Fix quarantine, protect rights, revive work

When asked about the safety of hotel quarantine (“Victoria spirals into third lockdown”, 12/2) Daniel Andrews commented that hotel workers needed to be able to be in the community to have lives and see their families.

What about our FIFO workers, military personnel and many other professions expected to be away from friends and families for weeks and sometimes months on end for far less serious situations? Given hotel quarantine has proved time and again to be the biggest threat, why are we not having these hotel workers stay on site for rotations of a month or more, then isolate for 14 days before they go home for a few weeks off?

Ellie Stockley, Melbourne, Vic

The biggest aspect of COVID-19 is probably not the disease but how it may be used to wind back basic human rights. Denying rights of movement, commerce and social interaction on the basis of vaccination status would violate our constitution, but that’s what some states want to do with tacit consent of the federal government.

Linda Vij, Mascot, NSW

In recent times we had a range of dedicated quarantine facilities — the Quarantine Station at North Head in Sydney, Prince Henry Hospital at Little Bay and others. I am sure other states, including Victoria, had similar facilities.

In our wisdom, we either closed these facilities or reassigned them to more useful purposes. Of course, there would never be another plague or epidemic, we assured ourselves. The Gods always punish hubris.

John Elliott, Birchgrove, NSW

With COVID vaccines about to be rolled out, it’s time to start the rebuild of the economy, driven by private enterprise, to commence the pay down of our huge debt bill, and thus be in a fiscally strong position to prepare for the next disaster. Australia is in a highly leveraged position, and any rise in interest rates will have a huge impact on debt servicing. As Simon Birmingham warns (12/2), an extra $44.5bn could be dumped onto our debt pile if interest rates rise sooner than expected. That’s a lot of schools, hospitals and infrastructure money going into debt servicing.

Ron Hobba, Camberwell, Vic

Robert Gottliebsen writes with the wisdom of a career in finance stretching back, he reminds us, to the 1950s (“Biden’s stimulus plans set off danger signals”, 12/2). His warnings of looming investment danger should not be lightly dismissed.

They serve as a useful antidote to the economic optimism of some that recent booming property and sharemarkets are of no great concern — that they are not perilous bubbles about to be pricked. But is it not strange that, in the midst of a grave COVID-19 recession, those markets should so shine?

But where else to invest at a time of historically low interest rates when conservative savers lose steadily on their bank deposits? As Gottliebsen reminds us, those low rates are not written in stone.

The inflation dragon, asleep now, may some day awake. And, given COVID-induced stimulus plans, together with signs of rising commodity prices, that day may come earlier than some expect — with sobering effects on unstable markets in Australia and elsewhere.

John Kidd, Auchenflower, Qld