Quick Quips: What’ll We Lose First, Money or Sanity?

15/07/2019

As if anyone cared what her opinion was, Pauline Hanson has pitched in on the Uluru climbing debate. She doesn’t see the ‘cultural sensitivity’ seeing as people ‘have been climbing’ it for years. Reality check – yes, it has been a culturally sensitive issue all those years too, but finally Indigenous voices are being listened to. Just don’t climb Uluru – it’s that simple.
Can the media please stop asking Hanson what she thinks?
For Australians talking about ‘raiding Area 51’, we have a perfectly good US intelligence base near Alice Springs that could do with some dismantling.

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“Deeply Concerned” Hypocrites

15/07/2019

Foreign Affairs Minister, Senator Marise Payne, added Canberra’s voice to a letter to the UN regarding China’s human rights record in Xinjiang. For a few years now, attention has been brought to the over 1 million Uighurs and other Muslim groups being held in what have been described as detention centres by human rights bodies and ‘re-education centres’ by the Chinese government. Payne’s signing of the letter might’ve been worth looking favourably on, if Australia didn’t have its own detention centres.

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Ideas, Individuals, and… Nationalism?

04/07/2019

We’ve all heard the saying: “If you don’t love it here, leave!” The irony of those kinds of statements though, usually disseminated online towards ‘leftists’ of various sorts (whether on cultural or economic concerns), is that the people who most often assert them are the ones with gripes over their country’s wellbeing. This inconsistency can reach comical standards at times, and also helps reveal other hypocrisies.

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Civility With ‘Enemies’ – Can It Be Done?

01/07/2019

I have not written anywhere near as much in the month of June as I would have liked. To put that in perspective, I missed a week’s worth of pieces (7) due to university, visiting friends, other commitments, and whatever other excuse I can convince myself of. While I am not displeased with the pieces I have written, it leaves much to catch up on. But I can draw from those other activities, starting with a friend’s party.

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Defending the (Bottom) Line

27/06/2019

I have written before about the revolving door between politics and the private sector, as have many others with a much wider breadth of knowledge regarding specific cases. One, at the time of writing my piece, was former NSW Premier Mike Baird, working comfortably at NAB during the RC into the finance sectors. (Notably, I wrote at the time that NSW was feeling buyer’s remorse for having re-elected Baird and being given Berejiklian – boy was I wrong, the media narrative shifted drastically). This week’s contender? Former Defence Minister Christopher Pyne.

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Island Off the Coast of Asia: A Reflection

19/06/2019

I owe a few of the pieces in the last couple of weeks to this brilliant book, but how important it is cannot be overstated. In an almost Chomsky-like way, Clinton Fernandes offers a refreshing (if somewhat surprising and disheartening) look at Australia’s role in the world. Without the filters of government and media spin and omission, it is incredibly insightful.

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Australia Owes Timor-Leste Reparations

16/06/2019

I have written before about the shameful way in which Australia (and the US and Indonesia by extension) has treated the young country to our northwest. Our support of the Indonesian dictator Suharto, involvement in forming the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) (and subsequent withdrawal in 2002), and the espionage we committed against Timor-Leste during negotiations have all had massive consequences.

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Time to Rethink ANZUS?

13/06/2019

Since the election of Donald Trump, there have been two main approaches in Australia regarding our relationship with the US. The first is backing away from them entirely and reconsidering how we interact with an increasingly erratic global superpower, and the other is the argument whereby all of Australia will be prone to imminent security risks should we so much as cough without American protection. One aspect of this is discussing how relevant the ANZUS Treaty is.

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The “National Security/Interest” Myth

10/06/2019

As the last couple of weeks have been quite busy with university assessments, admittedly the frequency of my posts here has dropped considerably. Equally as regrettable, or perhaps worse, is the lack of time I’ve set aside to read the books I have literally piled around me. So this week I plan on getting back into the swing of things to catch up on the missed days. The big news this week is the AFP raids, but how much does ‘national security’ really play into this?

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The Coalition’s Personal Attack Dog

07/06/2019

The AFP raids on journalism this week have brought widespread criticism from much of the media (including News Corp), the Unions, GetUp!, and even the international press, like the New York Times. I found the NYT comment about Australia being the most ‘secretive democracy’ rather funny – it inadvertently implies that the US is not a democracy. But this is not the first time the AFP has been used as a political tool, and that should concern everyone.

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