Labor and Liberal must step up to confront Greens’ attacks

Labor and Liberal must step up to confront Greens’ attacks

The Australian’s editorial calling on the two major parties to step up in the wake of the Greens’ political attacks is timely and something both major parties should observe (“Major parties must step up to head off minority”, 29/8). With minority Labor government looking more and more likely, given that the Coalition has too much ground to make up, it is imperative that the Labor, Liberal and National parties put the Greens last and the teals second-last on their how-to-vote cards.

A minority Labor government, which will be forced to deal with the Greens and teals, will well and truly change the complete make-up of Australian society. Jim Chalmers may have denigrated Peter Dutton as the most divisive and dangerous person in Australia but he overlooked Adam Bandt, whose policies will completely change our society forever. Anthony Albanese, Dutton and David Littleproud need to keep this in mind. It’s high time for Labor to stop dancing to the Greens’ tune.

Peter Surkitt, Sandringham, Vic

Sidelining sex

Peta Credlin’s timely opinion piece articulated how too many otherwise well-intentioned law-makers, academics and commissions are tying themselves up into semantic knots by conflating the vital distinctions between sex and gender. Ironically, by allowing feelings to trump biological facts, attempts to protect women actually morph into a farcical erasing of womanhood. Our long-held notions of male and female are being reduced to the lowest denominator, so that XX and XY chromosomes count for naught. Clarity can be gained by examining the contrasting issue of one’s age. My guess is none of us over the age of 40 would be permitted to re-enrol in high school, even if we protested that we “felt” 16. If we rightly cannot convince others that age is a mere social construct, than why should we be able to concerning our sex?

This modern maelstrom is especially pertinent in an Olympic Games year, given the ideological minefield that is sport, where administrative bodies are now having to make unequivocal judgments concerning the potential disparity of allowing athletes to compete in a class or division in which they previously would not have been allowed to participate. Despite the demands of passionate pride activists, the simple fact is that calling yourself a different name and beginning hormonal therapy does not change one’s DNA or other significant physical distinctions. As Credlin argues, the time has well and truly come for a judicial reset, so as to protect those female rights that have been stealthily sidelined.

Peter Waterhouse, Craigieburn, Vic

Mining for progress

Nyunggai Warren Mundine hit the nail on the head when he writes that the Albanese government treats Aboriginal people as “passive recipients of welfare, not active agents of development”. Indigenous progress, according to Anthony Albanese, requires economic development as the way forward for Indigenous Australians. But this statement is not backed up by the Albanese government’s actions. How do we expect to create employment opportunities for Indigenous Australians if opportunities such as the Regis goldmining project and the Jabiluka uranium lease are crushed by governments, activists and bureaucrats? Many isolated Indigenous communities are simply not sustainable without employment. Until this problem is addressed, there will always be a swath of social problems in Aboriginal communities.

Peter Fuhrmann, Watermans Bay, WA

Revenge tactics

Australia’s richest universities threatening to cut domestic student enrolments to offset the revenue loss from international student caps smacks of punitive, revenge tactics and raises questions about an Australian education model in which, apparently, the places allocated for domestic students are so utterly dependent on funding by the fees of international students. There was a time, before education became a so-called “export” commodity, when Australian universities’ priority was the further and higher education of domestic students whose requisite knowledge and skills gained them entry to the workforce.

Deborah Morrison, Malvern, Vic

Whitlam warp

I remember the terrible days of the Whitlam government when inflation and unemployment were rampant (“Chalmers’ speech charts road back to Whitlam years”, 29/8). In 1975, at the age of 18, my first job was as a payroll clerk. We were processing pay rises for employees every three months identical to that quarter’s inflation rate. As prices rose so too did people’s wages. It was a vicious cycle fuelled primarily by rampant government spending. Unless Jim Chalmers takes appropriate measures to reduce spending and encourage productivity, the scourge of high inflation will continue.

Riley Brown, Bondi, NSW