Pearls and Irritations

Dan Duggan has spent more than four years in maximum-security custody fighting US extradition. Richard Broinowski says his case tests how far Australia will defer to Washington. #DanDuggan #Extradition #auspol

The alleged FlyDubai plot must be investigated, but association is not evidence of guilt. Muslim institutions should not be made to answer for an individual’s alleged actions without proof of wrongdoing, Nail Aykan writes. #Islamophobia #Media #Australia

A town built on coal is preparing for Australia’s first new steel mill in more than 35 years, powered entirely by renewables and recycling Australian scrap, Giles Parkinson writes. #GreenSteel #Renewables #Manufacturing

Rising seas are sharpening conflicts between beachfront property, public access and coastal ecosystems. Better planning and stronger scientific advice could keep more of those battles out of court, Bruce Thom writes. #ClimateAdaptation #Coasts #Planning

The answer to political hatred is not less debate. Australia needs politicians who speak honestly, media that do not cultivate contempt and a public square where disagreement remains robust without becoming dehumanising, Jack Waterford writes. #HelenHaines #auspol #Democracy

Higher rates cannot lower the price of oil, while four increases this year are already squeezing households and slowing demand. Unless underlying inflation jumps, the RBA should pause, Michael Keating writes. #RBA #InterestRates #auspol

Another Netanyahu term could bring more war, deeper repression and the end of Israel’s international immunity as patience abroad finally runs out, Gideon Levy writes. #IsraelElection #Netanyahu #Israel

Children’s health is deteriorating across scores of measures as screens, diet, chemicals, isolation and changing family life transform the environments in which they develop, Julian Cribb writes. #ChildHealth #PublicHealth #DigitalAge

India’s Cockroach movement has grown from a satirical youth revolt into a broader challenge over unemployment, inequality and alleged electoral manipulation, Rakesh Ahuja writes. #India #Democracy #Modi

The High Court forced NSW coal approvals to confront the emissions produced when Australian coal is burned overseas. Special legislation for Mount Pleasant cannot make that climate cost disappear, AM Jonson and Tim Buckley write. #Climate #Coal #auspol

Universities must confront antisemitism, but contested definitions should not become speech codes that chill legitimate criticism of Israel or academic debate, Annabel Dulhunty writes. #Antisemitism #AcademicFreedom #Universities

What happens if parts of northern Australia become too hot to live in, or the Great Barrier Reef turns white forever? Senior CSIRO scientists say Australia needs that conversation before it is too late, Peter Hannam writes. #Climate #CSIRO #auspol

For five years, AUKUS has largely escaped the public scrutiny its scale and consequences demand. The independent inquiry reporting on 4 November has gone where government would not, Doug Cameron writes. #AUKUS #Defence #auspol @DougCameron51

Israel votes on 27 October, but election night will not necessarily decide who governs – and millions of Palestinians living under Israeli control have no vote at all, Mohammed Haddad and Hanna Duggal write. #IsraelElection #Israel #Palestine

A major US survey finds worsening views of Trump among independents and Hispanic voters, widespread economic pessimism and growing dissatisfaction among parts of his 2024 coalition, Noel Turnbull writes. #Trump #USPolitics #Midterms

Visa denials, settler violence and threats to revoke citizenship are shrinking the space for critical journalism in Israel. When reporters become enemies, the warning signs are unmistakable, David Issacharaoff writes. #Israel #PressFreedom #Journalism

Beef remains highly emissions-intensive, but smarter farming can cut agricultural pollution. Meanwhile Snowy 2.0 faces another cost blowout and Swiss glaciers keep shrinking, Peter Sainsbury writes. #Climate #Agriculture #Snowy2

Brazil’s runoff offers sharply different economic strategies. Laura Carvalho and Joseph Stiglitz warn that Flávio Bolsonaro’s proposed spending cuts could slow growth, worsen inequality and still fail to stabilise public debt. #Brazil #Economy #Elections

If Australia needs another $115–120 billion a year in revenue, carbon and resource levies, wealth taxes and GST reform offer substantial options for raising it, Michael Keating writes. #Tax #Budget #auspol

Australia’s underlying electricity demand hit a record, yet September-quarter wholesale prices fell to their lowest in five years as solar and batteries increasingly shifted cheap renewable power into evening peaks, Giles Parkinson writes. #Energy #Renewables #auspol

Australia keeps identifying the same opportunities and weaknesses in its engagement with Africa. The problem is not another strategy but sustained institutional follow-through, Christopher Burke writes. #Africa #Trade #auspol

One Nation wants to revive native forest logging in Victoria, but the industry left taxpayers with years of losses, shrinking timber supply and a $402 million legal claim, David Lindenmayer writes. #Victoria #Forestry #auspol

France’s student protests expose more than anger at Parcoursup. When opaque automated systems inherit existing inequality, technology can legitimise unfair outcomes rather than correct them, Gabriela Ramos writes. #France #Education #AI

Australia condemns Russia, arms Ukraine and invokes international law, yet applies far less pressure over Gaza. That inconsistency exposes a deeper problem in Australian foreign policy, John Menadue writes. #Ukraine #Gaza #auspol

Reports of renewed Israeli strike plans against Iran demand scrutiny. Without a clear and immediate security necessity, military action must not become entangled with an election, a Haaretz editorial warns. #IsraelElection #Iran #Israel

Australia cannot simultaneously demand better public services, restore the budget and insist taxes must keep falling. The numbers point instead to a need for substantially more revenue, Michael Keating writes. #Tax #Budget #auspol

Treating the Pacific as a permanent contest with China overstates the symmetry between the two powers, underestimates Pacific countries’ agency and risks provoking the rivalry Australia fears, Joanne Wallis writes. #Pacific #China #auspol

Regulating platforms can tackle what pulls young people towards extremism. Schools can help reduce the alienation, exclusion and distrust that make them receptive in the first place, John Frew writes. #Education #Extremism #auspol

A ceasefire alone will not produce a durable peace in Ukraine. Any settlement must address neutrality, territory, NATO enlargement and the wider European security order, Jeffrey Sachs writes. #Ukraine #Russia #Peace

Navi Pillay’s Nobel Peace Prize honours a lifetime spent defending international law against apartheid, genocide and state impunity at a moment when the global legal order is under extraordinary pressure, Adekeye Adebajo writes. #NobelPeacePrize #HumanRights #Gaza

The attack on Helen Haines is a warning about what happens when threats, humiliation and hatred become normalised. Taking the political temperature down must mean more than speaking softly for a while, Catriona Jackson writes. #HelenHaines #auspol

AUKUS is sold as a sovereign Australian defence capability. But its strategic logic and dependence on US systems raise a harder question: are Australians paying hundreds of billions to help defend the US homeland, John Menadue writes. #AUKUS #auspol #Defence

A photograph from 1997 captures Israeli and Palestinian lawmakers travelling, laughing and talking together as though peace were normal. Ahead of Israel’s election, it now looks like a scene from another world, Gideon Levy writes. #Israel #Palestine #IsraelElection

Australian civil society groups are increasingly demanding that governments turn international legal commitments into domestic law, policy and accountability, particularly on human rights, war powers and Gaza, Alison Broinowski writes. #InternationalLaw #HumanRights #auspol

The World Food Programme is cutting food assistance to 500,000 people in Gaza as funding dries up, with two-thirds of the population still facing acute food insecurity after three years of Israel’s genocidal war, Al Jazeera reports. #Gaza #Palestine #Hunger

Australia’s illicit tobacco crisis is giving Big Tobacco renewed political access, with companies lobbying for excise cuts as the Coalition and One Nation propose slashing the tax, Christina Watts writes. #Tobacco #PublicHealth #auspol

The age of cheap energy, plentiful materials and frictionless supply chains is over. Emerging economies need to align energy, fiscal, trade and skills policy for a more supply-constrained world, V. Anantha Nageswaran writes. #Economy #Energy #Trade

The attack on Helen Haines should force us to confront the hostility, contempt and character assassination corroding public life, and to choose kinder ways of disagreeing with one another, Robbie Lloyd writes. #HelenHaines #auspol

The Kumanjayi Little Baby review has again exposed systemic failure in the Northern Territory. The closure of YiSSA shows a wider crisis affecting Indigenous people across housing, justice and human rights, John Lawrence writes. #IndigenousAustralia #NTpol #auspol

Religious nationalism is increasingly entangled with political and military power in the United States and elsewhere. Australia should ask what that means for an alliance on which it continues to rely, George Browning writes. #USPolitics #Religion #auspol

Senior drama enrolments have fallen 43 per cent in a decade. But the deeper issue is whether students are genuinely choosing against the arts, or losing access to the experiences that help them discover what matters, John Frew writes. #Education #ArtsEducation #auspol

The World Bank says AI can deliver “more and better jobs”. But gig workers already managed by algorithms show why that promise needs enforceable rights over pay, safety, classification and automated decisions, Lena Simet writes. #AI #WorkersRights #GigEconomy

Victoria’s plan to buy 25,000 extra procedures a year from private hospitals may shorten waiting lists, but it risks paying more for the same scarce clinical workforce rather than building lasting public capacity, Tom Keating writes. #Victoria #Health #auspol

NAZA uses testimony from Israeli soldiers and intelligence personnel to show how surveillance, AI and military procedure turned civilian deaths in Gaza into calculated routine, Ayesha Jehangir writes. #Gaza #Genocide #Documentary

Lobbying, donations and revolving doors are only part of fossil fuel influence in Australia. The industry has also tied coal and gas to jobs, prosperity and national identity, helping keep them at the centre of politics, Christopher Wright writes. #Climate #FossilFuels #auspol

Australia taxes work too heavily and consumption too lightly. A broader, higher GST could fund major cuts to income and payroll taxes while improving intergenerational fairness, Crispin Hull writes. #TaxReform #GST #auspol

The manosphere teaches boys to see themselves as wronged and women as the problem. Men need to offer something very different: responsibility, restraint and a willingness to confront male violence and misogyny, Kos Samaras writes. #MaleViolence #Manosphere #auspol

Malaysia cannot call for accountability abroad while welcoming Min Aung Hlaing and returning Myanmar nationals without independent safeguards. Its credibility on international justice now rests on applying one standard consistently, Aizat Shamsuddin writes. #Malaysia #Myanmar #ASEAN

Sally Rooney’s books can no longer be supplied in the UK because of her support for Palestine Action. Her case shows how the group’s proscription is reaching far beyond direct protest into literary culture and free expression, Julian Novitz writes. #PalestineAction #FreeSpeech #UK

AI’s immediate harms are real, but apocalyptic warnings about existential risk are also being used to justify restrictions that could entrench tech monopolies and deepen global dependence, Adji Bousso Dieng writes. #AI #OpenSource #Technology