Letters to the Editor
Preventing more Western-inspired destruction
September 30, 2025
Or alternatively this assistance to Iran could simply be a continuation of China's long game in assisting the creation of a world that can no longer be subjected to Western violence and control. Similar assistance is being provided by China to a number of countries that are again threatened by US attempts to destabilise, destroy or loot their patrimony. Just a thought!
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: China’s long game in Iran’s short war
Republic of privilege versus democracy
September 30, 2025
This is by far the best expose I have ever read of the fraud that the US is, or has ever been, a democracy. The intentions of participants in the Constitutional conventions were very clear. They overwhelmingly believed that those who own the country should govern it. They ensured that by reducing democracy into a theatre performance. Great article!
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: What's wrong with America's democracy? There has never been one
Continued decline
September 30, 2025
An excellent, forensic disquisition by Jack on the manifold problems of an Opposition that thinks focusing on the past and trying to bring back the glorious 1950s, is a recipe for electoral success in a fundamentally changed world. It really reflects the desire of conservatives across the Western world to secure the future by returning to the certainties of a past age that has no chance, thank God, of returning. Currently, Labor offers no significant alternative in many policy areas and also seems to have a similar, if less urgent, fixation. In a sense, they are all desperately trying...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Will Hastie face his manifest destiny?
A sense of despair or one of opportunity?
September 30, 2025
Does Andrew Hastie have, as Jack Waterford wonders, “a sense of despair over the Liberals’ lack of direction and current failure to project anything much in the way of ideas or values”, or does Hastie see this failure as an opportunity? September poll results are in line with the May federal election, and yet there is a volatility in some quarters, perhaps most worryingly in the energy transition space, where Hastie has grabbed the anti-renewables baton from Peter Dutton and is running (with team Sky/Murdoch) to put spanners in the works. The gaining of social licence for renewables...
Fiona Colin from Melbourne
In response to: Will Hastie face his manifest destiny?
A tired and increasingly failing CIA strategy
September 30, 2025
The truth that all of us US vassal states continue to give every effort to avoid is that the Philippines, with the US assisted emergence again of the Marcos crime family, is just another US proxy funded, armed and trained by the US to prevent the emergence of a challenger to US world domination. Ukraine was one, as is Israel, the new government of Moldova, the Philippines, Nepal, Armenia and many others. Most have failed dismally to achieve their purpose. On the bright side for the US, it saves them having to send US soldiers to die in foreign...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Scarborough collision triggers Beijing’s strategic hardening
Democracy in Australia?
September 30, 2025
This article makes us ask, what about here? Anthony Albanese has just declared unilaterally at Balmoral that Australians are to have no referendum on a republic. Yet, within a day he was at the UK Labour Party conference lauding democracy. His government intends to bring down swingeing changes to freedom of information laws. His government has also relentlessly pursued two whistleblowers who ought to have been protected by any decent whistleblower law. Important elements of the surrender of sovereignty under AUKUS continue to be withheld from the Australian public. And the promised NACC had turned into a dead dog....
Geoff Taylor from Borlu (Perth)
In response to: What’ wrong with America’s democracy? There has never been one
Changes in China
September 30, 2025
Thanks for your two China visit pieces. It's a while since I've been in China, so I imagine I would be even more startled by the advances since then, let alone your two years. I was particularly pleased because there is a startling absence — and I think a decline — in civil society contact with China. You know some of the reasons, probably much better than me. Universities/research organisations — now increasingly problematic on a number of dimensions — are one aspect. But also civil society groups like peace groups I am familiar with are either reluctant...
Richard Tanter from Berkeley, California
In response to: Message from the editor
The ‘Hotel California effect’ of fealty to the US
September 30, 2025
Much of the discussion in this journal suggests that when it comes to important questions of foreign policy that impinge on the US, Australia has choices. Your readers may well know that Chomsky likens the way in which the US conducts its international relations to how the mafia operates. He refers to it as The Mafia Doctrine. An important consequence of being a (lesser) member of the (Mafia) gang is that when it comes to obedience to the don, gang members who break the rules are treated the same as or worse than anyone else, as I have...
Peter Blunt from Siem Reap
In response to: Australia needs to diplomatically disengage from our 'dangerous ally'
Netted confusion
September 30, 2025
It seems that Graeme Stewart, like much of the media, jumped on the shark netting misinformation bandwagon by trying to claim that Long Reef beach where the shark encounter occurred on 6 September 2015 had shark nets removed: The tragic fatality at Dee Why, the first at a netted Sydney ocean beach in 88 years, followed the removal of the nets a month earlier, at the end of March. The truth is that Long Reef beach, where the fatality occurred, has never been netted. However, this has not stopped the press (including now, I'm sad to say this...
Chris Welsh from Ryde
In response to: Shark nets do protect human life
Mental health reforms urgently needed
September 29, 2025
The recent article on Australia’s mental health crisis highlights how governments continue to pour money into medicalised responses while overlooking the social causes of stress. One important point to add is the gap between policy and affordability. Even with access to a mental health plan, many people find the out-of-pocket costs of counselling or psychology sessions beyond their reach. After a few visits, the financial burden becomes unsustainable, often leading to high dropout rates and people left without the support they need. At the same time, many Australians living under stress caused by housing unaffordability, financial insecurity, domestic...
Meg Schwarz from Macclesfired, Adelaide
In response to: What should Australian Governments do about ‘mental health’?
Michael McKinley's writing style
September 29, 2025
Surely I can't be the only person who enjoys Pearls and Irritations but finds Michael McKinley's style of writing using single sentences almost impossible to follow?
Barry O'Connell from Conondale
In response to: Disengaging from the dangerous alliance
Trump dreaming again!
September 29, 2025
If Trump today — and I emphasise today, as tomorrow he will say something diametrically opposite to what he says today — believes that he can recreate the bipolar world of the Cold War by getting agreement with the US to divide the world into two blocks, he simply demonstrates again his intellectual vacuity. The Chinese, since 1953 under Zhou Enlai, have pursued a policy of peaceful co-existence with all countries on the planet. That stance, unlike the hundreds of ephemeral and superficial policies that the US has pursued over the same more than 70 years, shows China is...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: US a partner not an enemy, China says – Asian Media Report
One word explains it
September 29, 2025
I'm not sure whether Jocelyn Chey was exercising the universal habit of the Chinese in being considerate and discreet, but it seems to me that one word summarises the reason for the exclusion of Chinese cities, and those in many non-western countries from these Western surveys. The word is racism. The West remains unable in its mainstream media to overcome its hundreds of years of racism towards China. It is a far from admirable quality, but one that has been commonplace for those hundreds of years. I agree with Jocelyn in that the cities she mentions in China...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Liveable cities of China
What can be done for Gaza hospitals?
September 29, 2025
So many are reporting on social media after hearing or seeing an interview with Dr Saya Aziz. Her work in a Gaza hospital is remarkable for her tenaciousness in the face of overwhelming cruelty. What can be done to help? I remember at the time of the East Timor Crisis, the director of nursing of a large Sydney Hospital raiding the stores and sending them to people who were shipping them to East Timor. The stores staff just asked her what she wanted and they gave it to her. There are, of course, problems with getting them to an...
Jennifer Haines from Glossodia
In response to: Interview that described the hell Gaza has become
Truth needs to be spelled out, not glossed over
September 29, 2025
For the first time, Bishop Browning disappoints. The actions of Hamas on 7 October were inhumane and contemptible. Those words give no context for what happened on 7 October, and directly followed, as they are, by But what Israel has unleashed is barbaric. implies that Israel started its genocide in response. Nothing could be further from the truth. Reading Browning, anyone could be excused for thinking the confiscation of land, building the wall and building settlements on occupied land did not involve violence towards Palestinians that was inhumane and contemptible. The truth is, Palestinians have been suffering a...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: Ex-bishop questions if Coalition is committed to Mideast peace
Understanding definitions of antisemitism
September 29, 2025
Strictly speaking, Marty Hirst’s statement, “The IHRA statement explicitly condemns any political criticism of Israel as antisemitism and protects Zionists from any accountability for the genocide in Gaza”, is incorrect. The relevant sentence is less clear and more open to interpretation: “Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.” As I see it, the IHRA definition is dangerous because it is so vague that it can be used by the powerful to impose almost any meaning they wish. This danger is demonstrated by the...
Mark Diesendorf from Sydney, Australia
In response to: Free speech and Palestine: Time to push back
The rot includes Australia as well, of course
September 29, 2025
Les Macdonald gets it right. He notes that “in current discussions between the US, Britain, France and Germany, they have simply thrown out the right of the Palestinian people to vote in the government of any new Palestinian state, by saying that Hamas will not play a role in that state regardless of any possible desire of the Palestinians themselves”. The US, of course, has no intention of allowing the existence of a “Palestinian state” and no intention of preventing Israel from transforming “occupation” of Palestine to destruction of Palestine in its entirety. The US made this obvious...
Peter Henning from Melbourne
In response to: The fish rots from the head
This is not reform – It’s a cover-up
September 29, 2025
The Albanese Government’s proposed changes to Freedom of Information laws pose a serious threat to transparency and accountability. By lowering the exemption test from “dominant purpose” to a vague “substantial purpose” linked to Cabinet, the government could block access to a wide range of documents – including major policies and national scandals. This directly contradicts recommendations from the Robodebt Royal Commission, which called for narrower secrecy provisions. Legal experts also warn the bill may breach the Constitution by undermining the public’s right to political communication. Labor’s justification? AI-generated and time-wasting FoI requests – a weak excuse that avoids...
Peter Cowell from Geelong
In response to: FOI changes big backward step for government transparency
A tradeoff we must accept for now
September 29, 2025
Professor Brendan Mackey and Professor David Lindenmayer are right to question the NSW Government’s condition on declaring the Great Koala NP. The park is home to more than 150 threatened species, including the greater glider. With habitat loss, disease, bushfires, climate change, vehicle strikes, and dog attacks, koalas are now listed as endangered in NSW and nationally. However, the government’s condition — that the park must first be registered as a carbon project under the Improved Native Forest Management Method — would allow major emitters to buy offsets under the Safeguard Mechanism. It’s a Catch-22, but given the plight...
Ray Peck from Hawthorn
In response to: Koalas, carbon credits and the fine print of conservation
A small practical step in aiding Palestine?
September 26, 2025
Here is a small step we might take in moving on from mere recognition of Palestine, as Refaat Ibrahim highlights the need for further steps in his article. The RAAF deployed aircraft to Syria to bomb ISIS, which then miraculously became the legitimate government of Syria, and the ADF has shipped Abrams tanks to Ukraine. So the RAAF could partner with the RAF and perhaps the French air force to provide air cover for the Sumud flotilla heading for Palestine, bringing much needed aid to the people of Gaza. The RAF has a base at Akrotiri in...
Geoff Taylor from Borlu (Perth)
In response to: Recognition of the Palestinian State without halting the genocide: A meaningles
Betrayal of humanity
September 26, 2025
The vast level of criminality and senseless violence in the world today should be attributed to those that have caused it, participated in it and found snivelling excuses for it. No prizes for guessing that is the self-adulatory West. Our arrogance and loss of humanity is in stark contrast with the sensitivity of those we have oppressed, butchered and deprived. It is well past time for the West to fall into well-deserved desuetude and for far more civilised cultures to rise to save humanity and the planet!
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: How the West normalises the crimes of Zionism
Mea culpa without substance
September 26, 2025
Refaat is, of course, correct. The moral West likes to have it both ways, gestures to satisfy the punters but without a trace of substance to interfere with making money. The vast bulk of the world sees through us and is increasingly moving away from what they perceive as unreliable and devious participants in world events towards a grouping that favours inclusivity, equality, transparency and non-interference in internal affairs. Will our leaders have the gumption to act decisively and with moral purpose? Not if they can avoid, it is my view!
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Recognition of the Palestinian State without halting the genocide: A meaningless
Too many relying on government funding
September 26, 2025
Apparently, Sussan Ley's concerns with those relying on government handouts do not extend to those who use taxpayer-funded helicopters to go house hunting or attending parties, something Bronwyn Bishop would agree with! I'm sure many other names could be added, and yes, there are two sets of rules, as pointed out in a letter by another reader. Hypocrites.
Jerry Cartwright from Perth
In response to: Liberal paties economic strategy
Political and bureaucratic failure
September 25, 2025
Excellent article by Kathy. Really nails the gross failures of the bureaucrats and the government to design a system which actually fixes the manifold problems in aged care. Perhaps they should start involving people like Kathy in the planning process to overcome the broad ignorance displayed by the bureaucrats drawing up the present plans! Just a thought.
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Government is planning hardship for older Australians living at home
Investing in the past
September 25, 2025
Like Britain and the US, we continue to exhibit multiple signs of looking wistfully to an imagined past and seeking to repeat it, rather than looking to a future which will we know will be different from that past. Nowhere is this more evident than in the one area in which we claim expertise – making war!! As we hollow out our economies and turn them into heaven for our speculative class, we also continue to plan for a repetition of our past colonial successes. China and Russia are the objects of that desire for more glorious colonialism. The...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Disengaging from the dangerous alliance
The Enlightenment betrayed
September 25, 2025
For anyone who truly values our civilisational legacy from Athens all the way to the Enlightenment, the absence of a moral compass in the vast bulk of our current political and intellectual leadership class is a damning footnote to our civilisational decline. That they feel comfortable in daily witnessing and participating in the wilful and deliberate destruction of a culture far older and far more civilised than ours, with a moral certitude that defies description, is a clear marker of the judgment which history will pass upon us. The cultures we have spent the last 500 years looking...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Hamas is better than us
The fantasy Sparta
September 25, 2025
The reality of an isolated Israel trying to be a modern-day Sparta is stupidity on top of insanity. In the days of Sparta, a small community could be relatively self-sufficient to a certain extent when arms for fighting were swords and maces. The sane reality is that if Israel is cut off from vast external support in funding, technology and arms supply it will be utterly incapable of producing any of the sophisticated weaponry it will need without major sources of supply of the vast amount of metals, magnets, explosives and foodstuffs that it has no capacity to produce...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Israel moves to embrace its isolation
George Browning's scalding clarity of expression
September 25, 2025
No caveat, no contrary thought, no correction – and no way in which the expression of repulsion to Sussan Ley's pathetic communication to the US Republicans can be mollified. Thank you, George Browning, for a laser beam of decency and truth.
Richard Llewellyn from Colo Vale
In response to: Ex-bishop questions if Coalition is committed to Mideast peace
Yes, one rule for all
September 25, 2025
The rules around superannuation should be the same for every Australian. And while we are at it, super should be taken as a pension as a percentage of the wage at retirement, eventually replacing the old age pension. We should have an independent inquiry into employment after leaving Parliament: who they work for, future public service employment, consultancies etc
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: One rule for them, another for us
Albanese kowtows to WA Labor Party/Roger Cook
September 24, 2025
That the lives of my eight grandchildren and their contemporaries may well be cut short by catastrophic global heating is of great concern. Ross Gittins highlights the “weak job” Albanese has done in addressing such pressing concerns. Compounding the inadequacy of the 2035 62%-70% emissions reduction target is an outrageous Labor decision that makes even this weak target significantly more difficult to reach. The decision to extend the NW Shelf gas project to 2070 was appalling and should be revisited. This decision was largely driven by Labor’s WA branch which behaves like a subsidiary of the mining and gas...
Ian Bayly from Upwey, Vic. 3158
In response to: Albanese takes his usual each-way bet on climate change
Which SSN is it to be?
September 24, 2025
Mike Gilligan’s piece raises a question. Which SSN is more important to the government, seniors shower needs, or SSN submarines? The new seniors care package unveiled by Minister Rae, flouting the Aged Care Commissioner, means some seniors face paying $50 for a shower, or having to go it alone. Rex Patrick recently outlined a comprehensive defence spend without SSNs, which left $150 billion in the kitty for things like seniors care and denticare. On submarines we have to remember, not so many years back, Indonesia was regarded as our big threat. (Note they have just bought an Italian...
Geoff Taylor from Borlu (Perth)
In response to: Australia has no alternative to biting America’s bullet
Vegetarianism may not be the answer
September 24, 2025
Julian Cribb writes that a vegetarian diet...may yield fewer greenhouse emissions, but may also cause greater soil erosion, use more pesticides and is highly vulnerable to climate. He argues for a move away from traditional farming production to regenerative farming, urban food, and deep ocean aquaculture. It is hard not to panic about the prospect of sea-level rise which the World Economic Forum warns is a global threat. It notes that the Greenland ice sheet is “at a tipping point of irreversible melting and that one to two metres of sea-level rise this century is unavoidable. This means...
Jenny Goldie from Cooma NSW
In response to: Devouring the Earth may decide our future
No meeting could well clinch my vote
September 24, 2025
If Anthony Albanese cancelled all future meetings with Trump, I would vote for his government. Although it goes against my opinions on censorship, if he banned all Trump tripe on social media and on the nightly news I would hand out how to vote cards at my own expense in his electorate for the duration. As for closing all US bases in Australia, bring it on. It is time for Australia to grow up and stop marching off to war to defend UK and US right-wingers.
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: How important is an Albanese-Trump meeting?
Isolating Israel? Hardly
September 24, 2025
Is “isolating Israel” on the agenda of Western political elites, as suggested by Margaret Reynolds? Given the wording of the “recognition” of Palestine proposal initiated by Emmanuel Macron in association with the Saudis, endorsed by the Albanese Government, it is obvious that the intent has nothing to do with “self-determination” of Palestine, but everything to do with ensuring a “two-state solution” entrenches and solidifies Israeli control over all of Palestine. If that is not the case, explain why the conditions imposed on “self-determination” do not destroy all possible avenues to Palestinian statehood.
Peter Henning from Melbourne
In response to: The Australian prime minister has little time left to salvage his place in histo
An act of courage. Really?
September 24, 2025
Although many of the points made by Stuart Rees and Greg Barns in their joint article make sense and reinforce what had already often been said in previous articles, qualifying the recognition of Palestine as a state by the Australian Government as a courageous act and congratulating it for having taken this step certainly doesn’t. Perhaps it would have been a courageous act if Australia had joined the other 93 states, which by February 1989 had recognised the State of Palestine following the Declaration of Independence proclaimed by Yasser Arafat on 15/11/1988 on behalf of the Palestinian National Council....
Michel Beuchat from Balwyn North
In response to: Recognising Palestine a long overdue act of courage
One rule for them, another for us
September 23, 2025
Sussan Ley wants to cut government assistance, saying too many are dependent on government help. This is farcical considering no one can live even on a full government pension while paying rent, healthcare, electricity, petrol and food etc. Here’s an idea, Sussan, when politicians retire, make them meet the same requirements as the average pensioner. That is, every single politician can only have $321,500 in assets including property and their superannuation. If they’re married, they’re allowed only $481,500 in combined assets. Considering the majority of politicians in Australia have more than one house, many with far more than...
Alyssa Aleksanian from Hazelbrook
In response to: The Liberal Party's economic strategy
Strike 3 and Albanese should be out
September 23, 2025
I am fully in agreement with all that Margaret Reynolds says. Although Albanese would have to pull a mighty big rabbit out of his hat to salvage his reputation. The Age (online 23/09/2025) headline Albanese’s plea to world leaders on Palestine would be laughable if it were not so embarrassing that so very many countries got there well before us in recognising Palestine. Strike 1. Just as we are laggards (to put it politely) regarding Palestine, we are at the bottom of the rankings on action to address climate change and the environment. How Albanese has the gall...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: The Australian prime minister has little time left to salvage his place in history
Living dangerously
September 23, 2025
It's probably just as well that Greg Barns is the former national president of the Australian Lawyers Alliance, because if he were still the incumbent, he probably wouldn't be for much longer after expounding so eloquently on Palestine. A certain subset of Australian lawyerdom would see to that. (Circumlocution is such a painful way to express yourself, but these days it seems to be de rigeur as a way of self-preservation.) As it stands, I'm fairly certain that his (and Stuart Rees') inboxes are currently under heavy fire. Stay strong, Stuart and Greg! At least, you show no...
Alan Wilson from Adelaide
In response to: Recognising Palestine a long overdue act of courage
A stark contrast
September 23, 2025
There is a stark contrast between Stuart Rees' and Greg Barns' conception of Australia's courage in the (sort of) recognition of Palestine, with Chris Sidoti's (P & I''s 23/9) Israel must end its genocide in Gaza. But Australia must act too. For example, where Sidoti writes: I can list another eight actions that could and should be taken immediately. He does list those eight actions. Recognition, such as it is (so many caveats and delays built in), still denies the Palestinian people the right to self-determination (see Sidoti). Such recognition is not an act, it is theatre,...
David Thompson from Clayton
In response to: Recognising Palestine a long overdue act of courage
A civil service wish revisited
September 23, 2025
When reading Jack's excellent piece about the preferred behaviour of Albanese in his approach to the orange autocrat, I was reminded of a British civil service motto that I came across when working at Australia House in the 1960s. Given the rigid hierarchy that characterised the British civil service, which was substantially reflected in the colonial public service at the time, the opportunities for promotion were rare and valued. The motto was that where there's death, there's hope. That might be an entirely appropriate one for Americans to adopt to deal with the current extremity of their situation.
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: The stars suggest Albo should stay at home
With the conservatives, it's ideology over reality
September 23, 2025
With the conservatives in Australian politics, it is truly difficult to overstate their utter dependence upon ideology over any observable reality. They have truly reversed the scientific method in their attempts to create a fantasy reality to replace the real one. In the scientific method, you develop a theory, test it against reality and if they don't match you discard the theory and develop another in an endless cycle until you get one that matches reality and is accurately predictive. With the conservatives, they have developed a long line of theories. These have then been tested generally by...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: The Liberal Party's economic strategy
The mean spectre of Robodebt
September 23, 2025
Thank you to Michael Keating for his analysis of the basic flaws in Liberal strategy, raised by Sussan Ley, that too many Australians are dependent on government. According to its website, the Liberal Party’s primary “belief” is in “the inalienable rights and freedoms of all peoples; and we work towards a lean government that minimises interference in our daily lives; and maximises individual and private sector initiative”. The Australian Council of Social Service last week stated that the federal government “must substantially lift deeply inadequate income support payments. The routine indexation leaving 1.5 million people unable to afford...
Fiona Colin from Melbourne
In response to: The Liberal Party’s economic strategy
Foget your enemies, fear your friends
September 23, 2025
Kellie Tranter correctly identifies the bull in the china shop that our great and powerful friend has become as it rapidly approaches its expected end as the head of the herd. She also identifies clearly the need of our national leadership to end our infantile and bovine subservience to that increasingly diseased and demented animal. Can we expect that kind of leadership from a class of politicians who have, over the last half-century, come to believe that their own political survival depends upon them showing appropriate submission to a very bad tempered and vindictive herd leader? Unlikely, but...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Our belligerent, authoritarian AUKUS partner
Courage or humanity?
September 23, 2025
It’s not courageous to recognise Palestine – it’s humane, necessary and a long-overdue step toward equality. Australia has to go further, following the example of Spain and Italy, and show that real friendship between countries is built on justice, not silence in the face of oppression. Standing up for the rights of Palestinians is not about fear of “rewarding terrorism” – it’s about saying that no people should ever be denied dignity, safety or statehood. Real courage isn't measured by loyalty to powerful allies but by the willingness to defend humanity, even when it comes at political or other...
Meg Schwarz from Macclesfired, Adelaide
In response to: Recognising Palestine a long overdue act of courage
Colonialism garbed in 'national security'
September 22, 2025
An excellent summary of the truth that is becoming increasingly evident to the 88% of humanity outside the West. The West, failing as it is economically without more recent colonies to exploit and immiserate, has revived colonialism but needed a plausible excuse for doing so. What they haven't figured out is the implausibility of their plausible reason to a world that no longer buys the b****hit. Further evidence of the declining diplomatic and military power of the dying empire!
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Gaza – a new springboard for Western imperialism
Does the ECAJ support Netanyahu’s Gaza ambitions?
September 22, 2025
Ian Dudgeon sets it out well. I recently provided Alex Ryvchin of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry with a parallel. In 1963, the governor-general, on the advice of the Federal Executive Council, excised 140 square miles of the Gove Peninsula from the Arnhem Land Reserve, the traditional home of the Yolngu, so that French firm Pechiney could mine it. The Yolngu were not directly consulted and this led to the famous Bark Petitions. Israel has just recently announced that it will build the E1 settlement on Palestinian land, as part of the creeping full takeover of Northeast Palestine,...
Geoff Taylor from Borlu (Perth)
In response to: Recognition of Palestine: For and against
Positive news about China
September 22, 2025
Just read your short article as noted above. It's really good to read something positive about China in the Australian press. I look forward to reading your follow-up. I am so sick of reading nothing but negative stuff about China and the continual war mongering we get fed by mainly the right-wing nut cases in this country.
Brian Dwyer from Weston NSW 2326
In response to: Message from the editor
Save Australia. Cut the US ties that strangle us
September 22, 2025
If we accept there are no easy prescriptions for an Australian strategy for survival independently in a singularly uncertain world, aren't we better off if surrounded by friends, or at least countries which respect us? By removing US shackles which disempower us, we would reclaim our sovereignty, regain respect from our Pacific neighbours and stop being the country where the US fights its war against China, with the Pacific keeping the US itself safe. Ordinarily, these would be the only reasons we need to grow up and take adult responsibility for our own country. But now, the US...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: Australia has no alternative to biting America’s bullet
A price on carbon would end the LNP
September 22, 2025
The recent federal election and and the LNP infighting tell the story. We constantly talk of two-party preferred results when it has always been three-party preferred. It has never been more obvious that the link between the Liberals and the Nationals is tenuous at the best of times, and for us these are the worst of times. The flood of votes lost by the Liberals and the retention of seats by the Nationals indicate the concern of city dwellers about climate change. Those from the bush continue to push the line that as farmers they are more in tune...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: Cut emissions 70% by 2035? There’s only one policy that can get us there