Credit: Illustration: Alan Moir
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PLANNING
Annika Smethurst (″Labor baited Brighton and Brightonians jumped on the hook″, 25/10) and the ALP have misjudged the symbolism of Brighton for launching the mandatory high-rise housing initiative.
Karen from Brighton may have been a figure of fun in 2020, but as ex-premier Daniel Andrews has discovered with the recent controversy of his appointment to a position in mental health, the ALP is symbolic of the trauma of lockdown.
Launching the unpopular skyscraper initiative in Brighton simply reminds us of ALP incompetence. Poor premier.
Alun Breward, Malvern East
Igniting a class war is not good leadership
Jacinta Allan deliberately chose to announce the next 25 activity centres in Brighton to elicit an inflammatory response. This divisive move has worked, given the many derogatory comments of readers to Nicki Taylor’s opinion piece ″I am a Hampton resident and an urban planner. These tower plans are appalling″, (22/10). Feeding the division between young people trying to put a roof over their heads against ″selfish, entitled, older home owners″, as well as a class war, is not good leadership by our premier.
There are 130 major activity centres on the Victorian Planning Authority’s website. When will Jacinta Allan announce the many that are planned for marginal Labor seats? After the next election?
This program of apartment towers is appalling. It will not deliver affordable housing, and it will destroy much of what Melburnians love about our liveable city.
We know the pain our young family members are going through. People are not NIMBYs. We want future generations to enjoy the same quality of life we have and to preserve some of our beautiful city and suburbs.
Monica Kerlin, Hampton
Dutton clearly hasn’t been to Officer South
Peter Dutton has claimed the Victorian government’s housing plan at transport hubs will deprive families of a backyard. A look at new housing in outer areas such as Officer South will show how out of touch he is. Those houses don’t have a backyard. Peter Dutton is living in the ’70s. Dan Drummond, Leongatha
Soviet by the sea
It’s pleasing to hear Labor plans to ″degentrify″ privileged enclaves like Brighton. The construction of massive Soviet Union-style high-rise housing/apartment blocks, therein, will add character to the area, and a little bit of social reality.
Michael Gamble, Belmont
Not a Garden State welcome
We’ve reached the point where it’s not only embarrassing that we don’t have an airport train, but the state of the alternative adds insult to injury. Landing at Melbourne Airport, being approached by four taxi touts, driving along the Tulla past graffiti, rubbish, overgrown weeds and cars banked up for kilometres at Bell Street and of course – an abandoned Ferris wheel. What does this say to visitors to our state?
Lachlan Stewart, Richmond
THE FORUM
Catholic masses
A reader’s letter (″Progressives will never change Catholic doctrine″, 25/10) congratulating Joe de Bruyn on his recent address to graduating students at ACU this week, brought up the Catholic doctrine on certain issues and equated the drop-off in Catholic Mass attendance with the start of the sexual revolution and the introduction of the contraceptive pill.
The young graduates at the ACU staged a dignified and quiet walkout to express their disagreement with his views. In education we call this voting with your feet. It seems to me that the graduates were also making visible their rejection of what could be termed essential practice of being a Catholic.
Judith Hudson, Elwood
Culture wars
In their criticism of Joe de Bruyn’s address to ACU graduating students, your correspondents speak of an event that was “hijacked by de Bruyn”, and of an audience “held hostage” to hearing opinions that many would take issue with (Letters, ″Freedom of speech has its time and place″, 25/10).
In essence, the issues they raised are no different from those previously aired in response to the controversy surrounding pianist Jayson Gillham’s MSO recital. And it’s wishful thinking to believe that such incidents won’t continue to occur as long as there are those who prioritise serving their own interests over those of their ″hostages″.
Geoff Feren, St Kilda East
Days of shame
Jacinta Price clearly has no understanding of what previous generations of women experienced in relation to abortion. I grew up in the 1950s and ’60s where women were terrified if they got pregnant before marriage and afterwards in many cases, too. They endured immeasurable levels of shame, shunning in many families and ″shotgun″ weddings if the bloke was willing. Many girls were sent interstate to have their baby in a ″baby home″ and then had the child taken off them even if they wanted to keep it. Being Indigenous, Price should well understand that situation and the lifetime of trauma it includes, because it could happen again if she gets her way.
Above all, there were far too many women who were so desperate they braved ″backyard″ abortionists with all the inherent risks or tried to bring on miscarriage. Both often led to sepsis, infertility and on occasions, death.
The law did not discriminate. It did not matter if a woman had been raped, either in or outside marriage. It did not matter if their financial position was so dire they could not afford another child. Women had little or no say because the law did not allow it.
In the mid-60s abortion was decriminalised, which removed the medical risks and many of the psychological risks, though I have yet to meet a woman who had an abortion free of distress, guilt, fear and angst.
So for a young senator, who did not experience what my generation of women experienced, to moralise and seek to impose her views on the whole country is a retrograde, highly offensive step. She should leave the matter alone.
Jan Liddicut, Boronia
WiseTech ways
Being accused of bullying and misconduct (with an investigation just started), resigning as CEO only to be re-engaged as a ″consultant″ on the same $1million salary, is a real eye-opener to how the ″big end of town″ operates. Richard White’s position was untenable, but WiseTech has found a way to keep his association to the company, with apparently scant regard for proper processes.
Mandy Morgan, Peregian Springs, Qld
Dutton’s net zero
Peter Dutton writes on his LNP website, ″Our plan will deliver a net zero electricity grid by 2050″, but his massive nuclear project would only supply 12 per cent of the demand by 2050. That 12 per cent will not give net zero. He’s hiding 82 per cent of his scheme and its costs, so he has more freedom to continue his deceptive claims.
Andrew Gunner, Brunswick West
Australian failure
It is laughable that Australian leaders could claim to be a leader in the Pacific, “Australia cops blame from island nations on emissions” (25/10), when, by all accounts, the continual political backflips are positioning us further and further behind in the global shift from fossil fuels.
Despite grand speeches and commitments, Australia’s approval of new coal mines and continued fossil fuel expansion reveal the true priorities of our government, undermining any credibility we might have in leading on climate change.
Pacific island nations are right to call out Australia for failing to act on this existential threat. While they face rising seas and increasingly severe climate impacts, Australia remains stuck in a pattern of inaction.
Julia Paxino, Beaumaris
Low-key welcome
In contrast to Lidia Thorpe, Pacific leaders have welcomed our prime minister to Samoa with dignity, so Australia’s hypocrisy in setting a domestic net zero 2050 target while increasing coal and gas exports is unlikely to be a front-page headline around the world.
Jenny Smithers, Ashburton
New ways to fight fires
The climate is hotter and drier so bushfires burn more intensely generating their own lightning which ignites new bushfires in all directions. New ways to fight fires are needed.
October in regional Victoria is when the Country Fire Authority (CFA) local fire brigades raise money for an additional fire engine or more radios. Three fires in three weeks in the Ballarat area last summer made us all appreciate those who voluntarily go into harm’s way.
With the bushfire season now extending beyond five months, more resources are needed to detect bushfires as soon as they break out so large-capacity water bombers target and extinguish fire before it takes off.
NSW has a converted Boeing 737 water bomber capable of dropping 15,000 litres of fire retardant, foams, gels and water precisely on target.
Victoria also needs a large water bomber when another black summer occurs.
Drones, too, have advanced greatly in endurance, range and payload while their cost has fallen. On days of high fire danger, drones can be sent up high to detect fires using infra-red and video cameras.
The federal government should have transport planes converted into water bombers available to deploy all over Australia. Surplus Boeing 747 airliners can be converted into 40,000-litre-capacity water bombers. A changed fire regime requires new ways of fighting fiercer fires.
John Naylor, Napoleons
News boy
Congratulations to The Age on a wonderful milestone of publishing. When I was born in 1934, my father Percy Opie worked on the huge printing machines at The Age in Collins Street, Melbourne. I remember visiting him at work. After military service, Dad was quite ill and the office kindly gave him a light duties job. This involved picking up news agency classified advertisements from the trains’ guard vans and walking them up to the office.
The walking tired him, so after school, at the age of 10, I caught the train from Clifton Hill to the city and walked the packages up to the Age office. I quite enjoyed the job and liked helping Dad. At about 9pm, we would both take the train home. Now, I am a subscriber and enjoy The Age every day.
Kevin Opie, South Yarra
A lone Dusty and Diesel
I read with interest “The 504 players who have nominated for this year’s AFL draft” (24/10), but was disappointed that there was not one draftee with the first name of myself and two of my brothers – Peter, John and Mark, and only one for my other two brothers Michael and Anthony.
The most popular names were Josh and Joshua at 14, Sam and Samuel 14, Jack 12, Harry 11 and Luke and Cooper 9. There were single Diesel and Dusty nominees, as well as five Joels.
Peter Connell, Highett
Polar express
Can someone tell me how I can buy a house in Antarctica? Regardless of whether Harris or Trump wins the election, I want to be as far as possible away from America due to the effect it will have on the world.
Randall Bradshaw, Fitzroy
An earlier version of the cartoon by Alan Moir published above on the letters page in the Saturday Age mistakenly included a star on the Israeli flag that was not the Star of David and misspelt the name of the Israeli prime minister. The Age regrets the errors.
AND ANOTHER THING
Credit: Illustration: Matt Golding
Lidia Thorpe
Perhaps Lidia pledged allegiance to the Queen’s hares.
Dennis Richards, Cockatoo
Lidia Thorpe’s tactics are from an old playbook: the Suffragettes resorted to similar disruption and worse to obtain the vote for women 100 years ago.
Louise Kloot, Doncaster
The ″hairs not heirs″ quip is a brilliant example of First Nations subversive humour. It has sent the politician and media packs into a frenzy.
Vince Corbett, Essendon
Applying the management maxim of ″What you walk past you condone″, soon it will be acceptable for MPs to cross their fingers behind their back while being sworn in.
Peter Thomas, Pascoe Vale
Furthermore
Re the ACU speech. In the beginning, man created God. Why? Because he wanted to control other people. Which people did he most want to control? Women. It seems nothing has changed.
Helen Moss, Croydon
I’m curious with all this anti-abortion talk, when will we be discussing men’s reproductive systems in parliament? I’ve been jotting down a few ideas ...
Ginny West, Jan Juc
Your correspondent notes “that less than 5 per cent of baptised Catholics attend weekly Mass”, (Letters, 25/10). The antiquated language used in the service and the views espoused in some sermons may provide a hint as to why.
Mark Hulls, Sandringham
Apartments the size of my bedroom and borrowed light rather than windows are already in evidence. How low will they go?
Barbara Lynch, South Yarra
Jacinta Allan’s proposals to permit subdivision of properties to turn Victoria into the townhouse capital of the nation says goodbye to Victoria as the Garden State. Kids will never know the joys of a backyard.
Martin Newington, Aspendale
Finally
To those who painted the bird on the top of the magnificent Collingwood shot tower built in 1882, very clever. Congratulations. Now to really impress everyone, get up there in the dead of night and clean it off.
Angus Burchall, Collingwood
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