Letters to the Editor
Universities as a place of higher learning? YES
October 4, 2024
As a 72 year old retired I like to think successful Tradie I have had a front row seat of the mess that is our education system has become. I went to a Technical school because I wasn’t smart enough to go to a High school. Then they closed technical schools. Did an apprentice at a specific Trade school, Trade schools were integrated / lost to the TAFE system. I watched as HR employed apprentices base on their academic score not their trade aptitude, the beginning of the shortage of tradies. I listened as my school teacher...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: Do we need universities?
"Merely academic"
October 4, 2024
Our gad-fly, Clover Leaf group, had gained audience with the Vice-Chancellor and President of Monash Inc. That was a few months before the merger - Chisholm was not to be amalgamated with Monash; this was to a merger. This was the politically correct term for this flagship initiative of the Dawkins reforms. Once more our hypothesis was confirmed. Within Chisholm IT itself, and before 1982 within Caulfield IT: the economic rationalist ideology that drove the David Syme Business School was driving not only Chisholm but also the merger. We had previously invited to the Head of the Federal Department...
Bruce Wearne from BALLARAT CENTRAL
In response to: Do we need universities?
The mask is off
October 4, 2024
Susan Dirgham brings together a number of opinions very well. We are now in a near regency in the US, with the duumvirate of Blinken and Austin III, with supporting parts from Miller, Hochstein, and Sullivan. Still it was actually Biden who announced active US military support for the Israeli attack on Lebanon which threatens the lives of many people, including thousands of Australians and Americans. And yet at almost the same time it was Blinken saying China couldn't help broker a Ukraine peace deal because it was allegedly arming Russia. So how would the US be any...
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: How should Australia respond as Israel provokes war?
Advanced Care Directives and Living Wills
October 4, 2024
Ken Hillman as a long term and esteemed medical practitioner in Intensive Care recognises as many do who work in this area that there is overtreatment of terminally ill persons. States and Territories in Australia now have End of Life legislation that empowers people to express their wishes for end of life care in Advanced Care Directives and Living Wills. Not enough people know about this option and take advantage of it. As an old Intensive Care Nurse of at least 20 years I agree with Ken, but I encourage all people approaching older age to take...
Jennifer Haines from Glossodia
In response to: The conveyor belt for terminally ill older people Ken Hillman
The Albanese Enigma
October 4, 2024
Anthony Albanese won his party leadership not as the victor of an open, contested party election, but through backroom negotiations. He brought to the leadership no sense of being the champion who had best fought for Labor values and won the party’s affection. Albanese seems more negotiator than leader, so he appears as a man without uncompromising commitment to any particular cause. His stance is appropriate for much government business: politics – ‘the art of the possible’ - requires flexibility. But voters have to know that that flexibility does not compromise their leader’s core values for critical causes. A...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills, Vic
In response to: Dutton is unacceptable, but Labor under Albanese doesn’t deserve to be re-electe
It's all in the wording
October 4, 2024
This is exactly what needs to be asked. Perhaps I can give one of the reasons why it's been so hard for this question to be asked. Even a more 'reasonable' source of information about what is going on with this 'war' is using biased language. This is a short piece from the Guardian: 'About 60,000 Israelis have fled their homes in northern Israel due to continual fighting between Israel, Hezbollah and other anti-Israeli forces based in Lebanon. On the Lebanese side of the UN-drawn blue line that separates the two countries, tens of thousands of Lebanese have also...
Marguerite Bunce from France
In response to: Letter: Why shouldn't we support Hamas?
The Zionist Lobby Marches Onwards
October 4, 2024
In his article posted in P&I on 27 September, Scott Burchill argues convincingly that it is primarily US policy, not the pro-Zionist lobby, that is driving Australia’s pathetic and shambolic failure to actively support peace in Palestine. I agree completely with his summation that: ‘… the uglier truth is that in Australia the Israel lobby doesn’t need to work very hard to secure its political objectives. For the most part, they are pushing at an open door. ‘ There is a continual tsunami of diatribe, accusations of anti-Semitism, bullying and threats/ legal action against any proposal of just...
Richard Llewellyn from Colo Vale NSW
In response to: US, not Israel lobby, driving Albanese Government’s Gaza policy
AMC Canberra
October 3, 2024
The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.” ― Fyodor Dostoevsky
Bernard Corden from Spring Hill, Brisbane
In response to: David McBride and the Alexander Maconochie Centre prison in Canberra
'David McBride and the Alexander Maconochie Prison in Canberra' should be distributed far and wide
October 3, 2024
Prof Ross Fitzgerald's October 1 exposé David McBride and the Alexander Maconochie Prison in Canberra should be distributed far and wide. Most Australians, in fact all good people around the world would be appalled to hear that an honest, military lawyer is being cruelly incarcerated for reporting war crimes. While the people responsible for those crimes walk free. Even more shocking, is the Judge, who proclaimed that McBride’s “duty”, was to the King and not to the Australian people. The Judge declared that there will be no public interest defence allowed in evidence, and no provision for a...
Anthony Charles Wakeham from Redfern, NSW
In response to: David McBride and the Alexander Maconochie Centre prison in Canberra
Retributive justice is no justice
October 3, 2024
I am writing in response to the article entitled David McBride and the Alexander Maconochie Centre prison in Canberra by Ross Fitzgerald. I believe that you can judge a society on how it treats its most vulnerable - and in turn a government on how it treats its detractors. The appalling conditions in which David McBride is kept say more than enough about the modern Australian government. The Media's lack of interest in the very real plight of a man whose primary crime is taking action in the public interest (regardless of what the government exclaims) says much about modern...
Eamonn O’Hanlon from Sydney
In response to: David McBride and the Alexander Maconochie Centre prison in Canberra
David McBride and the Alexander Maconochie Centre
October 2, 2024
Prof Fitzgerald's disturbing revelations about conditions endured by military whistleblower, David McBride & other inmates at the AMC in Canberra ought be taken seriously by governmental authorities and by the Australian media.
Andrew Hopkins from Canberra
In response to: David McBride and the Alexander Maconochie Centre prison in Canberra
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 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