Australia
Troubled waters? Australia-Indonesia maritime boundary in the news
Recent media reports suggest that different perspectives on maritime boundaries are creating tensions between Australia and Indonesia. An Indonesian border negotiator told The…
As varied as the weather: How public attitudes shape climate policy
Australians are no strangers to the “climate wars”. For more than a decade, the politics of responding to global warming has felled prime ministers amid policy failures and…
Indians are becoming visible in Australia like never before
Two weeks after the end of the hiatus on flights from India to Australia, the repatriation of the 9,000-plus Australian citizens who wish to return home has resumed, albeit slowly…
Paying the price: Australians want action on climate change
With US President Joe Biden putting climate change at the centre of US foreign policy, Australia is facing increasing pressure from its closest ally to do more. John Kerry, the…
Australia-China relations: More hurdles ahead
A recent report in the Sydney Morning Herald found that Australian media outlets quote the Global Times more often than they quote either China’s President Xi Jinping or members…
Economic diplomacy: Budgeting for China and the price that matters
New chapter
It may not have been intended, but a map deep inside last week’s federal budget papers seems to sum up the Australian government’s economic diplomacy strategy:…
When border control goes over the line
The failure of the Australian government to return citizens and permanent residents from New Delhi on the first repatriation flight to Darwin since the recent shutdown of air…
Australia and migration: Will the Covid pause become a full stop?
In late 2019, I published a short book titled Our Very Own Brexit, which argued that Australia might one day break from Asia as Britain had broken from Europe. The trigger I…
A rare test of China diplomacy
The term “political science,” as many have observed, is somewhat of an oxymoron. Of all fields of scholarly pursuit, politics is comparatively ill-suited to the processes of the…
Indonesia responds to the cyber dark side
The “DarkSide” ransomware cyber-attack on the US-based gasoline facility Colonial Pipeline, which has disrupted East Coast fuel supplies and invoked emergency legislation,…