One step from losing their homes

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LETTERS

Stability of home
Re “Hope for housing towers” 10/10. Earlier this year, after many requests, I was granted entry into the Flemington housing tower to have a last look of the flat I grew up in.
Our old flat looked much the same as it did back in 1967. I spoke to some residents outside the flats that day. Considering what they were going through, they still held a glimmer of hope. These people with no voice are the forgotten, poor people of Victoria.
They live with the fear of the eviction notice being slipped under their door. Uncertain where they will end up, what schools their children will go to and leaving the community they have grown to love.
Some of us are just one step from losing our homes or are already on the list with 69,000 Victorians waiting for a public housing flat to become available. I hope the government and courts do the right thing and save the residents so they, too, can go home to a reliable, warm place they call home.
Sharon Hendon, Glen Iris

Kindness lives here
Your Letters’ correspondent (10/10) lists ways in which she was helped when travelling overseas, and says these and other acts of friendliness would never happen in Australia.
She is wrong. Here are some examples: Giving money to the young mum/elderly person behind you in the check-out line because they don’t have enough cash; buying a meal for and giving cash to a homeless person; inviting a homeless person home to have a shower; driving strangers home to the other side of town after an event when no public transport is available; noticing someone in distress and staying with them until their support arrives; buying a meal for a struggling back-packer, and on and on.
These are a few of the ways my husband and I have shown kindness to strangers. There are many Melburnians out there just like us, which is why, yes, we are the friendliest city.|
Samantha Keir, East Brighton

Not very personal
The National Disability Insurance Agency contacted me recently regarding my son’s plan. A request had been made for Supported Independent Living funding that would enable him to live in a secure, long-term environment with 24/7 supervision.
We (his parents in our mid-80s), our son, and our support coordinator arrange to attend a face-to-face meeting to ″⁣discuss the findings″⁣ of our request. Then, via an email I am advised ″⁣that it will save us the inconvenience of attending a meeting to take a phone call″⁣.
I listen dumbfounded as the findings of the ″⁣home and living″⁣ team are read to me. I am reminded that the caller is only the messenger, and there is no place for discussion. These findings sounded suspiciously AI generated.
I will now need to spend many hours wading through bureaucratic red tape, ticking boxes telling my son’s story, hoping he will be seen and his needs met.
Note that NDIS states it uses a ″⁣personalised approach″⁣. I find what I have experienced totally unacceptable.
Helen Chappell, Barwon Heads

Watch and learn
It is proposed to live stream the execution by firing squad of Fort Hood mass killer Nidal Malik Hasan. Every American should watch this. Every American needs to feel the utter brutality of such an act.
There is no doubt the man is guilty, but must we diminish ourselves by an equally violent act? And what of the botched execution of Christa Pike? There are those who would cheer on such suffering in the name of justice. They deserve to watch this “justice” in action.
Any compassionate human, while appalled at these people’s crimes, could never support judicial murder.
And then, there’s the matter of the 203 wrongfully convicted people have been exonerated and freed from death row in the US since 1973. Were any people wrongfully executed? Authorities don’t comment on such “mistakes”.|
Owen Wells, Mont Albert North

Ethical quandary
I find myself in a seemingly irresolvable ethical quagmire.
I hear so many stories of people’s livelihood being seriously impacted by AI. Young people I know well who have studied for years, racked up HECS debts and now have well-established careers are ripped apart or severely compromised, and fearful for their future. Such anxieties are, of course, not confined to the young, but to almost every working person.
Here’s the rub: I am currently preparing interpretive signage for an historic building and as a bit of an experiment I asked AI to “write a 500-word display of…” . Within seconds, it produced an exceptionally well-researched and written sign. It would have taken me several hours to do the same, and not nearly as well.
Hence, my quandary, AI is quick, easy to use and can create a great many more signs in the time it takes me to do one. Edward De Bono would urge me to reverse the question and ask, “what are the consequences of not using AI”, or perhaps I should cogitate further on Peter Singer’s proposition that “more often there’s a compromise between ethics and expediency”. Both offering little solace nor resolution to my quandary.
Ian Broinowski, Battery Point, Tas

Dealer’s choice
The ATO isn’t the only one to have an issue with credit cards. When buying a new $40,000 car at a major dealer, we were only offered two options for payment, a bank cheque (very old-fashioned) or cash (very dangerous).
Dennis Fitzgerald, Box Hill

Price of progress
No community should have to fight to protect its homes, ancestral lands, water and way of life against the ambitions of a billionaire mining enterprise (“Mountains of Trouble: Bumpy road for Rinehart’s offshore mining push” 10/10).
The people of La Merced de Buenos Aires, Ecuador, deserve to be heard, respected and empowered to determine their community’s future.
Gina Rinehart’s pursuit of copper and gold through Hanrine raises important questions about community consultation, environmental protection and the rights of local residents. Copper and gold may generate enormous profits, but economic gain must never come at the expense of human rights, clean water, cultural heritage or environmental sustainability.
Local people must not be sacrificed for corporate profit. Their voices, livelihoods and right to protect their land must be respected. Genuine development requires meaningful consultation, robust environmental safeguards and accountability not the displacement or marginalisation of communities.
Artemisia Bennett, Moonee Ponds

Come the hour
Can’t wait for Trump and Netanyahu to lose their respective elections and be forced to face the “moral compass” of the International Court of Justice.
Moira Macdonald, Daylesford

Minty effort
The Australian Test team did not invent ball tampering. I called out an opposition public school player lifting the seam 70 years ago.
England won the 2005 Ashes using Murray Mints to get reverse swing. No one was sanctioned for that.
John Uren, Blackburn

Trifling words
Re Letters (10/10) and many lettered words. I can go one better with ‘Floccinaucinihilipilification”; 29 letters .
Your correspondent, however, might have said ’Antidisestablishmentarianismistic”.
Michael Spillane, Torquay

Give peas a chance
Let’s give Trump a Peas prize. Fresh or frozen?
Ron Mather, Melbourne

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