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Response to Binoy Kampmark's article

I enjoyed reading Binoy Kampmark's article. I thought it was spot on. Brave-sounding talk by Australian Big Men about Australian participation in another Coalition of the Willing, as Kampmark notes, Particularly, in Australia’s case, such a foolhardy promise shows that governments are willing to contemplate sending troops to conflicts they ill-understand and have no direct strategic value to them. As others have said, any such plan would need UN Security Council approval, which would be highly unlikely, given Russia's veto power in the UNSC. Unlike the USSR (which did not turn up to veto a proposal for UN participation...

Another original thought bubble

In the quest for my vote: the party that links the solar feed-in tariff to the wholesale price of electricity would go a long way to getting my vote and I don’t have solar panels. And it will have an effect on the solar panel take-up rate and the cost of living for the 30% of households with exisiting panels, although some may see it as middle class welfare

Peter Sainsbury's weekly articles

I don't know if a letter to the editor is the appropriate way to do it, but I couldn't see how else to contact you. I just wanted to let you know that I've been reading P&I for some time and I think Peter Sainsbury's weekly articles are extraordinarily good. Please pass on my thanks to the author.

To recover Australia’s sovereignty, vote strategic

If the aim is to have independents in government at any cost, then I would agree with the strategy of giving preferences to any and all independent candidates ahead of the major parties. However the aims and behaviours of some independents are heinous compared to the behaviour of the majors. Giving them a higher preference would be to accept that I'm OK if they get elected. I cannot see how that would be a good strategy.

Beazley a lackey of the US imperium

Paddy Gourley's excellent article shows Kim Beazley to be another lackey of the US imperium. Given his key role in Gillard agreeing to the rotation of US troops through the NT, I have often wondered if he is a CIA asset. But then I think they don't need to appoint him covertly as he is already on the payroll of the US war industry. No longer revered if he ever was.

Scratch one in the race whom to vote for

I'm yet to decide whom to vote for! I do know who I won't be voting for! I won’t be voting for the party that has no original policies, the party that only mimics the policies trumpeted out of the US. I will be voting for the party that puts Australia and Australians first and I’m still to decide on that.

Admiral Barrie and Australia's best interests

Admiral Barrie is no left-wing radical. He is a former chief of the Australian Navy. Many consider him the bad boy of Operation Sovereign Borders as he was the leader of that for a number of years. But he is a careful strategic thinker in Australia's interest and any politician should take note of what he is saying. He is not the only one saying it. I have seen and heard comments from others of his generation in the public service who are saying that Australia should move away quickly from our former relationship with the US and look...

Who is Australia?

“With, China, its values differ from ours and we may well feel that our own (imperfect) democracy is preferable to Chinese socialism.” Is it? Do the systems actually differ so much? It could be argued that Medicare is a socialist system, as are the PBS , NDIS, superannuation and even our tax system. How often do we hear: “Why should I contribute to someone else’s medical bills?“ “They should pay more tax“; They are bad economic managers, and will increase taxes“; “We support Medicare“. These are a source of constant conflict between the parties, a diversion, and these...

This article misses the obvious

The author has also missed the obvious: that the Australian and Chinese foreign ministers met at the G20 summit to clear the air. Also that the Chinese Ambassador to Australia, when interviewed by Channel 7 in Perth, said the flotilla circumnavigating Australia was for friendly purposes. I find the authors comment One of the most frustrating aspects of 'dealing' with China is the importance of what is not said very unfriendly. You don't deal with people. You converse with them. Also I have found from conversing with the Chinese, such as when I have had coffee with a...

Trump behind UN official’s death

I note the first two entries in this scroll. Why do writers keep saying it is Israel without including the US? Trump is clearly an accessory to the killing of the UN worker, and all the others in Palestine since the ceasefire. It has been clearly stated by Al Jazeera that Netanyahu got Trump’s nod. A nod from the US, supposedly a guarantor to the ceasefire, as are Egypt and Qatar. It is time the UN moved its headquarters from the US to neutral territory.

Homeless problem

The homeless problems discussed in this article are entirely manageable by the government (state or federal). One of the (federal?) ministers recently said unequivocally that the decision of where to spend money is a matter of priority. Money can, of course, only be spent once. Providing shelter to the homeless is obviously not a priority (as is bringing the unemployment benefits above the poverty level). Writing it like this, one would think, would raise outrage. What more can be important than providing shelter for those who cannot afford it but need it? But no, barely a comment is...

Rebuttal to Martin Hardie's claims

Martin Hardie may wish the best for Timor-Leste. But rather than address Dili’s lack of economic sustainability, he makes critical factual mistakes. Timor-Leste’s Petroleum Fund pays for most government spending and drives the economy. The $18.5 billion fund no longer receives oil revenues and has a finite life, as the 2024 budget statement states. Hardie claims: “Dogma casts the fund as a sacred idol, not to be touched for development, only preserved for some distant future.” He is wrong. Sustainable withdrawals are meant for budget expenditure and are a legislated requirement. This pays for development of the...

Australia-China relations: A question of trust

Jocelyn Chey’s comment on Australia-China relations published in P&I on 20 March is among the best I have seen on the subject. I found myself in agreement with every word, but would like to draw attention to two points specifically. One is the importance of trust in the relationship. Some specialists say trust does not matter in bilateral relations, what matters is interests and practicality. While this is quite rational in terms of a “realist” international relationship, the human element is, for me, what makes a relationship special. Personally, I look back on and value friendships and cultural exchanges....

Defence against who, what?

The first step in this is to identify who we need to defend our selves against and it’s not China The second step is to clarify if the US would rush to our aid if the others were to attack us. I doubt if the answers is an unqualified yes. The third step is to adjust our defence policy to suit the above. Australian interests first. Why not link the rent on all US bases to the equivalent of 100% tariffs on Australian goods going into the US and let the president bargain them down? He likes...

Australia officially the 52nd state of the US

Is anybody else thinking of the benefits of becoming the 52nd state of the US? As it stands, we have all the disadvantages and none of the benefits. Think of the saving on AUKUS alone. Then there are the tariffs, some actual Australian news on TV, Greg Norman can come home: the list is endless. If we are quick, we could get the 51st spot ahead of Canada.

ADF active on Israel’s side against Palestine

I refer to Les MacDonald’s article which notes the much-proclaimed IRBO, now in serious doubt in the US after Trump defied Judge Boasberg. Now our ADF as leader of Combined Task Force 153 is involved in Operation Hydranth to degrade the capabilities of the effective government of Yemen, the only country which is standing up to the mass murder and enforced starvation and infrastructure degradation in Southwest Palestine by the US and Israel. So we are now actively supporting Israel militarily by trying to ensure materiel reaches Israel via the Red Sea. Does CTF 153 command the USS aircraft...

Labor, hypocrisy and appeasement of genocide

Why do we have to keep on beating this drum? Today, (18 March) the reports are in of Israel's resumption of unrestrained blitzkrieg upon the Palestinian people. At least 200 have been blown to fragments. This is now such commonplace news that it doesn't even rank as headlines in the media. Just another article towards the front of the on-line opening page. Up there alongside a report of one (not recent) murder in Australia – a sad event certainly, but can we please have some sense of proportion? Penny Wong urges all parties' to respect the ceasefire. Only...

Not even Hollywood could write this script

There’s no doubting Trumpian America is an unstable democracy and an untrustworthy ally. Students of history would have by now picked up the similarities between other people who have come to power via democratic process and taken their nation down a disastrous path. Probably the most studied being Adolf Hitler. The division of Ukraine and the mooted annexation of Canada and Greenland ring warnings for their similarity to Stalin and Hitler dividing Poland, and Germany’s invasion of Austria and Czechoslovakia. The number of further parallels is eery. Often overlooked was that Germany’s industrial and commercial elite assumed they...

Liebler and Mossad

Concerning Susan Rutland’s attempt to diminish Isi Leibler’s role as an Israeli agent of influence that her biography of the late Australian Zionist leader documents: at p. 219 she writes concerning the late Australian Prime Minister, “…..Fraser knew he would always find him at home and would visit him on a Friday evening. They would review the situation in the course of drinks until late into the night, and, on occasion, Fraser would ask Isi to 'convey confidential information to Mossad'.” In her response to Manne, Rutland seems to deny this evidence of Liebler's actual relationship to Mossad.

The real murderers in Southwest Palestine

I note Stuart Rees' account of the meeting in Glebe. The MSM seem unable to say it today, but the US, which brokered the ceasefire in Southwest Palestine, is clearly an accessory to the renewed mass murder of civilians yesterday, despite no breach of the ceasefire terms by the government of Southwest Palestine. We shouldn’t be, sadly, surprised. Trump promised this renewed attack very recently and is fully backed by Hegseth and presumably Rubio.

ANZUS and NATO kaput: Australia keeps blinkers on

I almost agree with everything Jack Waterford says. My disagreement is with his view of America. The US hasn't changed. Trump has merely removed its thick veneer of caring about the rest of the world. When, as Waterford reminds us, in the one true test of ANZUS commitments — Indonesia’s invasion of Irian Jaya in 1963 — the US told Australia bluntly that it stood by Indonesia we chose to keep wearing blinkers rather than recognise the truth. As we still do. Yes, our friends and allies will wake up before our political leaders summon up their courage. They are...

What are the consequences of not acting on climate?

I don't know if my MP was one of those who was briefed on the contents of the Office of National Intelligence assessment of climate-related security risks and I won't ask, tempting her to break a confidence. But take a wild guess! On 19 February 2025, Kooyong MP Dr Monique Ryan held a Town Hall meeting, Climate change and Australian security: a conversation with Admiral Chris Barrie. The person in conversation with the retired admiral was the author of the article to which this letter is a response, David Spratt. To say it was eye-opening would be an understatement....

Moving beyond the ONI report towards adaptation

Thank you for David Spratt’s article. Eight days ago the French government, recognising the seeming inevitability of temperature rise, published a plan for adaptation, firstly to 2.7 degree C rise, then to 4 degree C. Here our government, supposedly committed to open government, doesn’t even publish the ONI risk analysis.

Democracy isn't just for when we like the outcome

Many thanks to Eugene Doyle for bringing the political events in Romania to my attention. I was unaware. And also for his accurate analysis of the problems of not just what's been happening there but the silence that has accompanied it across Europe and beyond. If we believe in democracy and the election was fair, we can't dump the results just because we don't like the outcome. Trump's actions before and after the 2020 election have emboldened others to reject election outcomes and bystanders to keep quiet. What happens to community members when they become parliamentarians? And even...

Welcome, Catriona

Welcome, Catriona and congratulations on your appointment. We, the loyal servants and readers of Pearls and Irritations, look forward to your strong, insightful and committed leadership of this invaluable journal. Especially one that re-arms us with the moral courage required if we are to tackle existential threats. Best of luck.

Handling a BRICS Indonesia and Trumpery

In Five-Minute Scroll 105, Adam Bandt talks sensibly of withdrawing from AUKUS. In China Daily, this is what Fajar Hirawan has to say about Indonesia, which straddles many of our sealanes, joining BRICS: “Maritime co-operation is another strategic dimension of Indonesia's BRICS membership. Indonesia's Global Maritime Fulcrum vision aligns with BRICS' interests in securing critical sea routes, enhancing trade efficiency and improving maritime security. Co-ordinated efforts between BRICS countries can enhance regional security in the 'Indo-Pacific' region, particularly in areas such as the South China Sea and the Malacca Strait, which are crucial to global trade.” That, taken...

Uninformed or uninterested ?

Why is our TV news made up of 25% US politics, 25% China bashing, 10% share prices, 15% sport, 10% prediction of the timing of the next election and a little bit of news? Increasingly I hear that people get their news from YouTube and other freedom of speech nutters. TV and news articles such as this showing the innovation and adaption by China are few and far between. China may not be a democracy, but show me a country that is. Australia isn’t and the US certainly isn’t a democracy. If the first weeks of the new...

Time to make polluters pay

Has anyone heard from Richard Hill? He last wrote after Cyclone Alfred rattled his windows, believing we’re in an escalating apocalyptic scenario. He’s not wrong – past greenhouse gas emissions linger for decades, global emissions keep rising, and land, air, and ocean temperatures hit record highs. Meanwhile, Trump emboldens conservative climate sceptics like Peter Dutton and Barnaby Joyce, who oppose emissions targets and deny human-induced climate change. Simultaneously, Chris Uhlmann, Peter Ridd, and Matt Canavan dismissed Alfred as just another cyclone. Ridd even claimed there’s no need to worry since houses are now better built. Deniers like these must...

AUKUS, Trump and independence

Senator David Shoebridge of the Greens shows in this essay that he is one of the few clear thinking federal parliamentarians brave enough to express their views on sensitive alliance matters . Together with John McCarthy recently, and Cameron Leckie and Jack Waterford elsewhere, Australia has resources now for a timely root and branch review of our strategic options. A within-government White Paper would be useless, the official system is too indoctrinated to the subservient ally status quo. We need independent expert outside thinking now. There has never been a better time, straight after our federal election.

Hear, hear, Jack Waterford

Jack Waterford gets it absolutely right (again) in his perspicacious observations about Australia and the US alliance. It is very concerning to me that Waterford's analyses are accessible to only a fraction of mainstream Australians compared with those who regularly receive their so-called information from Murdoch and his ilk. Well said, Jack, and thank you to Pearls and Irritations for regularly disseminating his work.

Australia needs to be transactional too

Who will answer the question, What are the benefits to Australia of hosting US military bases? I especially enjoyed the conciseness of the last paragraph of Michael Sullivan's article.

Facts are important in this debate

Michelle Berkon writes that to criticise and refute Zionism in terms that accurately reflect its nature as a settler colonial, supremacist, apartheid, genocidal project is simply fact. Criticism may contain facts, but criticism is not of itself fact. If the fact being referred to is the nature of Zionism, then it should be clear that it is an expressed opinion – not fact. Indeed, it's an opinion that paints any Zionist as inherently evil. As Berkon states further on, I unequivocally call for Zionism to be officially declared a racist ideology, for Zionist speech to be outlawed as hate...

Thanks, Damien

I’m the first to admit that my most-used descriptors for Trump — such as Entitled Egomaniacal Arsehole — lack much in the way of academic usefulness, so thank you, Damien, for clearing so much of the linguistic fog around commentary on the one- man threat to the to the US, the planet and its people. So few words from you to bring so much additional clarity to in such a vital public debate.

Ignoring the real issues

Attempting to classify the brand of lunacy or megalomania that besets Donald Trump may be great fun for academics and will undoubtedly yield several neologisms and a flood of learned articles. But it will not save humanity from the universal emergency now approaching at dreadful speed. A business-as-usual hothouse Earth combined with a toxic, collapsing environment, deepening scarcities of water, soil and food, fresh pandemics, overpopulation and the assault on civil society by the billionaire tech bro fraternity, are coming together to ensure civilisational collapse before 2050. Maybe worse. Against this, all Trump's antics, however bizarre are but...

Nonsense

All the China bashing is nonsense. Why would China want to invade anywhere for the resources when it is so much cheaper and efficient to send bulk carriers and legitimately buy the material?

Trump will not help the cause of peace

i thought this was generally an excellent article. However, I can't see Trump increasing peace in the world, as the author claimed. Trump stated that he intends to remove the Palestinian people from Gaza. Also, at the press conference after his meeting with Netanyahu,he responded to Netanyahu saying I will end the war by winning the war by promising to give Netanyahu billions of dollars worth of powerful bombs capable of massive destruction that even Biden had latterly refused to give him. To give Israel the means to annihilate the Palestinian people in Gaza is hardly conducive to...

Industrial research

This article demonstrates why R&D and industrial innovation have done so poorly in Australia, with investment in building the case for developing a dynamic innovatin system, economy and society – in which greater investment in R&D would make sense as the best we can come up with as a proposal for a way forward. It is not difficult to see where the problem lies. When I started my career as an engineer in the US, industrial research was synonymous with Bell Labs, IBM, Xerox, Dupont, Corning, Hewlett-Packard, Westinghouse, GE, and so on; the great inventions and innovations took place...

A case for AI control

AI: Will taking the emotion from the equation explain why prices rise but the comparative value remains the same? Why can some people regularly afford a new Rolls Royce why other people can only ever afford a second-hand Toyota? I doubt AI will have the compassion to fix it .

Geoff Watson blasts the surface

Geoff Watson's totally magnificent summation of the whole Nelson/armament manufacturers relationship in the ABC 4 Corners presentation on 10 March, was for me the quintessential moment of the whole program. I refer those who have not read it to do so: Dr. Nelson is, for sure his greatest asset. But the whole issue of the Australian War Memorial accepting and acknowledging donations from armament manufacturers is a truly rotten cancer on our society. What do the armament manufacturers gain from these substantial sums of money? Don't for a moment think there is no benefit they seek in so...

Woldring, do more homework. Teals aren't a party

Teals started as random strangers across Australia who saw Indi's success and dared to imagine a more engaged and effective MP representing them. Community independents weren't looking for a career in politics. But Liberal disdain for women encouraged, not thwarted, them. While current community independents are mostly women, they have so many male supporters that gender balance will likely arrive eventually. It's insulting to suggest community independents and their supporters think primarily only of their own area. Major drivers are climate change, integrity in government and a better deal for women. Hardly local. Kooyong supporters proudly say their...

Chinese naval codes

Peter Cronau raises the key question: Why wouldn’t Defence have been monitoring transmissions from the ships from when they were first off Queensland? Of course, the warning to aircraft would have been in plain language. But if you think of the cracking of the German Enigma code and of the Nazi high command code during WWII, how good is Defence at reading encrypted codes from other navies? After all, right now Russia, Iran and China are conducting joint naval exercises in the northwest Indian Ocean (yes, that’s the one that touches Australia for thousands of kilometres), according to Al...

Satire detection monitor has been disabled

May I suggest your satire detection equipment is not functioning? In compelling scorn and condemnation from the galleries of gullibility, this (Mr. Doyle's original) clinical exercise in tongue-in-cheek sarcasm renders a simultaneous take-down of Facebook as anything reliable for fact-based journalism. Whither scepticism – already a crime?

A game of pin the tail on the donkey

I cast my mind back over all those war movies that I have had the misfortune to have watched over my 73 years and I’m thinking of a remake of Hogans Heroes. From our present group of federal members, I have no hesitation in picking one for the role of Colonel Klink. Who is most suited for the uniform? What’s yours? I will leave you to think on Gomer Pyle and McHale's Navy.

The dangerous bliss of ignorance

Building knowledge and understanding, first and foremost of nature and ecology, has been a critical element in humanity’s development of farming, and of the villages, towns and cities — and ultimately civilisations — that subsequently evolved during the past 11,700 years of favourable, stable climate. Another factor in the spread of civilisation has been mankind’s innate aggression, and desire to control and conquer. This factor, as personified by Donald Trump, is now threatening to destroy a lot of the knowledge that we hold, and are building, about the environmental health of our planetary home, and about what we must...

In order to save democracy...

To paraphrase Peter Arnett's ...unnamed American major... after the battle of Bến Tre 1968 – It became necessary to destroy democracy to save it. Brute force in Romania and Georgia negated the popular will. In the EU, la Macaroon's outsmarting himself paralysed parliament in France. In Ireland, FF/FG, played musical chairs for the last six years and continue doing so after last year's election, preventing the party with a majority of voters from forming government. In the Netherlands, since 2023 the usual suspects have played the same game to keep out Geert Wilders. In February, Germany...

Why are we surprised about reporting on the caravan fiasco?

One would have thought, or expected, exactly what we got – that our mainstream media would report exactly as it did upon discovery of that caravan in Dural. It's a bit hard to break the habit of a century. When did anyone last read a positive article about any Arab, Middle-Eastern or otherwise, Muslim or otherwise, in the MSM? We still get scant reporting on how bad it is for the oppressed of Palestine. What P&I reader has learned more about the genocide in Palestine from the MSM than from P&I itself, Bisan on Instagram, Al Jazeera and the...

Only the names and faces have been changed

Everything old is new again. It may be true that “you can fool some of the people all the time and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time“ works well until you stop teaching history in schools and you control what little history is taught. The books are burning but ex-prime ministers live forever.

Whoosh??

Whoosh?? On the other hand, Dr Patience's response to Eugene Doyle is so totally deadpan that I can't completely discount the possibility that I, and no doubt many others, have been counter-whooshed. Hyperwhooshed, if you prefer. If so, well played, sir! But next time, could you give us just a slight clue, so that the more astute among us can pick it up? Unless, of course, there was one, but I was insufficiently astute to detect it. In which case, colour me embarrassed.

Who abandoned whom?

It’s not Australia that should be afraid by abandonment, it is Britain and the US. When push comes to shove, Australia has always been there for both countries, whereas they have never been there for Australia. Read the history of the fall of Singapore and the Burma rail and even The Rats of Tobruk. Australia was a convenient hiding place (overpaid, over-sexed, and over here) for the US until their war machine got going. Even when it came to building the bomb, Australia was there for both of them with design and testing. We have shown before what...

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