Letters to the Editor
Let the facts speak for themselves
December 11, 2025
There is a simple solution to the conundrum of free speech versus the spreading of lies. All reportage must use as its base established facts. The problem for the West in its untrammelled pursuit of a freedom to spread whatever nonsense the western elites wish to see accepted by the bewildered herd, is that the public space in that West is saturated by lies, distortions, fabrications, mendacities and deceit spread deliberately by the mainstream media to keep them confused and afraid. That has worked brilliantly for those elites for the last 80 years and they see no reason to...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Beijing warns foreign media in Hong Kong over crossing ‘red lines’
And have a guess who is responsible?
December 11, 2025
No prizes for guessing which part of the world is responsible for the overwhelming majority of the illegal sanctions imposed and therefore the vast majority of the deaths and suffering of the rest of the world's children. You guessed it! It is the West that so values human rights, justice and compassion!!
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Sanctions kill like wars – and children pay the price
Memo to Albanese: still a little left to destroy
December 10, 2025
I suppose we all should pity our PM Albanese – with so much of the founding DNA of Labor left shattered, there is still much to do to obliterate every trace of decency, fairness, ethical conduct, socially responsible legislation, international relations and intelligent defence procurement strategy by his government. Busy, busy, busy. Defending egregious travel expenditure by Anika Wells is just a stool sample from the sullage pit that encompasses the current legislative program of our current government. Increased mining approvals, gas extraction boondoggles, gambling reduction side-hustles, socially decent protest restrictions, sidestepping our signed-up-to responsibilities to combat genocide...
Richard Llewellyn from Colo Vale
In response to: Australia’s trust deficit is a failure of governance
Climate and the pursuit of capital
December 10, 2025
Peter Sainsbury, who generously credits Bill Gates with “unlimited access to information and experts” is right to conclude with a ‘fail’ for Gates “for your faith in the market and capitalism (even though you never use the word) as the routes to salvation”. After basing a decade-long warning of climate disaster on that same access to information and experts, Gates now says “we should measure success by our impact on human welfare more than our impact on the global temperature.” As Peter says, why not do both? No doubt the impact on human welfare through his global vaccination...
Fiona Colin from Melbourne
In response to: Bill Gates knows the climate and poverty facts but misses the politics
What about property investment rates?
December 10, 2025
Keating states that population growth has been no faster in the last six years than previously over the last several decades, so the pressure of demand for new dwellings is no higher than we were readily able to accommodate in the past. This ignores the fantastic growth in property investment rates (a demand side issue). In the 1999-2000 FY there were 1.16 million Australians who owned at least one investment property. By 2021-22 that number had doubled to 2.26 million, far outstripping the population growth rate. A recent AIHW report supports this, stating: Over the past two...
Jaron Sutton from Melbourne
In response to: Australia’s cost-of-living crisis has a housing problem
Housing: you can't ignore the demand factor
December 10, 2025
Michael Keating, in arguing that our housing problem is about supply and not demand, writes that Australian population growth has been no faster in the last six years than previously over the last several decades, so the pressure of demand for new dwellings is no higher than we were readily able to accommodate in the past. It may be true that the average population growth rate of the last six years is more or less in line with the average of the last three decades or more. However, because there is an ever-bigger base, the actual numbers grow, if...
Jenny Goldie from Cooma NSW
In response to: Australia’s cost-of-living crisis has a housing problem
Debt and disregard
December 10, 2025
While here in SA Party Pete racks up the debt on innumerable sporting events and festivals with complete disregard for debt, taxes, emissions, the parklands, traffic congestion / inconvenience (almost half a year set up /down for a car race that is more attended for the nightly rock concerts than the race) etc – all very reminiscent of Caesar who built the colosseum to distract the masses and promote class warfare and war in general . Meanwhile the other almost half of our elected representatives are so wedded to opposition that they have decided that opposing themselves is the main...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: victoria-government-unfussed-by-gp-debt/?ut
Seeking the truth about the war in Ukraine
December 10, 2025
On the war in Ukraine, Canadian academic James Horncastle writes much as almost all western mainstream commentator might: Ukraine good; Russia bad. Like so many others given a mainstream platform, he appears to support an ongoing war until a Ukrainian victory and the destruction of Russia. But does he have genuine concerns for Ukraine, its citizens, and the truth? I'd urge Pearls and Irritations readers to consider US ambassador Chas Freeman's address on the war that he presented to the 'East Bay Citizens for Peace' in September 2023. It's lengthy; it challenges mainstream western thinking on the war, but...
Susan Dirgham from Viewbank
In response to: Trump’s Ukraine peace deal would leave the country vulnerable to future Russian
So little regard for local government ?
December 10, 2025
A thought provoking article. Sadly local government was like a tacked on afterthought. If you look around your local area through local eyes without the bias promoted by self interests in state governments you can't help but see what a good job local governments do with limited resources – in general the parks and gardens etc are a credit to your local council. Parks, playgrounds etc are an indicator as to what a good job they do for local interest. Take the time to regularly visit your local park to see who is doing the maintenance and restoring the area...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: australias-federation-is-staggering-under-t
Moral and intellectual vacuity personified
December 8, 2025
An opposition so bereft of a vision of a future for Australia in a rapidly changing world that their only appeal to the citizen is a return to an imagined idyll that ignores entirely the reality of that past . Australia desperately needs an opposition that can hold a government to account for its many failures to even seek to achieve a resolution to the vast policy failures of that less-than-glorious past!
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Coalition’s Australian values test is the ultimate dog whistle
Rogue actors
December 8, 2025
For a book detailing the involvement of the CIA with drugs, Alfred W McCoy's The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia is well-researched and convincing. When reading it many years ago, I realised that while it was possible for the CIA to amas a quantity of heroin through the use of not-so-hidden labs in Southeast Asia, a distribution network was needed to move that product. What was then known as the Mafia had such a network. Despite an increasingly thin veneer of 'a rules-based international order' and 'a shinning light on the hill,' the USA is becoming exposed as...
Hal Duell from Alice Springs
In response to: America’s justification for attacking Venezuela: Part 1 – a calculated insult to
Silence expands under pressure
December 8, 2025
The silence, of course, extends to the whole Australian governing class whichever mainstream party holds power at any level, federal, state and even local. The silence has being progressively reinforced across all Australian media, not just the mainstream, although the mainstream has always heavily censored or cut information about what is occurring in West Asia which is in any way critical of Israel. Fear of litigation, loss of employment, career and financial security, are now entrenched in widening the circle of silence. Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP) suits against people like Mary Koskakidis are designed to promote...
Peter Henning from Melbourne
In response to: The politics of forgetting: Australia, Gaza and moral silence
Moral silence or deliberate obfuscation?
December 8, 2025
Jaron Sutton’s article is for any genuinely moral government a call for explanation and remediation. For exactly the circumstances he exposes we are unlikely to see that from Albanese and Wong. The official Australian government lack of action to support justice for Palestinians and hope for Israelis for a future not castrated by the shame of clearly having committed genocide is a matter of national shame for us. When the history of Australia dealing with the Israeli genocide upon Palestinians is documented, Dreyfuss' name will appear as one who absolutely lacked the courage or decency to speak out for...
Richard Llewellyn from Colo Vale
In response to: The politics of forgetting: Australia, Gaza and moral silence
Voters know perfectly well the duopoly will never allow low migration
December 8, 2025
There not being a single useful number in Peter Hughes’ immigration snow-job, let me try to give him a hand. Big Australia means net-migration averaging in the 200,000s, which has only happened after 2005. Mass migration, no matter how much SA Liberal Senator McLachlan may shudder, means the 400,000s. As per Albanese Labor. Normal or historical net-migration is 80,000, give or take. In every reliable poll during or since COVID, voters (remember them, Peter?) want lower or much lower immigration than what they now have. Voters know perfectly well the duopoly will never allow low migration. That’s why...
Stephen Saunders from O'Connor
In response to: Australia’s immigration 'debate' is rhetoric, not policy
Too much of a good thing
December 8, 2025
It is sad that Mainul Haque felt a necessity to defend migrants. Most of us encounter migrants every day, for instance my doctor is Chinese and my dentist Zimbabwean, and I'm grateful for their expertise and care. Nevertheless, I worry about poaching skilled workers from countries that have borne the cost of educating them but not benefited from their skills because they are over here. Migrants bring diversity which is mostly a good thing. When overseas conflicts are played out here, for instance, between Jews and Palestinians, it is not a good thing. And most migrants are good people...
Jenny Goldie from Cooma NSW
In response to: Fear versus facts: why migrants strengthen Australia
Rights for humans (male and female)
December 8, 2025
Before our government draws up a bill to introduce a Human Rights Act in Australia, it needs to reverse the amendments made in 2013 to the Sex Discrimination Act. In 2013 the Gillard government withdrew from the Act the words women and men and introduced the notion of gender identity, which, in practice, has come to take precedence over sex. One outcome is that the Human Rights Commission has ruled that it is illegal for lesbians to advertise lesbian events as female only. Another court ruling has been that Giggle, an online app for women, cannot insist on a...
Janet Grevillea from Lake Macquarie
In response to: Words or action? Dreyfus and human rights at home
Schweitzer saw it – why can’t we?
December 8, 2025
Our ever-growing population puts pressures on our housing industry to provide ever more accommodation. Calls to increase housing density – particularly in the major cities – are met with howls of protest from those whose amenity would be compromised by being overlooked by neighbours. This leads to urban expansion – in small towns as well as cities – as farmland or woodland is absorbed into the urban dream. The result is continued loss of the natural environment that our wildlife needs, to support the growing urban environment of taxpayers and ratepayers, with little consideration of the impact this continuing degradation...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills, Vic
In response to: Could we have a rational debate on immigration?
The Australian government chooses complicity
December 8, 2025
Helen McCue gives a long list of aid agencies barred from Israel. But the relevant part of her article is the last paragraph. McCue says ... it seems that our government continues to enable Israel’s impunity with its silence regarding Israels banning of INGOs and further refers to lack of moral clarity. I'd drop the it seems that and refer simply to both Wong and Albanese's amorality when it comes to Palestine. Words will never stop Israel, not formal declarations nor fake pious weasel words nor Trump's peace plan to build a Palestinian Riviera.Just look at the ceasefire that...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: Israel’s NGO rules are shutting out humanitarian aid from Gaza
None of our business
December 8, 2025
This is an excellent explanation that AUKUS is not only a vast waste of taxpayers' money, but also that it it will produce nothing for Australia except the bitterness of our major trading partner and the world's emerging hegemon. That the subs involved might be used to advance the American continued desire to interfere in purely internal Chinese matters is an added and powerful reason to exit from it!
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Marles’ Defence overhaul raises an awkward question: why AUKUS at all?
Reflections on decline
December 8, 2025
This is a beautifully put together magnum opus on the self imposed decline of empire. One can differ on the details but the direction and conclusions are spot-on.
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Ceding the future to China
AI guardrails need a better scorecard in Australia
December 5, 2025
AI is far bigger than the answers to our entertainment needs and our home computer internet searches. It has moved faster than our gee whiz reactions to the available interactive platforms and it is impacting increasingly on our collective freedom, our workplaces, our bodies, our livelihood and the emerging structure of our society. That's why Sue Barrett's heads up piece on an existing and apparently agreed ethics framework for AI in the form of Steve Davies MEET framework is so bloody important! Industry Minister Tim Ayers' casual no guardrails response to AI ethics, using the MEET package was...
Donald Clayton from Bittern Victoria
In response to: A practical answer to Australia's AI ethics vacuum.
Could we have a rational debate on immigration?
December 5, 2025
Peter Hughes writes that there 'is absolutely nothing wrong with having a debate on immigration'. Indeed not. He failed, however, to make a rational contribution to such a debate. He was too busy demonising those who question very high immigration levels as those who come out of the Trump camp. Some of us regard Trump as anathema yet can still question the economic, social and environmental effects of hyper-migration that has been the case post-Covid. Unlike Hughes, some of us can distinguish between reasonable immigration rates and unreasonable ones - or unsustainable ones if you prefer. And the bottom...
Jenny Goldie from Cooma NSW
In response to: Australia’s immigration 'debate' is rhetoric, not policy
Sir Humphrey and international law
December 2, 2025
The sick joke that is the Australian government's infantile fear of the Israeli lobby reeks of the approach of Sir Humphrey to its responsibilities. Express in-principle moral commitments, but find all sorts of fraudulent reasons why in practice it will not do anything to implement those principles. Can anyone seriously imagine that Gough is not spinning in his grave when he sees the moral cowardice involved??
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Australia’s selective justice on international law is indefensible
A simple solution
December 2, 2025
Important questions are raised in this article about the reliability of AI in putting together accurate information for an article by journalists. There is a simple solution which I use extensively and that is to ask your questions of AI and follow that with a question as to the sources from which that information is gathered. It is then vital to double check the veracity of those sources and the way in which the information provided by those sources has been gathered and verified. It won't guarantee that you will get everything right, but will minimise the chance...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: AI and the news: how it helps, fails, and why that matters
Can he stay or will he go
December 2, 2025
I don't think the prospect of President Trump running again in 2028 is a serious consideration. The twenty-second amendment of the US Constitution clearly limits presidential terms to two. To get around that would require a countering constitutional amendment. That would require approval by two-thirds of the US Senate and House of Representatives as well as approval by three-fourths of the 50 states. That seems to me to be highly unlikely. I suppose there is a mathematical chance an amendment could happen, but far more likely is another impeachment process kicking off after next year's mid-terms with the extrajudicial...
Hal Duell from Alice Springs
In response to: Charting Trump's decline
Government funding of private schools should be phased out
December 1, 2025
I am not opposed to private schools but parents should pay the fees. In 1964 private schools began to receive government funding that has resulted in a two-tiered education system. Government schools are not adequately funded and cannot always provide a top quality education to all students, including sporting facilities, music schools, camps, etc. because the money to do so is syphoned off to private schools which can offer these facilities. In most OECD countries, parents send their children to government schools, and there are very few private schools. Australia is a divided nation because of this system. This...
Elizabeth Sprigg from Glen Iris, Victoria
In response to: The inflation myth propping up private school privilege
The simple way to stop tax avoidance
December 1, 2025
Michael Keating is right, our government needs more revenue to fund important programs, and the fairest way to get it is to tax all those who are currently paying less than their fair share. This is done via the legal loophole called ‘tax deductibility’ to reduce their 'taxable income'. Every company operating in Australia takes advantage of this, but none do it better than the transnationals. By organising over-priced, inter-company loans, they can shift the profits they earn here to any tax haven in the world. They must think we are stupid… and we are. The solution is as...
Tom Orren from Wamberal
In response to: Why Labor can’t be bold without confronting tax reform
A secure future – can only the uber-rich apply?
December 1, 2025
Will we see pangs of regret from the billionaires of fossil fuels and AI, sheltering in their luxurious secure bunkers, when they think of all the places in the outside world that they’d love to visit – or revisit – which are now unreachable because of climatic deterioration, widespread famine, anarchy, or AI’s mastery of the world? Bunkerworld encapsulates the grotesque reality today where the super-wealthy grow ever richer through exacerbating mega-threats like global warming and AI, in the face of existential risks that are well-known and documented, and then buy accommodation in ultra-safe, ultra-secure bunkers to shelter themselves...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills, Vic
In response to: Welcome to BunkerWorld – home of the rich and fearful
Albanese’s disgusting, trite vision for society
December 1, 2025
Albanese’s vision – “holding nobody back and leaving nobody behind” – has a superficial appeal: the most vulnerable have enough for a life of dignity, and the innovators, investors and boundary pushers reap the limitless rewards of their foresight and industry. Perfect, two popular cons (the rising tide and trickle down effects) rolled into one. But the mantra’s appeal is purely superficial. It ignores the reality of a very rigid, highly stratified society in which society’s directions are set by select few who happily experience most of the beneficial and least of the harmful consequences. All societal decisions involve...
Peter Sainsbury from Darling Point
In response to: Why Labor can’t be bold without confronting tax reform
A wedding and innumerable funerals
December 1, 2025
Brad Reed’s article is yet another exposition of the staggering slaughter of Palestinians by the actions of the genocidal Zionist forces – the Israeli government, the IDF, the Settlers. The estimated ‘body count’ is nearly twice that officially reported by Palestinian sources – and likely to be a massively conservative reckoning of the holocaust that the Zionists have wrought upon the Palestinians. In September, IDF commander Herzi Halevi confirmed over 200,000 Gaza casualties since October 7 2003. We took the gloves off, he said – insinuating that previously the Zionist forces had been restrained! Restraint such as that the...
Richard Llewellyn from Colo Vale
In response to: Gaza’s true death toll could be 126,000 or even higher
Rethink the national grid
December 1, 2025
In SA in another technology time and space the then Liberal premier in effect nationalised the electrical supply when he created the Electricity Trust of South Australia. On many levels a great success particularly on ensure reliable electricity supply all across the state . Like many state and federal institutions the gradual sell off of ETSA has also been a great success in saving cash strapped state governments over the years, but that money pot is broken and more importantly the technology has improved . The national energy situation has changed and we constantly hear about the limits...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: real-zero-real-economy-the-greenplexity-war
Tax on cash flows would be an easy win
December 1, 2025
Apart from the unfair distortions in our tax regime, like negative gearing and capital gains concessions, a most obvious source of significant revenue is from the large number of multinationals (probably all of them) who shift profits off-shore by charging immense fees to their local entities. The Productivity Commission presented the government with a neat solution to this, namely a 5 per cent tax on cash flows. Profits are so easily manipulated by companies that there is one set of accounts for shareholders and one set for the ATO. Revenue is not distinguishable and should be the basis of...
Graham Shepherd from East Melbourne
In response to: Why Labor can’t be bold without confronting tax reform
Greening the desert
December 1, 2025
This was a good summary of the issues around food security which the CCP have been working on for decades. But it misses the considerable efforts that are being undertaken in greening the vast deserts that comprise more than a quarter of China's land area. These projects are aimed at turning these deserts into productive land for crops and protein production. Efforts so far have been relatively limited scale but are gradually ramping up and will in decades to come add considerably to achieving the goal of food self-sufficiency.
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: How soybeans became a fault line in China’s food security
“Tell him he's dreaming”
December 1, 2025
Better still “Tell him nothing and take him nowhere.
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: trump-wants-australian-data-on-migrant-crim
Sinister semiotics
November 28, 2025
Further to the recent article from Marian Sawer and subsequent letter from Margaret Callinan it is worth taking a look at the front cover of this week's edition of The Spectator Australia entitled 'Drill, baby, drill.' It features a pasquinade of a distraught looking opposition leader attempting to construct her own gallows using a substandard drill with menacing caricatures of Angus Taylor and Andrew Hastie hovering in the background. The sinister semiotics is reminiscent of those deplorable red top rag headlines – Gotcha (The S*n, 1982) and The Truth (The S*n, 1989), which were published by the scrofulous...
Bernard Corden from Spring Hill QLD 4000
In response to: Losing the democracy sausage vibe
Failure to address climate change
November 25, 2025
Adrian Rosenfeldt offers a philosophical perspective on the current brouhaha over ‘net zero’: the “net zero project” reflects “the deeper human philosophical desire for certainty rather than scientific necessity”…“What appears to be a neutral scientific framework rests on a false metaphysics: the belief that complex, uncertain realities can be mastered through perfect measurement and fixed ideals.” The “neutral scientific framework” offered nations a rallying point and a goal on which to agree and work towards. This was not “false metaphysics”, more like nuts-and-bolts peace treaties, trade agreements and international cooperation agreements. It was not “moral arithmetic” but painstaking, historical...
Fiona Colin from Melbourne
In response to: Net zero and the metaphysics of anxiety in Australia
Climate, numbers, targets and anxiety
November 25, 2025
Let us be clear: unless we, humankind, act urgently and radically, we will soon experience societal collapse. We will certainly experience existential anxiety as we starve, seek shelter and battle over dwindling resources. I agree that numbers and targets are unhelpful, but not in the sense that the author intends; they allow our leaders to pretend to act while kicking real action down the road, and to create false comfort in the face of the worsening crisis. They allow us to count “land not cleared” as a reduction in CO2 emissions; to include future “carbon capture” at scale in...
Richard Barnes from Melbourne
In response to: Net Zero and the metaphysics of anxiety in Australia
Excluding nature from economics is irrational
November 25, 2025
Julian Cribb reminds us of the quote from that great Canadian environmentalist, David Suzuki: “Nature, the air, the water, the soil, the biodiversity that allows us to live (are) not in the economic system.” Excluding nature from economic thought is indeed irrational. Cribb also cites William Ripple who warned in 2017 that: “We are jeopardising our future by not reining in our intense material consumption and by not perceiving continued rapid population growth as a primary driver behind many threats. This was agreed wisdom 50 years ago yet seems to have been forgotten. Consumerism and population growth are applauded...
Jenny Goldie from Cooma NSW
In response to: The wisdom of the elders, the greed of the rich
Rediscovering political parties
November 25, 2025
Jack Waterford's discussion helpfully identifies how diverse efforts across the land, of those elected to our various Parliaments with Liberal Party endorsement, are seeking a path that will not only get them back on Treasury Benches, but unite their party. Presumably the political party membership of such Parliamentarians will be confirmed by Liberals winning Government. The party's raison d'etre will have been achieved. But in the meantime, does the Liberal Party lose its character as a political party when it defines itself in terms of such a goal? Jack says: Liberals need a plan to make a difference. Is...
Bruce Wearne from BALLARAT CENTRAL
In response to: Will there be Liberals around to take power in 2034?
Rizvi's crocodile immigration-tears
November 25, 2025
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/11/our-politicians-continue-to-fail-us-on-immigration-policy/ There goes Abul Rizvi again. Shucks, if only we had a “long term immigration plan”. But we do have a plan. Despite the propaganda from Abul and Tony Burke especially, Australia can and does manage visa flows and net-migration numbers to suit itself. Canada and NZ have made recent and sharp immigration corrections, reaping the benefits in rental and housing affordability. Cruelly for voters, Australia deliberately went the wrong way. After 1.2 million net-migration over 2022-25, we’ve an astonishing near-50 per cent surge in house prices, plus all-time lows in rental affordability. Ouch. In annual terms,...
Stephen Saunders from O'Connor
In response to: Our politicians continue to fail us on immigration policy
Liberal campaign tactics worse than their policies
November 25, 2025
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/11/losing-the-democracy-sausage-vibe/ Tim Wilson's Goldstein win and narrow Liberal losses elsewhere risk that Liberal tactics will be repeated in future. Democracy is endangered if that happens. Marian Sawer's article captures the flavour of it. Mark Dreyfus's speech in Parliament is the best summary I've read. Personal submissions are gritty and distressing. But nothing matches being there as a volunteer in Kooyong (or worse, Goldstein), or being re-traumatised attending the JSCEM hearing on 12 November. Listen to the audio on the APH YouTube Channel. Voices lift emotion off the flat page of transcript. Listening to only the first speaker might be...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: Losing the democracy sausage vibe
The secret business of Nauru offshore detention camps haunts us still
November 24, 2025
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/11/the-shadow-of-the-tampa/ The secret business of Nauru offshore detention camps haunts us still. Thank you Julie Macken for the reminder of where it all began when Tampa hove into view and political machinations began. The facts revealing that NZ bikies are now on the Australian Government payroll overseeing offshore detention caused barely a ripple with a public inured to harsh policies towards non- citizens. What is even worse is that Australia’s toxic treatment of refugees and others has spread and is being adopted and proposed by nations as diverse as UK and EU countries. Australia has led...
Pamela Curr from Brunswick
In response to: The Shadow of the Tampa
It's all about the kompromat
November 24, 2025
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/11/trumps-latest-epstein-gambit/ I agree with the assertion that the Epstein Files Transparency Act is a gambit. Firstly, it calls for only the unclassified files to be made public. Secondly, with an inquiry launched by the Department of Justice into some of the more well-known associates of Epstein, any documents relating to them will be held back. I think there is an elephant in this room. The issue is not who got on the Lolita Express to fly to that under-age island, as titillating as that may be, but rather who was Jeffery Epstein working for? Who amassed all...
Hal Duell from Alice Springs
In response to: Trump’s latest Epstein gambit
The Pirates of Penzance and nuclear subs
November 24, 2025
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/11/us-wants-seouls-subs-to-counter-china-asian-media-report/ It is hard to restrain a contemptuous laugh when continually confronted by the comic opera style of US modern Major Generals like Admiral Caudle. That one South Korean Nuclear sub could make any conceivable difference to the inability of the US to frustrate the growth of China is nonsensical. The same applies to the Australian nuclear submarines that may, if ever, get delivered in a decade or two's time. With the complete farce that is the current US and UK naval shipbuilding industries and the rapid expansion of the wholly defensive and vast Chinese fleet, the chances...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: US wants Seoul’s subs to counter China – Asian Media Report
Everything and nothing
November 24, 2025
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/11/two-trump-peace-plans/ It is stretching language to a point at which it becomes meaningless to suggest that these are peace plans. A more accurate description of them is Orange Donald Press Releases. Neither contains a realistic assessment of the situation in Ukraine and Gaza and neither takes into account the wishes of the Ukrainian and Palestinian peoples. They are theatrics from an Administration unable to deal with reality. It would seem that various parties to both conflicts may agree with the more benign and meaningless terms, (which incidentally comprises the vast bulk of both) but disagree violently on others....
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Two Trump peace plans
Norway is not the role model we need
November 24, 2025
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/11/environment-can-australia-be-trusted-with-the-2026-cop/?utm_source=Pearls+%26+Irritations&utm_campaign=61b37e7a62-Daily&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0c6b037ecb-61b37e7a62-745219603 Norway is often promoted as a role model for clean energy and a clean environment and social harmony. This view is faulty. According to the International Energy Agency, as of 2023, Norway ranks approximately 10th in the world for per capita carbon emissions from fossil fuel exports. Norway's per capita emissions are about 7.86 tons of CO₂ per year. This positions Norway among the higher emitters, primarily due to its significant oil and gas production. Like Australia, Norway heavily subsidies its fossil fuel industry (energypolicytracker.org). Norway has made significant public financial commitments to fossil fuels, particularly in...
Cid Mateo from Brinja-Yuin Country, Eurobodalla, NSW
In response to: No COP for Australia. No tears from me. By Peter Sainsbury.
Trump getting ready for mid-term elections
November 24, 2025
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/11/5-reasons-trumps-economy-stinks-and-10-things-the-dems-should-do-about-it/?utm_source=Pearls+%26+Irritations&utm_campaign=4dd8fe4e19-Weekly&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0c6b037ecb-4dd8fe4e19-671545744 The US military's killing of boats full of people off the coast of Venezuela is Trump's way of getting America ready for the mid-terms. The message is - when I give the order to break the law you follow orders. Bombing and killing civilians without a trial in international waters is illegal. US military personnel who are against breaking the law will leave and those who will agree to follow illegal orders, from the top down, will stay. For Trump to retain power, he needs to win the mid terms which under a fair election he...
Louise O'Brien from Sydney NSW
In response to: Five reasons Trump’s economy stinks and 10 things the Dems should do about It
Greenhouse gas pollution and climate change
November 24, 2025
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/11/coalition-politicians-cannot-accept-the-threat-of-climate-change-they-should-resign/ I’d like to thank the author of the article for the work that he does in this space. When referring to climate change, emissions, net zero and the like, may I suggest that we always add the cause: greenhouse gas (GSG) pollution. We need to emphasise these problems are caused by pollution. The key word is pollution. It is shocking that when National Party and Liberal Party politicians say they are abandoning net zero by 2050, their core voters, the farmers and small business owners cannot understand that it means their farms and their goods...
Con Karavas from Adelaide, South Australia
In response to: Coalition politicians who can't accept the threat of climate change should resig
Flurries of futile fee policy fluctuations
November 24, 2025
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/11/how-did-australian-universities-go-from-free-education-to-50000-arts-degrees-in-50-years/?utm_source=Pearls+%26+Irritations&utm_campaign=4dd8fe4e19-Weekly&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0c6b037ecb-4dd8fe4e19-671585176 Having lived through all the changes described, I found this summary of the changes in fee policies over the decades very informative. I have stashed it for future reference. Thank you George Williams.
Penny Lee from Perth
In response to: How did Australian universities go from free education to $50,000 arts degrees i