Source : the age
To submit a letter to The Age, email letters@theage.com.au. Please include your home address and telephone number below your letter. No attachments. See here for our rules and tips on getting your letter published.
EDUCATION
It is hardly news that our elite private schools are overfunded (“The private schools with the richest parents in Victoria revealed as extra funding flows”, 5/10).
By promising to additionally exempt these schools (aka businesses) from payroll tax, Victorian Liberal leader Jess Wilson shows she has no plans to reverse this trend.
Victoria’s elite private schools include Presbyterian Ladies’ College, with its newish $85 million aquatic complex, and Scotch College, which plans to extend across Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn, by acquiring the Vision Australia site for $60 million.
The proposed payroll tax exemption will cost the state in excess of $100 million annually while our state schools will continue with poor basic facilities, low morale and high teacher turnover.
If Wilson and her Coalition colleagues were fair dinkum about tackling the roots of crime and general slide into US-like inequality, they would stop acting as class warriors and start formulating policies that work as well for our shelf-stackers and call centre workers as they do for the high median-income families who can afford to send their children to our overfunded private schools.
John Carmichael, Hawthorn
Transparency in schools data needed
Your report, “The private schools with the richest parents in Victoria revealed as extra funding flows” (5/10), highlights the Australian government’s Direct Measure of Income, developed
to assess families’ capacity to contribute at Catholic and independent schools.
It is unfair to collect this data only for Catholic and independent schools and then use it to criticise those same schools.
If income data is to inform public debate and funding scrutiny, it should be collected and published consistently across all sectors, including government schools.
Every school should therefore have a Direct Measure of Income score. A universal measure would provide a more accurate national picture, particularly because families move between schools, sectors and states.
Every school should also report the proportion of students from Health Care Card families, allowing genuine comparisons of both advantage and disadvantage.
Sound public policy and fair funding require full transparency in data collection across every school sector.
David Wilkes, East Melbourne
Where does Wilson stand on funding?
What commitment will Opposition Leader Jess Wilson give to ending the obscene allocation of money to private schools while state schools have to survive on the smell of an oily rag?
If the Liberals are serious about improving the state of Victoria, they should start with an education system that treats all children equally.
Randall Bradshaw, Fitzroy
Maybe One Nation has the answers
What would Pauline Hansen and One Nation’s take be on the alarming overfunding of wealthy private schools in Australia?
I know it’s complicated to get your head around this grave inequity issue that undermines Australian society, but maybe One Nation has better answers than the Liberals and Labor, and above all Gonski.
Henk van Leeuwen, Elsternwick
Money flows to those who need it least
Surely, the time has come for the government, and the people, to cry “enough” regarding the overfunding of private schools.
Many years have passed since the Gonski reforms were introduced, yet public money still flows freely to those institutions that don’t need it.
No defensible argument has ever been mounted for the obscene amounts of extra funds provided to those institutions with the least need. |
Keith Fletcher, Glenlyon
THE FORUM
Indigenous insult
I was disgusted and appalled to read about the total lack of respect, the mocking of the Welcome to Country, the threat to “rip up the Treaty” and the disregard shown towards our country’s First People’s by One Nation including its Victorian leader (‴In prison by Christmas’: One Nation attacks Andrews, Allan in campaign launch″, 4/10).
As a society, we have so much to learn from the wisdom of First Nations’ elders. Our community is greatly diminished if we do not acknowledge and honour First People’s processes for self-determination and embrace the generous gift of the Uluru Statement from the Heart.
Susan Hillman Stolz, Frankston
All for independents
I am saddened and perplexed that people wanting to direct anger against the ALP and LNP, with a “burn the joint down” approach, are turning to One Nation with their weird, bigoted and ignorant populist policies,
rather than looking for independent parliamentarians to represent them.
Andrew Wilkie, David Pocock, Zali Steggall, Monique Ryan, Zoe Daniel, Ben Smith and so many more who have stood and been elected or lost at the poll are brave and committed people who have announced their policies and beliefs and stood by them, so much better than party members who, whatever they believe, must vote with their party in parliament.
Unlike the increasing number of party apparatchiks preselected for big parties, independents are successful in their own fields, and enter politics to serve rather than for a career.
Recognising the threat to their hegemony, parliamentary parties have worked together to pass legislation that decreases independent representation.
To really give the entrenched parties and their career politicians a wake-up call, we should support independents at coming state and federal elections.
Sadly, all the news oxygen is being pumped into One Nation.
Michael Langford, Flinders
One Nation call
Jess Wilson, as leader of the Victorian Liberal Party, is very ambivalent about One Nation, and refuses to state whether or not she would form a coalition with that party or preference them in the upcoming state election. On the other hand, Labor Premier Ben Carroll has been very clear about One Nation and the Greens.
Robyn Westwood, Heidelberg Heights
Coalition fear
The Victorian Liberals need to hold their existing seats and win at least 16 more to form a majority government. Even without the surge of support for One Nation, that’s not going to happen.
It’s understandable that many Victorians are disappointed with the Andrews/Allan governments, but disappointed won’t come close to describing how Victoria would fare under a Liberal-One Nation coalition which would be the reality for Jess Wilson.
Belinda Burke, Hawthorn
A childish target
Do those advocating adult punishment for youth offenders ever notice the staggering contradictions that emerge in related social attitudes? The article, ″Kids targeted by sadistic predators in online games″ (5/10), along with legislative attempts to limit children’s social media access, point to a clear recognition that children are immature and vulnerable, yet the moment those same children succumb to the manipulation (generally by adults) of their immaturity and vulnerability, suddenly they’re behaving like adults who should have known better, and so must now be treated like adults.
One Nation state leader Warren Pickering exemplifies the contradiction. On the one hand, he asks for public understanding and indulgence for his actions as an ″immature″ man in his 20s, but plans no such indulgence for teenagers – or 10-year-olds, for that matter.
Of course, none of the other parties – including my own Labor Party – are any better in this regard, though at least Labor has no plans to criminalise the actions of 10-year-olds.
Forget the kids, perhaps the politicians need to grow up.
Dennis Dodd, Shepparton
Credit card costs
The Reserve Bank ruled that a credit card surcharges cannot be applied. It appeared to be of great benefit for consumers, but the law of unintended consequences came into play. Banks increased credit card fees, cut reward points and some organisations now refuse to accept credit card payment.
The RBA or the federal government must step in and make organisations like the Tax Office and Macquarie Bank’s DEFT payment system accept credit card payments.
Robin Schokman, Doncaster
Bank charge furphy
The usual suspects are warning that ending credit card surcharges will bring businesses to their knees — apparently, the end of the world is nigh.
Nobody has challenged the fact that customers should never have been charged the full bank rate in the first place. Because the bank charge is an impost on business, this can be legitimately claimed as a deduction when a proprietor’s tax return is submitted.
Customers should only have ever had to pay the bank charge less what the government reimburses the business as a tax write-off. With the cost of living so high, the changes are welcome.
Ray Armstrong, Tweed Heads, NSW
Prove AI is so hot
OK tech bros, when your ″clever″ AI can solve spinal injuries, blindness and cancer, come back to us.
Until then, not one data centre.
Lee Guion, Portarlington
1950s not all bad
According to your correspondent, all was doom and gloom in Australia in 1953 (Letters, 5/10), but at least things were much brighter that year on the international front.
For a start, the USSR’s Joseph Stalin died, and secondly, the equally repulsive founder of the Kim dynasty, Kim Il-Sung, was prevented (with a contribution from Australian soldiers) from extending Pyongyang’s totalitarian dictatorship from North to South Korea.
Bill James, Frankston
Executions past
My ancestor, James Berry, was a hangman. He once tried three times to hang a prisoner, failing for various reasons. The prisoner was freed. One can only hope Christa Pikes is also given her freedom.
Brenda Owen, Moonee Ponds
Big tobacco
Criminals are selling tobacco products across Australia. Queensland is showing signs of tackling the issue (“Labor hails Queensland’s crackdown on tobacco”, 5/10), and belatedly Victoria is applying minimum resources to remove both a serious health hazard and an unlawful activity.
The huge reduction in tobacco excise duty, due to illegal retailers, is borne directly by the federal government. So, why isn’t it directing the Australian Federal Police to lead the task of closing down the illegal stores?
Surely, it is also past time for significant federal investment to be made in port X-ray cargo scanners to detect incoming imports of illegal products.
Mike Reece, Doncaster
Where will cuts fall?
Premier Ben Carroll promises to return the land tax-free threshold to the previous level of $300,000. Labor had reduced that to $50,000 in a desperate move to fund the massive debt they have incurred for future generations of Victorians to pay.
Victoria has the highest land taxes in Australia.
Carroll’s plan will take six years to implement (increasing the tax-free threshold by $25,000 annually to $300,000). Millions in lost revenue will occur, but Carroll advises Victorians that this cost will be offset by savings in government expenditure.
What services will be cut to reduce expenditure?
Ross Kroger, Barwon Heads
Theatrical reinvention
What a pleasure it is to read of the State Theatre renovation (″Curtain rises on a subtle but spectacular theatre facelift″, 2/10).
No need to demolish the structure nor gut the interior, no push for redesign, no cost or time blowouts, no starchitects strutting around. No callous disregard for the people who use it most. No deployment of police to restrain people infuriated at mismanagement or privatisation.
Just a timely intervention to improve acoustics, heating and cooling, increase disabled access, and gently bring a 42-year-old public building up to current standards and expectations.
Maintenance, in other words. Good to know we’re capable of it.
Dr Kate Shaw, School of Geography, University of Melbourne
City Square fails
Melbourne’s City Square reflects how out of touch the Victorian government is for signing off on this barren design (“‘It used to be beautiful’: The quiet failure of Melbourne’s revamped city square”, 3/10).
It is bureaucratic waste when what commuters and city workers simply want is what visibly works: grass, trees, undulating hills, and park benches — heaven for workers at lunchtime.
A bit of care maintains the grass, as proven at Flagstaff Gardens or at the popular 477 Collins Street (Olderfleet) courtyard, which thrives as well, admittedly with quality, comfortable artificial turf.
Jurgis Maleckas, Port Melbourne.
Too much sunshine
In 1971, Daylight Saving started in Victoria at the end of October and finished at the end of February, 1972.
Somewhere along the way, the start became the beginning of October, and the end the beginning of April.
Students head home from school in the hottest part of the day, and the house doesn’t start to cool down until late at night. For us winter people, six months of Daylight Saving is too long. We like our darker evenings.
Wendy Hinson, Wantirna
AND ANOTHER THING
Politics
Ah yes, what a great idea – let’s spend even more money on sport at the expense of health, education and law and order (never mind the potholes) just so we can continue to brag about being the premier sports’ state. (“Bold moves required to keep Melbourne at the top of its game”, 5/10). Bread and circuses yet again.
Anita Xhafert, Fitzroy North
Sorry, you don’t want transmission lines on your farms (“Farmers fear underground green energy link will ruin livelihoods” 5/10), but the reasons that farmers give sound rather flimsy when compared to the urgent need to halt global warming to protect our children’s future.
Ralph Frank, Malvern East
A big thank you to your correspondent (Letters, 5/10) for reminding readers that South Australia has banned political donations and the state pays for political campaigns on an equitable basis. It’s about time all the other states followed South Australia.
Robin Jensen, Castlemaine
I read with interest the predictions of a Republican catastrophe in the upcoming US midterm elections. Is it just me that thinks that this is just wishful thinking for what I reluctantly term “mainstream media? Surely, the incumbent and his sycophants in the White House have something up their sleeve?
Julian Guy, Mt Eliza
Furthermore
After reading the article about boosting my iron levels through a healthy diet (“How to eat your way to better iron levels”, 5/10), my only question is where to source bison meat? Perhaps kangaroo meat would do the job instead.
Sue Peterken, Berwick
Finally
Your correspondent (Letters, 5/10) comments on the fees charged by anaesthetists, arguing that they are too high. I suggest that for his next scheduled surgery he chooses to forego their services. Easy savings in a cost-of-living crisis.
Angus McLeod, Cremorne
The opinion newsletter is a weekly wrap of views that will challenge, champion and inform your own. Sign up here.
