Letters to the Editor
Iran's legitimate nuclear energy interests
June 23, 2025
I find it quite astonishing that Andrew Thomas, a lecturer in Middle East Studies, repeats one of the most mendacious and persistent claims about Iran — that it has a nuclear weapons program — at this most dangerous of moments when the US and Israel have launched an unprovoked and totally illegal attack on several of Iran's nuclear installations. Not only does he repeat this false claim, thereby sharing responsibility for the escalating war, but he builds a story and case around regime change and the removal of Iran's Supreme leader Ali Khamenei, as if such a discussion were...
David Macilwain from Sandy Creek, NE Victoria
In response to: Regime change wouldn’t likely bring democracy to Iran. A more threatening force
Climate hypocrisy
June 20, 2025
Oil Change International is right – with our vast coal and gas exports, Australia is a petro-state. Our hypocrisy in pretending to be a climate leader via a bid to host COP31 in 2026 is disappointing. But the bigger frustration is that we could be an electro-state, and we're squandering that opportunity because our leaders keep pandering to the fossil fuel lobby. Until environment ministers stop approving new coal and gas projects, our credibility with Pacific nations and other global climate leaders will remain weak.
Amy Hiller from Kew
In response to: 'Cakes of coal, volumes of gas’: Australia accused of being climate wrecker as it seeks to host COP31
Zionists are antisemites
June 20, 2025
A provocative title. But one with an undeniable truth at its core. Whilst almost all Zionists are Jews, the converse is most definitely not the case. Given the inhumane, racist and genocidal actions of the imposed Jewish settler state since 1948, being a Zionist isn't something about which an empathetic and decent human being can be proud. Indeed, the Zionists are quick to brand any critic of Israel’s actions as antisemitic. This ensures that the messenger is shot before the message is read. Such criticism is then immediately dismissed as antisemitism, inherently racist, and so of no value....
Peter Hehir from Rozelle
In response to: Speaking out from within: Jewish voices confront Israeli aggression
Clarifying Zionism
June 20, 2025
The words from the Universities Australia definition of antisemitism: For most, but not all Jewish Australians, Zionism is a core part of their Jewish identity fail to acknowledge that many who define themselves as Zionist are horrified at what Israel has done to Palestinians. Instead, those words will be used to imply that they all support anything Netanyahu might decide to do. I have read many posts and articles by Jewish Australians that say they are Zionist because they support the existence of Israel, not because they support the slaughter of Palestinians. We should also remember the...
Alexander Donald from Cairns
In response to: Universities and the 'definition' of antisemitism
Progressive patriotism and vision
June 19, 2025
Regardless of the efficacy of Albanese's stated positions at the NPC, I agree with John Menadue. But Patrick Gourley noted something in his article about the weasel words and waffle that has now become a staple of political oratory on both sides of politics. While Dutton's speech and delivery was completely boring and moribund, the PM's speech was laced with this rubbish. I'm sick of hearing politicians and others talk about actively responding or actively listening. Sorry, but what the hell does that mean? Is it assuring the targeted audience that they are not inertly listening or inactively doing...
Wes Mason from Gisborne
In response to: The hazards of Albanese's 'progressive patriotism'
Prescient speech by Tulsi Gabbard
June 19, 2025
Sachs and Fares sound a timely warning. US director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, has just sounded a timely warning too. Nothing “bizarre” about it, as some media would have it. She said, “I recently visited Hiroshima in Japan and stood at the epicentre of a city that remains scarred by the unimaginable horror caused by a single nuclear bomb dropped in 1945, 80 years ago. Yet this one bomb that caused so much destruction in Hiroshima was tiny compared to today's nuclear bombs. As we stand here today closer to the brink of nuclear annihilation than ever...
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: Stop Netanyahu before he gets us all killed
Cometh the moment, cometh the man
June 19, 2025
Is it at all possible that Anthony Albanese is just the leader we need? The steady-as-we-go quiet achiever that we need. I hope so, because the alternative is unthinkable.
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: Goodbye to all that? Rethinking Australia’s alliance with Trump’s America
John Tons, it's not 'problems' that are wicked
June 19, 2025
Like “free markets” and “artificial intelligence”, problems themselves aren't living human beings, they can’t be “wicked”. That would be ministers and mandarins. Dr Kennedy got the top PM&C job by dueting with Dr Chalmers. Singing the Langton Crescent ballad of “net zero, budget repair, inflation fighting, million jobs, rising wages”, while delivering their million-plus migrants, carefree expansion in non-market jobs, and declining living standards for punters. A South Seas island with stable government, endless energy resources, and easily managed borders, ought to have low power prices, reasonably affordable housing, and negligible population-pressures. It amuses the elite to inflict...
Stephen Saunders from O'Connor
In response to: Addressing our wicked problems
WA and feds complicit in undermining net zero
June 19, 2025
Peter Sainsbury’s striking graph on gas use from 2013 to 2023 reveals a shocker: Western Australia consumes as much gas as Victoria, Queensland and NSW combined – despite having a much smaller population. How? Because 36% of WA’s gas is used by the gas industry itself just to produce LNG for export. As The Australia Institute notes, just running gas export terminals uses more gas than Australia’s entire manufacturing sector–— and over twice what households use. WA’s gas consumption and emissions have both soared over the decade, making it the biggest handbrake on Australia’s climate goals. It’s also stalling...
Ray Peck from Hawthorn
In response to: Environment: WA addicted to producing, burning and exporting gas
Oz government schizophrenia
June 19, 2025
Paul Keating is right to take to task the part of the federal government that this week wants to join the US in war with China. Last week, it seems we weren’t automatically joining the US in fighting China. After all, this week Trade Minister Don Farrell celebrated ChAFTA, the free trade agreement with China, at a 400-person event in Melbourne. I quote from China Daily: “Australia's Minister for Trade and Tourism, Don Farrell, praised ChAFTA for its 'substantial benefits for both Australia and China'. Since coming into force in December 2015, two-way trade has more...
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: Australia: A sovereign continent not for Marles to gift away
Going for less than a song
June 19, 2025
How stupid is Donald Trump? Greenland is closer, but it doesn't want to be taken over, annexed or bought... and it's got all that pesky ice and snow. Why isn't Trump turning his eyes to Australia? We've got all that Greenland has to offer without the hassle of all that freezing stuff. And our government is doing its darnedest to give us to to the US on a plate. Seems we can't wait to go to yet another unnecessary war. One thing we can be sure of though... it won't be Marles' or Albanese's children on the...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: Australia: A sovereign continent not for Marles to gift away
Defence, defence and more defence
June 19, 2025
I’ve no doubt that China considers plans for defence as part of its normal governance and every country should and would be irresponsible if it didn’t . It may be that Chinese media is beholden to the Chinese Government or more likely that Australian media covers Chinese politics with such bias. But any world champion fighter will tell you that you don’t broadcast your punches and, if you do, you will lose. Richard Marles is unsuitable as Australia’s defence minister because for a start he can’t help himself broadcasting our punches, he can’t keep his mouth shut. Anthony...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: australia-a-sovereign-continent-not-for-mar
Marles implies we should dump the US
June 18, 2025
Marle's admission we are essential to American military action against China is necessarily an admission that we are a primary pre-emptive target for China to defend itself as long as we have the US as an ally. Also that we can enforce stability in the region simply by kicking the US out of Australia, including Pine Gap.
Dave Bath from Horsham, Victoria
In response to: Australia: A sovereign continent not for Marles to gift away
Manufacturing consent
June 18, 2025
A worthwhile analysis, but to get a deeper understanding it needs to have some context. In that respect, I would recommend two ground-breaking books that set out very clearly that context. The first is Taking the Risk out of Democracy by a brilliant but now sadly deceased Australian academic Alex Carey and the other, even more detailed, is Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media by Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman. Both provide a compelling reason why faith in the MSM has been in constant decline for the last century: the concentration in control of that mass media...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW
In response to: Social media takes over as main source of news as trust falls
Trump is capitalism personified
June 17, 2025
As strange as it may seem, Donald Trump may be our saviour if we learn. Trump is capitalism personified. While the world watches on alarmed as the body count rises in Gaza, Trump sees it as an opportunity to build a hotel/resort, an opportunity to make a dollar for himself and his mates. He has shown that he cannot be trusted. Despite attempts to control freedom of information, regulators and the media there have enough examples of capitalistic corruption uncovered — GFC, wars, pharmaceuticals, banking royal commission, consultants and defence spending — for all to understand that the...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: nuclear-subs-taking-on-water/
Corporate law needs to factor in environmental damage
June 16, 2025
It is a mistake to allow corporations to be formed with a directive that their directors should only “act in the[ir] companies' best interests” (as the corporate law now does). Nearly all of Australia’s corporations make money without severely harming the environment. It’s time for Australia’s Parliament to impose an obligation on directors of all companies to make sure their company doesn’t cause severe harm. This can be achieved by adding just 11 words to their existing duty “to act in the best interests of the corporation. Those words are, “but not at the expense of severe damage to...
Robert Hinkley from Berry, NSW
In response to: The murky world of lobbying and the North West Shelf
Can we believe this man?
June 16, 2025
Stewart Sweeney’s article is extremely timely. Just look at the ABC news today: “Shortly after Israel's strikes on Friday, US President Donald Trump said: 'The US had nothing to do with the attack on Iran'. Nothing, that is, except it was forewarned, and that central to Israel's military capability is US funding, US hardware, US intelligence and US technology.” That highlights the seeming perfidy surrounding the US-Iran nuclear and sanctions talks. There is a a further cost to the lives of many innocent people, and the real threat of an expansion of the conflict, drawing in yet...
Geoff Taylor from Karratha
In response to: Australia’s dependence on the US does not end with Trump
Right to peaceful protest essential for democracy
June 16, 2025
John Menadue’s recommendations for a more robust, more transparent, more participative rather than heavily (allegedly) representative democracy are all sensible, reasonable and much needed. It’s a tragedy and shameful that we cannot rely on either of the major political parties to advance these reforms. In fact, we can be confident that the two major parties will conspire together to avoid most of them or render all but ineffective any that they are dragged kicking and screaming to legislate. Absent from John’s list, although it may be implied in his bill of rights, is enshrining in legislation the right...
Peter Sainsbury from Darling Point
In response to: PM Albanese promises to restore trust in democracy
Cut the apron strings
June 16, 2025
Australia is a remarkably safe country. I disagree. Australia was a remarkably safe country. But since then, the US has infiltrated the ADF and associated entities; We have signed up to handing over billions for subs we won't get and couldn't operate without the US if we did get them; We have increasing numbers of US military bases and facilities on our soil; We joined the US in patrols and military exercises by land and sea perilously close to China's borders, air and sea limits; and We have been painting a bigger and bigger...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: Perhaps Marles should ask the US why it is building up forces around China
Use words with care
June 16, 2025
Here’s a novel and innovative idea. Let’s stop talking about raising our defence spending, let’s stop talking about the threat from China, Russia and refugees. Let’s stop beating the drums of war in any sphere. Let’s replace words like fight, conquer and battle (eg fight against COVID, conquering inflation, battle against climate change) and start using our language to remember the power of diplomacy – based on co-operation and focused on our shared humanity. Let’s work with, co-operate on, and open dialogue about; let’s reach consensus, acknowledge our shared goals, and actually remind ourselves we are on a...
Alyssa Aleksanian from Hazelbrook
In response to: Why Australia needs a defence minister
The president has no clothes
June 16, 2025
The underlying truth barely mentioned in this article is the truth about Trump. For all his chest-beating and deal-making, world leaders see him for the joke he is. Putin and Netanyahu pay him lip service and continue to do as they please, as conquering whatever territory they choose knowing that the self-proclaimed king is naked. Meanwhile, the rest of the world leaders go about circumventing Trump's economic reforms, limiting their losses in the knowledge that it is the US that is suffering the most. Hopefully, Albanese is up to the job of putting Australia first. Mexico and Canada...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: US progressives say stop supporting 'rogue genocidal regime' as Israel wages illegal war on Iran
Harrowing climate impacts of Labor's decisions
June 13, 2025
Julian Cribb is right to point the finger at Albanese’s Labor for the human and environmental toll that approving vast carbon pollution from projects like the North West Shelf gas terminal will cause. From sea-level rise and extreme weather events, to water shortages from glacial melt and the rapid spread of vector-borne diseases, the predicted impact of Australia’s ongoing fossil fuel addiction is harrowing. And our unwillingness to seize the opportunity to become a powerful electro-state is frustrating. With a thumping majority and support from other progressive politicians, Albanese has a chance to create a real legacy of...
Amy Hiller from Kew
In response to: Go-ahead for new carbon bomb marks Australia as enemy of the region
Remember the way NZ was expelled from ANZUS?
June 13, 2025
Paul, you're quite right with most of what you say, but why not go on to suggest we need wise diplomats who will know how to tell the US that we will not only leave AUKUS, but will suspend our membership of ANZUS as long as the US continues down the Trump régime path of international demolition in the interests of real-estate deals? Of course, it would be a massive wrench for the prime minister and the member for Corio to face up to the shambles of ANZUS that resulted in 1986 when a previous Labor Government joined with...
Bruce Wearne from Ballarat Central
In response to: AUKUS: America saving us from ourselves
Honour for Morrison, dishonour for Australia
June 13, 2025
The awarding of Australia's highest honour to Scott Morrison is indeed an affront to decency. It utterly debases our entire awards system. Most of us, I imagine, fume in impotent rage and move on. But what can we say to those who were harmed — if not destroyed — by Robodebt? How can it be that their nation has no difficulty in honouring one of the chief architects of that vicious, illegal scheme, yet finds it impossible to bring its perpetrators to justice? It is one more kick in the guts from a nation which has repeatedly failed in...
Richard Barnes from Melbourne
In response to: Award for Morrison an insult to the truth
LULUCF and the Emperor’s new clothes
June 13, 2025
Emma Lovell and Jessica Allen show how Australia is hiding behind the notorious Australia clause in the 2005 Kyoto Protocol to claim substantial reductions in our carbon emissions with only little actual reduction from our major emitting industries. The Australia clause, which allows Australia to benefit from the Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry Sector (LULUCF) factor, was widely criticised when Australia insisted upon it. In targetting emissions reductions in comparison to those from exceptionally high-emission years, the Howard Government set an absurdly low target for actual emissions reduction. This may be well and good in terms of...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills, Vic
In response to: Australia’s latest emissions data shows a giant fossil fuel problem
AUKUS is a dud club
June 12, 2025
News is splashing around about Trump launching an inquiry into AUKUS to see if it meets his America First policy. Of course, it does. We have to pay the US $368 billion (US$239 billion) over three decades for being part of the AUKUS club and, according to the contract, they don’t have to give us anything. Zip. Of course, Trump will love this contract, all the while laughing at Australia in the back rooms of the White House for signing up to such a dud deal.
Alyssa Aleksanian from Hazelbrook
In response to: Hugh White and our post-American future
Colonial minds
June 12, 2025
The Australian Government's reliance on a special relationship with the US dating back to 1942 is only part of the story. Our so-called leaders have always looked to a great and powerful friend, from 1788 on. Our leaders have never outgrown the colonial mentality. They are apparently incapable of imagining an independent Australia. The old political parties are relics of the 19th and 20th centuries. We need to get them out of our Parliament entirely. The growing numbers of independents and progressives is a start in this process, though so far they have not stepped up to international affairs.
Geoff Davies from Braidwood NSW
In response to: Hugh White and our post-American future
Hugh White sees half the elephant
June 12, 2025
I very much welcome Henry Reynolds ‘ wise exegesis on Hugh White’s essay, which I now must read. I share White’s reported view that Australia must now declare clearly to US that we will not go to war against China as the US’ ally over Taiwan. Urgently overdue. But it goes further than this, into the need to reshape our whole foreign policy world. We must reclaim Australia’s full sovereignty in this rapidly emerging multipolar world. We must truly become a friend to all and an enemy to none . We must stop demonising Russia and being trapped in...
Tony Kevin from Canberra
In response to: Hugh White and our post-American future
Let's talk sea-level rise, shall we?
June 12, 2025
I am grateful to Julian Cribb for his focus on sea-level rise (The latest numbers indicate a rise of between 0.5 and 1.9 metres by 2100 under existing carbon emissions. This is about twice the previous estimate.) When you consider even just the implications for Australian cities, it is mind-boggling. Docklands in Melbourne, for instance, might be 12 metres above sea-level but storm surges on top of nearly two metre sea-level rise will make life unpleasant. In another letter, I mentioned the Mekong delta at 0.84 metres above current sea-level. There are huge implications for global food production....
Jenny Goldie from Cooma NSW
In response to: Go-ahead for new carbon bomb marks Australia as enemy of the regionMerchants of
Australia is at a departure point
June 11, 2025
Ghaith Krayem lays things out re Palestine quite correctly. The latest sanctions move from Penny Wong marks a real point of departure by us and some partner nations from the US path. What is the US path? Well, the position of Mike Huckabee, US ambassador to Israel, is spelt out very clearly, unless, which is possible I suppose, he has changed his views in eight years. This from The Guardian today: “The ambassador’s position has deep roots in his evangelical Christian beliefs and longstanding support for Israeli settlement expansion. During his 2008 presidential campaign, Huckabee said: 'There is...
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: Palestine and the gravitational politics of erasure
No thanks and you can have mine back
June 11, 2025
I thought the biggest insult of all time was the presentation of the Queen's/King's Birthday honour to the husband of a British monarch by Tony Abbott until the presentation of an award — any award — to Scott Morrison. All the volunteers who have fought fires, cleaned up after floods, delivered food aid, worked at meals on wheels, coached kids sport, fixed farmers' burnt fences, worked sausage sizzles etc etc should respond with a great big no thanks until we stop rewarding those who do their job and get paid very well for it. Get paid very well...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: Scott Morrrison – Australia's worst AO recipient
You're playing into Albanese's hands, Julian Cribb
June 11, 2025
Julian Cribb's carbon bomb drowning Pacific, though rallying emotionally, is music to Woodside Albanese's ears. He can carry on regardless with his immigration bomb drowning Australia. Over 2022-25, his 1.3 million (net) tally is an unbelievable five to six times the historical average, blowing Kevin Rudd's record out of the water. Hardly anyone has blinked. With our self-absorbed intelligentsia applauding, it's barely a political issue. Sussan Ley doesn't want to know. It follows, Albanese will inflict more of the same, over 2025-31.
Stephen Saunders from O'Connor
In response to: Go-ahead for new carbon bomb marks Australia as enemy of the region
Young Australians won't accept Labor hypocrisy
June 11, 2025
Still reeling from Murray Watt’s rushed approval of Woodside’s North West Shelf project, I wasn’t ready for Samantha Hepburn’s rundown of six more mega gas projects. The emissions from these alone would blow Australia’s net-zero-by-2050 pledge to pieces. As Hepburn notes, Labor’s review of environment laws is a chance to make climate impact central to approvals. But in 2024, Albanese ruled out a climate trigger. Still, with 25 Labor, 11 Greens and three independents backing net zero — and public anger over the NW Shelf decision — momentum may be building to revive it. While the PM’s second-term vision...
Ray Peck from Hawthorn, Vic
In response to: Six more giant gas projects could join Labor's latest carbon bomb
As we awake from the American dream...
June 11, 2025
Les MacDonald’s summary of the military capabilities of the two belligerent superpowers makes frightening reading; that’s if you can count America as a superpower at all. Trump and his cronies may be sitting on a superpower arsenal, but as the Trump dictatorship starts to unfurl its true colours, the support of the citizenry is being withdrawn. Moreover, presuming the superpower clash Trump is urging comes about, China will be bombing Taiwan, not Pearl Harbour. Japan’s savage rampage through Mongolia and China didn’t stir the isolationists in the 1930s doing so nicely out of the Lend/Lease program. It wasn’t till...
John Mosig from Kew, Victoria
In response to: US unlikely to be able to hold its own against China
War with China
June 10, 2025
Les McDonald makes a valid point in saying that the US no longer has the naval or merchant fleet strength to invade China. But I suggest that's not in the Pentagon's war plans. If they have a coherent thought on the matter, Washington's military leaders want to deter China from invading Taiwan, or punishing it if it does. That involves massive bombing from the air, as Curtis LeMay did in North Koreas in 1952-3. No land combat. The danger, of course, is that bombing could escalate to include the use by either side of nukes. Let us hope...
Richard Broinowski from Paddington
In response to: Les MacDonald's US unlikely to be able to hold its own against China
The two-state solution is a chimera
June 10, 2025
Once again the chimera of a two-state solution is raising its head in Palestine. And as usual, Israeli approval is deemed essential. The current configuration of the state of Israel has, or so is my understanding, neither a constitution nor declared national boundaries. The lack of a constitution may not be a problem since Israel already has diplomatic relations with many countries. The lack of declared national boundaries may be another matter. How can a state without boundaries cut away a portion of the land it occupies and claims and declare it a sovereign state belonging to another?...
Hal Duell from Alice Springs
In response to: Talk of a two-state solution may not go much further
It's commentary on the evidence, not conspiracy
June 10, 2025
Your correspondent has two problems: (i) the IHRA definition which falsely declares criticism of Israel is antisemitic, trashing the memory of the Holocaust (imagine if we couldn't criticise Germany because it's anti-Germanic) and (ii) the abundance of evidence of genocide that's available pretty much in real time. We see the dead bodies, the razed homes, farms and infrastructure, hear evidence from humanitarian aid workers, hear Israel's leaders, civilians, settlers urging the continuation of the slaughter. Most recently, aid getting in is negligible, roads to aid stations have been declared combat zones, aid stations have become IDF targets. Why...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: When critique sounds suspiciously like conspiracy
Childhood learnings
June 10, 2025
Oh! Patricia Edgar, how I hope that Mr Albanese has a skerrick of what he learnt as a child still in his brain to help him come to his senses now. He has a son. What on earth are he and his team thinking? That it's all too hard – not like the brave little engine. Thank you.
Judith Gamper from Kambah ACT 2902
In response to: Albanese should remember his childhood - and the rhymes he learnt
Cults never die
June 10, 2025
Further to Andrew Scott's recent article, the long march of neoliberalism has witnessed greed transform from a vice into a virtue and the accumulation of extraordinary wealth is now considered the pinnacle of human achievement. Following the global financial crisis, many neoliberal acolytes and disciples of laissez-faire economics admitted their entire intellectual edifice had collapsed. The corporate welfare solution of lucrative bailouts and quantitative easing was like feeding strawberries to a donkey and it merely transformed the protean elements of fascism into a dystopian paradigm of gangster capitalism. Its trajectory and devastating consequences are evident throughout most advanced...
Bernard Corden from Spring Hill Queensland
In response to: Pushing back with new urgency against neoliberalism
Challenging policy isn’t prejudice
June 10, 2025
Raising concerns about the weaponisation of antisemitism isn’t the same as denying that antisemitism exists. It’s about questioning how the term is sometimes used to shut down legitimate discussions about human rights and foreign policy. That doesn’t mean all criticism is fair or balanced, but it does mean we should be able to talk about these issues without being accused of discrimination. It’s also important to recognise that advocacy by Jewish groups, Palestinian groups, or anyone else, plays a role in shaping public debate. Highlighting the influence of lobbying, from any side, isn’t sinister. It’s part of understanding how...
Meg Schwarz from Macclesfield, Adelaide
In response to: When critique sounds suspiciously like conspiracy
Scott Morrrison – Australia's worst AO recipient
June 10, 2025
Scott Morrison wouldn't hold a hose while the East Coast burnt. He wasn't in a hurry to tackle COVID. He subsumed five federal portfolios without telling the ministers or the nation. He was widely despised for his style by his colleagues in the ABC Nemesis program. He now works for American Global Strategies, a lobbying outfit that promotes the AUKUS defence fiasco. He successfully launched a bottomless spend for Australi to reset national defence strategy based around a political wedge with the ALP. Scotty is now working for America's military industrial complex interests as a fully superannuated...
Donald Clayton from Bittern Victoria 3918
In response to: Let's rethink Australia's national security
Hegseth's immaturity
June 10, 2025
..[Pete] Hegseth was in a fighting mood. 'America is proud to be back in the Indo-Pacific – and we’re here to stay,' he stated ... Hegseth is too young to remember that the US fought an inglorious withdrawal to the 37th parallel in the Korean War, was defeated in the Vietnam War, was humiliated by the Taliban leading to a disastrous retreat from Afghanistan and has interfered in the politics of Iran, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Pakistan Taiwan, Korea and now India. Maybe we will soon hear the cry of the 1950s in the Caribbean – ...Yankee, go home!
Peter Gumley from Northern Rivers, NSW
In response to: The Hegseth directive: Australia spend more
Don’t mention it
June 10, 2025
A total of $917 billion was spent on the recent Elbit arms contract with Israel, $800 million (plus) handed over by Richard Marles earlier this year to the US for AUKUS (plus another $12 billion a year until we receive these hypothetical submarines). But flood victims, you can have a $800 one-off payment to clean out your house, buy new beds, furniture, redo your plumbing and feed yourself: $800 to put you and your family’s life back on track. We won’t contemplate an inquiry into the many insurance companies that were hoping to charge you a minimum $28,000...
Alyssa Aleksanian from Hazelbrook
In response to: Merchants of Death
When critique sounds suspiciously like conspiracy
June 6, 2025
John Menadue’s platform has become a staging ground for increasingly toxic screeds masquerading as foreign policy critique. Two recent pieces — Weaponisation of Antisemitism... and We Must Confound the Zionist Lobby— cross the line from criticism into crude conspiracy. The claim that antisemitism is “weaponised” to silence debate collapses under scrutiny. Israel is one of the most criticised nations on earth – by the UN, media, academics, and NGOs. If there is a Zionist conspiracy to suppress criticism, it’s doing a remarkably poor job. Every cause has its advocates, but only Jewish advocacy is routinely framed as shadowy...
Adam Slonim from St Kilda East
In response to: We Must Confound The Zionist Lobby
US won’t stop the murders of the hungry in Gaza
June 6, 2025
A great article from Ralph Nader, a man who ran four times to be US president himself. We watch on in utter disbelief as UN Ambassador to the UN Dorothy Shea votes against a ceasefire in Gaza, knowing that that means more mass murders by Israeli forces, because US Secretary of State Marco Rubio says he wants Hamas totally eliminated, so there is “not an ember”.
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: Media shortcomings in covering terrorist Netanyahu’s daily Gaza mass murders
Pre-1978 progress in China
June 6, 2025
Firstly, I should say that I agree with Jocelyn about the guidance that Sun Tzu's The Art of War could give to the West as it already does to China. A very good article that summarises well the issues confronting China and the region. One area that I think may need further exploration is the progress that China made prior to opening up. Whilst it is undoubtedly true that Mao made some massive mistakes, I think it is also important to recognise the successes of that period. In 1949, China's life expectancy was 35 years. That put it...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: China and the Art of War
One month in, the honeymoon is over
June 5, 2025
I could not agree more with this letter. Unfortunately, less than two weeks into the new government, we are finding out why so many people had difficulty deciding whom to vote for and left it until the last minute to choose the best of a bad bunch. The speed with which the WA gas contract was approved tells a story of how the WA votes were bought. With more to come, unfortunately. Sadly, the old saying in politics — You can’t make changes if you're not in government — only applies if you're prepared to do something once...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: marles-the-archetypal-sycophan
Gaslighting by Labor
June 5, 2025
The prime minister reportedly said while visiting South Australia, “the truth is that there are more extreme weather events, and they’re more intense now. Science told us that that was the case. The science has been proven, unfortunately, to be playing out. The thing is that climate change is real and we need to respond to it. And we need, I think, to respond to it across the board. That’s why my government has a comprehensive plan to deal with climate change. If the government believes this statement, then surely the Australian public are being subjected to gaslighting about...
Richard Ruffin from ADELAIDE
In response to: Time again for stewards to do a moral health check-up
Who does own shares?
June 5, 2025
Every night on our TV news, a disproportionate amount of time is given to the share market. Nothing could be more inflationary than the trading in shares that increase in worth without actually increasing the value of the company. That worth is being increased by chief executives and boards in the pursuit of their personal bonuses. There have been many crashes when the value of shares has fallen back more in line with the actual worth of the assets. Yet another example of where the rich get richer and the poor suffer no matter what as the...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: Not all Americans own shares
Wake up Ross – net-zero's a scam
June 5, 2025
Ross Gittins lathers in Indigenous outrage over the (highly staged) Woodside decision, correctly noting it's an absolute free-kick in tax/levy terms. What he's still not ready to countenance about this massively corrupt deal, what's completely beyond Michael Keating's article the day previous, is the unmentionable that net-zero itself is a historic scam, another glorious happy birthday for Australia's political classes to have a big lend of hapless voters. After three sainted decades of UN climate action, nearly a decade of their net zero, global population, emissions, CO2, temperatures keep rising. What a surprise! I mean, all they're...
Stephen Saunders from O'Connor, ACT
In response to: In one awful decision, Albanese has revealed his do-nothing plan
Albanese and Gaza: Decency or dog act?
June 5, 2025
Peter Rodgers asked: whether, by repeating the statement that [Israel] has used starvation as a weapon of war which Anthony Albanese, finally, has condemned as outrageous and completely unacceptable, will there be any more substance to this fulmination? As of 4 June, we have seen added to this generalised charge of inhumanity by the Zionist forces in Israel, the shooting of Palestinians at the GHD distribution post and a declaration by the IDF that Pa;estinians are not to use roads — such as they may be — to access the GHD distribution post. So, Albo, you have direct...
Richard Llewellyn from Colo Vale
In response to: Israel-Gaza: Has Albo finally found his backbone?
A response to Tess Nikitenko
June 5, 2025
I agree with Tess that the restrictions on accurate advertising, which would help potential clients in making wise choices of psychologists, are somewhat arcane and ridiculous. However, as a fellow trauma specialist with a Masters in Counselling and several other accompanying qualifications, when I developed a pamphlet of our services I was contacted by the Australian Psychological Society with an amazing draconian restriction. They informed me that as I was not qualified as a psychologist I was not permitted to use the term psychological anywhere in our pamphlet. To be clear, I was not saying that I or any...
Maggie Woodhead from Perth, WA
In response to: Why psychologists can’t clearly say what they’re trained to do.
Super and social benefits – why the inconsistency?
June 5, 2025
The superannuation changes proposed by Dr Jim Chalmers, if carried, would result in taxation on earnings of superannuation accounts holding over $3 million dollars in assets. The tax-transfer system in general is based on the household unit. The proposed changes would mean that a household with two superannuation accounts would be subject to a super account tax threshold of $6 million, whereas a household of two sharing one superannuation account would be subject to a threshold of $3 million. This is not how the welfare system, or the pension system, works. Centrelink is absolutely rigid about enforcing household...
Roz Averis from Adelaide, SA
In response to: Don't let rich old men tell you the planned super tax is terribly bad
Climate change is a human rights issue
June 4, 2025
Julian Cribb is right to frame the provisional approval of the North West Shelf Extension in human rights terms. The project will add another 4.3 billion tonnes of carbon emissions to the atmosphere in the next 45 years, substantially adding to global warming and consequent extreme weather events. This will have flow-on effects with respect to health and particularly food production, not least through seas flooding the major food producing deltas of the world. These include the Mekong delta in Vietnam which is a mere 84cms above current sea-level. If sea levels rise to between one and two metres...
Jenny Goldie from Cooma NSW
In response to: Merchants of Death
Well done
June 4, 2025
What excellent observations about Richard Marles. Our deputy PM appears to be more interested in the accoutrements of the job than in thinking clearly about issues of international security. Appearing to be well-dressed is no substitute for respresenting his country. Step in to help him, Albo. He certainly needs it.
Phil Huhhes from Heidelberg
In response to: Marles’ tough guy tosh hurts Australia
Woodside grips government policy
June 4, 2025
Murray Watt’s rapid, if preliminary, North West Shelf decision has apparently prioritised the short-term profits of global gas giants, and the jobs of 330 local employees, over securing the survival of rock art which has survived 60,000 years before Woodside’s arrival, and which was under active consideration for World Heritage listing. It also overrides the threats posed to climate, and to future generations, by the methane that this project will emit. These, both detrimental to the national interest, suggest undue influence on government decision-making from Woodside. The 1980s entrepreneur, John Spalvins, had a plaque saying If you’ve got...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills, Vic
In response to: Time again for stewards to do a moral health check-up
Blaming the wrong people
June 4, 2025
This article is true enough, but I cannot accept that the politicians are solely to blame. They (politicians) are elected and are beholden to the voters, at least in Australia. Politicians can try and educate the voter and make the best decisions for our future children, but the voters will rebel when they realise they are the ones who have to pay the price for a future that was not of their making with nothing to be gained from it. A child born today will be able to vote in the year 2043 and will be a...
Aale Hanse from Rverina
In response to: Merchants of death
Marles, the archetypal sycophant
June 4, 2025
It is hard for normal people to understand how Richard Marles, whose views would fit neatly into the right wing of the Liberal or National Parties, has not only found a home in Labor, but has risen to be our national deputy leader. This is a Labor Party with very little relationship to that of the Labor greats like Gough Whitlam and Paul Keating. Marles is a profoundly mediocre man masquerading as a leader and a statesman. He is neither of those things as his ardent prostration and servility before a religious bigot and inebriate like Pete Hegseth clearly...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Marles' tough guy tosh hurts Australia
Nasty theology
June 4, 2025
It seems to me that George Browning has gone far beyond a fair criticism of political Zionism (including Christian Zionism), and the violence and racism of the Israeli state and elements of the population, into what I can only call a sneering, generalised theological putdown of Jews, Judaism, and constant salience of Jewish memory of the ancient land across communities for centuries, including in Europe. There have been constant links across the centuries. And much more care should be taken into making assertions about Jewish belief in exclusivity, particularly in religious terms. It is highly disputed. All this in...
Larry Stillman from Melbourne
In response to: Christianity: the antithesis of Zionism
Another reason why we should get a divorce from the US
June 3, 2025
“Piketty’s conclusion is that capitalism, if left unchecked, generates a concentration of wealth among a tiny minority and this has manifested itself in America. Piketty further argues that merit or hard work, the standard justification for inequality, has little to do with what has been defined as the 'new gilded age'. It has more to do with the nature of capitalism itself in which capital precedes labor, and where profit maximisation becomes the rational basis for human interaction and economic relationships. Piketty critiques the very structure and foundation of capitalism itself.” I’ve just paid $300 to a medical specialist...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: The US dual economy: trending toward the periphery
Unis adopting IHRA definition of antisemitism
June 3, 2025
The decisions [to adopt the IHRA definition] were made from above as might be expected in a corporation by the board and the chief executive and just imposed from on high. But isn't this what our universities have become? With government funding cuts — who can forget in particular PM Morrison's contempt for education? — universities are now corporate-like entities. Free and rigorous thinking and debate are incompatible with reliance on donors who want specific outcomes. In this context, the government is just another donor, wanting to satisfy its lobbyists and donors. The pro-Israel, Israel can do no wrong,...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: Conflation and controversy over antisemitism definition
Antisemitism definition-2
June 3, 2025
Thank you Henry for drawing attention to the paradox inherent in the article you wrote. One of the starkest idiocies inherent in the panicked response of university administrators is the implicit invitation to consider Jewish students who oppose the developing genocide in Gaza as non-Jews thereby creatIng the notion that Jewish students demonstrating against the Netanyahu Government’s policy are somehow implicitly converted into “antisemites”! Reminds me of the excommunication of Baruch Spinoza from Jewish philosopher into pariah “non-Jew”, an interesting footnote being the Israeli rehabilitation of Spinoza as a great Jewish thinker by retrospectively reversing his banishment from...
Robert Richter from Victoria
In response to: Conflation and controversy over antisemitism definition
Antisemitism definition
June 3, 2025
I recently attended a performance of the “Armed Man” and for the first time noted the sequence of the music with a background montage of wars that have been fought all in the name of some God or other. The thing that struck me early in the performance was the Sanctus sanctifying the motive for war, the men sent to war believing in its sanctity and prepared to pay its price of sacrifice. Towards the end, the Benedictus offered neat rows of pure white crosses as a memorial to stupidity. Why do we persist in it?
Brian Robertson from Maleny
In response to: Conflation and controversy over antisemitism definition
Gaza – day of reckoning
June 3, 2025
My congratulations to Scott Burchill for his incisive and elegant condemnation of the monster that Zionist Israel has become, or has now exposed itself as being all along. There are different views on when Israel became such a nightmare state, and it really is not important now except to historians. The facts are that Zionist Israel now is the state that Burchill rightly condemns for its moral emptiness. It is unparalleled in modern history for its acts of cruelty, and that Israel has thereby lost its right to a future as a state. Retribution for its unparalleled cruelties awaits...
Tony Kevin from Canberra
In response to: Gaza – the day of reckoning is coming
New TAFE needed
June 3, 2025
Stewart Sweeny’s article should be microchipped and injected into the buttock (left or right) of every federal candidate before the next election. Tough times are coming, and we need to take measures that some will find tough. Eternal tinkering simply wastes national time, money and energy. Policy risks need coherent explanation, but first we must acknowledge their real-world existence, lest public policy debate continue its current path of infantile game playing and party bickering. TAFE is a prime example. Here we are amidst a world-wide technological/industrial/employment revolution of a magnitude not seen since the first coal-fired boiler began spitting...
Neil Hauxwell from Moe, Vic
In response to: Beyond the sensible centre
US incapable of winning a war against China
June 3, 2025
Great analysis covering the stupidity of strengthening an alliance with a country assisting and abetting Nazi regimes in Israel and Ukraine. Just one additional point about it. Even though we know the neoliberal crazies in the US want to invade China and to drag us and any other cretins willing to follow them in this enterprise, the fact is that such an invasion is an impossibility for the US. To do so, it needs a vast armada of specific kinds of merchant vessels to carry a vast army and tens of millions of tons of war supplies across the...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Chinese jet shoots down France’s best fighter. NZ and Australia should pay atten
Not Christian, just Caesar in vestments
June 3, 2025
David Rosen misses the most glaring point: these men were not Christian in any meaningful theological or ethical sense. Their project was never about embodying the teachings of Christ — humility, mercy, justice, care for the poor, love of enemy — but about seizing state power to enforce a rigid, patriarchal, nationalist ideology under the guise of religion. Jerry Falwell and his allies didn’t resurrect Christianity; they replaced it with a political identity masquerading as faith. What triumphed in the so-called culture wars wasn’t Christ – it was Caesar in vestments.
David O'Halloran from Hobart
In response to: Jerry Falwell and the Christian culture wars
Not all Americans own shares
June 3, 2025
A lot of articles appear in the media about the effect of tariffs on the stock market. But the majority of Americans don't own shares of any note. However the majority holds down jobs which are now under risk. GM and Ford are closing a number of manufacturing plants due to the effect of tariffs. The chief executive of Harley Davidson motorbikes has rebuked Trump. Amazon is said to be moving its headquarters overseas. Tesla and Musk have almost become blacklisted. Delivery and truck drivers are laid off due to lack of products being shipped to America. Travel and...
Ian Bowrey from Hamilton South
In response to: "China's calm response to US' impulsive tariffs gets noticed"
In the thrall of Israel
June 3, 2025
Henry Reynolds is a very clear thinker and spells out the case for Palestine's future. The chance of Australia's political elite — that small bunch that operates within Albanese's shadow — responding unequivocally in Palestine's favour is unlikely. It is in the thrall of Israel's international posturing. The American press shows many of their federal politicians are likewise beholden to that country and Murdoch is repeatedly reported to have connections of a sort. His media reporting does not suggest otherwise. All this leads to actions and reactions by Australian politicians who see themselves answerable to foreign influencers rather...
Ian Bowrey from Hamilton South
In response to: A defining moment in the future of Palestine
Faux ideology
June 3, 2025
Jenny Hocking is spot on with her denunciation of the National Party. That group lost its ideological bearings when it changed its name from the Country Party. Back in those days, the members looked like farmers and acted in their interests and of their communities. To expand their political influence, they rebadged themselves as Nationals and sought to gain seats in the urban areas. To avoid conflict with the Liberals, they worked out a more aligned Coalition. Instead of looking to the future and the need for water in their country areas, they support coal mines, gas and...
Ian Bowrey from Hamilton South
In response to: The Coalition splits – maybe not.
Gas export controls
June 3, 2025
One of the issues consistently raised with the approval for the North West Shelf extension is the impact of the use of the gas in the importing countries. This impact is generally ignored. What I would like to see is something akin to our position on the export of uranium which is contingent on the uranium only being used for certain purposes. If a broadly similar position was adopted for our gas exports, we should, for example, only export to countries that have a credible pathway to net zero by 2050 (IPCC endorsed?), and failure to adhere to the...
Brian Bycroft from Evans Head NSW
In response to: Green light for gas: North West Shelf gas plant cleared to run until 2070
Murray Watt's grasslands opportunity
June 3, 2025
On the same day Peter Sainsbury’s article on endangered grasslands appeared, a critically endangered Leadbeater’s Possum was spotted for the first time in Kosciuszko National Park. The Biodiversity Council says this rare sighting highlights the need to conserve large areas of high-quality habitat, even where key species haven’t been detected before. As Sainsbury points out, the biodiversity of the world’s grasslands supports over a billion people and stores a third of the world’s terrestrial carbon — second only to forests — playing a key role in mitigating climate change. Yet, grasslands face mounting threats. The World Resources Institute warns...
Ray Peck from Hawthorn
In response to: Freshwater systems and grasslands, forgotten nature and climate heroes
Climate truth
June 3, 2025
I'm beyond disappointment when it comes to your news bulletin. Time and time again, your reporters push false and misleading information. You trumpet that you endeavour to uncover and report the truth. Every time you publish an article on climate change you not only do the opposite of reporting the truth but you push the false narrative of the WEF and UN. That's where your articles border on crimes to news publishing. To continually print the weaponised narrative on climate change/crisis you do truth and humanity a disservice. If you have a investigative reporter that has a...
Sean Basham from Bunurong Country, Victoria
In response to: https://johnmenadue.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=8074bf8ebb1d809ea8da4b14a
The cost of the WA vote is plain for all to see
June 3, 2025
Following swift public approval of the North West Shelf extension, one can only assume that the decision was taken well before the election was called, when Labor was behind in the polls and needed the WA vote. It’s not just our environmental laws that need repairing, it’s our electoral laws, donations and truth in advertising. Having a large majority and a weak Opposition does not bode well for any real change or any real improvement. Fight on David, perhaps Albanese will come to realise that a large majority doesn’t come with a guaranteed third term.
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: the-north-west-shelf-isnt-just-another-gas-
It's time to end mainstreaming
June 3, 2025
It's time to admit that mainstreaming mental health patients into public hospitals has failed. Part of the reforms to mental health services in the 1990s and 2000s, mainstreaming was supposed to be a recognition that mental health patients deserved care and support in the general hospital stream. It was intended to break down stigma. What it has done is left patients untreated in emergency departments for too many hours. In 2012, while working as an agency nurse, I treated mental health patients in EDs. They then had often been there for two days. Now it's four days and beyond...
Jennifer Haines from Glossodia
In response to: The great mental health experiment.. and why it went so wrong
Good practice in defence procurement
June 3, 2025
If only Australia would crib the defence document produced by the US Congressional Research Service in March, ignoring though its belligerence towards China. Pages 41-5 especially. It notes that project cost blowouts are often the result of failure to do an analysis of alternatives, and a business case (neither done for AUKUS), but projects become “too big to fail”. Building subs in the US has a labour deficit due to the US economy’s switch from manufacturing, it says, and notes the depth of the resource and supply chain needed to build subs. The US has had to set up...
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: New Zealand cribbed Australian defence documents
Would you buy a used climate policy from him?
June 3, 2025
Peter Dutton and his backers portrayed the prime minister as weak. The Labor campaign portrayed him as an everyman: the slightly daggy dog lover. David Pocock has exposed the real Anthony Albanese; the sly dealmaker and faction manipulator who won the west for Labor by selling out generations of his fellow Australians to the interests of tax-shy fossil fuel corporations. Only anyone who still hangs up a Christmas stocking would believe the deal with Woodside and the Cook Government hadn’t been sealed before the voting booths opened. Pocock’s revelations also expose the straight out lies we’ve knowingly been...
John Mosig from Kew, Victoria
In response to: Labor's climate talk a lot of hot gas
Skullduggery vs science
May 30, 2025
Re Samantha Hepburn’s article: The Swiss village of Blatten was flattened by a collapsing glacier the day Murray Watt approved the North West Shelf gas project. The hanging glacier in Chile no longer hangs. The Manning River very recently reached its highest flood level ever. Whole villages in the Pacific face extinction by flooding. There have been terrible bushfires in the US, Portugal, Canada and Australia. Where are you coming from Mr Watt? In WA, we have just seen the science on pollution damage to the rock art from the existing gas plant deliberately manipulated by, or through,...
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: Green light for gas: Northwest Shelf gas plant cleared to run until 2070
Scrap DIV 296 super tax
May 30, 2025
Tell the government to scrap the DIV 296 Super legislation. Replace it with a new one that sets the limit of all TSB — Total Superannuation Balance — to a maximum of $3 million. Any excess must be taken out, or face a heavy penalty at personal tax rate of 49.5% + Medicare Levy. After all the Liberal Party, under John Howard and Peter Costello, legislated unlimited accumulations of super balances with the most generous concessions.
Alex Teoh from ACT
In response to: Don’t let rich old men tell you the planned super tax is terribly bad
Israel and Netanyahu are only partly to blame
May 30, 2025
I cannot at all understand the insistence of Western leaders and influencers in focusing so much blame on Israel and Netanyahu for the horror of Gaza and the plight of the Palestinian people … when they know damned well that this holocaust is being controlled by the Americans and can thus be stopped or moderated b them at any time. And of course, the statehood question can also be resolved for the Palestinians by a stroke of the American pen. Clearly, they prefer to dump it all on Israel (despite the effect this is having on the global...
Howard Debenham from Maroochydore, Queensland
In response to: Why Australia should recognise Palestinian statehood
Helping young people with mental ill-health
May 30, 2025
Most mental ill-health, whoever experiences it, is preventable. That means that it does not have to happen at all. It is not in most cases genetic or neurological in origin, but is instead caused by ambient determinants – anything from bullying to financial and employment distress to lack of hope in a desirable and sustainable future to childhood abuse and trauma, which in all of its foms accounts for an exceptionally high incidence of problems throughout life. None of this is usually considered, and prevention usually means waiting until somebody needs help, which isn't prevention at all, but at...
Stephen Lake from Moss Vale NSW
In response to: Three ways to support young people with mental ill-health
Incorrect designation
May 29, 2025
I would have thought that Ms Broinowski would ensure her facts were checked before commenting. Bezalel Smotrich is not the defence minister, but finance minister. Katz is the defence minister. Both equally vile. Ed: This has been corrected.
Ralph Renard from Melbourne
In response to: Palestinian Genocide
John L. Menadue… 90 years old… Australia's next PM
May 29, 2025
Our John Laurence Menadue might be 90 years old… but right now we need him as our prime minister, and our minister for defence and our ministers for at least half a dozen other ministries. Give him all those jobs. What an open-minded, intelligent, experienced and extremely well-educated Australian he is.
James Scammell from BOWDEN, ADELAIDE, SOUTH AUSTRALIA 5007
In response to: Our retreat from Asia has become a rout
Our retreat from Asia has become a rout
May 29, 2025
John Menadue has written correctly and persuasively about Australia's failure to engage with Asia, and about our failure to try to understand the region. The fact is that Asian studies, and, in particular, China studies, have gone backwards over the last two decades. He lists various attempts at progress, and there is no point in repeating them. But he is absolutely right to criticise the failure of these efforts and absolutely right that it is time to do something about it. The reasons for these multiple failures are complex. But I believe the main one is the deeply-rooted Sinophobia...
Colin Mackerras from Capalaba, Queensland
In response to: Our retreat from Asia has become a rout
Comment on John Menadue's article
May 29, 2025
This article is very well written. I think US influence is very pervasive and instituitionalised. In 2023, The Age published two separate reports stating the Oz government has approved several US generals and admirals and CIA operatives to be based here. I did not read of any public comments or reactions. Under their watchful eyes, any major policy changes in the interest of Oz will be very difficult. Most of our citizens have poor Asia literacy, let alone proficiency in Asian languages. I suggest changing our history syllabus (50%) to cover all the major civilisations and religions (Western/Christianity, Chinese,...
Cjeng Toh from Keysborough
In response to: Our retreat from Asia has become a rout
And not a word about West Papua
May 28, 2025
The Jakarta Post editorialises bravely by recalling how Indonesia's vibrant democratic tapestry has been woven of our blood and tears. But the weaving of that tapestry is still going on with the blood and tears of West Papua. We have a regional problem to face, namely how we define the TNI's ongoing West Papuan operations even while the 27 years is being celebrated, even as we are told an ominous revision of the TNI Law comes into force focusing upon the expansion of military operations other than war. Is the Jakarta Post expecting us, as regional friends, to...
Bruce Wearne from Ballarat Central
In response to: Indonesia remembers the coming of democracy, 27 years later
ACTU statement is just more words
May 28, 2025
In the 1930s, trade unions took a stand and banned the shipping of war materials to Japan. Those shipments stopped. We are still shipping war materials to Israel. Why not now, instead of the same weasel words like we support the tw0-state solution favoured by our government? And just about anybody, apart from the government of Israel which screams never at every opportunity? Have you just been too gutted by successive Liberal governments? Or you don't want to embarrass Albo? These religious maniacs need to be stopped, now!
Jerry Cartwright from Perth
In response to: ACTU statement on Gaza May 2025
Their silence is deafening
May 28, 2025
The recent federal election presented me with a most unwelcome and unpalatable less bad choice. Dutton's Coalition had little appeal, and Albanese's Labor not much more. But, being a life-long supporter of the left, I held my nose and voted for my local Labor candidate. I wish her, and the government of which she is a part, well. And then there is Palestine. By refusing to condemn Israel for the most recent ethnic cleansing in that blood-soaked land, Albanese and and his cabinet have made Australia, and by extension all Australians, complicit in what is happening over there....
Hal Duell from Alice Springs
In response to: Australia still doing little as the Gaza genocide gets worse
City v Country: Libs v Nats v Australia
May 27, 2025
Why but for the purpose of re-election should the Coalition ever have existed? The L/ NP has, in most instances, been in minority government. Generally there is a difference on many levels between Australians from the country and Australians from the city similar to the difference between weather in the country and climate in the city. The ongoing climate wars show no signs of abating. It is similar to the difference between the quarter-acre blocks and the farm fiefdom. Several recent election results are a classic example, with the LNP drifting or being driven to the Nats' views...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: Not many splashed in the short-lived teacup revolt
Double standards
May 27, 2025
I love your work, Henry Reynolds, and I agree with your assessment of the depraved injustice Palestinians have been subjected to. I do however, disagree with the sentence Moscow’s annexation of the Russian-speaking regions of Ukraine is an international outrage, because as a historian, surely one must be aware of what led to this situation. Hint, Henry, have you not heard of the US-initiated Maidan Coup, the subsequent discriminatory language and social service laws against Ukraine's ethnic Russian community, the refusal of the Russian-speaking Ukrainians to be overnight treated as second-class citizens and the subsequent eight-year siege of the...
Dieter Barkhoff from Box Hill, Victoria
In response to: A defining moment for the future of Palestine
FOI application for Gaza correspondence
May 27, 2025
Ghaith Krayem needs to be reassured that many non-Muslims support him, and incidentally, despite huge efforts to blur the picture, we are not anti-Jewish. But many of us are shocked that a state presumably founded to realise Jewish values in practice has gone far beyond a reasonable response to 7 October 2023. It seems as if Israel is now prepared to Hannibal the remaining hostages, who could have been freed under the early 2025 ceasefire, which it abrogated. I feel sure large numbers of people have written to the prime minister and foreign minister about the continuing massacre, but...
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: The cost of conscience in post-October 7 Australia
Coalition's predicament an opportunity to regroup?
May 27, 2025
Thanks Jack for the excellent insight. Andrew Hastie is likely to be a significant figure in the future for conservative leadership. He concedes that the future of the Liberal Party is not assured. The Nats are a bit more solid based, but are similarly affected by divergent views. The Independents didn't surge this month but they are a consolidated phenomenon, representing those who would vote Liberal or Nats if those parties had evolved. Is it time for a reformation of a progressive, modern New Liberal-National Party, leaving the Trumpist conservatives and SkyTV mob to regroup with the...
Dave Young from North Queensland
In response to: Not many splashed in the short-lived teacup revolt
Deforming education
May 26, 2025
Of course, education in Australia needs reform. For one thing, if public education funding matched the revenue that goes to private schools (fees plus government subsidies), private schools could not claim the superiority which they need to survive. Also, fewer parents would feel the need to pay for private education. Not only would this level the educational playing field, but it would have a downward effect on the cost of living. I mean, who needs to fork out an extra $5000 a year, per kid, for the same education? As Liz Kirkby used to say, Public schools should be...
Tom Orren from Wamberal
In response to: Ready for real education reform?
Antisemitism and genocide
May 26, 2025
Every politician (except The Greens) and every university chancellor and vice-chancellor should be compelled to read John Menadue's article Weaponisation of ‘antisemitism’ hides primitive savagery of Palestinian genocide every day before breakfast. They should also have to read Senator David Shoebridge's statement, this isn’t about a political stance – this is about when you see a genocide happening in real time on your phone and on your TV, when you see thousands of children being killed, when you see starvation being used as a weapon of war, you have this, I think, basic human responsibility to do everything you...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: Weaponisation of ‘antisemitism’ hides primitive savagery of Palestinian genocide
Don't forget demand in trying to fix housing
May 26, 2025
While not disagreeing with any of the five solutions to solving the housing crisis, I find it extraordinary that the issue of demand was not addressed. And yet, Australia has experienced significant demand in recent years because of very high population growth. About four-fifths has come from net overseas migration which even exceeded half a million in 2023. The other aspect of demand, natural increase, is still over 100,000 but decreasing gradually. The maths is simple really; divide your total population growth by 2.5 (average number of people per dwelling) and that's how many new homes you need that...
Jenny Goldie from Cooma NSW
In response to: Australia is forecast to fall 262,000 homes short of its housing target. We need bold action
At last...
May 26, 2025
Dear John, I want to thank you for your great piece in P&I. I, too, am horrified by Anthony Albanese's silence and was confused until I found out that his lawyer Leibler is head of the Zionist Federation of Australia. That itself should constitute an charge of undue influence and have him stand down. This is what I wrote. I was the first woman to sit on the National Asbestos Advisory Committee way back in the early 1980s. Interestingly, I could not get it published in the MSM. Take care.
Melody Kemp from Balmoral Brisbane
In response to: Weaponisation of anti Semitism..
Another world court system
May 26, 2025
I never thought I would say this but the world needs another level of courts wielding an appropriate level of punishment. We need a court system that rules on the inappropriate use of significant words and labels. In the case of the US, it would start with the misuse of the words united and democracy, two words that seldom apply to America. Other examples would be worldwide the misuse of the words antisemitism and holocaust. I would seek a ruling on the use of Christianity and quotes from Old Testament in the same sentence.
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: The US Supremes, not its critics, are trashing the rule of law
Response to Sustainability, yes, but also a Plan B
May 26, 2025
In response to Geoff Taylor's letter on nuclear energy and his argument that the spread of generation is limited, I feel one must remember Australia, for many decades, relied on centralised coal power. Personally, I feel nuclear is unjustified due to waste management and costs. However, I feel there needs to be some changes to accommodate our needs with renewable energy. I feel the transmission network could be installed underground at a level that allows normal farming above. The costs are higher, but I feel with greater use, the costs would drop. The advantage is that bushfire is less...
Doug Foskey from Tregeagle
In response to: Sustainability, yes, but also a Plan B
Long-contested histories in Middle East
May 26, 2025
Full credit to John Menadue for this article. I found another short one that helps explain the geopolitical history of the region. Its history is long and confusing and heavily bloodstained. This article offers some context: Philip C Almond, 'Was Jesus a Palestinian?', The Conversation, 22 November 2024.
Ian Bowrey from Hamilton South
In response to: weaponisation-of-antisemitism-hides-primiti
Harmony and goodwill are the only options
May 26, 2025
Alex Lo draws attention to the economic dilemma in which our region finds itself: trade imbalances with China and the belligerence of Beijing. The focus on trade growth presumes a growth in consumerism. However, he fails to mention the growth of environmental instability this, often superfluous, consumption is creating. The three basic economic needs, food, clothing and shelter, become impossible goals in the region, or globally for that matter, as an overheated atmosphere drives a degree of climate change humanity hasn’t faced since the end of the last glaciation. The balance of trade shuffling Lo calls for is...
John Mosig from Kew, Victoria
In response to: Closer ASEAN ties can help China counter US militarisation ofregion