All credit to NSW, Vic premiers for recovery spend

Former Victorian premier Jeff Kennett is nothing if not consistent (“Wallop for states over Covid debt”, 8/12). Despite the Reserve Bank urging states to borrow and spend big to get out of the COVID-19 economic malaise and despite your reporter John Ferguson’s assurance that the “bottom-line impact of downgrading is negligible” (8/12), Kennett sinks the boot into the Andrews government for the downgrading of its economic rating by S&P.

Kennett supports private company debt over government debt and is a clear advocate for small government and minimum regulation. He also likes to take credit for the large reductions in state debt during his time in office from 1992 to 1999. Yet let us not forget that Victorian state debt was cut by selling the family silver (think electricity, gas, water, railways, trams, roads and schools).

The outcomes of some of these privatisations are still with us more than 20 years later — loss of income streams, sky-high utility bills and diminution of once-vital services. Then there was the push, too, for contracting out most council services, which all too often resulted in corruption and malfeasance. Kennett also presided over the closure and sale of hundreds of schools . Yet the inevitable outcome of those decisions was the subsequent need to buy back land at inflated prices to build new schools in many inner metro regions to cater for the “unforeseen” population increases.

Now, it may be an easier task to cut deficits if you are prepared to slash and burn services and human capital, flog off government enterprises, fire staff and leave the heavy lifting to others, but it is to the credit of the NSW and Victorian governments that they have stared down the conservative critics and, at a time of long-term unprecedented low interest rates, they have decided to borrow heavily to invest in large-scale targeted infrastructure spending to replace the fall in private expenditure.

Ross Cleaves, Frankston, Vic

Press releases from the AAA credit ratings agency should all start with the words “In an ideal world”. Any observer who considers a country can come through a pandemic unscathed is playing with the fairies at the bottom of the garden. Of course our coffers are depleted. Save resources industries, nobody has made a quid for nine months. Even before the pandemic our economy was hardly booming.

John Bain, South Bunbury, WA

We hear of peak debt but it is nowhere in sight in Australia. Next year could be the year Australians begin to find out how much all this free government money actually costs. The bill for the stimulus, bailouts, boondoggles and extended benefits will come in the form of a fall in the value of savings and incomes as the cost of living begins a long overdue move higher in the form of consumer price inflation.

At some point governments will be unable to borrow at today’s low interest rates in order to keep their doors open. That will be the day of fiscal reckoning.

Victor Diskordia, McKellar, ACT

Happier still

The confirmation of a general enhancement in the level of “life satisfaction”, particularly in Victoria, gives us all a reason to be upbeat and optimistic as we attempt to reclaim our pre-COVID lives (“Families count blessings, despite the stress”, 8/12). While research findings have revealed evidence to indicate values such as appreciation, gratitude and empathy for the plight of others can “bolster our emotional resilience, enhancing our inner ability to combat stress”, our Melbourne lockdown ordeal has unearthed even more. Enforced communal isolation by a state-orchestrated viral home-detention program has strangely stimulated an urgency to reconnect socially, to re-engage with others condemned to the same unavoidable fate.

Being human, as we are — essentially social entities reliant on companionship, social intercourse and friendship — we have been driven to rediscover our neighbours through the mutual fear of COVID infection. Whether it be masked couples exchanging pleasantries with total strangers, gossiping with fellow dog walkers in the park, baking cakes and biscuits for friends and neighbours, Melburnians have inevitably found a way to turn pessimism and depression into positivity and optimism. As ultimate survivors of this unprecedented ordeal we give thanks.

Lyle Geyer, Essendon, Vic

Shooting horses

I disagree with both Lesley Beckhouse (Letters, 7/12) and Jan Kendall (Letters, 8/12): brumbies do not belong in the high country, and humans are not responsible for all the damage.

The brumby is a hard-hoofed animal, unlike any megafauna, such as kangaroos and wallabies, that the alpine environment has evolved to cope with. Brumbies eat, trample and destroy threatened and endangered plant species, including alpine grasses and sphagnum moss.

Brumbies are also thirsty compared with native animals, and are habituated to standing in the water while drinking. This results in severe damage to the banks of waterways, with subsequent erosion and muddying of the water, forcing the brumby upstream to clean water and extending the damage.

The brumby may be a “magnificent creature”, but it does not belong in the Snowy Mountains National Park.

Douglas Mackenzie, Deakin, ACT

I find it hilarious that a new book outlining the ALP’s mission as “seizing power” has Labor MPs Bill Shorten, Wayne Swan, Chris Bowen and Kristina Keneally as significant contributors (“Labor at ‘tipping point’ as Right bids to drive agenda”, 8/12). It is laughable because their policies and performance were integral to Scott Morrison’s “miracle” election victory. To use a sporting analogy, it is like a football coach who has never won a premiership writing a book called Winning Rugby.

Riley Brown, Bondi Beach, NSW