Letters to the Editor
Let's all agree to survive
February 2, 2025
I just read Sustainable Population Australia's latest newsletter which aptly included a repeat of Julian Cribb's climate information in P&I, on 30 December 2024. Cribb's list of 10 catastrophic risks ranged from forest loss to misinformation. He summarised the list essentially as too many humans wanting too much from our planet Earth. He also urged us to specifically agree to survive; and to consider updates on the Earth System Treaty which will be issued in P&I during 2025. How wonderful to have such help; it may be our very salvation.
Barbara Fraser from Burwood, Vic
In response to: 2024 – a dire year for Human Survival
The impact of colonisation: A couple of not so minor points
January 31, 2025
1. The author says: ... the taking of [Aboriginal] children from their parents by governments [continued] into the 1970s.] If only that were true. It continues to this day. 2. Jacinta Price (for so she called herself when she sent me a text during the referendum) proves that every group has fools in its midst. How she can think British colonisation has had no lasting negative effects. is beyond me. I'd have thought the numbers of Indigenous children in out of home care and jail and having a shorter life expectancy than their non-Indigenous counterparts might have...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: John Howard and British colonisation of Australia
The Trump way?
January 31, 2025
This analysis by Brian Lawrence puts Labor's position on the lowest paid workers in a clear light. They don't seem to care about them. This is disturbing for 2 reasons. Firstly, Labor seems to have abolished roots, i.e. the low paid workers for the more lucrative middle class. I suppose: Labor no more. Secondly, this looks exactly why the Democrats got such a flogging in the USA. Apart from being immoral it also seems to be utterly stupid. With an attitude to its former base like this Labor doesn't deserve to win.
Hans Rijsdijk from Albion Park Rail
In response to: Labor has unfinished business on tax – Its 2024 tax cuts have failed low-paid workers
If only First Nations had guns
January 31, 2025
Some time ago, author Jarred Diamond wrote a book about why colonialism worked. The books title is Guns, Germs and Steel. If indigenous people in Australia had their own guns then Phillip would have sailed back to England. It was the guns, germs and steel that enabled white people to colonize others and to feel superior to all other indigenous peoples around the world. The only time colonizing did not work was when the invader went to a new country only to discover that another white colonizer was there before them and could put up a fight with...
Peter Sheehy from Blackheath NSW
In response to: John Howard and British colonisation of Australia
Foul and repeat, foul and repeat
January 31, 2025
It is for me, and I imagine for many, many others, a matter of by now well-matured grievance and anger that we are STILL having this same discussion after so many months. That Dutton and the LNP and also the Zionist Lobby continue to screech invective at every opportunity and at ever-increasing volume, is a given - this is part and parcel of the socially divisive and politically opportunistic Eretz Israel industry. No doubt, dividends would be paid from grateful investors in prime beachfront development of the Gaza Strip when those pesky Palestinians have been eradicated forever. Business...
Richard Llewellyn from Colo Vale NSW
In response to: Help defend the Jewish Council’s anti-racism work against Murdoch press smear ca
Public servants are there to support the community
January 31, 2025
Jack’s articles are informative, but In the end, I would hope that public servants are there to support the community, or public or society rather than the state. Following “the state” just allows people to say “ I was just following orders”, don’t you think? I appreciate, also, that if you accept that point, it gets complicated because different people have different ideas of what makes up a community, and what sustains it. Andrew Hitchman
Andrew Hitchman from Newcastle, NSW, Australia
In response to: Will public servants become agents of the party rather than the state?
The third possibility
January 31, 2025
At last, someone has mentioned the unmentionable - the third possibility. I have been astonished and irritated that, till now, nobody else has dared to mention it, but now, finally, Paul Heywood-Smith has put his head above the parapet. It has been seven weeks since the Adass synagogue fire, and at least according to the public record, the AFP and VicPol have made no arrests and appear to have few clues as to who was responsible. Or if they do, they're not willing or able to say. If the perpetrators had been either bumbling amateur neo-Nazis, or bumbling amateur...
Alan Wilson from Adelaide
In response to: Antisemitism: a vehicle for engendering anti-Palestinian racism
Support for Sarah Schwartz
January 31, 2025
I was shocked to read in yesterday's Australian a fierce diatribe by Marcia Langton against a recent event at the Queensland University of Technology. Ms Langton took aim in particular at the presentation by Sarah Schwartz, using terms including shocking, deluded and anti-Semitic. I thank the Jewish Council of Australia and Pearls & Irritations for giving readers some background to this sordid story. I urge readers to hit the keyboards, and to add the Australian's letters page to their list.
Richard Barnes from Melbourne / Naarm
In response to: Help defend the Jewish Council’s anti-racism work against Murdoch press smear campaign
Welfare: cheaper than perks given the uber-wealthy
January 31, 2025
If The Voice campaign taught me anything it's that Indigenous people aren't listened to. Consultations were/are brief FIFO visits with virtually no say in solutions imposed from afar. I'm reminded of Another Country narrated by David Gulpilil (SBSon-demand), graphically showing every white-man do-gooder intervention taking a community backwards. It should be compulsory viewing for every non-indigenous Australian. Perhaps annually - on Australia Day. As for sit-down money .... Indigenous people are no more lazy than the rest of us. Referencing the Gulpilil film, I wonder did compulsory training programs lead to anything satisfying or meaningful for Indigenous people? If...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: After the theft of a continent, welfare benefits beat work
Why are we so easily conned?
January 31, 2025
How depressing that Greg Latemore has thrown in the towel just before the election. With Albanese doing nothing to lift his game and his chances, are we going to let Dutton, aka Trump 2.0 Lite, walk away with the prize? Labor has been a huge disappointment on the big ticket items: climate change, gambling, tax reform, neutering the NACC. But it has done quite well on important but nevertheless second-tier issues. Googling Albanese and Labor's achievements produces a quite impressive list. But the attributes that made Albanese Leader of the Opposition are not ones that have made a good...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: I’m going ‘Trump sober’ in 2025
Wokism
January 31, 2025
An excellent article Sue. Wokism is about the essential an best human values, but they construe it as weakness, a mistake to be despised. But you do not identify the fundamental cause of the problem, and so many good critics of the system fail to do so. That is simply capitalism. It is a system driven by self interest and greed, the quest for limitless wealth via processes that cannot do other than drive out compassion and concern for the other, accumulate wealth in the hands of the winners, thus empowering them to increase control of the political system, and...
Ted Trainer from Sydney
In response to: Humanity’s operating system has been infected
Join your local chapter of TA
January 31, 2025
It was going to join my local chapter of TA Trump Anonymous until I found PA Politics Anonymous they seem to be affiliated with AA Alcoholics Anonymous as they all have the same prayer. “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I can’t change , the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference I heard there was a DA Democracy Anonymous but it was found to be an illusion.
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: I’m going ‘Trump sober’ in 2025
The Hollow man
January 31, 2025
Thank you Peter Henning for your superb article (The Hollow man seeks to Lower the Temperature 24 Jan). The analytics of the US election are quite clear. More people voted for someone not named Trump, than someone named Trump. His victory was 1.5% - one of the smallest in US history. He won by 3 million votes. Harris lost 6 million Democrat voters that could not bring themselves to vote for her due to the Gaza war and her government’s complicity. Those 6 million voters, that voted for Biden last election, would have won her the election. With these...
Alyssa Aleksanian from Hazelbrook
In response to: The Hollow man seeks to Lower the Temperature
Refaat, the death toll may be even higher
January 31, 2025
Dear Refaat I am not sure if you saw the recent data recalibrated by the Lancet, one of the worlds most eminent medical journals. They calculated the death toll has been underestimated by 20%, and more likely to be 64,000, most of which are women, children and elders. That constitutes war crime. The Lancet also concluded that the number is set to rise drastically as bodies are brought out of the rubble. Also not counted as we cannot predict how many will be effected are respiratory failure caused by asbestos and silica. The IDF use specially designed tank...
Melody Kemp from Brisbane
In response to: The war didn’t end with a ceasefire
The Christian right in Australia
January 24, 2025
It is excellent to again see Lucy Hamilton’s investigative work, this time concerning the rise and rise of the Christian Right and, specifically, that of Moira Deeming in Victoria. We should be alert and alarmed, given its enormous influence in American politics, from abortion and LGBTQI+ rights to the war on Gaza. Moira Deeming, mentored by right-wing commentator Peta Credlin, is the latest example of the intersection between church and state. The ‘culture wars’ have been waged for decades, not by the ‘woke’ left but by activists seeking to bend the arc of a moral universe towards their...
Fiona Colin from Melbourne
In response to: The Liberal party, Moira Deeming and political Christianity
Future generations need a flourishing ecosystem
January 24, 2025
Climate tipping points are imminent. Climate extremes will overwhelm us with increasing frequency as politicians continue to shirk the challenge of addressing their underlying causes. We live in a world of eternal growth, where standards of living are expected to rise unfailingly. But growth comes at the expense of the environment: old-growth forests depleted for agriculture, mammalian extinctions, fish stocks depleted, and ever-greater pollution – carbon accumulating in the atmosphere, plastics choking the seas. Humanity may be our planet’s dominant species, but we are just one element of its ecosystem. We are changing the balance of that ecosystem...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills, Vic
In response to: Extreme events, causation and politics
how stupid is America's ruling class?
January 24, 2025
Trump's election has made the role of the ruling class even more obvious but there is the danger that we may see that as a Trump abberation rather than a feature of western democracy. Both Democracts and Republicans are beholden to plutocrats; Hilary Clinton's throwaway line referring to Trump supporters as 'deplorables' reveals that attitude. Throughout the West politicians routinely invoke the social contract but one of the arguments for that contract is that the parties to the social contract ‘must be situated reasonably, that is fairly or symmetrically with no one having superior bargaining advantages over the...
john tons from adelaide
In response to: how stupid is America's ruling class?
Say NO to "mutual obligation" - in any guise
January 24, 2025
That unemployed people are burdened with mutual obligation 'work' is an abomination. To suggest that volunteering be part of that coercive package is an oxymoron that adds insult to injury. A small number of people are either incapable or simply don't want to work. The truth is, the vast majority of unemployed people do want a job. These people are forced to jump through so many time-consuming Centrelink hoops. Adding mutual obligation eats into job search time and energy of the majority merely to satisfy a lust for vengeance towards the few. If there's real work to be...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: Reimagining public housing: the transformative potential of Centrelink’s Voluntary work program
Jews are not responsible for the war in Gaza
January 24, 2025
The article in today's P&I, Beware misguided attempts to protest the horrific Israeli genocide by David Lockwood, is a quite appalling article that essentially holds Jews in Australia who support Israel as bearing some responsibility for the war in Gaza. It also trivialises the antisemitism that is occurring almost daily in Australia. It even manages to trivialise the labelling of the fire-bombing of the Adass Synagogue as an act of terrorism. Conflating the antisemitism in Australia with the war in Gaza isn't simply political comment, it gaslights the lived experience of Jews in Australia and discounts the seriousness of what...
Harold Zwier from Melbourne
In response to: Beware misguided attempts to protest the horrific Israeli genocide
David Lockwood is making assumptions re attacks
January 24, 2025
David Lockwood, in his article on the anti-semitic attacks against synagogues, says, we can assume that both these incidents of vandalism (sorry, ‘terrorism’) were misguided attempts to protest against the Israeli genocide against Palestine. That assumption may be correct, but it is also possible that the extreme right or nazis were responsible, hoping to encourage disharmony in the community. All the anti- semitic attacks must be condemned and certainly don't help the Palestinian cause. Not completely out of the question is that some may have been done by zionists or their supporters, hoping that Palestinian supporters will be...
Kath Kelly from Canberra
In response to: Beware misguided attempts to protest the horrific Israeli genocide
The Genocide will Continue if Morale Improves
January 24, 2025
Alison Broinowski's prediction is a statement of the inevitable rather than a possible future scenario. Everything we have seen coming from the Netanyahu government / the IDF since 07/10/2024 is primary evidence for her forecast. Netanyahu's entire future depends upon his retaining the political leadership of Israel and by that, avoiding the Damoclean sword of almost certain guilty verdicts in regard to his personal corruption - let alone his status as a designated war criminal by the ICJ. Almost as a side note to the news coverage of the first release of Israeli hostages was a mention that...
Richard Llewellyn from Colo Vale NSW 2575
In response to: Netanyahu intends to attack Gaza as soon as hostages are released
It's always the Palestinians' fault... Not!
January 24, 2025
I've always respected Jack Waterford's writing but this ... the war on Gaza ... was consciously started by Hamas, which ... has long been provoking Israel, … brought me up short. Hamas consciously started this genocide? (It's not a war.) Please show me the proof. Long provoking Israel? How convenient to ignore almost a century of provocation by Israel itself and its predecessor terrorist groups. Compared to the combined Israel-US might, anything Hamas could inflict is an irritation in comparison. The Palestinian death toll has always far exceeded Israel's. There were, and are, thousands upon thousands of Palestinian hostages,...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthron VIC 3122
In response to: Laurel-less Biden limps for the exit. Will Albanese be next?
We need to look in the mirror
January 24, 2025
No wonder China looks at us with contempt. ... the PRC has a dark history of human rights abuses. Before criticising China, and not justifying Chinese abuses, maybe we should get our own house in order. Australian abuses include our treatment of our Indigenous brothers and sisters, the way we treat refugees and asylum seekers, our jailing of people with mental health issues rather than providing medical care, and, most recently, clamping down on those protesting Israeli genocide. Just for starters. I concede that our journalists aren't muzzled by the government. The Murdoch press has its own 'useful'...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: Vassal states of the imperial order pay homage to their US master
Balanced coverage of hostage release
January 24, 2025
We celebrate the release of hostages, be they Israeli or Palestinian. But watch the MSM to see if they give the same granular coverage to both. So far I have seen 33 released Israeli hostages and their pictures and one Palestinian. We know the length of captivity for the Israelis, but what are the most and least lengths for the Palestinians? And Israeli troops are reportedly still murdering people in the northeast part of Palestine. That must stop.
Geoff Taylor from Riverton
In response to: Gaza ceasefire deal: Egypt and Qatar pushing for Marwan Barghouti’s release
Into the neoliberal darkness
January 24, 2025
We are seeing the dying days of the USAmerican empire. But don't blame Trump... or those who voted for him. They are the natural end-point of neoliberalism which could have and should have been seen and warded off decades ago. But everyone went along with Gordon Gecko: Greed is good. Au contraire, greed is death. We are staring it in the face. Countries like Australia should cut the apron strings while we've got a chance. But given the state of the politicians of our two major parties, our chances of going down with the US ship are high. Proof?...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: Confidential letter to Trump on AUKUS
Gaslighting Australian Jews
January 22, 2025
This article is really offensive. It’s gaslighting Australian Jews. The writer offer little understanding of the diversity and debate within the Jewish community, seemingly reducing those who oppose what is going on to a few thousand people, and then making claims about what we are supposed to believe or be. The phraseology used is awful. The writer asserts that there is “[No] identity between Jews (and those of Jewish origin) and the Israeli state. By attacking the former, goes the argument, you are attacking the latter. But there is no such identity”. What right does the writer...
Larry Stillman from Australia
In response to: Beware misguided attempts to protest the horrific Israeli genocide
History as a starting point
January 20, 2025
Kari McKern's contribution (https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/a-garden-of-civilisations/) is the latest in a long line of excellent contributions to P&I advocating for a sensible and promising way forward for the world society, a society of civilisations cooperating and developing for mutual benefit. However, we are not starting from scratch, and if I may make an analogy with mathematics, it is one thing to find a general solution to a differential equation describing the time dependence of a variable; a specific solution depends on the initial condition. What practically all of the laudable proposed solutions for the evolution of the world society ignore is the...
Erik Aslaksen from Australia
In response to: A garden of civilisations
MUCH TO BE DONE NOW
January 20, 2025
The sight of the Palestinian people returning to see what is left of their shattered homes is heartbreaking. The priorities now must be to make sure the people are fed, clothed, accommodated and their kids go to school. This must start now, even it only goes on for 6 weeks. But it's important to be optimistic. Talks are ongoing in Oslo on a 2 state solution. How long they will take no one knows. The first trucks with food and medical aid are already rolling into Gaza. The ceasefire is a start, and a good start. There is much to...
Jennifer Haines from Glossodia
In response to: Gaza ceasefire deal: Hamas, Egypt and Qatar pushing for Marwan Barghouti’s release
The One Day of the Year
January 20, 2025
In the 60s Alan Seymour's iconic play, The One Day of the Year, depicted the unease many Australians felt about the way in which Anzac Day was marked, with remembrance and camaraderie being overshadowed by widespread drunken over-indulgence. Since then we have matured significantly with Anzac Day now accorded the respect and solemnity the occasion deserves. However as our One Day of the Year, January 26th, approaches, once again, feelings of disquiet, unease, even shame, persist amongst a significant section of the Australian community. This contentious issue continues to metastasize, a cancer eating away at social cohesion. And now...
Ian Buchan from Kincumber South
In response to: Australian Social Cohesion Under Threat
Stop the talking. Start the action.
January 20, 2025
The US is very happy putting other people’s children in the firing line to defend its empire. AUKUS is not about an independent defence policy for the Australian people, it is about locking Australia into US war plans with China. There is widespread criticism of government short-termism, largely because the two major parties only ever fix their eyes on winning the next election. But criticism is all it is. When is wailing going to turn into action? This is particularly necessary re AUKUS and all it entails because long term could well be only a small number of electoral...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: Our case against AUKUS is more relevant than ever
Not dead yet
January 20, 2025
Thanks for your article, Neil. It brought back memories of growing up in Housing Commission in Moe, I'm now a proud owner/co-builder of what some people call a 'substandard shed' in my rural area of the Top End NT. You're right, we're a dying breed. We're proud, strong and committed to using re-used, recycled and repaired materials from landfill and second-hand building suppliers and - we're finding it harder and harder to find what we need to repair and maintain our beloved homes. We don't want to use new materials, especially when they're made from pollutive, synthetic materials....
Diana Rickard from Tumbling Waters NT
In response to: An Australian endangered species – Owner builders
Sanctity of Sovereignty - Ukraine
January 17, 2025
Dear Pearls and Irritation, The common use of war, about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, whitewashes the profound sanctity of sovereignty. An invasion, the only term that can be used about Ukraine, trashes the sanctity. The sanctity expresses the territoriality of all people. All of humankind has a vested interest in no invasion succeeding. Because of the sanctity, for the safety and security of all, geopolitical reasons, of an invader, are irrelevant. The starting point for resolution, there is no other, is the return of all territory, to Ukraine, before the taking of Crimean...
Graeme Tychsen from NSW
In response to: Ukraine War: President Trump confronts a decision
Pyrocene perception and the politics of Palestine
January 17, 2025
Chris Hedges records the selective and avoidant behaviour of humanity related to the consequences of the petrolium age and the march South of the pyrocene from Siberia and Canada to Los Angeles. Sadly this selective perception and behaviour extends well beyond climate into our relations and political reactions at this time. Consider global reactions to the climate driven fires in Los Angeles with 100,00 displaced, at least 25 dead at this time and victims sifting through donations of food and water. Australians for its part offered firefighters and materiel support almost immedately through our federal government. By contrast...
Donald Clayton from Bittern, Victoria
In response to: Entering the ‘Pyrocene’: Devastation in California is the harbinger of the apocalypse
Has UN ceded responsibility for aid to Palestine?
January 17, 2025
Re Chris Gunness’s article UNRWA’s expulsion from Jerusalem will seal Israel’s illegal annexation: Whilst I sadly agree with the substance of this article, I cannot agree with this statement which seems to be based on this hyperlinked article: ‘the senior UN leadership has adopted the position that the responsibility to deliver aid is Israel’s as the occupying power’. This statement might be seen to be loosely aligned to the title of the UN article but not to its contents - intriguing.
Judy Attwood from Brisbane
In response to: UNRWA’s expulsion from Jerusalem will seal Israel’s illegal annexation
Mature debate on nuclear health risks is essential
January 17, 2025
Margaret Beavis is a recently retired GP and Melbourne University educator on nuclear energy and ill health. She would like a really true 'mature debate' on nuclear. Here are her four main health arguments against the Coalition's nuclear hope. One, there is clear evidence that children living within 5 km of a nuclear plant doubled their rate of developing leukemia. Two, workers near a nuclear plant also risk dying from cancer. Three, in Australia, radiology is actually limited to avoid causing cancer. Four, the reality of continuing fossil fuels when they are the main cause of the climate crisis,...
Barbara Fraser from Burwood, Vic
In response to: Where is the ‘mature debate’ about the health impacts of nuclear power?
Opening our eyes
January 17, 2025
With every [Israeli war crimes] case, Israel will learn that the decades-long US vetoes and blind Western protection and support will no longer suffice. And the US and all countries that went and still go along with the US position will be forced to accept that they are responsible for the start and continuation of this genocide. That every bit of Jewish/Israeli violence leading to and since the establishment of Israel was provoked by Palestinian 'terrorism' , as presented in all our news media, will be shown to be the lie that it has always been. We will...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: The fall of Israeli impunity: The world is starting to hold Tel Aviv accountable
One to 50,000
January 17, 2025
Thank you to Scott Burchill for a prescient analysis. While the deaths of 50,000 Gazans as well as the maltreatment of many of those captured by the Israeli army can’t rouse him to action, I note that Anthony Albanese (and Peter Dutton btw) have come out all guns blazing over the reported death of one Australian in Russia. Yet we couldn’t even find a translator of Hebrew for the voice recordings crucial to the Binskin inquiry into Australian Zomi Frankcom’s death at the hands of the Israeli army.
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: How the Israel Palestine narrative changed in Australia
Tackle the root causes of climate policy blindness
January 17, 2025
David Spratt accuses the Government of ‘climate policy blindness’. This debilitating condition affects both Labor and the Coalition. They suffer because they each have too much to lose by opening their eyes to the stark climate future that we face. This blindness enables them to continue to give support to, and accept substantial donations from, the fossil fuel industry, and may ease concerns among some about their employability post-parliament. We must attack this blindness by addressing its roots: for example strictly limit political donations, and establish a fair ‘cooling-off’ period for retiring politicians before they take up lucrative private-sector...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills, Vic
In response to: Climate and security risks? Shhh, says the Albanese Government
Could the election results give some indication?
January 17, 2025
Recently I've been wondering if the forthcoming election might give an indicative answer to just how large or small the influential Jewish lobby (AIJAC and the like) is within the Jewish community itself. Reading her bio at the end of her excellent article (Ice Hockey Australia branded antisemitic....), I thought another one when I read that Cathy Peters is Jewish. There are a lot of Jewish people who oppose the genocide in Gaza, no doubt at great personal cost in some cases. In terms of influence, money talks ... right across the spectrum of groups, causes, industries, ethnicities. That's...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: Ice Hockey Australia branded antisemitic as it red flags Melbourne tournament
Our Dogs Do Not Deserve to be so badly Disparaged
January 17, 2025
Dear Editor, An Objection As a passionate Animal Activist who also greatly cares about Social & Environmental justice I found the title of this article offensive to our poor dogs who do not deserve to be so badly insulted by being associated with / and describing these so unethical immoral people who have no shame. Dogs are such beautiful Sentient Beings and should not be denigrated in this way - nor should any other animal species. There are better more apt negative descriptions to be used ( eg scum) without harming the image and reputations of...
Elizabeth Attard from Melbourne
In response to: When leaders act like dogs: A time without shame
Risk of Nuclear Power Generation
January 17, 2025
I was interested in the Medical drawbacks of Nuclear Energy. However, another issue is heat generation. With the uNclear (Nuclear) policy, one fact that has not been considered is the need for cooling. These proposed Nuclear plants will be larger than the Coal plants they replace. This requires a large amount of cooling water. The waste heat is released into this body of water which raises the lake water temperature. This raising temperature causes changes in the ecology of the lake to the detriment of the natural balance. Comparing Nuclear to other forms of energy generation such as...
Doug Foskey from Tregeagle
In response to: Medical issues of Nuclear power: Ecology issues too.
ABC bias? Not so simple
January 14, 2025
I note Richard Bean’s analysis of interviews on ABC Radio National’s Breakfast program suggesting pro-Israel bias in the ABC. I wish to share a letter I wrote to the ABC in November 2023, seeking clarification about a two-part discussion on “Big Ideas” entitled “Newsroom ethics and the Israel-Gaza war” which, I suggested, could plausibly be interpreted as having a panel skewed against the Israeli perspective. This is obviously not intended to be a systematic rebuttal of Bean’s piece. It is simply one counter-example intended to complicate the picture presented in Bean's study, and to indicate that ABC...
Andrew Wirth from Australia
In response to: Palestinian voices silenced: 14 months of ABC’s RN Breakfast Coverage
Truth in democracy
January 13, 2025
We don’t live in a democracy we live in a capitalist society. The greatest threat to our so-called democracy is our political system. The rise of the right, the war on woke, divide in communities along religious, racial, economic grounds, the preparation for war, the power of the billionaires, the loss of truth are all signs of a failed system. These issues are not isolated to the US, but remember where you saw it first and the constant bombardment of US politics in all media is not news, it’s come join us. It will not be until we...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: Which-party-is-the-more-competent-economic-manager-labor
How come so much influence?
January 13, 2025
Refaat Ibrahim tries to describe in words the horror of the last 15 months in Gaza. A serious question which arises is how one section of a religious group, and a small one at that in world terms, is able to exercise so much control over the foreign policy of the governments of secular states such as the US, UK, Australia and Germany. Surely the Holocaust, terrible though it was, can’t explain that stranglehold.
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: Gaza: The modern coliseum of humanity’s dark legacy
Out with the aged
January 13, 2025
Well, the government certainly does not think so. My husband is a young 85-year-old. Two years ago he mislaid his Australian passport, he needed to travel to visit a family member so he asked for a replacement. To his astonishment, DOHA refused to give him one. He has retained eight Australian passports, all giving his nationality as Australian and confirming him to be a citizen of Australia. He was not born in Australia, he arrived aged two as an evacuee with his mother in 1942, both British subjects. He was educated in Geelong, called up for National service...
Sarah Riach from Melbourne
In response to: Is there much life after age-80
Which party is the more competent economic manager?
January 13, 2025
Thank you for the Michael Keating article adding more evidence to debunk the myth that Liberals are better economic managers than Labor. John Menadue addressed this myth in his 11 April 2019 article. That article highlighted the enormous damage that the Howard/Costello Government did by “locking in negative gearing concessions and generous treatment of capital gains which have been at great cost to the government in lost revenue. They also introduced tax-free superannuation benefits, family trust concessions, franking credit rebates and a whole series of decisions on spending and tax that have caused continuing budget difficulties. Menadue also...
John Woodlock from Arundel Qld
In response to: Which party is the more competent economic manager – Labor or Libera
Not only racists oppose high immigration
January 12, 2025
Thanks to Noel Turnbull for summarising the findings of The Scanlon Foundation Research Institute Social Cohesion Mapping 2024 Report. I don't agree, however, with the suggestion that we should be troubled that 49% of people (now) say the number of immigrants is too high (a significant increase from previous surveys). There are many non-racist reasons for opposing too high a level of immigration. These include concerns about how big a population Australia's natural resources can support; concerns about the impact of rapid population growth on our housing crisis; concerns about the exploitation involved in many of Australia's migration pathways;...
Richard Barnes from Melbourne
In response to: Australian social cohesion under threat
The Tour Down Under
January 11, 2025
I wrote to various government officials regarding the above tour, but did not receive a response. However I received a response from Santos, which I am not allowed to copy to you, but will paraphrase as follows: Thanks for the letter. Santos realise that this is a sensitive topic and sympathise with those who are affected by events in the Middle East. Because this race is under the umbrella of Union Cycliste Internationale, the Israeli team is required to receive an invitation to participate. Thanks for my letter. What a cop-out!
Pamela Rothfield from Edithvale, Victoria
In response to: The illegality of the Israel-Premier Tech cycling team in the Tour Down Under
Social cohesion
January 11, 2025
A striking statement from Noel Turnbull: the worldwide phenomenon that people suffering from financial hardship are more likely to have negative attitudes to migrants, immigration and different religious faiths to themselves “explains much about the Dutton appeal”. Peter Dutton is a divider. He is an (albeit paler) imitation of Trump, master of division via hate and blame. Dutton might attempt to rehabilitate his reputation over the next few months, or double down. Either way, his record stands: walking out of Rudd’s apology to the stolen generations, the “African gangs” accusation, jokes about rising sea levels in the Pacific Island...
Fiona Colin from Melbourne
In response to: Australian social cohesion under threat