Credit: Illustration: Alan Moir
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AFL GRAND FINAL
While Australia does not have an officially designated national sport, as the country prepares for an all-interstate AFL grand final, it would seem that football does take this mantle for at least a distinct season this spring.
We have always punched above our weight in cricket and swimming, two of our other de facto national sports, yet there is something distinctly Australian about the footy which only really works within our unique social context.
There are apparently AFL teams in more than 60 countries, and despite the admirable efforts in the past to stir up enthusiasm in overseas cities such as Los Angeles and Shanghai, unlike other team sports, the oval ball game remains unique and ubiquitous within Terra Australis.
This is something to take pride in, rather than seek to expand.
Furthermore, regardless of who gets their hands on the cherished premiership trophy, it is worth us collectively giving thanks for the fact that unlike other countries, there will be no need for MCG security personnel to carry loaded weapons; riot police squads won’t be needed at nearby railway stations; and the barrackers of the losing side won’t resort to field invasion and physical assault of opposition players.
Perhaps it is starry-eyed, but in such a current global climate of animosity, we should celebrate the sensory solidarity that the pure enjoyment of sport will bring to not just the 100,000 people assembled at one ground, but all throughout this contest-loving nation.
Peter Waterhouse, Craigieburn
Strange days for celebration
Public holidays are great, and more would be better than fewer, but having a holiday the day before a sporting event is a little absurd. And yet, this is probably only the fourth-most strange holiday we have.
The birthday of a foreign monarch when it isn’t their birthday, the day the harbour in Sydney was forcibly occupied, and the running of a horse race are all worth reconsidering.
A community-based review seems in order and could well come up with more worthwhile suggestions spaced better across the year.
Celebrating International Women’s Day, or democracy, or nature, or children could be far more popular.
Peter Allan, Brunswick West
A soup of spectacle
Where else can you watch a Welcome to Country, followed by Katy Perry revealing she once kissed a girl, and our own Mike Brady hoisting Cazaly up there one more time? Welcome to the big dance.
Paul Custance, Highett
Race to the finish
Lions can run 80 kilometres per hour; some species of swans have been recorded at travelling at speeds of 96 kilometres per hour. I’m backing Sydney.
Steve Barrett, Glenbrook
THE FORUM
Home price gouging
Over the last two decades or so Australian median house prices have risen from four to eight times the average annual wage. The two-thirds of us who have invested in property to live in or rent out are content to sit back and reap the rewards of this kind of appreciation without doing much to help the others get a ″foothold on the ladder″.
Developers hang on to their limited land supply, waiting for an opportune time to release it and bankers do little, knowing desperate first-home buyers will use a lot of their time to earn enough to service a huge mortgage.
I call these activities designed to increase developers’ and bankers’ profits serious price gouging, much worse than what the large supermarket chains are doing.
Andrew Smith, Leongatha
Dubious loss shifting
Negative gearing enables ″loss-shifting″, which is as damaging to our taxation system as ″profit-shifting″. The focus, therefore, should be on loss-shifting rather than negative gearing in itself. Like franking benefits (″credits″ on tax never paid), loss-shifting is a manipulation that ploughs negative balances, and on the other side of the ledger it is the wider Australian community that mops up the difference.
″Loss shifting″ and ″franking benefits″ are both dubious practices that hide under the broader and more acceptable labels of ″negative gearing″ and ″franking credits″.
Put another way, we can retain legitimate negative gearing and franking credits but limit the practices that undermine and exploit them.
Emma Borghesi, Rye
Capping the rort
Various correspondents have recently suggested franking credits are a problem. This confirms many people don’t understand the issue. Dividend imputation generates franking credits and was introduced to end double taxation of dividends. It is a fair and sensible system.
The problem is John Howard’s later decision to refund unusable credits thereby giving refunds on tax not paid. Ending, or at least capping this rort, was good policy. It is, however, difficult to explain, making both the refunds an easy scare campaign target and the underlying imputation system a source of resentment.
Mark Freeman, Macleod
Working class counts
Listening to the economic debate in Australia, you might believe the only people who work hard are ″mum and dad″ property investors or people who send their children to private schools. A big thank you to the childcare workers, age care workers, cleaning staff and mum and dad renters for subsidising these hard workers with their taxes.
Kym Tonkin, Preston
Smirk not to blame
A smirk didn’t lead to someone being stabbed – a person in illegal possession of a knife and incapable of controlling their emotions caused the stabbing (“Smirk led to Revolver victim being stabbed a dozen times, court hears”, 27/9). It is the same as a man’s defence being the woman asked for it by wearing a dress/drinking alcohol/walking alone.
Stephanie Howell, Brunswick
Parental advisory
Isn’t it about time that the parents of the children who commit horrific crimes on our community are made accountable for their children’s behaviour?
Maybe if we were to put a reasonable deterrent into law that punishes the parents as well as the youth offender, parents might take a far greater responsibility as to where their children are at night and what they are doing during the day.
Nathan Feld, Glen Iris
Business rejects nuclear
Once again, ″power giant″ AGL has rejected the Coalition’s pitch for nuclear (″Energy giant issues warning of cost and long delays of Dutton nuclear plan″, 26/9).
AGL chair Patricia McKenzie, said leaders must double down on the “concerted effort” to install more renewables. In July, its CEO Damien Nicks reaffirmed “there is no room for nuclear, neither on a grid dominated by wind and solar nor at its coal sites”. Two such sites have been identified by the Coalition for its nuclear plants – they would be forcibly acquired, at taxpayers expense.
Mr Dutton has failed to cost his nuclear “pitch”. The nuts and bolts of legislation, siting, expertise, delays (as seen overseas), and waste storage all involve extra costs.
Fiona Colin, Malvern East
Labor’s climate inaction
Re ″Climate chaos as minister Plibersek approves three new coal mine expansions″, 24/9. The world is beset with multiple climate catastrophes. In Australia more than one million households are struggling to insure their homes because of unaffordable, climate-linked premiums.
It’s now 36 years since distinguished climate scientist James Hansen told a US Senate hearing that global heating had begun. And it’s 15 years since he predicted the climate chaos that we are now seeing. But the Albanese government has approved 26 new coal and gas projects since being elected, subsidises fossil fuels to the tune of $11 billion per annum, and endorses a Future Gas Strategy with gas remaining important to 2050 and beyond. Plibersek has just approved three new major coal mine expansions.
When will climate inaction be called out and fossil fuel lobbyists be banned from the corridors of federal parliament?
Ian Bayly, Upwey,
Housing needs transport
The state government’s grandiose and unworkable housing plan is designed around mass apartments along roads built in the 1950s and will bring traffic dysfunction in its wake.
The Essendon, Essendon North and Niddrie proposal is almost laughable with single-lane roads of Keilor Road, Buckley Street and Hoffmans Road at its centre. It will be served by a train line north to Craigieburn and only a tram going north-west.
The state government should consider building the train line to the airport and within that corridor.
Viable public transport is required for any of these dense housing precincts to work.
Keith Hawkins, Point Lonsdale
Back to work Pesutto
As entertaining as the Deeming v Pesutto saga is to the mob, Hawthorn needs its local member back on the job.
Armageddon has erupted. Jacinta Allan has decided to ram 90 per cent more housing of three to six-storey apartment blocks into the small area of Camberwell Junction by 2051 and conveniently, for her, reduce appeal processes.
These homes and businesses are owned by locals who appreciate the heritage and green overlay. That is what they purchased with full protection of established laws and procedures.
John and Moira, lay down arms; we need you desperately and the other nine “activity centres” nominated for destruction.
Malcolm Cameron, Camberwell
Blinken’s best efforts
Your correspondent is wrong when she complains about US “obstruction of peace efforts” (Letters, ″Words alone futile″, 27/9). Is she not aware of the efforts made by American presidents to achieve a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians?
Moreover, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, is working tirelessly to try to find a way out of this morass.
Ivan Glynn, Vermont
Stop sending weapons
Hand-wringing over Israel’s attacks on Lebanon by Penny Wong and other world leaders will prove ineffectual as usual.
A refusal by the US to send any more weapons to Israel is the only way to bring mass slaughter and ground invasions to a halt.
If the Albanese government is serious, why haven’t we imposed sanctions on Israel as we already have on Russia?
Caroline Graham, Cromer, NSW
Enough said
This pedantry (Letters, 27/9) over the English language is something up with which I am completely fed.
Andrew Parkin, Northcote
AND ANOTHER THING
Credit: Illustration: Matt Golding
Big Build
Now we know how expensive the Metro Tunnel project is, don’t we deserve to travel on public transport with no cost like other cities?
We’ve paid more than enough to have free public transport as a result.
Pamela Papadopoulos, South Yarra
The state government is suspiciously silent on the role of the changing Antarctic ozone hole in explaining Metro Tunnel cost increases.
Ian Powell, Glen Waverley
Furthermore
While those who make decisions on the policy of negative gearing have vested interests in this policy such as owning negatively geared properties, there will never be any significant changes to this policy.
Doug Springall, Yarragon
The Henry tax review, Gonski review of school funding, Garnaut climate change review – evidence of lack of political will waiting to be judged harshly by future generations as they gather dust in Canberra’s archives.
Bernd Rieve, Brighton
Memo to defence minister: Explain how those submarines are going to deal with those Chinese intercontinental ballistic missiles?
Helen Freeman, Portarlington
Peter Dutton says the Coalition will announce its nuclear energy policy at a time of its choosing. He has forgotten he is supposed to be working for us, not the other way around.
Mick Hussey, Beaconsfield
AFL chief executive Andrew Dillon wants a “cap” on gambling ads. I don’t want a cap, I want to see it gone from my TV, all of it.
But I fear the greatest gambling addicts are the governments who get so much tax from this blight.
Tim Durbridge, Brunswick
Has the media stopped using the stirring spoon that created the negative gearing storm in a teacup non-event yet?
Ross Hosking, Blackwood, SA
The lord mayor of Melbourne wants to be called Nick instead of Nicholas. During the 2020 state election Matthew Guy changed his first name to Matt and that was the finish of him.
Sandra Torpey, Hawthorn
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