and policy uncertainty, last year ended on an upbeat note,” International Monetary Fund director of research Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas wrote in an \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.imf.org/en/blogs/articles/2026/04/14/war-darkens-global-economic-outlook-and-reshapes-policy-priorities\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eanalysis\u003c/a\u003e of the IMF’s latest \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.imf.org/en/publications/weo/issues/2026/04/14/world-economic-outlook-april-2026?cid=bl-com-sm26-WEOEA2026001\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003e_World Economic Outlook_\u003c/a\u003e report.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“The private sector adapted to a changing business environment, while powerful offsets came from lower US tariffs than originally announced, some fiscal support, and favorable financial conditions coupled with strong productivity gains and a tech boom.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“Despite some downside risks, the momentum was expected to carry over into 2026, lifting the pre-conflict global growth forecast to 3.4 per cent,” Gourinchas continued. “War in the Middle East has halted this momentum. The closing of the Strait of Hormuz and serious damage to critical facilities in a region central to global hydrocarbon supply raise the prospect of a major energy crisis should hostilities continue.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe IMF said that even if the war ends quickly, lasting damage to the world’s economy will still happen.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAccording to the IMF report:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUnder the assumption of a limited conflict, global growth is projected at 3.1 per cent in 2026 and 3.2 per cent in 2027, below recent outcomes and well under pre-pandemic averages. Global inflation is expected to tick up in 2026 and resume its decline in 2027. Pressures are concentrated in emerging market and developing economies, especially commodity importers with preexisting vulnerabilities. Risks are decisively on the downside. A prolonged conflict, deeper geopolitical fragmentation, disappointment over [artificial intelligence]-driven productivity, or renewed trade tensions could weaken growth and unsettle markets. High public debt and eroded policy buffers add vulnerability. Policies should foster adaptability, enhance credibility, and reinforce international cooperation.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe IMF said that “the shock’s ultimate magnitude will depend on the conflict’s duration and scale – and how quickly energy production and shipment normalise once hostilities end,” and that effects will vary by location.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“Countries will feel the impact differently,” Gourinchas wrote. “As in past commodity-price surges, importers are highly exposed. Low-income and developing economies – especially those with vulnerabilities and limited buffers – are likely to be hit hardest. Gulf energy exporters will face economic fallout from damaged infrastructure, production disruptions, export constraints, and weaker tourism and business activity. Remittances will fall in countries that supply migrant workers to the region.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEric LeCompte, executive director of the religious development group Jubilee USA Network and a United Nations finance expert, called the new IMF forecast “extremely concerning for the global economy,” lamenting that “the** **most dire impacts of our economic situation will be felt by the poor and the vulnerable.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe new report comes as the IMF’s annual Spring Meetings are underway in Washington, DC.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“World leaders coming to Washington are receiving a very dark picture of the global economy,” said LeCompte. “The war is causing greater poverty and increases in our fuel and food costs.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOther groups have also warned of the adverse economic effects of the US-Israeli war on Iran.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBen May, Bridget Payne, and Paul Moroz of Oxford Economics recently \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.oxfordeconomics.com/resource/prolonged-war-in-iran-could-tip-the-global-economy-into-recession/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003epublished a report\u003c/a\u003e warning that a longer war in Iran “could tip the global economy into recession.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn such a situation, “the Gulf states suffer most acutely – GDP down over 8 per cent in 2026 – before rebounding sharply as production recovers,” they wrote. “Advanced Asian economies, which are especially reliant on Gulf oil, take a heavy blow from energy import cost surges and supply chain disruption.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“Europe faces a painful squeeze on gas and electricity,” the trio added. “The US fares somewhat better given its domestic energy production, but an equity market decline of nearly 20 per cent weighs heavily on consumer spending.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSome US-based organisations have focused on the war’s domestic economic impacts.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDean Baker, a senior fellow at the Center for Economic Policy Research, \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://cepr.net/publications/lesson-from-the-iran-war-42765-making-enemies-makes-us-poorer/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003epublished\u003c/a\u003e an analysis earlier this month asserting that “making enemies makes us poorer.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“Secretary of Defense (or War) Pete Hegseth seems to be having a really great time killing people in Iran, but his live action video games come at a big cost – not just in lives, but in budget dollars,” Baker wrote. “To be clear, the main reason to oppose this pointless war is its impact on the people of Iran and elsewhere in the region. But it also has a huge economic cost that is seriously underappreciated.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“In addition to reducing our security and jeopardising the well-being of people around the world, Donald Trump’s belligerence will cost us a huge amount of money,” he said. Focusing on US military spending, Baker noted that “Trump wants the country to spend 5 per cent of GDP, \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-2027-budget\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eor $1.5 trillion a year,\u003c/a\u003e on the military. This comes to $12,000 per household.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTrump and his Republican Party are seeking to offset some of their record military spending with devastating cuts to social programs upon which \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.commondreams.org/news/republican-cuts-to-medicaid-and-snap\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003etens of millions of Americans rely.\u003c/a\u003e Already reeling from the \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.commondreams.org/news/republicans-cut-medicaid\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003ebiggest cuts\u003c/a\u003e to Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program spending in those programs’ histories, Trump’s budget request for fiscal year 2027 contains $73 billion in total reductions in non-defence spending.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“It is striking to see that Congress might be willing to quickly cough up this money,” said Baker, referring to military funding, “when it has refused far smaller sums that could have made a huge difference in the lives of tens of millions of people.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRepublished from \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.commondreams.org/news/imf-world-economic-outlook\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eCommon Dreams\u003c/a\u003e, 14 April 2026\u003c/p\u003e",
      "summary": "The war on Iran is disrupting energy supplies, fuelling inflation and raising the risk of a global downturn, with the poorest countries set to suffer most.",
      "date_published": "2026-04-16T00:44:41+10:00",
      "date_modified": "2026-04-16T00:44:41+10:00",
      "authors": [{"name": "Brett Wilkins"}
      ],
      "tags": ["economy","politics","usa","world"],
      "_social_media": {
        "tweet_text": "The war on Iran is already hitting the global economy – and the worst may be ahead.\nRising energy prices, supply shocks and instability are increasing the risk of recession, with the poorest hardest hit, Brett Wilkins writes.\n#auspol #Economy #Geopolitics #MiddleEast #Inflation",
        "tweet_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/a-very-dark-picture-imf-warns-trumps-iran-war-could-unleash-global-recession/",
        "linkedin_title": "‘A very dark picture’: IMF warns Trump’s Iran war could unleash global recession",
        "linkedin_excerpt": "The war on Iran is disrupting energy supplies, fuelling inflation and raising the risk of a global downturn, with the poorest countries set to suffer most.",
        "linkedin_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/a-very-dark-picture-imf-warns-trumps-iran-war-could-unleash-global-recession/",
        "facebook_text": "‘A very dark picture’: IMF warns Trump’s Iran war could unleash global recession - The war on Iran is disrupting energy supplies, fuelling inflation and raising the risk of a global downturn, with the poorest countries set to suffer most.",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/global-financial-sta.jpg",
        "author_names": "Brett Wilkins"
      },
      "_mailchimp": {
        "excerpt": "The war on Iran is disrupting energy supplies, fuelling inflation and raising the risk of a global downturn, with the poorest countries set to suffer most.",
        "authors_string": "Brett Wilkins",
        "categories_string": "economy, politics, usa, world",
        "pub_date_formatted": "Thursday, April 16, 2026",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/global-financial-sta.jpg"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/logging-and-thinning-are-putting-alpine-ash-forests-at-risk",
      "url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/logging-and-thinning-are-putting-alpine-ash-forests-at-risk/",
      "title": "Logging and thinning are putting Alpine Ash forests at risk",
      "content_html": "\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eAustralia’s Alpine Ash forests are endangered and highly vulnerable to fire. Logging, thinning and burning are increasing that risk – not reducing it.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAustralia has many kinds of beautiful forest. One of these is Alpine Ash forest, which occurs in montane areas in New South Wales, Victoria, and Tasmania. The tall, straight trees in these forests can exceed 60 metres in height. In some places in New South Wales and Victoria, Alpine Ash forests provide habitat for Critically Endangered animals like Leadbeater’s Possum. Independently and together, we have studied Alpine Ash forests for many decades, and published research on tree and other plant growth, animal occurrence, and fire, logging, and mechanical thinning impacts.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAlpine Ash forests are threatened by logging and wildfires. They are particularly vulnerable to human and natural disturbances. This is because young trees are highly flammable after previous logging or wildfire but at the same time do not produce a viable crop of seeds until mature beyond a prolonged juvenile period. Fires occurring every few decades have the potential to completely eliminate stands of Alpine Ash.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe conservation status of Alpine Ash forests has recently been assessed by the Threatened Species Scientific Committee. The Committee is a panel of experts that provides high-quality scientific advice to the Australian Government. As a result of the committee’s advice, Australian mainland Alpine Ash forests have been listed as an Endangered Ecological Community.\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/fig-1-alpine-ash-for.png\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\"\u003e\n    \n    \u003cfigcaption class=\"figure-caption\"\u003eFigure 1. Alpine Ash forest. Photo Chris Taylor and David Lindenmayer\u003c/figcaption\u003e\n    \n\u003c/figure\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/clearfell-alpine-ash.png\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\"\u003e\n    \n    \u003cfigcaption class=\"figure-caption\"\u003eFigure 2. Clearfell logging in Alpine Ash forest. Photo Chris Taylor\u003c/figcaption\u003e\n    \n\u003c/figure\u003e \n\u003cp\u003eConservation scientists and foresters alike have rightly expressed deep concern about the future of Alpine Ash forests. But what is the best way to protect them? Strict protection in National Parks is a key strategy, especially as extensive areas of Alpine Ash forest have been clearfelled in the past. Old growth Alpine Ash forest is also now very rare; just 0.47 per cent of the Alpine Ash forests in the Central Highlands of Victoria (a mainland stronghold for the species) is old growth.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eProper protection is also needed to protect Alpine Ash forests from logging. This is critical because an increasing body of research is showing that logging makes tall, wet forests like those dominated by Alpine Ash more flammable and at greatly elevated risk of high-severity wildfire.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eForesters have recommended Alpine Ash be protected by mechanical thinning. They have also proposed widespread prescribed burning of forests adjacent to stands of Alpine Ash – Alpine Ash itself is not appropriate for burning. A key question is: Are these conventional forestry management methods likely to be effective in reducing fire risks? The empirical evidence and hence the scientific answer is no, as we briefly explain below.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMechanical thinning involves using wheeled or tracked machines to remove up 50 per cent of the trees in a stand. It is a widely used forestry method aimed at growing large diameter trees faster. That is, to grow bigger trees that will become logs for sawn timber.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut what are its impacts on fire? Thinning creates a more open, windier, and warmer forest and also leaves behind a large amount of debris. This can make forests more flammable.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEmpirical studies of fires in thinned versus unthinned forests in Tasmania and Victoria show that thinning either has no effect on wildfires or makes forests more flammable. At the same time as having limited impacts on fires or making them worse, thinning can have negative environmental effects such as removing habitat for wildlife (like Leadbeater’s Possum), compacting soils, reducing forest resilience, and generating large amounts of greenhouse gas emissions. It is also expensive to do but with limited benefits other than providing more timber for the logging industry.\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/alpine-ash-forest-3-1.png\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\"\u003e\n    \n    \u003cfigcaption class=\"figure-caption\"\u003eFigure 3. Unthinned, then thinned and finally burnt Alpine Ash forest. Photos by Chris Taylor.\u003c/figcaption\u003e\n    \n\u003c/figure\u003e \n\u003cp\u003eWhat about prescribed burning, will that help save Alpine Ash forests? Again, the answer is no. Tall, wet Alpine Ash forests are entirely unsuited to being repeatedly burnt – such disturbance regimes can collapse these forests. But what about forests adjacent to stands of Alpine Ash? At elevations below Alpine Ash are Mountain Ash forests – another tall, wet fire-sensitive forest type where prescribed burning is ecologically inappropriate. At elevations above Alpine Ash is sub-alpine woodland such as Snow Gum woodland.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOur studies of fire frequency have shown that these forests have been massively disturbed by repeated wildfires over the past two decades. At the same time, the dead wood created by fires has made extensive areas of Snow Gum woodland a target for native wood-boring beetles that can kill trees. Like Alpine Ash forests, Snow Gum woodlands are at risk of ecological collapse and they certainly do not need yet more fire.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eImportantly, disturbances such as prescribed burning, thinning, and logging all produce a pulse of regrowth which adds significantly to the flammability of vegetation. These conventional forestry methods will not save Alpine Ash forests; rather, they will exacerbate the problem and increase the chance we will lose them altogether. That is, we should not expect forestry practices that have caused many of the problems now facing Alpine Ash forests to be the solution to those problems.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBeyond proper protection and dispensing with logging, thinning and widespread burning, are there other things that can be done to better protect Alpine Ash forests? The answer is yes. A key one is to embrace new technologies to help more quickly detect fires as soon as they start and then also deploy high-payload drones to more rapidly suppress fires. The best time to control fires is when they are small. Drone and other detection technology is not a replacement for people.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnother strategy is to invest in far more remote area fire-fighters and the equipment they need. Fire problems in Australia, including those associated with past management that has made vegetation more flammable, needs more people and more technology, not one or the other.\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/drone.png\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\"\u003e\n    \n    \u003cfigcaption class=\"figure-caption\"\u003eFigure 4. A new generation high pay-load drone that has the potential to assist in remote area fire-fighting.\u003c/figcaption\u003e\n    \n\u003c/figure\u003e",
      "summary": "Australia’s Alpine Ash forests are endangered and highly vulnerable to fire. Logging, thinning and burning are increasing that risk – not reducing it.",
      "date_published": "2026-04-16T00:39:29+10:00",
      "date_modified": "2026-04-16T00:39:29+10:00",
      "authors": [{"name": "David Lindenmayer"},{"name": "Chris Taylor"},{"name": "Phil Zylstra"}
      ],
      "tags": ["climate","politics"],
      "_social_media": {
        "tweet_text": "Alpine Ash forests are already endangered – and current forestry practices are making things worse.\nLogging, thinning and burning increase flammability and push these ecosystems closer to collapse, David Lindenmayer, Chris Taylor and Phil Zylstra write.\n#auspol #Environment #Climate #Forestry #Bushfires",
        "tweet_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/logging-and-thinning-are-putting-alpine-ash-forests-at-risk/",
        "linkedin_title": "Logging and thinning are putting Alpine Ash forests at risk",
        "linkedin_excerpt": "Australia’s Alpine Ash forests are endangered and highly vulnerable to fire. Logging, thinning and burning are increasing that risk – not reducing it.",
        "linkedin_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/logging-and-thinning-are-putting-alpine-ash-forests-at-risk/",
        "facebook_text": "Logging and thinning are putting Alpine Ash forests at risk - Australia’s Alpine Ash forests are endangered and highly vulnerable to fire. Logging, thinning and burning are increasing that risk – not reducing it.",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/forest-ash-800.png",
        "author_names": "David Lindenmayer, Chris Taylor, Phil Zylstra"
      },
      "_mailchimp": {
        "excerpt": "Australia’s Alpine Ash forests are endangered and highly vulnerable to fire. Logging, thinning and burning are increasing that risk – not reducing it.",
        "authors_string": "David Lindenmayer, Chris Taylor, Phil Zylstra",
        "categories_string": "climate, politics",
        "pub_date_formatted": "Thursday, April 16, 2026",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/forest-ash-800.png"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/the-uaes-shadow-network-of-power-and-war",
      "url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/the-uaes-shadow-network-of-power-and-war/",
      "title": "The UAE’s shadow network of power and war",
      "content_html": "\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eBehind multiple conflicts across the Middle East and Africa sits a powerful but often overlooked actor – the UAE’s network of finance, logistics and proxy forces shaping outcomes on the ground.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWithout understanding the astonishing network of power exercised by the United Arab Emirates you would have no idea why the UAE was hit particularly hard by Iran in recent weeks. Nor would you know what fuels chaos from Libya to Sudan to Somalia to Yemen. If you understand the UAE’s business-geostrategic model and how it mobilises warlords, gold, oil, regional logistics and finance – you get much closer to seeing the pattern in the seeming madness.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTiny UAE, 1.4 million citizens, wields so much power that Saudi Arabia sees it as a serious threat. In December, Saudi Arabia bombed UAE surrogates in Yemen and told the emirates to exit the country. They didn’t. If the US and Israel hadn’t attacked Iran, more fireworks were in the offing.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIsrael is the UAE’s close ally. They collaborate not just on the War on Iran but in many of these various \u0026lsquo;civil wars\u0026rsquo; that are both money-making ventures and a series of heartless state-destruction campaigns that give them greater geopolitical weight in the region.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe first need to understand what UAE really is. Comprising seven emirates – Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al-Quwain, Ras Al-Khaimah, and Fujairah – it is now the hub of an empire that both Iran and Saudi Arabia would like to knee-cap.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe powerhouse is actually Abu Dhabi, the oil giant which is the effective boss of the rest, including Dubai. Abu Dhabi is a family business, run by The Bani Fatima, the sons of Sheikha Fatima bint Mubarak Al Ketbi who is the most influential of the wives of the late Sheikh. Today, ultimate power resides with MBZ (Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan), the eldest of her six sons.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMBZ was a long-time buddy of MBS (Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman) but those days are well behind us. In the words of a senior Saudi figure, Ahmed Altuwaijri, \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiPSPg_PMbo\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eAbu Dhabi is Israel’s Trojan horse\u003c/a\u003e in the region. Along with Bahrain, UAE is a signatory to the Abraham Accords which is a US vehicle to bring Israel in from the cold. The other Gulf States oppose this \u0026lsquo;Israel First\u0026rsquo; policy and are clear that a resolution of the rights of the Palestinians must come first, although they do little about it.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Bani Fatimid system works like this: identify a country that is experiencing instability, pick a side (preferably anti-political Islam) and offer not only to finance that militia or warlord of choice but provide the immense logistical support the UAE has, including air freighting weapons, supplies and soldiers, and the complex systems needed to convert, for example, stolen gold into arms or other assets.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTime and again this has resulted in the creation of shadow economies that end up controlling significant resources (gold, oil, agriculture, ports) and creating parallel states. Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen have all been played in this way.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt is textbook divide and rule: weakening a state from within to then exert ongoing influence and resource extraction.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.solidarity.co.nz/international-stories/is-venezuela-the-next-libya?rq=Libya\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eLibya’s terrible 15-year civil war\u003c/a\u003e has been immensely worsened by outside states, including UAE which turned general Khalifa Belqasim Haftar from a YouTube revolutionary into the head of the massively resourced LNA militia that now controls about a third of the country.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWith UAE commanding the centre of a hub-and-spoke system, it can move fighters around the region at will, for example from Libya to Yemen where it sent thousands of LNA fighters to support local client militias. By backing the Southern Transition Council (STC) in Yemen, UAE got control over the vital Port of Aden. Similarly, by partnering with the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan, tons of stolen gold flows into Dubai. You get the picture.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMlxNddGy9Y\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eGold is the prime currency of the Bani Fatima\u003c/a\u003e empire (MBZ and his brothers). Dubai is known in the region as The City of Gold, the place where the bulk of Africa’s yellow metal, much of it smuggled, finds its way.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eImagine this: at the very time tens of millions of Sudanese are suffering famine or near-famine conditions, the UAE is facilitating the export to Dubai of tons of gold to fuel the war. This represents billions of dollars that should be held for the benefit of the people but instead is being used for empire building.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUAE “aid” changed the military balance and ensured the RSF took control of Sudan’s Darfur province, securing both gold and valuable farmland (once millions had been driven off their land). Starving, impoverished Sudan is now supplying tons of vegetables, oilseeds and grains to the tables of Dubai.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWithout the resources of the Bani Fatimid empire the terrible war in Sudan would likely have ended long ago. The Sudanese government has accused UAE of being a party to the genocide the country is suffering.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.wsj.com/world/africa/a-u-s-ally-promised-to-send-aid-to-sudan-it-sent-weapons-instead-82d396f\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eThe _Wall Street Journal_\u003c/a\u003e, \u003cem\u003eNew York Times\u003c/em\u003e and the \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://docs.un.org/en/S/2024/65\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eUN Panel of Experts on Sudan\u003c/a\u003e have all documented this but both the Biden and Trump administrations showed little interest in curtailing it.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/the-uae-alliance-australia-wont-question/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eJohn Menadue detailed Australia’s complicity in the UAE\u003c/a\u003e recently on P\u0026amp;I. My own country, New Zealand, whose ministry of foreign affairs is fully aware of this depraved business, moved with speed last year to deepen its relationships with the UAE. As the RSF forces were closing in on the city of El Fasher, they were finalising a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement – the fastest trade deal in New Zealand\u0026rsquo;s history. When El Fasher fell 60,000 Sudanese civilians were killed, and thousands of women were raped and trafficked by this tentacle of the Bani Fatima empire. Yet the UAE is our close friend and ally which, with the immense help of our media, is portrayed as some kind of noble victim.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn Somalia the UAE has switched sides when economic or strategic advantage could be made. Along with Israel, UAE is backing militias who have declared a break-away state \u0026lsquo;Somaliland\u0026rsquo; that borders the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. The UAE has military bases in \u0026lsquo;Somaliland\u0026rsquo; and has poured millions of dollars into the port of Berbera. With hundreds of kilometres of coastline adjacent to vital Red Sea shipping lanes, UAE and Israel will be important players in a contest with Yemen, Saudi Arabia and other powers.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn December last year Israel became the first to recognise Somaliland as a state. UAE is understood to be working on the Trump administration to do the same – further trashing the idea of territorial integrity for the sake of advantage. As an aside, \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.arabnews.jp/en/middle-east/article_164358/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eIsrael hopes to ethnically cleanse Palestinians to Somaliland\u003c/a\u003e one day.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAll this dovetails with Israel’s strategy of smashing states to control them. For them, an alternative to regime change in Iran is Balkanisation to create several weak statelets thereby enhancing Israeli security and influence.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor those reasons and more, I hope the sovereign state of Iran survives the onslaught. I hope UAE and Israel’s genuinely evil business of fragmenting state after state is defeated. I hope the western countries look at themselves in the mirror and ask themselves: what kind of moral monsters would be allies of Israel and the UAE?\u003c/p\u003e",
      "summary": "Behind multiple conflicts across the Middle East and Africa sits a powerful but often overlooked actor – the UAE’s network of finance, logistics and proxy forces shaping outcomes on the ground.",
      "date_published": "2026-04-16T00:34:42+10:00",
      "date_modified": "2026-04-16T00:34:42+10:00",
      "authors": [{"name": "Eugene Doyle"}
      ],
      "tags": ["israel-palestine","politics","usa"],
      "_social_media": {
        "tweet_text": "From Libya to Sudan to Yemen, the UAE has built a network of influence through finance, logistics and proxy forces.\nUnderstanding that system helps explain conflicts that otherwise appear chaotic, Eugene Doyle writes.\n#auspol #MiddleEast #Geopolitics #Africa #ForeignPolicy",
        "tweet_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/the-uaes-shadow-network-of-power-and-war/",
        "linkedin_title": "The UAE’s shadow network of power and war",
        "linkedin_excerpt": "Behind multiple conflicts across the Middle East and Africa sits a powerful but often overlooked actor – the UAE’s network of finance, logistics and proxy forces shaping outcomes on the ground.",
        "linkedin_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/the-uaes-shadow-network-of-power-and-war/",
        "facebook_text": "The UAE’s shadow network of power and war - Behind multiple conflicts across the Middle East and Africa sits a powerful but often overlooked actor – the UAE’s network of finance, logistics and proxy forces shaping outcomes on the ground.",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/sheikh-zayed-bin-sul.jpg",
        "author_names": "Eugene Doyle"
      },
      "_mailchimp": {
        "excerpt": "Behind multiple conflicts across the Middle East and Africa sits a powerful but often overlooked actor – the UAE’s network of finance, logistics and proxy forces shaping outcomes on the ground.",
        "authors_string": "Eugene Doyle",
        "categories_string": "israel-palestine, politics, usa",
        "pub_date_formatted": "Thursday, April 16, 2026",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/sheikh-zayed-bin-sul.jpg"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/indonesias-rice-bowl-gets-bigger",
      "url": "https://preview.johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/indonesias-rice-bowl-gets-bigger/",
      "title": "Indonesia's rice bowl gets bigger",
      "content_html": "\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eIndonesia’s claims of rice self-sufficiency clash with import deals, opaque data and the growing political control of the food system.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRice isn’t just a meal for \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31619630/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003ehalf\u003c/a\u003e the world. In Indonesia it’s also an essential ingredient in national sovereignty – and big money deals. Mao Zedong was wrong about “all political power growing out of the barrel of a gun.” In Indonesia it grows in the paddy.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAre all Indonesians now dining on their own home-grown rice with not one imported grain, as the government says? If so, it\u0026rsquo;s a stunning achievement towards \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://setkab.go.id/en/indonesia-successfully-achieves-rice-self-sufficiency-president-prabowo-says/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eself-sufficiency\u003c/a\u003e directed by President Prabowo Subianto and a great boost to national pride.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt should also lead to \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://en.tempo.co/read/2063175/indonesias-policy-reduces-global-rice-prices-minister-amran-claims\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003elower\u003c/a\u003e prices.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut is it true?\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe rice trade is controlled by the State-owned monopoly and public corporation, \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.bulog.co.id/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eBulog,\u003c/a\u003e \u003cem\u003eBadan Urusan Logistik\u003c/em\u003e (Logistics Affairs Agency). It runs grain depots around the country and sets the floor price, currently Rp 6,500 (AUD 52 cents) a kilo.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOverall Indonesia produces about 55 million tonnes a year and is the world’s \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/global-food?country=GBR~ZAF%3BhideControls\u0026amp;Food=Rice\u0026amp;Metric=Production\u0026amp;Per\u0026#43;capita=false\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003efourth\u003c/a\u003e largest grower.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBulog is the principal source of data on crops, plantings and deliveries. It’s an agency with a \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://mutiara.al-makkipublisher.com/index.php/al/article/view/2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003erecord\u003c/a\u003e of alleged corruption, mainly concerning illegal sales.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis year it \u0026ldquo;absorbed\u0026rdquo; the equivalent of 840,000 tonnes of rice – representing a 2,000 per cent increase from the same period last year. This happened despite \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kCmJDiaUq8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003emajor flooding\u003c/a\u003e, particularly in Sumatra.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEven assuming yields have been boosted by better cultivation, new varieties and fertilisers, this figure is so astonishing that it deserves scrutiny. So far, the Indonesian media and academic researchers have found better meals elsewhere.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eApart from keeping food on the table, there’s another agenda: to manage everything in the food business and put the Prez in charge without waving a weapon.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBulog, formerly a civilian agency, is now being run by the Army. Major General Ahmad Rizal Ramdhani was appointed last year. He\n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://www-cnnindonesia-com.translate.goog/ekonomi/20260102140056-532-1312847/bos-bulog-bocorkan-progres-perubahan-jadi-badan-di-bawah-presiden?_x_tr_sl=id\u0026amp;_x_tr_tl=en\u0026amp;_x_tr_hl=en\u0026amp;_x_tr_pto=sc.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003esaid\u003c/a\u003e his job was to “transform the state-owned food company into a major autonomous body directly under the President.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“The hope is that, in line with the President\u0026rsquo;s wishes, Bulog will return to its former glory, like it did in (the Soeharto era). Bulog shouldn\u0026rsquo;t just be managing rice, but managing everything, so as to guarantee food self-sufficiency.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSoeharto, Indonesia’s second president, died in 2008. He was also a former general. For a time his son-in-law was Prabowo.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLast year Ahmad’s predecessor Lieutenant Novi Helmi Prasetya lasted four months as Bulog’s boss. No reason was given for his return to the ranks.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBulog\u0026rsquo;s warehouses reportedly hold 2.4 million tonnes, a figure that could rise to three million by the end of the month, potentially marking a new national record. New depots are \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://en.antaranews.com/news/391125/govt-speeds-up-100-bulog-warehouses-construction-via-joint-decree\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eplanned.\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Indonesian NGO Prakarsa (Initiative), \u0026ldquo;an institution for research and policy advocacy\u0026rdquo; in Jakarta\n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://theprakarsa.org/en/swasembada-atau-hanya-narasi-ujian-pangan-indonesia-dalam-perjanjuan-dagang-as/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003e, reported\u003c/a\u003e that in the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade signed with the US in February, Indonesia had \u0026ldquo;committed to importing 1,000 tonnes of rice.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Quantitatively, the figure appears small … however, this commitment has sparked controversy. Indonesia, while claiming a rice surplus, is locking in rice imports from countries that are not major global rice producers.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;This is where the question arises: does the food import commitment in the trade agreement erode the food self-sufficiency and sovereignty that has been touted so far?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn 2024, Indonesia imported 4.52 million tons of rice, a 47 \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://jakartaglobe.id/news/indonesia-rice-reserves-hit-record-43-million-tons\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eper cent\u003c/a\u003e increase from more than three million tonnes the previous year.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA sudden surplus of more than four million tonnes in 2025 looks curious, particularly when \n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://jakartaglobe.id/business/indonesia-eyes-global-rice-export-market-with-projected-12-million-ton-surplus?utm_source=jakartaglobe\u0026amp;utm_medium=read_more\u0026amp;utm_campaign=indonesia-eyes-global-rice-export-market-with-projected-12-million-ton-surplus\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003ecredited\u003c/a\u003e to Prabowo during his first year in office.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFormer presidents also promised – and failed - to make the nation self-sufficient in foods.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSince 2008, when the population was 240 million, Indonesia has imported rice, mainly from Vietnam and Thailand, to ensure the staple ingredient is always available.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAny dearth could lead to food riots, as at the turn of the century, when the nation’s crops were damaged by the El Niño drought.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe other factor in poor harvests at the time was \u003cem\u003eKrismon –\u003c/em\u003e the economic crisis caused by student riots and the dethroning of the autocratic second president, Soeharto.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe population is now 285 million. Land available for cultivating the grain has shrunk as roads, industry, and housing have moved onto the flattest areas in an archipelago of mountains.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n\n\n\n\n\u003ca href=\"https://antikorupsi-org.translate.goog/id/article/bulog-bukan-lagi-sapi-perahan?_x_tr_sl=id\u0026amp;_x_tr_tl=en\u0026amp;_x_tr_hl=en\u0026amp;_x_tr_pto=sc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"m_no_class\" \u003eAccording\u003c/a\u003e to Indonesia Corruption Watch_,_ Bulog originally served as a food provider and distributor for the people.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;With broader authority, including price stabilisation, supplier selection, and food security, Bulog has become a cash cow. Trillions of rupiah can flow into Bulog at any time.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Its position as an institution directly under the president allows Bulog to access non-budgetary funds outside the state budget … This makes it difficult for the House of Representatives or the Supreme Audit Agency to access Bulog.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;(Two) former Bulog heads were only able to be investigated after President Soeharto left power. Both were tried and convicted after being found guilty of corruption.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Bulog had to disburse Rp 40 billion (AUD 3,300) from a non-budgetary account, allegedly for Golkar Party campaign expenses. Bulog will always be a magnet for various political parties and the ruling elite to compete for.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis month, Bulog claimed its warehouses held 2.4 million tonnes and had enough to start exporting. The often unhusked grain is held in 50 kg sacks and usually has to be lugged on the backs of youths dashing up swaying planks to load trucks. Mechanisation is rare.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt\u0026rsquo;s then sold to private companies for cleaning, refining and marketing under brands and retailed in five and ten-kilo plastic bags.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDuring the rule of the first President, Soekarno, Indonesia exported rice with a reputation for high quality. Those glory days are regularly recalled by politicians claiming the nation can be food self-sufficient again.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt has now apparently achieved that goal and given Prabowo\u0026rsquo;s reputation a big tick.\u003c/p\u003e",
      "summary": "Indonesia’s claims of rice self-sufficiency clash with import deals, opaque data and the growing political control of the food system.",
      "date_published": "2026-04-16T00:29:45+10:00",
      "date_modified": "2026-04-16T00:29:45+10:00",
      "authors": [{"name": "Duncan Graham"}
      ],
      "tags": ["politics","world"],
      "_social_media": {
        "tweet_text": "Indonesia says it has achieved rice self-sufficiency – but the numbers, imports and politics tell a different story, Duncan Graham writes.\n#Indonesia #FoodSecurity #Politics #Geopolitics",
        "tweet_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/indonesias-rice-bowl-gets-bigger/",
        "linkedin_title": "Indonesia's rice bowl gets bigger",
        "linkedin_excerpt": "Indonesia’s claims of rice self-sufficiency clash with import deals, opaque data and the growing political control of the food system.",
        "linkedin_url": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/indonesias-rice-bowl-gets-bigger/",
        "facebook_text": "Indonesia's rice bowl gets bigger - Indonesia’s claims of rice self-sufficiency clash with import deals, opaque data and the growing political control of the food system.",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/bulog-rice-stack-ace.jpg",
        "author_names": "Duncan Graham"
      },
      "_mailchimp": {
        "excerpt": "Indonesia’s claims of rice self-sufficiency clash with import deals, opaque data and the growing political control of the food system.",
        "authors_string": "Duncan Graham",
        "categories_string": "politics, world",
        "pub_date_formatted": "Thursday, April 16, 2026",
        "cover_image": "https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/bulog-rice-stack-ace.jpg"
      }
    }
  ]
}