source : the age
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ONE NATION
One Nation keep trying to convince Australians that they are ready to govern this country, yet their words indicate they lack true understanding of what it takes to lead a democratic nation. Australian leaders cannot simply disparage and express hatred for individuals and groups in our society. Leaders must demonstrate that they will serve and represent all people through their words, actions, and policies.
In a democracy, all voices are important, yet One Nation constantly bombard us with aggressive soundbites about who is of value in our society and who is unworthy.
To counteract these messages, we need to remind ourselves and each other that we can win the fight against the global wave of angry voices trying to overwhelm voters with ragebait, because we know that governing a country requires finesse, balance, and diplomacy.
Meagan Noronha, Heidelberg
Hanson must apologise for ignorance
Re ″Fury over Hanson’s ‘primitive race’ claim″, 15/9. Pauline Hanson’s denigration of our First Nations people is disgusting and she must apologise. It again suggests racism and ignorance.
Hanson needs to be reminded that this land was occupied by white people who systematically endeavoured to ″breed out″ Aboriginal people in many inhumane ways – disease, stolen land, and massacres – to name just a few.
Our First Nations people have a proud history of their relationship with the land, sea and sky. They carry a spirituality that many of us could learn from.
Judith Morrison, Nunawading
Indigenous Australians didn’t wreck the joint
How many languages can Hanson speak? Is she to be credited with inventing the wheel, or is she just going along for the ride? In the meantime, our Indigenous people can point to their traditional knowledge of their surroundings to show her how they lived on this land without wrecking the joint. If this is “primitive”, Indigenous people should wear this moniker as a badge of honour. We should all be more “primitive” if we want to save the world for our descendants.
Pamela Lloyd, West Brunswick
Hanson’s comments feed extremists
Pauline Hanson’s baseless comments about Andrew Hastie, Anthony Albanese’s late mother and Indigenous Australians have brought such a dangerous level of baseness to our politics. Her seeming inability to convert her anger into constructive, accountably evidenced policy for the common good of Australia, will encourage extremist One Nation supporters to follow her example to spread such baseless claims.
Jennifer Gerrand, Carlton North
One Nation fracturing an already stressed society
The latest revelations of Pauline Hanson’s hate agenda, while appalling, should come as no surprise (“Fury over Hanson’s ‘primitive race’ claim” 15/9).
Hanson is intent on fuelling rage and anger. In this instance, targeting and belittling our First Nations Peoples displays her complete lack of understanding of their place and contribution to our history.
While the electorate is experiencing economic pain and frustration with the major parties, the answer does not lie in embracing a party hellbent on fracturing our already stressed society.
The upcoming Victorian election will be another test of what we value and who we trust. The Coalition must declare who they will preference on the ballot, so voters can determine who can not only serve their interests but also protect what is fair and just in our society.
Anne Lyon, Camberwell
THE FORUM
Clueless political class
The recent ABC TV national forum on migration on Monday (14/9) exposed a political class completely out of touch. All sides argue over immigration tweaks and interest rate adjustments, yet completely ignore the structural engine failure ruining the country.
Ever since Covid, everyday Australians have been trapped in survival mode. The real culprit is 40 years of privatisation, corporate outsourcing, and absolute reliance on private developers and global consulting firms. We are paying double for outsourced services while our own public wealth is siphoned into private profits.
We do not need short-term political fixes to win the next election. We need to open a serious national dialogue about returning to the post-war, nation-building model that successfully created our middle class.
That means pausing the corporate ″visa factory″ to upskill our own workforce through proper, hands-on technical schools. It means keeping our own natural resources onshore to guarantee cheap domestic energy and revive manufacturing.
And, it means bypassing private developers so the government builds public housing directly– restoring the historical rule where long-term tenants could buy their home without a bank loan simply by paying their normal rent rate over 19 years.
It is time all sides of government stop serving their corporate donors and fix the country for its actual citizens.
Kylie Bowers, Reservoir
Beware simple solutions
Barnaby Joyce, is now an out and proud populist re slashing migration. He says One Nation is following ″the will of the people″. Perhaps those people want even more critical staff shortages in aged care, nursing and disability sectors? Some aspects of our migration program need tweaking, but surely not in the skilled migrant sector.
Simple solutions are easy to sell politically but don’t solve complex problems. In fact, they just create other challenges.
Sue Peterken, Berwick
Driving migrants away
It was sad to learn that articulate and passionate human rights and refugee lawyer Nyadol Nyuon, who professed on the ABC TV’s national forum on migration (14/9) to love her adopted country, feels she needs to leave our shores. She is exactly the kind of person this country needs to attract and keep as part of our multicultural society. We can ill-afford to drive these kinds of people away by the divisive and hurtful comments from One Nation.
Nick Toovey, Beaumaris
Strange patriotism
Since the Vietnam war, Australia’s SAS has been held in high regard amongst global special services units. Then came along Ben Robert-Smith and trashed that reputation, but the law of defamation caught him, and in so doing, helped restore the SAS’s previous reputation.
Unfortunately, two Australian women with a yearning for publicity don’t appear to want that reputation restored. Neither of them has any military experience. They would both claim to be patriots. Go figure.
Barry Toll, Pipers Creek
PM, time to step up
Anthony Albanese has long wished for more civility in parliament, and in society more generally. He does his best to model civility in his restrained presence when answering reporters’ questions, but he is more at home in the rough and tumble of question time in parliament where the Coalition opposition behave like a zoo at feeding time.
Then there’s Pauline Hanson, modelling the nastiness and ignorance which has been her trademark for decades and which appeals to her followers. Albanese needs to step up, take the limelight off Hanson, and offer a greater vision of what his Labor government stands for.
There is time, but he can’t wait for the economy to become more productive, inflation to fall and real wages to rise. Be civil, but take the initiative. And by initiative, I don’t mean attacking the aged care sector and those depending on the NDIS for a manageable life. Can’t he find any big issues to reignite the light on the hill?
John Whelen, Box Hill Sth
No cuts to aged care
The ceasing of the rebate to pensioners for health insurance to fund aged care is counter productive. The aged cannot linger on public health lists for essentials such as hip surgery, cardiac procedures and cataracts. Many pensioners who can’t afford increases in health insurance and will exit the system. This will result in more demand for aged care and hospital waiting lists.
Maria McKinnon, Northcote
So who volunteers for cuts?
A survey recently asked how governments should reduce debt. The majority of participants opted for decreased services. Not the services they individually use or rely on, I assume. Infrastructure improvements, like rail crossing removals, are quickly taken for granted, as are the dozens of new schools that government must provide. When governments, state or federal, attempt to curtail expenditure in any area, there are hordes of objectors. Where are the corresponding hordes of people offering to pay more tax, or forgo a subsidy?
Yes, there are many areas that require more, often urgent, funding, but despite what many seem to imagine, governments do not have vast orchards of money trees.
Gaye Boswell, Burwood East
Alternative facts
What reasoning is used by a politician in admitting to being a conspiracy theorist? As the term implies, conspiracy theorists don’t rely on reality to create their falsehoods; that is, all they need is an audience of fools. Which, it seems is what One Nation’s Warren Pickering thinks of people who would vote for him.
Henry Herzog, St Kilda East
BYO solar panels
Re ‴Moving at light speed’: Plug-in solar and batteries are coming to Australia″, 15/9. What more evidence do we need to confirm the pathetic standard of planning we have in this state and country, when renters and even apartment owners are expected to celebrate being able to bring their own solar panels with them?
Talk about a patch-up job to compensate for dumb design. Too bad for those with overshadowed balconies or just facing south. So much for the promise of urban consolidation. No wonder most of us prefer a detached house, rooftop solar of course, and room enough for children to play and oldies to top up their vitamin D, in a happily, sustainably decentralised Victoria.
Bernadette George, Mildura
Power costs plummet
It’s great to see renters and apartment dwellers will soon be able to take advantage of cheaper power through plug-in solar and batteries (15/9). The safety and affordability of accredited panels and batteries are assured through their established use in countries across the globe.
Since installing rooftop solar and a home battery, our power bills have plummeted in parallel to our reduced reliance on gas. It is only fair that all Australians can take advantage of our continent’s abundant renewable energy.
Julia Croatto, Kew
Time on duck season
More of the same under new Premier Ben Carroll is unlikely to return the Labor state government in November.
Changes in direction such as a royal commission into Big Build indicates a difference, but more is needed.
The annual assault on our native waterbirds called duck shooting season is an opportunity for change rather than continuing pandering to the gun shooters lobby as his predecessors Daniel Andrews and Jacinta Allan did.
The latter ignored the report commissioned by her own government to end this hopelessly outdated activity and now is the opportunity for this to occur under the new leadership.
Tony Delaney, Warrnambool
Player behaviour
As an avid watcher of many sporting codes, I am ashamed at the on-field disrespect that some AFL players display towards opponents.
It seems to be acceptable for some players to rub their opponent’s face into the ground, point out their obvious mistake via a tirade of abuse, and generally bring the game into disrepute with a win-at-all-cost attitude.
Coaches at junior level would be frustrated by this approach knowing that the youngsters mimic the behaviour of their AFL heroes.
I would hope that senior coaches are not encouraging this nasty, demeaning approach but, unfortunately, it appears that winning at the expense of your opponent’s dignity is what supporters are prepared to accept.
Peter Cooke, Gisborne
High speed Dutch
Your correspondent (Letters, ″Ride as Dutch do″, 15/9) writes of the nirvana of the Netherlands and its cycling paths of gold.
My first experience with the paths was trying to cross a street in Amsterdam in 2014 and nearly being run down by blinkered, high-speed Dutch giants, on said paths, not giving any heed to the pedestrians in their midst.
Rather frightening to experience!
Shaun Dunford, Mount Gambier, SA
Joy of Jack Russells
Re Letters and biting dogs (14/9). We had a Jack Russell terrier for 16 years, during which time she never bit anyone, not even strangers.
She was a rescue dog – someone dumped her, as a puppy, on Flemington racecourse. She was intelligent and loving and quick to understand what she was asked to do. She only had to be told once. I can’t understand why anyone would say “Don’t get a Jack Russell”.
Sue Bursztynski, Elwood
AND ANOTHER THING
One Nation
Indigenous people lived for 65,000 years in places where a white person would die in a day.
Tim Durbridge, Brunswick
Barnaby Joyce says to follow the “will of the people” and ignore the advice of economists. He’s become quite the expert in telling us to ignore experts, so I think I’ll take his advice and ignore him.
Barry Miller, Kyneton
I am annoyed by the huge publicity One Nation and Pauline Hanson are getting. However, the more exposure she gets, the more we know about her hateful “policies”.
Maureen Goldie, Blackwood, SA
Pauline is right, our Indigenous people didn’t invent the wheel. But their culture has existed for more than tens of thousands of years. Our society, however, might not survive much longer!
Martin Siegrist, Moriac
Pauline has just trumped Trump.
Bernie O’Brien, Fairfield
Furthermore
When I play 500, my friend’s favourite call is No Trumps.
Alan Rainer, Carlton North
According to Trump ″The only control or ‘guardrails’ that AI needs is a strong and smart and (high IQ) president″. Pity they don’t have one.
Russ Davis, Camperdown
How long before we start calling AI, AE? Artificial Extinction.
Ron Mather, Melbourne
Who wants more of their life misappropriated by tech?
Bill Burns, Bendigo
The Victorian government has spent billions digging holes under Melbourne while in the regions we’ve dug our own at risk to lives. Follow a swerving driver on the Mornington Peninsula, you know it’s a local dodging familiar potholes. Fix them properly, please.
Fran Henke, Hastings
Re ″Hands up for self driving cars″ 15/9. There’s some irony in having your car insurance reduced if you choose to keep your hands off the steering wheel.
Robin Jensen Castlemaine
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