Letters to the Editor
A pathetic picture of Australian justice
October 2, 2024
I am writing in response to Ross Fitzgerald's piece regarding the appalling conditions in the Alexander Maconochie centre and the mistreatment of David McBride. Whilst the reality of prison can not be expected to be pleasant, there are basic standards of human dignity that have been established for good reason, and the idea that a federal facility should not uphold such standards is frankly shocking, shameful, and unacceptable. I have known people who have experienced incarceration in NSW facilities, and while the experiences have differed person to person and institution to institution, the reality is that the opportunity for...
Thom Muir from Canberra
In response to: David McBride and the Alexander Maconochie Centre prison in Canberra
Reply to Mark Diesendorf's letter of 20 September
September 26, 2024
Dr Diesendorf: I did not deliberately ignore your critiques, I wasn’t aware of them. I happened to notice the three recent articles that I referred to and saw that they all carried misconceptions about nuclear energy safety. As to your contention that nuclear energy is too dangerous, you need to explain why it will be too dangerous in the future when the record shows that it has been the least dangerous form of energy in the past. It is likely to have at least some role to play in the energy transition. Note for example Microsoft’s decision to get...
Michael Edesess from Funchal
In response to: The mistaken conventional wisdom about nuclear energy
Why shouldn't we support Hamas?
September 23, 2024
... wrongly conflates opposition to Israel’s slaughter with support for Hamas. I am increasingly questioning why we cannot support Hamas. Where is our opposition to Israel’s slaughter if we do not support the only defence force Palestinians have? We take it as a given that we cannot support a terrorist organisation so we designate Palestine's only fighting force as a terrorist force. That leaves Palestinians with what protection? We designate 7 October as terrorism. But what have Israel and its predecessor gangs been doing for a century? Why is the unequal fight for Palestinian survival called terrorism,...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn, 3122
In response to: Invisible Israeli influences tip the balance
Actually doing something to aid Palestine
September 20, 2024
It seems that our objection to the UN General Assembly vote on the resolution proposed by Palestine this week centred on the part that required actions by member countries such as us to enforce it. Nevertheless the resolution was accepted by an overwhelming majority. Although it is not binding, it is still morally incumbent on member states like us to now start those actions.
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: United Nations General Assembly votes to demand Israel ends Palestinian occupati
Nuclear energy
September 20, 2024
Dr Michael Edesess’s article is part of the standard pro-nuclear argument that claims that the anti-nuclear case is “conventional” ignorance and is allegedly based on “irrational” fears of ionising radiation. To the contrary, the case against nuclear energy is based on expert knowledge and is manifold. In a nutshell, nuclear energy is too dangerous, too slow to build to be useful for climate mitigation, too expensive, and too inflexible in operation to be a good partner for wind and solar. The “too dangerous” point has three components: the contribution of nuclear energy to the proliferation of nuclear weapons;...
Mark Diesendorf from Berowra Heights
In response to: The mistaken conventional wisdom about nuclear energy
Coalition reactors coincide with fault lines
September 20, 2024
Thomas Wellock’s warnings, quoted in Fiona Colin’s letter (17/9), about the likelihood of the next major nuclear accident must be heeded. The map showing Australia's active fault lines would surprise most Australians because they are located where most of us live, along the coast. And several of the Coalition’s recently announced nuclear power plants are located on, or near, several of these fault lines. Indeed, in one recent two-week period, one such site, Muswellbrook in NSW, experienced three earthquakes of magnitude 4.5 and above. And Geoscience Australia mapping data shows several significant fault lines in the Latrobe Valley, another...
Ray Peck from Hawthorn
In response to: The risks of nuclear power
When does it become treason?
September 19, 2024
In reply to Peter Henning, when does shifting us to vassal status become treason?
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: Australia a very fine example of the ultimate vassal state
Where will the nuclear waste be stored?
September 19, 2024
There is rarely any mention that a (temporary) nuclear waste storage facility will be required in both WA and SA shipyards which are located close to well-populated areas. The people of SA and WA didn’t get to vote for that. Given the secrecy and imbalance surrounding the deal and the fact that the US and UK are having difficulty storing their own nuclear waste, how long will it be before a secret storage facility is built on one of the increasing number of US-owned bases in Australia? My guess is that it’s only a signature on the official...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: independence-too-big-a-price-for-aukus-fantasy/
Australian targets from AUKUS participation
September 19, 2024
In Gareth Evans' article, he posits: The conversion of Stirling into a major base for a US Indian Ocean fleet will mean Perth now joining Pine Gap and the North West Cape, and probably the B-52 base at Tindal, as a potential nuclear target. In the early-mid 1970s, I studied the strategic situation of potential nuclear conflict, with occasional guest tutorials given by Des Ball, an acknowledged world expert on the subject – his analysis is credited with the (nearly!) deceased POTUS Jimmy Carter as having prevented WWIII. At one stage, he asked the tutorial class: What is the...
Richard Llewellyn from Colo Vale NSW
In response to: Independence too big a price for AUKUS fantasy
A climate tipping point is not a game on TV
September 19, 2024
The Earth has enjoyed 12,000 years of uniquely stable climate. It has arrived at this after aeons of instability; climate volatility is the norm. That exceptional stability has given us the ability to establish agriculture and civilisation. These are now, within the foreseeable future, coming under threat. By continuing to pump carbon into the atmosphere we are hastening Earth’s return to climate instability. The risks we face have been characterised as tipping points. As Peter Sainsbury observes, a tipping point occurs when natural processes begin to exacerbate problems previously caused by human activity. Once these natural processes start, they...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills, Vic
In response to: Environment: Earth system tipping points threaten our stable environment
The Russia-Ukraine war and NATO
September 18, 2024
Graeme Gill continues his diatribe against NATO. For him, NATO was the real villain behind the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He, and other P&I contributors, seem to have little regard for the Ukrainians killed and wounded in the Russian invasion. There is no mention of the true character and origins of Vladimir Putin’s autocratic, oligarchical crony regime. Jeffrey Sachs' role is shown in his early support for this regime as an adviser for Boris Yeltsin’s shock therapy on Russia’s post-Soviet peoples, evidenced in Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine: Gorbachev's eclipse by Yeltsin, and the consequent history is a story...
Andrew Mack from SURRY HILLS
In response to: The Russia-Ukraine war and NATOBy Graeme GillSep 18, 2024
Pacta sunt servanda
September 18, 2024
Yes, well said former minister for foreign affairs. However the mention of ANZUS does raise an historical question. Since when has NZ been put back into that post-WWII agreement? If they are back, why haven't we been told? It was the ridiculous cooperative action of the Australian and US Governments to kick New Zealand out of ANZUS on the spurious flapdoodle that David Lange's Government had violated the agreement. No, and in fact New Zealand's ban of nuclear ship in response to the clear wish of the New Zealand electorate, actually anticipated the end of the Cold War. It'd...
Bruce Wearne from BALLARAT CENTRAL
In response to: Independence too big a price for AUKUS fantasy
The risks of nuclear power
September 17, 2024
Michael Edesess questions the “mistaken conventional wisdom about nuclear energy”, arguing that nuclear is pretty safe. In 2021, Thomas Wellock, historian of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, produced Safe Enough? A History of Nuclear Power and Accident Risk, the sixth in a series of authorised volumes. The historian/journalist Daniel Ford, reviewing Wellock’s work, writes: “In 1982, I wrote… about the risk of another major accident following the one at Three Mile Island… The numbers suggested that another major nuclear accident would come due in about three years. The Chernobyl disaster occurred roughly on schedule, four years later, in 1986....
Fiona Colin from Melbourne
In response to: The mistaken conventional wisdom about nuclear energy
A debate that could really matter
September 16, 2024
Imagine juxtaposing two of the five items in this week’s scroll. I suppose in the current circumstances it would be political death for Kamala Harris to do anything but strongly back Israel. Still just imagine if someone in the world’s press could bring about a face-to-face discussion between Kamala and the young woman in another of the five videos, Razan Ahmad AlRifi from El Tuffah in northeast Gaza. She has just lost her sister, nephew and brother to US-Israeli bombing policy. What would Kamala say to her? .
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: A five-minute scroll - Pearls and Irritations
Putin's real intentions
September 16, 2024
Percy Allan, like all commentators, has read Vladimir's Putin’s intentions in Ukraine wrong. NATO’s eastward expansion was a useful pretext because it draws attention to American lies about NATO expansion. But, given the expansion already undertaken — eg Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — that buffer had already been lost. Putin’s nostalgic musing about Russia’s former glory fed into the deception that he wants Ukraine. America’s coup and breaches of the Minsk agreements, causing the deaths of around 14,000 in ethnically Russian eastern Ukraine, adds to the pretext for war. At the start of the conflict, Russia made a...
Warren Kennedy from Mullumbimby, NSW
In response to: Are America’s right and left converging on foreign policy?
All things being equal when you add profit
September 16, 2024
How to define equal should be the role of an elected government and it should change with public circumstances. At present, we don’t live in a democracy, we live in a capitalist society because the link between private and public is too blurred. Consider the results of privatisation of our state-owned banks. Consider the topics of today (interest rates, public housing, bank closure, housing affordability etc). With a state-owned bank in the market place as a defacto regulator of credit card interest rates, housing loans and bank closures etc with public good as its mandate, the other banks would...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: population-growth-capitalism-the-environment-and-context
US foreign policy
September 12, 2024
It is well worth reiterating the comments from Al Haig, a former American Secretary of State, during the US acquisition of Diego Garcia in the Chagos Archipelago: You just give me the word and I'll turn that fucking little island into a parking lot. More recently, the late British playwright, Harold Pinter best described US foreign policy as Kiss my arse or I'll kick your head in.
Bernard Corden from Spring Hill Brisbane
In response to: Nelson Mandela warned us that ‘the US has committed unspeakable atrocities in th
Subscribing to the absurd
September 12, 2024
The natural end point of those who accept the IHRA definition of antisemitism is believing that Israel is beyond criticism. Yet that is absurd. No nation on earth is perfect, all could, and should, do better. But Julian Leeser MP, in proposing his Private Member’s Bill to establish a judicial inquiry into antisemitism at Australian universities, clearly subscribes to that absurdity. He fails to distinguish between antisemitism and criticism of Israeli genocide. Perhaps he is incapable of making that distinction. Many are ... because of the IHRA's nonsensical definition. What Leeser and those who think like him, both Jewish...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn
In response to: Sanctioning universities for failing to address antisemitism
The truth at last about the record of the US
September 10, 2024
I have always remained an admirer of John's willingness to speak truth to power. This article confirms my belief.
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Nelson Mandela warned us that ‘the US has committed unspeakable atrocities in th
Rebranding logging undermines true custodianship
September 10, 2024
Thank you for highlighting yet another attempt to undermine the true custodianship of our lands and waterways. It is deeply disappointing that industrial logging continues under the guise of “forest gardening,” despite the Victorian Government’s claims that it has ended. These logging operations, even when rebranded, continue to damage forests, destroy habitats, and contribute to climate risks. Such practices only undermine efforts to restore the natural environment. True restoration can only be achieved by empowering First Nations peoples to lead through their Traditional Knowledge. They have sustainably managed these lands for millennia, and it is time to let...
julia Paxino from BEAUMARIS, VICTORIA
In response to: Logging by another name – ‘Forest Gardening’
Climate science education can inform us all
September 9, 2024
Australia's federal election is within the next eight months and voters should understand the major issues including the climate emergency. Climate advocate Ken Russell is concerned that the main problem is lack of knowledge in the community about the climate problem. So Russell urges creation of an expert group to drive the communications campaign. In view of the popularity of Peter Dutton's nuclear idea, it does seem that we need to educate the public and also MPs about the science. Fortunately, our nation has at least four climate experts who would qualify for such a group: Tim Flannery...
Barbara Fraser from Burwood, Vic
In response to: Scientists must participate in the climate debate
Albanese's old boys club needs a Kamala injection
September 9, 2024
Anthony Albanese’s focus seems to be less on delivering societal reforms in the spirit of the Labor movement than in working to keep government in the hands of Labor and the Coalition, and minimise the influence of Independents and the Greens. In the name of bipartisan agreement he is creating a political “old boys’ club”, negotiating legislation in agreement with the Coalition – the secretive NACC, modified Stage 3 tax cuts, AUKUS. Albanese’s justification may be that he wants his legislation to endure, but kow-towing to the Coalition now provides no guarantee of this. It looks more likely that...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills
In response to: A minority Labor Government is likely after the next election
Mike Lyons' article of 6 September on China
September 6, 2024
Perhaps more pieces like the Mike Lyons P&I one of 6 September, as powerfully informed and as unapologetically free of the genetics of of American-led political and evangelical bias as it is, could help us break through the dominant news-for-profit Western media. Access to a less cowardly political platform in Australia would help, but ....
howard debenham from Maroochydore
In response to: From Deng to Xi, the China miracle
Garland lengthens the road to peace in Palestine
September 6, 2024
I commend Mahir Ali for reminding us of the historic context of the present war in Palestine. However, US Attorney-General Merrick Garland does absolutely nothing to advance the cause of a peace agreement by now lodging an extra-territorial charge against Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: The Gaza conflict: nothing comes out of the blue
Lacking the ability to think
September 4, 2024
Be it propaganda, capitalism, politics, social media, media in general, advertising or religion, the issue is not what we are being told, but our ability to think logically. If we take the time to think logically, the above have minimal influence on the way we behave or what we believe. Take you pick: it’s your local politician spouting forth the party line on climate change, war, China, renewable energy or EVs. Or it could be the politicians who run the US, the man out the front at your chosen religion or the games that your local supermarket and their...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: censorship-on-media-bias-and-the-war-in-ukra
What market forces are driving the war against EVs?
September 4, 2024
The war on EVs is driven by the fossil fuel industry which includes car manufacturers. On every level, if you consider the complexity of manufacturing an electric motor and variable speed drive to a piston engine and gear box, the electrical components are far less complex. They take up far less space, have by far less moving parts and are far more efficient, both in manufacturing and operation. Yet because the benchmark price is set by the traditional car manufacturers, the cost of EVs are similar to petrol, diesel and, in particular, hybrid vehicles. The tariffs will need to...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: burning-the-ev-bridges-with-china-is-risky/
China and Taiwan
September 3, 2024
Jerry Grey's article is excellent. I have just one addendum: It is recorded in Chiang Kai-shek's diaries that at the time of the Nixon negotiations, he indicated that he was open to a two-state solution for China, along the lines of North and South Korea. China, at that time, was much smaller than it is today, in economic terms. So yes, the decision to opt for a one-state solution was made in Washington, no doubt with input from boardrooms in the US from corporations eager to get their hands on the China market.
David Holm from Taipei
In response to: Rewriting history will not serve Australia well
Deaths in Gaza
September 3, 2024
The Australian Government, and the parliament as a whole, has failed to loudly and clearly condemn the “indiscriminate retaliatory behaviour of the Israel Defence Force”. It has also “failed to make any statement..about the deaths of 40,000 Palestinians”. A recent study reported in The Lancet did not arrive at a precise figure for Gaza, but estimates “around 186,000 deaths were attributable to Israeli actions since October 2023, and “most of these were not attributable to bombardment or execution”. The Lancet authors based their figures on indirect deaths observed in other conflict zones: “In recent conflicts, such indirect...
Fiona Colin from Melbourne
In response to: Albanese ignores humanitarian disaster in Gaza
Eckersley urges revolt against corporate power
September 3, 2024
Richard Eckersley accuses governments of shocking irrelevance in view of the cascading global challenges of climate extremes, especially rising heat, and huge consequences including crop failures and rising seas. After decades of worldwide procrastination, Eckersley now considers that humanity urgently needs an all-out revolt against the power of corporations, some of whom should be charged legally with crimes against humanity. Yes, corporations do need to become aware and socially responsible. Also, it is promising that soon the world has important UN and other international meetings; national elections such as ours; and ongoing efforts to stop wars and instead...
Barbara Fraser from Burwood, Vic
In response to: Fiddling while the world teeters on the brink
Peter Dutton and nuclear power
September 3, 2024
This letter is principally for Jim Coombs, author of the above article. Peter Dutton doesn't really want nuclear power for Australia. It's just another wedge for Anthony Albanese, like Scott Morrison's original AUKUS deal. Dutton wants to keep coal-fired power stations operating as long as possible, kowtowing to the coal industry and his Coalition climate change ignorants But he has to be seen to be on board with renewables and non-polluting electricity generation to win any support from the electorate. One of his advisers must have said, what about nuclear Dutto; ticks all your boxes; Albo couldn't be...
Keith Simpson from Canberra ACT
In response to: Dutton’s nuclear vision is distorted by ignorance (or worse)Gaza genocide protes
The sisterhood reads Pearls and Irritations
September 3, 2024
In my article published last week I referred to my tram-driver grandfather and my home duties grandmother, but instead P&I amended it to read my tram-driving grandfather and my grandmother who did not work. Nothing could be further from the truth. My second wave feminist friends and I were incensed and rightfully so. My grandmother did work, but not in the paid workforce; she, like her contemporaries, was described as Home Duties in the print and electronic media, on electoral rolls and other public documents. This is a lesson for young editors.
Jane Timbrell from Canberra ACT
In response to: Retirement villages: are they really a safe haven for retirees?By Jane Timbrel
Private hospital care
September 3, 2024
I read with interest Peter Breadon's recent article on private hospitals. He doesn't go nearly far enough – we need radical change and pronto! As a recently retired health professional who worked in both the public (mostly) and the private sector, I can suggest a solution to the problems associated with private hospital and health care – just get rid of it completely! Nationalise it – lock, stock and barrel. The private health insurance industry is a parasitic blight and private hospitals are no better. Government funding already massively subsidises these rorters. I have been paying huge premiums forever...
Royce BENNETT from Baxter, Victoria
In response to: End the private hospital blame game by exposing the cost of careBy Peter Bread
Omar Khayyam’s guide to the climate crisis
September 2, 2024
“Lo, the moving finger writes and, having writ, moves on …”. The climatic warning signs grow ever more critical. Our politicians take some steps to address them, but always with an eye back to those whose interests that action might compromise. Fossil fuel industry lobbyists keep that retrospective eye focused on their industry’s interests. Our governments seem to succumb to this, or else, as Mark Beeson observes, “…they are incapable of grasping the immediacy of the problem or the scale of the necessary response needed to avoid catastrophe. This inadequacy of government response gives a Khayyamian inevitability to...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills, Vic
In response to: There are alternatives to Anglo-American capitalism, however unlikely they may s
A chance for a new PMA
September 2, 2024
Madeleine King recently had a chance to retain for the people a fair share of our mineral wealth. (Path not taken: the Petroleum and Minerals Authority at fifty) The Australian Government could have partnered with Equinor, the 67% Norwegian Government-owned oil and gas company, to develop our potential Southern Ocean oil and gas fields. Instead, they have been auctioned off to private companies.
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: Path not taken: the Petroleum and Minerals Authority at fifty
Acclaimed journalist charged with ‘anti-semitism'
September 2, 2024
That is a good think. She and others who have these views are not above the law. Let's see what the Australian courts decide.
Mike Lyons from Sydney
In response to: Acclaimed journalist charged with ‘anti-semitism’
Lucky you didn't bet the farm on it, Malcolm
September 2, 2024
Malcolm Fraser stepped on a rainbow a while ago, but this reminder of his faith in the US' honesty with its allies is both quaint and germane to the whole AUKUS idiocy. At the AWM, I occasionally chatted with some of the chiefs of each branch of the ADF. During one such chat, a chief (who shall remain nameless) confided in me that shortly after being promoted to that position, he randomly, and without prior warning, would visit the various establishments under his command. On one visit to a base situated in the numerically lower latitudes of Australia,...
Richard Llewellyn from Colo Vale NSW
In response to: ‘They will tell me.’ Malcolm Fraser’s Cold War nuclear heterodoxy
Flattening moral distinctions
September 2, 2024
The moral distinction between liberal democracies and dictatorships is being flattened by the carnage in Gaza. (Suhas Chakma) Apologies to the peoples of Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Iraq, Libya. You have to wait for Gaza for the moral distinction to be flattened.
MAX LE BLOND from BALGOWLAH HEIGHTS
In response to: How human rights are disappearing before our eyes
Grate unexpectations
August 27, 2024
Given this morning's (27 August) release of polling figures showing Albanese at -10% approval and extremely likely to plunge headlong far further, Jack Waterford's article is totally apposite. I will be concise. When we elected the Albanese Government, we did not expect Albanese to be another Gough Whitlam (for whom I voted). Gough had a statesman's vision. But we did not expect Albanese to have no breadth nor depth of vision beyond getting elected again. We did not expect Albanese, and much less Richard Marles, Pat Conroy and Matt Keogh to be defence strategy policy nerds, but...
Richard Llewellyn from Colo Vale NSW
In response to: Labor on the AUKUS battleground
Attack dog Chalmers runs rings around Dutton
August 27, 2024
Jim Chalmers on ABC AM this (27 August) morning, sounding very prime ministerial, should at least take on the role as attack dog if Anthony Albanese is to remain prime minister for stability's sake.
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: Labor-on-the-aukus-battleground
Careful with That Axe Eugene
August 26, 2024
Borrowing the title of a Pink Floyd number, in whichever way you interpret the track, it may just about represent the predicament of how Australians and New Zealanders face in having to divorce from the West. We are, however, eastern countries and it's high time we faced that fact!
John Bentley from Tongala
In response to: Exiting Pax Americana could save our bacon
The Americans now have the Country Liberal Party
August 26, 2024
The Americans will be happy that the Country Liberal Party has won in the NT. Very convenient if they wish to use their military base in Darwin to threaten China. The Americans cannot move more of their military out of the Middle East until they get the Saudis to sign a normalisation agreement with Israel and an AUKUS-type agreement with the US, something the Saudis seems to be resisting doing. Everyone is waiting to see the election results in the US in November, but I am sure that it will be a win for Kamala Harris and Tim...
Louise O'Brien from Wollstonecraft
In response to: Accusations of US regime-change operations in Pakistan and Bangladesh warrant UN
Mismanagement of Australia's monetary system
August 26, 2024
The Commonwealth Government should manage the complex levers of the economy, and can do so, given our laws. and the RBA currently does not suck money from the economy, nor pump it in directly. The Commonwealth, by law, could control the monetary levers just as it does control the fiscal levers; in the past this was done, but was abandoned decades ago. As the recent action by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia reducing mortgage rates for new borrowers shows very clearly, the RBA cash rate does not determine mortgage rates. Will that now cause our experts to...
John Kampert from Waikiki WA 6169
In response to: Managing the economy: sharpening a blunt instrument
ABC laying responsibility for any war on Iran
August 26, 2024
The ABC seems to be in full-on propaganda mode, following the Israeli 100-jet strike on southern Lebanon, saying that responsibility for any ensuing war rests with Iran. Joe Biden, Anthony Blinken, and Lloyd Austin are responsible for what happens to Israel, Palestine and Lebanon, and for the response that has happened there since October.
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: Middle East accountability
One way or the other, we're facing a reality check
August 23, 2024
Over the years since 1945 there has been a marked decline in religious belief in developed countries as our standards of living have risen. For many, now there is no need to wait for the next life to realise heavenly benefits; Heaven has arrived on Earth. Our planet is on the cusp of environmental collapse, as Ted Trainer observes, from our blind obsession with affluence and growth from over-consumption and over-production. We need major changes to global environmental management, and drastic lifestyle changes, to avoid the catastrophic crises foretold. The World Call to Action from the Club of...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills, Vic
In response to: A critique of ‘a world call to action’ on the multiple crises now enfolding huma
The elephant in the room
August 23, 2024
Ted Trainer, in his critique of the report of the Roundtable on the Human Future's report, manages to overlook the mainspring of the human emergency: overpopulation. Global material consumption is currently about 110 billion tonnes/year, on track to reach 170 billion tonnes by 2050. This is 5 to 10 times what the Earth can sustain, long-term, as numerous scholars have pointed out. Even if everybody on Earth could be persuaded to halve their material consumption — a doubtful contention — civilisation would still be headed for collapse. While human numbers remain impossibly high, so too will over-production, over-consumption and...
Julian Cribb from Canberra, ACT
In response to: A critique of ‘a world call to action’
Just how badly can Australian politics be driven?
August 23, 2024
It is a sad indictment on the Liberal Party and Australian politics in general that this process should be driven by comments by Peter Dutton, a man whom one would not trust to drive a police paddy wagon on a dirt road.
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: dutton-gaza-and-why-we-need-an-emergency-protection-fram
National security?
August 22, 2024
Just how much is hidden behind “national security”? (The military Americanisation of Northern Australia) Very little actual information is released for the voters to make an informed decision on national security. We are pawns in expensive political gamesmanship. How many billions of dollars have been wasted on national security? Hardly a month goes by without talk of another failed defence contract which the voters have no say in because of national security. Even with the secrecy of national security and the poor quality of mainstream media, any thinking person must question the rationale behind AUKUS / U-SUKA (M Brune...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: The-military-americanisation-of-northern-australia/
The economy
August 22, 2024
Chris Mills’ take on the economy is comparable to most in that it tinkers at the edges of Australia’s economy. The COALition in its time in office took the economy from the gutter into the sewer. Labor has been doing its utmost to lower it even further. Ten years of abstemious economic activity on top of a dig-it-up-and-flog mentality have left Australia reeling, with all tax-paying Australians feeling the pinch. All social indicators are on the back foot as our quality of life deteriorates. Equality has gone out the back door as Australia’s young are left holding the can....
John Bentley from Tongala
In response to: Managing the economy: sharpening a blunt instrument
Not listening?
August 22, 2024
When I got to the final sentences of Henry Reynolds' pertinent explanation, I felt a chill similar to what I experienced hearing the advice offered by Eyre-Crowe (PA to the British Foreign Secretary) to his boss as the THIRTY-SEVEN DAYS rolled on to the outbreak of WWI. Crowe confided something like the following to Grey: But Foreign Secretary, can we be sure Ambassador Prince Lichnowski is even being listened to in Berlin? It would be nice and reassuring to think that Richard Marles and Penny Wong would take note of this article by an eminent public intellectual who has...
Bruce Wearne from BALLARAT CENTRAL
In response to: The military Americanisation of Northern Australia