Letters to the Editor
Acceptance of 'peace plan' beggars belief
October 6, 2025
What blindness, stupidity, or both roams the halls of global Western governments that not only assents, but applauds a peace plan concocted by a wanted war criminal coloniser and an megalomaniac narcissist, that has openly enabled the bombing of Gaza equivalent to six Hiroshimas? What Australian press institution dares to call itself a vigorous champion of press freedom and then cancels the appearance of Chris Hedges, a journalist with vast experience on the ground in Gaza, to allegedly replace him with the Israeli ambassador? The global tide has turned. And we, led by the Australian Government, are riding...
Alyssa Aleksanian from Hazelbrook
In response to: No justice or peace for Palestinians in Trump’s Plan
Egypt and Gaza
October 6, 2025
Simon Tatz comments that Gaza shares a border with Egypt. It’s not clear why they refuse to assist Palestinians. I seek clarification of what he means. Does he mean Egypt should assist Israel in its ethnic cleansing of Gaza by taking more Palestinians than it already has? Or does he mean it should break the blockade imposed by Israel to assist Palestinians in Gaza? Or does he mean Cairo should take more than the medical evacuees it already assists? Or that it should provide more support to the Arab League and other entities to bring a...
Bob Pokrant from Fremantle
In response to: Sidoti needs to study comparative genocide
Another 20th century giant has left the building
October 3, 2025
As we slide deeper and deeper into the vortex of the 21st century, we’re farewelling more and more of the people who, through their intellect and character, have shaped the way we view the world in which we live. Jane Goodall joins Curie, Fleming, Gandhi and Einstein in that honoured pantheon. Through her work among our nearest cousins in their natural state, she confirmed we are risen apes, not the fallen angels our egotistical backstory would have us as. Whether this revelation is going to help us with the problem of living with each other and stabilising the climate...
John Mosig from Kew, Victoria
In response to: Jane Goodall, the gentle disrupter whose research on chimpanzees redefined what
How can something that has never existed end?
October 3, 2025
I totally understand Amy's concern but I think it is based upon an assumption that doesn't accord with historical fact. The truth is, the framers of the US Constitution were not creating a democracy. They were very clear that they were creating a republic. They deliberately wrote that constitution to prevent democracy, but to create an image that could be sold as democracy. All that has really happened under the Orange Donald is that any pretence of democracy has now been utterly eliminated.
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Is this the beginning of the end for US democracy?
Western application of law of the sea
October 3, 2025
The UN convention on the law of the sea (which is international law), in force since 1994, has been entered into by 170 state parties and covers such matters as freedom of navigation. Under Article 19 of the United Nations Law of the Sea Convention, a warship can sail within the 12 nautical-mile territorial sea of another nation's coastline “so long as it is not prejudicial to the peace, good order or security of the coastal State. The US has refused to sign on to the convention but uses it constantly against China, which has signed on to...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Israel intercepts Gaza Sumud Flotilla vessels: What we know so far
Silence is golden
October 3, 2025
Recently, a friend shared with me this quote, “When you put a clown in a castle he doesn’t become a king, but the castle becomes a circus. I have, for some time, been concerned how news about the US/Trump is dominating our local news, invading our news sovereignty if you like. I have imposed my own silence by tuning out local news which may work to the advantage of our local politics but I do miss the sports results.
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: Quantico’s verdict: The silence that stripped Trump bare
Mistake on shark nets
October 3, 2025
Your correspondent suggests that the early removal of shark nets in March this year could not have contributed to the fatal attack reported at Dee Why on September 6 because it occurred at the adjacent un-netted Long Reef Beach. In fact, Dee Why and Long Reef comprise a single stretch of sand pierced in the middle by a narrow lagoon opening close to which the shark net is placed. The shared Dee Why/Long Reef net is the same as for a single net for Curl Curl and North Curl Curl beaches and for Palm Beach and North Palm...
Graeme Stewart from Avalon Beach
In response to: Netted confusion
We have seen this movie before
October 3, 2025
An excellent analysis by Sawsan Madina of the so-called Trump-Netanyahu “peace plan” for Gaza. She notes: “We have seen this movie before: the Camp David Accord and Oslo Accords that brought neither justice nor peace. Evidence suggests the “peace plan” charade is just the latest update of a series of models to transform Gaza into a US-Israeli corporatized resort complex and economic hub. In March 2024, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner regarded Gaza as “very valuable waterfront property” which could “be cleaned up” by removing Palestinians, a vision of ethnic cleansing updated by Trump in February 2025 into the...
Peter Henning from Melbourne
In response to: Peace without justice
Sidoti needs to study comparative genocide
October 2, 2025
Chris Sidoti should study comparative genocide. His claim that Rwandans and Jews could somehow escape genocide is historically incorrect. Australia, the US and other Western nations restricted Jewish immigration from Europe. The US infamously turned back the St Louis ship carrying German Jews. Many of its passengers were exterminated in Nazi concentration camps. As for Rwanda, I recommend Sidoti reads Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda by Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire. Sidoti might want to explain to where these people fled, and what happened to them. Gaza shares a border with Egypt. It's not...
Simon Tatz from Melbourne
In response to: Sidoti and Saul on what we can and must do to stop the killing
The war criminal and the faux mathematician
October 2, 2025
Let’s have a recap shall we? A wanted war criminal enacting a genocide, and a president who is arresting and disappearing his own citizens, come up with a 20-point peace plan that involves no Palestinian input. A reminder that this is a war criminal, whose population at latest poll, showed 95% believed that not enough force or sufficient force had been used in Gaza, and a president who thinks that a 400% discount on eggs means you’re getting them at a discount. And we think these people are sufficient to create a peace plan? The coloniser and...
Alyssa Aleksanian from Hazelb
In response to: Trump’s mongrel punt
The beginning of the end of the propaganda state
October 2, 2025
The US business and political elites set out over 100 years ago to eliminate any real democracy that might have emerged in the US. That was brilliantly illustrated by Alex Carey in his revelatory book Taking the Risk out of Democracy. Since the early part of last century, trillions have been spent by those elites on the most extensive and brilliant propaganda campaign to eliminate any possibility of democracy in the US. During that same period, billions have been spent by US and other Zionists to create a fantasy narrative of god-given Jewish rights to the land of Palestine....
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: ‘Stunning reversal’: New York Times poll finds US support for Israel has plummet
Heads I win, tails you lose!
October 2, 2025
You would think that we would have come to an understanding of the sheer mental and moral vacuity of the orange Donald. But apparently not! That the vast bulk of Western punditry and political leadership could not treat this dog's breakfast of a proposal with anything but derision indicates the extent to which Western civilisation has declined into fatuity and ineptitude. Only the mentally incapable could see it as anywhere near dealing with the substantive moral issues involved. But I guess that is most of us!
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Trump’s mongrel punt
Agree truth is not hate, but...
October 2, 2025
Lama Qasem tells a powerful story and provides an insight into the most important perspective to look at when considering the experiences of Palestinian children. There is no question that treating people, and children particularly, in the horrible ways described will only perpetuate the cycle of hatred and violence that has cursed Palestine and Israel for 80 years. However I've read the prime minister's speech to the UN and I don't see anywhere that he says children are taught to hate. The word hate doesn't appear anywhere. It's a shame if the article's important message that truth is...
Rod Bower from Melbourne
In response to: Don’t mistake truth for hate, prime minister
Perpetual growth is indeed delusional
October 1, 2025
Julian Cribb is right to assert that the idea of perpetual growth on a finite planet is delusional. His estimate of a maximum sustainable global population of about two billion is also about right, though even that may be too high should climate change render much of the planet uninhabitable. Maps of the world at three degrees warming, that show regions that have become uninhabitable, are profoundly alarming. They include all of India and Pakistan, for example. And what if the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation shuts off? It means the end of agriculture in much of Britain and Ireland...
Jenny Goldie from Cooma NSW
In response to: ‘Died of a delusion’ – the fate of modern civilisation?
Decolonisation demands courage and vision
October 1, 2025
Henry Reynolds’ essay “Australia’s decolonisation runs aground” is a timely reminder of how far we remain from completing the work of decolonisation. He is right to note that our retreat from the republic, from structural recognition of First Nations, and even from re-examining our national symbols reflects not just public hesitation but a lack of political courage. What Australia needs most is leadership with vision. Our future cannot be shaped by leaders content with small steps or short-term calculations. We need politicians and other civic leaders willing to lift the national conversation, to imagine a republic, to embrace genuine...
Michael Cavanagh from Nambucca Heads
In response to: Australia's decolonisation runs aground
Lyons misreads the room
October 1, 2025
Lyons argues the absence of Arab leaders in the White House for the announcement of the Trump Plan “says everything”. Does it really? Arab leaders have publicly supported the plan. But they in no way represent the sentiment of the Arab public, so why make their support central? What about a Palestinian presence in the room? Does the Palestinian voice not count? Non-Palestinian Arab leaders have no greater right to determine Palestine’s future than Israel or the US. Lyons' use of the word “outmanoeuvred” is also problematic. It suggests an intellectual chess battle between Netanyahu and Trump, with Trump...
Jaron Sutton from Melbourne
In response to: Trump's peace plan shows Netanyahu has outmanoeuvred another American president
Possible over-generalisation
October 1, 2025
An excellent summary by Julian Cribb of the cancers eating away at the heart of the West, but it may be an exaggeration to apply it to all current civilisations. Much of what Julian alleges against civilisations is easily identifiable in the dying West, but is nowhere near as identifiable in some others. China is making huge and long planned strides in dealing with many of these threats and is willingly sharing those strides with the Global South. I share Julian's concerns, but am perhaps more optimistic given that other cultures have recognised the heedless rush of the...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: 'Died of a delusion' – the fate of modern civilisation?
We must expect more from our leadership
October 1, 2025
To say Albanese’s UN speeches were a disappointment would be an understatement. No one could miss the sycophantic pandering to the US within the first few minutes of the National Statement: “… international rules-based order owes much to the post-war leadership of the United States of America.” Does it? Should I mention the words weapons of mass destruction, Iraq and the illegal war waged by the coalition of the willing? Should I mention the last eight months? I, like Lama Qasem, was stunned when I heard, during the Palestinian Statehood address, Albanese say the children of Gaza...
Alyssa Aleksanian from Hazelbrook
In response to: Don’t mistake truth for hate, prime minister
Trump's plan for Palestine confounds belief
October 1, 2025
Trump's plan for Gaza is possibly the most overtly unfair, morally corrupt, ethically vacant, horrendous, hideous, self-centred, vacuous, vicious, pile of steaming Augean stable sweepings we have seen created in almost any of our lifetimes. There is a remote chance that a few people born before the Treaty of Versailles was penned still exist. Even the most cursory glance screams that the plan provides more avenues for the Israeli Zionist conquest to be resumed while Palestinians have any minuscule bargaining chips left to them. They are left naked, blindfolded, and nailed to the firing squad wall by this outrageous...
Richard Llewellyn from Colo Vale
In response to: Here’s the full text of Trump’s 20-point plan to end Israel’s war on Gaza
Liar, liar, pants on fire
October 1, 2025
Notwithstanding the 32,000 proven and documented lies by Trump, the quite bizarre fact the world and the mainstream Western media are treating this plan as having any credibility at all suggests a level of self-deception bordering on insanity. The two people involved, one a compulsive liar and the other a treacherous, vicious and utterly morally vacuous genocider, surely must give pause to even the most naive and credulous observer. But apparently not!
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Critics sceptical that Trump-Netanyahu peace plan will work as outlined
Courage absent!
October 1, 2025
Anthony Albanese is the personification of power without purpose. His place in Labor mythology will be that of the long-serving but achievement-less leader.
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: https://johnmenadue.com/authors/henry-reynolds/
Admirable truth from John Lyons
October 1, 2025
With this single article , John Lyons again proves his integrity and professionalism as a journalist. We don’t see an analysis as hard-hitting as this of how Netanyahu has triumphed over Trump anywhere in the Western mainstream media landscape. Netanyahu — who is a truly evil man — will probably succeed because the Gazans have been reduced to desperation. Zionist Israel will pay in the long run – a rightly discredited and despised nation. Trump is a weak appeaser of Israeli fascism. He could not even protect his benefactor Charlie Kirk. Russia and China are right not to...
Tony Kevin from Canberra
In response to: Trump’s peace plan shows that Netanyahu has outmanoeuvred yet another POTUS
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