Credit: Matt Golding
To submit a letter to The Age, email letters@theage.com.au. Please include your home address and telephone number. No attachments, please include your letter in the body of the email. See here for our rules and tips on getting your letter published.
Self-interest rules
Whenever there is talk of reducing the taxpayer subsidy to property investors, we hear the usual fear-mongering of how this will reduce supply and put up prices and rents further. If true, then please explain why we currently have a housing and rental crisis after years of paying this subsidy?
The cost to the taxpayer of these subsidies is estimated at $165 billion over the next decade. This is a massive transfer of wealth. If it was instead used for social and low-cost housing, we would have affordable housing and rent for all. Unfortunately, we will never see this happen as it will result in a fall in value for the 70 per cent of Australians who are current owners. Self-interest rules at election time.
Barry Lizmore, Ocean Grove
Courage is needed
The federal government’s obsession with supply to the exclusion of demand is a fundamental error in housing policy. The housing crisis will not be relieved unless the government tackles both. This means building housing and making housing stock more affordable. Take the investors in old stock – domestic and foreign – out of the market so that young people can get into the market and renters survive. The government has ample levers to pull to achieve this. But this does require a quality that, like housing, is in short supply – courage.
Greg Gardiner, Brunswick
Sensible to get advice
I am dumbfounded by the pile on to Treasurer Jim Chalmers about modelling for negative gearing. Irrespective of the benefits or not of this policy it surely is legitimate for the person in charge of the nation’s finances to always be reviewing existing policy and how this can be changed or improved. Surely that is the role of the public service to provide ideas, advice and recommendations whether it be tax, mining, immigration or other myriad issues that the relevant minister should be considering.
Steve Griffin, West Coburg
Who is not that – hard
Grammar isn’t pedantry, it is about precision and clarity. ″Different from″ suggests a sense of distance or apartness. ″Similar to″ suggests nearness or coming closer.
We don’t say ″similar from″ so why say ″different to″? Languages have many such nuances, which is why learning any language can be difficult.
Rather more serious is the recent trend of using ″that″ instead of ″who″ when discussing people. We talk of ″the things that go bump in the night″ but ″friends who are coming for lunch, nurses who work hard, the volunteers who help out, the player who was not selected″. Replacing ″who″ with ″that″ is subtly dehumanising and a revealing shift in our thinking.
Anne Heath Mennell,
Tenby Point
Boring, it’s so boring
″This pedantry over the English language is something up with which I am completely fed″ (28/9) is so beautifully Churchillian. In ″American″, it would probably be, ″I’m bored of this″.
Susan Caughey, Glen Iris
A cruel practice
I read ″They stole my baby″ (Good Weekend, 21/9) with increasing rage at the treatment of these young mothers who had their babies forcibly and illegally taken from them for the crime of being unmarried. And the fact that some of these babies were being sold for 50 pounds each – unfathomable greed and cruelty. I was adopted and unfortunately have only ever had one phone call with my birth mother; apparently she didn’t want to keep in contact, so I’ll never know whether she was forced into giving me up or not.
My birth name was Lisa and she had a daughter after me who she also named Lisa, and I always wonder, was this simply because she loved the name or was this because she had to erase me because the circumstances of my birth were so traumatic, like the poor women in this story?
Samantha Keir, East Brighton
Those were the days
Columnist Fiona Austin (″Cinderella really a mid-century belle″, 24/9) described much that is great about Beaumaris but did miss some aspects that will resonate with others who grew up in the area through the ’60s and ’70s. Who will ever forget the big bands belting it out at Stonehenge, Thursday nights with Rock Steady at the ″Beauy″ Pub, hiring a row boat from Keefers or lazing in summer sun at Dalgetty Road beach. These were important parts of our early years in Beaumaris.
David Brophy, Beaumaris
The ABC of parody
I’m afraid I have to differ strongly from Debi Enker’s view of the Australian version of Death in Paradise (Green Guide, 19/9). From beginning to end I found it was overdone and simply not a very good show. The exaggerated behaviour of the central characters was very close to parody.
The ABC has taken to dishing out unfunny comedians, repeats and not much else. Perhaps a general clean-out is necessary. Not all of us wish to watch iview.
Maureen Goldie, Blackwood, SA
Statue of limitations
Statues of former political leaders are not a manifestation of the modern democratic process. They are more associated with dictators and tyrants, such as Joseph Stalin, Mao Tse-Tung, Juan Peron and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un and his predecessors.
It is disturbing that it was a former Liberal premier of Victoria, Jeff Kennett, who introduced a policy granting such an ″honour″ to premiers, if they serve more than 3000 days in office.
The former Labor premier Daniel Andrews is merely a beneficiary of the misguided policy, which is inappropriate in a modern democracy and should be withdrawn as soon as possible.
An oil painting (historical practice) hung in the confines of the parliament is more than sufficient.
Michael Gamble, Belmont
Leaders, show vision
Our housing crisis is not just a supply issue (″Housing debate support as PM’s door ajar on tax″, 26/9). The supply issue is largely caused by a massive increase in demand due to exponential population growth – a direct result of government policy.
It should have been pretty obvious that we would not have the resources to provide the accommodation and other physical and social infrastructure required to support every person. We need leaders with a vision beyond the next election and the courage to implement the policies that will get us there.
Jennie Epstein, Little River
The fear of Trump win
Peter Hartcher’s article ″Why Trump is so fond of tyrants″ (28/9) raises credible concerns about world security if the former president is returned to office in the US election. His interview with the highly credentialled retired US Lieutenant-General H.R. McMaster confirmed the ongoing malign influence of the soon-to-be released adviser Steve Bannon (serving jail time for being in contempt of Congress) and the MAGA fanatics on a impressionable Trump.
As seen last week, it is becoming evident that the latter would be open to a Neville Chamberlain-style appeasement strategy allowing Putin’s Russia to entrench its annexation of Ukraine’s eastern provinces. It is of note here that Bannon has acted effectively as a conduit to Putin and Trump through their close personal relationships with Hungarian PM Viktor Orban. In this context, it is not hyperbolic to envisage the latter playing a ″Fifth Columnist″ role within NATO. Democratic nations within Europe would face a credible subversion threat.
Jon McMillan, Mount Eliza
Time is lots of money
The Donald Trump merchandise business is going upmarket by flogging limited edition gold and diamond encrusted watches for $US100,000 each. Is it a feature that they only go backwards?
Peter Rutherford,
Hamlyn Heights
Working for equality
Correspondents to these pages regularly tell us they have ″worked hard″ and done well in life, sometimes spelling out but sometimes simply implying the link between the two. I cannot help reflecting that many people have worked hard but not done well. Quite a few have done well with no effort at all.
And, of course, there are many who have neither worked hard nor done well – a minority by choice, but the majority by reason of misfortunes beyond their control.
It seems to me, therefore, best to judge no one and ensure that our wealthy country cares adequately for everyone.
Richard Barnes, Canterbury
Keating attacks
One thing you can say about Paul Keating, he doesn’t differentiate between the political parties he berates (″Keating and Marles exchange fire″, 28/9).
Ted McCabe, Barwon Heads