Letters to the Editor
A not-so-easy Community Independent Senate seat
October 10, 2025
In his article on the possibility of Teals getting Senate seats, Bob McMullan crunches only one of the two lots of vital numbers – votes. He ignores or doesn't appreciate the three-step process of getting an MP elected. First, local people decide they want a better MP than the one they've got. They form a group to discuss what sort of person this might be and what they want of them. Second, they advertise for a candidate and choose whom they think will meet their aspirations. Third, they recruit as many volunteers as they can to get the message...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: Could the Teals win Senate seats in an expanded parliament?
Palestine peace plan
October 10, 2025
Sawsan Madina is dubious about the peace plan for Gaza. But at least for now, the daily carnage stops. The interview on ABC’s 7.30 on Thursday 9 October with the Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel showed that she cannot see that Israel’s actions over the last 70 years of continuing Nakba might be partly responsible for the rise of Hamas as a group using terror tactics. Haskel simply does not support there being a state of Palestine and criticised all those who do. The UN has been totally sidelined, with Trump able to say recently that it was...
Geoff Taylor from Borlu (Perth)
In response to: A time to redouble our efforts for Palestine
Deceit upon deceit...
October 10, 2025
As they say, history is written by the victors. If it were a Palestinian writing, rather than Stuart Rees, they would have started the story of deceit a couple of years earlier. It gets a bit repetitive because he leaves no stone unturned, but it's still worth reading Peter Shambrook's Policy of Deceit: Britain and Palestine, 1914-1939 which details how Britain promised the Arabs an independent state, including Palestine, after the war, in exchange for an Arab alliance with Britain against the Ottomans in World War I. Remember ... this came before the Balfour Declaration. It's also worth noting...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: A century of deceit: Towards a new understanding of the colonisation of Palestin
Conservatism versus freedom
October 9, 2025
The US loves to lecture the world on the indispensability of its political system which supposedly encapsulates freedom and democracy. That system is deliberately designed to be extraordinarily vulnerable to manipulation by their wealthy elites. Two hundred years of efforts to prevent a high standard of public education, to enable the control of the bewildered herd as those elites describe the people, has rendered the US more susceptible than any other country to irrational fears and created panics. The efforts of the Orange Donald are simply a part of that 200 years of social manipulation. McCarthyism was just...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Shadow of McCarthyism looms over controversial firing of Texas professor who taught about gender identity
Balance, schmalance!
October 9, 2025
An incisive analysis of the fraudulent use of the idea of balance to avoid addressing the herd of elephants in the room. Just as with the Nazis in Warsaw, the current unquestionable genocide in Gaza by Israel is incapable of defence as international law has spoken with clarity and certainty. One would have thought that a journalists association would understand that. Apparently not!!
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Cancelling Chris Hedges: What price balance?
Recognition of older women
October 9, 2025
As an older woman, Misha’s story really hit home. The older women facing retirement today with little or no super are the same women who gave up their own lives and careers to raise families, care for others and hold communities together. Women constitute the highest percentage of carers, they always have. Their sacrifices made life easier for everyone else, particularly men. They’re now being left behind. We need workplaces that support younger women with children now, fairer pay and super for all and affordable housing for older women. Most of all, we need to value care —...
Meg Schwarz from Macclesfield
In response to: Australia faces a looming crisis of older women retiring in poverty. Here’s wha
New Delhi: Population exceeding resource limits
October 9, 2025
Julian Cribb mentions a number of megacities, including New Delhi. I visited the city in 1969 and found it a pleasant place in contrast to various poverty-ravaged cities within the country, most notably Calcutta, now Kolkata. There, half a million slept on the streets at night, often with only a dirty newspaper for a pillow. In contrast, New Delhi was free of the chaos that bedevilled other cities in India. Back then, 56 years ago, New Delhi's population was 3,381,000 people, less than a tenth of what it is today, namely, 35 million. It is anticipated to be 39...
Jenny Goldie from Cooma NSW
In response to: World water in crisis
Confected outrage
October 9, 2025
Someone painted God bless Hamas on a billboard, and all the usual suspects were screaming from the rooftops and tearing their hair out, calling in the federal police (who, I'm sure, have more important things to worry about). If it had said God bless Ben Gvir, Bezalel Smotrich or Netanyahu? All are either under sanction, convicted criminals or wanted for war crimes. Do you think there would have been an outcry as we have seen over this? As happens with all graffiti, paint over it and forget it.
Jerry Cartwright from Perth
In response to: https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/10/october-7-not-to-a-day-to-abuse-protesters/
Wheat from the chaff
October 9, 2025
The best president the US never had, the late Adlai E. Stevenson II, offered one of the best descriptions of journalism: An editor is a someone who separates the wheat from the chaff and then prints the chaff.
Bernard Corden from Spring Hill QLD 4000
In response to: Journos as heroes and villans - 'The Hack' reviewed
Political gutlessness
October 8, 2025
It appears that our political leaders have lost their moral compass – if they ever possessed one. They hide their moral vacuity behind empty posturing around a slogan (antisemitism) that has been so misused by the Zionists they appear to love, that it no longer has any meaning or content. These moral midgets will be remembered by history, but not in the way they hope!
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: 7 October not a day to abuse protesters
The memory hole revisited
October 8, 2025
When watching current political cowardice, one is powerfully reminded of George Orwell and his memory hole. This is the place for confining events that are not helpful to those in power as they seek to convince the populace that everything is fine. Current Western leaders have become masters at consigning Israeli depravity to that memory hole to convince themselves that they retain some kind of moral legitimacy. The bulk of us just don't buy it!
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: 7 October 2023: Return of the Hannibal Directive and the genocide starts now - Part 2
Democracy in theory, authoritarianism in practice
October 8, 2025
I don't recall in my lifetime — and that is 80 years — another period when our so-called democracies in the West have demonstrated such a disconnect between the people and our alleged leaders. Billions of decent people around the planet have demonstrated unequivocally that they do not believe the rancid criminals in Israel when the latter claim to be supposedly just defending themselves. Yet our Western leaders appear to be utterly unaware of the abhorrence and detestation with which their support for genocide is viewed. They demonstrate, if it were ever necessary to say so, a craven...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Hundreds of thousands flood cities across Europe to demand end to genocide in Gaza
Some Australians are more equal than others
October 8, 2025
Today (7th October 2025), our prime minister stood in parliament and lamented the death of one dual Australian/Israeli citizen who died two years ago at an Israeli music festival. He did not mention, nor it was ever mentioned in the last two years, a genocide that the state of Israel has been committing on the Palestinian people. Nor has the government or our prime minister mentioned the more than 67000 predominantly women and children who were killed in the Israeli-committed genocide (possibly some of them also Australian dual citizens). Finally, Australia is complicit in this genocide, directly and...
Okrad Marconi from Sydney
In response to: Palestinians out by 7 October?
Fair share of tax? I think not
October 8, 2025
Misha Schubert could be writing about me. I’m in my 50s and after two decades as a teacher, I gave up work to look after my parent. Out of necessity I had go on the carers pension. Now on $30,000 a year, I pay $2000 tax. Even on this low wage, I cannot claim a cent to alleviate the tax burden, not the modified shower seat, not the petrol nor the parking tickets for the three weekly hospital visits… nothing. On a carers pension, I pay more tax than a property investor or gas corporation. As a school teacher...
Alyssa Aleksanian from Hazelbrook
In response to: Australia faces a looming crisis of older women retiring in poverty. Here’s what
The plight of older female pensioners
October 7, 2025
Yes, the inadequate aged pension and the shortage of affordable housing affects many older women. A friend in her late 70s is renting an affordable flat from an organisation that informs her that this accommodation is temporary and she will soon be again on the move. She regularly visits the local Housing NSW office, where there is a constant turnover of clearly demoralised staff and many requests for duplicate documentation, especially for copies of her most recent bank statements. When she produces one statement they ask for statements from her other banks, and she has to inform them,...
Janet Grevillea from Lake Macquarie
In response to: Australia faces a looming crisis of older women retiring in poverty. Here’s what
National Press Club dodges questions on Hedges
October 7, 2025
I wrote to the National Press Club chief executive Maurice Reilly to protest his decision to cancel the address scheduled for Chris Hedges to speak on the situation in Gaza for journalists. I read the NPC media statement on the matter published in P&I on 5 October. There I noted Reilly's assertion that the decision to withdraw the invitation was made on the basis that (when) more details of the address were made available we decided to pursue other speakers on the matter”. I contacted Reilly and asked him to explain what that means. He referred me back to...
Kym Davey from Adelaide SA
In response to: chris-hedges-statement-by-the-national-press-club-4-october-2025/?utm_source=Pea
7 October: Prepare for the Zionist assault
October 7, 2025
This won’t appear before we enter the second anniversary of the 7 October Hamas attack on Israel. We can expect an explosion of anti-Hamas sentiment. We can expect a seismic level of regurgitation of gruesome allegations of Hamas atrocities, some of which will be true but there is a growing body of evidence that much of what is routinely spewed by the plethora of Zionist spokespeople is simply lies. Mussolini would be envious of their success. We need more well-researched, definitive, irrefutable, factual accounts such as Eugene Doyle’s work of what happened in order to base proper judgment....
Richard Llewellyn from Colo Vale
In response to: 7 October 2023: What really happened? Part 1
Whom can I believe – the NPC or the journalist?
October 6, 2025
After reading Chris Hedges’ article in Pearls and Irritations, I was angry and disappointed with the National Press Club. Ready to write an angry letter. Then today I read the response from the NPC. I am now angry and disappointed with Hedges for misrepresenting the situation. I feel like Donald Trump. I end up believing the last person who had my ear. If this disagreement exists over the facts of a fairly straightforward situation — and both parties are considered honest and trustworthy — where does that leave me in deciding what to believe about more complicated and more...
Carl Rathus from Brisbane
In response to: Chris Hedges – Statement by the National Press Club ( 4 October 2025)
Civilisation’s collapse not the end of the world
October 6, 2025
Our planet holds far too many people. We are destroying the uniquely stable environment of the past 12,000 years which has enabled civilisations to develop and thrive. We are bringing our civilisation’s collapse through not addressing existential issues now in plain sight. With civilisational collapse, our human population will inevitably shrink. Animal populations must also reduce – since 94% of animals now are domesticated livestock. Some domesticated animals might become feral; predators would thrive; the natural environment would re-establish itself, gradually burying remains of our lost civilisation. Thus life on the planet would rebalance – how much...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills, Vic
In response to: 'Died of a delusion' – the fate of modern civilisation?
Our civilisation’s collapse is not yet inevitable
October 6, 2025
Julian Cribb argues that civilisational collapse will soon become inevitable. This collapse is focused on the human future, but necessarily includes the future for all life on Earth. Humans live in, and depend on, a healthy, rich ecology, but many societies have lived with the religious belief that they are chosen ones – that the world has been created for their benefit, with the implicit assumption that they are entitled to all that it contains. This sense of entitlement has led to the pillaging of natural resources that has characterised the world since colonial times. Colonising countries enriched themselves...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills, Vic
In response to: 'Died of a delusion' – the fate of modern civilisation?
The lessons of history learned by the smart
October 6, 2025
A really interesting and thoughtful article that gives meaning to George Santayana's aphorism that those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it. China, largely due to its 4000-year civilisational history, is not doing what the West is doing. It is learning from the past and creating a culture that is not repeating the mistakes of the past, at least for the last 40 years. Mind you it has also been extraordinarily successful over thousands of years in avoiding foreign military and colonial involvements and that is serving them extraordinarily well. The vast and continuing expenditures...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Orwell foresees the 21st century
Fact against convenient fiction
October 6, 2025
The debt that Australians, who seek the uncomfortable truth rather than the convenient fiction, owe to John Menadue for his decision to create Pearls and Irritations is immense. The barren mainstream media landscape of Australia, that values fantasy over fact and obedience over questioning of authority, leaves little room for intelligent debate and doubt. This article is a great example of what escapes the boring and stultifying conformance of our media and seeks to provide an outlet for views that try to reflect the complex realities that we face, rather than the soothing inanities of the elites. ...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: South Korea’s anti-China protests
Truth as opposed to propaganda
October 6, 2025
The world owes Eugene Doyle an enormous debt as he finally strips away the tissue of lies, distortions, fabrications and mendacity that the West has surrounded 7 October 2023 with to turn the Israelis from the perpetrators into the victims. Eighty years of bastardization of the Palestinian people by the West, that created their suffering to excuse Western Holocaust guilt, can now be seen for what it is. Every pretence of civilisational and moral superiority is stripped away to reveal the corruption and moral vacuity of a dying Western empire. As Israel is run by European Zionists, it...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: 7 October 2023: What really happened? Part 1
National Press Club is only interested in status quo journalism
October 6, 2025
Does Australia have a fearless independent National Press Club to host challenging thought-provoking speakers like Chris Hedges, a world-renowned award-winning journalist? Or must we rely on an insular group of journalists more interested in status quo journalism that will never be questioned? The NPC's response to criticism of its decision to cancel the Hedges address is alarming because it tries to use that hackneyed “balance argument“ to justify its decision. How could any self-respecting journalist or media organisation provide “balance“ to Israel’s genocide and the murder of more than 67,000 civilians? Further, it is arguable that the NPC...
Margaret Reynolds from Richmond, Tasmania
In response to: Hedges Report: NPC Australia caves to Israel Lobby, cancels talk on our betrayal of Palestinian journalists
No place for independent journalists to address the NPC
October 6, 2025
I was incredulous to hear that the National Press Club had cancelled the planned address by Chris Hedges. I would have thought that a press club would have been interested to hear from one of the most respected independent journalists with deep knowledge of the Middle East. And I am deeply troubled by the words .. and when more details of the address were made available we decided to pursue other speakers on the matter. in the NPC's media statement. Indeed, I would have thought that given the genocide in Gaza, the killing of over 270 Palestinians journalists...
Sawsan Madina from Sydney
In response to: Hedges Report: NPC Australia caves to Israel Lobby, cancels talk on our betrayal of Palestinian journalists
National Press Club directors should hang their heads in shame
October 6, 2025
The letter below was forwarded to P&I. To Maurice Reilly and the directors of the National Press Club Your decision to cancel the 20 October address by prize-winning American journalist Chris Hedges is a disgrace and a betrayal of everything the National Press Club is supposed to stand for. Your website claims you are a vigorous champion of media freedom and a home away from home for journalists. Yet you refuse to have a highly-qualified speaker, who has rigorously documented the biggest deliberate slaughter of journalists in history — the murder of at least 278 reporters...
Judith White from Tweed Heads, NSW
In response to: Hedges Report: NPC Australia caves to Israel Lobby, cancels talk on our betrayal of Palestinian journalists
Chinese EVs are an outcome of global innovation
October 6, 2025
A couple of days ago I tried to interest my 21-year-old daughter in the way many technologies had come together to produce the current offering of Chinese EVs. It is not dissimilar to how we ended up with the iPhone. I am an IT industry veteran who remembers working with individual transistors. It is not what exists now that I was holding out as our climate hope. It is how fast change happens when you reach these technology inflection points. I couldn’t see it when I was in my 20s, working in the mini-computer industry and the PC...
Peter Kendall from Ferny Grove QLD
In response to: We killed our car industry and now we're drafted to fight against Chinese EVs (again?)
An unlikely declaration of unconditional surrender
October 6, 2025
This ludicrous plan, in which Anthony Albanese so enthusiastically promotes his participation, is not only a betrayal of the Palestinians right to justice but also represents an unconditional surrender to the racist and criminal regimes in Washington and Tel Aviv. That Western leaders, who endorse this theft of the identity and human dignity of the Palestinians, can so pompously congratulate themselves on this derisory document could not more clearly demonstrate their racism and moral vacuity. Roll on the multipolar world where real civilisations supplant the poisonous legacy of the West!
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: No justice or peace for Palestinians in Trump’s Plan
The farce of the rules-based international order
October 6, 2025
It's Humpty Dumpty again where the West takes that role and changes the meaning of words to suit itself. This article takes the role of Alice where she questions Humpty Dumpty on his propensity to change the meaning of words to suit his specific purpose. Humpty Dumpty ignores her and proceeds to apply his made-up rules to others but not to himself. For the West, Marx was right that history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce!
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Israel’s interception of the Gaza aid flotilla is a clear violation of internati
Thoughtful article which raises many questions
October 6, 2025
This is a really interesting article that raises a whole range of issues that need to be, and in many instances are being, addressed by the Chinese Government. Sadly, one of the best measures of how societies are coping with these youth mental health issues is trends in the rates of attempted and actual suicide by Chinese youth. Fortunately, the Chinese Government appear to have recognised the stresses that cause this and have implemented measures that have resulted in a continuing decline in the rates over the last decade, in contrast to the US where the rates have been...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: China’s youth: Between collectivism and the new individualism
The ICJ and Israel’s occupation of Palestine
October 6, 2025
Donald Rothwell writes: “Israel can certainly exercise control over the 12 nautical mile territorial sea off Gaza’s shores. Its closure of the territorial sea to foreign vessels would be justified under international law as a security measure, as well as to ensure the safety of neutral vessels due to the ongoing war.” I cannot see how that squares with the opinion of the ICJ that the Israeli occupation of Palestine is illegal. Israel continues to deny Palestinians and others access to Palestine’s territorial sea, and has banned the construction of a UN-backed modern port in Palestine for 20 years....
Geoff Taylor from Borlu (Perth)
In response to: Israel’s interception of the aid flotilla is a clear violation of international
Greenhouse gas pollution v climate change
October 6, 2025
Climate change and emissions due to greenhouse gas pollution are referred to numerous times in this article. Yes, they are problematic. However, climate change is only one symptom of GHG pollution and yet it is used as the general name for the variety of adverse impacts due to GHG pollution. Climate change is hence a misnomer. When talking about it, please call it what it is: GHG pollution. Similarly, when using the word, emissions, please call it what it is: GHG pollution. The impacts are – all accept that we cannot live with pollution so it...
Con Karavas from Adelaide, South Australia
In response to: A fresh perspective on climate
The Albanese Government has been captured
October 6, 2025
As we continue to allow the Zionist lobby to dictate the terms of our public discourse on all issues relating to Israel, we can mark our passage down this road with a number of milestones. Or is that gravestones? Human rights, including the rights of women, children and the elderly? Only if they are Jewish. Freedom of the press? Only for Jewish outlets. Protection during a conflict for hospitals and schools? Same-same. The list goes on and on while the YouTube videos proliferate. That the National Press Club would cancel Chris Hedges' talk and consider replacing it with an...
Hal Duell from Alice Springs
In response to: Hedges Report: NPC Australia caves to Israel Lobby, cancels talk on our betrayal
Chris Hedges and the National Press Club
October 6, 2025
I, and the political group I belong to, have sent emails to the chief executive of the National Press Club, strongly protesting the cancellation of the proposed talk by Chris Hedges at the NPC. The subject was to be the betrayal of Palestinian journalists by the media. My protest concerned three elements: – given that foreign journalists are forbidden from entering Gaza, this talk represents a once in a lifetime opportunity for them — and us — to hear about the treatment of Palestinian journalists at the hands of Israel. – Chris Hedges is a highly experienced...
Jill Dixon from Melbourne
In response to: Hedges Report: NPC cancels talk on our betrayal of Palestinian journalists
NPC and Chris Hedges
October 6, 2025
When the National Press Club decides that a leading authority on the Palestine question should not be heard by its members, Australians’ immediate question to the NPC is, why not? Having invited and then disinvited Chris Hedges from an event that promised to be booked out, the next question to the NPC is, who brought pressure on the club to do so? If Hedges is replaced by the ambassador of Israel, a former IDF officer, another question arises: who insisted on that choice? The Australian public is entitled to be concerned about the partisan censorship displayed, or...
Alison Broinowski from paddington
In response to: Hedges Report: NPC Australia caves to Israel Lobby
No place for journalism at the National Press Club?
October 6, 2025
Why would the National Press Club decide to withdraw an offer for acclaimed journalist Chris Lyn Hedges to speak about his extensive experience reporting from and about the Middle East, the media’s role in a democracy and specifically how it has contributed to legitimising Israel’s genocide? The decision was made, according to chief executive Maurice Reilly, when more details of the address were made available. This is deeply shocking: a journalist of Hedge’s calibre is cancelled because his message is unpalatable? Balanced truth with the opportunity to lie, creates plausible deniability. This is why many are increasingly seeing...
Mary Kostakidis from Sydney
In response to: https://npc.org.au/chris-hedges-statement-by-the-national-press-club
Generative debunking of climate myths using AI
October 6, 2025
Christian Downie’s forthcoming book, Climate Obstruction, taking a global view, will complement Marian Wilkinson’s The Carbon Club (2020), which exposed the powerful forces shaping Australia’s poor response to climate change. The unrelenting misinformation has been effective. A 2020 University of Canberra study, cited at the current Senate inquiry into Information Integrity on Climate Change and Energy, found that Australia ranks third in the world for climate denialism — 8% of the population — behind the US and Sweden. The global average is just 3%. While Downie is right to highlight the role of PR firms spreading climate misinformation...
Ray Peck from Hawthorn
In response to: PR firms are spreading climate misinformation on behalf of fossil fuel companies
Acceptance of 'peace plan' beggars belief
October 6, 2025
What blindness, stupidity, or both roams the halls of global Western governments that not only assents, but applauds a peace plan concocted by a wanted war criminal coloniser and an megalomaniac narcissist, that has openly enabled the bombing of Gaza equivalent to six Hiroshimas? What Australian press institution dares to call itself a vigorous champion of press freedom and then cancels the appearance of Chris Hedges, a journalist with vast experience on the ground in Gaza, to allegedly replace him with the Israeli ambassador? The global tide has turned. And we, led by the Australian Government, are riding...
Alyssa Aleksanian from Hazelbrook
In response to: No justice or peace for Palestinians in Trump’s Plan
Egypt and Gaza
October 6, 2025
Simon Tatz comments that Gaza shares a border with Egypt. It’s not clear why they refuse to assist Palestinians. I seek clarification of what he means. Does he mean Egypt should assist Israel in its ethnic cleansing of Gaza by taking more Palestinians than it already has? Or does he mean it should break the blockade imposed by Israel to assist Palestinians in Gaza? Or does he mean Cairo should take more than the medical evacuees it already assists? Or that it should provide more support to the Arab League and other entities to bring a...
Bob Pokrant from Fremantle
In response to: Sidoti needs to study comparative genocide
Another 20th century giant has left the building
October 3, 2025
As we slide deeper and deeper into the vortex of the 21st century, we’re farewelling more and more of the people who, through their intellect and character, have shaped the way we view the world in which we live. Jane Goodall joins Curie, Fleming, Gandhi and Einstein in that honoured pantheon. Through her work among our nearest cousins in their natural state, she confirmed we are risen apes, not the fallen angels our egotistical backstory would have us as. Whether this revelation is going to help us with the problem of living with each other and stabilising the climate...
John Mosig from Kew, Victoria
In response to: Jane Goodall, the gentle disrupter whose research on chimpanzees redefined what
How can something that has never existed end?
October 3, 2025
I totally understand Amy's concern but I think it is based upon an assumption that doesn't accord with historical fact. The truth is, the framers of the US Constitution were not creating a democracy. They were very clear that they were creating a republic. They deliberately wrote that constitution to prevent democracy, but to create an image that could be sold as democracy. All that has really happened under the Orange Donald is that any pretence of democracy has now been utterly eliminated.
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Is this the beginning of the end for US democracy?
Western application of law of the sea
October 3, 2025
The UN convention on the law of the sea (which is international law), in force since 1994, has been entered into by 170 state parties and covers such matters as freedom of navigation. Under Article 19 of the United Nations Law of the Sea Convention, a warship can sail within the 12 nautical-mile territorial sea of another nation's coastline “so long as it is not prejudicial to the peace, good order or security of the coastal State. The US has refused to sign on to the convention but uses it constantly against China, which has signed on to...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Israel intercepts Gaza Sumud Flotilla vessels: What we know so far
Silence is golden
October 3, 2025
Recently, a friend shared with me this quote, “When you put a clown in a castle he doesn’t become a king, but the castle becomes a circus. I have, for some time, been concerned how news about the US/Trump is dominating our local news, invading our news sovereignty if you like. I have imposed my own silence by tuning out local news which may work to the advantage of our local politics but I do miss the sports results.
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: Quantico’s verdict: The silence that stripped Trump bare
Mistake on shark nets
October 3, 2025
Your correspondent suggests that the early removal of shark nets in March this year could not have contributed to the fatal attack reported at Dee Why on September 6 because it occurred at the adjacent un-netted Long Reef Beach. In fact, Dee Why and Long Reef comprise a single stretch of sand pierced in the middle by a narrow lagoon opening close to which the shark net is placed. The shared Dee Why/Long Reef net is the same as for a single net for Curl Curl and North Curl Curl beaches and for Palm Beach and North Palm...
Graeme Stewart from Avalon Beach
In response to: Netted confusion
We have seen this movie before
October 3, 2025
An excellent analysis by Sawsan Madina of the so-called Trump-Netanyahu “peace plan” for Gaza. She notes: “We have seen this movie before: the Camp David Accord and Oslo Accords that brought neither justice nor peace. Evidence suggests the “peace plan” charade is just the latest update of a series of models to transform Gaza into a US-Israeli corporatized resort complex and economic hub. In March 2024, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner regarded Gaza as “very valuable waterfront property” which could “be cleaned up” by removing Palestinians, a vision of ethnic cleansing updated by Trump in February 2025 into the...
Peter Henning from Melbourne
In response to: Peace without justice
Sidoti needs to study comparative genocide
October 2, 2025
Chris Sidoti should study comparative genocide. His claim that Rwandans and Jews could somehow escape genocide is historically incorrect. Australia, the US and other Western nations restricted Jewish immigration from Europe. The US infamously turned back the St Louis ship carrying German Jews. Many of its passengers were exterminated in Nazi concentration camps. As for Rwanda, I recommend Sidoti reads Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda by Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire. Sidoti might want to explain to where these people fled, and what happened to them. Gaza shares a border with Egypt. It's not...
Simon Tatz from Melbourne
In response to: Sidoti and Saul on what we can and must do to stop the killing
The war criminal and the faux mathematician
October 2, 2025
Let’s have a recap shall we? A wanted war criminal enacting a genocide, and a president who is arresting and disappearing his own citizens, come up with a 20-point peace plan that involves no Palestinian input. A reminder that this is a war criminal, whose population at latest poll, showed 95% believed that not enough force or sufficient force had been used in Gaza, and a president who thinks that a 400% discount on eggs means you’re getting them at a discount. And we think these people are sufficient to create a peace plan? The coloniser and...
Alyssa Aleksanian from Hazelb
In response to: Trump’s mongrel punt
The beginning of the end of the propaganda state
October 2, 2025
The US business and political elites set out over 100 years ago to eliminate any real democracy that might have emerged in the US. That was brilliantly illustrated by Alex Carey in his revelatory book Taking the Risk out of Democracy. Since the early part of last century, trillions have been spent by those elites on the most extensive and brilliant propaganda campaign to eliminate any possibility of democracy in the US. During that same period, billions have been spent by US and other Zionists to create a fantasy narrative of god-given Jewish rights to the land of Palestine....
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: ‘Stunning reversal’: New York Times poll finds US support for Israel has plummet
Heads I win, tails you lose!
October 2, 2025
You would think that we would have come to an understanding of the sheer mental and moral vacuity of the orange Donald. But apparently not! That the vast bulk of Western punditry and political leadership could not treat this dog's breakfast of a proposal with anything but derision indicates the extent to which Western civilisation has declined into fatuity and ineptitude. Only the mentally incapable could see it as anywhere near dealing with the substantive moral issues involved. But I guess that is most of us!
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Trump’s mongrel punt
Agree truth is not hate, but...
October 2, 2025
Lama Qasem tells a powerful story and provides an insight into the most important perspective to look at when considering the experiences of Palestinian children. There is no question that treating people, and children particularly, in the horrible ways described will only perpetuate the cycle of hatred and violence that has cursed Palestine and Israel for 80 years. However I've read the prime minister's speech to the UN and I don't see anywhere that he says children are taught to hate. The word hate doesn't appear anywhere. It's a shame if the article's important message that truth is...
Rod Bower from Melbourne
In response to: Don’t mistake truth for hate, prime minister
Perpetual growth is indeed delusional
October 1, 2025
Julian Cribb is right to assert that the idea of perpetual growth on a finite planet is delusional. His estimate of a maximum sustainable global population of about two billion is also about right, though even that may be too high should climate change render much of the planet uninhabitable. Maps of the world at three degrees warming, that show regions that have become uninhabitable, are profoundly alarming. They include all of India and Pakistan, for example. And what if the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation shuts off? It means the end of agriculture in much of Britain and Ireland...
Jenny Goldie from Cooma NSW
In response to: ‘Died of a delusion’ – the fate of modern civilisation?
Decolonisation demands courage and vision
October 1, 2025
Henry Reynolds’ essay “Australia’s decolonisation runs aground” is a timely reminder of how far we remain from completing the work of decolonisation. He is right to note that our retreat from the republic, from structural recognition of First Nations, and even from re-examining our national symbols reflects not just public hesitation but a lack of political courage. What Australia needs most is leadership with vision. Our future cannot be shaped by leaders content with small steps or short-term calculations. We need politicians and other civic leaders willing to lift the national conversation, to imagine a republic, to embrace genuine...
Michael Cavanagh from Nambucca Heads
In response to: Australia's decolonisation runs aground
Lyons misreads the room
October 1, 2025
Lyons argues the absence of Arab leaders in the White House for the announcement of the Trump Plan “says everything”. Does it really? Arab leaders have publicly supported the plan. But they in no way represent the sentiment of the Arab public, so why make their support central? What about a Palestinian presence in the room? Does the Palestinian voice not count? Non-Palestinian Arab leaders have no greater right to determine Palestine’s future than Israel or the US. Lyons' use of the word “outmanoeuvred” is also problematic. It suggests an intellectual chess battle between Netanyahu and Trump, with Trump...
Jaron Sutton from Melbourne
In response to: Trump's peace plan shows Netanyahu has outmanoeuvred another American president
Possible over-generalisation
October 1, 2025
An excellent summary by Julian Cribb of the cancers eating away at the heart of the West, but it may be an exaggeration to apply it to all current civilisations. Much of what Julian alleges against civilisations is easily identifiable in the dying West, but is nowhere near as identifiable in some others. China is making huge and long planned strides in dealing with many of these threats and is willingly sharing those strides with the Global South. I share Julian's concerns, but am perhaps more optimistic given that other cultures have recognised the heedless rush of the...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: 'Died of a delusion' – the fate of modern civilisation?
We must expect more from our leadership
October 1, 2025
To say Albanese’s UN speeches were a disappointment would be an understatement. No one could miss the sycophantic pandering to the US within the first few minutes of the National Statement: “… international rules-based order owes much to the post-war leadership of the United States of America.” Does it? Should I mention the words weapons of mass destruction, Iraq and the illegal war waged by the coalition of the willing? Should I mention the last eight months? I, like Lama Qasem, was stunned when I heard, during the Palestinian Statehood address, Albanese say the children of Gaza...
Alyssa Aleksanian from Hazelbrook
In response to: Don’t mistake truth for hate, prime minister
Trump's plan for Palestine confounds belief
October 1, 2025
Trump's plan for Gaza is possibly the most overtly unfair, morally corrupt, ethically vacant, horrendous, hideous, self-centred, vacuous, vicious, pile of steaming Augean stable sweepings we have seen created in almost any of our lifetimes. There is a remote chance that a few people born before the Treaty of Versailles was penned still exist. Even the most cursory glance screams that the plan provides more avenues for the Israeli Zionist conquest to be resumed while Palestinians have any minuscule bargaining chips left to them. They are left naked, blindfolded, and nailed to the firing squad wall by this outrageous...
Richard Llewellyn from Colo Vale
In response to: Here’s the full text of Trump’s 20-point plan to end Israel’s war on Gaza
Liar, liar, pants on fire
October 1, 2025
Notwithstanding the 32,000 proven and documented lies by Trump, the quite bizarre fact the world and the mainstream Western media are treating this plan as having any credibility at all suggests a level of self-deception bordering on insanity. The two people involved, one a compulsive liar and the other a treacherous, vicious and utterly morally vacuous genocider, surely must give pause to even the most naive and credulous observer. But apparently not!
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Critics sceptical that Trump-Netanyahu peace plan will work as outlined
Courage absent!
October 1, 2025
Anthony Albanese is the personification of power without purpose. His place in Labor mythology will be that of the long-serving but achievement-less leader.
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: https://johnmenadue.com/authors/henry-reynolds/
Admirable truth from John Lyons
October 1, 2025
With this single article , John Lyons again proves his integrity and professionalism as a journalist. We don’t see an analysis as hard-hitting as this of how Netanyahu has triumphed over Trump anywhere in the Western mainstream media landscape. Netanyahu — who is a truly evil man — will probably succeed because the Gazans have been reduced to desperation. Zionist Israel will pay in the long run – a rightly discredited and despised nation. Trump is a weak appeaser of Israeli fascism. He could not even protect his benefactor Charlie Kirk. Russia and China are right not to...
Tony Kevin from Canberra
In response to: Trump’s peace plan shows that Netanyahu has outmanoeuvred yet another POTUS
Preventing more Western-inspired destruction
September 30, 2025
Or alternatively this assistance to Iran could simply be a continuation of China's long game in assisting the creation of a world that can no longer be subjected to Western violence and control. Similar assistance is being provided by China to a number of countries that are again threatened by US attempts to destabilise, destroy or loot their patrimony. Just a thought!
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: China’s long game in Iran’s short war
Republic of privilege versus democracy
September 30, 2025
This is by far the best expose I have ever read of the fraud that the US is, or has ever been, a democracy. The intentions of participants in the Constitutional conventions were very clear. They overwhelmingly believed that those who own the country should govern it. They ensured that by reducing democracy into a theatre performance. Great article!
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: What's wrong with America's democracy? There has never been one
Continued decline
September 30, 2025
An excellent, forensic disquisition by Jack on the manifold problems of an Opposition that thinks focusing on the past and trying to bring back the glorious 1950s, is a recipe for electoral success in a fundamentally changed world. It really reflects the desire of conservatives across the Western world to secure the future by returning to the certainties of a past age that has no chance, thank God, of returning. Currently, Labor offers no significant alternative in many policy areas and also seems to have a similar, if less urgent, fixation. In a sense, they are all desperately trying...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Will Hastie face his manifest destiny?
A sense of despair or one of opportunity?
September 30, 2025
Does Andrew Hastie have, as Jack Waterford wonders, “a sense of despair over the Liberals’ lack of direction and current failure to project anything much in the way of ideas or values”, or does Hastie see this failure as an opportunity? September poll results are in line with the May federal election, and yet there is a volatility in some quarters, perhaps most worryingly in the energy transition space, where Hastie has grabbed the anti-renewables baton from Peter Dutton and is running (with team Sky/Murdoch) to put spanners in the works. The gaining of social licence for renewables...
Fiona Colin from Melbourne
In response to: Will Hastie face his manifest destiny?
A tired and increasingly failing CIA strategy
September 30, 2025
The truth that all of us US vassal states continue to give every effort to avoid is that the Philippines, with the US assisted emergence again of the Marcos crime family, is just another US proxy funded, armed and trained by the US to prevent the emergence of a challenger to US world domination. Ukraine was one, as is Israel, the new government of Moldova, the Philippines, Nepal, Armenia and many others. Most have failed dismally to achieve their purpose. On the bright side for the US, it saves them having to send US soldiers to die in foreign...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Scarborough collision triggers Beijing’s strategic hardening
Democracy in Australia?
September 30, 2025
This article makes us ask, what about here? Anthony Albanese has just declared unilaterally at Balmoral that Australians are to have no referendum on a republic. Yet, within a day he was at the UK Labour Party conference lauding democracy. His government intends to bring down swingeing changes to freedom of information laws. His government has also relentlessly pursued two whistleblowers who ought to have been protected by any decent whistleblower law. Important elements of the surrender of sovereignty under AUKUS continue to be withheld from the Australian public. And the promised NACC had turned into a dead dog....
Geoff Taylor from Borlu (Perth)
In response to: What’ wrong with America’s democracy? There has never been one
Changes in China
September 30, 2025
Thanks for your two China visit pieces. It's a while since I've been in China, so I imagine I would be even more startled by the advances since then, let alone your two years. I was particularly pleased because there is a startling absence — and I think a decline — in civil society contact with China. You know some of the reasons, probably much better than me. Universities/research organisations — now increasingly problematic on a number of dimensions — are one aspect. But also civil society groups like peace groups I am familiar with are either reluctant...
Richard Tanter from Berkeley, California
In response to: Message from the editor
The ‘Hotel California effect’ of fealty to the US
September 30, 2025
Much of the discussion in this journal suggests that when it comes to important questions of foreign policy that impinge on the US, Australia has choices. Your readers may well know that Chomsky likens the way in which the US conducts its international relations to how the mafia operates. He refers to it as The Mafia Doctrine. An important consequence of being a (lesser) member of the (Mafia) gang is that when it comes to obedience to the don, gang members who break the rules are treated the same as or worse than anyone else, as I have...
Peter Blunt from Siem Reap
In response to: Australia needs to diplomatically disengage from our 'dangerous ally'
Netted confusion
September 30, 2025
It seems that Graeme Stewart, like much of the media, jumped on the shark netting misinformation bandwagon by trying to claim that Long Reef beach where the shark encounter occurred on 6 September 2015 had shark nets removed: The tragic fatality at Dee Why, the first at a netted Sydney ocean beach in 88 years, followed the removal of the nets a month earlier, at the end of March. The truth is that Long Reef beach, where the fatality occurred, has never been netted. However, this has not stopped the press (including now, I'm sad to say this...
Chris Welsh from Ryde
In response to: Shark nets do protect human life
Mental health reforms urgently needed
September 29, 2025
The recent article on Australia’s mental health crisis highlights how governments continue to pour money into medicalised responses while overlooking the social causes of stress. One important point to add is the gap between policy and affordability. Even with access to a mental health plan, many people find the out-of-pocket costs of counselling or psychology sessions beyond their reach. After a few visits, the financial burden becomes unsustainable, often leading to high dropout rates and people left without the support they need. At the same time, many Australians living under stress caused by housing unaffordability, financial insecurity, domestic...
Meg Schwarz from Macclesfired, Adelaide
In response to: What should Australian Governments do about ‘mental health’?
Michael McKinley's writing style
September 29, 2025
Surely I can't be the only person who enjoys Pearls and Irritations but finds Michael McKinley's style of writing using single sentences almost impossible to follow?
Barry O'Connell from Conondale
In response to: Disengaging from the dangerous alliance
Trump dreaming again!
September 29, 2025
If Trump today — and I emphasise today, as tomorrow he will say something diametrically opposite to what he says today — believes that he can recreate the bipolar world of the Cold War by getting agreement with the US to divide the world into two blocks, he simply demonstrates again his intellectual vacuity. The Chinese, since 1953 under Zhou Enlai, have pursued a policy of peaceful co-existence with all countries on the planet. That stance, unlike the hundreds of ephemeral and superficial policies that the US has pursued over the same more than 70 years, shows China is...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: US a partner not an enemy, China says – Asian Media Report
One word explains it
September 29, 2025
I'm not sure whether Jocelyn Chey was exercising the universal habit of the Chinese in being considerate and discreet, but it seems to me that one word summarises the reason for the exclusion of Chinese cities, and those in many non-western countries from these Western surveys. The word is racism. The West remains unable in its mainstream media to overcome its hundreds of years of racism towards China. It is a far from admirable quality, but one that has been commonplace for those hundreds of years. I agree with Jocelyn in that the cities she mentions in China...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Liveable cities of China
What can be done for Gaza hospitals?
September 29, 2025
So many are reporting on social media after hearing or seeing an interview with Dr Saya Aziz. Her work in a Gaza hospital is remarkable for her tenaciousness in the face of overwhelming cruelty. What can be done to help? I remember at the time of the East Timor Crisis, the director of nursing of a large Sydney Hospital raiding the stores and sending them to people who were shipping them to East Timor. The stores staff just asked her what she wanted and they gave it to her. There are, of course, problems with getting them to an...
Jennifer Haines from Glossodia
In response to: Interview that described the hell Gaza has become
Truth needs to be spelled out, not glossed over
September 29, 2025
For the first time, Bishop Browning disappoints. The actions of Hamas on 7 October were inhumane and contemptible. Those words give no context for what happened on 7 October, and directly followed, as they are, by But what Israel has unleashed is barbaric. implies that Israel started its genocide in response. Nothing could be further from the truth. Reading Browning, anyone could be excused for thinking the confiscation of land, building the wall and building settlements on occupied land did not involve violence towards Palestinians that was inhumane and contemptible. The truth is, Palestinians have been suffering a...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: Ex-bishop questions if Coalition is committed to Mideast peace
Understanding definitions of antisemitism
September 29, 2025
Strictly speaking, Marty Hirst’s statement, “The IHRA statement explicitly condemns any political criticism of Israel as antisemitism and protects Zionists from any accountability for the genocide in Gaza”, is incorrect. The relevant sentence is less clear and more open to interpretation: “Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.” As I see it, the IHRA definition is dangerous because it is so vague that it can be used by the powerful to impose almost any meaning they wish. This danger is demonstrated by the...
Mark Diesendorf from Sydney, Australia
In response to: Free speech and Palestine: Time to push back
The rot includes Australia as well, of course
September 29, 2025
Les Macdonald gets it right. He notes that “in current discussions between the US, Britain, France and Germany, they have simply thrown out the right of the Palestinian people to vote in the government of any new Palestinian state, by saying that Hamas will not play a role in that state regardless of any possible desire of the Palestinians themselves”. The US, of course, has no intention of allowing the existence of a “Palestinian state” and no intention of preventing Israel from transforming “occupation” of Palestine to destruction of Palestine in its entirety. The US made this obvious...
Peter Henning from Melbourne
In response to: The fish rots from the head
This is not reform – It’s a cover-up
September 29, 2025
The Albanese Government’s proposed changes to Freedom of Information laws pose a serious threat to transparency and accountability. By lowering the exemption test from “dominant purpose” to a vague “substantial purpose” linked to Cabinet, the government could block access to a wide range of documents – including major policies and national scandals. This directly contradicts recommendations from the Robodebt Royal Commission, which called for narrower secrecy provisions. Legal experts also warn the bill may breach the Constitution by undermining the public’s right to political communication. Labor’s justification? AI-generated and time-wasting FoI requests – a weak excuse that avoids...
Peter Cowell from Geelong
In response to: FOI changes big backward step for government transparency
A tradeoff we must accept for now
September 29, 2025
Professor Brendan Mackey and Professor David Lindenmayer are right to question the NSW Government’s condition on declaring the Great Koala NP. The park is home to more than 150 threatened species, including the greater glider. With habitat loss, disease, bushfires, climate change, vehicle strikes, and dog attacks, koalas are now listed as endangered in NSW and nationally. However, the government’s condition — that the park must first be registered as a carbon project under the Improved Native Forest Management Method — would allow major emitters to buy offsets under the Safeguard Mechanism. It’s a Catch-22, but given the plight...
Ray Peck from Hawthorn
In response to: Koalas, carbon credits and the fine print of conservation
A small practical step in aiding Palestine?
September 26, 2025
Here is a small step we might take in moving on from mere recognition of Palestine, as Refaat Ibrahim highlights the need for further steps in his article. The RAAF deployed aircraft to Syria to bomb ISIS, which then miraculously became the legitimate government of Syria, and the ADF has shipped Abrams tanks to Ukraine. So the RAAF could partner with the RAF and perhaps the French air force to provide air cover for the Sumud flotilla heading for Palestine, bringing much needed aid to the people of Gaza. The RAF has a base at Akrotiri in...
Geoff Taylor from Borlu (Perth)
In response to: Recognition of the Palestinian State without halting the genocide: A meaningles
Betrayal of humanity
September 26, 2025
The vast level of criminality and senseless violence in the world today should be attributed to those that have caused it, participated in it and found snivelling excuses for it. No prizes for guessing that is the self-adulatory West. Our arrogance and loss of humanity is in stark contrast with the sensitivity of those we have oppressed, butchered and deprived. It is well past time for the West to fall into well-deserved desuetude and for far more civilised cultures to rise to save humanity and the planet!
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: How the West normalises the crimes of Zionism
Mea culpa without substance
September 26, 2025
Refaat is, of course, correct. The moral West likes to have it both ways, gestures to satisfy the punters but without a trace of substance to interfere with making money. The vast bulk of the world sees through us and is increasingly moving away from what they perceive as unreliable and devious participants in world events towards a grouping that favours inclusivity, equality, transparency and non-interference in internal affairs. Will our leaders have the gumption to act decisively and with moral purpose? Not if they can avoid, it is my view!
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Recognition of the Palestinian State without halting the genocide: A meaningless
Too many relying on government funding
September 26, 2025
Apparently, Sussan Ley's concerns with those relying on government handouts do not extend to those who use taxpayer-funded helicopters to go house hunting or attending parties, something Bronwyn Bishop would agree with! I'm sure many other names could be added, and yes, there are two sets of rules, as pointed out in a letter by another reader. Hypocrites.
Jerry Cartwright from Perth
In response to: Liberal paties economic strategy
Political and bureaucratic failure
September 25, 2025
Excellent article by Kathy. Really nails the gross failures of the bureaucrats and the government to design a system which actually fixes the manifold problems in aged care. Perhaps they should start involving people like Kathy in the planning process to overcome the broad ignorance displayed by the bureaucrats drawing up the present plans! Just a thought.
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Government is planning hardship for older Australians living at home
Investing in the past
September 25, 2025
Like Britain and the US, we continue to exhibit multiple signs of looking wistfully to an imagined past and seeking to repeat it, rather than looking to a future which will we know will be different from that past. Nowhere is this more evident than in the one area in which we claim expertise – making war!! As we hollow out our economies and turn them into heaven for our speculative class, we also continue to plan for a repetition of our past colonial successes. China and Russia are the objects of that desire for more glorious colonialism. The...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Disengaging from the dangerous alliance
The Enlightenment betrayed
September 25, 2025
For anyone who truly values our civilisational legacy from Athens all the way to the Enlightenment, the absence of a moral compass in the vast bulk of our current political and intellectual leadership class is a damning footnote to our civilisational decline. That they feel comfortable in daily witnessing and participating in the wilful and deliberate destruction of a culture far older and far more civilised than ours, with a moral certitude that defies description, is a clear marker of the judgment which history will pass upon us. The cultures we have spent the last 500 years looking...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Hamas is better than us
The fantasy Sparta
September 25, 2025
The reality of an isolated Israel trying to be a modern-day Sparta is stupidity on top of insanity. In the days of Sparta, a small community could be relatively self-sufficient to a certain extent when arms for fighting were swords and maces. The sane reality is that if Israel is cut off from vast external support in funding, technology and arms supply it will be utterly incapable of producing any of the sophisticated weaponry it will need without major sources of supply of the vast amount of metals, magnets, explosives and foodstuffs that it has no capacity to produce...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Israel moves to embrace its isolation
George Browning's scalding clarity of expression
September 25, 2025
No caveat, no contrary thought, no correction – and no way in which the expression of repulsion to Sussan Ley's pathetic communication to the US Republicans can be mollified. Thank you, George Browning, for a laser beam of decency and truth.
Richard Llewellyn from Colo Vale
In response to: Ex-bishop questions if Coalition is committed to Mideast peace
Yes, one rule for all
September 25, 2025
The rules around superannuation should be the same for every Australian. And while we are at it, super should be taken as a pension as a percentage of the wage at retirement, eventually replacing the old age pension. We should have an independent inquiry into employment after leaving Parliament: who they work for, future public service employment, consultancies etc
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: One rule for them, another for us
Albanese kowtows to WA Labor Party/Roger Cook
September 24, 2025
That the lives of my eight grandchildren and their contemporaries may well be cut short by catastrophic global heating is of great concern. Ross Gittins highlights the “weak job” Albanese has done in addressing such pressing concerns. Compounding the inadequacy of the 2035 62%-70% emissions reduction target is an outrageous Labor decision that makes even this weak target significantly more difficult to reach. The decision to extend the NW Shelf gas project to 2070 was appalling and should be revisited. This decision was largely driven by Labor’s WA branch which behaves like a subsidiary of the mining and gas...
Ian Bayly from Upwey, Vic. 3158
In response to: Albanese takes his usual each-way bet on climate change
Which SSN is it to be?
September 24, 2025
Mike Gilligan’s piece raises a question. Which SSN is more important to the government, seniors shower needs, or SSN submarines? The new seniors care package unveiled by Minister Rae, flouting the Aged Care Commissioner, means some seniors face paying $50 for a shower, or having to go it alone. Rex Patrick recently outlined a comprehensive defence spend without SSNs, which left $150 billion in the kitty for things like seniors care and denticare. On submarines we have to remember, not so many years back, Indonesia was regarded as our big threat. (Note they have just bought an Italian...
Geoff Taylor from Borlu (Perth)
In response to: Australia has no alternative to biting America’s bullet
Vegetarianism may not be the answer
September 24, 2025
Julian Cribb writes that a vegetarian diet...may yield fewer greenhouse emissions, but may also cause greater soil erosion, use more pesticides and is highly vulnerable to climate. He argues for a move away from traditional farming production to regenerative farming, urban food, and deep ocean aquaculture. It is hard not to panic about the prospect of sea-level rise which the World Economic Forum warns is a global threat. It notes that the Greenland ice sheet is “at a tipping point of irreversible melting and that one to two metres of sea-level rise this century is unavoidable. This means...
Jenny Goldie from Cooma NSW
In response to: Devouring the Earth may decide our future
No meeting could well clinch my vote
September 24, 2025
If Anthony Albanese cancelled all future meetings with Trump, I would vote for his government. Although it goes against my opinions on censorship, if he banned all Trump tripe on social media and on the nightly news I would hand out how to vote cards at my own expense in his electorate for the duration. As for closing all US bases in Australia, bring it on. It is time for Australia to grow up and stop marching off to war to defend UK and US right-wingers.
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: How important is an Albanese-Trump meeting?
Isolating Israel? Hardly
September 24, 2025
Is “isolating Israel” on the agenda of Western political elites, as suggested by Margaret Reynolds? Given the wording of the “recognition” of Palestine proposal initiated by Emmanuel Macron in association with the Saudis, endorsed by the Albanese Government, it is obvious that the intent has nothing to do with “self-determination” of Palestine, but everything to do with ensuring a “two-state solution” entrenches and solidifies Israeli control over all of Palestine. If that is not the case, explain why the conditions imposed on “self-determination” do not destroy all possible avenues to Palestinian statehood.
Peter Henning from Melbourne
In response to: The Australian prime minister has little time left to salvage his place in histo
An act of courage. Really?
September 24, 2025
Although many of the points made by Stuart Rees and Greg Barns in their joint article make sense and reinforce what had already often been said in previous articles, qualifying the recognition of Palestine as a state by the Australian Government as a courageous act and congratulating it for having taken this step certainly doesn’t. Perhaps it would have been a courageous act if Australia had joined the other 93 states, which by February 1989 had recognised the State of Palestine following the Declaration of Independence proclaimed by Yasser Arafat on 15/11/1988 on behalf of the Palestinian National Council....
Michel Beuchat from Balwyn North
In response to: Recognising Palestine a long overdue act of courage
One rule for them, another for us
September 23, 2025
Sussan Ley wants to cut government assistance, saying too many are dependent on government help. This is farcical considering no one can live even on a full government pension while paying rent, healthcare, electricity, petrol and food etc. Here’s an idea, Sussan, when politicians retire, make them meet the same requirements as the average pensioner. That is, every single politician can only have $321,500 in assets including property and their superannuation. If they’re married, they’re allowed only $481,500 in combined assets. Considering the majority of politicians in Australia have more than one house, many with far more than...
Alyssa Aleksanian from Hazelbrook
In response to: The Liberal Party's economic strategy
Strike 3 and Albanese should be out
September 23, 2025
I am fully in agreement with all that Margaret Reynolds says. Although Albanese would have to pull a mighty big rabbit out of his hat to salvage his reputation. The Age (online 23/09/2025) headline Albanese’s plea to world leaders on Palestine would be laughable if it were not so embarrassing that so very many countries got there well before us in recognising Palestine. Strike 1. Just as we are laggards (to put it politely) regarding Palestine, we are at the bottom of the rankings on action to address climate change and the environment. How Albanese has the gall...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: The Australian prime minister has little time left to salvage his place in history
Living dangerously
September 23, 2025
It's probably just as well that Greg Barns is the former national president of the Australian Lawyers Alliance, because if he were still the incumbent, he probably wouldn't be for much longer after expounding so eloquently on Palestine. A certain subset of Australian lawyerdom would see to that. (Circumlocution is such a painful way to express yourself, but these days it seems to be de rigeur as a way of self-preservation.) As it stands, I'm fairly certain that his (and Stuart Rees') inboxes are currently under heavy fire. Stay strong, Stuart and Greg! At least, you show no...
Alan Wilson from Adelaide
In response to: Recognising Palestine a long overdue act of courage
A stark contrast
September 23, 2025
There is a stark contrast between Stuart Rees' and Greg Barns' conception of Australia's courage in the (sort of) recognition of Palestine, with Chris Sidoti's (P & I''s 23/9) Israel must end its genocide in Gaza. But Australia must act too. For example, where Sidoti writes: I can list another eight actions that could and should be taken immediately. He does list those eight actions. Recognition, such as it is (so many caveats and delays built in), still denies the Palestinian people the right to self-determination (see Sidoti). Such recognition is not an act, it is theatre,...
David Thompson from Clayton
In response to: Recognising Palestine a long overdue act of courage
A civil service wish revisited
September 23, 2025
When reading Jack's excellent piece about the preferred behaviour of Albanese in his approach to the orange autocrat, I was reminded of a British civil service motto that I came across when working at Australia House in the 1960s. Given the rigid hierarchy that characterised the British civil service, which was substantially reflected in the colonial public service at the time, the opportunities for promotion were rare and valued. The motto was that where there's death, there's hope. That might be an entirely appropriate one for Americans to adopt to deal with the current extremity of their situation.
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: The stars suggest Albo should stay at home
With the conservatives, it's ideology over reality
September 23, 2025
With the conservatives in Australian politics, it is truly difficult to overstate their utter dependence upon ideology over any observable reality. They have truly reversed the scientific method in their attempts to create a fantasy reality to replace the real one. In the scientific method, you develop a theory, test it against reality and if they don't match you discard the theory and develop another in an endless cycle until you get one that matches reality and is accurately predictive. With the conservatives, they have developed a long line of theories. These have then been tested generally by...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: The Liberal Party's economic strategy