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Pearls and Irritations

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Alex Carey: a century of business taking the risk out of democracy

04.03.2025 6

Pearls and Irritations

Lucy Hamilton

Lithgow leading the charge: Why rail electrification is Australia’s best bet for fuel security and economic growth

04.03.2025 6

Pearls and Irritations

Tracey Graves

The real estate deals of the century

04.03.2025 6

Pearls and Irritations

Keith Mitchelson

Australia must condemn Israel’s genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians

04.03.2025 6

Pearls and Irritations

David Macilwain

The fate of US allies hangs in the balance under Trump 2.0

04.03.2025 6

Pearls and Irritations

Ba Hamzah

The public is slow to believe the best of politicians

04.03.2025 6

Pearls and Irritations

Jack Waterford

Bulk-billing incentives should be the start of something bigger

04.03.2025 6

Pearls and Irritations

Peter Breadon

Why I signed an ad urging rejection of Trump’s Gaza plan

04.03.2025 6

Pearls and Irritations

Sara Dowse

A five-minute scroll

latest 10

Pearls and Irritations

Pearls And Irritations

Australia needs a new flag to start constitutional renewal

Australia needs a new flag to start constitutional renewal

The creation of a new flag may well be the first step to re-commence constitutional renewal, something that sadly seems to have been avoided...

latest 9

Pearls and Irritations

Klaas Woldring

Scott Morrison loses the family snapshots… again

Scott Morrison loses the family snapshots… again

Scott Morrison wants his family photo album back. It was mistakenly sent to an op-shop where it was bought by a customer who soon realised they’d...

latest 9

Pearls and Irritations

Sharon Connolly

Trump Mk II, McKinley and late-imperialism

Trump Mk II, McKinley and late-imperialism

Donald Trump’s first term as president tested the US’s political boundaries, but his second term has demolished them. A month in and his second...

latest 8

Pearls and Irritations

Damien Kingsbury

This upside-down world

This upside-down world

What an amazing thing is the human spirit. What an amazing thing is human dignity. We, the Palestinians, despite everything this cruel world has...

latest 8

Pearls and Irritations

Jafar Ramini

The AI that Silicon Valley fears: How DeepSeek democratised innovation

The AI that Silicon Valley fears: How DeepSeek democratised innovation

The Chinese company’s open-source model proves that innovation thrives on sharing, not Western Big Tech’s hypocritical monopolisation. It has been...

latest 9

Pearls and Irritations

Chandran Nair

Human sacrifice: remembering Aaron Bushnell

Human sacrifice: remembering Aaron Bushnell

Lest we forget. On 25 February last year, Aaron Bushnell, a 25 year-old active duty US serviceman, self-immolated in front of the Israeli Embassy...

latest 8

Pearls and Irritations

Eugene Doyle

Garnaut: The renewables boom within our reach

Garnaut: The renewables boom within our reach

Donald Trump might be a speed hump on the road to net zero, but the business and climate case for renewables leaves Australia in the box seat to...

latest 10

Pearls and Irritations

Ross Garnaut

Dutton unplugged? Bolt for the long grass… More Dutton stuff ups!

Dutton unplugged? Bolt for the long grass… More Dutton stuff ups!

The next federal election looms ahead menacingly. This is when the metal hits the meat and we have to make hard decisions or become just the burnt...

latest 10

Pearls and Irritations

Richard Llewellyn

There will always be an enemy

There will always be an enemy

The English often sing There’s Always Been an England. For America the song would probably be something along the lines of there will always be an...

yesterday 1

Pearls and Irritations

Noel Turnbull

Can Kathleen Folbigg ever be adequately compensated for her wrongful conviction? [pic Kathleen Folbigg]

In 2023 Kathleen Folbigg was pardoned and released after 20 years of wrongful imprisonment; soon after, her convictions were quashed by the NSW...

yesterday 10

Pearls and Irritations

Kerry Breen

Inclusive solutions for exclusive schools

Inclusive solutions for exclusive schools

The 2025 school year is under way, and every young Australian is sharing the experience of renewing friendships and the routines of school and...

yesterday 9

Pearls and Irritations

Chris Bonnor

Environment: Governments like docile populations, that’s why they intimidate activists

Environment: Governments like docile populations, that’s why they intimidate activists

Governments want you to feel powerless, but the tools for change are in our hands. Australia’s economy is failing to decarbonise. Burning trees to...

yesterday 10

Pearls and Irritations

Peter Sainsbury

Trump 2.0 and the crisis in Australia’s delusional middle power imagining

Trump 2.0 and the crisis in Australia’s delusional middle power imagining

Politicians, media commentators and academics routinely assert that Australia is a middle power. They assume that while their country is not a...

yesterday 10

Pearls and Irritations

Allan Patience

Donald Trump’s axis of authoritarianism

Donald Trump’s axis of authoritarianism

Even for those of us who feared the worst about a possible second coming of Donald Trump, the pace and nature of the changes his administration is...

previous day 9

Pearls and Irritations

Mark Beeson

Yellow Peril! Red Peril! ‘We cannot hide anymore’. Chinese warships in the Tasman Sea

Yellow Peril! Red Peril! ‘We cannot hide anymore’. Chinese warships in the Tasman Sea

The Western media went into overdrive this past week to work the laconic Kiwis into a mild frenzy over three Chinese naval vessels conducting...

previous day 9

Pearls and Irritations

Eugene Doyle

Has the world gone mad?

Has the world gone mad?

Rational people should share a sense of amazement that virtually all European political “leaders” and Western professional commentators appear to...

previous day 10

Pearls and Irritations

John Whitbeck

Dutton’s stuff-ups: Tough guy who’s not so tough

Dutton’s stuff-ups: Tough guy who’s not so tough

For a self-promoted tough guy — particularly if it involves refugee women and children — Peter Dutton’s career has been marked by many instances of...

previous day 8

Pearls and Irritations

Noel Turnbull

To make Medicare healthy again, our leaders must treat these worrying symptoms

To make Medicare healthy again, our leaders must treat these worrying symptoms

I don’t know if you noticed, but the federal election campaign began on Sunday. The date of the election has yet to be announced – it may be...

previous day 10

Pearls and Irritations

Ross Gittins

Daniel Levy: We are all people, we are all born equal

Daniel Levy: We are all people, we are all born equal

Daniel Levy, president of the US/Middle East Project, addressed the UN Security Council on the situation in the Middle East, including the...

previous day 9

Pearls and Irritations

United Nations

High seas farce with Chinese characteristics

High seas farce with Chinese characteristics

The melodramatic media story about the small Chinese naval flotilla exercising with “live” ammunition off the Australian and New Zealand coasts has...

previous day 9

Pearls and Irritations

Kym Davey

People’s inquiry into campus free speech on Palestine to shine a light on repression

People’s inquiry into campus free speech on Palestine to shine a light on repression

When power oppresses, civil society must hold it to account. Like media and the arts, university campuses in Australia have become sites of...

previous day 10

Pearls and Irritations

Alexis Vassiley

Just how bad can Trump 2.0 get?

Just how bad can Trump 2.0 get?

Even those of us who feared the worst have been astounded by the Trump administration’s attack on the rule of law, democratic principles and even...

friday 10

Pearls and Irritations

Mark Beeson

AUKUS ‘impact assessment’ report ignores nuclear sub risks in SA

AUKUS ‘impact assessment’ report ignores nuclear sub risks in SA

Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek has released an EPBC Act ‘Impact Assessment Report’ (IAR) to address the environmental impacts of constructing...

friday 3

Pearls and Irritations

David Noonan

Arts on notice: The clarion call of Tilda Swinton

Arts on notice: The clarion call of Tilda Swinton

At a time when the “cost of living” crisis undermines the wellbeing of millions — and when for besieged Palestinians in Gaza it rather represents a...

friday 3

Pearls and Irritations

Pam Stavropoulos

The egg and I

The egg and I

You can tell a lot about a person by the way they boil an egg for breakfast. I’ve made a study of it. The conservatives wait till the water’s...

friday 10

Pearls and Irritations

Robert Macklin

Barking up the wrong tree

Barking up the wrong tree

In the past 250 years two institutions were conceived and have come to rule our lives: modern democratic government and the modern corporation....

friday 7

Pearls and Irritations

Robert Hinkley

Timor-Leste appears to abandon sustainability

Timor-Leste appears to abandon sustainability

More than two decades ago, the then soon to be independent country of Timor-Leste planned to embark on a future marked by sustainability, avoiding...

friday 3

Pearls and Irritations

Damien Kingsbury

The Chinese invasion begins: Anti-China Media Watch

The Chinese invasion begins: Anti-China Media Watch

Is a flotilla of Chinese ships on a reconnaissance mission for a future invasion of Australia or, as the Australian Defence Force admits, is China...

friday 10

Pearls and Irritations

Marcus Reubenstein

What can one now say about Israel without being smeared as an antisemite?

What can one now say about Israel without being smeared as an antisemite?

I read the definition of antisemitism adopted by Australian universities and my first thought was “we need a list”, not of what is considered...

friday 70

Pearls and Irritations

Sawsan Madina