The National Press Club of Australia lists 81 corporate sponsors on its website.
Twenty-one of them (listed below) are either part of the global arms industry or actively working on its behalf.
Ten are multinational weapons manufacturers or military services corporations. They include the world’s two biggest weapons makers, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon (RTX); British giant BAE Systems; France’s largest weapons-maker, Thales; and US weapons corporation Leidos – all five are in the global top 20. BAE Systems, which is the largest contractor to the Department of Defence, received $2 billion from Australian taxpayers last year.
In 2023, these five corporations alone were responsible for almost a quarter – 23.8 per cent (US$150.4 billion (A$231.5 billion)) – of total weapons sales (US$632 billion (A$973 billion)) made by the world’s top 100 weapons companies that year.
Last year, UN experts named Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, RTX (Raytheon) and eight other multinationals in a statement, warning them that they risked being found in violation of international law for their continued supply of weapons, parts, components and ammunition to Israeli forces. The experts called on the corporations to immediately end weapons transfers to Israel. None has done so.
Another of the Club’s sponsors – Thales – is being investigated by four countries for widespread criminal activity in three separate corruption probes. In a fourth, long-running corruption case in South Africa, the country’s former president, Jacob Zuma, is now in court, alongside Thales, being tried on 16 charges of racketeering, fraud, corruption and money laundering in connection with arms deals his government did with Thales.
Global expert Andrew Feinstein has documented his extensive research into the arms industry. He told Undue Influence that wherever the arms trade operates, it “increases corruption and undermines democracy, good governance, transparency, and the rule of law, while, ironically, making us less safe”.
Undue Influence asked the Press Club’s CEO, Maurice Reilly, what written policies or guidelines were in place that addressed the suitability and selection of corporations proposing to become Press Club sponsors.
Mr Reilly responded: “The board are informed monthly about…proposals and have the right to refuse any application.”
Wherever the arms trade operates it “increases corruption and undermines democracy, good governance, transparency, and the rule of law, while, ironically, making us less safe”. – Andrew Feinstein, author of Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade
National Press Club board
The National Press Club, established by journalists in 1963, is an iconic Australian institution. It is best known for its weekly luncheon addresses, televised on the ABC, covering issues of national importance, after which the speaker is questioned by journalists.
The Club’s board has 10 directors led by Tom Connell, political host and reporter at Sky News, who was elected president in February following the resignation of the ABC’s Laura Tingle.
The other board members are: vice president Misha Schubert (CEO, Super Members Council of Australia; formerly with The Age and The Australian); treasurer Greg Jennett (ABC); Steve Lewis (senior adviser, SEC Newgate; formerly with NewsCorp and the Financial Review); Jane Norman (ABC); Anna Henderson (SBS); Julie Hare (Financial Review); Andrew Probyn (Nine Network); Gemma Daley (Media & Government Affairs, Ai Group); and Corrie McLeod, the sole representative from an independent media outlet – InnovationAus.
At least two board members have jobs that involve lobbying.
Long-term board member Steve Lewis works as a senior adviser for lobbying firm SEC Newgate, which itself is a Press Club sponsor and also has as clients the Press Club’s two largest sponsors: Westpac and Telstra. SEC Newgate has previously acted for several Press Club sponsors, including Serco (one of the arms industry multinationals listed below), BHP, Macquarie Bank, Tattarang, and Spirits & Cocktails Australia Inc.
Gemma Daley joined the board a year ago, having started with Ai Group as its head of media and government affairs four months earlier. Ms Daley had worked for Nationals’ leader David Littleproud, former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and former treasurer Joe Hockey and, before that, for media outlets the Financial Review and Bloomberg. Ai Group has a significant defence focus and promotes itself as “the peak national representative body for the Australian defence industry”. The group has established a Defence Council and in 2017 appointed a former assistant secretary of the Defence Department, Kate Louis, to lead it. The co-chairs of its Defence Council are senior arms industry executives. One of them, Paul Chase, is CEO of Leidos Australia, a Press Club sponsor.
Undue Influence asked Ms Daley for comment on several aspects related to her position on the board, including whether she has had to declare any conflicts of interest to date. She responded: “Thanks for the inquiry. I have forwarded this through to Maurice Reilly. Have a good day.”
Given the potential for conflicts of interest to arise, as happens on any board, Undue Influence had already asked the Press Club CEO what written policies or guidelines existed to ensure the appropriate management of conflicts of interest by board members and staff.
Mr Reilly responded:
The Club has a directors’ conflict register which is updated when required. Each meeting, board members and management are asked if they have conflicts of interest with the meeting agenda. We have a standard corporate practice that where a director has a conflict on an agenda item they excuse themselves from the meeting and take no [part] in any discussion or any decision.
Undue Influence is neither alleging nor implying inappropriate or illegal behaviour by anyone named in this article. Our objective, as always, is to shine a light on, and scrutinise, the weapons industry’s opaque engagement in public life in Australia.
While Mr Reilly declined to disclose the Club’s sponsorship arrangements with Westpac and Telstra, citing “commercial in confidence” reasons, The Sydney Morning Herald reported earlier this year that Westpac paid $3 million in 2015 to replace NAB as the Press Club’s principal sponsor.
The SMH article, “Westpac centre stage at post-budget bash”, on Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ National Press Club address in the Great Hall of Parliament House in late March, added:
[Westpac] … gets more than its money’s worth in terms of access. New-ish chief executive Anthony Miller got the most coveted seat in the house, between Chalmers and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese… Finance Minister Katy Gallagher and Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles were also on the front tables.
Westpac occupied prime real estate in the Great Hall, with guests on its tables including Treasury Secretary Steven Kennedy, Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet boss Glyn Davis, Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, Housing Minister Clare O’Neil and Labor national secretary and campaign mastermind Paul Erickson…
Communications Minister Michelle Rowland was on the Telstra table.
Mr Reilly told Undue Influence that all the other corporate sponsors pay $25,000 per year, with a few paying extra as partners in the Club’s journalism awards.
The 21 arms industry and related sponsors therefore contribute an annual $525,000 to the Press Club’s coffers. This is 23% of the $2.26 million revenue it earns from “membership, sponsorship and broadcasting”, the Club’s largest revenue line, as shown in its 2024 financial statement.
“The National Press Club of Australia proudly partners with organisations that share our commitment to quality, independent journalism,” says the Club’s website.
“Aligning your brand with the National Press Club is an opportunity for unparalleled engagement in the Australian political debate and announces that your organisation is part of the business culture in Canberra.”
In response to Undue Influence’s questions about the Club’s cancellation of a planned address by the internationally acclaimed journalist Chris Hedges (covered below), Mr Reilly stated that: “For the avoidance of doubt [sponsors] do not receive any rights to speak at the club [nor are they] able to influence decisions on speakers.”
Sponsors may not be granted a right to speak, but they are sometimes invited to speak, with their status as sponsors not always disclosed to audiences.
When the Club’s second largest sponsor, Telstra, spoke on 10 September, both Club president Tom Connell and Telstra CEO Vicki Brady noted the corporation’s longstanding sponsorship.
Sponsors may not be granted a right to speak, but they are sometimes invited to speak, with their status as sponsors not always disclosed to audiences.
When the Club’s second largest sponsor, Telstra, spoke on 10 September, both Club president Tom Connell and Telstra CEO Vicki Brady noted the corporation’s longstanding sponsorship.
Compare this with two addresses given by $25,000 corporate sponsors – Kurt Campbell (former US deputy secretary of state, now co-founder and chair of The Asia Group) who gave an address on 7 September; and Mike Johnson, CEO of Australian Industry and Defence Network (AIDN), who gave an address on 15 October. Neither the Press Club nor the speakers disclosed the companies’ sponsorship of the Press Club.
While both speakers are considered experts in their field, the sponsorships should have been disclosed as a matter of public accountability.
“Priority seating and brand positioning”
On its website, the Club also promotes additional benefits of corporate sponsorship, including, “Brand association with inclusion on our prestigious ‘Corporate Partners’ board and recognition on the National Press Club of Australia website”.
The Club also promises corporate sponsors that they will receive “priority seating and brand positioning” at its weekly luncheon addresses, as the following examples show. (As principal sponsor, the logo of Westpac appears on every table and on the podium.)
The local subsidiary of British giant BAE Systems has benefited handsomely from its modest $25,000 annual sponsorship. It had the best table – behind the microphone from which journalists asked questions – at then defence minister Peter Dutton’s address in November 2021. The BAE logo appeared on the national public broadcaster – which has strict rules against advertising – eight times during the half-hour question period following Mr Dutton’s address, giving BAE Systems extended ‘brand positioning’ with its target market: senior politicians, defence public servants and military officers.
On 28 November 2023, Minister for Defence Industry Pat Conroy spoke about AUKUS. The logos of Press Club sponsors DXC Technology and Deloitte were also well-situated for the camera during question time. Both companies are significant contractors to the Defence Department. Deloitte also works for the weapons industry, including BAE Systems.
Cancelling Chris Hedges
The Press Club recently drew significant attention to itself after it cancelled a planned address by the Pulitzer-prize-winning American journalist, and former long-term war correspondent, Chris Hedges. Mr Hedges reported for The New York Times for 15 years, from 1990-2005, including long stints as its bureau chief in the Middle East and in the Balkans. He was to have appeared at the Press Club on 20 October.
However, in late September, Press Club CEO Maurice Reilly cancelled Mr Hedges’ appearance. This occurred two weeks after the Club was sent details of what Mr Hedges proposed to cover, including a link to an article he had entitled The Betrayal of Palestinian Journalists. In that article, Mr Hedges wrote:
Israel has murdered 245 journalists in Gaza by one count and more than 273 by another… No war I covered comes close to these numbers of dead. Since Oct 7 [2023], Israel has killed more journalists “than the US Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War (including the conflicts in Cambodia and Laos), the wars in Yugoslavia in the 1990s and 2000s, and the post-9/11 war in Afghanistan, combined”.
Mr Hedges also intended to cover what he has described as the “barrage of Israeli lies amplified and given credibility by the Western press”, examples of which he provides in the above article.
Following a scathing post from Mr Hedges about the Press Club’s cancellation of his address, and significant public disquiet, the Press Club issued a statement denying it had come under external pressure to cancel his address. Inexplicably, the Press Club also denied it had confirmed the Hedges address. This claim was easily checked and soon reported to be false. Undue Influence has seen the emails showing that the Press Club had confirmed the address.
National Press Club funded by companies profiting from genocide
In July, Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, issued a report explaining how the corporate sector had become complicit with the State of Israel in conducting the genocide.
Her report also noted that arms-making multinationals depend on legal, auditing and consulting firms to facilitate export and import transactions to supply Israel with weapons.
Numerous members of the public posted their concerns on the Press Club’s Facebook page. Here are three examples: [on original]
Four of the world’s largest accounting, audit and consulting firms – all of which have arms industry corporations as clients – are sponsors of the Press Club: KPMG, Accenture, Deloitte and EY. Until recently, PwC counted among them.
EY (Ernst & Young) has been Lockheed Martin’s auditor since 1994. EY is also one of two auditors used by Thales, and has been for 22 years. Deloitte has been BAE Systems’ auditor since 2018. PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) – a Press Club sponsor until 2024 – has been Raytheon’s auditor since 1947.
Lockheed Martin’s supply to Israel of F-16 and F-35 fighter jets and C-130 Hercules transport planes, and their parts and components, along with Hellfire missiles and other munitions, has directly facilitated Israel’s genocide.
Raytheon’s (RTX) supply of guided missiles, bombs, and other advanced weaponry and defence systems, like the Iron Dome interceptors, also directly supports Israel military capability.
In England, BAE Systems builds the rear fuselage of every F-35, with the horizontal and vertical tails and other crucial components manufactured in its UK and Australian facilities. It also supplies the Israeli military with munitions, missile launching kits and armoured vehicles, while BAE technologies are integrated into Israel’s drones and warships.
Thales supplies Israel’s military with vital components, including drone transponders. Australian Zomi Frankcom and her World Central Kitchen colleagues were murdered by an Israeli Hermes drone, which contain Thales’ transponders. Yet, echoing Australia, France claims its military exports to Israel are non-lethal.
National Press Club sponsors from military-industrial complex
# Rankings compiled by SIPRI at December 2023 (published December 2024)
^ NOTE ON US COMPANIES: The Defence Department procures weapons/military goods directly from Lockheed Martin, RTX (Raytheon) and other US corporations via the US Government’s Foreign Military Sales program. The value of FMS contracts is not included in the table.
Note on the use of the word ‘genocide’
Three independent experts appointed by the UN’s Human Rights Commission – the Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel – issued a report in September that concluded Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. One of the Commissioners – Chris Sidoti – speaking at the Press Club recently, said the Commission’s report will remain the most authoritative statement on this issue until the world’s highest authority, the International Court of Justice, makes its ruling.
In an attempt to seize a share of a market currently dominated by China, Albanese has willingly placed Australia’s rare earths and critical minerals at the disposal of US strategic interests. The framework document focusing on mining and processing of such minerals is drafted with the hollow language of counterfeit equality.
the next annexation of Australian control over its own affairs by the US
The October 20 performance saw few transgressions and many feats of compliance. As a guest in the White House, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was in no mood to be combative, and US President Donald Trump was accommodating. There was, however, an odd nervous glanceshot at the host at various points.
The latest turn of events from the perspective of those believing in Australian sovereignty, pitifully withered as it is, remains dark. In an attempt to seize a share of a market currently dominated by China, Albanese has willingly placed Australia’s rare earths and critical minerals at the disposal of US strategic interests. The framework document focusing on mining and processing of such minerals is drafted with the hollow language of counterfeit equality. The objective “is to assist both countries in achieving resilience and security of minerals and rare earths supply chains, including mining, separation and processing.” The necessity of securing such supply is explicitly noted for reasons of war or, as the document notes, “necessary to support manufacturing of defense and advanced technologies” for both countries.
The US and Australia will draw on the money bags of the private sector to supplement government initiatives (guarantees, loans, equity and so forth), an incentive that will cause much salivating joy in the mining industry. Within 6 months “measures to provide at least $1 billion in financing to projects located in each of the United States and Australia expected to generate end product for delivery to buyers in the United States and Australia.”
The inequality of the agreement does not bother such analysts as Bryce Wakefield, Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Institute of International Affairs. He mysteriously thinks that Albanese did not “succumb to the routine sycophancy we’ve come to expect from other leaders”, something of a “win”. With the skill of a cabalist, he identified the benefits in the critical minerals framework which he thinks will be “the backbone for joint investment in at least six Australian projects.” The agreement would “counter China’s dominance over rare earths and supply chains.”
Much of what was agreed between Trump and Albanese was barely covered by the sleepwalking press corps, despite the details of a White House factsheet. There were more extorting deals extracted from Canberra, with agreements to purchase US$1.2 billion in Anduril unmanned underwater vehicles and US$2.6 billion worth of Apache helicopters. Of particular significance was the agreement to push Australia’s superannuation funds to increase investments in the US to US$1.44 trillion by 2035, which would increase the pool by US$1 trillion. “This unprecedented investment will create tens of thousands of new, high paying jobs for America.
Back in Australia, attention was focused on other things. The mock affair known as the opposition party tried to make something of the personal ribbing given by Trump to Australia’s ambassador to the United States, Kevin Rudd. Small minds are distracted by small matters, and instead of taking issue with the appalling cost of AUKUS with its chimerical submarines, or the voluntary relinquishment of various sectors of the Australian economy to US control, Sussan Ley of the Liberal Party was adamant that Rudd be sacked. This was occasioned by an encounter where Trump had turned to the Australian PM to ask if “an ambassador” had said anything “bad about me”. Trump’s follow up remarks: “Don’t tell me, I don’t want to know.” The finger was duly pointed at Rudd by Albanese. “You said bad?” inquired Trump. Rudd, never one to manage the brief response, spoke of being critical of the president in his pre-ambassadorial phase but that was all in the past. “I don’t like you either,” shot Trump in reply. “And I probably never will.”
This was enough to exercise Ley, who claimed to be “surprised that the president didn’t know who the Australian ambassador was.” This showed her thin sheet grasp of White House realities. Freedom Land’s previous presidents have struggled with names, geography and memory, the list starting with such luminaries as Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. Not knowing the name of an ambassador from an imperial outpost is hardly a shock.
The Australian papers and broadcasters, however, drooled and saw seismic history in the presence of casual utterance. Sky News host Sharri Markson was reliably idiotic: “The big news of course is President Trump’s meeting with Albanese today and the major news story to come out of it is Trump putting Rudd firmly in his place.” Often sensible in her assessments, the political columnist Annabel Crabb showed she had lost her mind, imbibing the Trump jungle juice and relaying it to her unfortunate readers. “From his humble early days as a child reading Hansard in the regional Sunshine State pocket of Eumundi, Kevin Rudd has been preparing for this martyrdom.”
Having been politically martyred by the Labor Party at the hands of his own deputy Julia Gillard in June 2010, who challenged him for being a mentally unstable, micromanaging misfit driving down poll ratings, this was amateurish. But a wretchedly bad story should not be meddled with. At the very least, Crabb blandly offered a smidgen of humour, suggesting that Albanese, having gone into the meeting “with the perennially open chequebook for American submarines, plus an option over our continent’s considerable rare-earths reserves” was bound to come with some human sacrifice hovering “in the ether.”
In this grand abdication of responsibility by the press and bought think tankers, little in terms of detail was discussed about the next annexation of Australian control over its own affairs by the US. It was all babble about the views of Trump and whether, in the words of Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong, Rudd “did an extremely good job, not only in getting the meeting, but doing the work on the critical minerals deal and AUKUS.” For the experts moored in antipodean isolation, Rudd had either been bad by being disliked for past remarks on the US chief magistrate, or good in being a representative of servile facilitation. To give him his due, Wakefield was correct to note how commentators in Australia “continue to personalise the alliance” equating it to “an episode of The Apprentice.”
The decision to cancel Chris Hedges’ address on Gaza has raised fresh questions about the Press Club’s commitment to free speech, writes Dr Rosemary Sorensen.
FROM AN OFFICE in the heart of Canberra – where the only danger to journalists is that they have to watch their feet lest they fall over a politician passed out on the footpath – the chief executive of the National Press Club cancelled an event called ‘The Betrayal of Palestinian Journalists’, as Dr Lee Duffield wrote in IA last week.
American journalist Chris Hedges, who was expecting to deliver this speech as part of a speaking tour this month, wrote in response to the shock cancellation that NPC’s Maurice Reilly had ‘perhaps inadvertently’ underlined his point. On his Substack, ‘The Chris Hedges Report’, he quoted Reilly’s explanation, “that in the interest of balancing out our program, we will withdraw our offer”.
Hedges’ response to the claim that the cancellation was ‘in the interest of’ balance is devastating:
‘It is true that I know only one side of the picture from the seven years I spent covering Gaza. I was on the receiving end of Israeli attacks, including being bombed by its air force and fired upon by its snipers, one of whom killed a young man a few feet away from me at the Netzarim Junction. We lifted him up, each person taking hold of an arm or a leg and lumbered up the road as his body swayed like a heavy sack.’
Speaking about the more than 278 journalists killed in Gaza by Israel as well as on behalf of all those who have ‘reported a reality in Gaza that bears no resemblance to how it is portrayed by Israeli politicians, its military and many media outlets that serve as Israel’s echo chamber’, Hedges calls out Reilly’s use of the term “balance” as ‘an abandonment of the fundamental mission of journalists — to hold power accountable’.
His suggestion that ‘the corporate sponsors and wealthy donors of the Press Club’ will be pleased that the cancellation averts ‘the attacks that would come from allowing me to speak’, stirred the National Press Club’s CEO not only to refute the idea that there had been pressure ‘outside of the board, either directly or indirectly’ but also to call out Chris Hedges’ claim as ‘false’ that the ‘proposed address’ was published on the NPC website.
That refutation notwithstanding and even if, as Reilly claims, the date for Hedges’ ‘The Betrayal of Palestinian Journalists’ address was only ‘tentatively agreed’, such a backflip at such a time from an organisation that puts out its media statements under the rubric “Freedom of the Press” is ugly.
Antoinette Lattouf, talking with Jan Fran on their We Used To Be Journos podcast through Ette Media, said that while outside pressure to cancel what is considered pro-Palestinian commentary has been called out over and over during the past two years, if this was an internal decision, it was “somehow worse”:
“I would argue pre-empting criticism and attacks from said lobby groups [is] self-censoring.”
Mary Kostakidis, who saw the page announcing the Hedges event on the NPC website before it was removed, wrote to Reilly to ask if, as Hedges had written, the event was reportedly to be replaced by an address by Israeli Ambassador retired Lt. Colonel Amir Maimon. The statement in response said that ‘inference… is also false and without basis’.
Like many an organisation before them, from libraries to orchestras, writers’ festivals to hospitals, what appears to be a hasty decision by the National Press Club is, at the very least, disrespectful to the proposed speaker.
The devil is, once again, in the detail: Reilly stated the club ‘is constantly reviewing its address schedule, and when more details of the address were made available we decided to pursue other speakers on the matter’.
Does Reilly mean the matter of the betrayal of Palestinian journalists? And while the statement on their website mentions Global Spokesperson UNICEF James Elder, who will speak at the NPC on ‘Children under siege’, and Judge Navi Pillay, who will speak about ‘Women, Peace and Justice’, which other speakers are they pursuing to talk about the murdered journalists?
To say the ‘proposed address was never published on our website’, to say that Hedges’ claim it was removed is false, is casuistry. According to Kostakidis, it appeared on the website, briefly, without a booking link, which suggests publication was prepared and imminent.
Late last month the National Media Section of the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance put out a statement about the ‘rise in threats, harassment and intimidation of journalists who report and comment on Gaza’, citing Antoinette Lattouf, Peter Lalor and Mary Kostakidis as examples of those who have been the target of ‘powerful lobby groups’.
The statement read:
‘We stand with our colleagues in their workplaces, in the courtrooms and in their deaths to raise our voices against the silence.’
To fob off Chris Hedges, who has seen Israeli troops shoot Palestinian children, who was in Gaza when attack jets bombed Gaza City, who has ‘stood in the gutted remains of schools as well as medical clinics and mosques and counted the bodies’, with such a statement as the one published by Maurice Reilly on the National Press Club of Australia website is unfathomable.
‘We wish Chris Hedges well on his tour of Australia’ is the final sentence of that statement.
The final sentence of Hedges’ piece is:
‘Please, have the decency to remove the word press from your club.’
Today, at the Chatham House Restaurant in the National Press Club of Australia, members may choose to dine on barramundi, duck breast or lamb shank.
In Gaza, the hungry ghosts are served dust.
For those journalists and others who find the removal of an address by Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Chris Hedges from the National Press Club program distressingly disappointing, you can hear him speak in person or livestreamed at the Allan Scott Auditorium, UniSA, Adelaide, 5:30 PM – 7 PM, Saturday 18 October, delivering the Edward Said Memorial Lecture. Tickets are available via the Australian Friends of Palestine Association website.
On Tuesday 21 October, 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM, at Pitt St Uniting Church in Sydney, Chris Hedges will be joined by Randa Abdel-Fattah and Antoinette Lattouf for a public meeting titled ‘All eyes on Gaza’, tickets via Humanitix.
Independent media has profoundly reshaped modern communication, much to the chagrin of traditional print media. The MSM often dismisses us as falling below their standards, but I disagree. Today’s news stories are frequently little more than opinion pieces, unchallenged and unaccountable. Citizen journalists, however, hold the MSM to account – a role that sits uneasily with the media establishment.
The MSM [Main Stream Media] claimed, “The great thing about newspapers is that, love us or hate us, we’re the voice of the people. We represent the community, their views, their aspirations, and their hopes.” Represent the community? Don’t they mean control the community?
Over a decade ago, I wrote about a subject that remains as relevant today as ever. For nearly twenty years, I’ve been hammering away at the keyboard – a space where I could speak freely, defy control, and fight for democracy and truth. It was a place to be heard. But it wasn’t always this way. Before the rise of bloggers and independent media, we were limited to listening to those who controlled the narrative.
Let’s revisit the days when we found our voice, thanks to the emergence of bloggers, citizen journalists and independent media.
Plato (428–348 BC) opposed the written word, arguing it would erode memory. He believed people would stop memorising facts or stories, and that spreading words indiscriminately was wasteful and untrustworthy. How prophetic. Spoken over two millennia ago, his words feel strikingly contemporary. Consider today’s mainstream media (MSM), which claims its journalists are reliable, truthful, and objective. Who do you believe – them or Plato?
In recent decades, the MSM has leaned toward stories that are trivial, narrow, shallow, and sensationalist – often at the expense of truth. As Plato might have lamented, the MSM spreads words indiscriminately, wastefully, and with questionable trustworthiness. Truth, it seems, doesn’t sell newspapers.
Some bloggers echoed Plato’s concerns, prompting a fierce backlash from the MSM. I recall reading articles from the Murdoch press that unleashed a near-xenophobic hatred toward the blogosphere, attacking it with more zeal than they ever directed at incompetent politicians. One such critique described the blogosphere as:
A small, incestuous clique of self-identified lefties, with readerships composed mostly of themselves… Naivety and self-righteousness define the vast majority of the Australian blogosphere, along with whining conspiracy theories. Those who hide under the veil of anonymity, taking cheap shots to satisfy their trendy social agenda.
The MSM claimed, “The great thing about newspapers is that, love us or hate us, we’re the voice of the people. We represent the community, their views, their aspirations, and their hopes.” Represent the community? Don’t they mean control the community?
Independent media has profoundly reshaped modern communication, much to the chagrin of traditional print media. The MSM often dismisses us as falling below their standards, but I disagree. Today’s news stories are frequently little more than opinion pieces, unchallenged and unaccountable. Citizen journalists, however, hold the MSM to account – a role that sits uneasily with the media establishment.
Many citizen journalists possess a natural gift for taking the day’s main story, transforming it into something worth reading, and fostering a range of opinions that the MSM often ignores. In just a few years, blogging – in particular- became a global phenomenon, reshaping journalism and unlocking publishing opportunities previously unimaginable. To me, blogging is journalism. While individual blogs may have limited readership, sites with aligned agendas often link together to amplify their impact. In contrast, MSM blog platforms typically filter out contributions that don’t fit their narrative, rendering them inaccessible to dissenting voices.
So, what impact have independent sites had? Their influence has been most profound in the political sphere.
A computer-mediated environment makes it easier for citizens to express their feelings about political candidates and speak more candidly than in face-to-face settings. The internet’s diversity provides access to a wide range of opinions and information, potentially shaping or changing individuals’ political views. By disregarding blog sites with corporate or agenda-driven motives, political bloggers can foster peer-to-peer discussions of personal viewpoints.
This perspective was heartening for a then-blogger like me, who had lost faith in the MSM. It affirmed that independent voices could have an impact, however small at the time. If Australia followed the U.S. trend, a thriving blogging industry might one day emerge.
ShariVari concluded:
All research shows that increased opportunities for participation encourage democracy… Citizens are increasingly turning to and trusting the internet for accurate information, using it as a platform for participatory democracy, and becoming more knowledgeable about politics in the process. A Spiral of Silence – where people self-censor due to perceived minority views – is less likely in an online environment where citizens evaluate each other’s opinions without status cues like gender, race, or socioeconomic status. Blog sites are undeniably expanding the ways citizens participate in democracy.
Fifteen years ago, those in democratic societies seeking to share their ideas faced editorial gatekeepers whose policies often reflected their own ideologies or market-driven priorities. Today, this control is crumbling in the face of participatory media. Audiences no longer want to be passive consumers – they want to comment on and even create the news.
Citizen journalists believe they are better equipped to provide the diversity that modern democracies need, a diversity often ignored by traditional media. Independent platforms allow them to expose doctored or omitted facts, highlight biases, and give voice to alternate perspectives. These sites encourage readers to think critically, ask probing questions, and challenge the MSM’s hidden agendas. Independent media is awash with objective, fact-based analysis that counters the narratives of established outlets.
The explosion of independent sites isn’t merely an echo of dissenting voices – it’s a response to the MSM’s failure to provide objective, impartial reporting. If the MSM were truly committed to quality journalism, there might be no need for the millions of blogs and independent platforms that exist today to fill the gaps they’ve left.
In essence, it’s the People versus Murdoch… then and now.
I was scheduled to give a talk at the National Press Club of Australia on October 20 called “The Betrayal of Palestinian Journalists.” It was to focus on the amplification of Israeli lies in the press, which most reporters know are lies, betraying Palestinian colleagues who are slandered, targeted and killed by Israel. But, perhaps inadvertently proving my point, the chief executive of the press club, Maurice Reilly, cancelled the event. The announcement of my talk disappeared from the web site. Reilly said “that in the interest of balancing out our program we will withdraw our offer.”
The Israeli Ambassador, retired Lt. Colonel Amir Maimon, who spent 14 years in the Israeli military, is reportedly being considered to speak.
It is true that I know only one side of the picture from the seven years I spent covering Gaza. I was on the receiving end of Israeli attacks, including being bombed by its air force and fired upon by its snipers, one of whom killed a young man a few feet away from me at the Netzarim Junction. We lifted him up, each person taking hold of an arm or a leg, and lumbered up the road as his body swayed like a heavy sack. I saw small boys baited and shot by Israeli soldiers in the Gaza refugee camp of Khan Younis. The soldiers swore at the boys in Arabic over the loudspeakers of their armored jeep. The boys, about 10 years old, then threw stones at an Israeli vehicle and the soldiers opened fire, killing some, wounding others.
I was present more than once as Israeli troops shot Palestinian children. Such incidents, in the Israeli lexicon, become children caught in crossfire. I was in Gaza when F-16 attack jets bombed overcrowded hovels in Gaza City. I saw the corpses of the victims, including children. This became a surgical strike on a bomb-making factory. I have watched Israel demolish homes and entire apartment blocks to create wide buffer zones between the Palestinians and the Israeli troops that ring Gaza. I have interviewed the destitute and homeless families, some camped out in crude shelters erected in the rubble. The destruction becomes the demolition of the homes of terrorists. I have stood in the gutted remains of schools as well as medical clinics and mosques and counted the bodies. I have heard Israel claim that errant rockets or mortar fire from the Palestinians caused these and other deaths, or that the buildings were being used as arms depots or launching sites.
I, along with every other reporter I know who has worked in Gaza, including the over 278 Palestinians journalists and media workers who have been killed by Israel since the start of the genocide, many in targeted assassinations, have reported a reality in Gaza that bears no resemblance to how it is portrayed by Israeli politicians, its military and many media outlets that serve as Israel’s echo chamber.
Lt. Colonel Maimon can obviously, if he chooses, enlighten us about the artificial intelligence-based program known as “Lavender” and how it selects people, along with their families, in Gaza for assassination.
He can explain how Israel determines the quotas of civilian dead, how soldiers are permitted to kill as many as 20 civilians in order to target a Palestinian fighter and hundreds for a Hamas commander. He can let us know why Israel continues the mass slaughter when an internal Israeli intelligence database indicates that at least 83 percent of Palestinians killed are civilians. He can tell us how Palestinian civilians are abducted, dressed in Israeli army uniforms, have their hands tied, and are then forced to walk as human shields in front of Israeli troops into buildings and underground tunnels that are potentially booby-trapped. He can explain how the special unit called the “Legitimization Cell” carries out propaganda campaigns to portray Palestinian journalists as Hamas operatives to justify their assassinations. He can detail the targeting, bombing and controlled demolitions that have damaged or destroyed 97 percent of Gaza’s educational system, including every university and nearly all its hospitals. He can explain how, after Israel blocked all humanitarian aid on March 2 to starve the Palestinians in Gaza, Israeli officials set up the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation to lure emaciated and malnourished Palestinians to four aid hubs in the south — aid hubs with little food and which Human Rights Watch calls “death traps” and Doctors Without Borders calls “orchestrated killing.” These hubs, open only an hour, usually at 2:00 am, ensure a chaotic scramble for scraps of food. Israeli soldiers, along with U.S. mercenaries, who include members of the Infidels Motorcycle Club, a self-professed anti-“radical jihadist” biker group that counts members with Crusader tattoos among its ranks, fire live rounds into the crowds killing over 1,400 Palestinians and injuring thousands more in and around the hubs since May. He can lay out the plans for the concentration camps in southern Gaza and the efforts to ultimately expel the Palestinians from Gaza and repopulate it with Jewish colonists. He can explain why Israel abandoned its own hostages, why it fired on vehicles headed into the Gaza strip on October 7 carrying Israeli captives and why it used Hellfire missiles to obliterate the Erez Crossing installation when it was seized by Palestinian fighters knowing that dozens of Israeli soldiers were inside.
If Lt. Colonel Maimon spoke with this honesty and candor we could call this balance. It would fill in a side of the equation I glimpse from the outside. It would complete the circle. It would match truth with truth.
But Lt. Colonel Maimon, I see from his past statements, will spew out the mendacious narratives used by Israel to justify genocide — Hamas uses Palestinians as human shields, it operates command centers in hospitals, it sexually assaulted Israeli women on October 7 and beheaded babies. He will make the spurious claim that Israel “has the right to defend itself,” ignoring the fact that Hamas and other Palestinian resistance groups, which lack an air force, mechanized units, artillery, a navy, fleets of militarized drones and missiles, pose no existential threat to Israel. More important, he will not address Israel’s flagrant violation of international law by occupying and settling colonists on Palestinian land and carrying out a livestreamed genocide.
This is not balance, unless we accept a world where truth is balanced by lies. It is an abandonment of the fundamental mission of journalists — to hold power accountable. But most egregiously, it is a terrible betrayal of our colleagues in Gaza who have been killed for chronicling the daily savagery in Gaza, for doing their job.
No doubt, the corporate sponsors and wealthy donors of the press club are pleased. No doubt, the club is able to slither away from its journalistic integrity. No doubt, it is spared the attacks that would come from allowing me to speak.
But please, have the decency to remove the word press from your club.
Trump turned a simple conflict-of-interest question into a schoolyard spat — threatening to “tell on” a journo to Australia’s Prime Minister, writes Vince Hooper.
IT TAKES A CERTAIN theatre of the absurd to transform a routine White House press gaggle into a diplomatic sideshow. Yet that is precisely what happened when an Australian Broadcasting Corporation journalist, researching U.S. President Donald Trump’s family business interests, asked a straightforward question about whether it is appropriate for a sitting president to be engaged in so many business activities.
The question was sober and reasonable: a matter of conflicts of interest, wealth accumulation, and transparency in public office. Trump’s response, however, veered quickly into the surreal. He first insisted that his children were running the business empire, then abruptly shifted the ground.
Instead of grappling with the premise, he went after the journalist’s nationality, declaring:
“The Australians, you’re hurting Australia.”
And then came the kicker — Trump promised to personally inform Prime Minister Anthony Albanese about the journalist’s behaviour, as if geopolitics had suddenly collapsed into a schoolyard spat where the ultimate threat was tattling to the headmaster. The art of dobbing.
At one level, the episode is comic, a reminder of Trump’s instinct for spectacle and grievance. But beneath the absurdity lies something darker: a consistent refusal to treat journalistic inquiry as a legitimate part of democracy. Instead, accountability is reframed as disloyalty. The president of the United States, confronted with a basic question about conflicts of interest, responded not with explanation but with a kind of diplomatic intimidation.
This is part of a longer pattern. From his first term to his second, Trump has cast journalists as enemies rather than interlocutors. The “war on the media” is not rhetorical garnish but central to his political style. In this worldview, truth-seekers are painted as traitors, tough questions are reframed as acts of sabotage, and now even foreign allies are enlisted as props in his domestic culture wars. By claiming that the ABC reporter was “hurting Australia,” Trump implied that the act of pressing a leader for clarity was somehow an attack on his allies themselves.
What is most revealing is how quickly Trump personalised diplomacy. The U.S.–Australia relationship is built on strategic alignment, trade, military cooperation, and shared democratic values. It is not dictated by whether a reporter poses a question he finds confrontational. Yet in his rhetoric, the fate of nations collapsed into the thin skin of one man. This habit of reducing statecraft to personal loyalty tests is not merely undignified; it is dangerous. If bilateral alliances can be bent around one leader’s grievances, they risk becoming unstable, transactional, and unpredictable.
Trump turned a simple conflict-of-interest question into a schoolyard spat — threatening to “tell on” a journo to Australia’s Prime Minister, writes Vince Hooper.
IT TAKES A CERTAIN theatre of the absurd to transform a routine White House press gaggle into a diplomatic sideshow. Yet that is precisely what happened when an Australian Broadcasting Corporation journalist, researching U.S. President Donald Trump’s family business interests, asked a straightforward question about whether it is appropriate for a sitting president to be engaged in so many business activities.
The question was sober and reasonable: a matter of conflicts of interest, wealth accumulation, and transparency in public office. Trump’s response, however, veered quickly into the surreal. He first insisted that his children were running the business empire, then abruptly shifted the ground.
Instead of grappling with the premise, he went after the journalist’s nationality, declaring:
“The Australians, you’re hurting Australia.”
And then came the kicker — Trump promised to personally inform Prime Minister Anthony Albanese about the journalist’s behaviour, as if geopolitics had suddenly collapsed into a schoolyard spat where the ultimate threat was tattling to the headmaster. The art of dobbing.
At one level, the episode is comic, a reminder of Trump’s instinct for spectacle and grievance. But beneath the absurdity lies something darker: a consistent refusal to treat journalistic inquiry as a legitimate part of democracy. Instead, accountability is reframed as disloyalty. The president of the United States, confronted with a basic question about conflicts of interest, responded not with explanation but with a kind of diplomatic intimidation.
This is part of a longer pattern. From his first term to his second, Trump has cast journalists as enemies rather than interlocutors. The “war on the media” is not rhetorical garnish but central to his political style. In this worldview, truth-seekers are painted as traitors, tough questions are reframed as acts of sabotage, and now even foreign allies are enlisted as props in his domestic culture wars. By claiming that the ABC reporter was “hurting Australia,” Trump implied that the act of pressing a leader for clarity was somehow an attack on his allies themselves.
What is most revealing is how quickly Trump personalised diplomacy. The U.S.–Australia relationship is built on strategic alignment, trade, military cooperation, and shared democratic values. It is not dictated by whether a reporter poses a question he finds confrontational. Yet in his rhetoric, the fate of nations collapsed into the thin skin of one man. This habit of reducing statecraft to personal loyalty tests is not merely undignified; it is dangerous. If bilateral alliances can be bent around one leader’s grievances, they risk becoming unstable, transactional, and unpredictable.
Compare this to other democratic leaders. Joe Biden, for all his gaffes, generally responds to press scrutiny with irritation at worst, never with the threat of raising the matter in a diplomatic call. Anthony Albanese himself fields barbed questions from Australian journalists on policy, integrity, and leadership without implying that the act of questioning undermines Australia’s alliances. Even populist figures like Britain’s ex-PM Boris Johnson or India’s Narendra Modi, while often prickly, have not suggested that reporters risk harming national security simply by doing their jobs. Trump stands almost alone in converting a press query into a matter of international loyalty.
In the end, Trump’s outburst says less about Australia than about America. It was not Australia’s reputation on trial, nor the alliance, nor the ABC reporter’s patriotism. It was the president’s tolerance for accountability — and that, once again, proved to be vanishingly thin and fake.
Vince Hooper is a proud Australian/British citizen and professor of finance and discipline head at SP Jain School of Global Management with campuses in London, Dubai, Mumbai, Singapore and Sydney.
Sky News assembling a cabinet of experts to talk about Australia’s readiness for war is a problem we should be worried about, writes Dr Binoy Kampmark.
TWENTY-FOUR-HOUR NEWS networks have demonstrated that surfeit kills discretion. The search for fillers, distractions and items that will titillate, enrage or simply sedate, is an ongoing process.
Gone are the days when discerning choices were made about what constituted worthy news, an admittedly difficult problem that would always lead to priorities, rankings and judgments that might well be challenged. At the very least, news could be kept to specific time slots during the day, meaning that audiences could, at the very least, be given some form of rationing.
Such an approach culminated in that most famous of occasions on April 18, 1933 when the BBC’s news announcer declared with a minimum of fuss that, “There is no news.” This was followed by piano music playing out the rest of the segment.
On the pretext of coming across as informed and enlightened, such networks have also bought into astrology masquerading as sound comment. The commentators are intended to lend an air of respectability to something that either has not happened or something they have little idea about. Their credentials, however, are advertised like glitzy baubles, intended to arrest the intelligence of the viewing audience long enough to realise they have been had.
Sky News Australia is one such cringing example. The premise of The War Cabinet, which aired on August 11, was clear: those attending it were simply dying for greater militarism and war preparedness on the part of the Australian Government, while those preferring diplomacy would be treated like verminous denialists yearning for some sand to bury their heads in.
The point was less a matter of news than prediction and speculation, an exercise of mass bloviation. To lend a wartime flavour to proceedings, the event was staged in the Cabinet Room of Old Parliament House, which host Chris Uhlmanncelebrated as the place Australia’s Prime Minister “John Curtin and his ministers steered the nation through World War II.” Former ministers, defence leaders, and national security experts were gathered “around the Cabinet table to answer a single question: is Australia ready for war?”
The stale view from Alexander Downer, Australia’s longest and, in many ways, most inconspicuous foreign minister, did little to rustle or stir. Liberal democracy, to be preserved in sacred glory, needed Australia to be linked to a “strong global alliance led by the United States”. That such an alliance might itself be the catalyst for war, notably given expectations from Washington about what Australia would do in a conflict with China, was ignored with an almost studious ignorance.
Instead, Downer saw quite the opposite:
“If this alliance holds, if it’s properly cemented, if it is well-led by the Americans… and if we, as members of the alliance, are serious about making a practical contribution to defence through our spending and our equipment, then we will maintain a balance of power in the world.”
His assessment of the current Albanese Government was one of some dottiness.
“I think the government here in Australia has made a major mistake by playing, if you like, politics with this issue of the dangers of the region and losing the balance of power because they don’t want to be seen as too close to President Trump.”
Any press briefing from Defence Minister Richard Marles regarding the anti-China AUKUS pact would ease any anxiety on Downer’s part. Under the Albanese Government, sovereignty has been surrendered to Washington in a way so remarkable it could be regarded as treasonous. While the Royal Australian Navy may never see a single U.S. nuclear-powered submarine, let alone a jointly constructed one, U.S. naval shipyards are rolling in the cash of the Australian taxpayer.
Former Labor Defence Minister, Joel Fitzgibbon, lamented that Australia’s strategic outlook in the Indo-Pacific was “deteriorating rather markedly,” a formulation utterly vague and a mere parroting of just about every other hawkish analyst that sees deterioration everywhere.
Thankfully, we had Strategic Forum CEO Ross Babbage to give some shape to it, which turned out to be that ragged motif of the Yellow Horde to the North readying to strike southwards. The Oriental Barbarians with a tinge of Communist Red were primary reasons for a worsening strategic environment, aided by their generous military expenditure. With almost a note of admiration, Babbage felt that China was readying for war by adjusting its economy and readying its people “for tough times that may come”.
The venal, ever noisy former Home Affairs Department Secretary Mike Pezzullo, who has an unhealthy appetite for warring matters, drew upon figures he could not possibly know, along with everybody else who have tried to read the inscrutable entrails of international relations.
Chances of conflict in the Indo-Pacific by 2027, for instance, was a “10 to 20 per cent” likelihood. Sky News, living down to its subterranean standards, failed to mention that Pezzullo had misused his position as one of Canberra’s most powerful bureaucrats to opine on ministerial appointments via hundreds of private text messages to Liberal Party powerbroker Scott Briggs.
The Australian Public Service Commissionfound that Pezzullo had, among other things, used his “duty, power, status or authority to seek to gain a benefit or advantage for himself” and “failed to maintain confidentiality of sensitive government information” and “failed to act apolitically in his employment”. His employment was subsequently terminated, and his Order of Australia stripped in September last year. Fine credentials for balanced commentary on the strategic outlook of a state.
Other talking heads were keen to push spine-tingling prospects of wicked regimes forming alliances and making mischief. Oleksandra Molloy, billed as an aviation expert, thought the “emerging axis” between Russia, North Korea and Iran “quite concerning”. Former naval officer and defence pundit Jennifer Parker urged the fattening of the defence budget to “develop a degree of autonomy”.
Retired Australian Army major general Mick Ryan was most unimpressed by the “zero risk” mentality that seemed to pervade “pretty much every bit of Australian society”.
The Department of Defence needed to take greater risks in terms of procurement, innovation and reducing “the amount of time it takes to develop capability”. His fantasy was positively Spartan in its military totalitarianism: an Australian state nurturing “a spirit of innovation that connects military, industry and society”. The cry for conscription must be just around the corner.
Chief war monger and think tanker Peter Jennings aired his all too familiar views on China, which have become pathological.
“It is utterly false for our government to say that somehow they have stabilised the relationship with China. Things may have improved on the trade front, but that is at the expense of ignoring the strategic developments which all of our colleagues around the table have spoken about, which is China is positioning for war.”
And there you had it: an hour of furious fretting and wailing anxiety with all figures in furious agreement, with a resounding boo to diplomacy and a hurrah for astrology.
Dr Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He currently lectures at RMIT University
News Corp, Sky after dark, Fox News … they spew lies and propaganda around the globe, and the evil empire’s tentacles keep wrapping around the fearful and the ignorant.
As Saturday’s bloodbath washes through the Liberal corridors of no power, the electoral train wreck has turned attention to other overly cocky players: the Murdoch media.
From the moment the poll was called, Rupert Murdoch’s news culture warriors turned up the heat on Labor, exhorting the brilliance of Peter Dutton’s failed nuclear fantasy and his war on migrants, “woke” schools, people who work from home and Welcomes to Country — while tearing down anyone who dared suggest he and his party were not fit for office.
But on election night none of that mattered. None of the confected outrage, the miles of newsprint, the spin and the bullying had made a jot of difference and was more likely to have worked against the Liberals’ interests. Australians it seems have a finely tuned bullshit radar.
Sky pirates
Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young nailed it when she told Radio National on Monday:
“I think what has happened to the Coalition is they spent a bit too much time hangin’ out with Sky News and they forgot to really hear what people were saying. The other big loser is the Murdoch press. They created an echo chamber for themselves.”
Dr Denis Muller of the Centre for Advancing Journalism at the University of Melbourne said the Murdoch media were “agents of disaster” for the Coalition:
“I see the sun beginning to set on Rupert’s influence in Australian politics. News Corp created a bubble in which their journalists and Coalition politicians cocooned themselves, talking to each other on Sky after dark, persuading each other that everything was going to be fine.”
A setting sun? It’s a big call. Australian politicians of all persuasions famously make the trek to Murdoch headquarters after an election for a ritual known as “kissing the ring”, and Anthony Albanese, Richard Marles and Penny Wong were quick to do their duty in 2022.
Strings attached
Eric Beecher, a former News Corp employee, recalls being sued (unsuccessfully) by Lachlan Murdoch who issued a writ for defamation over an opinion piece linking the Murdoch news empire with 2021’s January 6 Capitol riots:
“The day after the defamation writ was issued, a large Commonwealth government car pulled up outside the Holt Street Surry Hills headquarters in Sydney of News Corp. Three people got out of that car to go upstairs and visit Lachlan in his office: the prime minister, the deputy prime minister and the foreign [affairs] minister of Australia. It’s been going on for 100 years and it should stop.”
The reach of puppetmaster Rupert Murdoch into governments and policy making knows no bounds and there have been countless exposés on unethical business practices. But the machine roars on, a powerhouse of global disinformation and propaganda while pretending to be a news-gathering organisation.
In January, Murdoch was photographed reclining in the Oval Office as Donald Trump signed an executive order creating a sovereign wealth fund. Fox News cable spits out Trump propaganda daily and is credited with helping to return the convicted felon and sex predator to office. Murdoch has called Trump “increasingly mad” and yet publicly admitted he knew Fox commentators were lying when they broadcast falsehoods about a “stolen rigged election” in 2020. But hey, it was good for business.
Nuke the enemy
The habitual process of retribution and vendetta from News Corp is bitter and legendary. The Australian Financial Review reports that Malcolm Turnbull and Kevin Rudd blame Murdoch for their political demise. In 1974, Murdoch famously directed his editors to “kill Whitlam” 10 months before Gough Whitlam’s electoral ousting.
Every day, Murdoch’s media rival, the ABC, is a target of sneering “hit jobs”, and any politician or voice that suggests climate change is real or nuclear reactors are a fantasy or billionaires don’t deserve tax breaks are hounded, possibly for life. The Herald Sun still runs revelations about former Labor premier Dan Andrews and sporadic pieces of condemnation over a car accident his wife had 20 years ago. According to Beecher in his book The Men Who Killed The News, Andrews was the only premier who refused to schlep up to News Corp headquarters for the compulsory kissing of the ring.
In Australia, the power base is the print media, overwhelmingly controlled by News Corp with a huge digital presence and backed by Sky News. In 2020, Rudd and Turnbull joined forces to call for a royal commission into Murdoch’s concentrated media holdings. Rudd claimed his media power is “routinely used to attack opponents in business and politics by blending editorial opinion with news reporting”.
Break the News
How is it that such deep, lasting damage to democracy, businesses and people’s lives can be inflicted with precisely zero repercussions? One part of the answer is the acceptance that democracies cannot flourish without a free press. Section 65A of the Trade Practices Act provides a general exemption to most of the media as publishers of news and current affairs from liability for publishing misleading or deceptive material. Former chairman of the ACCC Allan Fels said concerns around Murdoch’s practices are more likely to be addressed by a royal commission, an idea the government and opposition have not supported.
“I don’t have a view on whether he should be reined in. All media mislead to some extent. It’s not the sort of thing consumer protection law addresses.”
Dr Victoria Fielding, senior lecturer in strategic communication at the University of Adelaide, was bolder. She said legislative change was needed to rein in Murdoch excesses. She agrees a healthy democracy needs an independent free press populated by balanced journalists who hold the powerful to account and publish verifiable information — but that’s not what the Murdoch media are:
“If there was some legislation that said if you want to be a commentary organisation you can only have a particular share of the market — like any competition commissioner can do — you break it up. You say: ‘You can no longer be that large.’ It’s distorting our democracy.”
Running scared
The other part of the answer is fear, fear of taking on a monolithic disinformation machine which countless readers think is a news outlet and being publicly torn down and repeatedly shredded by a media gorilla with few scruples and deep pockets.
Remarkably, after cheerleading the Liberals to disaster on May 3, The Australian leapt back up onto its feet to brush off its flesh wound and lecture the Coalition on “missing the warnings”:
“Of all the mistakes that led to this result, one was fatal: the untested assumption that Labor was out of touch and unaligned with the mainstream values of Australians. There can be no other interpretation that that this is fundamentally wrong.”
This from the paper that tells us pretty much every day that Labor is out of touch and unaligned with the mainstream values of Australians.
Culture vultures
Reports of the death of the Murdoch brand in Australia may well be exaggerated. Like any good parasite it is known to stew and grow before attacking the host again. Fielding reminds us that backed by the Murdoch press, Dutton was on track to win the federal election as recently as January — until the catastrophic reality of the Trump presidency became obvious to Australians.
Murdoch has withstood worse setbacks than crashing an election and, like Monty Python’s Black Knight, his culture warriors rebound after each atrocity and, still bleeding, berate their victims for taking the advice.
I’d like to think the tide is turning on news outlets that amplify bullshit while bragging they are society’s moral pulse and insisting their bullshit is good for you. But if the tide is not for turning, you can always join the Liberals, and learn the hard way.
Whatever happens on election day, it’s certain that the Coalition’s promotion of nuclear power will cost it votes. It will probably cost the Coalition seats. It may cost the Coalition the election. And if the Coalition does unexpectedly well, it will be despite and not because of the nuclear policy.
The Murdoch press released polling results on April 19 showing that Labor’s campaign against the Coalition’s nuclear power policy is “driving a collapse in the Coalition’s primary vote in marginal seats across Australia.”
The RedBridge-Accent poll of 20 marginal seats found that Labor’s opposition to the Coalition’s nuclear plan is “a clear winner with a ‘net agree’ rating of 43.” Fifty-six per cent of poll respondents agreed with Labor’s claim that the Coalition’s plan will cost $600 billion and require spending cuts to pay for it, while only 13 per cent disagreed.
The Murdoch press reported on May 1 that 41 per cent of 1011 respondents to a Redbridge-Accent national poll ranked concerns that Peter Dutton’s nuclear plan will cost $600 billion and will require cuts to pay for it among their top five reasons for deciding to oppose a particular party.
Only one issue topped nuclear power as a vote-changing turn-off. The article was titled ‘Where the Libs went off track: Inside the Coalition’s disastrous campaign’ and it ran alongside another titled ‘Coalition nuked by nervous electors.’
In March 2024, James Campbell warned that the Coalition’s nuclear power policy is “stark raving mad.” In the same month, Tony Barry described the nuclear policy as “the longest suicide note in Australian political history.”
Meanwhile, the Coalition’s attempt to go quiet on its unpopular nuclear policy has only drawn further attention to it.
Costings
The Coalition’s decision not to release nuclear costings until December left a void which Labor filled with the $600 billion figure. Furious responses to the $600 billion figure have only served to focus attention on the expansive cost of Dutton’s taxpayer-funded nuclear frolic.
Just in the past couple of days, the Sky News Youtube channel has featured these videos:
A frustrated Barnaby Joyce told Andrew Bolt on Sky News:
“What they’ve done, ladies and gentlemen, is they’ve come up with this fantastic number. … The nuclear power stations are going to cost $600 billion. It’s like Dr Evil off one of those movies, you know coming out and saying ‘Oh you know 600 billion dollars’. BS. What they did, ladies and gentlemen, it’s like they got a turbo-charged Porsche and multiplied it by seven and said that is the price of every car in Australia.”
None of which comports with reality. Multiply the Coalition’s nuclear cost estimate by 2.5 and you’ll get the actual cost of recent reactor construction projects in the US, the UK and France. The Coalition assumes that reactors can be built in Australia for less than half the cost of recent projects in countries with vastly more experience and expertise. And much more quickly.
Liberals Against Nuclear
Polling commissioned by the Liberals Against Nuclear group provides further evidence of the political poison of the Coalition’s nuclear policy. The group said in an April 28 media release:
“A new uComms poll shows leading Liberal frontbencher Michael Sukkar could lose his seat at the coming election if the Party persists with its unpopular nuclear plan.
“The poll, commissioned by Liberals Against Nuclear, shows Labor and the Coalition tied at 50-50 in two-party preferred terms in Deakin. However, the same polling reveals that if the Liberals dumped their nuclear policy, they would surge to a commanding 53-47 lead.
“The Deakin polling showed women voters are particularly opposed to the nuclear policy, with 53.2% of women saying it makes them less likely to vote Liberal compared to 41.3% of men. Overall, 47.5% of Deakin voters are less likely to support the Coalition because of the nuclear policy.
“The data also revealed that 56.1% of respondents don’t support nuclear power at all, with concerns about renewable energy investment reductions (19.0%), nuclear waste management (15.9%), and high build costs (13.0%) being the primary objections.
“In the crucial 35-50 age demographic that makes up many families in Deakin, 48.4% are less likely to vote Liberal due to the nuclear policy.”
Another UComms poll found that Dutton could be vulnerable in the seat of Dickson because of the nuclear policy. Forty-six per cent of those surveyed said they were less likely to vote for Dutton because of the policy.
National Climate Action Survey
The latest National Climate Action Survey of more than 4,000 respondents conducted by Griffith University’s Climate Action Beacon in partnership with the Monash Climate Change Communication Research Hub found that support for nuclear power has fallen since the Coalition announced some details of its policy in June 2024.
The survey found that:
* 59 percent of respondents wanted to keep a legal ban on nuclear power in 2024 (up from 51 percent in 2023), while the number opposing the ban fell from 34 percent in 2023 to 30 percent in 2024.
* Only 18 percent of women were in favour of lifting the ban compared to 36 per cent of men. Two-thirds (66 per cent) of women want the ban to stay, 51 per cent of men want it to stay.
* Those who said the benefits of nuclear power far outweighed the risks fell from 24.5 per cent support in 2023 to 22 per cent in 2024. Those who said the risks of nuclear power far outweighed the benefits rose from 21.9 per cent in 2023 to 26 per cent in 2024.
* 54.8 per cent of respondents would be very or extremely concerned if a nuclear power plant was built near them while only 11 percent would be comfortable.
Local opposition
The Coalition claims to have a social licence to build nuclear power reactors in the seven selected regions, and uses that as an excuse for the paucity of visits to those regions during the election campaign – by Peter Dutton in particular.
But polling in March 2025 by research firm 89 Degrees East for the Renew Australia for All campaign found just 27 per cent support for “developing large-scale nuclear energy infrastructure” in Gladstone, 24 per cent in the rest of Central Queensland, 24 per cent in Bunbury, 22 per cent in Central West NSW which includes Lithgow, 32 per cent in Hunter, and 31 per cent in Gippsland.
The poll also found that just 13 per cent of people polled thought nuclear reactors would bring down their bills the fastest compared to 72 per cent for renewables.
By Hilary Whiteman, CNN, February 6, 2025, Brisbane, Australia,
Nuclear engineer and former Miss America Grace Stanke has entered the fierce debate in Australia over its future energy policy with a 10-day national tour extolling the benefits of nuclear power in a country where it’s been banned for almost 30 years.
The speaking tour is familiar territory for the 22-year-old former beauty queen, whosaid shestudied nuclear engineering as a “flex,” but now works for US energy giant Constellation as a spokesperson and as an engineer on its nuclear team.
Her recentarrival comes at a delicate time in Australia, months before a national election that could put the opposition Liberal Party in power, along with its promises to build seven nuclear power stations – upending the current Labor government’s plan to rely on renewable energy and gas.
For several days, Stanke has been speaking to hundreds of Australians, in events organized by Nuclear for Australia (NFA), a charity founded by 18-year-old Will Shackel, who has received backing from a wealthy Australian pro-nuclear entrepreneur.
Most talks were well-attended by attentive crowds, but not all audience members were impressed by Stanke’s message.
As she started to speak in Brisbane last Friday, a woman in the audience began shouting, becoming the first of several people to be ejected from the room as other attendees booed and jeered. One woman who was physically pushed from the premises by a security guard has since filed a formal complaint.
……………Those against nuclear power say it’s too expensive, too unsafe and too slow to replace Australia’s coal-fired power stations that would need to keep burning for several more years until nuclear plants came online.
………………….A numbers game
Australia banned nuclear energy in 1998 as part of a political deal to win approval for the country’s first and only nuclear research facility that’s still operating in southern Sydney.
A change in government in an election, to be held before mid-May, would see seven nuclear reactors built in five states to provide power alongside renewable energy – a bold shift in direction that would not only require changes to federal law, but amendments to laws in states where premiers oppose nuclear power.
According to the plan proposed by Liberal Party leader Peter Dutton, the nuclear reactors would be funded by 331 billion Australian dollars ($206 billion) in public money and the first could be working by 2035.
Both forecasts are disputed as underestimates by the government acting on the advice of the country’s independent science agency – the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) – whichsays renewables are still the cheapest and the most efficient way for Australia to reach net zero by 2050.
…………………..“I do believe that a strong grid requires both renewables and nuclear energy combined,” Ms Stanke said, referring to the argument for a “baseload” energy source that doesn’t rely on unpredictable weather.
That argument is challenged by experts worldwide, who say the need for “baseload” energy is an outdated concept, and that stability can be achieved by other means, including batteries.
……………………………………………..Advance, a conservative campaign group that says it works to counter “woke politicians and elitist activist groups” is promoting a 48-minute documentary it claims tells the “untold stories” of farmers whose “lives have been upended by the rapid rollout of wind and solar projects.”
………………………………….Rural areas where opposition is building to renewable projects are fertile ground for Shackel and his nuclear campaign. He’s already visited some areas earmarked for power stations under the Liberal proposal. And while he says NFA isn’t politically aligned with either of the major parties, he accepts he’s doing some of the groundwork to bring the community on side………………………….
Nuclear ‘foolishness’
Bringing a former Miss America to Australia was part of a plan to raise support for nuclear power among Australian women, who according to one survey are far less enthusiastic than men about the proposal.
According to several people who attended sessions in various states, the audience was dominated by older men, many of whom didn’t seem to need convincing.
Jane McNicol, the first protester escorted from the room in Brisbane, told CNN she’s been an anti-nuclear campaigner since the 1980s. She said she stood up to “ensure that this foolishness does not take off.”
“It’s just a way of spinning the fossil fuel industry out for a bit longer, and we cannot afford to do that,” she said. “You can see how the climate is collapsing around us. Look at Los Angeles. Those poor people over there lost everything.”
Others said the panel – which included local nuclear experts – made generalizations and didn’t get to the nub of issues specific to their area, like the potential strain they say a nuclear power station could have on resources in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley.
“There is literally no water for a nuclear power station. The existing allocation is already committed to mine repair,” said Adrian Cosgriff, a member of community advocacy group Voices of the Valley, who attended the Melbourne talk.
“Australians know nuclear power exists. That’s fine. It’s just not suitable for here. That’s kind of the argument,” he said.
David Hood, a civil and environmental engineer who attended the Brisbane talk, said: “Renewables are working right now. We can’t wait 10 to 20 years for higher cost and risky nuclear energy.”
Stanke and Shackel delivered a parliamentary briefing in Parliament House, Canberra on Wednesday, to politicians and aides across the political spectrum.
COMMENT. This article is pretty good for SCRUTINY, giving both the nuclear propaganda in spades, but also the environmental, safety, economic and political objections to it.
It does show Grace Stanke as a clever operator, with her giving simplistic, but impressive sounding pro-nuclear spin
Nuclear power has been banned in Australia since the turn of the century. Former Miss America Grace Stanke is the unlikely figure who wants to change that.The 22-year-old American has been in Australia for over a week, advocating for nuclear power at events hosted by Australia’s largest nuclear power advocacy organisation, Nuclear for Australia.
Her arrival seems perfectly timed for Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and the Coalition as they promote their nuclear plans ahead of the 2025 federal election.
If elected, the Coalition says it plans to build taxpayer-funded nuclear reactors at seven sites around Australia. The first is slated to start operating in 2035.
Hailing from the US, which home to 94 operable nuclear reactors and remains the world’s largest producer of nuclear power, Stanke wants to see Australia follow in her home nation’s footsteps and embrace nuclear power.
“This is a necessary part of the future,” she told 9news.com.au, adding that the federal and state bans on nuclear power “baffle” her.
“Nuclear is safe, it’s effective, it’s reliable, it requires a small amount of land, it provides high paying jobs and helps build up strong communities around it.”
With a degree in nuclear engineering and a Miss America title (she was crowned in 2023), Stanke is already the poster girl for nuclear advocacy in the US.
“People look at a woman and they make assumptions,” Stanke said, then laughed.
“Usually they are not expecting me to speak about nuclear energy or nuclear engineering, so it is a ton of fun.”
The Wall Street Journal called her the “new face of nuclear energy” in 2023 and she appeared on the Forbes 30 under 30 for Energy list the following year.
Inspired by her impact in the US, Nuclear for Australia’s 18-year-old founder Will Shackel flew her to Australia in a bid to further the conversation around nuclear power here too.
That has meant addressing environmental and financial concerns around the Coalition’s nuclear plans.
The Coalition also claims the plan would reduce Australia’s carbon emissions but energy experts estimate that extending the life of coal plants as part of the plant could produce 1.7 billion tonnes of extra emissions by 2050.
Stanke questioned these figures, citing studies from the Nuclear Energy Institute in the US as proof nuclear power is a cost-effective and “emissions free” energy source.
“To produce your entire lifetime’s amount of electricity, we’ll only create enough waste that it fits inside of a soda can,” she said in response to environmental concerns.
Though she acknowledges that building the reactors would come with financial and environmental costs, Stanke is focused on the end result: “clean energy” for millions of Australians.
However, there are also questions about how long it would take Australia to build seven nuclear reactors.
The Coalition plans to have the first up and running by 2035 but CSIRO experts argue that it’s unlikely any of the plants would be ready until at least the early 2040s.
It takes an average of nine years to build a nuclear power station according to the Australian Conservation Foundation, plus another 10 years for planning and licensing, but Stanke firmly believes Australia can get these reactors built within a decade.
“I would completely disagree on the idea that Australia is not a nuclear nation,” she said.
She noted that Australia’s only nuclear reactor OPAL in Lucas Heights, which opened in 2007, was built in just nine years and said that “if Australians can do that in nine years”, this country can surely “do even better in the future”.
However, OPAL was build on the site of an existing nuclear reactor while the Coalition’s proposed reactors would be built on coal-fired power stations.
And the Coalition doesn’t just have to build these nuclear reactors; it also has to regulate and staff them, and overturn federal and state bans on nuclear power.
It will be easier said than done given that Labor, the Greens and some independents oppose nuclear energy, as do many state premiers and opposition leaders.
As well as the financial, environmental and legal concerns, some Australians fear the potential community and health risks associated with building nuclear reactors across the country.
Though she’s received some pushback from everyday Aussies and anti-nuclear groups while touring Australia, the 22-year-old hopes her visit will inspire more open dialogue about the possibilities nuclear power presents for Australia.
“This deserves a fair discussion [and] I’m here to help start that conversation.”
COMMENT. This news item from 9 news is a rare example of SCRUTINY, in that, although it basically delivers the facts (Stenography), it shows some insight into the arguments and reasons behind Australian attitudes.
For a commercial media article, this is remarkably unbiased.
Opposition accuses Labor of scare campaign over Nuclear, PM says he holds economic concerns
Nuclear power is shaping up to be a hot button issue in the 2025 federal election, with Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and the Coalition pushing a plan to build seven nuclear reactors across Australia if elected.
Such reactors are currently banned at a federal level, meaning the Coalition would have overturn federal and even some state laws to build their proposed reactors.
Here’s everything you need to know about the nuclear power bans in Australia.
Why is nuclear power banned in Australia?
Nuclear power as an energy source has been banned in Australia since the late 1990s, when Prime Minister John Howard’s Coalition government passed two laws prohibiting it.
First came an amendment to the National Radiation and Nuclear Safety Act (1998) which banned the development of any new nuclear power sites in Australia.
The following year, the Commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (1999) introduced new rules prohibiting the construction or operation of any facilities that generated nuclear power, fabricated nuclear fuel, enriched uranium or processed nuclear waste.
At the time these laws were passed, there was only one site in Luca Heights, south of Sydney. It remains the site of Australia’s only nuclear reactor, which is used for medical and industrial research.
Some state governments have also introduced additional nuclear prohibitions.
Which countries have banned nuclear power?
Countries that have banned the construction of new nuclear power plants like Australia include Austria, Denmark, Greece, Italy, Ireland, Norway and Serbia.
Several other nations have also announced plans to phase-out nuclear power, including Belguim, Germany, the Phillipines and Switzerland.
Why is Australia anti-nuclear?
There was a dramatic shift in public opinion on nuclear power after the catastrophic Chernobyl disaster in 1986.
That shift likely contributed to the introduction of anti-nuclear laws in Australia in 1998 and 1999, which have remained in place ever since.
Modern Australian attitudes towards nuclear power are mixed but the majority of anti-nuclear sentiment centres around the financial and environmental costs.
It would cost billions to establish a nuclear power network in Australia and though nuclear power is considered “clean” (it doesn’t produce carbon emissions), it is not renewable.
Is it illegal to build a nuclear reactor in Australia?
Yes. The National Radiation and Nuclear Safety Act (1998) and Commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (1999), as well as some additional state legislations, prohibit the construction or operation of nuclear reactors.
Is there support for nuclear power in Australia?
Some. The Coalition is leading support for a nuclear future for Australia with its nuclear power proposal, which would see seven nuclear reactors built across the country.
Nuclear for Australia, the country’s largest nuclear power advocacy organisation, has voiced support for the plan.
What is Peter Dutton proposing?
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and the Coalition are proposing overturning existing laws banning nuclear power in Australia in order to build seven new nuclear plants.
“This will make electricity reliable, it will make it more consistent, cheaper, for Australians and it will help us decarbonise as a trading economy as we must,” Dutton said.
“The fact is we can deliver a plan which is going to keep the lights on and we have a plan and a vision for our country which will help grow businesses, not close them down.”
The Coalition has claimed the plan is 44 per cent cheaper than the government’s renewable energy plan and would lower Australians’ electricity bills.
However, the Coalition’s figures are based on a scenario that produces about 45 per cent less energy by 2050 than renewables.
What does nuclear power cost?
Modelling from the Coalition suggests its nuclear policy would cost Australia more than $300 billion, significantly less than the government’s renewables plan.
But the CSIRO’s draft GenCost 2024-25 report projected that building nuclear reactors would actually cost at least twice as much as renewable power in Australia.
By 2040, it predicted nuclear-generated electricity would cost about $145-$238 per MWh by 20204, compared to $22-$53 per MWh for solar, and $45-$78 per MWh for wind.
What does nuclear power mean for the climate/environment?
Nuclear power doesn’t produce greenhouse gasses, however it’s not renewable as the process of fission (which generates nuclear energy) requires fuel, typically uranium.
Though Australia has one of the world’s largest uranium reserves, it is a finite resource and therefore isn’t renewable.
Nuclear waste also poses an environmental threat, especially in the case of a disaster like the Chernobyl or Fukushima.
A pro-nuclear lobby group founded by high school student Will Shackel and backed by businessman Dick Smith has boosted its ad spend on Mark Zuckerberg-owned Meta sites by 148 per cent in January, new data has revealed.
The splurge was noticed by London-headquartered Who Targets Me, which tracks digital political ads, and local climate communications group Comm Declare.
The pro-nuclear group, Nuclear for Australia, spent $24,000 trying to reach 5 million people in Australia during the first month of the year.
Ads on Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, mainly targeted middle-aged men (45-54 years) in Queensland with claims that nuclear power is safe, reliable and zero emissions. It also asked them to sign a petition to lift Australia’s ban on nuclear power.
On youth-focused Tiktok, the ads were more focused on motivational explainer videos by Shackel, memes, and recently promotions for a pro-nuclear tour by 22-year-old nuclear engineer and former Miss America, Grace Stanke, also funded by Smith.
“In this election year, it’s clear the opponents of renewable energy will peddle the fantasy that nuclear energy is a viable climate solution for Australia. Nuclear power is too expensive, too slow and too much of a risk,” said Comms Declare founder Belinda Noble.
The ramp in advertising dollar spend by this group mirrors other campaigns, such as the Minerals Council of Australia which launched its own in August last year.
During January it ramped advertising spending by 33 per cent to $9,937 on its Get Clear on Nuclear campaign, which run on Youtube, Facebook, Instagram and Tiktok.
That campaign was designed by New Zealand ad agency Topham Guerin, which worked with Australia’s Liberal Party and the the UK’s Conservative Party in their election-winning 2019 year.
“Are they winning? Yes. Because what are you and I taking about right now? [Nationals MP] Ted O’Brien’s brain fart,” he told Renew Economy.
“It’s been very effective. It’s fact free politics. As an analyst I find it impossible to push back on it. The trouble is it’s got serious traction and they’re using their social media platforms to say ‘why can’t we talk about it?’ And they’re conflating nuclear mining with nuclear power plants, and they’re conflating [nuclear powered] defense with energy.”
This article, despite “fiery” language , is the STENOGRAPHY style of journalism – i.e – tells us what was said and done, without being propaganda, but also without examining, scrutinising, what was said.
Last year Mr Dutton pledged to build seven publicly-owned nuclear power plants in Australia if elected, with the first predicted to come online from the mid-to-late 2030s, as they require meticulous development.
He has argued nuclear will be crucial to stopping blackouts and lowering electricity bills as it can provide relatively cheap baseload power in the same way coal did, without the pollution.
He also said his $331billion plan will be 44 per cent cheaper than Labor’s program to almost replace coal and gas power with solar and wind energy within 15 years.
Labor’s plan is for renewable energy to comprise 82 per cent of Australia’s energy generation by 2030, rising to 98 per cent by 2040 based on solar and wind.
Both sides of politics support a goal of net zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050, but the Coalition sees nuclear making up 38 per cent of Australia’s electricity generation by that time, with solar and wind energy making up 49 per cent.
Scrutiny – a useful form of journalism that critically assesses the viability of the nuclear policy.
Stenography – just repeating the plan without scrutiny.
Propaganda (news presented to look like news but what is actually a form of political advocacy, aiming to persuade readers to support Dutton’s nuclear plan, or ).
It’s not that easy to categorise news items. I think that there should be another type *Read Between The Lines. I think that this article by Jessica Wang could belong in that group. However, using Dr Fielding’s groups —
“heckling” is seen here as a “bizarre encounter” – although heckling is a time-honoured political activity in Australia. The pro-nuclear message from Nuclear For Australia is repeated without comment or analysis, So this news item is close to Stenography , too, (but with that possible element of Read Between The Lines. )
29 August – UN International Day Against Nuclear Tests -HOW WE CAN PREVENT ANUCLEAR WAR DURING TRUMP’S PRESIDENCY
12:30 PM – 4 PM Saturday August 29 Pilgrim Church, Adelaide. Joint presentation afternoon with Doctors for the Environment Australia & Medical Association for the Prevention of War (SA)https://www.mapw.org.au/ Speakers are Professor Dale Bagshaw, internationally renowned mediator; Dr Kate Wylie, National Executive Officer of Doctors for the Environment (DEA);
Dr Teresa Pham, Drs for the Environment; Ben Crouch MPhil, Medical Physicist, and Amanda Ruler, PhD. – and hear expert opinion on how peaceful mediation and negotiation can prevent a nuclear war during Trump’s presidency.
Antinuclear 