Letters to the Editor
THE DEPUTY SHERRIF SYNDROME
March 8, 2024
Unfortunately for Australia, as the hegemony of our great and powerful friend and ally abates some unpalatable choices will need to be faced. Do we continue to look upon our great and powerful friend with closed eyes as our sovereignty is compromised or do we adopt the Keatingesque approach and put our national interest above everything else? It is in our national interest to be seen as a sovereign nation engaging with Asia and developing mutually beneficial relations with particular emphasis on trade. At the same time ensuring that friendly relations are maintained between the two principal powers...
Jon Jovanovic from Hobart
In response to: Traitors in our midst: Australia’s foreign interference laws are a political ruse
Those nuclear submarines
March 8, 2024
Roughly, the Virginia Class Submarines appear to have a cruise depth of about 50m. This gives them a maximum of 10m clearance across the Gulf of Carpentaria and Bass Strait. The Gulf also has a tidal range of 3m so on a bad day, the clearance would be 7m. The platform and barrier reefs also need to be factored in. There are also shallow waters between Broome and Darwin as well as those associated with the Great Barrier Reef. So, unless these submarines are fitted with wheels, they are useless for patrolling around Australia. The conclusion must be that they...
John Davies from Mullumbimby NSW 2482
In response to: Hugh White dismantles the AUKUS project By Nick Deane
Well timed article
March 8, 2024
It is about time journalists starting looking at our allies and their actions with some honesty. It seems that it is a taboo topic and yet we, as a nation, should not just accept and support everything that the US, in particular, does. Even friends should be able to call each other out when one party does the wrong things. Over time, we should assess whether both parties still share the same fundamental values or whether we have diverged in what we believe in.
Christine Rogers from Newcastle NSW
In response to: Traitors in our midst: Australia’s foreign interference laws are a political ruse
Tensions in a deeply economically linked world
March 8, 2024
The world is confronting a time of radically increased tensions between nations, and corporations, that supply essential commodities to each other. I cannot think of any period in human history where military tensions existed between parties that were economically dependent on each other. For most of human history, trade was in exotica - spices, valued metals, fish sauce from the Sea of Galilee to Rome. Desirable items, but not essential. Even the trade in lamb from Australia and New Zealand to England was non-essential - if you don't have a lamb roast on Sunday in Leicester, you still eat...
Glenn Tamblyn from Eganstown
In response to: Australian defence: from self-reliance to subsidising US war with China
Paul Heywood-Smith issues a clear call
March 8, 2024
The 10,000 strong UNIFIL force needs to be greatly augmented so a part of it is deployed along the Israel-Gaza border. A purely Israeli security force there is not really an option. Over 44 years UNIFIL work on the Israel-Lebanon border has not been perfect, but 70 countries have contributed peacekeepers to it including Iran, China, and Russia (48 currently), 11 countries have led it, and in addition there is a Maritime Security Force, which Brazil commanded for 9 of its years, and 2000 Bangladeshi sailors, for example, have served in. So clearly UNIFIL enjoys a wide degree of...
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: Misrepresenting the ICJ and muzzling our press - the Empire strikes back
Joe had the power to prevent it
March 5, 2024
Peter O’Keeffe says of the pogrom in Gaza: “Because it could cease immediately with a decision by one man.” Unfortunately that decision lies, and has since October lain, with one man in the US who has proved by his decisions to be very cruel. And we held such high hopes for him when he took office.
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: Horror in Gaza and the shallowness of Western civilisation
Climate action: way too little, way too late
March 1, 2024
‘Way too little way too late’: Gregory Andrews’ words capture the essence of the climate action that we’ve seen from successive governments. This Labor government plays to both sides - assuring us, through Chris Bowen, that they are determined to do all that they can while simultaneously, through Madelaine King, waving through a steady stream of new, sometimes huge, fossil fuel projects to placate the fossil fuel industry. The climate science has been clear for many years. Forecasts made on the basis of that science have proved to be conservative: change is coming faster, and to a greater extent, than...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills
In response to: Heatwaves and blackouts: Australia’s climate crisis is now
Lithium free ev batteries now in production
March 1, 2024
Daniel Bleakley’s article with the catchy title “Electric vehicles will crush fossil cars on price” lived up to expectations. The negativity coming from the electrification naysayers and those with vested interests has been full on since the announcement that Australia was finally getting fuel efficiency standards. However, while the main reason Bleakley gave for the projected reduction in EV prices was falling battery prices due to the decreasing price of lithium, I was surprised the safer, cheaper, cleaner sodium-ion batteries were not mentioned. Unlike lithium, sodium is low cost and available virtually anywhere on the planet. Two Chinese car makers...
Ray Peck from Hawthorn
In response to: Electric vehicles will crush fossil cars on price as lithium and battery prices
Missing in Action: Aaron Bushnell
March 1, 2024
I searched the ABC news website for Aaron Bushnell and found nothing. So I left feedback asking why this important story has not been covered. But immediately realised it's very obvious why the ABC hasn't covered this story. It's the same reason why Ms Latouf was summarily dismissed. The ABC is nothing but propaganda and no doubt feeling a little bit once burnt, twice shy. Thank you to Caitlin for publicising Mr Bushnell's protest. A protest act like self-immolation requires it to be seen. Thích Quảng Đức's self-immolation in 1963 was widely publicised, the photo of it is now...
Stephen McLellan from Brisbane
In response to: Immolation: Aaron Bushnell burned himself alive to make you turn your eyes to Gaza
US Military advisors
March 1, 2024
Dr. Broinowkski’s article is timely and deserves wide distribution. But considering the number of retired US senior officers working within the Australian Defence force as consultants is it any wonder that Australian looks ever to the US in matters of defence. They include eagerness to follow the US in its military blunders, ensuring defence purchases work with the US military and of course supporting the US military-industrial complex by buying planes, tanks and submarines. I would like to see Dr. Broinowski’s analysis of the infiltration of US military into Australia’s military.
Melvyn Dickson from Malabar
In response to: Fractured consensus, fabricated facts and the truth of Western wars
Playing in the street
March 1, 2024
I spent my preschool years playing on the street in the quiet Sydney suburb of Rodd Point, where there were lots of women and children and only a few men, it being 1940's wartime. The following is from a self-published book Remembering Rodd Point: 'Our common playground was the road. There were no cars; all the fuel was needed for the war effort. Our road was covered in river stones and the only vehicles that trundled along it were the milk and bread carts. A favourite game we preschoolers played, always with an unwelcome interruption, was Throwing Stones....
Janet Grevillea from NSW
In response to: Street play: A thing of the past?
Naval expansion is expensive and unnecessary
March 1, 2024
As Gregory’s article indicates, the inclusion on our warships of larger missiles capable of travelling further shows offensive rather than defensive intent. Additionally, the Hunter class warships will involve construction by BAE corporation, which has a long and dubious global reputation of corruption and bribery. The ‘optionally-crewed’ nature of some ships relies on unproven technology and may add to the history of delayed defence projects in Australia. The naval expansion’s AUD$11.1bn cost is massive at a time of desperate need for social housing, cost-of-living relief and climate mitigation. For that money, far more people could be employed in education,...
Dr Marty Branagan from Peace Studies, UNE, Armidale NSW
In response to: Enhanced lethality but no better security: New navy gears up for war
What si truth
February 23, 2024
I have been haunted by the question: what can we trust these days. AI and social media and this pic highlight the issue. I was once a photo hobbyist and I can imagine it would not be too difficult to combine two pics into this one. Time mag once moved pyramids on its cover and created a controversy. A recent article and video of actual AI creations (in this P&I?) hugely expands the confusion. As do conspiracy theorising and alternate possibilities and plural truths argued in university halls. I cling to institutions and processes that I have trusted...
Eric Pozza from ACT
In response to: Today, every Palestinian is a target for death, extermination and genocide
The moving goalposts of COP
February 23, 2024
Jeremy Webb’s “The COP and climate change: a spent force” (21/2) conjures up that sporting metaphor of moving goalposts. With every Conference of the Parties (COP), the “net zero by 2050” target recedes. Every resolution brings a watering-down of goals. Every year the warnings from the UN Secretary General become more alarming. But COP, co-opted by fossil fuel interests, waters down the urgency rather than raises it. Quoting Professor Howden, Webb makes clear this nexus between COP and the fossil fuel lobby: resolutions are replete with weasel words such as “calls on”, “instructs”, “requests”, “transitioning away”, “orderly and equitable...
Fiona Colin from Melbourne
In response to: The COP and climate change: a spent force
Further to Brian Toohey’s letter on the 1975 coup
February 23, 2024
Brian Toohey draws our attention to the US dimension of the November 1975 coup overthrowing the elected federal government. Jenny Hocking has brilliantly uncovered in the Palace Letters the role in the coup of the then Queen and then Governor-General. It is of interest that a later Attorney-General, Gareth Evans, showed an apparent lack of interest in uncovering the US dimension. In a 29 year old letter to me, Justin Brown, replying for the A-G, approved the sentence of 25 years gaol of the US whistleblower Christopher Boyce, who in his role at TRW had seen evidence...
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: Untruths, the CIA and Whitlam’s dismissal
Drifting off course
February 23, 2024
One of the long term problems of blogs such as P&I, and here I have in mind such outlets as Crikey and New Matilda, is they inevitably descend into expressions of in house idiosyncrasy. I have been reading P&I for much of the past decade, and have long recommended your coverage of geopolitical analysis. More recently, though you have become more wide ranging in what you cover, and in the process you have become somewhat unhinged. In today's edition, Stella Assange's comment about Navalny's death, McQueen's evocation of Taylor Swift, O'Keefe's analysis of the Israel/Gaza situation, and Michael Keating's...
malcolm harrison from Blackheath
In response to: ‘Devastating’: wife of imprisoned journalist Julian Assange mourns death of Alexei Navalny
Getting the message through
February 23, 2024
Convincing voters that we have a problem that needs a solution is difficult (Shock as warming accelerates, 1.5°C is breached faster than forecast, 17/2). The facts may be smack-in-the-face obvious to many people but unfortunately there exists a large body of people who are swayed by conservative writers in the Murdoch papers and the ever negative Coalition. Even if they think there is a problem they are easily swayed by uncosted and unfunded pie-in-the-sky solutions like nuclear and carbon capture. Those beyond that point to the odd cold and wet day as irrefutable evidence that “climate change is...
Ross Hudson from Mount Martha, Vic
In response to: Shock as warming accelerates, 1.5°C is breached faster than forecast
One cannot be an illegal occupier of his own land: Response Letter
February 22, 2024
Thank you for reaching out to me and giving me the opportunity to send a response to this most lopsided factually incorrect article based on questionable legal opinions and obviously written by a person(s) with an extreme left wing agenda and lacking knowledge on International law, and Jewish Zionist history or heritage. It is the typical warped narrative of those trying to besmirch the State of Israel and treat the Jews as foreigners or illegal settlers on their own land. We are the Jewish People and we are the rightful heirs of the G-d given land of Israel and we...
Daniel Luria from Israel
In response to: Stop Australian charitable donations to the Settler Movement in the Occupied Territories
The article headed "Israeli female soldiers celebrate the death of 12,300 children" is an appalling misrepresentation
February 22, 2024
The article headed Israeli female soldiers celebrate the death of 12,300 children is an appalling misrepresentation of the image presented. All the image shows is a group of female soldiers, with one of the group taking a selfie of the group. The carnage in Gaza, and the deaths of 30,000 militants, civilians and children is horrific. The need for a ceasefire is beyond question, but cheap shots like this one have no place in a serious discussion. Does anyone who thinks about this issue really see Israel as the sole responsible party? Is Hamas absolved of...
Harold Zwier from Elsternwick, Victoria
In response to: Israeli female soldiers celebrate the death of 12,300 children
We need climate action sooner than a treaty
February 16, 2024
I can admire Julian Cribb’s optimism that an Earth Systems Treaty might still save a habitable environment, but I struggle to share it. As Cribb observes, “It is clear the world’s governments have neither the skills, the brains nor the moral integrity to work their way out of such a crisis – and remain obedient to their fossil fuel overlords.” Material self-interest carries huge social inertia in the face of the need for major change. The measured steps we rejected thirty years ago are now much bigger and steeper. We need major changes, globally implemented, urgently. Democracy,...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills, VIC
In response to: Climate chaos: world overheats while Europe faces a new Ice Age
Reading and Public Schools: Parents have a role too
February 16, 2024
Originally I am from Switzerland. Recently I went on the website of the School I went to. Among instructions to the parents is one particular item: Reading is also expected to be done at home. The parents must make time and read with their child/children to reinforce what they had learnt in school. The school system is pressuring the parents. If we would do that here in Australia our kids would be better in reading also. Schools could ask retired people who have a good education background to come to school and to voluntary reading with kids....
Therese Saladin-Davies from NSW
In response to: Teacher bashing: Grattan joins the chorus
HAMAS has the blood of Palestinians and Israelis on its hands
February 16, 2024
HAMAS prepared for October 7th 2023 very carefully. They prepared a network of tunnels throughout Gaza and perhaps beyond. Some of those tunnels were connected to hospitals and other civilian infrastructure. They stockpiled weapons and continued firing missiles into Israel. HAMAS must have known full well that the slaughter of 1400 Israeli citizens and the taking of 220 hostages would result in severe military action against them. They could have fled to neighbouring countries and spared the people of Gaza the pain, destruction and death that was bound to come, but they chose to fight in the hope that...
Alan CLARKE from BEACON HILL
In response to: Silencing Francesca Albanese
How did we get so deeply in to the Zionist thrall?
February 16, 2024
Margaret Reynolds concise article clearly outlines our politician's inability to rise above the tribalism of party politics, but they also seem frozen in the headlights of a force more powerful than human decency. We need to know why. Social media responses to Albanese, Wong and Marles' intransigence over the Palestinian genocide have been vitriolic (when Meta allows). The comments have been scathing about Labor's callous indifference to the animalistic excesses of Netanyahu and his military force. We see a Labor Government and the likes of Dreyfus and Wong struck dumb when witnessing the obvious lies, obfuscation and determined...
Glenda Jones from Carlton
In response to: The Australian Parliament fails to uphold international law preventing genocide
Cost of killing Gazan Palestinians
February 16, 2024
The two recent arms sales to Israel based on Presidential not Congressional authority, knowing that Israel was razing large parts of Gaza, amounted to USD 263.5 million. So with nearly 28000 Palestinians killed, that is just on $9000 per life lost. Leaving aside for a minute dead adult Palestinians of childbearing age, the 11500 Palestinian children killed means that maybe 34000 children will never be born to them. It is a totally disproportionate action by Israel, even though it was severely provoked, and an action that Joe Biden seems only now to be making feeble attempts to ameliorate, given US...
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: Deflect, distort, deny
The beginning of a climate change solution
February 16, 2024
Obviously Jonathan Page is furious with fossil fuel leaders who still continue pushing their product, given that lots of millions of human deaths will have resulted from FFC activity. He outlines three possible actions in Australia: charge them based on our existing law against harming society; charging Fossil Fuel Companies; or charging FFC executives. Interestingly, six years ago far-sighted climate scientist Joelle Gergis referred in her book to climate change as an intergenerational crime against humanity (Sunburnt Country, 2018, p. 226). My own family's life has also been harmed in that son Lachlan GP lost everything- patients, friends,...
Barbara J Fraser Phd from Burwood, Vic
In response to: Judgment Day: Final retribution for the ecocidal psychopaths
US Military aggression
February 16, 2024
So glad you didn't forget the US war on Grenada. Such a magnificent win against a truly formidable foe. Indeed it is their only win since WWII. Last result, a loss to some theological students in Afghanistan.
John Queripel from Newcastle
In response to: Genocidal Wars dominate US history
Tradies and weekends are safe
February 16, 2024
Credit to the Labor government for moving forward with fuel-efficiency standards. The Coalition considered it but squibbed after pressure from the car industry. As John Quiggin concludes, “The best time to introduce the policy was ten or more years ago. But the second-best time is now.” As Quiggin notes, a key aspect of the policy is that the national emissions limit does “not apply to individual cars”, but rather applies to the mix of vehicles sold. This means that the both the current and low-emissions versions of Australia’s most popular car, the petrol/diesel Ford Ranger ute, can still...
Ray Peck from Hawthorn
In response to: Labor’s fuel-efficiency standards may settle the ute dispute – but there are still hazards
The American Disease
February 14, 2024
In 'What's Ruining America?' columnist David Brooks is reported as blaming the country's sickness and internal division on chicken littles spreading a national contagion of pessimism. He could hardly be more off-beam. What is ruining America is the age-old condition known as imperial over-reach. A state where a country's overinflated idea of itself becomes increasingly detached from reality, leading many to doubt and even despair. America was founded upon the inalienable right of one human to pillage and enslave another, concreted in by a toxic admixture of European mercantilism and religious fundamentalism: the faith that god rewards the most...
Julian Cribb from Canberra, ACT
In response to: What’s ruining America?
We must reclaim the common good
February 9, 2024
Tony Ward reports how social trust has deteriorated over the past 30 years in developed countries, and how growing inequality has been a key factor in this decline. A key contributor to that growing inequality has been the enthusiastic adoption by the political right of the neoliberal dogma. As Jon Tons recently observed (https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/the-social-contract-and-the-voice/) this dogma decrees “that it is both morally wrong and technically unnecessary for governments to intervene to remediate inequalities”. This philosophy encourages individualism at the expense of community. The key to social trust is, firstly, a faith in one’s fellows, and secondly an appreciation of the...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills
In response to: Damaging social cohesion
Engaging with climate solution
February 9, 2024
David Spratt and Ian Dunlop write with authority on the devastating global heating trajectory. The science regarding the future before us if we don’t change course is clear. With due respect to the clever and dedicated scientists, many believe that global heating has now become a communications problem. Solutions are possible, but overwhelmingly humanity, particularly leaders, chooses to place our collective heads in the sand. Doomsday predictions do not entice us to action. I therefore encourage Pearls and Irritations to follow up the excellent “towards and unliveable planet” series with articles conveying the solutions. Action is the antidote to...
Amy Hiller from Kew
In response to: Towards an unliveable planet: Climate’s 2023 annus horribilis
Israel in contempt of ICJ orders
February 9, 2024
In contested proceedings, a Court may make interim orders before the final determination to prevent irreparable harm. Those orders have full force and effect whatever the ultimate decision. Breach of those orders is contempt of court. The ICJ made a number of interim orders one of which was that Israel must take immediate and effective steps to ensure the provision of humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza. In response, Israel, almost immediately, called for the Defunding of the UNRWA relying on its allegations against the 12 UNRWA employees. Many western nations including the United States and Australia have...
John Curr from Brisbane
In response to: Are Australian government ministers complicit in genocide?
Rusted-on Labor voters thought they'd elected one.
February 9, 2024
Peter Henning's article is 'spot on'. . . summarising succinctly the ugly exposure of our Government's lack of moral compass. Fears of climate change and a growing awareness of the shabby nature of Scott Morrison et al's business acumen (or lack thereof) meant this Government was partially elected to address these concerns. Imagine the shock when : * Tanya Plibersek not only failed to close existing coal mines but approved the opening of new ones. * Anthony Albanese not only allowed Dutton/Morrison's Aukus deal to continue, but encouraged Richard Marles' backslapping and lockstepping with the American...
Glenda Jones from Carlton, Victoria
In response to: Stripped bare: The Albanese government’s support for genocide
Superb expose of US instigation of Pakistan coup
February 9, 2024
Jeffrey Sachs here excels in quietly recounting the dreadful history of officially denied but known to everybody US interference in Pakistan politics. Bluntly the US govt told the popular leader Imran Khan “We don’t allow your country to be neutral”. The US- compliant army and police then removed him and worse has followed since with his 10 year jail sentence for espionage, for revealing the evidence of US interference as the cause of his removal. What a dreadful warning to Australia. If we are ever to escape the deadly US embrace it will have to be by...
Tony Kevin from Canberra ACT
In response to: The US toppling of Imran Khan
Pursuing the real criminals
February 9, 2024
Thanks to Jack Waterford for writing and to John Menadue for publishing these quotations from the ACT Court of Appeal: “The decision to commence a criminal prosecution is an opaque process at the best of times”. “The open court principle stands as a bulwark against the possibility of political prosecutions by allowing public scrutiny and assessment of the actions of the respondent and the Attorney-General by reference to the evidence adduced in a criminal trial.” It took the ill-conceived persecution of Bernard Collaery to flush out this long-overdue show of spine from the justice arm of government....
Glen Davis from NSW
In response to: Oppressive secrecy needs more dashes of cold water yet
Ceasefire essential, but both side must commit to end hostilities
February 5, 2024
I think it's appropriate that the Independent and Peaceful Australia Network (IPAN) calls for a ceasefire in Gaza. But a ceasefire without the release of hostages or a plan for ultimately resolving the Israel Palestine conflict is an empty plea. The killing of some 26,000 Palestinians in Gaza is an immense tragedy as is the dire situation of the population suffering unimaginable deprivation, as is the devastation of infrastructure in Gaza. But the context in which this is occurring is an attack by Hamas on 7 October 2023 that killed 1,139 Israelis including 260 young people at a...
Harold Zwier from Elsternwick, Victoria
In response to: Open letter to Prime Minister Albanese on the urgent situation in Gaza and the freeze of UNRWA funds
ICJ orders and suspending UNRWA
February 2, 2024
The Albanese government's utter failure to condemn Israel for its blatant breaches of all the ICJ orders, at the same time as suspending payments to UNRWA, thereby pushing 2 million refugees to the edge of starvation, seems like the grossest hypocrisy. Do they think we are so stupid we won't see it? No, I don't think they believe that. There has to be another motive. When does it stop being hypocrisy and start being intentional wrongdoing? What possible motivation is there for our so-called leaders to act in such a deliberately evil manner?
Niall McLaren from Pullenvale, via Brisbane, Qld
In response to: Stripped bare: The Albanese government’s support for genocide
A dubious line up of speakers resist renewables
January 30, 2024
Not since the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference in London last year has there been such a dubious line up of speakers as those for the forthcoming National Rally Against Reckless Renewables in Canberra. Speaking in London, Tony Abbott said “The climate cult will inevitably be discredited, I just hope we don’t have to endure an energy catastrophe before that happens.” In Canberra, Barnaby Joyce, Malcolm Roberts, and Matt Canavan will enlighten participants. These lads also have form when it comes to climate change and as Sophie Vorrath points out, do not even believe in setting emissions targets....
Ray Peck from Hawthorn
In response to: As earth records hottest year, Coalition digs in against climate action and renewables
ICJ interim decision on genocide in Gaza
January 30, 2024
Good on Hilary Charlesworth for being one of the 15, and for one court order, 16, judges who came down on the side of humanity on Friday 26th January.
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: As Australia joins the US war on Yemen, Labor is a house divided
Humanity's Extinction Beckons
January 30, 2024
Our changing climate poses an existential threat to much of life on earth, and yet it remains the elephant in the room. Perhaps this is because this growing threat arises from gradual, albeit accelerating, rates of change. Wars, and political battles, present more immediate threats and, because they have been happening for so long, seem more manageable. David Spratt and Ian Dunlop lay out once again the enormous environmental challenges we are facing. The forecasts that they report are daunting; climate scientists are seeing existential risks appearing earlier than they had expected. The overall temperature rises we face within...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills, VIC 3127
In response to: Towards an unliveable planet: Climate’s 2023 annus horribilis
An Idea for Australia Day: Learning from Bali
January 30, 2024
A friend of mine once suggested the solution to arguments about Australia day was to keep it on 26 January but adopt the Balinese new year way of celebrating. On the afternoon before Nyepi young people from every community (banjar) parade ogoh ogoh, ghastly ugly images that now reflect some political or social point. Then before dawn, power is turned off, phone services only avaiable for emergencies, and nobody is allowed on the streets. All is silent. The people of Bali welcome their new year in silence and reflection. My friend suggested this would be appropriate for Australia,...
Owen Podger from Melolo, East Sumba, Indonesia
In response to: The case for Australia Day
The Consequences of Western Liberal Failure
January 30, 2024
Western Liberals seem incapable of learning from the generational repercussions created by ignoring past genocides. Without doubt the IDF can raze every building and kill or maim Gaza's surviving population but at what cost to Israel and its role as one of the world's democracies? It can be argued that Germany is still atoning for its genocidal actions under Nazi rule. Scarcely a week passes when the Bosnian and Rwandan genocides do not reverberate. Russia's Chechnyan genocide, the erasure of Grozny and the Western failure to act provided the Ukranian template which has ensured international opprobium for its government...
Michael Buky from NW Tasmania
In response to: Gaza is exposing Western Liberals for the frauds they are
An Australian Republic should include establishment of a Bill of Rights
January 30, 2024
In response to the article I think two important issues have been overlooked. Firstly an Australian republic should be based on a new constitution. The current one is not totally fit for purpose - as demonstrated by the recent voice referendum. It was written at a time when Aboriginal people were still considered to be non Christian and sub human, hence their ongoing enslavement. Secondly, in my view, an Australian Republic should include establishment of a Bill of Rights to apply to all citizens.
Stephen Webber from Nundah Qld 4012
In response to: Does the Australian Public Want a Republic
Ralph Evans: "China leads on renewable energy"
January 30, 2024
China Pledged to ‘Strictly Control’ Coal. The Opposite Happened. In April 2021, Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged to “strictly control coal-fired power generation projects” in China. According to analysis of Global Energy Monitor data, in the two years before Xi’s pledge, the government approved 127 plants, collectively capable of producing 54 gigawatts of coal power. In the two years after, that number rose to 182 plants, with 131 gigawatts of coal power. China’s new coal power capacity has more than doubled. China opened the 1,800 kilometer Haoji Railway in 2019 — specifically to carry coal. Designed to...
Mark Eastaugh from Wilsonton
In response to: Is climate change too hard for democracy?
Authoritarian governments have even greater problems than democracies in meeting "net zero" targets
January 30, 2024
Dear Editor, Ralph Evans must have somehow missed this fact when composing his paean to authoritarian governance.... In 2022 China commissioned 50GW of coal fired power and de-commissioned 4.1 GW. And: China has the greatest number of coal-fired power stations of any country or territory in the world. As of July 2023, there were 1,142 operational coal power plants on the Chinese Mainland. This was more than four times the number of such power stations in India, which ranked second. China accounts for over 50 percent of total global coal electricity generation. Whatever the reasons...
Greg Keeley from Margaret River, WA
In response to: Is climate change too hard for democracy?
Strengthen Integrity to Save the Climate
January 30, 2024
In Australia our government faces a fossil fuel conundrum. While they may accept that carbon emissions reduction is urgent, they do so in a country whose financial viability depends to a considerable extent on fossil fuel exports funding our imports of manufactured goods. Our democracy’s integrity is significantly compromised by fossil fuel and other vested interests. Climate change cannot be tackled effectively until government integrity is restored. The government must urgently reduce the undue influences that impede healthy public debate and decision-making – eg: reforming political donations regulations to remove the disproportionate influence of major donors; reforming lobbying to...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills, VIC 3127
In response to: Is climate change too hard for democracy?
Australia's options under Labor
January 30, 2024
It seems the ALP only considers a narrow range of futures for Australia, as Americans sit in our Defence Department, Americans will crew the nuclear engine rooms of our eventual AUKUS subs, and the Pentagon will dictate the Australian Navy's every move. First, Australia will be the next Ukraine (Has any Canberra politician checked Ukraine out, lately?). Or, Australia will be the next Taiwan. Or, the next, nuclear-armed Japan. Or a Pacific Israel. But we won't be getting billions a year, to be Washington's Down Under aircraft carrier. No: we will be PAYING, billion upon billion,...
Ron Chandler from Boonah
In response to: Albanese is undermining the hard work of previous Labor Governments
The Jewish lobby or the Zionist lobby? - Words matter
January 30, 2024
There are both secular and religious Jews in Australia who are horrified by the actions of the Israeli government and military, ranging from those who have only become engaged by the current conflict, those who have opposed Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank since 1967 to those who disagree entirely with the establishment of Israel in 1948. There are also vocal groups of pro-Israel Jews who put pressure on the government and media to give unconditional support to Israel and smear any support for the Palestinian people as antisemitic. The part played by a group of Jewish...
Vivien Encel from Hilton
In response to: The US and Australia: tethered to Israel’s genocide?
ABC failure to uphold journalistic principles
January 30, 2024
I totally agree with the statement 'they (ABC sic) have failed to uphold journalistic principles and defend both independence in journalism'. I have written numerous letters of complaint to ABC news and to individual ABC Directors, pointing out their total failure to comply with their own charter regarding impartiality of reporting evident in all articles and programs dealing with Russia and Putin both before and after the start of the Ukraine war. Regardless of one's view of the conflict the ABC coverage has been totally one sided and hypocritical and many times patently false. Needless to say...
Michael Apollonov from Sydney
In response to: Independence of Journalism at risk: Antoinette Lattouf should be reinstated
Never a Truer Word Spoken!
January 30, 2024
The so-called Rule Based Law is now a myth......conveniently trotted out by ignorant and clueless politicians who have no idea what they are even talking about. The actions of the Israel Lobby - and especially those lawyers said to make up Lawyers for Israel - can only be described as appalling. With the unmitigated and unrelenting slaughter of Gazans, to suggest, as the lobbyists are, that Israel is entitled to act as it is because of what Hamas did on 7 October is disgraceful - and even disgusting! Forget about the myth of the IDF being the most...
Jeffrey Loewenstein from Tulum, Mexico
In response to: Australia’s brutal “Rules-Based International Order” is on full display in Gaza
Heartfelt thanks
January 30, 2024
Dear Editors, my heartfelt thanks that you decided to post the link. It was a great tonic to listen to this conversation, about which I had not been aware. I subscribe to P&I, because when I joined the public service long ago I recall the great admiration and respect when my seniors spoke of John Menadue. P&I is important for our public discourse and more so now. The LNL program is a gem to be treasured, thank you! ZC
Zulaikha Chudori from RED HILL
In response to: The LNL program on Menadue
ABC Impartiality
January 30, 2024
The ABC newsroom 1940. Staff directive 'No journalist is permitted any bias on the matter of German Forces moving into France. Coverage must be impartial.'
John Queripel from Newcastle
In response to: Impartiality: The bigger Joke in Journalism
But this is what we do...
January 30, 2024
Have you noticed that the news is not talking about Israel's bombing of the Palestinians anymore? We are not hearing about the situation because it is unpalatable. We are only hearing about the bad people in Yemen and how they are disrupting shipping. We are in for a rough ride in 2025.
Louise O'Brien from Sydney Australia
In response to: In Gaza the west is enabling genocide
NATO, and now EU, efforts to expand into Asia
January 30, 2024
So far the attempt to open a NATO office in Tokyo has been blocked by a France which very rightly points out how the NATO charter restricts its concerns to Europe. But that has not stopped the militaristic minded NATO Secretary-General, Jens Stoltenberg, from insisting the ‘security’ of Asia and the Indo-Pacific also come within the orbit of NATO concern. ‘Security is no longer regional; security is global,” he said during a panel discussion at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos. And now we are supposed to believe that for the EU which is charged solely...
Gregory Clark from Japan
In response to: False flag: Asian NATO under a new guise
Australia Day
January 30, 2024
Australia Day! Much has been said about Australia Day, Invasion Day, Survival Day. Whichever way we look at it, it doesn’t stack up as a National Day of Celebration. And let us not forget what we’re celebrating on January 26th each year, the theft of land from the First Nations! I’m afraid that’s not my cup ‘o’ tea. Nor is coming up with any other day that may tickle anybody’s fancy. We CANNOT have a National Day of Celebration until we become a united nation. At present we are a divided nation! And we will remain so until...
John Bentley from Tongala
In response to: Wattle Day: A natural choice for Australia Day’s ideals of diversity and resilience
Incisive analogy
January 19, 2024
What an incisive analogy by Peter O'Keeffe! Yes, indeed, just imagine if the headline were about the British wreaking destruction and the death of 14,000 in Belfast in order to destroy the IRA. There is no comeback to that. I hope Peter submits his analogy in letters to the editors of the major daily newspapers across Australia -- and that they have the moral courage to print it.
Richard Manderson from NARRABUNDAH
In response to: Diplomacy, morality and media have failed the people of Gaza, by Peter O’Keeffe,
Sacking of ABC journalist
January 19, 2024
MSM is essentially singing with one conforming voice here, even our two public broadcasters ABC and SBS. When I write to them to indicate such I get gobbledygook back. Most journalists are cowered with good reason clearly. For a land which produced such journalist giants as Wilfred Burchett, John Pilger (RIP) and Julian Assange, it is disgraceful.
John Queripel from Newcastle
In response to: Antoinette Lattouf should be reinstated
Dreaming of a culture of humanity
January 19, 2024
Tricontinental Institute reminds us that even though we live in a time of escalating anthropogenic global heating and appalling violence in the Middle East, human strength remains (“We need to reverse the culture of decay and march on the street for a culture of humanity” 14/1). Our collective sorrows, stemming from loss of life and loss of a stable climate, have resulted in significant mass protests. Across the globe, people are standing up for their beliefs and for human rights. If enough of us publicly take a stance for peace and equity, and stand up to fossil fuel interests, maybe,...
Amy Hiller from Kew, Victoria
In response to: We need to reverse the culture of decay and march on the street for a culture of humanity
Aged Care Overboard
January 19, 2024
We should not be surprised by this back-to-the-future approach to Aged Care, though. When Minister Wells proclaimed at the National Press Club that the boomers are coming, it was so reminiscent of previous government Ministers and Prime Ministers bleating a warning about the boats are coming. I half-expected her to add stop the boomers. All that remains now is for someone to accuse older Australians of throwing their bedpans overboard, or even worse, having WMOs, weapons of mass obstruction. I wonder which Minister will have a model of a walking frame on their desk with the inscription, I stopped the...
Brian Corless from Gerringong. NSW
In response to: Proposed New Aged Care Act leaves gaps in rights.
Climate Chaos
January 19, 2024
Andrew, Thanks for your article. Unfortunately, I believe that most of what you say will come to pass, but I also believe that it may happen even quicker than most anticipate. This of course includes our pathetic governing bodies who are in the pockets of the fossil fuel lobby. The main reason why I say that our demise may occur sooner than most expect is that our dilemma: that population and resource consumption continues to increase while we endeavour to maintain our current standard of living. Going forward, in an effort to reduce our carbon footprint, we must...
John Bentley from Tongala
In response to: Changing weather patterns
We Must Break The Fossil Fuel Shackles Now
January 12, 2024
Julian Cribb captures the essence of humankind’s carbon emissions folly with devastating clarity. We are using money, an infinitely-creatable resource which ultimately exists only in our imaginations, to exploit our real, finite planet. As Cribb observes, we will run out of planet before we run out of money. Those industries and governments who ignore or deny the climate science may not agree, but the science and the planet are realities that remain unmoved by their wishful thinking. Last year’s final IPCC report was crystal clear: we must move away from fossil fuels, start no new fossil fuel projects. ...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills, VIC
In response to: We are exhuming the teeming Dead
Holbrook and USUKA
January 12, 2024
The siting of an Oberon class submarine in a town 400 kilometres from the sea appears to be a metaphor for current governmental thinking. Decommissioned in 1994 HMAS Otway did not appear to hinder the southward movement of North Vietnamese troops, the development of nuclear missiles by North Korea, or indeed any other developments in East Asia during its thirty years in service under the sea or sitting in dry dock. Lining up the three countries involved in current submarine planning by powerfulness, it seems the first two – the US and UK- are huge financial beneficiaries, paid...
Tony McLean from Springwood, Blue Mountains
In response to: AUKUS and an Aggressive US Imperium, its vast reach, its mind paranoid
Proposed New Aged Care Act. Shonky deal.
January 12, 2024
The proposed new Aged Care Act is somewhat like trying to flog an old bomb. The Sales spiel glosses over the truth. “It’s rebuilt by experts and rebranded by consultants. It’s practically brand new. It’s been painted, seatbelts installed, spruced it up a bit. Ok, we haven’t touched the engine, it’s a bit small, and it’s got a couple of dents we might knock out if you point them out. We removed some of the accessories especially the aircon, because you would use it too much if you were comfortable, and it’s expensive to run, but it will...
Lesley Forster from Donnybrook WA
In response to: Proposed new Aged Care Act leaves gaps in rights
The nuclear option: Peter Dutton’s bid for power
January 12, 2024
Thank you to Mark Diesendorf for his cool-headed and informative piece on why nuclear is no good for Australia. The facts speak for themselves. The political ‘debate’ about the “oppose renewables” aspect, however, needs constant attention. As we saw at COP28, the nuclear lobby was touting for business. Members of the Opposition joined with 22 countries whose main task appears to have been to “commit to mobilise investments in nuclear power, including through innovative financing mechanisms”. The World Nuclear Industry Status Report noted a 4 percent decrease in global nuclear production; it fell to 9.2 percent, its lowest...
Fiona Colin from Melbourne
In response to: Coalition, pro-nuclear lobbyists argue Australia needs nuclear energy
November 11, 1975 vs January 6 2021
January 12, 2024
The outstanding work by Jenny Hocking to unmask the Palace Letters brings into sharp focus how one attempted open partly armed revolution in the US was unsuccessful while the other revolution in Australia 45 years before, conducted largely in secret, was successful. Our revolution involved the Queen, the then Governor General, then leading judicial figures and the then Opposition Leader. Just which way the Army would have leaned if there had been a violent response we don’t know, although the recent decision about the duty of Afghanistan alleged war crimes whistleblower David McBride offers a clue. It was determined...
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: The Search for the Palace Letters: a Remarkable Documentary
DVD The Search for the Palace Letters
January 12, 2024
This is an important historical record, in fact, it is a record that requires constant and immediate access for the Australian public most of whom do not know any other means of accessing this information/video. The ABC is the public's access to the historical record on the events of 1975 and has, I believe, an obligation to provide transmission at all times if such a documentary is available. On searching your accessible records I was unable to find any record of this video and so resort to a letter not only requesting access, but requesting this video be...
Kerry Heubel from Sydney
In response to: The Search for the Palace Letters
People power to the rescue
January 12, 2024
It was uplifting to start 2024 with such a good news story. That is, over the course of 2023, renewable energy supplied nearly 40% of electricity demand in Australia, nearly halfway to the government’s target of 82% by 2030. Furthermore, this was up from 35% the year before. But clearly to get to 82%, increases of more than five% per annum are needed. Interestingly, the capacity of roof top solar increased 21% from 2022 to 2023. Another type of power, people power, is driving the transition. The estimated total annual potential for rooftop solar is 245 TWh, almost...
Ray Peck from Hawthorn
In response to: Australia nears half-way mark to 82% renewables
It’s peace USA, UK , France fear most
January 12, 2024
Being a relative novice to the war games arenas I can only conclude and agree with the article by; x UK commoner, Colin, that the importance of weapons production and sales has overtaken any foreign oil, resources needs. And that to keep it simple it’s PEACE that UK fear most. Weapons have use by dates and “foreign policy” covers everything to ensure they are used elsewhere? Once The initial horror and disbelief that this is so, dissipates the conclusion is that we, in the west, are the terrorists. Mysteriously Even the 9/11 attack never went near weapons manufacture...
J Hunt from Alstonville Plateau
In response to: Not a ‘windfall’ more a ‘guided weapon’
Shrewd dealings
January 12, 2024
Fair go, mate, asking the bunch of glove puppets and rubber ducks in Canberra to deal shrewdly with anything is a bit above their pay grade, isn't it?
Niall McLaren from Pullenvale, via Brisbane, Qld
In response to: Trump is not the only issue, America is too
ABC missed the Genocide
January 12, 2024
If the ordinary person in Australia relied on their public broadcaster or their politicians to keep them aware of an important period of history, they would be left uninformed. The ABC morning news will tell you about silly people jumping off a cliff at Mt Martha and that the town of Rochester was spared an overnight flood, but there would be no update that Israel had slaughtered even more Palestinian babies; dropped phosphorus bombs on civilians to burn through the skin to the bone; limited food aid through the only in-road access point so that people are starting to...
Glenda Jones from Carlton 3053
In response to: A cry from the heart
SE Australia Global Warming impacts from 1990s
January 12, 2024
La Niña was a main contributing oceanic climate driver to record rainfall during the multi-year La Niña phases of 2010–2012 and 2020–February 2023. Also, contributing was a favourable negative IOD phase in both periods. Added to those oceanic climate drivers were favourable atmospheric climate driver phases of the SAM favouring deep, moist onshore air from the Coral and Tasman Seas, and the SOI, which is a measure of the strength of the tropical Pacific trade winds. Attribution pointed to the dominant climate drivers as complex interactions between these climate drivers with global temperature, and above average global and Tasman...
Milton Speer from Sydney
In response to: Australia’s changed climate: The Bureau’s yearly reminder
We must recover the common good
January 12, 2024
A new political idea can address a societal need for a short time, but when the idea solidifies into an ideology it becomes doctrinaire and inflexible. And so with neo-liberalism: initially liberating, it has for the past few decades, as John Tons observes, decreed “that it is both morally wrong and technically unnecessary for governments to intervene to remediate inequalities”. As a result we see growing social inequalities: the rich getting richer, the poor getting poorer, ever-increasing intergenerational inequity, and the debacle of The Voice. The idea that any tax should be increased, or new tax introduced, to better balance...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills, VIC
In response to: The social contract and The Voice
Why was Whitlam not angrier?
January 12, 2024
Jon Stanford's detailed re-examination of the Whitlam dismissal leads to the inevitable conclusion that the many forces which truly feared his government had the luck to find a willing political assassin in John Kerr, abetted by perhaps partly ignorant accomplices in Malcolm Fraser, Reg Withers and others. It is clear that without Kerr, the dismissal simply could not have happened. What I cannot understand is Whitlam's relative silence on the affair. It is possible that he did not initially realise how outrageously Kerr had been influenced in his actions. But with time - eg when he received the US...
Richard Barnes from Melbourne
In response to: Covert forces and the overthrow of Edward Gough Whitlam: The series
The Australian's ongoing climate disinformation
January 12, 2024
How refreshing that former editor-in-chief of The Australian, David Armstrong, should publish the Bureau of Meteorology’s annual mean temperature anomaly graph (1910-2023) and write “This little graph provides persuasive evidence that Australia is not just experiencing bad weather: the climate has changed.” Recently, The Australian newspaper has tried to undermine both the Bureau and the CSIRO on climate matters. The latest assault came from Peter Ridd when he disparaged the Australian Institute of Marine Science and the Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies both linked to JCU. Earlier, Ridd had claimed that coral is the “least endangered...
Ray Peck from Hawthorn
In response to: Australia’s changed climate: The Bureau’s yearly reminder
Beauty in our world
January 12, 2024
The positive message from Bishop Huggins is that amidst the trauma that we see in the images posted relentlessly, there needs to be room to also reflect on both the personal and the wider world and the beauty that exists there. In Judaism there is the idea of tikkun olam, healing the world. It is a responsibility that all have, but it doesn't just focus on the fractures. It has to be done with an understanding of how things might be. And that means appreciating our own experience of satisfaction, joy, love and beauty.
Harold Zwier from Elsternwick, Victoria
In response to: Flourishing democracy: Australia and a 2024 of beauty
Check your facts.
January 12, 2024
While I agree with the gist of Peter O'Keefe's article, I urge him to get his facts straight regarding this preposterous statement; 'The atrocities committed on 7 October 2023 by the military wing of Hamas, exceed in scale, intensity and barbarity anything previously done in Israel or Palestine.' For a start, has O'Keefe heard of Deir Yassin - one of over 400 Palestinian villages and towns ethically cleansed, where rape and massacres abounded - in 1948? Has he heard of Shatila, or, do the deaths via repeated bombing campaigns against Gaza with its countless usage of internationally banned weapons,...
dieter barkhoff from Box Hill North
In response to: Things that may not be said about the Israeli atrocities
WA GST revenue vs NSW pokies Revenue
January 12, 2024
The article in question reads as fairly myopic, with tunnel vision. No mention of royalty offsets, no mention how NSW collects nearly as much pokies revenue as WA royalties, but the pokies revenue is not included in the GST calculation - WA should be rewarded for not allowing the pokies scourge if nothing else. Also, WA is the size of Western Europe and needs to spend on infrastructure to enable the king flow of revenue to all. WA is not getting endless underground rail networks and so on to anywhere near the same scale as Vic or NSW....
Gareth Smith from Perth
In response to: WA’s $40 billion fraud on the rest of us
ALP cooperating with US intelligence conceivable
January 12, 2024
It is jolting to read from this excellent journal over and over of your surprise. The apparatchiks of the ALP repeatedly silenced those of us taking the risks of grassroots action pointing to the role of the US. Which of you criticised and made known Beazley's role as an arms dealer and President of Lockheed Martin for example. Remember, the ALP voted for the change in the Pine Gap Legislation following the win by the PINE GAP 4 in the NT courts. Only Scott Ludlam, and the other Greens voted against this legislation warning that the USA was...
Margaret pestorius from Brisbane
In response to: Scrafton - Abondoned Sovereignty
Additional Extraordinary Australian Journalist
January 12, 2024
The late Phillip George Knightley also deserves a special mention, especially considering his investigative journalism covering United Distillers and thalidomide and the Vestey family companies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillip_Knightley
Bernard Corden from Spring Hill
In response to: Three extraordinary Australian journalists: Burchett, Pilger and Assange
Bit Sized But Brilliant
January 12, 2024
Remember the film clip that went viral on the net? The Palestinian family who went to a wedding, or similar, and came back to find their home, and its contents, had been hijacked. Stolen. With no shame. And the excuse that the Israeli thief came up with? If I don't take it, someone else will. Is this a society? Is this a culture? Is this Jewishness? I don't think so. It's greed and it happens because nobody dares stop it. And our leaders still mutter about 'Israel defending itself' and 'the two state solution'. Get...
Sandra Ramini from Fremantle WA
In response to: The Israel Supporter & The Sandwich
It's about a healthy mindset
January 12, 2024
Not everything to do with wellness needs to work. Some of it might just have a feel good factor. If it can put people on the right path, create a wellness mindset, then people will take up doing some of the things that really do work FOR THEM. They will take an interest and do research, try different things out, some of what they go with will be a total waste of money, but they are very likely to stick with some of the good stuff. Take it from someone who has being doing Pilates for around 3 hours...
Louise O'Brien from Sydney Australia
In response to: We spend billions on wellness crap
US Sanctions are not working
January 12, 2024
The US can clearly see that China's economy will soon be larger than America's and that, within a decade, they will be technologically ahead of the US, but their is little the US can do about it. The US is doing all the propaganda it can to get everyone to still believe in them and support their world hegemony, as it slowly dwindles . Some US figureheads are declaring, with a straight face, that the US will go to war with China within five years, which is just laughable. The Americans are keeping up the mantra in the hope...
Louise O'Brien from Sydney Australia
In response to: The future will be decided by economics
John Pilger - a great journalist
January 12, 2024
I dug out my copy of Distant Voices as a way of paying tribute to John this morning. Vale.
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: Vale John Pilger
Why Israel envies the Palestinians so much.
January 12, 2024
I visited Israel in the mid eighties and was confronted by the Israeli informed stereotype of the lazy, ill-educated Arab, uninterested in improving the land and water that provided their food. I lazily failed to search for any contrary evidence until reading comments by Gazans much more recently in social media. In contrast to the stereotype, they were smart, switched on to technologies and the world around them, educated, ambitious for themselves and their country, passionate, and vitally connected with their family and friends. Tragically, many of them would ask if they would wake up the following morning. The...
Jill Dixon from Melbourne
In response to: Why Israel hates the Palestinians so much.
US/Israeli strategy for the Middle East
January 12, 2024
If you look at US history and The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, that brought an official end to the Mexican-American War (1846-1848), you realise the US and Israel are trying to repeat history but this time it's in the Middle East. They need a couple more steps to put this all into play. They need a normalisation agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia so that Israel is responsible for Saudi Arabia security, and the later can be told to sit on the sidelines and do nothing or join in on Israeli's side when the land takeover begins. ...
Louise O'Brien from Sydney Australia
In response to: Hopeful pearls for peace
Media bias
January 12, 2024
Each night in its coverage of the Gaza violence SBS monotonously intones the line when referring the Hamas, 'Hamas is recognised as a terrorist organisation by many states, including Australia.' What is the purpose of this? It represents a failure to apply non-subjectivity to reporting a news item. It clearly causes a bias to the rest of the news item. I have written to them calling for them to desist. I suggest other do also.
John Queripel from Newcastle
In response to: Big Media outlets lack balance on Gaza
So called “private” schools
January 12, 2024
As a past Business Manager of a large public school, I find it disgraceful that we continue to have the most unequal education system in the OECD! Far from being “Independent”, these highly privileged “Private” schools are obtaining more and more government funding while the public schools are getting less. It has to stop, and the present federal government has to act to restore some justice to the system.
Jeanne Hart from Maryborough Victoria
In response to: Private schools had biggest decline in PISA results
Theological reform . . . an oxymoron?
January 12, 2024
The 'elephant in the room' when discussing 'theological reform' is this: Considering that the entire history, of Christology, from even before the very beginnings of an institutional 'church' has been riven with 'theological disputes' many of which remain unresolved and swept under the ecclesiastic rug, out of sight out of mind; but the question remains, always there but never spoken: Is theology even a valid human intellectual endeavor or just the extreme of human intellectual vanity? For if the foundations of 'tradition' are all theological, that being a human intellectual interpretation of scriptural materials, WHAT has been revealed by...
robert landbeck from Dedham, Me
In response to: The need for theological reform
The new Holocaust - Israel's genocidal war on Gaza
January 12, 2024
For an article with promise, Alison Caddick has sadly fallen for Israel's greatest lie - that it is the victim of a 'genocidal' attack by the Palestinian resistance, rather than the Palestinian people as victims of a new Holocaust. One must only look at the graveyard of cars destroyed by Apache helicopters to see who was responsible for most or almost all of the civilian deaths of October 7th, and consequently treat with great scepticism Israel's claims of a Hamas 'atrocity' committed against innocent Israelis, and the ballooning claims of rapes and abuse then carried out. Then one should start...
David Macilwain from NE Victoria
In response to: Gaza and the Unspeakable
More than theology
January 12, 2024
Dear Michael - let's look to 'nature-consciousness on which all can focus, not just 'theology' development. Were all in this together! See, for example the guidance of someone like Thomas Berry.
Len Puglisi from Burwood East
In response to: The need for theological reform
A new study may have strengthened the COP28 text
January 12, 2024
David Spratt and Ian Dunlop provide a telling review of COP28, the most recent UN climate conference. While it is true that the heavily modified text assumes it is possible to “negotiate with the laws of nature” and that physics doesn’t care, it is also true that there is no better process. At least Spratt and Dunlop haven’t suggested one. But they are right to be angry and alarmed like the scientists they quote. It is infuriating, particularly for Pacific Island nations, that in the hottest year on record, as we nudge the feared 1.5-degree anomaly, that...
Ray Peck from Hawthorn
In response to: COP28 a “tragedy for the planet” as Stockholm Syndrome took hold
Do Australians want a bigger or better Australia?
January 12, 2024
When Gough Whitlam opined that Australia would not need nor should it have a population of over 15 million, no one called him a xenophobe or racist. Net overseas migration ran at around 70,000 per annum through the periods of government by Prime Ministers, Whitlam, Fraser, and Hawke-Keating. Yet, there was never a clamour for an expanded immigration policy. Successive polls have found that the great majority of Australians don’t want the ‘Big Australia’ policy that proved to be the final nail in the coffin for the Rudd prime ministership. According to TAPRI, 70% of Australians wanted...
Peter Strachan from Cottesloe
In response to: Is Albanese on track to deliver proposed net migration reductions?
Vale Mark Valencia
January 12, 2024
Readers will miss Mark's thoughtful and provocative commentaries on China and Australia-China relations. Jocelyn Chey
Jocelyn Chey from Sydney
In response to: Vale Mark Valencia
Criminal conviction review
December 22, 2023
So far, I haven’t succeeded in interesting the WA attorney general in setting up a Criminal Conviction Review Commission. Even where new facts or new science emerges after a case, there seems to be no onus on the state to correct the conviction. And yet WA has had cases of a lab failing to meet standard DNA protocols. It has had one case where some evidence appeared to indicate time runs backwards. . It would probably be better if CCRC’s were composed of jurists from another state. It was concerning to see a judge the other day say that the...
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: Kathleen Folbigg’s wrongful convictions: Quashed, but why did they happen?
On calls for genocide.
December 22, 2023
I should point out that allegations that the slogan From the river to the sea represents calls for genocide of Israel mean that the well-known song, Advance Australia Fair is unquestionably a call for an all-white Australia.
Niall McLaren from Pullenvale, via Brisbane, Qld
In response to: Hamas, Gaza and the continuing Zionist project
Knowing China - Australia must learn how to engage
December 22, 2023
Teow Loon Ti is quite correct in stating that “…China is knowable…”., however the statement that “…Australia was not a party to China’s century of humiliation….”, is not correct. From its colonial era to post Federation, the Australian population, has been hostile to the presence of Chinese. There are numerous documented examples of violent incidents, commencing in the 1850's, perpetrated on Chinese gold miners in Australia by non-Chinese immigrants resulting in martial law being applied following the Lambing Flats Riot of 1861 and the creation of the White Australia policy and legislation post Federation. Anti-Chinese violence occurred also in China....
Peter Gumley from Northern Rivers, NSW
In response to: Saving Australia from China?
Israel's Transition to Tyranny
December 22, 2023
The World at large watches as Israel's tyrannical government continues its genocidal project in Gaza. Onlookers are either justifiably horrified, vocally admiring or perhaps casually dis-interested in this tragedy as nothing meaningful is done to halt the vengeful bloodshed of innocents by the Israeli Defense Force. Few in Western communities appreciate the historic developments that enabled the creation of modern Israel and to this end Western mainstream media has submitted to the Zionist lobby groups that shape the false narrative of the reality that is currently on display in Gaza. (one could argue that a similar paradox exists for the...
Peter Gumley from Northern Rivers, NSW
In response to: Death and Destruction in Gaza
Ending the Revolutions - Historical Errors
December 22, 2023
Dear Editor, Contrary to what Dr Kildea claims in April 2021, Northern Ireland has not been engaged in a civil war for the past 45 or so years. Further he claims/implies in his article that the troubles in northern Ireland are as a result of Partition in 1921 and are therefore somehow linked to the 1916 revolution. The fact of the matter is the troubles of the 1960's started in 1968 not because of some desire to have a united Ireland but because a peaceful demonstration by Bernadette Devlin and her Peoples Democracy group attempted to walk in protest...
Patrick Darley-Jones from Luddenham, NSW
In response to: Ending the revolutions: Easter rising and the partition of Ireland
CIS was not created by Atlas
December 19, 2023
We are surprised that John Menadue would publish a piece like this https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/secrecy-and-the-climate-disinformation-industry/ relying on mere innuendo and false statements. For the record: 1: The Centre for Independent Studies (CIS) was not created by Atlas. CIS was started before Atlas in Greg Lindsay’s back garden. 2: all our research is on the public record. We are not ‘trying to hide’. Further, our research is externally peer-reviewed. 3: our only carbon research to date has recommended a carbon tax. 4: we do not receive, and have never received, funding from Atlas.
Karla Pincott from Australia
In response to: Secrecy and the climate disinformation industry
Addressing intergenerational injustice
December 15, 2023
The UN Child Rights Committee states that “children have a right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment”. Yet, as David Shearman explains, Australia’s young people are burdened with air pollution from burning fossil fuels, and a climate and environment that is in a state of severe decline (“Amendment of the Climate Change Act will offer a future for young people” 9/12). Most remain unaware that 12 per cent of all childhood asthma cases are due to cooking with gas in the home. And that 11,000 Australians die prematurely from traffic exhaust air pollution. The impact of fine particulate matter...
Amy Hiller from Kew
In response to: Amendment of the Climate Change Act will offer a future for young people
Pathway to Paris
December 15, 2023
Optimists still argue that the Paris Agreement is not dead. We heard them at Dubai, repeating over and over that we must keep 1.5 alive. But what if the odds don’t favour the Dunlop/Spratt double saviour solution? A study done recently by Professor Jacqueline Peel of the Melbourne Law School for the Climate Council discusses some of the stumbling blocks which litter Australia’s pathway to observance of Paris. The main one is our failure to recognise climate change as a matter of national environmental significance (MNES) in association with the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Protection Act. Is it too late...
John Gare from Kew East, Victoria
In response to: The Paris Agreement is dead. Australia must change its strategic priorities