Victorian Libs should be looking at landslide but instead they are convulsed in turmoil

John Pesutto is delusional if he thinks his leadership is tenable or competitive, despite his reminder that poll numbers for the Victorian Liberals have overtaken those for Labor on this watch. A competent opposition Liberal leader with sensible policies would be looking at a landslide win at the next Victorian state election. Premier-elect Pesutto? Hardly.

Indeed, Pesutto has not only failed the leadership test, he has failed the character test, too. Defaming colleague Moira Deeming and demoting her from the party, without a decent apology, has been a disgrace, to put it mildly.

Although the comment was made in a different context, Gemma Tognini once made the excellent observation that a crisis doesn’t create character, it reveals it. Nonetheless, with Pesutto’s inevitable demise looming, preferably to be replaced by the Libs’ cop on the beat, Brad Battin, and with Deeming back in the partyroom where she rightfully belongs, the prosecco will be popped and the votes will flow.

Mandy Macmillan, Singleton, NSW

Labor angst at the Coalition’s recovery in the polls should be tempered by the knowledge that the weight of lead in Peter Dutton’s saddlebags continues to grow. The Victorian branch of the Liberal franchise continues to self-destruct and in Queensland the new LNP government seems determined to pick a premature and unnecessary fight over Dutton’s signature nuclear energy policy. And as though that weren’t enough, junior partners the Nationals are becoming openly restive at their role as the rural division of an opposition dominated by Liberals still trying to beat Labor at its own game of being all things to all people. Keith Pitt’s departing spray may prove particularly harmful. Given the history of the Hinkler electorate and the remarkable result in the recent state election in Bundaberg, the Nationals’ hold on Hinkler is no longer a sure thing. No one does political self-harm quite as well as Liberals.

Terry Birchley, Bundaberg, Qld

My state member, John Pesutto, is inherently a good man, sadly not a politician, much less a leader (“It’s time, leader urged to resign”, 23/12). Sadly, neither the ongoing power struggle among Victorian powerbrokers nor the divided MPs helped him throw out the worst ALP government in Victoria’s history. Unless the Libs unite, more suffering will continue.

Alan Chipp, Hawthorn East, Vic

Catholic identity

Thank you, Sophie York, for standing up and speaking out about the erasure of Catholic identity at the (so-called) Australian Catholic University (“A Catholic uni needs a faith-led identity”, 21/12).

This particular faith identity should be at the heart of all decision-making and discussion at the university. A fish rots from the head and the same can be said about leadership and governance.

A number of poor decisions have been made over the past few years with the consequent loss of academic reputation and the university is under severe financial strain. There is a lack of clarity – moral clarity – about the way the business of the university is conducted. This has been seen most recently in the way the student body was enabled to ridicule and reject ceremonial protocols.

Appeasing students who are happy to obtain their degrees from the university but have little or no respect for its core values belittles the institution. That dismissiveness and derision was evidenced in the recent humiliation of Joe de Bruyn on the altar of identity politics. It is hard to be unapologetically Catholic in a world of dominant secularism.

However, one would hope that any school or university with Catholic in its title or as part of its foundational ethos would endeavour to espouse these values robustly.

York’s eloquent cri de coeur resonates with many of us who are in not-so-quiet bewilderment at what is going on in those institutions that bear a Catholic name but seem embarrassed by the church’s traditional teachings.

Ann Rennie, Surrey Hills, Vic

Weather hyperbole

As the bushfire season begins down south, it will not be before long that we hear the magic words “unprecedented” and “climate change”. The fire department has done its bit: what used to be low, medium and high ratings have now been upgraded to medium, high, extreme and catastrophic.

Similarly, with the current flooding in the north, two things are guaranteed: idiots will be washed away as they drive across flooded roads and climate change will be invoked.

In the mass media hyperbole, two facts are ignored. This country, as described by Dorothea Mackellar, has always been a land of droughts, floods and fires, and there is no evidence of any change in incidence.

Similarly, even the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change confirms worldwide adverse weather events are not increasing.

Can the media give us a break?

Graham Pinn, Maroochydore, Qld