Credit: Badiucao
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NET ZERO
On and on goes the squabble within the Coalition about climate targets, particularly “net zero” (“Coalition remains split on net zero” and “Nationals abandon net zero mandate ahead of party room meeting”, 1/11).
Everyday Australians can only assume that the National Party and many within the Liberal Party don’t care about the increasing climate disasters hitting the very communities they claim to represent.
They don’t care about the floods, the fires, the droughts and the rising insurance costs. The only thing the Liberals and Nationals consistently support are the coal and gas industries that produce climate pollution without paying a cent for the damage and deaths that they cause. Where are the credible policies and plans from the Coalition that will keep us safer?
Isabelle Henry, Ascot Vale
What exactly is the Coalition energy plan?
Targets aside, what is the Coalition’s energy policy (″Coalition remains split on net zero″, 1/11)? It seems those pushing to abolish the target are hoping to persuade the electorate that our shift to renewables is too expensive. What, then, to make of the fact that they are still wedded to the most expensive option: Nuclear?
If one nuclear reactor was built by, say, 2045, it would provide a tiny fraction (1 gigawatt) of our projected electricity needs. It would be hugely expensive to build and make hugely expensive electricity (to consumers).
Meanwhile, rooftop solar already gives us 11.3 per cent of our electricity supply; in the first half of 2024, total capacity reached 24.4GW. The Coalition’s squabbling over net-zero targets distracts from the real question: what is their energy policy and how would it reduce energy prices, or pollution?
Fiona Colin, Malvern East
Living with damage already done
Nationals leader David Littleproud said in a media release (1/11) that Australia should address climate change, ″not just in mitigation of reducing emissions, but also adaptation″.
He is correct. Regardless of how much we reduce emissions, we will have to learn to live with the long-term effects of the damage already done to the Earth’s atmosphere. That cannot be reversed by now switching to renewable energy or driving an electric car.
However, Littleproud seems reluctant to say just what such adaptation will involve. And, if he is concerned by the cost of reducing emissions, he should contemplate the enormous expense involved in adapting to rising sea levels and increasingly erratic weather patterns, including the impact of drought on the agricultural sector.
Rod Wise, Surrey Hills
Remembering the last Gippsland flood
The National Party and other deluded supporters reject the horrible visage of wind towers, barely visible from 10 kilometres away, but in Gippsland and other regions, generations have accepted that they have lived with only a diluted, filtered sun, through the overlying haze of the misty clouds from the coal-fired power cooling towers.
In Gippsland, they now have to reconcile two possible outcomes from this history. The water flows in the Latrobe river cannot support enough flow to fill the coal pit from their current annual flows. If the occasional flood flows are diverted to fill it, then the Gippsland Lakes and wetlands which rely on these floods, are doomed.
How many remember the last Gippsland flood? The whole of south-eastern Australia is in a serious drought with the potential for a very serious fire season to come.
But whatever the outcome, the Nationals and the rest of its right-wing fellow travellers will hold out their hands for aid from the rest of us, along with the inevitable price rises for rural produce.
Rod Cripps, Parkdale
THE FORUM
Soul searching
Re ″Militia fighters built a wall to stop people fleeing city – now bodies lie beside it″, (2/11), the depravity, brutality and horror in Sudan committed by the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces is beyond comprehension.
For too long, Western governments have been silent. Those who escaped El Fasher and made it to the Tawila refugee camp, tell of such savagery with killings and mass rapings and sheer terror. The world is at last beginning to acknowledge the tragedy that continues to unfold after many years.
This tragedy in Sudan is another profound moment for soul-searching for our humanity.
Judith Morrison, Nunawading
Terrorism
For your correspondent who asks what a terrorist is, and suggests that Israel, among others, is just as guilty of terrorism as Hamas (Letters, 1/11), terrorism is the deliberate attacking of civilians to spread terror among their population, generally for political purposes. This is what Hamas does.
It is not terrorism to attack the terrorists as Israel has been doing. It is a sad reality of war that innocent civilians get caught in the crossfire, especially in an urban setting and especially when the terrorists deliberately sequester themselves among the civilians and their infrastructure, like Hamas.
Danny Samuels, Malvern
America’s war
According to Donald Trump, Christianity is facing an existential threat by armed gangs in Nigeria and he has directed the ″department of war″ to prepare for a bit of shock-and-awe to wipe out the Islamists who are responsible for this mass slaughter.
Slaughter is never good, no matter who’s doing it to whom. But it’s all a bit rich coming from an administration that backs a vaccination policy that will, without doubt, lead to unnecessary suffering and even preventable deaths.
It’s an administration that is trying to increase health insurance by up to $US20,000 a year making it totally unaffordable, even for the middle class, reducing people’s access to critical medical care. Then there is the removal of SNAP (aka food stamps) during the government shutdown. SNAP supports 45 million Americans, including 15 million children. Many of those who will suffer and die due to these policies are no doubt Christians. Guns and bombs are not the only tools of genocide. In America today it is war against the poor and vulnerable.
Owen Wells, Mont Albert North
Fitzroy with love
Kudos to reporter Melissa Cunningham for the best, most uplifting story of a Melbourne suburb (″From slums to gentrification but the ‘magic’ on the street lives on″, 1/11). She captured the personalities of the neighbourhoods, the memories of the first Italian cafes, the change in demographics and life in the high rises. I am so proud of my sister, Fran, who was, for a few years, the principal of a primary school in the shadow of one of those buildings. She loved every complicated minute of it, and the people who lived there. She knew all of her families, and their circumstances.
I was walking with her down a local lane, after she’d retired, and we came across a group of mothers of children who were there in her time. There was love and mutual respect in their reunion. They thanked each other for the success of their children.
The beautiful photo of the Muse family, the witness of Tony Birch to the life he lived there and the final interaction of the little boys in Superhero book week costumes, all left me with admiration for Melissa’s clever and heartfelt journalism.
Trish Southgate, Albury
Youth prejudice
The tragic story of Jesse and his baby may suggest, among other things, underlying ″youngism″. (″Medical expert raises doubts over young dad’s shaken baby conviction″, 2/11). This is a label not often used, causing the problem to stay hidden in an unmarked box within society’s shadows. Yet prejudice has a long history of jailing the wrong people who, without access to words to describe their plight, are left at the mercy of language that provides them with no defence.
The dreadful problem of ageism is at least well-acknowledged, while ″youngism″ is not.
Emma Borghesi, Rye
Back to Bedlam
″Mentally ill woman shackled and isolated in hospital awaits funds” (2/11) takes us back several hundred years to Bedlam. The only difference as I see it is that we no longer charge the public to observe the torment of a helpless human and enjoy taunting her.
Rosalind McIntosh, Camberwell
Fractured family
Virginia Giuffre’s family has declared that an American girl has brought down a British prince. Most of us would agree with their satisfaction over that fact, but they’re not seeing the bigger picture – Andrew is not the only person at fault.
If King Charles had taken action earlier, Ms Giuffre might be alive today, once she had seen Andrew adequately penalised and stripped of his honours.
As your article (″Purging a prince″, 1/11) points out, the late Queen protected Andrew, issuing only gentle reprovals at each revelation of his immorality.
The sympathy for victims of abuse expressed by their majesties in a statement last week is too little, too late.
And they’re still not admitting that the former prince has done anything wrong. King Charles should be ashamed and should issue a public apology for his and his mother’s failure to deal with Andrew severely when it was appropriate.
The handling of this scandal casts a shadow over the King’s reputation and that of his mother. Her protection of “her favourite son”, as the British press describes him, is proof that she, too, had her weaknesses.
She was reportedly good at raising and picking winning favourites at horse races, but it seems the talent did not extend to her own offspring.
Edmund Doogue, Crawley, WA
Coburg to Windsor return
Andrew Windsor’s surname was proclaimed in 1917 by King George V (WWI being a thorn).
The family name until then was Saxe Coburg Gotha, reflecting that royal’s Germanic roots.
So, Andrew Saxe Coburg Gotha, please arise. Nah, go away forever, instead.
Richard Pentony, Hawthorn
We voted for treaty
Given that the Victorian state Labor government won the last two elections with the establishment of a treaty as a clearly stated policy, it is hard to understand how your correspondent (Letters, 1/11) can claim it has “over-ridden the views of the people”. On the contrary, we Victorians have got exactly what we voted for.
Jo Bond, South Melbourne
Rich get richer
It’s irritating how banks can be making such big profits (to the tune of $30 billion) as reported in Business Age (1/11) when the average family is doing it so tough. Since banking deregulation, banks appear to have made it their sole purpose to squeeze every last cent out of the Australian public, a good example being the credit charge every time we tap. One of the big issues in this is that it’s those who can least afford it who get squeezed the most, whilst often wealthy shareholders applaud as the dividends roll in.
In a world where most of the wealth is owned by the richest in our society, every year the gap widens just a little more. I’m surprised more Australians are not enraged by this, but as the article by Millie Muroi (″Rates of interest in one area are low. Here’s how we change that″, 1/11) explains, interest in the study of economics has been waning, so possibly they are just not informed enough to know when they are being fleeced.
Michael Cormick, Carnegie
Leave me be
I am 96 years old. I am writing after reading a letter (30/10) published about palliative care. I and my friends think a person should have the say about what is best for them. I lost a dear friend to pancreatic cancer whose agony was prolonged dosed up on morphine. I definitely don’t wish for that end. I’m probably being a nuisance so excuse my impertinence – put it down to being stuck in a hospital room (boring!) and seven years of Parkinson’s stopping me from doing what I want.
Patricia Carroll, Ascot Vale
Animals’ burden
It is probably unpopular to voice a dislike of the animal racing industry just before Australia shuts down for the Melbourne Cup.
But there is a very dark side to the events. Apart from the issues with gambling, the situation with animals used for racing is dire. Horses die on race tracks, greyhounds even more so. Injuries are rife, doping is still present, and when the animals are rejected from their racing career for whatever reason, a happy future is far from guaranteed.
Whipping of horses is inexplicably still allowed. Overbreeding of greyhounds continues unabated, meaning it is impossible to rehome all those no longer wanted for racing or due to age and injury.
Entertainment is a wonderful thing but let’s leave the animals out of it.
Judy Hungerford, Kew
J’ignore
Re Elyne Le Faou’s article on proper French pronunciation (″How do you pronounce Louvre? You’re almost certainly doing it wrong″, 28/10 ), the term that gets my chevre is ″double entendre″, in that most must assume it’s an English/French hybrid, pronouncing ″double″ in English (not doo-bleh) and then attempting the French ″entendre″.
However, if it’s an attempt to bridge, or channel closer Anglo/Franco relations, then I guess it does achieve a certain je ne sais what.
Jayson Argall, Northcote
AND ANOTHER THING
Royals
The Prince Andrew affair again demonstrates the sheer ridiculousness of hereditary monarchy and the sooner Australia is free from it the better.
Malcolm Fraser, Oakleigh South
The main lesson to be learned from the York affair is that the UK is ruled by the media lynch mob.
Albert Riley, Mornington
In the “good old days” of the Tower, troublesome women were tortured until they confessed their lies then beheaded. And all was well in the realm.
Jayne Lilley, Torquay
I suspect that from California the carping Prince Harry and the problematic Meghan, Duchess of Somewhere, must have watched with alarm, how easy it was for King Charles to strip the former Prince Andrew of all his royal titles.
Dennis Walker, North Melbourne
Coalition
Since the traditional agrarian Country Party, rebranded the National Party, is now apparently owned by the coal and gas industry, its opposition to net zero global warming is no surprise.
Malcolm Cameron, Camberwell
If the National Party continues to look backwards, maybe it should consider rebranding as ″The Country Party″.
John Bye, Elwood
When the Nationals voted to ditch net zero, were they referring to climate policy or the alcohol consumption of a former leader?
Les Anderson, Woodend
The Nationals’ energy policy is a tangled net caught on the reef of climate reality.
Greg Curtin, Nunawading
Furthermore
Do you think we could have a section of The Age where only good news is reported on?
It would be so refreshing.
Pat Rivett, Ferntree Gully
Ever wondered where Victoria’s much-needed teachers, nurses, and police are? On Jacinta Allan’s big build – big bucks and no workplace stress.
David Cayzer, Clifton Hill
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