Letters to the Editor
Helping young people with mental ill-health
May 30, 2025
Most mental ill-health, whoever experiences it, is preventable. That means that it does not have to happen at all. It is not in most cases genetic or neurological in origin, but is instead caused by ambient determinants – anything from bullying to financial and employment distress to lack of hope in a desirable and sustainable future to childhood abuse and trauma, which in all of its foms accounts for an exceptionally high incidence of problems throughout life. None of this is usually considered, and prevention usually means waiting until somebody needs help, which isn't prevention at all, but at...
Stephen Lake from Moss Vale NSW
In response to: Three ways to support young people with mental ill-health
Incorrect designation
May 29, 2025
I would have thought that Ms Broinowski would ensure her facts were checked before commenting. Bezalel Smotrich is not the defence minister, but finance minister. Katz is the defence minister. Both equally vile. Ed: This has been corrected.
Ralph Renard from Melbourne
In response to: Palestinian Genocide
John L. Menadue… 90 years old… Australia's next PM
May 29, 2025
Our John Laurence Menadue might be 90 years old… but right now we need him as our prime minister, and our minister for defence and our ministers for at least half a dozen other ministries. Give him all those jobs. What an open-minded, intelligent, experienced and extremely well-educated Australian he is.
James Scammell from BOWDEN, ADELAIDE, SOUTH AUSTRALIA 5007
In response to: Our retreat from Asia has become a rout
Our retreat from Asia has become a rout
May 29, 2025
John Menadue has written correctly and persuasively about Australia's failure to engage with Asia, and about our failure to try to understand the region. The fact is that Asian studies, and, in particular, China studies, have gone backwards over the last two decades. He lists various attempts at progress, and there is no point in repeating them. But he is absolutely right to criticise the failure of these efforts and absolutely right that it is time to do something about it. The reasons for these multiple failures are complex. But I believe the main one is the deeply-rooted Sinophobia...
Colin Mackerras from Capalaba, Queensland
In response to: Our retreat from Asia has become a rout
Comment on John Menadue's article
May 29, 2025
This article is very well written. I think US influence is very pervasive and instituitionalised. In 2023, The Age published two separate reports stating the Oz government has approved several US generals and admirals and CIA operatives to be based here. I did not read of any public comments or reactions. Under their watchful eyes, any major policy changes in the interest of Oz will be very difficult. Most of our citizens have poor Asia literacy, let alone proficiency in Asian languages. I suggest changing our history syllabus (50%) to cover all the major civilisations and religions (Western/Christianity, Chinese,...
Cjeng Toh from Keysborough
In response to: Our retreat from Asia has become a rout
And not a word about West Papua
May 28, 2025
The Jakarta Post editorialises bravely by recalling how Indonesia's vibrant democratic tapestry has been woven of our blood and tears. But the weaving of that tapestry is still going on with the blood and tears of West Papua. We have a regional problem to face, namely how we define the TNI's ongoing West Papuan operations even while the 27 years is being celebrated, even as we are told an ominous revision of the TNI Law comes into force focusing upon the expansion of military operations other than war. Is the Jakarta Post expecting us, as regional friends, to...
Bruce Wearne from Ballarat Central
In response to: Indonesia remembers the coming of democracy, 27 years later
ACTU statement is just more words
May 28, 2025
In the 1930s, trade unions took a stand and banned the shipping of war materials to Japan. Those shipments stopped. We are still shipping war materials to Israel. Why not now, instead of the same weasel words like we support the tw0-state solution favoured by our government? And just about anybody, apart from the government of Israel which screams never at every opportunity? Have you just been too gutted by successive Liberal governments? Or you don't want to embarrass Albo? These religious maniacs need to be stopped, now!
Jerry Cartwright from Perth
In response to: ACTU statement on Gaza May 2025
Their silence is deafening
May 28, 2025
The recent federal election presented me with a most unwelcome and unpalatable less bad choice. Dutton's Coalition had little appeal, and Albanese's Labor not much more. But, being a life-long supporter of the left, I held my nose and voted for my local Labor candidate. I wish her, and the government of which she is a part, well. And then there is Palestine. By refusing to condemn Israel for the most recent ethnic cleansing in that blood-soaked land, Albanese and and his cabinet have made Australia, and by extension all Australians, complicit in what is happening over there....
Hal Duell from Alice Springs
In response to: Australia still doing little as the Gaza genocide gets worse
City v Country: Libs v Nats v Australia
May 27, 2025
Why but for the purpose of re-election should the Coalition ever have existed? The L/ NP has, in most instances, been in minority government. Generally there is a difference on many levels between Australians from the country and Australians from the city similar to the difference between weather in the country and climate in the city. The ongoing climate wars show no signs of abating. It is similar to the difference between the quarter-acre blocks and the farm fiefdom. Several recent election results are a classic example, with the LNP drifting or being driven to the Nats' views...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: Not many splashed in the short-lived teacup revolt
Double standards
May 27, 2025
I love your work, Henry Reynolds, and I agree with your assessment of the depraved injustice Palestinians have been subjected to. I do however, disagree with the sentence Moscow’s annexation of the Russian-speaking regions of Ukraine is an international outrage, because as a historian, surely one must be aware of what led to this situation. Hint, Henry, have you not heard of the US-initiated Maidan Coup, the subsequent discriminatory language and social service laws against Ukraine's ethnic Russian community, the refusal of the Russian-speaking Ukrainians to be overnight treated as second-class citizens and the subsequent eight-year siege of the...
Dieter Barkhoff from Box Hill, Victoria
In response to: A defining moment for the future of Palestine
FOI application for Gaza correspondence
May 27, 2025
Ghaith Krayem needs to be reassured that many non-Muslims support him, and incidentally, despite huge efforts to blur the picture, we are not anti-Jewish. But many of us are shocked that a state presumably founded to realise Jewish values in practice has gone far beyond a reasonable response to 7 October 2023. It seems as if Israel is now prepared to Hannibal the remaining hostages, who could have been freed under the early 2025 ceasefire, which it abrogated. I feel sure large numbers of people have written to the prime minister and foreign minister about the continuing massacre, but...
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: The cost of conscience in post-October 7 Australia
Coalition's predicament an opportunity to regroup?
May 27, 2025
Thanks Jack for the excellent insight. Andrew Hastie is likely to be a significant figure in the future for conservative leadership. He concedes that the future of the Liberal Party is not assured. The Nats are a bit more solid based, but are similarly affected by divergent views. The Independents didn't surge this month but they are a consolidated phenomenon, representing those who would vote Liberal or Nats if those parties had evolved. Is it time for a reformation of a progressive, modern New Liberal-National Party, leaving the Trumpist conservatives and SkyTV mob to regroup with the...
Dave Young from North Queensland
In response to: Not many splashed in the short-lived teacup revolt
Deforming education
May 26, 2025
Of course, education in Australia needs reform. For one thing, if public education funding matched the revenue that goes to private schools (fees plus government subsidies), private schools could not claim the superiority which they need to survive. Also, fewer parents would feel the need to pay for private education. Not only would this level the educational playing field, but it would have a downward effect on the cost of living. I mean, who needs to fork out an extra $5000 a year, per kid, for the same education? As Liz Kirkby used to say, Public schools should be...
Tom Orren from Wamberal
In response to: Ready for real education reform?
Antisemitism and genocide
May 26, 2025
Every politician (except The Greens) and every university chancellor and vice-chancellor should be compelled to read John Menadue's article Weaponisation of ‘antisemitism’ hides primitive savagery of Palestinian genocide every day before breakfast. They should also have to read Senator David Shoebridge's statement, this isn’t about a political stance – this is about when you see a genocide happening in real time on your phone and on your TV, when you see thousands of children being killed, when you see starvation being used as a weapon of war, you have this, I think, basic human responsibility to do everything you...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: Weaponisation of ‘antisemitism’ hides primitive savagery of Palestinian genocide
Don't forget demand in trying to fix housing
May 26, 2025
While not disagreeing with any of the five solutions to solving the housing crisis, I find it extraordinary that the issue of demand was not addressed. And yet, Australia has experienced significant demand in recent years because of very high population growth. About four-fifths has come from net overseas migration which even exceeded half a million in 2023. The other aspect of demand, natural increase, is still over 100,000 but decreasing gradually. The maths is simple really; divide your total population growth by 2.5 (average number of people per dwelling) and that's how many new homes you need that...
Jenny Goldie from Cooma NSW
In response to: Australia is forecast to fall 262,000 homes short of its housing target. We need bold action
At last...
May 26, 2025
Dear John, I want to thank you for your great piece in P&I. I, too, am horrified by Anthony Albanese's silence and was confused until I found out that his lawyer Leibler is head of the Zionist Federation of Australia. That itself should constitute an charge of undue influence and have him stand down. This is what I wrote. I was the first woman to sit on the National Asbestos Advisory Committee way back in the early 1980s. Interestingly, I could not get it published in the MSM. Take care.
Melody Kemp from Balmoral Brisbane
In response to: Weaponisation of anti Semitism..
Another world court system
May 26, 2025
I never thought I would say this but the world needs another level of courts wielding an appropriate level of punishment. We need a court system that rules on the inappropriate use of significant words and labels. In the case of the US, it would start with the misuse of the words united and democracy, two words that seldom apply to America. Other examples would be worldwide the misuse of the words antisemitism and holocaust. I would seek a ruling on the use of Christianity and quotes from Old Testament in the same sentence.
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: The US Supremes, not its critics, are trashing the rule of law
Response to Sustainability, yes, but also a Plan B
May 26, 2025
In response to Geoff Taylor's letter on nuclear energy and his argument that the spread of generation is limited, I feel one must remember Australia, for many decades, relied on centralised coal power. Personally, I feel nuclear is unjustified due to waste management and costs. However, I feel there needs to be some changes to accommodate our needs with renewable energy. I feel the transmission network could be installed underground at a level that allows normal farming above. The costs are higher, but I feel with greater use, the costs would drop. The advantage is that bushfire is less...
Doug Foskey from Tregeagle
In response to: Sustainability, yes, but also a Plan B
Long-contested histories in Middle East
May 26, 2025
Full credit to John Menadue for this article. I found another short one that helps explain the geopolitical history of the region. Its history is long and confusing and heavily bloodstained. This article offers some context: Philip C Almond, 'Was Jesus a Palestinian?', The Conversation, 22 November 2024.
Ian Bowrey from Hamilton South
In response to: weaponisation-of-antisemitism-hides-primiti
Harmony and goodwill are the only options
May 26, 2025
Alex Lo draws attention to the economic dilemma in which our region finds itself: trade imbalances with China and the belligerence of Beijing. The focus on trade growth presumes a growth in consumerism. However, he fails to mention the growth of environmental instability this, often superfluous, consumption is creating. The three basic economic needs, food, clothing and shelter, become impossible goals in the region, or globally for that matter, as an overheated atmosphere drives a degree of climate change humanity hasn’t faced since the end of the last glaciation. The balance of trade shuffling Lo calls for is...
John Mosig from Kew, Victoria
In response to: Closer ASEAN ties can help China counter US militarisation ofregion
Real education reform
May 26, 2025
I found this article a rather timid response to the challenges we are facing. The reality is that irrespective of whether a school is public or private the same curriculum is taught, employing people with the same qualifications. If people want to have choice for their children, then they can be given that choice. A transition program could be set up where all private schools are given the choice of being either completely private or being 100% publicly funded. To make the transition we would need to explore overseas systems where there are publicly funded faith-based schools. Pinch...
John Tons from Flinders University
In response to: Ready for Real Education Reform
Zionist nazis?
May 26, 2025
The writer refers to Zionist nazis. A term preferred by some is einsatzgruppen who have been, allegedly. stomping around Gaza and the West Bank, chanting Blut und Boden. Not a nice thing to say about the most moral army in the world!
Jerry Cartwright from Perth
In response to: Zionism and history
Exorcise false fears and false sympathy
May 26, 2025
Yes, challenging the behaviour of a sovereign nation requires courage plus a belief that protecting human life is more important than respect for state sovereignty. But we also need to challenge the consequences of inter-generational trauma, particularly re the Holocaust, and the false history re the establishment of Israel. Jewish people's fears existed long before 7 October 2023, as shown by various Jewish institutions adopting security practices decades before society more generally. That was largely based on past fears, not current threats at the time. Ironically, now the IHRA definition of antisemitism actively promotes blurring the distinction between...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: Millions want intervention to stop Israeli slaughter of Palestinians
Offensive image
May 26, 2025
Please don't include images of the Pole Benjamin Mileikowsky (AKA Netanyahu) in your articles. The image of that person gives me the creeps.
John Forrest from Dumbleyung, WA
In response to: Millions want intervention to stop Israeli slaughter of Palestinians
Western perfidy
May 26, 2025
The artifice, chicanery, deceit, dishonesty, falsehood, hypocrisy, artifice and double dealing of the Western empire that sees itself, as all past empires have, as indispenseble, reveals it as the most dispensable of all. The boasting, hubris and braggadocio of the last few hundred years has hidden a culture devoid of an ethical sensibility and a moral compass. We have not only stood by as another genocide is carried out but have assisted it and condoned it. We deserve to suffer history's condemnation and damnation!
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Diplomatic tsunami on Palestine
Plea for Palestinian children
May 26, 2025
I am writing to you to plead that the slaughter in Gaza and the West Bank be stopped. Please pity the children, save them and for God’s sake, don’t be afraid! I am surprised that the UN now seems powerless to intervene. There must be a way that the UN can firstly get humanitarian aid into Gaza and support the distribution of this aid. As well, there needs to be an international force placed between the Israelis and the Palestinians. As a senior Australian, I have seen many operations of the UN, but it only seems in the...
Doug Foskey from Tregeagle
In response to: Time to end the silence
Zionism and history
May 23, 2025
It was Marx who said that history repeats itself, first as tragedy and then as farce! Gaza is both, as the Zionists have been involved in perpetrating in Palestine for the last 80 years what the Nazis did to the Jews in Warsaw. It started as tragedy and has morphed into farce, but with tragedy expanding exponentially as the Zionist nazis continue with their attempt to eliminate the entire population of Gaza. The West repeats their deliberate looking away from the persecution and slaughter of the Jews throughout the 1930s, with our deliberate looking away from the Zionist slaughter...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Weaponisation of ‘antisemitism’ hides primitive savagery of Palestinian genocide
Hijack of the term holocaust
May 23, 2025
The Holocaust was, and is, a horrendous part of world history and the Jews carried a disproportionately high burden of the atrocities, but they weren’t the only people targeted. I am not going to begin naming atrocities for fear of missing even one, and all should be called out. Like all wars, atrocities were carried out by both sides and until we acknowledge all the atrocities in all the wars, history will continue to repeat itself as it is now in Gaza. While defence is a major talking point in elections, while we train people to kill...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: Weaponisation of ‘antisemitism’ hides primitive savagery of Palestinian genocide
The humble gardeners
May 23, 2025
As a home gardener, at present surrounded by muddy pools from last night's driving rain, aware of others fleeing surging flood waters, I read Kari McKern's call for us to build the garden with a stirring sense of recognition. Yes, it's the gardeners who know life's systems. I find myself humming a tune from The Hymns of God's Gardeners, 'The Earth Forgives', words by Margaret Atwood set to music by Orville Stoeber. Now I am going to search my shelves for The Year of the Flood, a book to read on this gloomy, wet day to remind myself...
Janet Grevillea from Lake Macquarie
In response to: The gardens of the starships
Unsustainable nuclear policies
May 22, 2025
Both the Liberal and National parties are in unsustainable energy policy positions. The Liberal leader labels the government’s policy “a reckless race to renewables”; the urgency of our shift to renewables is largely due to the Coalition’s decade-long denial and delay. It remains to be seen whether the Liberals can see their way to a mature debate now that they are unencumbered by the anti-renewable Nationals members. The Nationals advocate more coal until nuclear fills the gap. As John Quiggin points out, “the earliest possible start date for nuclear is after the 2028 election. This means plugging nuclear...
Fiona Colin from Melbourne
In response to: David Littleproud cites nuclear energy disagreement as major factor in Coalition
Silent lies
May 21, 2025
Thank you Richard Bean. Yesterday the ABC lied by omission. Having told us that Israel was allowing food and medicine supplies into Gaza, they failed to tell us that only five trucks were allowed to enter. A totally meaningless token. Yet the ABC made it look like Israel was actually doing something. Benjamin Netanyahu is treating the media and supine governments with contempt, and the West is just pathetic.
Liam O'Dea from Warwick Qld
In response to: False balance persists in ABC Palestine coverage
The cost of everything and the value of nothing
May 21, 2025
Universities are another victim of the failure of privatisation. Universities should be a place of higher learning and students should have to qualify to enter. If they successfully complete their degrees, they should be free. I went to a technical school, a pathway to a trade or becoming a mother. Down the road was a high school which was better regarded and a pathway to university. I became a tradie and built a wonderfull life from that base, but I was just a tradie working for some time in sewer treatment. How much lower than that can you...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: What is education for these days?
Let's rank the threats to human survival
May 21, 2025
In Bob Douglas' article, he reminds us of the 10 threats to human survival as listed by Julian Cribb in his 2023 book, How to fix a broken planet. It is hard not to stave off despair when faced with such a long list, so I chose the three that are most likely to keep me awake at night. They are: climate change; a threat to the world's food supply; and growth in the human population. The question is: will we be able to feed everyone in the face of climate change? We have 8.2 billion people in...
Jenny Goldie from Cooma NSW
In response to: Australia’s opportunity to lead the world on human survivaln
A just transition must stand on the common good
May 21, 2025
Democratic governments rule through popular consent. They can only expect to obtain that consent for tackling the climate crisis decisively if they demonstrate that their actions will be fair – a concept captured in Paris 2015 as Just Transition. The nature of that transition, as Peter Sainsbury notes, is more than simply finding new jobs for displaced workers, and will vary according to each democracy’s needs. These may encompass distributive justice, procedural justice, or restorative justice. To make the progress we now need to secure our liveable environment, we must work together: the whole must become greater than the...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills, Vic
In response to: Environment: Nations ignoring the need for a just transition to zero carbon
A further letter to Penny Wong about Palestine
May 21, 2025
Minister Wong: I refer you to the detailed and generously polite letter from Dr Sue Wareham, of the MAPW. In just a few days, the situation in Palestine has degraded, with the Netanyahu Zionists declaring planned new atrocities in its appalling rape and pillage of the whole of Palestine. I note you have flaccidly traipsed along with other nations, waving a withered lettuce leaf of angst intended to satisfy the hopes of Australians for a decent humane response from this country. Not good enough. You are not stupid, and you were once the most trusted politician...
Richard Llewellyn from Colo Vale
In response to: An open letter to Penny Wong seeking action on Palestine
Wake up Labor! Australia needs you
May 20, 2025
I lived through Gough! He was a Labor leader with a vision. We may not now agree with everything he achieved, but without his leadership we would not have Medicare. (Imagine us like Norway, where we actually owned all our resources!, but I digress.) I feel Albo needs to grow a backbone. Stewart Sweeney, I feel, is correct to say that Labor needs to grab the bull by the horns and make some real changes. Personally, I feel as well as his list, they should add dental to Medicare. This could be added gradually, with an annual check-up added...
Doug Foskey from Tregeagle
In response to: After the victory: Kelty’s warning and why it’s still not enough
The vanishing elders
May 20, 2025
By far my biggest concern with the vanishing elders is that none of our politicians have any experience with a world that is not dominated by neoliberal economic theory. In the US, prior to the early '70s, wage rises and growth in corporate profits grew at about the same rate. Wages had to rise to make sure that the workers could afford the goods that were produced. The world then gradually discovered the credit card. This meant that workers could keep buying consumer goods without needing a pay rise. It was at this point in the early '70s...
John Tons from flinders university
In response to: the vanishing elders
Vale Ali Kazak
May 20, 2025
A great man has died. Ali Kazak was a voice of sanity and reason about Palestine. A voice for justice and peace. A writer of great clarity and integrity. He will be missed by all who want freedom for Palestine. It is tragic that we will no longer hear his voice. Sincere sympathy to his family, friends, colleagues and all who knew him personally.
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: Vale Ali Kazak
Is the law an ass?
May 19, 2025
Henry Reynolds writes: The decision made in Britain during the reign of George the third that the Indigenous Australians did not exercise sovereignty over their homelands remains in place and cannot be questioned by the national courts. The Empire prevails. Decolonisation remains out of reach. How utterly absurd. Thank you, Henry, for again bringing our hidden history out into the light.
Bob Beadman from Darwin
In response to: Thank you, Henry, for again bringing our hidden history out into the light.
Thanks for the article on Ali Kazak
May 19, 2025
I would like to thank the management of Pearls and Irritations for publishing the article from November last year by Stuart Rees on Ali Kazak, following Ali's passing away last Sunday in Thailand on his way to Palestine. No person in Australia has worked harder for truth and justice for Palestine than Ali, a man I was pleased to call my friend for more than 50 years, and from whose writing and advocacy, which took many forms, was able to show the real truth in Palestine, He has tried to encourage the Western media to show the real...
Rex Williams from Springwood
In response to: Vale Ali Kazak
Equal opportunity dumping
May 19, 2025
What better time for Australia to demonstrate our multiculturalism than now? What better way than to have representatives of both sides of the conflict working harmoniously in the governing party? Instead, we have warring factions and inaction by the prime minister. Given what has transpired and his previous lack of performance, Richard Marles should be dumped !
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: message-from-the-editor-8
Ex-PMs are not vanishing quickly enough
May 19, 2025
As a 73-year-old, I do believe that we become invisible and should not be forgotten. We should have a representative say in how the country is run. I do, however, think that ex-politicians and, in particular, ex-prime ministers and their staffers have far too much to say and are given far too much airtime. That is, in part, due to the generosity of their parliamentary pension. They can afford to spend their time running a freelance commentary on everything under the sun. Perhaps if they were like the rest of us and had to wait until 68...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: The vanishing elders of Australian politics
Sustainability, yes, but also a Plan B
May 19, 2025
While moving to a sustainable future, we need to ensure a balance between emerging forms of energy supply and use, and existing ones, primarily fossil fuels, in Australia. One key aspect of this, though, is the need for back-up (redundancy). There has been a relatively recent volcanic eruption in Lombok, one in Iceland and one in Tonga. In 1275, a volcano in Lombok, Samalas, erupted with a force eight times that of Krakatoa in 1883. Dust from 1275 has been found in Svalbard in the Arctic. The climatic aspects of the 1275 eruption were still being felt in not...
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: Environment: Will Labor now protect our environment? If not now, probably never
Gaza deaths since 20 February belong to Trump
May 19, 2025
Sue Wareham deserves widespread support for her letter calling on Penny Wong to step up. Allowing for a month to get the US administration organised, the murders in Palestine over the last three months can be sheeted home to Donald Trump, thus continuing Joe Biden’s role as an active accessory of Benjamin Netanyahu, with financial, diplomatic and weapons support. Since then he has had the insider knowledge and power to stop the massacres in Gaza. Every day the US president procrastinates on saying “our support for the pogrom is over”, 50, 100, or 150 Palestinians are murdered. Let’s...
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: An open letter to Penny Wong seeking action on Palestine
A lifetime of lies
May 19, 2025
An interesting footnote is that the Mai Lai incident was investigated by Colin Powell, then a 31-year-old army major His report white-washed the incident, endorsing the original cover up. No stranger to misinformation, later as secretary of state he infamously held up a sinister looking vial to support US claims of weapons of mass destruction.
Daryl Guppy from Darwin
In response to: Accountability and war reporting
End the hypocrisy
May 19, 2025
I am finding the increasingly strident cries of antisemitism being levelled at anyone criticizing Israel or supporting Palestinians to be the height of hypocrisy. For 75 years, world Jewry has delighted in the state of Israel, a state built on the Nakba. Did you really think you would get away with it forever? Only now with the advent of the internet and the proof found on smartphones are accusations of genocide being levelled at Israel, and these accusations are qualified. Supposedly radical Zionists have usurped power in Israel, and they alone are responsible for all the current carnage. ...
Hal Duell from Alice Springs, NT
In response to: Multiple Western press outlets have suddenly pivoted hard against Israel
Wrong word
May 19, 2025
I congratulate Henry Reynolds for this article. It was important and informative. However, it also reveals how the best-intentioned authors and editors can undermine arguments presented. Reynolds described Indigenous people as “possessing” the country. This is not so. However, modern English spell checkers no longer accept the word ownee to describe humans possessed by country. This is a more intimate and non-negotiable relationship that does not deny ownership. The editor reinforces the back-to-front counterproductive thinking with an acknowledgement to “Traditional owners”. Please use the word “ownees” in the future, as I did on pages 163/4 in my 1977/8...
Shann Turnbull from Paddington, Sydney, NSW. 2021
In response to: Voice rejection sends Australia backwards
No excuse now to not oppose Zionist genocide
May 19, 2025
With a handsome majority assured, no excuse remains left for the Labor Government to not join the almost universal international community opposition to the appalling genocidal, war-criminal, murderous activities of the Zionist regime in Israel. And that no excuse applies top our AUKUS partners. Trump, for one, will sell us out in a heartbeat when (not if) it suits his agenda on the day, While the new Albanese Government wrangles with the issues of factional ambition, hundreds of children, women and men die every day in Gaza/the West Bank areas. Appeasement of the Zionist agenda will condemn the...
Richard Llewellyn from Colo Vale
In response to: An open letter to the Australian PM from a child of Holocaust survivors
Australia leads the way. Which way?
May 16, 2025
It was a young John Howard who announced light rail connecting the east coast. While some in the know bought land in the proposed rail corridor, his idea has remained just that – an idea. Given the politically-led resurgence of inefficient hybrid vehicles, as the article points out, why add a 50% efficient internal combustion engine to an electric motor as your mode of transport? All the indications from the last election are that one side is still arguing whether women should remain barefoot and pregnant or be sacrificed as witches, while the other side is timid about...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: China and renewable energy: Dawn of the Fourth Industrial Revolution