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LABOR POLICY

Whitlam would be spinning in his grave

In the 1970s Gough Whitlam, love him or hate him, was a reformer who changed the face of Australia. He extricated Australia from the Vietnam War and abolished conscription, Medibank (now Medicare) was established, social welfare reforms included the supporting mother’s benefit and welfare payment for homeless people. The equal pay case meant that Australian women doing the same work as men were paid an equal wage.

The Australian Legal Office and Australian Law Reform Commission were set up. The death penalty for Commonwealth offences was abolished. The Family Law Act providing for a national Family Court was enacted. The Australian economy was opened to the world, the voting age was reduced to 18 and an Order of Australia replaced the British Honours system. Whitlam established the National Gallery of Australia and replaced God Save the Queen with Advance Australia Fair as the national anthem. He even gave us free university education for a short time.

Federal Labor in 2021 (“Labor dumps negative gearing, backs tax cuts”, The Age, 27/7) seems to no longer be about reform and equity, it’s just a please vote for us and we’ll keep the status quo. Whitlam would be spinning in his grave.
Nic Beredimas, Sunbury

Franking credits policy needs refinement
Labor has completely misread the causes of its 2019 election loss. The negative gearing policies it took to the election had three elements. All existing arrangements were grandfathered, which left no existing property investors worse off, future negative gearing was limited to newly built properties and future CGT discounts were cut to 25 per cent.

The property industry’s self-serving arguments against these policies should have been easily demolished. With property prices now forecast to increase by 20 per cent this year (10 times the rate of inflation across the economy), stronger policies are required to slow this hyper-inflation and limit the inter-generational damage being inflicted, particularly on the younger generation, 60 per cent of whom have given up hope of ever owning a home.

As John Howard’s 50 per cent CGT discount has turbo-charged investor demand since 1999, cutting that back to 25 per cent, or even less, would be sensible.

The tax policy which contributed to Labor’s election loss was its proposal to eradicate all franking credits, with no grandfathering. The campaign against this policy was extremely effective, particularly with non-tax-paying retirees. For the next election this policy needs significant refinement.
Rod Williams, Surrey Hills

Party’s proud roots need to be honoured
Labor plans to change its policy on negative gearing as a result of the unpopularity of the plan to abolish it at the last election. Rather, it was the huge scare campaign run by Clive Palmer and the Coalition that turned the voters in what had been assumed would be a win for Labor. Turning its back on the traditional values of the Labor Party will alienate long-time loyal supporters, who will look elsewhere to give their support.

Perhaps this opposition should point out the detrimental effects of such policies as negative gearing, and how it unfairly helps to keep home ownership out of the reach of most young people, and those on modest incomes. The Labor Party needs to remember its proud roots and all it has accomplished over the years through representing ordinary people.
Mary Linnestad, Corryong

Essential reforms yet again put aside
How sad to see that we no longer have a federal opposition. Instead of learning that good policy is not enough, and that it needs to be presented in a coherent manner while ditching the arrogance, the party has given Mr Morrison a free pass. Labor now stands for absolutely nothing, and essential reforms for Australia are yet again put aside, to the detriment of the nation.
Ruja Varon, Malvern

THE FORUM

Missing statistics
If Australia had been unfortunate enough to experience the COVID epidemic on the same scale as the UK, then instead of about 918deaths we could have suffered more than 49,000. The UK has learnt how deadly the virus can be and has invested heavily in vaccination. I wish that the person who dropped the glossy flyer in my letter box telling me that vaccines are bad for me had included the above statistic among their multitude of garbled “facts”.
Peter McCarthy, Mentone

Roundabout woes
Buried in the report of Melbourne City Council’s expressions of interest ads to attract bidders for its $540 million development site on the southern side of the Queen Victoria Market (“Queen Victoria Market plans near final phase”, The Age, 24/7), the council amped up its demonisation of the Queen Street roundabout, which is destined for demolition, labelling it a “hostile” intersection.

The roundabout functions safely as a traffic-calming pocket park and a green entrance to the market. The council plans to bulldoze the roundabout, destroy 20 mature trees and replace a unique urban forest with a complex set of traffic lights, choking off the flow of traffic in and around the market to gain an extra 2000 square metres of high-rise building space.
Bob Evans, Melbourne

Command failure
Allowing Australian soldiers in Afghanistan, or anywhere else, to take it upon themselves to display a Crusaders’ cross on their uniforms isn’t just contentious, it’s disgraceful (“Roberts-Smith wore Crusade badge”, The Age, 27/7). It seems emblematic of a breakdown in military discipline and a failure of defence force command.
Lawrie Bradly, Surrey Hills

Absurd solar plan
The plan to charge consumers for sending (solar) power back to the grid appears to be absurd (“Consumer group backs ‘solar tax’ changes”, The Age, 27/7). What incentive will there be to go solar and reduce the reliance on coal and gas-based power systems? The feed-in payment rate has reduced over the past few years even as consumers have continued to put panels on the roof in an effort to reduce bills and to take the pressure off the grid.

Not only do we have governments that are climate deniers and don’t incentivise the purchase of electric vehicles, we will soon have new rules about “selling” solar power back. Consumers need encouragement, not impediments.
Denise Stevens, Healesville

Power imbalance
The article on a “solar power tax” includes advice from a so-called energy consumers group – Energy Consumers Australia – supporting the proposed energy market rules that will permit energy retailers to charge a fee for electricity exports from solar power producers. This group was established by the former Council of Australian Governments Energy Council. Their financial statements indicate their funding source is the industry. So this is a government-established, industry-funded consumer group. It would be pushing the proverbial up hill to say this is an independent body. Its public support and “consumer survey” for these controversial changes is conveniently timed for the release next month of the regulator’s decision. Looks like a co-ordinated strategy to me.

Just to declare my interest, I have a solar system on my roof, and when I export power I receive 9c/kwh from my supplier, and when I use power from the grid I pay 20c/kwh. Looks like a pretty serious power imbalance already exists. These proposed changes will just make it worse.
Ian McKenzie, Canterbury

Megawatts of good sense
Credit to the City of Melbourne for the Power Melbourne concept (“Melbourne to build battery network”, The Age, 27/7). Perth has been trialling community batteries since 2018. Last year, South Australia created a Virtual Power Plant where home solar and battery systems were installed in 3000 social housing properties in Adelaide. However, with “all these batteries distributed all around the place”, to quote Nicholas Aberle, some in kilowatts, some in megawatts and some in gigawatts, it would be helpful if one metric unit became standard. The one in the middle, megawatts, seems the most sensible.
Ray Peck, Hawthorn

Reflected glory
Thank you, Ariarne Titmus, for the privilege of watching one of the greatest races in Olympic history. You swam the perfect race to beat the legendary Katie Ledecky, who swam the race of her life. And you are just as impressive out of the water as in it. I have no right to be basking in your glory. But I am.
Geoff Goonan, Glen Iris

Action, not apology
In a time when most Australians no longer trust politicians to tell the truth, we might want to thank Environment Minister Sussan Ley when she says that she doesn’t really have a duty of care for children affected by climate change. It is refreshing when a politician tells us what they truly think.

Unfortunately, what she says is also deeply distressing and shameful. Worse, there is nothing new about our government denying a duty of care to children. We have seen decades of child-removal, of inaction and silence in the face of mounting evidence of clerical rape and sexual assault, while Labor and Coalition governments have dumped children in asylum-seeker camps or corrections facilities, exposing them to horrific abuse and violence.

In 2020, 499 Australian children aged between 10 and 13 were put in prison. Of these, two-thirds were Indigenous and on remand. Of course decades after the most grievous abuse of children, premiers and prime ministers like to offer a solemn apology. In Ley’s case this probably won’t be needed as there won’t be anyone to apologise to.
Rob Watts, Ivanhoe East

Minister for what?
Now that Sussan Ley has refused to acknowledge her responsibility, as deemed by the High Court, to today’s and future children, by working to limit the effects of climate change, she has pleaded against the international assessment of the Great Barrier Reef as being in danger and she previously moved in Federal Parliament for each state and territory to supervise all environmental issues, for them not to be managed federally. Why is she still the Minister for the Environment?
Jill Bryant, Malvern East

Privileged position
It’s easy to protest against vaccination when you live in a country where, because the vast majority of people are vaccinated, you don’t have to fear being left disabled because of polio, blind, deaf or with heart problems because you’ve caught measles, mumps or rubella as a young child. I encourage people with anti-vax attitudes to live a year in a country without vaccination programs. Then they can make all the health decisions about their own bodies they want.
Vicki Myers, Hamlyn Heights

Consolidate gains
There has been a worrying number of readers urging a diversion of vaccines from Victoria to NSW given Sydney’s dire situation. While the suggestion may be well intentioned, it is troubling in two respects. Firstly, vaccination is not a rapid fix to Sydney’s problems; while essential in the medium to long term, it is not going to shorten the lockdown. Secondly, for Victorians, it is a return to the Coalition’s “It’s not a race” rationale behind the vaccination program. Right now Victoria is largely ahead of the game, and has a largely co-operative populace who would like to think that the worst is behind them.

We all know, however, that all that can change in the space of a few days. The tragic consequences of one removal van are testament to that. The current hiatus should be a chance to forge ahead and increase the proportion of those vaccinated, particularly in critical front-line areas of health, education, distribution and transport. We must consolidate the hard-earned gains in this fight to give hope of long-term stability.
George Watson, Inverloch

Flagging relevance
With national flags conspicuously on display at the Olympics, surely it is obvious that the Australian flag is tired, outdated and ambiguous, barely distinguishable from other previous British colonies, particularly New Zealand.

It’s time we had a serious discussion about a competition for a design for a relevant emblem for a contemporary, independent, unique Australia.
Lucille Forbes, Brighton East

Time for change
I could not agree more with Margery Renwick’s plea (Letters, 27/7) that our flag should be more representative of our nation. There is little about the flag that is symbolic of modern Australia and arguably it is offensive to our Indigenous brethren.

A flag should be designed to reflect a common bond between the members of a country, while clearly indicating its ownership to members of other countries. The one symbol of Australia that is both admired by all Australians and recognised by members of other countries is the graceful image of a kangaroo on the move. A yellow flag with the green image of a leaping kangaroo is my idea of a modern Australian flag.
Maurie Trewhella, Hoppers Crossing

An unkind twist
Oh Peter Hartcher, you are being so unkind (“A twist in the US alliance tale”, The Age, 27/7) when you write that the US has not won a major war since World War II. For in truth the US won the only “major” war that mattered to them, post 1945, with the collapse of the Soviet Union and its brand of communism in 1991.

The next war has begun and it goes beyond just China’s growing assertion of hegemony in Asia to who has global primacy. Thanks to Donald Trump’s inept leadership, China has won the early skirmishes, but who wins the war is uncertain.
Sam Bando, St Kilda East

AND ANOTHER THING …

Credit:

Australian Labor Party
It appears the ALP is now policy free. Strategy: Get rid of annoying policies, don’t oppose Coalition policies, just hope they make a mistake.
Bill Pimm, Mentone

Australia welcomes the newly amalgamated LNPALP party confidently led from behind by Scottony Morrinese.
Jerry Koliha, South Melbourne

What a backdown by Labor … now there will be virtually no difference between the Liberals and Liberal light (ex-Labor).
Marie Nash, Balwyn

Now is exactly the time for big, brave and bold policies, after eight years Labor still has nothing.
Paul Custance, Highett

If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em, I guess (“Labor dumps policy on negative gearing”, 27/7).
Lindsay Zoch, Mildura

Will Aussie battlers vote for the Laborel party?
Denis Liubinas, Blairgowrie

Furthermore
“The brazen nature of the pork barrelling was that it was so ham-fisted” (Editorial, 27/7). Surely this is a case of the Morrison government giving pigs a bad name.
Kevan Porter, Alphington

I can’t understand why I can never find toilet paper at the supermarket but there are always plentiful supplies of aluminium foil. What are people making their hats from?
John Pritchard, Melbourne

If a “sun tax” is brought in for consumers, should a “carbon tax” be brought in for businesses and corporations?
Jane Taylor, Newport

Mr Morrison released a plan for a Commonwealth Integrity Commission in 2018, l think the vaccinations are in front.
Peter Baddeley, Portland

Finally
Masks are going to be with us for a while. What are the “medical conditions” that give you an exemption from wearing one? Is self-entitlement one of them?
Belinda Burke, Hawthorn

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