Bold actions highlight Coalition’s weakness

Credit:Illustration: Cathy Wilcox

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Federal politics: Bold actions highlight Coalition’s weakness

On the day the IPCC told the world again that environmental catastrophe is inevitable if we maintain the status quo, Bob Brown and Bridget Archer reminded us of the power of the people, and of what revolt looks like.

Brown quit his life membership of the Australian Conservation Foundation in response to its endorsement of the safeguard mechanism bill (“Brown quits conservation group in protest at stance” 23/3). Liberal MP Archer announced on ABC’s Radio National that she was utterly exasperated by the lack of engagement by the Coalition in the safeguard mechanism debate and reminded us that it’s not just the Greens and independents who hold the balance of power when the bill is debated.

Australians have waited too long for real climate action. It’s time for us to join Brown and Archer and to revolt against the status quo. It was Australian Army Lieutenant-General David Morrison who famously said: “The standard you walk past is the standard you set.”
Karen Campbell, Geelong

LNP should be accountable
The Greens are under fire for trying to get the government to stop further oil and gas approvals (“Bowen stares down Bandt on climate bid”, 22/3) as critics suggest they are seeking perfection rather than accepting the “solution” being proposed. No-one seems to be criticising the LNP for opposing the kind of action required if the IPCC’s latest warnings are to be addressed.

The Labor government should make a clear commitment that if this legislation is passed, they will not give further approvals. Otherwise they are not sincere in their commitment to the IPCC’s aims. If they can’t do that, maybe the Greens should abstain and leave the big parties to fight it out.
Chris Trueman, Southbank

Destructive force
Federal Labor is in power but it is the Coalition’s compass that is steering the ship. The stage 3 tax cuts for the rich, the push to drive down power bills and AUKUS are all commitments made before the election to offset fears about Labor. As a consequence, this government is hamstrung when it comes to steering its own course. It may be smart politics on behalf of the conservatives but it is disastrous for our country.

The current bill to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is a case in point. The Greens are being blamed for stonewalling when in fact it is the Coalition – who lost plum seats in the last election to teal candidates owing to their belligerence on climate change – who are the real culprits.
They are no longer just oppositional but are proving a destructive and undermining force.
Tony Newport, Hillwood

All-or-nothing weakness
Does Bob Brown still believe his “honourable” veto of the emissions trading scheme, thus aligning himself with Tony Abbott, got the best result for the environment? I hope current Greens leader Adam Bandt isn’t as obstinate and can actually negotiate with the ALP for a better deal, without risking Brown’s all-or-nothing stance that ultimately hurt the environment.
Jayson Argall, Northcote

Generation blame game
I’m a Boomer. I’m sick of being blamed for, well, just about everything. We are not all “plump, sleek and entitled” as your correspondent suggests (“Stuck with a contradiction”, 23/3). Some of us are appalled by the lack of action on pressing matters such as climate change. In our own small ways, we do what we can by recycling, composting, walking, rugging up in the cold.

We don’t all have fat superannuation accounts and fluff around with our lives meeting for coffee and dining out, ignoring the needs of others. Without our volunteering, the country would collapse. And, glory be, some of us still pay tax.
Jane Ross, San Remo

THE FORUM

Our part to play
Mick Ryan’s illuminating and disturbing analysis (“Xi’s canny play distracts West from Pacific”, 23/3) reminds me of former China strongman Deng Xiaoping’s belief from the 1960s that it doesn’t matter if the cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice. Xi’s bromance with Putin catches all the mice he needs to distract the West from his strategic aims in the West Pacific – and that’s where we come in. We have a part to play in winning the war in Ukraine and winning the peace in the West Pacific.
Nick Toovey, Alice Springs

Mixed feelings
Like your columnist Cherie Gilmour (“Feminist malfunctions and the art of kindness”, 23/3) I have some mixed feelings about men giving me precedence through a doorway. Many years ago after attending a staff training session about respectful workplaces a male colleague opened a door for me and after I thanked him he muttered “only the ugly ones object”. Oh, the irony!

As a feminist I have pondered these issues many times and have come to the conclusion that if the gesture is well-intended we can generally accept it as a kind action, not a disrespectful one.
April Baragwanath, Geelong

Kindness of strangers
Thank you, Cherie Gilmour for your discussion of chivalry, feminism, kindness and respect. I have never taken offence at my chair being pulled out, or a door being opened for me. I look on it as politeness, awareness of another and an act of kindness. Like Gilmour, I agree that rather than getting caught up with mixed messages and interpretations, allow the kindness of a stranger an act of generosity, nothing more, nothing less.
Julie Ottobre, Sorrento

At his post
A youngish middle-aged man walked through the shop door before me yesterday and as a mild octogenarian feminist I caught his eye. He got the message and was at his post to open the door as I left. Kindness stays with you for days.
Margaret Skeen, Point Lonsdale

Good manners
But when does etiquette and politeness come into the equation? Isn’t it rewarding when a lady with a pram and a babe on board or others say “thank you” when my etiquette forces me to wait for their passage on a footpath. This is not chivalry, this is normal etiquette, dare I say good manners. Yes, I will continue to wait for ladies to go in the elevator before me, open doors for them and even let them precede me in the supermarket queue, which always produces a smile, a psychological reward for good manners. It is better than a dagger glance such activity may generate in a person who is critical of good manners.
Felix C. Behan, Parkville

Hollowed out
The Victorian state bureaucracy isn’t “rapidly losing its capacity to undertake its own work” (Andrews government triples spending on outside consultants”, 23/3). That capability is already long lost. The decline began with public service redundancies forced on the Kirner government in the early 1990s, by financial necessity. Downsizing and outsourcing continued under Kennett, driven by neoliberalism.

Successive governments since have not reversed the trend. Many tenured public sector positions at all levels have been replaced with short-term contracts. The senior executive service is expected to provide independent advice and apolitically implement policies, while treading on eggshells in the form of contracts able to be terminated by the government at will. Legions of ministerial staff are employed specifically to give partisan political advice. Consultants selling services and with a vested interest in selling more, top up the government’s bank of advisers, researchers and analysts.

All this adds up to the replacement of frank and fearless advice to government, with what politicians want to hear. The money spent getting to this point, including the billions paid to consulting firms over the past eight years, is less important than the longer term deterioration of the public service and with it, the quality of government.
Lawrie Bradly, Surrey Hills

Buying ‘yes’ men
The excessive use of consultants (″⁣Andrews government triples spending on outside consultants″⁣, 23/3) by governments, both state and federal, has been going on for 40 years now, though it only rears its head every few years when the costs are revealed. The Big Four have made many millions, if not billions, out of governments by providing advice that a properly funded public service could provide. It is no surprise that the huge consultancy firms have prospered at a time when neoliberalism has been in ascendancy.

These firms have consistently pushed the small government/free market agenda. It is long overdue that governments ceased using consultants – aren’t their experts in universities? – and rebuilt the public service as a body capable of giving “frank and fearless” advice.
Greg Bailey, St Andrews

A Voice for hope
If Abraham Lincoln were alive and capable of commenting on the referendum re an Indigenous Voice to parliament, I am sure that he would urge us to find the “better angels of our nature” and vote yes. A vote for hope, a vote to improve the lives of Indigenous people and a vote to make us a better nation.

A no vote is a vote for the status quo or worse, nothing will change and once again we will have refused to listen to the Indigenous community in this country. Many are withholding their support and questioning how a Voice will improve the lives of Indigenous Australians – they are clearly not listening to the voices in the Uluru Statement.
Graeme Gardner, Reservoir

Permanence a problem
“If not now, when?” asks the Prime Minister. The answer must be never; democracies only have one class of citizen. In any case, the fact that the proposed Voice is to be enshrined in the constitution forever is evidence that its proponents do not believe that it will solve the problems used by the prime minister to justify it.
Albert Riley, Mornington

Better skills in store
I have to agree with the call to include more practical classroom skills in teaching degrees (“Philosophy out in call to boost teaching degrees”, 23/3). When I walked into my first permanent job as a teacher after graduating, college had given me the practical skills and knowledge to teach everything from art to woodwork to ceramics but not “how” to teach and almost no skills in high school-classroom management.

I have talked to fellow graduates from that time and they agree. We started to learn the necessary classroom skills on day one in our new jobs. And we had to learn fast.
Frank Flynn, Cape Paterson

Term of cruelty
The term ″⁣woke″⁣ once referred to, “aware and actively attentive to important facts and issues of racial and social justice”. However when terms such as snowflake and lesser terms coined by the far right of politics failed to connect with the masses they seized on “woke” in an attempt to discount sentiments of human decency.

And here we have The Age with two headlines in a day (23/3) featuring the term. Considering its current negative usage and connotations, would it be too much to ask that we avoid using this term?
David Burt, Traralgon

Exploring all angles
It is disappointing that, rather than engaging with the serious issues presented in the play Cut – stalking, unprovoked assault and the trauma of being terrorised – your theatre reviewer chooses to quote statistics to hold one form of assault up against another, thereby diminishing the importance of the situation being presented. No commentary should be so reductive as to imply that only certain types of sexual trauma deserve to be explored onstage because they are more prevalent. Sexual assault is sexual assault.

Yes, a predominance of women assaulted already know the perpetrator and there are plays that deal with that issue. This play is about the terrorisation of women – and others – by those who pursue them, physically or online. It is about a state of mind that women are made to live with subliminally: the fact that they are made unsafe in their workplaces, in public spaces, at home and online, simply because of who they are.

This work is aimed at bringing these more insidious forms of trauma and assault into the light for discussion. The review was more interested in discussing what the play isn’t, rather than engaging with what it is.
Laurence Strangio, director of Cut, Fairfield

Delightful re-creation
One of the best ballet films ever produced was in, of all unlikely places, the Essendon aeroplane hangar. The Australian Ballet Company with Robert Helpmann and Rudolf Nureyev, along with props and fresh produce sourced from Queen Victoria Market, created Don Quixote on a hot day in January, 1972.

Fifty years later Ballet Australia re-created this masterpiece. I had to see it, and yes it was worth it. The sets, costumes, lighting, music were all reminiscent of the 1972 film. And from where I was sitting the cast also seemed to be enjoying themselves. There is nothing more magical than seeing performers at their artistic best, and seeing them enjoying the experience. Tribute to guest artist Daniil Simkin, who is so artistically brave to take on a part so close to Nureyev but he does him exceptionally well.
Diana Huggins, Melbourne

Underground treatment
Our adult child paid $1500 for an “underground” psilocybin treatment and his anxiety and depression have both largely abated – the difference is truly amazing. This follows 10 years of traditional treatments at huge personal and financial cost, but which provided hardly any long-term benefits. Don’t make psychedelics affordable only by the wealthy by over-complicating the treatment options.
Name withheld on request

And another thing

Credit:Illustration: Matt Golding

Donald Trump
The circus ringmaster apparently wants to be handcuffed entering court. Certainly adds to the theatrics but also to the violence.
Gary Bryfman, Brighton

It seems America is about to go to war again, this time with itself. Just another Trump uprising to protest the imposition of justice.
John Walsh, Watsonia

The Voice
I do believe the Voice, recognition of First Nation people, will pass with a huge Yes vote.
Why? Simply because Australians are not mean-spirited but generous.
Sean Geary, Southbank

Furthermore
Boris Johnson wrote a 52-page submission to the House of Commons privileges committee to explain/excuse/obfuscate his lockdown parties. One sentence would have sufficed: Sorry, me and my fellow privileged associates thought we were above the law.
Jon Smith, Leongatha

Pay public servants to serve the public, not consultants to serve themselves.
Barbara Lynch, South Yarra

With skills-based teaching and classroom management as a way to train and retain teachers, how long until we see the reinvention of teachers colleges?
Joan Segrave, Healesville

When someone, either male or female, holds a door open for me, I say thank you and walk through. When I hold a door open for someone I expect the same courtesy … which is not always forthcoming. Marie Nash, Balwyn

Now that Nazi acts are being banned, I suppose I am not now allowed to laugh at Basil Fawlty’s Hitler mime in The Germans episode of Fawlty Towers.
David Baylis, Drouin East

Finally
Essendon on top of the ladder – however fleetingly – proves that God sometimes lets her hair down, and indulges in the occasional sense of humour.
Peter Mcdonald, East Kew

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