Letters to the Editor
So little regard for local government ?
December 10, 2025
A thought provoking article. Sadly local government was like a tacked on afterthought. If you look around your local area through local eyes without the bias promoted by self interests in state governments you can't help but see what a good job local governments do with limited resources – in general the parks and gardens etc are a credit to your local council. Parks, playgrounds etc are an indicator as to what a good job they do for local interest. Take the time to regularly visit your local park to see who is doing the maintenance and restoring the area...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: australias-federation-is-staggering-under-t
Moral and intellectual vacuity personified
December 8, 2025
An opposition so bereft of a vision of a future for Australia in a rapidly changing world that their only appeal to the citizen is a return to an imagined idyll that ignores entirely the reality of that past . Australia desperately needs an opposition that can hold a government to account for its many failures to even seek to achieve a resolution to the vast policy failures of that less-than-glorious past!
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Coalition’s Australian values test is the ultimate dog whistle
Rogue actors
December 8, 2025
For a book detailing the involvement of the CIA with drugs, Alfred W McCoy's The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia is well-researched and convincing. When reading it many years ago, I realised that while it was possible for the CIA to amas a quantity of heroin through the use of not-so-hidden labs in Southeast Asia, a distribution network was needed to move that product. What was then known as the Mafia had such a network. Despite an increasingly thin veneer of 'a rules-based international order' and 'a shinning light on the hill,' the USA is becoming exposed as...
Hal Duell from Alice Springs
In response to: America’s justification for attacking Venezuela: Part 1 – a calculated insult to
Silence expands under pressure
December 8, 2025
The silence, of course, extends to the whole Australian governing class whichever mainstream party holds power at any level, federal, state and even local. The silence has being progressively reinforced across all Australian media, not just the mainstream, although the mainstream has always heavily censored or cut information about what is occurring in West Asia which is in any way critical of Israel. Fear of litigation, loss of employment, career and financial security, are now entrenched in widening the circle of silence. Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP) suits against people like Mary Koskakidis are designed to promote...
Peter Henning from Melbourne
In response to: The politics of forgetting: Australia, Gaza and moral silence
Moral silence or deliberate obfuscation?
December 8, 2025
Jaron Sutton’s article is for any genuinely moral government a call for explanation and remediation. For exactly the circumstances he exposes we are unlikely to see that from Albanese and Wong. The official Australian government lack of action to support justice for Palestinians and hope for Israelis for a future not castrated by the shame of clearly having committed genocide is a matter of national shame for us. When the history of Australia dealing with the Israeli genocide upon Palestinians is documented, Dreyfuss' name will appear as one who absolutely lacked the courage or decency to speak out for...
Richard Llewellyn from Colo Vale
In response to: The politics of forgetting: Australia, Gaza and moral silence
Voters know perfectly well the duopoly will never allow low migration
December 8, 2025
There not being a single useful number in Peter Hughes’ immigration snow-job, let me try to give him a hand. Big Australia means net-migration averaging in the 200,000s, which has only happened after 2005. Mass migration, no matter how much SA Liberal Senator McLachlan may shudder, means the 400,000s. As per Albanese Labor. Normal or historical net-migration is 80,000, give or take. In every reliable poll during or since COVID, voters (remember them, Peter?) want lower or much lower immigration than what they now have. Voters know perfectly well the duopoly will never allow low migration. That’s why...
Stephen Saunders from O'Connor
In response to: Australia’s immigration 'debate' is rhetoric, not policy
Too much of a good thing
December 8, 2025
It is sad that Mainul Haque felt a necessity to defend migrants. Most of us encounter migrants every day, for instance my doctor is Chinese and my dentist Zimbabwean, and I'm grateful for their expertise and care. Nevertheless, I worry about poaching skilled workers from countries that have borne the cost of educating them but not benefited from their skills because they are over here. Migrants bring diversity which is mostly a good thing. When overseas conflicts are played out here, for instance, between Jews and Palestinians, it is not a good thing. And most migrants are good people...
Jenny Goldie from Cooma NSW
In response to: Fear versus facts: why migrants strengthen Australia
Rights for humans (male and female)
December 8, 2025
Before our government draws up a bill to introduce a Human Rights Act in Australia, it needs to reverse the amendments made in 2013 to the Sex Discrimination Act. In 2013 the Gillard government withdrew from the Act the words women and men and introduced the notion of gender identity, which, in practice, has come to take precedence over sex. One outcome is that the Human Rights Commission has ruled that it is illegal for lesbians to advertise lesbian events as female only. Another court ruling has been that Giggle, an online app for women, cannot insist on a...
Janet Grevillea from Lake Macquarie
In response to: Words or action? Dreyfus and human rights at home
Schweitzer saw it – why can’t we?
December 8, 2025
Our ever-growing population puts pressures on our housing industry to provide ever more accommodation. Calls to increase housing density – particularly in the major cities – are met with howls of protest from those whose amenity would be compromised by being overlooked by neighbours. This leads to urban expansion – in small towns as well as cities – as farmland or woodland is absorbed into the urban dream. The result is continued loss of the natural environment that our wildlife needs, to support the growing urban environment of taxpayers and ratepayers, with little consideration of the impact this continuing degradation...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills, Vic
In response to: Could we have a rational debate on immigration?
The Australian government chooses complicity
December 8, 2025
Helen McCue gives a long list of aid agencies barred from Israel. But the relevant part of her article is the last paragraph. McCue says ... it seems that our government continues to enable Israel’s impunity with its silence regarding Israels banning of INGOs and further refers to lack of moral clarity. I'd drop the it seems that and refer simply to both Wong and Albanese's amorality when it comes to Palestine. Words will never stop Israel, not formal declarations nor fake pious weasel words nor Trump's peace plan to build a Palestinian Riviera.Just look at the ceasefire that...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: Israel’s NGO rules are shutting out humanitarian aid from Gaza
None of our business
December 8, 2025
This is an excellent explanation that AUKUS is not only a vast waste of taxpayers' money, but also that it it will produce nothing for Australia except the bitterness of our major trading partner and the world's emerging hegemon. That the subs involved might be used to advance the American continued desire to interfere in purely internal Chinese matters is an added and powerful reason to exit from it!
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Marles’ Defence overhaul raises an awkward question: why AUKUS at all?
Reflections on decline
December 8, 2025
This is a beautifully put together magnum opus on the self imposed decline of empire. One can differ on the details but the direction and conclusions are spot-on.
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Ceding the future to China
AI guardrails need a better scorecard in Australia
December 5, 2025
AI is far bigger than the answers to our entertainment needs and our home computer internet searches. It has moved faster than our gee whiz reactions to the available interactive platforms and it is impacting increasingly on our collective freedom, our workplaces, our bodies, our livelihood and the emerging structure of our society. That's why Sue Barrett's heads up piece on an existing and apparently agreed ethics framework for AI in the form of Steve Davies MEET framework is so bloody important! Industry Minister Tim Ayers' casual no guardrails response to AI ethics, using the MEET package was...
Donald Clayton from Bittern Victoria
In response to: A practical answer to Australia's AI ethics vacuum.
Could we have a rational debate on immigration?
December 5, 2025
Peter Hughes writes that there 'is absolutely nothing wrong with having a debate on immigration'. Indeed not. He failed, however, to make a rational contribution to such a debate. He was too busy demonising those who question very high immigration levels as those who come out of the Trump camp. Some of us regard Trump as anathema yet can still question the economic, social and environmental effects of hyper-migration that has been the case post-Covid. Unlike Hughes, some of us can distinguish between reasonable immigration rates and unreasonable ones - or unsustainable ones if you prefer. And the bottom...
Jenny Goldie from Cooma NSW
In response to: Australia’s immigration 'debate' is rhetoric, not policy
Sir Humphrey and international law
December 2, 2025
The sick joke that is the Australian government's infantile fear of the Israeli lobby reeks of the approach of Sir Humphrey to its responsibilities. Express in-principle moral commitments, but find all sorts of fraudulent reasons why in practice it will not do anything to implement those principles. Can anyone seriously imagine that Gough is not spinning in his grave when he sees the moral cowardice involved??
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Australia’s selective justice on international law is indefensible
A simple solution
December 2, 2025
Important questions are raised in this article about the reliability of AI in putting together accurate information for an article by journalists. There is a simple solution which I use extensively and that is to ask your questions of AI and follow that with a question as to the sources from which that information is gathered. It is then vital to double check the veracity of those sources and the way in which the information provided by those sources has been gathered and verified. It won't guarantee that you will get everything right, but will minimise the chance...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: AI and the news: how it helps, fails, and why that matters
Can he stay or will he go
December 2, 2025
I don't think the prospect of President Trump running again in 2028 is a serious consideration. The twenty-second amendment of the US Constitution clearly limits presidential terms to two. To get around that would require a countering constitutional amendment. That would require approval by two-thirds of the US Senate and House of Representatives as well as approval by three-fourths of the 50 states. That seems to me to be highly unlikely. I suppose there is a mathematical chance an amendment could happen, but far more likely is another impeachment process kicking off after next year's mid-terms with the extrajudicial...
Hal Duell from Alice Springs
In response to: Charting Trump's decline
Government funding of private schools should be phased out
December 1, 2025
I am not opposed to private schools but parents should pay the fees. In 1964 private schools began to receive government funding that has resulted in a two-tiered education system. Government schools are not adequately funded and cannot always provide a top quality education to all students, including sporting facilities, music schools, camps, etc. because the money to do so is syphoned off to private schools which can offer these facilities. In most OECD countries, parents send their children to government schools, and there are very few private schools. Australia is a divided nation because of this system. This...
Elizabeth Sprigg from Glen Iris, Victoria
In response to: The inflation myth propping up private school privilege
The simple way to stop tax avoidance
December 1, 2025
Michael Keating is right, our government needs more revenue to fund important programs, and the fairest way to get it is to tax all those who are currently paying less than their fair share. This is done via the legal loophole called ‘tax deductibility’ to reduce their 'taxable income'. Every company operating in Australia takes advantage of this, but none do it better than the transnationals. By organising over-priced, inter-company loans, they can shift the profits they earn here to any tax haven in the world. They must think we are stupid… and we are. The solution is as...
Tom Orren from Wamberal
In response to: Why Labor can’t be bold without confronting tax reform
A secure future – can only the uber-rich apply?
December 1, 2025
Will we see pangs of regret from the billionaires of fossil fuels and AI, sheltering in their luxurious secure bunkers, when they think of all the places in the outside world that they’d love to visit – or revisit – which are now unreachable because of climatic deterioration, widespread famine, anarchy, or AI’s mastery of the world? Bunkerworld encapsulates the grotesque reality today where the super-wealthy grow ever richer through exacerbating mega-threats like global warming and AI, in the face of existential risks that are well-known and documented, and then buy accommodation in ultra-safe, ultra-secure bunkers to shelter themselves...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills, Vic
In response to: Welcome to BunkerWorld – home of the rich and fearful
Albanese’s disgusting, trite vision for society
December 1, 2025
Albanese’s vision – “holding nobody back and leaving nobody behind” – has a superficial appeal: the most vulnerable have enough for a life of dignity, and the innovators, investors and boundary pushers reap the limitless rewards of their foresight and industry. Perfect, two popular cons (the rising tide and trickle down effects) rolled into one. But the mantra’s appeal is purely superficial. It ignores the reality of a very rigid, highly stratified society in which society’s directions are set by select few who happily experience most of the beneficial and least of the harmful consequences. All societal decisions involve...
Peter Sainsbury from Darling Point
In response to: Why Labor can’t be bold without confronting tax reform
A wedding and innumerable funerals
December 1, 2025
Brad Reed’s article is yet another exposition of the staggering slaughter of Palestinians by the actions of the genocidal Zionist forces – the Israeli government, the IDF, the Settlers. The estimated ‘body count’ is nearly twice that officially reported by Palestinian sources – and likely to be a massively conservative reckoning of the holocaust that the Zionists have wrought upon the Palestinians. In September, IDF commander Herzi Halevi confirmed over 200,000 Gaza casualties since October 7 2003. We took the gloves off, he said – insinuating that previously the Zionist forces had been restrained! Restraint such as that the...
Richard Llewellyn from Colo Vale
In response to: Gaza’s true death toll could be 126,000 or even higher
Rethink the national grid
December 1, 2025
In SA in another technology time and space the then Liberal premier in effect nationalised the electrical supply when he created the Electricity Trust of South Australia. On many levels a great success particularly on ensure reliable electricity supply all across the state . Like many state and federal institutions the gradual sell off of ETSA has also been a great success in saving cash strapped state governments over the years, but that money pot is broken and more importantly the technology has improved . The national energy situation has changed and we constantly hear about the limits...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: real-zero-real-economy-the-greenplexity-war
Tax on cash flows would be an easy win
December 1, 2025
Apart from the unfair distortions in our tax regime, like negative gearing and capital gains concessions, a most obvious source of significant revenue is from the large number of multinationals (probably all of them) who shift profits off-shore by charging immense fees to their local entities. The Productivity Commission presented the government with a neat solution to this, namely a 5 per cent tax on cash flows. Profits are so easily manipulated by companies that there is one set of accounts for shareholders and one set for the ATO. Revenue is not distinguishable and should be the basis of...
Graham Shepherd from East Melbourne
In response to: Why Labor can’t be bold without confronting tax reform
Greening the desert
December 1, 2025
This was a good summary of the issues around food security which the CCP have been working on for decades. But it misses the considerable efforts that are being undertaken in greening the vast deserts that comprise more than a quarter of China's land area. These projects are aimed at turning these deserts into productive land for crops and protein production. Efforts so far have been relatively limited scale but are gradually ramping up and will in decades to come add considerably to achieving the goal of food self-sufficiency.
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: How soybeans became a fault line in China’s food security
“Tell him he's dreaming”
December 1, 2025
Better still “Tell him nothing and take him nowhere.
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: trump-wants-australian-data-on-migrant-crim
Sinister semiotics
November 28, 2025
Further to the recent article from Marian Sawer and subsequent letter from Margaret Callinan it is worth taking a look at the front cover of this week's edition of The Spectator Australia entitled 'Drill, baby, drill.' It features a pasquinade of a distraught looking opposition leader attempting to construct her own gallows using a substandard drill with menacing caricatures of Angus Taylor and Andrew Hastie hovering in the background. The sinister semiotics is reminiscent of those deplorable red top rag headlines – Gotcha (The S*n, 1982) and The Truth (The S*n, 1989), which were published by the scrofulous...
Bernard Corden from Spring Hill QLD 4000
In response to: Losing the democracy sausage vibe
Failure to address climate change
November 25, 2025
Adrian Rosenfeldt offers a philosophical perspective on the current brouhaha over ‘net zero’: the “net zero project” reflects “the deeper human philosophical desire for certainty rather than scientific necessity”…“What appears to be a neutral scientific framework rests on a false metaphysics: the belief that complex, uncertain realities can be mastered through perfect measurement and fixed ideals.” The “neutral scientific framework” offered nations a rallying point and a goal on which to agree and work towards. This was not “false metaphysics”, more like nuts-and-bolts peace treaties, trade agreements and international cooperation agreements. It was not “moral arithmetic” but painstaking, historical...
Fiona Colin from Melbourne
In response to: Net zero and the metaphysics of anxiety in Australia
Climate, numbers, targets and anxiety
November 25, 2025
Let us be clear: unless we, humankind, act urgently and radically, we will soon experience societal collapse. We will certainly experience existential anxiety as we starve, seek shelter and battle over dwindling resources. I agree that numbers and targets are unhelpful, but not in the sense that the author intends; they allow our leaders to pretend to act while kicking real action down the road, and to create false comfort in the face of the worsening crisis. They allow us to count “land not cleared” as a reduction in CO2 emissions; to include future “carbon capture” at scale in...
Richard Barnes from Melbourne
In response to: Net Zero and the metaphysics of anxiety in Australia
Excluding nature from economics is irrational
November 25, 2025
Julian Cribb reminds us of the quote from that great Canadian environmentalist, David Suzuki: “Nature, the air, the water, the soil, the biodiversity that allows us to live (are) not in the economic system.” Excluding nature from economic thought is indeed irrational. Cribb also cites William Ripple who warned in 2017 that: “We are jeopardising our future by not reining in our intense material consumption and by not perceiving continued rapid population growth as a primary driver behind many threats. This was agreed wisdom 50 years ago yet seems to have been forgotten. Consumerism and population growth are applauded...
Jenny Goldie from Cooma NSW
In response to: The wisdom of the elders, the greed of the rich
Rediscovering political parties
November 25, 2025
Jack Waterford's discussion helpfully identifies how diverse efforts across the land, of those elected to our various Parliaments with Liberal Party endorsement, are seeking a path that will not only get them back on Treasury Benches, but unite their party. Presumably the political party membership of such Parliamentarians will be confirmed by Liberals winning Government. The party's raison d'etre will have been achieved. But in the meantime, does the Liberal Party lose its character as a political party when it defines itself in terms of such a goal? Jack says: Liberals need a plan to make a difference. Is...
Bruce Wearne from BALLARAT CENTRAL
In response to: Will there be Liberals around to take power in 2034?
Rizvi's crocodile immigration-tears
November 25, 2025
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/11/our-politicians-continue-to-fail-us-on-immigration-policy/ There goes Abul Rizvi again. Shucks, if only we had a “long term immigration plan”. But we do have a plan. Despite the propaganda from Abul and Tony Burke especially, Australia can and does manage visa flows and net-migration numbers to suit itself. Canada and NZ have made recent and sharp immigration corrections, reaping the benefits in rental and housing affordability. Cruelly for voters, Australia deliberately went the wrong way. After 1.2 million net-migration over 2022-25, we’ve an astonishing near-50 per cent surge in house prices, plus all-time lows in rental affordability. Ouch. In annual terms,...
Stephen Saunders from O'Connor
In response to: Our politicians continue to fail us on immigration policy
Liberal campaign tactics worse than their policies
November 25, 2025
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/11/losing-the-democracy-sausage-vibe/ Tim Wilson's Goldstein win and narrow Liberal losses elsewhere risk that Liberal tactics will be repeated in future. Democracy is endangered if that happens. Marian Sawer's article captures the flavour of it. Mark Dreyfus's speech in Parliament is the best summary I've read. Personal submissions are gritty and distressing. But nothing matches being there as a volunteer in Kooyong (or worse, Goldstein), or being re-traumatised attending the JSCEM hearing on 12 November. Listen to the audio on the APH YouTube Channel. Voices lift emotion off the flat page of transcript. Listening to only the first speaker might be...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: Losing the democracy sausage vibe
The secret business of Nauru offshore detention camps haunts us still
November 24, 2025
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/11/the-shadow-of-the-tampa/ The secret business of Nauru offshore detention camps haunts us still. Thank you Julie Macken for the reminder of where it all began when Tampa hove into view and political machinations began. The facts revealing that NZ bikies are now on the Australian Government payroll overseeing offshore detention caused barely a ripple with a public inured to harsh policies towards non- citizens. What is even worse is that Australia’s toxic treatment of refugees and others has spread and is being adopted and proposed by nations as diverse as UK and EU countries. Australia has led...
Pamela Curr from Brunswick
In response to: The Shadow of the Tampa
It's all about the kompromat
November 24, 2025
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/11/trumps-latest-epstein-gambit/ I agree with the assertion that the Epstein Files Transparency Act is a gambit. Firstly, it calls for only the unclassified files to be made public. Secondly, with an inquiry launched by the Department of Justice into some of the more well-known associates of Epstein, any documents relating to them will be held back. I think there is an elephant in this room. The issue is not who got on the Lolita Express to fly to that under-age island, as titillating as that may be, but rather who was Jeffery Epstein working for? Who amassed all...
Hal Duell from Alice Springs
In response to: Trump’s latest Epstein gambit
The Pirates of Penzance and nuclear subs
November 24, 2025
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/11/us-wants-seouls-subs-to-counter-china-asian-media-report/ It is hard to restrain a contemptuous laugh when continually confronted by the comic opera style of US modern Major Generals like Admiral Caudle. That one South Korean Nuclear sub could make any conceivable difference to the inability of the US to frustrate the growth of China is nonsensical. The same applies to the Australian nuclear submarines that may, if ever, get delivered in a decade or two's time. With the complete farce that is the current US and UK naval shipbuilding industries and the rapid expansion of the wholly defensive and vast Chinese fleet, the chances...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: US wants Seoul’s subs to counter China – Asian Media Report
Everything and nothing
November 24, 2025
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/11/two-trump-peace-plans/ It is stretching language to a point at which it becomes meaningless to suggest that these are peace plans. A more accurate description of them is Orange Donald Press Releases. Neither contains a realistic assessment of the situation in Ukraine and Gaza and neither takes into account the wishes of the Ukrainian and Palestinian peoples. They are theatrics from an Administration unable to deal with reality. It would seem that various parties to both conflicts may agree with the more benign and meaningless terms, (which incidentally comprises the vast bulk of both) but disagree violently on others....
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Two Trump peace plans
Norway is not the role model we need
November 24, 2025
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/11/environment-can-australia-be-trusted-with-the-2026-cop/?utm_source=Pearls+%26+Irritations&utm_campaign=61b37e7a62-Daily&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0c6b037ecb-61b37e7a62-745219603 Norway is often promoted as a role model for clean energy and a clean environment and social harmony. This view is faulty. According to the International Energy Agency, as of 2023, Norway ranks approximately 10th in the world for per capita carbon emissions from fossil fuel exports. Norway's per capita emissions are about 7.86 tons of CO₂ per year. This positions Norway among the higher emitters, primarily due to its significant oil and gas production. Like Australia, Norway heavily subsidies its fossil fuel industry (energypolicytracker.org). Norway has made significant public financial commitments to fossil fuels, particularly in...
Cid Mateo from Brinja-Yuin Country, Eurobodalla, NSW
In response to: No COP for Australia. No tears from me. By Peter Sainsbury.
Trump getting ready for mid-term elections
November 24, 2025
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/11/5-reasons-trumps-economy-stinks-and-10-things-the-dems-should-do-about-it/?utm_source=Pearls+%26+Irritations&utm_campaign=4dd8fe4e19-Weekly&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0c6b037ecb-4dd8fe4e19-671545744 The US military's killing of boats full of people off the coast of Venezuela is Trump's way of getting America ready for the mid-terms. The message is - when I give the order to break the law you follow orders. Bombing and killing civilians without a trial in international waters is illegal. US military personnel who are against breaking the law will leave and those who will agree to follow illegal orders, from the top down, will stay. For Trump to retain power, he needs to win the mid terms which under a fair election he...
Louise O'Brien from Sydney NSW
In response to: Five reasons Trump’s economy stinks and 10 things the Dems should do about It
Greenhouse gas pollution and climate change
November 24, 2025
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/11/coalition-politicians-cannot-accept-the-threat-of-climate-change-they-should-resign/ I’d like to thank the author of the article for the work that he does in this space. When referring to climate change, emissions, net zero and the like, may I suggest that we always add the cause: greenhouse gas (GSG) pollution. We need to emphasise these problems are caused by pollution. The key word is pollution. It is shocking that when National Party and Liberal Party politicians say they are abandoning net zero by 2050, their core voters, the farmers and small business owners cannot understand that it means their farms and their goods...
Con Karavas from Adelaide, South Australia
In response to: Coalition politicians who can't accept the threat of climate change should resig
Flurries of futile fee policy fluctuations
November 24, 2025
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/11/how-did-australian-universities-go-from-free-education-to-50000-arts-degrees-in-50-years/?utm_source=Pearls+%26+Irritations&utm_campaign=4dd8fe4e19-Weekly&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0c6b037ecb-4dd8fe4e19-671585176 Having lived through all the changes described, I found this summary of the changes in fee policies over the decades very informative. I have stashed it for future reference. Thank you George Williams.
Penny Lee from Perth
In response to: How did Australian universities go from free education to $50,000 arts degrees i
Revelations and Evaluations - Working with Fraser
November 24, 2025
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/11/working-with-pm-fraser-parting-words-part-5-malcolm-fraser/?utm_source=Pearls+%26+Irritations&utm_campaign=61b37e7a62-Daily&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0c6b037ecb-61b37e7a62-744912623 Following the outstanding insights of The Dismissal podcast, I wasn’t expecting another feast for thought so soon. John Menadue’s just-concluded series on working as Malcolm Fraser’s senior bureaucrat is required reading, especially to those of us who took decades of persuading about Fraser’s humane vision. Curiously, Mr Menadue’s writing, despite its plain spoken directness of style, is deeply moving. He frames, with detail & clarity, Fraser’s record as a human rights fighter of historic distinction in and out of government. As he emphasises, this was not some career re-definition or image makeover by a defenestrated ex-pm....
Daniel Dennis from New Farm, Brisbane
In response to: Working with PM Fraser - parting words - Part 5 - Malcolm Fraser
Whitlam was correct!
November 24, 2025
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/11/how-did-australian-universities-go-from-free-education-to-50000-arts-degrees-in-50-years/?utm_source=Pearls+%26+Irritations&utm_campaign=4dd8fe4e19-Weekly&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0c6b037ecb-4dd8fe4e19-745269477 George Williams' timely article is a fascinating account of the impact of Neoliberalism on 'our' tertiary education system. Despite what Neoliberalists argue, education is a merit good – the nation gains more from the collective result than the overall cost. Whitlam was correct about fees. Concomitant with their performance to date, I don’t see this government doing anything meaningful. Instead of increasing by inflation, the costs of a degree and an individuals' HECS debt could be reduced by 5 per cent year on year. I am telling my grandchildren that if they want to attend...
Dr Bruce Moon from Tweed Heads West
In response to: How did we get from free...
The failure of privatisation
November 24, 2025
https://johnmenadue.com/letters_to_editor/2025/11/the-political-class-cant-be-trusted-to-implement-democratic-policy-agendas/ Scratch the surface only a little and you will find that all the social issues we are now facing can be traced back to the privatisation of public services and public utilities – a process that has never delivered on the promised results. Privatisation became politically fashionable because of at every election we have the catch cry of “if you elect them they will put up taxes / no we wont resulting in insufficient revenue without selling off assets which eventually end up with a government bail-out because the assets have been bled dry and cant afford...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide
In response to: https://johnmenadue.com/letters_to_editor/2025/11/the-political-class-cant-be-tr
There’s more to net zero than metaphysical anxiety
November 24, 2025
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/11/net-zero-and-the-metaphysics-of-anxiety-in-australia/ We have a finite planet with finite resources. The chemistry of those resources requires some absolute, measurable rebalancing to sustain a liveable climate. To preserve a sustainable environment we must achieve absolute reduction of atmospheric carbon pollution. Without setting clear and scientifically credible targets we will never achieve those goals. The absolute goal that we must achieve hasn’t changed; the scale of that challenge increases day by day as insufficient policy action is taken. As we have seen, over the course of this century and before, the longer governments delay, the bigger the task ahead becomes. ...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills, Vic
In response to: Net Zero and the metaphysics of anxiety in Australia
Working with China
November 24, 2025
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/11/australian-universities-and-china/ Richard Cullen’s article points out negative effects of parts of the Australian establishment’s attitude to China. I can remember when over 30 years ago many here were keen to assist in China’s development. eg. Zhengzhou province adopted the Australian model of OHS law. Working from a Chinese government plan for OHS 1990-2020, we were successful in a proposal to the Chinese Ministry of Labour for VET training in OHS.(Unfortunately WA authorities canned it because we had used personal contact, not official channels). However we did later succeed in publishing our textbook on OHS in Chinese through a...
Geoff Taylor from Borlu (Perth)
In response to: The China shift: Australia's universities in an age of suspicion
The Fourth Estate or just propagandists?
November 21, 2025
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/11/democracies-good-china-bad-and-history-not-required/ Fred, I think, is a bit too charitable to these so-called authoritative voices of of the fabled Fourth Estate. The truth is they know the history but as Orwell so presciently wrote, they have deliberately consigned it to the memory-hole. These turgid propaganda mills are the outstanding practitioners of double-speak and double-think. The sad part is the journos who churn out this pablum may in some instances want to tell the truth but know that doing so will drastically curtail their career and the ability to put food on the table. Some of course revel in the...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Democracies good, China bad – and history not required
Get on with it!
November 20, 2025
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/11/trumps-ploy-at-the-un-is-american-imperialism-masquerading-as-a-peace-process/ Another good article by Sachs and Fares. It is, as I write, 769 days since the deadly Hamas assault, and 41 days since the second “ceasefire” (major reduction in mass murder of non-combatants). This is Donald’s announced plan. I select points 7 and 15. Re 7, UNRWA says aid is still a third of that required. The plan doesn’t envisage green and red zones. The immediate deployment of an International stabilisation force (ISF), even though the need was foreseeable months ago, hasn’t happened. So there is the plan but there needs to be, urgently, an action timetable....
Geoff Taylor from Borlu (Perth)
In response to: Trump’s ploy at the UN is American imperialism masquerading as a peace process
International condemnation... Really?
November 20, 2025
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/11/israeli-settler-attack-on-west-bank-mosque-draws-international-condemnation/ So there's been international condemnation of Israel's latest atrocities. Really? I didn't hear a murmur from Australia, let alone anything remotely like any sort of condemnation. But what's the point of condemnation anyway? The UN and others say words like unacceptable, strongly condemn and held accountable. But they're all a sick joke, aren't they? Israel just keeps on committing genocide knowing no one will do anything to stop them. I won't be here to see it but I do wonder how history will whitewash Australia's do-nothing stance, while continuing to trade in arms with Israel. Because...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: Israeli settler attack on West Bank mosque draws international condemnation
Machiavelli on steroids
November 20, 2025
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/11/richos-grave-should-be-extra-deep/ A superb critique of the malignancy that was Graham Richardson that metastasised throughout the Party from the NSW Right. He was heartily detested by Whitlam as a man on the make whose only interest was in personal advancement and personal gain. He is no loss to a nation that might wish to aim for honesty and integrity in public life. Richo epitomised what can happen to political parties when taken over by apparatchiks of the Machiavellian kind.
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Richo’s grave should be extra deep
Boys from the black stuff
November 20, 2025
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/11/a-search-for-purpose-vision-and-identity-in-australian-universities/ Further to John H Howard's recent article I would contest that Johns Hopkins remains a model for research-intensive universities, especially after the role of Dr Paul Wheeler and its School of Medicine in the controversial black lung program back in 2013.
Bernard Corden from Spring Hill, Brisbane QLD 4000
In response to: A search for purpose, vision and identity in Australian universities
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