Tony Smith.
Recent articles by Tony Smith.
4 February 2025
Another trail of tears
While there is no mistaking the happiness on the faces of the displaced Palestinians who have been allowed to return to what remains of their homes as a result of the ceasefire, no sympathetic observer could fail to fear for their futures. At least one young woman on the march has been killed by a drone.
12 January 2025
The Sunbird by Sara Haddad
While it is perfectly legitimate and understandable to engage with books for relaxation, some works of literature leave us better informed but unsettled.
3 January 2025
Infanticides kill the future
While self-described experts might express surprise about the results of the elections in the USA, the signs of a likely swing to the right have been plain enough. Among many sickening images in 2024, the sight of Congress standing to applaud an Israeli leader responsible for the genocide in Gaza symbolised fascist sympathies.
14 December 2024
Genocidal attitudes masked in the trappings of patriotism
The decision by Australia’s federal Opposition leader to avoid standing by the Aboriginal flag is a dangerously divisive and cynical move.
23 October 2024
Thorpe unmasks the coloniser who visited genocide on Australia's First Nations
Both Charles and Camilla are having their gilt edged fault lines exposed on their Australian tour. We should be thankful for Lidia Thorpe’s courage and outspokenness.
15 October 2024
Myths of the Referendum
One year on from the defeat of the ‘Indigenous Voice’ referendum of 14 October 2023, some myths have arisen about the process and the outcome. These deserve further discussion.
21 September 2024
Watch football on commercial television and take your chances
So the Australian Government has decided that one way to curb the disastrous level of gambling is to impose restrictions on television advertising during sporting programs. While we might all wish it luck, the saturation advertising of games of chance during football coverage suggests that it is being out-manoeuvred.
12 September 2024
SBS television and 'distressing material'
It would be unfair to describe SBS television as the Australian media outlet most addicted to violence. It would be unfair unless every other outlet were scanned for their saturation with violence. At first sight however, it would seem extraordinary should any other television channel share the SBS preoccupation.
16 June 2024
Britain and the nuclear 'option'
If the Tories’ plan for young people to serve in national service is not bizarre enough, we now find that the Labour Party will use nuclear weapons should they deem it necessary. The ideas raised by possession of nuclear arms are just as contradictory now as they have been throughout the nuclear age. They demonstrate the stupidity of the nuclear arms race very succinctly.
8 June 2024
Sunak forgets, you cannot force people to love their country
Let’s face it: the purpose of the military is to kill. Conscripts learn ways of doing this efficiently and in keeping with the collective ethos. If the UK Tories were really concerned about the state of society, they could show it by agreeing to the demands of GPs and tax the rich to grant medical officers the 35% pay rise they need rather than attempting to reintroduce conscription.
2 May 2024
The war on women
AUKUS and associated propaganda might make men feel safe but will do nothing for women. A recent Australian Institute of Criminology report showed an increase in the numbers of women being killed by partners, current or former.
30 March 2024
Children drumming in Gaza
I cannot even begin to understand how governments can fail to demand a ceasefire in Gaza. They know - absolutely know - that Palestinian children are dying in droves. The children are killed by bombs, maimed, traumatised, experience amputations without anaesthesia, and they are starving.
14 March 2024
Phoney secrets and scares about foreign powers
One thing is certain about espionage agencies. They are not averse to creating alarm in order to give the impression they are protecting us from threats by ideological fanatics internally or by hostile foreign powers. There is always a kind of self-fulfilling prophesy about their pronouncements and the most recent panic about an unidentified former member of parliament is typical. They expect us to be naive enough to believe their inventions and to feel grateful for them.
2 March 2024
Submarines then and to come
The multi-billion dollar expenditure on nuclear powered submarines as part of the AUKUS pact has attracted some attention. Perhaps it helps to provide historical context if it is remembered that Australias first submarines were of limited use in the defence of our shorelines.
28 February 2024
Submarines, stealth and STEM stifling any AUKUS debate
The Australian government has decided to ignore critics of Aukus in parliament and the community. Rather it has moved to embed the idea of Aukus directly into the Australian psyche.
10 February 2024
A US Doctrine of Vengeance: Who has the right to punish?
The campaign to punish enemies of the USA and Israel shows that states which argue from strength have no wish for justice merely revenge.
14 December 2023
In Usman Khawajas boots: Silence is complicity
As usual, conservative commentators have damaged their own feet. They do not have any appreciation of the political stances adopted by people of conscience and their faux outrage provides the best publicity protestors can have. Latest to benefit from this narrow mindedness is the courageous Australian cricketer Usman Khawaja.
4 November 2023
Why is it so difficult to speak of peace?
War always brings problems. Even the so-called victors experience these. The world is made poorer in that the next war seems to be much closer and easier to wage. True peace on the other hand, brings only benefits.
26 October 2023
With echoes of Iraq war, ADF deployed to Middle East
The decision to deploy the Australian Defence Forces to the Middle East in the middle of the war in Gaza puts the Albanese Government into the same category as many appalling predecessors.
28 September 2023
If you are proud of the Constitution, vote Yes
In 1996 I was fortunate enough to be involved in the Centenary of the 1895 Bathurst Peoples Constitutional Convention.
12 August 2023
Fred Smith: The Sparrows of Kabul
During the crush at the evacuation of Kabul airport in 2021, a little girl became separated from her mother and was inconsolable and could not be moved. Fred left her for a moment, during which CS gas caused a stampede of marines. When he looked for the girl, she had disappeared.
20 July 2023
Cancelling strange British Empire legacy event just Aussie common sense
Elite sport is something of a sacred cow. To criticise it is to risk being considered unAustralian. So while Premier Andrews announcement that Victoria would not host the 2026 Commonwealth Games was not a wholesale critique of elite sport, I am happy to take up the baton.
27 June 2023
War service did not stop the racism
Noel Turnbulls articleabout the treatment of black warriors who wore the Australian uniform make for some uncomfortable reading for those Australians who think Indigenous peoples have no need to control their own destinies. Historically, we have applied the claim that veterans are heroes very selectively.
9 April 2023
No bulldozer can bury the truth: Remembering Rachel Corrie
In another echo of early 2003, the twentieth anniversary of the death of Rachel Corrie on 16 March went largely unreported.
4 April 2023
Back to the future of a Cold War arms race?
While the AUKUS treaty has echoes of the tragic Iraq invasion of 2003, even closer comparisons can be found with the arms race of the 1980s.
23 March 2023
Ensuring equal access to elections
While voting is considered a universal right in Australia, barriers remain preventing many people exercising the franchise effectively. In the lead-up to the 2023 New South Wales state elections it seems clear that more should be done to enable everyone to vote comfortably.
19 March 2023
Two decades on, history should condemn the real butchers of Baghdad
The warmongers in the Anglophone countries of Britain, the USA and Australia today cause great concern with their AUKUS treaty and the not very subtle stirring of frenzy against China. It was similar in 2003 except that Iraq was the country being demonised.
2 March 2023
Ten election theories to test in New South Wales
A week a long time in politics? How about 28 years? Believe it or not the last time the Labor Party displaced a Coalition Government in New South Wales was in 1995.
22 February 2023
Defence as an Australian paradox: explaining veteran suicides
It is absolutely essential that society inquiries into the fate of Australias war veterans. There are many reasons for our failure to rehabilitate veterans successfully, but unless we confront the nature of military activity, such investigations will remain superficial.
14 January 2023
Incompatible minds: A reflection on George Pell
Why did so many people dislike Cardinal George Pell? It is possibly because he had the opportunity to show leadership but chose instead to reflect power and intransigence. He could have shown compassion and been a unifying force. Instead, he will be remembered as a divisive and damaging figure.
14 February 2022
No wonder Canberrans are enraged: there's no vaccine for a cabal of craziness
We demand the freedom to infect others! The anti-vaccination demonstrations are dour, sour and disingenuous.
3 February 2022
In sport and in society, women eclipse the antics of boorish males
While women display their abilities in fields monopolised by men, people in power not only allow these talents to be wasted but actively inhibit them.
24 October 2021
AUKUS: the latest capitulation on defence by our born-to-rule elites
Conservative Coalition leaders have a history of committing Australia to overseas military adventures and the 'patriotic' media have never questioned the propaganda.
31 August 2021
Gladys Berejiklian, deep in farce yesterday, threatening chaos today
Faced with a Covid crisis, the NSW government has failed to lead when its people needed it the most.
17 August 2021
Time for facts on Afghanistan, not platitudes and propaganda
Facing the all too predictable chaos left behind by yet another unnecessary Australian military adventure, the prime minister mouthed insulting platitudes about freedom and sought propaganda value about no member of the military dying in vain. Such remarks display historical ignorance as well as insensitivity.
26 June 2021
Letting the Liberals off the Barnaby Joyce hook
The return of Barnaby Joyce to the leadership of the National Party and the Deputy Prime Ministership has been somewhat awkward for the Liberal Party. It is puzzling however that the Labor Opposition has not managed to make the Coalition Government more uncomfortable.
19 June 2021
Australian human misery: a dirty dozen cases
The prime minister has an eye for the public relations opportunity. Recently he was quick to be seen at the announcement of the success of an FBI-AFP operation targeting drug traffickers. He condemned criminals for bringing misery to Australia. Regrettably, we have plenty of misery already, thanks to his governments policies.
7 June 2021
Australian traditional culture under threat again and again.
The changing of a word in the national anthem from young to one indicates that Australia did not begin in 1788. So aspects of society going back beyond that date are clearly Australian culture. Around Bathurst today, real Australian culture has been threatened by inappropriate and unnecessary developments. All Australians should object.
31 May 2021
Mice and men: the mouse plague and aggressive land clearing
Over the years, Australian authorities have made many poor decisions about allowing the introduction of biocidal agents into the environment. In most cases, such decisions have been based on the demands of powerful minorities with no responsibility to the general community. The Berejiklian-Barilaro government looks set to outdo them all by authorising the use of the bromadiolone rodenticide.
18 May 2021
Evelyn Araluen's Drop Bear demands our engagement
No objective observer could fail to notice how inadequately we are closing the gaps we have created between Indigenous and other Australians. Part of the difficulty could be that 250 years of European occupation have damaged the language on which oral cultural transmission depends.
27 April 2021
Douglas Newton's Private Ryan and how peace efforts were sabotaged in WW1
Every now and then a historian produces a book that gives a rational and compassionate insight into the war of 1914-18 and the origins of the Anzac legend. Douglas Newton has given Australia such a work in his story of Private Ryan set against the backdrop of war aims and peace movements.
20 March 2021
Do we need to remove men from power?
As the Sex Discrimination Commissioner conducts an inquiry into federal parliaments toxic culture, it is clear that her task is to diagnose misogyny and make recommendations for its removal. The easiest way to achieve this would be to remove men from positions of power.
10 March 2021
Gladitorial arena adds toxic element to politics. Part 1
Upper houses of parliament usually have a better gender balance. While often explained away by being a result of proportional representation, a better explanation is that the most ambitious men the megalomaniacs have no interest in being senators. They know the locus of power is in the lower house.
3 March 2021
Petulant, punishment politics is becoming the norm
The $50 million spent on re-opening the Christmas Island detention facility just because it lost out on the Medevac bill was a every expensive Coalition dummy spit. Many politicians are starting to think there must be something special about them when they get re-elected, rather than it simply being a function of the system.
20 February 2021
Santos changes tack: rugby charm offensive replaces lobbying efforts
The issue of gas extraction in the Pilliga, in north-west NSW, has caused conflict. Early this month, mining company Santos tried to win hearts and minds in the town of Narrabri by sponsoring a rugby carnival. This charm offensive was a change in tack from lobbying governments and enlisting police and courts against protestors.
25 January 2021
Survival Day 2021: What January 26 means to me
Many Australians believe that January 26 fails in its purpose. While it aims to unite, it actually divides us. Instead, the customary Indigenous theme Always was, always will be Aboriginal land has the potential to unify.
20 January 2021
Putting all our eggs in the vaccination basket is delusional
Governments worldwide have placed their hopes for fighting the pandemic in the roll-out of vaccines. But the jab will not be a panacea for society. Behavioural modifications will still be required.
13 January 2021
The Government championing free speech is a red herring
The refusal of some social media to allow Donald Trump a platform to spread lies and incite violence is too little too late. Expressions of unease by senior Coalition figures about some dubious threat to free speech are no more than attempts to distract from the Governments chaotic policies.
4 January 2021
Stop playing with our lives, this is not a game
While it has proven very difficult to convince politicians that we have a climate change emergency on our hands, we might expect that bushfires and the pandemic would rock their complacency. And yet, the New South Wales government insists on taking a relaxed approach to the public health crisis when it comes to mass entertainments.