Letters to the Editor
Trump Governs by ventriloquist dummy
July 22, 2025
While I was disappointed that Albo didn’t cancel the AUKUS/5 ministers Morrison pact in the first weeks of his first team I have to admit that I’ve been impressed with his steady as she goes treatment of all things Trump. If he can keep a lid on any further US instalments, keeps playing the long game, perhaps buys some conventional subs from Japan, or France, or even China, as part of Trumps demands for increased defence spending, he could well out-last Trump or even the (not so) United States. As always with all politicians the polls rule. I’ve no doubt...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: trumps-negotiation-position-diminishes-as-a
Memo Wong: first, resurrect integrity
July 21, 2025
If Australia's “diplomatic, economic, strategic and military capabilities are all going in the same direction, should they be if one or more of those elements is deliberately going in the wrong direction? Marles has only ever shown the delight of the incompetent in being allowed to play with his superiors, going along with whatever they say. Hence our increasing military absorption into the US warmonger machine. Marles should be dumped. His replacement by someone even halfway more competent would be a definite improvement. Wong, on the other hand, is smart but seems to have left her integrity at...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: Time for Foreign Minister Wong to put her foot down
Less Security Dependence
July 21, 2025
Good article by Paddy Gourley in the July 19 P&I. With luck America will force Australia to finally adopt a more independent security posture and capability. They have voted for Trump, twice and the world is different even if many remain in denial. Surely we must avoid being dragged into another fruitless conflict following our Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq mark 2 experiences. We have to believe we can do it as do most other countries around the world. And the Europeans are now doing as NATO is being unilaterally changed. To achieve similar national security to what we now believe...
David Hind from North Sydney NSW 2060
In response to: Time for Foreign Minister Wong to put her foot down
It's time to become truly independent
July 21, 2025
John Menadue's excellent article sums it up very well. I'd just add that the US likes to parrot its commitment to democracy. Fact is it doesn't give a rats about democracy and never has. Not only with the numerous 'regime changes' Mr Menadue refers to but some specifics would include destroying Iranian democracy in 1953 by overthrowing their government (with the UK) for oil, egging on the Hungarians endlessly in 1956, promising them the world when they overthrew the Soviet puppet government, letting them rot. Numerous incursions into the affairs of South American countries and even in their own country,...
Wes Mason from Gisborne
In response to: Donald Trump and his minions may yet do us a favour by ending AUKUS
Michael McKinley’s moral perspective
July 21, 2025
McKinley brings a refreshing moral perspective to discussion of US & Zionist false narratives on Iran. I always like to read him in P&I. I am 100% pro-Iran. I recommend Prof Mohamed Marandi's regular analysis on YouTube. He says Iran is ready for another treacherous Israeli/US surprise attack and will obliterate Tel Aviv and Haifa with nonnuclear weapons if it comes. I believe him. This is effective deterrence.
Tony Kevin from Canberra
In response to: Military operations seen through Gauguin etc
Where do all the obsolete weapons go?
July 21, 2025
I’ve often wondered where some of the poorest people in the world get their weapons/ammunition from. I constantly see that they seem to get great pleasure from firing into the air rounds from automatic weapons. Firing 100 to 1000 per min? at $1 to $2 each? How do they pay for them? Then I saw the delivery of obsolete Australian tanks to the Ukraine. Never a shot fired in anger but out of date/obsolete, scrap value to some. What a great business model! Even better when you’ve got the president of the US spruking for you.
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: trump-wants-us-to-spend-a-bomb-on-defence-w
Defiant hope in the face of evil
July 21, 2025
A significant number of us are tired of cruel policies towards asylum-seekers and have been for a very long time. But like much else that is evil - incarceration of Indigenous children, supplying fighter plane parts to Israel, for example - it matters not what we think. As long as there is money to be made, or friends to appease, cruelty will continue. When Mammon is God, you will always get people who worship the Almighty Dollar doing whatever it takes to accumulate wealth for selfish, self-serving purposes. Call me a cynic if you like, but look around the world...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: 12 years on, are we not yet tired of cruel policies towards asylum-seekers?
More on the anti-semitism debate
July 21, 2025
In response to David Macilwain. This is interesting to me, as I recently was challenged by someone - a Trump supporter - telling me that the Moroccans had expelled the Jews, so I read up about that. I found that, on the contrary, they had been a valuable part of society, and still are. When Israel was first established many left to go there to be a part of a new exciting country, expecting to be a part of its development in the same way they were used to in Morocco, only to find they were discriminated against, with a...
Jo Kinnane from Waurn Ponds
In response to: A key point missing in the anti-semitism debate
Hamas are the brave Palestinian Resistance Force.
July 21, 2025
So very disappointing and disheartening to see Stephanie Dowrick supporting the lobbyist's line of 'Israel has the right to defend itself' and both sides-ism-argument. I reckon her article continues the line of dehumanisation of Hamas and casts a slur on the ONLY immediate protection and resistance available to and ELECTED by Palestine. She says. . .Since the blazingly stupid, cruel, terrifying actions of the corrupt Hamas... etc This sounds like the initial scene setting post 7th October set by the lies of the IDF, when western journalists fell over themselves to parrot ... do you condemn Hamas It has allowed...
Glenda Jones from Carlton 3053
In response to: Let’s combat antisemitism, not use it to dehumanise others - Part 1
Thank you to our letter-writers
July 21, 2025
As I read Paddy Gourley's ever so sensible and explicit advice to Minister Penny Wong, three things occurred to me. The first is that so many of us admire Penny Wong and puzzle over what seems to us like her semi-paralysis. I, and I am sure many others, would endorse Paddy's admonition that she seize the hour and get our government to move swiftly in the direction of diplomacy, reduced defence spending and peace-making. The second is that, in addition to appreciating P&I's many informed, articulate and passionate article-writers, I am so keen each day to read the...
Janet Grevillea from Lake Macquarie
In response to: Time for Foreign Minister Wong to put her foot down
The Omission
July 21, 2025
OMG iPhones are all made in China.
Con Karavas from South Australia
In response to: Round up the usual Chinese suspects
Tassie's health problem has been building a long time
July 18, 2025
The issues with the Tasmanian health system have been festering for many years. It was obvious from the first time I visited more than 30 years ago and it has become increasingly worse. Even then, retirees were invading our southern isle, as those from Sydney and Melbourne were able to buy substantial, well-located property, often for about half the amount they realised on the sale of their previous home, and so it was a no-brainer if you wanted to leave big city life, while also improving the state of your liquid assets. This trend has only continued, resulting...
Ian Ian De Landelles from Murrays Beach
In response to: The Tasmanian election on 19 July won’t fix the mess
Our democracy – taking the easy road to oblivion
July 18, 2025
Democracy gives a sense of empowerment. Voters feel free to live as they wish – albeit within reasonable limits. But democratic governments rarely take essential, unpopular steps. These days the power of the media seems so intense that governments bow to its will. Too many in the media disseminate misinformation to further proprietorial political goals. And barely-controlled lobbying, supported by substantial political donations, enables powerful interests to wield disproportionate influence over critical policy development. Daniel Andrews achieved some success in avoiding overbearing media influence when he was premier of Victoria, but our federal government, tied to three-year terms,...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills, Vic
In response to: Humanity is ‘risking catastrophe’: UN
Get capitalism under control first
July 18, 2025
Great article. The first step in solving all the problems is severing the ties between the capitalists and government. Recognising that the capitalists exist to make a profit/get rich; creating jobs is a by-product, a nuisance. As long as the parliamentary door is open to lobbyists and political donations, the balance will always be in favour of profit. The deportation of modern-day slaves from the US will be the downfall, one way or the other, of capitalist Trump. What we need is more regulation and auditing, not less. As long as the capitalists are complaining about government regulation...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: Even Ken Henry’s best ideas can’t fix a system addicted to growth
FARMS and Usans
July 18, 2025
The issues of Australia’s over-reliance on the United States of America are, thanks to this article and similar mentions, becoming more mainstream. There are two terms which may assist these changing Australia’s perceptions on this issue. The terms are FARMS (Foreign Aid Replacing Military Spending) and Usan (citizens of the United States of America). FARMS provides a quick way of identifying an area where military spending (commonly misnamed as defence) should be redirected. In this way, the foreign aid — where does it come from” question is answered — and it identifies the greatest evil in the world...
Ian Daniels from Brisbane
In response to: Trump wants us to spend a bomb on defence. We should think twice
Trade with China is an investment in our security
July 18, 2025
Jocelyn Chey notes that Foreign Minister Penny Wong has said publicly that a strong economic relationship with China, leading to stability and prosperity, is “an investment in our security”. In that vein, we must congratulate Prime Minister Albanese on his talks with China, particularly with respect to a possible massive bilateral agreement on the development of green steel. It is a huge economic opportunity for Australia which is the world’s number one producer of iron ore with over half the global exports. It is also an exciting — indeed, exhilarating — opportunity to help mitigate climate change because...
Jenny Goldie from Cooma NSW
In response to: Headline news: Australia and China
Australia's law must catch up with climate reality
July 18, 2025
It’s easy to feel disheartened by Justice Michael Wigley’s recent federal court decision that the Australian Government has no duty of care to protect Torres Strait Islanders from climate change. But as Liz Hicks, a lecturer in law at the University of Melbourne, points out: “It is a question of when, rather than if, law will adapt to deal with climate impacts. Much like a rising tide breaking against a seawall, the future impact of climate change on things that law already protects is too extreme for the law to resist.” Others agree. Dr Riona Moodley, lawyer and...
Ray Peck from Hawthorn
In response to: Federal Court rules Australian Government doesn’t have a duty of care to protect Torres Strait Islanders from climate change
Which Australians have held the US in high regard?
July 18, 2025
Apart from our politicians and our generals what percentage of Australians hold the US in high regard? In my lifetime, protest against the US has been a regular thing starting with “overpaid, over-sexed and over here and rumours of tensions in South Korea and Vietnam etc. It may be understandable for our politicians coveting a well-paid military lobbying position to top up their parliamentary pension. The same goes for our military who are always keen to be aligned with the US with them having the biggest and best weapons of mass destruction and our generals always wanting the...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: What Australians think of Trump and the US
Let's think at least three times instead!
July 17, 2025
Henry Kissinger once said, To be America's enemy is dangerous. To be its friend is fatal. That is one of the most accurate statements ever made about the US. All this increased defence spending is supposedly so that we can all go to sleep at night in fear and trembling of the imminent invasion by China. The question you have to ask is of the US and China, which is more dangerous to other countries? In the last 40 years, the US has been involved in dozens of armed conflicts with countries around the planet, while China has...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Trump wants us to spend a bomb on defence. We should think twice
A duty of care to Torres Strait Islanders
July 17, 2025
To whom we owe a duty of care is first and foremost a moral question. A duty of care represents an ethical obligation to consider the well-being of others and act in ways that avoid causing unnecessary suffering or harm, even in the absence of enforceable laws. It is a universal principle that crops up in the moral code of all peoples in various forms. In Kantian terms, it can be described as a moral imperative. The post-WWII war crimes were prosecuted applying that moral imperative – the defence that people were only following orders was not accepted. In...
John Tons from flinders university
In response to: Federal Court rules Australian Government doesn’t have a duty of care to protect Torres Strait Islanders from climate change
Australia is subsidising the dying US empire
July 17, 2025
With his usual precision, John identifies the pith and substance of the AUKUS fraud imposed upon us by the second-hand car salesman Scott Morrison. That redundant member of the Dodgy Brothers sought to wedge Labor by vastly indebting the Australian people to a US empire in rapid decline which continues its forlorn but dangerous, feckless and capricious attempts to remain relevant. He frankly didn't give a rat's ***e about the cost to ordinary Australians in lost healthcare, education, housing and public transport that would be needed over the next three decades to fund our satrapy to the US in...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Donald Trump and his minions may yet do us a favour in ending AUKUS
Follow the money
July 17, 2025
Is it anti-Catholic to criticise Italy? Is it anti-Anglican to criticise the UK? Is it anti-Islam to criticise Indonesia? No-one in their right mind would think so. So why the ridiculous postulate that it’s antisemitic to criticise Israel? We (and journalists please pay attention) need to rigorously question these fences erected to suppress free speech. It doesn’t take much digging to reveal the money, the power and the land grab at the heart of Israel’s assault on Gaza, and, by extension, the taboo imposed by politicians and the media in openly condemning the war crimes being committed there....
Alyssa Aleksanian from Hazelbrook
In response to: Systematic bias: how Western media reproduces the Israeli narrative
A key point missing in the antisemitism debate
July 17, 2025
Les Macdonald rightly observes that in the discussion of antisemitism it is not recognised that Palestinians are the true Semites, and that if we use the term then all Semitic peoples should be included. But astonishingly he fails to observe that Ashkenazi Jews are not semitic but almost uniformly Slavic in origin. This includes most Israeli leaders past and present, who have been from Poland, Ukraine and Belarus. It also includes Jillian Segal, born in South Africa, from parents of East European origin. In addition, speaking Hebrew does not make someone Semitic any more than it can make...
David Macilwain from Sandy Creek, NE Victoria
In response to: Antisemitism and abuse of power
Renewable meat
July 16, 2025
Jeffery Soar correctly asks What about the animals? The answer (omitted for concision) is that in 20-25 years most meat protein will be produced in cell culture – beef, lamb, chicken, pork, fish and even dairy products. The product is real meat – it just never went moo. It is very close to economic now. This will spare the world a vast amount of destructive agriculture, overgrazing, and needless cruelty. It is a 21st century solution to a 21st century problem. As to whether people will eat it, 70 years ago they never thought they would dress in...
Julian Cribb from Canberra, ACT
In response to: What about the animals?
Australia's criminal alliance
July 16, 2025
A majority of Americans voted for their nation to be run by criminals, conmen, child rapists, sexual abusers, billionaires, totalitarians, ignoramuses and racists. That's the kind of US they want. As Noel Turnbull succinctly shows, most Australians do not share the overt aims of the current US regime. Nor, if we asked them, would they share the values. Why, therefore, does the Albanese Government (or the LNP for that matter) still want an alliance with such degeneracy? As things stand, any alliance with the US constitutes a serious threat to Australian decency, fairness and democracy. Any political...
Julian Cribb from Canberra, ACT
In response to: What Australians think of Trump and the US
Yes, we need to move to a no-growth economy
July 16, 2025
David Shearman is right: if we are to avert dangerous climate change (3 degrees C warming), then we need to move to a no-growth economy. This will be a hard call in Australia, given growth is the dominant economic paradigm. Try telling it to Jim Chalmers, or most economic editors of the mainstream press! It is sacrilege. Nevertheless, Julian Cribb (Humanity is risking catastrophe, 16 July) brought to our attention the 2025 Global Risks Report. Of the four environmental risks, it cites natural resource shortages and biodiversity decline. This should be enough to indicate that we have reached...
Jenny Goldie from Cooma NSW
In response to: Australia cannot survive unless it switches to a no-growth economy
Let's hear more on deep ocean aquaculture
July 16, 2025
Julian Cribb cites a possible part-solution to the world's food crisis, namely, deep ocean aquaculture. Unlike coastal fish farms, including the contentious Tasmanian salmon farms, aquaculture in the deep ocean allows currents to remove all wastes, which in coastal waters have destroyed wild ecosystems and threatened species such as the Maugean skate in Macquarie Harbour. Deep ocean aquaculture would allow us to eat salmon without the overwhelming guilt that accompanies eating it now. It would help maintain global protein supplies which are at risk because land-based production of meat is exacerbating climate change through land-clearing and emissions from ruminants....
Jenny Goldie from Cooma NSW
In response to: Why the world needs renewable food
Systematic bias
July 16, 2025
While I can agree totally with the article on systematic Bias in Western media regarding Palestine and Ukraine, it constantly astonishes me that there are almost no further articles regarding just how pervasive media bias is. Whether on the complicated housing, economic or other crises, the role of industry or even whistleblowers etc the language is also biased. Let's be honest with ourselves and call all media propaganda. Some are more competent and effective than others; the best is not recognised for what it is. I shouldn't need to demonstrate by looking at the treatment of protesters, whether...
Mark Bulluss from Dalmeny
In response to: Systematic bias: how Western media reproduces the Israeli narrative
Segal's imports
July 15, 2025
Let's be clear. This antisemitism plan is nothing but importing Israel's state-sanctioned apartheid and making it law in Australia. Don't we have foreign interference laws? How are they supposed to work when the government of the day supports this interference? And let's not forget (publicised after this article) about how Segal won't dictate to her husband, but will dictate to millions of Australians just how incorrect they in their thinking. A pointless position given to someone who has done nothing but ruthlessly exploit it for the benefit of a foreign government. But since the Americans write...
Steve M from Brisbane, QLD
In response to: 'No' to Jillian Segal's antisemitism action plan
Neither antisemitic nor anti-Jewish
July 15, 2025
One of the biggest hurdles to making the case for an antisemitism bill, such as that proposed by Jillian Segal, is that for almost two years we have all seen, and continue to see daily, clear evidence of horrific and indefensible atrocities perpetrated by the IDF on residents in Gaza. This is producing an understandable revulsion in Australia, leading to protests in support of the Gazans and against the IDF, and by extension Israel. These protests are not antisemitic, nor are they anti-Jewish. But here I have to add, unless you, Jillian Segal, choose to make them so. Instead...
Hal Duell from Alice Springs
In response to: Antisemitism in Australia: a 'pathology in our society'
The correspondence has been retained, Margaret
July 15, 2025
Margaret Reynolds makes the point well. I note she says: “Volumes of unanswered correspondence from civil society — if these have been retained — could detail the efforts of so many Australians to alert the government to its responsibilities during such a devastating humanitarian crisis.” We know from FOI that as of a fortnight or so ago, as previous letters note, Penny Wong had received more than 52,000 pieces of correspondence on Palestine, and Anthony Albanese more than 65,000. Their FOI people are refusing to make them available, on practicability grounds even down to the detail. (ran a...
Geoff Taylor from Borlu
In response to: Australian parliamentarians urgently need lessons in international law
Renewable foods offer survival and peace
July 15, 2025
Julian Cribb’s article details the threat that our changing climate poses to global peace. His charts, showing forecast water stress and degraded soils, depict this intensifying crisis with devastating clarity. The issue underlying this crisis is our ever-growing population. Jenny Goldie has recently outlined this challenge; David Shearman too. Our ever-growing global population will experience increasing desperation to grow food in ever more depleted soils and with insufficient water. This will herald intensified exploitation – plans for future sustainability will be forgotten in the face of immediate needs. Cribb highlights the potential of renewable foods. Transitioning to these...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills, Vic
In response to: Why the world needs renewable food
Addressing the lies
July 15, 2025
When dealing with the words of the accused war criminal Netanyahu, it is necessary to recognise that nothing he says can be taken at face value. He has for instance argued publicly that the Jews were in the Levant first and that gives them prior rights to the land. He has suggested this is confirmed by scientific research. The truth, as always with him, is actually the reverse of what he asserts. There are numerous peer reviewed and widely accepted archaeological and genetic studies in recent years that confirm the genetic and cultural continuity of the Palestinian people with...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: NYT report says Netanyahu prolonged war on Gaza to stay in power
What could possibly go wrong?
July 15, 2025
Letter writer Brian Bycroft has raised a point often ignored when he says: For better or for worse, people of the Jewish faith have become, for some, almost a proxy for Israel. In these circumstances, people attacking a synagogue may bear no specific hatred of Jews, but see the synagogue as representing Israel. Definitely for worse I suggest. That the Star of David, a religious symbol, became the symbol on the national flag of a colonising, self-declared apartheid state, divided by ethnicity/religion, has absolutely muddied the waters. One would have thought the consequences of this choice to be foreseeable....
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: Rise in antisemitism
Not just Asia-Pacific confrontation
July 15, 2025
The US-China confrontation which Gareth Evans raises also takes place beyond our region, at least a confrontation in US eyes. Compare the report on a meeting just held in China, ,with a report in April by the head of the US Africom, especially the last section summing up the strategic competition being waged by the US against China in Africa, based on a skewed US view of China’s current role in that continent. At the international meeting in China, it was all about win-win co-operation, respect for different versions of government, and positive development for the benefit of all...
Geoff Taylor from Borlu
In response to: Abandoning our fears:how Australia should respond to US-China regional confrontation
The PM doesn’t reply to webmail on Palestine
July 15, 2025
Good on Margaret Beavis and her health profession colleagues. There has to some way to cut through the government’s support by inaction of the Palestine holocaust. However, that way clearly isn’t to write to the prime minister. I have just been informed, as a result of an FOI request for his responses to webmails to him on Palestine since October 2023, that no such responses exist. That is even though there are at least over 65,000 pieces of relevant correspondence to him. It was suggested that instead one should write to Penny Wong.
Geoff Taylor from Borlu
In response to: Gaza: There comes a time when silence is betrayal
What about the animals?
July 15, 2025
Good points and contributes to a body of writing about controlling population growth. A dimension overlooked is the impact of animal production – both farmed animals and wild catch. There are estimated to be 80 billion farmed animals across the world. Most grain production is used to feed farmed animals. We would have more food to feed people if grains were directly available for people and not via the inefficient process of converting into animal products. There are also the dimensions of climate impact and animal cruelty involved in consuming animal products in comparison to plant products.
Jeffrey Soar from Australia
In response to: Why the world needs renewable food
End the democracy-capitalism link
July 14, 2025
“The days of the world letting America live beyond its means are rapidly coming to an end.” What needs to come to an end is the close ties with the market and government. To think that running a business and running a country are the same thing is absolutely ridiculous. A business has an obligation to make a profit and a government has social obligations. That countries have excessive debt is due to excessive spending with private companies who can only be trusted to make a profit. They will not pay any more than they have to, and disregard...
BoB Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: Trump is single-handedly slaughtering America’s ‘exorbitant privilege’
Unis should focus on societal needs, not enrolments
July 14, 2025
One would hope that universities would include consideration of society’s needs in decisions about which disciplines they wanted to house, not a simple examination of enrolment numbers. If enrolments for mathematics and English courses declined at Macquarie University, Downton, Parkinson et al. would probably conclude that society no longer needs people who know the square root of zero or when it is legitimate to happily split an infinitive. An appropriate response to declining enrolment numbers (assuming that is what Macquarie University has experienced in sociology) would be to ask whether the knowledge and skills taught by that discipline...
Peter Sainsbury from Darling Point
In response to: APU Media Release: Macquarie University announces plans to axe Sociology
Less authoritarianism needed on vaccines
July 14, 2025
John Dwyer’s 9 July article on the epidemic of misinformation about the safety of vaccines omits in his bio his previous connections with Friends of Science in Medicine, an ultra-conservative organisation characterised by a narrow scientism. Dr Kerryn Phelps, formerly president of the Australian Medical Association, has been a strong critic of Dwyer’s approach. Phelps herself and her partner were both damaged by the COVID vaccines, and other highly qualified medical experts have questioned the mainstream story on COVID vaccines. For example, Wendy Hoy AO, Professor of Medicine at UQ, states in her foreword to a detailed 2022...
Murray May from Canberra
In response to: The disastrous consequences of an epidemic of misinformation about the safety of vaccines
The Voice against antisemitism
July 14, 2025
I seem to recall that one of the purported arguments against the Voice proposal was that one segment of Australian society would receive special treatment and that this inequality should therefore not be supported. I wonder how our Indigenous community are feeling right now. I wait with breathless anticipation for the Opposition to run the same argument this time around.
Alan Wilson from Adelaide
In response to: Antisemitism Plan sparks fierce debate over free speech, racism, and political agendas
Understanding growth
July 14, 2025
As a 73-year-old who left school at the end of year 11, I’ve never been understand the concept of continual profit/growth. Like compound interest, the profit/growth included the growth of the year before and in the end required dramatic change — eg expansion of output, reduction of staff etc — to be achieved and in the end it was not achievable. I have watched as multiple government institutions have been privatised, primarily to reduce taxation, only to find that eventually the services once provided had reduced and the government has had to step in for all the reasons...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: Australia cannot survive unless it switches to a no-growth economy
What is the point of Trump at all?
July 14, 2025
As the nightly news is flooded by Donald Trump, his irrelevance becomes more and more obvious. Putin, Netanyahu and Xi Jinping, the real major players, humour and ignore him and the next level of leaders have come to realise that that’s the way to handle him. It is becoming more and more obvious that the US Congress, the stock market and even his appointees are going about their business recognising that the king wears no clothes. I would go far as to suggest that he be given the Nobel Peace Prize that he covets (because Obama got...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: As Trump flip-flops on tariffs, what’s the point of negotiating at all?
First they came for...
July 14, 2025
Last night, on SBS News a feeler was cautiously put to air about settlers and the IDF increasing their activities agains Christians in Palestine. As the world turns a blind eye to the attacks on Palestinians that the IDF is “looking into“, the bombings, starvation and the purging of ethnic groups (anyone other than Israelis) from their Old Testament-given homeland gathers momentum with Trump's approval.
Bob Pearce from Adelaide sa
In response to: Kostakidis to go before court, after judiciary recognises anti-Zionism is not antisemitism
Government needs to bury antisemitism report
July 14, 2025
Greg Barns' analysis of the antisemitism envoy's report and recommendations outlines the dangerous implications of it for Australian society. This outcome was entirely foreseeable and it beggars belief the government succumbed to pressure from the pro-Israel lobby and the Murdoch cheer squad to establish this position and commission the report. Albanese now has to walk back on these recommendations while the usual suspects paint him as soft on antisemitism. Albanese's political problems pale in comparison with the real dangers these recommendations pose for Australian society. The erosion of the right to protest is already occurring in some states...
Philip Brennan from Darwin
In response to: Antisemitism envoy's report 'Trumpian'
Erasing our rights
July 14, 2025
It's bad enough that we have an antisemitism envoy at all when the nation made clear it didn't want a divisive Indigenous Voice to Parliament. Envoy Segal's proposed measures to deal with antisemitism should be dismissed from the start, based as they are on the IHRA definition of same. It is appalling that our government and universities have adopted that definition. That definition robs us of our rights to free speech and protest about actions of Israel and its government. No nation is immune to criticism. Israel is not an exception and it is not antisemitic to say,...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: Antisemitism envoy's report 'Trumpian'
Trumpian? No, McCarthyism
July 14, 2025
The Big Ride for Palestine raises between $20,000 to $30,000 per year for Palestinian charities e.g a kindergarten, an agricultural development project. The complexity and expense of transmitting the funds to the charities is beyond the capacity of such a small fund-raising project. They arranged for APHEDA – Union Aid Abroad to transmit the funds as it has well-established means to do so. APHEDA refused to act as a conduit for the funds if any of the participants expressed overt support for Boycott Divestment Sanctions or if any BDS logos appeared on the riders apparel. APHEDA made it...
John Curr from MANLY
In response to: Antisemitism envoy's report 'Trumpian'
When misplaced fears become phobias
July 14, 2025
Clear analysis from Professor Gareth Evans. Max gratitude. Not only would any contribution to a Taiwan battle be militarily insignificant, the response to our engagement by a riled Beijing could be effected without them sending any military force our way. We have near zero maritime capacity. We don't own or don't crew the trading vessels. They are foreign owned by entities we have no leverage with. But China does. China could bring Australian trade to a halt, by decree, without sending a single warship to sea. By the proverbial stroke of a pen they could announce an embargo:...
Dave Young from NQ
In response to: Abandoning our fears: how Australia should respond to US-China regional confront
All honour to the champion of real law and justice
July 14, 2025
I'm more than a little sick of hearing the mantra about Israel's right to self-defence. That right is restricted by proportionality, something that Israel's genocide goes far beyond in Palestine. What about an occupied territory's right to humane treatment and its land not being annexed? And their right to attempt to free themselves from their captors? When will we hear something, anything, about those rights? ... Rights that have only ever been abused, never honoured, by Israel in Palestine. Francesca Albanese has heroically and steadfastly stood up for the genuine rule of law... not that also sickening international...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: US sanctions UN expert Albanese over criticism of Israeli genocide