TO THE AUSTRALIAN 16 December 2025 – I
The prime minister commits to “fund greater security for Jewish Australians.”
This is an admission that anti-semitism is prevalent in Australia?
It should never have come to this.
Long-term and refugee Jewish Australians should, in the first place, never have been in need of “greater security.”
As with all Australians, they should feel safe in this wonderful country.
Sadly, the Australian government, especially since the October 7 2023 massacre in Israel, has consistently got it wrong. The relevant perpetrators – Albanese, Burke, Wong et al – should be so ashamed as to not be able to sleep at night.
But I bet they still do?
16 December 2025 – II
A dead murderer who is known to Australia’s security apparatus, owned six firearms and was living in suburban Australia.
I am a 70-year-old retiree who formerly worked directly with a WA Premier and I live in suburban Australia. I bet I couldn’t get a firearm’s licence?
Firearms are supposedly issued to those who want to shoot animals – and there are plenty of people who abhor this – so why after the John Howard-led decree are these still apparently available to anyone, let alone a person with some cloud above their social views?
Enough is enough.
Vale the Bondi atrocity victims. Your country failed you.
TO THE AUSTRALIAN 12 DECEMBER 2025
Thank you Nicolle Flint (Letters 12/12) for articulating the rank behaviour of senators Katy Gallagher and Penny Wong during their political careers.
Flint’s “I hope Wong and Gallagher’s actions haunt them for the rest of their personal and professional lives” is, one would suspect, a cry in the wilderness?
People with their kind of duplicity make no apology for being (again Flint’s words) “truly despicable women.”
TO THE AUSTRALIAN 24 November 2025
If Anthony Albanese lived in the real world, he would, sometime in the next decade, have a Connie Sachs-like character showing him a grainy, blown-up picture of a 2025 Victory Day parade with Daniel Andrews and Bob Carr in the grandstand among the dignitaries.
Proof these men were double agents.
However, this isn’t John le Carre and the PM isn’t George Smiley.
He is the prime minister of Australia and it hasn’t taken a decade to expose Andrews and Carr. Their’ defection’ was known before it happened.
TO THE AUSTRALIAN 19 NOVEMBER 2025
US president Donald Trump is such a polarising figure that many writers feel they have to qualify his persona before praising some policy or achievement.
Even the wily Greg Sheridan prefaced a point about Gaza with “Whether you like Trump or not…” (Big win, but of little value if Hamas refuses to disarm 19/11).
Why is it so? Should we read “Whether you like Albanese or not…” or “Whether you like… (insert name of stubborn (Bowen), mean (Wong) etc)” in future editions?
TO THE AUSTRALIAN 17 November 2025
Oh bless Janet Albrechtsen (Mean Girls are now the Pathetic Girls, 17/11) for being the consistent voice not allowing federal Labor to get away with its behaviour in the Brittany Higgins case.
To borrow something of a Neil Simon quote from his play/film The Goodbye Girl: “The Brittany Higgins saga at Canberra stinks. And Penny Wong and Katy Gallagher are the stinkees!”
Albrechtsen has been relentless in calling out the hypocrisy of the ALP.
However, we all know that senators Wong and Gallagher won’t pay for their meanness and lies.
Similarly, those who agreed to and paid out the irresponsibly-fast compensation to Ms Higgins will probably go unpunished too?
Unless Janet…?
TO THE AUSTRALIAN 10 November 2025
Thank you John Loughnane (Letters 10/11) for outing COP31 in 2026 as a money-wasting attempt by federal Labor to show off.
$1billion – its expected cost – would surely be better spent at this stage in Australia’s financial cycle.
Also, where are the emission tragics complaining of the number of delegates and others travelling thousands more miles to our remote country when they could hold this on the continent and emit far less environmental damage by going to Turkey?
TO POST NEWSPAPERS 31 October 2025
John Townsend’s Post column is a wonderful visit down memory lane and reminds us all of what sports journalism was once like.
His take on John Todd plus Louis Carr’s letter to the editor on the recently departed Derek Chadwick were great reads in last week’s edition (Todd inspired 12 select years).
I would guess Mr Townsend is currently compiling his own piece to Chaddy as this is written.
In something like a segue, another person lauded in the latest column, Alan East, called his first born Chad, after the famous East Perth wingman.
I was there the day Alan East was christened ‘Stumpy’. Having come from the general subs desk to write football, Alan felt a little bit self conscious and wanted to belong. The following conversation ensued:
“How come I haven’t got a nickname?” he said to chief football writer Geoff Christian. “You’re ‘Minna’, Gino’s ‘The Count’, Ken’s ‘Mouse, John’s ‘Matchy’ and Frank’s ‘The Mule’, why haven’t I got a nickname?”
“Oh, but you have got a nickname,” Ken Casellas replied to the height-challenged East. “You’re ‘The Stump’.”
East was Stumpy East from that day forward, a name etched deep into WA football folk history.
TO THE AUSTRALIAN 24 October 2025 (unpublished)
Has Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen gone so far down the net zero cul-de-sac for him to turn around and redeem some credibility?
Suggestion: Why not “run dead” against Turkey in the quest for a climate conference hoped to be held in Australia next year? Subtle hints dropped about long-haul air travel for delegates exceeding the carbon footprint, that kind of thing.
When Turkey gets the nod, Australia could show petulance, withdraw from the conference and then seriously revise its climate objectives.
Win-win.
Mr Bowen gets a chance to regain some face and the Australian economy is saved.
TO POST NEWSPAPERS published 13 October 2025
Perhaps some more parking should be provided close to QEII instead of penalising hospital workers for trying to earn a living by caring for our loved ones?
Perhaps some more parking should be provided to aid hospital visitors, many of whom would be of an advanced age, to be able to park close to the facility? (QEII fines harvest $270,000, 4 October)
People don’t park illegally out of bloody mindedness. They usually do so because of lack of alternatives or an inability to walk a great distance to their destination.
I recall something similar happened when the Forrest Highway opened. WA Police revealed during a trial period that something like 70 per cent of drivers went beyond 110km/h.
Rather than tut-tut about the naughty drivers, why didn’t they look from another angle? Seventy per cent of drivers believed 110km/h was too slow on such an excellent highway.
So too here. A high proportion of the 3842 parking fines would be issued to people who held a completely different opinion to the parking authorities.
TO THE AUSTRALIAN 3 October 2025 (unpublished)
Having returned from an overseas holiday where Australian politics does not rate a line, it is sobering to again have to read it.
However, there has been one glimmer of light: Penny Wong hasn’t rated a mention in four days.
Has her influence been dulled or is she is plotting in silence to once more put Australia on the wrong world path?
TO THE AUSTRALIAN 3 September 2025 (unpublished)
Thank you Janet Albrechtsen for rigorously pursuing on behalf of the Australian people the hasty payout of $2.4 million to Brittany Higgins (Higgins case far from over, 3 September).
Apart from all the sad victims in this tawdry episode, it is we the taxpayer who have been broadly punished by the obscene rush of the Australian government to compensate Ms Higgins.
The payout timeline appeared in stark contrast to other applications for compensation from, for example, armed services’ personnel or fire and flood victims seeking damages or aid from the Commonwealth?
Those who facilitated this shoot from-the-hip payout must be penalised for their actions.
TO POST NEWSPAPERS published 16 August 2025
Ah, Robert Taylor, I applaud you (What are train passengers looking at, really?, 9 August). Sinking the rail line between Perth and Fremantle would be just the long-term project this prospective long-term Labor government needs.
WA has the only government in the country which isn’t a financial drain on the world, so we should build some very important things while we can. The state government should think in terms of decades or a century rather than today and tomorrow.
In the same newspaper, I read that Bob Hawke College is already overcrowded with students. What visionary thought up this school’s capacity? Surely, when it was built, equating the surrounding area’s number of households in which 40-year-old and younger people head the clan would produce an estimate of how many teenagers would exist in 12 years’ time?
So let’s sink the rail line and reap the benefits of defraying the costs with land sales, especially between South Cottesloe and Leighton. While on it, leave space for another high school because anywhere between Subiaco and Leighton is a pretty attractive place to live and will only get more popular in coming years.
TO THE AUSTRALIAN published 8 August 2025
What a joy (apologies) to read Alan Howe’s piece on the late Col Joye (The talented Joye of Oz rock, 7 August).
Howe writes like he was actually there yet some of the action happened in the 1950s so this is nigh-on impossible.
It is a rarity in current Australian newspapers to have writers who fill their articles with facts and references to past deeds of the subject and abundant references to that person’s contemporaries. For many readers these nostalgic memory-joggers are much appreciated.
Howe’s final paragraph listing the encore participants – “All gone” – at the 2002 Long Way to the Top concert was particularly poignant.
TO THE AUSTRALIAN published 30 July 2025
Thank you Alexander Downer (Why Javier Milei is today’s most exciting politician, 28 July) for simplifying how Australia should improve its financial affairs and government.
Downer writes that the Argentinian president has achieved a massive financial turnaround with his government’s policies.
Reducing a public service as one of the key planks is something too unpopular to consider in Australia. But why?
If a business is unproductive, it loses money, goes under or limps on with the owners struggling and the employees on notice about their future.
With the failure of The Voice, has there been any attempt to minimise the number of federally-funded indigenous committees, organisations, quangos etc that are shown to be unproductive?
This is just one example of well-intentioned policy producing zero or negative outcomes. There would be many more departments overseeing continued failure which do not account for their own existence.
As Downer quotes Milei: “The state is not the solution. The state is the problem itself.”
TO THE AUSTRALIAN 12 August 2024
The Australian’s exclusive Newspoll threw up some interesting numbers towards the next federal election but one disturbing number shone out.
According to the poll, one in eight Australians (12%) give the Greens their primary vote.
How can this many voters still be conned by the greatest fabrication in electoral history that this is a party who will save the environment?
At what cost?
The environment is merely a minor concern to the (brilliantly-named) Greens party. This group is more concerned with many other elements, including destroying the economy which feeds its voters and revisiting the worst event of the previous century: wiping out Jews in their millions.
Yet one in eight Australians want to vote for them? Disturbing.
TO THE AUSTRALIAN published 27 July 2024
The prime minister said he would govern like Bob Hawke and says he wants to be the first re-elected PM since John Howard.
You cannot fault his aspirations.
He has completely failed to do the first. Australians should see through his limits and deny him the second.
TO THE AUSTRALIAN published 23 July 2024
Why can’t Federal governments of both persuasions do what Microsoft has done according to Tom Switzer (“Sceptical public pull plug on corporate virtue-signalling” 22/7)?
Switzer reported: “Last week Microsoft laid off its entire Diversity, Equity and Inclusion team formed in what was described an act of ‘performative wokeism’.”
There must be Federal government departments and agencies and the like which have failed or become moribund? Their failure to perform should be identified and existence razed.
Such action may only save a few million dollars but mind the millions and the billions look after themselves.
TO THE AUSTRALIAN unpublished 12 January 2024
Greg Craven’s “Summer of my discontent…” column gave great comfort.
At last, another Australian man who finds thongs abhorrent.
More power to your pen Greg.
Your last two humorous pieces far outweigh all the serious stuff you’ve been peddling for years. Keep to the funnies. You’re good at it.
TO THE AUSTRALIAN published 8 November 2023
Jewish readers of this newspaper have urged Australians to speak out.
This recalled the words of W. B. Yeats: “… “…the best lack all conviction, while the worst
are full of passionate intensity.”
It has taken 78 years for “Never Again” to become “Here we go again.”
Nothing appals me more than to watch scenes of Nazi concentration camps but it appears these are images which have not been seen by many Australians.
Whether you support Palestine or not, what happened on the 7 October 2023 is murder. No person, no village, no country can have that happen to it without a response.
Hopefully, Israel’s will be swift and thorough and the murderers extinguished.
…and as for the Greens party in Australia. You have conned the public for decades.
There was a lot of commentary about ignorant Australians who voted No in the recent referendum because they did not know for what they were voting.
The Greens have preyed on similar ignorance for their survival. Their voters include people who think they are merely voting for a clean environment.
Unfortunately, this left-wing rump has many supporters (the worst…full of passionate intensity”) who “have no respect for Australia’s parliament nor its foreign policy” (Geoff Chambers, page 2, 7 November).
PUBLISHED WITHOUT YEATS’ QUOTE OR REFERENCE TO GEOFF CHAMBERS
TO THE POST published 29 October 2023
Rather hoped that the referendum would have been the end of the ridiculous assertions but at least two from last week’s Post cannot go unchallenged.
Benedict Hodsdon (“Take heart, and look ahead,” Letters page 2) suggested “…we all recognise that 40% voted YES and many of those who voted NO did so because they did not understand what was being proposed and what implications would flow from the proposal.”
Apparently all of the YES voters (36% in WA) completely understood what they were voting for?
Let’s humour Mr Hodsdon by saying that 13% of WA’s NO voters did not understand?
That’s 116,580 clueless voters.
Had they all voted YES, our State would still have voted 51% to 49% NO.
Then Federal member for Curtin had a say (Chaney roasts Dutton over NO stance, page 7).
“One of the real dangers I think is if Peter Dutton benefits politically from this, it sends a message that fear and attack is a successful campaign and just blocking things rather than actually standing for anything.” (Kate Chaney).
Imagine? A Federal opposition leader adopting a position that 61% of Australian voters (64% in WA) agreed with?
With 29% of first preference votes in her meritorious 2022 election victory, Ms Chaney can only dream of such figures.
Suggesting “fear and attack” was the Dutton position is going too far. Perhaps his position was as simple as believing another layer of heavily-funded bureaucracy to assist indigenous Australians without disbanding the largely unaccountable and failed others was wrong?
LETTER TO THE EDITOR Written 29 September
When I started primary school 60 years back “behaviour” of five and six-year-olds was probably like it is today?
Children eventually flourished in the at-first terrifying place away from Mum. Pupils did not defy their teachers because these people had authority. We also didn’t want to face our parents’ disappointment/anger if found out.
In secondary school I became a smarty-pants, often in trouble because of a glib tongue. At an all-boys school I was caned if this got the better of the master.
While being caned, i considered my actions. Bad behaviour had brought resultant punishment. I knew I deserved it.
Educationalists will know when this system changed for a more enlightened strategy.
But behaviour becoming ”well being” has translated into children carrying knives and loutish attitudes towards teachers and authority. As recorded by Claire Lehmann (Classroom behaviour is demoralising our teachers, 29 September) parents are often little help.
Thus teaching becomes less attractive, fewer enter into it, standards slip dramatically.
If you accept this, imagine how hard it is to field good teachers into remote communities or even distant country towns?
Consequence: one of the richest countries in the world has disgraceful comparative literacy and numeracy records; its indigenous children are not provided adequate or consistent education.
Shame Australia.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR (Weekend Magazine) written 28 September
Nikki Gemmell (“We’ll Remember” 23-24 September) chooses to isolate Peter Dutton as a major reason for the possibility of a No vote winning the referendum. It is faint praise.
My memory is that Dutton came late to this party.
Before this a majority (perhaps?) of Australians felt they were being treated with disdain by the prime minister when he chose not to further explain how the voice would work. These Australians chose to vote No.
However, many of these did not publicly state their choice, fearful of “progressive” people who think ill of those who do not agree with them.
Blame Dutton if you will Ms Gemmell but the No vote was a live chance well before the opposition leader’s stance.
TO THE AUSTRALIAN written 26 September 2023
Matthew Griffiths writes (26 Sept) “Into this is thrown the Voice -apparently $35 billion a year is wasted so badly every year that a new permanent mechanism is required….”.
Peter Waterhouse, referring to Covid, writes (26 Sept) “…the plethora of faceless bureaucrats are the ones who must be held to account for some of the biggest failures in public administration in Australia’s history.”
Our country sometimes has good ideas and good policy but the follow up of those meant to apply these is often seriously and wastefully lacking.
I doubt if we have Sir Humphrey Appleby’s? Much worse, Australia seemingly has platoons of similarly single-minded bureaucrats happy to do what they think is right, not what has been legislated.
Perhaps appointed ministers could spend more time showing leadership in their ministries rather than letting other, unelected faces do it on their behalf?
TO THE POST written 16 September 2023
Last week’s edition of the Post took until page 4 to get me mad.
Miffed at the Town of Cottesloe (page 1) for requiring a perfectly good cubby house to be removed from Broome St.
Ticked off that Aldi could chop down such a beautiful fig tree (page 3) which would have enhanced their new shopping centre.
Really angry about the insurance company’s non-response (page 4) to Ella Cutler’s injuries and denying “help with her medical expenses and cost of repatriation.”
The council may be over bureaucratic; the developer may be unfeeling; but insurance companies are the pinnacle of evil.
The company should have been named and then it would own its disgrace.
TO THE AUSTRALIAN written 10 September 2023
Paul Kelly’s piece (“Albanese’s voice a gamble for nation” 9-10 September) concludes with “…you don’t win in a divided polity.”
This is my fear for the future of Australia after the referendum vote on October 14.
Recent world history shows that acceptance of election results is now a genteel memory of past decades.
If No wins, the Yes voters will brand the event as evidence of a racist Australia, which it is not.
Regardless of who is to blame for the poor construction of the voice, it will be the No voters fault when their only mis-step was to not be in line with the other half of Australia.
Sadly, there will be a lot of complaining in forums likes this and those of us who are filled to the gills with the over-coverage this referendum and argument has produced will endure reading through the aftermath. This will be just as confrontational as the campaign.
We already live in a world where Left vs Right has become the natural battleground, rather than the historical Nation vs Nation.
The only way Indigenous well-being will be improved in this country is through bipartisanship.
Both major political parties must agree on policy – with each giving up some of their beliefs and theories – so that at each election this issue becomes null and void and whoever wins an election has the same Indigenous policy as the previous incumbent.
“A divided polity” would then no longer exist and create some chance of advancement in Indigenous affairs to benefit the people who most need it.
TO THE AUSTRALIAN written 21 August 2023
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and Jeff Chang’s piece “Art and philosophy; the cult of a fighter“ (The Australian 21 August) is a good example.
The claim that martial arts exponent Bruce Lee’s “…fame has long eclipsed … Steve McQueen and James Coburn” deserves a challenge.
Sixty years on, McQueen is still the epitome of “cool”. I don’t think the statement needs any supporting argument.
Coburn is possibly only less-revered than Lee because he was one of hundreds of handsome Hollywood men of his vintage to play character parts, comedy and eventually lead roles.
Lee was a forerunner of an emerging genre.
In my eye, Coburn’s knife-vs-gun duel as Fred in The Magnificent Seven (1960) is arguably more effective than any martial arts one-on-one in Lee’s unfortunately short career.
TO THE AUSTRALIAN written 5 August 2023
Gemma Tognini reports (“The least fair route to gender equality,” Weekend Australian 5-6 August) that this year’s outstanding contribution to journalism at the Walkley Awards can only be won by a woman.
Elsewhere, human beings born as male can recognise themselves as female and compete against women in sports.
Doubtless both outcomes of social engineering.
Aren’t these outcomes completely contradictory?
TO THE AUSTRALIAN written 26 July 2023
Many years ago my best friend approached the then-prime minister John Howard in a Perth restaurant and said to him: “How do you get it so right all the time?”
It appears at 83 that hasn’t changed a jot.
To read his quotes (The Australian page 1 story, 26 July) from 2004 about the abolition of ATSIC because he believed it had become too preoccupied with “symbolic issues and too little concern with delivering real outcomes for Indigenous people” it reminded that there has been 20 years since this occurred.
Two decades of children being born into horrific circumstances of fear and a sense of hopelessness. Two decades of symbolic gestures outweighing genuine assistance.
Where is the accountability of governments or bureaucracies which have failed in these 20 years?
It is nil. Yet there is an inquiry into Robodebt which has already claimed at least one scalp of the very highly-paid bureaucrat who resigned last week.
It appears that it is okay to inquire into the failure of some aspects of government but not those involving bureaucracies and governments where Indigenous well-being is supposed to be the ideal?
Like Howard said there are Australians who are very angry at the amount of money spent on this issue with such little progress.
Until the Liberal, National and Labor parties form one policy to address Indigenous issues this will continue.
If done, whoever is in government will be able to force bureaucrats to carry out this united policy without the threat of symbolic issues blocking the path.
TO THE AUSTRALIAN written 23 July 2023
The Australian’s weekend edition had all its best players in the midfield for the opening bounce.
Oh what joy I got from Chris Kenny telling me that the Tasmanian Liberal government has expanded its alphabet soup of human possibilities to include “everyone except heterosexuals.”
More tellingly, Kenny said that “…governments cannot balance budgets, provide affordable electricity or stage a Commonwealth Games but they can dip their lids and throw money at every fashionable cause.”
Later he said: “Little wonder governments increasingly are not trusted or taken seriously.” Hoo-bloody-ray!
Gemma Tognini told me that, due to various government thought processes “…the same kids who need protection from junk food advertising are emotionally and cognitively mature enough to choose suicide.”
Surely no one in their right mind can think this stuff up?
Later Tognini gave Al Gore’s environmental theories a cook. Paraphrasing: The world isn’t about to end and there is no need to be afraid.
Not long ago I was walking near the beach when a ship, with smoke emanating from its funnel, was noticed by a little girl, strolling with her mother and father:
The (I’m guessing) six-year-old said: “Look Mummy. A pollution ship.” Shouldn’t primary school age children be happily playing and learning to read instead of being fed this fear stuff by their parents and educators?
Perhaps it’s because as John Carroll, a new recruit but a veteran from the way he writes, informed that the “Canberra bureaucracy, true to its nature, requires from its dependent universities constant reporting for its own senseless sake” thus having administrators outweigh, through either numbers or influence, the courses offered to our future students.
These are the places teaching the teachers. We are being swallowed up by government interference and influence and they are just not doing a good job. Certainly they are not trusted and taken seriously.
Apologies to usual best-on-ground players, Albrechtsen, Creighton and Sheridan. You were good too but there’s only three Brownlow votes to give and mine went to Kenny, Tognini and Carroll.
TO THE AUSTRALIAN written 6 July 2023
Whoever created the headline “Paris riots, but some still like it haute” (6 July) should be bottled.
In an era where originality is a somewhat distant memory, this was an impressive effort with several different nuances. Congratulations.
TO THE AUSTRALIAN written 6 July 2023
Alice Springs school principal Gavin Morris (“Time for talk has long passed…” 6 July) is in the thick of the Indigenous ‘level of disadvantage and poverty’ of his community.
His comparison (citing further personal experience) of the Daly River community and its initial success using ‘self-determination and self-governance’ followed by its ‘slow disintegration…as government policies swept through’ was also revealing.
How can I, living in far away, privileged Cottesloe, be completely on the same page as Mr Morris without ever having been to Alice Springs or indeed any remote Indigenous community?
His assertion that ‘changing governments, bureaucracy and power plays’ are responsible are opinions I share.
Yet my children would all argue with me against these thoughts and it is their generation (they are aged 22 to 41) who are representative of the bureaucracy of which he talks.
This appears to be the problem.
To help the plight of the Indigenous people where the billions of dollars spent do not seem to get to the core of the problem, Australia needs to approach this issue from the top down and the bottom up.
Federal and state governments and their oppositions should agree to have one policy which both parties agree to despite the results of elections.
The communities themselves should be represented by its most able members to make decisions and seek the necessary help.
Sadly the huge middle ground of bureaucracy should become redundant.
This would save billions of dollars which could be redirected towards the problem: feeding the kids and keeping them safe from bad influences which often emerge from their own families.
Not in my lifetime I fear and that is very, very sad.
TO THE AUSTRALIAN written 21 June 2023
Paul Kelly’s Labor’s deflection poses fatal flaws in voice referendum (The Australian 21 June) is a harbinger of the federal government’s dilemma from now until the agreed referendum.
“Nobody, not Albanese, not the Indigenous leaders, can predict what the voice will do…”, he wrote. We have seen this before.
In March 1993, federal Liberal leader John Hewson was heading towards election victory with Fightback! – proposed tax reforms which included a GST.
The policy had not been fully thought out.
In an interview with the late Mike Willesee, Hewson could not say whether a birthday cake would cost more or less with the proposed tax.
His answer made the policy look too complicated for voters. Labor’s bungling of the “selling” of the voice has put them in exactly the same position.
TO THE AUSTRALIAN written 15 February 2023
Many thanks Bruce Watson (Sovereign issues) for providing historical context to the issue of ‘conquest’ regarding one nation taking over another’s land.
Australia’s first people are a conquered nation just as the Hittites, Etruscans, Ottomans et al were conquered at some stage in their history.
For this reason I am also with Bill Hassell (Last Post) about the endless amount of apologies to whoever feels offended. Enough!
However, there is one more important issue at play: Australia’s indigenous population has been failed miserably by government ever since money was provided to address their issues.
If anyone should say sorry it is the thousands of bureaucrats and elected officials who haven’t made any inroads into improving the prospects of the people they were meant to help.
Billions of dollars have been spent for little or no improvement. Money has been embezzled by those closest to the people they are meant to help; interfering social engineers have put the brakes on possibly good programs by saying the recipients are being patronised; and the Aboriginal elders who really know what’s going on (say in Alice Springs of late) tell government what is wrong and then get ignored.
Less cuddly feeling and more protection of frightened women and children would be a good start.
Perhaps a benign dictator could emerge from the indigenous population, be appointed by government with no interference from them and begin closing the gap?
Then again, the Fremantle Dockers may one day win an AFL premiership?
TO POST NEWSPAPERS written 11 February 2023
Katy Mason’s letter to the editor ‘Sneaky’ photo causes offence illustrated an important message to those who don’t want to be exposed.
Giving a story oxygen by complaining provides the opportunity to republish the photo and draw more attention to yourself.
I defer to editor Bret Christian’s superior knowledge of media ethics when he retorted to Ms Mason’s letter with: “All media legally take and publish photographs of people without their permission on a daily basis.”
If so, why in many newspaper photographs, are background or nearby people’s faces often deliberately obscured?
Both parties are right and, in some part, both could be seen as wrong.
I endorse Ms Mason’s efforts to push her agenda but she has a tough fight ahead.
She is confronted by a community that apparently wants no change – ever. This evidenced by Yvonne Hart (Indiana yes, hotel no) who quotes the RAC’s Horizon magazine (What?): “…the grass tiers on either side of Indiana Tea House are teeming with couples, friends and family…” as “an independent endorsement.”
As in most publications of this ilk, the reporter has probably never been to the site and I guess wrote information from some other source (perhaps Wikipedia has a wide coverage of Perth’s best waterside picnic spots? Hasn’t the restaurant had a different name for several years?)
Also congratulations to the Post for publishing an 88-page edition (11 February) without a single photograph of the ubiquitous Jock Barker.
After turning over 85 pages, I fully expected the Claremont mayor to somehow have pictorially found his way into Austin Robertson’s column. It wasn’t to be.
TO THE AUSTRALIAN written 30 December 2022
Excuse my ignorance but I did not fully understand the flow of “Big hitters clash on Bradman and race” (The Australian 30/12).
What was wrong with Sir Donald Bradman writing in 1975 to then PM Malcolm Fraser warning him about union power and re-educating the public on the value of private enterprise?
From my memory union power was a hotpoint topic in 1975 and Australia has advanced leaps and bounds since trade union influence and disruption was curtailed.
For at least the past decade, major Australian companies have spent a lot of money advertising their positive credentials, whether they be social, environmental or community assisting.
So The Don was prescient on at least two of his suggestions to the PM. (Bradman’s comment on capital regulation is beyond my sphere of knowledge).
Why shouldn’t he, as a company director and avid letter writer, make these points to Fraser? In the modern era, entertainers aren’t shy about using their celebrity to make social comment. Australia’s greatest-ever legend (or just sporting legend for those who consider my rating too high?) should be forgiven for using his celebrity to make a point.
Then Kamahl weighs in and says The Don invited him into his home, sparking a nasty comment by Phillip Adams about tokenism. A media storm in a teacup ensues yet I cannot see where racism exists within a letter written about business?
The heroes of our past are being exposed for their views – always held within the prism of the era in which they lived. Commentators may be better advised to look more closely at our current crop of political, sporting and cultural, dare I say, ‘icons’ rather than delve into history and tear down the reputations of those some of us revere.
Sir Donald Bradman today. Who next: Phar Lap?
TO THE WEST AUSTRALIAN written 31 October 2022
It was with great enjoyment I read the story of racehorse Baby Paris and its owner, Gary Bowen in last week’s The West Australian.
It was a personality piece which really got to the heart of what makes Australian horse racing great. The story detailed the difficult circumstances of the filly’s birth and some of the character of Bowen, who is a really good person.
When Icebath won the $1m Group One Empire Rose at Flemington on Derby day last Saturday, I expected something similar on your sporting pages. Not a line.
Some ‘hooks’ as to why this may have made a good racing story:
Icebath is part owned by David McGrath, who compiled the syndicate which race the mare.
David McGrath is:
- a former employee of The West Australian
- a recently appointed board member of the Australian Turf Club, one of the most prestigious positions in the sport
- a former jockey valet to Rod Kemp, one of Western Australia’s greatest-ever jockeys
- the son of John McGrath MLA and Karen McGrath (nee Wagener)
John McGrath is:
- former long-time member for the seat of South Perth in the WA State Parliament
- former Shadow Minister for Racing and Gaming
- former sports editor of The West Australian
- former chief racing writer of The West Australian
- a small percentage holder in Icebath
Karen McGrath is:
- daughter of long-time WA racehorse trainer Arthur Wagener
- former key staff member to federal MP Wilson Tuckey, a former chairman of the WA Turf Club
Icebath:
– wears the jockey silks of Arthur Wagener, carried forward by John and Karen and then to David
- a mare who before Saturday had not won any black type races yet amassed huge prize money running second in many of Australia’s biggest races to horses like Anamoe and Zaaki
- having won a GI is one of Australia’s most-valuable broodmares
What else do you need to write a racing story?
Acknowledgement: I am a friend, former journalism colleague and former employee of John McGrath. He discouraged me writing this letter but I ignored his advice.
I WRIGHT 