Australia’s Cinema: To Wake in Fright

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By Dr. Binoy Kampmark Global Research, June 16, 2017 What is inescapable in the Australian landscape is its cosmic character, one that mixes suggestively astral dust with the brilliance of the blinding sun. Desolate, parched earth becomes poetic affirmation, though it is the poetry of death and distraction, its stanzas luring the life from you.  Ted […]

Dreams of Detention

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By Dr. Binoy Kampmark Global Research, June 09, 2017 Detention comes in various forms, and all have a basic premise: the removal of liberty of the subject, the presence of permanent control and surveillance, the utter reduction of rights to life to obligations to the state. The suggestion of internment of terror suspects by One […]

Protecting Australia against Japan? The Need for US Military Presence in the Asia-Pacific Region?

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Coral Sea Mythology: Malcolm Turnbull’s Fictions By Dr. Binoy Kampmark Global Research, May 09, 2017 The sea, and bodies of water, are as good as any in creating myths. Out of the water come creation myths: the heaving gorgeousness of Venus, emerging from raised foam, vitality captured in the enduring painting by Sandro Botticelli.  The […]

Ice and Busts: The Lost War on Drugs in Australia

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By Dr. Binoy Kampmark Global Research, April 06, 2017 It was hard to tell whether Australia’s Federal Police authorities, along with their Victorian colleagues, were gloating at their latest effort. Thrilled at the unearthing of a stash of methamphetamine, a form of it colloquially known as ice, trumpeted as the “biggest seizure” in Australian history, […]

Afghanistan’s President Ashaf Ghani in Australia.The Hazara Dilemma

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By Dr. Binoy Kampmark Global Research, April 04, 2017 Australian government officials are at it again, and the visit by President Ashaf Ghani to Canberra on Sunday piqued interest amongst various members of the Afghan community concerned about the next innovation in cruelty practiced by Canberra. If there is something exceptional in the otherwise dreary […]

Australia Blows Israel’s Credibility on Its “World Vision” Sham Accusations

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By Dr. Vacy Vlazna Global Research, March 23, 2017   “The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) says an internal review into World Vision funding in Gaza has uncovered nothing to suggest any diversion of government aid funding to Hamas.” ABC The blow to Israel’s credibility is colossal because, a. the investigation had teeth, […]

Romancing Coal in Australia: The Adani Obsession

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By Dr. Binoy Kampmark Global Research, March 19, 2017 The rain pours with torrential fury in north Queensland, opening up with ominous welcome as it slices through layers of stifling humidity. But the fury is also being registered in the rag like bleating sheet known to locals as the Bullie, that beacon of local sentimentality […]

Australia Participated in 2003 Iraq War Solely to Boost Ties with Bush, Army Think-Tank

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By RT Global Research, February 27, 2017 RT 25 February 2017 The Australian government joined the widely unpopular Iraq War in 2003 – deploying troops, warships, and combat aircraft – solely to boost its relationship with George W. Bush’s White House, a declassified Australian army paper has revealed. A report, written by Dr. Albert Palazzo […]

Triumphing over Reality: China, Australia and Free Trade

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By Dr. Binoy Kampmark Global Research, February 10, 2017 The suspended reality across the Pacific took hold as the Australian Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop, conversed with her Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, in a state of mild delusion. Assuming the air of a clairvoyant, Bishop insisted that she knew that the United States would not repudiate […]

Plucking the Foreign Goose: Australia’s Tax on Backpackers

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“The old ladies at the bingo club wouldn’t carry on as much as the politicians have about this whole backpacker tax.”— Fiona Hall, ABC News, Dec 2, 2016 The morning news on the ABC network featured blondes, and more blondes, riding a derelict van along a non-descript street in sunny Australia. It did not matter […]

Flawed Alliances and the “Pivot to Asia”: Australia, the US and Trumpism

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By Dr. Binoy Kampmark Global Research, November 26, 2016 Politics can be a deliciously self-defeating field.  For the US-Australian alliance, one born out of desperate insecurity on the part of Canberra, a dramatic change in the White House was always going to cause a shudder.  A Clinton presidency was presumed to be inevitable and, on taking place, a […]

Demonising Wind Energy in Australia: The South Australian Blackout

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By Dr. Binoy Kampmark Global Research, October 17, 2016 From the time when energy became a state ambition and the central, almost paranoid platform of security, its messiness became apparent.  Energy reserves needed to be controlled; corrupt regimes with access to such resources needed to be placated, or, if not, overthrown and replaced by compliant […]

Australian War Crimes in Afghanistan Exposed

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Covering, And Exposing, Atrocity. Australian Commandos Come Forward By Dr. Binoy Kampmark Global Research, October 16, 2016 Kevin Frost, a special forces sergeant in the Australian Army, has done something unusual. He wishes, even demands, to be tried for his role behind the summary execution of an Afghan prisoner in his captivity during a tour […]

Obituary: Australia’s Great Barrier Reef (25 Million BC-2016)

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By Rowan Jacobsen Global Research, October 14, 2016 The Outsider 11 October 2016 The Great Barrier Reef of Australia passed away in 2016 after a long illness. It was 25 million years old. For most of its life, the reef was the world’s largest living structure, and the only one visible from space. It was 1,400 miles […]

Selling Australia’s Security and Refugee agenda. Prime Minister Turnbull as Fantasist

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By Dr. Binoy Kampmark Global Research, September 18, 2016 Island mentalities do not travel well.  When their sellers hawk the agenda before world forums, these start looking ludicrous. Coming close to this ludicrous display is Australian prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, who has done what other Australian prime ministers have in previous years: sell the great […]

Australia’s Global ‘Exit’: Tribalism and International Institutions

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By Dr. Binoy Kampmark Global Research, September 15, 2016 Australian values and way of life are also at risk from insidious institutions such as the unelected swill that is the United Nations. Senator Roberts, One Nation Party, Sep 14, 2016. It all begins with a promise. A promise, less for a better future than a reclaimed […]

Islamic State, Lone Wolf Attacks, and Australia

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The Value of False Expectations By Dr. Binoy Kampmark Global Research, September 08, 2016 Australia’s distance from various centres of power has been called a tyranny.  But flip that tyranny over, and you have an assortment of benefits for local development, the mighty laboratory that bred a middle class experiment supposedly egalitarian and oiled by […]

Posing the Unthinkable: Resettling Refugees in Australia

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By Dr. Binoy Kampmark Global Research, September 06, 2016 If we require a shield [against people smugglers] we should leave that up to Australian Border Force, our Navy, the AFP and our intelligence services. Paris Aristotle, Lateline, Sep 5, 2016. Unthinkable, that is, in Australia.  Unthinkable to finally accept that the international pathways of asylum seekers and refugees […]

Australia Targets Daesh-ISIS “With Lethal Force” at Home and Abroad

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Stretching the Kill Chain: Malcolm Turnbull, the ADF and Islamic State By Dr. Binoy Kampmark Global Research, September 02, 2016 They [the Australian Defence Forces] will be able to target Daesh at its core – joining with our coalition partners to target and kill a broader range of Daesh combatants – which is consistent with […]

The History of Australia’s Mining Charter Towns in Northern Queensland

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By Dr. Binoy Kampmark Global Research, September 01, 2016 We’ve got the best, Glass bottles. Goats and girls, In the town we call the World.  Ditty on Charters Towers, circa late 19th Century Charters Towers, North Queensland The Australian outback shrinks human life forms. In a manner no doubt similar to extra-terrestrial experience, the human form becomes minute, […]

Historic Decision: First Australian State to Ban Fracking for Onshore Gas

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The State of Victoria Bans Fracking By Jax Jacobsen Global Research, August 31, 2016 EcoWatch 30 August 2016 The state of Victoria in Australia has voted to ban fracking on its territory, further cementing the moratorium first put in place in 2012. It is the first Australian state to impose such a ban. Premier Daniel Andrews announced […]

Australia and the Asylum Seekers: The Hideous Manus Island Camp, Institutionalized Cruelty, “The Nauru Files”

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By Dr. Binoy Kampmark Global Research, August 26, 2016 When the first reports came through about the unfolding Holocaust during the Second World War, audiences were incredulous.  Surely no industrialised society could quite go so far?  Killings, yes; butcheries, certainly.  But a mass-scale industrialised gassing and massacring of whole populations was simply not tenable.  The […]

The Terrors of Free Speech: Australia’s Racial Discrimination Act

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By Dr. Binoy Kampmark Global Research, August 26, 2016 When sections in a piece of legislation assume their own properties, the state of debate is bound to be strained. In Australia, the Racial Discrimination Act (RDA), notably section 18C, has again become a central ball of political play. Sections 18C and 18D were introduced as […]

Bungling the Australian Census

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By Dr. Binoy Kampmark Global Research, August 11, 2016 Each country needs its exceptionalist message, its sui generis theme. We do something here no one else does, and such like. In Australia, there are many things deemed exceptional. Compulsory voting, on pain of a fine, is one such case. Compulsory voting in a census is […]

Refugee Trauma: Australia’s Remorseless Detention Camp on Nauru

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Leaked Incident Reports By Dr. Binoy Kampmark Global Research, August 10, 2016 “Do I have to kill myself to go to Australia?” — Asylum seeker, Nauru, March 2, 2015 Human sensibility has been given another sound beating with the leak of 2,116 incident reports from Australia’s remorseless detention camp on Nauru.  The reports total some 8,000 pages […]

Aboriginal MPs in Australia Doesn’t Let The Major Parties Off The Hook For Mistreating the Aborigines

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The election of Linda Burney is welcome, but the real celebrations can only begin when Labor and the Coalition make significant changes to their Indigenous Affairs policies. Until there is support for a strong and independent First Nations representative body, that’s unlikely to happen, writes Amy McQuire. In the midst of so much uncertainty, and the […]

Australia – ‘Boiling Anger’, ‘Simmering Resentment’ Over Detention Abuse Videos

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By Christine Kearney July 31, 2016 “Information Clearing House” – “ABC” – Indigenous broadcaster Stan Grant has delivered an impassioned speech, describing his “pulsating rage” and “simmering resentment” about the way Aboriginal youths have been treated. Delivering a public lecture at the University of New South Wales, Grant said he was moved to speak openly […]

Former PM of Australia Kevin Rudd’s Failed Bid to Become the Next UN Secretary General

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By Dr. Binoy Kampmark Global Research, July 29, 2016 Few sights are sadder in international diplomacy than seeing an aging figure desperate for honours. In a desperate effort to net them, he scurries around, cultivating, prodding, wishing to be noted.  Finally, such an honour is netted, in all likelihood just to shut that overly keen […]

Has the Grand Mufti of Australia Condemned Terrorist Attacks Overseas?

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By Clarke Jones Asia-Pacific Research, July 25, 2016 The Conversation 22 July 2016 The Conversation is fact-checking claims made on Q&A, broadcast Mondays on the ABC at 9:35 pm. Thank you to everyone who sent us quotes for checking via Twitter using hashtags #FactCheck and #QandA, on Facebook or by email. Senator-elect Pauline Hanson faced heavy questioning on Monday night’s […]

The Threat of Racism in Australia: Racist Politics is Being Legitimized in Australian Society

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By Amy McQuire, Michael Brull, and Samah Sabawi Asia-Pacific Research, July 25, 2016 New Matilda 22 July 2016 In an open letter to readers Amy McQuire, Michael Brull, and Samah Sabawi call for strong ties across communities to counter the rising tide of racism, wherever it comes from. George Fredrikson was the Edgar E Robinson Professor of History at […]

The Death of Public Broadcasting in Australia: Culling Season at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation

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By Nicholas James Asia-Pacific Research, July 22, 2016 Green Left Weekly 15 July 2016 In May, the ABC’s first female managing director Michelle Guthrie was introduced by the ABC Board as bringing “business expertise, international contacts, a record in content-making across an array of platforms, a deep understanding of audience needs and corporate responsibility for […]

Australia’s Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull: The Failure of Success

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By Dr. Binoy Kampmark Global Research, July 19, 2016 The term “mandate” has been sluicing through the Australian electoral system in its predictable wash-up. In that particular country, it never matters whether one wins by one vote or a hundred thousand: everyone has a “clear mandate” to do what they damn well wish they think […]

Australia: “Hung Parliaments” and “Democracy”

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Hung parliaments are deemed the bane of the Westminster System.  It makes politicians sweat, policy makers work, and the broader system of representative government unusually representative. The latter part is particularly irksome for the majoritarians. Authoritarian tendencies are never far away from the politically elected. It is always easy to become hubristic when voters go […]

Radioactive Waste and the “Nuclear War” against Australia’s Aboriginal people

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By Jim Green Global Research, July 02, 2016 Ecologist 1 July 2016 Australia’s nuclear industry has a shameful history of ‘radioactive racism’ that dates from the British bomb tests in the 1950s, writes Jim Green. The same attitudes persist today with plans to dump over half a million tonnes of high and intermediate level nuclear […]

Thousands of Australian households cut off electricity

By Mary Beadnell 20 June 2016 Based on figures from just one major energy supply company, almost 200,000 households in eastern and southern Australia were threatened with having their power disconnected between 2012 and 2015, and about half were cut off. In a recently released report, Households in the Dark, St Vincent de Paul Society […]

Political crisis deepens in Australia’s “double dissolution” election

By Mike Head 16 June 2016 The past week has seen a sharp turn in the campaign for the July 2 “double dissolution” election in Australia, reflecting fears in the media and corporate establishment that Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s decision to call the rare election for all members of both houses of parliament has backfired. […]

Clipping Academic Freedom in Australia. “The Use of Social Media to Express Opinions”

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By Dr. Binoy Kampmark Global Research, June 14, 2016 Universities have become bastions of managerial madness.  The trends began some time ago, when money became the ultimate pursuit, and Mr Dollar became chancellor and chief.  The obsession with obtaining grants, the panjandrums awarding grants, the siphoning off funds, underwriting projects, have all made the academy […]

Australia’s east coast hit by devastating storms

By Eric Ludlow 13 June 2016 Intense storms, which began in Queensland on June 4 and swept south along Australia’s east coast over the next three days, killed five people, flooded hundreds of homes and destroyed basic infrastructure in parts of Queensland, New South Wales (NSW), the Australian Capital Territory and Tasmania. Major cities impacted […]

ASPI think tank warns of war with China and attacks on Australia

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By James Cogan 13 June 2016 Three weeks out from the July 2 election, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) has published a research paper titled Agenda for Change 2016: Strategic choices for the next government. ASPI strategists openly advise that the Australian government, during the next three-year term of parliament, will face the possibility […]

Australia’s French Connection and the Submarine Saga. France, Military Supplier for Royal Australian Navy

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By Dr. Binoy Kampmark Asia-Pacific Research, April 30, 2016 It was all a funny business, but it is very clear that the Australian relationship with France, at least when it comes to matters of defence, has changed over the years. From being belligerents keen to pursue nuclear testing in the Pacific, to being “cheese eating […]

Leakers Down Under: The Australian Federal Police Raids during Election Campaign

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By Dr. Binoy Kampmark Asia-Pacific Research, May 22, 2016 It is election time in Australia, and the electioneering took a remarkable turn Thursday night with announcements that the Australian Federal Police had raided the offices of the opposition Australian Labor Party, including that of a senior frontbencher and former communications minister, Senator Stephen Conroy. The moment news […]