Grace Tame’s treatment by the Murdoch press boosts push for royal commission

Miriam Germein writes: Grace Tame’s detailed account of the abuse she experienced lays bare the insidious nature of the crime (“‘The older I get, the younger I was’: What’s it like to be the subject of News Corp coverage?”). However, her analysis of press complicity, in particular Murdoch tabloids, elevates her account to a compelling argument for a Murdoch royal commission. This endemic, dangerous manipulation of stories and facts to play the system for clickbait dollars must stop. What journalists write, matters. Tame’s article is a striking call to arms.

Sandra Bradley writes: Well done, Grace Tame and Crikey for enabling Grace to share her story in the way she wanted to.

All hail the failed chief

Billy Miller writes: The really scary concept (“Donald Trump labels New York fraud case a ‘scam’ as trial begins”) is this: what will happen if Trump gets back into power?

Although civil war is a remote possibility, there are a few outcomes that we can confidently predict:

• no more support for the Ukraine war;

• at the very minimum, a drop in the number of operational submarines sent to Australia, or the scuppering of the whole AUKUS deal;

• a renewal of presidential love and admiration for dictators (Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un et al);

• the safety of minorities will worsen;

• the return of Bible-loving Trump — which he would pull off despite having not set foot in a church since he was last in power.

Money talks

Peter Barry writes: Re “What will Palmer’s $2m give the No Camp, and cost Australian voters?”: the right of extremely wealthy individuals to use that wealth to sway elections and referendums is not clear-cut. It does allow that person to have a disproportionate say in a process that is supposed to conform to one vote for each citizen. The Citizens United decision in America has contributed to the rapid erosion of democracy in that country.

It seems fair that advertising spending by an individual or company should be given a prescribed upper limit and there should be a truth-in-advertising law specific to electoral ads. The real-time listing of donors and amounts paid would be another safeguard.

Although it’s easy to see that Clive Palmer has wasted large amounts of money for little gain in recent elections, it will be less easy to dissect his contribution to the referendum outcome, whichever way it goes.

Balance of power

Roger Clifton writes: Re “Uranium clean-up way over budget, running late… sounds like true nuclear power”: the cost of rehabilitating the Ranger uranium mine in Kakadu is nothing compared with the enormous impact its uranium is costing the world’s coal industry. Per capita consumption of electricity is about 1kW, which requires the fissioning of only one gram of uranium a year. The equivalent emissions of between five and 10 tonnes of CO2 from burning coal are of far greater insult to the environment — that’s each person each year.

In its first pass through modern reactors, just 0.5% of Ranger’s uranium has been fissioned, creating the equivalent of more than 200 years of Australia’s entire electricity production, and averting between 30 and 60 gigatons of CO2 emissions. Very little of the remaining 130,000 tonnes has so far been recycled, and America’s coal industry in particular wants to keep it that way. 

When unidentified voices urge you to obstruct the use and recycling of nuclear fuel, consider that you would be serving the interests of fossil fuels, contrary to the interests of the environment.

Peter Barry writes: Many Labor supporters feel deceived and betrayed by its climate change proposals. Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek, Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen and Resources Minister Madeleine King have been captured by the same forces that actively seek to prolong the burning of fossil fuels and limit progress towards clean energy.

No objective and honest analysis would credit the government with moving with the alacrity needed to minimise Australia’s emissions. Whether it be the approval of new fossil-fuel mines, the endorsement of forest obliteration, the fudging of methane escape, indulging carbon capture and storage fantasies, or turning a blind to shonky offsets, Labor hopes to slide under the radar by claiming, correctly, that it is better than the Liberal National Party.

Although it is controversial, if we can pay a fortune for nuclear submarines, we can do the same for nuclear energy. Though the lead time for both is large, the cost enormous and disposal of waste a challenge, at least an electricity-generating reactor will have a positive role well into the second half of the century. The submarine program is a catastrophe, which will bankrupt the country for no long-term gain of any consequence.

Suffer in silence

David Simpson writes: If people do not believe there should be a Voice, at least they could practise what they preach and shut up about it (“It’s past time for voices to be raised against dissent, racism and hate”).

Barry Welch writes: Garigarra Riley-Mundine is right to be disappointed at the failure of her father, Nyunggai Warren Mundine, to denounce the racist comedy act at the right-wing CPAC conference. She, like her father, would know that comedy when used to lampoon, mock, denigrate or objectify has long been an essential weapon in the arsenal of the racist. Once you laugh at people, contempt is a given.

We need look no further than the caricatures of Jews, the devastating use of T.D. Rice’s “Jump Jim Crow”, and blackface, which was used to mock and dehumanise African Americans and lessen concern for their plight.

Closer to home, we have the Jolliffe comic strip in Pix magazine, Witchetty Tribe, with the invariable nulla nulla-carrying Aboriginal man dragging a stunned Aboriginal woman by the hair.

That Mundine would refuse to denounce the use of comedy to denigrate and dehumanise First Nations peoples is indicative of how low the No campaign will go. No surprise, given the Jim Crow attack on Thomas Mayo by the No campaign in a full-page ad in The Australian Financial Review.

Comedy, the racists’ weapon of choice.