Do Chairman Dan’s ‘yes men’ reflect on the authoritarian project they are propping up?

We shouldn’t be asking why Adem Somyurek is blocking Daniel Andrews’ pandemic legislation (“Somyurek escalates attack on Andrews”, 18/11).

The question should be, why have the other Labor MPs gone along with it? Did they really go into public life wanting to be party to such authoritarian laws?

Are they really so afraid of Andrews, so attached to the Labor jobs-for-the-boys pipeline, that they have given up all pretence of basic morality?

Burt Bosma, Surrey Hills, Vic

It is not often I agree with George Williams (“Now is not the time to draft new pandemic laws”, 18/11) on matters political. But his consideration of the danger of the proposed extension of pandemic powers by the Andrews government is wise. The Covid crisis has generated fear and government overreach putting our democracy in jeopardy. Whatever side of politics you favour, concern for our future is justified.

Vicki Sanderson, Cremorne, NSW

Good for Glenys Clift (Letters, 18/11). Clearly I belong to the same generation as she does. My father’s view was that as he had had nothing, we would be given nothing – so we just got on with it. But having worked hard – and paid tax from the age of 16 until I was in my 70s – I can feel proud of what I achieved.

Some of today’s attitudes make me wonder what will happen to this country by 2050 – and climate change won’t be a primary concern then.

Helen J. Wilson, Brisbane

I ponder over the avalanche of controversial issues we’ve been forced to contemplate, rumble over, then eventually accept.

It seems like only yesterday we knew nought about gender choice or dysphoria, men having both periods and babies, pronoun choices, and so on, with the list growing exponentially.

Rosemary O’Brien, Ashfield, NSW

Peter Craven’s article (“The Bard is Back!”, 18/11) reminds me of those moronic assertions from the recent past that kids in the western suburbs of Melbourne and Sydney didn’t need no Shakespeare.

Fortunately there was enough pushback among scholars, dutiful teachers of English and mavens like the inestimable John Bell to fight this nonsense, judging by the good news in Craven’s article.

And by the way, has there ever been a classic-worthy film production of Macbeth? Yes, the Roman Polanski version has its moments, but by acts IV and V the whole effort seems to be at sub-Blackadder standard, as if Roman just got bored and couldn’t exit stage left, right, anyway quickly enough; where was that bear when needed?

Leonard Colquhoun, Invermay, Tas

Would-be Collingwood president Jeff Browne is correct (“Grand plan for Pies … and Eddie”, 18/11) in his claim that strong clubs should not be required to hand over hard-won revenue to prop up the balance sheets of laggard clubs. In any environment, the efficient use of resources should hardly be discouraged.

Is not the combination of the draft and the player salary cap sufficient to ensure that struggling AFL clubs need not merely subsist, as do some of their counterparts in the English Premier League?

As the non-sporting world has seen, socialism has its limits.

Bob Miller, Wembley, WA

Jan Rowe (Letters, 18/11) writes to damn energy from woody biomass. Though the UK does have a number of straw-fired power plants and many heat plants using domestic woody biomass, it imports most of its biomass for fuelling condensing power plants, including the Drax plant, where all heat energy produced from the biomass is wasted.

However, the situation in the EU is quite different as most biomass is sustainably produced within national borders and biomass fuelled plants are of the combined heat-and-power type where up to 95 per cent of energy in the wood is used.

If the National Geographic article cited by Rowe says that using wood for energy produces more net carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere than coal, it is wrong, as the tree is there due to having removed carbon dioxide from the atmosphere during its growth, and typically the biomass is residue from forest management and processing.

Energy from sustainably-sourced biomass currently provides more of the EU’s consumed renewable energy than from all other renewables combined.

In Sweden and Finland, biomass is each country’s single largest source of consumed energy. It could be the case also in Australia with intelligent policies – and without the use of native forest harvest material.

Andrew Lang, president Victorian Bioenergy Network, Lismore, Vic