I appeared last Friday on ABCTV News 24’s The Drum (video here) talking principally about the reality of asylum seekers and why Australia’s policy towards them is based on cruelty and not compassion. In summary, I’ve long argued that Australia, as a rich nation, is making a choice to punish refugees in remote detention camps…
Showing all posts tagged Tony Abbott
Voice of Russia interview about Australian election of Tony Abbott
I was interviewed last night by The Voice of Russia about the ascension of Tony Abbott to the Prime Ministership (my previous interview with them was in July on asylum seekers): As Australia conservative leader Tony Abbott has won the national elections by a landslide, bringing an end to a six-year Labor rule, Antony Loewenstein,…
Refugee Art Project resists demonisation of refugees
With the weekend election of Tony Abbott as Prime Minister of Australia, we’re in for even rougher years of treating asylum seekers with cruelty and contempt. The Refugee Art Project challenges this trend, offering a voice and space for refugees to be creative while behind the razor wire. This new film, by Daz Chandler, movingly…
Australian Jewish heads love Zionist colonies, conservatism and remain lost cause
Australia has a federal election on 7 September. We’re looking at a change of government to Liberal leader Tony Abbott; a period of neo-conservatism awaits us. I agree with Wikileaks head Julian Assange who argues that one of the key issues is liberating ourselves from genuflecting towards Washington on every issue. Israel/Palestine has barely featured…
Tony Abbott’s foreign policy would be as clueless as George W. Bush
My following article appears today in the Guardian: In April 2010, as the war in Afghanistan was raging and US president Barack Obama… “surged” 30,000 more troops… into the country, Australian opposition leader Tony Abbott suggested that under his leadership, a Coalition government would have considered increasing involvement. “The government should explain why it’s apparently right that…
How conservatives view free speech when discussing Israel and war
Let’s not be under any illusion that conservatives who talk about a love of “freedom” (including… Rupert Murdoch, for that matter) mean nothing of the sort, but only views that push a pro-US, pro-Israel and pro-war agenda. The Zionist lobby, a long-time fan of bullying opponents, is on-board.… Here’s Murdoch’s Australian on the weekend: A Coalition government…
Australian politics is little better than satire. Discuss
Australian politicians, including Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, are currently wandering around Western Sydney looking for friends and spewing bile against anybody who isn’t “Australian”, whatever the hell that means. Pandering to the racist instinct is the worst kind of politics. I’ve never linked to a story on Channel 7’s Today…
Alternative Australian government blindly endorses occupying Israel
Liberal opposition leader Tony Abbott has recently been in London attending the… Australia-Israel-UK Leadership Forum. Unsurprisingly, the Australian media has mostly ignored the event – I mean, hell, why would they want to cover how the Zionist lobby works to enforce a fundamentalist position on Israel/Palestine? – so today’s front page story in Murdoch’s Australian… shows just…
How the Australian Zionist lobby corrupts political process (and politicians and reporters join in)
It’s nearly Christmas and that must mean yet another year of the Australia-Israel-UK Leadership Forum. The Australian media has virtually ignored the whole thing because they’re a) lazy b) not curious and c) clueless how to write about the shamelessness of witnessing so many politicians pall around with pro-occupation Israeli figures. These are the same…
Why boycotting Israeli academia is necessary and principled
My following piece appears today in ABC’s… The Drum: An academic boycott of Israeli universities isn’t an attack on freedom of speech. The evidence tells us these institutions are key battlegrounds for breaches of international law towards the Palestinians, argues Antony Loewenstein. New Zealand’s $20 billion national pension fund… announced this month… that it was divesting from three…