Archives: Letters to the Editor

I have zero tolerance for the obvious lies the ABC has been broadcasting.

You know what would send their ratings through the roof? Telling the truth.

You know what will keep ABC struggling to get off the floor? Continuing to lie to us.

I wholeheartedly agree with the title of Michael McKinley’s article. But I disagree that “Trump’s victory was not inevitable.” If not Trump, someone incredibly similar, summarising McKinley’s delicious adjectives with the inadequate “deranged”, was bound to emerge.

Trump (or similar) is the natural endpoint of the neo-liberalism that started at least in the late 18th, early 19th century. That manufactured disaster hollowed out the US so that all the money weighing at the top could not be upheld by the masses of poor and ignorant the system created beneath it. It was inevitable that someone cherishing money and power would come along and promise them Eden. And so it came to pass, the blighted followed in their millions.

But Eden won’t deliver. The scales will start to fall from the eyes of the deceived. We’re at the beginning of this now, a springboard is building beneath their feet. We can only guess where the masses will go, what they will do, to the deceiver-in-chief and his acolytes when finally they too “can see clearly now”. The end for Trump and MAGA. The beginning of …what?

Of course, ABC News isn’t worth a crumpet. It was captured by the Liberals years ago. Shades of Murdoch prevail. Its last remaining effort at genuinely informative news programming ended with the death of The Drum.

Online, it waved the flag of mediocrity with its recently redesigned website, designed for the next step after Play School but content not up to Play School standards.

Only Laura Tingle is worth reading.

So the country with the highest prison population in the world, where slavery is still legal (when convicted of an offence, refer to the 13th Amendment) and where torture and forced labour are rampant to profit private companies in those prisons criticises China for exaggerated and or debunked policies imposed to stamp out terrorism.

Until recently, even the US classed Uyghur groups as terrorists.

Perhaps China should have killed everything as is happening in Gaza and Trump could have moved the Palestinians there! (sarcasm intended!)

I disagree with Michael Keating’s view that democracy is best served by independents deciding which party they will support before the election. The minor parties and independents are seeking to represent their electorate and their ability to advance the policies they are promoting cannot be determined until after the election.

Their ability to be independent would be eroded if they had to decide which party to support before the election – and erode their independence.

If we learn nothing from the Trump saga it is that democracy and accountability go hand in hand. To achieve that freedom of information legislation needs to be beefed up, regulatory bodies need funding without government interference, the Auditor-General needs to be funded sufficiently to do its job and the recommendations made by all of these bodies need to be vigorously acted upon as do the recommendations of royal commissions.

We certainly need to revise some of the outdated parliamentary practices:

• Parliamentary terms extended from three to four-year fixed terms;
• Limit parliamentarians tenure to two consecutive elections cycles;
• All expenditure over half a billion to be debated in Parliament;
• Commitment to overseas WAR to be debated in Parliament;
• Election funding fair and equitable for all;
• Abolish question time;
• Empower the speaker to act on lies; and
• Build a hotel in Canberra for sitting members and limited staff and closely audit their expenditure.

Remember that many of these practices were from the time of telegraph, trains and T-model Fords and need to be updated. Parliament could be held while each member is at work in their electoral office.

I agree with Edward Down – the ABC reporters are either the world’s most ignorant or most complicit and compromised in the media outlets beyond the Benighted States of Murdochracy. (Honourable exception – John Lyons, now “kicked upstairs” as Global Correspondent after calling B/S on the “beheaded babies in ovens and mass rape of 7 October” which even the government of Israel has long acknowledged to be untrue hasbara.

The Merkin Isle is approx. 250ks from Australia, Taiwan is 160kms from China.

Both straits are international waters as the so-disant “freedom of navigation” provocations of the US and its various satrapies demonstrate.

How would Dutton and the IPA/ASPI et al have reacted had the recent Chinese navy ships availed themselves of International Maritime Law and taken the shorter route to circumnavigate Australia via the Bass Strait?

No question about how the “Labor PM” would have expectorated after he’d regained consciousness and received his riding instructions from Langley VA.

An invasion, the massacre of sovereignty, which is the starting point, of freedom and well-being, of all humankind, must always be rejected. There can never be tolerance, let alone reward, of an invasion.

Sachs’ view is, therefore, untenable. Peace in Ukraine requires restoration of its territory, to the pre-2014 boundaries. All of humankind is duty bound to see to this restoration.

I must have read a dozen articles decrying the situation of the Palestinians in Gaza and how opposition in Australia to Israel’s actions is being muzzled, particularly by false claims of antisemitism. However, life/death in Gaza goes on.

It is time to begin to ramp up the level of protest, turn words into action; learn from Vietnam protests in the 1960s/70s (yes, I was there!) and begin a campaign of mass civil disobedience culminating in a symbolic day of protest, a “Moratorium”. (Unfortunately the presence of a modern day Jim Cairns in the Labor Party has long gone).

As before, it could begin in the universities with mass challenges and protests by staff and students against the ridiculous elements of the new antisemitism definition.

Awkward to say and impossibly flawed; Scott Morrison’s deception should have been reviled by the Opposition in both chambers and the decision reversed by the Australian Labor Party when it came to power. Along with an apology to the French Government and people. Now we’re perceived as a vassal of the Trumpian States of America and have become its milking cow. Another fine mess we’ve gotten ourselves into.

From the brouhaha that erupted when three Chinese warships circumnavigated Australia and fired off a few practice shots, you’d have thought the sky had fallen in, which, in itself, would have been a valuable intel for the PLA. But, as much as some commentators and politicians would have cheered it, the sky didn’t fall in. Although one can’t help but feel Albo may have missed a trick.

Inviting the Chinese flotilla to visit ports along the way would have been the hospitable thing to do. They’d probably have declined the invitation, but the gesture would have defused the situation and thrown the commissars off guard. Of course, the invitation wouldn’t have included the hypothetical nuclear submarine shadowing the armada.

A hung parliament is, to the major parties, the Damoclesian sword. They portray minority government as the end of our democracy.

Decades ago the major parties commanded more than 90% of the vote. At the last election they held 68% of the vote between them; this share is expected to reduce further at the coming election. If the major parties want a greater share of the vote they must better reflect the people’s will in their policies and in their government. But these parties have compromised their policies to accommodate vested interests. The community-based independents’ movement has flourished to counter this.

Were independent candidates to commit, before the election, to which major party they would support in a hung parliament, they would undermine their own independence from the beginning. The parties must negotiate with independents, individually or in groups. This might increase the difficulty of passing legislation, but it is necessary because the major parties’ platforms do not reflect majority opinion. They could remedy this by breaking free from their dependence on major backers, and reshaping their policies to meet the people’s needs – but this seems unlikely.

The thread which holds that Damoclesian sword looks ready to break.

“Empires in decline are often very dangerous.” They are even more dangerous if they are led by a cabal of ill-informed people who have a sense of entitlement coupled with a belief of their infallibility.

We should learn from the US’ actions in Europe; it has proved to be an unreliable ally. It will be no different for us. Our objective should be to chart an independent course.

Sam Varghese may have been speed-reading, to miss my reference to the PCA as “the old one, not the current one” in the letter he seeks to explain.

The PCA to which I referred was this one.

May I quote: “The Wheelchair Council of Australia (formerly the PCA) is a road safety lobbyist who seeks to promote wheelchair as a transport mode. [1]  The chairman and sole member is Harold Scruby.”

The current PCA is an entirely different body and I believe does excellent work in the community, unlike its predecessor.

This is no nitpicking matter: I raised it to illuminate the fact that the assumption of a pompous and self-important title does not automatically generate authority of even fact. This is of great importance to understand when we see the commentaries coming from the multitude of Zionist groups, all claiming great importance and representative status for Australian Jewry without any proof whatsoever of their apparent “authority”.

Since our politicians and many administrative head honchos genuflect obeisance too readily to these utterances, it is more than time we examined the claimed credentials of the wailing multitude and rejected those that cannot supply proof.

Further to this article, the US has now said it will cut off access to US intelligence if Britain supports Ukraine militarily.

Do we assume that the same applies to us in Oz now that our PM has indicated military peacekeeping support?

Will Five Eyes be reduced to four and a half for us too?

In a letter published in this section, reference was made to the Pedestrian Council of Australia and it was described as having just one official.

This is incorrect and I apologise for the error.

The Council is a registered charity (which by law must have more than one member) and owns and manages National Walk Safely to School Day and Walk to Work Day, both of which have been going for over 25 years.

I have only one thing to add to this very interesting article by Eugene Doyle… and I’ve posted a link below to Alex Krainer, who reckons the distinctly anti-Russian Keir Starmer had already sewn up a deal with Volodymyr Zelenskyy (in January) before Zelensky dangled a similar deal in front of the US.

A UK/Ukrainian 100-year deal for minerals etc and Ukrainian port facilities in exchange for UK billions towards security and “boots on ground”. If this is so, it would go a long way towards Trump’s testy exchanges and final disdain of a fellow who steadfastly refused to even consider peace.

Alex Krainer: The Hidden Wars Ukraine’s Minerals and Global

Until we acknowledge that the job of the private sector is to make a profit, we will never get on top of this problem. The private sector is nothing if not opportunistic.

Take the present housing crisis. The regulations that governed housing in our state have been thrown out the window (with the help of state governments).
SA may not be as prone to flooding as our northeastern states. Bush fires are another thing, but wait. Houses are being built on school ovals, prime farming, market garden land swamps ETC without the supporting infrastructure.

There are more high-rise buildings going up than social housing close to the CBD. Much of the high-rises, in particular, are unaffordable to first homebuyers and the link between affordable housing and new housing is nonexistent.

Our heritage buildings, parklands, national parks and way of life are only one housing crisis away from political and council opportunism.

A study of the history of Whyalla will reveal that the generous government handouts only continue and profit lives on at taxpayers’ expense. Those aspiring to be Gupta applaud government handouts while complaining about tax.

When studying production engineering in the 1960s, it was assumed that labour productivity could be improved by 1.5% a year. Clipboards and stopwatches gave way to Kaizen and continuous improvement in the 1990s with real improvements in productivity.

In concentrating on technology alone, today’s bosses overlook the gradual improvements achieved by dedicated input and shop floor co-operation with commensurate sharing of productivity gains.

I can’t say I was pleased to read Don and Patricia Edgar’s article. Grateful, yes, and sick of the lack of care from those adhering to the medical practitioners industry instead of the oath to heal and care for the those in need of healing and caring. There’s no bulk-billing GPs in the rural area I live in, only those with “mixed billing”.

And… yes, indeed, they look you up and down whether you’re on an aged or disability pensioner or not and they assess whether they’ll get instant money or not. With me, they get nothing but contempt. I need a doctor who cares that I live on a pension as well as that I understand my body. After all, I’ve looked after it for more than 70 years.

I’m also an advocate (now unpaid) for others needing preventive care as well as advice on how to look after chronic pain without becoming drug addicts. It shouldn’t matter where we live or how old we are, it’s our right to have dignity and be treated with respect, especially by health professionals. It’s much more than upping fees for doctors, isn’t it?

When you can’t trust your Parliament to self regulate, why would you expect industry to self regulate and follow its own voluntary code of conduct? The difference is that one of the main jobs of Parliament is to regulate for the good of all Australians.

“Democracy may not be the best form of government but it’s better than all the other forms that have been tried“.

That quote like our system of government needs regular updating, but how do you do it without political interference? I think that a benevolent dictatorship is the answer and I’m putting my hand up for the top job,

I’ve got all the votes.

Thank you Melody Kemp for giving me the language to comment on “the Bankstown nurses” – “angry fantasies”. Who hasn’t wished (aloud even) the annihilation of the schoolyard or office bully, by the most gruesome means imaginable? Thousands of people daily are unlucky enough to stumble across someone ready to exploit their vulnerabilities down the rabbit hole that is the internet.

Yes, what the nurses said was stupid and repulsive when they fell into the trap of a master manipulator. But what must they have gone through either directly, indirectly or both in their so far short lives to make them susceptible to someone with clever and evil intent? Staff at a Sydney café could also have said objectively unacceptable things but they were lucky to meet newspaper provocateurs who were fortunately totally inept. There but for the grace of God …

There has been no suggestion that the nurses’ care of patients has ever been anything other than exemplary. I wish we lived in a country that was more inclined to compassion than knee-jerk reactions. Who knows, it might might be one of us whose vulnerabilities are penetrated tomorrow without us ever seeing it coming.

The film “No Other Land” is brilliant and heartbreaking. For me, it raises the question about what must be done to the consciences of IDF members that they can look their fellow human beings in the eye and treat them so barbarically, even to the point of cold- blooded murder.

It should be noted that this is not set in Gaza but the occupied territory of the West Bank. Interestingly, when I went to check this on Google maps the village of Masafer Yatta doesn’t exist.

This film has struggled to be shown in the US. It’s not showing or listed as coming to the two major cinema chains near me. So could I please put in a plug for DocPlay streaming service which is showing it. I have no connection with DocPlay other than I stumbled upon it and signed up for a two-week free trial so I could see “The Bibi Files”. I was subsequently hooked by their varied documentary offerings and took out a subscription, my first and only streaming service.

“While platforms like ChatGPT are ostensibly “free to use”, they …” will very soon start charging a subscription fee without end. All those AI enticements scattered over our screens like confetti are not there to be helpful but to set us up to be fleeced (some more).

Welcome, DeepSeek!

Q: What do Marie Antoinette and Donald Trump have in common?
A: They are figureheads for the end point of utterly corrupt systems of government.

We know what came after the former. What will we create to come after the latter?

These questions brought to you from my Huawei phone.

This is brilliant… scary stuff written with humour – shared on social media and with fellow Community Independent friends and colleagues.

My big fear at this point is that people who are so legitimately disappointed with Albanese will be tempted to vote Liberal, ignoring the monumental disaster that would befall us. Not only Dutton and his empty policies, but his vacuous Liberal colleagues as well.

My hope is that we will get a significantly increased crossbench, including a goodly number of Community Independents, and that, not too long after the election, Albanese will bid us adieu, willingly or otherwise, to make way for a leader with backbone and colleagues freed to use their talents.

May I not dream in vain.

Semitic refers to a family of languages Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic and some ancient languages (Oxford dictionary Encyclopaedia Brittanica etc )

Abuse of those people is antisemitic. What is the acceptable word to describe the behaviour of elected representative and their followers in the ongoing abuse of China? I’m old enough to remember when some words were common, but are now unacceptable.

How bad does the commentary have to be before you qualify for your own acceptable word/descriptor even if it is a shared one?

I went to an all-boys Catholic High School in Brisbane in the 1960s. Immediately after High School I enrolled at University of Queensland in 1968.

At that time, I was exposed daily on campus to the anti-Vietnam protests that were in full swing. They certainly made me uncomfortable and threatened my belief system; it was one of the best thing that ever happened to me!

Thank you for posting this article about the government’s report to address the environmental impacts of constructing nuclear submarines at Osborne, Port Adelaide, noting it is open for public consultation. We did a lovely kayaking tour recently in the Adelaide Dolphin Sanctuary – a part of the Port Adelaide area.

It encompasses a 10,000 year-old man­grove for­est and marine park that is home to around 30 res­i­dent bot­tlenose dol­phins, with anoth­er 400 tran­sient dol­phins that vis­it at var­i­ous times – all wild, as well a number of threatened and migratory birds.

I don’t feel confident that the building of the nuclear submarines in this area would protect what we still have left there. Presume the nuclear waste issues are a buck to be passed to somewhere else in Australia to deal with.

What a friend we have in the US! If you’re not with us, you’re against us. If you are with us, you might be against us one day. If we are with you we might be against you one day has become we will be your friend at a price.

We’re moving in today. Sit down, shut up and pay up (US$ or bitcoin).

I love and am so grateful for P&I but that doesn’t mean I agree with every word or idea published. Assuming other fans are like me, some probably don’t — yet — share Dr Patience’s views in his Trump 2.0 article. Thus, for any such readers, the statement “It is possible … Trump (hence America) won’t care about Australia at all. …. Canberra’s timorous commitment to the ridiculous AUKUS agreement, for example, becomes ever more quixotic as Trump and his team up-end old alliances and the global order.” is not direct enough.

For current unbelievers and doubters, plain English is needed. We need to exit AUKUS “now” and re-examine every treaty, agreement and handshake understanding “now”.

And lest I’m not plain enough, this is not “because of” Trump. Our alignments with the US have only ever been in US interests from which we might benefit if we were lucky. And clearly we haven’t been – Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, AUKUS billions, etc. The only thing new with Trump is that his madness gives, or should give, us clarity of vision to see the one-sidedness and shortcomings that have always been there.

Exit AUKUS now!

Rescinding our commitment to AUKUS should be given priority, before we throw more good money after bad. to gain nothing. AUKUS will never serve Australia’s strategic interest.

The arrangement is now on shaky ground with one of its co-partners deranged by power-lust and self-centred ambition. In no way does it buy US allegiance. NATO is a case in point.

The projected delivery date was always shaky (early 2040s for merely the first of the “fleet” – come in spinner. Furthermore, with up to $368 billion hypothecated to AUKUS until the mid-2050s, what social investment will be compromised to provide for our immediate defence needs in the meantime?

The question is, how to withdraw diplomatically without incensing the Trumpian triumvirate. It appears that the brat emperor now has two puppeteers, with Musk pulling the strings and JD pulling no punches.