Archives: Letters to the Editor

Sachs and Fares sound a timely warning. US director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, has just sounded a timely warning too. Nothing “bizarre” about it, as some media would have it.

She said, “I recently visited Hiroshima in Japan and stood at the epicentre of a city that remains scarred by the unimaginable horror caused by a single nuclear bomb dropped in 1945, 80 years ago. Yet this one bomb that caused so much destruction in Hiroshima was tiny compared to today’s nuclear bombs.

“As we stand here today closer to the brink of nuclear annihilation than ever before, political elites and warmongers are carelessly fomenting fear and tension between nuclear powers. So it’s up to us, the people, to speak up and demand an end to this madness. We must reject this path to nuclear war and work towards a world where no one has to live in fear of a nuclear holocaust.“

Strong and courageous sentiments indeed!

Is it at all possible that Anthony Albanese is just the leader we need?  The steady-as-we-go quiet achiever that we need. I hope so, because the alternative is unthinkable.

Like “free markets” and “artificial intelligence”, problems themselves aren’t living human beings, they can’t be “wicked”. That would be ministers and mandarins.

Dr Kennedy got the top PM&C job by dueting with Dr Chalmers. Singing the Langton Crescent ballad of “net zero, budget repair, inflation fighting, million jobs, rising wages”, while delivering their million-plus migrants, carefree expansion in non-market jobs, and declining living standards for punters.

A South Seas island with stable government, endless energy resources, and easily managed borders, ought to have low power prices, reasonably affordable housing, and negligible population-pressures. It amuses the elite to inflict the opposite.

Peter Sainsbury’s striking graph on gas use from 2013 to 2023 reveals a shocker: Western Australia consumes as much gas as Victoria, Queensland and NSW combined – despite having a much smaller population. How? Because 36% of WA’s gas is used by the gas industry itself just to produce LNG for export.

As The Australia Institute notes, just running gas export terminals uses more gas than Australia’s entire manufacturing sector–— and over twice what households use. WA’s gas consumption and emissions have both soared over the decade, making it the biggest handbrake on Australia’s climate goals. It’s also stalling progress on stronger nature laws.

Yet instead of pulling the brakes, the federal government is hitting the accelerator – greenlighting Woodside’s North West Shelf gas expansion. If WA is fuelling the climate crisis, Canberra is lighting the match.

Paul Keating is right to take to task the part of the federal government that this week wants to join the US in war with China. Last week, it seems we weren’t automatically joining the US in fighting China.

After all, this week Trade Minister Don Farrell celebrated ChAFTA, the free trade agreement with China, at a 400-person event in Melbourne.

I quote from China Daily:

“Australia’s Minister for Trade and Tourism, Don Farrell, praised ChAFTA for its ‘substantial benefits for both Australia and China’.

“Since coming into force in December 2015, two-way trade has more than doubled to A$312 billion (US$204 billion). And that growth has resulted in ‘more jobs, more investment and greater prosperity for Australia’, he said.

“Farrell reflected on his visit to the China International Import Expo in Shanghai last year, where he saw “just how much Chinese consumers value Australian products”.

“ChAFTA is more than just a free trade agreement. It was and remains a symbol of the benefits for both our countries that can be realised by deeper co-operation,” he noted.”

Why is our federal government so determined to deliberately confuse the Australian body politic?

How stupid is Donald Trump?

Greenland is closer, but it doesn’t want to be taken over, annexed or bought… and it’s got all that pesky ice and snow.

Why isn’t Trump turning his eyes to Australia? We’ve got all that Greenland has to offer without the hassle of all that freezing stuff. And our government is doing its darnedest to give us to to the US on a plate.

Seems we can’t wait to go to yet another unnecessary war. One thing we can be sure of though… it won’t be Marles’ or Albanese’s children on the front line.

I’ve no doubt that China considers plans for defence as part of its normal governance and every country should and would be irresponsible if it didn’t . It may be that Chinese media is beholden to the Chinese Government or more likely that Australian media covers Chinese politics with such bias.

But any world champion fighter will tell you that you don’t broadcast your punches and, if you do, you will lose. Richard Marles is unsuitable as Australia’s defence minister because for a start he can’t help himself broadcasting our punches, he can’t keep his mouth shut.

Anthony Albanese should, at the very least, gag him or preferably demote him for the good of Australia, Labor factional politics or not.

As it stands, by virtue of our much broadcast alliances, comes a war we are heading for, a first round knock-out with no allies in sight, just a little target practice. “Elephants fight, the grass gets trampled.“

Marle’s admission we are essential to American military action against China is necessarily an admission that we are a primary pre-emptive target for China to defend itself as long as we have the US as an ally.

Also that we can enforce stability in the region simply by kicking the US out of Australia, including Pine Gap.

A worthwhile analysis, but to get a deeper understanding it needs to have some context. In that respect, I would recommend two ground-breaking books that set out very clearly that context. The first is Taking the Risk out of Democracy by a brilliant but now sadly deceased Australian academic Alex Carey and the other, even more detailed, is Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media by Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman.

Both provide a compelling reason why faith in the MSM has been in constant decline for the last century: the concentration in control of that mass media in the hands of economic elites and their intention to use it to control the “bewildered herd” as their spokespeople have described the rest of us.

Those elites have always had concerns about what they describe as “an excess of democracy”, that reduces their capacity to ensure we think and act as they wish us to. Their analysis could equally be applied to the rapidly developing online media which those elites feared at the beginning of their development and which they have largely successfully sought to control as well.

As strange as it may seem, Donald Trump may be our saviour if we learn.

Trump is capitalism personified. While the world watches on alarmed as the body count rises in Gaza, Trump sees it as an opportunity to build a hotel/resort, an opportunity to make a dollar for himself and his mates. He has shown that he cannot be trusted.

Despite attempts to control freedom of information, regulators and the media there have enough examples of capitalistic corruption uncovered — GFC, wars, pharmaceuticals, banking royal commission, consultants and defence spending — for all to understand that the purpose of capitalism is to make a profit and they can be trusted to do just that.

Unfortunately, the blurring of lines between the government and the private sector has led to the all crises we are now facing eg climate change, social housing, skilled work shortage etc.

It is time to recognise that the job of the private sector is to make a profit and one of the jobs of government is to regulate that profit-making for the good of Australia and all Australians.

It is a mistake to allow corporations to be formed with a directive that their directors should only “act in the[ir] companies’ best interests” (as the corporate law now does).

Nearly all of Australia’s corporations make money without severely harming the environment. It’s time for Australia’s Parliament to impose an obligation on directors of all companies to make sure their company doesn’t cause severe harm. This can be achieved by adding just 11 words to their existing duty “to act in the best interests of the corporation”. Those words are, “but not at the expense of severe damage to the environment”.

If those words had been in the law prior to Woodside’s application , it is highly unlikely that the application would have even been filed. If it had, the minister would have had grounds to reject it.

Even passing such an amendment today will make the directors reconsider the project and further drilling. Just as importantly, it will make directors of all companies screen future investments to ensure that all new facilities will not cause severe damage to the environment, regardless if no other law would prohibit it .

Stewart Sweeney’s article is extremely timely. Just look at the ABC news today:

“Shortly after Israel’s strikes on Friday, US President Donald Trump said: ‘The US had nothing to do with the attack on Iran’.

“Nothing, that is, except it was forewarned, and that central to Israel’s military capability is US funding, US hardware, US intelligence and US technology.”

That highlights the seeming perfidy surrounding the US-Iran nuclear and sanctions talks. There is a a further cost to the lives of many innocent people, and the real threat of an expansion of the conflict, drawing in yet more countries, including Australia, if it is not already involved because of Pine Gap and Nurrungar.

John Menadue’s recommendations for a more robust, more transparent, more participative rather than heavily (allegedly) representative democracy are all sensible, reasonable and much needed.

It’s a tragedy and shameful that we cannot rely on either of the major political parties to advance these reforms. In fact, we can be confident that the two major parties will conspire together to avoid most of them or render all but ineffective any that they are dragged kicking and screaming to legislate.

Absent from John’s list, although it may be implied in his bill of rights, is enshrining in legislation the right to peaceful protest, removing the ridiculously punitive legislation directed at protesters (particularly environmental activists), and making SLAPP actions (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) illegal.

In a robust democracy, the public must be able to express en masse in public places their dissatisfaction with government (quite possibly with inconvenience to others).

“Australia is a remarkably safe country.”

I disagree. Australia “was” a remarkably safe country.

But since then, the US has infiltrated the ADF and associated entities;

We have signed up to handing over billions for subs we won’t get and couldn’t operate without the US if we did get them;

We have increasing numbers of US military bases and facilities on our soil;

We joined the US in patrols and military exercises by land and sea perilously close to China’s borders, air and sea limits; and

We have been painting a bigger and bigger target on ourselves for a war of US making, by design, even if possibly accidentally formally started.

Now more than ever, we must cut the US apron strings. We can become friends, instead of lapdogs. If that doesn’t suit the US, no loss, our mutual treaties only serve the US. We would be so much better off if we developed mature relationships with our near neighbours, including China.

We cannot remain tied to a country that is imploding, coming closer by the day to civil war where, whatever happens, the US will spend many decades repairing its self-inflicted wounds.

Dump Marles and act.

Here’s a novel and “innovative” idea. Let’s stop talking about raising our defence spending, let’s stop talking about the threat from China, Russia and refugees. Let’s stop beating the drums of war in any sphere.

Let’s replace words like fight, conquer and battle (eg fight against COVID, conquering inflation, battle against climate change) and start using our language to remember the power of diplomacy – based on co-operation and focused on our shared humanity.

Let’s “work with”, “co-operate on”, and “open dialogue about”; let’s “reach consensus”, “acknowledge our shared goals”, and actually remind ourselves we are on a rock, hurtling through the vacuum of space – together.

The underlying truth barely mentioned in this article is the truth about Trump. For all his chest-beating and deal-making, world leaders see him for the joke he is. Putin and Netanyahu pay him lip service and continue to do as they please, as conquering whatever territory they choose knowing that the self-proclaimed king is naked.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world leaders go about circumventing Trump’s economic reforms, limiting their losses in the knowledge that it is the US that is suffering the most. Hopefully, Albanese is up to the job of putting Australia first.

Mexico and Canada are preparing to close their borders to a flood of refugees fleeing the Trump-induced US civil war, successfully dispelling three US myths in the first six months of his presidency:

1.Trump the magnificent.
2. US democracy. What democracy?
3. US superiority. A superior arms dealer probably.

Julian Cribb is right to point the finger at Albanese’s Labor for the human and environmental toll that approving vast carbon pollution from projects like the North West Shelf gas terminal will cause.

From sea-level rise and extreme weather events, to water shortages from glacial melt and the rapid spread of vector-borne diseases, the predicted impact of Australia’s ongoing fossil fuel addiction is harrowing.

And our unwillingness to seize the opportunity to become a powerful electro-state is frustrating. With a thumping majority and support from other progressive politicians, Albanese has a chance to create a real legacy of climate action.

He just needs the courage to stand up to vested fossil fuel interests.

Paul, you’re quite right with most of what you say, but why not go on to suggest we need wise diplomats who will know how to tell the US that we will not only leave AUKUS, but will suspend our membership of ANZUS as long as the US continues down the Trump régime path of international demolition in the interests of real-estate deals?

Of course, it would be a massive wrench for the prime minister and the member for Corio to face up to the shambles of ANZUS that resulted in 1986 when a previous Labor Government joined with Ronnie Raygun to kick New Zealand out because of our close neighbour’s commitment to a nuclear-free Southwest Pacific.

We were warned by the felon himself, before his inauguration, about the way he would “deal” with international “real-estate”. But our US ambassador and minister for Foreign Affairs did not take the hint and instead blithely attended the inauguration, thereby compromising our national interest by showing a willingness to indulge such aspirations, not only directed at the US Constitution but at an international order that he had foreshadowed would be taken up with his real-estate deal-making.

The awarding of Australia’s highest honour to Scott Morrison is indeed an affront to decency. It utterly debases our entire awards system. Most of us, I imagine, fume in impotent rage and move on.

But what can we say to those who were harmed — if not destroyed — by Robodebt? How can it be that their nation has no difficulty in honouring one of the chief architects of that vicious, illegal scheme, yet finds it impossible to bring its perpetrators to justice? It is one more kick in the guts from a nation which has repeatedly failed in its duty of care to its most vulnerable.

Perhaps we need a new category in the Order of Australia: the AW: “Wrecker of the Order of Australia”, awarded to those whom protocol dictates that we cannot refuse, but who have shown exemplary diligence in public office in destroying the fabric of the nation.

Emma Lovell and Jessica Allen show how Australia is hiding behind the notorious “Australia clause” in the 2005 Kyoto Protocol to claim substantial reductions in our carbon emissions with only little actual reduction from our major emitting industries.

The Australia clause, which allows Australia to benefit from the Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry Sector (LULUCF) factor, was widely criticised when Australia insisted upon it. In targetting emissions reductions in comparison to those from exceptionally high-emission years, the Howard Government set an absurdly low target for actual emissions reduction. This may be well and good in terms of reporting our “climate accounts” to the UN, but it carries little weight against the reality of actual global warming.

As Lovell and Allen show, we have, over subsequent years, made only 3% reduction in emissions we generate excluding LULUCF. Our reported emission reductions look like the Emperor’s new clothes – existing only in the minds of the credulous. The Emperor’s risk from his self-delusion was to be ultimately seen as naked. Australia’s risk is to find ourselves and our descendants trying to survive on a planet inhospitable to life. We must target real zero emissions, not net zero, to thrive.

News is splashing around about Trump launching an inquiry into AUKUS to see if it meets his “America First” policy. Of course, it does.

We have to pay the US $368 billion (US$239 billion) over three decades for being part of the AUKUS club and, according to the contract, they don’t have to give us anything. Zip.

Of course, Trump will love this contract, all the while laughing at Australia in the back rooms of the White House for signing up to such a dud deal.

The Australian Government’s reliance on a “special relationship” with the US dating back to 1942 is only part of the story. Our so-called leaders have always looked to a “great and powerful friend”, from 1788 on. Our “leaders” have never outgrown the colonial mentality. They are apparently incapable of imagining an independent Australia.

The old political parties are relics of the 19th and 20th centuries. We need to get them out of our Parliament entirely. The growing numbers of independents and progressives is a start in this process, though so far they have not stepped up to international affairs.

I very much welcome Henry Reynolds ‘ wise exegesis on Hugh White’s essay, which I now must read. I share White’s reported view that Australia must now declare clearly to US that we will not go to war against China as the US’ ally over Taiwan. Urgently overdue.

But it goes further than this, into the need to reshape our whole foreign policy world. We must reclaim Australia’s full sovereignty in this rapidly emerging multipolar world. We must truly become “a friend to all and an enemy to none” . We must stop demonising Russia and being trapped in our own false nightmares against that country. Almost nobody in Australia is psychologically ready for this foreign policy leap.

Surprisingly, if we can see through Zionist cruelty and false narratives, this may be the first necessary step towards an enlightened and sovereign foreign policy. We must truly engage with the world we live in. Hiding in the Anglo-American rump world is a recipe for disaster .

I am grateful to Julian Cribb for his focus on sea-level rise (“The latest numbers indicate a rise of between 0.5 and 1.9 metres by 2100 under existing carbon emissions. This is about twice the previous estimate.”)

When you consider even just the implications for Australian cities, it is mind-boggling. Docklands in Melbourne, for instance, might be 12 metres above sea-level but storm surges on top of nearly two metre sea-level rise will make life unpleasant.

In another letter, I mentioned the Mekong delta at 0.84 metres above current sea-level. There are huge implications for global food production.

And yes, the approval of the North West Shelf gas extension, that will add 4.3 billion tonnes to global carbon emissions, makes us partly responsible for the rise in sea-level globally.

It is simply not good enough for Labor to lower its domestic emissions and pay no heed to the ones created globally through its exports. How the federal government has the gall to pursue its hosting of COP31 is beyond me. Hypocrisy rules the day.

Ghaith Krayem lays things out re Palestine quite correctly. The latest sanctions move from Penny Wong marks a real point of departure by us and some partner nations from the US path.

What is the US path? Well, the position of Mike Huckabee, US ambassador to Israel, is spelt out very clearly, unless, which is possible I suppose, he has changed his views in eight years.

This from The Guardian today: “The ambassador’s position has deep roots in his evangelical Christian beliefs and longstanding support for Israeli settlement expansion. During his 2008 presidential campaign, Huckabee said: ‘There is no such thing as a Palestinian.’ In a 2017 visit to the occupied West Bank, he rejected the concept of Israeli occupation entirely.

“Said Huckabee at the time: ‘I think Israel has title deed to Judea and Samaria. There are certain words I refuse to use. There is no such thing as a West Bank. It’s Judea and Samaria. There’s no such thing as a settlement. They’re communities, they’re neighborhoods, they’re cities. There’s no such thing as an occupation’.”

So there it is, and as 75% of the UN supports a two-state outcome, the current US position is unsupportable.

I thought the biggest insult of all time was the presentation of the Queen’s/King’s Birthday honour to the husband of a British monarch by Tony Abbott until the presentation of an award — any award — to Scott Morrison.

All the volunteers who have fought fires, cleaned up after floods, delivered food aid, worked at meals on wheels, coached kids sport, fixed farmers’ burnt fences, worked sausage sizzles etc etc should respond with a great big “no thanks” until we stop rewarding those who do their job and get paid very well for it.

Get paid very well long after they finish doing their job.

Julian Cribb’s “carbon bomb drowning Pacific“, though rallying emotionally, is music to Woodside Albanese’s ears. He can carry on regardless with his immigration bomb drowning Australia.

Over 2022-25, his 1.3 million (net) tally is an unbelievable five to six times the historical average, blowing Kevin Rudd’s record out of the water. Hardly anyone has blinked. With our self-absorbed intelligentsia applauding, it’s barely a political issue. Sussan Ley doesn’t want to know. It follows, Albanese will inflict more of the same, over 2025-31.

Still reeling from Murray Watt’s rushed approval of Woodside’s North West Shelf project, I wasn’t ready for Samantha Hepburn’s rundown of six more mega gas projects. The emissions from these alone would blow Australia’s net-zero-by-2050 pledge to pieces. As Hepburn notes, Labor’s review of environment laws is a chance to make climate impact central to approvals.

But in 2024, Albanese ruled out a “climate trigger”. Still, with 25 Labor, 11 Greens and three independents backing net zero — and public anger over the NW Shelf decision — momentum may be building to revive it. While the PM’s second-term vision delivered at the Press Club this week stayed away from the topic, he knows that in 2028, another wave of young climate-aware Australians will vote for the first time. They won’t accept hypocrisy.

Les MacDonald’s summary of the military capabilities of the two belligerent superpowers makes frightening reading; that’s if you can count America as a superpower at all. Trump and his cronies may be sitting on a superpower arsenal, but as the Trump dictatorship starts to unfurl its true colours, the support of the citizenry is being withdrawn.

Moreover, presuming the superpower clash Trump is urging comes about, China will be bombing Taiwan, not Pearl Harbour. Japan’s savage rampage through Mongolia and China didn’t stir the isolationists in the 1930s doing so nicely out of the Lend/Lease program. It wasn’t till the Day of Infamy that America moved to a full war footing. Given the current team of sycophants under Trump, America’s moribund manufacturing capacity and the mood of a disillusioned and war weary society, the outcome of the clash, even without MacDonald’s damning situation report, is all too clear.

Measured beside the outcome of America’s Vietnam humiliation when battling a primarily agrarian economy, the very thought of going to war against China on its home turf, or any turf for that matter, is ludicrous. Although alarmingly, not beyond the whims of a US president intoxicated by a mythical American exceptionalism.

Les McDonald makes a valid point in saying that the US no longer has the naval or merchant fleet strength to invade China. But I suggest that’s not in the Pentagon’s war plans.

If they have a coherent thought on the matter, Washington’s military leaders want to deter China from invading Taiwan, or punishing it if it does.

That involves massive bombing from the air, as Curtis LeMay did in North Koreas in 1952-3. No land combat. The danger, of course, is that bombing could escalate to include the use by either side of nukes. Let us hope it does not come to this.