Letters to the Editor
Geoff Watson blasts the surface
March 14, 2025
Geoff Watson's totally magnificent summation of the whole Nelson/armament manufacturers relationship in the ABC 4 Corners presentation on 10 March, was for me the quintessential moment of the whole program. I refer those who have not read it to do so: Dr. Nelson is, for sure his greatest asset. But the whole issue of the Australian War Memorial accepting and acknowledging donations from armament manufacturers is a truly rotten cancer on our society. What do the armament manufacturers gain from these substantial sums of money? Don't for a moment think there is no benefit they seek in so...
Richard Llewellyn from Colo Vale
In response to: On Brendan Nelson
Woldring, do more homework. Teals aren't a party
March 13, 2025
Teals started as random strangers across Australia who saw Indi's success and dared to imagine a more engaged and effective MP representing them. Community independents weren't looking for a career in politics. But Liberal disdain for women encouraged, not thwarted, them. While current community independents are mostly women, they have so many male supporters that gender balance will likely arrive eventually. It's insulting to suggest community independents and their supporters think primarily only of their own area. Major drivers are climate change, integrity in government and a better deal for women. Hardly local. Kooyong supporters proudly say their...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: Minority government – a problem of the current electoral system
Chinese naval codes
March 13, 2025
Peter Cronau raises the key question: Why wouldn’t Defence have been monitoring transmissions from the ships from when they were first off Queensland? Of course, the warning to aircraft would have been in plain language. But if you think of the cracking of the German Enigma code and of the Nazi high command code during WWII, how good is Defence at reading encrypted codes from other navies? After all, right now Russia, Iran and China are conducting joint naval exercises in the northwest Indian Ocean (yes, that’s the one that touches Australia for thousands of kilometres), according to Al...
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: Australia’s defence: Navigating US-China tensions
Satire detection monitor has been disabled
March 13, 2025
May I suggest your satire detection equipment is not functioning? In compelling scorn and condemnation from the galleries of gullibility, this (Mr. Doyle's original) clinical exercise in tongue-in-cheek sarcasm renders a simultaneous take-down of Facebook as anything reliable for fact-based journalism. Whither scepticism – already a crime?
Peter Warner from California, USA
In response to: Psychobabble is just that!
A game of pin the tail on the donkey
March 13, 2025
I cast my mind back over all those war movies that I have had the misfortune to have watched over my 73 years and I’m thinking of a remake of Hogans Heroes. From our present group of federal members, I have no hesitation in picking one for the role of Colonel Klink. Who is most suited for the uniform? What’s yours? I will leave you to think on Gomer Pyle and McHale's Navy.
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: no-apologies-over-fabricated-terror-plot-from-pollies-or
The dangerous bliss of ignorance
March 13, 2025
Building knowledge and understanding, first and foremost of nature and ecology, has been a critical element in humanity’s development of farming, and of the villages, towns and cities — and ultimately civilisations — that subsequently evolved during the past 11,700 years of favourable, stable climate. Another factor in the spread of civilisation has been mankind’s innate aggression, and desire to control and conquer. This factor, as personified by Donald Trump, is now threatening to destroy a lot of the knowledge that we hold, and are building, about the environmental health of our planetary home, and about what we must...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills, Vic
In response to: Noicide: advent of a new Dark Age
In order to save democracy...
March 13, 2025
To paraphrase Peter Arnett's ...unnamed American major... after the battle of Bến Tre 1968 – It became necessary to destroy democracy to save it. Brute force in Romania and Georgia negated the popular will. In the EU, la Macaroon's outsmarting himself paralysed parliament in France. In Ireland, FF/FG, played musical chairs for the last six years and continue doing so after last year's election, preventing the party with a majority of voters from forming government. In the Netherlands, since 2023 the usual suspects have played the same game to keep out Geert Wilders. In February, Germany...
Allan Kessing from SYDNEY
In response to: Is Romania’s stolen election what’s in store for ‘democracy’ in the West?
Why are we surprised about reporting on the caravan fiasco?
March 13, 2025
One would have thought, or expected, exactly what we got – that our mainstream media would report exactly as it did upon discovery of that caravan in Dural. It's a bit hard to break the habit of a century. When did anyone last read a positive article about any Arab, Middle-Eastern or otherwise, Muslim or otherwise, in the MSM? We still get scant reporting on how bad it is for the oppressed of Palestine. What P&I reader has learned more about the genocide in Palestine from the MSM than from P&I itself, Bisan on Instagram, Al Jazeera and the...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: No apologies over fabricated terror plot from pollies or lobby groups
Only the names and faces have been changed
March 12, 2025
Everything old is new again. It may be true that “you can fool some of the people all the time and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time“ works well until you stop teaching history in schools and you control what little history is taught. The books are burning but ex-prime ministers live forever.
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/the-forgotten-fascists/
Whoosh??
March 12, 2025
Whoosh?? On the other hand, Dr Patience's response to Eugene Doyle is so totally deadpan that I can't completely discount the possibility that I, and no doubt many others, have been counter-whooshed. Hyperwhooshed, if you prefer. If so, well played, sir! But next time, could you give us just a slight clue, so that the more astute among us can pick it up? Unless, of course, there was one, but I was insufficiently astute to detect it. In which case, colour me embarrassed.
Alan Wilson from Adelaide
In response to: Psychobabble is just that!
Who abandoned whom?
March 12, 2025
It’s not Australia that should be afraid by abandonment, it is Britain and the US. When push comes to shove, Australia has always been there for both countries, whereas they have never been there for Australia. Read the history of the fall of Singapore and the Burma rail and even The Rats of Tobruk. Australia was a convenient hiding place (overpaid, over-sexed, and over here) for the US until their war machine got going. Even when it came to building the bomb, Australia was there for both of them with design and testing. We have shown before what...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SAV
In response to: australias-china-diplomacy-is-it-ready-for-a-world-witho
Psychobabble is just that!
March 12, 2025
This article is highly contentious. Apart from the dubious claim that it draws from a leaked account of some in-depth exploration of the leaders' personalities; the account which it offers is reflective of an old-fashioned and simplistic Freudianism, long discredited. Were Starmer and Macron subjected to interviews by a range of relevant experts? Most likely not. We should be extremely cautious about these kinds of sensationalised exposes.
Allan Patience from Newport 3015
In response to: Keir Starmer's psychiatric report leaked
Lest we forget
March 12, 2025
The Balkan wars of the 1990s should have been a salutory reminder of the extent to which the failure to screen post-war migrants has undermined our social cohesion. Croats and Serbs had kept the WWII atrocities alive to the point where a new generation displays the same hostility to fellow Australians. Right-wing politics in Australia continues to be infected with a strong undercurrent of racism. When conservative politics relies on these fascist tropes, we all lose. In an uncertain world, we need our political parties to draw on the very best of their origins. There is some evidence that...
John Tons from adelaide
In response to: The Forgotten Fascists
An anatomical election
March 12, 2025
What a choice we have facing us, folks! Spineless/gutless versus brainless/heartless. I'd add soulless to the latter, except that it's not anatomical, strictly speaking. Does it getter any better than that? Let's hope that electable Plan Bs are on the menu in most electorates.
Alan Wilson from Adelaide
In response to: Discombobulating the media election campaign coverage
Kidding ourselves: Were America's values ever ours?
March 12, 2025
No one stole American jobs. Neoliberal big business magnates sent them offshore where they paid even less for labour than they did to the US working poor. All for greater profit. Thus the dire straits of US jobs and manufacturing in 2025. As for Australia having no levers to pull: Pine Gap, Tindall, Darwin, Exmouth .... But those values. We must acknowledge the US as one of the most violent countries on earth. Internally the NRA and the death it wreaks. Externally we participated in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan for no gain, only loss to us and the countries...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: Are America’s values our values anymore
Referendum granted citizenship to all Indigenous people
March 11, 2025
Under the Nationality Act of 1920 (Cth), Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders born after 1 January 1921 were deemed to be British subjects. This only applied to the then future Indigenous people, not the then existing population. Under the Nationality and Citizenship Act 1948 (Cth), those Indigenous people who were British subjects were automatically deemed to be Australian citizens, along with the non-indigenous population. In the 1967 Referendum, Australian citizenship was granted to all Indigenous people, regardless of date of birth. The issue of voting is more complex. Prior to Federation, some of the Australian colonies permitted their indigenous...
Malcolm Chalmers from Cleveland QLD
In response to: Is it the US electoral sytem that is at fault
Criticising politicians
March 11, 2025
Any suggestion that it is un-Australian to criticise Australian politicians for their actions or inactions would probably be met with actions ranging from the rolling of eyes to shrieks of derisive laughter. The media and available books suggest that similar criticisms of American politicians are not un-American and the same philosophies or freedoms seem to be applicable in Britain. Then, those are apparently democratic countries, or hold themselves out to be. Why are criticisms of Israeli politicians regarded as un-Israeli, other than that those politicians have invented and weaponised a special word for un-Israelianism? If mere objective criticism is...
Adrian Potter from Adelaide
In response to: Challenging ‘antisemitism’
Political and media lies are poisoning society
March 11, 2025
The political and mass media crusade to sanctify the genocide being perpetrated by the Zionist Netanyahu government of Israel is too slowly being peeled back, exposing the unconscionable power of the Zionist industry in Australian society. We passed over the extremely suspect arson of the Adass synagogue with far too little serious examination of the circumstances and background of Zionist activity (especially Mossad's known history of false flag operations). Now we have — at last — some irrefutable evidence that antisemitism is being weaponised in defence of the Zionist genocidal abomination with the AFP announcement that the Dural...
Richard Llewellyn from Colo Vale
In response to: Challenging ‘antisemitism’
Dodgy fishy business
March 11, 2025
Thank you to Peter Sainsbury for highlighting the serious and multifaceted environmental problems that result from salmon farming in Tasmania. The industry is a revolting demonstration of corporate and political greed. According to the Australia Institute, the three multinational corporations behind industrial salmon farming pay no company tax (despite selling more than $4 billion worth of fish since 2019) to literally leave their crap in Tasmania’s beautiful waters. And Anthony Albanese has just promised $37 million to support this industry. Disturbingly, both major political parties have demonstrated that they are beholden to the salmon industry, even though it...
Amy Hiller from Kew, VIC
In response to: Environment: Albanese sacrifices the marine environment for Tasmanian votes
Trump's denial won't change climate reality
March 11, 2025
The Roman Inquisition silenced Galileo because his realisation that the Earth orbited the Sun was contrary to the church’s interpretation of biblical texts. Now Donald Trump is slashing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency, and ordering the removal from the internet of all research relating to climate change, because he believes climate change is a hoax. The Roman Inquisition did not change the movements of the planets by silencing Galileo. President Trump will likewise not change climate science by simply denying that the problem exists. Silencing Galileo did not harm our solar system at all, it simply slowed...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills, Vic
In response to: Downsizing of NOAA: consequences for the planet
Defining hate speech
March 10, 2025
Very pleased to see someone suggest that public attacks on Jewish Australians who express concerns about Israel's killing of Palestinians might be considered antisemitism – especially when it is made clear they are being attacked specifically because they are Jewish. At the very least some of the language quoted should meet the official threshold for hate speech. The same loud members of the Israel lobby continue to try to erase the word Palestine from Australian usage. A previous P+I article entitled Crossword clues and bullying refers to a demand for an apology when Palestine was the answer to...
Alexander Donald from Cairns
In response to: Challenging ‘antisemitism’
Keep the ADF out of strategic thinking
March 10, 2025
When you have a health problem with your back, you go to a chiropractor. If it's a muscular issue, you go to a physiotherapist. If your teeth are playing up, then you visit a dentist. A surgeon is always a last resort, unless you like knives. In the US with its gun laws, if you’ve got a gun you need to shoot things. With defence from the top to the bottom, from Marles down, they are always looking for an excuse to put their uniform on to play with their toys, blow things up and shoot people. ...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: aukus-the-central-point-of-strategic-failure/
Same old, same old
March 10, 2025
Unfortunately, there isn't much good to be said about the current state of the US and certainly not AUKUS. So what is the answer to this? According to this letter? Go back to the mother country! As if Europe, let alone Britain, has anything to offer for Australia's defence. After their clear deceit of the Russians following the Minsk accords, the Europeans in their paranoia can't seem to bring themselves to try and make peace with Russia, but to prepare for another war. I would say they are in no position to offer others advice on defence. Like...
Hans Rijsdijk from Albion Park Rail
In response to: Waking up to a new world order: How America’s casual betrayals threaten AUKUS
Any election reform must include fixed terms
March 10, 2025
The commentary on the upcoming date of the next election has become a major diversion from the real work of the Parliament and has given more advantage to the major parties. The PM and the leader of the Opposition have been campaigning at taxpayers' expense for the past 12 months. They should be forced to donate their frequent flyer points (I suspect they get plenty) to those suffering most due to the cost of living crisis. Given the opportunity to program a natural disaster in Queensland, NSW Labor would have jumped at the chance to limit Dutton's trips...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: this-undemocratic-law-should-be-overturned/
The 1967 referendum was not quite what some think
March 10, 2025
“Yes won in the 1967 referendum, which gave Indigenous Australians citizenship and the right to be counted in the census. Not quite. Firstly, it certainly did not give Indigenous Australians citizenship. That had happened for all Australians with the Citizenship Act of 1949. Secondly, Indigenous people were counted but were not included in the census figures used to determine federal electoral boundaries, because they mostly did not have the right to vote. However by the time of the 1967 referendum, all Indigenous people had the right to vote and the anomaly had to be removed. To do...
Michael Rogers from New South Wales
In response to: Is it the US electoral system that is at fault?
Rubio’s Christianity badge and mass murder
March 10, 2025
A video in Five Minute scroll 100 shows US Secretary of State Marco Rubio wearing the Ash Wednesday badge of Christianity on his forehead, a cross of ash, while threatening to annihilate thousands more people in Southwest Palestine. His price for not doing this? Release the remaining hostages without moving to Phase 2 of the US brokered and “guaranteed” ceasefire agreement. Even though he knows that Donald Trump publicly and very recently in Washington gave Benjamin Netanyahu carte blanche to recommence taking Southwest Palestine. That means restarting the genocide, which Netanyahu would do the moment the last hostage...
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: A five minute scroll
Yes... The AUKUS chickens are coming home to roost
March 10, 2025
Dear John M., Thank you, thank you, thank you. For me and my reading, this article is so absolutely long overdue and well merrited. Just bang-on. “The Chinese Hawks” … being our government(s), politicians, general press, way too many of our 26 million and a lot of the rest of the world need to get your (our) drift. FYI … I have a daffy P.A.C. mate (Red) who belongs to the above group. I'm sure there are plenty of my S.P.O.C. (Blue) blokes in the same boat. Our poorly educated prime minister must learn word for word and understand...
James Scammell from Bowden, Adelaide, South Australia
In response to: The AUKUS chickens are coming home to roost, already By John Menadue Mar 7, 2025
Getting your head around community independents
March 10, 2025
Michael Keating's article shows that he's firmly stuck in the two-party system, unable to get his head around what community independents are – that independent means what it says and that, in government, it can and does work. When every vote they make is evidence-based and community considered, why would community independents effectively write a blank cheque to guarantee supply to one party or the other before knowing what is on the table after the election? Once they know who they are dealing with (Will there be an upset in Dickson? We live in hope!) and what assurances the...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: Minority government: what will it look like?
Striking a 'balance of power' bargain
March 10, 2025
Excellent article, Mr Menadue. It would be a very good thing indeed if those MPs who are predicted to hold the balance of power after the forthcoming election were to use as a bargaining chip the commitment to re-examine everything to do with AUKUS and our ties (i.e. relinquished sovereignty) to the US military-industrial complex. The examiners must not include anyone at all from said US military-industrial complex or their lackeys in our tertiary education institutions. Let's all suggest this to our MPs! We've got nothing to lose and everything to gain.
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: The AUKUS chickens are coming home to roost, already
ABC ratings
March 10, 2025
I have zero tolerance for the obvious lies the ABC has been broadcasting. You know what would send their ratings through the roof? Telling the truth. You know what will keep ABC struggling to get off the floor? Continuing to lie to us.
Caroline McArthur from Central West
In response to: Fool or Fabricator-ABC in the spotlight
Trump: end point and springboard
March 10, 2025
I wholeheartedly agree with the title of Michael McKinley's article. But I disagree that Trump’s victory was not inevitable. If not Trump, someone incredibly similar, summarising McKinley's delicious adjectives with the inadequate deranged, was bound to emerge. Trump (or similar) is the natural endpoint of the neo-liberalism that started at least in the late 18th, early 19th century. That manufactured disaster hollowed out the US so that all the money weighing at the top could not be upheld by the masses of poor and ignorant the system created beneath it. It was inevitable that someone cherishing money and power...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: We can see clearly now: We’re closely allied to a fascist regime and so must rea
The dumbed down ABC News
March 10, 2025
Of course, ABC News isn't worth a crumpet. It was captured by the Liberals years ago. Shades of Murdoch prevail. Its last remaining effort at genuinely informative news programming ended with the death of The Drum. Online, it waved the flag of mediocrity with its recently redesigned website, designed for the next step after Play School but content not up to Play School standards. Only Laura Tingle is worth reading.
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: Fool or fabricator? ABC in the spotlight
Forced labour?
March 10, 2025
So the country with the highest prison population in the world, where slavery is still legal (when convicted of an offence, refer to the 13th Amendment) and where torture and forced labour are rampant to profit private companies in those prisons criticises China for exaggerated and or debunked policies imposed to stamp out terrorism. Until recently, even the US classed Uyghur groups as terrorists. Perhaps China should have killed everything as is happening in Gaza and Trump could have moved the Palestinians there! (sarcasm intended!)
Jerry Cartwright from Perth
In response to: Media paladins of fortress Australia
Independents' support – decide after election.
March 10, 2025
I disagree with Michael Keating's view that democracy is best served by independents deciding which party they will support before the election. The minor parties and independents are seeking to represent their electorate and their ability to advance the policies they are promoting cannot be determined until after the election. Their ability to be independent would be eroded if they had to decide which party to support before the election – and erode their independence.
Keith Altmann from Woodend, Victoria
In response to: Minority government: what will it look like?
Accountability, accountability and more accountability
March 10, 2025
If we learn nothing from the Trump saga it is that democracy and accountability go hand in hand. To achieve that freedom of information legislation needs to be beefed up, regulatory bodies need funding without government interference, the Auditor-General needs to be funded sufficiently to do its job and the recommendations made by all of these bodies need to be vigorously acted upon as do the recommendations of royal commissions. We certainly need to revise some of the outdated parliamentary practices: Parliamentary terms extended from three to four-year fixed terms; Limit parliamentarians tenure to two consecutive...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: we-can-see-clearly-now-were-closely-allied-to-a-fascist-
Taz, Taiwan and the Donbas
March 10, 2025
I agree with Edward Down – the ABC reporters are either the world's most ignorant or most complicit and compromised in the media outlets beyond the Benighted States of Murdochracy. (Honourable exception – John Lyons, now kicked upstairs as Global Correspondent after calling B/S on the beheaded babies in ovens and mass rape of 7 October which even the government of Israel has long acknowledged to be untrue hasbara. The Merkin Isle is approx. 250ks from Australia, Taiwan is 160kms from China. Both straits are international waters as the so-disant freedom of navigation provocations of the US and...
Allan Kessing from SYDNEY
In response to: Fool-or-fabricator-abc-in-the-spotlight
Invasion – massacre of sovereignty
March 10, 2025
An invasion, the massacre of sovereignty, which is the starting point, of freedom and well-being, of all humankind, must always be rejected. There can never be tolerance, let alone reward, of an invasion. Sachs' view is, therefore, untenable. Peace in Ukraine requires restoration of its territory, to the pre-2014 boundaries. All of humankind is duty bound to see to this restoration.
Graeme Tychsen from NSW
In response to: Letter Sachs - Jeffrey Sachs: Negotiating a lasting peace in Ukraine
Challenging antisemitism
March 10, 2025
I must have read a dozen articles decrying the situation of the Palestinians in Gaza and how opposition in Australia to Israel's actions is being muzzled, particularly by false claims of antisemitism. However, life/death in Gaza goes on. It is time to begin to ramp up the level of protest, turn words into action; learn from Vietnam protests in the 1960s/70s (yes, I was there!) and begin a campaign of mass civil disobedience culminating in a symbolic day of protest, a Moratorium. (Unfortunately the presence of a modern day Jim Cairns in the Labor Party has long gone). ...
Brian Bycroft from Evans Head NSW
In response to: Challenging ‘antisemitism’
A little friendship goes a long way
March 7, 2025
Awkward to say and impossibly flawed; Scott Morrison’s deception should have been reviled by the Opposition in both chambers and the decision reversed by the Australian Labor Party when it came to power. Along with an apology to the French Government and people. Now we’re perceived as a vassal of the Trumpian States of America and have become its milking cow. Another fine mess we’ve gotten ourselves into. From the brouhaha that erupted when three Chinese warships circumnavigated Australia and fired off a few practice shots, you’d have thought the sky had fallen in, which, in itself, would have...
John Mosig from Kew, Victoria, 3101
In response to: The AUKUS chickens are coming home to roost, already
Independent candidates must remain independent
March 7, 2025
A hung parliament is, to the major parties, the Damoclesian sword. They portray minority government as the end of our democracy. Decades ago the major parties commanded more than 90% of the vote. At the last election they held 68% of the vote between them; this share is expected to reduce further at the coming election. If the major parties want a greater share of the vote they must better reflect the people’s will in their policies and in their government. But these parties have compromised their policies to accommodate vested interests. The community-based independents’ movement has flourished to...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills, Vic
In response to: Minority government: what will it look like?
The AUKUS chickens are coming home to roost
March 7, 2025
Empires in decline are often very dangerous. They are even more dangerous if they are led by a cabal of ill-informed people who have a sense of entitlement coupled with a belief of their infallibility. We should learn from the US' actions in Europe; it has proved to be an unreliable ally. It will be no different for us. Our objective should be to chart an independent course.
John Tons from adelaide
In response to: The AUKUS chickens are coming home to roost, already
Pedestrian Council of Australia: two editions
March 6, 2025
Sam Varghese may have been speed-reading, to miss my reference to the PCA as the old one, not the current one in the letter he seeks to explain. The PCA to which I referred was this one. May I quote: The Wheelchair Council of Australia (formerly the PCA) is a road safety lobbyist who seeks to promote wheelchair as a transport mode. [1] The chairman and sole member is Harold Scruby. The current PCA is an entirely different body and I believe does excellent work in the community, unlike its predecessor. This is no nitpicking matter:...
Richard Llewellyn from Colo Vale
In response to: https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/letters_to_editor/correction-about-pedestrian-council-of
Four and a half eyes?
March 6, 2025
Further to this article, the US has now said it will cut off access to US intelligence if Britain supports Ukraine militarily. Do we assume that the same applies to us in Oz now that our PM has indicated military peacekeeping support? Will Five Eyes be reduced to four and a half for us too?
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: Albanese is as misinformed on the US alliance as live-fire drills
Correction about Pedestrian Council of Australia
March 5, 2025
In a letter published in this section, reference was made to the Pedestrian Council of Australia and it was described as having just one official. This is incorrect and I apologise for the error. The Council is a registered charity (which by law must have more than one member) and owns and manages National Walk Safely to School Day and Walk to Work Day, both of which have been going for over 25 years.
Sam Varghese from Melbourne
In response to: Due diligence, wherefore art thou?
Brits got in first for Ukrainian minerals...
March 5, 2025
I have only one thing to add to this very interesting article by Eugene Doyle... and I've posted a link below to Alex Krainer, who reckons the distinctly anti-Russian Keir Starmer had already sewn up a deal with Volodymyr Zelenskyy (in January) before Zelensky dangled a similar deal in front of the US. A UK/Ukrainian 100-year deal for minerals etc and Ukrainian port facilities in exchange for UK billions towards security and boots on ground. If this is so, it would go a long way towards Trump's testy exchanges and final disdain of a fellow who steadfastly refused to...
Glenda Jones from Carlton, Victoria
In response to: Ukraine deal: Beware of Americans bearing gifts
Private sector opportunism: Doing what they do best
March 5, 2025
Until we acknowledge that the job of the private sector is to make a profit, we will never get on top of this problem. The private sector is nothing if not opportunistic. Take the present housing crisis. The regulations that governed housing in our state have been thrown out the window (with the help of state governments). SA may not be as prone to flooding as our northeastern states. Bush fires are another thing, but wait. Houses are being built on school ovals, prime farming, market garden land swamps ETC without the supporting infrastructure. There are more high-rise...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: the-real-truth-on-productivity-the-bosses-arent-trying-h
Productivity lessons forgotten
March 5, 2025
When studying production engineering in the 1960s, it was assumed that labour productivity could be improved by 1.5% a year. Clipboards and stopwatches gave way to Kaizen and continuous improvement in the 1990s with real improvements in productivity. In concentrating on technology alone, today's bosses overlook the gradual improvements achieved by dedicated input and shop floor co-operation with commensurate sharing of productivity gains.
Geoffrey Irwin from Ettalong Beach, NSW
In response to: The real truth on productivity: Ross Gittins
What medical service?
March 5, 2025
I can't say I was pleased to read Don and Patricia Edgar's article. Grateful, yes, and sick of the lack of care from those adhering to the medical practitioners industry instead of the oath to heal and care for the those in need of healing and caring. There's no bulk-billing GPs in the rural area I live in, only those with mixed billing. And... yes, indeed, they look you up and down whether you're on an aged or disability pensioner or not and they assess whether they'll get instant money or not. With me, they get nothing but contempt....
Diana Rickard from Tumbling Waters NT
In response to: Medical Skullduggery
Self regulation
March 5, 2025
When you can't trust your Parliament to self regulate, why would you expect industry to self regulate and follow its own voluntary code of conduct? The difference is that one of the main jobs of Parliament is to regulate for the good of all Australians. “Democracy may not be the best form of government but it’s better than all the other forms that have been tried“. That quote like our system of government needs regular updating, but how do you do it without political interference? I think that a benevolent dictatorship is the answer and I’m putting my...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: What-happens-if-no-party-achieves-a-parliamentary-majori