As a 40-year ALP member, I now question party’s integrity
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Photo: Matt Golding
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VICTORIA
As a Labor member for nearly 40 years, I never imagined I would struggle to support the party at an election. Yet, today I find myself deeply unsettled by what appears to be a pattern of avoidance, poor judgment, and troubling optics from the current leadership.
The refusal to call a royal commission into the Big Build — despite persistent concerns about governance and culture — is indefensible. To claim royal commissions “don’t change culture” is a furphy; most since the Costigan commission in the 1970s have done exactly that.
The (federal) Heydon royal commission into union corruption cited by the premier is an outlier.
No existing agency appears equipped to fully investigate these matters, making the government’s position even harder to justify.
For the first time in decades, I am questioning whether Labor still reflects the standards of integrity and leadership I have long supported.
To restore confidence, a royal commission into the Victorian Big Build should be initiated without delay.
Gary March, Elwood
Premier needs to resign to save her best work
Premier Jacinta Allan has much to answer for. Consequently, her best work in partnership with First Nations people to deliver Victoria’s statewide Treaty in 2025, now recognised as “one of the most defining moments in Australia’s history since invasion” (″Treaty negotiators win human rights award despite uncertainty over landmark document″, 21/7 ) is under real and present threat.
The alternative coalition government, led by Jess Wilson, has committed to axe Treaty within 100 days of being elected. There is zero chance that a rising One Nation from the comfort of its new parliamentary seats would do anything but support this backward-looking wave of neo-colonialism.
Victorians have clearly had enough of Premier Allan. But to toss out Treaty and the promise that the First Peoples’ Assembly offers us and future generations should not be the price we all have to pay to see her gone.
Jean Ker Walsh, Richmond
Government seemingly incurious of cost spikes
The Victorian premier has recently stated of the big build investigations on “these new patterns of criminal behaviour being driven by too much organised crime” within the industry (‴Extraordinary, unforeseeable’ and extremely costly: CFMEU pricetag of each Metro station revealed”, 21/7).
Once again, Allan has failed to acknowledge any suggestion that such behaviour was driven by opportunities arising from an apathetic government, unwilling or unable to deal with suspected and sometimes obvious criminality, while seemingly barely even curious as to how costs blew out to such an unacceptable level.
It is also disconcerting that, as the former Big Build boss, she gets to set the agenda for how this alleged criminality is investigated.
Stephen Farrelly, Donvale
Clear out the bad apples
The corruption re the Big Build and the money wasted is appalling. One hopes that the new CFMEU administrator Michael Crosby can clean out the union and remove all the bad apples (‴Idiots in Victoria’ holding back CFMEU: Administrator blasts former union bosses, demands reform″, 20/7).
Christine Hammett, Richmond
ALP national conference an orchestrated event
It’s a sad story for ALP voters and members that the Labor Party’s national conference will turn out to be an orchestrated exercise in which the ALP government and its weigh-in with full control.
This is unlike in western and northern Europe, where full membership of a political party has participating democratic voting rights to determine their party’s manifesto. Australia must change.
Henk van Leeuwen, Elsternwick
THE FORUM
Joyce under pressure
Is Barnaby Joyce on another sinking ship?
After abandoning the Liberal/National coalition for the One Nation party, he now finds himself having to defend the indefensible. Anyone who watched him being interviewed on the ABC’s 7.30 on Monday night must ask if Joyce is uncomfortable having to defend his leader’s antics in England and justify her holidaying in Italy.
Yelling at the dog is usually a sign that you are under pressure. Joyce needs to decide what are his political convictions. What do you really stand for, Barnaby?
Marisa Di Giacomo, Beaumaris
British didn’t assimilate
How ironic that Pauline Hanson of so-called One Nation is accusing migrants of the very thing that her ancestors and ours perpetrated on First Nations people. She accuses migrants of not assimilating. Neither did the British colonialists. The new “Australians″ refused to speak the native dialect(s), refused to hunt with spears and gather and engage in practices like fish traps.
They did not socialise with the Indigenous people. They spoke English at home. They vowed allegiance to England.
How First Nations people would have liked to deport the new settlers. (“Joyce backs Hanson’s call for deportations of immigrants”, 21/7),
Jan Marshall, Brighton
Migration, not so simple
Migration is a far more complex subject than your correspondent (Letters, 21/7) portrays. Consider the Afghan cameleers who dug the dams, put up the telephone poles and helped build the inland roads. Without that legendary contribution, Australia’s 20th century economy wouldn’t have soared “on the sheep’s back”, enabling post-World War II migrants from conflict-shattered Europe to find the prolific opportunity here.
The Afghans were Muslim, not “Judeo-Christian”, and were respected for their values. Today, we have The Ghan in their honour.
Also, generalisations about recent “migrant incompatibility with our culture, leading to criminal activity and antisemitism” conflict with the University of Sydney’s findings that, regrettably, antisemitism has been traced across the political spectrum to the late 1800s.
Further, an academic study compared the approaches of Australia and the United States in accepting comparable cohorts of South Sudanese refugees. The US program, conducted as a mission of national unity, was so successful that a million more African migrants were sought. Conversely, the negativity of then prime minister John Howard, and the largely complicit Australian media, was found to have tarnished humanitarian resettlement here.
This concurs with evidence from the Transcultural Section of the World Psychiatric Association (2017) that post-resettlement conditions, not migrant backgrounds, have the greatest impact on settlement outcomes.
Barbara Chapman, South Yarra
Bipartisan multiculturism
Last week One Nation’s Pauline Hanson only told half the story behind the building of multicultural Australia.
Liberal prime minister Harold Holt began the legislative steps to abolish the White Australia Policy in 1966. ALP prime minister Gough Whitlam definitively renounced it in 1973.
This paved the way for the vibrant, thriving multicultural society that all Australians enjoy today. So, to be clear, both the two major political parties had the same vision and goal. Multiculturalism is neither a left or right concoction and it benefits all Australians regardless of their political leaning.
Prue Blackmore, Carlton North
Man-sized world
As I wrestled with the seat belt cutting into my neck for the umpteenth time on a bus trip to outback South Australia, I reflected on being a woman in a world sized for men.
The seat belts came at a height fine for men, but difficult for shorter women.
At least, there was a footrest on the tour bus but look at any public transport. Women cannot easily have their feet flat on the floor, but men can do so easily.
As for the toilets at rest stops, men wander in and out at their leisure while women must queue – and this is the case for theatres, shopping centres and everywhere else. Please, 50 per cent more toilets for women than men everywhere.
And whoever designed the fancy sensor-controlled taps, soap and dryers in modern toilets: Try being a mum washing a child’s hands in one of those things – or a woman or child trying to reach for soap dispensers on the wall high above the basins.
What about a laundry sink so deep a woman must bend over to reach the bottom; a man’s longer arms can reach the bottom without causing back problems?
It’s time for women to be properly consulted in the design of everyday items.
Louise Kloot, Doncaster
Roundabout rules
On several occasions recently, I have been involved in arguments about right of way at our many roundabouts.
Most people seem to think that you ″give way to the right″ , whereas the actual rule is to ″give way to any vehicles already in the roundabout″. You must yield to anyone already on the roundabout.
Given this common and popular misconception, should our traffic planners simply acknowledge the issue and bring back the give-way-to-the-right rule at roundabouts?
Robert McDonald, Sailors Falls
Tried and true
As a Type 1 diabetic for 46 years in a family of diabetics, I’ve known one constant through extraordinary change: any technology is only as good as supporting ecosystems around it.
But despite alarming rises in diabetic device malfunctions in Australia (“It’s changed millions of lives, but this tech ‘nearly killed’ Tye”, 20/7), mindsets and behaviours keep shifting to over-dependence on fallible technology ecosystems.
Insulin pumps and constant glucose monitors (CGMs) are described as “life-changing”.
They are. But so is every diabetic management advance since
1922, when insulin first saved a diabetic child.
Insulin pumps and CMGs undeniably improve diabetic outcomes. But they still depend on functioning ecosystems. Finger prickers for blood testing get called “outdated”. I disagree.
Like syringes, they’re infallible diabetes management resources, always current because they don’t require upgrades or reboots.
With diabetes, your personal management, support networks and surrounding environment’s culture and reliability matter more than ever. But today’s tech makes it too easy to disregard these.
Type 1 diabetics need to be present for our own condition. Faced with fallible tech ecosystems, it’s ever more vital to recognise that technology – like each human – is not an island.
Anna Ridgway, Abbotsford
Ban wood fires
The article, ″New advice to cut risk of dementia″ (20/7), found fine-particle air pollution to be a major risk factor. A low-hanging fruit would be to ban wood fireplaces and outdoor fire pits in urban areas.
There is usually one in every neighbourhood, oblivious to the smoke blowing from their chimney, impacting the health and amenity of those downwind, all so they can enjoy the ambience of a roaring fire.
A government banning the use of these polluting devices would find overwhelming public support. It would reduce pollution with the resulting health benefits, reduce logging of our native forests, and have a positive impact on carbon emissions.
And, I would no longer need to check the direction of the wind before hanging up the laundry.
Barry Lizmore, Ocean Grove
Clean vent stacks
Dementia is, like many other diseases, strongly linked to the negative impacts of vehicle exhaust fumes (especially PM2.5s). One solution in reducing exposure would be to install cleansing technology in the exhaust
vent stacks associated with our road network.
The technology has been available for decades, so why has it been disregarded here in Melbourne? The profit motive?
Ruth Clemens, Richmond
The flawed game
Argentina has rightly been criticised for its tactics in the World Cup final which yielded no attempted shots on goal until a couple of speculative wide shots in the dying minutes when they were down and desperate.
This was not only an indictment on the team, though, but on the sport itself. The white-and-sky-blue decided that they could not beat Spain head to head, so they chose instead to stonewall for
120 minutes, playing for a 0-0 draw, so they could then try
their luck in the lottery that is a penalty shootout.
Any sport in which it is so difficult to score that this is a reasonable strategy (Argentina very nearly succeeded) has fundamental flaws. Make the goals bigger so that we get more scorelines like the 6-4 from the “who cares” England v France consolation final.
This would render stonewalling ineffective, result in fewer games decided by luck or the referee’s whistle, and reduce the incentive for the histrionic diving.
David Olive, Kensington
Trump no sport
Donald Trump’s behaviour on the World Cup final podium is a reminder that he has never played in a team.
Lyn Beaumont, Bentleigh
AND ANOTHER THING
Matt Golding
Barnaby Joyce’s barking performance on ABC’s 7.30 on Monday brought to mind the philosophic thinking of the dyslexic person who ponders: ″Is there a Dog?″
Peter Myers, East Melbourne
Was it Pistol or Boo?
David Hay, Greensborough
You can tell everything about a man by the way he treats his dog.
Catherine Ross, Sandringham
″Don’t worry about the dog, just answer my question″: the media quote of 2026?
Hans Paas, Castlemaine
If I pass on, and come back as a dog, please, please, not as
Barnaby Joyce’s.
Denis Evans, Coburg
Is Barnaby Joyce’s command a precursor for yet another cruel, repressive and divisive policy announcement: One Nation to introduce mass deportation of unregistered man’s best friends?
Jennifer Quigley, Balwyn
The polls say One Nation has about 30 per cent of first-preference votes but it is regularly reported it has virtually no candidates. It will be interesting to see how 30 per cent of voters will vote for candidates who don’t yet exist.
Claire Merry, Wantirna
Furthermore
Spain had no difficulty in removing United States President Donald Trump from photos of their successful World Cup team celebrating their final victory against Argentina. If only it
was that easy in real life.
Jim Picot, Altona
Your correspondent (Letters, 21/7) equated the Collingwood win against Carlton on Saturday night at the MCG with the World Cup final a day later. He might also have mentioned that the MCG attendance of 83,885 was larger than the World Cup final attendance of 80,663!
Brian Kidd, Mt Waverley
Thanks, Neil Mitchell, for raising the profile of the MFWs (19/7). As they like to say: ″Witches to your brooms!″ Neil, you’re welcome to come along for the ride.
Caryn Auld, Point Cook
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