Euthanasia
Voluntary euthanasia opponents, Northern Territory attorney general Denis Burke and Kevin Andrews, MHR, speaking on ABC Radio on January 6 seem to have avoided logic in their arguments.
Burke's assertion that residency in the NT is necessary before a medical specialist can sign the certificates for candidates for voluntary euthanasia does not stand up to serious examination. Using the same premise, for how long do other qualified doctors have to reside in the NT before they can practice medicine? Why is a certificate from a legally qualified specialist residing in southern states not valid in the NT?
Andrews' argument that the NT is making laws for the rest of Australia is also nonsensical. Anyone who comes to the NT is bound by its laws, and the same applies to Territorians who travel interstate. Is Andrews suggesting that interstate visitors to NT should neither be bound by nor take advantage of NT laws?
Alawa NT
[Abridged.]
Privatisation
Privatisation is a virus fed by those who profit from banking. Under Chifley and Menzies (and most governments since the Commonwealth Bank was formed) our federation used its right to issue money for public capital works at ½% interest or lower.
Now we borrow, at three levels of government, from a bank we are selling to private owners, and indeed from foreign banks that make billions out of manipulating the exchange rates of our currency.
Governments are in the pockets of economists in bureaucracy and universities, who use discredited theories of monetarism and other fantasies that put profits before people. The global financial interests they fear also have media commentators dazzled.
Until the people of western nations take back the money-lending power of billionaires, we will keep on spending a fast growing share of our budgets on interest that was never charged for the funding of the trans-Australia railway or the two world wars.
Our own bank charged us about ½% while the Bank of England offered to fund us at 6%. We must demand a national balance sheet in simple terms that ordinary people can understand.
Federal Health Minister 1972-75
Middle Park Qld
Hawke on Hanson
At the launch of Wharfies — a History of the WWF by Margo Beasley, Bob Hawke got teary when discussing Pauline Hanson's bad effect on Australia-Asian relations. A sequin of sorrow peeped from the Great Actor's eyes, as he coughed a word from his throat. Bob is a well-known salesman for Sonny Yam, a squillionaire thoroughbred racehorse owner.
When Hawke heard that East Timor, which is also in Asia, was crushed and 200,000 people were dead, there wasn't even a smear of the mist of sorrow in his eyes. "East Timor is now integrated into Indonesia", he said. Parenthetically, brutal as these words were, they could not rival the remark of Morrison, Labor minister and ambassador to Indonesia, who said: "East Timor never was". Some of the greater intellects of the leadership of the Third Reich would have been proud of them both.
Wentworth Falls NSW
Michael Collins
Sean Healy failed to review Neil Jordan's new film, Michael Collins (GLW #259). The historical Collins — to which Healy addressed himself — and the character played in the film by Liam Neeson are not the same people, nor are they meant to be. No one studies the reign of Richard III by reading Shakespeare's play of the same name; nor is anyone claiming that Michael Collins passes as a reference work on Irish history.
The tradition of demanding that a work of fiction totally comply with the historical record tends so often to miss the point. Michael Collins is Neil Jordan's view about contemporary Irish politics which employs the Michael Collins story — real, mythic and imagined — as a vehicle to express his ideas. So if one were to review such a film that's where to start.
My assessment of Jordan's achievement is overwhelmingly positive. This is superb film-making driven by a thoughtful screenplay. Despite its ready license, the film comes down firmly on the republican side and for anyone ignorant about the genesis of the current "troubles" in Ireland, it challenges their preconceptions.
The film asks us to ponder the question of tactics in the light of the recent truce in Northern Ireland, and poses, with enough ambiguity to get us thinking (and perhaps reading), a few questions about what went wrong with Irish republicanism. The legacy of the Irish War of Independence — despite what Collins or de Valera say in the film, or said in reality — is a Third World economy with a population constrained and regimented by the politics of the Catholic Church.
It is this social reality and the continuing lack of progress towards unification that is at the core of the film. Consequently, Jordan's major achievement is the furore that has greeted its release.
Northgate Qld
Poverty
The International Year for the Eradication of Poverty draws to a close, and must be voted the biggest non-event ever. In Australia, to their credit, the governor general and his wife have committed themselves to the homeless, and Dr Roberta Sykes pleaded for our true interest and concern. What apart from that?
The Wesley Mission and the Catholic Bishops had conferences seemingly intent on identifying the substance obscured by an apparent preoccupation with symptoms. Curious, given that from the early 1700s French physiocrats like Quesnay and Turgot recognised the problem and offered solutions. These have since been clarified with unassailable logic in the social and economic philosophy of Henry George.
Meantime governments, churches and aid organisations continue to apply bandaid emergency assistance to those they consider in most dire need.
But we must eradicate poverty! Eradicate the poverty that is the ignorance, grief, greed, anger, abuse, corruption, selfishness, recklessness, hopelessness, rejection, despair, low self-esteem and self harming illness, spawned by want and the fear of want.
How can we when we choose to culpably ignore the cause? A vested interest perhaps? After all, by eradicating poverty, we would eradicate the need for welfare, charity and aid with their attendant bureaucracies — but who would want that? As James Baldwin said, "Nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch".
Eden Hills SA
Gerry Adams
It is easy to see that our federal government represents the wishes of the British government in its denial of Gerry Adams' right to visit Australia. I would like to hear what he has to say, as I have only heard the British point of view on the tragedy that is Northern Ireland. If all we ever hear is the media lip-reading BBC and "Mother" England, then we can be sure we are only hearing the one side of the story.
Anyone who believes that the English culture is the apex of civilisation should avail themselves of a copy of Gerry Adams book and read it very carefully. Up until and during the '70s and still, the English armed forces acted as if they were a law unto themselves and used every method of torture they could on Irish prisoners, some whom had never been charged, and were not to be for years. They applied a "shoot to kill" law in Northern Ireland, and used it at will. Many families were terrorised by the troops of the Crown, and there were evacuations of people (Catholics) and subsequently thousand of refugees poured over the border into the Republic of Ireland.
Port Macquarie NSW
[Abridged.]
Truth — Amnesty style
Amnesty International has long prided itself on daring to speak the truth about torture and human rights abuses around the world. Many of Amnesty's reports have proven useful for activists wanting to publicise the practices of corrupt regimes.
But the limits of the "unbiased" approach of Amnesty were highlighted in regards to the Qana massacre perpetrated by Shimon Peres and the Israeli government against the Lebanese and Palestinian population in April 1996. The bombing of the UN site at Qana by the Israelis left 100 people dead and 200 wounded. UN officials at the camp had alerted the Israeli military of their presence but this was ignored by the Israelis as they deliberately targeted defenceless civilians.
A report by Amnesty concurred with the UN that this was a deliberate act by the Israeli military. However, under pressure from the US and Israeli governments, Amnesty USA refused to circulate the report. No press conferences were held; no media releases were sent; no letter-writing was organised. Amnesty is not renowned for publicising the plight of the Palestinians (much too "political"), but this latest omission is startling given the enormity of the massacre and the fact that this was one of the most significant reports ever conducted by Amnesty International on the Middle East.
A few weeks ago Amnesty USA sent out a fundraising brochure detailing their activities for 1996. "Only Truth can heal the past" proclaimed the leaflet, but contained not one word of the Qana massacre or the Amnesty report. Just goes to show that you can only tell the truth by taking sides.
Croydon SA