I need to correct Byam Wight (Letters, 1 August).

The award-winning biography of Alan Reid which I co-authored with Stephen Holt in 2010 provides a documented account of how the 36 Faceless Men photographs were taken at the Hotel Kingston in 1963. Our account shows how Reid got his friend and fellow angler Val Paral to take and process the photographs.

All of this happened outside of regular office hours. None of Paral’s colleagues at the John Curtin School of Medical Research were aware of what was going on.
Professor Ross Fitzgerald AM, Redfern, …

by ROSS FITZGERALD

Given their life-saving work with alcoholics and other addicts, Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous are undoubtedly essential services.
    In Ireland, the Taoiseach (Prime Minister) has recently decreed that AA and NA are both essential services. Surely, here in Australia, as a matter of urgency,  our PM, premiers and leaders of local government should be doing the same.
        Professor Ross Fitzgerald AM, Redfern

The Daily Telegraph, July 2, 2021, Letters, p 86.

No AA is not OK

Professor Ross Fitzgerald’s call (Letters, 2/7 to regard Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous meetings as essential …

by ROSS FITZGERALD
At the National Press Club in Canberra at the start of the year, Scott Morrison said the government’s main task this year would be getting everyone vaccinated so life could return to normal. Well, the year’s half over yet life is as disrupted as ever; and with scarcely a third of Australians with their first shot, and scarcely 5 per cent fully vaccinated, there’s no end in sight.

Initially, the problem was that we didn’t have enough vaccines. Now the problem is we don’t have enough of the “right” vaccine; …

by ROSS FITZGERALD
I’ve been heartened by the support I’ve received for my call in The Australian (25/5/21 p 10) for my beloved Collingwood Magpies to appoint a new coach.

This is a matter of some urgency.
Our performance so far this season is as bad, if not worse, than in 1976 when Collingwood finished last on the ladder.

But in 1977, when the legendary Tom Hafey took over as Collingwood’s coach, the Magpies turned things around, finished first on the ladder, and played in a dramatic drawn grand final with North Melbourne.
 
These days, our …

by ROSS FITZGERALD
As a lifelong Collingwood supporter and the author of four books about Australian Rules football, it is blindingly obvious to me that, as well as having removed Eddie McGuire as the Magpies president, we urgently need a new coach.
It is utterly bizarre that there is even talk in the club about extending Nathan Buckley’s contract for another two years.

Ross Fitzgerald, Redfern, NSW
Last Post
Letters to the editor, The Australian, May 25, 2021, p 10.

by ROSS FITZGERALD
There were a heap of euphoric headlines in response to the federal budget. And what’s not to like in a budget that spends more money on just about everything, including much more on aged care, disability care, childcare, and the unemployed? The only noticeable lack of enthusiasm came from a few fiscal conservatives who persist in thinking that budget responsibility is what distinguishes the Liberals and Nationals from the Labor Party.
This really was an extraordinary budget coming from a government that had campaigned against its predecessor’s “debt and deficit stretching …

by ROSS FITZGERALD
It’s my observation that most women come at politics from a fundamentally different perspective than men – as they do with career, relationships, sex and even driving cars. Generally, they do it with less rancour, without abusing men and without sexist language. Despite this, many women in federal politics have now come forward with mind-numbing stories of sexist and misogynist behaviour. However, some of the worst behaviour is seen at state and local government level, beyond the scrutiny of the federal parliamentary press gallery. 
After recently casting her deciding …

by ROSS FITZGERALD
A Maoist, an anarchist and a Trotskyist walk into a bar. Make that a book. Add communists, socialists, feminists, two lesbians, a gay man, and three Indigenous activists; all appear in Radicals.

Sydney-based Meredith Burgmann and Nadia Wheatley are contributing editors of this often intriguing book they have dedicated to “all those comrades who were part of the radical Sixties” and who, “despite their differences, fought for a better world”.
Rather idiosyncratically, this critical decade is defined by Burgmann and Wheatley “as roughly spanning the years between 1965 and 1975”. In …

By ROSS FITZGERALD
Like the poor, gambling will always be with us and it’s certainly a huge problem for our nation.
Although gambling undeniably brings pleasure to some,  it also greatly damages the lives of many gamblers and their families.
Hence compulsive gambling is a serious threat to the health and well being of Australians.
The Whitlam’s famously recorded a song about problem gambling aptly entitled ‘Blow Up The Pokies’, Tim Freedman’s response to the destructive affect compulsive gambling had on a close friend.
Gambling has much in common with alcohol and other drugs. Indeed, ‘Gambling …

by ROSS FITZGERALD
With Covid jabs now beginning to roll out, my sense is that we’ll soon declare victory over the pandemic and conclude that “Australia had a good war”. At one level, there’s no doubt that we’ve done well. If minimising Covid deaths is the yardstick, our performance has been “world-class”, “gold standard” even. Still, I’m far from sure that our response has justified the self-congratulation now oozing from state and federal first ministers’ every pore.
For one thing, there’s a massive economic downside to the health upside. Sectors like higher …

By ROSS FITZGERALD
In 2019, the last full year before the pandemic, there were almost 22 million international arrivals into Australia. That’s Australians returning from overseas trips and foreigners coming to this country. Twenty-two million international arrivals in a country of 25 and a half million people shows how much we take global travel for granted – or used to, before the pandemic, and rules designed to prevent COVID from coming to Australia made it all-but-impossible. 
From March last year, international arrivals that had been averaging nearly two million a month have …