THE BONDI BEACH MASSACRE On Sunday 14 December, Australia, and much of the world, was shocked by a terrorist attack on a Jewish Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, killing 15 people, mainly Jews including a ten-year-old girl. The attackers used a rifle and shotguns, but had explosive devices in their car. The killers were Muslims and Australian residents. Sajid Akram, 50, was born in Hyderabad, India and came to Australia as a migrant in 1998. The other man was his Australia-born son, Naveed Akram, 24. Sajid was killed by the police and Naveed was shot but survived. He was arrested and is now in prison. (1) We are constantly told of the rise in anti-Semitism over the last two, or so years, so the first question that should be answered is why security was not better. If there were not enough police available why no private security guards? And how come our security services, the federal police and the Australia Security and Intelligence Service (ASIO) did not find any evidence

AUSTRALIA’S LIVING STANDARDS ARE FALLING BEHIND OTHER NATIONS Australia once had one of the highest living standards in the world. Recently however our economy has been growing at a pathetically slow rate while population growth is above average. In the twelve months ending June 2025, the economy grew 1.8% but in two of four quarters of that year the per capita GDP actually shrunk. (1) This compares poorly when in 2021 with very little immigration and population growth only 0.56% our economy grew by 4.2%. In the following years migrants flooded in but the economy slowed down and living standards stagnated. (2) Meanwhile Australia’s foreign debt keeps growing and reached $1,419 billion net in the middle of 2025. (3) Relative to the rest of the world our living standards have been in decline for decades. Just before World War I, the United States had higher living standards than Australia but most of the rest of the world was far behind us. (4) Despite being involved in two world wars an

THE GOLDEN YEARS – Postwar Australia The quarter century following World War II, saw Australia, and most Western countries, enjoy a period of growing prosperity, low unemployment, and a high birth rate, accompanied by a steady influx of, mainly white, migrants. Australia had lost 35,000 people in the war and this included 8,000 who died while prisoners of the Japanese. A number of them were killed in war crimes for which some Japanese were executed. The crimes included daily beatings of prisoners, starvation, forced marches, summary executions, torture and outright massacres. (1) A few years later Australians were involved in fighting communists in Malaya. The conflict tended to fizzle out when Malaya gained independence in 1956. A much more serious affair was the Korean War. (2) Fighting began in June 1950 when North Korean forces crossed the border into South Korea. The United States and 20 other members of the United Nations, including Australia entered the war and eventually pushed

IMMIGRATION MYTHS Australia has been receiving a high number of immigrants but the reasons for this are suspect. There are various reasons put forward for this but when examined these tend to be wanting. One claim is that immigration is necessary for economic growth and to maintain our living standards. Think back a few years to the Covid pandemic. During 2020 and 2021 immigration was restricted and went down to about net zero. People kept having babies but population growth fell to about half a percent (0.5%) a year. (1) The economy went backwards in 2020 but in 2021 growth reached 4.9%, the highest rate for years. (2) From 2022 migrants began flooding in again, population was rising rapidly, but economic growth slowed down. In the following years, 2023 and 2024, immigration and population growth continued at a high rate but economic growth failed to keep up. Living standards were going backwards. (3) Meanwhile many Asian countries noted for their tiny immigration levels had growing e

SHOULD CHILDREN BE TAX DEDUCTIBLE? With falling birthrates in Australia there has been a call for the reinstatement of a baby bonus similar to the one brought in under the Howard government in 2004. Australia has seen a drop in births of 3.8% since 2019. The average woman now has 1.51 babies compared to the replacement rate of 2.1. (1) Rather than a baby bonus we could look at the tax system. When Australians do their annual income tax return they can claim donations they paid to charities, work expenses, travel expenses and a number of other things, which reduce the amount of income on which income tax is assessed. The amount of income tax to be paid therefore is reduced. It would be a good idea if taxpayers could also claim for dependent children, at least those under 18 or still going to school. If they could claim something like $5,000 for each child they could reduce their tax. This would help considerably with the costs of raising and educating their children. It could also be us

THE FEDERAL ELECTION 2025 Australians voted in May in the federal election and gave the Labor government under Anthony Albanese another three years in power. Labor actually gained more support than in 2022, while the Liberal opposition fared pretty badly. (1) This would seem a shift from right to left until you look at some of the minor parties. Clive Palmer’s Trumpet of Patriots did pretty poorly, but then so did the Greens. It looks like only one of the four Greens in the House of Representatives kept their seat. Pauline Hanson’s One Nation had a noticeable rise in support, gaining at least 6% of the votes compared to 5% in 2022. (2) Worrying is that independents supported by the Moslem Votes group did well in some electorates, and it shows they have the power to influence the outcome of elections. (3) How this will affect the Labor government’s attempts to stop anti-Semitism remains to be seen. The drop in support was not, of course, universal. Ethnic minorities like the Chinese and