Letters to the Editor
In response to your article
June 28, 2024
Dear Sir, Thank you for your article. It was interesting to see how this situation is perceived. I would like to bring a correction. Falun Dafa is not anti China. We peacefully denounce the unjustified persecution started in July 1999 by Jiang Zemin.
Martial Bachoffner from Vancouver
In response to: Criminal probe shines light on anti-China group’s wide links
Biden's Floating Aid Fails as Expected
June 28, 2024
March 15 this year, I wrote: Biden’s plan for sea-borne aid to Gaza is incredibly stupid - Pearls and Irritations (publish.pearlsandirritations.com) I feel the need to update that gloomy premise, as the current summary of the results of the floating jetty are far worse than I had foreshadowed: ‘They miscalculated’: Gaza’s floating aid pier failing to deliver in rough seas | Israel-Gaza war | The Guardian Fact: ‘Over the entire course of the pier’s operation so far, however, only about 250 truckloads of food and other humanitarian assistance (4,100 tonnes) have arrived by the planned maritime corridor, less than half...
Richard Llewellyn from Colo Vale NSW
In response to: ‘They miscalculated’: Gaza’s floating aid pier failing to deliver in rough seas
Common sense Wisdom
June 28, 2024
May I congratulate Geoff Davies on a common sense logical article on renewable energy, it makes absolute sense, especially with all the massively deep/ wide holes in the ground left over from years coal mining, which I believe some are already underway with feasibility studies with anticipation to go ahead with ORPH . I cannot believe that Peter Dutton is going to try and divide the nation once again just like with the voice referendum, using the most critical and important task that the nations of this planet need to deal with in the shortest time possible that we have...
John Evans from Raymond Terrace
In response to: The cut-through message: wind, solar and pumped hydro are all we need, and cheaper
The Power Options Debate (A Professionals View)
June 21, 2024
As a hydropower engineer, responsible for the economic justification of aa of my projects I suppose I should weigh in on the power options debate. I agree with Geoff Davies assessment (P&I June 26, 2014) which coincidentally is the same as that of the CSIRO and the Australian Energy Market Operator. Nuclear Power has never been an economical option even for systems larger than those existing in the interconnected system of the eastern states of Australia. China has nuclear power providing a small proportion of their total installed capacity but State Power acknowledge that this is not the least cost...
Barry Trembath from Australia
In response to: The cut-through message: wind, solar and pumped hydro are all we need, and cheaper
A startling admission from a former insider
June 21, 2024
In amongst a blather of pseudo-intellectual posturing, Mike Pezzullo’s recent long essay in ASPI’s The Strategist makes a startling revelation. As someone recently removed from Australia’s security centre it’s disturbing when Pezzullo writes; “[Australia’s] actual grand strategy is being conducted, thankfully, at variance with our declared policy—through contributing to the building of a US-centred system of integrated deterrence in the Indo-Pacific, the hardening of Australia as a bastion for allied war-fighting operations, and the continuing integration of certain strategic functions undertaken on Australian territory into global US war-fighting systems”. Taken at face value this is an admission that the Albanese...
Mike Scrafton from Ireland
In response to: Across the US Empire, deranged shrieks drown out talk of peace
Nuclear power and weapons linked
June 21, 2024
Any nation that has nuclear power stations has access to making nuclear weapons and there are no effective international sanctions to prevent this. In fact one of the reasons Sir Phillip Baxter gave for building a nuclear power station at Jervis bay was to have access to nuclear weapons.
John Coulter from Bradbury S.A.
In response to: How Dutton’s HALEU nuclear power could lead to nuclear weapons
Robo-Debt fall-out
June 21, 2024
The question is, are our governments accountable. The answer appears to be a very clear no. I was not part of or included in Robo-Debt, I was just another citizen looking at a slow motion train crash. So much has already being said about Robo-Debt that I cannot offer a new insight. But I can note the complete lack of accountability from those who developed and implemented the Robo-Debt policy. Such lack of accountability translates into contempt for the very people that vote politicians into government in the first place. Robo-Debt is not the only time such contempt was shown,...
Peter Sheehy from Blackheath NSW
In response to: The National Anti-Corruption Commission: a damp squib
Graduates not 'job-ready' without the humanities
June 21, 2024
University graduates will never be ready for any jobs without a knowledge of history and the skills to analyse critically the social contexts in which they work. Any deficits in these regards will seriously impact their performance, increasingly so as they assume leadership roles in later life. Humanities-based contextual studies should be required subjects in every professional degree course in Australia. Taught well, they will enable graduates to contribute more effectively to the improvement of their organisations and the well-being of our democracy. Certainly this has been my experience after four decades of teaching courses in the history and social...
Gary Werskey from Blackheath
In response to: In the face of disinformation and democratic decay, humanities graduates are more important than ever
The capitulation of Ukraine
June 17, 2024
I found this article by Geoffrey Roberts, insulting, offensive and misleading using misinformation in order to achieve the writers political agenda. I find what Roberts says in much in line with what Jeffrey D. Sachs has to say, which is that the war in Ukraine is a proxy war between the US and Russia and therefore independent Ukraine has no say. So the sooner Ukraine's learn to live on their knees and bow down to Putin the sooner the war will end. Except just prior to the war, a day, a week or a month prior, Ukraine was recognized by...
Peter Sheehy from Blackheath NSW
In response to: Negotiate now, or capitulate later: ten incentives for Ukraine to make peace with Russia
The legal black hole of nuclear
June 17, 2024
Ernst Willheim (17/6) asks the legal questions about nuclear: State rights, liability, safeguards and insurance. He concludes: “It is not clear that the Opposition has addressed any of these issues”. Shadow energy minister Ted O’Brien has travelled to Canada and Britain to check out small modular reactors, but appears to have spoken only to nuclear unnamed “nuclear experts” - promoters, not lawyers. Given the exceptional regulatory requirements for nuclear, can the Coalition detail its legally-binding ‘road map’ for the planning, building, maintenance, decommissioning and waste storage of nuclear plants? Technological innovation can be expected over the next decades, and the...
Fiona Colin from Melbourne
In response to: Superficial coverage of Dutton’s nuclear policy does Australia a disservice
Julian Cribb offers government a climate plan
June 17, 2024
It is great to see a photo of highly honoured world issues analyst Australian Julian Cribb as well and relaxed, and to hear his clear and logical voice (How to stop climate change, Podcast, June 14, 2024). He argues that world agriculture is not sustainable in quantity or quality for a human population of over 8 billion; and it will result in mass refugees. He considers most humans have rotten diets and die from related conditions such as cancer. He therefore recommends sustainable methods of natural regeneration, local urban production, and deep ocean production of nutritious fish and seaweed. In...
Barbara Fraser from Burwood, Vic
In response to: How to stop climate change
Australians would support non-alignment
June 17, 2024
Australia is part of The Global South. We would be wise to acknowledge (and embrace) the fact that we are fortuitously positioned between the Pacific and Indian Oceans. We have the potential to become a major player in a world where everything is changing rapidly and too often catastrophically. Why are we hanging on to increasingly anachronous allegiances to has-been imperial powers? Should we not urgently and seriously consider becoming a geopolitically non-aligned nation? Respectful friends of our neighbours and trading partners? We would be safer, I believe, without phantasmagoric protectors. I agree that the ballot box is where we...
Penny Lee from Perth
In response to: Walking into war with China: an American trap hidden in plain sight
Journalists could bone up on nuclear information
June 14, 2024
It’s true, the Canberra Press Gallery is not homogeneous (Who prepared Dutton’s report on nuclear power?, 13/6). But presumably most journalists are not scientists. The same can be said of politicians, economists and commentators of a certain persuasion, who have gone in to bat against the CSIRO’s latest costings of renewables, fossil fuels and nuclear energy. They say science should not inform our decision as to whether we go nuclear (eg John Kehoe, AFR, 13/6). He, and the Coalition, advocates “letting the market decide”, as if the economics of such a hugely complicated technology can be divorced from the science....
Fiona Colin from Melbourne
In response to: Who prepared Dutton’s report on nuclear power?
Capitalism and democracy are different things
June 14, 2024
In the very excellent When Confucius meets Machiavelli, Teow Loon Ti states, “It implies whether these countries comprise people of European origin, profess an adherence to the idea of democracy and common values with the core, is endowed with valuable natural resources and willing to make them available to the Empire and its supporters on terms agreeable to them…” This sentence proves the lie contained within it. The lie that the US Empire is devoted to protecting the ideal of democracy. The US Empire has only ever been interested in defending Capitalism, not democracy. Millions of victims of US supported...
John Donegan from Nathalia
In response to: When Confucius meets Machiavelli
Most certainly, we hold no sympathy for Hamas....
June 14, 2024
Please, please, there is no need to highlight the so-called atrocities Hamas is accused of committing on October 7th - very, very few of them are proven or substantiated. If 1200 died, there is now ample evidence via Al Jazeera and the Electronic Intifada, Haaretz, and various other Israeli sources that many, if not most were murdered by Israeli fire. The Hamas incursion is a pimple on Mount Everest in comparison to the thousands of such incursions and slaughters committed by Israel since 1948. To single out Hamas is a classic case of blaming the victim for FINALLY retaliating.
Dieter Barkhoff from Box Hill North
In response to: Australia and the Israeli-Hamas War
Poor policy results in poor outcomes
June 14, 2024
There has been much ado about the so-called Reserve Bank of Australia’s modus operandi, but most of all, it overlooks the fact that the RBA is an instrument of the Federal Government, independent or otherwise. The Feds make policy, the RBA doesn’t, and it’s this policy which governs the fortunes of Australia and the RBA. Policy governs everything we do whether we like it or not and 30 years of poor policy has created mounting inequality and poverty. We are now reaping what we have sown! As we have seen with the pandemic, we can afford to do just about...
John Bentley from Tongala
In response to: Reserve Bank has squeezed us like a lemon........
Why is the US waiting for Hamas?
June 14, 2024
That is a good call by a very distinguished body of us Australians. After all, twice in five weeks Hamas has accepted a ceasefire proposal guaranteed by the US, Egypt and Qatar. Yet Biden and Blinken keep saying they are waiting for Hamas to accept? Why? Isn’t the onus on Israel to accept the deal?
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: Australia and the Israeli-Hamas War
Stigmatising dementia
June 14, 2024
Dear editor, I too have a close friend diagnosed with younger onset Alzheimer's disease. She is in an excellent care facility, and every day I see photos of her smiling face, despite her advanced memory loss, and inability to walk or talk. To describe her life as one of 'intolerable suffering' is completely untrue. Dementia is an umbrella term for many diseases, including Alzheimer's, so it is inaccurate to say dementia or Alzheimer's. Whilst I understand the viewpoint of the author, and do not necessarily disagree with euthanasia in general, I think unfortunately the focus is on the disease, not...
Helen Jones from Sydney
In response to: Time to change the law
The Hypocrisy on Gaza is widespread indeed
June 14, 2024
As most Australians are reviled by the Gaza war, seeing, as always, it is the innocent civilians who suffer in war, not the politicians or generals, it is interesting to compare the expressed Australian outrage over Gaza, the horror over Australian support for Israel, in articles such as this one, with the complete lack of interest expressed in what is happening, has happened, in other war zones around the world, where the international community watched and did nothing. Sudan, 150,000 murdered, 10 million displaced. Egypt, 35,000 illegal arrests and ‘disappearances’, 15,000 homes destroyed Syria, 500,000 gassed & murdered, 6 million...
Marcus May from Ocean Grove
In response to: Hypocrisy and deceit Down Under: Australia is a Zionist stronghold
Russia’s nuclear threat
June 14, 2024
I generally like Caitlin’s take on things especially criticism of the US for just about everything but regarding Russia she has, to my mind, a blind spot. Whatever justifications Putin uses, NATO expansionism or whatever, the fact is Russia, led by a dictator, invaded the Ukraine led by a democratically elected president (quibble about that but it’s a fact) . Putin complains about weapons from the US and other countries being used against Russia but I see no equivalence about him using weaponry from China and Iran to wreak havoc on the Ukraine and it’s people. I think Russia’s actions...
Richard Creswick from Northern territory
In response to: The reckless brinkmanship with Russia keeps on escalating
Religion and the Census
June 14, 2024
Paul Collins, the problem with your position is that the ABS HAS BEEN LISTENING to people of faith for far too long. Given that in all statistical probability there are closer to 50% of 'non faith people' rather than the reported 39%, it seems very reasonable to me that we try to get this accurate. So much feather bedding for 'people of faith', exemplified by Scott Morrison, goes on that it is about time we tried to demonstrate its irrelevance to modern Aust society.
Max Bourke AM from Campbell, ACT
In response to: Religion and the census
Labor's climate failures
June 14, 2024
Ketan Joshi concludes that over the past two years Australia’s total emissions have all but stopped falling and we won’t reach zero emissions until 2207 (“Environment: Government delivers climate rhetoric but not emissions reductions” Pearls and Irritations, 2/6). As climate impacts swirl around us, this is a shameful truth and bitter pill for future generations. Like many, I had hoped that the 2022 change of government would result in policy that would actually shift the pollution dial. But since native forest logging continues, environmental law reform has been deferred, coal mine expansions are still being approved, and Labor announced their...
Amy Hiller from Kew
In response to: Environment: Government delivers climate rhetoric but not emissions reductions
Political hypocracy
June 14, 2024
So, those United States Study Centres are pushing political policy support for AUKUS, amongst others past, present and future, I'm sure. And crickets from those who object to interference in our political system. But, if it was a similar event from a Confucius Institute or other Chinese bodies supported by the United Front Work Dept, the media would be all over it, shouting from the roof tops. I don't want to see ANY political interference by any nation, but the hypocracy shown here is just appalling. AUKUS needs to be killed off as any manned sub, in 20+ years, will...
Leigh Bunting from Adelaide
In response to: Serious concerns about the AUKUS submarine deal are not going away
Critical thought - Culturally Determined Mediation
June 14, 2024
The deep complexity of the considerable issues facing the Human Species over the coming years, will not be solved by thinking that adheres to the confines of 'acceptable' - culturally determined mediations. Characterizations of 'independence', that appear on the surface to sit outside of them, included. The Author of this article, the Authors linked within it, and P&I as a publication, are yet to cross this Rubicon.
Andrew Stretton from Tasmania
In response to: Raising the Bar
Can the Albanese Govt be trusted with Australia?
June 14, 2024
Since the loss of the 2019 Election the Labor party has been shell shocked , a rabbit caught in the head lights . It has been dealing with the mess left behind by the ONE minister Morrison Govt, unable to even get the Dutton chickens (refugees and immigration) home to roost. Albanese should have in his victory speach announced a review of the Public Service and of the AuKuSA submarine deal as the beginning of his bold agenda to fix the Morrison mess . Instead he has been wasting time and energy ensuring the Morrison/ Dutton mud doesnt stick to...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SĄ
In response to: Can Scott Morrison be trusted in America?
Finally, the facts on Chinese growth
June 14, 2024
Congratulations Michael Keating on the brilliant article laying out the facts about Chinese growth and strategic development over the past 40 years. I began seeing with my own eyes 15 years ago the rate at which China was rapidly going green while the west was mostly in denial. Julia Gillard was right - this will be the Asian century - and hopefully we can still tag along. Neil O'Keefe
NEIL O'KEEFE from HEATHCOTE VIC 3523
In response to: Clutching at straws: America will not maintain its economic dominance
Dangers of Neutrality
June 14, 2024
Those politicians who may be inclined towards Australian neutrality pursue that inclination at the risk of their careers or worse as the experiences of Gough Whitlam and Imran Khan prove. https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/the-us-toppling-of-imran-khan/
John Curr from Brisbane
In response to: Neutrality would keep us out of a U.S. – China war
Doomsday clock
June 14, 2024
I was surprised at how much the doomsday clock had varied since 1947. The Sachs article gives the US presidential timeline but not the Russian or Chinese equivalents. So much depends on leaders. I wonder if as well as the UN building in NY there was an equivalent United People's building across the road how different the years since 1947 would have been. Are the ICC and the ICJ the beginnings of people power as opposed to leaders' power?
Gary Barnes from mosman nsw
In response to: Presidents who gamble with nuclear Armageddon
We must recover the common good
June 14, 2024
In the minds of those concerned for the salvation of life on earth the focus has been on securing an urgent transition from fossil fuel energy to renewable energy. This is certainly critical. Our government is supporting this transition, for good immediate reason, as a great commercial opportunity. Geoff Davies has identified that the energy transition alone will be insufficient to achieve a truly sustainable society. The other, at least as important, is to make the transition back from our market-based, neo-liberalism enhanced society to the more socially cohesive and caring society which reclaims the commons, and prioritises the common...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills, Vic
In response to: Death machine: striking at the heart of the planetary problem
A spade is a spade, (unless it's Israeli . . )
June 14, 2024
The analogy Gillian Cowlishaw makes with domestic violence’s insidious control mechanisms is a perfect analogy for the truth manipulation that Israel has quietly been building and cementing into political structures worldwide over decades. The real victim, Palestine is repeatedly over-written by well-funded and loud false narratives. Australian Zionists, under the umbrella of the Jewish faith have been allowed to heckle and harass any truth tellers with information from that beautiful, ancient country of Palestine, by dismissing the teller and insisting that they alone control the story and the Jewish people must always be seen as the victims. Appallingly the Israelis...
Glenda Jones from Carlton
In response to: Coercive control — by country
Brave voices should be applauded
June 14, 2024
The Jewish Council of Australia is to be commended and applauded for their brave and principled stance on the ongoing genocide against Palestinians in both Gaza and the West Bank. Israel's far-right national government insults our intelligence and compassion by continually seeking to dilute their murderous actions by calling them 'unintended' or 'a tragic mistake', or that such outrages are 'under review'. The Jewish Council of Australia quite rightly, and unequivocally, calls for Australia to hold Israel to account in the same way that Russia and some of its citizens are held responsible for the illegal invasion of Ukraine. Our...
Robert Harwood from West Hobart
In response to: Rafah massacre demonstrates urgent need to cut ties and sanction Israel
Biden’s bombs burn babies
June 14, 2024
Biden’s bombs burn babies. There have been further murders by Israel in the day since. But so far, the reaction from the US and Australia and the world is not “enough is enough” as it was when Kim Phuc ran down a Vietnamese street with her back covered in flaming napalm. Buddhist monk Thich Tri Qang self-immolated to try to stop the Vietnam War, and US serviceman Aaron Bushnell has done the same this year over Gaza. Yet as of today Antony Blinken is still telling us that the “red line” for decisive US intervention hasn’t been crossed. Hamas accepted...
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: American-Israeli bombs incinerate women and children in Gaza’s ‘safe zone’
We need leaders who rise to the climate challenge
June 14, 2024
‘Lifestyle’ has been the major gain for the great majority of people since 1945. This has led the rampant consumerism which has us ‘using more resources than the world has to offer’. It is the political risk of compromising this lifestyle that prevents populist democratic governments from reining in our changing climate. This inability threatens to destroy the world which has evolved over the past sixty million years; this is the world we are leaving to our children and grandchildren. Violet Coco is intelligent, informed, passionate and provocative. She sees the critical state of our climate and environment, and the...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills, Vic
In response to: Full spectrum resistance: we need militant teams who are willing to destroy the death machine
Bias in the Letters pages
June 14, 2024
... the denying of Israel’s Gazan starvation strategy (a longstanding affair) may have been too much for the normally acquiescent letters editors to bear. I wrote letters to The Age from 1999 until 10 May, 2024, and agree 100% with author Evan Jones's comment. It was extremely difficult to get any letter published that refuted outright errors of fact previously published in the letters pages on the Voice to Parliament, or that expressed alternative views on China, defence or Gaza. I still don't know why the anti-Voice brigade got such a free run. But for the rest, if you're not...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn, VIC
In response to: The AIJAC propaganda machine
Daniel Duggan
June 14, 2024
Thank you to Mary Kostakidis for spelling out some of the injustice being inflicted on Dan Duggan and his family. With the name Dreyfus there is a cruel irony that the federal Attorney General seems unwilling to put a stop to the inhumane treatment. Yours sincerely, Bill Holley
William Holley from Mayfield NSW
In response to: Living in fear: Can Australia protect its citizens from our dangerous American a
We cannot leave transition to our children
June 14, 2024
Andrew Glikson highlights once again how humanity is facing an existential crisis as our environment decays. Too many are either ignoring these imminent threats or denying the need for substantial, uncomfortable actions to prevent them. These attitudes are likely rooted in the comforting words from successive governments – either that climate science is ‘crap’ and must be ignored, or that they accept the science and have the issues in hand so don’t worry. But actions are not being taken fast enough. The Climate Change Minister seems to be making some progress, but his colleague in the Environment Ministry seems less...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills
In response to: Tracking toward a greenhouse atmosphere and acid oceans
Biden Administration Stands Self-Indicted
May 29, 2024
There can be no more definite proof that for the USA, any claim of upholding 'the International Rule of Law' is utterly and shamelessly a complete and arrogant falsehood than the recent responses to the Gaza situation. Within a few hours of the ICJ announcing a decision to determine the legality - or otherwise - of the actions of the leaders of the Israeli government in the context of war crimes and genocide, Joe Biden frothed his opposition, calling it 'outrageous'. Eminent international justices trenchantly disagree, and the international community increasingly protests strongly the Israeli government/military matrix genocide being inflicted...
Richard Llewellyn from Colo Vale NSW
In response to: Horrendous images of burnt children after Israel bombs Rafah refugee camp
The degree of obedience of a soldier
May 24, 2024
Thank you for the article. Inevitably there would be a confrontation between the legal system, the tenants of mission command and the degree of obedience required of a soldier in a democracy. As you pointed out the Nuremburg Trials rejected slavish obedience to orders as the reason for behaviours and actions. For the Germans each soldier is now obliged, continuously, to reassess their decisions, behaviour and actions on the constitutionality, legality and morality of their mission or task. A soldier does so to avoid the abuses of human rights that have been repugnant features of the past. They call their...
Thomas Basan from Canberra
In response to: Justice miscarried: The unanswered questions of the McBride verdict
The role of the Greens
May 24, 2024
In their excellent podcast, Allan Patience and Joe Camilleri paint a bleak picture of the state of Australian politics. Rightly, they bemoan the inability of the second-rate politicians within the two major parties to address the ravages of forty years of neoliberalism, and respond to the challenges of climate catastrophe and social inequality. Rightly, they recognise that the machinery of government is controlled by powerful corporate and security interests. Yet they mention the Greens and Independents only cursorily, to dismiss their possible roles and never return to them. I cannot understand this. Patience and Camilleri want people with ideas, knowledge...
Richard Barnes from Canterbury, Victoria
In response to: The bleak picture of Australian politics: this is how we change
Dien Bien Phu and Vietnam war protests
May 24, 2024
The excellent article re the Viet Minh victory at Dien Bien Phu, is illuminative. Those who would seek more information are recommended to read Lucien Bodard's 'The Quicksand War'. Of great import is the information that it was an American military officer who drove Ho Chi Minh into Hanoi, in an American Jeep, proclaiming through a bullhorn 'Here is your new leader' ( paraphrased.) Bodard chronicles the vast corruption serial south Vietnamese governments, supported by - guess who - the USA. Just as today we see the USA flagrantly ignoring any semblance of the 'International Rule of Order' viz the...
Richard Llewellyn from Colo Vale NSW
In response to: Ðiên Biên Phú at 70: The best journalists report from “the other side”
Finally, facts against the almighty Hasbara b.s.
May 24, 2024
It was very heartening to read Evan Jones' brave article, pushing back against the overwhelming media deluge by the pro-Israel community. The propaganda (Hasbara) that they spew out is extremely well-funded and quite ruthless. AIJAC’s decades-long pronouncements highlight that its personnel dwell in a parallel universe. It is a record of high-class charlatanry. How can AIJAC personnel, all well-educated, construct a fabulous version of a subject on which they devote their waking hours? The media has been generally happy to oblige AIJAC’s threadbare homilies. A commentator with the experience and intellect of Evan Jones reveals the shallowness of the Israel...
Glenda Jones from Carlton, 3053 Victoria
In response to: The AIJAC propaganda machine
It's just the budget to win the next election
May 24, 2024
More members of the Coalition are likely to be replaced by 'teals' at the next Federal Election because the Coalition is largely irrelevant. Labor just needs to stay in office, hence the budget that just tinkered but did not make big changes. They did commit to building more housing which is good news. Murdoch's News Limited is being brought down to size. In the UK's investigators have found that the News of the World's illegal behaviour was much more than they initially realised, and more people are going to be held accountable, which will damage them further. This is will...
Louise O'Brien from Wollstonecraft
In response to: Jim Chalmers’ 2024 budget ignores that humans are social beings
The US has lost key states
May 24, 2024
Thanks to Israel's genocide in Gaza, the Saudis are not doing a normalisation agreement with Israel. The US tried to do a Plan B with the Saudis, which was an AUKUS type deal, but they have also walked away from that as well. This is of major strategic importance. The Saudis have signed up with the BRICS. Looks like India is refusing to sign an AUKUS deal as well. They currently buy around half of their military weapons from Russia and are refusing to change on this. Being a 'QUAD' member is largely meaningless. The US Petrodollars is largely considered...
Louise O'Brien from Wollstonecraft
In response to: America's geopolitical position
Peacekeeping force for Gaza
May 24, 2024
Blinne Ni Ghralaigh’s plea for more action by the ICJ is backed by a current call from the 22 state Arab League for a multilateral peacekeeping force in Gaza. As Algeria is a member of both the League and the Security Council, it is to be hoped that Algeria’s Foreign Minister, Ahmad Attah, proposes setting up such a force by the Council. Our Foreign Minister, Penny Wong, should encourage him to do so urgently.
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: As 700,000 civilians flee Rafah, our shared humanity compels the indication of further ICJ provisional measures
Gaza genocide
May 24, 2024
Thank you for telling the true, whole (for this period of our lives) story. I have heard/read snippets of these but not the concise whole. I did not know about Marwan Barghouti (for me more to learn). In connection to his story, John, mentioned Nelson Mandela. I would put the very sad story of Navalny here too.
Judith Gamper from Kambah ACT 2902
In response to: Gaza genocide protests by students shame the elites in the Westen world
We must break the power of lobbying and donations
May 17, 2024
The fossil fuel industry will never cooperate to bring about their own demise. Rather they seek to prolong and maximise their fossil fuel production, disregarding the ever-more-apparent risks that their emissions are producing. They cloak the need for emissions reduction in the panacea of carbon capture and storage – a technology with limited application and little proven success. The IPCC made clear, in its final report, that no new fossil fuel projects can be authorised. This decree, in Australia, seems to have energised the industry to push for authorisation of major new gas projects. The Future Gas Strategy is a...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills, Vic
In response to: Labor’s Future Gas Strategy: The greatest capitulation of any Australian gover
Pushers of war for corporate gain
May 17, 2024
While always showing us corporations who benefit from the spoils and even threat of war, why not expose the real pushers of war for corporate gain…..the weapons industries. Oil gains feature but without weapons industries having war, where would they get profits for jobs and shareholder gains? It seems the reliance on weapons production is too big to ever let it stop. USA UK produces and sells weapons far more than any other nation, and it’s hard to sell a product without a user, it seems the producer has needs met by ‘whatever it takes”. It’s not really about $...
Julie Hunt from Alstonville Plateau, NSW 2477
In response to: corporatocracy
The US hegemon
May 17, 2024
I absolutely agree with this article, however it is anethema to politicians of all colours and most of the populace because of their perceived need to hold hands with someone stronger, as it was with the UK at one time. It is sad that most think we need someone to 'have our back' when there has been no guarantees of that - ever. It is only the self interest of hegemons that gives the impression of 'support'. To be independent of hegemony would show other countries that we are confident of our place in the world and will garner more...
Leigh Bunting from Adelaide
In response to: Three compelling reasons to exit ANZUS
Betrayal X 2
May 17, 2024
Labor has betrayed us on both climate and AUKUS/Defence. Send in more Teals to act on the former and please Teals act on the latter. As it currently stands, as climate catastrophe races towards us and we prepare for war as a puppet of the US, we are doomed without immediate action.
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn
In response to: Future Gas Strategy is a betrayal of promised Climate and Environmental Policies
We should all support an Earth Systems Treaty
May 17, 2024
I first read about Julian Cribb's climate book How to Fix a Broken Planet- Advice for Surviving the 21st Century (2023) last year in P&I (July 22/2023). I was most impressed by how comprehensive it is. To solve the main threats to our world, it proposes ten globally agreed and legal solutions, the Earth System Treaty (EST), on which all UN countries should take action. The first action is to ban nuclear weapons. Cribb seemed ecstatic as he wished it well, It is a milestone to our becoming one people on one planet. So it is disappointing to read in...
Barbara Fraser from Burwood, Vic
In response to: To avoid human population collapse, We must transform Society
Yes, Minister. Listen to the kids
May 17, 2024
And now - it's back to the NT. A Labor government here is trying to pee higher than the CLP pretenders. 'Tough Love', More police, More prisons. And the next step for these retributive recidivists? Reintroduce mandatory sentencing?? The only thing that stops these kiddies' power games is that someone in their circle of friends and family is caught in the Act and sentenced mandatorily. The new police minister here wants all homeless people herded up and dumped in the bush. But then again, he's helping clear the bush so ... It's all sounding gaza-ish, isn't it?
Diana Rickard from Tumbling Waters NT
In response to: No, Minister. It's you who should be in court
“Future Made in Australia"
May 17, 2024
The horrible thing about Albo's Future Made in Australia is the complete lack of imagination in lifting it from Biden's 2021 “Future Made in America”. Why are Australian governments so secondhand and second-rate?
Paul Andrew from Adelaide
In response to: Accepting reality: the future will not be made in Australia
A valuable contribution
May 17, 2024
Thank you. Thank you.
Patrick Widows from Margate. Tasmania
In response to: Negativity and the Budget. Philip Huggins
Cognitive dissonance over climate catastrophe
May 17, 2024
A Guardian survey of hundreds of top climate scientists indicates only six percent think the 1.5C goal is achievable. Nearly eighty percent warn of dire consequences, a “semi-dystopian” future of wider famine, mass migration and conflict driven by dwindling basic resources. An agreement signed last year between Tuvalu and Australia was a world-first bilateral agreement on “climate mobility” (The Conversation, 11/11). Australia has, commendably, created migration pathways for people from Tuvalu who face the existential threat of rising sea levels. Yet in the context of the Federal government’s gas strategy announcement, our commitments to the Pacific nations are sounding thin....
Fiona Colin from Melbourne
In response to: 77% of top Climate Scientists think 2.5°C of warming is coming – and they’re horrified
Ceasefire guarantee or red line of blood?
May 17, 2024
The text of the Gaza ceasefire agreement published on Al Jazeera says that the US, Egypt and Qatar are the guarantors. Hamas has accepted it. So it is time the guarantors stepped up to the plate and took active steps to stop the continuing small mass murders and the Majdanek-inspired “900 calories per day keeps people quiet” approach of the Ben-Gvir Smotrich real government of Israel. The Biden red line, which is not a red line according to Blinken, is nothing but a trail of blood running across the sea from Gaza to Washington.
Geoff Taylor from Riverton
In response to: Israel’s willing executioners
Hope now rests on very thin ice
May 10, 2024
77% of IPCC climate lead scientists, as reported by the Guardian this week, see that we will, almost inevitably, be facing catastrophic global temperature rise within the foreseeable future. This news, together with the Australian Security Leaders Climate Group’s newly-published report “Too Hot To Handle”, underscores Adrian Glikson’s despairing preview of humanity’s seemingly inevitable demise in the Earth’s forecast sixth mass extinction. Thirty years ago we had the information that we needed, as a species, to recognise, accept, and overcome this threat. Regretfully governments, with fossil fuel industry encouragement, opted instead to focus on other pressing issues that allowed them...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills , Vic
In response to: The Orwellian rules-based climate
EEZ rules
May 10, 2024
I was enlightened by this article as to the rules for entering an EEZ. The question begs as to why HMAS Hobart was in that particular area (enforcing sanctions on DPRK sounds a bit thin), so what were their orders and on whose authority. If the orders came from the UN, then China's reaction is overblown. If we are lapdogs to US orders then that is different. I can understand that the EEZ borders in the Yellow Sea are tight but maybe there are other factors at work such as the Chinese/DPRK at-sea goods transfers are being hindered by foreign...
Leigh Bunting from Adelaide
In response to: China dropped a flare near an Aussie copter in its EEZ. What’s wrong with that?
Blinken and the mote and beam
May 10, 2024
As the Chinese saying goes; for every finger the US points outward, three fingers point inward. This parallels the biblical story of seeing the mote in your neighbour’s eye but not the beam in your own. Which is very much the case with Anthony Blinken’s latest claim that Hamas is holding up a ceasefire in Gaza. The reality is that it has been possible since the early stages of this conflict for Joe Biden to bring it to a halt, with diplomatic, military and financial pressure. He didn’t, and the deaths of over 30,000 Palestinians lie squarely on him, as...
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: The State Department report on human rights
The US empires' Days are numbered
May 10, 2024
The US Government now spends more on interests payments to service it debt than on defence, which is the tipping point when an empire is finished. Every year the US Government continues to spend well beyond its means. Thanks to US sanctions, where over 50 percent of the world's population is living under some type of sanction, much of the world is moving away from using the US dollars and TWIFT for trade. Together the euro and yuan have the ability to replace the US dollar, and many countries are trading in their own currencies. In the near future the...
Louise O'Brien from Wollstonecraft
In response to: Australias-national-defence-strategy-where-ideology-trump
Australia's American lenses
May 10, 2024
ABC Nightlife between Phil Clark and Michael Pascoe mid-week discussed the 'nest of spies' reported in 2021 by ASIO DG Mike Burgess, who is happy to cast shade on China and Russia, but which was reported this week via the Washington Post to have been from India. The MSM seems to have made virtually nothing of it with government and opposition spokespeople quoted on the good relationship Australia has with the world's biggest democracy and defence partner India - everyone has moved on. But imagine the response if the spy ring turned out to have been from China. As Pascoe...
Ka Ma from Australia
In response to: Our Biggest China Lie
Avani Dias and The Australian
May 3, 2024
Sam Varghese makes a cogent argument for exposing News Corps' white blindfold approach to journalism. I'd suggest the fact that she's a woman would also be a factor. And then there's the potential for The Australian (or any of the other rags that News Corp - I hesitate to say - publishes) to aggravate Modi and News Corps' potential for making any money there. Nothing like ethical standards.
Erik Hoekstra from Leura
In response to: If Avani Dias had been white, would Murdoch media have ignored her India ban?
Lest we forget -- Who should we commemorate?
May 3, 2024
What should we commemorate? The quest for peace in our lifetime. Those who champion alternatives to war. The right to want the commemoration of war money to go into mental health services, which are desperately needed due to, in part, the continuation of war at all costs. Those who champion the rights of children, especially those on the fringes, the victims of war, and First Peoples. Those who stand up for the countless women tortured daily, and all too many killed by those who know them. We should commemorate the women who stood up and aired the need for all...
Jessica Perini from Everleigh
In response to: ‘Impactful projection’, 1915 style: Lest we forget Anzac Cove
Lest we forget -- beyond ANZAC
May 3, 2024
6 am and I can hear them gathering. Every year since COVID began, our neighbours have insisted on an ANZAC Day service in our street. The bugles blare at the rising of the sun. New Zealand and Australian anthems are sung. “For those who’ve come across the seas ...” And I turn over in my bed and rage. My adopted grandpa, he was one of them. I do not denigrate his years of service. Nor the beliefs he held. It is the sanctification of the period that irks me to the core. This act has been made saintly. An act...
Jessica Perini from Everleigh
In response to: ‘Impactful projection’, 1915 style: Lest we forget Anzac Cove
Terrorism: let’s call it out
May 3, 2024
Terrorism: “the use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims”. Enculturated from birth into a patriarchal system, most see gender politics as simply ‘how it is’ or may not perceive it at all. While many instances of violence against women are instances of controlling behaviour, it does not require women to act in any particular way in order for that violence to occur. It is in some respects an invisible threat which nevertheless has the effect of causing women - and some men - to at least be ever-mindful of their behaviour in order...
Fiona Colin from Melbourne
In response to: Why is violence against Australian women not rated as terrorism
Every morning I wake early, Gaza is my first thought
May 3, 2024
Every morning I wake early, Gaza is my first thought. I am not alone, I’d wager many of our deadbeat politicians, if they could be honest and they can’t-evidently, also wake early thinking of Gaza. Thank you for publishing this piece-it’s perfect and I am weeping. Our corrupt media is entirely complicit-it is utterly shameful.
Link from Wiradjuri
In response to: Weeping for Gaza
Future Made In Australia (Michael Keating article)
May 3, 2024
Like so many democracies, Australia is struggling with the “Guns, Butter, Future Growth” dilemma, as Paul Kennedy wrote in “The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers”, back in 1998. Part of the reason for that struggle is that the importance of “Pure science” is often not recognized, as Janeway wrote in “Capitalism in the age of Innovation”. Australia has reduced its spending on pure science, even medical science, as part of its response to the lower taxes, currently at 27% of GDP, way below most developed countries except USA (24%). Now our exports of Iron Ore, coal, Natural Gas,...
Noel Thommpson from Sydney, NSW, 2066
In response to: A Future Made In Australia:Can it work and what are the risks
In a parallel universe
May 3, 2024
According to some physicists there exists a multitude of parallel universes. In one of these: * Palestine is recognised, but Israel is not, because ‘there was yet to be a negotiated agreement’ including, i.a., a finalised border for Israel; * Armed Israeli groups such as the IDF and settler groups were designated as terror organisations because of their attacks on citizens in the West Bank; * The Israel governing body was not recognised because many of its members were opposed to a two-state solution and supported violence to achieve their goals. * Israelis were being evicted from their land, which...
Brian Bycroft from Evans Head NSW
In response to: Australia’s recognition of the State of Palestine an overdue move
US Demands China stop Supplying Russia in Ukraine
May 3, 2024
“US Secretary of state visits China and demands the Chinese stop supplying Russia arms for their war in the Ukraine” as reported on SBS world news . I wonder how it would be reported If the Chinese Secretary of state went to the USA and demanded that the US stop supply Israel weapons for use in the Palestine genocide - I wonder how the US would react?
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: War on Gaza a cruel month of massacres
An eminence grise in his own lunchtime
May 3, 2024
Finally got to view the Sarah Ferguson / Mike Pezullo interview. Jack Waterford treated Pezullo more kindly than he deserves; it is really very hard to see Pezullo as any more than a Dodgy Brothers plastic statuette of Arthur Tange. Kissinger redux he might think of himself but he's only about $0.30 in the $ there.
Richard Llewellyn from Colo Vale NSW
In response to: The Anti-China War Book: Pezzullo hears the call again
Measures That Matter, Matter
May 3, 2024
Our politics seem still dominated by short-term thinking – the result of our short federal election cycle. Chelsea Hunnicutt’s call to remind the Treasurer about his promised Measures That Matter is welcome. Short-term policy to provide short-term benefits is really just a more sophisticated form of pork barrelling. This Labor government needs to raise its vision above the daily fray, to demonstrate that it has some vision of the world that lies well beyond the next election. We have a moral responsibility to provide a secure world for future generations. The great majority of voters have a vested interest in...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills, VIC
In response to: As we approach the Federal budget, whatever happened to ‘Measuring What Matters’
Israel's historical mythology and Arab Jews
May 3, 2024
Dear Jeff Kildea I agree wholly with the gist and thrust of your article. However, I must take you up on an aspect of Israel's historical Mythology - namely that the Arab Jews were 'kicked out' of the lands they had lived in for several generations - the largest population of Jews in the world in ad 750 lived in Iran, and in 1948 there were 150,000 in Tehran alone. There are still over 8000 living there. The gist of my proof comes from Israelis I have known - one, Ed Marcus, who along with his brother hi-jacked the South...
dieter barkhoff from Box Hill North
In response to: The Belfast Good Friday Agreement – a model for Palestine?
Corals warn humanity to speed energy transition
May 3, 2024
I am very much afraid that climate expert Julian Cribb is correct that the world's corals are in deep trouble due to fossil fuel emissions bleaching them; so in effect they are warning us: The corals are telling us our time on Earth may well be up, if we do not heed the warnings they provide. That is, are humans intelligent enough to survive... or not? (Coral catastrophe signals our own undoing, P&I, Apr 19, 2024). Why on Earth can't all fossil fuel companies simply accord with the very critical climate science and reform fast to making their profits from...
Barbara Fraser from Burwood, Vic
In response to: Coral catastrophe signals our own undoing
Cautious Terrorism
May 3, 2024
Gareth Evans writes of Australia being 'the latest of formerly cautious countries' now wanting statehood for Palestine. 'Cautious' is not the word I would use for the shameful conduct of Australia in condoning genocide by the Israeli government and IDF top brass. Australia supports state-sanctioned terrorism by supplying ADF personnel and war machines and parts to help Israel murder yet more Gazan women and children. It's hard for me to condemn Hamas for defending Gazan rights for oppressed people while our 'cautious' politicians bury their heads in the sand to not see or hear the cries of the Innocents in...
Diana Rickard from Tumbling Waters NT
In response to: The Urgency of Palestinian Statehood
SEZs are the answer
May 3, 2024
While the above article uses the Korean model of industrial development, the elephant on the page is China which is by far the most relevant and current example of how industrial development can happen successfully led by Government. Ironically, the To Boldly Go article features the Australian proposed legislation “Future Made in Australia” which more resembles Made in China 2025 than Korean. Special Economic Zones can be owned and controlled by Government where Australian private enterprises (not foreign multinationals) can manufacture exclusively for export thereby not distorting the domestic market . As such each SEZ can specialise and benefit from...
Brian Lynch from Brisbane
In response to: ‘To Boldly Go’—but not so far as to replace the private sector
Labor has left the building
May 3, 2024
Given Labor's stance on Gaza and AUKUS, I can no longer preference them when I vote. This means in the next federal election I'll probably squander my vote as my electorate is safe Labor, and I'll never preference the Libs. For the next state election though, we have the best voting system of optional preferential voting so the equally disappointing Minns government will miss out. It's galling that Labor seems to think it can move so far to the right and we just have to suck it up.
Jack B. Nimble from Villawood NSW
In response to: Dutton plays to his base while Albanese neglects his
Palestinian state
May 3, 2024
It seems one of the major arguments against the recognition of a Palestinian State is the borders of such a State have not been agreed to. Surely, then, this is also true of Israel. Logic would suggest we should immediately refuse to recognise the State of Israel.
Brian Bycroft from Evans Head NSW
In response to: A state of Palestine? Outrage as US backs perpetual occupation and oppression
We trust truth over 'news as entertainment'
May 3, 2024
Ranald McDonald’s selectivity is confounding. He implores Australian media to defend free speech and encourage honesty. Yet he agrees that under the scrutiny of a court of law, our media was found to be truthful to its readership (in the successful “truth’ defences in two recent attacks on press reliability: Ben Roberts Smith and Bruce Luhrmann), nevertheless he still encourages us to copy America and change our constitution to protect freedom of speech; questionable when the US government just passed a bill denying free speech if Israeli interests are involved. Why doesn't he address the journalistic injustices of: * After...
Glenda Jones from Carlton 3053
In response to: The media must surely act now to rebuild public confidence
Be both alert and alarmed
April 19, 2024
Time to be both alert and alarmed. The Great Barrier Reef is facing its fourth mass bleaching. Deteriorating oceanic conditions presage further damage. Reefs globally are facing the same existential threat. Should they die, many species which depend on these reefs will follow; our environment will experience cascading extinctions. While climate change denial may have reduced in recent years, its stable-mate - climate action procrastination - is thriving. Our government makes such gestures to control carbon emissions as it can negotiate with, among others, the fossil fuel industry. Government talks up its actions, but they remain insufficient for the need....
Chris Young from Surrey Hills, VIC
In response to: XR blocking arteries of capitalism labelled “catastrophic inconvenience”
Recognising Palestine
April 19, 2024
Larry Stillman's argument for recognising Palestine as a first step to peace in the region, with which I largely agree, includes one possible scenario involving a condominium. This brought to mind the condominium established by France and Great Britain in the then New Hebrides, now Vanuatu, in 1906, lasting to independence in 1980. Those who lived through it usually referred to it as the pandemonium. The aftermath of the chaos was still evident when I lived there in the early 1990s, and it's hard to see how such an arrangement would work in a much more fraught environment. Given the...
Erik Hoekstra from Leura
In response to: Why Australia should recognise Palestine
Gender theory exists
April 19, 2024
Francis Sullivan, 'gender theory' exists. It is taught in universities (reference Judith Butler) and in schools. It is embraced by our governments, the public service, corporations and sporting bodies. Workers are afraid to criticise it for fear of losing their jobs. The mass media, including the ABC, censor criticism of it. In 2013 the government amended the Sex Discrimination Act to accord with it. Discrimination on the basis of sex was replaced by discrimination on the basis of gender identity, and the words 'sex', 'man' and 'woman' were deleted. The result is that people are not permitted to advertise gatherings...
Janet Grevillea from New South Wales
In response to: Pope Francis has abandoned transgender Catholics
We ARE part of the problem!
April 18, 2024
Larry Stillman and Harold Zwier write 'We urge the Australian government to maintain its support for Israel, for Palestine and a negotiated settlement to the conflict through recognition of Palestine'. Whilst few could argue with the substance of their joint article, the suggestion that the Australian government should 'maintain its support for Israel', given the acts of genocide currently being perpetuated by Israel, is a position that can't and shouldn't be justified, morally or politically. The only way to shift Netanyahu's and Israel's intransigent position, that Israel is and will forever remain the sole state, is for Australia and the...
Peter Hehir from Rozelle. Sydney
In response to: Why Australia should recognise Palestine
We must stop mining fossil fuels.
April 15, 2024
Dr David Shearman has long campaigned to end fossil fuel mining in Australia. He is highly qualified and was a co-founder of Doctors for the Environment Australia in 2001. He quotes the scientific fact that For every thousand tonnes of fossil fuels mined, one person dies. This leads to the utterly abhorrent statistic of 540,000 deaths annually as a consequence of using fossil fuels. Obviously it must not continue. However, at present gas in Australia is being hailed generally as a transitional fuel to the clean energy future. But Shearman describes it as damaging especially to children in our homes;...
Barbara Fraser from Burwood, Vic
In response to: The Government must abandon its gas policy
Fossil fuel users can pollute in secret
April 15, 2024
All life on the surface of our planet shares a common atmosphere. Long lived pollutants injected into our atmosphere are shared with flora and fauna on the Earth’s surface, and potentially with water dwelling life. At this point in our planet’s history, the most important long lived pollutant is carbon dioxide, which not only stays in the biosphere for many many human generations, it also dissolves in oceans where it interferes with the chemistry of natural processes. Carbon dioxide is of course the primary driver of global heating. Almost all the carbon dioxide added to our atmosphere in the last...
David Hamilton from North East Tasmania
In response to: Fossil fuel’s war on protest
The real battle to save NDIS is about people
April 15, 2024
The true failure of this NDIS Bill will be revealed in the likely extensive amendments . This misguided article fails to provide an analysis of real cost saving. Instead the rationing of NDIS supports could cause cost increases, due to serious health breakdown, compared to the disallowed $500 piece of equipment for independence costing years of a support worker. Reduced therapy could mean the difference between a future taxpayer or a lifetime on welfare. It is the incompetent NDIA and the not fit for purpose PACE IT system that is the real threat. It is shameful that the Agency itself...
Shirley Humphris from Geelong
In response to: At last, the battle to save the NDIS has begun
We need to see what lobbyists do
April 12, 2024
Democracy should be government by the people, for the people. As John Menadue’s submission makes clear, what we have is too often government by vested interests in favour of vested interests. Coming from senior government and military positions, lobbyists may be better informed than politicians and staffers; they may be better connected. Lobbyists outnumber those in government, and their numbers are growing. There is no visibility for who they lobby, when, about what. They are credited with resisting essential reforms for our climate, our environment, our tax system and more. They are clearly a cost-effective investment for the interests they...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills
In response to: The lobbying scourge
The only planet
April 12, 2024
I'm never sure if you lift me up with your spot-on cartoons but you certainly keep me alive and kicking!
Diana Rickard from Tumbling Waters NT
In response to: The Wrong Planet
Nuclear Smoke and Fossil Fuel Mirrors
April 12, 2024
I do not believe there is any real conviction in the Liberal's policy of going down the nuclear path for Australia's base load. It is being done deliberately though. It is being put out there to further stifle any hope, in the short term, of a unilateral will in the Australian government to adopt a fast renewable energy transition. Where does it originate from? Considering the political, corporate and media interests promoting this faux policy, you need look no further than the fossil fuel industry. They are the rabbits digging the rabbit hole. This deliberate talking point is purely to...
Henk Plaggemars from Sellicks Beach
In response to: Peter Dutton’s nuclear power policy is a ‘suicide note’
The whisper of an eternity beyond
April 12, 2024
And yet in all our hearts, that single entity doing good, there is the whisper of an eternity beyond what is too much blood and bone and ‘rubbles’ and grief and infant death. Palestine has shown us, there is more that unites us than our leaders who divide us and it is eternal and unyielding. Take heart Mr Leunig, we do. Link X
Link @L1I9N6K4 from Wiradjuri
In response to: The Wrong Planet
Shame on Labor
April 12, 2024
This is especially relevant given the role of Dr H. V. Evatt as both a Labor leader and UN president. One has to wonder what this eminent figure in both Australian and world history would think if he were alive to witness the flaccid and gutless response, by the current federal ALP administration, to war crimes currently being perpetrated by Israel against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. Indeed, is there any such thing as an independent Australian position? A position that acknowledges that deliberate targeting of women, children, the vulnerable in medical care, the elderly, NGOs, and journalists,...
Robert Harwood from West Hobart
In response to: Australia's disgraceful diversion of responsibility over Gaza war crimes
Infinite growth equals infinite stupidity
April 12, 2024
Imagine a goldfish bowl with one fish in it. Along comes an economist with a theory that the bowl can hold an infinite number of fish provided it is managed correctly. The aquarium manager embraces this concept with glee and greed because more fish means more money and worldly goods. A filtration system is installed and the citizens hail the wonders of science. Four fish now live comfortably in a space that previously only housed one. The tank is cleaned out daily, the fish are fed a special diet of high nutrient but non-polluting food, an aeration system is installed...
Paul Simpson from Brocklesby
In response to: The guiding criminal lie in economics
Albanese and killing of Zomi Frankcom
April 12, 2024
On face value, it is appalling that it takes the death of an Australian to prompt Albanese and Wong to stand up to Israel when the massacre of 32000 Palestinians fails to do so. Perhaps however, Albanese is cognisant of similarities between two countries in that they both have settler colonial origins. Both have histories of oppressing and trying to wipe out the original inhabitants. The referendum on the indigenous voice just one week after the Hamas attack, saw to this country’s shame, 60% of Australians rebuff the opportunity to accept what was done to First Nations people and make...
Michael Hassett from Blackburn
In response to: For Albanese, one Australian life matters more than 32,000 dead Palestinians
One State: The Only Future for Palestine - Israel
April 12, 2024
Indeed, given that Zionism has always seen the expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland as a key objective, one could say that the two state solution has always been a fraud. Kanck’s suggestion of a one state solution has merit and is, as she has said, the only way out of this intolerable mess. Readers of P&I who would like to explore this idea could do no better than to pick up a copy of Ghada Karmi’s “One State: The Only Democratic Solution for Palestine – Israel” published in 2023 by Pluto Press. Born in Jerusalem in 1939, Karmi was...
Paul Vellacott from Ipswich, Qld
In response to: The One State Solution
First they came for Palestine
April 12, 2024
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me. —Martin Niemöller First they came for the mosques and I did not speak out because I am a christian
Bob Pearce from Adelaide South Australia
In response to: The one state solution
The fragility of existence
April 12, 2024
Peter Sainsbury (Environment: Australia publishes its first Climate Risk Assessment, 7/4) once again challenges us to look climate change in the face. Australia is vulnerable in many ways, not least to high temperatures and heat waves. According to the Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience reports In Australia, “heatwaves are more deadly than any other natural hazard and predicted to increase in frequency and intensity as a result of climate change”. The Lancet medical journal last year reported that heat-related illnesses and deaths “are rising as the world warms, and forecasts “a 370% surge in yearly heat deaths by mid-century if...
Fiona Colin from Melbourne
In response to: Environment: Australia publishes its first climate risk assessment
Arrogance and Absolute Lies
April 12, 2024
It has been obvious from the start of this whole dreadful mess that the Israeli government and the IDF have lied blatantly and with contemptuous arrogance for the intelligence of the rest of the world. I have been copied in to communiques from some senior ex-IDF personnel and other highly-ranked Israelis that shows clearly that these lies are also being perpetrated by Netanyahu and the IDF top command on to its populace via manipulation / cenorship / physical force and even murder of media resources. Over many years, the world agonised about whether the average German citizen truly realised what...
Richard Llewellyn from Colo Vale NSW
In response to: Shattered wards, ill-timed hernias, and the moral bankruptcy of a nation
Population - an insidious problem
April 5, 2024
Michael Keating’s perfunctory dismissal of population growth not having any bearing on housing is incorrect. Overpopulation is an insidious problem, it’s the main driver of war, climate change, famine, homelessness, &c. The global population of over 8 billion people is consuming more than 1.8 times the resources of the planet. While the Australian landmass may seem vast to many, the resource that constrains population growth among others is water. Despite Australia’s wet summer, Australians are using more water than can be replenished as ground water supplies slowly diminish. The transition to a fully renewable energy regime will take 20 odd...
John Bentley from Tongala
In response to: Housing affordability and equality: part 2
Shameful oil and gas realities
April 5, 2024
In an era of accelerating global heating it is vital to shine a light on the oil and gas industry (“Environment: Oil and gas making massive profits now but stormy waters ahead”, Pearls and Irritations, 17/3). Despite the International Energy Agency clearly stating back in 2021 that there is no need for any new investment in fossil fuels, gas and oil production is still expanding. That energy export companies who produce oil and gas contribute just one per cent of global clean energy investment shows where the priorities of these companies remain. Although both dire climate predictions and economics point...
Amy Hiller from Kew
In response to: Environment: Oil and gas making massive profits now but stormy waters ahead
Deaths in Gaza and Ukraine
April 5, 2024
Peter Rodgers writes in the above article that the UN states 10,582 Ukrainian civilians were killed in the two-year period to February 2024, while barely six months into the Gaza war 31,000 plus Palestinians have died at the hands of the IDF (which includes a disputed number of Hamas fighters). The scale of death and destruction in Gaza is horrific, but this comparison is incorrect and diminishes the impact of the Russian invasion in Ukraine. The U.N. has stated several times that its figure of verified deaths is just the “tip of the iceberg” because Russia has not allowed it...
Jon Richardson from Canberra
In response to: Australia must recall its ambassador to Israel and condemn the horror of Gaza
Unity of Life
April 2, 2024
We will not find God and transcendence in a cynically consumerist and secularist world, and not in the insipid, self-engrossed church. When Stan clearly relates First Nations beliefs with Christianity and he speaks about meeting hatred with love, he is speaking the truth. “My people can teach the world to love Don’t mistake our love for weakness, it is our strength.” In Christ we are called to love each other, there is no colour, sex, slavery, all Christians are equal parts of the body of Christ in the world. If Christians are alive to God, they will remember why we...
Frederic Richter from Townsville, Queensland
In response to: Stan Grant on Good Friday, Easter, and God’s absence in our suffering world