Archives: Letters to the Editor

Thank you to Mark Diesendorf for this very helpful piece. It stands as a clarification of many of the misunderstandings and poor interpretations of SSE in Daniel Susskind’s recent (2024) book advocating economic growth, Growth- A History and A Reckoning.

As Ross Gittens colourfully describes, the Coalition “is like that person driving a Holden Commodore”. Gender, age and the small matter of climate change should be crucial concerns for any party. Yet Liberal “values” remain the same: the party “limits its intrusion into people’s lives”, is for lower taxes and keeps the nation “secure and safe” (Christopher Pyne, The Age, 7 May).

And therein lies a problem: faced with the existential crisis of climate change, governments need to be at the centre of both our energy transformation and the mitigation strategies when disasters inevitably arrive. Pyne suggested that “For all of Us” should be “the screensaver for every Liberal activist now and in the future”.

Other commentators offer advice to “appeal” to younger voters/women/the sensible centre. This just sounds like more focus-group-driven, shallow advertising.

At a time when collective action is essential to the nation’s safety and security, a party whose central tenet is individual effort, rather than the collective, is missing the point. If their “For all of us” talk is to be more than an empty slogan, the Liberal Party would need to change its spots and commit itself to meaningful, state-driven initiatives.

Sara Dowse’s article is to be treasured. Please read and absorb it (and the writer’s courage as well as clarity).

Don’t stop there, though.

If each of us makes it our business to send it on, either through social media or via email, to at least 10 other people, we will have contributed something toward pushing back the relentless propaganda that is suffocating debate, silencing dissent, and excusing the grotesque elimination of the Palestinian people.

Zionism is not Judaism, nor vice versa.

Refuting Zionism and its supremacist claims is not antisemitic. It is an assertion of our humanity, shared with all people and long supported by Jewish philosophers and humanitarians alike.

Thank you, Sara. Thank you.

Tim Beal has had a number of articles republished here, wherein he attempts to propagate pro-Kremlin disinformation regarding the North Korean troops who have been fighting alongside Russian forces against Ukraine.

Given that Russia recently admitted the North Korean involvement is true, should Beal not be asked to issue an apology and should his articles not be corrected to reflect the fact that his rhetoric appears to not be guided by the facts?

Valery Gerasimov, chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, has said.

“I want to point out the participation of servicemen from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in the liberation of the Kursk Region’s border areas, who, in accordance with the Treaty on Comprehensive Strategic Partnership between our countries, provided significant assistance in defeating the invading group of the Ukrainian armed forces.”

Editor’s note: A link to this letter has been added to an article dealing with the subject detailed by the letter-writer.

Two-thirds of Australians did not vote for Labor as their first preference. It’s clear that Australians want more from their leaders.

Strong and healthy leadership protects the weakest, respects differences and importantly fosters an atmosphere of collaboration – in the hope of promoting innovation and inspiring the population. True leadership is guided by foundational collective principles that transcend ego and personal point-scoring.

Anthony Albanese’s disparaging comments about the Independents and the Greens, post-election, are the opposite of these principles.

Narrowing the collective voice in Parliament, strategising, through opaque election preference deals, to put power in the hands of a few, is a recipe to unnerve any electorate.

Ultimately, it’s not about the left or the right, Labor or Liberal, Greens or Independents, it’s about wielding maturity and diplomacy to progress a society and demonstrate good governance. And that is what is lacking in our Parliament.

We all think we like a musician, movie star or sports star. We think we know them. Often, it’s their choice to represent themselves for their own advancement and we believe the good guy, bad guy image they portray.

The same applies to our politicians and, like our influencers, we seldom know them at all. For example, if you believe his wife and what’s sometimes written about Peter Dutton, he “is no monster“. But it turns out many Australians don’t like him and won’t vote for him as their front man.

When it comes to our politicians, we seldom know them, but we typecast them: private school, union thug, nice guy, nice guy but… , good bloke, farmer, poor little rich boy, arrogant, etc

So when it comes to voting, it is seldom about what we know, it’s about the type.

I will leave it to you to judge our political class, past and present, but consider (in no particular order ) these candidates: Pyne, Palmer, Hawke, Brown , Mirabella, Hanson, Chip, Abbott, Shorten, Credlin, Plibersek, Hanson-Young, Keating, Rudd, Cash, Whitlam and Joyce.

There’s no doubt that the preference strategies of both Labor and the Coalition were to reinforce the two-party system that’s preventing Australia from facing the challenges of the 21st century: the economic and social disruption of climate change.

The Greens are a progressive force neither major party wishes to face. After losing ground in 2022, both clawed back ground before the new political funding model designed to hobble independents and minor parties comes into play.

The reality is that the Greens, and Teal and orange Independents, have taken electorates from Labor and the Coalition by winning the confidence of progressive voters. In a perfect world, the majors would have taken that aboard and incorporated progressive planks in their platforms. They even worked together to launch a bipartisan campaign for a sustainable Australia. That they have chosen to slug it out in a turf war is totally detrimental to Australia’s future.

Have the Greens’ ambitions overshot the mark? On the results it would appear so, but humans aren’t a rational species. Labor read the room beautifully; the Coalition were a bloody shambles. Could the electorate have been spooked by the global economic and geopolitical situation and felt it was no time for political experiments? Quite probably.

I agree with Louis Devine. But the Greens have also lost ground due to another reason: they have not summoned up the political courage to educate the public on the economics of Modern Monetary Theory.

The Greens have largely excellent policies. However, they have tried, regrettably, to embed those same policies within an economically flawed neoliberal “lens”, which renders them as “ridiculously unaffordable” to a very large percentage of the population.

The policies, of course, are not “ridiculously unaffordable”. They sit perfectly comfortably within a superior MMT “lens”. I would encourage the Greens to spend the next three years until the next federal election educating the general public about MMT, if their national vote is ever to increase much beyond 12%.

Yes, “What an opportunity Australia has before it”. But many hearts and minds are yet to be won in an environment where cost of living and our energy transformation (as Jim Chalmers describes it) are disconnected.

Labor must convince many Australians that our smallish contribution to global CO2 emissions is worth the effort. They must communicate the advantages to national security, productivity and the forward-looking idea of a renewables superpower.

Deep-pocketed forces are ranged against our transformation. International climate change-denying groups like the Atlas Network, and its offshoot Advance, will, no doubt, double down on lobbying for fossil fuels and undermining our energy transformation.

Renew Economy reports, “Atlas includes high-profile propagators of climate denial and pro-fossil fuel propaganda, including the US-based Heartland Institute, and the London-based Global Warming Policy Foundation – which now has former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott on its board of trustees”.

“The complexity and opaqueness of the network is noteworthy, and has made the drawing of distinct relationships between groups and individuals difficult to track and analyse. But the sheer number of linkages is clear, as are the relationships between the groups and Australia’s conservative political parties.”

Many will celebrate the relegation of nuclear power to a Coalition footnote.

Jocelyn, thank you for this useful addition to our collection of thoughts for understanding China’s role in our area.

Personally, I receive considerable information from the US site — Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology — especially items and talks by Professors Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim. These two make multiple trips to many cities in China, and speak to very enthusiastic audiences.

Their talks include such topics as “ecological civilisation” – a perspective largely absent from our public forums, but a concept included since about 2018 in the Chinese Constitution.

What happened to the Greens? They maintained their primary vote, which is no reason to be pleased and slightly less reason to be pleased than Labor. But they had considerably more reason to be pleased than the Libs.

After the big three/four have finished analysis of the results and decided that it was all someone else’s fault (Trump will do), collectively patted themselves on the back and shifted the Parliamentary furniture, they should have an independent Parliamentary inquiry.

This inquiry should look into what’s so wrong with our democracy that the best of a bad bunch should win in a landslide, claim a mandate and immediately commence bullying the equally elected House of Review (Senate).

They should, unlike most reviews and Royal Commissions, implement the findings.

More needs to be exposed about these three major election scandals that were, by design, allegedly targeted to deliberately unseat the Greens and Independents and narrow our collective voice to parliament:

• The redrawing of electoral boundaries and abolishing of an independent seat for MP Kylea Tink.
• The deceptive preference deals made between Labor and Liberals to pool their votes to unseat Independent and Green candidates.
• The doubling of election funding for major parties and virtually nothing for the other minor candidates.

These were strategies deliberately and deployed to concentrate power in one of the two major parties at the expense of independent voices. It needs to be exposed.

The Democrats used to have a saying, “Keep the bastards honest”. We need more voices in Parliament in order to do that. A concentration of power in one sector is power for power’s sake, it does not represent the wider voice of the people. Remind you of anyone else on the world stage?

If you look at the raw numbers, the drop in the Greens vote was only marginal, although given the preferential system, it had an impact.

I suspect part of the reason for the drop in the Green vote was, based on pre-election polling, the perceived closeness of the contest between Labor and the LNP.

In such circumstances, it is not uncommon for voters to “play it safe” and opt for a major party. I suspect, given it is unlikely that Labor will lose the next election, there will be a surge in the Greens vote.

It was certainly an uninspiring campaign. But why has Jack Waterford not complained about that which will stop the crossbench being the “activist crossbench [which] can supply the pressure to do more, better” that he would like?

I refer, of course, to the dishonesty that has been used by the Liberals and their associated entities to peg back Community Independents. Policies, you can discuss. But it’s all too true that mud sticks. Nearly 40 Community Independents stood in 2025.

As I write, some “old” Community Independents have been returned, others wait on a knife edge. We will have far fewer, if any, new Community Independent MPs, than could reasonably, statistically, have been expected. Cowper and Wannon should have got over the line, as should Bradfield, but who knows right now.

If candidates are defeated in an honest contest of ideas, it’s disappointing, but you can wear it. But to be defeated by smears and lies damages both the person and the nation.

Between now and 2028, we must fight to rid our system of that which is negative and destructive. We should all get behind Zali Steggall and her “Stop the Lies” bill. Dishonesty offers no hope, and no potential except to take us backwards.

Genocide is taking place in Palestine and Australia is showing moral cowardice.

Calling for a ceasefire is water off a duck’s back to Netanyahu. Recognising Palestine infuriates him to the extent we try to placate him. Treading gently in the name of “community cohesion” is to be complicit and allows the supporters of genocide to remain comfortably complicit also. The press is guilty. No protest at the targeted murders of their fellow journalists. Printing errors of fact in news, opinion and letters pages enables further killings.

Australia must act. We actively supported BDS when South Africa was an apartheid state. Israel is both an apartheid state and a genocidal one.

Locally, we must call out those universities, and others of influence, that accept the IHRA definition of antisemitism, thereby shutting down criticism of, and action against, genocide. Australian citizens who participate in genocide must face the legal consequences. Those who support genocide must be shaken out of their comfort zone by being confronted with truth.

If we fail to act, we are morally bankrupt and when “they” come for us and there is no one left to speak for us, as Martin Niemöller famously said, it will be our just desserts.

“Should we merely continue to do the same for another year, another year?” asks Stuart Rees in his passionate, timely (past time) article, writing of the ethnic cleansing in Gaza and beyond.

He then suggests, correctly in my view, “An alternative is to push P&I towards being mainstream. In that way, a confident prime minister might feel obliged to display his much-vaunted Australian kindness to all the people of Palestine.”

This “push” self-evidently requires a renewed and consistent effort beyond the pool of P&I writers, however accomplished, and beyond those who bring us P&I day in and out.

Goodwill is not enough. Sympathy and concern are not enough. To care effectively, requires action that could include a concerted P&I subscription “drive” in your own circles of influence, regular donations certainly to ensure a steady financial footing, plus initiating the vital personal discussions that challenge the status quo, while also challenging the silencing of this horror on mainstream media through your informed engagement.

None of us wants to be complicit in this appalling moral crisis, the most debased in our lifetimes. None of us wants to pretend we “don’t know”. Let’s share and advance the alternatives. Cogently. And immediately.

I am deeply disturbed by an item I saw on SBS’s news service this week concerning the plight of the people in Gaza and the effects of the Israeli Government’s blockade of all relief to them, including food, water and medicines.

The report showed several severely emaciated children with sunken eyes, matchstick-like limbs and clearly visible rib-cages, suffering from severe starvation and malnutrition. That such suffering by innocent children should be the result of the deliberate and illegal (under international law) actions and policies of the Israeli Government outraged me.

The Netanyahu Government is clearly an immoral and criminal regime. What outraged me even further was my sense that we, as Australians, were not doing enough to condemn this behaviour. Moreover, by not speaking up, Australia is condoning this behaviour. This is not who we are, and we should not condone it by our silence.

The government appears to be sitting on the fence by protesting politely about Israel’s conduct of its war on the Palestinians, but not strongly and roundly condemning the inhuman blockade of Gaza and holding the Israeli Government to account. It is time for our faith leaders to speak out!

In 2018, Peter Dutton engineered Malcolm Turnbull’s exit as leader. He and his supporters went out for a long night of Chinese food, 12 hours before the vote. Next day Dutton was completely surprised by Scott Morrison.

The reason is now well-known – most Liberal MPs did not consider Dutton as an electoral winner. He never changed!

He was a divisive policy-free player in 2018 and nothing changed for the 2025 election, except that he chose to imitate some of the worst aspects of Trump, and then ran a shocker of a campaign, now being blamed on the NSW branch by the Queensland LNP.

As David Solomon writes, one of the main reasons for the “thumping” of the Liberal Party was its “negativity” and failure “to present and defend its policies in time.”

On ABC radio, Liberal Senator Hollie Hughes criticised the party’s leadership and lack of policy development, noting that despite submitting draft proposals in October, “we never heard anything about anything back from anybody”.

As Solomon notes, this echoes past failures. Major policy documents like Hewson’s Fightback! and Howard’s Future Directions also lacked internal consultation with the parliamentary party or even the party’s own policy committee.

The role of NewsCorp and the space given to hard-right commentators like Andrew Bolt and Peta Credlin has backfired. Australians are tired of it. The future of Bolt and Credlin must be under a cloud. They will never change.

For example, during the Sky News election night broadcast, Credlin said, “I’d argue we didn’t do enough of a culture war”. Bolt wrote a piece for the Herald Sun admonishing voters. The entitled establishment hates losing and always blames others. While they may still have power in the boardroom, after Saturday’s drubbing fewer will want to enter politics.

As Sonia Randhawa writes, we need to re-imagine and strengthen our democracy. It is certainly needed in Kooyong. We’ve had legal battles between the Boroondara City Council and the Liberal Party over signage; neo-Nazis and Brethren trying to pass themselves off as Liberal Party volunteers; and one male Liberal voter taking a Monique Ryan handout from an elderly, female volunteer, tearing it up in front of her face, and throwing it on the ground. He refused to apologise.

After taking the prized Liberal seat in 2022 from the previous Coalition Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, the Libs have had Ryan in their sights. While denouncing Climate 200’s funding of independent Ryan, the Libs have been aided by the right-wing lobby group, Advance, which has funded Repeal the Teals and Better Australia.

While Ryan has refused to preference, the Libs have preferenced a motley crew: the Libertarian Party, Pauline Hanson’s One Nation and Family First. John Howard excommunicated Hanson from the Liberal Party in 1996 because of her extreme prejudices against Indigenous Australians and migrants. Family First has been described as “One Nation with Bibles”. Liberal voters who followed such a hideous how-to vote card should hang their heads in shame.

Gareth Evans has joined with other P&I contributors in lamenting a lack of vision for Australia. He concludes with an ambition for Australia to be seen as a good international citizen – as a decent country. I think this is too vague to be effective.

I recommend “Australia: a trusted, respected and independent middle power in a healthy and peaceful world”.

This is a vision statement that Australia can be proud of. It’s an open statement allowing a wide spectrum of political contest and community behaviour. It is a simple statement that provides a guide for evaluating political proposals, legislation and government regulation.

Some Australians may think this is a fine description of current Australia. However, they deceive themselves. We fail miserably when we test our current nation against this vision statement.

We are not independent, we are seen as a vassal nation to the US and have an unelected head of state from a foreign country. We can’t expect to be trusted and respected without being genuinely independent. We can’t be the middle power that we aspire to be without being trusted, respected and independent.

Let’s do the work to become the Australia we would like to be.

Both the major parties (and even the Greens) embrace economic neoliberalism. This sees the federal government acting like a household, with household-like budget constraints. And on this view, budgets should therefore be balanced, or even in surplus.

This, however, causes private debt to increase, which in turn causes the cost-of-living crisis, such as we have now. We need instead to change focus and to balance the economy, not the budget, with carefully targeted deficits, even deficits in perpetuity, if necessary.

Despite neoliberal scaremongering, it is a fact that our currency-issuing federal government is not like a household. It can never “go broke” and can always pay any debt denominated in Australian dollars.

Two final points to consider: A government deficit results in a non-government surplus; and a government surplus results in a non-government deficit. The former makes us, the people, richer; the latter makes us, the people, poorer.

A significant Australian who attended the funeral of Pope Francis was Julian Assange. Francis wrote to him and offered him asylum in the Vatican. Gutsy.

The YouGov poll prediction has been right, with a stunning majority for Labor. The party must not squander the opportunity to do some of the hard things while they have the political capital: recognise Palestine and stop aiding the murders in Palestine, phase in property tax changes, go for a step change in efficiently produced prefab housing, work on an ATSI treaty, move from a monarch, ensure an ombudsman who properly balances their access to expensive legal advice against the legal deficit of most appellants, a more effective and open NACC, end remaining multinational tax avoidance, and inadequate resource royalties.

Strengthen nature positive legislation. Free Daniel Duggan and David McBride and exonerate Richard Boyle. End AUKUS. Fellow readers feel free to add to the list.

I applaud Pearls and Irritations and John Menadue for the forthright bravery of the piece “‘Never again’ not only for Jews, but for Palestinians and all humanity”.

Yes, it will stir outrage, and accusations of antisemitism. But whatever our loyalties or religious and political affiliations, we desperately need journalism that probes, does not cower in the face powerful interests, and tells complex and tragic truths directly and uncompromisingly.

What a pleasure to read editor-in-chief John Menadue’s 27 April ANU lecture on the question of Palestine and Israel’s criminal (genocidal) measures against it,

Such is the dominance exercised over global media by pro-Israel forces that it must call for courage on Menadue’s part to be so forthright in insisting on the attribution of major criminal responsibility.

Appropriate to the title “Pearls and Irritations”, Menadue offers a pearl. That in doing so he has irritated many is plain from the response to date.

Furthermore, however shocking, Menadue is on the side of international law. The International Criminal Court has already issued arrest warrants for Israel’s leaders, including Benjamin Netanyahu. If Australia’s leaders continue to turn a blind eye to the contemporary genocide, the same can be expected in due course for them too.

That will never change because at different times it suits both (all) of them. Whenever we talk (only talk) of reform, this one never even gets a mention.

I just want to join with many others in congratulating John Menadue on his fine speech in support of Palestine and humanity at the ANU. John’s clear principled stand makes me proud to be associated with P&I.

As for the response of The Australian newspaper, I wonder whether there is anyone on their staff with a grasp of such a fundamental (and conservative) tenet as respect for one’s wise elders.

After 40 years of working in the South Australian public service, I have no doubt that neoliberalism has been a failed experiment. The major indicator is that the roles of the public and private sector have become so entwined that it is hard to tell them apart.

In very basic terms, the role of the private sector is to make a profit and the role of governments is to regulate for the good of Australia and Australians.

Australia, for all its multiculturalism, remains a colony of the UK and, more recently, of the US, as demonstrated by AUKUS and Trump’s position on it. He knows a bad deal when he sees one and is conspicuously quiet, laughing all the way to the bank.

The Australian Government needs to step up for Australians, take a stand for the good of the country, break free from our colonial masters, stop signing up for one-way deals, and stop doing their dirty work, firstly by putting an end to foreign bases in our country.

These bases make us more of a target, not less of a target, Learn from Scott Morrison’s failed COVID  attack on China.

Pearls & Irritations has become indispensable for penetrating the misinformation of the mainstream media. It confirms Noam Chomsky’s analysis of the “necessary illusions” and thought control in our “free” press.

With the genocide in Gaza, the importance of Pearls & Irritations was aptly described by George Orwell: “We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty … If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. In times of universal deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act.”