Let’s get back to the fearless, can-do Aussie spirit

Thank you, Janet Albrechtsen for the article “Danger in Paradise: we’re at risk of being Little Australia” (20-21/2). I am a 74-year-old man living a glorious summer of swims and golf in COVID-safe Perth. But my wife and many mates are fed up with me whining about how wrong Mark McGowan, Daniel Andrews and Annastacia Palaszczuk are regarding their fixation with eliminating COVID.

My Australia has always been so welcoming and easy going — full of energy, opportunity, courage and a fair go for all who give it a go.

Locking us up, locking fellow Australians out, is not who we are. Yet many have seen this as acceptable, even when letting go of this strategy has clearly become overdue. Our own Berlin Wall is no longer acceptable — let’s start pulling it down. It’s time to manage the risk and live back in the real world, just as Alexander Downer espouses.

I’ve been grateful for the safety, but the reality is, as our deaths from COVID show, you are incredibly unlikely to die from COVID unless you’re very old and frail or have severe health issues. We’re now in an enviable and much more adept position to manage COVID with what we’ve learned about contact tracing. We have the vaccines. This is now a very manageable risk.

Let’s hope premiers outside NSW find the courage to guide us away from this fear paralysis. Let’s get back to being the fearless, can-do Australians we were a year ago. We can do this.

Peter Court, Swanbourne, WA

Bravo again, Janet Albrechtsen, and a big bravo to Alexander Downer. There are many of us who agree wholeheartedly with Downer on this and find what is happening to and in Australia more than a little concerning.

I am several years older than the former foreign minister and despite being Australian born, as a direct outcome of World War II, I had the good fortune to grow up all over the world. As a teenager I had the choice of an Australian or British passport. I did not hesitate to choose the Australian one as I felt here was a country of which I could be proud.

Our increasing fear, insularity and tall-poppy resentment of those Australians who have chosen to live and work overseas depresses me. Yes, we have a wonderfully safe “bubble” in which to live, but look how much we have lost, and for how long? Widely available international travel turned Australia from a relative backwater to a global dynamo. The young and outgoing ventured forth, took their enthusiasm to the world and returned with new skills and insights. Now we are in danger of a generation at least losing all of that.

I truly feel like a prisoner in my own country right now, notwithstanding the beautifully padded and safe cell walls.

Brian Esplin, Lake Macdonald, Qld

Bring back Alexander Downer. If ever a voice of clarity and reason were needed in Australia it is now. Reading the story by Janet Albrechtsen was a breath of fresh air in a politically instigated foggy and fear-filled environment. Downer’s honesty should be welcomed by all but the merchants of panic.

Charles Ryman, Bribie Island, Qld

I couldn’t agree more with Alexander Downer. “The community needs to have it explained to them that part of being Australian is you have a right to come to your own country whenever you wish.” My daughter is preparing to leave Australia to be with her partner after 18 months apart. She is distressed at knowing she will not be able to come home while the federal government continues to ignore its responsibilities. She said to me the other day, “Mum, there is no longer an Australia for all Australians.” Where do we go from here?

Celia Karp, Loganholme, Qld

In claiming “For people slightly older than me, there was a random chance that they could have been chosen to join the Australian Defence Force during the Vietnam War, but you didn’t have to go”, Alexander Downer is showing a selective memory that would be a surprise to the seven men who refused mandatory service and were in Australian prisons in December 1972 when the incoming Whitlam government ended conscription — and so spared Downer from being conscripted — let alone the families of the 202 conscripts who were killed in the Vietnam War.

Maurice Critchley, Kenthurst, NSW