In two world wars, military justice was administered in the field with a standard of efficiency and fairness that enjoyed the confidence of most Australian troops.  Yet the Sydney Morning Herald, with neither a court martial nor a criminal trial, has declared Australia’s most-decorated living war veteran, Ben Roberts-Smith VC,  a ‘war criminal’, one ‘without honour, credit or credibility’. It is surely wrong that to defend his reputation, his only recourse has been to face the complications of the law of defamation applied in competing jurisdictions and the massive legal costs involved.

Unfortunately, the Federal Court chose not to refer the issue to rank-and-file Australians by ordering a jury trial so that, as its statute provides, the ‘ends of justice’ could best be served. Soldiers who have fought a war for their country should not be subject, years later, to inquiries or charges and certainly not to trial by media involving those who have never served in combat for their country.  That criminal charges were not made at the time of some alleged offence is more likely to be a command failure for which those in authority should be responsible.

Donald Trump’s Middle Eastern visit is ‘likely to be remembered as the most important… by a US President in years’. So concluded Cameron Stewart in the Australian, a newspaper normally critical of the President. Trump’s aim in the Middle East is to guide the countries in the region away from war and the destruction of Israel to peace, wealth and no doubt, the ‘pursuit of happiness’. In addition, like any leader of an imperial power, he expects advantages to flow to the United States; unlike most, he doesn’t hide this. The value of the deals announced already runs into trillions. Meanwhile, he is continuing his strategy of developing an expanding network of ‘Abraham Accords’, for which he should have already received the Nobel Prize. Trump is determined to reverse the Obama-Biden policy of managing American decline and allowing Tehran to become a nuclear power.

Trump’s agenda is no surprise; his method of implementation often is. Revealed in detail before the election, he is determined to fulfil it as soon as possible. If anybody has a mandate, Trump has. This includes, incidentally, the imposition of tariffs. Whatever they say, both media and governments either saw this was coming or are so uninformed that they should resign. Trump uses tariffs for two purposes. One is revenue to replace large reductions in income tax. The other is to force nations to enter into an early deal, accepting that trade with the US must be fair. The US has been the only imperial power to allow even defeated countries to impose serious trade burdens on her.  To say that President Trump is a wise man will invite ridicule. But which other recent president has forced freeloading allies to pull their weight, governed on the basis that wars, especially land wars, should be avoided, and that trade with the US be fair?

That the US is restored to full economic power is in all our interests, even countries such as Australia, doomed by their government to become poorer. Although Trump has been meticulous in the early delivery of his declared agenda and although he eschews any remuneration,  instead of commendation, he is the object of derision from much of the mainstream media.

Meanwhile, there is no evidence that the so-called negative ‘Trump effect’ on the Coalition secured the Australian election result. Nor was that result achieved, as the ABC claims, by Australians voting for Labor ‘in numbers never before seen’. While only 34 per cent voted Labor, the party was rewarded with 60 per cent of House seats. Putting aside the potential for fraud, well discussed here, it is likely that even with the US or UK style first-past-the-post system, Labor would still have been returned to majority government. So why did a government which has presided over the increasing impoverishment of the people win? There are, I believe, three reasons.

First, the default worldview of over 60 per cent of those under 50 is now  progressive’, i.e. left-wing. The reason is that the first target of the communist-designed, long march through the institutions was education, now replaced with 13 to 17 years of far-left indoctrination. This has been achieved at enormous cost to the young, with standards well below those of comparable countries and worse, an ignorance of history, a diminution of love of country and an unacceptable increase in effective illiteracy and innumeracy. Governments, including the LNP, have been well aware of this and have failed significantly in simply restoring what existed within living memory, a decent, low-cost education system.

The second reason is that most news, whether traditional media or social media, presents a view more from the left. The balancing power of the media mogul as seen with Rupert Murdoch is disappearing so that most traditional media is owned by corporations whose boards are increasingly infiltrated by the same long march and where editorial control is with the left-wing.

The third reason was the inability of the Liberal party to campaign on principles enunciated by Menzies and to present its case effectively. This is at least partially a result of the infection of the Party by Lino’s, Liberals In Name Only. They are inclined to have the Liberal party present itself as ‘Labor-lite’, a pale and unelectable version of  Labor.

Yet despite decades of indoctrination, Australians are still an intelligent people and lean towards commonsense solutions. Just recall the landslides John Howard and Tony Abbott produced, as well as the Voice referendum. The  LNP  should make school choice an issue in future elections, and in office, stand up immediately to far-left education authorities.

New curricula, ready beforehand, should be adopted. Means-tested vouchers should be offered to pay private school fees up to the difference between public and private school taxpayer funding, currently under about $5000. The aim should be to cover the fees of lower-cost private schools and partially cover others.