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Keating's Banana Republic

Contrary to the comment piece by Neil O’Keefe, Treasurer Paul Keating’s 1986 Banana Republic comment in a radio interview with John Laws was not a calming statement designed to avoid panic in the markets. It was a foolish panic-stricken reaction to disturbing Balance of Payments (BoP) figures that showed a large increase in Australia’s current account deficit.  The comment caused the Australian dollar to immediately plunge by 3 cents. This came on top of a 1 cent fall in the dollar following the actual release of the BoP figures. The silly off-the-cuff remark required Prime Minister Bob Hawke,...

Cribb article deserves a Walkley award

I have long admired Julian Cribb's writing but this article deserves an award - a Walkley award no less. He conveys the urgency of the planetary crisis in a way that goes beyond merely stating the facts. We need such a wake-up call what with more and more climate change-charged extreme weather events and loss of habitat causing biodiversity to decline. The 1972 book Limits to Growth warned that civilisation would crash by the 2040s should we continue on the current path and we are certainly seeing the beginnings of such a collapse even now.

For whom the bell tolls

It's a statement we often see at the end of mini bios of P&I authors: The views expressed here are his own. But this time it struck me as poignant. Isn't this exactly what Mr Guppy's sad article was saying? The views are 'his', not shared by enough people in our vast country to be able to say these are our views. Certainly not shared by our LabLib parliamentary leaders, keeping in sweet with our US masters and being fêted by Israel. The few do what we can but, so far, we are powerless when up against our own...

Miller’s latest

The US’ Miller now says the US voted against a ceasefire because there are seven US citizens among the hostages, and the ceasefire wouldn’t cover hostages. Yet the ceasefire proposal last April would have released these seven Americans. Are they more valued now than they were then? Instead we have had a Bidenectomy to excise the Palestinians, backing an Israel which views them as a malignant cancer. All the while it has been winken (at the Israeli excesses while pretending the US has no control over them), Blinken (handwringing), and nod (to the deaths of over 150,000 Palestinians, and...

Silence is complicity -- Einstein

Every accusation a confession -- but also a distraction, incitement or form of silencing during genocide. P&I offers a beacon of truth, alongside other independent online journalists of principle, that informs and updates those who refuse to look away in the face of an illegal occupation, apartheid, genocide, ethnic cleansing and war crimes being committed by Israel in Gaza, the West Bank and now Lebanon. This daily testimony adds to the evidence needed to one day prosecute those responsible. The legacy media and ABC have failed us at every turn. As have our politicians. But perhaps Mr...

Naive and inaccurate

Andrew Podger’s article ‘Fairness and balance’ in P&I reporting on the Middle East (November 19) is naive and inaccurate. Full disclosure: I have written for P&I since November 2022; I operated as editor for six weeks between August and September this year. Podger thinks P&I is a news publication. It is not. Publisher John Menadue has clearly described it as a public policy journal. Yet he criticises P&I for not separating news from opinion – something which is the norm for news organisations. He expects P&I to follow the conventions of the Australian Press Council when it...

ABC Lies By Omission

3 Days ago the ABC reported that a Russian missile had struck a civilian building killing 10 people. What it failed to report was that the missile was sent off course by a Ukrainian AD missile. A friend who lives in Odessa, Helen Jones, tells me that people in Odessa are far more fearful of Ukrainian AD missiles that Russian ones, because the Russian missiles are aimed at military targets. The ABC report failed to mention anything about the Ukrainian missile.

Middle class ism the answer to our problem

As a Married at 19 Father at 20 retired 72 year old regular visitor to the local yacht cub I am well placed to see what the divide between the haves and the have nots looks like . I worked and watched with waves migrants worked long hours grew veggies at home and made good largely for their children. I believe the answer is middle classism and Government should promote it. The bigger the divide between the haves and the have nots the more the divide is noticed and exploited by both sides . The stronger the divide...

So obscene but I fear it will get worse

Has there ever been a more shameful time to be an Australian? Thanks to Morrison and Albanese, we have literally sold our sovereignty to the US in that we are paying for the facilities at their bases on our soil about which we will not be informed, let alone have a say. And now, thanks to Albanese, Wong and Dutton, what tattered shreds of moral fibre remained have completely disappeared with their parroting the US black is white lie about violent Israeli football fans in Amsterdam. In spite of the film and eye-witness evidence, for heaven's sake. Where...

Ending the Banality of Evil--Stand up and Question

Many of us have long suspected that opposition to the genocide against the Palestinians is more widespread than reported. But it is encouraging to see evidence of this opposition. Well done P&I. when the banality of evil was expressed in reporting the Adolf Eichmann trial, it was said that the root of this banality was a lack of questioning. Michael Davis PhD

Indexation not the main game

Dear John. Thank you for your kind comments. Indexation has been applied to student loan debts since 1989. Recent high inflation has drawn attention to indexation, both how it is calculated and when it is applied. High indexation has certainly an issue - I hope I didn’t give the impression that I was dismissing it entirely - but in my view it is not the main game, which is the size of the debts to which indexation is applied. Indexation is much less of an issue in more normal inflationary environments; you’re not the first person to...

"Fairness and balance" in reporting genocide?

I am shocked by Andrew Podger's invocation of the slogan Fair and Balanced - formerly used by Fox News, to criticise Pearls and Irritations' coverage of Israel's disproportionate response to Hamas' crimes of October 7th, 2023. No surprise of course, that the Press Council, on whose board Mr Podger has sat, and whose standards he recommends, is funded by News Corporation. Israel itself has ensured that reporting from the Middle East is neither fair nor balanced by killing more journalists reporting from Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon since October 7 2023, than have been killed since the...

Magnificent

John, Thank you for your simply magnificent response to Andrew Podger's total misconception of the momentous crimes being committed under Netanyahu's direction, and his fundamental ignorance of the role of an independent editor and commentator. Sincerely - Peter O'Keeffe

How serious is Mr. Podger about the integrity of journalism?

I found the recent contribution by Andrew Podger to P & I, Fairness and balance in P & I reporting on the Middle East—putting it as politely as I can—to be curious. Not so politely, I might have used the description ‘paternalistic’ or, worse, the piece as one expressing “mock concern’ from one on high. Podger expresses sympathy for an impoverished electronic outlet’s built-in obstacle when it comes to meeting the standards to which respectable journalists hold themselves. He stresses the need to keep facts separate from opinion and to be fair and balanced, that is, to represent the...

Why would Walter Silvester lie?

Dear John, I have a problem with a story that appeared in P & I on 03/11 by Val Noone entitled Fake news, Melbourne 1966: about Pallottine Priest Father Walter Silvester. My problem is this: my wife's first husband was a former Pallottine Priest and was a close friend of Silvester's. He says Silvester was reluctant to talk about his U-Boat experiences but he did in private conversations tell him the story about them, including his version of saving the Russian sailors. He believes strongly that Silvester would not have lied to him as a close friend and...

The ABC, death by a Thousand Cuts

A very necessary and timely analysis of why the ABC is becoming increasingly irrelevant to the major policy debates within Australia. In pursuit of a small target strategy to avoid further cuts and interference in content production by ultra-sensitive governments it is achieving what those governments wanted: acquiescence and collaboration!!!

Elect them and they will put up taxes manta

I often watch foreign movies and marvel at the infrastructure in other countries and marvel at how they can build it and we can’t. How we once did but now can’t. The standard answer is always we are a large country with a small population, we can’t build fast rail but we did build rail to link the capital cities all the way to Perth. We did build Telecommunications infrastructure to link the capital cites and Australia to the world. We did build Roads now a private company builds Toll roads and makes monstrous profits collecting tolls. The...

Israel must be right, always

Andrew Podger's article proves the overwhelming success of the Israeli PR machine. The MSM offers no balance about the Middle East conflict - all we hear is October 7, October 7, October 7. John Menadue's response says it all really - if you need to know only Israel's side of the conflict (and amazingly that of most West countries including our own) stick with the Israeli hasbara, the ABC, Murdoch and 9. If you want to know what is actually happening stick with P & I.

Australia should encourage Taiwan to reunite with China peacefully

I would suggest most Australian Chinese consider Taiwan as part of China and that a reunification of Taiwan with China is inevitable. The reunification can be peaceful or forced, but the Chinese will not kill the Chinese (Taiwanese). Australia should encourage Taiwan to reunite with China peacefully instead of provoking Taiwan to declare independence unilaterally. Australians like to consider Asian nations as enemies, first Indonesia, then Japan, and now China. Asian nations are on the rise; they are more powerful and will be more assertive. None of them express any desire to be enemy of Australia....

The State of Palestine

If we can define Palestine as historic Palestine, or all the land south of Lebanon, north of Egypt and between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, then, yes, a State of Palestine is the best idea. This new entity would be based on one adult/one vote, full equality before the law and the right of return granted to all those displaced during and since the original Nakba. Any plan to split, or to keep split, historic Palestine (this bit for me, that bit for you) is as doomed to eventual failure as is the current arraignment.

Many were prepared to arm themselves

Admittedly, I'm of the political left and still maintain the rage I felt when Whitlam was illegally removed from governing Australia. I call it The Dismissal, yet have always considered it a coup. Whitlam had faults. After all he was a man. He and his government also made some mistakes that his devotees frowned at BUT Whitlam was a statesman and carried out reforms that were almost revolutionary. He was a threat to the US and UK and he took most things in his gigantic stride. When he made his monumental speech, there were thousands of Australians -...

They don’t care

Geoff Davies reminds us of the contempt with which the fossil fuel industry treats the planet, and its residents. Add the new administration in the USA to those fossil fuel magnates and the full catastrophe is revealed. Trump’s pick for Energy secretary Wright is critical of clean energy “liberal and left wing groups” for their “top down approach”. He happens to have interests in Australia’s Beetaloo Basin. It is hard to see how Wright’s company Liberty Energy, backer of Empire Energy, in partnership with Tamboran, is not the exemplar of a “top down approach”. They received $28.7 million in ‘grants’...

Fairness and Balance

Dear Editor, I read the recent article by Andrew Podger, “Fairness and balance in P&I reporting on the Middle East” and John Menadue’s response with keen interest (see: https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/fairness-and-balance-in-pi-reporting-on-the-middle-east/) . It provides a civil but acute exchange, which immediately made me recall Edgar Snow, the remarkable American author of the best-seller, “Red Star Over China”, first published in 1937. Snow was regularly criticized for lack of balance in his reporting on the rise of fascism, which prompted this reported response: “In this international cataclysm brought on by fascists it is no more possible for any people...

Tomorrow never comes

Ask, in Spain, when a job will be done, and you will be told ‘manana’ – meaning tomorrow. Ask again the next day: same answer. Tomorrow never comes. Manana is clearly the mantra for our governments when asked about when they’ll tackle our climate crisis effectively. They might take modest steps to take the heat out of environmental protests, but then they let the issue slip. Grasping the climate nettle might have been pretty straightforward thirty years or more ago, when the crisis now unfolding before our eyes was predicted by so many environmental scientists; but it would have...

Australia must be bold on climate

Geoff Davies' basic point is that the big fossil fuel corporations in Australia will do anything to protect and increase shareholder return including murder. His solutions are most interesting, but I'm adding some practical measures. At the current UN COP29 on climate, our Australian team must be bold and strong for ending both our fossil fuel subsidies and exports (via punishing levies and incentives for renewables); plus increasing rich countries' funding for clean energy in poor countries. Back home, during the next few pre-election months, the federal government must then also develop a bold, strong mandate by adding...

Indexation the killer

For context, here is a tweet I wrote on November 3: My 27yo daughter's #HECS debt is now about 20% greater than when she finished her bachelor's degree at UTS, and she has been making payments on it since 2020 — so quite obviously is battling just to keep up, let alone get on top of it. #auspol Damian Coburn's excellent contribution on the government debt load our children carry did not specifically mention the indexation of the debt to CPI rises, but my daughter is adamant that they are the killer. Was indexation always in place?...

Protecting the powerful

We have seen instance after instance of the government protecting the powerful and hand-wringing (if lucky) over the powerless. Can someone explain the latest mind-exploding mystery to me as to why it proposes not to publish the sealed chapter from the Robodebt Royal Commission believed to have referred six public servants for criminal or civil prosecution (essentially quashing any further proceedings against anyone responsible for the unlawful scheme where people had died), yet refused to drop criminal charges against Richard Boyle who was able to reveal government misconduct (thus protecting the government and the public)?

Just who are the elites?

Let’s be clear, the ‘elites’ which the right is in the habit of conjuring up as the root of our problems are exemplified by the plutocrat cabal attending Trump’s after party, including Gina Rinehart, Elon Musk and crypto currency hopefuls. They are the moguls who direct from their boardrooms the trillion dollar global arms market. The fossil fuel barons, such as Elnur Soltanov, Chief Executive of Azerbaijan’s COP29, who hawk their wares even from inside the COP29 energy forum. They are the CEOs of fossil fuel companies whose main job is to protect their interests and keep profits flowing to...

The Australian cringe

The cultural cringe that forced so many of our artists half a century ago to head to both the UK and the US in order to demonstrate their talent, and have it first accepted by those beyond our shores, is at the heart of the current 'thinking' that drives our defence policy. The mindset that we just aren't good enough is alive and well. There isn't any justifiable reason to continue to hang on to America's apron strings. We are a nation in our own right. Our national security would be far better served if we were to maintain...

Probing our ignorance

Thank you Paul for your perceptive reading of such perceptive polling which requires us now to go deeper to find the right questions to probe how the dissenting sentiment identified by the Herald Resolve poll, for all its virtue, ignores how we are already inked in to the major military dust-up in which we don't want to be involved! IOW: thanks for reiterating this point but now we set ourselves to plumb why our Commonwealth has to deal with our own persistently deep and ongoing political ignorance about our own fearful and precarious place in the South West Pacific....

China Relations- Follow the Money

In reviewing various countries relation with China in many countries and states there is a clear tension between politicians and the business community. The United States is a prime example. If one believed the pronouncements of government and the mainstream media, relations are so poor that war is just around the corner if not imminent. This is borne out by the record profits of US defence contractors. One might also conclude that the Chinese economy is on the verge of collapse. The reality is very different. Recent trade figures published by CGTN showed trade values in the first ten months...

It's time to re-read Gore Vidal's Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace

Dear editor, I was very surprised by the election result in the US, like everybody else I know. But then it started to make a kind of sense. There are a whole lot of people out there who are angry and resentful. They are angry at the US government, and have had enough very negative dealings with various government agencies to start reiterating Trump's rhetoric about the 'deep state'. They don't see the educated and professional middle classes coming to their aid, so all of Kamala's promises about being a president 'for everybody' would have been met with disbelief...

Australia must choose a safe climate future

I appreciated David O’Halloran’s humour and insights into the deeply disturbing outcome of the US election. In particular, I agree that it is imperative that Australia, a nation ravaged by the impacts of climate change, commits to leading on climate solutions. Our renewable energy superpower potential has long been touted. Perhaps this moment offers a renewed opportunity for us to exemplify ourselves on the global stage and, in so doing, build our own more self-reliant future. It is up to the Australian public to heed the warning the US offers and to elect representatives who will prioritise the...

The Discarded

Noel what you have said others have been saying the same and for a long time. As an example I recall John Menadue saying much the same on more than one occasion. Neo-liberalism has a lot to answer for and a vile outcome of it can be found in Robo-debt. Here was a government policy aimed at dehumanizing a group of people in order to obtain political advantage. I refer to this group as The Discarded. But The Discarded are the result of neo-liberalism and its advocates just walked away from Robo-debt and left The Discarded to pick up...

Manned submarines are the past

A perceptive summary by John of the collective delusional propaganda cocoon in which we in Australia and the West more generally continue to live. That cocoon comforts us with the reassuring belief that a technology that is already four hundred years old (submarines) will ensure our dominance into a future of vast and largely unknowable technological change. With the advent of inexpensive unmanned underwater submersibles and the vast leaps being made in underwater detection of increasingly huge manned submarines, by the time we get these subs, assuming we ever do, they will be the aircraft carriers of today. Increasingly...

The implosion of a hollowed out regime?

In May, before she and Macron met Xi, EU chief Ursula von der Leyen said she wanted trade with China that's “fair and not distorted”. Well hello, isn't that the free market in action, if another country can sell goods cheaper than you? Now, Trump wins. Together, these events should have been the anticipated end point of free market, neo-liberal economics and its “survival of the fittest” individualism masked as “freedom”. US law allows millions to be crushed by the wealth of a tiny minority, paid less than living wages by those who get rich at their expense. Little...

Brian Toohey is right about Rudd

Brian Toohey is spot on about Rudd. Rudd has never been a balanced character in almost anything. His bravado about China vastly exceeds his willingness to don the khaki to engage China on the battlefield he imagines.

Fossil fuel approvals undermine credibility

As Noel Turnbull revealed, the latest Zurich-Mandala Climate Risk Index found that “half of Australia’s tourism sites and airports are currently in the highest three climate risk categories.” However, while tourism is a significant employer, it is not a key industry on which life depends. Food, water and shelter are needed to survive and in its report, Food Fight: Climate change, food crises & regional insecurity, the Australian Security Leaders Climate Group concluded that “Australia is ill-prepared for the security implications of climate-change enhanced global food crises” and recommended that “an urgent review should be undertaken of Australia’s food...

Thanks, Margaret Reynolds

Margaret Reynolds' call for Australia to take real action against Israel was a valuable contribution. She shows the power of lucid, well-evidenced, humane and balanced arguments, rather than strident and skewed positioning. Thank you.

Democracy in America

Dear Editor, Humphrey McQueen's recent article appears rather incongruous with Alexis de Tocqueville's much referenced worldview.

"WTF just happened?"

Did the beginning of the end of neo-liberalism just happen? One can hope. The US result looks like the ultimate endpoint if the wealth of a commonwealth is not evenly enough distributed. The Democrats can be thankful they were voted out of office. Obscenely wealthy Marie-Antoinette was beheaded! Not that the Republicans are any less to blame. Trump won't help those left-behind but, by voting, the left-behinds look like destroying the system. We can but hope that out of the ruins something better will come. Could it happen in Australia? Once, we had proper essential and social services....

Social Media self-censors Evidence of Genocide

The deletion / non-reporting of irrefutable facts of Zionist genocidal activities is not restricted to the MSM. In many MSM publications, X [nee Twitter] is heavily used to carry articles, photographs and videos of events of all descriptions. I think there is a reasonably widespread belief that, despite the absence of any form of 'authentication' (actual or de facto) of sources, the broad scope of reporting would cover the gamut of facts.. Absolutely, it is not so. I have seen now two cases in about the last fortnight of something reported on 'X' (and referred in P&I '5-Minute...

Susie's contribution to humanity

My sincere condolences to you, John, and your family for the passing of Susie. What a force you both have been in the fight for humanity and justice in our troubled world. I trust the support of your family and the readers/contributors of P&I will somehow soften the grief that you must surely be feeling. I think we all wish we could have known Susie.

The persecuted become the persecutors

Reb Halabi like many of us is appalled about how white has become black in Palestine. With what is going on in places like Beit Lahiya in north Gaza right now, it seems that the so-called “generals’ plan” formulated by Gadi Eisenkot, and the Dahiya doctrine are operational right now. Mass murder by the day, full scale destruction of buildings and infrastructure, separation of men from women and forced dispossession, depopulation and forced marches. The bitter irony is that Israeli is taking out on the Palestinians what European Jews experienced from the Nazis. Reinhard Heydrich, who headed the Wannsee...

Know the difference

An excellent article from Cameron Leckie. But for too many people - especially politicians an journalists - the takeaway first base starting point has to be this, in big bold letters... ... the ‘rules-based order’ is a euphemism for empire. Specifically, the imperial-system led by the United States as opposed to the international system centred on the United Nations and International Law. Anyone not knowing and understanding that difference is at very real risk of very poor decision making.

The remarkable courage and strength of MND patients

Since I retired on the mid north coast of NSW, I have been a palliative care volunteer for 10 years. During that time I have sat with three MND patients for many months, all of whom displayed remarkable courage and strength like Susie. My aunt in England took 12 months to die of MND and her distraught doctor husband flew to Australia to assure us it is not heredity. I hope others who have watched love ones die slowly of this disease will find comfort like I do from this knowledge. I have been told since the...

We must overcome climate apocalypse scepticism

Julian Cribb has highlighted the apocalyptic threats that the world faces, within the present century and possibly within the current decade, from the Arctic ice melt, and from the slowing ‘Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation’ (the ‘Gulf Stream’) as a result of increasing global warming from our ever-growing carbon emissions. These threats are real, and their likelihood increases daily. Why, therefore, is the world doing so little to prevent them? Dorian Lynskey posits, in his book ‘Everything Must Go: The Stories We Tell about the End of the World’, that we ignore apocalyptic alarms because we have become enured...

Native forest logging is ecocide

Thank you to Professor David Lindenmayer for multiple strong evidence-based arguments supporting a rapid end to native forest logging in NSW (“The NSW native forest logging industry is unsustainable – a fast transition out is needed now”, 19/10). That any form of logging is occurring in any native forest, anywhere in Australia in 2024 is utterly absurd and should arguably be punishable as ecocide. Trouble is, if Victoria’s situation is anything to go by, even if we did receive a commitment from the NSW government to end native forest logging, rogue logging would continue under other guises. We...

My deepest condolences

Dear John, We have not met, nor Susie. May I offer my deep condolences to you and your family with Susie's death. My wife, Jenny's father, a Sydney surgeon, and my uncle died similarly. And, with my wife having secondary progressive MS, separately, I also understand very well the role of caring you would have undertaken. I do not know how you managed to do both so well. Best wishes as you navigate the future. And all the while benefiting our heritage exposing national and international truths. Warm regards, Philip Gardiner

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