Credit: Cathy Wilcox
To submit a letter to The Age, email letters@theage.com.au. Please include your home address and telephone number. No attachments, please include your letter in the body of the email. See here for our rules and tips on getting your letter published.
Donald Trump’s policy decisions on the environment are undeniably “reckless vandalism” (Editorial, 22/1). By withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement (“We saw four Donalds in one day, but there’s a fifth we need to keep in view”, 22/1), the United States will be one of only four United Nations countries (alongside Iran, Libya and Yemen) not part of the global effort to tackle climate pollution. In collaboration with the other 194 countries, Australia must remain a good international citizen and uphold the goals of Paris. Not only is acting on climate a moral imperative, but the economic benefits of renewable energy and clean industry are opportunities Australia should not squander.
Karen Lamb, Geelong
Trainwreck is coming
I wish I saw the world as simply as Donald Trump does. Can anyone give an instance where a superpower leader, who is driven by vengeance and retribution, has appointed, for the most part, manifestly unqualified underlings heading massive government agencies, not end up in an absolute shambles for them?
Patrick Alilovic, Pascoe Vale South
Life-and-death lessons
The 47th president tells us he will bring back law and order and ″restore patriotism in our schools″. He also says he’ll defend the right to keep and bear arms. Might be difficult for the students to learn all that patriotism while sheltering under a desk.
BJ Coyle, East Ballina, NSW
Waking up to a different world
The Washington winter chill provided a fitting backdrop to the chilling impact President Trump’s executive orders will have on many in the US following his inauguration. Thousands of immigrants on the southern border, advocates of the 2015 Paris Climate Accord and renewables energy, supporters of the UN’s World Health Organisation are just some of the groups who will wake up to a very different America under Trump 2.0.
Nick Toovey, Beaumaris
Not leader of the free world
Imagine a country where thousands of people storm the houses of government, cause millions of dollars of damage and cause several people to lose their lives. We would see such a country as highly unstable and the invasion a threat to democracy. Fortunately this has never happened in Australia, but it did happen in the US in January 2021. Now there is more – the new president has called all of those imprisoned as a result of the 2021 insurrection “hostages” and has given them a full pardon. I do not believe that we can continue to consider the US to be a democracy and it is certainly not the leader of the free world.
John Rosenberg, South Melbourne
An element of false history
Americans did not split the atom, as Trump stated in his address, it was New Zealander Ernest Rutherford who was awarded the Nobel prize in chemistry and a place in eternity with Rutherfordium, element 104, being named after him in the periodic table. Trump is rewriting geography with the new Gulf of America, luckily the periodic table will escape his attentions as there is an element Americium. One fears that he might want an element named after himself, Trumponium perhaps? It would be, if ever synthesised, artificial, highly toxic and unstable.
Geoffrey Haughton, Sandringham
Wrong people being deported
Donald Trump intends to deport immigrants whose only crime is to want a better life for themselves and their families often doing jobs that Americans don’t want to do while at the same time he has just pardoned those who attempted an insurrection. I know which of the two groups I’d prefer walking free in my country.
Phil Alexander, Eltham
THE FORUM
The cost of education
My child is about to start Year 7 in our local public school. I was a teacher in the public system for more than 25 years. I sit here looking at notifications from our school scratching my head at the items parents are being asked to fork out for. For example, an induction into school lockers and diaries.
In schools I’ve worked in, students were just given a diary and its contents were explained by a home room teacher. That was just part of the job. We would never of dreamed of asking for payment. Previously our child’s primary school asked for a payment from parents to mark the lines on the oval for the school athletics day. I nearly fell off my chair with that one.
Thanks to apps, it is now too easy for schools to stick their hands out and ask families for more and more. That combined with a perverse school funding system that has damaged the public education system for years will continue to put pressure on families who can ill-afford it.
Paula McIntosh, Oakleigh South
Premier misunderstands
Premier Jacinta Allan hopes the pro-Palestine rallies in the city each Sunday will now come to an end (″Allan wants pro-Palestinian protests to end″, 21/1). She clearly misunderstands the reasons for the protests. The current ceasefire is of course a welcome development. But it is no help to the estimated 5 per cent of Gaza’s population who have been killed since the October 7 massacre by Hamas.
And it is bittersweet for those who, after 16 months of suffering, are ″returning home″ to find no home, no schools, no hospitals – just rubble.
Only when Australia holds Israel to account for its atrocities will we consider an end to the rallies.
Richard Barnes, Canterbury
A case of overreach
Warnings by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre that Jews should exercise ″extreme caution″ if visiting Australia and its attempts to persuade Australian authorities to move pro-Palestinian protests out of the city (″Rudd asked to help move Gaza protests from city″, 22/1) are unwarranted overreach.
There’s a compelling case for the centre to focus its efforts on the Israeli rather than the Australian government. As long as Israel’s campaign of delegitimisation of the Palestinian people persists, it must be protested against and challenged.
Even if, as we desperately hope, the fragile Gaza ceasefire holds, it is but a small step on the road to justice. While all eyes are on Gaza, settlements in the West Bank continue to expand. The onus is on Australia to hold Israel to account.
Tom Knowles, Parkville
Don’t paint us all
I am tired of hearing of ″rising antisemitism″ as if it involved the general population or the Australians with a just rage against the actions of the Israeli government.
No one who is not a neo-Nazi paints swastikas or attacks synagogues, let alone tries to burn houses or a place for childcare.
This behaviour is indeed both criminal and horrible but it is the work of Nazis who think Benjamin Netanyahu has given them an opportunity to do their worst.
Penelope Buckley, Kew East
Two sides to coin
Your correspondent writes that there won’t be Middle East peace until the legitimate claims of the Palestinians are recognised (Letters, 18/1), but leaves out the other part of the equation.
There won’t be peace until there is a Palestinian leadership prepared to accept Israel’s right to exist and make peace with it.
Having stymied all attempts to negotiate a peace deal, including under Benjamin Netanyahu in 2014, the Palestinian Authority has refused to even speak to Israel for the past 10 years. It incites hatred of Israel.
Surely Israel needs a peace partner before it can make peace.
Danny Samuels, Malvern
Restraint policy needed
The article ″Hospitals warned over the use of restraints or seclusion on patients″ (21/1) about the use of restraints and seclusion to manage hospitalised psychiatric patients revisits a longstanding issue that has been a cause for concern for society in general, but particularly for the medical profession and regulatory authorities. Ideally, measures such as seclusion and restraints, physical or pharmacological, would not be necessary.
However, severely disturbed mentally ill patients, usually in a psychotic state, differ from patients admitted for other medical conditions. They are out of touch with reality and therefore incapable of the rational judgment necessary to provide informed consent. They may pose serious risk of harm to themselves or others, the prevention of which is the sole purpose of these measures. Furthermore, following such a psychotic episode, a patient may not remember or fully appreciate the severity of the episode leading to the necessity for restraint. This can result in the patient feeling maltreated and demeaned.
Mental health has been chronically underfunded, but, even if more staff were employed and available to attend to severely disturbed patients, without recourse to any form of restraint or seclusion, this still does not resolve the problem. The Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System has proposed the elimination of restrictive practices and other mental health advocacy groups support this proposal. Unfortunately, what is glaringly lacking is policy encompassing these complex issues that provides feasible, practical alternatives to restraint and seclusion employable in the clinical situation.
Dr Leslie Chester,
consultant psychiatrist,
Brighton
Let’s not club together
Reading the series of Age articles on Melbourne’s members-only clubs I’m struck with one thought – what is wrong with having gender exclusive clubs anyway? If people want to pay big money to engage with folk of their own sex in a stuffy, private club environment then let them. Most members, male and female, were happy with current arrangements and would never consider joining mixed gender clubs, so why all the fuss?
Greg Hardy, Upper Ferntree Gully
Hume on wrong road
Shadow public service minister Jane Hume said: “Every public sector job has to be paid for by a private sector worker.” (″Worry on public service jobs spike″, 21/1) This is nonsense. As a state government employee, a secondee to a federal government department and a taxpayer-funded teacher, I paid the same tax as anyone else on my various salaries. Further, as a significantly underpaid teacher of, among other things, governmental structures, taxation and economics, I am prepared to provide Hume lessons on the payment of income tax by government employees. I will only charge, say, the hourly equivalent of the salary the taxpayer is paying her.
Lex Borthwick, Burwood
What was it worth?
Despite all the killing and destruction, it is obvious Hamas is still a force in Gaza. One has to ask, ″Was all it worth it?″
Reg Murray, Glen Iris
Salmon farming rethink
With respect to your correspondents (Letters, 21/1) salmon farming in Tasmania does not need to be a yes or no debate. It is clear the scale of salmon farming in parts of Tasmania is too intense for natural ecosystems to cope with, leaving literally too much fish poo to process, thereby suffocating other native fauna.
The question is what calibre of environmental impact assessment allowed this degree of aquaculture to proceed? Nature, especially the ocean, is amazing in processing all sorts of gunk but it depends on volume and intensity.
The catch is that fish farming businesses would just like to maximise short-term profits rather than minimise negative ecological impacts. We could have more, smaller salmon farming operations, and we could still have an industry supporting thousands of jobs but not at the expense of local ecological health.
Bernadette George,
Mildura
Execution’s positive effect
Re the Comment piece “Execution an abiding issue in Asia” (4/12/24), Lex Lasry’s criticisms of Singapore are without merit.
There is clear evidence of the strong deterrent effect of capital punishment. The result of the deterrence is that more lives are saved.
When Singapore introduced capital punishment for the trafficking of drugs in the 1990s, there was a significant reduction in trafficking of such drugs. Evidence shows traffickers limited the amounts they traffic to below the capital punishment thresholds.
A survey in the region, from where most of the traffickers come, showed 87.2 per cent of respondents believed capital punishment deterred people from trafficking substantial amounts of drugs into Singapore.
The harms drugs cause are apparent all around the world. Horrific crimes are regularly linked to the drug trade and hundreds of thousands of lives are being lost every year. Lasry did not mention these crimes and deaths.
It is disappointing Lasry has sought to make a baseless attack on the integrity of our judicial system.
His allegations of activists being repressed in Singapore are also untrue.
Anil Nayar, Singapore High Commissioner to Australia
Here’s the scoop
Great to see the list of ice-cream shops in The Age (18/1). For whatever reason the western suburbs missed out, so here is my two bob’s worth. Sprinkles Ice Creamery in Point Cook and Tarneit. Not only do they stock 72 ice-cream flavours, they have a selection of NZ and US lollies and drinks. Must-try scoop: rock salt caramel.
Neil McMillan, Point Cook
AND ANOTHER THING
Trump
With all the pomp and ceremony, the thing I couldn’t take my eyes off was Melania’s hat that aborted that kiss.
Myra Fisher, Brighton East
What airline does Melania Trump work for?
Max Langshaw, Sunbury
I was thinking a Qantas air attendant was accompanying Donald Trump at the inauguration.
Bruce Dudon, Woodend
A convicted felon releases 1600 convicted criminals. What is the point of having courts and a legal system when Trump can do as he pleases?
Randall Bradshaw, Fitzroy
Welcome to the new Trump White House, inclusive of Trump cryptocurrency exchange, Trump merchandise consignment store and Trump casino.
Bernd Rieve, Brighton
We seem to be watching Trump like some three-ringed circus has come into town. We even see Hillary Clinton laughing in the background at his inauguration. Gawping and laughing we shouldn’t be. He is a dangerous man.
Phil Labrum, Trentham
God bless America. God help the world.
Ken Finley, Mount Martha
It appears that, rather than going to jail, Donald Trump is getting the jail to come to him.
Henry Herzog, St Kilda East
Is Don. Is not so good.
Glenda Meredith, Mont Albert
When Elon Musk blasts off to plant the US flag on Mars could he please take Trump with him?
Thos Puckett, Ashgrove
Finally
The recent series in The Age about the various rather exclusive clubs in Melbourne CBD, was most enlightening. The only club, however, that I might wish to join would be the Ageing Disgracefully Society.
Rosenna Hossack, Edithvale