Letters to the Editor
Wake up Ross – net-zero's a scam
June 5, 2025
Ross Gittins lathers in Indigenous outrage over the (highly staged) Woodside decision, correctly noting it's an absolute free-kick in tax/levy terms. What he's still not ready to countenance about this massively corrupt deal, what's completely beyond Michael Keating's article the day previous, is the unmentionable that net-zero itself is a historic scam, another glorious happy birthday for Australia's political classes to have a big lend of hapless voters. After three sainted decades of UN climate action, nearly a decade of their net zero, global population, emissions, CO2, temperatures keep rising. What a surprise! I mean, all they're...
Stephen Saunders from O'Connor, ACT
In response to: In one awful decision, Albanese has revealed his do-nothing plan
Albanese and Gaza: Decency or dog act?
June 5, 2025
Peter Rodgers asked: whether, by repeating the statement that [Israel] has used starvation as a weapon of war which Anthony Albanese, finally, has condemned as outrageous and completely unacceptable, will there be any more substance to this fulmination? As of 4 June, we have seen added to this generalised charge of inhumanity by the Zionist forces in Israel, the shooting of Palestinians at the GHD distribution post and a declaration by the IDF that Pa;estinians are not to use roads — such as they may be — to access the GHD distribution post. So, Albo, you have direct...
Richard Llewellyn from Colo Vale
In response to: Israel-Gaza: Has Albo finally found his backbone?
A response to Tess Nikitenko
June 5, 2025
I agree with Tess that the restrictions on accurate advertising, which would help potential clients in making wise choices of psychologists, are somewhat arcane and ridiculous. However, as a fellow trauma specialist with a Masters in Counselling and several other accompanying qualifications, when I developed a pamphlet of our services I was contacted by the Australian Psychological Society with an amazing draconian restriction. They informed me that as I was not qualified as a psychologist I was not permitted to use the term psychological anywhere in our pamphlet. To be clear, I was not saying that I or any...
Maggie Woodhead from Perth, WA
In response to: Why psychologists can’t clearly say what they’re trained to do.
Super and social benefits – why the inconsistency?
June 5, 2025
The superannuation changes proposed by Dr Jim Chalmers, if carried, would result in taxation on earnings of superannuation accounts holding over $3 million dollars in assets. The tax-transfer system in general is based on the household unit. The proposed changes would mean that a household with two superannuation accounts would be subject to a super account tax threshold of $6 million, whereas a household of two sharing one superannuation account would be subject to a threshold of $3 million. This is not how the welfare system, or the pension system, works. Centrelink is absolutely rigid about enforcing household...
Roz Averis from Adelaide, SA
In response to: Don't let rich old men tell you the planned super tax is terribly bad
Climate change is a human rights issue
June 4, 2025
Julian Cribb is right to frame the provisional approval of the North West Shelf Extension in human rights terms. The project will add another 4.3 billion tonnes of carbon emissions to the atmosphere in the next 45 years, substantially adding to global warming and consequent extreme weather events. This will have flow-on effects with respect to health and particularly food production, not least through seas flooding the major food producing deltas of the world. These include the Mekong delta in Vietnam which is a mere 84cms above current sea-level. If sea levels rise to between one and two metres...
Jenny Goldie from Cooma NSW
In response to: Merchants of Death
Well done
June 4, 2025
What excellent observations about Richard Marles. Our deputy PM appears to be more interested in the accoutrements of the job than in thinking clearly about issues of international security. Appearing to be well-dressed is no substitute for respresenting his country. Step in to help him, Albo. He certainly needs it.
Phil Huhhes from Heidelberg
In response to: Marles’ tough guy tosh hurts Australia
Woodside grips government policy
June 4, 2025
Murray Watt’s rapid, if preliminary, North West Shelf decision has apparently prioritised the short-term profits of global gas giants, and the jobs of 330 local employees, over securing the survival of rock art which has survived 60,000 years before Woodside’s arrival, and which was under active consideration for World Heritage listing. It also overrides the threats posed to climate, and to future generations, by the methane that this project will emit. These, both detrimental to the national interest, suggest undue influence on government decision-making from Woodside. The 1980s entrepreneur, John Spalvins, had a plaque saying If you’ve got...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills, Vic
In response to: Time again for stewards to do a moral health check-up
Blaming the wrong people
June 4, 2025
This article is true enough, but I cannot accept that the politicians are solely to blame. They (politicians) are elected and are beholden to the voters, at least in Australia. Politicians can try and educate the voter and make the best decisions for our future children, but the voters will rebel when they realise they are the ones who have to pay the price for a future that was not of their making with nothing to be gained from it. A child born today will be able to vote in the year 2043 and will be a...
Aale Hanse from Rverina
In response to: Merchants of death
Marles, the archetypal sycophant
June 4, 2025
It is hard for normal people to understand how Richard Marles, whose views would fit neatly into the right wing of the Liberal or National Parties, has not only found a home in Labor, but has risen to be our national deputy leader. This is a Labor Party with very little relationship to that of the Labor greats like Gough Whitlam and Paul Keating. Marles is a profoundly mediocre man masquerading as a leader and a statesman. He is neither of those things as his ardent prostration and servility before a religious bigot and inebriate like Pete Hegseth clearly...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Marles' tough guy tosh hurts Australia
Nasty theology
June 4, 2025
It seems to me that George Browning has gone far beyond a fair criticism of political Zionism (including Christian Zionism), and the violence and racism of the Israeli state and elements of the population, into what I can only call a sneering, generalised theological putdown of Jews, Judaism, and constant salience of Jewish memory of the ancient land across communities for centuries, including in Europe. There have been constant links across the centuries. And much more care should be taken into making assertions about Jewish belief in exclusivity, particularly in religious terms. It is highly disputed. All this in...
Larry Stillman from Melbourne
In response to: Christianity: the antithesis of Zionism
Another reason why we should get a divorce from the US
June 3, 2025
“Piketty’s conclusion is that capitalism, if left unchecked, generates a concentration of wealth among a tiny minority and this has manifested itself in America. Piketty further argues that merit or hard work, the standard justification for inequality, has little to do with what has been defined as the 'new gilded age'. It has more to do with the nature of capitalism itself in which capital precedes labor, and where profit maximisation becomes the rational basis for human interaction and economic relationships. Piketty critiques the very structure and foundation of capitalism itself.” I’ve just paid $300 to a medical specialist...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: The US dual economy: trending toward the periphery
Unis adopting IHRA definition of antisemitism
June 3, 2025
The decisions [to adopt the IHRA definition] were made from above as might be expected in a corporation by the board and the chief executive and just imposed from on high. But isn't this what our universities have become? With government funding cuts — who can forget in particular PM Morrison's contempt for education? — universities are now corporate-like entities. Free and rigorous thinking and debate are incompatible with reliance on donors who want specific outcomes. In this context, the government is just another donor, wanting to satisfy its lobbyists and donors. The pro-Israel, Israel can do no wrong,...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: Conflation and controversy over antisemitism definition
Antisemitism definition-2
June 3, 2025
Thank you Henry for drawing attention to the paradox inherent in the article you wrote. One of the starkest idiocies inherent in the panicked response of university administrators is the implicit invitation to consider Jewish students who oppose the developing genocide in Gaza as non-Jews thereby creatIng the notion that Jewish students demonstrating against the Netanyahu Government’s policy are somehow implicitly converted into “antisemites”! Reminds me of the excommunication of Baruch Spinoza from Jewish philosopher into pariah “non-Jew”, an interesting footnote being the Israeli rehabilitation of Spinoza as a great Jewish thinker by retrospectively reversing his banishment from...
Robert Richter from Victoria
In response to: Conflation and controversy over antisemitism definition
Antisemitism definition
June 3, 2025
I recently attended a performance of the “Armed Man” and for the first time noted the sequence of the music with a background montage of wars that have been fought all in the name of some God or other. The thing that struck me early in the performance was the Sanctus sanctifying the motive for war, the men sent to war believing in its sanctity and prepared to pay its price of sacrifice. Towards the end, the Benedictus offered neat rows of pure white crosses as a memorial to stupidity. Why do we persist in it?
Brian Robertson from Maleny
In response to: Conflation and controversy over antisemitism definition
Gaza – day of reckoning
June 3, 2025
My congratulations to Scott Burchill for his incisive and elegant condemnation of the monster that Zionist Israel has become, or has now exposed itself as being all along. There are different views on when Israel became such a nightmare state, and it really is not important now except to historians. The facts are that Zionist Israel now is the state that Burchill rightly condemns for its moral emptiness. It is unparalleled in modern history for its acts of cruelty, and that Israel has thereby lost its right to a future as a state. Retribution for its unparalleled cruelties awaits...
Tony Kevin from Canberra
In response to: Gaza – the day of reckoning is coming
New TAFE needed
June 3, 2025
Stewart Sweeny’s article should be microchipped and injected into the buttock (left or right) of every federal candidate before the next election. Tough times are coming, and we need to take measures that some will find tough. Eternal tinkering simply wastes national time, money and energy. Policy risks need coherent explanation, but first we must acknowledge their real-world existence, lest public policy debate continue its current path of infantile game playing and party bickering. TAFE is a prime example. Here we are amidst a world-wide technological/industrial/employment revolution of a magnitude not seen since the first coal-fired boiler began spitting...
Neil Hauxwell from Moe, Vic
In response to: Beyond the sensible centre
US incapable of winning a war against China
June 3, 2025
Great analysis covering the stupidity of strengthening an alliance with a country assisting and abetting Nazi regimes in Israel and Ukraine. Just one additional point about it. Even though we know the neoliberal crazies in the US want to invade China and to drag us and any other cretins willing to follow them in this enterprise, the fact is that such an invasion is an impossibility for the US. To do so, it needs a vast armada of specific kinds of merchant vessels to carry a vast army and tens of millions of tons of war supplies across the...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Chinese jet shoots down France’s best fighter. NZ and Australia should pay atten
Not Christian, just Caesar in vestments
June 3, 2025
David Rosen misses the most glaring point: these men were not Christian in any meaningful theological or ethical sense. Their project was never about embodying the teachings of Christ — humility, mercy, justice, care for the poor, love of enemy — but about seizing state power to enforce a rigid, patriarchal, nationalist ideology under the guise of religion. Jerry Falwell and his allies didn’t resurrect Christianity; they replaced it with a political identity masquerading as faith. What triumphed in the so-called culture wars wasn’t Christ – it was Caesar in vestments.
David O'Halloran from Hobart
In response to: Jerry Falwell and the Christian culture wars
Not all Americans own shares
June 3, 2025
A lot of articles appear in the media about the effect of tariffs on the stock market. But the majority of Americans don't own shares of any note. However the majority holds down jobs which are now under risk. GM and Ford are closing a number of manufacturing plants due to the effect of tariffs. The chief executive of Harley Davidson motorbikes has rebuked Trump. Amazon is said to be moving its headquarters overseas. Tesla and Musk have almost become blacklisted. Delivery and truck drivers are laid off due to lack of products being shipped to America. Travel and...
Ian Bowrey from Hamilton South
In response to: "China's calm response to US' impulsive tariffs gets noticed"
In the thrall of Israel
June 3, 2025
Henry Reynolds is a very clear thinker and spells out the case for Palestine's future. The chance of Australia's political elite — that small bunch that operates within Albanese's shadow — responding unequivocally in Palestine's favour is unlikely. It is in the thrall of Israel's international posturing. The American press shows many of their federal politicians are likewise beholden to that country and Murdoch is repeatedly reported to have connections of a sort. His media reporting does not suggest otherwise. All this leads to actions and reactions by Australian politicians who see themselves answerable to foreign influencers rather...
Ian Bowrey from Hamilton South
In response to: A defining moment in the future of Palestine
Faux ideology
June 3, 2025
Jenny Hocking is spot on with her denunciation of the National Party. That group lost its ideological bearings when it changed its name from the Country Party. Back in those days, the members looked like farmers and acted in their interests and of their communities. To expand their political influence, they rebadged themselves as Nationals and sought to gain seats in the urban areas. To avoid conflict with the Liberals, they worked out a more aligned Coalition. Instead of looking to the future and the need for water in their country areas, they support coal mines, gas and...
Ian Bowrey from Hamilton South
In response to: The Coalition splits – maybe not.
Gas export controls
June 3, 2025
One of the issues consistently raised with the approval for the North West Shelf extension is the impact of the use of the gas in the importing countries. This impact is generally ignored. What I would like to see is something akin to our position on the export of uranium which is contingent on the uranium only being used for certain purposes. If a broadly similar position was adopted for our gas exports, we should, for example, only export to countries that have a credible pathway to net zero by 2050 (IPCC endorsed?), and failure to adhere to the...
Brian Bycroft from Evans Head NSW
In response to: Green light for gas: North West Shelf gas plant cleared to run until 2070
Murray Watt's grasslands opportunity
June 3, 2025
On the same day Peter Sainsbury’s article on endangered grasslands appeared, a critically endangered Leadbeater’s Possum was spotted for the first time in Kosciuszko National Park. The Biodiversity Council says this rare sighting highlights the need to conserve large areas of high-quality habitat, even where key species haven’t been detected before. As Sainsbury points out, the biodiversity of the world’s grasslands supports over a billion people and stores a third of the world’s terrestrial carbon — second only to forests — playing a key role in mitigating climate change. Yet, grasslands face mounting threats. The World Resources Institute warns...
Ray Peck from Hawthorn
In response to: Freshwater systems and grasslands, forgotten nature and climate heroes
Climate truth
June 3, 2025
I'm beyond disappointment when it comes to your news bulletin. Time and time again, your reporters push false and misleading information. You trumpet that you endeavour to uncover and report the truth. Every time you publish an article on climate change you not only do the opposite of reporting the truth but you push the false narrative of the WEF and UN. That's where your articles border on crimes to news publishing. To continually print the weaponised narrative on climate change/crisis you do truth and humanity a disservice. If you have a investigative reporter that has a...
Sean Basham from Bunurong Country, Victoria
In response to: https://johnmenadue.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=8074bf8ebb1d809ea8da4b14a
The cost of the WA vote is plain for all to see
June 3, 2025
Following swift public approval of the North West Shelf extension, one can only assume that the decision was taken well before the election was called, when Labor was behind in the polls and needed the WA vote. It’s not just our environmental laws that need repairing, it’s our electoral laws, donations and truth in advertising. Having a large majority and a weak Opposition does not bode well for any real change or any real improvement. Fight on David, perhaps Albanese will come to realise that a large majority doesn’t come with a guaranteed third term.
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: the-north-west-shelf-isnt-just-another-gas-
It's time to end mainstreaming
June 3, 2025
It's time to admit that mainstreaming mental health patients into public hospitals has failed. Part of the reforms to mental health services in the 1990s and 2000s, mainstreaming was supposed to be a recognition that mental health patients deserved care and support in the general hospital stream. It was intended to break down stigma. What it has done is left patients untreated in emergency departments for too many hours. In 2012, while working as an agency nurse, I treated mental health patients in EDs. They then had often been there for two days. Now it's four days and beyond...
Jennifer Haines from Glossodia
In response to: The great mental health experiment.. and why it went so wrong
Good practice in defence procurement
June 3, 2025
If only Australia would crib the defence document produced by the US Congressional Research Service in March, ignoring though its belligerence towards China. Pages 41-5 especially. It notes that project cost blowouts are often the result of failure to do an analysis of alternatives, and a business case (neither done for AUKUS), but projects become “too big to fail”. Building subs in the US has a labour deficit due to the US economy’s switch from manufacturing, it says, and notes the depth of the resource and supply chain needed to build subs. The US has had to set up...
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: New Zealand cribbed Australian defence documents
Would you buy a used climate policy from him?
June 3, 2025
Peter Dutton and his backers portrayed the prime minister as weak. The Labor campaign portrayed him as an everyman: the slightly daggy dog lover. David Pocock has exposed the real Anthony Albanese; the sly dealmaker and faction manipulator who won the west for Labor by selling out generations of his fellow Australians to the interests of tax-shy fossil fuel corporations. Only anyone who still hangs up a Christmas stocking would believe the deal with Woodside and the Cook Government hadn’t been sealed before the voting booths opened. Pocock’s revelations also expose the straight out lies we’ve knowingly been...
John Mosig from Kew, Victoria
In response to: Labor's climate talk a lot of hot gas
Skullduggery vs science
May 30, 2025
Re Samantha Hepburn’s article: The Swiss village of Blatten was flattened by a collapsing glacier the day Murray Watt approved the North West Shelf gas project. The hanging glacier in Chile no longer hangs. The Manning River very recently reached its highest flood level ever. Whole villages in the Pacific face extinction by flooding. There have been terrible bushfires in the US, Portugal, Canada and Australia. Where are you coming from Mr Watt? In WA, we have just seen the science on pollution damage to the rock art from the existing gas plant deliberately manipulated by, or through,...
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: Green light for gas: Northwest Shelf gas plant cleared to run until 2070
Scrap DIV 296 super tax
May 30, 2025
Tell the government to scrap the DIV 296 Super legislation. Replace it with a new one that sets the limit of all TSB — Total Superannuation Balance — to a maximum of $3 million. Any excess must be taken out, or face a heavy penalty at personal tax rate of 49.5% + Medicare Levy. After all the Liberal Party, under John Howard and Peter Costello, legislated unlimited accumulations of super balances with the most generous concessions.
Alex Teoh from ACT
In response to: Don’t let rich old men tell you the planned super tax is terribly bad
Israel and Netanyahu are only partly to blame
May 30, 2025
I cannot at all understand the insistence of Western leaders and influencers in focusing so much blame on Israel and Netanyahu for the horror of Gaza and the plight of the Palestinian people … when they know damned well that this holocaust is being controlled by the Americans and can thus be stopped or moderated b them at any time. And of course, the statehood question can also be resolved for the Palestinians by a stroke of the American pen. Clearly, they prefer to dump it all on Israel (despite the effect this is having on the global...
Howard Debenham from Maroochydore, Queensland
In response to: Why Australia should recognise Palestinian statehood
Helping young people with mental ill-health
May 30, 2025
Most mental ill-health, whoever experiences it, is preventable. That means that it does not have to happen at all. It is not in most cases genetic or neurological in origin, but is instead caused by ambient determinants – anything from bullying to financial and employment distress to lack of hope in a desirable and sustainable future to childhood abuse and trauma, which in all of its foms accounts for an exceptionally high incidence of problems throughout life. None of this is usually considered, and prevention usually means waiting until somebody needs help, which isn't prevention at all, but at...
Stephen Lake from Moss Vale NSW
In response to: Three ways to support young people with mental ill-health
Incorrect designation
May 29, 2025
I would have thought that Ms Broinowski would ensure her facts were checked before commenting. Bezalel Smotrich is not the defence minister, but finance minister. Katz is the defence minister. Both equally vile. Ed: This has been corrected.
Ralph Renard from Melbourne
In response to: Palestinian Genocide
John L. Menadue… 90 years old… Australia's next PM
May 29, 2025
Our John Laurence Menadue might be 90 years old… but right now we need him as our prime minister, and our minister for defence and our ministers for at least half a dozen other ministries. Give him all those jobs. What an open-minded, intelligent, experienced and extremely well-educated Australian he is.
James Scammell from BOWDEN, ADELAIDE, SOUTH AUSTRALIA 5007
In response to: Our retreat from Asia has become a rout
Our retreat from Asia has become a rout
May 29, 2025
John Menadue has written correctly and persuasively about Australia's failure to engage with Asia, and about our failure to try to understand the region. The fact is that Asian studies, and, in particular, China studies, have gone backwards over the last two decades. He lists various attempts at progress, and there is no point in repeating them. But he is absolutely right to criticise the failure of these efforts and absolutely right that it is time to do something about it. The reasons for these multiple failures are complex. But I believe the main one is the deeply-rooted Sinophobia...
Colin Mackerras from Capalaba, Queensland
In response to: Our retreat from Asia has become a rout
Comment on John Menadue's article
May 29, 2025
This article is very well written. I think US influence is very pervasive and instituitionalised. In 2023, The Age published two separate reports stating the Oz government has approved several US generals and admirals and CIA operatives to be based here. I did not read of any public comments or reactions. Under their watchful eyes, any major policy changes in the interest of Oz will be very difficult. Most of our citizens have poor Asia literacy, let alone proficiency in Asian languages. I suggest changing our history syllabus (50%) to cover all the major civilisations and religions (Western/Christianity, Chinese,...
Cjeng Toh from Keysborough
In response to: Our retreat from Asia has become a rout
And not a word about West Papua
May 28, 2025
The Jakarta Post editorialises bravely by recalling how Indonesia's vibrant democratic tapestry has been woven of our blood and tears. But the weaving of that tapestry is still going on with the blood and tears of West Papua. We have a regional problem to face, namely how we define the TNI's ongoing West Papuan operations even while the 27 years is being celebrated, even as we are told an ominous revision of the TNI Law comes into force focusing upon the expansion of military operations other than war. Is the Jakarta Post expecting us, as regional friends, to...
Bruce Wearne from Ballarat Central
In response to: Indonesia remembers the coming of democracy, 27 years later
ACTU statement is just more words
May 28, 2025
In the 1930s, trade unions took a stand and banned the shipping of war materials to Japan. Those shipments stopped. We are still shipping war materials to Israel. Why not now, instead of the same weasel words like we support the tw0-state solution favoured by our government? And just about anybody, apart from the government of Israel which screams never at every opportunity? Have you just been too gutted by successive Liberal governments? Or you don't want to embarrass Albo? These religious maniacs need to be stopped, now!
Jerry Cartwright from Perth
In response to: ACTU statement on Gaza May 2025
Their silence is deafening
May 28, 2025
The recent federal election presented me with a most unwelcome and unpalatable less bad choice. Dutton's Coalition had little appeal, and Albanese's Labor not much more. But, being a life-long supporter of the left, I held my nose and voted for my local Labor candidate. I wish her, and the government of which she is a part, well. And then there is Palestine. By refusing to condemn Israel for the most recent ethnic cleansing in that blood-soaked land, Albanese and and his cabinet have made Australia, and by extension all Australians, complicit in what is happening over there....
Hal Duell from Alice Springs
In response to: Australia still doing little as the Gaza genocide gets worse
City v Country: Libs v Nats v Australia
May 27, 2025
Why but for the purpose of re-election should the Coalition ever have existed? The L/ NP has, in most instances, been in minority government. Generally there is a difference on many levels between Australians from the country and Australians from the city similar to the difference between weather in the country and climate in the city. The ongoing climate wars show no signs of abating. It is similar to the difference between the quarter-acre blocks and the farm fiefdom. Several recent election results are a classic example, with the LNP drifting or being driven to the Nats' views...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: Not many splashed in the short-lived teacup revolt
Double standards
May 27, 2025
I love your work, Henry Reynolds, and I agree with your assessment of the depraved injustice Palestinians have been subjected to. I do however, disagree with the sentence Moscow’s annexation of the Russian-speaking regions of Ukraine is an international outrage, because as a historian, surely one must be aware of what led to this situation. Hint, Henry, have you not heard of the US-initiated Maidan Coup, the subsequent discriminatory language and social service laws against Ukraine's ethnic Russian community, the refusal of the Russian-speaking Ukrainians to be overnight treated as second-class citizens and the subsequent eight-year siege of the...
Dieter Barkhoff from Box Hill, Victoria
In response to: A defining moment for the future of Palestine
FOI application for Gaza correspondence
May 27, 2025
Ghaith Krayem needs to be reassured that many non-Muslims support him, and incidentally, despite huge efforts to blur the picture, we are not anti-Jewish. But many of us are shocked that a state presumably founded to realise Jewish values in practice has gone far beyond a reasonable response to 7 October 2023. It seems as if Israel is now prepared to Hannibal the remaining hostages, who could have been freed under the early 2025 ceasefire, which it abrogated. I feel sure large numbers of people have written to the prime minister and foreign minister about the continuing massacre, but...
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: The cost of conscience in post-October 7 Australia
Coalition's predicament an opportunity to regroup?
May 27, 2025
Thanks Jack for the excellent insight. Andrew Hastie is likely to be a significant figure in the future for conservative leadership. He concedes that the future of the Liberal Party is not assured. The Nats are a bit more solid based, but are similarly affected by divergent views. The Independents didn't surge this month but they are a consolidated phenomenon, representing those who would vote Liberal or Nats if those parties had evolved. Is it time for a reformation of a progressive, modern New Liberal-National Party, leaving the Trumpist conservatives and SkyTV mob to regroup with the...
Dave Young from North Queensland
In response to: Not many splashed in the short-lived teacup revolt
Deforming education
May 26, 2025
Of course, education in Australia needs reform. For one thing, if public education funding matched the revenue that goes to private schools (fees plus government subsidies), private schools could not claim the superiority which they need to survive. Also, fewer parents would feel the need to pay for private education. Not only would this level the educational playing field, but it would have a downward effect on the cost of living. I mean, who needs to fork out an extra $5000 a year, per kid, for the same education? As Liz Kirkby used to say, Public schools should be...
Tom Orren from Wamberal
In response to: Ready for real education reform?
Antisemitism and genocide
May 26, 2025
Every politician (except The Greens) and every university chancellor and vice-chancellor should be compelled to read John Menadue's article Weaponisation of ‘antisemitism’ hides primitive savagery of Palestinian genocide every day before breakfast. They should also have to read Senator David Shoebridge's statement, this isn’t about a political stance – this is about when you see a genocide happening in real time on your phone and on your TV, when you see thousands of children being killed, when you see starvation being used as a weapon of war, you have this, I think, basic human responsibility to do everything you...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: Weaponisation of ‘antisemitism’ hides primitive savagery of Palestinian genocide
Don't forget demand in trying to fix housing
May 26, 2025
While not disagreeing with any of the five solutions to solving the housing crisis, I find it extraordinary that the issue of demand was not addressed. And yet, Australia has experienced significant demand in recent years because of very high population growth. About four-fifths has come from net overseas migration which even exceeded half a million in 2023. The other aspect of demand, natural increase, is still over 100,000 but decreasing gradually. The maths is simple really; divide your total population growth by 2.5 (average number of people per dwelling) and that's how many new homes you need that...
Jenny Goldie from Cooma NSW
In response to: Australia is forecast to fall 262,000 homes short of its housing target. We need bold action
At last...
May 26, 2025
Dear John, I want to thank you for your great piece in P&I. I, too, am horrified by Anthony Albanese's silence and was confused until I found out that his lawyer Leibler is head of the Zionist Federation of Australia. That itself should constitute an charge of undue influence and have him stand down. This is what I wrote. I was the first woman to sit on the National Asbestos Advisory Committee way back in the early 1980s. Interestingly, I could not get it published in the MSM. Take care.
Melody Kemp from Balmoral Brisbane
In response to: Weaponisation of anti Semitism..
Another world court system
May 26, 2025
I never thought I would say this but the world needs another level of courts wielding an appropriate level of punishment. We need a court system that rules on the inappropriate use of significant words and labels. In the case of the US, it would start with the misuse of the words united and democracy, two words that seldom apply to America. Other examples would be worldwide the misuse of the words antisemitism and holocaust. I would seek a ruling on the use of Christianity and quotes from Old Testament in the same sentence.
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: The US Supremes, not its critics, are trashing the rule of law
Response to Sustainability, yes, but also a Plan B
May 26, 2025
In response to Geoff Taylor's letter on nuclear energy and his argument that the spread of generation is limited, I feel one must remember Australia, for many decades, relied on centralised coal power. Personally, I feel nuclear is unjustified due to waste management and costs. However, I feel there needs to be some changes to accommodate our needs with renewable energy. I feel the transmission network could be installed underground at a level that allows normal farming above. The costs are higher, but I feel with greater use, the costs would drop. The advantage is that bushfire is less...
Doug Foskey from Tregeagle
In response to: Sustainability, yes, but also a Plan B
Long-contested histories in Middle East
May 26, 2025
Full credit to John Menadue for this article. I found another short one that helps explain the geopolitical history of the region. Its history is long and confusing and heavily bloodstained. This article offers some context: Philip C Almond, 'Was Jesus a Palestinian?', The Conversation, 22 November 2024.
Ian Bowrey from Hamilton South
In response to: weaponisation-of-antisemitism-hides-primiti
Harmony and goodwill are the only options
May 26, 2025
Alex Lo draws attention to the economic dilemma in which our region finds itself: trade imbalances with China and the belligerence of Beijing. The focus on trade growth presumes a growth in consumerism. However, he fails to mention the growth of environmental instability this, often superfluous, consumption is creating. The three basic economic needs, food, clothing and shelter, become impossible goals in the region, or globally for that matter, as an overheated atmosphere drives a degree of climate change humanity hasn’t faced since the end of the last glaciation. The balance of trade shuffling Lo calls for is...
John Mosig from Kew, Victoria
In response to: Closer ASEAN ties can help China counter US militarisation ofregion
Real education reform
May 26, 2025
I found this article a rather timid response to the challenges we are facing. The reality is that irrespective of whether a school is public or private the same curriculum is taught, employing people with the same qualifications. If people want to have choice for their children, then they can be given that choice. A transition program could be set up where all private schools are given the choice of being either completely private or being 100% publicly funded. To make the transition we would need to explore overseas systems where there are publicly funded faith-based schools. Pinch...
John Tons from Flinders University
In response to: Ready for Real Education Reform
Zionist nazis?
May 26, 2025
The writer refers to Zionist nazis. A term preferred by some is einsatzgruppen who have been, allegedly. stomping around Gaza and the West Bank, chanting Blut und Boden. Not a nice thing to say about the most moral army in the world!
Jerry Cartwright from Perth
In response to: Zionism and history
Exorcise false fears and false sympathy
May 26, 2025
Yes, challenging the behaviour of a sovereign nation requires courage plus a belief that protecting human life is more important than respect for state sovereignty. But we also need to challenge the consequences of inter-generational trauma, particularly re the Holocaust, and the false history re the establishment of Israel. Jewish people's fears existed long before 7 October 2023, as shown by various Jewish institutions adopting security practices decades before society more generally. That was largely based on past fears, not current threats at the time. Ironically, now the IHRA definition of antisemitism actively promotes blurring the distinction between...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: Millions want intervention to stop Israeli slaughter of Palestinians
Offensive image
May 26, 2025
Please don't include images of the Pole Benjamin Mileikowsky (AKA Netanyahu) in your articles. The image of that person gives me the creeps.
John Forrest from Dumbleyung, WA
In response to: Millions want intervention to stop Israeli slaughter of Palestinians
Western perfidy
May 26, 2025
The artifice, chicanery, deceit, dishonesty, falsehood, hypocrisy, artifice and double dealing of the Western empire that sees itself, as all past empires have, as indispenseble, reveals it as the most dispensable of all. The boasting, hubris and braggadocio of the last few hundred years has hidden a culture devoid of an ethical sensibility and a moral compass. We have not only stood by as another genocide is carried out but have assisted it and condoned it. We deserve to suffer history's condemnation and damnation!
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Diplomatic tsunami on Palestine
Plea for Palestinian children
May 26, 2025
I am writing to you to plead that the slaughter in Gaza and the West Bank be stopped. Please pity the children, save them and for God’s sake, don’t be afraid! I am surprised that the UN now seems powerless to intervene. There must be a way that the UN can firstly get humanitarian aid into Gaza and support the distribution of this aid. As well, there needs to be an international force placed between the Israelis and the Palestinians. As a senior Australian, I have seen many operations of the UN, but it only seems in the...
Doug Foskey from Tregeagle
In response to: Time to end the silence
Zionism and history
May 23, 2025
It was Marx who said that history repeats itself, first as tragedy and then as farce! Gaza is both, as the Zionists have been involved in perpetrating in Palestine for the last 80 years what the Nazis did to the Jews in Warsaw. It started as tragedy and has morphed into farce, but with tragedy expanding exponentially as the Zionist nazis continue with their attempt to eliminate the entire population of Gaza. The West repeats their deliberate looking away from the persecution and slaughter of the Jews throughout the 1930s, with our deliberate looking away from the Zionist slaughter...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Weaponisation of ‘antisemitism’ hides primitive savagery of Palestinian genocide
Hijack of the term holocaust
May 23, 2025
The Holocaust was, and is, a horrendous part of world history and the Jews carried a disproportionately high burden of the atrocities, but they weren’t the only people targeted. I am not going to begin naming atrocities for fear of missing even one, and all should be called out. Like all wars, atrocities were carried out by both sides and until we acknowledge all the atrocities in all the wars, history will continue to repeat itself as it is now in Gaza. While defence is a major talking point in elections, while we train people to kill...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: Weaponisation of ‘antisemitism’ hides primitive savagery of Palestinian genocide
The humble gardeners
May 23, 2025
As a home gardener, at present surrounded by muddy pools from last night's driving rain, aware of others fleeing surging flood waters, I read Kari McKern's call for us to build the garden with a stirring sense of recognition. Yes, it's the gardeners who know life's systems. I find myself humming a tune from The Hymns of God's Gardeners, 'The Earth Forgives', words by Margaret Atwood set to music by Orville Stoeber. Now I am going to search my shelves for The Year of the Flood, a book to read on this gloomy, wet day to remind myself...
Janet Grevillea from Lake Macquarie
In response to: The gardens of the starships
Unsustainable nuclear policies
May 22, 2025
Both the Liberal and National parties are in unsustainable energy policy positions. The Liberal leader labels the government’s policy “a reckless race to renewables”; the urgency of our shift to renewables is largely due to the Coalition’s decade-long denial and delay. It remains to be seen whether the Liberals can see their way to a mature debate now that they are unencumbered by the anti-renewable Nationals members. The Nationals advocate more coal until nuclear fills the gap. As John Quiggin points out, “the earliest possible start date for nuclear is after the 2028 election. This means plugging nuclear...
Fiona Colin from Melbourne
In response to: David Littleproud cites nuclear energy disagreement as major factor in Coalition
Silent lies
May 21, 2025
Thank you Richard Bean. Yesterday the ABC lied by omission. Having told us that Israel was allowing food and medicine supplies into Gaza, they failed to tell us that only five trucks were allowed to enter. A totally meaningless token. Yet the ABC made it look like Israel was actually doing something. Benjamin Netanyahu is treating the media and supine governments with contempt, and the West is just pathetic.
Liam O'Dea from Warwick Qld
In response to: False balance persists in ABC Palestine coverage
The cost of everything and the value of nothing
May 21, 2025
Universities are another victim of the failure of privatisation. Universities should be a place of higher learning and students should have to qualify to enter. If they successfully complete their degrees, they should be free. I went to a technical school, a pathway to a trade or becoming a mother. Down the road was a high school which was better regarded and a pathway to university. I became a tradie and built a wonderfull life from that base, but I was just a tradie working for some time in sewer treatment. How much lower than that can you...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: What is education for these days?
Let's rank the threats to human survival
May 21, 2025
In Bob Douglas' article, he reminds us of the 10 threats to human survival as listed by Julian Cribb in his 2023 book, How to fix a broken planet. It is hard not to stave off despair when faced with such a long list, so I chose the three that are most likely to keep me awake at night. They are: climate change; a threat to the world's food supply; and growth in the human population. The question is: will we be able to feed everyone in the face of climate change? We have 8.2 billion people in...
Jenny Goldie from Cooma NSW
In response to: Australia’s opportunity to lead the world on human survivaln
A just transition must stand on the common good
May 21, 2025
Democratic governments rule through popular consent. They can only expect to obtain that consent for tackling the climate crisis decisively if they demonstrate that their actions will be fair – a concept captured in Paris 2015 as Just Transition. The nature of that transition, as Peter Sainsbury notes, is more than simply finding new jobs for displaced workers, and will vary according to each democracy’s needs. These may encompass distributive justice, procedural justice, or restorative justice. To make the progress we now need to secure our liveable environment, we must work together: the whole must become greater than the...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills, Vic
In response to: Environment: Nations ignoring the need for a just transition to zero carbon
A further letter to Penny Wong about Palestine
May 21, 2025
Minister Wong: I refer you to the detailed and generously polite letter from Dr Sue Wareham, of the MAPW. In just a few days, the situation in Palestine has degraded, with the Netanyahu Zionists declaring planned new atrocities in its appalling rape and pillage of the whole of Palestine. I note you have flaccidly traipsed along with other nations, waving a withered lettuce leaf of angst intended to satisfy the hopes of Australians for a decent humane response from this country. Not good enough. You are not stupid, and you were once the most trusted politician...
Richard Llewellyn from Colo Vale
In response to: An open letter to Penny Wong seeking action on Palestine
Wake up Labor! Australia needs you
May 20, 2025
I lived through Gough! He was a Labor leader with a vision. We may not now agree with everything he achieved, but without his leadership we would not have Medicare. (Imagine us like Norway, where we actually owned all our resources!, but I digress.) I feel Albo needs to grow a backbone. Stewart Sweeney, I feel, is correct to say that Labor needs to grab the bull by the horns and make some real changes. Personally, I feel as well as his list, they should add dental to Medicare. This could be added gradually, with an annual check-up added...
Doug Foskey from Tregeagle
In response to: After the victory: Kelty’s warning and why it’s still not enough
The vanishing elders
May 20, 2025
By far my biggest concern with the vanishing elders is that none of our politicians have any experience with a world that is not dominated by neoliberal economic theory. In the US, prior to the early '70s, wage rises and growth in corporate profits grew at about the same rate. Wages had to rise to make sure that the workers could afford the goods that were produced. The world then gradually discovered the credit card. This meant that workers could keep buying consumer goods without needing a pay rise. It was at this point in the early '70s...
John Tons from flinders university
In response to: the vanishing elders
Vale Ali Kazak
May 20, 2025
A great man has died. Ali Kazak was a voice of sanity and reason about Palestine. A voice for justice and peace. A writer of great clarity and integrity. He will be missed by all who want freedom for Palestine. It is tragic that we will no longer hear his voice. Sincere sympathy to his family, friends, colleagues and all who knew him personally.
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: Vale Ali Kazak
Is the law an ass?
May 19, 2025
Henry Reynolds writes: The decision made in Britain during the reign of George the third that the Indigenous Australians did not exercise sovereignty over their homelands remains in place and cannot be questioned by the national courts. The Empire prevails. Decolonisation remains out of reach. How utterly absurd. Thank you, Henry, for again bringing our hidden history out into the light.
Bob Beadman from Darwin
In response to: Thank you, Henry, for again bringing our hidden history out into the light.
Thanks for the article on Ali Kazak
May 19, 2025
I would like to thank the management of Pearls and Irritations for publishing the article from November last year by Stuart Rees on Ali Kazak, following Ali's passing away last Sunday in Thailand on his way to Palestine. No person in Australia has worked harder for truth and justice for Palestine than Ali, a man I was pleased to call my friend for more than 50 years, and from whose writing and advocacy, which took many forms, was able to show the real truth in Palestine, He has tried to encourage the Western media to show the real...
Rex Williams from Springwood
In response to: Vale Ali Kazak
Equal opportunity dumping
May 19, 2025
What better time for Australia to demonstrate our multiculturalism than now? What better way than to have representatives of both sides of the conflict working harmoniously in the governing party? Instead, we have warring factions and inaction by the prime minister. Given what has transpired and his previous lack of performance, Richard Marles should be dumped !
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: message-from-the-editor-8
Ex-PMs are not vanishing quickly enough
May 19, 2025
As a 73-year-old, I do believe that we become invisible and should not be forgotten. We should have a representative say in how the country is run. I do, however, think that ex-politicians and, in particular, ex-prime ministers and their staffers have far too much to say and are given far too much airtime. That is, in part, due to the generosity of their parliamentary pension. They can afford to spend their time running a freelance commentary on everything under the sun. Perhaps if they were like the rest of us and had to wait until 68...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: The vanishing elders of Australian politics
Sustainability, yes, but also a Plan B
May 19, 2025
While moving to a sustainable future, we need to ensure a balance between emerging forms of energy supply and use, and existing ones, primarily fossil fuels, in Australia. One key aspect of this, though, is the need for back-up (redundancy). There has been a relatively recent volcanic eruption in Lombok, one in Iceland and one in Tonga. In 1275, a volcano in Lombok, Samalas, erupted with a force eight times that of Krakatoa in 1883. Dust from 1275 has been found in Svalbard in the Arctic. The climatic aspects of the 1275 eruption were still being felt in not...
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: Environment: Will Labor now protect our environment? If not now, probably never
Gaza deaths since 20 February belong to Trump
May 19, 2025
Sue Wareham deserves widespread support for her letter calling on Penny Wong to step up. Allowing for a month to get the US administration organised, the murders in Palestine over the last three months can be sheeted home to Donald Trump, thus continuing Joe Biden’s role as an active accessory of Benjamin Netanyahu, with financial, diplomatic and weapons support. Since then he has had the insider knowledge and power to stop the massacres in Gaza. Every day the US president procrastinates on saying “our support for the pogrom is over”, 50, 100, or 150 Palestinians are murdered. Let’s...
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: An open letter to Penny Wong seeking action on Palestine
A lifetime of lies
May 19, 2025
An interesting footnote is that the Mai Lai incident was investigated by Colin Powell, then a 31-year-old army major His report white-washed the incident, endorsing the original cover up. No stranger to misinformation, later as secretary of state he infamously held up a sinister looking vial to support US claims of weapons of mass destruction.
Daryl Guppy from Darwin
In response to: Accountability and war reporting
End the hypocrisy
May 19, 2025
I am finding the increasingly strident cries of antisemitism being levelled at anyone criticizing Israel or supporting Palestinians to be the height of hypocrisy. For 75 years, world Jewry has delighted in the state of Israel, a state built on the Nakba. Did you really think you would get away with it forever? Only now with the advent of the internet and the proof found on smartphones are accusations of genocide being levelled at Israel, and these accusations are qualified. Supposedly radical Zionists have usurped power in Israel, and they alone are responsible for all the current carnage. ...
Hal Duell from Alice Springs, NT
In response to: Multiple Western press outlets have suddenly pivoted hard against Israel
Wrong word
May 19, 2025
I congratulate Henry Reynolds for this article. It was important and informative. However, it also reveals how the best-intentioned authors and editors can undermine arguments presented. Reynolds described Indigenous people as “possessing” the country. This is not so. However, modern English spell checkers no longer accept the word ownee to describe humans possessed by country. This is a more intimate and non-negotiable relationship that does not deny ownership. The editor reinforces the back-to-front counterproductive thinking with an acknowledgement to “Traditional owners”. Please use the word “ownees” in the future, as I did on pages 163/4 in my 1977/8...
Shann Turnbull from Paddington, Sydney, NSW. 2021
In response to: Voice rejection sends Australia backwards
No excuse now to not oppose Zionist genocide
May 19, 2025
With a handsome majority assured, no excuse remains left for the Labor Government to not join the almost universal international community opposition to the appalling genocidal, war-criminal, murderous activities of the Zionist regime in Israel. And that no excuse applies top our AUKUS partners. Trump, for one, will sell us out in a heartbeat when (not if) it suits his agenda on the day, While the new Albanese Government wrangles with the issues of factional ambition, hundreds of children, women and men die every day in Gaza/the West Bank areas. Appeasement of the Zionist agenda will condemn the...
Richard Llewellyn from Colo Vale
In response to: An open letter to the Australian PM from a child of Holocaust survivors
Australia leads the way. Which way?
May 16, 2025
It was a young John Howard who announced light rail connecting the east coast. While some in the know bought land in the proposed rail corridor, his idea has remained just that – an idea. Given the politically-led resurgence of inefficient hybrid vehicles, as the article points out, why add a 50% efficient internal combustion engine to an electric motor as your mode of transport? All the indications from the last election are that one side is still arguing whether women should remain barefoot and pregnant or be sacrificed as witches, while the other side is timid about...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: China and renewable energy: Dawn of the Fourth Industrial Revolution
Why add more years of governmental failure?
May 16, 2025
The evidence is out there that government makes a really deficient, and sometimes outright harmful, substitute parent. Children brought up in the foster system need the best parenting in order to live with and hopefully overcome early childhood trauma. Instead of which they receive some of the worst, usually not the fault of the foster carer. An average of seven, yes seven, placements in their first year in care, the focus on reunification when parents never get the support they need in order to become good enough parents. The lack of vital background information to foster carers about the...
Maggie Woodhead from Perth. W.A
In response to: Is government a good 'parent' to foster kids?
We need people like Sawsan Madina in media
May 15, 2025
Sawsan Madina – I wish, oh how I wish, you were still head of SBS Television. Your open letter to The Greens was superb. Instead, in the television and radio space, we have propaganda puppets, ex-CEOs of Newscorp and advertisers pretending to be journalists. As consumers, we must demand more of our media. Call them to account, via feedback on social media, via email, via whatever channel you can. The only way we can change the system is to demand better.
Alyssa Aleksanian from Hazelbrook
In response to: An open letter to The Greens
A gift of nuclear waste for our descendants
May 15, 2025
In 2021, the Federal Court found Sussan Ley, as environment minister, owed a duty of care to future generations to avoid causing climate harm through her decisions. And here she is stating nuclear is a zero-emission option. Who is Sussan Ley kidding? Let’s debunk this myth once and for all. Nuclear is the most toxic form of energy. We will be leaving our descendants with a poison cocktail which has no answer. The Coalition’s implied stance of , Oh, we’ll let the future generations work that out is pure negligence. Kicking the can down the road has been...
Alyssa Aleksanian from Hazelbrook
In response to: From nuclear to nature laws, here’s where Ley stands on four energy and environm
Lib policy indecision seems to be continuing
May 15, 2025
If last night's [14 May] ABC 7:30 report interview of Liberal Deputy Leader Ted O’Brien is any indication, the Liberals have learnt nothing from their heavy election defeat. They will definitely have their policies available and costed ready for the week before the next election. For the sake of the viewing public and ABC ratings, 7.30 presented Sarah Ferguson should never have him back
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: From nuclear to nature laws, here’s where Ley stands on four energy and environment flashpoints
The light has finally dawned on the mainstream press
May 14, 2025
Caitlin Johnstone reports today that certain key newspapers have now swung on Gaza. Great credit to Pearls and Irritations, Caitlin Johnstone and the authors of some other Substacks for the courageous role they have played over the 19 months since it became clear there was a disproportionate Israeli response to the sad event of 7 October. And our thoughts are with those held hostage on both sides of the conflict, as well as those facing massive odds in Gaza.
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: At the ICJ, only US and Hungary back Israel starving Gaza
Reading Trump
May 14, 2025
The first thing Labor should do is scrap AUKUS. The very fact that Donald Trump played dumb when questioned about the deal at an early press conference should have rung alarm bells. He knows a dumb deal (dumb for us) when he sees one. He also knows a “nice“ deal (read sucker) when he sees one. That he didn’t scrap AUKUS at the beginning of his term should ring alarm bells for many Labor voters. Keeping Richard Marles as defence minister, and dumping two others to appease the factions, indicates it’s going to be another long do-nothing...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: What should Labor do with its majority?
Sawsan Madina nearly said it all
May 14, 2025
As a member of the Greens, I wholeheartedly support Sawsan Madina's article in which she grieves over their losses in the House but applauds their excellent policies, not least on the environment and in trying to end inequality. Yes, may the Greens come back stronger next election and, in the meantime, hold the Labor Government to account in the Senate in which they will alone hold the balance of power. If there is one criticism to be made of them, however, it is their blinkered approach to mass immigration. They failed to acknowledge that the blowout (over half...
Jenny Goldie from Cooma NSW
In response to: An open letter to the Greens
What democracy?
May 14, 2025
I questioned if the US was a democracy during Donald Trump's first term. I’ve seen nothing in this term to indicate the great defender of democracy, the land of the free and the home of the brave, the US, even vaguely resembles a democracy.
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: The US war on science
Mass political murder is not genocide
May 14, 2025
Duncan Graham writes, In the 1965 coup, an estimated 500,000 were slaughtered in a military-organised genocide against real or imagined communists.... Absolutely not. His wrong-headed assertion is based on Jess Melvin's The army and Indonesian genocide, which deliberately misinterprets the Convention and seeks to expand the legal definition of genocide to include mass political murder. The Convention is clear: genocide is the intentional destruction of a national, ethnical, religious or cultural group, not the mass murder of political groups, ie, the PKI. Do you really imagine that the same Western governments, that had laid waste to German...
Rick Pass from Home Hill
In response to: Indonesia's old guard wants its old world back.
Thanks to Sawsan Madina
May 14, 2025
Thanks to Sawsan Madina for her article today. I could not agree more with her feelings. She has hit the nail on the head. Her arguments are flawless. Like her, I am deeply disappointed in the fact that we will not have a Greens presence in the House of Representatives after the recent election. Australia will be poorer for it. I am hoping many more people will read her outstanding article today and in the days to come. Thanks also, Pearls and Irritations, for being a breath of fresh air in our impoverished media scene. Stay...
Rebeca Ugarte from Naremburn
In response to: A letter to the Greens
The Israel vote
May 14, 2025
After a redistribution in 2024, the seat (Melbourne) was influenced by the Jewish vote. Labor won the seat in the recent 2025 election. The Jewish population in the Kooyong area is a growing presence and the seat was won by Dr Monique Ryan financed by billionaire Simon Holmes à Court. Dr Ryan said: I have real concern about rising antisemitism since 7 October, it has been 'awful' and 'distressing' to witness.
Ian Curr from Magandjin
In response to: there-is-no-jewish-vote-in-australia-nor-is-supporting-israel-a-vote-winner
Playground antics
May 13, 2025
From the disrespectful heckling and intimidation in parliament when certain MPs are speaking, to the factional infighting and manoeuvering, tell me how this is different from a school playground? I’ve worked in the latter for more than 20 years, and in all that time I haven’t seen children behave as badly as our politicians. No wonder teachers are reticent to put forward any of our leaders as societal role models.
Alyssa Aleksanian from Hazelbrook
In response to: Exclusion of Ed Husic from the Albanese Ministry Statement
National day of action needed
May 13, 2025
I read with interest the article, “There is no Jewish vote in Australia nor is supporting Israel a vote winner”. I agree it was apparent that the election result indicated underlying support for the Palestinian people. It would be a shame for this support to hibernate until the next election. It seems to me that there is a forthcoming opportunity – the UN 2 to 4 June conference on the two-state solution. There is an urgent need to mobilise the various bodies who have expressed support for the Palestinian cause into some kind of non-partisan national day of protest...
Brian Bycroft from Evans Head NSW
In response to: There is no Jewish vote in Australia nor is supporting Israel a vote winner
Bring back the whip
May 13, 2025
Whenever I hear of productivity improvement, I think of slavery and the whip. Improved productivity assumes equality and, like slavery, improvement is always at the expense of the least equal in our society, be it the slavery of old or the wage slaves of today. The whip, the loss of employment or the value of wages and conditions all are part of the productivity improvement story. Those benefitting most from productivity improvement are not the ones most affected by our latest round of crises. They are the ones out of low-paid jobs, the homeless and those over-represented in...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: Productivity with purpose: Roy Green, structural reform and Australia’s place in the world
Labor 2025: purpose or puppetry?
May 12, 2025
Labor’s first term in office was risk-averse. As Peter Sainsbury observes, if Anthony Albanese’s primary aim was to stay in office he was very successful. But to what end? If Labor’s second term will deliver essential major reforms, these should include vital environmental reforms detailed by Sainsbury, and reforms to taxation, gambling advertising, and more. The environmental reforms are critical because without substantial reinforcement of current regulations we shall see accelerating environmental degradation. Should Labor do nothing on this — and continue to support new oil and gas and not make substantial tightening of our environmental protection laws...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills, Vic
In response to: Environment: Will Labor now protect our environment? If not now, probably never
Was it a strategic mistake to sack Husic?
May 12, 2025
I am wondering if the ALP has made a strategic mistake in removing Ed Husic (who I have always found to be a reasonable politician). In saying this, I look to Senator Fatima Payman, who has started a new party after resigning. My reason for wondering is the tendency these days to split issues instead of being inclusive. In my personal judgment, I feel the person who should go is Richard Marles, who I have never been fond of. I feel he is not a particlarly effective politician, so give someone else a go at the Defence portfolio,...
Doug Foskey from Tregeagle
In response to: Dreyfus leaves little legacy
Greg Barns is spot on about Mark Dreyfus
May 12, 2025
I am a barrister in Western Australia. I spent three years working as an adviser to the WA Attorney General, John Quigley, MLA, who recently retired. I do not always agree with Greg Barnes. But his article on Mark Dreyfus KC is well thought out and an analysis that I hope our prime minister reads. It is almost certainly too late to change his pick for the next AG. I just hope he has it right this time. We are all failing when it comes to incarcerating children. And the Legal Aid budgets are shameful. Obviously, as a...
Marion Buchanan from White Gum Valle, WA
In response to: Dreyfus leaves little legacy
Legacy media is losing its influence
May 12, 2025
Thanks to Edward Hurcombe for his clear analysis. Legacy media have less relevance in affecting the flow of information, and subsequent opinion moulding, than before. Most certainly. But those who want to play the game of sensationalist click-bait headlines will still get their stories published on Yahoo! news et al, especially if in the Chris Lorax league (Mad As Daily Telegraph character). They still get to the 40-60-year-old bracket of disengaged-from-politics voters who make up their minds based on not very much. Moreover the weighting of what constitutes the centre is heavily influenced by the extremists...
Dave Young from North Queensland
In response to: In the age of the influencer, does the political backing of News Corp matter any
How to save ourselves and our planet
May 12, 2025
Mark Diesendorf explains clearly and succinctly how we can save ourselves and our planet. If you skipped over it, I urge you to go back and read it in its entirety. Central to it is the fundamental fact that green growth is and will remain impossible – at best a well-intentioned myth, at worst a malevolent lie. The essay should be compulsory reading for all members of our new government, speaking as it does to every decision they will make. Perhaps it could be given a permanent place in the Pearls & Irritations Top five.
Richard Barnes from Melbourne
In response to: The steady-state economy: Why we need it and how it could be progressed
Journalistic integrity
May 12, 2025
This superb article cut through all the trash hesitancy and denial of our Australian mainstream media and their political lapdogs. We must finally debunk the conflation of antisemitism and anti-Zionism. Even momentary intelligent application shows they are not one and the same. This article shows the power that journalism has when wielded with integrity and courage. Bravo, Michelle Berkon.
Alyssa Aleksanian from Hazelbrook
In response to: Zionist lawfare comes for Australian journalist