Credit: Illustration:Cathy Wilcox
To submit a letter to The Age, email letters@theage.com.au. Please include your home address and telephone number below your letter. No attachments. See here for our rules and tips on getting your letter published.
GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY
Thank you, Shane Wright for your excellent article (“Dutton’s enthusiasm for DOGE is just old tricks with a new name”, 28/1).
Over the last 50-plus years. Coalition governments, and occasionally, Labor governments have promised to reduce the size of federal and state public services. This has resulted in increased politicisation.
In my experience, every attempt has been unsuccessful. For seven years I was general secretary of the Victoria Public Service Association. In the following 20 years I held executive management roles at a consulting firm, public health service and one of Australia’s big four banks. There were examples of inefficiency and ineffectiveness in both sectors.
Public service numbers were often reduced; however, the work continued to be necessary. In these instances, highly paid consultants were employed costing more than the salaries of the public service officers whom they replaced.
This allowed a minister to claim savings while the cost to the taxpayer was higher. The example quoted of the Veterans Affairs Department under the Morrison government is a classic example.
In the first half of the 20th century Australia, following the British model, had an independent, relatively efficient public service that served successive governments without fear or favour.
Any would-be leader who committed to returning to such a system would get my vote.
James Young, Mt Eliza
Dangers of contractors when seeking efficiencies
Re Shane Wright’s comment (28/1), “Taxpayers can’t go somewhere else for their age pension cheque or the Defence Force or a hospital emergency ward.”
Forget Trump’s DOGE, enterprise agreements, “efficiency dividends”, and politicians’ empty promises. I don’t care whether the delivery of pensions or essential service is contracted out or provided in house by public servants.
Taxpayers can’t get more for less. Taxpayers pay the wages of public servants and politicians. When members of the public contact government providers, they should be dealt with respectfully and without delay by a human, and not an AI message bank telling them to deal with the department’s website.
The nub of the problem is determining public servant salaries (or the taxpayer-funded payment to external contractors). The “contracting out” of government services ostensibly is market-referenced, insofar as the government accepts the lowest bids from private contractors to deliver a certain bundle of services. But this system is subject to all sorts of corruption and abuse by both providers and claimants. Moreover, there is no direct accountability by government to taxpayer/voters, via parliament.
Geoff Black, Frankston
No ideas? Do what Trump just did
Cathy Wilcox’s cartoon (28/1) brilliantly captured what’s on offer with Trump emulator, Peter Dutton. The announcement of the shadow cabinet to include responsibility for government efficiency is another lift from the Trump playbook. What we can be assured of is that under Peter Dutton’s leadership originality and vision will be sadly lacking.
Anne Lyon, Camberwell
Look to the LNP’s robo-debt record
Peter Dutton is trumpeting efficiency savings as part of his election campaign and wants to cut spending by having two shadow ministers, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and James Stevens, tackle government waste and efficiency. They could start with the shadow ministry.
The mantra ″delay, deny, die″ used to describe the antics of the previous government’s Department of Veterans’ Affairs could also be applied to that contemptible LNP policy called robo-debt. It would be unwise for the LNP to claim government based on its record.
Adrian Tabor, Point Lonsdale
THE FORUM
ATO could do more
News the ATO is matching bond data to identify ″dodgy landlords″ (″ATO moves to claw back more than $1b″, 28/1 ) highlights the data matching potential at the ATO’s fingertips.
By definition ″bond matching″ as described is limited to reported ″income producing″ properties.
As a barrister and chartered tax adviser, I can say there are numerous potential data matches that would identify unreported ″income producing″ properties, including ″off the books″ arrangements.
The ATO has the ″power usage″ data and property owner records to identify power connections to a property other than in the name of the property owner and to expose related Division 7A issues.
The ATO has the data to identify properties with no identified use and producing no income, properties that will provide evasion opportunities in future years.
Chris Wallis, Albert Park
Miscalculated calculus
Any ″scope for efficiencies in the federal government’s two largest agencies″, Services Australia and the ATO (28/1), needs to be weighed against the potential damage.
For example, the LNP’s illegal robo-debt scheme, which replaced manual calculation of potential overpayments with automated ones, resulted in false debts, financial hardship, mental health issues and suicides.
Frank Pagram, Mooroobool, QLD
State ALP chances
Premier Jacinta Allan could boost the chances of Labor being re-elected if she did two small things that voters have been asking for, for quite some time. Namely, ban native duck hunting and remove all ads for gambling from our TV screens and our newspapers. Continuing to do neither is a pretty good indication of who is running the state.
Peter Dodds, Montmorency
Enough of the woke
I am in complete support of your correspondent (Letters, ″Don’t ignore the silent majority″, 28/1) who has had enough of the ″vocal minority″ often aggressively expressing a leftist, woke agenda at odds with the majority view. Commonsense policies, pragmatic decision-making, respect and acceptance of the views of the ″silent majority″ will play out in how people vote at the federal election. Hopefully, politicians will take note.
Mandy Morgan, Peregian Springs, Qld
Woke to you, not me
It’s always interesting when people claim to speak for the “silent majority”, as if those who disagree simply don’t exist or don’t matter. While some see progressive policies as insanity, others see them as necessary steps towards kindness, inclusivity and fairness.
Commonsense has a funny way of meaning “whatever suits me”. But if fairness, respect and acknowledging different experiences are too much to ask, maybe the problem isn’t progress – it’s the refusal to consider anyone beyond yourself.
Catherine Ross, Sandringham
Put ‘woke’ out of its misery
Your letters correspondent (“Don’t ignore the silent majority”, 28/1) claims that a majority of Australians are against “the relentless leftist, woke, progressive insanity of Labor’s pursuit of idealism over commonsense”.
Aside from the generalisation and lack of evidence, these comments are another example why “woke” needs to be retired from public discourse for its continual misuse; its weaponisation for cultural, social and political purposes. If it were a horse, it would have been put out of its misery and euthanised long ago.
Peter McIntosh, Golden Point
Say it out loud
The silent majority (Letters, 28/1) is more accurately described as the apathetic millions who wait for someone to tell them how to think. Look at our world, and you do not want to say something out loud?
David Raymond, Doncaster East
Employment priorities
Steven Cheung, White House spokesperson, claimed that “Nobody in private industry would ever hire someone who isn’t mission-focused, and the government should be no different” (27/1).
Having done the recruitment for many positions within private industry over the years, I would like to counter that by saying that qualifications, proven experience, skills and abilities are always the highest priority.
Claire Merry, Wantirna
Keating’s advice
Since Trump’s return to the White House, many of us, particularly Age columnists and letter writers (me included) have gazed at the USA and Trump’s behaviour towards neighbours, trading partners and allies alike with feelings of shock, disgust and sadly despair.
The refrain is clearly ″what can we do to insulate ourselves against the mayhem he is likely to create geopolitically?″ Paul Keating always advocated that our security and prosperity came from our relationships within Asia, a mantra I hope and trust our foreign affairs boffins are investigating and interrogating with intellectual zeal and positivity.
America may never fully recover from his MAGA catch cry and philosophy. Australia must.
Maurie Johns, Mt Eliza
Weaponising tragedy
It’s sad to read that the new shadow opposition foreign affairs minister David Coleman begins his rise to prominence with an attempt to weaponise the Holocaust (″Get politics out of this ….,″ 28/1).
Contrary to his opinion, the Labor government has done everything possible to combat anti-semitism including generous funding for Jewish institutions and the appointment of an envoy against antisemitism.
Age reporter Rob Harris reminds us that federal minister Mark Dreyfus’s family members died in the Holocaust. There have been other genocidal actions since then which will also be memorialised. Many Palestinian Australians have recently lost families and friends in the remorseless Israeli bombardment of Gaza, and this is another event that should not be forgotten.
Caroline Graham, Cromer
Middle East vacuum
Joseph Krauss’s article, (“Gaza clean out rejected over fears of no return”, 28/1), points to the hideous complexity of reaching a solution to the historic and current Palestinian refugee crisis. As he puts it, “steadfastly remaining on one’s land is central to Palestinian culture”.
Memories of the so-called 1948 Nakba, or catastrophic displacement of Palestinians accompanying the creation of Israel, understandably run deep. Tragically, though, the nearly 80 years since that event have seen an invidious absence of leadership coming from the two entities claiming Palestinian leadership, namely the terrorist outfit Hamas and the ineffectual Western backed Palestinian Authority.
A vacuum now exists and surely makes the much vaunted notion of a ‘Two State solution’ unviable. At every turn, there is a road block to a future embracing what Donald Trump fancifully but understandably sums up “as living in peace for a change”. The challenges of the Middle East region, beset by chronic internecine conflicts exploited especially by Iran, are surely now almost insurmountable. That said, In this fraught environment, at least acknowledging Israel’s right to exist could be a tentative start.
Jon McMillan, Mt Eliza
Take a different cake
Thank you to Martin Hengeveld (Letters, “Carbon footprint dilemma, 28/1) for asking the important question of whether it is possible to “have your (flying holiday) cake and eat (an unspoiled climate) too”.
I think the solution it to aspire to a different cake, and maybe smaller portions. And, of course you can share this more modest cake with family, occasionally. The love will still be there. Maybe even more.
Lesley Walker, Northcote
Take the Eurostar
Your correspondent Martin Hengeveld (Letters, “Carbon footprint dilemma”, 28/1) wonders if and how to travel given concerns about climate change and carbon footprint. A recent UK study found domestic flights were worst contributing 246 g/km.Long-haul flights were lower (148 g/km), but Eurostar rail from London to Paris was only 4 g/km. They serve cake on trains, so Martin can “have his cake and eat it too”,.
Ray Peck, Hawthorn
Curious club time travel
Curiouser and curiouser, as Alice says in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. It seems the author penned the absurdist rules of Melbourne’s elitist clubs for men only. Who else but he would refer to club members as “brother savages”?
Or, as explained in The Age (20/1), where the writer was confounded by staff referring to “good morning” even if it was late in the afternoon. Nor would they stand to be corrected. The explanation provided with straight face that it was not afternoon until members and guests had completed lunch. A tradition from “the old country”.
Of course, said the Queen of Hearts, at risk of losing your head. At the Mad Hatter’s Tea party, a mad tea party, Alice felt dreadfully confused as the hatter’s remark seemed to have no sort of meaning in it, yet it was certainly English.
So even if it was nine o’clock in the morning …you would only need to whisper a hint and round goes the clock in a twinkling! Half past one and time for dinner. Fair enough I say!
Elizabeth Potter, Brighton
Farewell Farrah
I’m sorry Farrah Tomazin is leaving The Age. Her columns have been my go-to for news about the USA. I wish her the best for the next phase of her career.
Carmel Vandersman, Lilydale
AND ANOTHER THING
Government efficiency
A radical way of making our government more efficient would be to reduce the number of layers: get rid of the states or the local councils.
Ralph Böhmer, St Kilda West
Neither Trump nor Musk appear to see the irony of the Orwellian sounding ″Department of Government Efficiency″, but that Dutton has either not received any sort of education in English literature, or just fails to grasp the absurdity, is a worry!
Kerry Bergin, Abbotsford
George Orwell wrote that people who elected imposters, thieves and traitors were not victims, but accomplices. If alive today, he would add felons, compulsive liars, womanisers, racists, and climate change deniers.
Craig Calvert, Montmorency
Dutton is such a comedian. With a straight face, he claimed his the new shadow ministry of government efficiency is not a copy of Trump’s DOGE. Has Peter Dutton ever had an original idea?
Ross Hudson Mount Martha
Furthermore
Grace Tame’s T-shirt made me wonder whether the Coalition could win the election without the unbridled help of the Murdoch press.
Phil Labrum, Trentham
I thought more highly of Grace Tame. What a classless display of undergraduate petulance.
Michael Madden, Chum Creek
An Albanese vs Dutton election is akin to sitting in the best restaurant in Australia and the only choices on the menu are Rice Bubbles and a raw red meat platter.
Ian Hetherington, Moama
Once again (28/1), cartoonist Cathy Wilcox, as always, sums up the big issues in a few pithy lines and a cogent illustration.
Andrew Barnes, Ringwood
Re ″North East Link signed 7000 confidential deals″ and ″Treasurer to probe $12b slush fund″ (27/1). I think it’s fair to say transparency is not this government’s forte. Victorians should be extremely concerned.
Yvonne Bowyer, Surrey Hills
The opinion newsletter is a weekly wrap of views that will challenge, champion and inform your own. Sign up here.