Archives: Letters to the Editor

Two points in Manne’s article show a taken-for-granted, thus unexamined, reason for possibly the main stumbling block to peace in the Middle East before and after 1948: all-pervasive anti-Arab racism.

First, the casual assumption that joint Jewish-Palestinian governance should prevail. Equality acknowledged but, in context, not existing. Australians argue about immigration but fundamentally believe we have the right to determine our immigration policy, a right never acknowledged for Palestinians regarding European Jewish immigration. That right exists even if their system of administration looks nothing like ours.

Second, the language we use is racist. Manne’s use of ‘vicious’ in describing 7 October is but one example. Bloody, definitely. But vicious indicates a state of mind which doesn’t necessarily fit the context of that date which Manne ignores completely, namely the decades long persecution by Jewish/Israeli colonisers resulting in many, many more deaths than Jews/Israelis have suffered before and since both 1948 and 7 October. Adam H Johnson’s book “How to Sell a Genocide” catalogues the constant stream of negative language used of Palestinians personally and their attempts to defend their lives and property. Meanwhile all their ongoing suffering is described like earthquakes: out-of-nowhere acts of God, deliberate Jewish-Israeli planning rarely mentioned.

Gideon Levy writing in an Israeli newspaper gives a very useful perspective.
But let not Lebanon nor the Strait obscure Gaza (Southwest Palestine).
Trump is the head for life of the Board of Peace set up to oversee the Gaza transition (without unfortunately Palestinian input), while Nickolay Mladenov is supposed to be doing the operational work. The Board gained UN recognition set up as a governmental body but now seems to be going private, with those funds paid in going to JP Morgan, rather than the World Bank, a decision Vance defends. But it removes Congressional scrutiny of the funds. Yet the World Bank’s CEO is a BoP member. Only a fraction of the BoP members, ie. Kosovo and Albania, so far seem to have dipped their toe in the Gaza waters, in relation to setting up a multinational transitional authority. Eight months have elapsed since the Gaza “ceasefire”. It is time now for real action, and that is not a total takeover of Gaza as Israel currently seems to be doing by degrees. Readers on these Gaza issues might like:”

Could we have a joint response to Joe Camilleri’s piece from Government and Opposition since they jointly agreed to AUKUS in the first place?

I want to know why they see benefits where I can’t; why they can’t see China’s military build-up is a response to the Australian-supported very explicit US threats to that country; why Australia continues to hand over billions for submarines it is generally agreed will never arrive, never mind their suitability if by some miracle they appear; why, why we have agreed to take US nuclear waste; and so much more.

Whenever I see Richard Marles or hear his name in the media, the image of a “modern major-general” appears in my mind – dressed-up, playing at grown-up, wanting to be taken seriously while being patted on the head. Whenever he goes to Washington I fear what Marles will agree to for the pleasure of licking the boots of increasingly insane leaders of the increasingly failing state that is the USA.

AUKUS is a tragedy. It is also an agreement that places Australia in danger with every US military enterprise on Australian soil and with every military decision made for us by the US.

Demagogues and dictators also rely on the ineptitude, timidity and cowardice of others e.g. Democrats in the US, Labour in the UK and Labor in Australia who have been complicit in implicitly and/or explicitly tolerating Israel’s apartheid and ethnic cleansing and genocide of Palestinians. Selective concerns and actions which ignore Israel’s historical systematic war crimes are meaningless and hypocritical and, indeed, validate Israel’s lies about its war crimes. The liars include more than Hanson, Morrison and Trump. Recovering integrity in politics requires more politicians and political parties to speak honestly without fear. It is insufficient to criticise demagogues and dictators of lying when the critics themselves also lie.

It’s time to face it. Australia has been sold a complete dud in AUKUS.

The Australian taxpayer ( the purchaser) has been kept in the dark from the very get go about this incredibly expensive military investment designed primarily to aid American foreign policy goals,and feed the military industrial base and economy on Australia’s dime.

There has been so much secrecy, so much flam flam and spin and outright lies and misdirects Labor can hardly be surprised that Australian taxpayers, who are now under the pump financially, are now asking really hard questions about AUKUS. Especially when Mr Marles pops up and says we’re actually not getting what we apparently agreed to pay for somewhere along the line Australia is getting another, dare I say better?, deal. Two of the subs will be used subs now. Who in their right mind walks into a shop signs on the dotted line and starts paying for used goods and walks away thinking they are on a winner?

Now, time has moved on and the initial purchase has fundamentally changed and we find ourselves having to accept used subs with no real expectation of delivery. Let’s just walk away while we still can.

I could not bring myself to enjoy the FIFA World Cup this time. Everyone around me is glued to the matches, arguing over teams and celebrating goals, and all I can think about is Gaza. Because the truth is that no place on earth loved football the way those children loved it. They grew up kicking torn balls in narrow streets, playing barefoot between broken buildings, dreaming that one day the world would know their names. Their names will never be chanted from stands, only listed among the dead.

I keep thinking about Mohammed Ramez Al-Sultan. He was fourteen, a player at Al-Hilal club, training at a properly FIFA-recognised academy. One airstrike on his home killed him along with 14 members of his family. His teammate, Malik Abu Al-Amaren, did not even die playing. He was shot while standing in a queue for food aid. Then there was Muhammad Kanaan, also 14, already signed by a professional club, killed by a sniper. And Ahmad Faraj, 17, who wanted nothing more than to wear the Palestinian shirt one day, was taken by a drone strike.

Any one with an EV will tell you that the city travel is long lost, the charging station needs a little work. But the one thing never spoken about in the distance debate is the “Rest and revive” campaign – how taking a break on a long trip with fast charging and sufficient chargers it is possible to improve the road toll, and help country town Australia’s economy – with a one time investment in solar and batteries to reduce demand on the grid and reduce imported fuel subsidies.

Could the authors of this article please provide costings that include any changes in maintenance of road surfaces if axle limits are increased to accommodate electric trucks?

Some thought provoking questions. Unfortunately like our politicians, before they can ask questions of others they have to ask the questions of themselves – and neither the press or the major parties, including the ventriloquist dummy that is One Nation, are prepared to hear the answers.

What price the next election – a press pass or a light plane? How many pieces of silver ?

Re the Editor’s Message from June 13.

‘As we all mourn the terrible violence against immigrants in Belfast, and the continuing murder of innocents in so many places – including Lebanon and Palestine…’

I’m astounded that the ‘terrible violence’ by an immigrant inflicted on an Irish National fails to even warrant a cursory footnote here.

Is the victim, and the wider consequences of the instigator’s actions, not even worthy of that?

We are regularly reminded of the failure of privatisation /outsourcing all very nice when the outsourced services THRIVE on the built in redundancy in such services as the PMG. I believe that Telstra is still profiting from the removal of the old copper phone lines.
The satellite system provided by private companies has helped the government budget bottom line, but like the electricity grid eventually when the services are not up to standard or need upgrading public pressure will force an injection of taxpayer funds.

The objective science which saw the rise of the US empire in so many diverse fields is now being scrapped in favour of voodoo science which fits the the imaginings of the current unhinged President. If you examine the fall of just about every empire in human history it is redolent with such actions in the vain hope that by doing so the collapse will be arrested and the empire re-born stronger than ever. History also tells you that not one such effort has ever been successful. Indeed, they have all accelerated empire collapse. There is no reason to suppose that such actions by the current shambles of an administration will have a different outcome!!

The authors rightly note that the energy performance of Australian housing is notoriously poor and that housing “that is costly to heat or cool, or that makes its inhabitants sick, is not affordable housing.” There doesn’t seem to be any requirement anywhere, for instance that homes are sited properly on the block, namely, with some windows at least having north-facing orientation.

The gap between overall supply and demand, however, appears to be the overarching problem. Increasing supply is generally seen as the solution as though demand cannot be managed. And yet it can. It’s mostly a matter of population growth, be it from natural increase or net overseas migration. We probably don’t need to address natural increase as fertility is below replacement. We do need to address migration, however, and bring it down below 100,000 from the current 300,000 or so, or to levels of the 1990s.

Just as immigration policy needs to be set within broader population policy, so too does housing policy. If you know how many more people will be coming into the country in any one year, then you can appropriate new land and funds accordingly, as well as providing for the existing homeless.

“Australia has failed to embed research and innovation into its national identity… Countries that invest in research and development are investing directly in their future prosperity… Science, research and innovation have become politically important.”

These were the same mantras intoned by “Dawkins Reforms” apologists, aimed at critics of the 12/1987 Green Paper, who were said to be defending the “ivory tower establishment”, preventing Australia’s adjustment to the “new world order”. Ignored critics of the Dawkins reforms, like Hugh Stretton, considered the value of higher education to be under serious threat of a Government-induced commercialisation.

Carr’s article relies upon a latter-day upgrade of “anti-establishment”. His overview might be compared with the critique Stretton set forth in the 1980-90s, but Stretton’s critique of the Dawkins reforms focused upon Labor’s supervening neo-liberal ideological trust in markets, within which science and research would have to find their assigned place.

The article doesn’t refer to the contributions made by the Labor Party and Monash University to this historical decline of trust in public institutions and science. But back then both Labor Party and Monash were claiming to lead the way.

Revisiting Stretton’s critique of Dawkins might help us gain critical insight concerning public trust’s decline.

AUKUS – created by stale thinking of the 1930s where yesterday’s technology is ‘proven’ but will fail to pass the pub test in a generation. It’s the same thinking that held up turbine technology from the beginning of WW2 to near its end. SSN’s are cold war technology which will only benefit the coffers of military industrial complex with taxpayer money. We need to rid the ‘system’ of conservative thinkers and fill with future thinkers. I’m picturing the movie ‘Of Things To Come’ here. Less of ‘The Boss’ preaching from a pile of rubble and more like John Cabal’s Wings Over The World.

Mr Waterford’s article was, as usual, very perceptive. One Nation and other similar populist parties are also winning as people are angry and rightly or wrongly blame established parties. Try dealing with your telco, the banks, Australia Post – you’ll sit for ages on some phone line to overseas or try and deal with a chat bot. And in Parliament party hacks in the main from both sides defend the indefensible. Expensively suited wordsmiths from sheltered lives mouth the usual platitudes. Look at the ALP now defending the use of A1 for aged care and NDIS and refusing to do anything meaning about gambling. Of course the so-called Libs are no better but then when did we expect them to be any better? So people think ‘stuff the lot of them’ and give up playing their games. As one cynic used to say to me: ‘Don’t vote it only encourages them’.

In this article the question is being asked if Australia really needs to have any submarines at all. Although I do share many of the doubts about AUKUS, as an island country surrounded by oceans, I would argue that we should maintain a strong submarine force to strengthen and enable our ability to exercise sea control of our EEZ and as a serious deterrent. Submarines are extremely useful weapons and are not at all obsolete nor going that way any time soon. Nearly every other country that has a need or desire and capacity to protect its maritime territory and interests has reached the same conclusion.

The USA continues developing and building submarines, so too is China, Russia, the UK, France, Japan, Germany, Korea, Taiwan, Sweden, Spain, Canada, etc. etc.
Are they all mistaken?

In the Falklands war the Argentinian navy found out, sadly, the hard way what submarines are capable of and that basically ended their activities in that war. That is apart from one old submarine which the British Royal Navy apparently expended a serious amount of effort and munitions trying to find and protect themselves from. There are two types of ships, submarines and targets!

“Australia’s history is full of stories like these. Italians, Greeks, Vietnamese, Croatians, Lebanese and countless others arrived carrying memories of another place and hopes for a better future.”

Apart from the convicts (many of them political prisoners ) who began the displacement the the First Nations people of Terra Nullius there is no mention of the Irish, Chinese, Afghans, 10 pound Poms – to mention a few big contributors. Then there is the GAME – migrant soccer. Remember when the team name was part of the club name? Hellas, Polonia, Juventus, Croatia etc.

There is no MCG, Adelaide Oval ,Optus stadium, or Hobart Stadium for the world game.

There is a long way to play.

Gareth Evans mounts very cogent arguments against these submarines. Readers may also like a very recent video speech on this by Senator Shoebridge. See www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1jz5ZS7TdY from 8m21s to 22m45s.

Why didn’t Labor just say housing affordability is a problem from Howard’s inept policy to “stimulate economy”? Housing became a commodity for investors who, even now, crank up prices unrealistically, outbidding first home buyers, every time. Fancy new houses need fancy new contents, not EBay. Add privatisation, HECS, health, transport for disaster.

Surely it’s clear that elected politicians, with no expertise or experience, relevant to submarines, are incompetent to make judgement on something as expensive as AUKUS? They have so much else to worry about. It might be controversial but surely it deserves a CITIZENS ASSEMBLY concentrated investigation?

Once again we have a solution to a social condition based purely on logistics and economics. While Michael Keating eloquently argues the case for higher population density his hypothesis is based on a one-dimensional world outlook: static, bottom-line economics. It totally ignores the dynamics of a profoundly changing environment. With mounting evidence that the planet is entering the tipping point scientists have warned us of for decades, planning based on linear 20th Century economic modelling is woefully obsolete.

Around the world, we have already witnessed temperatures able to bring major cities to a standstill. Our current economies and our infrastructure are vulnerable as they are; we are going to have to radically reinvent ourselves. Cramming more people into high-density heat banks is not a 21st Century option.

The benign Holocene that took us from Stone Age to Digital Age has been replaced by the Anthropocene. Facing the hostility of an overheated atmosphere, an overpopulated planet has a tumultuous future ahead of it. A good step would be to future-proof our housing stock and plan our cities for temperatures beyond current imagination.

I heartily endorse Leanne’s article on the Waleed Aly SMH article.
Any view that suggests the ordinary citizen is somehow not capable to comment about major policy positions adopted by our governments is one which attacks the fundamental basis of democracy. Given that it is ordinary Australians who will have to shoulder the vast financial burdens that will be imposed by this politically inspired farce of a deal they must be treated with the respect that they deserve. Opposition to insane government actions often starts with local community members and the holding of this inquiry is a bloody good start to getting the Australian public aware of the issues and organised to frustrate this idiocy of unresponsive government.

Pawson and Martin bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to the topic of housing. It is a pity, therefore, that the term “public housing” appeared only once in their essay.

This is in part not their fault, as they were critiquing the policies of a government for which both the term and the reality are anathema. Governments, state and federal, deliberately choose the term “social and affordable” housing as a cover for their neoliberal determination to abandon public housing – housing traditionally built and managed directly by government to provide homes for those who will never find accommodation within a market-based system.

Here in Victoria, an ideologically blinkered government is currently steam-rolling ahead with the demolition of 44 eminently renovatable public housing towers – a project which will line the pockets of developers, cause massive environmental and financial waste, and destroy the lives of 10,000 of our most vulnerable citizens. “Social housing” is an unhelpful feel-good term.

“Affordable housing” means housing which costs about 10 per cent less to rent than the rest of the housing in a newly developed building or estate – in other words unaffordable for the people we imagine needing it.

Both terms should be eschewed.

Thanks to Mr “opposition for opposition sake”, the concentration of media ownership and have a situation and an unregulated / unregulatable internet we have a situation where democracy is almost untenable.

Where the elected government cannot make adjustments to policy to deal with changes in local and worldwide situations without a barrage of criticism. The recent Middle Eastern war is a case in point – the closure of oil refineries, bulk storage quoters have been common knowledge of federal, state, local governments and private companies of all types for MANY years, yet when the diesel, fuel and fertiliser dries up the air waves are flooded with rubbish – pictures of service stations out of stock, politicians filling trucks, and farmers talking up food shortages due to no diesel or fertilisers. There was a crisis: what happened to the much quoted Aussie mateship in a crisis? We saw the odd glimpse of it from gun /media shy Albanese govt with the usual criticism from everyone else.

As for AUKUS how could we legally commit that amount of money without parliamentary oversight on a whim and not expect some future criticism?

Support at Home has not been a problem for me.I did not wait a long-time for assessment and approval – first for level one support and second for level two support. My experience is care and support. My provider is competent and trying. I don’t know if my experience is typical or atypical and I would not want this experience to be used to discredit criticisms of Support at Home. All assessments and approvals should be efficient and quick and care and support should be individual-based and appropriate. I am wary of any government that shifts its focus from service quality and choice to “efficiency”, “cost control” and profitability

AUKUS has corrupted Australia’s defence and foreign policy priorities – initiated by an opportunistic Scott Morrison and endorsed by a cowardly Albanese. But, then, Australia’s defence and foreign policy priorities have usually been subordinate to either the UK or the USA. The purpose of AUKUS is to trap Australia to going to war with China in the future. Whitlam flirted with an independent foreign policy – despite his betrayal of East Timor. Keating would have developed an independent policy but was only PM for one term. Australia is afraid to criticise the chaotic, illegal and authoritarian defence and foreign policy of the US and avoids criticism of Israel for its systemic apartheid, ethnic cleansing and genocide of Palestinians. To do so could result in a Trump tirade and a new tariff.

Further to Jack Waterford’s fine polemic, you are far more likely to meet a much better standard of person in Long Bay, Lithgow or Wacol correctional centres than in any boardroom meeting involving our major banks.

In an era of gangster capitalism, the private control of credit is the modern form of slavery and the only item missing on any boardroom table is the baseball bat.

Strategically inappropriate, dangerously so. Financially reckless. Unlikely to succeed. The government is resisting all efforts to openly discuss this venture, which is so prudentially compromised from every aspect.

The short sightedness of placing faith in such a long term acquisition of specific platforms (manned nuclear powered submarines) in this age of increasingly rapid technological evolution, is reminiscent of the British government planting huge areas of forests to serve the needs of the Royal Navy in the 20th century. At least they ended up with some great forests!

The article by Kathy and Susan suggests a re-write of the corporate and governmental slogan of having the experts on tap and not on top. The work of the Department that they so roundly criticise has demonstrated quite clearly that there is nobody in the Department at senior level that has any idea of the practical realities of the aged care space in this country. It frankly also suggests such a lack in the political leadership displayed in putting forward the dog’s breakfast of the Support at Home program, without seeking the input of the independent experts, not just the self interest of the providers.

As an ex-public service head and a CEO of Meals on Wheels NSW I am reminded of the quote from the author of the Peter Principle, “In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.” The Department have in this instance rendered that observation as entirely appropriate!