Credit: Matt Golding
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Security breaches . . .
It’s worrying a gun got into the MCG, but not surprising. My steel Thermos wasn’t detected by either the scanner or a cursory pat down of my backpack. I imagine a knife wouldn’t be detected. Ahead of us a bloke with a pack ignored the security request for inspection and walked straight past. The security man just shrugged.
Richard Harrison, Balwyn North
. . . And sharp eyes
And to think I’ve had cans of Coke seized when entering the footy.
Ian Macdonald, Traralgon
Keep diseases out
Why would Australia open up to imports of US beef if it could lead to outbreaks of mad cow disease or foot and mouth disease in our own cattle? While US farms may have no evidence of either at present, their political system certainly has serious symptoms of madness and foot in mouth disease, which we would hope to avoid.
Kevan Porter, Alphington
Trade benefits
Donald Trump seems to think that international trade is a zero-sum game where country A benefits only at the expense of country B: For A to gain a dollar, B has to lose a dollar. That is not how it works. Perhaps the president fails to understand the basic concept that underpins all ethical business transactions, ie, mutual benefit. For example, according to a BBC report, the current cost of producing aluminium in Canada, using renewable hydro-electric power, is about one third the cost of producing it in the US. American companies benefit by sourcing aluminium from Canada, thereby substantially lowering the cost of their own finished products: Win-win.
Tom Quinn, Rowville
Mates’ benefits
Nearly everyone will lose from Trump’s tariffs except Trump and his billionaire mates, to whom he is going to give income tax cuts.
Peter Harkness, Mont Albert North
Put through the grater
Trump’s right about one thing: America is no longer great.
Rod Allan, West Melbourne
Credibility hits zilch
Columnist Bruce Wolpe’s incisive commentary on how Donald Trump is already faltering in US domestic polling (″Is Trump on the brink of failing?″, 5/4), exposes how the huckster president is being consumed increasingly by his own ″bull dust″, to use an apposite Australian colloquialism.
Instead of overthinking his pronouncements, it is surely time to recognise that the man has zilch credibility. Refreshingly, it seems that most Australians have already seen through him, which, somewhat amusingly, seems to have escaped Peter Dutton until recently, given his recent contradictory responses when questioned about his views on the US president’s stances.
A role model for how to deal with the US president is to be seen in the neophyte politician and erstwhile eminent banker, the new PM of Canada, Mark Carney, who bluntly dispatched Trumpian nonsense about his nation becoming the 51st US state.
Clearly, the world is having to grapple with a tawdry showman of ″very little brain″, with apologies to Pooh Bear.
Jon McMillan, Mount Eliza
Fiction turns to fact
The time has come to read (or reread) Philip Roth’s brilliant novel The Plot against America (2004) in which the US is drifting towards fascism.
Christian Grawe, Essendon
A man of humanity
In 2005, Petro Georgiou, then-member for Kooyong, appeared on ABC TV with 13.5 kilograms of printed emails. The senders supported his defence of refugees and asylum seekers against the inordinately harsh policies of the Howard government.
It was the era of Tampa, ″children overboard″ and the horrific Cronulla race riots; a grim, deeply damaging time which detrimentally changed Australia, with ghosts that percolate discomfortingly through the Liberals’ present election campaign.
The defence of humanitarian ethics by Georgiou and his dissenting parliamentary colleagues – Judi Moylan, Russell Broadbent and Bruce Baird – mattered greatly to newly arrived, adult refugees, whose dreams of safety, education and employment seemed imperilled by swirling, right-wing, anti-refugee rhetoric.
In teaching refugees, I saw the fruits of Georgiou’s leadership: the hope of a fair go and a peaceful, dignified, productive new life, plus hope for children’s futures, especially as he worked so hard to have children released from detention.
Vale Petro Georgiou, who inspired people’s faith in Australia by his courage in action, an exemplar of Aristotelian beliefs that character is what we habitually do, and that “educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all”.
Barbara Chapman, South Yarra
The last of the Liberals
Vale Petro Georgiou. The last of the true Liberals who represented us in Kooyong.
Belinda Burke, Hawthorn
Don’t harbour this move
Peter Dutton’s comment about living at Kirribilli House highlights a historical and expensive anomaly, where the Australian head of government (prime minister) and the Australian head of state (governor-general) may each have the use of two fully staffed residences, one in Canberra and one in Sydney, with neither location necessarily being the home town of either person.
The prime minister should live in the Lodge in Canberra; the governor-general should live at Yarralumla in Canberra; and either Kirribilli House or Admiralty House should be used for major official receptions, and for secure guest accommodation for the most major visiting dignitaries, principally heads of state or heads of government.
Otherwise, to use Peter Dutton’s logic, a duplicate Parliament House should be built in Sydney, because it has great harbour views which outshine those of Lake Burley Griffin.
Merv Keehn, Melbourne
Not so better off
More important than asking if you’re better off than yesterday just ask whether we’re borrowing more than we did yesterday.
Gordon Thurlow, Mooloolah Valley, Qld
Crisis, what crisis?
I didn’t spot any sense of European community visiting the new Chadstone market pavilion (Letters, 5/4). I felt a sense of American excess; huge serves of pretty unhealthy food and lots of people spending about $30 for a lunch that used to be a salad sandwich or a pie and sauce. Definitely missing was any cost of living crisis.
Catherine Ross, Sandringham
Campaign cliches
A politician holds a baby, another operates a big machine. It’s time to vote.
David Cayzer, Clifton Hill
The poor will suffer
Yet again it is the poorest people who suffer the most (″Blunt weapon clobbers the poorest″, 5/4). The impact of Donald Trump’s tariffs on such poor countries is a wilful disregard for human life. Many countries such as Timor-Leste and many African countries have over centuries suffered at the hands of powerful countries. They have had their natural resources, eg, oil and diamonds stolen from them. Now Trump exacerbates their daily struggle. Let us not forget that many are at the epicentre of the climate crisis.
Judith Morrison, Nunawading
A good precedent
Lucky South Korea. (″President removed after court upholds impeachment″, 5/4). Other unnamed countries should be so fortunate.
Les Aisen, Elsternwick
If I could turn back time
I tried to turn the clocks back 40 years, but sadly they only moved one hour.
Lauriston Muirhead, Table Top, NSW