Australia needs to have a minister with commitment – The Age

Is this the best we can do?

Colin Smith, Mount Waverley

Mike Foley's excellent article makes it clear that the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act is good legislation and that what is needed is the political will to use the legislation.

Instead what we seem to have is the political will to water it down.

Ray Peck, Hawthorn

The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act failed to prevent the loss of over one-third of threatened species and ecosystems. The main causes included a lack of political will, land clearing and exemptions and neither consideration nor prevention of climate change. We now await Graeme Samuel's imminent review of the act, and Environment Minister Sussan Ley's response ("Running out of time", The Sunday Age, 14/6).

Obviously we must do better. We must accept that the natural environment is the fundamental basis of all life. We ignore or over-exploit it at our peril. Hence, ideally now, we should start again and urgently create a new, compulsory national environment act, a national environment commission, and an Environment Protection Authority as a watchdog with very big teeth.

Barbara Fraser, Burwood

Despite being a wealthy, developed nation, Australia's environmental track record is among the world's worst. We lead the world in mammal extinctions, have the highest rate of biodiversity loss bar Indonesia, and we are the WWF's only "developed" land-clearing and deforestation official "hot spot".

Nevertheless, in The Sunday Age we read that Sussan Ley's main issue with the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act is "unnecessary delays" in approvals.

Is it a coincidence that the readers of our nation have put Nineteen Eighty-Four, the 70-year-old dystopian novel that introduced the idea of "doublethink", (holding "simultaneously two opinions which cancel out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them"), back in the M's bestseller lists?

Lesley Walker, Northcote

Shane Wright's article "Billions wiped off Boomers' nest eggs" (The Sunday Age, 14/6) contained a few surprises.

There is no doubt that many self- and part-funded retirees are finding things a bit tough. But surely asking the government for significant relief will be against many of their principles.

Many of these people have their assets courtesy of being born at the right time and have become asset rich because of rising wages, inflation and asset values over the past 30 or so years. Many were the same ones who campaigned so vigorously against the proposal to stop franking credits being returned as cash (ie because they actually paid no tax).

While the government should assist in a few ways (the deeming rate adjustment, for example), asset-rich retirees should be down the pecking order for assistance. Many people are struggling to keep a roof over their head or to get the next meal on the table.

Australia will have a significant debt once we come out the other side and it will have to be repaid by the younger generations. These retirees should be prepared to pay their share and complain a little less.

Shaun Quinn, Yarrawonga

Jacqueline Maley ("The PM's blind spot", The Sunday Age, 14/6) is succinct as ever. But why would we be surprised at the hypocrisy of Scott Morrison.

Let us consider for example, the incarcerating of people rightly seeking asylum, yet Morrison and others in the government brandish their Christian values.

It is not hard to be cynical when it comes to Morrison's outrage at racism targeting Chinese people, it is an economic response, not a moral response. It seems that many present and past members (Alexander Downer, for example) of the government need to go back to school ... Captain Cook did not discover Australia.

Education Minister Dan Tehan's talk to the National Press Club motivating our young to study STEM subjects was revealing. While criticism would follow is it an acknowledgment by government at last that science is important?

Will we now get action on climate change? Science has been at the core of our success in combating COVID-19 and climate science will ensure survival of the planet. Here's hoping.

Howard Brownscombe, Brighton

I have earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics and statistics, a bachelor's degree in business and accounting, a master's degree in finance and a doctoral degree blending accounting and organisational learning.

In all of that study, the subject that most educated me, as opposed to trained me, was first year English literature in my maths degree. I learnt from the ancient Greeks, Scottish poets, Shakespeare, Russian masters and 20th century authors. I learnt about human behaviour and frailty. About the best of humans and the worst of humans.

The study of humanities is essential to our society, not something to be discouraged.

Louise Kloot, Doncaster

Michelle de Kretser and Richard Flanagan are right to condemn proposed changes to funding of the humanities at Australian universities. ("'Aren't we supposed to be the clever country?"', 20/6).

If we are to avoid becoming a nation of barbarians, we must acknowledge the importance ofstudying in depth the great movements of history, which are the foundation of our modern civilisation.

If arts degrees are to continue to "be the 'bedrock' of culture and democracy" then they must be recognised for what they are and not have the almighty dollar sign attached to them.

Helen Scheller, Benalla

Yet again we are seeing politicians misusing public money. Pauline Hanson, Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack, Chris Bowen and three cabinet ministers are reported to have lodged a string of questionable travel claims further confirming our lack of trust in politicians.

The Museum of Australian Democracy says if current trends continue, fewer than 10 per cent of Australians will trust their politicians by 2025 resulting in ineffective and illegitimate government and declining social and economic wellbeing. Perversely, the most trusted organisation in Australia, the ABC, is the very one that the current government is emasculating.

Australia desperately needs a genuine bipartisan corruption watchdog as in other democracies around the world. When we see the unrelenting hypocrisy of our politicians it breeds cynicism, which eats away at the very core of community.

Surveys show that increasing numbers of Australians are seeing politics as irrelevant, and a look around the world where authoritarian-populist forms of government are gaining momentum should awaken Australia to that which ultimately threaten the institution of democracy itself. The stakes could not be higher.

Bryan Long, Balwyn

The Australian Home Heating Association is quoted in The Sunday Age ("GPs support removal of home wood heaters", 14/6) as estimating the nationwide industry to be worth well over $400 million and a significant provider of jobs. Once again we have the jobs argument used to attempt to justify pollution and environmentally destructive activities.

The $400 million claim must be viewed alongside the $8 billion the Victorian Environment Protection Authority claims air pollution will cost the state by 2027.

Municipal councils do not enforce their nuisance laws against wood heater pollution and the best the EPA can do is say that they preferred people not to use wood heating and issue a suggestion for owners to clean their flues.

As these instrumentalities are useless in enforcing existing laws there is no sensible alternative to banning wood heaters in residential areas.

Robin Stewart, Romsey

I recall there was a sustained and robust battle over the volume of water that needed to be returned to the Murray-Darling to keep it healthy and viable. Finally a figure of 3200 gigalitres was settled on, much lower than what many experts were aiming for.

Now Victoria and NSW, four years out from the agreed deadline of 2024, are saying they cannot meet the deadline (The Age, 20/6), meaning that something less than 3200 gigalitres is their target.

We've all seen the photos; Our politicians and bureaucrats and authorities have a lot to answer for. They are not standing guard over our critical resource as they are supposed to.

Brendan O'Farrell, Brunswick

In 1933, Nazi Germany outlawed the Jewish practice of kosher animal slaughter. Kosher was deliberately misrepresented. The propaganda claimed Jews partook of perverse ritual killings of humans for their blood as well as animals.

The notion that Halal food is somehow cruel and "foreign" has become very popular within the right-wing anti-Muslim narrative in Australia and around the world.

As was kosher, as is halal, Chinese wet markets are now in a fuzzy cultural focus. The Western hysteria about wet markets runs concurrently and as subtext to the cultural contestation.

Criticism of Chinese cultural food practice has a long history. Historically the threat of Chinese political culture and people brought with it the threat of rice and noodle domination. From the Victorian gold rush to COVID-19, attitudes to China have been carefully curated.

The dissemination of information is now as it's never been before. New platforms for news broadcasting, new technology, new viruses bring new narratives rich in perspective but ridden with echo chambers.

Food narrative and culture are inseparable. A good diet should be balanced.

Political polemic on food is more than just a culinary perspective.

Denzil Hunter, East Melbourne

Your editorial ("Scandal shows need for watchdogs with teeth", 17/6) rightly queries the Morrison government using the COVID-19 crisis as an excuse fornot releasing its exposure draft on its proposed integrity commission.

What's more disturbing is that a National Integrity Commission Bill approved by the Senate last September has been languishing in the lower house since then because the Morrison government has gagged a vote on it.

Prime Minister, what is so hard or time consuming about putting this bill on the agenda for a vote. We need an effective integrity commission now. You say you are on our side; it's time to walk the talk.

Carlo Ursida, Kensington

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Australia needs to have a minister with commitment - The Age