ANALYSIS: By Ilan Pappé

Responses in the Western world to the genocide in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank raise a troubling question: why is the official West, and official Western Europe in particular, so indifferent to Palestinian suffering?

Why is the Democratic Party in the US complicit, directly and indirectly, in sustaining the daily inhumanity in Palestine — a complicity so visible that it probably was one reason they lost the election, as the Arab American and progressive vote in key states could, and justifiably so, not forgive the Biden administration for its part in the genocide in the Gaza Strip?

This is a pertinent question, given that we are dealing with a televised genocide that has now been renewed on the ground. It is different from previous periods in which Western indifference and complicity were displayed, either during the Nakba or the long years of occupation since 1967.

• READ MORE: Israel releases Gaza paramedic who survived deadly attack on health workers
• Other Israeli war on Palestine reports

During the Nakba and up to 1967, it was not easy to get hold of information, and the oppression after 1967 was mostly incremental, and, as such, was ignored by the Western media and politics, which refused to acknowledge its cumulative effect on the Palestinians.

But these last 18 months are very different. Ignoring the genocide in the Gaza Strip and the ethnic cleansing in the West Bank can only be described as intentional and not due to ignorance.

Both the Israelis’ actions and the discourse that accompanies them are too visible to be ignored, unless politicians, academics, and journalists choose to do so.

This kind of ignorance is, first and foremost, the result of successful Israeli lobbying that thrived on the fertile ground of an European guilt complex, racism and Islamophobia. In the case of the US, it is also the outcome of many years of an effective and ruthless lobbying machine that very few in academia, media, and, in particular, politics, dare to disobey.

The moral panic phenomenon
This phenomenon is known in recent scholarship as moral panic, very characteristic of the more conscientious sections of Western societies: intellectuals, journalists, and artists.

Moral panic is a situation in which a person is afraid of adhering to his or her own moral convictions because this would demand some courage that might have consequences. We are not always tested in situations that require courage, or at least integrity. When it does happen, it is in situations where morality is not an abstract idea, but a call for action.

This is why so many Germans were silent when Jews were sent to extermination camps, and this is why white Americans stood by when African Americans were lynched or, earlier on, enslaved and abused.

What is the price that leading Western journalists, veteran politicians, tenured professors, or chief executives of well-known companies would have to pay if they were to blame Israel for committing a genocide in the Gaza Strip?

It seems they are worried about two possible outcomes. The first is being condemned as antisemites or Holocaust deniers. Secondly, they fear an honest response would trigger a discussion that would include the complicity of their country, or Europe, or the West in general, in enabling the genocide and all the criminal policies against the Palestinians that preceded it.

This moral panic leads to some astonishing phenomena. In general, it transforms educated, highly articulate and knowledgeable people into total imbeciles when they talk about Palestine.

It disallows the more perceptive and thoughtful members of the security services from examining Israeli demands to include all Palestinian resistance on a terrorist list, and it dehumanises Palestinian victims in the mainstream media.

On ‘Moral Panic’ and the Courage to Speak – Professor Ilan Pappé examines how fear of professional consequences silences Western voices in the face of genocide in Gaza — and what this reveals about power, complicity, and moral responsibility.

Don’t miss this exclusive article.… pic.twitter.com/bnYHYVNckM

— The Palestine Chronicle (@PalestineChron) April 18, 2025

Lack of compassion
The lack of compassion and basic solidarity with the victims of genocide was exposed by the double standards shown by mainstream media in the West, and, in particular, by the more established newspapers in the US, such as The New York Times and The Washington Post.

When the editor of The Palestine Chronicle, Dr Ramzy Baroud, lost 56 members of his family — killed by the Israeli genocidal campaign in the Gaza Strip — not one of his colleagues in American journalism bothered to talk to him or show any interest in hearing about this atrocity.

On the other hand, a fabricated Israeli allegation of a connection between the Chronicle and a family, in whose block of flats hostages were held, triggered huge interest by these outlets.

This imbalance in humanity and solidarity is just one example of the distortions that accompanies moral panic. I have little doubt that the actions against Palestinian or pro-Palestinian students in the US, or against known activists in Britain and France, as well as the arrest of the editor of the Electronic Intifada, Ali Abunimah, in Switzerland, are all manifestations of this distorted moral behaviour.

A similar case unfolded just recently in Australia. Mary Kostakidis, a famous Australian journalist and former prime-time weeknight SBS World News Australia presenter, has been taken to the federal court over her — one should say quite tame — reporting on the situation in the Gaza Strip.

The very fact that the court has not dismissed this allegation upon its arrival shows you how deeply rooted moral panic is in the Global North.

But there is another side to it. Thankfully, there is a much larger group of people who are not afraid of taking the risks involved in clearly stating their support for the Palestinians, and who do show this solidarity while knowing it may lead to suspension, deportation, or even jail time. They are not easily found among the mainstream academia, media, or politics, but they are the authentic voice of their societies in many parts of the Western world.

The Palestinians do not have the luxury of allowing Western moral panic to have its say or impact. Not caving in to this panic is one small but important step in building a global Palestine network that is urgently needed — firstly, to stop the destruction of Palestine and its people, and second, to create the conditions for a decolonised and liberated Palestine in the future.

Dr Ilan Pappé is an Israeli historian, political scientist, and former politician. He is a professor with the College of Social Sciences and International Studies at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, director of the university’s European Centre for Palestine Studies, and co-director of the Exeter Centre for Ethno-Political Studies. This article is republished from The Palestine Chronicle, 19 April 2025.

When it comes to antisemitism, politicians in Australia are often quick to jump on the claim without waiting for evidence.

With notable and laudable exceptions like the Greens and independents such as Tasmanian federal MP Andrew Wilkie, it seems any allegation will do when it comes to the opportunity to imply Arab Australians, the Muslim community and Palestinian supporters are trying to destroy the lives of the Jewish community.

A case in point. The discovery in January this year of a caravan found in Dural, New South Wales, filled with explosives and a note that referenced the Great Synagogue in Sydney led to a frenzy of clearly uninformed and dangerous rhetoric from politicians and the media about an imminent terrorist attack targeting the Jewish community.

• READ MORE: A Sydney caravan laden with explosives was a ‘fake terrorism plot’. Here’s what we know
• Other terror plot reports

It was nothing of the sort as we now know with the revelation by police that this was a “fabricated terrorist plot”.

As the ABC reported on March 10: “Police have said an explosives-laden caravan discovered in January at Dural in Sydney’s north-west was a ‘fake terrorism plot’ with ties to organised crime”, and that “the Australian Federal Police said they were confident this was a ‘fabricated terrorist plot’,” adding the belief was held “very early on after the caravan was located”.

One would have thought the political and media class would know that it is critical in a society supposedly underpinned by the rule of law that police be allowed to get on with the job of investigating allegations without comment.

Particularly so in the hot-house atmosphere that exists in this nation today.

Opportunistic Dutton
But not the ever opportunistic and divisive federal opposition leader Peter Dutton.

After the Daily Telegraph reported the Dural caravan story on January 29,  Dutton was quick to say that this “was potentially the biggest terrorist attack in our country’s history”. To his credit, Prime Anthony Albanese said in response he does not “talk about operational matters for an ongoing investigation”.

Dutton’s language was clearly designed to whip up fear and hysteria among the Jewish community and to demonise Palestinian supporters.

He was not Robinson Crusoe sadly. New South Wales Premier Chris Minns told the media on January 29 that the Dural caravan discovery had the potential to have led to a “mass casualty event”.

The Zionist Federation of Australia, an organisation that is an unwavering supporter of Israel despite the horror that nation has inflicted on Gaza, was even more overblown in its claims.

It issued a statement that claimed: “This is undoubtedly the most severe threat to the Jewish community in Australia to date. The plot, if executed, would likely have resulted in the worst terrorist attack on Australian soil.”

Note the word “undoubtedly”.

Uncritical Israeli claims
Then there was another uncritical Israel barracker, Sky News’ Sharri Markson, who claimed; “To think perpetrators would have potentially targeted a museum commemorating the Holocaust — a time when six million Jews were killed — is truly horrifying.”

And naturally, Jilian Segal, the highly partisan so-called “Antisemitism Envoy” said the discovery of the caravan was a “chilling reminder that the same hatred that led to the murder of millions of Jews during the Holocaust still exists today”.

In short, the response to the Dural caravan incident was simply an exercise in jumping on the antisemitism issue without any regard to the consequences for our community, including the fear it spread among Jewish Australians and the further demonising of the Arab Australian community.

No circumspection. No leadership. No insistence that the matter had not been investigated fully.

As the only Jewish organisation that represents humanity, the Jewish Council of Australia, said in a statement from its director Sarah Schwartz on March 10 the “statement from the AFP [Australian Federal Police] should prompt reflection from every politician, journalist and community leader who has sought to manipulate and weaponise fears within the Jewish community.

‘Irresponsible and dangerous’
“The attempt to link these events to the support of Palestinians — whether at protests, universities, conferences or writers’ festivals — has been irresponsible and dangerous.” Truth in spades.

And ask yourself this question. Let’s say the Dural caravan contained notes about mosques and Arab Australian community centres. Would the media, politicians and others have whipped up the same level of hysteria and divisive rhetoric?

The answer is no.

One assumes Dutton, Segal, the Zionist Federation and others who frothed at the mouth in January will now offer a collective mea culpa. Sadly, they won’t because there will be no demands to do so.

The damage to our legal system has been done because political opportunism and milking antisemitism for political ends comes first for those who should know better.

Greg Barns SC is national criminal justice spokesperson for the Australian Lawyers Alliance. This article was first published by Pearls and Irritations social policy journal and is republished with permission.

The high-stress nature of working in politics is increasingly taking a toll on staff and politicians. But an additional threat to the personal wellbeing and safety of politicians resides outside Parliament, and the threat is ubiquitous: online violence against women MPs.

Since her election in 2017, Green Party MP Golriz Ghahraman has been subject to persistent online violence.

Ghahraman’s resignation following allegations of shoplifting exposes the toll sustained online violence can have on a person’s mental health.

• READ MORE: New Zealand newsrooms saw the rise of ‘mob censorship’ in 2023, as journalists faced a barrage of abuse
• Analysis shows horrifying extent of abuse sent to women MPs via Twitter
• How misogyny, narcissism and a desperate need for power make men abuse women online

In an interview with Vice in 2018, Ghahraman expressed how the online abuse was overwhelming and questioned how long she would continue in Parliament.

Resigning in 2024, Ghahraman said in a statement:

it is clear to me that my mental health is being badly affected by the stresses relating to my work

and

the best thing for my mental health is to resign as a Member of Parliament.

Ghahraman is not alone in receiving torrents of online abuse. Many other New Zealand women MPs have also been targeted, including former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson, National MP Nicola Willis and Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer.

Words can not only hurt, but they can seriously endanger a person’s wellbeing.

Online violence against women MPs, particularly against women of colour, is a concerning global trend. In an Australian study, women MPs were found to be disproportionately targeted by public threats, particularly facing higher rates of online threats involving sexual violence and racist remarks.

Similar online threats face women MPs in the United Kingdom. Studies show that women of colour receive more intense abuse.

Male politicians are also subject to online violence. But when directed at women the violence frequently exhibits a misogynistic character, encompassing derogatory gender-specific language and menacing sexualised threats, constituting gender-based violence.

Golriz Ghahraman’s exit from politics shows the toll of online bullying on female MPs

Many say it’s become overwhelming, writes @LegallyFeminist (@ucnz).https://t.co/PSsG9OBCii

— The Conversation – Australia + New Zealand (@ConversationEDU) January 19, 2024

Our legal framework is not enough
New Zealand’s current legal framework is not well equipped to respond to the kind of online violence experienced by women MPs like Ghahraman.

The Harmful Digital Communications Act 2015 is designed to address online harassment by a single known perpetrator. But the most distressing kind of abuse comes from the sheer number of violent commentators, most of whom are unknown to the victim or intentionally anonymous.

This includes “mob style” attacks, where large numbers of perpetrators coordinate efforts to harass, threaten, or intimidate their target.

Without legal recourse, women MPs have two options — tolerate the torrent of abuse, or resign. Both of these options endanger representative democracy.

Putting up with abuse may mean serious impacts on mental health and personal safety. It may also have a chilling effect on what topics women MPs choose to speak about publicly. Resigning means losing important representation of diverse perspectives, especially from minorities.

Having to tolerate the abuse is a breach of the right to be free from gender-based violence. Being forced to resign because of it also breaches women’s rights to participate in politics. Therefore, the government has duties under international human rights law to prevent, respond and redress online violence against women.

“More than 70 national elections are scheduled for 2024. But one group is likely to be significantly under-represented: women. A major reason is the disproportionate amount of abuse female politicians and candidates receive online.”https://t.co/SuPn36zLb4

— Indo-Pacific Defense FORUM (@IPDefenseForum) January 12, 2024

Steps the government can take
United Nations human rights bodies provide some guidance for measures the government could implement to fulfil their obligations and safeguard women’s human rights online.

As one of the drivers of online violence against women MPs is prevailing patriarchal attitudes, the government’s first step should be to correctly label the behaviour: gender-based violence.

Calling online harassment “trolling” or “cyberbullying” downplays the harm and risks normalising the behaviour. “Gender-based violence” reflects the systemic nature of the abuse.

Secondly, the government should urgently review the Harmful Digital Communication Act. The legislation is now nine years old and should be updated to reflect the harmful online behaviour of the 2020s, such as targeted mob-style attacks.

New Zealand is also now out of step with other countries. Australia, the UK and the European Union have all recently strengthened their laws to tackle harmful online content.

These new laws focus on holding big tech companies accountable and encourage cooperation between the government, online platforms and civil society. Greater collaboration, alongside enforcement mechanisms, is essential to address systemic issues like gender-based violence.

Thirdly, given the increasing scale of online violence, the government should ensure adequate resourcing for police to investigate serious incidents. Resources should also be made available for social media moderation among all MPs and training in online safety.

More than ever, words have the power to break people and democracies. It is now the urgent task of the government to fulfil its legal obligations toward women MPs.

Dr Cassandra Mudgway is senior lecturer in law, University of Canterbury. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

In Pyongyang there is a public service which would appeal to our own Public Service Commissioner in Aotearoa New Zealand. It never makes any dissenting or controversial view known.

Rather it readies itself for any potential change in the face of the Kim family leadership. Ever ready to resume the daily grind of boot-licking and box-ticking of a docile public service.

It is, as I like to say, neutered rather than neutral, but from above it can be very hard to tell the difference.

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In the ideal world that seems to be preferred in “PyongPoneke”, there is no room for open debate and each word means what the Public Service Commissioner says it means.

It is rather like the world described by Lewis Carroll: “When I use a word”, Humpty said in a rather scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”

“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master — that’s all”. Thank you Commissioner Humpty for your work taking the word “impartiality” out of the dictionary and into the public service world.

Imperial and colonial past
I am not against the public service. I am strongly for an excellent, efficient, equitable and effective public service. But you do not get that in a modern and complex society from a model of public service derived from a monocultural, inequitable and dare I say it (yes I do) imperial and colonial past.

In the real world what they like to call our public service is in fact a politically subservient service, far removed from the public it is supposed to serve.

This comment is not directed at the many thousands of public servants working closely with those they serve.

These people, the real public service, are often underpaid and overworked. They spend much time battling with the rules and processes and prejudices imposed on them by those at the top of the tree. Many are scared to speak up, so they leave or stay quiet.

I understand why, they need the job too much to risk being branded difficult. Not a few of them write to me, call me, or stop me in the street. And it is not to say “get back in line”.

They and the mandarins themselves know what the problem is. There is a square mile or so around the Beehive in Wellington, which is like the Vatican in Italy. A different country within a country. The world looks totally different from there.

Those there are mainly there for the same reason, and they are faced inwards, mentally at least, towards what they see as power and away from the people, the public they are supposed to serve.

They cannot understand Ōtara, or Cannons Creek . . .
They cannot see, hear or understand those in Ōtara, in Te Tai Tokerau, in Tairāwhiti, in Cannons Creek, on the West Coast or rural Southland.

Alongside the big consultancy firms that share their buildings, their CVs and their views, senior advisers draw up plans for the rest of us on whiteboards.

These are parsed by the “tier one” people who over coffee, wine, or whisky cosily massage these into an acceptable form for politicians. Just enough choices to create an illusion of political control, but not so much as to upset the system.

Are these people impartial or neutral ? No, they do not need to be. They have strong views which reflect the caste they belong to. Some of them even jokingly refer to this as “Poneketanga”.

They engage rafts of “communications” people to sell the story — often poorly as in Te Whatu Ora, where there are more than 200 such people and where despite that overload PR firms are often called in to sell better.

Back to basics
This is not a way to create an efficient, effective, excellent and equitable public service. To do that we will have to go back to some basics about the purpose of public service today and in the future.

To my mind this would include:

• Opening up jobs to a much wider range of people with real world experience, be that commercial or social, in forms that are not all for a lifetime, but which enable free and ongoing interchange;
• Opening up policy-making to start from the “bottom up”, and which are not based on “top down”, carefully framed, bogus consultations;
• Allowing people to speak their minds and debate difficult issues without having to assume that future political winners are not so prejudiced and narrow-minded as to refuse to work with anyone with a different opinion to theirs; and
• Paying real attention, not playing pretend attention, to the professional bodies and unions which represent staff, who mostly will prefer rightly to get on with their jobs.

None of that seems hard or dangerous to me. After all, it is only changing a public service model which has produced or failed to prevent all of the many crises we can observe around us.

Rob Campbell is former chairperson of Te Whatu Ora (Health New Zealand) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). This article was first published by Stuff and is republished by Asia Pacific Report with the author’s permission.

Radio Australia was conceived at the beginning of the Second World War out of Canberra’s desire to counter Japanese propaganda in the Pacific. More than 70 years later its rebirth is being driven by a similarly urgent need to counter propaganda, this time from China.

Set up within the towering framework of the ABC, Radio Australia was, and remains, an institution with a lively multilingual culture of its own. Sometimes it has thrived and sometimes, especially in recent decades, it has struggled as political priorities and media fashions waxed and waned within the ABC and the wider world.

Phil Kafcaloudes, an accomplished journalist, author and media educator who hosted Radio Australia’s popular breakfast show for nine years, was commissioned by the ABC to write the service’s story for the corporation’s 90th-anniversary celebrations. The result is a nicely illustrated and comprehensively footnoted new book, Australia Calling: The ABC Radio Australia Story, which uses the original name of the service for its title. (With appropriate good manners, Kafcaloudes acknowledges previous accounts of the Radio Australia story, by Peter Lucas in 1964 and Errol Hodge in 1995.)

The overseas service’s nadir came in 2014 after the election of the Abbott government. At the time, Inside Story’s Pacific correspondent Nic Maclellan described in devastating detail the impact in the region of the eighty redundancies brought on by the government’s decision to remove the Australia Network, a kind of TV counterpart to Radio Australia, from the ABC. The network had controversially been merged with key elements of Radio Australia to create ABC International.

Among the casualties was the legendary ABC broadcaster Sean Dorney, known and loved throughout the Pacific. Programmes for Asia were axed, as was much specialist Pacific reporting, with English-language coverage to be sourced from the ABC’s general news department.

The ABC’s full-time team in the Pacific was reduced to a journalist in Port Moresby and another (if it counts) in New Zealand. Australia’s newspapers had already withdrawn their correspondents from the region, and online-only media hadn’t filled the gap. Where once, in 1948, Radio Australia had helped beam a signal to the moon, the countries of our own region now seemed even more remote.

Despite the steady erosion of the service over decades, though, Kafcaloudes’s book has a happy ending of sorts. Its final chapter, titled “Rebirth: Pivoting to the Pacific,” tells how Radio Australia benefited from the Morrison government’s “Pacific Step-Up,” launched in response to China’s campaign to build regional connections. Steps to rebuild Radio Australia’s capacities have since been enhanced by substantial new funding from the Albanese government.

Placing listeners at scene
When current affairs radio is at its most effective, it places listeners at the scene. Kafcaloudes tells of being on air when a listener in Timor-Leste called to tell of an assassination attempt on José Ramos-Horta and Xanana Gusmão.

“Radio Australia instantly changed its scheduling to broadcast live for three hours so locals would know whether their leaders were still alive.”

But, as Kafcaloudes explains, “for all the good work, global connections and breaking news stories, the truth is, for many Australian politicians there was little electoral capacity in a service that a domestic audience did not hear.” Thus the abrupt funding reverses and the constant tinkering.

Former ABC journalist and manager Geoff Heriot describes how, during a challenging phase for the ABC about 25 years ago, managing director Brian Johns’s desire to defend the ABC meant that, “if necessary, you could cut off limbs.” And Radio Australia was the limb that often seemed most remote from the core.

Back in the 1950s and 1960s, Kafcaloudes says, the service “was often at or near the top of the polls as the world’s best.” Many listeners, especially in China and elsewhere in East Asia, testified to having learned English from listening to Radio Australia.

Its popularity in Asia and the Pacific was boosted by the fact that it broadcast from a similar time zone, which meant its morning shows, for instance, were heard during listeners’ mornings. In 1968 alone, the station received 250,000 letters from people tuning in around the region.

For decades, broadcasts were via shortwave, the only way of covering vast distances at the time. But the ABC turned off that medium for good in 2017, so Radio Australia now communicates via 24-hour FM stations across the Pacific and via satellite, live stream, on-demand audio, podcasts, the ABC Listen app, and Facebook and Twitter.

New audiences emerging
With new audiences emerging in different places, the geography of Radio Australia’s languages have changed too. As the use of French in the former colonies in Indochina declined, for instance, new French-speaking audiences developed in the Pacific colonies of New Caledonia and French Polynesia.

One of the continuities of Radio Australia is the quality and connectedness of its broadcasters. Most of them come from the countries to which they broadcast, and together they have evolved into a remarkable cadre who could and should be invited by policymakers and diplomats to help Australia steer and deepen its relations with our neighbours.

Kafcaloudes rightly stresses the importance of that first prewar step, when Robert Menzies, “a man who believed he was British to the bootstraps, despite being born and bred in country Victoria,” decided “Australians needed to speak to the world with their own voice.”

How best to do this has frequently been disputed. In a 1962 ministerial briefing, the Department of External Affairs argued that Radio Australia’s broadcasts “should not be noticeably at variance with the broad objectives of Australian foreign policy” — an instruction that John Gorton, the relevant minister, declined to issue publicly.

Tensions have inevitably resulted from the desire of the service’s funder, the federal government, to see its own policies and perceptions prioritised. Resisting such pressure has required greater stamina and skill at Radio Australia than at the ABC’s domestic services, which can count more readily on influential defenders.

Kafcaloudes says it was Mark Scott, who headed the ABC a dozen years ago, who linked Radio Australia with American academic/diplomat Joseph Nye’s idea of “soft power.” Then and now, this was a seductive phrase for politicians. It also became a familiar part of the case for restoring, consolidating or increasing funding, while underlining the familiar, nagging challenge for the station’s “content providers” of choosing between projecting that kind of power on Canberra’s behalf and dealing with stories that might well be perceived as “negative” for the Australian government.

Of course, the conventional public-interest answer to that dilemma is that fearless journalism is itself the ultimate expression of soft power by an open, democratic polity. But not everyone sees it that way.

Public broadcasting ethos
The public broadcasting ethos of the station’s internationally sourced staff has meanwhile stayed impressively intact. Kafcaloudes introduces one of them at the end of each chapter, letting them speak directly of how they came to arrive at Radio Australia and their experiences working there.

Running Radio Australia has been complicated for decades by its being bundled, unbundled and bundled again with television services that have sometimes been run by the ABC and sometimes by commercial stations. Technologies have of course become fluid in recent years, freeing content from former constraints. So too has the badging — the service is now “ABC Radio Australia,” which morphs online into “ABC Pacific.”

Radio Australia continues to broadcast in Mandarin, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Khmer, French, Burmese and Tok Pisin (the Melanesian pidgin language spoken widely in PNG and readily understood in Vanuatu and, slightly less so, in Solomon Islands), as well as in English.

Dedicated, high-quality journalism remains the core constant of an institution whose story, chronicled so well by Kafcaloudes, parallels in many ways Australia’s on-again, off-again, on-again engagement with our region.

• Australia Calling: The ABC Radio Australia Story, By Phil Kafcaloudes, ABC Books, 224 pages. ISBN: 9780646852430. This review was first published by Inside Story and is republished on Asia Pacific Report with permission and in collaboration with Pacific Journalism Review.

You’re watching mainstream media and you hear someone articulate a clearly thought through leftwing position with the pros and cons sensibly explained, are you?

A) Watching the news

B ) Watching current affairs

C) Watching a comedian

D) Tripping balls

The answer is of course “C”, we would also accept “D” as an answer, but A & B are clearly nonsense.

There are no leftwing voices in mainstream media, but that’s OK we’ve got comedy, and there is certainly no such thing as a right wing comedian. Rightwingers get the newsroom and we get satire.

So why are there no rightwing comedians? Certainly a lot of comedy is about punching up, mocking those with power and/or wealth. You don’t get a lot of comedians rocking up and saying “LOL let’s have some tax cuts and cut public services” — that is what Tories are for.

The jester is there to mock the king and the nobility, not the peasants.

Maybe it’s why people on the right seem to like politicians such as Boris Johnson or John Key who can have a bit of a laugh at themselves, even if to many they appear to be quite absurd caricatures of themselves.

Starvation rations
It would explain the appetite for David Seymour’s gurning and twerking like a court jester for popularity, unbeknown to the audience that his first policy would be starvation rations for the peasants and extra helpings for the well to do — hurrah!

Chris Bishop looks to be the next off that production line, in the mould of rightwing politicians who because they can crack a joke think they are the next John Key. The “if he can do it anyone can, hold my beer” school of politics.

On the other hand can you imagine Nicola Willis attempting humour? No, when she is the “mother of the nation” it will be more austerity, less gruel, and absolutely no laughter. If you ever see her smiling don’t smile back, don’t wave, just run!

So we on the left get comedians and on the right they get people like bank economists, or what might be better referred to as bank lobbyists. When you listen to the ANZ economist on the news you can be sure he has the interests of the bank at heart. Boy Wonder Brad Olsen isn’t there just to amuse us with his uncannily inaccurate crystal ball readings of doom and despair.

Like the health spokesperson for a tobacco company, these lobbyists may be aware of the impacts of their products on peoples lives but rest assured they are there to represent the interests of shareholders, not customers.

You do get comedians that are not overtly leftwing nor “politically correct”, the likes of Bill Burr, Doug Stanhope, or Jim Jefferies. Very funny comedians who while not advocating the move to the socialist utopia we all yearn for aren’t exactly riffing Ayn Rand either. Politics isn’t a big part of their spiel but they are certainly not conservatives.

To be clear in terms of comedians I’m not only talking “left” in terms of political parties they might support but also being liberal, you really aren’t going to see a lot of comedians mocking pro-choice people for example. Which is a shame as the anti-abortion crowd must be pretty much the most humourless bunch on the planet — and they could really do with a laugh.

Some exceptions
As with any poorly thought through proposition there are some exceptions. I have been known to watch Top Gear without wanting to hit Jeremy Clarkson — I even read some of his books and laughed. It has been a long time since my last confession.

Speaking of which, I also read both of Paul Henry’s books. The biography was a good read; quite adorable with the way he talked about his mother. Then he wrote another book with his political views on things and I wanted to punch him in the throat — not figuratively.

Occasionally you might think you hear a leftwing voice but it turns out it’s just someone reporting the news without bias, their opinion, or including a vox pop with the one disgruntled person they could find.

For example some on the right might describe a journalist like John Campbell as leftwing but really it’s simply that he listens and speaks without an agenda, and that seems unusual by comparison.

In a similar way there are few rightwing musicians, I’m guessing the fact Donald Trump was closely aligned with Kid Rock wasn’t due to a long love of hillbilly trailer rap, more to do with what was available to him, but that is probably a different post.

Through the Bush and Trump years many people relied on comedians, people like Jon Stewart, to satirise the absurdity of the leader of the free world being a bozo and also discuss positive alternatives. They get us through rough times by mocking those motivated by greed, personal advancement, and appealing to stupid people.

My favourite comedian is Frankie Boyle, following the tradition of the previous generation of people like Bill Hicks or George Carlin with his observations, but darker, much much darker.

Caring about humans
Russell Howard captures things so humanly, which fundamentally (hat tip to you know who) is what a leftwing view on the world is to me — caring about other human beings. Save me your “but rightwing people care about other human beings too”, look who you vote for, it doesn’t add up.

I can’t find a decent version on YouTube any more but Stewart Lee’s piece “coming over here”  pointing out the absurdity of those who supported Brexit may well be one of the greatest comedy routines ever recorded.

Certainly here in Aotearoa when a National or ACT MP appear on 7 Days they are going into the lion’s den whereas Labour or Green politicians are greeted every much with a “you’re one of us” vibe. So pretty much the reverse of everything in the media that isn’t comedy.

Our comedians make rightwing nutters look ridiculous, just ask Leo Molloy. In fact if you’re talking to Leo some sound advice might be “don’t be yourself, especially when taking to comedians”. There is a limit to all publicity being good publicity, be a lot less “Leo”.

We have our own traditions, McPhail and Gadsby — who could forget the former impersonating Muldoon? The genius of people like Tom Scott and Steve Braunias.

In my opinion the finest local comedic work at present is David Slack’s regular column on Kia Kaha Primary. The way it captures the essence of New Zealand through its characters, observations and humour is in the tradition of John Clarke — and I can’t think of higher praise than that!

If you want to understand a complex issue based on the facts and some thoughtful analysis forget the news — I recommend White Man Behind a Desk.

Playing on prejudices
Right wing comedians, such as they are, seem to want to point fun at those on the bottom or resort to playing on prejudices, for example the ghastly local cartoonist Al Nisbet.
Maybe a cartoon of ‎text that says “‎FREE SCHOOL FOOD IS GREAT! EASES OUR POVERTY, AND PUTS SOMETHING IN YOU KIDS’ BELLIES! T 3 NN Mung 1959 ه‎”‎

A cartoonist or a satirist should through their humour explore a deeper truth; the best of it should make us laugh at ourselves. What truth is being explored by the cartoonist here? That racism is alive and well within him and his audience?

So there is the odd rightwing comedian, but I’m sure if you’ve read this far you would agree that finding one that is actually funny is another matter. Perhaps the proposition should be that “there are no FUNNY rightwing comedians”?

The sad reality, or perhaps the silver lining, is the worse the rightwing politicians the better the comedy. With the likes of the weaselly Simeon Brown or she “casts no shadow” Brooke van Velden coming through comedy should be in good stead for years to come.

As for Christopher Luxon sometimes it is hard to know where the reality ends and the comedy begins. He falls short of the greats of comedic material like Judith Collins and Simon Bridges but there should be much for comedians to work with if they can find anything of substance. It is difficult to poke holes in jelly.

We need comedians, you’re not going to get someone on the news say:

“Under National more people would have died of covid”, or

“They will set race relations in this country back decades”, or

“The poor will suffer greatly in return for a little middle class tax relief.”

Why does that last one always sound like a much happier ending than it is?

So it’s all up to the comedians the satirists and the cartoonists — I’m sure they’ve got this!

Or maybe Tim Minchin was right after all.

Nick Rockel is a “Westie Leftie with five children, two dogs, and a wonderful wife”. He is the publisher of The Daily Read where this article was first published. It is republished here with the author’s permission.

Australian-born former PNG cabinet minister and Madang businessman Sir Sir Peter Leslie Charles Barter, 82 — 1940-2022

Papua New Guinean political giant Sir Peter Barter, who died in Cairns on Wednesday, was a strong supporter of the free press and media development. He personally supported generations of students from Divine Word University.

Watson Gabana and I and many others who came later were beneficiaries of that support.

On one occasion, we travelled with Sir Peter to Long Island and Karkar to visit health centres and aid posts. He gave me his camcorder to use.

• READ MORE: Tributes flow for beloved PNG statesman Sir Peter Barter
• Sir Peter Barter was a patriot
• Sir Peter crafted the name ‘beautiful Madang’
• PNG political giant Sir Peter Barter dies
• Time is precious, don’t waste it – Scott Waide

At the time, MiniDVs were the latest on the market and rare. No TV station was using them yet.

As a 19-year-old, I was over the moon! I didn’t shoot enough footage.

Or at least Sir Peter didn’t think I did. He scolded me in the chopper then gave me advice. It stuck. Don’t waste time. Don’t waste money. Don’t waste opportunities.

Sure enough, I never got a chance to go back to Long Island. But the experience made an indelible mark.

My first insights
It gave me my first insights into the workings of PNG politics, its flaws and the failures of service delivery mechanism.

On Long Island, Sir Peter was furious. He, as Madang Governor, was angered by the fact that the people were neglected and the health system just didn’t work.

“It’s out of sight, out of mind,” he fumed. “As long as nobody complains, none of this will be resolved.”

He stormed off towards the beach with the village councillor led in tow.

It was a statement that has remained true for service delivery in PNG — “Out of sight, out of mind.”

As much as it seems improper and out of line, the politician gives much needed visibility to issues of importance.

Sir Peter was an avid photographer. He used his photography to document the Bougainville peace process and the collection and destruction of small arms in Tambul-Nebiliyer and the Southern Highlands.

Sir Peter Barter, great figure in PNG, dies at 82 https://t.co/BhPngFsGml

— Ples Singsing (@PlesSingsing) June 24, 2022

Plight of the Manam people
He filmed the Manam volcano eruptions and gave unique insights into the plight of the Manam people while at the same time conducting rescue operations for men, women and children.

His sometimes dry sarcastic sense of humour was legendary.

Two decades later, I found myself at the Madang Resort restaraunt, arguing with the chef about the pizza that didn’t have the ingredients that were promised on the brochure.

Sir Peter walked up behind me and asked what the problem was. I promptly directed my complaint to him (the owner of the pizza joint). He quickly responded: “Please give the whinging journalist what he paid for.”

We went away happy and began another discussion with him about the drop in tourism numbers in Madang and PNG.

Long live the Knight!

Scott Waide is an independent Papua New Guinean journalist who contributes to Asia Pacific Report.

Sir Peter Barter passes on.                                                   Video: EMTV

A commemoration has been held in French Polynesia to mark the 20th anniversary of the disappearance of a leading opposition politician in the Tuamotus.

Boris Léontieff, who headed the Fetia Api party, was among four politicians travelling in a small plane on a campaign trip when it disappeared without a trace.

The commemoration was held in Arue where Léontieff was the mayor.

• READ MORE: Other reports on the Jean-Pascal Couraud mystery

The case was closed 11 years ago after investigations failed to conclude why their plane vanished, with theories suggesting the pilot lacked experience and might have encountered fuel problems.

There had been speculation there may have been foul play or that the aircraft may have been diverted.

The politicians’ wives had approached the French president to explore if the United States took satellite images of the Tuamotus at the time of the presumed crash.

Nine years ago, a court rejected a request for compensation to be paid to the widow of Boris Léontieff.

Her lawyer, James Lau, told a local newspaper that it was established that Leontieff was under surveillance by the secret service of then-president, Gaston Flosse.

Lau said the same spying effort was directed at Leontieff’s advisor and journalist, Jean-Pascal Couraud, who also disappeared without leaving a trace in 1997.

Researching the affairs of Flosse
Couraud was famous for researching the affairs of Flosse, who ruled a militia known as the GIP.

An investigation was first opened in 2004 after a former spy claimed that Couraud had been kidnapped and killed by the GIP, which dumped him in the sea between Mo’orea and Tahiti.

Murder charges against two members of the now disbanded militia, the GIP, were dismissed a decade later, after incriminating wiretaps were ruled inadmissible because they were obtained illegally.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Earlier today, National MP Simon Bridges, a former party leader, and backbench Labour MP Anahila Kanongataá-Suisuiki were also reported to have tested positive for covid-19.

Bridges is National’s spokesperson for finance and infrastructure.

Kanongataá-Suisuiki said in a Facebook post that she had tested positive on a day 3 test of home isolation, after her daughter had contracted the coronavirus.

In a social media post, she said she had lost her sense of smell and taste, but was “feeling ok”.

Last week, Environment Minister David Parker reported testing positive, and said he had minor symptoms and was “not feeling too bad”.

He had not been in the Beehive since the previous week, so was not with other MPs or staff while infectious, he said.

Minister of Police Poto Williams also shared on Facebook she had tested positive to the virus via a rapid antigen test and was isolating.

If there’s one thing Matthew Tukaki thought he and the protesters at Parliament might agree on, it’s the right to free speech. But after starting a campaign to end the occupation, he discovered that wasn’t quite the case.

“I started a campaign on Sunday, which kind of went viral, called #endtheprotest, via social media,” the Wellington-based chair of the National Māori Authority said.

The hashtag is now one of the top trending topics for New Zealand Twitter users and has been shared by close to 60,0000 people on Facebook, hitting a reach of 2.3 million accounts.

• READ MORE: RSF condemns threats, violence against media from NZ’s ‘freedom convoy’ protest
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Tutaki said the backlash, which had included physical threats and racial abuse, was initially just online but it quickly escalated once protesters realised he was behind the campaign.

“I came out of a hotel on Sunday and someone recognised me, they grabbed me by the arm, and the force was so great, they ripped the sleeve off my anorak and left a bruise,” he said.

Never one to let a single incident perturb him, Tukaki passed the protests on his way to lunch a few days later.

“I was down there on my way to get some sushi and a group of about eight of them piled in, shouting verbal abuse and trying to physically intimidate me. One of them was about to lunge and if it wasn’t for the police, it could have turned into something much more brutal.”

No self-respect
He said the protesters seemed to have no self-respect, either for their own space or the environment they were occupying, given the amount of human waste that was swirling around Parliament grounds.

“It’s like someone has turned up at your house, put a tent in your lounge, and then shat in your sink. It’s another level of disrespect out there and these people have no respect for the whenua.”

Having attended many protests over his life as well as having many friends and family involved in different types of activism, he said the difference in how a Māori-led campaign operated was stark.

“Ihumātao was totally different, hīkoi to parliament are different,” he said. “With Māori, when we have a protest, our people will go down to Wellington, we prosecute our kaupapa, present our petition and members of parliament will often come out to greet you.

“It’s always well-organised, and it’s safe and then we clean up after ourselves and we continue to prosecute the kaupapa back home from our marae.

“This is completely different. It’s violent, it’s aggressive and they have no respect for the whenua.”

He noted that even after protesters sent out a press release welcoming visitors, “a reporter from Wellington Live went down there, and was beaten up”.

Māori culture appropriated
He said it was particularly concerning to see both Māori culture and New Zealand’s wartime history being appropriated.

“Unfortunately our Māori whānau are being used as clickbait by those in the alternative right, who are pushing messages from the United States,” he said.

“We’re being used, our symbols are being appropriated. Our tino rangatiraranga flag is flying next to the Trump flag, next to where a Nazi swastika symbol was painted on a war memorial.”

He said the prime minister had made the right call not engaging and he felt some blame could be laid at the feet of politicians who had helped stoke racist conspiracies.

“Many politicians have used Māori issues as a political football over the last 12 months,” he said.

“What they have done is they have set free the sorts of racist attitudes that have been hiding in dark corners, and look at what those same politicians have done now — blame the government for it all.”

Peddling of racist ideas ‘normalised’
This wasn’t the first time Tukaki had received abuse, given his role with the National Māori Authority, which advocated for iwi and Māori business and community service organisations around New Zealand, but he was concerned by how normalised the peddling of racist ideas was becoming.

“I was getting racist and threatening messages before the protest, but what this has taught me is the issue of racism is out there more, because people are now emboldened to show their names and faces.

“And to be frank, people like [David] Seymour and [Judith] Collins, [Winston] Peters and Matt King all need to take responsibility for the beast in the cave they have conveniently let loose.”

Justin Latif is a Local Democracy Reporting project journalist. Read more of his stories here. Asia Pacific Report is a community partner.