Credit: Illustration: Cathy Wilcox
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POLITICAL GESTURES
I sat in my car today and screamed. I had just heard on the news that Peter Dutton had not supported a motion by the government to acknowledge the pain and grief caused to both Israeli and Palestinians since October 7 last year.
In life, in sport, in everything, it is not whether you win or lose but how you play the game. In Dutton’s actions, I am reminded of the bullies in sport who play dirty, often with dirty tactics behind play, in order to win the game. The clean players are hamstrung because they won’t or feel they can’t use such tactics.
Dutton plays dirty, divisive tactics in order to win the political point, the bout, no matter how much community division and hurt he causes. He hopes to win enough points to win the big game.
I scream because we have the intelligence to see that this is not just a binary choice, Jews or Palestinians, but a humanitarian issue. I scream because we deserve better than this. I scream because those who play dirty often win.
Donna Scott, Travancore
Distinction between regimes and citizens’ plight
I don’t have a ″side″ in the Israel Palestine conflict, but I do know and am troubled that many innocent civilians on both sides have been killed or injured.
Peter Dutton, (″Bipartisanship hopes on terror attack motion hurt by politics″, 9/10), appears to be making a distinction between the civilians of Israel and other countries when he refers to “a battle fought against the enemies of civilised people everywhere″.
Is he really arguing that the lives of civilians of Palestine and elsewhere are somehow less important than those of Israel? He needs to recognise the distinction between the action of regimes and the ‘value’ or suffering of the civilian population.
John Heywood, Hillside
Walk tall on both sides
A true leader can ″walk both sides of the street″ because he has the ability to walk in the shoes of the families and friends of the innocents caught up in this prolonged deadly war.
The political, historical and generational intransigence of the leadership in the countries involved is causing untold damage which will continue in perpetuity unless other world leaders step into the breach and come up with a coordinated effort to break the deadlock.
Like many, Anthony Albanese is cognisant of the cost of innocent lives to both sides. How will choosing to be vocal of one against the other assist the reconciliation process?
Julie Broomhall, Timboon
Compassion is the first step towards peace
Prime Minister Albanese deserves praise for taking the difficult position of showing compassion for both the sufferings of the Israeli people and the sufferings of the people of Palestine and Lebanon. Compassion is surely the first step towards achieving peace.
Len Monk, Belmont
Squabbles in Canberra, war in Middle East
Isn’t it ironic that the leaders of our major political parties cannot even agree on a joint motion to put before parliament to commemorate the deaths of so many Jewish people on October 7, 2023, whilst war continues to rage killing thousands of innocent people?
Peter Randles, Pascoe Vale South
No place for venal fearmongering
Events in parliament Tuesday call for a new strategy: ‘radical disenragement’. An anxious and fractured community doesn’t need incontinent displays of political bomb-throwing. Passion and constructive action certainly, not opportunism or venal fearmongering.
I propose a companion animal or small child to sit beside each politician to remind them of their best selves.’
Juliette Borenstein, North Fitzroy
THE FORUM
Go it alone politics
The Greens have morphed into a stunt ridden, dog-whistling rabble of divisive political opportunists, even on the floor of the Senate.
It is only the independents who can be trusted to represent Australians, who want real action on climate change and the environment, and who also care about social justice and value living in a richly diverse and cohesive multicultural community.
Jo Wickham, Lower Templestowe
Deadwood Liberals
Tim Smith’s op-ed (9/10) calling for the Liberal Party to cut out the dead wood fails to take into account the fact that doing so would result in the total destruction of the party, as it consists largely of dead wood. Indeed, as a Victorian resident in my 80th year, I cannot remember a time when we were so ill-served by political choice. A tired, rudderless government, an opposition spending more time fighting among themselves than offering policies or solutions to our various problems, and the once-progressive Greens also burying themselves in-fighting over transgender issues.
Tony Guttmann, St Kilda West
Another car crash
Oh dear, it has come to this. Tim Smith rolls himself out, to give the current Libs a dose of advice. This comes from a disgraced drunk driver who crashed into a fence in Hawthorn, was not particularly successful in politics, and doesn’t even live in the country any more. Well thanks, but no, thanks.
Frank Flynn, Cape Paterson
Home-truths welcome
I’m no fan of Tim Smith, but his article was well-written and full of home truths for the Victorian Liberal Party. If we’re ever going to get rid of the most inept government since Cain/Kirner it should have a good look at his proposals and get its act together.
Margaret Summers, Carnegie
Poor selection, bad leaders
Tim Smith prefers the method of selecting Liberal leaders used by the Tories in the UK to that of the Victorian Liberals. Think of the quality of leaders produced by the UK system in recent years: Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak. High quality performers, they were not.
Compare this list to Victorian Liberal leaders over the past 20 years and you get a similar list of non- talented leaders, so what would changing the system of selecting leaders achieve? If the party is bereft of leadership talent the problem is in the initial selection of candidates.
Ian Hetherington, Moama
Elect a new leader
Leadership rumblings over John Pesutto are understandable. The initial concerns are over his poor judgment in dealing with the Moira Denning affair that ended up in court exposing the party’s fault lines.
Yet, his effectiveness as an opposition leader is the key issue. Despite a smorgasbord of issues bequeathed by Labor, he has failed to land a single blow on them. He appears to lack any vision for the key issues confronting this state; debt, crime, law and order, infrastructure, energy policy and deteriorating health and education services. His parliamentary performance is mediocre. His shadow ministers are just as opaque. Another consideration is that if Pesutto holds his seat by a very slim margin, he may not be re-elected.
Victoria needs a leader that can revitalise the party, provide clear alternatives to Labor and reset the direction of the state. Liberals need to grasp the moment and elect a new leader.
Martin Newington, Aspendale
Spare room rentals
My kids have flown, and I have had the pleasure of renting out spare rooms in my family home to international students over the years. I have enjoyed their company and the income has helped. Legislation says that rent paid by international students is exempt from income tax and capital gains tax on the home, which other boarders trigger these. Queensland University of Technology researchers and others are encouraging empty nesters in large homes to offer spare bedrooms to older people who are facing a housing crisis. However, the tax implications deter me.
If the government is serious about the housing crisis, more housing stock will immediately become available if tax disincentives are removed to offering a spare bedroom to an older person.
Carmel Laragy, Malvern
Hereditary roulette
Matt Wade’s illuminating analysis of the housing market in our biggest cities (Comment, 9/10) should give us pause. How many of us know of young people whose access to the market is restricted to the path via the bank of mum and dad? The national myth of a land of opportunity is morphing into a tale where the accident of parentage rules.
Tony Haydon, Springvale
Another tough question
Re ″The tough conversations you need to have″, 8/10). Rather than constantly pick on older Australians who simply want to live in their own home, it would be more helpful and academically rigorous if opinion writers asked relevant ministers why developers have not been required to properly establish new communities, not just residential deserts.
It used to be standard planning practice to require developers to reserve some of their significant capital gains scored through rezoning deals to allocate land for new schools, build community centres, plant street trees, construct roads and bike paths, to ensure minimum standards of wellbeing are delivered in each new suburb. The state government was obliged to build the schools and fund the maternal and child health and kindergarten programs from the community centres.
Likewise, better to ask what’s the point of new planning rules to encourage a small second dwelling on an established residential lot, if it’s not going to be counted as part of the main dwelling, and therefore capital gains exempt?
Rather than paint older people as selfish for wanting to stay in a loved and familiar environment, please acknowledge the extensive research that shows this is far more beneficial for the elderly resident and more cost effective for government and therefore taxpayers. As if there isn’t enough elder abuse already, and as if Melbourne hasn’t lost enough trees already.
Bernadette George, Mildura
Almost outraged
Horrified (will hold back on outraged) to read ″Developers deal could waive building height limits″, 7/10). The stampeding Big Build, SRL and now a ″value capture framework″ being considered for planning controls across 10 more suburbs in Melbourne.
Box Hill has done its fair share of shouldering the instigation of the stampede.
Building designs that complement each other a rarity these days. The historic value of our suburbs has been overly ignored.
It would be so much better for everyone if our neighbourhoods and communities were being heard. As it is, our councils are having their roles eroded to accommodate a very unsettling stampede.
Marg MacLean, Burwood
All Sam Groth’s fault?
Correspondents attack Sam Groth for not fixing potholes in his electorate.
Clearly, they have no understanding of politics. The fact is the Labor Party is in power in Victoria and it is responsible for the potholes, massive debt, a housing crisis and the highest state taxes in Australia.
So, let’s blame Sam Groth for all these as well.
Ross Kroger, Barwon Head
Cigarette price effect
The immediate cause of the fire bombings and the “tobacco wars” now raging in Melbourne may well be the failure of the crime gangs to form a cartel to distribute dodgy cigarettes, but the underlying cause is the growth of a black market caused by the phenomenal cost of “legitimate’ cigarettes.
Cancer and emphysema are terrible diseases, but the well-intentioned actions over many decades of government, the medical profession and other “do-gooders” in attempting to control people’s behaviour, has resulted in the proliferation of vapes and illegal, highly noxious and totally unregulated tobacco products. It has also caused the massive growth of organised crime. Is this outcome that society was after?
Who would have thought that effectively banning something (by pricing out of reach of most people) would result in a black market?
Clearly, we have not learned the lessons of the perverse outcomes of the pointless war on drugs, let alone of prohibition in the US from 1920 to 1933. Time that we did.
Peter Hogg, North Melbourne
Old University High
Re ″Popular school forced to move year 9s off-site″, 9/10.
As an alumnus of University High School in the 1960s, I recall crowded corridors and classrooms, off-site sports venues, off-site school assemblies in Wilson Hall at Melbourne University, limited outdoor areas (apart from the off-limits oval) and regular queues for access to in demand library books. An off-site, stand-alone, city-based campus in would have been a welcome educational innovation.
Joe Wilder, Caulfield North
Rail and air, or sea
Re ″Rail? Air? Good times not rolling yet″, 9/10), In the 1940s and 50s we had comfortable travel Melbourne to Sydney by sea on the interstate passenger liners such as the Manoora, and Kanimbla. Businessmen and women would leave Melbourne 2pm Saturday and arrive refreshed in Sydney at 7am on Monday.
Dinner lunch and breakfasts included. Perfect.
Unfortunately, it is doubtful these times will return.
Kim Chipman, Langwarrin
CAE book closure
The closure of the CAE Book Group organisation has been announced and impacts on many women who met to discuss and socialise over books.
Judith Sise, Dingley
AND ANOTHER THING
Credit: Illustration: Matt Golding
Tim Smith
Tim Smith rightly argues that “what voters want ... is basic competence”, (Comment, 9/10). If this is followed through to its logical conclusion, the Victorian Liberal Party would cease to exist. J
Jenny Bone, Surrey Hills
I can’t help but think that if Tim Smith can provide the answers to the Victorian Liberals problems, then they must be asking the wrong questions.
Stewart Monckton, Mont Albert
Is Tim Smith really advocating the Victorian Liberals move towards the Tory process that selected Johnson and Truss?
Lauriston Muirhead, Table Top, NSW
The Age can’t be serious when it engages fence impaler Tim Smith to write an article about “has been” John Pesutto.
John McCulloch, Cheltenham
Disgraced former Victorian MP Tim Smith has the temerity to offer advice about the ″cult of has-been leaders″ without seeing the irony?
Rosslyn Jennings, North Melbourne
When I first read the headline on the front of The Age (9/10), I thought the comment ″Cut out the dead wood″ referred to Tim Smith until I read the comment was written by Smith himself.
Susan Munday, Bentleigh East
Furthermore
Your correspondent suggests that Sam Groth, “a former tennis pro, will ace the opposition″ (Letters, 9/10). His supporters should be reminded that Sam achieved a much higher ranking as doubles player than as a singles player.
Mark Hulls, Sandringham
After doing a Covid test and wearing a mask each week when visiting a friend in an aged care facility I now realise that my mobile phone is probably more dangerous than myself (The Age, 9/10).
Mary Fenelon, Doncaster East
Perhaps the reason why so many republicans still claim that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump is they didn’t know they had to vote.
Henry Herzog, East St Kilda
Talking magpies! The new collective noun for them should be a Cheer Squad.
Peter Thomas, Pascoe Vale
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