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Best of 2025 - 7 October 2023: What really happened? Part 1

At dawn, on 7 October 2023, Hamas fighters blast over 100 holes in the walls and fences that separate the Gaza Strip from Israel. A repost from 6...

latest 10

Pearls and Irritations

Eugene Doyle

Best of 2025 - Australia faces a looming crisis of older women retiring in poverty. Here’s what we can do

Australia faces a serious challenge. Despite important progress on gender equality over recent decades, a looming crisis now threatens the economic...

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Pearls and Irritations

Misha Schubert

Best of 2025 - Inequality and the future of democracy

Rising inequality and declining living standards have posed a threat to democracy in several democracies, but so far not in Australia. However, the...

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Pearls and Irritations

Michael Keating

Best of 2025 - 7 October not a day to abuse protesters

When it comes to the domestic political fallout from the Gaza conflict, there are no more reliable and uncritical friends of Israel than Victoria’s...

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Pearls and Irritations

Greg Barns

Best of 2025 - Journos as heroes and villains - 'The Hack' reviewed - Part 1

In films and on the small screen, journalists are portrayed as heroes or villains. In The Hack they are both. Does this reflect the diminished,...

latest 9

Pearls and Irritations

Matthew Ricketson

Best of 2025 - ‘Disaster season’: What is that?

Anika Wells, in announcing a meeting with three telco giants to discuss Optus’s Triple Zero emergency call system catastrophe in September,...

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Pearls and Irritations

Chas Keys

Best of 2025 - Between two wounds: Gaza confronts Trump's plan to end the war

On a cold morning in central Gaza City, Nevin Al-Barbari, 35, sat in what remained of her family home, watching her two-year-old daughter, Reem,...

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Pearls and Irritations

Ruwaida Kamal Amer

Best of 2025 - A masterclass in agency: What Singapore can teach Australia about China

Singapore’s new Prime Minister Lawrence Wong sat down with the ABC on 2 October and offered something rare in Australia’s China debate: clarity,...

latest 9

Pearls and Irritations

Fred Zhang

The USA today: a derangement threatening the World

The response to events in Venezuela exposes how breaches of international law are absorbed, reframed, and normalised – and what that reveals about...

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Pearls and Irritations

Chandran Nair

Best of 2025 - Age policy is a shambles. Where to from here? Part 1 & 2

Wherever you look, at residential aged care institutions, at retirement village life, at the home support package scheme, or talk to the people...

yesterday 10

Pearls and Irritations

Patricia Edgar

Best of 2025 - Trump’s mongrel punt

In the Australian vernacular, a mongrel punt is an erratic kick forward of a football which leaves those participating in the game with an awkward...

yesterday 10

Pearls and Irritations

Bob Bowker

Best of 2025 - Chris Sidoti's prescription for action on Palestine

At the National Press Club this week with Ben Saul, Chris Sidoti argues that recognition of Palestine is important, but that Australia must also...

yesterday 10

Pearls and Irritations

Chris Sidoti

Best of 2025 - Ben Saul on Palestinian recognition and the Trump plan

At the National Press Club this week, Ben Saul argued that Australia is more than a “modest middle power” and must step up on Palestine. A repost...

yesterday 10

Pearls and Irritations

Ben Saul

Best of 2025 - States increase pressure on Commonwealth to address hospital cost increases

Hark back to December 2023. National Cabinet endorsed a historic agreement setting the parameters for future Commonwealth-state sharing of public...

yesterday 10

Pearls and Irritations

Stephen Duckett

Best of 2025 - Israel’s interception of the Gaza aid flotilla is a clear violation of international law

The Israel Defence Force has  intercepted a flotilla of humanitarian vessels seeking to deliver aid to Gaza, taking control of multiple vessels and...

yesterday 10

Pearls and Irritations

Donald Rothwell

Best of 2025 - No justice or peace for Palestinians in Trump’s Plan

The Trump Plan is designed to reframe the issues in favour of Israel. Palestinians have been betrayed again. A repost from 4 october 2025 The...

yesterday 10

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue

Francesca Albanese and the lonely road of defiance

The UN special rapporteur investigating Gaza is sanctioned, blacklisted and treated as a criminal. The response reveals how power reacts when...

yesterday 10

Pearls and Irritations

Chris Hedges

Best of 2025 - The Chris Hedges Report: We are all antifa now

The designation of the amorphous group antifa as a terrorist organisation allows the state to brand all dissidents as supporters of antifa and...

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Pearls and Irritations

Chris Hedges

Best of 2025 - New revelations of the Murdoch empire’s underbelly – From The Hack’s real-life journalist

This is the humblest day of my life,  declared Rupert Murdoch to a parliamentary committee on 19 July 2011. A repost from 30 September 2025 This...

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Pearls and Irritations

Rodney Tiffen

Best of 2025 - Could the Teals win Senate seats in an expanded parliament?

Important discussions are taking place within the government and before the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters about increasing the size...

previous day 5

Pearls and Irritations

Bob Mcmullan

Best of 2025 - Don’t mistake truth for hate, prime minister

Anthony Albanese says Palestinian children are taught to hate. My daughter’s first trip home proves otherwise. A repost from 25 September 2025....

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Pearls and Irritations

Lama Qasem

Best of 2025 - Hamas is better than us

This headline could get me jail time if, as reported, the New Zealand Government is planning to take the same authoritarian turn that the UK has...

previous day 10

Pearls and Irritations

Eugene Doyle

Best of 2025 - Disengaging from the dangerous alliance

When, in the course of close — some would say politically intimate — relations between allies, the dominant partner demands that the subordinate...

previous day 10

Pearls and Irritations

Michael Mckinley

Best of 2025 - Koalas, carbon credits and the fine print of conservation

We congratulate the NSW Government for establishing the Great Koala National Park, which will protect a nationally significant koala population. A...

previous day 10

Pearls and Irritations

Brendan Mackey

Best of 2025 - More Boomers are choosing not to retire. Why? They don’t want to

As the great bulge of babies born after World War II has moved through their life course, the world has changed to suit them and their needs. A...

previous day 10

Pearls and Irritations

Ross Gittins

Best of 2025 - The poisonous chalice of recognition: A double-edged sword for Palestine

While we should not regard it as a “historical moment” or a “game changer”, the recognition does have the potential to help Palestinians lead...

previous day 10

Pearls and Irritations

Ilan Pappé

Avoiding false conclusions

In the aftermath of the Bondi attack, explanations have been offered quickly and with strong moral force. Misidentifying the causes of violence,...

previous day 10

Pearls and Irritations

Paul Heywood-Smith

Best of 2025 - Recognition of the Palestinian State without halting the genocide: A meaningless decision

Since the occurrence of the war in October 2023, which shocked the conscience of the world, bringing the Palestinian question back to the forefront...

previous day 10

Pearls and Irritations

Refaat Ibrahim

Minister for Home Affairs Tony Burke should reject a visa application for Israeli President Herzog

Australia’s visa laws allow exclusion on grounds of character and incitement of discord. Those tests raise serious questions about whether Israel’s...

previous day 10

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue

Best of 2025 - Ex-bishop questions if Coalition is committed to Mideast peace

Former Anglican bishop of Canberra Goulburn, George Browning, has criticised federal Opposition leader Sussan Ley over a letter she sent to members...

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Pearls and Irritations

George Browning

Best of 2025 - How important is an Albanese-Trump meeting?

Trump’s record suggests that meetings with him frequently fail. Instead, Albanese has an important agenda to pursue at the UN in New York, and when...

thursday 2

Pearls and Irritations

Michael Keating

Best of 2025 - Government is planning hardship for older Australians living at home

Aged care has again been in the media for all the wrong reasons. Two failures are attracting particular attention. A repost from 25 September 2025....

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Pearls and Irritations

Kathy Eagar

Best of 2025 - Vale Pat Power, a true minister

The Australian Catholic Church lost one of its genuine leaders on Monday morning with the death of 83-year-old Bishop Patrick Power, retired...

thursday 2

Pearls and Irritations

Paul Collins

Best of 2025 - FOI changes big backward step for government transparency

There has been much commentary, most of it critical, about federal Attorney-General Michelle Rowland’s recently introduced Bill that amends the...

thursday 10

Pearls and Irritations

Greg Barns

Best of 2025 - A smart productivity play: Stop subsidising loss-making native forest logging

On 7 September 2025, NSW set the proposed 476,000-hectare boundary for the Great Koala National Park and halted native-forest logging within it (...

thursday 10

Pearls and Irritations

David Lindenmayer

Best of 2025 - Blaming China won’t keep the lights on – or pay the power bill

Sky News is back on the beat with a familiar headline: “The $20,000-per-person climate tax: Cost of Australia’s green agenda to become...

thursday 2

Pearls and Irritations

Fred Zhang

Best of 2025 - Flawed Hero, flawed decision: The War Memorial’s institutional cowardice

The Australian War Memorial remains one of Australia’s most cherished national institutions, attracting a million visitors, mainly tourists, to...

thursday 4

Pearls and Irritations

Peter Stanley

Best of 2025 - UN at 80 – Rome is burning, governments are fiddling and the UN is ailing - Part 1

This year marks the 80th anniversary of the signing of the UN Charter. During these eight decades, much has been accomplished that calls for...

thursday 2

Pearls and Irritations

Joseph Camilleri

Best of 2025 - Genocide betrays the living and the dead

Genocide scholars Damir Mitric and Jill Klein have deep personal and professional experience in genocide and repercussions across generations. As...

thursday 4

Pearls and Irritations

Damir Mitrić

Best of 2025 - What game is he playing? The PM and AUKUS

As the Australian prime minister prepares for his visit to the UN in New York next week, Robert Macklin looks into what Anthony Albanese might be...

thursday 1

Pearls and Irritations

Robert Macklin

We've had 26 royal commissions. Their failures should caution us against a repeat

Calls for a royal commission after the Bondi shootings reflect public anger and distrust, but decades of experience suggest such inquiries rarely...

thursday 5

Pearls and Irritations

Crispin Hull

Best of 2025 - Australia needs to diplomatically disengage from our 'dangerous ally'

It seems likely that our prime minister will meet Donald Trump at the United Nations General Assembly later this month. A repost from 15 September...

07.01.2026 2

Pearls and Irritations

John Menadue

Best of 2025 - Out of darkness comes a shaft of cheer

The news from Indonesia this month has been dispiriting – natural disaster flooding in Bali and Flores, man-made maladministration, political...

07.01.2026 2

Pearls and Irritations

Duncan Graham

Best of 2025 - If we want to win the Pacific, we must first listen – and stop blaming China for everything

A 9 September editorial in The Sydney Morning Herald, titled China and Australia in a high-speed race to win control of the Pacific, offered a...

07.01.2026 1

Pearls and Irritations

Fred Zhang

Best of 2025 - Why key leaders attended China’s military parade – Asian Media Report

In Asian media this week: Nations “must adapt” to new power politics. Plus: Raid “will hurt” South Korea’s US investments; Trump’s strategic shift...

07.01.2026 2

Pearls and Irritations

David Armstrong

Rethinking the call for a royal commission after Bondi

After initially calling for a federal royal commission into the Bondi attack, Greg Barns and Kym Davey explain why they have changed their minds –...

07.01.2026 1

Pearls and Irritations

Greg Barns

Best of 2025 - NATO in Asia-Pacific: Dragging us into a fight we can’t win

Is the future of Australia and New Zealand really as NATO forts, armed to the teeth glaring menacingly at an ever-rising China? A repost from 8...

06.01.2026 2

Pearls and Irritations

Eugene Doyle

Best of 2025 - Intergenerational equity and tax reform

Much of the discussion about the need for tax reform to preserve intergenerational equity is confused. The main challenges facing young people, in...

06.01.2026 3

Pearls and Irritations

Michael Keating

Best of 2025 - Courts brace for next wave of 'sovereign citizens'

When I wrote about the “ Cavalcade of the Cretinous” in February 2022, I thought the anti-vaccination early incarnations of “sovereign...

06.01.2026 1

Pearls and Irritations

Andrew Fraser

Best of 2025 - Albanese’s sliding doors moment on climate

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has just been handed an unflinching mirror at the Pacific Islands Forum. A repost from 10 September 2025...

06.01.2026 2

Pearls and Irritations

Dermot O’Gorman