Sir Martin Gilbert CBE was once the pin-up boy of British pro-Israelis. Today, his monumental report documenting the final days of World War Two is studiously ignored. Why? There wasn’t a Palestinian in sight at any of the concentration camps liberated by American and Allied soldiers. Gilbert visited all of them. His methodology was to…
Kay Lanceley, one of our dearest friends, has died. She was 87. On the morning of her death she phoned my life-partner Judith White to tell of plans to travel to the South Coast and then northwards to see us and other friends on Bribie Island and the Glass House Mountains in Queensland. She was…
In retirement, former ALP Prime Minister Gough Whitlam placed a phone call to Cardinal Edward Clancy, AC, at his baronial residence on the shores of eastern suburbs with breath-taking views of the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge. By coincidence, Clancy’s outlook also contained the clearest vision of Kirribilli House, the Australian Prime…
BOOK REVIEW People in Sydney knew of the courtroom battles of the great Chester Porter QC. His colleagues in the law loved to regale each other, and clients, about Porter’s skill in the courtroom. Newspaper readers, particularly Rupert Murdoch’s Daily Mirror, were treated to almost daily coverage of Porter’s court battles. The readers lapped it…
US President Joe Biden is 81. He is the oldest President in US history. He ‘’controls’’ the White House, Wall Street, Pentagon, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Treasury and every aspect of home policy and foreign affairs. He is chiefly responsible for encouraging the Zionist settler State of Israel to regard…
Former Labor Party Prime Minister Paul Keating is Australia’s foremost public intellectual. Love him or loathe him, when he speaks on the ABC, the national broadcaster, people stop eating or talking, and listen. Keating commands such public attention: he doesn’t ask for it, we give it to him with the same respect we gave Prime…
The curtain has come down on Act 1 of The Great American Melodrama. US President Joe Biden is finally leaving the White House. As a result, the whole world is breathing a sigh of relief. There is renewed hope that things will return to “normal”. But they won’t. We still have Act 2 and Act…
Jeffrey Bernard Mitchell, my youngest brother, has died from a heart attack. It followed the recent deaths of my oldest brother, James Gilbert Mitchell, and Anthony John Mitchell. Jimmy, Tony and Jeff were three of the four sons of Lucy and Jim Mitchell, who lived in Brisbane, Townsville, Southport and Koala Park, Tallebudgera. Once there…
A remarkable array of talent from every section of society has joined the “YES” campaign. Some are white, while others are black, brown or yellow. Joining the campaign has been a revelation for me: I’ve met people of every background, but they are united in giving First Nations People a voice in Canberra’s Federal Parliament….
On Saturday, 27 May, 1967, Australians voted by an overwhelming majority to alter the Constitution to give Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders the right to be counted in all future censuses by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). The vote was a huge victory for the “YES” camp: it won 90.77% of votes cast in…
