Letters to the Editor
Viva Barb Dadd's revolution
February 24, 2025
Thoroughly enjoyed your article Barb, beautifully written, poignant and a call to action for all aspiring activists. Congratulations.
Peter Day from Adelaide
In response to: A fantasy: The revolution that shook the world
Shame is old hat
February 21, 2025
It seems shame is an anachronism. As Paddy Gourley amusingly, but darkly, suggests, some ghosts who should remain just that are coming back into focus, assisted by the hugely comedic and deadly Murdoch juggernaut. Mark Pezzullo for one. An independent inquiry into the latter’s conduct as secretary of home affairs found Pezzullo had breached the rules on at least 14 occasions in relation to “overarching allegations” including using his power, status or authority “to seek to gain a benefit or advantage for himself, failing to act apolitically, failing to disclose a conflict of interest and failing to maintain confidentiality...
Fina Colin from Melbourne
In response to: Mike Pezzullo and the Murdoch comedy company
Don't be so hasty about Ronald Reagan
February 21, 2025
They are not the same people as on whose behalf Ronald Reagan, 40 years ago, celebrated the fact that 'Americans courageously supported the struggle for liberty, self-government, and free enterprise throughout the world, and turned the tide of history away from totalitarian darkness and into the warm sunlight of human freedom'. I'm really not sure about this particular bit of saintliness. Reagan was well in the grip of neoliberal big business. High profits, low wages, kill the opposition. Whatever lofty words he might have said, Reagan was leading the US down the path that has given us Trump. ...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: Europeans (and others) vs Trump
Past time to cut the US apron strings
February 21, 2025
We can no longer ignore the need for Australia to plan for its own defence, rather than fund a role as a compliant auxiliary of the US in the Pacific. Amen to that!! Easier said than done when we have another unpredictable superpower in East Asia. Easier said than done, getting an anti-AUKUS letter published in the MSM. Speak up people. Time to rally! Australia long since took up parroting the US' anti-China chorus. But is any of it true, including that China is unpredictable? How has China behaved? Spreading influence by building infrastructure, not dropping...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: What if there is no way of Australia placating Trump?
Shame on governments that gave Murdoch free rein
February 21, 2025
Thank all the gods I don't read any Murdoch rag. I'm with Grace Tame! My sympathies to Paddy Gourley and all who are forced to read such garbage as part of their working life.
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: Mike Pezzullo and the Murdoch comedy company
Myopic self-indulgence
February 21, 2025
At least Saul Eslake managed a reasonably accurate description of Trump. Otherwise, this dalliance in knee-jerk journalism is perhaps the most condescending, patronising, presumptuous, and vacuous insult I've ever read on P & I. He's used election results in order to support his apparent political and social myopia, engaging in no analysis whatsoever in order to replace facts with generalities. He excoriates and vilifies a contrived homogeneous mass of humanity in the US with no effort to account for reality: the US population simply doesn't fit, even generally, into his mischaracterisations. Instead of addressing the structural faults and...
Peter Warner from Eureka, California, USA
In response to: Europeans (and others) vs Trump
The cynical pre-budget submission process
February 20, 2025
Ross Gittins is correct that governments never pay attention to pre-budget submissions from the public. This is because the process operates on the assumption that submissions will be ignored. As Gittins says, the call for submissions has just gone out, as usual. But the high-level outline of what is in or out of budget is usually pretty much settled in December the previous year. In recent years this has slipped under increasingly disorganised governments but my guess, from both my experience and the wan looks of of my ex-colleagues, is that the final touches are being put on budget...
Damian Coburn from Kambah ACT
In response to: We may be short of leaders, but we’re not short on false prophets
Who do they serve?
February 20, 2025
There has to be concern that Peter Dutton thinks well of Trump. Trump’s pronouncements on Greenland and Panama, followed by his idea of removing Palestinians from their own land, and asserting that Ukraine started the war with Russia are cause for grave concern. So much so, that those working in any capacity within the Australian public service whose sworn allegiance is to the US president should be asked to return to the US.
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: If the Coalition under Dutton isn’t liberal or conservative what is it.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose
February 20, 2025
Refaat Ibrahim talks to one horrific issue in the never-ending repetition of the human experiment. It seems humankind is hardwired to a cycle of behavioural traits that finish in man’s inhumanity to man. As we lurch drunkenly into yet another catastrophic phase of what looks to be our destiny, some of the players have changed roles; sadly, the roles remain constant and the methods tragically familiar. In the 1930s, Hitler and Stalin divided Poland as a prelude to signing a non-aggression pact. With its eastern front buffered, the Third Reich set out to make Germany great again under Lebensraum....
John Mosig from Kew, Victoria, 3101
In response to: The displacement of Gazans: between possibility and impossibility
Alternative WTO?
February 19, 2025
The article poses that the World Trade Organisation is no longer effective and may be beyond recovery. One of the reasons for this decline seems to be the US' aberrant behaviour. One could pose the question whether an alternative WTO that excludes the US may serve as (temporary?) relief from the current problems. Well, there is an possible alternative that is being developed, namely BRICS. Joining BRICS may not please the US (and would likely produce more of the economic threats that Trump is happy to spray around), but sometimes it may be necessary to stand up to a...
Hans Rijsdijk from Albion Park Rail
In response to: Causes of peace… and war
Populist right policy – show us the evidence
February 19, 2025
There is no evidence that cutting public sector jobs saves the taxpayer money. History attests to the contrary. The point about populist right policy is that it is based not on fact but on popular misconception exploited for electoral advantage. During the years of Thatcherism, the series Yes, Minister was conceived to pillory the public sector as ridiculously bureaucratic, hopelessly inefficient, and perpetually self-serving. It thus reinforced the neoconservative ideological project of small government, public choice theory, and free-market economics. The reality is that public sector job cuts equal service cuts; and outsourcing and privatisation result more often...
Roz Averis from Adelaide, SA
In response to: Dutton's perennial stupidity of undirected public-service
Pacta sunt servanda
February 19, 2025
Well said, Saul. In our Australian bewilderment we shouldn't deny the benefit of the US connection. But our obsequious leaders, from our US ambassador, the foreign minister, (who both should have absented themselves from the inauguration of the felon-in-chief by making an appointment to meet Michelle Obama on that notorious occasion), prime minister and deputy prime minister following in that path, we have publicly failed miserably to assert our national interest and self-respect. Instead of meekly submitting the first payment of our ongoing impoverishment to the bogus nuke-submarine deal, they should have instead redirected funds to the Cambodian de-mining...
Bruce Wearne from BALLARAT CENTRAL
In response to: Europeans (and others) vs Trump
It's Teals, not Labor, who now bring hope
February 19, 2025
Labor swept into office on a wave of hope for a fresh start after nine years of Coalition inertia. Those hopes have been dashed by their lack of a sense of purpose or social justice. Anthony Albanese has not grown into the role of prime minister. He has given no sense of leadership, no impression of a vision for our future. He remains the political operator he has always been. Any sense of worthwhile government has been tarnished forever by legislation passed, in cahoots with the Coalition, in the last parliamentary sitting: muzzling charities once an election has been...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills
In response to: Teals should hammer unfinished integrity agenda
Zionism as a terrorist creed
February 18, 2025
A good place to start seems to be to label Zionism (as clearly different from Judaism) as a terrorist creed.
Hans Rijsdijk from Albion Park Rail
In response to: Sourcing antisemitism: ‘Paid actors’ and urgent questions to be asked
The separation between capitalism and state
February 18, 2025
The problem as I see it is there never was a separation between capitalism and state. When anything goes as long as you're elected, the lies are ignored or go unnoticed and every election becomes about If you elect them they will put taxes up”. “No we won’t“. In our current election cycle, we have no mention of the billions of dollars wasted by the previous LNP govt on car parks, AUKUS etc , no mention of why we have a housing crisis, an education crisis, high inflation, no mention of the achievements of the present government, just constant...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: the-costs-of-impatience-a-psychic-disorder-of-modern-cap
No logic from God
February 18, 2025
While respecting Allan Patience’s academic achievements, I wonder about his logic. He asks, if I prefer to believe in science rather than believe in God, “why did I post about God in the first place?” Why not? Isn’t it critical to consider both sides of an issue in any intelligent commentary? Dr Patience also says that so-called philosophical “positivism” limits scientific research and theorising “to what is observable and measurable”. Sounds impressive, but hardly explains the value of science as the gathering of reliable information from all sources, experimenting and testing it before drawing conclusions that can be verified...
Eric Hunter from COOK
In response to: The problem of God, Dr Allan Patience, February 17
Breaking the cycle
February 18, 2025
Somewhere after my childhood and early adulthood the sense of responsibility seems to have been lost. We have charters of rights, but no charter of responsibilitities that I've ever heard of. We have freedom of speech without any compulsion to use that right responsibly. For years, wage theft has been an unashamed oops, not a crime. Teachers regularly complain that talking to parents about a child's persistent problematic behaviour brings the response that their child can do no wrong. In my own backyard, the federal Opposition can flood my electorate with a flyer of lies and distortions about the sitting...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: Who should take responsibility for youth crime?
Views on new world order
February 17, 2025
Lavrov's views, published a few days ago, on the changing world order as The UN Charter Should Become the Legal Foundation of a Multipolar World should be read, considered, and critiqued by all pondering the rapidly changing nature of international relationships.
Bob Aikenhead from Victoria
In response to: Appeasement in the 21st century
COVID facts
February 17, 2025
The failure of the ABC to acknowledge or describe most of the disputes, uncertainties, errors and misrepresentations related to the mainstream of COVID narrative, policies and events is another regrettable issue. Australia is way behind the US, the UK and several other countries in exposing some of the alternate facts through broad scale inquiries, and with the commitment to transparency declared by the US' new Health and Human Services secretary, much more material will soon appear. I hoped that Pearls and Irritations might welcome broader discussion, but have seen little of it. Perhaps we could open this discussion...
Wendy Hoy from Kenmore Hills, Brisbane, Queensland
In response to: ABC's sycophancy erodes our democracy
AUKUS joke
February 17, 2025
How will the future (if ever) AUKUS vassals be branded? Fiat! Boom boom!
Alan Wilson from Adelaide
In response to: First AUKUS meeting of Trump 2.0: Business as usual
A1+ for Kym Davey
February 17, 2025
Kym Davey's article shoud be sent to every politician and every ABC board member. It is impeccable in its truth and superb in the summation of much (though sadly, not by any means all) that is a cancer eating the soul of the ABC. And (as with Alison Broinowski’s recent letter) it highlights the very, very important point that it is the ABC that implicitly, and by its charter explicitly, is supposed to provide truth on matters of import to Australians' understanding of events, developments etc. critical to building an intelligent nation. The current and immediate past ABC...
Richard Llewellyn from Colo Vale NSW 2575
In response to: ABC sycophancy erodes our democracy
What democracy?
February 17, 2025
No mention of the non-existent US democracy largely based on the non-thinkers voting and the thinking voters non-voting, all by design with the latest system of bribes (AUKUS) paid by compliant countries for protection which history tells will always be on its way unless further bribes are paid to the US arms industry
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: caligulas-horse-and-washington
Electoral targeting and the wealth divide
February 17, 2025
The economic indicators may have improved, but the wealth extremities have widened. Economic distribution is consolidating the fortunes of the super-rich and obscenely wealthy, at the expense of the already impoverished, disenfranchised, or at risk (employed or not). Here is the battleground for the contest of ideas, and emotions. Climate action, refugees or minority groups (however named, shamed and denigrated, including welfare recipients and people with a disability) are not driving extremes of inequality. The wealthy can as yet weather the storms (literally and figuratively) caused by climate change and economic instability. Others cannot. The appeal to the...
Roz Averis from Adelaise
In response to: The politics of fear - how belief and emotion drive electoral outcomes
Balfour Declaration tried to protect Palestinians
February 17, 2025
Thanks for a good article. Balfour’s 1917 letter, aka the Balfour Declaration (text below) stipulated: “ … nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine ..” . This promise was not honoured by the British administration or by the Zionists . Balfour Declaration 1917 November 2nd, 1917 Dear Lord Rothschild, I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty's Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet. His...
Tony Kevin from Canberra
In response to: Israel and the dark legacy of Sir Mark SykesBy Susan GloverFeb 13, 2025
Trump’s Gaza diplomacy
February 17, 2025
Astonishing as the Trump announcement re seizure of Gaza was, perhaps more telling was that the only leader even hinting at agreement was Netanyahu. Not even neighbours like Egypt or Jordan were consulted in advance, nor did regional client states in the region agree. Perhaps Trump's Inept Isolationism would be a better descriptor.
Don Hird from Hobart 7009
In response to: Trump’s Gaza grab shows America is no better than China
International law vs RBO
February 17, 2025
Is there any way that I can persuade Pearls and Irritations to stop supporting the US' International Rules-Based Order and to, instead, support International Law? The two are not the same. The International Rules-Based Order is the US' attempt to supplant International Law with something meaningless and inconsistent that they can manipulate to say whatever they want from time to time. The relationship between International Law and the Rules-Based Order is examined here.
Susan Nolan from Sydney, NSW Australia
In response to: Paging the lady and the lamp
Start with bringing our ships and planes home
February 14, 2025
We could explain to the Australian public why our ships and planes are surveilling in international waters/airspace off the coast of China. Would we tolerate it in international waters off our coast?
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: the-need-for-australia-to-act-independently-and-be-freed
Do we read the documents we talk about?
February 13, 2025
Of all historical documents, The Balfour Declaration must hold the record for being the most often referred to and the least often read. The document reads: His Majesty's Government views with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people . . . it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country. The Declaration talks about a national home, in Palestine, for the Jews, while the...
Ian Bruce from Darlinghurst, NSW 2010
In response to: Israel and the dark legacy of Sir Mark Sykes
God and gender duality
February 13, 2025
One consideration to add to Eric Hunter’s excellent article on ‘Why doesn’t God save the day?’ is the apparent automatic assumption it is a male figure. No doubt it originates from ancient days when domination relied more on direct physical prowess rather than projectiles delivered from a distance. Any deity is likely to be a figurehead to all and not defined by gender. Perhaps there is a message in the recent amplified status by transgender people which may lead the faithful beyond the confines of conflict.
Tony McLean from Springwood, Blue Mountains
In response to: Why doesn't God Save the Day
Ita, a dose of integrity?
February 12, 2025
Perhaps Cold Chisel should alter the lyrics to their song Ita. or maybe they were just being sarcastic all along? Is her integrity the reason that another person of integrity, Scomo, picked her?
Jerry Cartwright from Perth
In response to: ABC cowardice vs Zionist blitzkrieg
Why only now see the reality?
February 12, 2025
Peter Varghese has finally recognised that the US has become a selfish bully and that its capacity to champion “our great strategic project” against China is in doubt. He says that while we should continue to enjoy the security from hanging out with the bully, it would be wise given US unpredictability “to recognise what we should have known all along” that we can’t leave our defence to others”. (Is this an apology for inability to advance this view when he was DFAT secretary?) What brings Varghese to his realisation are Trump’s statements about expanding US territory and...
John Wallace from Melbourne
In response to: Trump’s Gaza grab shows America is no better than China
Taiwan and Gaza
February 11, 2025
The situation with Taiwan and Gaza is not comparable. A total of 146 countries recognise Palestine (including Gaza) as a sovereign state that has never belonged to America or Israel. Almost every country recognises Taiwan as part of China (12 don't). Even America does. Those running Taiwan are not the original inhabitants, but forcibly overran it after losing a civil war. I believe that provoking China over Taiwan has more to do with China's massive economic growth than spreading freedom and democracy and mythical fairy stories of the rules-based order. Ask the previous inhabitants of Diego...
Jerry Cartwright from Perth
In response to: Trumps Gaza grab shows America is no better than China.
From the river to the sea
February 11, 2025
From the river to the sea is condemned as a racist and hateful policy. Given that it should be banned from Likud's founding documents, campaigns, and policies.
Jerry Cartwright from Perth
In response to: The future from the river to the sea remains bleak
Our future is in our hands
February 11, 2025
Peter Sainsbury illustrates a frightening truth. Australia, and for that matter, the rest of the world, is chasing its tail trying to reach net zero targets. The reason is multifaceted, but the underlying solution is simple; take the ominous consequences of global warming seriously and act accordingly. The question then becomes: is Australia capable of curbing its consumeristic lifestyle to haul in what is fast becoming runaway atmospheric warming? At this stage, we’ve shown no inclination to do so. Our business leaders and politicians seem yoked to population growth, which only compounds greenhouse gas emissions, but to be honest,...
John Mosig from Kew, Victoria 3101
In response to: Environment: Australia unlikely to play its proper part in keeping warming under
A golden opportunity for a determined government
February 11, 2025
Peter Sainsbury shocked me with his heading Environment Australia unlikely to play its proper part in keeping warming under 1.5 degrees C. Our PM and team should stick boldly to the decarbonising science; and try harder to explain to MPs and voters that this is the only true, effective path for a livable future on Earth. That path would also likely beat Dutton's nuclear energy as far too late, costly and with forever deadly radioactive waste. I consider that our government has a golden opportunity to make a strong stand now for doing the right thing for...
Barbara Fraser from Burwood, Vic
In response to: Environment: Australia unlikely to play its proper part in keeping warming under
Trump’s Gaza grab: America is no better than China
February 11, 2025
Peter Varghese's article has a number of factual inaccuracies which I would like to point out. 1. The so-called rules-based order crafted by the US mentioned in his essay is nothing but a self-serving way of relating to the world solely in its interests. The US never signed up to the United Nations' international Charter of Law. 2. Taiwan has been recognised internationally — even by the US — as being part of mainland China. This is not the case as far as Panama, Greenland, nor for that matter, Gaza. Thus the comparison is invalid.
Pamela Rothfield from Edithvale, Victoria
In response to: Trump’s Gaza grab shows America is no better than China
Peter Varghese's swipe at China
February 11, 2025
Peter Varghese's article takes a totally unneccesary swipe at China. China may be a one-party state, but it has managed to lift its population out of the depths of poverty into a modern welfare state. He may not like China's authoritarian regime (neither do I, by the way), but a huge majority of Chinese citizens elected it and it has the respect of most of its population. On the other side, America is rapidly evolving into a rogue state where might is right and money is king are the only criteria that matter. I am not a military expert,...
Hans Rijsdijk from Albion Park Rail
In response to: Trump's Gaza grab shows America .....
What’s really on the nose is politics
February 11, 2025
Forget about Musk or any other of the small, medium or large businesses; what is really on the nose is politics. The job of business is to make a profit and everything they do or say is, and should be, about making a profit. No matter how big or small they are, if it isn’t about making a profit they will not survive/prosper. The problem is that our politicians and our politics have lost sight of their job which is to govern without fear or favour for the good/betterment of all Australians without fear of not being re-elected....
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: musk-a-perfume-on-the-nose
Right-wing Advance and our elections
February 11, 2025
The right-wing lobby group Advance played a not insignificant role against the Voice, and it mounted a concerted campaign to defeat the sitting Greens candidate in Prahran’s recent by-election in Victoria. Advance is partly funded by a Liberal Party investment group which donated $500,000 in the last financial year. It was disturbing to read that the Victorian Electoral Commission felt obliged to seek a Supreme Court injunction against Advance for repeatedly defying election campaign rules. Disturbing not because of the actions of the VEC, but the response from Advance, who accused the VEC of “heavy-handed overreaction to Australians participating...
Fiona Colin from Melbourne
In response to: Australian electoral prospects
Tell 'im 'e's dreamin'
February 11, 2025
Bob McMullan's piece reads like he's trying to convince himself that Labor isn't doing as badly as it is. Whatever else is happening in the world, however bad the opposition is, by any measure Labor is a disappointment, at best. On climate and the environment it has performed particularly poorly, the backdown on gambling reform was pathetic, and not subjecting the whole AUKUS deal to thorough scrutiny was an abdication of responsibility. The list goes on. Talk to anyone vaguely interested in politics and the refrain is the same. Albanese is an inadequate prime minister, timid, spineless, lacking...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: Australian electoral prospects
Well-written report
February 11, 2025
Congratulations on a well-written article. I am a 62-year-old white Australian and have to agree with all aspects of the article. Particularly with the outside influences aggravating the Australian public who are not very smart or introspective in the first place. The problem is how do you make a politician who is left- or right-wing and probably being paid in some manner by the perpetrators to see clearly the falsity that is obvious? A great article.
Michael Hagen from PROSERPINE
In response to: Australian society has never really been a cohesive entity, it may be unravellin
Trump saves the subs
February 10, 2025
What Australia needs: Another Trump light bulb moment where he decides that Biden/Morrison did a dumb deal (he may well take our money and tell us to p*** off but in the long run thatwill be cheaper). A hung parliament in which Dutton won’t work with the independents. Richard Marles to lose his seat. The Future made in Australia to kick in. It is standard Trump/defence business practice to quote low and once the build reaches critical mass the customer has no choice but to hold on and pay up and go along for...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: aukus-ssn-a-flawed-plan-heading-for-the-wrong-destinatio
ABC cowardice vs Zionist blitzkreig
February 10, 2025
The Lattouff court case exposes, once again, the craven subservience of Australian Government, its instrumentalities, and of course, the mainstream media (aka the Murdochracy). So much dissembling, so much obfuscation, so much plain BS. So much genuflection to the obscene demands of the Zionist lobby. Ita Buttrose, a person of (questionably, but let that pass) veneration, reduced to the status of a messenger of the gods of the Zionist Lobby industry. Since when has it been a personal opinion, attacking Israel to quote, with attribution, the stated finding of a respected international organisation? Since when has it been...
Richard Llewellyn from Colo Vale 2575 NSW
In response to: Arab organisations slam ABC over refusal to acknowledge Lebanese race
Rough road to a sustainable future
February 10, 2025
Hope in a crisis is the drowning man’s straw: people grasp it, however unlikely it may seem, and cling to it. So it is with the climate crisis. We have scientists arguing powerfully, passionately, for the urgent action that we still need to preserve a liveable Earth. This gives hope, in the face of ever-worsening expectations. Trainer argues that those hopes are doomed, unable to overcome the greed of capitalism before capitalism itself collapses under its own internal contradictions. He pins his hopes, instead, on small, self-sufficient, co-operative groups. The approach he advocates for — he calls it The...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills, VIC
In response to: The situation – and why we can’t fix it
Comcare prosecution over Robodebt turned down
February 10, 2025
Comcare referred a case about Robodebt under S.19.2 of the Commonwealth Occupational Health and Safety Act to the CDPP. That section covers the duty of care to those affected by the work of a person (natural or corporate) in control of a business or undertaking, and includes the Commonwealth government. Comcare says the CDPP declined to prosecute because it saw little chance of a conviction.
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: ‘Before, during and after’: Deception at the heart of Australia’s anti-corruptio
Escalators and headlines
February 10, 2025
Ever since Donald Trump took that elevator ride in 2015, he has made an art form of generating headlines. He says something outrageous and then watches as the world's media and assorted pundits put him on the front page. They buy into it time after time after time. They're doing it now. Own Gaza? With neither US military nor US money being used? How will that work? The Palestinians have resisted Israel. Why would they not resist the Yanks? Also, no Arab or Muslim nation has indicated any willingness to accept two million disgruntled migrants. And why would...
Hal Duell from ALICE SPRINGS
In response to: Trumps plan for Gaza heralds an age of naked fascism/
Weasel word BS is alive and well in universities
February 10, 2025
I just thought I'd let you know that I stopped reading this article as soon as I got to the bit where it says McKay wants secretary and senior-level public service remuneration to be 'well calibrated to the correct private sector analogues'. What is it with academics that they must twist language into some sort of contortions to make a point? Why couldn't this bloke McKay, who is obviously an idiot, just say he wants senior-level public servant pay to mirror the private sector, or to be similar to the private sector? Well calibrated to the correct...
Wes Mason from Gisborne
In response to: Public Servant's Pay
It's time for a balanced parliament
February 10, 2025
The mystery will always remain: Why did Albanese appease his Coalition opponents while haemorrhaging votes from his supporters? Moving on, I suggest Dutton and the LNP would be infinitely worse. The Trump playbook, divisiveness, lack of policies and policy detail, lack of transparency, lies and personal attacks on opponents at both federal and electorate level - no good lies down that path. So the big question is: What are we going to do about it? Please... vote deliberately for a hung/balanced parliament. Community independents have already shown teeth and backbone in calling the major parties to account....
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: ‘Before, during and after’: Deception at the heart of Australia’s anti-corruptio
Disappointed with our leaders
February 10, 2025
Thoroughly enjoyed this article and share Barb's disappointment in our political leaders. Australia seems to be going off course. The tragedy is that in a recent election, Bill Shorten tried to offer solutions to many of her concerns, but was unsuccessful with many short-sighted Australians. When Murdoch controls 80% of the media and has other ideas, many of his readers are misled about the precarious situation. Murdoch's minions and lackeys are pushing a separate dangerous and backward agenda. The legacy media meekly wades in the swamp. The other tragedy is that our political system is broken and not...
Tim Reeve from 52 Bungaloe Ave Balgowlah 2093
In response to: Comment re Barb Dadd's article " Where is the real choice"