Letters to the Editor
Housing: it comes down to supply and demand
November 20, 2025
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/11/migration-myths/?utm_source=Pearls+%26+Irritations&utm_campaign=2140ca9104-Daily&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0c6b037ecb-2140ca9104-645461111 Sorry Ian McAuley, when it comes to housing it's basically a question of supply and demand. And most of the demand comes from population growth, of which net overseas migration (NOM) makes up three quarters (315,900 of 423,400 people in the year ending March 2025). Natural increase should be coming down because of below replacement fertility (TFR is currently 1.5 births per woman). However, because of the influx of young adult migrants, natural increase remains above 100,000 annually. So, the main way to reduce demand is to get NOM down to a point at which it is...
Jenny Goldie from Cooma NSW
In response to: Migration myths
The continued relevance of momento mori!
November 20, 2025
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/11/emergency-powers-and-tariffs-the-supreme-courts-test-of-the-presidents-authority/ The fundamental problem for the dying US empire is that of every dying empire. As it sickens from its own internal contradictions it increasingly turns to conjurers and sorcerers in the belief that by doing so the chosen conjurer can produce a magical solution to the malignancy within. As logic and rationality are unable to address the ideological and factual contradictions that infest the public space the increasingly desperate population turn to who they believe offers a magical solution to the coming collapse. The intellectual midget Donald Trump believes it is only he that, through his...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Emergency powers and tariffs: The US Supreme Court’s test of the President’s aut
Boomers have been a disappointing generation
November 20, 2025
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/11/the-last-boomer/?utm_source=Pearls+%26+Irritations&utm_campaign=dde7a9f598-Daily&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0c6b037ecb-dde7a9f598-583172987 I like Sweeney’s article about Boomers and agree with much of it, particularly his critique of capitalism. However, I cannot agree with his whitewashing of the Boomer generation’s responsibility (or rather irresponsibility) for what has happened during our lifetimes (I was born in 1951). As a generation we do bear much of the responsibility. In many ways Boomers were handed life on a plate by our parents who had suffered the depression and WWII and were determined to create a better life for their kids, summed up by the creation of welfare states and the development of...
Peter Sainsbury from Darling Point
In response to: The last Boomer
Demented posturing
November 20, 2025
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/11/nuclear-testing-threatens-global-stability-according-to-leading-asia-pacific-advocacy-group/ As the reality of increasing US inability to continue to impose itself upon the rest of humanity begins to sink in to the fevered and disordered mind of the Orange Donald, he desperately seeks to find a way to remain the boss. As his other efforts in sanctions, tariffs and funding of rogue states and stealing the assets of other states all appear to be failing to halt the US decline, the threat of the US nuclear arsenal probably seems to the far right boneheads of the Neo-Con movement in the US who he seeks counsel from,...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Nuclear testing threatens global stability
Some politicians: for Richo, for poorer
November 20, 2025
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/11/richos-grave-should-be-extra-deep/ Jack, Jack, Jack (sigh). Richo is probably (though many of us would want more concrete proof than just a coffin with a body in it) dead. Now is hardly the time to smack us around the ears with accurate reporting, succinct analysis and realistic conclusions. No, surely it's time to go with the Albo vibe and ignore the fact that Richo was the paradigm grifter. Just because Richo made an art form of turning public office into private career upwards mobility should not beget repudiation of the idea that the societal role of a politician should...
Richard Llewellyn from Colo Vale
In response to: Richo’s grave should be extra deep
The political class can't be trusted to implement democratic policy agendas
November 20, 2025
https://ohnmenadue.com/post/2025/11/richos-grave-should-be-extra-deep/ To extend this analysis a bit further, one question is whether the Labor-Coalition political class and its right-wing offcuts are close to permanent and irrevocable disconnection from anything resembling “representative democracy”, and where that will lead. It is increasingly apparent that broad sectors of Australian society increasingly understand that the political class at federal-state levels cannot be trusted to implement basic democratic policy agendas, because their “small target” commitments guarantee that they can pursue policies and expenditure of public funds however they like. Those expenditures serve the interests of a small group of Australians, increase socio-economic...
Peter Henning from Melbourne
In response to: Richo’s grave should be extra deep
A justified and honourable conversion
November 20, 2025
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/11/coalition-politicians-cannot-accept-the-threat-of-climate-change-they-should-resign/ As Chair of the Australian Coal Association Ian was an intrepid and effective spokesperson of the coal industry when I knew him back in the 80s when I ran the NSW Maritime Services Board. He was always an engaging and intelligent spokesperson for that industry. His Damascene conversion to a climate activist over the last couple of decades I have followed with interest as I always saw him as a person who allowed his common sense and acute intelligence to tell him that the industry to which he had devoted a considerable part of his life was...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Coalition politicians who can't accept the threat of climate change should resig
Anymore need to be said.
November 20, 2025
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/11/the-last-boomer/ Interesting read but not convinced. The baby boomer parents suffered the depression and a war and yet went onto build Australia. They gave a home to their children, fed them, clothed them and provided an education and what did they get in return: rock and roll, long hair and protests. The boomers became the me generation and dropped the ball. Even in retirement they blackmailed their way to be treated better than royalty. Of all the things their parents were able to give them it lacked: “EMPATHY”.
aale hanse from riverina
In response to: The last Boomer
More people. A solution or a big problem.
November 20, 2025
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/11/migration-myths/?utm_source=Pearls+%26+Irritations&utm_campaign=2140ca9104-Daily&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0c6b037ecb-2140ca9104-670405568 Migration is an issue, as my article “More people. A solution or a big problem” demonstrates. Whilst it’s true that pausing immigration here won’t alter the number of people on the planet, it would show the rest of the world that Australia recognises that every nation, including us, contributes to the climate crisis, and that regardless of where we live we all have a moral responsibility to address this existential threat. The global climate crisis is driven by overpopulation. The problem is that there are too many people on the planet. That is an undeniable fact....
Peter Hehir from Rozelle
In response to: Migration myths
Regional existential abatement for young Australia
November 20, 2025
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/11/china-phobia-in-australia-is-endangering-the-countrys-security/ Whilst I agree with Patience's expression of dismay against racism towards Chinese emanating from the Murdochracy and other right leaning bodies, I must stress the importance of tackling the root of the issue head on. The people's Chinese Revolution led to the breakaway of Taiwan as forced by the nationalist Kuomintang, who the US backed (now, not so much for 'democracy', unless you've seen pigs fly, but for microprocessors), and Australia continues to militarily align with the US. China has expressly stated they want Taiwan back under the Chinese umbrella and America aggressively defends their capitalist partner....
Sean Carville from Naarm
In response to: Allan Patience, China-phobia in Australia is endangering the country’s security
Albo and co also need to take note on climate
November 20, 2025
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/11/coalition-politicians-cannot-accept-the-threat-of-climate-change-they-should-resign/ The Coalition are, by far, the worst offender on climate inaction, but the Labor Government need to take serious note. They are not totally innocent on climate. It's time to accelerate Labor's renewable transition. Ongoing subsidies for fossil fuels are Twentieth-Century politics. The planet's physics says It's time for climate action well before 2035. The ongoing legislative review of the EPBC Act needs to get serious on climate, to include climate triggers and old growth forestry logging moratoriums. Both appear to be ruled out in the current EPBC legislative review. Moreover, It's time for...
Rex Gunton from Richmond NSW 2753
In response to: Coalition politicians who can't accept the threat of climate change should resig
Climate denialists - shills or fools
November 20, 2025
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/11/coalition-politicians-cannot-accept-the-threat-of-climate-change-they-should-resign/?utm_source=Pearls+%26+Irritations&utm_campaign=2140ca9104-Daily&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0c6b037ecb-2140ca9104-668405231 Those who still peddle climate denialism are either shills or fools. Their rejection of the need for climate action is not rooted in a denial of the science, but in the conviction that their wealth can insulate them and that the most devastating costs will be borne by others less fortunate—both nations and individuals. To them I say – You are wrong. Taxes and insurance premiums will skyrocket to rebuild infrastructure shattered by storms and fires or infrastructure will degrade into ruins. Wars over dwindling resources will consume the globe creating waves of mass migration...
John Curr from MANLY, Queensland
In response to: Coalition politicians who can't accept the threat of climate change should resig
Colonialism re-affirmed
November 20, 2025
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/11/un-approval-of-gaza-stabilisation-force-slammed-as-denial-of-palestinian-self-determination/ What can one say about this dog's breakfast of a solution to the genocide in Gaza? The entire construction of it is colonialism revived and given a modern face. No power for the people of Palestine except at some time in the possible future, but with the mandate and composition of the body supposedly oversighting this farce indicating clearly where power will lie. If anyone believes that if HAMAS is dis-armed the Israelis won't then proceed to complete the genocide I have a really nice bridge to sell them. Israel has ignored the various ceasefires in the...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: UN approval of Gaza ‘Stabilisation Force’ slammed as ‘Denial of Palestinian self
A spotlight can be blinding. Ask any rabbit
November 17, 2025
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/11/forecasting-the-impact-of-sino-indian-relations-on-changing-world-order/?utm_source=Pearls+%26+Irritations&utm_campaign=0bbf855fd9-Daily&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0c6b037ecb-0bbf855fd9-744841694 While Ronald Keith makes many good points, there’s reason to feel there’s some he’s misinterpreted. When it comes to China recognising world order, the annexation of Tibet, the invasions of India (1962) and Vietnam (1979), the expressed intention of annexing Taiwan, and its belligerence in the South China Sea, suggests China accepts only a Chinese world order. Mentioning the percentage of world population without reference to greenhouse gas emissions also warrants review. Emissions from China and India make up 40 per cent of the global output. It hardly looks as though they’re aligning themselves with COP decrees...
John Mosig from Kew, Victoria
In response to: Forecasting the impact of Sino-Indian relations on changing world order
Melick: Modelling a modern major-general
November 14, 2025
PJK rarely misses the bullseye when he launches a broadside, and this does not suggest otherwise. I have watched Melick's performance with a mixture of mirth and despair – and I was a senior member of staff when Ruxton was the RSL stooge on Council. Ruxton, for all his idiosyncrasies, was far preferable to Melick. As another of the recent coterie of ex-Army Reserve majors-general we have witnessed exhibiting all the competence of some notable British senior Army commanders of World War I vintage, it beggars the imagination as to why that career path should be considered an...
Richard Llewellyn from Colo Vale
In response to: Another RSL dope wants to draw us into a major war
Albanese fakes a policy connection with Whitlam
November 14, 2025
Anthony Albanese’s panegyric on Gough Whitlam identifies many of the Whitlam Government’s achievements. But if it is an attempt to paint an image of his own government as fitting the visionary Whitlam mould, it does the opposite, because it reminds us of the stark policy differences which amount to a rejection by the Albanese Government of all that Whitlam stood for. Where Whitlam broke the shackles of imperial control, ploughed resources into public education, the creation of universal healthcare and other major social reforms, and sought to create an independent and more egalitarian Australia, the Albanese Government seeks to...
Peter Henning from Melbourne
In response to: The Dismissal was a calculated conservative plot: Albanese
Pinocchio and the growing nose
November 13, 2025
I don't know if others have noticed that every time Mike Burgess appears in public, which is a rapidly growing and unpleasant phenomenon, his nose appears to be getting bigger. Like his puppet master Scott Morrison, his propensity for calumny, exaggeration and outright fabrication of threats that only ASIO can discover and eliminate is rampant. He can of course get away with it as the leader of an organisation that has no oversight of the truth or otherwise of what it says. He regularly fails to produce a jot of evidence for his claims that would stand any chance...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: ASIO's Mike Burgess and a lust for the limelight
A matter of cautious hope
November 13, 2025
I agree that Zohran Mamdani's victory has brought hope, not just to the Gazans but to all who have grown appalled by the apparent inability of our current crop of leaders to address the underlying issue of inequality. I suspect that this victory in New York City was aided by social media, and as a consequence I foresee a concerted effort to bring that avenue of public discourse under greater control. I feel the hope this article mentions has to be tempered by two considerations. The first is, what now? Consider the dog who, having chased the car,...
Hal Duell from Alice Springs
In response to: Mamdani’s victory bought hope to Gaza
Infantilism as a national value
November 13, 2025
Our national inability, cultured in us by Great Britain and the US, to bell the cat of our continued infantile need for mummy or daddy to tell us what to think and do, remains. If what happened to us in 1975 happened in a country we had been taught to hate or fear, we would have called if what it was – a coup!! But to acknowledge that happened in Australia would challenge our childish need for mummy or daddy to tell us what just happened. It relieves us of need to make a decision for ourselves....
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW2041
In response to: After 50 years, it’s time we called it a coup
Only Arabic?
November 13, 2025
Curiously, I see only Chinese text when the Vic bail ads come up while watching BBC or other English language programs on SBS. Not Arabic. This is presumably because my SBS individual profile indicates I view many Chinese language programs on SBS. So I suspect the author’s experience is likely a matter of individual viewer profiling by SBS, not collective racial profiling. Perhaps the author should seek confirmation or denial (and correction if appropriate)?
John Fitzgerald from Melbourne
In response to: Only Arabic: When 'multicultural' media turns to racial profiling
White empire redux
November 13, 2025
The RSL has for over a hundred years been an organisation committed to a white king and country. it continues to reflect the fantasy of the medieval British values of a brutal, but long dead, racist empire. It’s no surprise that it continues to promote the delusion of white supremacy over the “yellow peril” when the world has moved on and China is now the peaceful but immensely powerful emerging hegemon. Apparently, they still need the confected enemy to continue to scare the public s***less so they happily continue to fund a military to re-fight the Second World...
Les Macdonald from Balmain nsw2041
In response to: Another RSL dope wants to draw us into a major war
No gavels
November 13, 2025
Your article was very interesting and well-written but please do not use pictures of gavels in articles about our courts. There is not a court in Australia where any judge or magistrate uses a gavel. It is an Americanism which tends to show how much those who use it do not know about Australian courts and it misleads the public. Try a wig, the scales of justice or anything but do not make our judges and magistrates look like auctioneers.
Philip Walker from Canberra
In response to: We don’t do that in this country: Judge slams DPP
Whitlam dismissal
November 12, 2025
Thanks John for your article. Just heard Paul Kelly on ABC's Conversations airbrush the possibility of any CIA involvement in the last 20 seconds of the program... seems a lot of wilful fear of public examination of the claims even at 50 years!
Darryl Halden from ORANA
In response to: The Dismissal, the role of the CIA, MI6 and Austral Americans
An adroit Albanese?
November 12, 2025
Geoff Raby suggests in his interesting and informative article that Albanese has been “adroit” in his “diplomatic positioning of Australia with both the Trump administration and China’s leaders”, while Australia’s defence and foreign ministers “appear to be both out of step and out of time”. This assessment deserves more detailed clarification and explanation on the points of difference between Albanese, Wong and Marles. Where are the signs of tension or disagreement, given the strong evidence of unity re AUKUS, US bases, massive funding of the US military, special deals on mineral resources, closer relations with the UK, NATO,...
Peter Henning from Melbourne
In response to: After Trump goes home
What can be done?
November 11, 2025
What can be done about the “Conclave of the Pernicious”? COPs have been increasingly co-opted by fossil fuel companies, their apologists, and those who are unapologetic. The big four — US, China, Russia and India — who could make a huge contribution if they cared to, are absent. Though it must be said that China, the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, also leads the world on renewable energy, installing more wind turbines and solar panels last year than the rest of the world combined. Australia believes it has good credentials, even as we continue to cave to those...
Fiona Colin from Melbourne
In response to: The black work of big oil
Security services and government allegiance
November 11, 2025
Jon Stanford makes a good case for Gough Whitllam. But I disagree with his view on Whitlam's sacking of ASIS head Bill Robertson in 1975. Whitlam had to ask Robertson twice to shut down ASIS work for the CIA in Chile seeking to install the murderous General Pinochet by destabilisation. (A future female Chilean government member had to escape here). Then in 1975 Foreign Minister Don Willesee had not been briefed that ASIS was running a spy in East Timor. Whitlam had every right to be angry. It was this sacking, not the petroleum nationalisation loans affair that Malcolm...
Geoff Taylor from Borlu (Perth)
In response to: Mr Whitlam’s style - Part I
Whitlam's dismissal and the CIA
November 11, 2025
Many thanks for the great analysis by Brian Toohey regarding the US imperial project in Australia. The article is revelatory about the sheer reach of US intelligence gathering in this country, not just in its power over Australian control of its foreign policy settings but the US assumptions about how far it could intrude with impunity into our politics process. We have always connived in keeping a dependency relationship in place. It is no wonder the US has been able to take for granted our mirroring of US military interventions, not for a moment needing to doubt our automatic...
Daniel Dennis from New Farm, Brisbane
In response to: Untruths, the CIA, and Whitlam’s dismissal
Lack of conviction when it comes to Palestine
November 10, 2025
The likelihood of Australia doing the right thing and setting up its own Gaza Tribunal is next to zero. Our mainstream parties are so s**t scared of the Israeli lobby that their moral consciences have been placed in a safe for removal only when easier and more congenial issues can be confected. Any Australian politician who seeks to tell you we are moral leaders when it comes to the holocaust of the 21st century is either mentally unstable or lying. We are, in fact, morally absent without leave!
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: The Jury of Conscience finding on Gaza
Language rendered meaningless
November 10, 2025
Upon my tongues continual slanders ride, The which in every language I pronounce, Stuffing the ears of men with false reports. Shakespeare, Henry IV Jeffrey Sachs has been extraordinarily successful in making us aware of the continuous and deliberate torture of the English language by the US political leadership in pursuit of its centuries long desire to rule the world. Like Humpty Dumpty, they have misused language to that end. They inherited that damnable propensity from the British who finessed the art in their rule of a globe spanning empire by dividing humanity at every turn. A...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Venezuela’s oil, US-led regime change and America’s gangster politics
1984 in the 'defence' industry
November 10, 2025
As we rapidly approach the point at which the dying West will actually fall off the cliff it has been constructing for itself for the last 30 years, we see the usual accompaniments of empire death. Frantic efforts to convince ourselves that our lashing out in all directions is actually evidence of our continued grasp of the levers of power, finding increasing numbers of relatively powerless others who we can identify as threatening our glorious civilisation and the election of increasingly unhinged leaders who reflect that civilisational decline. The most obvious of those signs is our belief that...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: The defence myth
Colonialism sanitised and disinfected
November 10, 2025
Tony Abbott is a man displaced in time and place. His approach to the world derives from an 18th century Great Britain imperialism and colonialism of the white Caucasian superior being category. He would have fitted perfectly into the feudal and monarchical fabric of that time as a loyal example of the courtier dedicated to serving his monarch in the lively expectation of honours to be bestowed for faithful service to unaccountable power. Abbott must find life in the 21st century wholly unattractive in its inclination to see pomp and circumstance as retrograde and its propensity to strip away...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Tony Abbott’s history of Australia wants us to be proud of men like him
We can learn too
November 10, 2025
Professor Andrew Podger certainly had an interesting visit to China and his wide ranging report is appreciated but did he draw the right conclusions? He noted the strengthening of authoritarian control, notwithstanding improvements in public services. He goes on to note strengthened party control, the famous China firewall, ubiquitous face-recognition cameras; then comments, And yet, the forums I attended reveal… continued effort to improve services to the public and their efficiency. How can this be? Maybe, just maybe, there has been an 'authoritarian dictat' to improve services to the public! Unthinkable. The unqualified statement, The overall (Chinese)...
Colin Cook from Henley Beach, SA
In response to: 'Stabilising' relations with China while differences widen
A true insiders podcast on the 50th
November 10, 2025
Just when it seemed most everything had been said and all insights revealed about the events of 11 November 1975, along comes a most illuminating podcast on the crisis. I eagerly await Part Three of the outstanding 'Pearlcast' (extra kudos for the charming name) on the Dismissal, which should be compulsory listening for everyone interested in our past and future politics. I'd long wondered whether the prime minister was told what was overheard from the Lynch/Fraser whispers about what was in store the next day and, if so, what Whitlam made of the remarks. The specific naming of the...
Daniel Dennis from New Farm, Brisbane
In response to: The Dismissal - Podcast / Pearlcast
Knighting Prince Philip
November 10, 2025
Respect men like him? We haven't forgotten the Australia Day barbecue stopper of 2015.
Bob Beadman from Darwin
In response to: Tony Abbott’s history of Australia wants us to be proud of men like him
CIA coup numbers
November 10, 2025
John Menadue’s article “The Dismissal, the role of the CIA, MI6 and Austral Americans” provides strong evidence of US hostility towards the Whitlam Government and efforts to undermine it. Unfortunately, its own credibility is undermined by claiming that “In the Cold War, the US/CIA attempted to overthrow 72 foreign governments” . This appears based on an 2018 article by Lindsay O’Rourke that listed 72 overt or covert operations of all kinds, including support for anti-communist parties or dissidents that can hardly be called attempts to overthrow governments. Plus hazy plans that were never implemented. An accurate figure is...
Andrew Watson from Canberra
In response to: The Dismissal, the role of the CIA, MI6 and Austral Americans
ASIO's betrayal
November 10, 2025
This article could not have been more timely, given the current transparent and direct participation of ASIO as a player in the Australian political arena, openly endorsing stringent restrictions on basic civic and democratic rights of ordinary Australians to oppose the destruction of the rule of law. The public statements and speeches by ASIO boss Mike Burgess during 2025 have revealed a clear political position prejudicial to basic democratic values and opposition to international law. Two examples will suffice. In August, Burgess cited Israeli sources as a basis for advising Albanese that Iran was responsible for “antisemitic”...
Peter Henning from Melbourne
In response to: The Dismissal, the role of the CIA, MI6 and Austral Americans
Murdoch ordure
November 7, 2025
Of all the exports Australia has managed over the last 80 years, the most significant and most laudable is one of the biggest ordure farmers on the planet, Rupert Murdoch. The fact that we exported him to the largest faecal farm on the planet is not coincidental. The sheer volume of the excrement that he so copiously distributes across the planet has made a remarkable contribution to the spreading of the accompanying diseases of ignorance, fear and xenophobia that are bringing the Western experiment to an undignified end. We have become so swamped by this excrement that we...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: When in doubt, blame China (every News Corp headline needs a villain)
Defence money thrown away again?
November 7, 2025
I note that according to the mainstream media, Defence Minister Marles first heard of the plan to build nuclear submarines for Korea in the US through the media. But what is of particular interest today in the submarine space is the news that retiring Vice Admiral Jonathan Mead headed a secret nuclear submarine taskforce from February 2021 onwards, that is seven months before France was blindsided. Presumably, in that seven months, we still had people beavering away with Naval Group on advanced design work and letting contracts for the French non-nuclear boat. The French, for their part, were busy...
Geoff Taylor from Borlu (Perth)
In response to: South Korea, Canada and a middle-power submarine: Can Australia join?
Feudal Australia
November 7, 2025
Gough Whitlam was a courageous and principled leader, unlike so many of his peers, who wanted Australia to grow up and cut the apron strings from a remnant of Middle Ages feudalism that was, and is, the British Royal family. That family is the most significant reason for the failure of Britain to come into the 20th, let alone the 21st century. As it sinks into well-deserved irrelevance, we should not forget its bastardry in removing an Australian Government elected by the people of Australia.
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: The Prince and the Dismissal
Organised forgetting
November 7, 2025
Greg Barns, as always, forensically dismantles the contrived and deceitful justifications and moral insubstantiality of the odiously fascist, colonialist state of Israel and its many Western co-conspirators. That analysis makes plainly obvious the patent bastardy of the cancerous Israeli infection that has metastasized from the moral void of a dying West. It is hard not to notice that the vast bulk of the crimes against humanity being committed around the planet are being carried out by that West or arise from actions taken by the West to preserve its domination of the world. That suggests the cancer itself...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: OFFICIAL – Israel’s proposed death-penalty law is a war crime
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin
November 7, 2025
Zohran Mamdandi’s victory speech was a call to the barricades if ever I heard one. The tone and confidence with which it was delivered recalled Winston Churchill’s words after the German army was turned back at El Alamein: a pivotal point of World War II; Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is perhaps, the end of the beginning. It also triggered the words of the late great Leonard Cohen’s anthem: First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin. We live in well-founded hope. Zohran Mamdani is more than...
John Mosig from Kew, 3101
In response to: ‘New York, this city belongs to you’: Zohran Mamdani’s victory speech
The private sector embedded in government
November 6, 2025
It is not just developers with too much influence in the government sector, it is the lack of separation of capitalism and state that is the source of our problems. The fox is in control of the hen house. That's not to say that there isn't a role for both, but their roles have been entwined to the point where the tail is wagging the dog. Contractors and consultants have influence in the employment of public servants and their appointments which leads to poor and biased decision-making. The current housing crisis is a case in point....
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: game-set-and-match-to-the-property-industry
Waking from beguilement
November 6, 2025
In 1945, my grandmother gave me The Two Princesses: The Story of the King's Daughters. I cherished the photos of those two special girls. Fed a solid diet of royalism by every one of society's institutions, I admired Princess, then Queen, Elizabeth. I was one of millions of Australians who saluted the flag, stood for God Save the Queen and pledged to serve her. When, in 1954, Elizabeth visited Australia for the first time, we flocked to see her, as many times as possible. On 11 November 1975, I heard radio news of the Dismissal. I remember the...
Janet Grevillea from Lake Macquarie
In response to: The Dismissal podcast
Ley's abject capitulation on mass migration
November 4, 2025
As Jane O'Sullivan points out, it's still just possible for democratic nations to defer to voters, to reverse absurdly unsustainable levels of immigration that voters don't want. In New Zealand, it took a change of government. Not so in Canada. In Australia, however, Liberal and Labor only have eyes for each other, voters are out of luck. Check what happened, when Sussan Ley's new Home Affairs spokesman Jonno Duniam (Jonno who?) finally surfaced, with a tame interview for Nine Media. Did he call out Labor's racist and neo-Nazi smears of voters? Did he roast Albanese’s permanent elevation of...
Stephen Saunders from O'Connor
In response to: When will immigration return to 'normal'?
Thank you, David
November 4, 2025
I would like to thank David Spratt for his article on Ali Kazak. My interaction with Ali was over 45 years. I learnt what advocacy meant and how justice in all things was the major point in writing on any subject involving people, wherever they may be. I was in truth, a Palestinian and all that meant. My efforts were constant over all those years, gradually learning the history of Palestine, the injustices over decades, the devious nature of those who sought to bring that country down and the hypocrisy of others who sought to gain materially from...
Rex Williams from Springwood NSW
In response to: A tribute to Ali Kazak
If only the Sudanese were fighting Jews
November 3, 2025
If only the Sudanese were being attacked by Jews they might have some Australians protesting. More than 150,000 Sudanese have been killed and more than 14 million displaced in the second Sudan War. The situation in el-Fasher is dire. The UN is pleading for support to help 30 million in desperate need in what the world body says the world’s largest hunger crisis. This doesn't deflect from the atrocities in Gaza and leaders from Ireland taking a stance, but it highlights how the public and the media select which issues to care about, and it's not massacres and starvation...
Simon Tatz from Melbourne
In response to: A worldwide anti-Israel movement
Tax reform for a fairer society
November 3, 2025
Remember, ladies and gentlemen, I recall English comedian Max Miller saying, it makes no difference whether you’re rich or whether you’re poor – it’s nice to be rich. He could have been speaking of the Australian taxation system today. Income-earners carry the bulk of the taxation load. Those owning capital get taxation relief with negative gearing for investment homes and a 50% discount on capital gains. The system is skewed in their favour. This is fundamentally inequitable. Income tax will be a fundamental part of any taxation system, but the tax burden can be spread more widely to...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills, Vic
In response to: Taking from the young, giving to the old: How our tax system is letting us down
This story is still being written and covered up
November 3, 2025
For as long as I can remember, the story of lead levels at the Port Pirie smelters and the danger to children/residents in the area has been repeated over and over again with constant threats of closure and government handouts for cleaning up. They continued as recently as late last year and early this year. Then it seems that lead smelting and rare earth mineral processing go hand in hand and off trots our prime minister to TRUMPtopia to join the have-I-got-a-deal-for-you queue. The state premier was left behind to blow the TRUMPet. No mention of the health...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: Clean your room
Belling the cat
November 3, 2025
Stella Yee says what others think but never have the courage to say. We are still, and always have been, a racist nation. That derives from imperial and aristocratic Britain which has for centuries sought to separate itself from the rest of humanity. That was after all the basis of the British Empire. Those around the planet who had the misfortune to be colonised were regarded as lesser beings. That view justified what was done to those others as they were of lesser value. It takes an emerging reality a hundred years of evidence to the contrary to...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Of social cohesion, belonging and the Australian flag
The quantum leap
November 3, 2025
Sophie Vorrath is spot-on. Coal and gas in energy generation are the dinosaurs of our age. That doesn't stop politicians like Matt Canavan and Barnaby Joyce promoting them as the future. But, as always in politics, economics will eventually trump ignorance when the costs of backing those dinosaurs cannot be sustained any longer.
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: 'Forget subsidies': Solar-battery hybrids can deliver 'incredibly competitive' power for big industry
Stay awake and act
November 3, 2025
Coen Luettringhaus finishes his insightful piece by posing the right question: are you prepared to be lulled back to sleep? Summer is coming in Australia. Many will already be turning their minds to the beach, to cricket and to travel. All well and good. But in the interests of keeping Palestine top of mind, of never being lulled to sleep, make a list now. Write down everything Gaza has taught you and what you're going to do differently as a result. Stick it on the wall, or on your desk. Being awake is one thing. So is acting....
Jaron Sutton from Melbourne
In response to: What Israel's genocide has laid bare
Our elders deserve respect
November 3, 2025
Robert Breunig needs a reality check. Every single older Australian I know is financially struggling. This includes self-funded retirees and pensioners. How dare this man talk about a retiree living on the income of a 40-year-old without the pressures? Breunig has neglected the fact these retirees have paid taxes for an average of 55 years, through many global crises and scrimped and saved to buy their home through the years when interest rates were 17%. I remind Breunig that superannuation only started in 1992, meaning many retirees do not have the amount of super that the young will have...
Alyssa Aleksanian from Hazelbrook
In response to: Taking from the young, giving to the old: How our tax system is letting us down
A succinct summary. Thank you!
November 3, 2025
I have read several books on the situation in occupied Palestine. I really appreciate this succinct summary of the history behind the current situation. Thank you.
Penny Lee from Western Australia
In response to: Gaza under siege: The continuation of Zionist demographic cleansing policies since the 19th century
Taiwan and China
November 3, 2025
An impressive and scholarly paper on Taiwan as an integral part of China; historical, legal and geopolitical analysis. However, I feel you did not give sufficient weight to the desires of the Taiwanese population which strives to maintain its democratic forms of government as opposed to the 5000 years plus history of China! The one-China policy did not work well for a majority of the Hong Kong community! You assert that peaceful reunification, consistent with both historical precedent and national law, remains the only viable path forward. This is most likely to preserve stability in the Taiwan Straits and...
Trevor Rowe AO from Sydney
In response to: Taiwan as an integral part of China: A historical, legal and geopolitical analysis
China's patience
November 3, 2025
I would appreciate James Wood's comments on how Beijing permits the US to manufacture chips at TSMC and to ban their sale to Beijing. To me, Xi seems remarkably tolerant and patient.
Selwyn Berg from Melbourne
In response to: Taiwan as an integral part of China: A historical, legal and geopolitical analysis
Gaza needs democracy
November 3, 2025
Gaza does not need leaders or rulers but democracy. Not a democracy like Australia, where government is controlled by party donors but democracy as in Switzerland or a democracy as the Kurds have developed. The people must rule directly.
Pat Madison from callala beach nsw
In response to: The leader most capable of governing a future Palestinian state is languishing in an Israeli jail
Housing for homes, not profit
November 1, 2025
Three thousand cheers for Stewart Sweeney. He says far more elegantly and knowledgeably what I've been saying for years: housing planning is non-existent. What we have is so-called developers spotting what they deem to be profitable sites — it doesn't matter what's there already — and they go for it. In Victoria, councils used to object but were overridden by VCAT and now even the right to protest has been abolished. Public housing is demolished and sites privatised (i.e. sold for a song) with the stipulation that a meagre 5% or 10 % of new apartments be affordable. With...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: Game, set and match to the property industry – unless we change everything
Up the creek
November 1, 2025
Albanese high-fives himself about his rare earths deal with Trump. However, I can’t find any clarifying details about the deal. A few days later, Trump signs an unexpected rare earths mineral deal with China who, unlike Australia, has the means to process the minerals into a saleable product and deal with the toxic waste that results from processing. Someone tell me: does this deal, with our so-called ally, leave us up yet another a faecal resource creek without a paddle?
Alyssa Aleksanian from Hazelbrook
In response to: Trump's rare earths deal to counter China was a badly needed 'Sputnik moment
In defence of David Marr
October 31, 2025
While I am an admirer of Chris Hedges and have read him at length, I have to disagree with Vivienne Porzsolt’s characterisation of his interview with David Marr (of whom I am also a fan). Marr seemed to me to bend over backwards to accommodate Hedges' viewpoint. Hedges, in my view, overstated his case and made it very difficult, frustrating I would say, for Marr , who acted very professionally at all times. To call the interview a “hatchet job”is simply wrong.
Barry Stevens from Tura Beach, NSW 2548
In response to: Open letter to David Marr on his interview with Chris Hedges
Marred interview
October 31, 2025
I strongly support the review of David Marr's interview with Chris Hedges. It was a disgrace and I have cancelled my subscription to Late Night Live's podcasts. I do take issue with her apology for the pun she feels she has made by saying that the interview was marred by his tactics as an interviewer. I think we should embrace the word as an apt descriptor of the techniques used by an aggressive journalist who hectors his guest and seems incapable of any self-reflection when the guest defends himself against invalid criticisms. The LNL interview was Marred for...
Geoff Bower from Gooseberry Hill, WA
In response to: Open Letter to David Marr
A windfall for Vic Labor's developer's mates
October 31, 2025
Stewart Sweeney’s essay on the Australia-wide abandonment of public housing, by Labor Governments in particular, is timely. Here in Victoria, following through on Dan Andrews’ departing thought bubble, the demolition of 44 public housing towers has begun. Literally as I write, a small but staunch group of protesters is picketing a tower in Flemington, Melbourne, where Housing Victoria (a misnomer if ever there was one) is evicting the remaining residents and moving them far from their community to “temporary” accommodation. The demolitions, and the building of “social and affordable” housing in their place, have been assessed by a...
Richard Barnes from Melbourne
In response to: Game, set and match to the property industry – unless we change everything
Once upon a time, Iraq looked like a good idea, too
October 31, 2025
Yes, this is gunboat diplomacy at its most visible, and the spectre of drugs is nothing more than a fig leaf to cover a blatant war of aggression. Plenty of drugs make it into the US from Central and South America, but to my knowledge Venezuela has never featured prominently in that supply chain. Ever since Trump started his second term, he has been spruiking his ability to mix it with the other major world leaders and bend them to his will. He has been roundly rebuffed by Putin in Ukraine, Xi over trade and Taiwan, Iran over its...
Hal Duell from Alice Springs
In response to: Gunboat hypocrisy in the Caribbean
Consequences of genocide in Palestine
October 31, 2025
Julie Macken’s article raises the question so few are willing to confront: what does it mean for us, as Australians, if genocide can unfold in full view of the world and we respond with silence? Australia’s moral standing depends not only on what we say, but on what we refuse to ignore. By continuing to trade with Israel’s weapons companies and by avoiding the language of genocide, our government is effectively saying that international law is negotiable when it comes to the powerful. We can’t separate our politics from our humanity. If we accept impunity for genocide today,...
Meg Schwarz from Macclesfield
In response to: Getting away with murder
Albo's 'middle power' inertia
October 30, 2025
Alison Broinowski's 11 Opportunities piece was a blast of fresh air about the complete absence of any Australian sovereign identity or initiative from Albo's Government upon this sad planet. Our craven relationship with Trump's shambollic and vindictive America, along with our huge donations to the AUKUS farce, our indirect participation in the Gaza massacres and our absurdly conflicted relationship with China are just three key items. Albo wraps his poll-driven and timid government's inertia making the excuse that we are a middle power. Broinowski gives 11 actions a middle power can take if it had a leader with...
Donald Clayton from Bittern Victoria 3918
In response to: 11 Opportunities for Australia
Just who are the superior people?
October 29, 2025
As the common myth uttered by Gideon Levy, that Israeli ideology regards Palestinians as an inferior people remains to the fore, reading Ramzy Baroud (P & I's 29/10): The unvanquished will: Gaza’s triumph of spirit against the architecture of genocide one finds a more than arguable case that Palestinians are actually the superior people. To say that “Gazans are built differently” is a massive understatement... I still find their collective will astonishing. Why is five-year-old Maria Hannoun, one of Gaza’s many influencers, continuing to recite the poetry of Mahmoud Darwish and sending fiery messages to US President Donald Trump...
David Thompson from CLAYTON
In response to: The three core myths driving Israel’s war on Palestine
Have a heart, Kos!
October 29, 2025
For pollster Kos Samaras, linking immigration to housing is to be patronised as a “casual narrative” of “cultural threat”, and in terms of voter profiles it is “structurally impossible” for the Coalition to offer low migration. It’s not just a cultural narrative, Kos. After a quarter-century of expansive real-estate incentives and endless mass migration (under Albo now, it’s 250,000-300,000 minimum annually), realistic capacity to pay off a house is becoming “structurally impossible” outside of the top 1-20% who both control and facilitate governments. Do you even care? Why aren’t you using your silky skills to urge any and...
Stephen Saunders from O'Connor
In response to: Why the Coalition can’t win without losing itself
The con of the rules-based international order
October 29, 2025
That anyone with a functioning brain cell can take seriously the ostentatious pomposity of the statements that emanate from the mouths of the servile politicians of the West, about the importance of the rules-based international order, is a tribute to the success of blatant dishonesty over patent reality . That is bad enough but the fact is the so-called Fourth Estate, that ostentatiously promotes itself as holding power to account, simply acts as a megaphone for the barefaced failure of the West to comply even with the rules that they have just made up, let alone completely ignoring international...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Failure to cover: A week of collective omission by the Australian media
Dirty doings finally exposed
October 29, 2025
I have long been an admirer of Jenny and her dogged and courageous attempt to expose the back-door dealings that exposed the fatal weakness at the heart of our democracy. The fact that we still call ourselves a democracy is a tribute to the continued fraudulent reasoning of our often hereditary elites to describe a system where the people's will is subject to the ultimate power of cancellation by a feudal sovereign of a long dead empire on the other side of the planet. If democracy is as Lincoln said in his Gettysburg address government of the people,...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Whitlam dismissal secrets unearthed from the archives of the Canadian governor-g
Supporting the past, not the future!
October 29, 2025
Our fearful politicians, unwilling to challenge the distortion built into our housing system by the odious midget John Howard, that turned it into an investment rather than a place to live, continue to focus on the political safety of the demand side. That way they can avoid doing anything serious about the real issue,m which is the supply side. To ensure younger Australians can never afford a home and therefore continue to put off marriage and children in the interests of rentiers, they fiddle endlessly with methods of boosting demand with the logical consequence of continuing growth in prices....
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: As the home ownership dream fades, Australians may be open to a frank conversation about house prices
It's already happened, Michael
October 29, 2025
No need to worry Michael about the possibility of the Heath Robinson insanities of the Orange Donald destroying America's leadership of the world. It is happening now and has been since Clinton's presidency. The vast bulk of the world has begun to decisively move away from the selfish, self-centred, vicious and unprincipled leadership of the US. It has already lost its capacity to tell everyone else what to do and how to govern themselves as current geopolitical events clearly demonstrate. Fear not, Michael, a multipolar world is emerging that promises to adopt the five principles of peaceful co-existence....
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Trump’s risky American economy
Premature expostulation
October 28, 2025
Trump may just be half-witted enough to believe that by doing a few deals with countries, that have deposits or rare earths that are capable of being mined in an economic manner, he will help the US, but if so he has simply confirmed the worldwide belief that he is a few sandwiches short of a picnic. Mining ain't the hard part when it comes to rare earths. Refining and processing are the hard bits and China has those wrapped up, for at least the next five to ten years. These are incredibly complex processes that can be...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Trump's rare earths deal to counter China was a badly needed 'Sputnik moment'
The Enlightenment betrayed
October 28, 2025
The return of the Dark Ages of religious bigotry, superstition and unreason could not be better illustrated by the fact that supposedly intelligent people can take seriously the idea that a god, whose very existence is contested, has decided that the Jewish people are the chosen ones. What is even more extraordinary is that other supposedly sentient human beings from outside that self-interested group are prepared to give a moment's credibility to such a rationally and factually outrageous claim. What is never mentioned when this claim to being chosen is made is that the Torah is filled with...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: The three core myths driving Israel’s war on Palestine
Moral blindness
October 28, 2025
Whilst Justin Glyn may be physically blind, he displays a moral clarity that is admirable and which our political leaders in Australia demonstrate a total incapacity to mirror. Their reflexive moral cowardice demonstrates the duplicity at the heart of a West that emptily lectures the rest of humanity about our moral superiority, while every day demonstrating its mendacity and fraudulence in our actions. It also clearly reflects our continued disgraceful racism as we fawn over European Zionist mass murderers and colonialists whilst ignoring an occupied and abused other. This is a superbly written J'Accuse that reveals the...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Raise the double standard high
The importance of transparency in public discourse
October 27, 2025
John Anderson’s contribution to the Boyer Lecture series largely focused on diminished trust in government, lack of civility in public discourse and the threat to democracy. However, Anderson’s account has significant omissions. He fails to acknowledge widespread public policy failures, the corrosive impact of concentrated media ownership and the lack of transparency in decision-making at all levels of government. He laboured over the housing crisis and home ownership, but other policy failures were ignored. Perhaps this explains Anderson’s two most egregious omissions and which pose the biggest threats to democracy and social cohesion. Firstly, the rise in inequality...
Brenda Tait from Northcote, Victoria
In response to: John Anderson: Our civilisational moment
It depends who is doing the measuring
October 27, 2025
I thank Alex for his thoughtful analysis which summarises pretty well the fact that, as in so many other areas of life, the Western domination of the way progress is measured and who does it, leaves some pretty important questions about the accuracy of these measures unanswered. China graduates nearly four times the number of STEM students per year than the US and is now far and away the largest filer of patents. Currently, China files around half the world total of patents and increasingly more than the US since 2015. That has produced a significant leadership for...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: As Nobel laureates show, the US can’t take tech lead over China for granted
Congrats to John Schumann
October 27, 2025
I found this a beautifully written, clear and thus impressive article. Thank you, Mr Schumann.
Chris Halloway from Coral Sea (live in Wollongong)
In response to: Article on Trump's appropriation of Christianity
Misplaced nuclear optimism
October 27, 2025
Hannah Ritchie has great insights about using data to determine the best use of resources to lower emissions. Her optimism around nuclear is debatable. Most nuclear accidents go unreported. American engineer and historian Thomas Wellock has published an account of the seemingly casual attitude within the US nuclear industry called Safe Enough? A History of Nuclear Power and Accident Risk. Analysts quoted by Wellock, and a 2016 study published in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, all predict a serious accident quite soon. Wellock’s reviewer Daniel Ford did some similar calculations after Three Mile Island. “The numbers suggested that another...
Fiona Colin from Melbourne
In response to: Realism and optimism on energy transition
A bunch of redundant Cold War warriors
October 26, 2025
Our intelligence establishment has managed to continue to produce a long line of Cold War clones without imagination, intellect or policy skills. They have survived by dint of simply repeating what they are told by their real masters, MI6 and the CIA. They ably reflect the paranoid ignorance of those bodies that have failed almost completely to ever get any intelligence assessment anywhere near the mark. But, of course, such people flourish in agencies that have no outside assessment and oversight. They cover their failures in secrecy justified by national security. Good luck to this new boss, she...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: New Australian national intelligence chief faces a people challenge
Balance versus truth
October 26, 2025
The control that the Zionists have established over public opinion in the West is not a fly-by-night affair. The history of that political movement over the last century and a half has been one that recognised the vital importance of controlling the narrative in the mainstream media. It has spent the entire period concocting that narrative and placing key people in major mainstream outlets to ensure that narrative is the only one allowed. Many studies by academics and policy experts testify to the success of that narrative in shaping the public mind. The narrative began to lose its...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Chris Sidoti on the International Court of Justice Gaza ruling
Reason and rant
October 26, 2025
For anyone with even the remotest claim to sanity and coherence, it is an immense task to sensibly compare Xi Jinping and the orange Donald. They appear to exist on entirely different planets, or more accurately to exist in two different eras. The Donald would have fitted perfectly into the Dark Ages of Europe when superstition, fanatical religion, irrational violence and justice by the sword were the hallmarks of the age. His infantile narcissism and psychotic and vengeful nature was common amongst the kings and emperors of the age. Xi, on the other hand, is the highly trained...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Trump, Xi and the ‘green paradox’: How China is building a climate-proof future
Misinformation during the election
October 26, 2025
It is impossible to evaluate the analysis carried out by the researchers who reported on the survey they carried out in the absence of the identity of the statements that they said were false, and which the respondents were asked to comment on. I do not know how we the readers of this article can form any view about the value and usefulness of their survey, and the significance of the seriousness of the statements said in some way to be false or misleading. This omission renders useless the publication of the report by the researchers in the...
John Trew from Sydney
In response to: Misinformation was rife during the 2025 election. New research shows many people were unable to identify it
Unsupported opinions on the energy transition
October 26, 2025
Michael Edesess’ uncritical review of Hannah Ritchie’s book on energy transition fails to back up their shared opinions on important issues: 1. Levelised cost of energy comparisons of energy technologies are not flawed when used and interpreted correctly; they are the standard method in electric power engineering. 2. World leading research groups on the energy transition, such as LUT and Stanford, recognise the land-use limitations of large-scale bioenergy and therefore do not include it in their scenarios. 3. Nuclear power failed to grow beyond its maximum global generation in 2006 because it’s too expensive, too dangerous, too...
Mark Diesendorf from BEROWRA HEIGHTS
In response to: Realism and optimism on energy transition
Step 1: Pick up a book...
October 26, 2025
Since 2010, we have known that 44% of Australians are not functionally literate; i.e. they do not have the skills to understand, let alone be critical of, what they are reading. Is it any wonder that a significant segment of the population cannot identify election misinformation? Speaking as a former teacher, I maintain, one of the weakest links is the training, recruitment and ongoing up-skilling of teachers. I worked alongside teachers who thought Captain Cook bought the First Fleet to Australia, and that he personally slaughtered thousands of Indigenous Australians by his own hand. Also, these...
Alyssa Aleksanian from Hazelbrook
In response to: Misinformation was rife during the 2025 election. New research shows many people were unable to identify it
Clear and succinct
October 26, 2025
I would like to commend Michael Keating’s article to readers. It is clear, succinct, and taught me a lot – not just about Jim Chalmers’ changes but also about government concerns around equity in the superannuation scheme.
Constance Pond from Hornsby
In response to: Superannuation and the Canberra Press Gallery's fantasies
A just peace the only way to lasting security
October 26, 2025
Stewart Sweeney has reminded us of the important distinction between negative peace (the absence of violence) and positive peace (the presence of justice). Peace researcher Johan Galtung made a further distinction between direct violence (eg being killed by an enemy bullet) and structural violence, the harms that accrue from punishing social and economic conditions. While direct violence has been committed by both sides in the Gaza conflict, albeit hugely disproportionately, only the Palestinians have suffered long-term structural violence. Examples include the dehumanising impact of the “security wall” — declared a violation of international humanitarian and human rights law by...
Colin Sindall from St Kilda, Victoria
In response to: War without end, peace without justice
At last! Some long-term thinking
October 24, 2025
Is Fred Zhang to become another frustrated citizen of the Lucky Country, or are we about to make an investment in a future that takes it beyond rolling over to have our belly scratched and our food bowl raided? The technology that has been determined on these shores and developed overseas is legendary. From the black box carried by every plane flying to the solar cell technology employed globally, we have squandered opportunities to make Australia a technology and manufacturing powerhouse. With the geopolitical order shattering and climate change about to not just shift the goalposts, but to...
John Mosig from Kew, Victoria
In response to: China, US or us? Australia’s Upper Path in the global minerals race
Manipulation defeated by the young
October 24, 2025
As an 80-year-old, I have an abiding belief in the young who may save the West from the consequences of the indifference and ignorance of us oldies! This article re-enforces that belief, as does the their actions in saving the environment. It has been said by someone wise that we do not inherit the earth from our parents, we borrow it from our children. They are going to make sure we give it back in a livable form!
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: The crumbling illusion: Why American public opinion on Israel is shifting
Decency and humanity – many Jews demonstrate that
October 24, 2025
I have never doubted the feelings of millions of Jews around the world towards the obscene criminality being committed in their names. This article is the best illustration of that humanity so far!
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Hundreds of prominent Jews and Israelis urge world powers to hold Israel account
Daoism and diplomacy
October 24, 2025
Fred has explained well the subtlety of the Daoist philosophy which originated between the 6th and 4th centuries BC. It well illustrates the continuity and sophistication of Chinese civilisation over millennia. If Chinese culture is the great granddaddy, then the West is the wayward great, great, great, great grandchild that is yet to mature. The problem for the West is that we were the arrogant descendants of the primitive tribes roaming Europe in the Dark Ages when Chinese civilisation had been flowering for thousands of years and we retained the primitive instincts of fight or flight long after...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: China, US or us? Australia’s Upper Path in the global minerals race
And Australia does same old, same old
October 24, 2025
We saw after the UN had identified more than 1000 Israeli actions that broke the [January 2025] ceasefire, Australia doing precisely nothing to recognise the offences. Now, with a widely-documented Israeli flip of the bird to the latest ceasefire conditions — and which contravenes, as usual, international law — we see Australia leaping into inaction. How soon will it be before our foreign minister issues a serious concern statement calling on Hamas to stop whingeing and get on with starving and dying from lack of aid as they are supposed to?
Richard Llewellyn from Colo Vale
In response to: After ICJ ruling, can UN relief agency UNRWA resume full Gaza operations?
Handing over our lunch money
October 24, 2025
If you were unsure what gaslighting or coercive control was, you need only look at the Trump administration to receive a master class. Gaslighting: Trump declares at regular intervals, I am the peacemaker while funnelling billions to perpetuate a genocide that could not have happened without his ongoing support. I have created peace, he declares while still allowing Israel to starve and bomb innocent Palestinians because hostage bodies are still under rubble caused by his bombs. Coercive control: World leaders stumble over themselves to prostrate before Trump, to land a photo at the White House, believing that...
Alyssa Aleksanian from Hazelbrook
In response to: Albanese and Rudd sold out freedom of the press this week
Failure of water fluoridation
October 23, 2025
Clearly, the incorporation of dental health services into Medicare is long overdue. But Lesley Russell has glossed over the obvious question: “Why isn’t dental health better in Australia, one of the most extensively fluoridated countries in the world?” The answer is given implicitly in the scientific reviews by the Cochrane Library, the gold standard in impartial systematic reviews of medications and medical procedures. Cochrane’s latest report on fluoridation, published in 2024, reviewed 157 non-randomised studies. (There are no double-blind randomised controlled trials supporting claims of enormous benefits of fluoridation.) Cochrane found that fluoridation may reduce dental caries by...
Mark Diesendorf from BEROWRA HEIGHTS
In response to: Dental health – time for a small, cost-effective revolution
Sold out to capitalism
October 23, 2025
What we all need to learn from this latest round of arse-licking is that Trump is the end result when government sells out to capitalism. It has been obvious for a long time and Australian governments have foolishly followed the US lead like lemmings over a cliff. The Teals and the latest election result may well be an indicator that the electorate has woken up and had enough. With the LNP brawling among themselves, unlike the carbon tax and the No vote, they may not be able to get their millionaire/media mates together to win back their voters. ...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: Albanese and Rudd sold out freedom of the press this week
The Americanisation of Australia
October 23, 2025
The insidiously overwhelming Americanisation of Australia is proceeding apace, but we cannot yet predict when our nation will be referred to as Southwest America (formally Australia) nor can we predict when China will be referred to as Northwest America (formally China). The increasingly despised and contemptible US has become a appalling moral wreck of a country, yet its drongo population has allowed Trumpian imbecility to worsen hourly without rejecting its administration entirely. Trump should never been elected.
Peter Bright from Tasmania
In response to: Albanese and Rudd sold out freedom of the press this week
No one size fits all – a lesson for the West
October 23, 2025
A superb analysis of the dogged blindness of the West to the reality that their system is not only the only system, but potentially far from the best. But also a great illustration of the way history and culture determine what is best rather than having a system shoved down your throat which ignores that history and culture. This should be a text in every management and foreign policy course in the West.
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: To avert war, the West must shatter the mirror by which it views China
Racism: Redux or just perpetual?
October 23, 2025
The most detestable characteristic of European Christian civilisation is its long-standing and almost genetic predisposition to a mindset of racial superiority. That is exercised serially on the chosen racial inferior people of the day. For centuries, it was the European Jews blamed for the death of Christ and thus to be removed or at the very least excluded from polite society. Then, during the long period of brutal and criminal imperialism and colonialism, it was the brown-skinned inhabitants of much of the rest of the world. We still inhabit that mean-spirited and vacuous space. That is easily demonstrated...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Islamophobia in Australian schools: What the Special Envoy’s report means for ed
Winter is coming in Gaza
October 23, 2025
Meg Schwarz makes a good point about women and the Board of Peace (what would Golda Meir think?) But I sense a lack of urgency with winter coming again in Gaza. Where are the six engined Antonovs which transported portable housing to Cambodia after the defeat of Pol Pot? Where is the move for a new prefabbed harbour on the Gaza coast better than the US constructed one 18 months ago which failed in a storm? Germany and China, for example, are good at modular housing and engineering; get them positively and urgently involved. Our government is contributing one...
Geoff Taylor from Borlu (Perth)
In response to: Women are missing from peace negotiations, from strategic decision making
Labor's pusillanimity
October 23, 2025
This reminds me of what Cassius said to Brutus “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,/But in ourselves, that we are underlings.” (Julius Caesar). The problem is the whole West seems to be underlings to a clearly demented and power-hungry narcissist!
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Albanese and Rudd sold out freedom of the press this week
Joining in the madness
October 23, 2025
Good article, Greg Barns! Would we have known about this outrage if we simply relied on the ABC to tell us? Thank you. Shouldn't we now also be asking why the ABC didn't embarrass the prime minister and ambassador by publicly boycotting the event? Once more the Australian Government's appeasement — like that of so many other governments — is simply endorsing the rogue régime this criminal now heads. This cannot end well. The prime minister and the ambassador, by their indulgence, are not only undermining their own standing in this polity but they erode our Commonwealth's dignified...
Bruce Wearne from BALLARAT CENTRAL
In response to: Albanese and Rudd sold out freedom of the press this weekAlbanese and Rudd
Global warming still not scary enough
October 23, 2025
In spite of the fact that global ice melting is happening with shocking speed, future melting is unpredictable enough for it to be left out of key IPCC calculations. The sea level rise figures from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change only reflect the expansion of warming water. AdaptNSW, a branch of the NSW Government, says, “include processes associated with the melting of ice sheets (and) NSW could (see) sea level rises of up to 2.3 metres by 2100 and 5.5 m by 2150”. It is not just the clear denial of people such as Barnaby Joyce preventing...
Lesley Walker from Naarm (Northcote)
In response to: The problem of climate change denialism