Letters to the Editor
On the subject of tariffs
April 4, 2025
What is the position on tariffs on the supplies (I presume) Australian businesses sell to the multitude of US bases and embassy in our country on our soil? I understand their embassy is considered to be on their soil. I think Australia has no jurisdiction over their ships and subs and don’t know about their troops barracked in our bases and Pine Gap. What they eat there is top secret, though I believe there once was a booming market in US muscle cars coming in via a secret installation near Alice Springs. .
Bob Pearce from Canberra
In response to: Keating says Trump’s tariffs mean death knell for NATO and ANZUS
It is time to take BRICS seriously
April 4, 2025
Thank you for Paul Keating’s article. For me, I wonder, can I buy from Australia’s Antarctic Program a robotic penguin made in Heard Island, now subject to Trump’s new tariff on electrical and mechanical equipment from that place? But seriously, he is quoted saying today in The Guardian that he now expects other nations will come crawling to him. That is not a successful approach to a bully. By the way, has Trump actually formally withdrawn the US from the WTO, which would seem to be a prerequisite to his announcement on tariffs yesterday? A very recent P and...
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: Keating says Trump’s tariffs mean death knell for NATO and ANZUS
Rigging the US market
April 4, 2025
Ever since markets have existed — over 5000 years — unscrupulous individuals have known how to rig them. The usual trick is to drive prices up, sell out to promote a crash, then buy in at disaster prices – and get very rich. Amazingly, America, that cynosure of smart business, does not seem to get the Trump gameplan: it is to crash the US economy so his billionaire mates can swoop in and snap up the best pieces at bargain basement prices. Stock exchanges usually have strict rules against this behaviour – but there is no law that...
Julian Cribb from Canberra, ACT
In response to: Trump’s tariffs mean death knell
Has the world gone mad?
April 4, 2025
Paul Keating is right to question thevalidity of any treaty with the US. There’s every indication that America, socially and economically, is now in the grip of a pirate gang of fanatics hellbent on assaulting any order that sits outside their credulous world image and shown they’ll plundering what they can from whomever they can, even their fellow Americans, in total disregard of the consequences. The evidence is clear. Scattergun targeted tariffs have overturned the global economic barrow. Internal descent has been punished financially and government functionality dismantled. Trumpian puppeteers have control of social media, and the constitutionally authorised...
John Mosig from Melbourne
In response to: Keating says Trump’s tariffs mean death knell for NATO and ANZUS
The failure of Peter Slezak's words
April 3, 2025
Peter Slezak writes, In fact, there has never been any antisemitism at our rallies, at universities or anywhere in Australia in my lifetime. Peter knows very well that there is, and was, antisemitism in Australia, but he chooses, not merely to discount it, but to reject it entirely. If he was speaking at a different rally and had said, In fact, there has never been any Islamophobia at our rallies, at universities or anywhere in Australia in my lifetime, people in the Muslim community would be shocked at the ignorance of such a statement. Perhaps that's the...
Harold Zwier from Melbourne
In response to: Peter Slezak’s speech to the University of Technology Sydney rally on 26 March
Reject fearful militarism
April 3, 2025
Gareth Evans writes I totally accept that defence planning always has to be based on worst case assumptions. This voter doesn't accept that. I reject preoccupations with power and weapons. To varying degrees, I fear, loathe and despise them. I like it that Evans puts his argument in tension with decency and prudence, but he doesn't include ethics, neutrality or pacifism. Too many Labor pollies have gotten their jollies from guns and being power hungry.
Henry Sheerwater from Taroona
In response to: Pursuing Australia’s national interests in a ‘Might is Right’ world
Albanese should have left before it’s too late
April 1, 2025
The thing that Labor should have learnt from the US election is to jump ship early, get out before you're told to go (not that Dutton has the charisma of Trump) , and take the subs with them. Albanese and Marles should have stood aside for Chalmers and Plibersek straight after the failure of the Voice vote. Albanese, the loyal workhorse, and Marles, a tin soldier more worried about how his ADF uniform looks than working, neither capable of being dynamic leaders, should have walked all over Dutton, the broken dynamo from the past. But they haven’t! That...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: labors-in-with-a-fighting-chance-but-mu
Only global government can save us from ourselves
March 31, 2025
Growing up in the sixties, under the threat of nuclear annihilation, our mantra was we’re not here for a long time, we’re here for a good time. It is our generation, and our offspring, who now govern our planet and its major institutions. We’ve never lost that mantra. As Julian Cribb shows, in the decades since we have, through our unsustainable consumption and lack of concern for the environment which hosts us, so damaged our environment that it could become virtually uninhabitable. The rapidly shrinking glaciers, which provide so much of the fresh water on which we, and other...
Chris Young from Surrrey Hills, Victoria
In response to: Delete the Earth
Columbia's capitulation costs
March 31, 2025
This capitulation by US universities will surely have them plummetting down the global rankings.
Andrew Nichols from Dunedin, Aotearoa
In response to: Ivy League Convulsions - will we be next?
Australia buys Brooklyn Bridge (submarines )
March 31, 2025
This informative story in The Guardian makes one wonder how a spirited tabloid might have headlined it. Perhaps, “Slippery US submarine team collects the loot, then delivers a ‘sorry Bruce’ message to Down Under chumps. Have I got a deal for you? I've got a vote for the party that dumps the deal.
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: trashed-74
The need for submarines
March 31, 2025
Peter Briggs presents a strong case for the value and advantage of nuclear submarines over conventional submarines as well as their advantages for an island nation. However the article needs to be read in the context of what is critical to the security of this country and how best to address that. The greatest immediate threat to our security is the impact of global warming and Australia's defence resources should be focused on that. Nuclear submarines are not likely to be part of Australia's naval defence fleet until the 2040s, if ever. Meanwhile, we face extreme weather events which...
Les Mitchell from Port Macquarei NSW
In response to: Why does Australia need submarines? By Peter Briggs
Why Australia needs Australian submarines
March 31, 2025
A convincing article. I’m convinced, Now convince me why they need to be nuclear. Where do we store the waste? Why we need to buy them from the US? Most importantly, why have we waited until the locally made product was so far past its use-by-date that we find ourselves in our current dilemma? Looks to me like our ADF and politicians have got it very wrong, given a lifecycle of 25 years before major refit. That’s five LNP and three Labor governments and a lot of generals who haven’t done their well-paid jobs.
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: why-does-australia-need-submarines
Pacifism and neutrality
March 31, 2025
I particularly like Marcus Rubinstein's sceptical stance regarding expectations of war, and especially the calls Australia should respond with armaments. I have read with concern the reports of China's intentions regarding imminent invasion of Taiwan. I feel pity for those who could be invaded, and living in apprehension, and wonder about the extent of China's war pose. Could it possibly be as bad as the US? No, says Rubenstein. I know that only neutrality and pacifism could make me proud to be Australian. Peter Briggs's argument for AUKUS is laudable for its quiet rationality, but it recreates and...
Henry Sheerwater from Taroona
In response to: Anti-China Media Watch
Hooray for Barb Dadd!
March 31, 2025
Yes indeed, mainstream politics and politicians aren't working, and we the people might could should withhold payment. But take it a little further, perhaps? Party politics is largely broken, and Lib and Lab parties have long existed in order to hold power. Hence, Anthony Albanese said early in this term, I intend to be in power a long time and Keir Starmer undermined Jeremy Corbyn and then triumphantly declared, Labour is not the party of protest. Party politics has destroyed democracy all over the world. Party politics is illegitimate and due to be abolished. Vote independent!
Henry Sheerwater from Taroona
In response to: Who’s really the boss? Taking back control of government
Hegseth’s tatts and the Christchurch shooter
March 31, 2025
The five-minute scroll 105 notes the bombing of Yemen. Some years ago the Christchurch shooter killed 51 Muslim worshippers. His inscriptions in Georgian channeled 400-year-old battles against Muslims in eastern Europe. At the beginning of this week of 24 March, 53 were killed in Yemen by US air weaponry. US defence secretary Pete Hegseth reportedly has tattoos including one channeling the 1000-year-old Crusader fight against Muslims, and one with the word “kafir”, meaning an unbeliever in Muslim eyes. In an “accidentally” released Signal message, he was shown to be ordering actions which would inevitably cause similar killings, but...
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: A five minute scroll
Climate security risks abound
March 28, 2025
Thank you to David Spratt for highlighting the issue of Climate Change and National Security. As independent Senator David Pocock has suggested, the government sitting on the Office of National Intelligence’s Climate Risk Assessment report since early 2023 is “recklessly negligent” (“Exclusive: Secret briefings on climate national security risk”, The Saturday Paper, 15/3). The public deserve to be informed and have the ability to hold the government accountable to act on such reports. Commendably, independent MP Dr Monique Ryan recently hosted what was considered to be the first public forum about Climate Change and Security in Australia. Former Chief...
Amy Hiller from Kew
In response to: Government refuses to articulate 'frankly terrifying' security risks
Queens and WA land rights
March 28, 2025
David Lee’s article brings back memories of what could have been from just over 40 years ago. Senator Susan Ryan got a bill through the Senate for land rights in Queensland in 1982-3. Here in WA we in the Aboriginal Treaty Support Group crafted a land rights act for WA based on Senator Ryan’s bill. Senator Michael Macklin, Australian Democrats, was having it prepared by parliamentary counsel and announced in the Canberra Times in November 1982 so that it would be introduced. The WA Burke government introduced a much watered down bill in the mid-80s, but it failed to...
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: Gove and the native title revolution
The democratic police state of Australia
March 28, 2025
For whatever arguably good reason these laws are passed they eventually apply to any other good cause that the public may be protesting about. Any curtailing of our right to peaceful protest moves us closer to the dictatorial/fascist states we see on our nightly news and the violence that invariably follows them. We have sufficient laws about damage, graffiti, violence and freedom of speech without politicising everything and every opinion. My concern is not that we have too many public servants, it’s that we have too many politicians with nothing better to do than pass laws only...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: behind-australias-antisemitism-hoax
American attitude to China
March 27, 2025
Jimmy Stewart made many movies. In 1960, he made The Mountain Road, set in China in 1944, when America was supposedly helping China against Japan. Stewart's character slowly developed an antipathy to the people he was helping and the final scenes escalate as the innocent Chinese villagers become collateral damage in his attack against Chinese brigands. (Yes, some Chinese fought anyone with whom they crossed paths). Some say it was Stewart's anti-war movie, but I cannot help but notice comparisons with American attitudes to Asians, especially Chinese, today. A lot of collateral damage can be expected if a...
Ian Bowrey from Hamilton South
In response to: Australia-China relations: A question of trust
What did you do in the war, Daddy?
March 27, 2025
We boomers asked our fathers what they did in WWII. How many children of this generation will ask their parents what they did during the Palestinian genocide when the major victims of WWII did their level best to wipe Palestine and Palestinians off the map? I suggest there won't be any equivalent of the many Holocaust memorials. Not enough people care to see that the same and worse is happening now, committed by the descendants of those memorialised in those museums. They won't want to be shamed in the future. We haven't made a mark on our government...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: The last chapter of the genocide
What budget? What democracy?
March 27, 2025
If nothing else, the recent events and behaviour of both major parties proves to me that we don’t live in a democracy and never have and that there is little point in a budget. The weeks leading up to the budget should be parliamentary leave without pay. What point is a budget when without any transparent discussion in Parliament the then prime minister can sign off on $300 billion and counting that wasn’t included in their own last budget? How can the present prime minister actively pursue the commitment of Australian troops to a peace-keeping force or the...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: the-fundamental-problem-at-the-heart-of-defence-policy/
Future of Americans loyal to Trump working in DIO
March 26, 2025
Jack Waterford presents a masterly piece of analysis. In P and I on August 3, 2023, Mike Scranton described the setting up of the Combined Intelligence Centre (CIC-A) within DIO, which includes US intelligence analysts. Well, Alan Kohler in ABC online on Monday called the Trump presidency a regime. We have our Australian Government Personnel Security Adjudicative Standard, which among other items includes loyalty to Australia. In view of the loyalty of US citizens to Mr Trump and the rapid changes for the worse in both US internal and external policies, what should happen about the American analysts...
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: We can’t unscramble the AUKUS and ANZUS eggs
Titanic struggle for the climate
March 26, 2025
The World Meteorological Organisation’s just-published ‘State of the Global Climate 2024’ report makes sobering reading. While the world is not yet beyond the possibility of holding global warming to 1.5 degrees, achieving this will need a co-ordinated global effort. The report shows many climate risk markers at dangerous levels. The WMO say that they ‘are intensifying efforts to strengthen early warning systems and climate services to help decision-makers and society at large be more resilient to extreme weather and climate’. At the same time, as Bruce Thom reported, Donald Trump is reversing American climate policies, downsizing the National...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills, Vic
In response to: ‘Never happened before’: WMO finds past 10 years have been 10 hottest on record
Five-minute scroll provides invaluable information
March 26, 2025
I would like to commend the Pearls and Irritations team that gives us A five-minute scroll. I often find the information given invaluable. Today was no exception. I also call on the international community to do more to prevent the erasure of the Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza. Apathy and indifference kills. Albert Einstein pointed out that the world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch and do absolutely nothing.
Beverley Dight from Canberra
In response to: A five-minute scroll
I’m forever blowing thought bubbles
March 25, 2025
Where do our First Nations People fit into this discussion? They may well want to send us all home with our First Nations/Australian dual citizenship. Would it require a referendum to fix and how much is budgeted by our superior economic manager leader of the oppose everything party?
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: dutton-has-no-idea-about-the-constitution
Dutton has no idea about the Constitution
March 25, 2025
Peter Hughes' excellent article in response to the usual thought bubble that emanates from Peter Dutton's 'pea brain amply illustrates why the latest is a horrible idea. In response, one has to ask how this would manifest itself as an amendment; Would it add another sub-paragraph to s51 or would it (like the failed Communist Party referendum of the 1950s, equally ill-considered) be a new section 51A and exactly what would it say? If the point is to stop antisemitism or anti-islam or similar persecution, would it mention these by name? If it were to focus on the...
Wes Mason from Gisborne, Victoria
In response to: Devaluing Australian citizenship
The population has exploded
March 25, 2025
In his rambling complaint about forecasting, Stan Glaser overlooks one salient detail: Ehrlich, broadly, got it right. When he wrote The Population Bomb in 1967 there were 3.4 billion humans and today there are 8.2 billion. The bomb exploded by 241%. However, in 1967 nobody foresaw the success of the Green Revolution in sustaining the boom in numbers. Ehrlich predicted famine, because that was what was happening in overpopulated countries at the time – but not the success in doubling the world food supply. His book was intended as a caution — as it still is — of...
Julian Cribb from Canberra, ACT
In response to: The science of being absolutely wrong
The state with power to grant citizenship
March 25, 2025
Peter Hughes' article warns, cogently, against Dutton's thought bubble about giving ministers power to strip Australian citizenship from criminal dual nationals who have served their time. One aspect of citizenship law that Hughes only alludes to is the fact that a person's right to citizenship is determined solely by the country granting citizenship. Consequently, a minister deciding to remove the citizenship of a dual national cannot be sure the person actually remains a dual national. It is quite possible the other country has already taken its citizenship from the person. In that event, the minister would be...
Paul Fergus from Croydon NSW
In response to: Devaluing Australian citizenship
A better way to determine our defence needs
March 25, 2025
Paddy Gourley presents a superb novel idea: Australian defence spending should be calculated on the basis of a careful definition of the kind of country we want to be, a clear-eyed analysis of our strategic circumstances and the risks it poses and an assessment of the extent to which those risks can be negated or satisfactorily minimised by military power used in concert with whatever reliable allies are prepared to associate themselves with us. The world's greatest warmonger and seller of arms, currently involved in genocide in Palestine and led by a deranged president, should not participate in any...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: Kim Beazley bombs out
Stuart, be more precise, please!
March 25, 2025
As far as we are aware, among the cohort currently sitting in the federal parliament, only two independents (Lydia Thorpe and Fatima Payman) and the Greens MP and Senators have clearly taken a principled stand in support of the Palestinians, calling for a boycott of the Israeli State in all areas (economic, military, cultural, academic, sport) and appeared as speakers in the frequent pro-Palestinian rallies. So Stuart Rees — rather than only advocating a vote for humanity, for human rights, for support of candidates who uphold the rulings of the International Court of Justice that a plausible Israeli genocide...
Michel and Anne Beuchat from Balwyn North
In response to: A moral precipice challenge – Vote for humanity
Atrocious defence of Falun Gong
March 25, 2025
I cannot believe you would publish this utter garbage. The man is such a liar and his characterisation of Jerry is defamatory. To suggest Jerry is too stupid to be able to research what falun gong, the epoch times and the new tang dynasty are an insult to your readers. I'm astounded you gave this China hater the oxygen to spread this poison. The CCP? Only racists and bigots refer to them by that. If you can't find the countries name as the PRC or their political party, the CPC, then you know the person is being vengeful. ...
Dean Smith from Melbourne
In response to: Defending-human-rights-will-win-the-hearts-of-the-chinese
US Israel game plan support from Israeli newspaper
March 25, 2025
Further to Stuart Rees and Margo Reynolds’ incisive article, it is chilling to read an Israeli newspaper opinion on the weekend which recommends a “political solution” envisaging the total depopulation of Southwest Palestine. Further, it advances the view that those two million people can easily be accommodated elsewhere.
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: A moral precipice challenge-vote-for-humanity
Albert Roman on Falun Gong
March 24, 2025
I read the recent article by Albert Roman with a sense of deja vu, as, back in 2021, when P&I published a piece I submitted providing the other side of the widely promulgated West Good-China Bad narrative I was described, in a counter article, as an entitled expatriate totally out of touch with the real people of Hong Kong, words not disimilar to those used by Roman to describe Jerry Grey's status as a long-term resident of PRC. And just as Painter who had enjoyed a short period in HK and so considered himself to be an expert on...
Bob Rogers from Hong Hong
In response to: Defending human rights will win the hearts of the Chinese people
Last week it was antisemitism, who’s next?
March 24, 2025
Last week it was antisemitism, this week it is Islamophobia. A new poll must have been released. One of them is being driven by a group of racist white supremacists among us.
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: new-report-reveals-islamophobia-in-australia-reaching-cr
Can Barrow make AUKUS-SSN as well?
March 24, 2025
Paddy Gourley mentions again the cost of the USUKA (Aukus) subs. According to Sky yesterday, reporting on Keir Starmer’s visit to the UK’s nuclear sub factory at Barrow, “the visit highlighted ongoing challenges facing the UK's aging nuclear submarine fleet, which has been forced to extend its typical three-month patrols to much longer durations due to maintenance delays and the postponed delivery of replacement vessels. The current fleet has now exceeded its intended 25-year service life.” So where, when and how does the AUKUS-SSN work fit in? Or are we going to give Britain too a three quarters of...
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: Kim Beazley bombs out
Pool the national risk
March 24, 2025
Ross Gittins’ suggestion for some form of a regional diaspora for flood-prone centres like Lismore might be technically correct. The Insurance Council of Australia wants $30 billion spent on mitigation. Even if both were immediately implemented by government, they are still long-term programs. Property owners need premium relief now. The unsustainably punitive premiums reflect the insurance industry’s targeting large regions with small populations to bear the brunt of costs, a methodology dictated to us by international reinsurers. The federal government Australian Reinsurance Pool Corporation originally established to provide reinsurance for terrorism events post 9-11 was expanded to pick...
John Devaney from Townsville
In response to: Outlook for House Insurance is much worse than we're being told
The very model of a modern major linguist
March 24, 2025
Paddy Gourley's incisive article, of course, teases the memory of us old lags: Beazley was nick-named Bomber in his time as defence minister. It was a rather good fit; just as Biggles was for Nelson and Poodles for Pyne. All of them have gone on to bigger and better things, one way or another. Paddy is absolutely en pointe that Beazley's defence (see what I did there??) of his attachment to several armament manufacturers is somehow linked to a safer defence of Australia, is irrelevant to the matter at hand – and it is irrelevant to the purpose...
Richard Llewellyn from Colo Vale
In response to: Kim Beazley Bombs Out
Diplomacy
March 24, 2025
John White's article in linking Trump, Putin and Netanyahu shows no regard to the relevant histories. The history of the Ukraine conflict goes right back to the break-up of the USSR and many events since then: eg Putin's 2007 Munich speech, Minsk 1 and,2 and Istanbul and Boris Johnson. Netanyahu presides over the horrific and ongoing attempt to exterminate the Palestinian people. He and his government are better described as Zionist. There are many Jewish people opposed to their actions. To imply that the US and Russia are now aligned is untrue – there is brinkmanship going on...
John Mateljan from Geraldton
In response to: The Limits of Diplomacy
Response to Binoy Kampmark's article
March 24, 2025
I enjoyed reading Binoy Kampmark's article. I thought it was spot on. Brave-sounding talk by Australian Big Men about Australian participation in another Coalition of the Willing, as Kampmark notes, Particularly, in Australia’s case, such a foolhardy promise shows that governments are willing to contemplate sending troops to conflicts they ill-understand and have no direct strategic value to them. As others have said, any such plan would need UN Security Council approval, which would be highly unlikely, given Russia's veto power in the UNSC. Unlike the USSR (which did not turn up to veto a proposal for UN participation...
Richard Morris from Sydney NSW
In response to: Coalitions of the deluded: Starmer’s Ukraine peace plan
Another original thought bubble
March 24, 2025
In the quest for my vote: the party that links the solar feed-in tariff to the wholesale price of electricity would go a long way to getting my vote and I don’t have solar panels. And it will have an effect on the solar panel take-up rate and the cost of living for the 30% of households with exisiting panels, although some may see it as middle class welfare
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: dutton-blames-renewables-for-rising-power-prices-but-bil
Peter Sainsbury's weekly articles
March 24, 2025
I don't know if a letter to the editor is the appropriate way to do it, but I couldn't see how else to contact you. I just wanted to let you know that I've been reading P&I for some time and I think Peter Sainsbury's weekly articles are extraordinarily good. Please pass on my thanks to the author.
Paul Rees from Brisbane
In response to: https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/environment-building-nuclear-involves-killing-more-peopl
To recover Australia’s sovereignty, vote strategic
March 24, 2025
If the aim is to have independents in government at any cost, then I would agree with the strategy of giving preferences to any and all independent candidates ahead of the major parties. However the aims and behaviours of some independents are heinous compared to the behaviour of the majors. Giving them a higher preference would be to accept that I'm OK if they get elected. I cannot see how that would be a good strategy.
Danny Stevens from Kenmore Queensland
In response to: To recover Australia’s sovereignty, vote strategically
Beazley a lackey of the US imperium
March 24, 2025
Paddy Gourley's excellent article shows Kim Beazley to be another lackey of the US imperium. Given his key role in Gillard agreeing to the rotation of US troops through the NT, I have often wondered if he is a CIA asset. But then I think they don't need to appoint him covertly as he is already on the payroll of the US war industry. No longer revered if he ever was.
Malcolm Spry from Point Piper
In response to: Kim Beazley bombs out
Scratch one in the race whom to vote for
March 24, 2025
I'm yet to decide whom to vote for! I do know who I won't be voting for! I won’t be voting for the party that has no original policies, the party that only mimics the policies trumpeted out of the US. I will be voting for the party that puts Australia and Australians first and I’m still to decide on that.
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: to-recover-australias-sovereignty-vote-strategically/
Admiral Barrie and Australia's best interests
March 22, 2025
Admiral Barrie is no left-wing radical. He is a former chief of the Australian Navy. Many consider him the bad boy of Operation Sovereign Borders as he was the leader of that for a number of years. But he is a careful strategic thinker in Australia's interest and any politician should take note of what he is saying. He is not the only one saying it. I have seen and heard comments from others of his generation in the public service who are saying that Australia should move away quickly from our former relationship with the US and look...
Jennifer Haines from Glossodia
In response to: To recover Australia's sovereignty
Who is Australia?
March 21, 2025
“With, China, its values differ from ours and we may well feel that our own (imperfect) democracy is preferable to Chinese socialism.” Is it? Do the systems actually differ so much? It could be argued that Medicare is a socialist system, as are the PBS , NDIS, superannuation and even our tax system. How often do we hear: “Why should I contribute to someone else’s medical bills?“ “They should pay more tax“; They are bad economic managers, and will increase taxes“; “We support Medicare“. These are a source of constant conflict between the parties, a diversion, and these...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: Australian-China-relations-a-question-of-trust
This article misses the obvious
March 21, 2025
The author has also missed the obvious: that the Australian and Chinese foreign ministers met at the G20 summit to clear the air. Also that the Chinese Ambassador to Australia, when interviewed by Channel 7 in Perth, said the flotilla circumnavigating Australia was for friendly purposes. I find the authors comment One of the most frustrating aspects of 'dealing' with China is the importance of what is not said very unfriendly. You don't deal with people. You converse with them. Also I have found from conversing with the Chinese, such as when I have had coffee with a...
Beverley Dight from Canberra
In response to: China flotilla reporting misses the obvious
Trump behind UN official’s death
March 20, 2025
I note the first two entries in this scroll. Why do writers keep saying it is Israel without including the US? Trump is clearly an accessory to the killing of the UN worker, and all the others in Palestine since the ceasefire. It has been clearly stated by Al Jazeera that Netanyahu got Trump’s nod. A nod from the US, supposedly a guarantor to the ceasefire, as are Egypt and Qatar. It is time the UN moved its headquarters from the US to neutral territory.
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: A five minute scroll 108
Homeless problem
March 20, 2025
The homeless problems discussed in this article are entirely manageable by the government (state or federal). One of the (federal?) ministers recently said unequivocally that the decision of where to spend money is a matter of priority. Money can, of course, only be spent once. Providing shelter to the homeless is obviously not a priority (as is bringing the unemployment benefits above the poverty level). Writing it like this, one would think, would raise outrage. What more can be important than providing shelter for those who cannot afford it but need it? But no, barely a comment is...
Hans Rijsdijk from Albion Park Rail
In response to: Homeless shelters are needed urgently
Rebuttal to Martin Hardie's claims
March 20, 2025
Martin Hardie may wish the best for Timor-Leste. But rather than address Dili’s lack of economic sustainability, he makes critical factual mistakes. Timor-Leste’s Petroleum Fund pays for most government spending and drives the economy. The $18.5 billion fund no longer receives oil revenues and has a finite life, as the 2024 budget statement states. Hardie claims: “Dogma casts the fund as a sacred idol, not to be touched for development, only preserved for some distant future.” He is wrong. Sustainable withdrawals are meant for budget expenditure and are a legislated requirement. This pays for development of the...
Damien Kingsbury from Melbourne
In response to: Timor-Leste and its Australian critics: A credibility gap exposed
Australia-China relations: A question of trust
March 20, 2025
Jocelyn Chey’s comment on Australia-China relations published in P&I on 20 March is among the best I have seen on the subject. I found myself in agreement with every word, but would like to draw attention to two points specifically. One is the importance of trust in the relationship. Some specialists say trust does not matter in bilateral relations, what matters is interests and practicality. While this is quite rational in terms of a “realist” international relationship, the human element is, for me, what makes a relationship special. Personally, I look back on and value friendships and cultural exchanges....
Colin Mackerras from Brisbane, Queensland
In response to: Australia-China Relations: A question of trust
Defence against who, what?
March 20, 2025
The first step in this is to identify who we need to defend our selves against and it’s not China The second step is to clarify if the US would rush to our aid if the others were to attack us. I doubt if the answers is an unqualified yes. The third step is to adjust our defence policy to suit the above. Australian interests first. Why not link the rent on all US bases to the equivalent of 100% tariffs on Australian goods going into the US and let the president bargain them down? He likes...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: pine-gap-no-price-could-ever-be-right
Australia officially the 52nd state of the US
March 20, 2025
Is anybody else thinking of the benefits of becoming the 52nd state of the US? As it stands, we have all the disadvantages and none of the benefits. Think of the saving on AUKUS alone. Then there are the tariffs, some actual Australian news on TV, Greg Norman can come home: the list is endless. If we are quick, we could get the 51st spot ahead of Canada.
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: pine-gap-no-price-could-ever-be-right
ADF active on Israel’s side against Palestine
March 19, 2025
I refer to Les MacDonald’s article which notes the much-proclaimed IRBO, now in serious doubt in the US after Trump defied Judge Boasberg. Now our ADF as leader of Combined Task Force 153 is involved in Operation Hydranth to degrade the capabilities of the effective government of Yemen, the only country which is standing up to the mass murder and enforced starvation and infrastructure degradation in Southwest Palestine by the US and Israel. So we are now actively supporting Israel militarily by trying to ensure materiel reaches Israel via the Red Sea. Does CTF 153 command the USS aircraft...
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: The West’s ‘international community’ and the other 85% of humanity
Labor, hypocrisy and appeasement of genocide
March 19, 2025
Why do we have to keep on beating this drum? Today, (18 March) the reports are in of Israel's resumption of unrestrained blitzkrieg upon the Palestinian people. At least 200 have been blown to fragments. This is now such commonplace news that it doesn't even rank as headlines in the media. Just another article towards the front of the on-line opening page. Up there alongside a report of one (not recent) murder in Australia – a sad event certainly, but can we please have some sense of proportion? Penny Wong urges all parties' to respect the ceasefire. Only...
Richard Llewellyn from Colo Vale
In response to: Murder of Rachel Corrie
Not even Hollywood could write this script
March 19, 2025
There’s no doubting Trumpian America is an unstable democracy and an untrustworthy ally. Students of history would have by now picked up the similarities between other people who have come to power via democratic process and taken their nation down a disastrous path. Probably the most studied being Adolf Hitler. The division of Ukraine and the mooted annexation of Canada and Greenland ring warnings for their similarity to Stalin and Hitler dividing Poland, and Germany’s invasion of Austria and Czechoslovakia. The number of further parallels is eery. Often overlooked was that Germany’s industrial and commercial elite assumed they...
John Mosig from Kew, Melbourne 3101
In response to: The Manichean moment is over
Liebler and Mossad
March 19, 2025
Concerning Susan Rutland’s attempt to diminish Isi Leibler’s role as an Israeli agent of influence that her biography of the late Australian Zionist leader documents: at p. 219 she writes concerning the late Australian Prime Minister, “…..Fraser knew he would always find him at home and would visit him on a Friday evening. They would review the situation in the course of drinks until late into the night, and, on occasion, Fraser would ask Isi to 'convey confidential information to Mossad'.” In her response to Manne, Rutland seems to deny this evidence of Liebler's actual relationship to Mossad.
Martin Munz from MURWILLUMBAH
In response to: Executive Council of Australian Jewry’s Isi Leibler was a ‘covert agent of Israe
The real murderers in Southwest Palestine
March 19, 2025
I note Stuart Rees' account of the meeting in Glebe. The MSM seem unable to say it today, but the US, which brokered the ceasefire in Southwest Palestine, is clearly an accessory to the renewed mass murder of civilians yesterday, despite no breach of the ceasefire terms by the government of Southwest Palestine. We shouldn’t be, sadly, surprised. Trump promised this renewed attack very recently and is fully backed by Hegseth and presumably Rubio.
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: Anatomy of a public meeting: genocide a key election issue
ANZUS and NATO kaput: Australia keeps blinkers on
March 18, 2025
I almost agree with everything Jack Waterford says. My disagreement is with his view of America. The US hasn't changed. Trump has merely removed its thick veneer of caring about the rest of the world. When, as Waterford reminds us, in the one true test of ANZUS commitments — Indonesia’s invasion of Irian Jaya in 1963 — the US told Australia bluntly that it stood by Indonesia we chose to keep wearing blinkers rather than recognise the truth. As we still do. Yes, our friends and allies will wake up before our political leaders summon up their courage. They are...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: ANZUS and NATO are kaput and Trump doesn’t care
What are the consequences of not acting on climate?
March 18, 2025
I don't know if my MP was one of those who was briefed on the contents of the Office of National Intelligence assessment of climate-related security risks and I won't ask, tempting her to break a confidence. But take a wild guess! On 19 February 2025, Kooyong MP Dr Monique Ryan held a Town Hall meeting, Climate change and Australian security: a conversation with Admiral Chris Barrie. The person in conversation with the retired admiral was the author of the article to which this letter is a response, David Spratt. To say it was eye-opening would be an understatement....
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: Government refuses to articulate ‘frankly terrifying’ security risks
Moving beyond the ONI report towards adaptation
March 18, 2025
Thank you for David Spratt’s article. Eight days ago the French government, recognising the seeming inevitability of temperature rise, published a plan for adaptation, firstly to 2.7 degree C rise, then to 4 degree C. Here our government, supposedly committed to open government, doesn’t even publish the ONI risk analysis.
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: Government refuses to articulate frankly terrifying security risks
Democracy isn't just for when we like the outcome
March 18, 2025
Many thanks to Eugene Doyle for bringing the political events in Romania to my attention. I was unaware. And also for his accurate analysis of the problems of not just what's been happening there but the silence that has accompanied it across Europe and beyond. If we believe in democracy and the election was fair, we can't dump the results just because we don't like the outcome. Trump's actions before and after the 2020 election have emboldened others to reject election outcomes and bystanders to keep quiet. What happens to community members when they become parliamentarians? And even...
Peter Sainsbury from Sydney NSW
In response to: EU welcomes its first dictatorship
Welcome, Catriona
March 18, 2025
Welcome, Catriona and congratulations on your appointment. We, the loyal servants and readers of Pearls and Irritations, look forward to your strong, insightful and committed leadership of this invaluable journal. Especially one that re-arms us with the moral courage required if we are to tackle existential threats. Best of luck.
Julian Cribb from Canberra, ACT
In response to: A message from the new editor, Catriona Jackson
Handling a BRICS Indonesia and Trumpery
March 18, 2025
In Five-Minute Scroll 105, Adam Bandt talks sensibly of withdrawing from AUKUS. In China Daily, this is what Fajar Hirawan has to say about Indonesia, which straddles many of our sealanes, joining BRICS: “Maritime co-operation is another strategic dimension of Indonesia's BRICS membership. Indonesia's Global Maritime Fulcrum vision aligns with BRICS' interests in securing critical sea routes, enhancing trade efficiency and improving maritime security. Co-ordinated efforts between BRICS countries can enhance regional security in the 'Indo-Pacific' region, particularly in areas such as the South China Sea and the Malacca Strait, which are crucial to global trade.” That, taken...
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: A five minute scroll
Uninformed or uninterested ?
March 17, 2025
Why is our TV news made up of 25% US politics, 25% China bashing, 10% share prices, 15% sport, 10% prediction of the timing of the next election and a little bit of news? Increasingly I hear that people get their news from YouTube and other freedom of speech nutters. TV and news articles such as this showing the innovation and adaption by China are few and far between. China may not be a democracy, but show me a country that is. Australia isn’t and the US certainly isn’t a democracy. If the first weeks of the new...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: smart-appliances-smarter-economy-reviving-chinas-growth-
Time to make polluters pay
March 17, 2025
Has anyone heard from Richard Hill? He last wrote after Cyclone Alfred rattled his windows, believing we’re in an escalating apocalyptic scenario. He’s not wrong – past greenhouse gas emissions linger for decades, global emissions keep rising, and land, air, and ocean temperatures hit record highs. Meanwhile, Trump emboldens conservative climate sceptics like Peter Dutton and Barnaby Joyce, who oppose emissions targets and deny human-induced climate change. Simultaneously, Chris Uhlmann, Peter Ridd, and Matt Canavan dismissed Alfred as just another cyclone. Ridd even claimed there’s no need to worry since houses are now better built. Deniers like these must...
Ray Peck from Hawthorn
In response to: Give us a break, Alfred
AUKUS, Trump and independence
March 17, 2025
Senator David Shoebridge of the Greens shows in this essay that he is one of the few clear thinking federal parliamentarians brave enough to express their views on sensitive alliance matters . Together with John McCarthy recently, and Cameron Leckie and Jack Waterford elsewhere, Australia has resources now for a timely root and branch review of our strategic options. A within-government White Paper would be useless, the official system is too indoctrinated to the subservient ally status quo. We need independent expert outside thinking now. There has never been a better time, straight after our federal election.
Tony Kevin from Canberra
In response to: AUKUS Trump and independence
Hear, hear, Jack Waterford
March 17, 2025
Jack Waterford gets it absolutely right (again) in his perspicacious observations about Australia and the US alliance. It is very concerning to me that Waterford's analyses are accessible to only a fraction of mainstream Australians compared with those who regularly receive their so-called information from Murdoch and his ilk. Well said, Jack, and thank you to Pearls and Irritations for regularly disseminating his work.
Neil Dwyer from Wanniassa, A.C.T.
In response to: Are America’s values our values anymore?
Australia needs to be transactional too
March 17, 2025
Who will answer the question, What are the benefits to Australia of hosting US military bases? I especially enjoyed the conciseness of the last paragraph of Michael Sullivan's article.
Peter Gillam from Turramurra
In response to: Imagine a secure Australia post-ANZUS and AUKUS
Facts are important in this debate
March 17, 2025
Michelle Berkon writes that to criticise and refute Zionism in terms that accurately reflect its nature as a settler colonial, supremacist, apartheid, genocidal project is simply fact. Criticism may contain facts, but criticism is not of itself fact. If the fact being referred to is the nature of Zionism, then it should be clear that it is an expressed opinion – not fact. Indeed, it's an opinion that paints any Zionist as inherently evil. As Berkon states further on, I unequivocally call for Zionism to be officially declared a racist ideology, for Zionist speech to be outlawed as hate...
Harold Zwier from Melbourne
In response to: Why is Israel such a big deal?
Thanks, Damien
March 17, 2025
I’m the first to admit that my most-used descriptors for Trump — such as Entitled Egomaniacal Arsehole — lack much in the way of academic usefulness, so thank you, Damien, for clearing so much of the linguistic fog around commentary on the one- man threat to the to the US, the planet and its people. So few words from you to bring so much additional clarity to in such a vital public debate.
Neil Hauxwell from Moe Vic
In response to: Sultanistic or neo-fascist? President Trump and 21st century ideology
Ignoring the real issues
March 17, 2025
Attempting to classify the brand of lunacy or megalomania that besets Donald Trump may be great fun for academics and will undoubtedly yield several neologisms and a flood of learned articles. But it will not save humanity from the universal emergency now approaching at dreadful speed. A business-as-usual hothouse Earth combined with a toxic, collapsing environment, deepening scarcities of water, soil and food, fresh pandemics, overpopulation and the assault on civil society by the billionaire tech bro fraternity, are coming together to ensure civilisational collapse before 2050. Maybe worse. Against this, all Trump's antics, however bizarre are but...
Julian Cribb from Canberra, ACT
In response to: Sultanistic or neo-fascist? President Trump and 21st century ideologyhttps://j
Nonsense
March 14, 2025
All the China bashing is nonsense. Why would China want to invade anywhere for the resources when it is so much cheaper and efficient to send bulk carriers and legitimately buy the material?
Philip Rice from Rivervale
In response to: Any old Chinese port in a storm: Anti-China Media Watch
Trump will not help the cause of peace
March 14, 2025
i thought this was generally an excellent article. However, I can't see Trump increasing peace in the world, as the author claimed. Trump stated that he intends to remove the Palestinian people from Gaza. Also, at the press conference after his meeting with Netanyahu,he responded to Netanyahu saying I will end the war by winning the war by promising to give Netanyahu billions of dollars worth of powerful bombs capable of massive destruction that even Biden had latterly refused to give him. To give Israel the means to annihilate the Palestinian people in Gaza is hardly conducive to...
Beverley Dight from Canberra
In response to: Who's who in the war business
Industrial research
March 14, 2025
This article demonstrates why R&D and industrial innovation have done so poorly in Australia, with investment in building the case for developing a dynamic innovatin system, economy and society – in which greater investment in R&D would make sense as the best we can come up with as a proposal for a way forward. It is not difficult to see where the problem lies. When I started my career as an engineer in the US, industrial research was synonymous with Bell Labs, IBM, Xerox, Dupont, Corning, Hewlett-Packard, Westinghouse, GE, and so on; the great inventions and innovations took place...
Erik Aslaksen from Allambie Heights
In response to: A poor start to the strategic examination of R&D
A case for AI control
March 14, 2025
AI: Will taking the emotion from the equation explain why prices rise but the comparative value remains the same? Why can some people regularly afford a new Rolls Royce why other people can only ever afford a second-hand Toyota? I doubt AI will have the compassion to fix it .
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: maybe-the-inflation-surge-didnt-happen-the-way-weve-been
Geoff Watson blasts the surface
March 14, 2025
Geoff Watson's totally magnificent summation of the whole Nelson/armament manufacturers relationship in the ABC 4 Corners presentation on 10 March, was for me the quintessential moment of the whole program. I refer those who have not read it to do so: Dr. Nelson is, for sure his greatest asset. But the whole issue of the Australian War Memorial accepting and acknowledging donations from armament manufacturers is a truly rotten cancer on our society. What do the armament manufacturers gain from these substantial sums of money? Don't for a moment think there is no benefit they seek in so...
Richard Llewellyn from Colo Vale
In response to: On Brendan Nelson
Woldring, do more homework. Teals aren't a party
March 13, 2025
Teals started as random strangers across Australia who saw Indi's success and dared to imagine a more engaged and effective MP representing them. Community independents weren't looking for a career in politics. But Liberal disdain for women encouraged, not thwarted, them. While current community independents are mostly women, they have so many male supporters that gender balance will likely arrive eventually. It's insulting to suggest community independents and their supporters think primarily only of their own area. Major drivers are climate change, integrity in government and a better deal for women. Hardly local. Kooyong supporters proudly say their...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: Minority government – a problem of the current electoral system
Chinese naval codes
March 13, 2025
Peter Cronau raises the key question: Why wouldn’t Defence have been monitoring transmissions from the ships from when they were first off Queensland? Of course, the warning to aircraft would have been in plain language. But if you think of the cracking of the German Enigma code and of the Nazi high command code during WWII, how good is Defence at reading encrypted codes from other navies? After all, right now Russia, Iran and China are conducting joint naval exercises in the northwest Indian Ocean (yes, that’s the one that touches Australia for thousands of kilometres), according to Al...
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: Australia’s defence: Navigating US-China tensions
Satire detection monitor has been disabled
March 13, 2025
May I suggest your satire detection equipment is not functioning? In compelling scorn and condemnation from the galleries of gullibility, this (Mr. Doyle's original) clinical exercise in tongue-in-cheek sarcasm renders a simultaneous take-down of Facebook as anything reliable for fact-based journalism. Whither scepticism – already a crime?
Peter Warner from California, USA
In response to: Psychobabble is just that!
A game of pin the tail on the donkey
March 13, 2025
I cast my mind back over all those war movies that I have had the misfortune to have watched over my 73 years and I’m thinking of a remake of Hogans Heroes. From our present group of federal members, I have no hesitation in picking one for the role of Colonel Klink. Who is most suited for the uniform? What’s yours? I will leave you to think on Gomer Pyle and McHale's Navy.
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: no-apologies-over-fabricated-terror-plot-from-pollies-or
The dangerous bliss of ignorance
March 13, 2025
Building knowledge and understanding, first and foremost of nature and ecology, has been a critical element in humanity’s development of farming, and of the villages, towns and cities — and ultimately civilisations — that subsequently evolved during the past 11,700 years of favourable, stable climate. Another factor in the spread of civilisation has been mankind’s innate aggression, and desire to control and conquer. This factor, as personified by Donald Trump, is now threatening to destroy a lot of the knowledge that we hold, and are building, about the environmental health of our planetary home, and about what we must...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills, Vic
In response to: Noicide: advent of a new Dark Age
In order to save democracy...
March 13, 2025
To paraphrase Peter Arnett's ...unnamed American major... after the battle of Bến Tre 1968 – It became necessary to destroy democracy to save it. Brute force in Romania and Georgia negated the popular will. In the EU, la Macaroon's outsmarting himself paralysed parliament in France. In Ireland, FF/FG, played musical chairs for the last six years and continue doing so after last year's election, preventing the party with a majority of voters from forming government. In the Netherlands, since 2023 the usual suspects have played the same game to keep out Geert Wilders. In February, Germany...
Allan Kessing from SYDNEY
In response to: Is Romania’s stolen election what’s in store for ‘democracy’ in the West?
Why are we surprised about reporting on the caravan fiasco?
March 13, 2025
One would have thought, or expected, exactly what we got – that our mainstream media would report exactly as it did upon discovery of that caravan in Dural. It's a bit hard to break the habit of a century. When did anyone last read a positive article about any Arab, Middle-Eastern or otherwise, Muslim or otherwise, in the MSM? We still get scant reporting on how bad it is for the oppressed of Palestine. What P&I reader has learned more about the genocide in Palestine from the MSM than from P&I itself, Bisan on Instagram, Al Jazeera and the...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: No apologies over fabricated terror plot from pollies or lobby groups
Only the names and faces have been changed
March 12, 2025
Everything old is new again. It may be true that “you can fool some of the people all the time and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time“ works well until you stop teaching history in schools and you control what little history is taught. The books are burning but ex-prime ministers live forever.
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/the-forgotten-fascists/
Whoosh??
March 12, 2025
Whoosh?? On the other hand, Dr Patience's response to Eugene Doyle is so totally deadpan that I can't completely discount the possibility that I, and no doubt many others, have been counter-whooshed. Hyperwhooshed, if you prefer. If so, well played, sir! But next time, could you give us just a slight clue, so that the more astute among us can pick it up? Unless, of course, there was one, but I was insufficiently astute to detect it. In which case, colour me embarrassed.
Alan Wilson from Adelaide
In response to: Psychobabble is just that!
Who abandoned whom?
March 12, 2025
It’s not Australia that should be afraid by abandonment, it is Britain and the US. When push comes to shove, Australia has always been there for both countries, whereas they have never been there for Australia. Read the history of the fall of Singapore and the Burma rail and even The Rats of Tobruk. Australia was a convenient hiding place (overpaid, over-sexed, and over here) for the US until their war machine got going. Even when it came to building the bomb, Australia was there for both of them with design and testing. We have shown before what...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SAV
In response to: australias-china-diplomacy-is-it-ready-for-a-world-witho
Psychobabble is just that!
March 12, 2025
This article is highly contentious. Apart from the dubious claim that it draws from a leaked account of some in-depth exploration of the leaders' personalities; the account which it offers is reflective of an old-fashioned and simplistic Freudianism, long discredited. Were Starmer and Macron subjected to interviews by a range of relevant experts? Most likely not. We should be extremely cautious about these kinds of sensationalised exposes.
Allan Patience from Newport 3015
In response to: Keir Starmer's psychiatric report leaked
Lest we forget
March 12, 2025
The Balkan wars of the 1990s should have been a salutory reminder of the extent to which the failure to screen post-war migrants has undermined our social cohesion. Croats and Serbs had kept the WWII atrocities alive to the point where a new generation displays the same hostility to fellow Australians. Right-wing politics in Australia continues to be infected with a strong undercurrent of racism. When conservative politics relies on these fascist tropes, we all lose. In an uncertain world, we need our political parties to draw on the very best of their origins. There is some evidence that...
John Tons from adelaide
In response to: The Forgotten Fascists
An anatomical election
March 12, 2025
What a choice we have facing us, folks! Spineless/gutless versus brainless/heartless. I'd add soulless to the latter, except that it's not anatomical, strictly speaking. Does it getter any better than that? Let's hope that electable Plan Bs are on the menu in most electorates.
Alan Wilson from Adelaide
In response to: Discombobulating the media election campaign coverage
Kidding ourselves: Were America's values ever ours?
March 12, 2025
No one stole American jobs. Neoliberal big business magnates sent them offshore where they paid even less for labour than they did to the US working poor. All for greater profit. Thus the dire straits of US jobs and manufacturing in 2025. As for Australia having no levers to pull: Pine Gap, Tindall, Darwin, Exmouth .... But those values. We must acknowledge the US as one of the most violent countries on earth. Internally the NRA and the death it wreaks. Externally we participated in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan for no gain, only loss to us and the countries...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: Are America’s values our values anymore
Referendum granted citizenship to all Indigenous people
March 11, 2025
Under the Nationality Act of 1920 (Cth), Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders born after 1 January 1921 were deemed to be British subjects. This only applied to the then future Indigenous people, not the then existing population. Under the Nationality and Citizenship Act 1948 (Cth), those Indigenous people who were British subjects were automatically deemed to be Australian citizens, along with the non-indigenous population. In the 1967 Referendum, Australian citizenship was granted to all Indigenous people, regardless of date of birth. The issue of voting is more complex. Prior to Federation, some of the Australian colonies permitted their indigenous...
Malcolm Chalmers from Cleveland QLD
In response to: Is it the US electoral sytem that is at fault
Criticising politicians
March 11, 2025
Any suggestion that it is un-Australian to criticise Australian politicians for their actions or inactions would probably be met with actions ranging from the rolling of eyes to shrieks of derisive laughter. The media and available books suggest that similar criticisms of American politicians are not un-American and the same philosophies or freedoms seem to be applicable in Britain. Then, those are apparently democratic countries, or hold themselves out to be. Why are criticisms of Israeli politicians regarded as un-Israeli, other than that those politicians have invented and weaponised a special word for un-Israelianism? If mere objective criticism is...
Adrian Potter from Adelaide
In response to: Challenging ‘antisemitism’
Political and media lies are poisoning society
March 11, 2025
The political and mass media crusade to sanctify the genocide being perpetrated by the Zionist Netanyahu government of Israel is too slowly being peeled back, exposing the unconscionable power of the Zionist industry in Australian society. We passed over the extremely suspect arson of the Adass synagogue with far too little serious examination of the circumstances and background of Zionist activity (especially Mossad's known history of false flag operations). Now we have — at last — some irrefutable evidence that antisemitism is being weaponised in defence of the Zionist genocidal abomination with the AFP announcement that the Dural...
Richard Llewellyn from Colo Vale
In response to: Challenging ‘antisemitism’
Dodgy fishy business
March 11, 2025
Thank you to Peter Sainsbury for highlighting the serious and multifaceted environmental problems that result from salmon farming in Tasmania. The industry is a revolting demonstration of corporate and political greed. According to the Australia Institute, the three multinational corporations behind industrial salmon farming pay no company tax (despite selling more than $4 billion worth of fish since 2019) to literally leave their crap in Tasmania’s beautiful waters. And Anthony Albanese has just promised $37 million to support this industry. Disturbingly, both major political parties have demonstrated that they are beholden to the salmon industry, even though it...
Amy Hiller from Kew, VIC
In response to: Environment: Albanese sacrifices the marine environment for Tasmanian votes
Trump's denial won't change climate reality
March 11, 2025
The Roman Inquisition silenced Galileo because his realisation that the Earth orbited the Sun was contrary to the church’s interpretation of biblical texts. Now Donald Trump is slashing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency, and ordering the removal from the internet of all research relating to climate change, because he believes climate change is a hoax. The Roman Inquisition did not change the movements of the planets by silencing Galileo. President Trump will likewise not change climate science by simply denying that the problem exists. Silencing Galileo did not harm our solar system at all, it simply slowed...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills, Vic
In response to: Downsizing of NOAA: consequences for the planet
Defining hate speech
March 10, 2025
Very pleased to see someone suggest that public attacks on Jewish Australians who express concerns about Israel's killing of Palestinians might be considered antisemitism – especially when it is made clear they are being attacked specifically because they are Jewish. At the very least some of the language quoted should meet the official threshold for hate speech. The same loud members of the Israel lobby continue to try to erase the word Palestine from Australian usage. A previous P+I article entitled Crossword clues and bullying refers to a demand for an apology when Palestine was the answer to...
Alexander Donald from Cairns
In response to: Challenging ‘antisemitism’
Keep the ADF out of strategic thinking
March 10, 2025
When you have a health problem with your back, you go to a chiropractor. If it's a muscular issue, you go to a physiotherapist. If your teeth are playing up, then you visit a dentist. A surgeon is always a last resort, unless you like knives. In the US with its gun laws, if you’ve got a gun you need to shoot things. With defence from the top to the bottom, from Marles down, they are always looking for an excuse to put their uniform on to play with their toys, blow things up and shoot people. ...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: aukus-the-central-point-of-strategic-failure/
Same old, same old
March 10, 2025
Unfortunately, there isn't much good to be said about the current state of the US and certainly not AUKUS. So what is the answer to this? According to this letter? Go back to the mother country! As if Europe, let alone Britain, has anything to offer for Australia's defence. After their clear deceit of the Russians following the Minsk accords, the Europeans in their paranoia can't seem to bring themselves to try and make peace with Russia, but to prepare for another war. I would say they are in no position to offer others advice on defence. Like...
Hans Rijsdijk from Albion Park Rail
In response to: Waking up to a new world order: How America’s casual betrayals threaten AUKUS
Any election reform must include fixed terms
March 10, 2025
The commentary on the upcoming date of the next election has become a major diversion from the real work of the Parliament and has given more advantage to the major parties. The PM and the leader of the Opposition have been campaigning at taxpayers' expense for the past 12 months. They should be forced to donate their frequent flyer points (I suspect they get plenty) to those suffering most due to the cost of living crisis. Given the opportunity to program a natural disaster in Queensland, NSW Labor would have jumped at the chance to limit Dutton's trips...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: this-undemocratic-law-should-be-overturned/