Archives: Letters to the Editor

A brilliant and important essay which should be in the main media so that a wider spectrum of Austrians could access the wisdom and clarity it expresses. In a  intellectual world in which news and information has become intentionally dishonest and propagandistic, Pearls is a rare journal of intelligent rigour.

As always with John a principled and uncompromising exposing of truths that our fundamentally racist white Caucasian society seeks to bury in Orwell’s “memory hole”. Indeed it is hard not to believe that the Zionist lobby have taken their strategy straight from Orwell.
“Double-think ” has been the weapon of the Zionists to get us to believe two fundamentally opposing ideas at the same time. Those are that anti-Zionism is antisemitism is racism, but Islamaphobia and indeed hatred of any other group based on their race, is perfectly fine!
Sadly as John points out our political and media classes have bought the fraud wholesale.
It must be said that this appears to be true also of the political and media classes of the West as a whole, with the honourable exceptions of the Irish and the Spanish. It is not true of the global South. We should reflect upon that!!

The emerging disaster of antisemitism is only now coming into focus. It affects all of us who live in the western world, especially those of us living in the Anglosphere. I don’t know how Zionism has managed to sink its claws so deeply into the very fabric of our lives, but it has. Our governments seem unwilling to face it and powerless to protect us from it.

But the true scope of the emerging disaster can only be understood by considering the effect it is having on world Jewry. Yes, antisemitism is on the increase. The videos are there for all to see. In them we are watching the reemergence of a stereotype of the Jew that the world thought it had left behind. And yet there he stands telling the world that those he is murdering are sub-human and that the whole story is, once again, entirely about him. I wonder what he will do with all the Jewish youth he has helped turn into murderers? They have a lifetime ahead of them in which to reflect on their own inhumanity.
Zionism is a Jewish movement. It is on Judaism to do something about it.

Julian Cribb likens our destruction of earth systems to the catastrophic reshaping of life wrought by a comet 66 million years ago. The idea finds echoes in the 2021 film Don’t Look Up, in which scientists warn the US government about an approaching comet – an allegory illustrating the absurdity, vanity and ignorance of those who could make far-reaching decisions to reverse our determined march into global destruction, but don’t.

Burning of fossil fuels has ramped up, in part due to the enormous influence of Trump, whose stance gave license to fossil fuel investors globally to “drill baby drill”. Land clearing is leading to animal and plant extinction, and risking new diseases (“zoonotic spillover”); desertification, oxygen depletion, water scarcity – as Cribb says, not an exhaustive list.

Polls in the wake of current oil shortages show nearly 70 per cent of voters support increased domestic oil exploration, at the expense of our 2050 net-zero emission targets. This panicked response, fuelled by mainstream media and a “dig-and-drill” Coalition, is self-sabotaging.

The growth imperative has led us to ignore and over-shoot our sustainable limits. Does some version of a comet need to crash-land before we look?

In Julian Cribb’s article, he mentions “…a billion farmers in a billion fields…”. Had there been a mere million farmers in a million fields the story might have been different. Groundwater would have been replenished at a rate faster than it was extracted and the global axis would not have shifted by 78 centimetres.

It is worth revisiting the formula developed by Paul Ehrlich and John Holdren in the early 70s: I=PAT. It says that total environmental impact (I) equals the number of people (P) multiplied by how much each person consumes (A) multiplied by the environmental damage caused per unit of consumption (T).

Thus, numbers aren’t the whole picture when it comes to human impact on the Earth, but they do matter. Were there only two billion people on the Earth, rather than eight billion, we might be living within our means, that is, using the natural resources of the planet at a rate below which they can be regenerated, and producing wastes at a rate below which they can be absorbed.

We urgently need to reduce the size of our population to a quarter of what it is now by voluntary means, before nature does it for us.

Sophie Vorrath’s article raises the rationale for a sensible rate of taxation on exported LPNG.

Albanese supplicates the gas extraction industry. His obduracy is contemptible: 75 per cent of Australians (who vote, Anthony) want the proposed tax; the voting power of the gas industry is miniscule.

Albanese’s judgement that Australians (who vote, Anthony) will ignore that he sells them out for a mess of pottage will come back to bite him spectacularly.

The argument for the tax generally quote a loss of revenue to Australia of around $19 billion annually. Few commentators have taken a deep dive into the impact on Australians (who vote, Anthony).

Gas is a major polluter. Australians (who vote, Anthony) are being hit hard by climate change effects: horrendous increases in home insurance costs, more health issues, huge increases in electricity costs, undreamed of environmental degradation etc.

You have a Faustian bargain with the gas corporations, Anthony.

If (when) fracking poisons a major arterial water basin a vast area of food-producing land would become unusable. Starving Australians (who vote, Anthony) will turn on you and there is NOTHING you can do to ameliorate the damage.

Neither can we and we won’t forget that.

I agree with the need of a broad vision for social cohesion but this not reflected in the Federal Budget. Approximately $600 million has been allocated to fight antisemitism. What is defined as antisemitism is to be determined but the indication from the Royal Commission is worrying i.e. criticism of Israel is antisemitism. There was no funding in the budget to fight Islamophobia. The Special Envoy to combat Islamophobia submitted a report to the Federal Government in September last year. The Government is giving it “careful consideration”. Presumably priority careful consideration was given to the $600 million. According to the 2021 Census, 99,956 Australians identify Judaism as their religion and the number of Australian Muslims is 813,392

The positive and negative reactions to this budget suggest that it represents ideological changes in the government and a sign of changing wealth distribution to workers and active earners instead of passive earners with established liquidity. I’m not sure how cynical it might be to suggest this is actually more simply just a realpolitik reaction to demographic shifts in the electorate. As the boomer has always been the primary target audience because of their purchasing power. The grandfathering of the tax reforms suggests that there will still be a status quo and a gradual change over the course of time, with the demographics shifting in parallel with the grandfathering of the policy.

Kos Samaras‘ description of migrant family situations taught me, a fifth generation Australian, much.

I also saw from a new angle what I’ve known for a long time: career politicians via family connections, party think tanks, or volunteering/staffing from a young age, are less than they could and should be because of their narrow experience.

However, I challenge the idea that PHON is the Opposition of the future. Parties are not required by the constitution. Why not a coalition or consensus of Community Independents? They, along with the cross bench, were the effective opposition in the 47th Parliament, not that political commentators bothered to look. Opposition is harder now with Labor’s unhealthy majority in the House. But Labor will lose seats in 2028. There are many CIs waiting in the wings. They’ve already won their first ‘vote’ in their electorate by responding to ads placed by a Voices-of group and getting through the selection process. They are people who do have broad work and life experience, and have broad consensus on climate, integrity-transparency, and respect for women. Shared values make formal Opposition possible for them. I hope to live long enough to experience it. Government will take a little longer!

I was saddened to read that a 2021 survey of 10,000 young people aged 16–25 across ten countries found 59 per cent were very or extremely worried about climate change and governments’ responses, while 75 per cent agreed the “future is frightening”. The countries surveyed were Australia, Brazil, Finland, France, India, Nigeria, the Philippines, Portugal, the UK and the USA. Unsurprisingly, concern was highest in the Philippines (84 per cent) and India (68 per cent), where communities are already experiencing severe climate impacts.

Since 2021, with an even hotter planet and the election of a climate-wrecking US president, eco-anxiety has no doubt grown. So what can be done? The Australian Psychological Society says eco-anxiety can be an adaptive motivator for change. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) treats climate anxiety as a rational response to a real threat and focuses on values-based action. A key ACT principle is that people do not need to eliminate climate anxiety before living meaningful lives.

The Australian Youth Climate Coalition is at the forefront of climate advocacy and action for young people. Older Australians can help by donating at aycc.org.au before June. Help turn climate anxiety into climate action.

ACT https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/the-cognitive-behaviour-therapist/article/acceptance-and-commitment-therapy-as-an-approach-for-working-with-climate-distress/FBA5224AB25B44F9F02F2BB143C55628

AYCC https://www.aycc.org.au/

I always like reading Keating’s articles as he always provides measured comments to the political issues of the day. His statement about resources companies paying little or no tax particularly resonates with me. These companies should be made to pay much higher taxes now. They deplete Australia’s natural resources to their advantage depriving the opportunity of ordinary Australians enjoying a much higher standard of life – such as free universities, public housing and the rejuvenation of our cities which is urgently needed.

I think what remains of Australia is one big farm that is being exploited by foreign multinationals. I suggest that many of our natural resources should be nationalised and taken away from private ownership altogether. Rex Connor, a minister in the Whitlam government, tried to do it but failed, and became embroiled in the Khemlani affair. We can learn from these past mistakes and develop new strategies to buy back the farm Australia from these exploitative foreign interests. In the meantime we need to tax tax tax tax tax and tax them more now. For, as Proudhon said, private property is theft.

I am totally opposed to a human rights act for Australia. Human rights do not come from a piece of paper written by lawyers and interpreted by the courts. They come from instituting better welfare provision. Such as a UBI universal basic income and the building of public housing. Abolishing work for the dole the job network. Expanding the NDIS and taking it away from private hands making all of its employees federal public servants. Stopping the privitisation of government services.

I figure the legal profession as it is presently constituted is slanted towards the protection and preservation of private property and the maintenance of the status quo. It is hardly a profession that the Australian people therefore should trust to protect their human rights. It is in fact a contradictory proposition to hand over your human rights to legal eagles, when these very same legal eagles are in the business of protecting private property rights.

The point is that all of us are interrelated. When others prosper we do too. It’s in the DNA of the ideology of socialism. And none of the above ingredients is in the DNA of the legal profession.

Chris Hedges can be seen as a modern day exemplar of the parade of great civilisational thinkers from Polybius in Ancient Rome to Oswald Spengler in the 19th Century to Peter Turchin and Jarad Diamond in the Twentieth Century who have set out the inevitability of civilisational decline.

Hedges’ wonderfully analytical mind has distilled this line of intellectual thought into a coruscating prediction of the currently evolving fall of the US empire. Nearly all of these prophets have focused upon severe economic inequality, weakened social cohesion, unchecked elite competition, unsustainable resource use and a loss of the ability to adapt and reform. These have ineluctably led to vast corruption, criminality, religious fanaticism and indiscriminate violence by the elites, which Hedges so presciently describes in the US.

Those elites will, and have done, everything possible to silence the voices of such people. It is up to all of us to prevent the silencing of these voices if we are to survive in any recognisable civilisational form.

This is an excellent article combining a range of highly significant and useful numbers that inform and contribute to the pressure for urgent action on climate change. We ignore such warnings at the expense of our civilisation and our planet.

It was most disappointing that Kos Samaras didn’t provide the whole accurate story on Taylor’s Budget reply. Taylor’s cuts will all be ‘grandfathered’ so not affect those currently who are PR non-citizens. By so obviously telling only half the story his credibility has been undermined by misrepresenting the complete situation. What a pity.

CO2 pollution of the air all of us, and all creatures, breathe is an issue just as urgent as climate change. The “debate” on climate change has become so toxic and divisive that it has become easy for many people to switch off, put the issue in the too-hard basket and rationalise concerns away by thinking “that it probably won’t affect me or my children much”.

What can’t be ignored or rationalised away is the affects that increased CO2 in our inhaled air is having on the chemistry of everybody’s blood gas balance in the lung alveoli. This puts increased stress of the very delicate and intricate chemistry balancing mechanism that controls how our bodies get oxygen to our brains, eyes, musculoskeletal and organs and removes CO2. Its affect is easily seen in simple everyday blood tests, hence all stupid political debate and scaremongering by politicians instantly becomes a non issue and all people can properly understand the immediate concern and concentrate on the need for long term permanent CO2 pollution and reductions.

Joseph Stiglitz summarises some of the disasters caused by US President Donald J Trump. But his sentence, “Yet another nail has been added to the coffin of the peaceful, borderless world that our forebears sought to build after the Second World War”, needs comment. Unfortunately, it glosses over the fact that, since World War 2, the USA has been almost continuously at war and has covertly helped to overthrow many governments, including democratically elected ones, e.g. Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), Brazil (1964) and Chile (1973). Under Trump, covert subversion became overt.

Here are several books exposing the USA’s covert and overt actions to overthrow governments of other countries:
William Blum: Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II);
Stephen Kinzer: Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq;
Greg Grandin: Empire’s Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism;
Tim Weiner: Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA;
John Prados: The Ghosts of Langley: Into the CIA’s Heart of Darkness.

Charles is not my king either. When the referendum is held on Australia becoming a republic, the method of electing a president should certainly not follow the example of the USA. Germany has a system which is the most democratic. There is maximum representation of all voters in the electoral college. This system should be explained clearly before the referendum is held.

Rachel Maddow? I thought P&I addressed Australian public policy?

In response to Michael Keating’s question “… is Albo being like Trump and not listening to contrary advice?”, if you don’t listen to your department at all but just to the gas lobby, then there is no contrary advice. As with so many other areas where he has failed to act in Australia’s best interests (AUKUS, anyone?), Albo continues to wimp out. And if he doesn’t like that description of him, maybe he should look in the mirror.

Reading Jordi Nugent’s article the day after the Farrer by election, it’s hard to credit her assertion that “the voters of Farrer have the best interests of this country in mind” given that the PHON candidate won so easily. If Nugent’s statement is true, then we must question those voters’ skills of discernment and judgement. All that is bad about PHON has been on display forever, from its racism, its instability, its elected members abandoning the party, to its leader’s support for Rinehart and Trump, and infrequent appearances in the House, never mind a lack of policies and history of doing nothing. Saving graces are all but impossible to find.

Given his unnaturally rapid political gymnastics through options to get into parliament, plus the model PHON presents, it’s hard to see Farley as anything but a person looking for a cushy retirement job. I hope I’m wrong because otherwise it’s bad news for Farrer and for all of Australia.

That the people of Farrer had a candidate in Milthorpe who shows all the tenacity for hard work, good judgement, selflessness and compassion following the example of existing community independent MPs, yet was passed over for a PHON grifter is devastating.

I’m perturbed that Meg Schwartz refers to Gaza being “not the only factor”, “one of several factors” and “not the only cause” in the rise of antisemitism.

Yes, latent antisemitism is real, as is ignorance. Education must help but in different ways. History needs to be addressed more broadly but in the current context the more important factors are the difference between a government and its people, the situation of Jewish people not resident in Israel, the faith system that is Judaism, the ideology of Zionism.

Regrettably, the phrases I have quoted serve to minimise the role of Gaza, and Palestine more generally. Ignorance would have remained unnoticed and latent antisemitism inactive if the genocide in Gaza wasn’t happening.

Gaza IS the reason for the rise in antisemitism but so much that is called antisemitism is actually antizionism and legitimate criticism of the Government of Israel. We need to be honest about that.

The transcript of the first public hearing in Sydney on 4 May 2026 is revealing. The Commissioner is rigid on the Israel sponsored IHRA definition of antisemitism, does not accept that it is controversial and implicitly dismisses the alternative Jerusalem Declaration which does not equate criticism of Israel as antisemitism. Witnesses have described disgraceful examples of antisemitism – personal attacks on Jews. Witnesses have also claimed that protests lead to increasingly dangerous antisemitism and a banner proclaiming “Sanction Israel” is claimed to be antisemitic. There is concern about protests at synagogues but no reference to Israel’s destruction of 1000 mosques in Gaza and the killing of 100 Muslim preachers as of 21 January 2024. There is no empathy expressed for the 75,811 Palestinians killed by Israel in Gaza up to 3 May 2026.

My experience in a government department with regional depots spanning a large state and a central main office tells me that technology provides simple solution to this problem .

When the Parliamentary system was set up in the time of telegraph and train travel, there was a need for the Parliament to gather regularly in one location Canberra or the state/territory capital cities. With present day technology that is not so .

Parliament could be held from local electoral offices via the Internet with quarterly or even yearly trips to the central Parliament house. Apart from the obvious advantages of savings on not needing two offices, cost of travel to and from accommodations, meals, reconnecting with electorate and a reduction in the politics of politics (we may get a Prime Minister or Opposition leader to serve a full term) we will get a reduction in the revolving door of lobbying, politicians may well be more connected with their electorate, more aware of local issues and less connected with lobbyist doing their job – selling / representing the interests of the company they get paid by.

The article by Kos has developed an analysis that is both sophisticated and determinative. It digs far deeper into the mindsets of the differently aged, locational, language and ethnicity groups with a depth rarely seen in the normal Australian political analysis class. This is the best explanation I have read of the factors that determine voting behaviours. Thank you for the clarity and sound reasoning Kos!

The debate about losers and winners from the Budget ignores 14.2 per cent of Australia’s people – the percentage identified by ACOSS in its poverty and inequality survey 2025. According to ACOSS 1 in 7 adults and 1 in 6 children live in poverty. For those aged 65 plus who are renting, then, 39.4 per cent are in poverty. Any government that ignores the most vulnerable people is indulging in cant and hypocrisy. For the 14.2 per cent a caring and compassionate government would increase social security payments to above the poverty line and increase the rental and energy subsidies.

The Budget is good for some and the changes to negative gearing, capital gains tax and trusts is a necessary redistribution of wealth but the government has failed to assist those most impacted by cost of living – the 14.2 per cent of the population that ACOSS concluded were in poverty in 2025. These redistribution changes will not help the 14.2 per cent! The measure of a government is what it does for the most vulnerable and in this Budget the government is doing nothing. Might as well be a LNP government!

I was deeply moved by Professor Emerita Gillian Triggs AC’s article on the collapse of the rules-based international order. Her analysis of weakening institutions, international law and democratic norms is compelling, but it may understate one uncomfortable reality – institutions are only as strong as the people willing to uphold them.

International law has always been fragile because, unlike domestic law, it relies largely on voluntary restraint, common values and mutual interest. The post-war order emerged from the trauma of fascism, genocide and world war, when countries declared “never again”. However, memory fades, fear returns and human beings don’t always act consistently under pressure.

War, economic insecurity and social division encourage populism and nationalism. Refugees then become the test of whether societies genuinely believe in universal human dignity, or only when circumstances are comfortable.

Australia’s offshore detention policies matter not only because they breach legal principles, but because they show how quickly fear can eradicate compassion.

We need stronger laws and institutions, including a national Human Rights Act, but no legal framework can survive without people and leaders willing to act with decency and moral courage.

I thank David Griffiths and Milton Mayes for their letters criticising my article NDIS: the way forward on the grounds of ‘privatisation, profit and corporate entity’. These were never my intent. I am not suggesting privatisation or profit at all. The comments reflect a misunderstanding of my article which means the article was not sufficiently well written in the first place. What I was endeavouring to convey was a corporate mindset through which the NDIA maintains close control over its business (not currently the case), and use of ‘the tools’ corporations use (advanced systems, extensive, real time data collection) to achieve this.

END opposition for opposition’s sake would be a good place to start.

Change question time so any elected representative from either house can ask any other elected representative from either house a question – a job for the speakers.

Above all the questions should be ANSWERED with penalties for inadequate answers (questions on notice accepted private questions in private) notified to the speaker.

END the media reporting quotes from the person who wrote the Australian handbook on opposition for opposition sake – T Abbott (trained by J Howard).