Archives: Letters to the Editor

It may well be that imperialism, colonialism, racism and ecocide are the four horsemen of capitalism’s apocalypse, but all this ideology is clouding the issue. What we need is degrowth, both of the economy (certainly in industrialised countries) and of population. If you degrow the economy but the population continues to grow, then people get poorer.

We need degrowth because the world is in overshoot. We have consumed too many resources and produced too many wastes. This is reflected in climate change and plummeting biodiversity. We have to restore balance, though that might not be possible until the population gets down under two billion people.

It’s worth looking at Japan whose population shrank by 908,000 last year to around 120 million. Its economy shrank this year as well. While commentators decry both, nevertheless, the fewer the number of people, the more resources there are for each person, assuming the economy doesn’t decline more quickly than population.

Sea-level rise threatens to take food-producing land away from us. Soon we may not be able to feed everyone. So, reducing the human footprint, and the number of feet, is critical, not just for the sake of climate mitigation, but for adaptation as well.

US nuclear submarines are phenomenally complex machines. Their advanced technology (reactor plants, sonar arrays, combat systems) requires intensive and meticulous maintenance. The public shipyards responsible for major overhauls and refuelling (Norfolk, Portsmouth, Puget Sound, Pearl Harbor) have been plagued by ageing infrastructure and equipment, critical skilled labor shortages and a massive backlog of deferred maintenance.

This has dramatically extended maintenance periods. It’s not uncommon for planned availabilities to run years over schedule, drastically lowering the operational availability rate. In the last decade, this rate has been devastatingly low for attack submarines.

Add to that new construction delays (Virginia & Columbia Classes).

The two private shipyards building all US submarines (General Dynamics Electric Boat and Huntington Ingalls Industries Newport News Shipbuilding) are stretched beyond their limits.They are simultaneously building Virginia-class attack subs, designing the next-generation SSN(X), and, most critically, building the colossal Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines. In addition the specialised submarine industrial base of over 16,000 suppliers was hollowed at the end of the Cold War.

All this means that the billions being handed over by Marles will go to assisting the US to meet their needs but not ours.

As the parent of a teacher in an underprivileged public school I could not agree more with Allan. One of the fundamental characteristics that distinguishes a civilised and vibrant society is the extent to which it prioritises the education of its children. On that metric Australia is one of the biggest dunces on the planet. We not only deliberately entrench a vast educational inequality by massive funding to private schools, but guarantee a low standard of educational achievement for the bulk of our population by vast under-funding of our most needy public schools.

This has, and continues to create, an under-educated populace in an age where education will be the primary determinant of what societies will lead the future of humanity. It also disincentivises the very people we need to provide the best education – the teachers.

Their burdens are extreme whilst their resources are pitiful. But our elites are happy as an ignorant population is far easier to control!!!

Thank you, George Browning, for your courage in articulating what many of us are thinking but too reticent to express.

There has been a rise in antisemitism in Australia over the past two years. Of that there is no doubt. Our hearts go out to our Jewish Australians who have been the targets. Australian Jews are suffering horrifically and so unjustly by the rise of an antisemitism which has its genesis not in the policies of the Albanese Government as Netanyahu asserts. Its the genocidal actions of the Israeli Government under Netanyahu’s Presidency against innocent Palestinians which have precipitated the dissemination of antisemitism.

The horrendous Bondi massacre is being weaponised and used as a political football. This needs to be called out and condemned as promulgation of appalling misinformation. Our highly valued Australian Jewish people deserve better than this.

Re the contradictions Stuart Rees notes: How many Australians enjoyed the spectacle of Richard Marles standing alongside US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth in Washington this week. I guess he had to do it for the sake of Aukus, and to “preposition” (meaning what?) US troops in Australia.

But the US military has just been alleged by some senior US figures to be complicit in the murder of Colombian fisherman Alejandro Carranza, and the killing of 93 other civilians on the high seas including two survivors of a US Navy strike. Who gave the orders and the rules of engagement seems to be the subject of some contention. The former Admiral of Southcom Alvin Holsey, who appears to have resigned rather than follow orders which would result in either murder without trial or war crimes, seems to have channelled former Australian General Lt. David Morrison who said of military behaviour that “the standard that you walk past is the standard you accept”.

Kenneth Roth in The Guardian writes well on these alleged murders without trial.

The historical contexts of the current war in Ukraine are simply ignored in this article as if they don’t exist.

First, there is a complex web of centuries-old shared cultural, linguistic, religious, social, economic and strategic interests between Russia and Ukraine.

Second, Russia will never forget that Operation Barbarossa by German forces against the Soviet Union in 1941 targeted Ukraine as a major strategic objective.

Third, the US, France, UK and Germany made security assurances throughout 1990-91 to Gorbachev that NATO would not expand “one inch” further after the USSR endorsed German reunification, which led Gorbachev to dissolve the Warsaw Pact.

Fourth, Gorbachev later noted that NATO expansion was “a violation of the spirit of the statements and assurances made to us in 1990.”

Fifth, Putin regards Gorbachev’s failure to insist on binding written agreements in 1990-91 re NATO expansion to the borders of Russia as a grave mistake, which he is not going to repeat.

Sixth, since 2014, Maidan, Minsk, Donbass, Zelensky…

Putin’s distrust of the West in anything less than a long-term treaty which ensures Ukraine can never be a member of NATO and/or host weapon systems which threaten Russia, won’t allow compromise.

Les Macdonald’s recent letter covering the Wang Fuk Court tragedy in Honk Kong entitled ‘Let the facts speak for themselves’ left me reflecting on Thomas Gradgrind, the fictional character and notorious school board superintendent in Hard Times by Charles Dickens.

The rigid and persistent pedagogue was obsessed with cold facts and numbers, and his adolescent pupils were treated as machines, or pitchers which were to be filled to the brim with facts.

Replication and transfer of data is not learning. It is merely indoctrination, and the conundrum is discussed extensively by Henry Giroux and the late Paulo Freire.

You cannot feed the hungry on statistics and as Albert Einstein once proclaimed:

“Objective knowledge provides us with powerful instruments for the achievements of certain ends but the ultimate goal itself and the longing to reach it must come from another source.”

I agree with Allan Patience. Australia is over-governed. Abolishing upper houses in the states would save an enormous amount of money. And Tasmania should become a federal territory. Norway’s sovereign wealth fund shows how Australia fails to follow the example of successful countries. Expertise should be pooled to take advantage of experienced people nation-wide. This would benefit the whole country. Melbourne needs the expensive infrastructure Patience criticises, but not funded by cutting other essential services. Funds would be available by implementing Patience’s ideas. The revision of the federation is urgent.

Just a word to commend and thank Terry Fewtrell for his clearly argued and cool response to the Vatican’s recent release on the ordination of women to the deaconate. My response was less cool and rational. More like a shaking of the head and a grimace bordering on cynicism at such facile arguments put forward in the Vatican statement,

I too paused over the reference to “a rupture of the nuptial meaning of salvation.” Risible indeed. Ridiculous. It seems that only the male species was created in God’s likeness, God who is neither male, nor female, etc. etc. Funny, that.

One might wonder if a different committee chair would have resulted in a different outcome.

Anyway, thank you Terry, for bringing cool calm reason to your response, because some of us are finding that very difficult on this occasion.

Ernst Willheim, honorary professor in the ANU College of Law, asks whether Australia has grasped the implications of the International Court of Justice’s ruling that States have an international duty to prevent climate harm.

It was a rare unanimous decision by the ICJ and a remarkable achievement for the Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change.

Dr Liz Hicks, University of Melbourne environmental-law lecturer, warns the ruling creates significant liability risks for Australia because it is one of the world’s largest fossil-fuel exporters.

After the ICJ opinion, the UN intervened as amicus curiae in an Australian case for the first time: the Australian Conservation Foundation’s challenge to the Environment Minister’s approval of a North West Shelf gas extension.

During ICJ proceedings, Australia argued climate obligations derive from specific treaties, such as the Paris Agreement, rather than broader international-law.

But the Grantham Research Institute notes Australia ranks second only to the United States in climate-litigation filings; global climate cases have doubled since Paris and now number in the hundreds per year.

Although Australia joined the Belém Declaration committing to plan a fossil-fuel phase-out, continued approvals of projects make further litigation certain. All power to the communities fighting back.

Hicks https://lsj.com.au/articles/international-ruling-highlights-australias-climate-obligations-to-pacific-neighbours/
Grantham https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Global-Trends-in-Climate-Change-Litigation-2025-Snapshot.pdf

What we have is a non productive bludger crisis.

No matter where you scratch you will find that those making the big money are doing it off the backs of those most in need. It’s the developers who are benefiting from the shortage of affordable housing getting unsuitable (flood prone etc) land rezoned, building regulations altered, complain when they have to contribute to the upgrade of infrastructure all the time, vilifying anyone who opposes them because they have too big a property, likes trees, is too old living in a big house, is a tradie who wants a little of the cream, or are in the wrong political party .

These are the same bludgers who are against paying tax but benefit most from low taxes.

The same bludgers who have the ear of our politicians / those who were our politicians.

The same bludgers who have infiltrated and bled dry all our once public utilities / housing, our public health system, school system, mining industries, banks, share market, Law system etc

The same bludgers who benefit from never ending Government bail outs of of industries that cant afford to fail

In his ‘2025 in Review‘, Professor Stuart Rees begins with an attack on President Trump, an easy – and albeit often legitimate – target.

Most of his article relates to the genocide in Gaza. Professor Rees rightly refers to the cowardice of western leaders in not calling it out. However, he appears to place the blame for the crimes of the Israeli government on ‘religious zealots’ who ‘have undue influence in the Israeli cabinet’. He is not critical of Zionism itself, which is ultimately responsible for the genocide and wider wars in the Middle East.

Reference to the 1996 document ‘A Clean Break – A New Strategy for Securing the Realm‘, prepared by US neoconservatives for PM Benjamin Netanyahu could confirm this.

Professor Jeffrey Sachs references the ‘Clean Break’ document when he describes the wars in Iraq and Syria as ‘phoney wars’, wars waged at the urging of Israel and the Zionist lobby. The country left on Israel’s list for regime-change is Iran.

Ironically, on Iran, Prof Rees stands with Zionists and US warmongers like John Bolton. While on Ukraine, he seems to eschew analysis and diplomacy, something Prof Sachs welcomes.

Prof Rees fails readers of Pearls and Irritations.

Mr Eslake’s recent critique of Western Australia’s GST arrangements exemplifies (yet again) Mark Twain’s famous observation about statistics being used to mislead rather than inform.

The author selectively focuses on GST growth rates while ignoring the fundamental issue: Western Australia’s disproportionate contribution to national wealth.

Whether WA is a “powerhouse” or not, is merely a device to generate soundbites from NSW pollies and Murdoch commentators.

The real issue is whether the GST distribution system should penalise states for resource endowments and economic efficiency. The 2018 reforms simply addressed a system that had become punitive to the point of absurdity.

Perhaps for balance, Mr Eslake could do a piece illustrating the GST scenario for WA in the decade prior to 2018?

Jason Hickel is right to excoriate the capitalist system, and Peter Sainsbury is right to quote Hickel at length.

Capitalism has delivered riches to the wealthy of the world, but only through 500 years of unconscionable colonial exploitation of most human beings on the planet and a century of massive exploitation of the planet’s resources. The wealthier each of us is, the greater the legacy of ruin we and our forebears have created. Without erecting massive psychological barriers, we would be overwhelmed by the dissonance between who we are and what we have done.

Can the capitalist beast be tamed to respond to the inextricably linked disasters of inequality and climate destruction? Consider the horrors of cobalt mining (for the new, renewable economy) in DR Congo; the environmental devastation surrounding the northern Siberian city of Norilsk, where nickel and palladium are mined; the environmental and human catastrophe of Ghana’s textile recycling industry; at our own NW Shelf, the farcical approval of Woodside’s ongoing extraction of “clean” gas and destruction of irreplaceable rock art; and myriad other disasters around the globe. The answer is irrefutably “no”.

The seven-page letter by retired Italian Cardinal Giuseppe Petrocchi is not an official document from the Vatican. It is a report of anonymous votes by unnamed members of a commission established by Pope Francis in 2020 that met twice in 2021 and 2022 met again in February 2025 with reviewing documents submitted in response to synodal considerations of women deacons. It affirms the magisterial fact that the restoration of women to the ordained diaconate is a matter for continued synodal discussion.

A government that truly cares about our aged and recognises that its current path is one directed largely by unaware bureaucrats and significant provider interests, would listen to someone with Kathy’s expertise in aged care funding. But I guess that is a vain hope!!

There is a simple solution to the conundrum of free speech versus the spreading of lies. All reportage must use as its base established facts. The problem for the West in its untrammelled pursuit of a freedom to spread whatever nonsense the western elites wish to see accepted by the “bewildered herd”, is that the public space in that West is saturated by lies, distortions, fabrications, mendacities and deceit spread deliberately by the mainstream media to keep them confused and afraid.

That has worked brilliantly for those elites for the last 80 years and they see no reason to change.

It has also been used by that Western media and policy wonks to incite confusion and resistance in the countries they wish to overturn or control.

The factual record of those attempts by the US and UK governments in particular to incite discontent in Hong Kong and Xinjiang is now clearly established by a plethora of leaks and investigative journalism by alternative media.

In that light it is hardly surprising that the Chinese government is insisting that the reportage by that same Western mainstream media must have a factual basis, to avoid another instance of Western-created chaos.

No prizes for guessing which part of the world is responsible for the overwhelming majority of the illegal sanctions imposed and therefore the vast majority of the deaths and suffering of the rest of the world’s children. You guessed it! It is the West that so values human rights, justice and compassion!!

I suppose we all should pity our PM Albanese – with so much of the founding DNA of Labor left shattered, there is still much to do to obliterate every trace of decency, fairness, ethical conduct, socially responsible legislation, international relations and intelligent defence procurement strategy by his government.

Busy, busy, busy.

Defending egregious travel expenditure by Anika Wells is just a stool sample from the sullage pit that encompasses the current legislative program of our current government. Increased mining approvals, gas extraction boondoggles, gambling reduction side-hustles, socially decent protest restrictions, sidestepping our signed-up-to responsibilities to combat genocide – all are on the revised Labor government menu.

As an old Labor limpet, I am appalled by the adoption of this Labor government of a comprehensive suite of neo-conservative policies – let alone the sort of ‘entitled’ behaviour as our elected representatives that characterises the worst of neo-con government. As if we wanted another round of Morrisonian profligacy.

Wasting such a commanding majority by failing to move the social situation forward is something that will be sheeted home in future historical analysis of the Albanese government if it does not immediately pull its finger out.

Ball in your court, Anthony.

Peter Sainsbury, who generously credits Bill Gates with “unlimited access to information and experts” is right to conclude with a ‘fail’ for Gates “for your faith in the market and capitalism (even though you never use the word) as the routes to salvation”.

After basing a decade-long warning of climate disaster on that same access to information and experts, Gates now says “we should measure success by our impact on human welfare more than our impact on the global temperature.” As Peter says, why not do both?

No doubt the impact on human welfare through his global vaccination programs in low-income countries has been great, but even this is problematic; critics argue it has failed to develop sustainable local infrastructure and expertise.

Is it an inconvenient truth that Microsoft is restarting Three Mile Island’s Unit 1 nuclear reactor in order to power an AI centre with “clean energy”?
AI’s “impact on human welfare” is not looking rosy. Meanwhile, tech billionaires are building luxurious bunkers in preparation for societal collapse.

Keating states that “population growth has been no faster in the last six years than previously over the last several decades, so the pressure of demand for new dwellings is no higher than we were readily able to accommodate in the past.”

This ignores the fantastic growth in property investment rates (a demand side issue). In the 1999-2000 FY there were 1.16 million Australians who owned at least one investment property. By 2021-22 that number had doubled to 2.26 million, far outstripping the population growth rate.

A recent AIHW report supports this, stating:

Over the past two decades, the Australian residential property market has experienced a sharp rise in investor activity (ATO 2024b). While the investment market has expanded the availability of rental housing, it has also reduced the number of homes available to owner-occupiers. As a result, many aspiring first-time buyers face greater competition, making it more likely they will remain in the rental market.

Michael Keating, in arguing that our housing problem is about supply and not demand, writes that “Australian population growth has been no faster in the last six years than previously over the last several decades, so the pressure of demand for new dwellings is no higher than we were readily able to accommodate in the past.”

It may be true that the average population growth rate of the last six years is more or less in line with the average of the last three decades or more. However, because there is an ever-bigger base, the actual numbers grow, if not the percentage figures. For instance, growth in 1994 was 174,000; in 2004 it was 218,900; in 2014, 330,200; and in 2024, 423,400. Demand for housing has increased proportionately.

Of course, supply comes into it, but we don’t seem to be able to build more than 177,000 dwellings a year for various reasons. So, demand has to be kept in check. That means adjusting the only lever available, namely immigration. It needs to come down to a level where all new residents – both migrant and native-born – can be housed, as well as the homeless and rental-stressed.

While here in SA Party Pete racks up the debt on innumerable sporting events and festivals with complete disregard for debt, taxes, emissions, the parklands, traffic congestion / inconvenience (almost half a year set up /down for a car race that is more attended for the nightly rock concerts than the race) etc – all very reminiscent of Caesar who built the colosseum to distract the masses and promote class warfare and war in general . Meanwhile the other almost half of our elected representatives are so wedded to opposition that they have decided that opposing themselves is the main game .

On the war in Ukraine, Canadian academic James Horncastle writes much as almost all western mainstream commentator might: Ukraine good; Russia bad. Like so many others given a mainstream platform, he appears to support an ongoing war until a Ukrainian victory and the destruction of Russia. But does he have genuine concerns for Ukraine, its citizens, and the truth?

I’d urge Pearls and Irritations readers to consider US ambassador Chas Freeman’s address on the war that he presented to the ‘East Bay Citizens for Peace’ in September 2023. It’s lengthy; it challenges mainstream western thinking on the war, but it is illuminating. Ambassador Freeman pushes for diplomacy, truth-seeking and peace. His address is titled ‘The Many Lessons of the Ukraine War’.

A thought provoking article. Sadly local government was like a tacked on afterthought. If you look around your local area through local eyes without the bias promoted by self interests in state governments you can’t help but see what a good job local governments do with limited resources – in general the parks and gardens etc are a credit to your local council. Parks, playgrounds etc are an indicator as to what a good job they do for local interest. Take the time to regularly visit your local park to see who is doing the maintenance and restoring the area just in time for the next state government environment destroying self promoting political photo opportunity festival.

It is obvious that state governments are the superfluous level of government – responsibility should rest locally. Imagine how long you would wait if your rubbish bin was not collected and you had to ring Canberra?

Furthermore in this time of phones and Zoom meetings etc consider how much cheeper more efficient the system would be if your local federal member stayed at home and and represented locally, perhaps with an office at the council chambers.

FATCHANCE

An opposition so bereft of a vision of a future for Australia in a rapidly changing world that their only appeal to the citizen is a return to an imagined idyll that ignores entirely the reality of that past .

Australia desperately needs an opposition that can hold a government to account for its many failures to even seek to achieve a resolution to the vast policy failures of that less-than-glorious past!

For a book detailing the involvement of the CIA with drugs, Alfred W McCoy’s The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia is well-researched and convincing. When reading it many years ago, I realised that while it was possible for the CIA to amas a quantity of heroin through the use of not-so-hidden labs in Southeast Asia, a distribution network was needed to move that product. What was then known as the Mafia had such a network.

Despite an increasingly thin veneer of ‘a rules-based international order’ and ‘a shinning light on the hill,’ the USA is becoming exposed as a rogue actor. They act, and the rest of us react. The truths they proclaim are hollow, their accountability non-existent.

The other rogue actor on the international scene today is Israel. It’s clear that they simply don’t care what world opinion and the world of international law thinks.

By aligning itself with these two, Australia risks erosion from within. Does Canberra really think it can excuse the criminal actions of our main international allies and expect the rule of law to remain firm and respected within Australia? There is a yawning contradiction here, and many are beginning to notice.

The silence, of course, extends to the whole Australian governing class whichever mainstream party holds power at any level, federal, state and even local.

The silence has being progressively reinforced across all Australian media, not just the mainstream, although the mainstream has always heavily censored or cut information about what is occurring in West Asia which is in any way critical of Israel.

Fear of litigation, loss of employment, career and financial security, are now entrenched in widening the circle of silence. Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP) suits against people like Mary Koskakidis are designed to promote silence, as are false flag “antisemitism” incidents, labelled by politicians as such against the weight of evidence.

Silence in Australia is increased by cancellation of discussion, analysis and criticism, as Chris Hedges now understands, but extends to many others who now find their voices are curtailed, limited or eliminated.

The extent of involuntary and enforced silence is difficult to know, but my personal experience during 2025 of rejected commentary has been an eye opener.

Jaron Sutton’s article is for any genuinely moral government a call for explanation and remediation. For exactly the circumstances he exposes we are unlikely to see that from Albanese and Wong.

The official Australian government lack of action to support justice for Palestinians and hope for Israelis for a future not castrated by the shame of clearly having committed genocide is a matter of national shame for us. When the history of Australia dealing with the Israeli genocide upon Palestinians is documented, Dreyfuss’ name will appear as one who absolutely lacked the courage or decency to speak out for the good instead expressing support for the Israeli actions.

Yet Jillian Segal, a prime candidate to express outrage against a neo-Nazi rally loudly expressing antisemitism at least commensurate with her outrage expressed against those who protest for justice for Palestinians, remained at best extremely muted.

Why so? Blatant antisemitism is exactly the stated reason for HAVING an Antisemitism Envoy. Prioritising denunciation of support for the citizens of Gaza over naked antisemitism smacks of favouring repugnant Zionist objectives.

Let us all hope this is not the case: Australia is better than supporting Zionism.

There not being a single useful number in Peter Hughes’ immigration snow-job, let me try to give him a hand. Big Australia means net-migration averaging in the 200,000s, which has only happened after 2005. Mass migration, no matter how much SA Liberal Senator McLachlan may shudder, means the 400,000s. As per Albanese Labor.

Normal or historical net-migration is 80,000, give or take. In every reliable poll during or since COVID, voters (remember them, Peter?) want lower or much lower immigration than what they now have.

Voters know perfectly well the duopoly will never allow low migration. That’s why the One Nation vote is running at 18 per cent. When Peter loftily calls for an “immigration debate”, that always means the upper orders imposing big or mass migration. It never means the lower orders being granted the opposite.