Archives: Letters to the Editor

It’s a long-established truth that, in any situation, if you want resolution and progress you are well-advised to present people with solutions rather than problems. So thanks to Bob Douglas for offering potential solutions for global action to address the existential threats that he and his colleagues in the Council for the Human Future have been alerting us about.

Quoting from Julian Cribb’s How to fix a broken planet, he presents 10 initiatives which, if undertaken on a global scale, could pull the world back from its current existential precipice.

Cribb is under no illusion about the magnitude of these challenges, as Bob Douglas quotes from Cribb’s book: these problems, and their solutions “call for the greatest act of single-minded collaboration and caring that humans have ever undertaken”.

Douglas’ article presents these possibilities succinctly and engagingly: high time for the world to read this book, and engage with global solutions.

Thanks Brian Toohey, great article.

As noted, during WW2, Australian industry supplied huge quantities of food, medicine, clothing, ammunition, explosives, rifles, guns, ships and 2000 combat aircraft.

We also had a merchant navy, ships owned and crewed by Australians that were key to that effort.

Now there are no ships and no crew.

The technology is now radically different and changes at a phenomenal pace (evolving on a monthly and weekly basis in Ukraine) but the fundamental problem remains the lack of local manufacture and sustainment. Big bits of kit are vulnerable, not suited to our vast territory; a poor use of funds.

Our economy is hollowed out by economic theories that made no allowance for war. We need smarts more than fodder. Smart tech, smart spending and a lot smarter strategy and diplomacy.

Sadly, the second iteration of the Albanese Government seems to be headed in the same spineless, timorous, obsequious, mealy-mouthed direction as the first.

If so, would this lead to what could be called a double disillusion?

Australia’s compulsory superannuation system, a $4 trillion behemoth, is, in my opinion, a catastrophe. In its essence, it serves to effect massive transfers of wealth from the less well-off to the most well-off.

It ensures that your socioeconomic status during your working years will continue inexorably into your retirement years – the antithesis of the Australian “fair go”. Think, just for a moment, of those who didn’t actually work much or at all (in the paid sense) during those years — carers, disabled people, life’s battlers — condemned to get by solely on the old age pension – whose inadequacy we ignore because we believe that super has retirement funding sorted.

I could go on, but why take the word of an amateur? Some experts to look at include Cameron Murray, Robert Lechte and The Australia Institute.

With today’s knowledge of the physical world and what holds it together psychologically, that the Scriptures have been assembled into a politically focussed holy manual is indisputable.

True, the instructions therein underwrote the evolutionary phase at a particular point in the human experiment, but beating ploughshares into swords took time and effort. We can now summon Armageddon at the press of a button.

David O’Halloran’s plea to edit the Holy Book with a 21st century perspective, as essential as it is to humanity’s survival, may be falling on deaf ears. Manipulation and subjugation of people of faith has become a successful business model as well as a convenient excuse for utterly contemptible political conduct, at nearly every level imaginable.

But full marks for speaking out from the pulpit, David. And while you’re up there, you could call for the removal of the chapters in Genesis that gave mankind dominion over every living thing. After all, that’s where the rot really set in.

The revelations by Warwick Anderson and Kerry Breen about medical research fraud and the ways in which it is covered up by vested interests are so shocking that I am reminded of the famous exchange in Casablanca when Captain Renault, chief of Police, closes Rick’s café and has to find a pretence for it when Rick asks him why:

Captain Renault to Rick: “I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!”
Croupier, appearing at his shoulder: “Your winnings, sir.”
Captain Renault:”Oh, thank you very much.”

Brian Toohey makes some very good points in his 2 July opinion piece. Australia’s security and defence requirements are not similar to either those of the US or Europe. We are not covered by NATO or any other similar treaty and we do not have Russia on our doorstep. If we did need to spend 3.5% GDP on defence, it would be a
coincidence with America’s request.

Given our terrible history of joining America in conflicts, no way should we join them in defending Taiwan or agree to linking Taiwan with the use of any nuclear submarines sold to us by America, or to be part of any tariff negotiations. We have accepted for decades that Taiwan is part of China.

Given that America will not guarantee to defend Australia but will probably mandate access to these submarines and that these conditions will probably persist after Trump, we need at least a plan B.

I do worry though when informed but not defence expert commentators like Toohey specify the detailed hardware and systems Australia needs. We should start with an overdue update of the Gillard 2013 National Security Strategy.

As a long lapsed Christian, whose limited knowledge comes from his teens growing up in a Protestant household, I’ve long been unable to understand the significance of the Old Testament and why the teachings of Christ don’t always trump the teachings in the Old Testament.

The Old Testament is the foreword setting the scene for what is to come.

In Palestine, the foreword has become the text and it is time for Christians to distribute the loaves and fishes, put an end to all the smiting, and stop facilitating the smiting in an attempt to fast-track the second coming hoping to benefit their own capitalist false gods.

This has been one of the most significant social reforms of the past century as it has not only provided far greater security in retirement than the pension system, but has also provided a vast aggregation of capital to enable national investment in public infrastructure outside the vagaries of politics and national budgeting.

This alone secures Keating’s place in Australian history.

As a beneficiary and supporter of super, I would like to offer some improvements to the scheme:

1. That the payout be compulsorily taken as a pension.

2. That the scheme give priority to investing in Australian Government/state and national infrastructure projects with the Reserve Bank setting variable interest rates on the loan.

3. That politicians’ super be included in the scheme and that the same operational rules apply to all Australians.

4. That ideologically opposed Parliaments be specifically banned from legislation allowing “crisis“ early drawdown schemes.

5. That the balance in super be considered as equity for housing deposits.

I recall when our superannuation system was introduced. Further, I also well recall those days when we were fortunate to have politicians with the kind of intellectual power and vision that delivered this, and now, the extraordinary Australian superannuation assets we have today.

I cannot imagine looking at retirement on a government pension, when I have the good fortune, after decades of work, to have membership in a Defined Benefit higher education industry fund.

What is disappointing is the variable but overt lack of vision and imagination in subsequent politicians regarding the original dynamic purpose, collective and private benefits of this remarkable national asset.

It isn’t meant to serve as an easily accessible or modifiable political bandaid. This includes our current treasurer, starkly relative to the Labor team who gifted this to Australia. I say thank you, Mr Keating.

Allan Patience is spot on in this article. With the American Government fighting internecine battles against its justice, educational and economic systems, the US is imploding.

To avoid being caught up in its death throes we must develop an independent foreign policy. It’s time we left the false security of Uncle Sam and lit out on our own.

I agree wholeheartedly with Trish Bolton. In my mid-70s now, with a walking stick and a booming voice, I earn my right to an Age Pension and am proud of my creative, activist life.

As an active union member throughout my (paid) working life, I helped fight for better working conditions and equal opportunities for women here and around the world. As a peace activist, I’ve marched with hundreds of thousands of people fighting against wars and discrimination against so-called minority peoples in a US-led rules-biased global hegemony.

Police violence was the norm in the 1960s and we fought against this as well. What I really enjoyed being part of in my younger days was that we built on a culture of “fair-go” that tried to set an example for future generations. We fought hard to avoid personal and wider victimisation based on gender, race/culture and age as well as on class values.

We believed in unity, not in blaming survivors of patriarchal violence. We made mistakes and we learned from them. Blame us for million-dollar mortgages and over-stretched credit cards if it makes you happy. I still believe, however, in unity and strength.

Way back in 1948 during a speech in Manchester, Nye Bevan declared a deep burning hatred towards the UK Tory party and proclaimed they were lower than vermin and nothing more than organised spivvery.

Indeed, substantial evidence indicates the words resonate much more today than they did over seven decades ago.

An excellent review by Jack. A couple of Israeli standard attempts to justify its abominations, however, need to be put to bed clearly and accurately. The first is that Israel has a “right to exist”. Under international law, no country has the right to exist. There is nothing in international law that says so. What international law does is to give a “people” a right to exist. Countries just exist at any one time and may not have existed in the past and may not exist in the future as international borders change constantly.

Secondly Israel, in the case of Gaza, occupied Southern Lebanon and parts of occupied Syria, does not possess under international law the right to defend itself as it is an occupying power. Indeed, it has major responsibilities imposed on it as an occupying power in relation to the people of the country which it is occupying, which it has breached every day since it came into existence nearly 80 years ago. As for its “preventative” war against Iran, that is also prohibited by international law. Just as the US and Israel have supported terrorist groups in other countries, so has Iran!

I can’t quite grasp the overall message of Trish Bolton’s Boomer talk. Yes, we are privileged, and had things so much easier in early adulthood than do millennials these days, but we apparently have to suffer scorn, ridicule and derision from those much younger than us.

And we should not be blind to the fact that not all Boomers are financially secure. But aren’t these truisms just facts of life in any non-homogenous group? Neither of my two children in their late thirties/early forties can envisage ever being able to buy their own home albeit they are both in professional jobs with similarly educated partners, all of whom have just finished paying off their HECS debts.

I changed jobs at 60 and never thought for a moment i would not gain another well-paying secure job, which indeed I did. All up, life is so much more enjoyable now that I am largely invisible to those who would have pestered me in the past and I have the total confidence not to take offence at any ageism directed towards me, albeit this happens so rarely.

There are growing calls for Australia to boost defence spending – but is it wise or necessary? As Julian Cribb points out, the “lust for conquest, self-aggrandisement and dominion” from some world leaders is diverting attention and resources from the far greater threat of climate change.

In January, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists moved the Doomsday Clock to 89 seconds to midnight — the closest it’s ever been — citing not only the risk of nuclear war but also escalating climate change and the spread of disinformation.

The World Economic Forum’s 2025 Global Risks Survey, based on over 900 expert responses, ranks “Misinformation and disinformation” as the top short-term risk, and “Extreme weather events” as the leading long-term threat. In contrast, “State-based armed conflict” ranks lower.

These assessments echo former defence chief Admiral Chris Barrie’s view that climate change poses a greater threat to Australia than China.
Given global military spending has hovered around 2.2% to 2.4% of GDP for decades, Labor’s defence target of 2.3% by 2033-34 is balanced – especially since GDP is expected to grow a further 24% by then.

The divisive nature of politics has led us to this point and under this system there always has to be someone to blame.

It has become the norm for the cost of services and government projects to always be reported as a cost, not a benefit eg when was the last time Medicare, PBS, aged care or the NDIS were reported as the benefits provided? It is always the cost to the taxpayer.

We hear about the price of upgrading the electrical supply system, NBN, highways etc forgetting that for many years private suppliers have benefitted from the privatisation of public utilities that were well constructed and maintained by past governments Eg private Telstra is still benefitting from the removal of copper wire installed when it was unusual for middle-class suburbs to have a telephone in most houses.

As long as each election is based on who will tax the most, not who will benefit the most, the blame game will continue. The service continue the downward trend and those that complain loudest about paying taxes will complain loudest about the response when affected by a disaster.

Julian Cribb says, with some, I hope excusable, editing that, ‘The pathological character of modern political leadership … has diverted us from our own survival, as a civilisation – and maybe as a species, … contributing to a humanity, as Darwin might have described it, “less fit to survive”’.

The phrase “survival of the fittest” is mostly misused these days to imply that individuals and groups who fulfill the Olympic motto of “Faster, Higher, Stronger”, to which one might add smarter, better armed, richer, more ruthless, etc., are very justifiably most likely to succeed in life.

Julian, with his legitimate 21st century amendment of the phrase, is, I think, using it more in line with its original meaning: species that are best fitted to living in their environment are most likely to enjoy reproductive success and so survive for many generations.

The tragedy is that it is not some uncontrollable slow change or cataclysmic external event (think dinosaurs) that is destroying the good fit between humans and our environment but our own collective stupidity.

Finally, sorry to be a pedant, it was Herbert Spencer not Darwin who coined the phrase “survival of the fittest”.

Did anyone ask “Do you think Trump is an egomaniac“? What percentage answered yes? A larger percentage in Australia?

Did you ever see a picture of a gathering of world leaders where he isn’t front and centre and he takes his ball and goes home if he isn’t?
Whatever he does is bigger and better, even if it isn’t.

Trump is ungracious in his language about past and present leaders.

He isn’t worthy of a Nobel Peace prize (no US president is) but his ego demands he get one. because someone else got one.

The title of Julian Cribb’s article was very apt: the world is indeed too distracted by war to deal with climate change and is thus marching towards catastrophe. There is no one solution; rather many that have to be implemented in parallel.

The most obvious is making the energy transition away from fossil fuels to renewables. The next is a ban on deforestation followed by widespread reafforestation. But we have to address economic growth and not regard it as a wholesale good. Like the curate’s egg, it is good in part, namely in those areas that benefit the planet or humanity such as growth in renewable technologies.

In non-essential areas, however, we have to contract the human enterprise, both the human economy and overall numbers. It is not much good having low carbon energy if we are still using resources at an alarming rate, for instance, building ever more houses to shelter ever more people.

If we could achieve zero population growth globally, that is, not have 70 million more people every year, it would give us some breathing space to look at a more circular human economy, one that does not use resources faster than they can be replenished.

I acknowledge Sue’s pain at the bullying use of labels such as antisemitism to divert community attention from the perpetration of genocide. Many of us have been similarly targeted. but not to the same extent, by the supporters of a regime that closely resembles in its guiding political ideology and its criminal actions the Nazis of mid-last century Europe.

That drawing attention to this and highlighting its corrosive affect on our shared humanity can be used as a weapon demonstrates the capacity of such extreme ideologies to distort the perceptions and actions of possibly otherwise normal human beings.

As Voltaire wrote, “those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” That is a pithy and succinct summary of Zionism. Long may you fight its poison, Sue!!

Bruce Dover clearly points out Australia’s toxic dependency on Uncle Sam now that Mother England is ageing. He depicts Penny Wong and the prime minister as supine and timid about our international position – even though they have the numbers to be courageous and visionary.

Might I suggest it is not myopia, it is an adolescent nation fearing to leave the previous cosy dependence on mum and dad.

Taken from this article:

“Thirty-seven other countries jumped to Beijing’s defence, with their own letter praising China’s human rights record, and dismissing the reported detention of up to two million Muslims in western China’s Xinjiang region. Nearly half of the signatories were Muslim-majority nations, including Pakistan, Qatar, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia, according to the Chinese Government.

“Faced with the grave challenge of terrorism and extremism, China has undertaken a series of counter-terrorism and deradicalisation measures in Xinjiang, including setting up vocational education and training centres,” the letter said, according to Reuters, which saw a copy of the letter. The letter went on to say that there had been no terrorist attacks in the past three years in the region, and that the people there were happy, fulfilled and secure.”

The capacity of Bibi to lie, deceive, prevaricate, distort, fabricate, forge and perjure himself publicly and openly exceeds all bounds of decency, humanity and morality.

It is not true to say that you can tell when he is lying when his lips are moving. It goes way past that. Every waking moment of his despicable life is a lie. The time is coming when he will have to face his Nuremburg moment. It cannot come too soon for humanity.

Having just read Allan Patience’s fine article, I am even more perturbed than before, at Australia’s mindless acceptance of the educational philosophy that currently reveres STEM education as the be-all and end-all of education, and the current downgrading of language teaching and the humanities. Yes science, maths etc are very important, but those now downgraded studies are urgently needed. Australians need to tune in to our neighbours in Asia.

We’re getting all our news not just from Caucasian countries, but worse just from anglophone countries. We keep being told that China is the big threat and all out to invade us. That is supposed to our foreign policy preoccupation. And it is silly.

Never before has violence been so encouraged, and disdain for life and liberty been so blatant.

A US president who encourages violence against immigrants living and working within his country; a man who encourages the suppression of free speech against journalists and anyone who has a difference of opinion. A president who bullies countries that don’t want to trade in the way he wishes to, and threatens to take over sovereign nations for his own means; a man who bombs countries illegally, and sends the military into a war zone -that he and his cronies created — under the cover of “aid”, to shoot starving people with impunity — killing, scores of people every day. A “leader” who has condoned the bombing of hospitals and schools, the killing of aid workers, the kidnapping of medical teams, and created a country with the highest number of child amputees in history.

A psychologist/psychiatrist would look at that personality, at his insatiable need for power, attention, and money, and diagnose all sorts of inferiority complexes and narcissistic attitudes.

And our prime minister sits mutely by and says nothing to condemn these horrific actions, except, “We support US action”.

It’s all very well decrying Australia’s media myopia, but look who owns it. We’ve got Murdoch, Zuckerberg and Musk, for whom the US dollar, garnered worldwide, is God. Fairfax persisted until finally capitulating to the Nine Network. Credibility died there when a year’s worth of red ink decorated Peter Hartcher’s histrionic, fear-mongering, anti-China series. Poor old Aunty is seriously infected by Liberal Party appointments and funding cuts. Its former quality innovation and Australian content has diminished drastically.

No wonder our always UK/US focussed mainstream media, now constricted even further by reduced ownership, is now referred to as legacy media. Their negatives are outdone more entertainingly by influencers (my God!), foreign agents of unknown countries or organisations, technologically brilliant but morally bankrupt computer nerds out for money and/or a laugh. It’s surprising that the world, and Australia in it, is as informed as it is.

Bruce Dover’s suggested remedies are apposite. But when the real problem is media ownership in Australia plus, increasingly, foreign and malign activity in new media? When, if ever, have we seen a government with the intelligence and courage to take on such a necessary and worthwhile challenge? Don’t hold your breath.

Fred Zhang lays out quite clearly the need for balance in reporting on China. In view of Donald Trump’s attitude to China, particularly Taiwan, it is important to note the following from The Guardian on 28 June:

“Tim Kaine, a Virginia democrat who sponsored the resolution, also harkened back to the founders’ drafting of the constitution when he spoke to his colleagues on Friday. He spoke about how George Washington was president at the time.

“As much as they respected leaders like George Washington, they said war is too big a decision. It’s too big a decision for one person,” Kaine said. “So, they wrote a constitution that said the United States should not be at war without a vote of Congress.” “

Compare that with Section 8 of our Defence Act, which gives the minister for Defence general control and administration of our defence force. This is despite most submissions asking for change in how war powers are exercised in a relatively recent inquiry.

Why the need for change? Well, Richard Marles’ recent statements in Singapore about falling in behind the US have virtually ceded the Section 8 powers to Donald Trump, with no prior recourse to our Parliament.

I’m not the slightest bit interested in sport or physical activity. I’d rather read a book. I walk three times weekly for my health only because there’s coffee and conversation at the end. Yet even I am sick of gambling ads on TV and in public spaces when I go out. And I’m aware, to my shame, that my monthly pub dinner is cheap because it’s subsidised by the gambling losses of people playing pokies across the other side of the bar.

So when the government caves to highly visible gambling industry lobbying and refuses to ban gambling advertising and harms are so obvious even to people like me, is it any wonder the far less visible but more contested fossil fuel lobbyists get away with killing the planet?

More power to community independent parliamentarians who are fighting so hard to protect individuals and society against the significant harm of gambling. That they fight to legislate protections that both Labor and Liberal agree are necessary only shows how captured political parties are by corporations and their lobbyists. Remember, gambling is only the tip of the iceberg. It’s not too soon to be thinking wisely about your vote in 2028.