Credit: Alan Moir
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INFRASTRUCTURE
The new suburb, Mambourin (“Fringe, no benefits”, 2/1), is described as deficient in essential services such as shopping centres and public transport.
Nowhere is it mentioned that there are absolutely no trees. What a wasteland. This will also contribute to excessive heat in the suburb, and exacerbated within homes by the dark-coloured roof tiles. And will probably contribute to excessive power bills.
It’s the horror show of developers raking in profits from cheap housing. I’d be interested to hear from architects who know how to design and build for climate and environmental protection without residents losing spaces like parking or roads.
Heather D’Cruz, Geelong West
One of the world’s best cycling trails is right here
The Age’s feature on Mambourin and Melbourne’s western fringe ignores the fantastic new cycling infrastructure that has been put in with these new developments.
Riding to Werribee (even going on to Melbourne) can be done quickly and safely and all without mixing it with traffic. The ride to the train station at Wyndham Vale can be done in less than 10 minutes. This trail network is some of the highest quality infrastructure that you will find anywhere in the world (the Netherlands included).
There is a lack of signs directing you to places and how far away they are, but this area would be a delight to get around on two wheels. This is one location where many other areas around Melbourne could actually learn and implement some things from. Maybe by encouraging the locals to get on their bikes to get around might be the best possible (and cheapest) short-term solution to their problems.
David Blom, Nunawading
When housing requires multiple car households
The fate of new residents in the suburb of Mambourin (“Forgotten suburb bides its time for basic facilities,” 2/1), stranded without public transport, is shared by many people in Melbourne. Whilst the cost of housing in many outer suburbs may be low relative to other parts of Melbourne, residents are stranded without adequate public transport. This compels multiple car ownership by many households. The full annualised cost of owning a motor car in Australian capital cities is about $24,000. The yearly cost of a 365-day Myki Pass (Zone 1 + Zone 2) is $2145. So much for the relatively low cost of making a life on Melbourne’s fringe. Ian Hundley, North Balwyn
The east and west divide
Born and bred in the west eons ago, dust, concrete and weedy red geraniums were the norm. The smells from the tannery, as the train rattled into Melbourne.
The east by contrast – I’ve never forgotten – as a young woman and now by courtesy of an education – I entered another world – walking up to a front door, the path lined with Lombardy poplars. There seemed to be trees everywhere – avenues of green.
That scene, a clutch of black roofs of an estate plonked on a few drought-stricken paddocks at Mambourin filled me with despair. No infrastructure and worse, still no trees.
Margaret Skeen, Point Lonsdale
Buy a flat instead
Complaints about the western suburb of Mambourin omit the fact that the couple featured in ″Forgotten suburb bides its time for basic facilities,” (2/1), made a conscious-values choice to live there.
The $550,000 paid for a new build in this slice of remote suburbia can buy a two-bedroom flat in any established and well-serviced part of Melbourne.
This might have met the couple’s accommodation requirements while enabling their car/s to be left at home.
When I was born, my parents brought me home from hospital to a two-bedroom flat in Glen Iris. It took two property transactions to finally arrive at a three-bedroom, freestanding house, in nearby Burwood, some years later. What is needed is a cultural shift that persuades purchasers to acknowledge their real housing and lifestyle needs rather than sticking to pre-conceived aspirations.
Marish Mackowiak, Ormond
West’s rich history
I remember growing up near the wheatfields of what was to become Kealba: a portmanteau of Keilor and St Albans. Famous for not much, according to both Adam Carey (“The west I knew was treated as second best, but those days are numbered”, 3/1) and myself.
However, as I stood in front of a huge map of the world in the famous anthropological museum in Mexico City, clearly marked, was the location of one of the oldest sites of human remains in the world known as the Green Gully skull at 6500 years old. So, Kealba is, in fact, famous for something. It’s just that no one knows it.
Michael Carroll, Kensington
Misplaced rail spend
Looking at the multitude of infrastructure deficits facing the newer western suburbs of Melbourne, further raises the question of why the Allan government is spending massive amounts of money on the Suburban Rail Loop.
By prioritising the transport infrastructure spending on this project, scores of communities in the outer suburbs are left crying out for transport and other infrastructure. Given the rapid pace of growth is set to continue in these areas, expenditure in these areas would be a much more prudent investment than the SRL.
Mathew Knight, Malvern East
Where car is king
People living in Altona would love to have pedestrian crossings, there are so few. Hobson Bay Council presumably considers a piece of concrete with a sign in the middle of busy roads at which people are supposed to take refuge suffices. Many of the signs get destroyed, leaving the lump of concrete. Of course people, bike riders in particular, should wear colourful clothing, but the crux seems to be the attitude “car is king”.
Doris LeRoy, Altona
Time to bite back
I do not live in the west, but have watched state governments take it for granted for far too long.
Hopefully, the series by Age journalists in recent days will help provide the impetus needed for leadership to arise in the west and give the people living there a voice, and power.
The Friends of the Earth and the Public Transport Users Association have together funded a committed worker to organise a Better Buses campaign, and locals have got behind it with enthusiasm.
That this state can continue to allow developers to open up greenfield estates without the government providing basic infrastructure first, or at least in parallel, shows a callous disregard for those trying to make a home for their families in the places they can afford.
Time they bit back, and The Age’s series provided the evidence they need to do that.
Jan Lacey, North Melbourne
THE FORUM
No one is immune
Re “World records hottest decade years before expected”, (3/1). One wonders what is going to take world leaders to fully comprehend and begin to work co-operatively in the direction for a sustainable future, as the climate crisis accelerates.
No country is going to be immune from the chaos and destruction from the changing climate. The current world of geopolitics narratives of militarisation, fossil fuel extraction, cold war mentality, are all contributing to the Earth becoming more unstable. Should we continue on this trajectory, the suffering will be unimaginable for millions of people in the years to come.
Judith Morrison, Nunawading
What is to be done?
Today’s report (3/1) concerning humankind’s hottest decade on earth needs to be analysed, for its surprise results.
Australia’s export of coal to East Asia (the earth’s second-worst greenhouse emissions) is the unsurprising factor which brings our nation’s responsibility into focus. As Lenin said: “What is to be done?” I say: close down the coal industry.
Neil Tolliday, Werribee
Real life experience
I would like to know what business qualifications and real life business experience in the private sector politicians have to make decisions regarding our economy?
It’s s time to end this stupidity of having individuals standing for election who clearly have no or very little knowledge, qualifications or real life experience to make decisions that will benefit our economy and the country’s financial well-being. A minimum of five years executive stint in the private sector must be an essential requirement to stand for election to represent our communities’ interests.
All employment positions require experience, certification or a degree. Why do we need to indulge unqualified, inexperienced politicians with no real experience in the private sector, managing the biggest business in town?
Eugéne deGrey, Maribyrnong
Fair work minimum
Re your corespondent (Letters, ″Fair Work and Pay″, 2/1). I’ve heard the same argument coming from America where the federal minimum wage is $7.25, which many states adopt, and has not changed since 2007.
I’m not sure many Australian workers would see employers setting minimum wages as the way to improve business or economic growth.
Anne Maki, Alphington
Bird flu warning
Re “Bird flu ‘may be mutating to become more transmissible to humans’ (28/12)“. Australia is free from high pathogenic avian influenza, H5N1, with no cases seen since a toddler who caught it in India arrived last May.
We’re told the greatest bird flu danger is from migratory birds (“Wildlife emergency: Australia prepares for bird flu onslaught, 19/10). Yet, “ultra-marathon” birds like curlews, sandpipers, stints and knots are here in their millions, as are short-tailed shearwaters (muttonbirds), which all migrate from the Arctic Circle for the summer. Has Australia dodged a bullet or is this the quiet before the bird flu storm? This unfolding crisis deserves more coverage.
Debbie Lustig, Elsternwick
A dose of common sense
Re “Middle Australia stung by rise in medical fees” (3/1). A substantial number of patients who see a GP are suffering a minor ailment and mild illness that resolves on its own. The exhaustive list includes examples such as a sore throat or a mild rash.
Common sense and resilience in past generations, as well as highly valuing scarce GP access, favoured a “wait and see” approach, rather than hurrying along to the local doctor as if one’s life depended on it.
Nowadays, the well worried expect a same-day, no-fee consultation at a GP clinic. When that is not feasible, this cohort calls an ambulance to transport them to the local emergency department, clogging already congested public hospitals.
As a doctor, I take umbrage at their rationale for inappropriate use of emergency care: hospitals are free, medical staff are already paid and present 24/7, ready to “be used”. The chestnut that stokes the fire in my belly is the patient who argues they can’t get a free GP appointment the same day. These waiting-room patients are the first to complain about long waits because I have been caught up resuscitating the seriously ill or injured.
Although I support more affordable access to GP services, doctors do have reasonable expectations that the community exercise a moderate dose of common sense before they trundle off to a GP, or catch an ambulance to an ED when a GP attendance is not possible. The community needs to view health care as a privilege, not undervalue it as a free entitlement. Use health care as the limited resource that it is, please.
Dr Joseph Ting, Brisbane, Qld
Medicine, in practice
Privatised medicine is again in the news after the shooting of the United Healthcare CEO in the US where healthcare is a business and the focus is on profit and share price.
In Australia, we have a mixed system, and we have continued with expensive private health insurance to ensure we have access to some choice.
During the Christmas/New Year period, my husband needed immediate care and on medical advice, we went straight to a hospital emergency department. Initially, at a private hospital in Richmond, a triage nurse stated there was a six-hour wait and no beds available in the emergency rooms or in the hospital; we should “consider” going elsewhere. Staffing a hospital during a holiday period is expensive. Our private health insurance was of no value.
On to a busy, major public hospital in Prahran where we were promptly attended to by considerate administrative staff, and by highly professional medical staff following a not unreasonable wait – an impressive caring and seamless process where the health needs of patients took priority. We should value and protect our public system.
Deirdre Jackson, Hawthorn
Lessons from a pro
I was at Fed Square and thoroughly enjoyed Robbie Williams who is self-deprecating, fun and doesn’t take himself too seriously, despite his rock star status.
Wannabes should learn how to play the fame game from Robbie and find why he’s so popular with many Australians. He’s got charisma in spades, and won me over as a fan now.
Mel Smith, Brighton
AND ANOTHER THING
No voice, no services
While the people of Mambourin feel they have no voice in their suburb due to the lack of basic services (“Almost halfway between Melbourne and Geelong, this fast-growing suburb has affordable houses ... and not much more, ” 2/1), there is an irony that the related word “mamborang” means “tongue”.
Robin Jensen, Castlemaine
Will the Clive and Pauline Party be fancy dress?
Paul Custance, Highett
Your correspondent (Letters, 31/1) is correct in her observation that the letter T is fading from our language. It’s joined by the letter X. We now advertise lugsury cars and report fires being egstinguished.
Jim Pilmer, Camberwell
When will the penny drop? The party is over folks, we must convert to renewables, electrify everything and forget the nuclear pipe dream.
Greg Curtin, Nunawading
Your correspondent (Letters, 3/1) states that the minimum wage is unfair to small business. My view is that a business which cannot afford the minimum wage is unviable.
Brendan Hatherley, Hughesdale
Furthermore
The death of Nobel Prize-winning ex-US president Jimmy Carter brings into sharp focus the differences between past and present American political leadership.
Barrie Bales, Woorinen North
Drums, drumming, drummers and doof doof music should be banned from sporting events. It detracts from the spectacle, and makes viewing and listening difficult.
Michael Crichton, Ashburton
The grandstands for the 2025 grand prix went up in December, denying the public access to large parts of Albert Park. For $690,000, you’d think its CEO could come up with a slightly better approach.
Paula O’Brien, St Kilda
I’d like to be a ″government spokesman″ – they put the positive ″spin″ at the end of all the critical, investigative, FOI-accessed news stories.
David Cayzer, Clifton Hill
Finally
India’s Dream 11 team is turning out to be the Nightmare 11.
Roger Christiansz, Wheelers Hill
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