Credit: Cathy Wilcox
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ELECTION
Peter Dutton’s policy to force public servants back to the office might have cost him the election (“The moment Peter Dutton knew his work-from-home plan was dead”, 7/4). Flexible working, including from home, has proven productivity benefits and the ability to balance commitments. Yet, the Liberals would not have been so emboldened if it were not for the fact that corporations have been steadily boiling workers in the pot with increased return to office mandates that link KPIs to office attendance. These mandates have seen workers penalised financially for not meeting arbitrary attendance criteria – all of which has nothing to do with the doing of the actual job.
Return to the office mandates heavily discriminate against working women. This is where the media should take a closer look, and where workers will need to band together if they want flexible working to be preserved.
Kieran Simpson, Blackburn North
Trust damaged
Peter Dutton’s hasty retreat from ending flexible working for public servants and cutting 41,000 public service jobs is a political shambles. Voter backlash – especially from women who also abandoned Scott Morrison – forced him to ditch his $7 billion savings pledge mid-campaign. A policy sold as “bold” collapsed under pressure – this isn’t leadership; it’s floundering.
How can we now trust a man who flips so easily? Australians deserve conviction.
Sue Barrett, Caulfield South
While he’s at it
I’ve gotta hand it to Peter Dutton, even if his embarrassing misreading of the room and double-pike backflip does expose him for more people to see as not the right person to lead this country.
All credit for saying that he got something wrong.
Now he must publicly offer the same kind of contrition regarding his, now unmentionable, nuclear folly.
Damon Ross, St Kilda East
Why the flip?
Did the Coalition choose a policy to prevent certain people working from home because it would be good for the country as a whole?
Or did it change its policy because that would be good for the country as a whole?
Why did it change its policy?
Marilla Macauley, Shepparton
Tax cuts we can’t afford
Treasurer Jim Chalmers is going to help us navigate very serious cost of living problems by giving us a $5 per week tax cut which will barely cover the cost of a flat white coffee. I suspect that many will opt for a more expensive double whisky to help soothe their pain, knowing that their $5, which comes into effect on July 1 next year, will be quickly swallowed up by bracket creep.
The budget is in the red and will be for years. It seems as if Labor wants to buy this election with our money that Chalmers hasn’t got.
Coke Tomyn, Camberwell
Big spending items
Your correspondent (“More spending”, Letters, 8/3) tots up Labor’s promises to date and comes up with a figure of about $21 billion. He then asks, in effect, where is the money coming from?
However, he fails to make the same analysis with Coalition pledges. Its nuclear power plant plan alone has been costed (by it) at $331 billion, and rising to who knows where. How will the Coalition pay for that?
Trevor Sheridan, Charmhaven, NSW
Raise the taxation rate
Your correspondent asks whether Labor will need to raise taxes to pay for proposed reforms. Bring it on! Raise the taxation rate on the richest individuals and abolish negative gearing and redistribute the money to the age pension, JobSeeker, public schools and hospitals.
Juliet Flesch, Kew
THE FORUM
Coping with Trump
In the circumstances Donald Trump has created, there is only one option: make the Australian economy more resilient and better able to withstand external economic shocks.
That requires managing the economy better by containing and targeting expenditure; keeping debt low; reforming tax; microeconomic reform; innovating in the public sector; greater competition in the domestic economy; higher productivity through industrial relations, tax and technology policies; equipping and requiring our scientific and educational institutions to focus more on Australian interests; and working more diligently toward global free trade.
Keating and Howard would have been all over this. Sadly, neither of the main political parties, the fringe parties nor the independents have articulated an economic response to Trumpism. An election campaign is the right time to do it.
Michael Angwin, Hawthorn
Standing our ground
Donald Trump’s so-called negotiations with countries wishing to secure reduced tariffs seem closer to coercion or extortion (“China responds to Trump’s threats, vowing to ‘fight to the end’,” 8/4). As with Ukraine, which is expected to become a pauper state in order to “repay” its US “debt”, other countries are invited to prostrate themselves while promising riches and deals to the US in order to have tariffs lifted. Meanwhile, the global autocracies Trump admires enjoy a free run.
Here’s hoping that Australia’s negotiators are savvy enough not to sacrifice our biosecurity, resources and sovereignty in order to placate this mercurial, grasping, would-be dealmaker and his acolytes.
Sally Holdsworth, Malvern East
Pandering to base
Peter Hartcher’s fascinating analysis (“Trump’s tariffs: Friends with few benefits and foes with plenty”, 8/4) convinces me that Trump’s Liberation Day tariff madness has as much to do with pandering to his MAGA base as it has to do with pandering to his perverse and capricious nature. It’s the world’s attention he craves, not its approval or condemnation. Look at me! Look at me! And it’s frightening.
Nick Toovey, Beaumaris
Trade war Dodge
With America throwing its weight around, I suggest that we retaliate. Let’s impose a 50 per cent tariff on their cars. This will provide a real benefit to us. There will be less Dodge Rams and their aggressive, ugly ilk taking up space on our roads, so we will have more friendly, happy cars on our roads and thus, more relaxed drivers.
Roger Mendelson, Toorak
Strength in weakness
It’s disappointing that in 2025 labelling one’s political opponent as “weak” can be seen as a valid criticism. Maybe it appeals to the steroid-jacked misogynists of the Manosphere. Maybe that’s the intention. But strength in itself is not necessarily a desirable quality. Strong winds destroy property and risk lives. Strong leaders are Russian President Vladimir Putin and China President Xi Jinping, who don’t think their populations should have a say in their country’s destinies. Strong odours are not always welcome. Maybe there’s an admirable weakness in backflipping, in realising a policy such as a work-from-home ban is a “thought bubble” best popped. Maybe the opposition leader could reassess his “strongman” posture, go kindly and gently towards polling day.
Clive Shepherd, Glen Huntly
Why wait on the rate?
It’s possibly a naive question but why does the Reserve Bank of Australia need to wait for the next scheduled board meeting in May to cut the cash rate? (“Up to four rate cuts on the cards amid $100b wipeout”, 7/4).
We’re in uncertain times, admittedly also a federal election campaign, but why can’t the board members meet via Zoom or Teams, and cut rates immediately given the financial uncertainty that’s been instigated by Donald Trump?
Kate McCaig, Surrey Hills
Wider gains
While the Labor government’s battery proposal does subsidise people who can afford to install them, critics should remember that there are benefits for everyone. The subsidy encourages people to invest their own money in strengthening the renewable energy system, more than double what they would get from the subsidy. This will reduce the need for government expenditure on large-scale solar and wind farm construction, in addition to reducing harmful emissions and greatly increasing the energy available to all during peak periods when costs are highest. The government is, in effect, leveraging massive private investment in renewable energy.
Lawrence Ingvarson, Canterbury
EV access
Your correspondent’s suggestion that street charging poles be subsidised is a great idea (Letters, 8/4). Many inner city areas have no off-street parking but have residents with the resources to buy an electric vehicle. The difficulty of home charging can easily put people off the idea of purchasing a fully electric vehicle. Providing street charging would go a long way to assuaging this concern.
With oil prices dipping below $US60 a barrel there may be the unwanted consequence of encouraging people to hang on to petrol and diesel vehicles. Providing charging infrastructure could help people decide to move into EV ownership.
Graeme Lechte, Pascoe Vale
Defending the rays
Everyone I have spoken to is unclear about what protection a home owner whose solar is rendered useless by shading from a three-storey adjoining dwelling now being allowed has. Does it mean that a $20,000-plus system including subsidised home battery might be wasted?
Don Owen, Hawthorn
Education a gift
The photo of a student from Nepal, (“Coalition plan to up student visa cost”, 6/4) illustrated what is wrong with Peter Dutton’s politically driven plan to provide more houses for rent. It is to almost double student visa costs, including for students from such pitifully poor countries as Nepal. My youngest son worked there, as a volunteer doctor in a hospital. It was so poor, they only had antibiotics that were past their use-by date and even those had been donated by other countries.
Education is probably the best donation we could make, as well as being an investment for us. With education so important to the development of any country and with the long-lasting goodwill and often business opportunities that flow from it, Dutton might add a little warmth to his plan, by softening the cost of access, not increasing it, for some students.
As for Dutton gaining rental space, my experience has shown me that students know how to squeeze up.
Jeffrey Newman, East Ivanhoe
Prepare the players
Well said Mathew Stokes (“Why the ‘personal issues’ label is doing some AFL players a disservice”, 8/4) on players taking responsibility for their actions and being criticised in the media and on social platforms. I have long held the opinion that a lot of AFL players are not mentally strong for the times when things in their lives take a turn for the worst. From the time they are about 14 or 15, they are constantly told how good they are and receive rewards for their efforts until they reach the biggest stage (the AFL) and all of a sudden things become a lot harder and there maybe a lot of criticism in the media and on social platforms. This, unfortunately, has an effect on some players and they struggle to handle the situation.
I don’t have the answers to these problems, but I do think that the system does not properly prepare these players for these circumstances.
Bill Walker, St Andrews Beach
Monument to protect
Regarding reports that the Burke and Wills Monument is to be moved out of City Square and to the Royal Society of Victoria in La Trobe Street, our excellent city needs more bronze and granite statues, not fewer. Fewer statues makes us more boring, more like Sydney. If City Square is going to be the predicted busiest place in the city, then keeping the history is even more important and essential.
Lord Mayor Nick Reece has said Robert O’Hara Burke and William John Wills have been “etched into Australian folklore for more than 150 years” – and that means we should not be moving them off to live in a corner of the Royal Society of Victoria garden where they could just as easily end up beside a potting shed. That would not at all be paying the due respect to their history.
They should be brought back to where we can all see them, walk around them, admire them revelling in some of what Marvellous Melbourne used to be.
Very Greer Impressive, North Melbourne
Sharing values
Your correspondent writes positively about a friend who is helping to organise for a group of Catholic students to meet with a group of Muslim students as a means towards experiencing shared values (Letters, 8/4). However, if we had a secular-based school system where religious teachings are an optional out-of-school hours extracurricular activity, then they would be sharing their values and experiencing non-prejudicial educational inclusivity on a daily basis for all of their school life.
Paul Miller, Box Hill South
Cross over buns
I fear for the credibility of your Good Food team after reading the piece on Melbourne’s best hot cross buns (8/4). Candied citrus is not a legitimate ingredient in a hot cross bun. Equally appalling was the praise for such heretical varieties as “choc-cherry”. My local bakers attempted to foist these on me when their real buns had run out. They received short shrift.
John Barker, Cremorne
AND ANOTHER THING
Trump’s America
The opportunity is now here for every other country in the world to work together and create trade relationships that will distance their ties with the US. No one wants a bully in the playground, but everyone appreciates a friend.
Jae Sconce, Moonee Ponds
The great joy of any megalomaniac is to have the whole world on the brink.
Paul Murchison, Kingsbury
All those countries that are taking advantage of poor little America and we are one of them. We should all be ashamed of ourselves.
Don Owen, Hawthorn
Looks like Donald has trumped Truss, as far as ruining his own economy. Pity he can’t suffer the same fate.
Ken Courtis, Golden Square
Please, Donald Trump, stop playing golf. You are giving it a bad name.
Paul Chivers, Box Hill North
Having lit a huge conflagration, Trump now blames China for fanning the flames.
John Walsh, Watsonia
Hamer properties
Amelia Hamer has now clarified that she “relates to renters” because she has two of them.
Neale Meagher, Malvern
I too admire Amelia Hamer’s success as a young Australian in the property market (Letters, 8/4). It’s just a shame she forgot to tell us about it.
Peter McGill, Lancefield
Dutton
It is great to see a party willing to change a policy when the evidence shows that it should. Well done Peter Dutton and the Libs. Labor is so stuck on woke policies it is willing to send us bankrupt rather than change.
Tim and Reva Blowfield, Melbourne
Dutton shouldn’t kick a footy any more than I should operate a chainsaw.
Ian Macdonald, Traralgon
Finally
Money for this, money for that. What about the JobSeeker payment? Why aren’t the major parties looking to do something, beyond indexation, for those most in need?
Damian Meade, Leopold
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To submit a letter to The Age, email letters@theage.com.au. Please include your home address and telephone number below your letter. No attachments. See here for our rules and tips on getting your letter published.