Letters to the Editor
Zionism and history
May 23, 2025
It was Marx who said that history repeats itself, first as tragedy and then as farce! Gaza is both, as the Zionists have been involved in perpetrating in Palestine for the last 80 years what the Nazis did to the Jews in Warsaw. It started as tragedy and has morphed into farce, but with tragedy expanding exponentially as the Zionist nazis continue with their attempt to eliminate the entire population of Gaza. The West repeats their deliberate looking away from the persecution and slaughter of the Jews throughout the 1930s, with our deliberate looking away from the Zionist slaughter...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Weaponisation of ‘antisemitism’ hides primitive savagery of Palestinian genocide
Hijack of the term holocaust
May 23, 2025
The Holocaust was, and is, a horrendous part of world history and the Jews carried a disproportionately high burden of the atrocities, but they weren’t the only people targeted. I am not going to begin naming atrocities for fear of missing even one, and all should be called out. Like all wars, atrocities were carried out by both sides and until we acknowledge all the atrocities in all the wars, history will continue to repeat itself as it is now in Gaza. While defence is a major talking point in elections, while we train people to kill...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: Weaponisation of ‘antisemitism’ hides primitive savagery of Palestinian genocide
The humble gardeners
May 23, 2025
As a home gardener, at present surrounded by muddy pools from last night's driving rain, aware of others fleeing surging flood waters, I read Kari McKern's call for us to build the garden with a stirring sense of recognition. Yes, it's the gardeners who know life's systems. I find myself humming a tune from The Hymns of God's Gardeners, 'The Earth Forgives', words by Margaret Atwood set to music by Orville Stoeber. Now I am going to search my shelves for The Year of the Flood, a book to read on this gloomy, wet day to remind myself...
Janet Grevillea from Lake Macquarie
In response to: The gardens of the starships
Unsustainable nuclear policies
May 22, 2025
Both the Liberal and National parties are in unsustainable energy policy positions. The Liberal leader labels the government’s policy “a reckless race to renewables”; the urgency of our shift to renewables is largely due to the Coalition’s decade-long denial and delay. It remains to be seen whether the Liberals can see their way to a mature debate now that they are unencumbered by the anti-renewable Nationals members. The Nationals advocate more coal until nuclear fills the gap. As John Quiggin points out, “the earliest possible start date for nuclear is after the 2028 election. This means plugging nuclear...
Fiona Colin from Melbourne
In response to: David Littleproud cites nuclear energy disagreement as major factor in Coalition
Silent lies
May 21, 2025
Thank you Richard Bean. Yesterday the ABC lied by omission. Having told us that Israel was allowing food and medicine supplies into Gaza, they failed to tell us that only five trucks were allowed to enter. A totally meaningless token. Yet the ABC made it look like Israel was actually doing something. Benjamin Netanyahu is treating the media and supine governments with contempt, and the West is just pathetic.
Liam O'Dea from Warwick Qld
In response to: False balance persists in ABC Palestine coverage
The cost of everything and the value of nothing
May 21, 2025
Universities are another victim of the failure of privatisation. Universities should be a place of higher learning and students should have to qualify to enter. If they successfully complete their degrees, they should be free. I went to a technical school, a pathway to a trade or becoming a mother. Down the road was a high school which was better regarded and a pathway to university. I became a tradie and built a wonderfull life from that base, but I was just a tradie working for some time in sewer treatment. How much lower than that can you...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: What is education for these days?
Let's rank the threats to human survival
May 21, 2025
In Bob Douglas' article, he reminds us of the 10 threats to human survival as listed by Julian Cribb in his 2023 book, How to fix a broken planet. It is hard not to stave off despair when faced with such a long list, so I chose the three that are most likely to keep me awake at night. They are: climate change; a threat to the world's food supply; and growth in the human population. The question is: will we be able to feed everyone in the face of climate change? We have 8.2 billion people in...
Jenny Goldie from Cooma NSW
In response to: Australia’s opportunity to lead the world on human survivaln
A just transition must stand on the common good
May 21, 2025
Democratic governments rule through popular consent. They can only expect to obtain that consent for tackling the climate crisis decisively if they demonstrate that their actions will be fair – a concept captured in Paris 2015 as Just Transition. The nature of that transition, as Peter Sainsbury notes, is more than simply finding new jobs for displaced workers, and will vary according to each democracy’s needs. These may encompass distributive justice, procedural justice, or restorative justice. To make the progress we now need to secure our liveable environment, we must work together: the whole must become greater than the...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills, Vic
In response to: Environment: Nations ignoring the need for a just transition to zero carbon
A further letter to Penny Wong about Palestine
May 21, 2025
Minister Wong: I refer you to the detailed and generously polite letter from Dr Sue Wareham, of the MAPW. In just a few days, the situation in Palestine has degraded, with the Netanyahu Zionists declaring planned new atrocities in its appalling rape and pillage of the whole of Palestine. I note you have flaccidly traipsed along with other nations, waving a withered lettuce leaf of angst intended to satisfy the hopes of Australians for a decent humane response from this country. Not good enough. You are not stupid, and you were once the most trusted politician...
Richard Llewellyn from Colo Vale
In response to: An open letter to Penny Wong seeking action on Palestine
Wake up Labor! Australia needs you
May 20, 2025
I lived through Gough! He was a Labor leader with a vision. We may not now agree with everything he achieved, but without his leadership we would not have Medicare. (Imagine us like Norway, where we actually owned all our resources!, but I digress.) I feel Albo needs to grow a backbone. Stewart Sweeney, I feel, is correct to say that Labor needs to grab the bull by the horns and make some real changes. Personally, I feel as well as his list, they should add dental to Medicare. This could be added gradually, with an annual check-up added...
Doug Foskey from Tregeagle
In response to: After the victory: Kelty’s warning and why it’s still not enough
The vanishing elders
May 20, 2025
By far my biggest concern with the vanishing elders is that none of our politicians have any experience with a world that is not dominated by neoliberal economic theory. In the US, prior to the early '70s, wage rises and growth in corporate profits grew at about the same rate. Wages had to rise to make sure that the workers could afford the goods that were produced. The world then gradually discovered the credit card. This meant that workers could keep buying consumer goods without needing a pay rise. It was at this point in the early '70s...
John Tons from flinders university
In response to: the vanishing elders
Vale Ali Kazak
May 20, 2025
A great man has died. Ali Kazak was a voice of sanity and reason about Palestine. A voice for justice and peace. A writer of great clarity and integrity. He will be missed by all who want freedom for Palestine. It is tragic that we will no longer hear his voice. Sincere sympathy to his family, friends, colleagues and all who knew him personally.
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: Vale Ali Kazak
Is the law an ass?
May 19, 2025
Henry Reynolds writes: The decision made in Britain during the reign of George the third that the Indigenous Australians did not exercise sovereignty over their homelands remains in place and cannot be questioned by the national courts. The Empire prevails. Decolonisation remains out of reach. How utterly absurd. Thank you, Henry, for again bringing our hidden history out into the light.
Bob Beadman from Darwin
In response to: Thank you, Henry, for again bringing our hidden history out into the light.
Thanks for the article on Ali Kazak
May 19, 2025
I would like to thank the management of Pearls and Irritations for publishing the article from November last year by Stuart Rees on Ali Kazak, following Ali's passing away last Sunday in Thailand on his way to Palestine. No person in Australia has worked harder for truth and justice for Palestine than Ali, a man I was pleased to call my friend for more than 50 years, and from whose writing and advocacy, which took many forms, was able to show the real truth in Palestine, He has tried to encourage the Western media to show the real...
Rex Williams from Springwood
In response to: Vale Ali Kazak
Equal opportunity dumping
May 19, 2025
What better time for Australia to demonstrate our multiculturalism than now? What better way than to have representatives of both sides of the conflict working harmoniously in the governing party? Instead, we have warring factions and inaction by the prime minister. Given what has transpired and his previous lack of performance, Richard Marles should be dumped !
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: message-from-the-editor-8
Ex-PMs are not vanishing quickly enough
May 19, 2025
As a 73-year-old, I do believe that we become invisible and should not be forgotten. We should have a representative say in how the country is run. I do, however, think that ex-politicians and, in particular, ex-prime ministers and their staffers have far too much to say and are given far too much airtime. That is, in part, due to the generosity of their parliamentary pension. They can afford to spend their time running a freelance commentary on everything under the sun. Perhaps if they were like the rest of us and had to wait until 68...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: The vanishing elders of Australian politics
Sustainability, yes, but also a Plan B
May 19, 2025
While moving to a sustainable future, we need to ensure a balance between emerging forms of energy supply and use, and existing ones, primarily fossil fuels, in Australia. One key aspect of this, though, is the need for back-up (redundancy). There has been a relatively recent volcanic eruption in Lombok, one in Iceland and one in Tonga. In 1275, a volcano in Lombok, Samalas, erupted with a force eight times that of Krakatoa in 1883. Dust from 1275 has been found in Svalbard in the Arctic. The climatic aspects of the 1275 eruption were still being felt in not...
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: Environment: Will Labor now protect our environment? If not now, probably never
Gaza deaths since 20 February belong to Trump
May 19, 2025
Sue Wareham deserves widespread support for her letter calling on Penny Wong to step up. Allowing for a month to get the US administration organised, the murders in Palestine over the last three months can be sheeted home to Donald Trump, thus continuing Joe Biden’s role as an active accessory of Benjamin Netanyahu, with financial, diplomatic and weapons support. Since then he has had the insider knowledge and power to stop the massacres in Gaza. Every day the US president procrastinates on saying “our support for the pogrom is over”, 50, 100, or 150 Palestinians are murdered. Let’s...
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: An open letter to Penny Wong seeking action on Palestine
A lifetime of lies
May 19, 2025
An interesting footnote is that the Mai Lai incident was investigated by Colin Powell, then a 31-year-old army major His report white-washed the incident, endorsing the original cover up. No stranger to misinformation, later as secretary of state he infamously held up a sinister looking vial to support US claims of weapons of mass destruction.
Daryl Guppy from Darwin
In response to: Accountability and war reporting
End the hypocrisy
May 19, 2025
I am finding the increasingly strident cries of antisemitism being levelled at anyone criticizing Israel or supporting Palestinians to be the height of hypocrisy. For 75 years, world Jewry has delighted in the state of Israel, a state built on the Nakba. Did you really think you would get away with it forever? Only now with the advent of the internet and the proof found on smartphones are accusations of genocide being levelled at Israel, and these accusations are qualified. Supposedly radical Zionists have usurped power in Israel, and they alone are responsible for all the current carnage. ...
Hal Duell from Alice Springs, NT
In response to: Multiple Western press outlets have suddenly pivoted hard against Israel
Wrong word
May 19, 2025
I congratulate Henry Reynolds for this article. It was important and informative. However, it also reveals how the best-intentioned authors and editors can undermine arguments presented. Reynolds described Indigenous people as “possessing” the country. This is not so. However, modern English spell checkers no longer accept the word ownee to describe humans possessed by country. This is a more intimate and non-negotiable relationship that does not deny ownership. The editor reinforces the back-to-front counterproductive thinking with an acknowledgement to “Traditional owners”. Please use the word “ownees” in the future, as I did on pages 163/4 in my 1977/8...
Shann Turnbull from Paddington, Sydney, NSW. 2021
In response to: Voice rejection sends Australia backwards
No excuse now to not oppose Zionist genocide
May 19, 2025
With a handsome majority assured, no excuse remains left for the Labor Government to not join the almost universal international community opposition to the appalling genocidal, war-criminal, murderous activities of the Zionist regime in Israel. And that no excuse applies top our AUKUS partners. Trump, for one, will sell us out in a heartbeat when (not if) it suits his agenda on the day, While the new Albanese Government wrangles with the issues of factional ambition, hundreds of children, women and men die every day in Gaza/the West Bank areas. Appeasement of the Zionist agenda will condemn the...
Richard Llewellyn from Colo Vale
In response to: An open letter to the Australian PM from a child of Holocaust survivors
Australia leads the way. Which way?
May 16, 2025
It was a young John Howard who announced light rail connecting the east coast. While some in the know bought land in the proposed rail corridor, his idea has remained just that – an idea. Given the politically-led resurgence of inefficient hybrid vehicles, as the article points out, why add a 50% efficient internal combustion engine to an electric motor as your mode of transport? All the indications from the last election are that one side is still arguing whether women should remain barefoot and pregnant or be sacrificed as witches, while the other side is timid about...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: China and renewable energy: Dawn of the Fourth Industrial Revolution
Why add more years of governmental failure?
May 16, 2025
The evidence is out there that government makes a really deficient, and sometimes outright harmful, substitute parent. Children brought up in the foster system need the best parenting in order to live with and hopefully overcome early childhood trauma. Instead of which they receive some of the worst, usually not the fault of the foster carer. An average of seven, yes seven, placements in their first year in care, the focus on reunification when parents never get the support they need in order to become good enough parents. The lack of vital background information to foster carers about the...
Maggie Woodhead from Perth. W.A
In response to: Is government a good 'parent' to foster kids?
We need people like Sawsan Madina in media
May 15, 2025
Sawsan Madina – I wish, oh how I wish, you were still head of SBS Television. Your open letter to The Greens was superb. Instead, in the television and radio space, we have propaganda puppets, ex-CEOs of Newscorp and advertisers pretending to be journalists. As consumers, we must demand more of our media. Call them to account, via feedback on social media, via email, via whatever channel you can. The only way we can change the system is to demand better.
Alyssa Aleksanian from Hazelbrook
In response to: An open letter to The Greens
A gift of nuclear waste for our descendants
May 15, 2025
In 2021, the Federal Court found Sussan Ley, as environment minister, owed a duty of care to future generations to avoid causing climate harm through her decisions. And here she is stating nuclear is a zero-emission option. Who is Sussan Ley kidding? Let’s debunk this myth once and for all. Nuclear is the most toxic form of energy. We will be leaving our descendants with a poison cocktail which has no answer. The Coalition’s implied stance of , Oh, we’ll let the future generations work that out is pure negligence. Kicking the can down the road has been...
Alyssa Aleksanian from Hazelbrook
In response to: From nuclear to nature laws, here’s where Ley stands on four energy and environm
Lib policy indecision seems to be continuing
May 15, 2025
If last night's [14 May] ABC 7:30 report interview of Liberal Deputy Leader Ted O’Brien is any indication, the Liberals have learnt nothing from their heavy election defeat. They will definitely have their policies available and costed ready for the week before the next election. For the sake of the viewing public and ABC ratings, 7.30 presented Sarah Ferguson should never have him back
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: From nuclear to nature laws, here’s where Ley stands on four energy and environment flashpoints
The light has finally dawned on the mainstream press
May 14, 2025
Caitlin Johnstone reports today that certain key newspapers have now swung on Gaza. Great credit to Pearls and Irritations, Caitlin Johnstone and the authors of some other Substacks for the courageous role they have played over the 19 months since it became clear there was a disproportionate Israeli response to the sad event of 7 October. And our thoughts are with those held hostage on both sides of the conflict, as well as those facing massive odds in Gaza.
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: At the ICJ, only US and Hungary back Israel starving Gaza
Reading Trump
May 14, 2025
The first thing Labor should do is scrap AUKUS. The very fact that Donald Trump played dumb when questioned about the deal at an early press conference should have rung alarm bells. He knows a dumb deal (dumb for us) when he sees one. He also knows a “nice“ deal (read sucker) when he sees one. That he didn’t scrap AUKUS at the beginning of his term should ring alarm bells for many Labor voters. Keeping Richard Marles as defence minister, and dumping two others to appease the factions, indicates it’s going to be another long do-nothing...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: What should Labor do with its majority?
Sawsan Madina nearly said it all
May 14, 2025
As a member of the Greens, I wholeheartedly support Sawsan Madina's article in which she grieves over their losses in the House but applauds their excellent policies, not least on the environment and in trying to end inequality. Yes, may the Greens come back stronger next election and, in the meantime, hold the Labor Government to account in the Senate in which they will alone hold the balance of power. If there is one criticism to be made of them, however, it is their blinkered approach to mass immigration. They failed to acknowledge that the blowout (over half...
Jenny Goldie from Cooma NSW
In response to: An open letter to the Greens
What democracy?
May 14, 2025
I questioned if the US was a democracy during Donald Trump's first term. I’ve seen nothing in this term to indicate the great defender of democracy, the land of the free and the home of the brave, the US, even vaguely resembles a democracy.
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: The US war on science
Mass political murder is not genocide
May 14, 2025
Duncan Graham writes, In the 1965 coup, an estimated 500,000 were slaughtered in a military-organised genocide against real or imagined communists.... Absolutely not. His wrong-headed assertion is based on Jess Melvin's The army and Indonesian genocide, which deliberately misinterprets the Convention and seeks to expand the legal definition of genocide to include mass political murder. The Convention is clear: genocide is the intentional destruction of a national, ethnical, religious or cultural group, not the mass murder of political groups, ie, the PKI. Do you really imagine that the same Western governments, that had laid waste to German...
Rick Pass from Home Hill
In response to: Indonesia's old guard wants its old world back.
Thanks to Sawsan Madina
May 14, 2025
Thanks to Sawsan Madina for her article today. I could not agree more with her feelings. She has hit the nail on the head. Her arguments are flawless. Like her, I am deeply disappointed in the fact that we will not have a Greens presence in the House of Representatives after the recent election. Australia will be poorer for it. I am hoping many more people will read her outstanding article today and in the days to come. Thanks also, Pearls and Irritations, for being a breath of fresh air in our impoverished media scene. Stay...
Rebeca Ugarte from Naremburn
In response to: A letter to the Greens
The Israel vote
May 14, 2025
After a redistribution in 2024, the seat (Melbourne) was influenced by the Jewish vote. Labor won the seat in the recent 2025 election. The Jewish population in the Kooyong area is a growing presence and the seat was won by Dr Monique Ryan financed by billionaire Simon Holmes à Court. Dr Ryan said: I have real concern about rising antisemitism since 7 October, it has been 'awful' and 'distressing' to witness.
Ian Curr from Magandjin
In response to: there-is-no-jewish-vote-in-australia-nor-is-supporting-israel-a-vote-winner
Playground antics
May 13, 2025
From the disrespectful heckling and intimidation in parliament when certain MPs are speaking, to the factional infighting and manoeuvering, tell me how this is different from a school playground? I’ve worked in the latter for more than 20 years, and in all that time I haven’t seen children behave as badly as our politicians. No wonder teachers are reticent to put forward any of our leaders as societal role models.
Alyssa Aleksanian from Hazelbrook
In response to: Exclusion of Ed Husic from the Albanese Ministry Statement
National day of action needed
May 13, 2025
I read with interest the article, “There is no Jewish vote in Australia nor is supporting Israel a vote winner”. I agree it was apparent that the election result indicated underlying support for the Palestinian people. It would be a shame for this support to hibernate until the next election. It seems to me that there is a forthcoming opportunity – the UN 2 to 4 June conference on the two-state solution. There is an urgent need to mobilise the various bodies who have expressed support for the Palestinian cause into some kind of non-partisan national day of protest...
Brian Bycroft from Evans Head NSW
In response to: There is no Jewish vote in Australia nor is supporting Israel a vote winner
Bring back the whip
May 13, 2025
Whenever I hear of productivity improvement, I think of slavery and the whip. Improved productivity assumes equality and, like slavery, improvement is always at the expense of the least equal in our society, be it the slavery of old or the wage slaves of today. The whip, the loss of employment or the value of wages and conditions all are part of the productivity improvement story. Those benefitting most from productivity improvement are not the ones most affected by our latest round of crises. They are the ones out of low-paid jobs, the homeless and those over-represented in...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: Productivity with purpose: Roy Green, structural reform and Australia’s place in the world
Labor 2025: purpose or puppetry?
May 12, 2025
Labor’s first term in office was risk-averse. As Peter Sainsbury observes, if Anthony Albanese’s primary aim was to stay in office he was very successful. But to what end? If Labor’s second term will deliver essential major reforms, these should include vital environmental reforms detailed by Sainsbury, and reforms to taxation, gambling advertising, and more. The environmental reforms are critical because without substantial reinforcement of current regulations we shall see accelerating environmental degradation. Should Labor do nothing on this — and continue to support new oil and gas and not make substantial tightening of our environmental protection laws...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills, Vic
In response to: Environment: Will Labor now protect our environment? If not now, probably never
Was it a strategic mistake to sack Husic?
May 12, 2025
I am wondering if the ALP has made a strategic mistake in removing Ed Husic (who I have always found to be a reasonable politician). In saying this, I look to Senator Fatima Payman, who has started a new party after resigning. My reason for wondering is the tendency these days to split issues instead of being inclusive. In my personal judgment, I feel the person who should go is Richard Marles, who I have never been fond of. I feel he is not a particlarly effective politician, so give someone else a go at the Defence portfolio,...
Doug Foskey from Tregeagle
In response to: Dreyfus leaves little legacy
Greg Barns is spot on about Mark Dreyfus
May 12, 2025
I am a barrister in Western Australia. I spent three years working as an adviser to the WA Attorney General, John Quigley, MLA, who recently retired. I do not always agree with Greg Barnes. But his article on Mark Dreyfus KC is well thought out and an analysis that I hope our prime minister reads. It is almost certainly too late to change his pick for the next AG. I just hope he has it right this time. We are all failing when it comes to incarcerating children. And the Legal Aid budgets are shameful. Obviously, as a...
Marion Buchanan from White Gum Valle, WA
In response to: Dreyfus leaves little legacy
Legacy media is losing its influence
May 12, 2025
Thanks to Edward Hurcombe for his clear analysis. Legacy media have less relevance in affecting the flow of information, and subsequent opinion moulding, than before. Most certainly. But those who want to play the game of sensationalist click-bait headlines will still get their stories published on Yahoo! news et al, especially if in the Chris Lorax league (Mad As Daily Telegraph character). They still get to the 40-60-year-old bracket of disengaged-from-politics voters who make up their minds based on not very much. Moreover the weighting of what constitutes the centre is heavily influenced by the extremists...
Dave Young from North Queensland
In response to: In the age of the influencer, does the political backing of News Corp matter any
How to save ourselves and our planet
May 12, 2025
Mark Diesendorf explains clearly and succinctly how we can save ourselves and our planet. If you skipped over it, I urge you to go back and read it in its entirety. Central to it is the fundamental fact that green growth is and will remain impossible – at best a well-intentioned myth, at worst a malevolent lie. The essay should be compulsory reading for all members of our new government, speaking as it does to every decision they will make. Perhaps it could be given a permanent place in the Pearls & Irritations Top five.
Richard Barnes from Melbourne
In response to: The steady-state economy: Why we need it and how it could be progressed
Journalistic integrity
May 12, 2025
This superb article cut through all the trash hesitancy and denial of our Australian mainstream media and their political lapdogs. We must finally debunk the conflation of antisemitism and anti-Zionism. Even momentary intelligent application shows they are not one and the same. This article shows the power that journalism has when wielded with integrity and courage. Bravo, Michelle Berkon.
Alyssa Aleksanian from Hazelbrook
In response to: Zionist lawfare comes for Australian journalist
Sainsbury said it all
May 12, 2025
Peter Sainsbury said it all. I share his scepticism that Labor will get the job done, not just on climate but on preservation of nature as well. The only hope are the 11 Greens' senators who may be able to hold Labor to account and force stronger action on both climate and environment. We should remember that Labor never was an environmental party. Yes, Bob Hawke saved the Franklin, but possibly only because he read the mood of the national electorate. Almost always, however, if there is conflict between saving jobs and saving environment, Labor will go with the...
Jenny Goldie from Cooma NSW
In response to: Environment: Will Labor now protect our environment? If not now, probably never
Dan Duggan's imprisonment is a great disgrace
May 12, 2025
Greg Barns' article of May 10th 2025 titled Dreyfus leaves little legacy is very much to the point. As he points out, Dreyfus took the relatively uncontroversial step of ending the persecution of Bernard Collaery while allowing other egregious injustices to continue. The most shameful of these would surely be the continued incarceration of Dan Duggan, a US-born Australian citizen and father of six, who has been held in maximum security since October 2022 despite having committed no offence under Australian law. Outrageously, Duggan now faces the threat of deportation to the US and the possibility of spending...
Andrew Fullarton from Naarm/Melbourne
In response to: Dreyfus leaves little legacy.
Can Anthony the unready change his spots?
May 12, 2025
Peter Sainsbury’s summing up of the Albanese Government’s number one, two and three priorities, to get re-elected and from the box seat, keep the horses calmed, is a strategy that, if pursued, promises Australia will be totally unready for the impact of the looming climate upheaval. A Labor hero after his bone-crushing, come-from-behind election win, inaction on climate will leave him reviled by future generations. Having spent a lifetime earning a living dependent on the seasons, I have seen changes over more than seven decades that, quite frankly, terrify me. Apart from the geo-physical science so clearly explained in...
John Mosig from Kew, Victoria
In response to: Environment: Will Labor now protect our environment? If not now, probably never
Dreyfus has let Australia down
May 12, 2025
Greg Barns is, perhaps, rather too gentle in his assessment of Mark Dreyfus. It is not often that I disagree with anything Paul Keating says, but on the Dreyfus affair, I feel he also has ascribed rather more honour to the man than he warrants. I fail to understand how an attorney-general — no matter what his heritage may be — can blatantly ignore the messages coming from the ICJ and the ICC and still allow his government to claim that it operates within the international rules-based order, that chimerical being that appears every day (if our government is...
Richard Llewellyn from Colo Vale
In response to: Dreyfus leaves little legacy
Judaism and Zionism
May 12, 2025
What an excellent article by Sara Dowse. It's about time someone differentiated between the two. The Zionists are the violent extremists who must be condemned for their actions and intentions. A Semite, per se, is your average peace-loving Jew who, for the most part, is appalled by Netanyahu's regime. The same can be said for Hamas who don't actually have a social licence with the average Palestinian that just want to live in peace. However the actions of Israel against the Palestinians must be called out for what they are: apartheid and genocide. The Israel Zionists...
Sidney Seiden from Exmouth
In response to: Judaism and Zionism are not the same
Very helpful interpretation of the steady-state economy
May 9, 2025
Thank you to Mark Diesendorf for this very helpful piece. It stands as a clarification of many of the misunderstandings and poor interpretations of SSE in Daniel Susskind's recent (2024) book advocating economic growth, Growth- A History and A Reckoning.
Len Puglisi from 1 Balmoral Court Burwood East
In response to: The steady-state economy: Why we need it