Leave Abbott alone over Pell visit

What an irony that in the same week that Jack Merritt was being lauded for his work among convicted criminals, which led inadvertently to his stabbing death in London, Tony Abbott is condemned for daring to visit in prison his friend George Pell, a man whose final appeal is yet to be heard (“Mixed reaction to Abbott’s Pell visit”, 3/12). What will his critics say if the High Court appeal is successful, I wonder — quietly accept the verdict and apologise?

Prison visitation and a belief in redemption have always been at the heart of Catholic belief and practice, and were the same values that drove Merritt’s work, no less for Abbott.

Peter Davidson, Ashgrove, Qld

The controversy over Tony Abbott visiting George Pell highlights a disturbing flaw in human nature. Friends and family visit convicted criminals in jail no matter what the crime and should be encouraged to do so in the interests of rehabilitation if nothing else.

In Pell’s case, as with Lindy Chamberlain, there were serious doubts about guilt.

Public outrage is more a reflection of prejudice, anti-religious bigotry and self-righteous intransigence than anything else

John Bell, Heidelberg Heights, Vic

Those who are critical of Tony Abbott visiting George Pell in prison might take it up with Jesus, who said that people judged worthy of heaven would be told by Him at their judgement, “I was in prison and you visited me.” (Matthew 25: 36b).

Phillip Turnbull, Cornelian Bay, Tas

Labor’s fatal flaw

Nick Cater raises a glaring omission from Labor’s handwringing review of its May election loss and that, to put it bluntly, is talent (“Labor’s song is unchanged: we’re part of the union”, 2/12). The ever-shrinking gene pool caused by 25 years of gender quotas and trade union patronage has not only guaranteed mediocrity but is, fundamentally, contemptuous of the electorate. Contemptuous because the party is compelled by its quota system to offer up for preselection a narrow range of candidates than might ordinarily have been the case.

Anthony Albanese states he doesn’t want to change the party’s “core values”, but it is those values that are, as much as anything, covered in Labor’s post-election report and that keep the party on the opposition benches.

Class warfare is one of the core Labor values that separates the party from its aspirational working class roots, but it’s not the only one.

Joe Dowse, Mosman, NSW

Trauma of children

How many more children must die, or suffer from a lifetime of trauma inflicted in their childhoods, before we start treating family separation and divorce as a health and social issue instead of a legal issue dominated by family courts? Every two weeks in Australia a child is killed by a parent or family member. The tragic cases of the Cuzens (“Dad’s plea to change law to spare others the same fate”, 3/12) and Cockman (Margaret River grandfather mass murder) families in Western Australia, and many more around the country, highlight one of the tragic factors that can play into these horrific, and seemingly unthinkable, murders. It’s not gender. It’s family court proceedings. The correlation is very concerning.

Were it any institution other than a court that seems to stand above the law and prevent scrutiny of its conduct (“Judge wants to decide what’s news”, 19/12) there would have been a public outcry and royal commission years ago.

Let’s cut through the polarised, partisan and gendered politics of this issue. This is one of Australia’s greatest, least-recognised public health crises.

Dr David Curl, chief executive, For Kids Sake, St Leonards, NSW