Time for all state leaders to cry freedom and open up borders

Michael McKenna accurately alluded that with NSW now leading the national charge on how to live wisely with the virus, the days of our fractured federation hopefully must be numbered (“Risk-averse Palaszczuk had to bow to inevitable,” 19/10).

In recent months, the obstinate premiers in Western Australia and Queensland have thrived on their rock-star status and the amplified crisis language from their health bureaucrats, and urged their populaces to foolishly believe they perpetually could live in the wonderland of Delta-zero.

This was bound not to last. Even Daniel Andrews had to swallow his pride and admit to having an epidemiological epiphany regarding this reality.

What promoted this change in a large part was the shrewd shift in language from the NSW Premier. It was difficult not to be impressed with Dominic Perrottet’s wise affirmation that managing the Covid crisis intrinsically entails listening not just to the health advice but also the economic and mental health advice.

This struck a chord with mainstream Australians, and when there was suddenly talk of the return of tourism, open borders and international flights, it is easy to see how voters in those hermit states could feel that they were being left behind.

As has been wisely stated by Peta Credlin and Tony Abbott, there is more to living than simply not dying.

Peter Waterhouse, Craigieburn, Vic

As Melbourne’s Lockdown 6.0 stutters to its finale, I can see a small-scale replay of the collapse of the Soviet bloc occurring on our home shores as Victoria and Queensland follow NSW in the quickfire removal of state-based walls of Covid incarceration and isolation.

The people in each centralist state have spoken loudly with the popular vaccination uptake, which has forced the hands of those recalcitrant state governments to co-ordinate the issuing of previously withheld freedoms. Could a miracle occur and the hermit kingdom of WA follow suite? Is Mark McGowan to be the WA version of Lech Walesa and stand on the Fremantle docks and cry “freedom for all by Christmas”?

Tom Moylan, Melbourne

While Dominic Perrottet wants to be seen as the leader out of this pandemic, I think he is wrong and Daniel Andrews is right in saying the unvaccinated won’t be getting any freedoms for the foreseeable future. Here in NSW, where freedom for all is just a couple of weeks away, where is the incentive to get that last unvaccinated 10 per cent over the line?

John Clark, Burradoo, NSW

Woke worriers

Lyle Geyer cites the value of Western classical literature and music, representing an impressive legacy of human behaviour, thought, complexity and achievement for all humanity (Letters, 18/10), but says woke activists attacked Mozart and Beethoven as too Western, too white or too racist, and have now turned their attack on Homer and Shakespeare. Recently I happened on a statement that mathematics was way too white and way too male. Nothing stops anyone from being a self-taught maths whiz. The expression “deliberate pride-smashers” comes to mind as these same woke folk try to boost the pride of every other conceivable group on the planet. Next time the wokes relieve themselves, they can know that a white, male, English genius invented the flush toilet.

Rod Matthews, Fairfield, Vic

In your face

A major problem with Facebook is it becomes addictive, as I have seen with many of my friends (Letters, 19/10). Life is not lived but experienced vicariously through posting stories and reading about friends, all online. The joy of experiencing real life, catching up with family and friends, enjoying nature, gardening and outdoor experiences, are all lost to facetime on the computer. Liberate yourself – turn it off.

Ian Morison, Forrest, ACT

Noli timere

In Bookshelf, the review by Brandy Schillace (“Enigmas of body and mind straight out of folklore”, 19/10) brought to mind the last moments of the 1995 Nobel laureate in literature, Seamus Heaney.

His doctor informed him as he lay in a hospital bed with a seeming non-threatening illness, “I’m sorry, Seamus, there is nothing I can do. Your heart is about to burst!” Thereupon Heaney texted his wife: “Noli timere” (Do not fear).

That fearless response evokes his wonderful poem Postscript, which ends: “You are neither here nor there/ A hurry through which known and strange things pass/ As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways/ And catch the heart off guard and blow it open.”

Those lines in Postscript and Heaney’s response in extremis might well stand us all in good stead as we confront these difficult times and seek solutions.

Ian Dunlop, Hawks Nest, NSW