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VICTORIAN ELECTION
Re ″Wilson plan for surgery would leave $880 million hole″, 12/10.
Victorian Liberal party leader Jess Wilson was a consultant at KPMG before she began her career in politics as adviser to former federal Liberal party deputy leader Josh Frydenberg. Now, as state Opposition Leader, Wilson appears to want to attack Victorian institutions as occurred in the 1990s Jeff Kennett era of Victorian politics.
By 2000, then premier Kennett had managed to sell off electricity, gas, trains and trams, prisons and privatised many other Victorian services including ambulance, health, cleaning services, and the most damaging was the decimation of education. When tracing these privatisations, Victorians need to look carefully at what politicians offer, given Kennett’s privatisations are constantly in the headlines for the wrong reasons.
While encouraging Victorians to invest to get ahead without leaning on the public purse, Wilson intends thrashing the Victoria Future Fund set up under the Andrews government.
Such an approach follows the trend of Liberal governments, which for example, included the federal Howard government’s privatisation of Telstra.
Margaret Raffle, Keilor East
Joan Kirner’s role in dismantling technical education
Former premiers Joan Kirner and Jeff Kennett – both contributed to the disastrous dismantling of (state) technical education in Victoria. (″Victorian Liberals borrow from SA Labor in fresh education pitch″, 11/10).
Hopefully, Jess Wilson’s pledge for $222 million to establish 10 full-time technical colleges across Victoria becomes reality.
We could return to a time when a bunch of year 10 students operating potentially lethal machinery with minimum supervision (or none, for a few minutes) while manufacturing useful things such as, say, a helical thread G clamp?
Or, when children were taught by former tradies and engineers who openly admitted they had only a few months of teacher training – yet could bring mathematics, geometry, physics and chemistry to life. And, do so while encouraging kids to cautiously attempt TV, wireless, plumbing, structural or electrical repairs around the home or keep their mums’ cars roadworthy.
If so, then many might trot off to institutes of technology for engineering. A worthy endeavour Jess!
Ronald Elliott, Sandringham
Jeff Kennett always gets the blame
I was working as a business manager at a technical school at the time of the changes from technical schools to high schools (Letters, 12/10). Then premier Joan Kirner was responsible for that decision, not Jeff Kennett.
I can remember thinking that not all students are academic, and some are excellent at learning a trade. Our college went from 1100 students to 500 and dwindled to fewer over time.
Everything in the past gets blamed on Jeff Kennett, which is extremely unfair, as he was left to get Victoria out of the huge debt Joan Kirner left behind. Yet again, we have gone down the same path in Victoria, which leaves Jess Wilson and her team of Liberals to get Victoria out of debt.
Wake up Victorians. Please do not keep going down the same road.
Trudy Serafini, Shepparton
Jess Wilson’s menagerie of attributes
Victorian Liberal Opposition Leader Jess Wilson appears to be doing very, very well. I believe that’s because Jess has exhibited the courage of the lioness, the peacefulness of the dove, the ferocity of the honey badger, the wisdom of the owl, and the tenacity of the dung beetle.
Howard Hutchins, Wantirna
THE FORUM
Implicated in Ecuador
According to the Resolve Political Monitor (″Chalmers can’t shift any blame on to Trump or Bullock – even if they deserve it″ 12/10), most Australians rate the cost of living as paramount, making it challenging to draw attention to the distant exploitation of Ecuadorian forest and river systems.
Yet, Australians are directly implicated: Hanrine Ecuadorian Exploration and Mining, a subsidiary of Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting, is clearing vulnerable Andes Mountains ″cloud forests″ and polluting waterways with cyanide in search of gold and copper (″Introducing Rinehart’s new frontier point man″ 12/10).
Why should we care? Beyond the involvement of an Australian company, the stakes are immense. These rare cloud forests account for less than 1per cent of the Earth’s surface yet are home to 15 per cent of all known flora and fauna species.
If the destruction of this biodiversity isn’t enough to raise concern, spare a thought for the associated human cost and wage slavery exposed in Marta Pascual Juanola’s piece.
Mike Toomey, Rowville
Choose candidates wisely
Dissatisfaction with Victoria’s major parties is understandable, but the growing call to “give someone else a go”– such as minor or fringe parties – is a dangerous gamble.
Consider a sports analogy. Essendon’s AFL team is struggling; the solution isn’t to replace them with a team from the local Essendon District Football League. The jump in class needed to compete at elite level would result in abject failure.
Governing a multi-billion-dollar state economy requires complex policy capability, deep legislative experience, and administrative backup. Critiquing from the sidelines is easy; governing requires expertise.
Expressing frustration through the ballot box is a democratic right, but handing the reins of government, or balance of power, to unproven options simply because “they couldn’t’ be worse”, will very likely end in tears.
Carlo Ursida, Kensington
Can’t turn back time
When visiting my GP medical centre yesterday, I walked past my optometrist, who has a Vietnamese name. I picked up medication from my pharmacy, where both pharmacists on duty were Chinese and the assistant was Muslim. I was seen by a Muslim doctor and three nurses, two Cambodian and one Middle-Eastern.
Which of these essential and very nice people would Angus Taylor stop from coming to Australia, and which would Pauline Hanson deport with her negative migration policy? Australia is multicultural, the clock cannot be turned back, and we will suffer in many ways if either the Coalition or One Nation policies are ever enacted.
Louise Kloot, Doncaster
Australian recipe
Recipe of the Year on ABC TV showcases multicultural, multiracial, yet united Australia, all under the mentorship of the magnificent 124-year-old Country Women’s Association.
The show epitomises the very best of what we love about Australia – caring, supportive, inventive and fun.
I suggest Pauline Hanson, Barnaby Joyce and Warren Pickering watch it, and learn to eat humble pie.
Nicki Melville, Albury
Blame issues, not people
Peter Gutwein nails it with his piece “I was a Liberal premier. Immigration policy is irresponsible”, (11/10).
He sets out his reasons why Liberal policy is “deeply concerning”.
His own experience as a successful migrant gives credibility to his arguments. His concern is not just that the Liberal Party wants to slash immigration numbers. but also the sinister message behind that policy.
Blaming immigrants for all our woes is easy. Since European settlement, we have been an immigrant nation.
We need to fix the problems that are not caused by new arrivals to our wonderful country.
Gutwein puts it well; the Liberals simply blame migrants for the high cost of living, hospitals under pressure and roads congested, rather than address those problems. Reduce immigration. Are we mad?
We have labour shortages in every field: health, education, aged-care, child minding, farming and skilled trades.
We need immigrants, let’s encourage them, not blame them.
Thomas Upton, Kennington
Cost cutting mirage
I have read numerous letters and articles calling for the federal government to stop wasteful spending, but not one of these has detailed what spending they are referring to.
Is it the NDIS, aged care, education, health? I suspect that people just hear it so many times they jump on the bandwagon and call for cuts.
I am all for running a mile from the ridiculous AUKUS agreement to save a few dollars.
Dean Virgin, Strathmore
Selling anger works
It looks like Labor will have to rely on the Greens to get their duty of care social media legislation through parliament James Massola (″Greens push to let Australians sue Big Tech in digital safety overhaul″, 12/10).
Sarah Hanson-Young wants the legislation amended so that individual citizens could sue big tech and also stronger guardrails on the addictive algorithms.
Many think that the stronger guardrails may be the most important change because they see the algorithms as directly threatening our democracy, and democracies everywhere, by training people with a daily diet of outrage to become an angrier people.
This explains why Pauline Hanson is high in the polls. She isn’t selling policies, she is selling anger and, as she is implied in her National Press Club appearance, Australians have now caught up to her – in anger – courtesy of the algorithms.
Gary Barnes, Mosman NSW
Think of others
The article ″Faced with cancer and kidney disease, this Geelong grandfather finds light in drawing″, (10/10) highlights what an inspiring person Rob Lymer is.
His cartoons that line the wall of a unit near the Geelong hospital, and a calendar that he produces to raise money for the Barwon Health’s home dialysis unit have been produced at a time when his life is severely compromised by multiple medical conditions.
What a different nation ours could be if, in our own way, we too endeavoured to contribute to the benefit of others despite our own needs.
Christine Baker, Rosanna
Barbaric and unwise
Re ″First a cage fight, now a live-streamed execution. America’s depravity knows no bounds″, 12/10.
The decision by US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth to permit the public execution by firing squad of Nidal Hasan is not only barbaric, but also unwise.
There is a real danger that Hasan will be seen as a martyr by extremists, and thereby encourage further extremism including revenge killings.
A better alternative would be to make him serve a tough life sentence to remind others who would like to commit mass murder that they also will face a long time in detention to reflect on their crimes.
Rod Watson, East Brighton
Targeted execution
Yes, Nidal Hasan is guilty of mass murder, but how can anyone condone public execution?
In this, the American government is displaying the same traits they abhor with other nationalities who execute people in public.
I very much doubt the same thing would happen if Nidal Hasan were a white person and a Christian.
They would have been executed by other means, away from public eyes.
Rosemary Berrell, Ashburton
Uniquely American
Your correspondent (Letters, ″American values″, 10/10 ) has made false comparisons between the Iranian regime and current US governmental and legal processes. She refers to ″a string″ of alleged ″abuses″ in the US, when in reality is referring to two unique executions; the former with no precedent, the latter not since WWII, and with no contextual association between them.
But your correspondent also suggests a moral equivalence between a regime that executes thousands of its citizens for alleged political or theological ″crimes″ with two US topical executions with clear and different contexts. One may debate the place of capital punishment, but there is no comparison between the innumerable human rights violations committed by the Iranian regime with two US circumstances.
Larry Hermann, South Yarra
Intolerable abuse
I was outraged when I read Neil Mitchell’s article (11/10) about the Jewish family subjected to verbal abuse at Melbourne Airport simply for indicating their Judaism by their dress. Berating any person because of how they identify rather than how they behave is unacceptable in any civilised society.
Mitchell gives the analogy of the community outrage that would be likely if LGBTQIA+ Australians (of whom I am one) were forced to leave the country because of the fear of such behaviour directed at them, or for Asian members of our community being blamed for the behaviour of the Chinese Communist Party – both good comparisons.
I have fought against, and sung about, such base prejudice my whole adult life and, while there is no report of anyone stepping up to protect the family involved, I hope they were not left undefended by those around them.
Judy Small, Alphington
AND ANOTHER THING
Trump world
Donald Trump pours more fuel on the fire. That’s very Nobel of him.
Graham Cadd, Dromana
AI in the form of data control is a threat to human life as we know it: AI in the form of Donald Trump is an equal threat.
Barrie Bales, Woorinen North
Who but a criminal would seek to undermine the International Criminal Court?
Merryn Boan, Brighton
Furthermore
When I despair of humans as a species, I take solace from the countless examples of kind, selfless and humble individuals.
Kevan Porter, Alphington
AI is capable of worsening the destruction of both humans and property. How intelligent is that?
Paul Murchison, Kingsbury
Those people who are prepared to pay $6 for a cup of reheated milk should stop whingeing about the cost of it.
John Rawson, Mernda
Aside from the hullabaloo about cash versus cards and surcharges, nothing beats cash when the electricity, banks or internet go off-line. It has happened in the past and will most certainly happen again.
Claire Merry, Wantirna
May I disagree with your Letters correspondent ″Not as friendly list″, (10/10) about Melburnians’ kindness. Have you ever seen, or been a victim of a fall? The most unlikely Samaritans immediately flock to help and render caring assistance.
Susie Holt, South Yarra
Finally
Re Letters ″Long and lucullan″ (12/10). And the study of this would be called ″Superantidisestablishmentarianismisationology″?
Julian Robertson, Mt Eliza
Going Welsh
Before this preoccupation with long words gets out of hand, the 58letter name of that Welsh village on the island of Anglesey is Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.
Brian Kidd, Mt Waverley
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