Animal instincts
John Pitt writes: Who would I vote for in a ballot between the NSW Nationals and koalas (“Rebel ex-MP says Coalition will pay at the polls for reigniting koala wars”)? Most definitely, the winners are koalas by a country mile. (But I’d vote the same way if it was between the Nats and eastern brown snakes.)
Locking up children
Mark Hills writes: Julia Bergin’s short article is accurate and valuable (“Shocking WA youth detention footage a stark reminder of what incarceration can do to children’s brains”). The words from neuropsychologist and youth counsellor Warrick Brewer and Dr Diana Johns are entirely apt. Legislators should listen to such people, and to those involved behind the scenes in juvenile justice. By contrast, “Lock ’em up!” is the cry of self-absorbed, inept fearmongers who cannot see that the whole of society is responsible for raising a child.
Charles Klassen writes: I am still reeling from Monday’s Four Corners report. Australia’s lack of empathy with refugees and children is unconscionable. While governments spruik openness and transparency, they hide behind veils of confidentiality. The banality of the WA Corrective Services Minister Bill Johnston’s interview was embarrassing, his dereliction of duty irredeemable. How has he still got his job? Someone with authority needs to inform all our elected representatives that they are there to make a better society. Positions of authority are not learning positions; that should have been done years before in studying history.
Fine China
Gayle Davies writes: I first visited China in 1976 (“When the meeting is the thing: Xi-Albanese take a step to a reset”). Our guides — charming, fluent English speakers eager to discuss our political system with us — paid us what they thought was a great compliment by referring to then prime minister Malcolm Fraser as a peasant farmer. We were appalled. “Oh no,” we said, “he’s an evil landlord.”
Moral low ground
Barry Welch writes: In Queensland, rugby league players have the honour of playing their game on Artie Beetson’s bones, as his ashes were scattered over Suncorp Stadium. In Qatar, World Cup soccer players will have the shame of playing on the bones of 6500 migrant workers who have died over the past decade building the stadiums.
Dan the scam man
Brendan Murray writes: The Murdoch press attempts to drum up extinct controversies about Daniel Andrews hurts not once but twice (“News Corp’s conspiracy theories help shield Andrews from legitimate scrutiny”). First, for the naked political distortions that they are, and second, for missing the real controversies of the Andrews government — such as VicForests (the Victorian government’s own logging company) and its continued activities in old-growth forests in Gippsland and more recently the Wombat Forest. Why does it persist with such environmentally and politically damaging support for a loss-making enterprise with few or no local jobs? That’s a question that deserves real scrutiny from the press, not grubby and pointless muckraking.
Critical period
Robyn McLachlan writes: While the offer of free tampons and pads is good, it is not in line with the latest sustainability trends where using reusable period panties, cups, etc, is overcoming waste disposal issues. Subsidising the cost of period panties would be preferable (“Men on Twitter are losing their shit over Andrews’ free tampons announcement”).
Caught short
Roger Clifton writes: Justification of current emissions of 40 Gt/a would require magically stuffing 40 km³ of noxious, corrosive liquid CO2 into the earth’s nooks, crannies and waters every year. So what happens when the earth spits it back out? 1746 villagers at Lake Nyos found out, suffocated in their sleep. Where organic matter is nearby, microbiota converts it to methane, with hell to pay when it reaches the greenhouse. Face it. There is nowhere safe to put that much of the stuff for the thousands of years required.
Mark his words
Rob Feith writes: They would have to pay me a lot of money to attend one of his talks (“Labor boosts ticket sales for Latham’s Liberal fundraising gig”).
Alison Bussell writes: Love to hear Mark Latham talk! Adore comedy and Mark is a really funny bloke — although his ideas can make me regurgitate a good meal. Besides, I’m fascinated by his total lack of ethics and logic.
Ethics? What ethics?
Robert Cooper writes: There are two categories of journalists: those posting opinions and those reporting facts (“The media is regarded as Australia’s least ethical sector and that should ring alarm bells”). It is very hard to determine which are what when they come under the banner of analysis, insights or columnists. Where is the warning banner “right-wing bias” or “left-wing bias” as a caution to readers?
Tailoring your journalistic likes to those you are more likely wanting to hear from outdoes the generalistic assumption that all journalists and the media they represent are unethical or untrustworthy. Individual actions speak louder than words. We must dismiss such surveys as Bernard Keane mentions as too generalised and misguided or we will never keep ourselves informed and hold governments and other institutions to account.
Malcolm Harrison writes: I regard the Western media, including Crikey, the ABC, the SMH, Guardian Australia, etc, as the single most malign institution in the world today. I estimate that the media is responsible for 60-70% of the planet’s problems. I know nobody who trusts the media in any way. Those who infest media institutions generally have a positive view of what they do, but it is not shared by the public.
My first job as a journalist was as a reporter for The Daily Telegraph. After a year I resigned on the grounds that I could not tolerate the lies it was publishing. Journalism is historically based on gossip, and if one starts from that premise, the media can be entertaining, but as a source of useful or accurate information it is woefully inadequate. And that’s when it’s trying to tell the truth. Many times it is simply lying to spread misinformation and disinformation, as we are daily getting about the war in Ukraine.
The media in the West may be free, but by and large it is free to lie and deceive, and it does that in abundance. Time to mothball the whole project.
Rinehart of gold
Peter Schulz writes: My favourite side of Gina is her softer, self-sacrificial side – as a mother (“Poet, comedian, proletariat: a brief history of Gina Rinehart’s many multitudes”). Lang left some money in trust to Gina’s children until they could access it in their 20s. Darling mother Gina managed to change it so that the kids couldn’t access it, and then used the courts to fight the unhappy children.
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