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LEADERSHIP
The Liberals have moved to the right since Josh Frydenberg was in parliament. If the party does badly at the 2028 election, he “cannot see the party surviving in its current form” (″Frydenberg: A grateful son or relentless self-promoter?″ 13/10). Against this backdrop, Frydenberg would have a chance to lead his party as a “moderate” by current conservative standards. He is correct that the Libs must reconnect with the political centre. To re-enter politics, difficult tasks await him, firstly against entrenched Liberals competing with One Nation.
Josh Frydenberg will certainly have to be a relentless self-promoter. He will also need centrist policies he can sell to the voters. He could start by checking out the policies of the teal independents, including Monique Ryan, who ousted him. They support action on misogyny, integrity, tax reform and climate.
Josh Frydenberg and the LNP misread the electorate in 2022. He may have a chance now to return to the Liberals with “small l” liberal policies. Better Josh than Pauline.
John Hughes, Mentone
Uneasy lies the head that aspires to be
You have to feel for Opposition Leader Angus Taylor. With the publication of Josh Frydenberg’s book A Grateful Son, Taylor is now looking over his left shoulder fearing a leadership challenge from Frydenberg.
He has already been looking over his right shoulder, fearing a challenge from Andrew Hastie. And casting a shadow over the Coalition is One Nation. ‘Uneasy lies the head that aspires to be’.
Nick Toovey, Beaumaris
Coulda been a contender
It is easier to be a woulda, coulda, shoulda leader than actually take the responsibilities. So many can say what would gave been if they only had the chance, or did the hard work to make it happen.
Josh Fydenberg’s own leadership, in tandem with Scott Morrison’s, the Liberal Party’s values, and their choices in policy, all lost Frydenberg his heartland seat.
The Liberals are being stretched in all directions by the ghosts of Abbott and Howard, trying to align with Canavan, finding Right relevance against a surging One Nation and already have a stronger leader-in-waiting in Hastie.
They don’t need another voice, they need a leader with support and conviction. It’s no time to give an opinion or dip a toe in the water.
It’s time for Frydenberg to take action if he believes he has the answers, and the Liberal Party agrees.
Otherwise, step aside.
Andrew Crane, Richmond
No knight in shining armour
Josh Frydenberg was front and centre when the Australian electorate began to fall out of love with the Liberal Party. So any inference by he or anyone else that he could ride in like a knight in shining armour and take the Liberal Party back to the promised land is incomprehensible.
Phil Alexander, Eltham
Mixed signals from Wilson campaign
Oh the irony. Economic and financial management identified as a key issue for voters with Victorian Opposition Leader Jess Wilson increasing her popularity in the article “Wilson is gaining economic traction” (13/10) coming the day after the article “Coalition’s flagship policy hit by $880 million budget shortfall” (12/10).
The party of fiscal responsibility? Love it.
Wendy Hinson, Wantirna
THE FORUM
Learn from the past
Your Letters correspondent’s claims, (“Kirner’s role in dismantling technical education,” 13/10), seem to look longingly at yet another simple solution to complex problems.
ALP Premier Daniel Andrews reintroduced technical schools after coming to power in 2014, but as adjuncts to existing campuses. These are still operating.
The choice of secondary schools is usually strongly influenced by parental choice and in the past, narrow offerings at technical schools cut off many working class students from hopes of a university education. Almost all schools, including expensive private schools, now run VET streams and a broad curriculum so students do have technical subjects available to them. Often students leave school with TAFE certificates already in hand.
As a former teacher in both high and technical schools, I don’t subscribe to the simplistic view that children are either good with their hands or with academic subjects. Good schools have great teachers who create opportunities for everyone.
The person who shut down more than 300 state schools in Victoria was a Liberal, Jeff Kennett.
Jess Wilson is in her first term in parliament and is perhaps unaware how tired teachers are of politicians who seem to know all about education without direct experience.
Helen Hook, Black Rock
Wilson’s Treaty stand
The attributes of a potential leader that your correspondent lists (Letters, ″Jess Wilson’s menagerie of attributes″ 13/10) are about leadership rather than policy. It is policy that should matter and there is one crucial Liberal policy proposal – to repeal the Victorian Statewide Treaty Act 2025 – that I regard as retrograde and a slap in the face for First Nations People.
The Treaty offers First Nations Peoples the possibility that their views on matters that concern them will at last be represented ″inside the tent″ and that the wider community is prepared to listen to their concerns.
Having an agreement with First Nations people is simply the right thing to do. There is already an agreement, which can be honoured, and modified if necessary. To recognise the disadvantage that many Indigenous people have suffered over the decades and the need for us to build good relations, any government after the election should honour the Treaty.
Bruce Henry, Moonee Ponds
Preferential treatment
Your front-page article on an impending tight political contest within Victoria was a pertinent reminder that voters must be able to understand the significance of preference flows on polling day.
Unlike the UK’s first-past-the-post system, where the candidate with the greatest number of primary votes wins the seat, here in Australia, a sizeable number of electorates are determined by the cascading preferences that enable a candidate to get over 50 per cent and thus win the seat. This is significant in seats with a considerable number of independents who heavily favour one political party over another in their suggested preferences how-to guide.
The Werribee by-election in February last year was a case in point. Despite there being a whopping 17.5 per cent primary vote swing against the ALP, primary votes were not commensurately directed towards the Liberals and so Labor retained the seat by a thin margin.
Thus, if citizens do truly wish to see change in their electorate, they must give their primary vote to the alternative government and steer away from those independents who plan to highly preference the incumbent party.
Merely launching a protest vote away from the major parties is not good enough if it only guarantees the status quo.
One Nation is now also a main player, so voters need to wisely navigate the unique three-way contest and number every box carefully, lest their vote doesn’t count, is made redundant or is wasted.
Peter Waterhouse, Craigieburn
No US opposition
Perhaps the most mystifying aspect of government under Trump in the USA is the lack of apparent organised opposition to his reign. Not a day goes by where the citizens of his country and others are lied to, illegally arrested or detained.
World order is not what it was, and it is primarily his doing. Our economies are floundering largely because of his irrational greed and poor grasp of economic and political fundamentals.
So where is the organised opposition? The Democrats only seem to exist in the lead up to elections. There is no obvious leader of that party, someone who should be publicly challenging inaccuracies and mistruths, and the errors and decisions made.
World leaders step around him frequently, our own prime minister is not an exception. The leaders of Canada and Spain provide some authentic opposition and challenge. Trade unions world wide have been ‘bashed up’, the radical left is not what it was, and revolutionary youth are a distant memory, individualism and survival the cornerstone. Someone, somewhere needs to step forward, history proves it can happen. This bloke is no ordinary human, but he needs to be challenged. He hasn’t been legitimately tested, yet.
Marshall Toohey, Fairfield
New American low
In the face of Peter Hegseth’s decision to stage a barbaric, livestreamed execution, put yourself in the place of the American military personnel who are being asked to kill a person in plain view of the entire world.
Humanity reaches a new low in the USA.
Yvonne Trevaskis, Hobart, Tas
Last-gasp chance
Well-meaning actions long ago saw baths constructed in the river at Ocean Grove. The resultant silting, forcing Ocean Grove fishermen to instead moor at the Barwon Heads pier is insignificant compared to our government’s wilful continuation of permitting and subsidising fossil fuel extraction for industrial, household use and exportation. Resultant steady increases in land and sea temperatures are accompanied by steady increases in climate events and rising sea levels. During the August 1952 Barwon Heads flood, the river swept through a 1.5m sandbag levee.
After the August 1992 Barwon Heads floods, the levee at the Sheep Wash end of Barwon Heads was found to be full of rabbit burrows. That flood put the Belmont rowing sheds underwater, flooded Connewarre wetlands and closed Wallington Rd on the Ocean Grove side. All it takes is a perfect storm of riverine and/or flash flooding, a high tide, high winds and towns are underwater.
The costs of insecurity, higher house insurance or uninsurable properties on the coast are proof we’re living in a danger zone.
Various forms of council have permitted subdivision and building on river wetlands that extend from Geelong through to Point Lonsdale. Drainage systems are useless if, as with Wye River, sudden rain buckets down on a region. Lowering emissions now, stopping the environmental damage inflicted by fossil fuels, is our last-gasp chance.
Yvonne Parker, Portarlington
Invest in adaptation
As a coastal local, I am struck by the sheer magnitude of the scale of climate impacts on our coastline (“Climate threats increasing as coastal defences crumble”, 12/10). The threat to land and homes, beaches, and wildlife is enormous.
The Climate Council estimates that sea-level rise will cost Australia $855 billion this century. With associated economic losses of more than one per cent of GDP each year, this is the stuff of recessions.
Sea levels in Australia are expected to rise by at least 14cm by 2050 – that’s baked in. Clearly we must invest in adaptation. Yet, if a stitch in time was ever to save nine, now is the time to urgently address climate warming. We can and morally must prevent continued rising of the tide to ensure a safe and stable economy for those to come. Karen Campbell, Geelong
Build smaller homes
Housing experts in Melbourne are now talking about smaller homes to overcome the housing shortage (″The hard truth about alternative housing″ 12/10). As a graduate working on commission for AV Jennings out of a display house in the early ’80s in Victoria, people were happy to get into a 10 to 12 square home; and that by pitching the internal ceiling it becomes a very attractive home. Governments could set limits to home size in developments, caveats, if they wanted to. And get obstructive councils out of the way.
John Dobinson, Brisbane, Qld
Thanks for the favour
It’s not often nowadays that one reads a newspaper article that induces an early chuckle, and by the end has you giggling in fits. So to writer Margot Saville (“If your child starts year 12 exams today, don’t do what I did”, 13/10), a heartfelt thank you, and to those who missed the piece, ″do yourselves a favour″, as Molly might say.
Dan Happell, Brighton East
State sanctioned killing
Your correspondent (13/1) writes there is no moral equivalence between the USA’s judicial executions, and Iran’s wholesale slaughter of its own citizens. There is an old saying ″Whoever saves one life saves the world entire″. The inverse could be ″Whoever takes one life takes the world entire″.
State sanctioned killing is killing, no matter how many or how few.
Louise Kloot, Doncaster
Long way to go
I’ve always thought the longest word in the English language was ‘smiles’. There’s a mile between the first and last letters.
James Maygothling, Wantirna
AND ANOTHER THING
Government
Before we have government-run supermarkets, can we have our government run gas/electricity/water/births, deaths, marriages back?
Peter Rebbech, Kilmore
Have I got this right? After performative screams from zombie businesses, they want us taxpayers to pay so they can put their bills on the never-never.
Allan Dowsett, Preston
Senator Jacqui Lambie authentically understands, represents and acts for more Australians than any of the major parties, and especially those that posture as standing up for us. To watch her in full flight in the senate is to see the all-to-rare genuine article.
Dale Crisp, Brighton
Frydenberg
Is Josh “A Grateful Son”, or a prodigal son?
Malcolm Cameron, Camberwell
I wonder if Josh Frydenberg considered naming his book Just Joshing.
Paul Custance, Highett
With the possibility of Josh Frydenberg’s return to federal politics, don’t forget how he tried to undermine Daniel Andrews when he was leading the fight against the COVID pandemic in Victoria.
Reg Murray, Glen Iris
Just when the Liberal party has Labor vulnerable over their botched small business policy changes, along comes Josh to steal their oxygen.
Not to mention his one-time staffer, Jess Wilson, who could do without the distraction as the Victorian election approaches.
Rob McCasker, Murdoch WA
Trump
What D-chess is President Trump playing this week? His behaviour continues to be truly breathtaking.
Fiona White, Alfredton
Most political leaders would be happy to be characterised as Lincolnian, Churchillian or Ghandian. How will a future leader feel about being called Trumpian?
Bill King, Camberwell
Finally
The words adduced by your polysyllabic correspondents have become sesquipedalian.
Arthur Roberts, Elwood
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