Credit: Illustration: Badiucao
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VICTORIAN POLITICS
Voter’s dilemma
I can’t vote Labor in the next election; just too much spent on projects to support the CFMEU, its treatment of the CFA, the cancellation of the Commonwealth Games, the commitment to a Big Build no one wants, and so many services cut surreptitiously because of a crippling debt.
So what about the Liberals? With the election of an inexperienced all-male leadership team and welcoming Moira Deeming back into the fold, I would like to see a demonstrated commitment to women in leadership roles and clear policy statements on nuclear energy, euthanasia, abortion, transgender people, and health services. Is there another option?
Louise Angelides, Mt Eliza
Same old story
As sure as the sun rises each morning, newly appointed Victorian opposition leader Brad Battin has drawn from the well thumbed playbook of the Liberal Party to frame his first statement.
Cuts to the public service and lowering of taxes. How original.
In the same statement, he wishes to address the state debt, which it can be agreed, is of concern.
Cutting the public service will lead to higher unemployment which in turn will lead to lower consumer spending, particularly in small businesses which are so loved by the Liberal Party. Furthermore, provision of services will be comprised.
Lowering of taxes will in turn lead to lower revenue obtained by the state government which will reduce its ability to manage its debt obligations and its ability to provide services to the community.
A good democracy should have an opposition that presents an alternative, and hopefully constructive perspective, and calls the incumbent government to account, for the voter to consider at the ballot box.
Back to the drawing board Mr Battin, and come up with something a little more original.
Steven Haby, Hughesdale
Popular politicians
Re ″The pollies we like to like – and the ones we love to hate″, (29/12). It seems some of the women in parliament outshine the men. Jacqui Lambie can show some of the men that constructive criticism is better than hypercritical nastiness. Good on you, Jacqui.
Nola Cormick, Albert Park
Selective recall
Parnell Palme McGuinness’s column (″Politics, like comedy, is about timing. Albanese will be a victim of the liberal era’s fall″, 29/12), joins the Albanese pile on indulged in recently by most print political commentators.
Like her colleagues, Palme McGuinness conveniently forgets or prefers to overlook the administrative dog’s breakfast left behind by the decade of federal Coalition governments.
It was a decade of incompetence that has necessitated enormous rebuilding by the Albanese government.
Albanese has had to repair a decade of law-breaking by a Commonwealth government that illegally persecuted the poorest Australians with Robodebt. A government which, through the ministry led by Peter Dutton, detained refugees illegally. A decade of foreign policy that all but destroyed Australia’s credibility in the international community. And why doesn’t Palme McGuiness ever talk about the $14 billion dollar Murray-Darling Basin plan? The list of administrative disasters left by the Coalition is too long to be enumerated.
Palme McGuinness offers political and ideological blather instead of a reasonable discussion of the administration of the current government.
Matthew Kelly, Upwey
He’s not worthy
How on earth can Peter Dutton be described as a ″worthy″ opposition leader? (″Dutton’s had a great year, but..,29/12) He has been the opposite.
He is a road block, saying no to everything, no to suggesting improvements to legislation. That real work of parliament is being done by those on the crossbenches. Questioning Dutton’s ″hunger to win″ is appropriate, given his pugilistic attitude. But parliament is not supposed to be a blood sport with spoils - seats and the prime ministership, to one party or the other. It is supposed to be where Australia’s betterment for the future should be the only objective. With his obstructionist behaviour, and sole (discredited) policy (nuclear power), Peter Dutton has ignored voters’ best interests.
Margaret Callinan, Hawthorn
Clarity of war
The report on minimally protected North Korean forces being sent into battle and certain death in Russia’s Kursk region by Russian and North Korean military leaders is a chilling reminder of how the modern sophisticated long-range machinery of warfare cannot obscure the grisly reality of front-line human beings being eviscerated at close quarters.
Some of the uncensored images filtering through, point to a level of butchery that, in their rawness, recall the graphic photographs taken by the US Civil War photographer Matthew Brady in the 1860s. Metaphors likening a ‘mincing machine’ to the warfront on the eastern border of Ukraine are still, in 2024, apposite.
Putin’s modus operandi is a wicked combination of 21st century cutting-edge technology and medieval barbarity.
Jon McMillan, Mt Eliza
For the greater good
Jacquline Maley’s article (“Miriam wanted to be a pro golfer. Instead, she’s an executive on a $26,000 salary “24/12) exposes the capitalist lie that to attract good CEOs you need to offer mega salary packages.
Miriam Gluyas is a fine example of intelligent and committed people willing and amply capable of doing the top job without monetary incentive, who demonstrate that it’s possible to prioritise the greater good over personal greed.
Jenny Herbert, Metung
School secrets
The Sunday Age highlighted the high VCE performances achieved by Victoria’s publicly funded private schools ″Victoria’s best-performing private schools in 2024 VCE revealed″, 29/12. What it failed to highlight were a number of simple facts that underpin those performances.
Teaching at a very-high fee-paying private school some years ago, the principal’s pre-year address to teachers surprisingly drew attention to the dirty little ‘secret’ that many teachers have recognised for years. Once you ignore the very top-scoring students, private school VCE results are no better, and very often much worse, than those achieved at underfunded public schools.
And where do many of those top performing private students originate? Mostly from public schools, poached by the offer of lucrative scholarships.
Dennis Dodd, Shepparton
Straight to sports page
Re “New world disorder” 28/12. Normally, I would enjoy reading the summary of the year, but having lived through 2024 and all that came with it, I declined and went straight to the sports pages and read the excellent articles by Greg Chappell and Greg Baum.
Thank you gentlemen, well written, and more uplifting than 2025.
Neil McMillan, Pt Cook
AND ANOTHER THING
Politics
Peter Dutton has proven he is a worthy ‘opposition leader’ (″Dutton’s had a great year, but 2025 will test his one great weakness″ 29/12). Can’t argue with that, he opposes everything.
Belinda Burke, Hawthorn
Liberal gender confusion - Brad Battin wants “women and females” to be heard in the party room (“Brad Battin, having rolled Pesutto, promises unity and makes election pitch”, 27/12). Presumably, those who are both gets two votes.
Greg Curtin, Nunawading
Forget the red shoes, women in the Liberal Party with leadership ambition need a police hat in their wardrobe.
Jenny Smithers, Ashburton
Battin is one thing, scoring runs another.
Bernd Rieve, Brighton
Like most churches in Australia today, the “Liberal broad church” is a failing and irrelevant idea.
David Kerr, Geelong
Cricket
The Konstas-Kohli confrontation will stand as the symbol of the past colliding with the future, a monument to the chasm between cricket the old way and the game as a TV show.
Tony Haydon, Springvale
It wasn’t that long ago some people were saying test cricket was on death row.
Maybe in another 100 years?
John Rawson, Mernda
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