Archives: Letters to the Editor

It was with a sense of resigned dismay that I read the prim statement about Gaza in the Sidoti interview you posted on 13 August: “Well, so far we’ve not used the term genocide. This is an issue that we’re looking at.”

I take it that “we” refers to the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, of which Sidoti is the commissioner.

It reminded me of something that Arundhati Roy said some years ago about NGOs, which are meant to act independently of governments. Her comments apply with even greater force to inter-governmental organisations like the UN, which are funded by governments.

Her words are worth repeating at some length:

“Their real contribution is that they defuse political anger … They alter the public psyche. They turn people into dependent victims and blunt the edges of political resistance. NGOs form a sort of buffer between the sarkar [someone in a position of authority] and public. Between empire and its subjects. They have become the arbitrators, the interpreters, the facilitators.

“In the long run, NGOs are accountable to their funders, not to the people they work among. They’re what botanists would call an indicator.”

Thanks to Noel Turnbull for directing attention to the annual UN-backed World Happiness Report. It’s worthwhile going to the bottom of the table and comparing the ten unhappiest with the ten happiest at the top. Just as happiness appears to be associated with a cold climate, unhappiness could be loosely associated with a hot one.

Nevertheless, a closer association can be found with fertility rates (the number of children per woman). With the exception of Israel, (2.92), all the happiest countries have fertility rates between 1.43 (Costa Rica) and 1.97 (Iceland). Apart from Israel, all are below replacement (2.1) but not so low as to distort the age structure excessively, that is, cause rapid ageing of the population. The average for the 10 happiest countries is 1.81. Take out Israel and the average for the remaining nine is 1.68.

At the other end of the happiness table, with the exception of Lebanon (1.71), all have fertility rates between 2.34 (Botswana) and 5.49 (DR Congo). The average fertility for the 10 unhappiest countries is 3.25. Take out Lebanon and the average for the remaining nine is 3.42, twice the fertility of the happiest countries bar Israel.

There’s a lesson there somewhere.

As Michael intimated, I feel the US economy has been bankrupt (in more ways than one!) for some time. The US has proven that it does not want any other currency to be elevated (eg oil sales in euros instead of US dollars).

However, I feel the world will experience instability until a form of international currency that is not dependent on the American dollar (or any other country’s currency) is generated. The dollar would then float and settle to a level that was sustainable. Until that time, the US can print money that devalues dollars held by other interests.

My feeling is that if an international currency was established, the US would then not be able to afford the wars that it seems to love supporting. Also, it might go some way to stabilising the UN, because the US hopefully might not be able to afford the current methods of world destabilisation.

I think this all could be accomplished if no country arranged a “deal” with our friend Donny. If trade gradually diminished with the US, and other countries traded between themselves using currencies other than the American dollar, the US would be forced to not act as a bully.

Heroic Palestinian journalist Anas al-Sharif was recently martyred in Gaza with four other journalist colleagues and left us a final inspiring message: “Yet I never stopped telling the truth as it is, without falsification or distortion – so that God may bear witness over those who stayed silent, accepted our killing, and did nothing to stop the massacre our people have endured for more than a year and a half”.

Similarly, the key imperatives from the WW2 Jewish Holocaust and indeed from all genocide and holocaust atrocities are “zero tolerance for lying”, “zero tolerance for racism”, “bear witness” and “never again to anyone”. Inspirational WW2 Polish hero Jan Karski tried to tell an unresponsive world about the Jewish Holocaust and the Polish Holocaust as they were happening.

Yet, for the West, genocide post-WW2 is almost exclusively done by non-Europeans that the US doesn’t like (see “The Politics of Genocide”). The Australian Government and Opposition are complicit in the Gaza genocide in 20 ways and lie for Apartheid Israel in 35 ways. Mainstream Australia under-counts over 10-fold the horrific Gaza “deaths from violence and deprivation” (Google the phrase). Bear witness, inaction is complicity, silence is complicity.

This article reinforces my opinion that it is full of opinions, not facts, and what we know about opinions is that everybody has one.

As fast as one opinion is given, many others appear. For example, on Tuesday, the RBA interest rate cut went in the space of one interview from a bonus for homeowners with a mortgage, to a problem for people with savings in the bank. Then it went to inflation, which wasn’t said to be the problem, it was productivity. Again, the talk went from being a win for the government to a RBA vote of no-confidence in the government.

Perhaps an improvement in productivity could be achieved if we had less high-paid people with opinions and more people working. At present, market forces have set the higher value of tradies and the market doesn’t like it.

As for the market forces mantra, I can’t help wondering about the latest and greatest AI, when things are left to humańs minipulating an inanimate object. Look at what we are getting: inflation.

That’s my opinion and it can’t be wrong because it’s mine.

The Israeli state has learned well the lessons of the US and British experiences of war. They have learned from all the aggressive wars, that the US and before it the UK have launched since the beginning of the information age, that control of the narrative is vital if they are to get away with mass murder.

The principal problem in doing that is either capturing or killing those who tell the truthful stories of the crimes as they are committed. Hence the deliberate, calculated assassination campaign against those truth-tellers.

The UN, controlled as it is by the West, has to throw off that control and act decisively or it will be condemned to the same fate as the League of Nations. It will be seen as expensive, futile and without moral authority. The emergence of the Global South is the one bright spot that will either achieve reform or create a new body controlled by the global majority that brings a moral judgement to geopolitical affairs clearly lacking in the Western-controlled UN.

The corrupt, criminal and scandalous Zionist Government and its many co-conspirators around the world have developed the technique of using the law to bury critics of their genocidal activities. Because they are so well funded by US taxpayers and various complicit Jewish oligarchs around the world, they have used threats of lawfare to silence the Western world.

Thank God, we are now beginning to get some courageous people who are prepared to use the law to fight back against this silencing of dissent and exposing the mass murder being perpetrated daily in Gaza and the West Bank.

It is notable that the greatest crime of the 20th century and now the greatest crime of the 21st century have been carried out by those who are in, or originate from, a West that sees its culture as superior to all others. That will be the burden of guilt that future Western generations will bear through the centuries for what their predecessors have permitted or actively participated in.

The emerging multipolar world will treat the West that remains as the uncivilised societies that we have demonstrably shown ourselves to be!

Jack Waterford’s article on the complexities of security and protest, as usual, is a great read.

I thought that Burgess had a vested interest in scary threats to get more funding. Fear facilitates funding, though I was scared of the mention of Mike Pezzullo having another go. Thanks Jack and P&I.

In 2023, Lucy Hamilton, writing in Pearls and Irritations, revealed that Advance Australia, a conservative lobbying group, has links to the US-based Atlas Network, described as a front for fossil fuel corporations that “blocks climate action and attacks democracy globally”. An anonymous whistleblower on Advance’s email list claims its latest goal is to “raise $450,000 by August 31” to campaign against net zero in Australia over the next “two-three years.”

The International Panel on the Information Environment, in Facts, Fakes, and Climate Science, warns that “powerful actors … intentionally spread inaccurate or misleading narratives about anthropogenic climate change”, eroding trust, hindering policy, and reinforcing denialism. Artificial intelligence compounds the risk: one study found that 27% to 50% of respondents could not distinguish deepfake climate videos from authentic ones.

There is help. IPIE has issued a Summary for Policy Makers; the Melbourne Centre for Cities has developed the Disinformation in the City Response Playbook; and the UN Development Programme offers a fact-checking flow chart. That these tools are needed is regrettable – but if we are to safeguard knowledge and democracy, we must fight back.

The twelfth opportunity would be to stop scaremongering over the Port of Darwin which was leased as an economic opportunity and remains an economic opportunity though the expansion is being hamstrung by uncertainty.

China and other countries in general have enough hardware surveilling the world to not require a person with binoculars and a mobile phone to report ship movenents out of Darwin and what brand of wipes the American Marines are using.

The Australian Government’s conditional proposal for the recognition of Palestine is untenable for both reasons of principle and practical reasons.

“Hamas” (like the ANC in South Africa) took part in armed resistance of an oppressive regime as years of failed negotiations presided over by Western Governments facilitated the ongoing oppression. How is a peaceful transition to occur without Hamas involvement?

If members of Hamas are to be excluded from involvement in the negotiations for the establishment of the government of Palestine, why are not the members of the genocidal Israeli regime similarly excluded? Exclusion of “Hamas” confers a de facto veto on Israel as to who takes part in the government of Palestine. Israel’s record of killing people and falsely designating them “Hamas” is well known.

The Palestinian Authority is a corrupt and deeply unpopular “Vichy” government of the West Bank. The Palestinian Authority should have a seat at the table, but Western Governments have no right to appoint them to the government of Palestine.

The condition excluding “Hamas” opens the Australian Government to the accusation that its conditional recognition of the state of Palestine is a fraudulent mask of its ongoing support of the genocidal Israeli regime.

Premier Chris Minns has become a liability to NSW Labor. His refusal to listen — whether to his own MPs, unions, or the party’s grassroots — shows a stubborn arrogance that has no place in a Labor leader.

As John Menadue observed, Minns is “out of step with the values of the Labor movement and the principles of democratic participation”. His championing of heavy-handed anti-protest laws, with penalties of up to two years in jail and fines of $22,000 for peaceful demonstrators, betrays Labor’s proud history of standing up for civil liberties and the right to dissent.

Senior Labor MPs, community leaders, and rank-and-file members have repeatedly called for him to rethink this approach. Instead of dialogue, Minns offers defiance – choosing to prioritise traffic flow and public order optics over fundamental freedoms. This is not leadership; it is a retreat from the values that have defined our movement for more than a century.

When a leader is so entrenched in his own position that he ignores the voices of his party and the people it represents, change becomes necessary. For the sake of unity, integrity, and the principles we hold dear, NSW Labor must replace Minns as premier.

This is only the latest in an endless series of articles on what government needs to do to fulfill its raison d’etre, facilitating the improved well-being of the nation. Few ever question the paradigm that was adopted globally in the 1980s that replaced the once-clearly understood role with one that says the public sector is best seen as a profit-making business competing for customers’ dollars.

Few ask what turned the problems of the last quarter-century into seemingly intractible ones that are implied as permanent features of our supposedly best-ever economic system.

I’m talking about what George Monbiot termed “The Invisible Doctrine” which has many aliases; monetarism, neoliberalism, economic rationalism, Chicago School or Austrian School neoclassical economics, etc.

It’s invisible because it’s now a cultural orthodoxy presented as if undifferentiated and omnipresent, like water to a fish or air to a Neanderthal. It just is, this is how we discuss it. Economics behind all policy now a zero-sum game.

It is time the many excellent heterodox economists, some Australian eg Steve Keen, Stephen Hail, Geoff Harcourt, Bill Mitchell, Prue Kerr etc., currently treated as heretics, were given a chance to show how changing our view can change society

Finally, after all the chatter about the cost of AUKUS, delivery, manning, deployment etc somebody is talking about what has been my concern all along: the radiation effect and nuclear waste disposal.

I seem to recall reports of beached Russian nuclear submarines rotting away and polluting the Arctic seas and also reports of higher levels of nuclear-related deaths of submariners worldwide.

I am concerned that with the usual practice of secrecy on US and UK bases on Australian soil, we will quietly become an unregulated nuclear waste dump for the world, probably without the benifit of cheap storage of our own low-level waste, all for some obsolete technology that may never be delivered.

Paddy Gourley makes some excellent points in his analysis of ASIO chief, Mike Burgess’ annual Hawke Lecture. But he is too kind in his assessment of Burgess’ account of ASIO’s historic performance.

Burgess’ account of the Combe/Ivanov Affair is at best misleading.

Burgess quotes then prime minister, Bob Hawke, saying after the event: “There was no question in my mind that we had to be tough, decisive and immediate in our reaction. Any pussy footing around… could have been seen as… soft on the threat of Soviet espionage… I knew it was a sort of make-or-break situation. And if we didn’t handle that properly we would have been a one-term government.”

Burgess then goes on to says: “Despite the claims of his critics including David Combe, the PM handled the crisis properly and went on to win three more elections.”

Yes, he won three more elections. But initially Hawke grossly over-reacted when he was briefed on the matter. He was brought to his senses at Cabinet’s national security committee meeting on 26 April 1983, when deputy prime minister Nigel Bowen questioned then ASIO chief Harvey Barnett’s account of the affair. Foreign minister Bill Hayden also questioned Barnett’s case, which Hawke had wholeheartedly accepted.

In the end, they got Hawke to pull his head in.

The subsequent Royal Commission revealed ASIO’s incompetence. ASIO “transcripts” of conversations between Canberra lobbyist David Combe and Soviet agent, Valeri Ivanov were riddled with mistakes. Even those produced with full authorisation, and using all the resources at ASIO’s disposal — such as that between Combe and businessman Laurie Matheson — had astonishing mistakes.

“Even old stacks talk,” Combe is reported to have said, a comment that conspiracy theorists listening might perhaps interpret as some kind of code.

In fact, Combe plainly said: “Ivanov’s been expelled”.

Even worse was ASIO’s report that Hawke staffer, Bob Hogg had had breakfast with Combe, in defiance of a direct order from Hawke that no meetings with Combe were to take place.

At the time, ASIO had a full-time surveillance team monitoring Combe’s movements, and his phone was tapped. But they still managed to report a meeting that never happened.

This insight into ASIO’s performance is important. The intelligence ASIO gathers is not made public, like a newspaper report, or a posting on the internet. In time, its records of who did what become part of its files, to be used unchecked by future agents. With this record, how sure can we be today that ASIO is getting it right?

(In 1983 Paul Malone covered the Combe/Ivanov Royal Commission for the Australian Financial Review.)

It was always a plan to occupy Gaza since day one of the Six-Day war.

Are Jeruselem and the Christians safe from the next phasę of the Israeli plan?

This plan was written around the 13 century BCE.

The quote “Truth is therefore the aim of science; science is the search for truth” from Karl Popper encapsulates the scientific method which he believed would protect future generations from assaults on the truth. Unfortunately, neither Donald Trump nor Robert Kennedy Jr have any notion of the principles underlying science and, consequently, have done irreparable harm to the American people.

The cancellation of US$600 million in funding to the company Moderna for development of an mRNA vaccine against bird flu, and then another US$500 million for 22 more projects developing mRNA vaccines, are philistine acts. All because Kennedy thinks vaccines are linked to autism in children, a theory that has been disproven over and over again.

Perhaps the most egregious of all the cuts, however, apart from the dismantling of USAID, are those relating to weather and climate, notably the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. This is the main agency for weather forecasting and climate monitoring. And soon, NASA’s science branch, which plays a significant role in weather and climate forecasting through its Earth science research and satellite missions, will lose half its funding. This will, in turn, compromise Australia’s ability to make accurate weather forecasts.

When politicians of all persuasions spend all their time and our money passing laws to stop the general voting public telling them how they feel (protesting), this is what you get and it’s not democracy.

I think it’s nothing to see here, look over there: politics.

What is being deliberately spread by complicit Western mainstream media as the truth is the output of a well-oiled and US-funded Israeli PR campaign designed to keep the ugly truth from us. But even within Israel, alternative voices are telling the truth.

That truth is that Israel faces an existential crisis, both within its military and its economy. The IDF has suffered vastly more casualties than the Israeli and world public are being told. A figure of 10,000 dead is widely agreed by external military analysts. over 100,000 reservists have failed to turn up when called up and hundreds of thousands of Israelis, including those reservists, are fleeing to other countries, almost certainly never to return.

Suicide in the IDF is reaching epidemic proportions.

In addition, it was Netanyahu who sought the ceasefire with Iran as the Iranian missile and drone strikes on Israeli military and intelligence infrastructure had disabled much of their capacity to wage war and to have the upper hand in intelligence.

Israeli military leaders are threatening resignation if the government directs them to occupy Gaza. They simply don’t have the troops to do it as they know Hamas is still capable of crushing them!

Millions of decent Jews around the world have struggled with the conflict between their belief in the state of Israel and the daily atrocities that state is committing against the Palestinian people.

Like billions of other people around the planet they are repulsed and nauseated by what is being done in their names. That demonstrates unequivocally the vacuity of the use of the valid problem of antisemitism to cloak these crimes against humanity in the garb of self-defence.

I thank these doctors for joining the world community in abhorring these crimes and seeking their immediate cessation.

The genocide continues and still all we get from our government is words, words totally ignored by the Israeli Government and its supporters. No action. No BDS. No recognition of Palestine.

But our PM says recognition of Palestine is “only a matter of time”. What a meaningless comment. It’s not time, but what happens in time that is important. What is Anthony Albanese waiting for, what has to happen, in that unspecified length of time, for him and his government to formally recognise Palestine and its people? Is he waiting for the genocide to be complete? Or is he waiting for permission from the US, complicit in the genocide as it is? Or is he waiting for Palestine to unilaterally surrender the hostages and its land, for they amount to the same thing?

And will Albanese be one of those hypocrites of whom that popular meme says, “One day everyone will have been against this genocide”? Because coming too late to doing something beyond mouthing meaningless words will not remove the stain of shame.

Australians are often quick to condemn “the human rights record” of other countries. I suggest before doing that, they should first read the 30 July, 2025 letter of the Northern Territory Paediatricians to the chief Minister of the Northern Territory as one example of the inhumane treatment of fellow Australians, in this case the incarceration of Aboriginal children, detailing their poor physical and mental state when the first come to the notice of our “justice” system.

On reading that letter, it’s not hard to justify calling Australia a country with an entrenched and systematic racism problem. To those who deny it, please tell me how you justify your denial.

We should get our own house in order before condemning others.

An extremely well-argued article, but just one small caveat. The reference in the sentence “Putin’s Government is perhaps second only to Benjamin Netanyahu’s as the world’s most reviled litigant”, depends very closely on the definition of “the world” that is adopted.

Make no mistake if we are genuinely talking about the whole world, rather than just the 15% segment that is the West, then the most reviled litigants are easily the US as number one, followed by its satrap Israel.

Russia, for the other 85% of humanity, doesn’t score anywhere near the top as is demonstrated by that 85% clamouring to join the BRICS+ group of nations, one of the principal members and founders of which is Russia.

More than 50% of humanity are currently members or partners and at least another 25% of humanity are likely to be accepted into the group within the next 12 to 18 months.

Indeed, votes within the UN General Assembly are not infrequently these days overwhelmingly supported by virtually the whole world except the US and Israel and some tiny island states that are satraps of the US. Even in the West, the US under Trump is regarded as fatal to its friends.

Two main points.

First, it is well past time that Australian media commentary about 7 October 2023 take into account what the Israeli media itself noted in 2024, that the so-called “Hannibal Directive” was issued to Israeli forces, resulting in hundreds of cannon shells and missiles fired from gunships and tanks, making it impossible to determine how many Israeli casualties on that day were inflicted by their own forces.

Second, it is important that the Australian Government be held accountable for its many-stranded elements of complicity in genocide, and be excluded completely from having any say or playing any role in international decisions relating to Palestine.

Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, has described the Australian Government’s position on Palestine as “pathetic”, and she has stated that if “Australia is not ready to recognise the state of Palestine”, it should have “nothing to say about the two-state solution [and] nothing to contribute with when it comes to the two-state solution”. She is correct.

For the last 2000 years, advancements in warfare have altered the state of war and without much pushback. Nuclear is just another progressive armament.

As destructive as nuclear has been demonstrated to be, its effectiveness is limited. A technology that has greater power and effectiveness is the digital world.

Nah. Nuclear is the least of our problems. We have much greater threats to our future staring us in the face.

Despite all the rhetoric, there is no need to increase the GST. Indeed, there is no need to panic about improving our tax system, overall. However, there is one area of taxation that could do with a massive shake-up, and doing so could solve a lot of problems.

Foreign companies — especially mining companies — must be forced to pay their fair share for the right to use our nation’s people, resources and infrastructure to make a profit. Despite making huge profits, many such companies have paid no Australian tax for decades – and we know how they do it, by shifting their profits to foreign tax havens via inter-company loans.

Luckily, there is a simple way to prevent this tax avoidance: by taxing foreign companies 1% of the revenue they collect in Australia. One percent is not too much to ask for the right to profit from our people, our resources and our infrastructure. It would raise billions of dollars without having to increase the GST.

Most of us are feeling helpless to reach out to the Palestinian children and their families.

I would love to donate to help the children who suffered amputations and require prosthetics. I am aware that we would not be able to deliver and provide the prosthetists to Gaza, but we can start to organise financially now so we can act on it as soon as we get an opportunity.

I would appreciate if you could bring that up with John Menadue and people following Pearls and Irritations who are feeling helpless to help.

John Deeble is one of my heroes. He and Whitlam did a radical thing in introducing Medibank. So I was disappointed with the use of Medicare throughout this article.

I remember clearly after only a few years of Medibank, Malcolm Fraser’s Government gleefully destroyed it, for ideological reasons and following the wishes of the AMA. They changed it to Medibank Private, just another health insurance company. A good, essential thing was cruelly snatched away. If you couldn’t afford private health insurance, tough. You paid for healthcare, or went without.

It was devastating for many Australians. I remember clearly how my family struggled, even though we got lower cost insurance through dad’s lodge.

It was only with the election of the Hawke ALP Government that universal healthcare was reintroduced, with Deeble advising Hewett. This time the scheme was named Medicare.

Deeble did it twice.

By calling Deeble’s original Medibank, Medicare, you are smoothing over history, and in danger of conflating the two. Those too young to remember will not be able to appreciate the initial struggle, the years of suffering without universal health careand the final victory.

We owe a huge debt to Deeble for Medibank and Medicare.

1. Why does Hamas not surrender unconditionally and return all hostages?

2. Is there still any actual armed or other resistance by Hamas militants? (if so, where do they get the ammunition?) Why is a “ceasefire” needed if there are no armed, fighting Palestinians?

3. Has any evidence been given by IDF for (repeated):
• murdering food/aid seekers
• bombing of civilians.

4. How much opposition is there in Israel (by Israelis) to genocide, as opposed to just return of hostages?

5. How much opposition is there within Israel to West Bank attacks by settlers and the IDF?

6. Is there any evidence of IDF personnel refusing to carry out murder or other unlawful orders, or avoiding conscription by leaving Israel (permanently) “on holiday”?

7. To what extent is Hamas actually a “terrorist organisation”? Or are they just the (elected) government, with some (rebel?) militia who committed the attack in October 2003?

8. Is there any evidence that Israeli intelligence knew of the planning of the October attack and deliberately let it happen so that they could have an excuse to destroy Gaza and expel the Palestinians?

9. Why do (all) international governments not declare Israel a terrorist state?

Let’s look back after Gareth Evans’ article, at the Indian Ocean Zone of Peace proposal by Sri Lanka in 1964 which was endorsed by the UN. I recently found a 1984 letter to me by then aviation minister, Kim Beazley.

The letter puts the Forces Posture Agreement with US and UK nuclear armed submarines operating from Rockingham in a new light. Beazley said the then federal government was committed to an IOZP. He was involved in lobbying in Washington for continued US participation in the UN Ad-Hoc Committee on Indian Ocean Arms limitation. Warship visits, under the IOZP, he said, should be addressed within multilateral confidence-building measures.

Beazley wanted to avoid a situation where major Australian population centres are targeted, so he moved at the ALP conference to prevent permanent basing of foreign warships in Perth. He said permanent facilities attract weapons, and these would likely include tactical nuclear weapons which an enemy would want to destroy whether such ships were in port or not. We must not, he said, support propositions that warship visits attract nuclear strikes irrespective of the permanence of their presence. Doing so would be anti-Americanism. He had opposed the permanent basing of [foreign] warships since Fraser proposed it.