Letters to the Editor
Speaking the unspeakable
August 4, 2025
Leonie has admirably summarised the facts that the Western media has been burying for the last 80 years. Memory, as far as the persecution of the Palestinian people is concerned, is a very dangerous thing to possess. The Zionist cabal have spent that entire time erasing the memory of what they have been doing to the Palestinian people for that entire time. But truth in the end will out. as George Santayana so memorably wrote, Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. In this case, the people who have been condemned to repeat their...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Palestinians have a history of oppression long before 7 October, 2023
P&I lets us down with Al Jazeera article on Syria
August 4, 2025
I feel sure that most Pearls and Irritations readers are anti-war. P&I can make us more alert to insidious war propaganda and so better able to take a stand for peace and humankind’s survival. Yet, P&I posted an article by Al-Jazeera's Mat Nashed that dealt with the recent fighting in Suwayda, Syria, and the Israeli response. When it comes to Syria, Al-Jazeera is basically a mouthpiece for the foreign policy of Qatar, whose royal family provided billions of dollars toward the phony war in Syria, as it’s described by Jeffrey Sachs. Qatar is known for its links...
Susan Dirgham from Melbourne
In response to: Sectarian tension, Israeli intervention: What led to the violence in Syria?
When the chips are down, the people unite
August 4, 2025
It is difficult to disagree with Cynthia in her summary of the poison informing those who equate criticism of Israel with that much abused word, antisemitism. It is difficult for ordinary citizens of the world to grasp the depth and extent of the daily atrocities being carried out by the members of the most moral army in the world. It is as difficult for them to comprehend the active participation in this daily barbarity by the mainstream media and their servile journalists and editors. In countries around the world, people have finally had enough and are massing in their...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Jewish safety and the weaponisation of antisemitism
Time to move on
August 4, 2025
Thank you, Hiba Farra. The Israeli Government warns against “rewarding Hamas”. What about “rewarding the perpetrators of 70 years of attempted ethnic cleansing”? Rather than continue with the barbarism of ancient Middle Eastern religious disputes with their “chosen people” idiocies and holy texts that call for women to be killed for burning incense and fathers being told to kill their kiddies to prove their blind obedience to a jealous, homophobic God with anger management problems, it’s time to adopt the social values that are accepted around the world many thousands of years later. Is it possible for the...
Neil Hauxwell from Moe Victoria
In response to: Australia speaks of normalising Israel, My family is living through genocide
The Australian Government's choice
August 4, 2025
In the conclusion of his profoundly significant article, Hiba Farra, noted that The Australian Government has a choice: stand with justice, or stand in the way. The Albanese Government has never been interested in matters of justice on any matters, domestic or external. Its focus is entirely on policy and associated funding which serves its careerist interests, nothing else. It has long since made a choice. It now seeks to protect that choice in its own interests by all means available in relation to evading accountability for complicity in genocide.
Peter Henning from Melbourne
In response to: Australia speaks of normalising Israel. My family is living through its genocide
The real antisemitism
August 4, 2025
I am so tired of the Zionists claiming antisemitism where if they really looked at the term would realise what they are committing is antisemitic. It usually refers to the peoples of the Levant and includes Palestinians, as well as the ancestors of Noah. Semitic people or Semites is a term for an ethnic, cultural or racial group associated with people of the Middle East and the Horn of Africa, including Ethiopia.
Melody Kemp from Balmoral Brisbane
In response to: Australian journalist in court accused of ‘antisemitism’
Show some leadership, Albo and Penny
August 3, 2025
Trump's real estate dealmaker mate Witkoff completed his GHF-curated no famine here tour of Gaza last week, while NSW's Chris Minns whinged about the the sheer inconvenience of Sunday's pro-Palestine demo on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Meanwhile, Albo and Penny Wong are guardedly preparing to recognise Palestinian statehood, given the state is one of appalling human horror, rubble and expended American supplied ordinance. Hiba Farra eloquently and heart breakingly makes the point from the perspective of his own family's experience. Come on Albo, show us something resembling visibilty, courage and leadership on Palestine. By the same token, Penny...
Donald Clayton from Bittern 3918 Victoria
In response to: Australia speaks of normalising Israel. My family is living through its genocide
Is the tide really turning ?
August 3, 2025
Is the tide turning or is this yet another example of political opportunism... wedge the other party? We need to ask ourselves this question before we vote in a system where PR election promises are deliberately vague to limit criticism when they are not delivered.
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: US Senate Dems vote to block arms sales to Israel – the tide is turning, says Bernie Sanders
Why two?
August 3, 2025
My question has always been “why two bombs?” Even if the bomb had been the clincher, surely the evidence from one city should have been enough for the Japanese high command? Was it because some in the US wanted to try both a uranium and a plutonium bomb, and here was the opportunity?
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: Did the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945 end the war?
No-one is OK and some will never forget
August 3, 2025
When you consider the number of Holocaust survivors still alive, what comes to mind is the feelings the Holocaust generates amongst those who didn’t directly experience the genocide and what actions the Holocaust generate and justifies. Now add the time long ago when God promised a “homeland. Consider how many years of retaliation by Palestinian victims and survivors the world will suffer once the boot is on the other foot. Even if Netanyahu’s grand plans succeeds, as history has shown, there are sufficient non-resident Palestinians scattered across the globe for these atrocities never to end. Is...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: No-one is okay
Author swallows BRI debt-trap canard
August 3, 2025
Some interesting material here, but spoiled by the author swallowing the canard about China's Belt and Road initiative being better described as a debt trap for countries taking part. This suits the anti-China agenda of the US and others in the West, but is at odds with reality. Any AI search will show how BRI has helped low-income nations in Africa, Southeast Asia and Central Asia build or upgrade roads, ports, rail links and power stations, helping accelerate economic activity, trade and connectivity. Yes, there have been challenges, with for example some countries risking default, which critics...
John Wallace from CARLTON NORTH
In response to: No Indonesian high-speed rail wizardry for Oz
Endless growth is reckless
August 3, 2025
Mark Diesendorf’s article The principal barrier to a rapid energy transition makes for sobering reading. With clear calculations, he shows that unless we significantly curb the growth of global energy consumption, renewables won’t replace fossil fuels fast enough to counter climate change. His solution? A steady-state economy based on reduced energy demand and planned degrowth. The IEA says global energy intensity — energy used per unit of GDP — must fall 4% annually to reach net zero, double the 2010–2019 rate. But how do we get there? In Pearls and Irritations (May), Diesendorf outlined five steps: demote GDP...
Ray Peck from Hawthorn
In response to: The principal barrier to a rapid energy transition
Again, the Prince of Wales?
August 1, 2025
Rather ironic for the British to send HMS Prince of Wales to project power into the South China Sea. That has been tried before in the 1940s, not too successfully.
John Queripel from Newcastle
In response to: Britain’s back, China’s the target. We’ll likely pay the price again
Climate crisis
August 1, 2025
Chris Young has helpfully reminded us of the splendid analysis of our climate crisis, Too Hot to Handle: The Scorching Reality of Australia's Climate-Security Failure, published 15 months ago by the Australian Security Leaders Climate Group. Presumably that analysis was too acute and its ramifications too compelling for the government to acknowledge publicly and respond to with a coherent set of policies. But this sobering dose of reality is what the nation needs as panic sets in about the cost of shifting from fossil-fuel power generation to the transmission of clean energy. There's no doubt that cost is daunting...
Tom Knowles from Parkville Vic 3052
In response to: Time for a moonshot?
Innovation and vision
August 1, 2025
While the US war machine yet again loses more wars from afar, its tech industries continue to conquer the world, surreptitiously invade particularly the English-speaking world with their internet, movies, fads, maps and language etc. The tech industries' prime concern is that each advancement is built on those that went before and dare I say that there is another country that has been very good at that and continues to take the lead. This is one area where, for a relatively low cost (hackers do it all the time) with constant innovation, even the smallest of countries/people can be...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: How Trump’s vision of a single-minded China containment has failed
Genocide?
August 1, 2025
I have been waiting in vain for something like a Four Corners investigative analysis of whether Israel is committing genocide in the Middle East. No doubt the message has gone out from management, don’t ask such embarrassing questions – there are some things we don’t want to know.
Brian Bycroft from Evans Head NSW
In response to: 'Our media refuse to call out genocide in Gaza'
Time for a moonshot
July 31, 2025
Jennifer Goldie has highlighted one of the major security risks that we and other countries face from the consequences of our changing climate, bringing an immediacy to last year’s call from the Australian Security Leaders Climate Group. This risk of mass movement of people is also recognised in the UN’s 2025 Global Risks Report. Currently, there are some 123,200,000 forcibly displaced people worldwide. This means 1 person in every 67 is displaced as the result of persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations and more. Floods, droughts and rising sea levels are expected to increase the number of displaced people...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills, Vic
In response to: How will the Earth cope with a billion refugees?
AI: Embrace or ban it
July 31, 2025
“These evolving technologies have unprecedented capabilities to rapidly analyse huge volumes of information, often identifying unique new patterns.” Why then are they not used to stop hackers and scammers attacking our everyday lives? Why then aren’t they used to stop our children watching inappropriate material on the internet instead of passing ineffectual laws that will only serve to make lawyers rich and the courts full? Are governments so scared of AI that they won’t use it for the good of society? What is the real story? What do they know? What aren't they telling us? Has...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: It’s time to talk about AI and national security
Australia is playing a cynical game re Palestine
July 30, 2025
Bob Carr in his article suggests that Australia should follow the French in their stated plan to recognise Palestine in September. This ignores the reality that for Macron this is a combination of theatre and self-protection, not a serious proposal at all. More than 140 nations already recognise Palestine, representing the vast majority of UN member states. The fact that Macron has consulted closely with Mahmoud Abbas, the aged leader of the Palestinian Authority, an organisation which works closely with Israeli military forces against Palestinians in the West Bank, and an organisation which has no credibility among Palestinians...
Peter Henning from Melbourne
In response to: Mass Palestinian starvation as a weapon of war
You don’t need a bulldust detector, Ross...
July 30, 2025
You don’t need a bulldust detector, Ross; a reality check would give the same result. Any economic modelling that doesn’t factor the impact of climate change is delusional. The almost seasonal floods and coral bleaching across tropical Queensland threaten the economic viability of that region’s tourism, agriculture, aquaculture and horticulture industries. The South Australian algal bloom, now in its sixth month, has destroyed the commercial and recreational fisheries, along with the marine aquaculture industry of that state. Tasmanian salmon farms, along with the rest of the aquaculture sector is struggling with increasing water acidification and temperatures. On land, droughts...
John Mosig from Kew, Victoria, 3101
In response to: Roundtable warning: When they say ‘modelling’ grab your bulldust detector
$30b is chicken feed if it is for Defence
July 30, 2025
“The last quote was $30 billion for fast rail between Newcastle and Sydney. This is cheap for a rail link that would be used regularly and could be expanded, when you consider the cost of submarines and the fact that past Defence white elephants have never fired a shot in defence of Australia. That is, if they are ever delivered. This figure would be cheap even if we don’t buy the latest from China for fear of them spying on our kangaroos and cows in the bush.
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: No Indonesian high-speed rail wizardry for Oz
Tide turning on government climate accountability
July 29, 2025
In 2013, Dutch environmental group Urgenda and 900 citizens sued their government to force stronger climate action. In 2019, the Dutch Supreme Court ruled the government had a legal duty to cut emissions by at least 25% by 2020, compared to 1990 levels. Since then, similar attempts in Australia — by eight children and two Torres Strait Elders — have failed. In both cases, judges said it was for governments, not courts, to act. But the legal tide may be turning. The International Court of Justice recently issued only its fifth-ever unanimous advisory opinion, declaring that all nations...
Ray Peck from Hawthorn
In response to: 'New era of climate accountability': ICJ says nations have legal duty to combat
It’s not about getting re-elected
July 29, 2025
The one point missing from this article is that Sussan Ley is a woman. A woman surrounded by old, white, male dinosaurs. As we saw when Julia Gillard was leader of the Labor Party, there was a lack of support for her, none of the old Union “one out, all out“ mentality. Long after the unions had abandoned their “once they're married, they should stay home and look after the kids“ position of the 1950s, the party allowed Tony Abbott to ambush her without the support they would have given even a prime minister from a different faction. Even...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: Ley must be saved from drowning over net zero
A job in the humanities
July 29, 2025
Gareth Evans, as usual, touches a nerve. Universities often claim they are cancelling humanities courses to focus on programs that lead directly to employment. But this is misleading. Humanities enrich every kind of work. In some professions, they are not just relevant – they are essential. One such profession is that of the civil celebrant. Celebrants must be skilled in public speaking and creative writing and possess a deep understanding of human nature. Their work draws on music, literature, poetry, story creation, storytelling, choreography, and symbolism – all core components of the humanities. Ceremonies are fundamental to...
Dally Messenger from DOCKLANDS
In response to: Evans gobsmacked by change in ANU plan
Ley must be saved from drowning under Waterford
July 29, 2025
Matt Kean’s UN climate-guru Simon Stiell is swanning around Australia again. Claiming his “blueprint” can unleash “colossal” rewards to “protect” workers. They and Jack Waterford badger Sussan Ley. Embrace the “science” of “net zero” or else. Yet all the graphs confirm that population, GDP, consumption, emissions, CO2 levels, and land/sea temperatures are all growing. That the emissions of this perpetual-growth can miraculously “net” to zero is vanity not science – no friend of workers or equality. No brake on Australia's perpetual war-on-the-environment. Despite easily-protected borders and untold energy-riches, Australia delivers extreme population pressures, very high energy prices, and...
Stephen Saunders from O'Connor
In response to: Ley must be saved from drowning over net zero
The same law for everyone?
July 29, 2025
Australian citizens who go to Israel, serve with the IDF and then return home should be treated exactly the same as those Australian citizens who went to support Islamic State in Syria then returned home. We are all equal before the law. Aren't we?
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: Australia urged to investigate Australians in Israeli forces for Gaza war crimes
Our PM is beyond contempt
July 29, 2025
Anthony Albanese has been thoroughly bought by the pro-Israel lobby and aligns us with genocide by sticking with our good ally the US. The murders would have stopped long ago, but for the steady supply of US bombs. As for the hostages ... when has Albanese ever mentioned the thousands of Palestinians held without charge for years in Israeli prisons? Why hasn't Albanese noticed that, of released hostages, Israelis are far better cared for? What of Hamas, once promoted by Netanyahu? Hasn't Albanese looked at the alternative media that we are looking at? What possible threat could come from...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: Israeli Knesset hosts conference on plan to 'Occupy Gaza' and 'Relocate Gazans'
It started with the Nakba
July 28, 2025
Pearls and Irritations continues its good work in presenting humanitarian voices objecting to Israeli actions in Gaza. An even more through examination of current opposition sentiment in Israel itself can be found in a weekly round-up at Conflicts Forum. However, all these articles miss one crucial point. None of them anchor their interpretation of the current situation in Gaza in the Nakba. Israel came into being on the stolen land and destroyed the lives of the occupants of Palestine, the Palestinian people. They were evicted, killed when they objected, and the survivors were herded into enclaves, Gaza being the...
Hal Duell from Alice Springs
In response to: Message from the Editor
To counter the albatross of Gaza
July 28, 2025
The use of severe restrictions governing the release of medicine, food and water to the traumatised residents of Gaza continues unabated. Public reaction swings from horror in much of the world to seeming indifference in much of the West to outright glee in Israel. On Israel's northeast, it now controls all of the Golan Heights. This opens the road into Syria, and secures for Israel both water and, through Afek Oil and Gas, oil and gas deposits. These energy reserves are similar to the coveted undersea deposits located off Gaza. Israel seems to be set on expansion through...
Hal Duell from Alice Springs
In response to: On Jillian Segal’s report into combating antisemitism
Less taxes and less service
July 28, 2025
Recently the new leader of the Liberals was quoted as saying: “I’ve never met an Australian that wanted to pay more tax “ She might have said she has never: met a mine owner who would not take more for her/or his ore; met an employer who wanted to pay more wages; met an employee who didn’t want a pay rise; met a hospital that didn’t need mor funding; met an ambulance patient who liked ramping; met a bushfire/victim who didn’t want a quicker response from the government; or met a general/dmiral...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: BREAKING: Albo doesn’t yell at Xi — (part of) nation panics
The cat is out of the bag
July 28, 2025
Humans are enslaved due to the failure to recognise the fundamental role of the government and the private sector. The private sector has taken control of the government sector and can only be trusted to make a profit. Along the way the private sector has developed the ability to convince the voting public, and in turn our elected representatives, what we want, what we need and what can’t be done. By giving control of our telecommunications to the private sector, we lost control of all communications. By the continual controlled criticism of all things China and its undemocratic...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: When technology enslaves humans
Economic Reform Roundtable must listen to Henry
July 28, 2025
Thank you for publishing Ken Henry’s address to the National Press Club. It was a privilege to read it. Henry’s ability to explain how productivity and a sound economy depends on a healthy natural environment and a safe climate is unsurpassed. One sentence summed it up nicely: “Independent reviews confirm that the environmental impact assessment systems embedded in the [nature] laws are not fit-for-purpose. Of particular concern, they are incapable of supporting an economy in transition to net zero and they are undermining productivity.” It is pleasing to see that Henry has been invited to the Economic Reform Roundtable...
Ray Peck from Hawthorn
In response to: Our last, best chance – national environment laws that protect nature and power
All of a sudden…
July 28, 2025
It’s interesting what it takes politicians and the mainstream media to act. They don’t mind civilians trapped, suffocating in the rubble, they don’t mind limbs torn off by bombs, they don’t mind amputations performed without anaesthetic, they don’t mind cancer hospitals bombed and medical staff abducted, raped and tortured, but a child, skinny and starving, suddenly offends their sensibilities. Or for politicians, it is more like the mid term elections are coming up, their constituents are bristling or they’re now realising they have to cover their own complicity. For the mainstream media, it is more like Murdoch has...
Alyssa Aleksanian from Hazelbrook
In response to: The disgrace of deliberate starvation: Israel's war of hunger in Gaza
How will the Earth cope with a billion refugees?
July 28, 2025
Richard Heinberg cites Tim Lenton's book Future of the human climate niche that warns that 2 degrees C warming may result in a billion refugees. Later, Heinberg refers to the simple, though stark, reality that humanity faces climate change and resource depletion, and that living space is likely to become more constricted. We may reach 2 degrees warming by 2035. That is 10 years away. How on Earth are we to cope with a billion displaced humans in the next decade? Where will they all go? Surely, this is emerging as one of the great moral crises of our...
Jennifer Goldie from Cooma NSW
In response to: Let's (not) choose sides and fight
Clarifying what the word Semitic means
July 28, 2025
Robert, Palestinians are generally considered Semitic peoples. The term Semitic refers to a language family and a cultural group that includes various ancient and modern populations, including those who speak Arabic, Hebrew, and Aramaic. Palestinians primarily speak Arabic, which is a Semitic language, and their lineage is traced back to the region of the Levant, where many Semitic peoples have historically resided. While the term Semitic is primarily linguistic and cultural, it has also been used in racial and ethnic contexts. In this broader sense, Palestinians are also considered Semitic due to their historical and cultural connections to the...
Melody Kemp from Balmoral Brisbane
In response to: On Jillian Segal’s report into combating antisemitism
Francesca Albanese
July 28, 2025
Yes, the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize should go to Francesca Albanese. On 24 July this year, The World Beyond War movement awarded her the individual 2025 War Abolisher Award. At the award event, Hanieh Jodat began with these words: Today we come together not simply to present an award – but to bear witness: to courage, to truth, and to a voice that has never trembled, even when the world has demanded silence. and ended with: Francesca has become a map, a mirror, and a megaphone for the dispossessed and displaced. Francesca, your words have become lifelines....
Janet Grevillea from Lake Macquarie
In response to: Francesca Albanese’s bravery merits the Nobel prize
Genocide and Western values
July 28, 2025
No sentient moral and ethical being could rationally dissent from the view that the Israeli state is worse in its savagery than the Nazis, as it triumphantly flaunts its barbarity and arrogant criminality openly before the world as God's chosen people. That is widely recognised by the vast bulk of humanity. What is even more distressing is the active participation in, and evident support for, this vast atrocity by the overwhelming bulk of the leadership of the civilieed West. It has become a truly nonfunctional and iniquitous civilisation that deserves the contempt and detestation of that vast bulk of...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: The disgrace of deliberate starvation: Israel's war of hunger in Gaza
A REAL nomination for the Nobel-Kishore Mahubhani
July 25, 2025
Great quote in this article from a man I greatly admire for his integrity, intelligence, compassion and geo-political understanding. Mahubhani represents the best aspects of a universalism and inclusivity that is entirely absent from those who pose as the foreign policy elites of the dying west. Whilst we promote our western values ceaselessly around the planet, we fail almost universally to actually live up to those supposed values. We only apply them to the often fabricated atrocities attributed to the behaviour of those we look down upon as lesser civilisations, whilst blithely ignoring our far greater capacity and willingness to...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Defenders of rules-based order: not who you thought
Neo-cons know their world is dying
July 25, 2025
The western neo-cons shouting into the void reflect their futility and anger at the dying of their largely white Anglo-Saxon hegemony over the world. Intellectually unequipped to deal with the newly emerging multi-polar world that rightly sees them as infantile examples of humanity senselessly throwing their toys out of their cots, they fulminate furiously their prevarications and delusional mendacities. The problem for them is that the world has moved on past their conventional wisdoms, spread as they overwhelmingly are in the dying legacy media space that they thought would enable them to control the public mind on a permanent basis....
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: BREAKING: Albo doesn’t yell at Xi — (part of) nation panics
Antisemitism should apply to 400 million Semites
July 25, 2025
This is up to Robert's usual high standard, but even it never mentions the other 400 million semites and their rights. The cleverly constructed identification of antisemitism with only antijewism for over one hundred years enables us all to sympathise with only a tiny proportion of Semites, who are daily slaughtering many of the other Semites. This is no small matter as those other Semites, all 400 million of them, are the principal targets of the Jewish state. We in the West are prone to adopt simplistic notions that suit our prejudices and often use them to shape our view...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: On Jillian Segal’s report into combating antisemitism
A better use of our taxes
July 25, 2025
As far as the United Nations is concerned I have come to the conclusion that it is a very expensive retirement home for politicians and public servants - a reward for services rendered - and when it really counts ineffective. Sound a bit like parliaments in general. There have been too many examples of vetos by the major players based on other left/right alliances, unarmed UN peacekeeping forces standing helplessly by and climate inaction and ineffectiveness . The League of Nations reached its use-by date between the wars and the UN is long past its use-by date. The new body...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: defenders-of-rules-based-order-not-who-you-
What’s new about that
July 25, 2025
10+ years ago a report (Choice I think ) into supermarket pricing found that supermarket prices for the big two varied due to the affluence of the area in which they were located. While advertised specials (bait) were the same, general prices varied and not as you would expect - dog food, potato chips and soft drinks etc were dearer and more plentiful in the less affluent areas but overall the more affluent areas were the cheapest
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: the-new-pricing-scam-how-surveillance-prici
ANU change proposals
July 25, 2025
Is the ANU angling to become Canberra's best vocational training institution?
K M from Canberra
In response to: Change proposals risk relegating ANU to middle-ranking regional un
Imperilling ourselves in Service to the US
July 23, 2025
Every war-game the US has undertaken regarding their desire to invade China has resulted in US defeat. Pete Hegseth and Marco Rubio have both acknowledged that on several occasions. Making these never-never Subs subject to US control whenever they might just arrive won't affect that outcome in any way at all. The obvious observation that never appears to occur to our strategically illiterate politicians, is that we are talking about the invasion of the second largest population on the planet. Their technological competence vastly outmatches the US, Japan and Australia combined and would be defending their homeland. Whilst we would...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Australia and Japan cannot accept America’s war on China
Seeds of hope
July 23, 2025
Further to Eugene Doyle's recent article regarding French Resistance in WWII, and the heroes who oppose genocide, there are seeds of hope with several legal precedents in the United Kingdom. Back in 1996, the Ploughshare Four were found not guilty of criminal damage to a Hawk warplane bound for East Timor at the Warton aerodrome in Lancashire. Their actions were considered reasonable under the Genocide Act 1969 More recently in January 2017, the Reverend Dan Woodhouse, a Methodist minister in Leeds and Sam Walton, a Quaker, were arrested at the same site attempting to disarm warplanes bound for...
Bernard Corden from Spring Hill, Brisbane
In response to: Vive la resistance! The heroes who oppose genocide
A life largely unmourned
July 23, 2025
Stone was one of the last utterly committed Neo-Liberals to occupy the head of Treasury position. Maybe it was his interest in physics that taught him to think in binary terms and without any civilisational sense. Sufficient to say his intellectual arrogance, and conviction that only he perceived reality, were sufficient to make his rejection of a modern, relevant economics a hallmark of Treasury during his leadership. His Senatorial role simply re-enforced that intellectually reactionary persona.
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: From ‘Stone Age’ treasury boss to National Party Senator: John Stone 1929–2025
The Dodgy Brothers and AUKUS
July 23, 2025
Pithy and succinct is the best description of the article from Geoff. In admirably few words he summarises the geo-strategic infantilism of this dodgy-brothers deal, set up by the devious, imbecilic rodent Scott Morrison. Were this to proceed, which seems increasingly unlikely, the US seems intent on proving the accuracy of Kissinger's aphorism that being a friend of the US can be fatal. To continue with a deal with a disintegrating empire that has, for more than a century, shown itself as having no permanent friends or enemies, only interests, as Kissinger also said, reeks of political cowardice and strategic...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: AUKUS – an American problem
Is a BBC/ABC documentary on Iran war propaganda?
July 23, 2025
Beyond Vietnam, Martin Luther King’s strident anti-war address, is as relevant today as it was in 1967 because most of us are as disinclined to protest against government policy and conventional thinking as Americans were then. As King said: “Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government’s policy, especially in a time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one’s own bosom and in the surrounding world.” Beyond Vietnam revealed the history of America’s...
Susan Dirgham from Melbourne
In response to: Spare more than a thought for Iran’s protesters
Negotiate with Trump - you’ve got to be kidding
July 22, 2025
Apart from the worst Prime Minister we have ever had (and that’s saying something when T. Abbott had the job and A. Taylor wants the job) can anybody possibly think that negotiating anything with with D. Trump is a good idea?
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: aukus-an-american-problem
Higher echelon loyalty to Australia not the US
July 22, 2025
Congratulations to Jack Waterford for some very plain talk about the relationship with the Trump US. I quote: ” Indeed, if Australia did blab, there would be any number of Australian officials, regarding themselves as having a loyalty to the alliance over and above their loyalty to Australia, who would leak about it.” Can we read “US” for “alliance”? And if so, and if Jack’s assertion is true, don’t words like “undue foreign influence” or even in a few possible cases, “treason” come to mind? Do we need an oath of allegiance?
Geoff Taylor from Borlu
In response to: Trump’s negotiation position diminishes as Albo sits him out
Local responses to climate impacts misplaced
July 22, 2025
A focus on the marine crisis in South Australia as a matter of state versus national politics, wildly misconstrues the context and misapprehends the looming danger. Like the drought impacting Southeastern South Australia and the western half of Victoria, the dystopian-like conditions these events are characterised by are entirely consistent with all of the predictions for the extreme impacts of climate change. In Australia, the droughts and flooding rains of the past were, for all their harshness, part of a cycle our biological systems had long adapted to. These new extremities are unable to be responded to so, as we...
Patrick Hockey from Clunes, Vic
In response to: Environment: Forget 1.5 degrees C, even 2 degrees C, while forests and peat disa
Trump Governs by ventriloquist dummy
July 22, 2025
While I was disappointed that Albo didn’t cancel the AUKUS/5 ministers Morrison pact in the first weeks of his first team I have to admit that I’ve been impressed with his steady as she goes treatment of all things Trump. If he can keep a lid on any further US instalments, keeps playing the long game, perhaps buys some conventional subs from Japan, or France, or even China, as part of Trumps demands for increased defence spending, he could well out-last Trump or even the (not so) United States. As always with all politicians the polls rule. I’ve no doubt...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: trumps-negotiation-position-diminishes-as-a
Memo Wong: first, resurrect integrity
July 21, 2025
If Australia's “diplomatic, economic, strategic and military capabilities are all going in the same direction, should they be if one or more of those elements is deliberately going in the wrong direction? Marles has only ever shown the delight of the incompetent in being allowed to play with his superiors, going along with whatever they say. Hence our increasing military absorption into the US warmonger machine. Marles should be dumped. His replacement by someone even halfway more competent would be a definite improvement. Wong, on the other hand, is smart but seems to have left her integrity at...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: Time for Foreign Minister Wong to put her foot down
Less Security Dependence
July 21, 2025
Good article by Paddy Gourley in the July 19 P&I. With luck America will force Australia to finally adopt a more independent security posture and capability. They have voted for Trump, twice and the world is different even if many remain in denial. Surely we must avoid being dragged into another fruitless conflict following our Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq mark 2 experiences. We have to believe we can do it as do most other countries around the world. And the Europeans are now doing as NATO is being unilaterally changed. To achieve similar national security to what we now believe...
David Hind from North Sydney NSW 2060
In response to: Time for Foreign Minister Wong to put her foot down
It's time to become truly independent
July 21, 2025
John Menadue's excellent article sums it up very well. I'd just add that the US likes to parrot its commitment to democracy. Fact is it doesn't give a rats about democracy and never has. Not only with the numerous 'regime changes' Mr Menadue refers to but some specifics would include destroying Iranian democracy in 1953 by overthrowing their government (with the UK) for oil, egging on the Hungarians endlessly in 1956, promising them the world when they overthrew the Soviet puppet government, letting them rot. Numerous incursions into the affairs of South American countries and even in their own country,...
Wes Mason from Gisborne
In response to: Donald Trump and his minions may yet do us a favour by ending AUKUS
Michael McKinley’s moral perspective
July 21, 2025
McKinley brings a refreshing moral perspective to discussion of US & Zionist false narratives on Iran. I always like to read him in P&I. I am 100% pro-Iran. I recommend Prof Mohamed Marandi's regular analysis on YouTube. He says Iran is ready for another treacherous Israeli/US surprise attack and will obliterate Tel Aviv and Haifa with nonnuclear weapons if it comes. I believe him. This is effective deterrence.
Tony Kevin from Canberra
In response to: Military operations seen through Gauguin etc
Where do all the obsolete weapons go?
July 21, 2025
I’ve often wondered where some of the poorest people in the world get their weapons/ammunition from. I constantly see that they seem to get great pleasure from firing into the air rounds from automatic weapons. Firing 100 to 1000 per min? at $1 to $2 each? How do they pay for them? Then I saw the delivery of obsolete Australian tanks to the Ukraine. Never a shot fired in anger but out of date/obsolete, scrap value to some. What a great business model! Even better when you’ve got the president of the US spruking for you.
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: trump-wants-us-to-spend-a-bomb-on-defence-w
Defiant hope in the face of evil
July 21, 2025
A significant number of us are tired of cruel policies towards asylum-seekers and have been for a very long time. But like much else that is evil - incarceration of Indigenous children, supplying fighter plane parts to Israel, for example - it matters not what we think. As long as there is money to be made, or friends to appease, cruelty will continue. When Mammon is God, you will always get people who worship the Almighty Dollar doing whatever it takes to accumulate wealth for selfish, self-serving purposes. Call me a cynic if you like, but look around the world...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: 12 years on, are we not yet tired of cruel policies towards asylum-seekers?
More on the anti-semitism debate
July 21, 2025
In response to David Macilwain. This is interesting to me, as I recently was challenged by someone - a Trump supporter - telling me that the Moroccans had expelled the Jews, so I read up about that. I found that, on the contrary, they had been a valuable part of society, and still are. When Israel was first established many left to go there to be a part of a new exciting country, expecting to be a part of its development in the same way they were used to in Morocco, only to find they were discriminated against, with a...
Jo Kinnane from Waurn Ponds
In response to: A key point missing in the anti-semitism debate
Hamas are the brave Palestinian Resistance Force.
July 21, 2025
So very disappointing and disheartening to see Stephanie Dowrick supporting the lobbyist's line of 'Israel has the right to defend itself' and both sides-ism-argument. I reckon her article continues the line of dehumanisation of Hamas and casts a slur on the ONLY immediate protection and resistance available to and ELECTED by Palestine. She says. . .Since the blazingly stupid, cruel, terrifying actions of the corrupt Hamas... etc This sounds like the initial scene setting post 7th October set by the lies of the IDF, when western journalists fell over themselves to parrot ... do you condemn Hamas It has allowed...
Glenda Jones from Carlton 3053
In response to: Let’s combat antisemitism, not use it to dehumanise others - Part 1
Thank you to our letter-writers
July 21, 2025
As I read Paddy Gourley's ever so sensible and explicit advice to Minister Penny Wong, three things occurred to me. The first is that so many of us admire Penny Wong and puzzle over what seems to us like her semi-paralysis. I, and I am sure many others, would endorse Paddy's admonition that she seize the hour and get our government to move swiftly in the direction of diplomacy, reduced defence spending and peace-making. The second is that, in addition to appreciating P&I's many informed, articulate and passionate article-writers, I am so keen each day to read the...
Janet Grevillea from Lake Macquarie
In response to: Time for Foreign Minister Wong to put her foot down
The Omission
July 21, 2025
OMG iPhones are all made in China.
Con Karavas from South Australia
In response to: Round up the usual Chinese suspects
Tassie's health problem has been building a long time
July 18, 2025
The issues with the Tasmanian health system have been festering for many years. It was obvious from the first time I visited more than 30 years ago and it has become increasingly worse. Even then, retirees were invading our southern isle, as those from Sydney and Melbourne were able to buy substantial, well-located property, often for about half the amount they realised on the sale of their previous home, and so it was a no-brainer if you wanted to leave big city life, while also improving the state of your liquid assets. This trend has only continued, resulting...
Ian Ian De Landelles from Murrays Beach
In response to: The Tasmanian election on 19 July won’t fix the mess
Our democracy – taking the easy road to oblivion
July 18, 2025
Democracy gives a sense of empowerment. Voters feel free to live as they wish – albeit within reasonable limits. But democratic governments rarely take essential, unpopular steps. These days the power of the media seems so intense that governments bow to its will. Too many in the media disseminate misinformation to further proprietorial political goals. And barely-controlled lobbying, supported by substantial political donations, enables powerful interests to wield disproportionate influence over critical policy development. Daniel Andrews achieved some success in avoiding overbearing media influence when he was premier of Victoria, but our federal government, tied to three-year terms,...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills, Vic
In response to: Humanity is ‘risking catastrophe’: UN
Get capitalism under control first
July 18, 2025
Great article. The first step in solving all the problems is severing the ties between the capitalists and government. Recognising that the capitalists exist to make a profit/get rich; creating jobs is a by-product, a nuisance. As long as the parliamentary door is open to lobbyists and political donations, the balance will always be in favour of profit. The deportation of modern-day slaves from the US will be the downfall, one way or the other, of capitalist Trump. What we need is more regulation and auditing, not less. As long as the capitalists are complaining about government regulation...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: Even Ken Henry’s best ideas can’t fix a system addicted to growth
FARMS and Usans
July 18, 2025
The issues of Australia’s over-reliance on the United States of America are, thanks to this article and similar mentions, becoming more mainstream. There are two terms which may assist these changing Australia’s perceptions on this issue. The terms are FARMS (Foreign Aid Replacing Military Spending) and Usan (citizens of the United States of America). FARMS provides a quick way of identifying an area where military spending (commonly misnamed as defence) should be redirected. In this way, the foreign aid — where does it come from” question is answered — and it identifies the greatest evil in the world...
Ian Daniels from Brisbane
In response to: Trump wants us to spend a bomb on defence. We should think twice
Trade with China is an investment in our security
July 18, 2025
Jocelyn Chey notes that Foreign Minister Penny Wong has said publicly that a strong economic relationship with China, leading to stability and prosperity, is “an investment in our security”. In that vein, we must congratulate Prime Minister Albanese on his talks with China, particularly with respect to a possible massive bilateral agreement on the development of green steel. It is a huge economic opportunity for Australia which is the world’s number one producer of iron ore with over half the global exports. It is also an exciting — indeed, exhilarating — opportunity to help mitigate climate change because...
Jenny Goldie from Cooma NSW
In response to: Headline news: Australia and China
Australia's law must catch up with climate reality
July 18, 2025
It’s easy to feel disheartened by Justice Michael Wigley’s recent federal court decision that the Australian Government has no duty of care to protect Torres Strait Islanders from climate change. But as Liz Hicks, a lecturer in law at the University of Melbourne, points out: “It is a question of when, rather than if, law will adapt to deal with climate impacts. Much like a rising tide breaking against a seawall, the future impact of climate change on things that law already protects is too extreme for the law to resist.” Others agree. Dr Riona Moodley, lawyer and...
Ray Peck from Hawthorn
In response to: Federal Court rules Australian Government doesn’t have a duty of care to protect Torres Strait Islanders from climate change
Which Australians have held the US in high regard?
July 18, 2025
Apart from our politicians and our generals what percentage of Australians hold the US in high regard? In my lifetime, protest against the US has been a regular thing starting with “overpaid, over-sexed and over here and rumours of tensions in South Korea and Vietnam etc. It may be understandable for our politicians coveting a well-paid military lobbying position to top up their parliamentary pension. The same goes for our military who are always keen to be aligned with the US with them having the biggest and best weapons of mass destruction and our generals always wanting the...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: What Australians think of Trump and the US
Let's think at least three times instead!
July 17, 2025
Henry Kissinger once said, To be America's enemy is dangerous. To be its friend is fatal. That is one of the most accurate statements ever made about the US. All this increased defence spending is supposedly so that we can all go to sleep at night in fear and trembling of the imminent invasion by China. The question you have to ask is of the US and China, which is more dangerous to other countries? In the last 40 years, the US has been involved in dozens of armed conflicts with countries around the planet, while China has...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Trump wants us to spend a bomb on defence. We should think twice
A duty of care to Torres Strait Islanders
July 17, 2025
To whom we owe a duty of care is first and foremost a moral question. A duty of care represents an ethical obligation to consider the well-being of others and act in ways that avoid causing unnecessary suffering or harm, even in the absence of enforceable laws. It is a universal principle that crops up in the moral code of all peoples in various forms. In Kantian terms, it can be described as a moral imperative. The post-WWII war crimes were prosecuted applying that moral imperative – the defence that people were only following orders was not accepted. In...
John Tons from flinders university
In response to: Federal Court rules Australian Government doesn’t have a duty of care to protect Torres Strait Islanders from climate change
Australia is subsidising the dying US empire
July 17, 2025
With his usual precision, John identifies the pith and substance of the AUKUS fraud imposed upon us by the second-hand car salesman Scott Morrison. That redundant member of the Dodgy Brothers sought to wedge Labor by vastly indebting the Australian people to a US empire in rapid decline which continues its forlorn but dangerous, feckless and capricious attempts to remain relevant. He frankly didn't give a rat's ***e about the cost to ordinary Australians in lost healthcare, education, housing and public transport that would be needed over the next three decades to fund our satrapy to the US in...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Donald Trump and his minions may yet do us a favour in ending AUKUS
Follow the money
July 17, 2025
Is it anti-Catholic to criticise Italy? Is it anti-Anglican to criticise the UK? Is it anti-Islam to criticise Indonesia? No-one in their right mind would think so. So why the ridiculous postulate that it’s antisemitic to criticise Israel? We (and journalists please pay attention) need to rigorously question these fences erected to suppress free speech. It doesn’t take much digging to reveal the money, the power and the land grab at the heart of Israel’s assault on Gaza, and, by extension, the taboo imposed by politicians and the media in openly condemning the war crimes being committed there....
Alyssa Aleksanian from Hazelbrook
In response to: Systematic bias: how Western media reproduces the Israeli narrative
A key point missing in the antisemitism debate
July 17, 2025
Les Macdonald rightly observes that in the discussion of antisemitism it is not recognised that Palestinians are the true Semites, and that if we use the term then all Semitic peoples should be included. But astonishingly he fails to observe that Ashkenazi Jews are not semitic but almost uniformly Slavic in origin. This includes most Israeli leaders past and present, who have been from Poland, Ukraine and Belarus. It also includes Jillian Segal, born in South Africa, from parents of East European origin. In addition, speaking Hebrew does not make someone Semitic any more than it can make...
David Macilwain from Sandy Creek, NE Victoria
In response to: Antisemitism and abuse of power
Renewable meat
July 16, 2025
Jeffery Soar correctly asks What about the animals? The answer (omitted for concision) is that in 20-25 years most meat protein will be produced in cell culture – beef, lamb, chicken, pork, fish and even dairy products. The product is real meat – it just never went moo. It is very close to economic now. This will spare the world a vast amount of destructive agriculture, overgrazing, and needless cruelty. It is a 21st century solution to a 21st century problem. As to whether people will eat it, 70 years ago they never thought they would dress in...
Julian Cribb from Canberra, ACT
In response to: What about the animals?
Australia's criminal alliance
July 16, 2025
A majority of Americans voted for their nation to be run by criminals, conmen, child rapists, sexual abusers, billionaires, totalitarians, ignoramuses and racists. That's the kind of US they want. As Noel Turnbull succinctly shows, most Australians do not share the overt aims of the current US regime. Nor, if we asked them, would they share the values. Why, therefore, does the Albanese Government (or the LNP for that matter) still want an alliance with such degeneracy? As things stand, any alliance with the US constitutes a serious threat to Australian decency, fairness and democracy. Any political...
Julian Cribb from Canberra, ACT
In response to: What Australians think of Trump and the US
Yes, we need to move to a no-growth economy
July 16, 2025
David Shearman is right: if we are to avert dangerous climate change (3 degrees C warming), then we need to move to a no-growth economy. This will be a hard call in Australia, given growth is the dominant economic paradigm. Try telling it to Jim Chalmers, or most economic editors of the mainstream press! It is sacrilege. Nevertheless, Julian Cribb (Humanity is risking catastrophe, 16 July) brought to our attention the 2025 Global Risks Report. Of the four environmental risks, it cites natural resource shortages and biodiversity decline. This should be enough to indicate that we have reached...
Jenny Goldie from Cooma NSW
In response to: Australia cannot survive unless it switches to a no-growth economy
Let's hear more on deep ocean aquaculture
July 16, 2025
Julian Cribb cites a possible part-solution to the world's food crisis, namely, deep ocean aquaculture. Unlike coastal fish farms, including the contentious Tasmanian salmon farms, aquaculture in the deep ocean allows currents to remove all wastes, which in coastal waters have destroyed wild ecosystems and threatened species such as the Maugean skate in Macquarie Harbour. Deep ocean aquaculture would allow us to eat salmon without the overwhelming guilt that accompanies eating it now. It would help maintain global protein supplies which are at risk because land-based production of meat is exacerbating climate change through land-clearing and emissions from ruminants....
Jenny Goldie from Cooma NSW
In response to: Why the world needs renewable food
Systematic bias
July 16, 2025
While I can agree totally with the article on systematic Bias in Western media regarding Palestine and Ukraine, it constantly astonishes me that there are almost no further articles regarding just how pervasive media bias is. Whether on the complicated housing, economic or other crises, the role of industry or even whistleblowers etc the language is also biased. Let's be honest with ourselves and call all media propaganda. Some are more competent and effective than others; the best is not recognised for what it is. I shouldn't need to demonstrate by looking at the treatment of protesters, whether...
Mark Bulluss from Dalmeny
In response to: Systematic bias: how Western media reproduces the Israeli narrative
Segal's imports
July 15, 2025
Let's be clear. This antisemitism plan is nothing but importing Israel's state-sanctioned apartheid and making it law in Australia. Don't we have foreign interference laws? How are they supposed to work when the government of the day supports this interference? And let's not forget (publicised after this article) about how Segal won't dictate to her husband, but will dictate to millions of Australians just how incorrect they in their thinking. A pointless position given to someone who has done nothing but ruthlessly exploit it for the benefit of a foreign government. But since the Americans write...
Steve M from Brisbane, QLD
In response to: 'No' to Jillian Segal's antisemitism action plan
Neither antisemitic nor anti-Jewish
July 15, 2025
One of the biggest hurdles to making the case for an antisemitism bill, such as that proposed by Jillian Segal, is that for almost two years we have all seen, and continue to see daily, clear evidence of horrific and indefensible atrocities perpetrated by the IDF on residents in Gaza. This is producing an understandable revulsion in Australia, leading to protests in support of the Gazans and against the IDF, and by extension Israel. These protests are not antisemitic, nor are they anti-Jewish. But here I have to add, unless you, Jillian Segal, choose to make them so. Instead...
Hal Duell from Alice Springs
In response to: Antisemitism in Australia: a 'pathology in our society'
The correspondence has been retained, Margaret
July 15, 2025
Margaret Reynolds makes the point well. I note she says: “Volumes of unanswered correspondence from civil society — if these have been retained — could detail the efforts of so many Australians to alert the government to its responsibilities during such a devastating humanitarian crisis.” We know from FOI that as of a fortnight or so ago, as previous letters note, Penny Wong had received more than 52,000 pieces of correspondence on Palestine, and Anthony Albanese more than 65,000. Their FOI people are refusing to make them available, on practicability grounds even down to the detail. (ran a...
Geoff Taylor from Borlu
In response to: Australian parliamentarians urgently need lessons in international law
Renewable foods offer survival and peace
July 15, 2025
Julian Cribb’s article details the threat that our changing climate poses to global peace. His charts, showing forecast water stress and degraded soils, depict this intensifying crisis with devastating clarity. The issue underlying this crisis is our ever-growing population. Jenny Goldie has recently outlined this challenge; David Shearman too. Our ever-growing global population will experience increasing desperation to grow food in ever more depleted soils and with insufficient water. This will herald intensified exploitation – plans for future sustainability will be forgotten in the face of immediate needs. Cribb highlights the potential of renewable foods. Transitioning to these...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills, Vic
In response to: Why the world needs renewable food
Addressing the lies
July 15, 2025
When dealing with the words of the accused war criminal Netanyahu, it is necessary to recognise that nothing he says can be taken at face value. He has for instance argued publicly that the Jews were in the Levant first and that gives them prior rights to the land. He has suggested this is confirmed by scientific research. The truth, as always with him, is actually the reverse of what he asserts. There are numerous peer reviewed and widely accepted archaeological and genetic studies in recent years that confirm the genetic and cultural continuity of the Palestinian people with...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: NYT report says Netanyahu prolonged war on Gaza to stay in power
What could possibly go wrong?
July 15, 2025
Letter writer Brian Bycroft has raised a point often ignored when he says: For better or for worse, people of the Jewish faith have become, for some, almost a proxy for Israel. In these circumstances, people attacking a synagogue may bear no specific hatred of Jews, but see the synagogue as representing Israel. Definitely for worse I suggest. That the Star of David, a religious symbol, became the symbol on the national flag of a colonising, self-declared apartheid state, divided by ethnicity/religion, has absolutely muddied the waters. One would have thought the consequences of this choice to be foreseeable....
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: Rise in antisemitism
Not just Asia-Pacific confrontation
July 15, 2025
The US-China confrontation which Gareth Evans raises also takes place beyond our region, at least a confrontation in US eyes. Compare the report on a meeting just held in China, ,with a report in April by the head of the US Africom, especially the last section summing up the strategic competition being waged by the US against China in Africa, based on a skewed US view of China’s current role in that continent. At the international meeting in China, it was all about win-win co-operation, respect for different versions of government, and positive development for the benefit of all...
Geoff Taylor from Borlu
In response to: Abandoning our fears:how Australia should respond to US-China regional confrontation
The PM doesn’t reply to webmail on Palestine
July 15, 2025
Good on Margaret Beavis and her health profession colleagues. There has to some way to cut through the government’s support by inaction of the Palestine holocaust. However, that way clearly isn’t to write to the prime minister. I have just been informed, as a result of an FOI request for his responses to webmails to him on Palestine since October 2023, that no such responses exist. That is even though there are at least over 65,000 pieces of relevant correspondence to him. It was suggested that instead one should write to Penny Wong.
Geoff Taylor from Borlu
In response to: Gaza: There comes a time when silence is betrayal
What about the animals?
July 15, 2025
Good points and contributes to a body of writing about controlling population growth. A dimension overlooked is the impact of animal production – both farmed animals and wild catch. There are estimated to be 80 billion farmed animals across the world. Most grain production is used to feed farmed animals. We would have more food to feed people if grains were directly available for people and not via the inefficient process of converting into animal products. There are also the dimensions of climate impact and animal cruelty involved in consuming animal products in comparison to plant products.
Jeffrey Soar from Australia
In response to: Why the world needs renewable food
End the democracy-capitalism link
July 14, 2025
“The days of the world letting America live beyond its means are rapidly coming to an end.” What needs to come to an end is the close ties with the market and government. To think that running a business and running a country are the same thing is absolutely ridiculous. A business has an obligation to make a profit and a government has social obligations. That countries have excessive debt is due to excessive spending with private companies who can only be trusted to make a profit. They will not pay any more than they have to, and disregard...
BoB Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: Trump is single-handedly slaughtering America’s ‘exorbitant privilege’
Unis should focus on societal needs, not enrolments
July 14, 2025
One would hope that universities would include consideration of society’s needs in decisions about which disciplines they wanted to house, not a simple examination of enrolment numbers. If enrolments for mathematics and English courses declined at Macquarie University, Downton, Parkinson et al. would probably conclude that society no longer needs people who know the square root of zero or when it is legitimate to happily split an infinitive. An appropriate response to declining enrolment numbers (assuming that is what Macquarie University has experienced in sociology) would be to ask whether the knowledge and skills taught by that discipline...
Peter Sainsbury from Darling Point
In response to: APU Media Release: Macquarie University announces plans to axe Sociology
Less authoritarianism needed on vaccines
July 14, 2025
John Dwyer’s 9 July article on the epidemic of misinformation about the safety of vaccines omits in his bio his previous connections with Friends of Science in Medicine, an ultra-conservative organisation characterised by a narrow scientism. Dr Kerryn Phelps, formerly president of the Australian Medical Association, has been a strong critic of Dwyer’s approach. Phelps herself and her partner were both damaged by the COVID vaccines, and other highly qualified medical experts have questioned the mainstream story on COVID vaccines. For example, Wendy Hoy AO, Professor of Medicine at UQ, states in her foreword to a detailed 2022...
Murray May from Canberra
In response to: The disastrous consequences of an epidemic of misinformation about the safety of vaccines
The Voice against antisemitism
July 14, 2025
I seem to recall that one of the purported arguments against the Voice proposal was that one segment of Australian society would receive special treatment and that this inequality should therefore not be supported. I wonder how our Indigenous community are feeling right now. I wait with breathless anticipation for the Opposition to run the same argument this time around.
Alan Wilson from Adelaide
In response to: Antisemitism Plan sparks fierce debate over free speech, racism, and political agendas
Understanding growth
July 14, 2025
As a 73-year-old who left school at the end of year 11, I’ve never been understand the concept of continual profit/growth. Like compound interest, the profit/growth included the growth of the year before and in the end required dramatic change — eg expansion of output, reduction of staff etc — to be achieved and in the end it was not achievable. I have watched as multiple government institutions have been privatised, primarily to reduce taxation, only to find that eventually the services once provided had reduced and the government has had to step in for all the reasons...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: Australia cannot survive unless it switches to a no-growth economy
What is the point of Trump at all?
July 14, 2025
As the nightly news is flooded by Donald Trump, his irrelevance becomes more and more obvious. Putin, Netanyahu and Xi Jinping, the real major players, humour and ignore him and the next level of leaders have come to realise that that’s the way to handle him. It is becoming more and more obvious that the US Congress, the stock market and even his appointees are going about their business recognising that the king wears no clothes. I would go far as to suggest that he be given the Nobel Peace Prize that he covets (because Obama got...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: As Trump flip-flops on tariffs, what’s the point of negotiating at all?
First they came for...
July 14, 2025
Last night, on SBS News a feeler was cautiously put to air about settlers and the IDF increasing their activities agains Christians in Palestine. As the world turns a blind eye to the attacks on Palestinians that the IDF is “looking into“, the bombings, starvation and the purging of ethnic groups (anyone other than Israelis) from their Old Testament-given homeland gathers momentum with Trump's approval.
Bob Pearce from Adelaide sa
In response to: Kostakidis to go before court, after judiciary recognises anti-Zionism is not antisemitism
Government needs to bury antisemitism report
July 14, 2025
Greg Barns' analysis of the antisemitism envoy's report and recommendations outlines the dangerous implications of it for Australian society. This outcome was entirely foreseeable and it beggars belief the government succumbed to pressure from the pro-Israel lobby and the Murdoch cheer squad to establish this position and commission the report. Albanese now has to walk back on these recommendations while the usual suspects paint him as soft on antisemitism. Albanese's political problems pale in comparison with the real dangers these recommendations pose for Australian society. The erosion of the right to protest is already occurring in some states...
Philip Brennan from Darwin
In response to: Antisemitism envoy's report 'Trumpian'
Erasing our rights
July 14, 2025
It's bad enough that we have an antisemitism envoy at all when the nation made clear it didn't want a divisive Indigenous Voice to Parliament. Envoy Segal's proposed measures to deal with antisemitism should be dismissed from the start, based as they are on the IHRA definition of same. It is appalling that our government and universities have adopted that definition. That definition robs us of our rights to free speech and protest about actions of Israel and its government. No nation is immune to criticism. Israel is not an exception and it is not antisemitic to say,...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: Antisemitism envoy's report 'Trumpian'
Trumpian? No, McCarthyism
July 14, 2025
The Big Ride for Palestine raises between $20,000 to $30,000 per year for Palestinian charities e.g a kindergarten, an agricultural development project. The complexity and expense of transmitting the funds to the charities is beyond the capacity of such a small fund-raising project. They arranged for APHEDA – Union Aid Abroad to transmit the funds as it has well-established means to do so. APHEDA refused to act as a conduit for the funds if any of the participants expressed overt support for Boycott Divestment Sanctions or if any BDS logos appeared on the riders apparel. APHEDA made it...
John Curr from MANLY
In response to: Antisemitism envoy's report 'Trumpian'
When misplaced fears become phobias
July 14, 2025
Clear analysis from Professor Gareth Evans. Max gratitude. Not only would any contribution to a Taiwan battle be militarily insignificant, the response to our engagement by a riled Beijing could be effected without them sending any military force our way. We have near zero maritime capacity. We don't own or don't crew the trading vessels. They are foreign owned by entities we have no leverage with. But China does. China could bring Australian trade to a halt, by decree, without sending a single warship to sea. By the proverbial stroke of a pen they could announce an embargo:...
Dave Young from NQ
In response to: Abandoning our fears: how Australia should respond to US-China regional confront
All honour to the champion of real law and justice
July 14, 2025
I'm more than a little sick of hearing the mantra about Israel's right to self-defence. That right is restricted by proportionality, something that Israel's genocide goes far beyond in Palestine. What about an occupied territory's right to humane treatment and its land not being annexed? And their right to attempt to free themselves from their captors? When will we hear something, anything, about those rights? ... Rights that have only ever been abused, never honoured, by Israel in Palestine. Francesca Albanese has heroically and steadfastly stood up for the genuine rule of law... not that also sickening international...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: US sanctions UN expert Albanese over criticism of Israeli genocide