Credit: Cathy Wilcox
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DEFENCE
With our large moat of seas and great oceans we have been fringe dwellers to the major world power centres. Australia has had a golden run compared with perhaps any other country on the planet. It’s a haven. We’re a rich, under-populated, sunny country with great health, education, and welfare systems envied by people across the world. We are a potpourri of beautiful people who’ve chosen to live here. We have brought our customs, art, and dreams to make a better life. Can we preserve that better life?
Australia’s political leadership knows the great crises of our time are climate change and income inequality, an inequality between and within nations, an inequality embraced by the deeply transactional Donald Trump. Climate change means we’re entering an unusual period of the massive movements of peoples across borders, and of greater natural disasters than we’re accustomed to, without even considering the Putins of our planet. It’s not business as usual in our sunny clime in the antipodes.
Mick Ryan (“Whoever wins the election, stop the rot in Defence”, 30/3) is right – we need to have a talk about national service. Democracies such as Sweden, Israel, Singapore and South Korea have a national service. The retired major-general focuses on a defence mobilisation plan, but national service also has positive long-term economic externalities such as health, training, self-discipline, a sense of purpose and fuelled empathy for those from other cultures. Youth gangs, cultural divisiveness and inequalities are some issues that are ameliorated by an effective national service.
Ian Muldoon, St Kilda
Defending the north? What about the south?
Mick Ryan has rightly drawn attention to the woeful plight of defence preparedness in Australia. From any angle – recruitment, national resilience, defence strategy, materiel and more – the pace of planning and the apparent lack of modern strategic preparedness leaves Australia wide open to the possibility of a totally incompetent defence posture. The sudden debate arising from the recent live-fire practice and circumnavigation of Australia by Chinese warships illustrates the reawakening of a deep-seated fear of attack, historically expected from the north. But now, whether from the Pacific, from the west, by air or deep sea, the prospect of attack from the south, hitherto unimaginable, has concentrated people’s minds. How to defend Hobart, Melbourne and Adelaide? How do defence planners plan to defend and hold on to Tasmania? How strategically important are the Bass Strait islands?
What was once thought of by many as a sort of conservative hysteria has now become a wake-up call which can never come too soon.
John Whelen, Box Hill South
A reliance on powerful friends
The article by Mick Ryan is a clear indication that Australia’s current security and defence preparedness is sadly lacking. Gone are the days when we can rely on powerful friends to automatically support us in any threat situation. The Ukraine and Gaza wars have demonstrated how small countries with unsuspecting citizens can have their worlds reduced to rubble in a very short space of time. If we are to have a creditable deterrent profile, we should immediately bring back national service and significantly expand our defence forces. Our soldiers should be equipped with the latest weapons, which have demonstrated their effectiveness in Ukraine. In the coming election, domestic issues are important. However, we ignore the issues highlighted by Ryan at our peril.
George Wisely, Flinders
Boys buying toys
Mick Ryan’s column is an excellent precis of the trouble in Defence but misses one key point: we also need to axe the AUKUS submarine deal. As was said to me by two senior defence personnel three years ago (before Trump was back in power): “It is just boys buying big shiny toys.” That $380 billion can be far better spent elsewhere in defence. We have far too many defence chiefs. Defence Minister Richard Marles needs to rein them in.
John Holland, Bentleigh
THE FORUM
Adoption context
The Korean adoption inquiry is a welcome development (“Korean adoptees push for answers over global scandal”, 31/3). My wife and I are the proud parents of two South Korean adopted daughters. Rather than opting for cheaper overseas programs, we chose the Korean program because of its apparent safeguards. Programs with other countries were regularly closed down because of corrupt practices.
In the 1980s and 1990s within local adoption support groups it was common knowledge that many Korean children arrived with very similar background stories, so that some had likely been sanitised or manufactured by officials. We told our children from an early age that the information we’d received might not be factual or complete.
Before jumping to the conclusion this was evidence of widespread corruption, it’s crucial to understand the historical context. At that time illegitimate children in Korea were often not recognised under law and were second-class citizens with limited rights. Single mothers were ostracised and outcast and as a consequence many babies were abandoned with no background information available. Out of concern for children’s wellbeing Korean social workers were adamant that information shouldn’t be provided about conception from rape or incest. There are a host of reasons why backgrounds were sanitised and manufactured. Uncovering corrupt practices is highly important but let’s not cause unnecessary distress for adoptees and parents by generalising and making assumptions.
Peter Cook, Essendon
A difficult path
Regarding these questions over South Korea’s inter-country adoption program, it is not only an issue for adoptees from Korea, but for many adoptees worldwide. Agencies, government organisations and corrupt courts benefited from the parents wanting to adopt and the money they could spend on making their dream come true.
When we decided to adopt, we were, in theory, well aware that demand for children from affluent countries might very well lead to unethical responses from those involved in the process, especially, but not only, in socio-economically disadvantaged countries.
Consequently we travelled to Peru in 1991, met with our daughter’s birth mother, offered her alternatives, making it financially and logistically possible to keep the child, and after she refused, went through the adoption process together.
It meant as a consequence spending more than six months in the country, and refusing to support corruption while witnessing quick adoptions through American-Peruvian agencies of children, most of them (on paper) born in a small town and waved through by the same judge, many with very obscure background stories.
Adoptions are traumatic events and always painful. Not adopting some children does lead to traumatic and painful lives. The greed and unethical conducts of many have now led to a nearly universal end to international adoptions. We can choose not to see the suffering of unwanted children that this has created. But nevertheless it does exist too, as does the right for children to know the truth about their roots.
Angelika von Sanden, Port Melbourne
Locals excluded
Every day we hear more about the Allan government’s push to exclude locals from decisions that affect their community (“The three-storey apartment blocks coming soon to your neighbourhood”, 31/3). People choose to live in a particular community because of its character. Removing the ability for a council or ratepayer to object on reasonable grounds against a development is undemocratic. The issue of housing is a complex one and pushing through unpopular and, dare I say it, potentially shoddy developments is not the answer – it is an impulsive “fix” for decades of improper planning.
Vicki Jordan, Lower Plenty
Protect the trees
So we are now to have three-storey apartment blocks built closer to footpaths and neighbours but no mention, yet again, of preserving canopy trees in the process. If I’m not mistaken, green-star-rated buildings, all concrete and glass, can already be built on a moonscaped block, where decades-old trees were not taken into consideration, just unceremoniously chainsawed. Excavations along rear boundaries should be banned, setbacks for rear garden space substantially increased and reasonable environmental conditions revisited. Without guidelines to preserve trees, we will reduce green suburbs to ghettos.
Cynthia Pilli, Doncaster East
A place in the sun
Perhaps the saddest thing about what has happened to the planning system over the past two decades is the collective amnesia suffered by the major power brokers, about the whole point of having a planning system being to make people’s lives better, not worse. And, if there was to be any detriment likely to be suffered by a few, for the sake of the many, the few would be duly compensated.
In theory at least, there’s still a legal requirement to consider any negative or positive social effects of yet another overdeveloped site that, inexplicably, is allowed to leave little room on site for gardens and then take away the privacy and sunshine from neighbouring residents (“NIMBYs v YIMBYs as VCAT bypass fuels local fury”, 30/3). Residents should be entitled to take for granted the long-standing privacy they’ve enjoyed in their backyard, along with space for sunshine on a clothesline and vegetable gardens. Why should they be expected to suffer for the sake of someone else’s private profit, especially if gleaned from a further bending of planning rules?
Why should Woolies, or any other highrise proponent able to fight it out at VCAT with expensive barristers and supposedly independent experts, profit by winning the right to take advantage of the amenity created over decades in the surrounding neighbourhood dominated by mature trees and vistas?
What price do you put on being able to have your morning cup of tea in the sun in your dressing gown, not least without have strangers look down on you?
Bernadette George, Mildura
Gas no stopgap
Until we get clear answers from Peter Dutton on how he sees the progress of climate change, its impact on Australian lives into the future as well as its cost-of-living impact we must continue to not believe his plan (“Dutton spruiks zero-emission nuclear plan to keep the lights on”, 31/3). Using gas as a stopgap for a nuclear policy that is likely to never eventuate is not in accord with the science and the needs of the planet. It fixes a political problem for the LNP but does not fix the core problem of urgent new energy needs and elimination of emissions that we face. It is more than appropriate to let Labor’s Albanese have a bit more time to entrench energy solutions which have a chance of being economical but also timely for the current urgency.
Robert Brown, Camberwell
Before batteries
Many people can’t afford a household battery and would benefit from the subsidy Labor proposes. But even more people can’t afford a decent roof, if any, over their head, and would benefit from more subsidies. Labor needs to rethink its priorities, not just for the votes.
Ralph Böhmer, St Kilda West
We pay, eventually
The electoral promises are everywhere, from both sides. Cheaper gas – we can afford to heat more. Cheaper fuel – we can drive more. Cheaper electricity – leave the lights and aircon on for longer. Cheaper shopping – buy more than you need. Cheaper smokes – smoke more. It’s human nature not to value stuff you get for free or cheaply. Both the major parties are pushing us towards profligacy, with no thought for what the eventual outcomes will be.
Barry Greer, Balnarring
Not so weak
On the ABC Radio news I heard Peter Dutton had described Anthony Albanese as being “weak as water”. The very next news item described the power and force of the floods in Queensland, Dutton’s home state. Dutton needs not only to choose his similes more carefully, but also to be aware of the lie of the land.
Meg Stuart, Blackburn
Handling Trump
In the poll that otherwise had Albanese ahead, I’m wondering about the question that found “Dutton retains a big gap over Albanese as the best leader to handle United States President Donald Trump” (“Poll gives PM the edge after voters swing behind Labor”, 31/3). Did it use words like pander, flatter and imitate?
Lawrie Bradly, Surrey Hills
Forms of violence
Steve Biddulph makes some brilliant observations about the Netflix series Adolescence (Opinion, 26/3). He reflects on many issues which have influence over young people today and the important role of parents, social media behaviour, school and relationships. However, Biddulph is mistaken in his assertion that the young protagonist, Jamie, does not come from a violent home. As a family violence-accredited social worker, I see this myth played out in many families. While true that Jamie’s father does not hit his family members, the coercive control he exerts, is staggering.
We see many examples of behaviours that are intimidating and undermining, and we watch the father renarrate his behaviours as acceptable for his role as the “head” of the household. Combined with the other pressures faced by Jamie as he grapples with what it means to be a man, this models a sense of entitlement, disrespect and inequality in his thoughts, behaviours and relationships towards women. Coercive behaviour is a known precursor for intimate partner homicide.
Dr Christine Craik, senior lecturer, social work and human services, RMIT
AND ANOTHER THING
Credit: Matt Golding
By foot
“Paths of desire” (“The pedestrian rebellion left its mark across the city”, 31/3) should be called “democracy paths” as they’re made by people (literally) voting with their feet.
Chris Appleby, Fairfield
Your article took me back to my school days when the sports teacher would tell us that, in an attempt to stop us cutting corners, “grass grows by inches and dies by feet”.
Bruce Evans, Fairfield
Paths of desire? The Department of Silly Nomenclature has me wondering where such paths might lead.
Jane Ross, San Remo
Federal election
Peter Dutton knows that it is better to road test a policy before the “announceable”. Proposals around nuclear energy, Indigenous recognition and powers to strip dual citizenship all seem to have been parked.
Joan Segrave, Healesville
The campaign has started and it’s time to play Election Bingo, where we count the number of times politicians quote their favourite catch-cry. Angus Taylor is an early contender for the prize with his “fiscal guardrails”.
Tony Ottobre, Brunswick East
If Peter Dutton happens to win the election and decides to live at Kirribilli does that mean he will be working from home?
Brandon Mack, Deepdene
As the Coalition used to say: There’s a simple way to reduce power prices, just privatise the power companies ... oh hang on!
James Curtis, Chelsea
So, Dutton thinks Albo is “weak as water”? He’s obviously never had to deal with a raging torrent.
Marg D’Arcy, Rye
Finally
Perhaps the Trump officials meant to invite Jeff Goldblum the actor, not Jeff Goldberg the journalist, to their Signal chat group (“‘Should I fire him?’ Inside Trump’s deliberations after Signal debacle”, 30/3). After all, Goldblum played a weapons expert in Independence Day and has shown he knows how to work with dinosaurs.
Don Phillips, Fitzroy
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