Archives: Letters to the Editor

No mention of the non-existent US democracy largely based on the non-thinkers voting and the thinking voters non-voting, all by design with the latest system of bribes (AUKUS) paid by compliant countries for protection which history tells will always be on its way unless further bribes are paid to the US arms industry

The economic indicators may have improved, but the wealth extremities have widened. Economic distribution is consolidating the fortunes of the super-rich and obscenely wealthy, at the expense of the already impoverished, disenfranchised, or at risk (employed or not). Here is the battleground for the contest of ideas, and emotions.

Climate action, refugees or minority groups (however named, shamed and denigrated, including welfare recipients and people with a disability) are not driving extremes of inequality. The wealthy can as yet weather the storms (literally and figuratively) caused by climate change and economic instability. Others cannot.

The appeal to the emotions must be backed by fair and just policy. This is not in Dutton’s DNA. Lower taxes privilege only the well-off, and come at the expense of community services that the wealthy already eschew in favour of private provision. The mantra to that segment of the electorate is “freedom” – the right to accumulate wealth without let or hindrance.

Dutton’s triple helix: invoke fear and insecurity amongst the struggling; incite aspiration and greed amongst the privileged; “other” and blame anyone already marginalised. Wealth distribution is emotional, and the larger portion of the electorate is not winning. There is a contest here.

Thanks for a good article. Balfour’s 1917 letter, aka the Balfour Declaration (text below) stipulated:

“ … nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine ..” .

This promise was not honoured by the British administration or by the Zionists .

Balfour Declaration
1917 November 2nd, 1917

Dear Lord Rothschild,

I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty’s Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet.

His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”

I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.

Yours sincerely,

Arthur James Balfour

Astonishing as the Trump announcement re seizure of Gaza was, perhaps more telling was that the only leader even hinting at agreement was Netanyahu.
Not even neighbours like Egypt or Jordan were consulted in advance, nor did regional client states in the region agree. Perhaps Trump’s Inept Isolationism would be a better descriptor.

Is there any way that I can persuade “Pearls and Irritations” to stop supporting the US’ “International Rules-Based Order” and to, instead, support International Law? The two are not the same. The “International Rules-Based Order” is the US’ attempt to supplant International Law with something meaningless and inconsistent that they can manipulate to say whatever they want from time to time.

The relationship between International Law and the “Rules-Based Order” is examined here.

We could explain to the Australian public why our ships and planes are surveilling in international waters/airspace off the coast of China. Would we tolerate it in international waters off our coast?

Of all historical documents, The Balfour Declaration must hold the record for being the most often referred to and the least often read.

The document reads:

“His Majesty’s Government views with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people . . . it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”

The Declaration talks about a “national home”, in Palestine, for the Jews, while the Zionists dream is to turn Palestine into a Jewish “homeland”. And note that the declaration does not grant land.

There is a big difference between a “national home” and a “homeland”. A “national home” can be made in a multicultural space; a “homeland” is an entire domain exclusive to one culture.

Balfour’s directive to do nothing to “prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine” has been taken to authorise a regime of apartheid and the expulsion of non-Jews.

One consideration to add to Eric Hunter’s excellent article on ‘Why doesn’t God save the day?’ is the apparent automatic assumption it is a male figure.

No doubt it originates from ancient days when domination relied more on direct physical prowess rather than projectiles delivered from a distance.

Any deity is likely to be a figurehead to all and not defined by gender. Perhaps there is a message in the recent amplified status by transgender people which may lead the faithful beyond the confines of conflict.

Perhaps Cold Chisel should alter the lyrics to their song “Ita”. or maybe they were just being sarcastic all along? Is her integrity the reason that another person of integrity, Scomo, picked her?

Peter Varghese has finally recognised that the US has become a selfish bully and that its capacity to champion “our great strategic project” against China is in doubt.

He says that while we should continue to enjoy the security from hanging out with the bully, it would be wise given US unpredictability “to recognise what we should have known all along” that we can’t leave our defence to others”. (Is this an apology for inability to advance this view when he was DFAT secretary?)

What brings Varghese to his realisation are Trump’s statements about expanding US territory and plans for Gaza, as though these utterances change things. For Varghese, what changes is that the US can no longer claim moral superiority to China, which seems a limited way to view things.

I strongly agree with his prescription for beefed up and independent defence capacity, but I find it odd that one previously so close to the exercise of power in this country should have this realisation only now, and as the result of a US president’s words.

As many others have eloquently documented in these pages, it is US behaviour that has rained death, misery, and destruction globally for decades.

The situation with Taiwan and Gaza is not comparable. A total of 146 countries recognise Palestine (including Gaza) as a sovereign state that has never belonged to America or Israel.

Almost every country recognises Taiwan as part of China (12 don’t). Even America does.

Those running Taiwan are not the original inhabitants, but forcibly overran it after losing a civil war.

I believe that provoking China over Taiwan has more to do with China’s massive economic growth than spreading freedom and democracy and mythical fairy stories of the rules-based order.

Ask the previous inhabitants of Diego Garcia (and numerous other places) how that worked out for them.

From the river to the sea is condemned as a racist and hateful policy. Given that it should be banned from Likud’s founding documents, campaigns, and policies.

Peter Sainsbury illustrates a frightening truth. Australia, and for that matter, the rest of the world, is chasing its tail trying to reach net zero targets. The reason is multifaceted, but the underlying solution is simple; take the ominous consequences of global warming seriously and act accordingly. The question then becomes: is Australia capable of curbing its consumeristic lifestyle to haul in what is fast becoming runaway atmospheric warming?

At this stage, we’ve shown no inclination to do so. Our business leaders and politicians seem yoked to population growth, which only compounds greenhouse gas emissions, but to be honest, so much of our power usage is extraneous, some, grossly so.

Further, our continued extraction of fossil fuels makes us major global contributors to the problem.

Each year we break temperature, wind and rainfall records and our daily news bulletins display examples of social disorder, biological fragility, environmental upheaval and deteriorating food security. We are living in the world climatologists have warned us of for decades. Yesterday’s science fiction predictions have become today’s dystopian reality.

Certainly, we’re not alone in bringing about this grim predicament, but inaction is not an option.

Peter Sainsbury shocked me with his heading “Environment Australia unlikely to play its proper part in keeping warming under 1.5 degrees C”.

Our PM and team should stick boldly to the decarbonising science; and try harder to explain to MPs and voters that this is the only true, effective path for a livable future on Earth.

That path would also likely beat Dutton’s nuclear energy as far too late, costly and with forever deadly radioactive waste.

I consider that our government has a golden opportunity to make a strong stand now for doing the right thing for the environment, economy and world including us.

My Fraser clan motto is Je suis pret, French for I am ready, and we are very determined!

Peter Varghese’s article has a number of factual inaccuracies which I would like to point out.

1. The so-called rules-based order crafted by the US mentioned in his essay is nothing but a self-serving way of relating to the world solely in its interests. The US never signed up to the United Nations’ international Charter of Law.

2. Taiwan has been recognised internationally — even by the US — as being part of mainland China. This is not the case as far as Panama, Greenland, nor for that matter, Gaza. Thus the comparison is invalid.

Peter Varghese’s article takes a totally unneccesary swipe at China. China may be a one-party state, but it has managed to lift its population out of the depths of poverty into a modern welfare state. He may not like China’s authoritarian regime (neither do I, by the way), but a huge majority of Chinese citizens elected it and it has the respect of most of its population. On the other side, America is rapidly evolving into a rogue state where “might is right” and “money is king” are the only criteria that matter.

I am not a military expert, but to me the fact that we have become America’s bumboy frightens the hell out of me. It is naive to think we are protected by the US. This is only the case as long as America needs us (Pine Gap, Exmouth, etc.). If for some reason those are no longer needed, Australia will be dropped like a hot potato. We are happy to pour (so far totally unjustified) billions of dollars into America’s defense industries in the (probably vain) hope of getting some nuclear submarines. in the 2040s. And should we get them, what then? Attack China?

Forget about Musk or any other of the small, medium or large businesses; what is really on the nose is politics. The job of business is to make a profit and everything they do or say is, and should be, about making a profit.

No matter how big or small they are, if it isn’t about making a profit they will not survive/prosper.

The problem is that our politicians and our politics have lost sight of their job which is to govern without fear or favour for the good/betterment of all Australians
without fear of not being re-elected.

Without favours for donors or mates for the good of all/every Australian.

Remember that the job of all MPs is to hold themselves accountable to the Australian voters, not to just oppose for the sake of opposition.

Not to just grind the country to a halt to keep taxes down which is the cause of the current crises eg defence spending, social housing, Medicare, hospitals, roads and general infrastructure spending .

Australia and Australians are sacrificed at the alter of profit and greed.

The right-wing lobby group Advance played a not insignificant role against the Voice, and it mounted a concerted campaign to defeat the sitting Greens candidate in Prahran’s recent by-election in Victoria. Advance is partly funded by a Liberal Party investment group which donated $500,000 in the last financial year.

It was disturbing to read that the Victorian Electoral Commission felt obliged to seek a Supreme Court injunction against Advance for repeatedly defying election campaign rules. Disturbing not because of the actions of the VEC, but the response from Advance, who accused the VEC of “heavy-handed overreaction to Australians participating in an election” and of a “politically motivated attack”.

Disturbing because, undeterred by requests from the VEC to abide by the rules (it is not a political party), it continued its anti-Greens campaign, thereby helping the Liberal candidate to victory. There appear to be no real-time consequences for such actions. One hopes that the Australian Electoral Commission will be prepared to take immediate action during the coming Federal Election, so that infringements cannot continue while voters are at the polling booth.

(Advance quotes are from The Age, 8/2)

Bob McMullan’s piece reads like he’s trying to convince himself that Labor isn’t doing as badly as it is.

Whatever else is happening in the world, however bad the opposition is, by any measure Labor is a disappointment, at best. On climate and the environment it has performed particularly poorly, the backdown on gambling reform was pathetic, and not subjecting the whole AUKUS deal to thorough scrutiny was an abdication of responsibility. The list goes on.

Talk to anyone vaguely interested in politics and the refrain is the same. Albanese is an inadequate prime minister, timid, spineless, lacking courage or vision – take your pick. He’s been fighting and appeasing Dutton, instead of looking to Australia’s and Australians’ needs.

Labor’s only hope at this point is that enough people will overlook Albanese’s failures and lukewarm successes that should have been better. And that fewer people are taken in by Dutton’s BS policies than fell for his BS at the Voice referendum. It’s a big ask and a tough call.

An LNP government led by Dutton is an horrific thought. If it comes to pass we will have Labor’s poor performance, Albanese’s in particular, to thank.

Congratulations on a well-written article. I am a 62-year-old white Australian and have to agree with all aspects of the article.

Particularly with the outside influences aggravating the Australian public who are not very smart or introspective in the first place.

The problem is how do you make a politician who is left- or right-wing and probably being paid in some manner by the perpetrators to see clearly the falsity that is obvious?

A great article.

What Australia needs:

• Another Trump light bulb moment where he decides that Biden/Morrison did a dumb deal (he may well take our money and tell us to p*** off but in the long run thatwill be cheaper).
• A hung parliament in which Dutton won’t work with the independents.
• Richard Marles to lose his seat.
• The “Future made in Australia” to kick in.

It is standard Trump/defence business practice to quote low and once the build reaches critical mass the customer has no choice but to hold on and pay up and go along for the rough ride. Eg. In South Australia when you are not watching the car race, or gathering round the golf etc take a look at the billion-dollar mess that the SA government is trying to sort out in the Whyalla steel works. Incidentally, ships were once built there too.

The Lattouff court case exposes, once again, the craven subservience of Australian Government, its instrumentalities, and of course, the mainstream media (aka the “Murdochracy”).

So much dissembling, so much obfuscation, so much plain BS. So much genuflection to the obscene demands of the Zionist lobby. Ita Buttrose, a person of (questionably, but let that pass) veneration, reduced to the status of a messenger of the gods of the Zionist Lobby industry.

Since when has it been a “personal opinion, attacking Israel” to quote, with attribution, the stated finding of a respected international organisation? Since when has it been a “personal opinion, attacking Israel” to reproduce a judgment of the United Nations that settler occupation of Palestinian lands is illegal?

Just because Zionist industry operatives know the email address of the chairman of the ABC and happily use that knowledge to flame anyone of a different view does not invalidate the accuracy of an ABC presenter reproducing as a statement of fact the judgments of the UN, the ICC, etc.

And, lest the ABC lawyers choose to overlook reality, let it be clearly stated that a vast number of honourable Jews vehemently oppose the Zionist genocidal activity.

Be bold, ABC.

Hope in a crisis is the drowning man’s straw: people grasp it, however unlikely it may seem, and cling to it. So it is with the climate crisis. We have scientists arguing powerfully, passionately, for the urgent action that we still need to preserve a liveable Earth. This gives hope, in the face of ever-worsening expectations.

Trainer argues that those hopes are doomed, unable to overcome the greed of capitalism before capitalism itself collapses under its own internal contradictions. He pins his hopes, instead, on small, self-sufficient, co-operative groups. The approach he advocates for — he calls it The Simpler Way — may provide a sustainable approach to living for a much-reduced population one day. It could be valuable to sow the seeds of this possibility now.

My hope remains that realisation will dawn on enough people, in enough countries, to bring about global change to avoid climate calamity. My expectation, however, is, like Trainer’s, that this will not happen: that tipping points will breach, that we’ll see Trainer’s forecast societal collapse. If this eventuates, sustainable communities would surely come under attack from the starving hordes ill-prepared for foreseeable calamity. The road to Trainer’s “simpler way” is likely to be rough.

Comcare referred a case about Robodebt under S.19.2 of the Commonwealth Occupational Health and Safety Act to the CDPP. That section covers the duty of care to those affected by the work of a “person (natural or corporate) in control of a business or undertaking”, and includes the Commonwealth government. Comcare says the CDPP declined to prosecute because it saw little chance of a conviction.

Ever since Donald Trump took that elevator ride in 2015, he has made an art form of generating headlines. He says something outrageous and then watches as the world’s media and assorted pundits put him on the front page. They buy into it time after time after time. They’re doing it now.

“Own” Gaza? With neither US military nor US money being used? How will that work? The Palestinians have resisted Israel. Why would they not resist the Yanks?

Also, no Arab or Muslim nation has indicated any willingness to accept two million disgruntled migrants. And why would they, especially now when the coercive, colour-revolution power of USAID has just been shelved?

I can’t help but notice that Australia has not offered to replace Gaza as a home for Palestinians. Can you imagine the reaction to such a proposal from Albo’s Zionist backers?

Maybe something other than the current ethnic slaughter will emerge. But US ownership of Gaza? Perhaps that’s one we can let go through to the keeper.

I just thought I’d let you know that I stopped reading this article as soon as I got to the bit where it says “McKay wants secretary and senior-level public service remuneration to be ‘well calibrated to the correct private sector analogues’.”

What is it with academics that they must twist language into some sort of contortions to make a point?

Why couldn’t this bloke McKay, who is obviously an idiot, just say he wants senior-level public servant pay to mirror the private sector, or to be similar to the private sector?

“Well calibrated to the correct private sector analogues” is just a bullish-t way of saying what I have clearly stated above.

This piffle (which the article’s writer correctly identifies it as) pervades universities and their “sub-schools” and is spouted endlessly by people like McKay, who, far from being in the real world, is living in some kind of academic bubble: like a troglodyte emerging from a cave after 30 years of isolation.

From other intellectual rust-buckets we get the constant referral to every industry, sector or department as “a space” and utter nonsense such as referring to redundancies as “an expansion of the alumni”.

The mystery will always remain: Why did Albanese appease his Coalition opponents while haemorrhaging votes from his supporters?

Moving on, I suggest Dutton and the LNP would be infinitely worse. The Trump playbook, divisiveness, lack of policies and policy detail, lack of transparency, lies and personal attacks on opponents at both federal and electorate level – no good lies down that path.

So the big question is: What are we going to do about it? Please… vote deliberately for a hung/balanced parliament.

Community independents have already shown teeth and backbone in calling the major parties to account. Add more to their number to force getting the job done properly on climate change, gambling reform, a NACC with teeth, tax reform, and all the other things on which Albanese has pulled his punches, even overriding his ministers.

Hopefully three things will follow:

• ALP members in and outside parliament will convince Albanese to “retire gracefully” no later than 12 months post-election.
• The populace at large will realise they are better off under the properly implemented policies promised in 2022.
• We will have proof that crossbench power works in favour of Australia, not one or other major political party.

Thoroughly enjoyed this article and share Barb’s disappointment in our political leaders. Australia seems to be going off course. The tragedy is that in a recent election, Bill Shorten tried to offer solutions to many of her concerns, but was unsuccessful with many short-sighted Australians.

When Murdoch controls 80% of the media and has other ideas, many of his readers are misled about the precarious situation. Murdoch’s minions and lackeys are pushing a separate dangerous and backward agenda. The legacy media meekly wades in the swamp.

The other tragedy is that our political system is broken and not fit for purpose. The adversarial nature of the two-party system is failing us all. I am nearly 80 and, like Barb, despair for the future generations.

Ted Trainer’s article provides a timely warning that the current model of greed encased in capitalism is nearing its logical end.

I have been involved in the recycling and zero waste movements and their refinement over the last 35 years. Despite highlighting the urgent need for change little happens. Every time a move is made to minimise the harm to the environment, such as plastics recycling, container recovery, alternate energy or safer and improved quality food production, the current capital model steals the concept and incorporates it into the greed structure to generate more income for the current investment model.

It is possible for local food production without chemicals and resource recovery without expensive infrastructure to exist at a local level without a focus on greed and social dysfunction – creating local employment through community engagement.

Reading P&I on Trump’s latest mad plan to “resettle” the inhabitants of Gaza somewhere else so he can build hotels and golf courses, I was struck by an historic parallel.

The last chap to try this was Sargon II, boss of Assyria, who came down on the local inhabitants “like a wolf on the fold, his cohorts gleaming in purple and gold” and scattered them to the four winds, an event known in Jewish history as the diaspora.

That was 2750 years ago and led directly to the present mess that is Israel/Palestine. So if Trump has his way, we can expect another three millennia of Canaanite chaos and carnage. If humans last that long.