Letters to the Editor
You're playing into Albanese's hands, Julian Cribb
June 11, 2025
Julian Cribb's carbon bomb drowning Pacific, though rallying emotionally, is music to Woodside Albanese's ears. He can carry on regardless with his immigration bomb drowning Australia. Over 2022-25, his 1.3 million (net) tally is an unbelievable five to six times the historical average, blowing Kevin Rudd's record out of the water. Hardly anyone has blinked. With our self-absorbed intelligentsia applauding, it's barely a political issue. Sussan Ley doesn't want to know. It follows, Albanese will inflict more of the same, over 2025-31.
Stephen Saunders from O'Connor
In response to: Go-ahead for new carbon bomb marks Australia as enemy of the region
Young Australians won't accept Labor hypocrisy
June 11, 2025
Still reeling from Murray Watt’s rushed approval of Woodside’s North West Shelf project, I wasn’t ready for Samantha Hepburn’s rundown of six more mega gas projects. The emissions from these alone would blow Australia’s net-zero-by-2050 pledge to pieces. As Hepburn notes, Labor’s review of environment laws is a chance to make climate impact central to approvals. But in 2024, Albanese ruled out a climate trigger. Still, with 25 Labor, 11 Greens and three independents backing net zero — and public anger over the NW Shelf decision — momentum may be building to revive it. While the PM’s second-term vision...
Ray Peck from Hawthorn, Vic
In response to: Six more giant gas projects could join Labor's latest carbon bomb
As we awake from the American dream...
June 11, 2025
Les MacDonald’s summary of the military capabilities of the two belligerent superpowers makes frightening reading; that’s if you can count America as a superpower at all. Trump and his cronies may be sitting on a superpower arsenal, but as the Trump dictatorship starts to unfurl its true colours, the support of the citizenry is being withdrawn. Moreover, presuming the superpower clash Trump is urging comes about, China will be bombing Taiwan, not Pearl Harbour. Japan’s savage rampage through Mongolia and China didn’t stir the isolationists in the 1930s doing so nicely out of the Lend/Lease program. It wasn’t till...
John Mosig from Kew, Victoria
In response to: US unlikely to be able to hold its own against China
War with China
June 10, 2025
Les McDonald makes a valid point in saying that the US no longer has the naval or merchant fleet strength to invade China. But I suggest that's not in the Pentagon's war plans. If they have a coherent thought on the matter, Washington's military leaders want to deter China from invading Taiwan, or punishing it if it does. That involves massive bombing from the air, as Curtis LeMay did in North Koreas in 1952-3. No land combat. The danger, of course, is that bombing could escalate to include the use by either side of nukes. Let us hope...
Richard Broinowski from Paddington
In response to: Les MacDonald's US unlikely to be able to hold its own against China
The two-state solution is a chimera
June 10, 2025
Once again the chimera of a two-state solution is raising its head in Palestine. And as usual, Israeli approval is deemed essential. The current configuration of the state of Israel has, or so is my understanding, neither a constitution nor declared national boundaries. The lack of a constitution may not be a problem since Israel already has diplomatic relations with many countries. The lack of declared national boundaries may be another matter. How can a state without boundaries cut away a portion of the land it occupies and claims and declare it a sovereign state belonging to another?...
Hal Duell from Alice Springs
In response to: Talk of a two-state solution may not go much further
It's commentary on the evidence, not conspiracy
June 10, 2025
Your correspondent has two problems: (i) the IHRA definition which falsely declares criticism of Israel is antisemitic, trashing the memory of the Holocaust (imagine if we couldn't criticise Germany because it's anti-Germanic) and (ii) the abundance of evidence of genocide that's available pretty much in real time. We see the dead bodies, the razed homes, farms and infrastructure, hear evidence from humanitarian aid workers, hear Israel's leaders, civilians, settlers urging the continuation of the slaughter. Most recently, aid getting in is negligible, roads to aid stations have been declared combat zones, aid stations have become IDF targets. Why...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: When critique sounds suspiciously like conspiracy
Childhood learnings
June 10, 2025
Oh! Patricia Edgar, how I hope that Mr Albanese has a skerrick of what he learnt as a child still in his brain to help him come to his senses now. He has a son. What on earth are he and his team thinking? That it's all too hard – not like the brave little engine. Thank you.
Judith Gamper from Kambah ACT 2902
In response to: Albanese should remember his childhood - and the rhymes he learnt
Cults never die
June 10, 2025
Further to Andrew Scott's recent article, the long march of neoliberalism has witnessed greed transform from a vice into a virtue and the accumulation of extraordinary wealth is now considered the pinnacle of human achievement. Following the global financial crisis, many neoliberal acolytes and disciples of laissez-faire economics admitted their entire intellectual edifice had collapsed. The corporate welfare solution of lucrative bailouts and quantitative easing was like feeding strawberries to a donkey and it merely transformed the protean elements of fascism into a dystopian paradigm of gangster capitalism. Its trajectory and devastating consequences are evident throughout most advanced...
Bernard Corden from Spring Hill Queensland
In response to: Pushing back with new urgency against neoliberalism
Challenging policy isn’t prejudice
June 10, 2025
Raising concerns about the weaponisation of antisemitism isn’t the same as denying that antisemitism exists. It’s about questioning how the term is sometimes used to shut down legitimate discussions about human rights and foreign policy. That doesn’t mean all criticism is fair or balanced, but it does mean we should be able to talk about these issues without being accused of discrimination. It’s also important to recognise that advocacy by Jewish groups, Palestinian groups, or anyone else, plays a role in shaping public debate. Highlighting the influence of lobbying, from any side, isn’t sinister. It’s part of understanding how...
Meg Schwarz from Macclesfield, Adelaide
In response to: When critique sounds suspiciously like conspiracy
Scott Morrrison – Australia's worst AO recipient
June 10, 2025
Scott Morrison wouldn't hold a hose while the East Coast burnt. He wasn't in a hurry to tackle COVID. He subsumed five federal portfolios without telling the ministers or the nation. He was widely despised for his style by his colleagues in the ABC Nemesis program. He now works for American Global Strategies, a lobbying outfit that promotes the AUKUS defence fiasco. He successfully launched a bottomless spend for Australi to reset national defence strategy based around a political wedge with the ALP. Scotty is now working for America's military industrial complex interests as a fully superannuated...
Donald Clayton from Bittern Victoria 3918
In response to: Let's rethink Australia's national security
Hegseth's immaturity
June 10, 2025
..[Pete] Hegseth was in a fighting mood. 'America is proud to be back in the Indo-Pacific – and we’re here to stay,' he stated ... Hegseth is too young to remember that the US fought an inglorious withdrawal to the 37th parallel in the Korean War, was defeated in the Vietnam War, was humiliated by the Taliban leading to a disastrous retreat from Afghanistan and has interfered in the politics of Iran, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Pakistan Taiwan, Korea and now India. Maybe we will soon hear the cry of the 1950s in the Caribbean – ...Yankee, go home!
Peter Gumley from Northern Rivers, NSW
In response to: The Hegseth directive: Australia spend more
Don’t mention it
June 10, 2025
A total of $917 billion was spent on the recent Elbit arms contract with Israel, $800 million (plus) handed over by Richard Marles earlier this year to the US for AUKUS (plus another $12 billion a year until we receive these hypothetical submarines). But flood victims, you can have a $800 one-off payment to clean out your house, buy new beds, furniture, redo your plumbing and feed yourself: $800 to put you and your family’s life back on track. We won’t contemplate an inquiry into the many insurance companies that were hoping to charge you a minimum $28,000...
Alyssa Aleksanian from Hazelbrook
In response to: Merchants of Death
When critique sounds suspiciously like conspiracy
June 6, 2025
John Menadue’s platform has become a staging ground for increasingly toxic screeds masquerading as foreign policy critique. Two recent pieces — Weaponisation of Antisemitism... and We Must Confound the Zionist Lobby— cross the line from criticism into crude conspiracy. The claim that antisemitism is “weaponised” to silence debate collapses under scrutiny. Israel is one of the most criticised nations on earth – by the UN, media, academics, and NGOs. If there is a Zionist conspiracy to suppress criticism, it’s doing a remarkably poor job. Every cause has its advocates, but only Jewish advocacy is routinely framed as shadowy...
Adam Slonim from St Kilda East
In response to: We Must Confound The Zionist Lobby
US won’t stop the murders of the hungry in Gaza
June 6, 2025
A great article from Ralph Nader, a man who ran four times to be US president himself. We watch on in utter disbelief as UN Ambassador to the UN Dorothy Shea votes against a ceasefire in Gaza, knowing that that means more mass murders by Israeli forces, because US Secretary of State Marco Rubio says he wants Hamas totally eliminated, so there is “not an ember”.
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: Media shortcomings in covering terrorist Netanyahu’s daily Gaza mass murders
Pre-1978 progress in China
June 6, 2025
Firstly, I should say that I agree with Jocelyn about the guidance that Sun Tzu's The Art of War could give to the West as it already does to China. A very good article that summarises well the issues confronting China and the region. One area that I think may need further exploration is the progress that China made prior to opening up. Whilst it is undoubtedly true that Mao made some massive mistakes, I think it is also important to recognise the successes of that period. In 1949, China's life expectancy was 35 years. That put it...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: China and the Art of War
One month in, the honeymoon is over
June 5, 2025
I could not agree more with this letter. Unfortunately, less than two weeks into the new government, we are finding out why so many people had difficulty deciding whom to vote for and left it until the last minute to choose the best of a bad bunch. The speed with which the WA gas contract was approved tells a story of how the WA votes were bought. With more to come, unfortunately. Sadly, the old saying in politics — You can’t make changes if you're not in government — only applies if you're prepared to do something once...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: marles-the-archetypal-sycophan
Gaslighting by Labor
June 5, 2025
The prime minister reportedly said while visiting South Australia, “the truth is that there are more extreme weather events, and they’re more intense now. Science told us that that was the case. The science has been proven, unfortunately, to be playing out. The thing is that climate change is real and we need to respond to it. And we need, I think, to respond to it across the board. That’s why my government has a comprehensive plan to deal with climate change. If the government believes this statement, then surely the Australian public are being subjected to gaslighting about...
Richard Ruffin from ADELAIDE
In response to: Time again for stewards to do a moral health check-up
Who does own shares?
June 5, 2025
Every night on our TV news, a disproportionate amount of time is given to the share market. Nothing could be more inflationary than the trading in shares that increase in worth without actually increasing the value of the company. That worth is being increased by chief executives and boards in the pursuit of their personal bonuses. There have been many crashes when the value of shares has fallen back more in line with the actual worth of the assets. Yet another example of where the rich get richer and the poor suffer no matter what as the...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: Not all Americans own shares
Wake up Ross – net-zero's a scam
June 5, 2025
Ross Gittins lathers in Indigenous outrage over the (highly staged) Woodside decision, correctly noting it's an absolute free-kick in tax/levy terms. What he's still not ready to countenance about this massively corrupt deal, what's completely beyond Michael Keating's article the day previous, is the unmentionable that net-zero itself is a historic scam, another glorious happy birthday for Australia's political classes to have a big lend of hapless voters. After three sainted decades of UN climate action, nearly a decade of their net zero, global population, emissions, CO2, temperatures keep rising. What a surprise! I mean, all they're...
Stephen Saunders from O'Connor, ACT
In response to: In one awful decision, Albanese has revealed his do-nothing plan
Albanese and Gaza: Decency or dog act?
June 5, 2025
Peter Rodgers asked: whether, by repeating the statement that [Israel] has used starvation as a weapon of war which Anthony Albanese, finally, has condemned as outrageous and completely unacceptable, will there be any more substance to this fulmination? As of 4 June, we have seen added to this generalised charge of inhumanity by the Zionist forces in Israel, the shooting of Palestinians at the GHD distribution post and a declaration by the IDF that Pa;estinians are not to use roads — such as they may be — to access the GHD distribution post. So, Albo, you have direct...
Richard Llewellyn from Colo Vale
In response to: Israel-Gaza: Has Albo finally found his backbone?
A response to Tess Nikitenko
June 5, 2025
I agree with Tess that the restrictions on accurate advertising, which would help potential clients in making wise choices of psychologists, are somewhat arcane and ridiculous. However, as a fellow trauma specialist with a Masters in Counselling and several other accompanying qualifications, when I developed a pamphlet of our services I was contacted by the Australian Psychological Society with an amazing draconian restriction. They informed me that as I was not qualified as a psychologist I was not permitted to use the term psychological anywhere in our pamphlet. To be clear, I was not saying that I or any...
Maggie Woodhead from Perth, WA
In response to: Why psychologists can’t clearly say what they’re trained to do.
Super and social benefits – why the inconsistency?
June 5, 2025
The superannuation changes proposed by Dr Jim Chalmers, if carried, would result in taxation on earnings of superannuation accounts holding over $3 million dollars in assets. The tax-transfer system in general is based on the household unit. The proposed changes would mean that a household with two superannuation accounts would be subject to a super account tax threshold of $6 million, whereas a household of two sharing one superannuation account would be subject to a threshold of $3 million. This is not how the welfare system, or the pension system, works. Centrelink is absolutely rigid about enforcing household...
Roz Averis from Adelaide, SA
In response to: Don't let rich old men tell you the planned super tax is terribly bad
Climate change is a human rights issue
June 4, 2025
Julian Cribb is right to frame the provisional approval of the North West Shelf Extension in human rights terms. The project will add another 4.3 billion tonnes of carbon emissions to the atmosphere in the next 45 years, substantially adding to global warming and consequent extreme weather events. This will have flow-on effects with respect to health and particularly food production, not least through seas flooding the major food producing deltas of the world. These include the Mekong delta in Vietnam which is a mere 84cms above current sea-level. If sea levels rise to between one and two metres...
Jenny Goldie from Cooma NSW
In response to: Merchants of Death
Well done
June 4, 2025
What excellent observations about Richard Marles. Our deputy PM appears to be more interested in the accoutrements of the job than in thinking clearly about issues of international security. Appearing to be well-dressed is no substitute for respresenting his country. Step in to help him, Albo. He certainly needs it.
Phil Huhhes from Heidelberg
In response to: Marles’ tough guy tosh hurts Australia
Woodside grips government policy
June 4, 2025
Murray Watt’s rapid, if preliminary, North West Shelf decision has apparently prioritised the short-term profits of global gas giants, and the jobs of 330 local employees, over securing the survival of rock art which has survived 60,000 years before Woodside’s arrival, and which was under active consideration for World Heritage listing. It also overrides the threats posed to climate, and to future generations, by the methane that this project will emit. These, both detrimental to the national interest, suggest undue influence on government decision-making from Woodside. The 1980s entrepreneur, John Spalvins, had a plaque saying If you’ve got...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills, Vic
In response to: Time again for stewards to do a moral health check-up
Blaming the wrong people
June 4, 2025
This article is true enough, but I cannot accept that the politicians are solely to blame. They (politicians) are elected and are beholden to the voters, at least in Australia. Politicians can try and educate the voter and make the best decisions for our future children, but the voters will rebel when they realise they are the ones who have to pay the price for a future that was not of their making with nothing to be gained from it. A child born today will be able to vote in the year 2043 and will be a...
Aale Hanse from Rverina
In response to: Merchants of death
Marles, the archetypal sycophant
June 4, 2025
It is hard for normal people to understand how Richard Marles, whose views would fit neatly into the right wing of the Liberal or National Parties, has not only found a home in Labor, but has risen to be our national deputy leader. This is a Labor Party with very little relationship to that of the Labor greats like Gough Whitlam and Paul Keating. Marles is a profoundly mediocre man masquerading as a leader and a statesman. He is neither of those things as his ardent prostration and servility before a religious bigot and inebriate like Pete Hegseth clearly...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Marles' tough guy tosh hurts Australia
Nasty theology
June 4, 2025
It seems to me that George Browning has gone far beyond a fair criticism of political Zionism (including Christian Zionism), and the violence and racism of the Israeli state and elements of the population, into what I can only call a sneering, generalised theological putdown of Jews, Judaism, and constant salience of Jewish memory of the ancient land across communities for centuries, including in Europe. There have been constant links across the centuries. And much more care should be taken into making assertions about Jewish belief in exclusivity, particularly in religious terms. It is highly disputed. All this in...
Larry Stillman from Melbourne
In response to: Christianity: the antithesis of Zionism
Another reason why we should get a divorce from the US
June 3, 2025
“Piketty’s conclusion is that capitalism, if left unchecked, generates a concentration of wealth among a tiny minority and this has manifested itself in America. Piketty further argues that merit or hard work, the standard justification for inequality, has little to do with what has been defined as the 'new gilded age'. It has more to do with the nature of capitalism itself in which capital precedes labor, and where profit maximisation becomes the rational basis for human interaction and economic relationships. Piketty critiques the very structure and foundation of capitalism itself.” I’ve just paid $300 to a medical specialist...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: The US dual economy: trending toward the periphery
Unis adopting IHRA definition of antisemitism
June 3, 2025
The decisions [to adopt the IHRA definition] were made from above as might be expected in a corporation by the board and the chief executive and just imposed from on high. But isn't this what our universities have become? With government funding cuts — who can forget in particular PM Morrison's contempt for education? — universities are now corporate-like entities. Free and rigorous thinking and debate are incompatible with reliance on donors who want specific outcomes. In this context, the government is just another donor, wanting to satisfy its lobbyists and donors. The pro-Israel, Israel can do no wrong,...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: Conflation and controversy over antisemitism definition
Antisemitism definition-2
June 3, 2025
Thank you Henry for drawing attention to the paradox inherent in the article you wrote. One of the starkest idiocies inherent in the panicked response of university administrators is the implicit invitation to consider Jewish students who oppose the developing genocide in Gaza as non-Jews thereby creatIng the notion that Jewish students demonstrating against the Netanyahu Government’s policy are somehow implicitly converted into “antisemites”! Reminds me of the excommunication of Baruch Spinoza from Jewish philosopher into pariah “non-Jew”, an interesting footnote being the Israeli rehabilitation of Spinoza as a great Jewish thinker by retrospectively reversing his banishment from...
Robert Richter from Victoria
In response to: Conflation and controversy over antisemitism definition
Antisemitism definition
June 3, 2025
I recently attended a performance of the “Armed Man” and for the first time noted the sequence of the music with a background montage of wars that have been fought all in the name of some God or other. The thing that struck me early in the performance was the Sanctus sanctifying the motive for war, the men sent to war believing in its sanctity and prepared to pay its price of sacrifice. Towards the end, the Benedictus offered neat rows of pure white crosses as a memorial to stupidity. Why do we persist in it?
Brian Robertson from Maleny
In response to: Conflation and controversy over antisemitism definition
Gaza – day of reckoning
June 3, 2025
My congratulations to Scott Burchill for his incisive and elegant condemnation of the monster that Zionist Israel has become, or has now exposed itself as being all along. There are different views on when Israel became such a nightmare state, and it really is not important now except to historians. The facts are that Zionist Israel now is the state that Burchill rightly condemns for its moral emptiness. It is unparalleled in modern history for its acts of cruelty, and that Israel has thereby lost its right to a future as a state. Retribution for its unparalleled cruelties awaits...
Tony Kevin from Canberra
In response to: Gaza – the day of reckoning is coming
New TAFE needed
June 3, 2025
Stewart Sweeny’s article should be microchipped and injected into the buttock (left or right) of every federal candidate before the next election. Tough times are coming, and we need to take measures that some will find tough. Eternal tinkering simply wastes national time, money and energy. Policy risks need coherent explanation, but first we must acknowledge their real-world existence, lest public policy debate continue its current path of infantile game playing and party bickering. TAFE is a prime example. Here we are amidst a world-wide technological/industrial/employment revolution of a magnitude not seen since the first coal-fired boiler began spitting...
Neil Hauxwell from Moe, Vic
In response to: Beyond the sensible centre
US incapable of winning a war against China
June 3, 2025
Great analysis covering the stupidity of strengthening an alliance with a country assisting and abetting Nazi regimes in Israel and Ukraine. Just one additional point about it. Even though we know the neoliberal crazies in the US want to invade China and to drag us and any other cretins willing to follow them in this enterprise, the fact is that such an invasion is an impossibility for the US. To do so, it needs a vast armada of specific kinds of merchant vessels to carry a vast army and tens of millions of tons of war supplies across the...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Chinese jet shoots down France’s best fighter. NZ and Australia should pay atten
Not Christian, just Caesar in vestments
June 3, 2025
David Rosen misses the most glaring point: these men were not Christian in any meaningful theological or ethical sense. Their project was never about embodying the teachings of Christ — humility, mercy, justice, care for the poor, love of enemy — but about seizing state power to enforce a rigid, patriarchal, nationalist ideology under the guise of religion. Jerry Falwell and his allies didn’t resurrect Christianity; they replaced it with a political identity masquerading as faith. What triumphed in the so-called culture wars wasn’t Christ – it was Caesar in vestments.
David O'Halloran from Hobart
In response to: Jerry Falwell and the Christian culture wars
Not all Americans own shares
June 3, 2025
A lot of articles appear in the media about the effect of tariffs on the stock market. But the majority of Americans don't own shares of any note. However the majority holds down jobs which are now under risk. GM and Ford are closing a number of manufacturing plants due to the effect of tariffs. The chief executive of Harley Davidson motorbikes has rebuked Trump. Amazon is said to be moving its headquarters overseas. Tesla and Musk have almost become blacklisted. Delivery and truck drivers are laid off due to lack of products being shipped to America. Travel and...
Ian Bowrey from Hamilton South
In response to: "China's calm response to US' impulsive tariffs gets noticed"
In the thrall of Israel
June 3, 2025
Henry Reynolds is a very clear thinker and spells out the case for Palestine's future. The chance of Australia's political elite — that small bunch that operates within Albanese's shadow — responding unequivocally in Palestine's favour is unlikely. It is in the thrall of Israel's international posturing. The American press shows many of their federal politicians are likewise beholden to that country and Murdoch is repeatedly reported to have connections of a sort. His media reporting does not suggest otherwise. All this leads to actions and reactions by Australian politicians who see themselves answerable to foreign influencers rather...
Ian Bowrey from Hamilton South
In response to: A defining moment in the future of Palestine
Faux ideology
June 3, 2025
Jenny Hocking is spot on with her denunciation of the National Party. That group lost its ideological bearings when it changed its name from the Country Party. Back in those days, the members looked like farmers and acted in their interests and of their communities. To expand their political influence, they rebadged themselves as Nationals and sought to gain seats in the urban areas. To avoid conflict with the Liberals, they worked out a more aligned Coalition. Instead of looking to the future and the need for water in their country areas, they support coal mines, gas and...
Ian Bowrey from Hamilton South
In response to: The Coalition splits – maybe not.
Gas export controls
June 3, 2025
One of the issues consistently raised with the approval for the North West Shelf extension is the impact of the use of the gas in the importing countries. This impact is generally ignored. What I would like to see is something akin to our position on the export of uranium which is contingent on the uranium only being used for certain purposes. If a broadly similar position was adopted for our gas exports, we should, for example, only export to countries that have a credible pathway to net zero by 2050 (IPCC endorsed?), and failure to adhere to the...
Brian Bycroft from Evans Head NSW
In response to: Green light for gas: North West Shelf gas plant cleared to run until 2070
Murray Watt's grasslands opportunity
June 3, 2025
On the same day Peter Sainsbury’s article on endangered grasslands appeared, a critically endangered Leadbeater’s Possum was spotted for the first time in Kosciuszko National Park. The Biodiversity Council says this rare sighting highlights the need to conserve large areas of high-quality habitat, even where key species haven’t been detected before. As Sainsbury points out, the biodiversity of the world’s grasslands supports over a billion people and stores a third of the world’s terrestrial carbon — second only to forests — playing a key role in mitigating climate change. Yet, grasslands face mounting threats. The World Resources Institute warns...
Ray Peck from Hawthorn
In response to: Freshwater systems and grasslands, forgotten nature and climate heroes
Climate truth
June 3, 2025
I'm beyond disappointment when it comes to your news bulletin. Time and time again, your reporters push false and misleading information. You trumpet that you endeavour to uncover and report the truth. Every time you publish an article on climate change you not only do the opposite of reporting the truth but you push the false narrative of the WEF and UN. That's where your articles border on crimes to news publishing. To continually print the weaponised narrative on climate change/crisis you do truth and humanity a disservice. If you have a investigative reporter that has a...
Sean Basham from Bunurong Country, Victoria
In response to: https://johnmenadue.us14.list-manage.com/track/click?u=8074bf8ebb1d809ea8da4b14a
The cost of the WA vote is plain for all to see
June 3, 2025
Following swift public approval of the North West Shelf extension, one can only assume that the decision was taken well before the election was called, when Labor was behind in the polls and needed the WA vote. It’s not just our environmental laws that need repairing, it’s our electoral laws, donations and truth in advertising. Having a large majority and a weak Opposition does not bode well for any real change or any real improvement. Fight on David, perhaps Albanese will come to realise that a large majority doesn’t come with a guaranteed third term.
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: the-north-west-shelf-isnt-just-another-gas-
It's time to end mainstreaming
June 3, 2025
It's time to admit that mainstreaming mental health patients into public hospitals has failed. Part of the reforms to mental health services in the 1990s and 2000s, mainstreaming was supposed to be a recognition that mental health patients deserved care and support in the general hospital stream. It was intended to break down stigma. What it has done is left patients untreated in emergency departments for too many hours. In 2012, while working as an agency nurse, I treated mental health patients in EDs. They then had often been there for two days. Now it's four days and beyond...
Jennifer Haines from Glossodia
In response to: The great mental health experiment.. and why it went so wrong
Good practice in defence procurement
June 3, 2025
If only Australia would crib the defence document produced by the US Congressional Research Service in March, ignoring though its belligerence towards China. Pages 41-5 especially. It notes that project cost blowouts are often the result of failure to do an analysis of alternatives, and a business case (neither done for AUKUS), but projects become “too big to fail”. Building subs in the US has a labour deficit due to the US economy’s switch from manufacturing, it says, and notes the depth of the resource and supply chain needed to build subs. The US has had to set up...
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: New Zealand cribbed Australian defence documents
Would you buy a used climate policy from him?
June 3, 2025
Peter Dutton and his backers portrayed the prime minister as weak. The Labor campaign portrayed him as an everyman: the slightly daggy dog lover. David Pocock has exposed the real Anthony Albanese; the sly dealmaker and faction manipulator who won the west for Labor by selling out generations of his fellow Australians to the interests of tax-shy fossil fuel corporations. Only anyone who still hangs up a Christmas stocking would believe the deal with Woodside and the Cook Government hadn’t been sealed before the voting booths opened. Pocock’s revelations also expose the straight out lies we’ve knowingly been...
John Mosig from Kew, Victoria
In response to: Labor's climate talk a lot of hot gas
Skullduggery vs science
May 30, 2025
Re Samantha Hepburn’s article: The Swiss village of Blatten was flattened by a collapsing glacier the day Murray Watt approved the North West Shelf gas project. The hanging glacier in Chile no longer hangs. The Manning River very recently reached its highest flood level ever. Whole villages in the Pacific face extinction by flooding. There have been terrible bushfires in the US, Portugal, Canada and Australia. Where are you coming from Mr Watt? In WA, we have just seen the science on pollution damage to the rock art from the existing gas plant deliberately manipulated by, or through,...
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: Green light for gas: Northwest Shelf gas plant cleared to run until 2070
Scrap DIV 296 super tax
May 30, 2025
Tell the government to scrap the DIV 296 Super legislation. Replace it with a new one that sets the limit of all TSB — Total Superannuation Balance — to a maximum of $3 million. Any excess must be taken out, or face a heavy penalty at personal tax rate of 49.5% + Medicare Levy. After all the Liberal Party, under John Howard and Peter Costello, legislated unlimited accumulations of super balances with the most generous concessions.
Alex Teoh from ACT
In response to: Don’t let rich old men tell you the planned super tax is terribly bad
Israel and Netanyahu are only partly to blame
May 30, 2025
I cannot at all understand the insistence of Western leaders and influencers in focusing so much blame on Israel and Netanyahu for the horror of Gaza and the plight of the Palestinian people … when they know damned well that this holocaust is being controlled by the Americans and can thus be stopped or moderated b them at any time. And of course, the statehood question can also be resolved for the Palestinians by a stroke of the American pen. Clearly, they prefer to dump it all on Israel (despite the effect this is having on the global...
Howard Debenham from Maroochydore, Queensland
In response to: Why Australia should recognise Palestinian statehood