LETTERS
Sydney Morning Herald
Friday March 12, 2010
We'll all end up paying for bad family planningThe opposition has cheerfully pointed out that the big banks will be one target of its proposed parental leave tax. I wonder if they have considered how the banks will recover this unwelcome impost. The answer is simple: they will raise interest rates and pass on the cost to borrowers, including mortgage holders and small businesses.The other, hopefully unintended, consequence of this poorly thought out proposal is that large companies will reduce dividends to shareholders, thus hitting small investors hard.Well done, Tony. That's what happens when politicians make policy on the run for purely opportunistic reasons.Dennis Metcalf DrummoyneHow about an equivalent of HECS for new parents? Advance them money as necessary to fund their unpaid parental leave, to be repaid when they return to work through a slightly higher tax rate.The Parenting Contribution Scheme would balance private benefit against public costs, would be fairer and would not require new taxes to pay for it. This type of repayable grant could be used in other situations where there is a benefit to individuals, such as buying their first home or making energy-saving home improvements.Tony Reardon Terrey HillsSenate should take a closer lookSo the Howard government's welfare-to-work reforms were a failure ("Welfare crackdown misses target", March 11). No surprises here for welfare rights organisations, who have been on the receiving end of calls from parents, unemployed people and people with disabilities in record numbers over the past few years.The irony is that this same week the Senate released a report into government plans to extend income management rules quarantining half a person's income support payment. Initially this would affect some sole parents, some long-term unemployed people and some young people. In future, it could affect those living in a region deemed by the minister to be a "disadvantaged location".Mirroring the Coalition's changes of 2006, a rushed Senate inquiry produced a report, with the submissions from the overwhelming majority of community, welfare and church organisations arguing that the changes were poorly targeted, ill-conceived and unworkable.The welfare changes by the Coalition may look rather warm and fuzzy when considered against the government's measures. The Senate majority report offered a few minor recommendations, but failed to undertake the hard analysis one would expect of senators.I get the sense that, unless commonsense prevails, in a few years I will be reading in the Herald that an evaluation has found the income management welfare changes had failed to meet their objectives. Who said history never repeats itself?Gerard Thomas Policy Officer, Welfare Rights Centre, Surry HillsNo monopoly on suffering or crueltyWhy do Australians who support Israel try to use other atrocities to defend its actions? Norman Rich (Letters, March 11) talks about the massacre of Christians by Muslims in Nigeria. His anger is not so much about the massacre, but that it is unfair to bring up Israel's crimes when there are other atrocities in the world.Why bring up one atrocity to take the heat off another? All massacres, whether committed by Israel or Nigeria, deserve condemnation. There is no monopoly on suffering or cruelty.The reason so many people speak out against Israel is precisely that it has a vast army of people in the West - such as Rich - who try to deflect any criticism of its actions. Using other atrocities to do so is just one of these strategies.Patricia Philippou HamiltonSince Israel has no oil, as Norman Rich points out, could he explain why every government in the West, including our own, grovels to it?Richard Collier SpringwoodResurrection ofthe golden calfGreat to see God has wasted no time in getting back to work after his holiday ("Alive and kicking: the 100kg miracle they'll never forget", March 11). Unfortunately we lost several hundred thousand humans to earthquakes while He was away, but the "miraculous" birth of the elephant calf sure cheered me up.Dave Watts ClarevilleI don't know who prayed to whom for Taronga's elephant calf to be born alive after being diagnosed as dead in utero, but there must be a sainthood in it for someone.Bob Macoun LindfieldPlease can someone confirm that with all the publicity about the now-he's-dead, now-he's-alive baby elephant, Max Markson is not involved.Colin McAuliffe EppingIgnoring lessonsof VietnamMiranda Devine describes protesting against the Iraq war as "Vietnam era foolishness" ("A salute to brave soldiers in a nerve-racking theatre of war", March 11). It seems fitting to evoke the Vietnam war. It was also ill-advised, against overwhelming public opinion and involved hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children being "liberated" to death.Brett Elliott BoondallBy all means make a film about the ghastliness of war, but if you set it in the midst of one still being waged, and present the enemy as dirty, shadowy, unintelligible and amoral, and your own soldiers as brave and heroic, it is just propaganda. No wonder the Americans embraced The Hurt Locker.Shelley Keeble BeecroftTurn on, tune inMaurice Newman should spend more time watching his own TV station ("ABC head wants fair go for sceptics", March 11). Climate change sceptics such as Ian Plimer, Lord Monckton and Nick Minchin have had plenty of opportunity to air their views on the ABC. The fact that they appear to have failed to convince either the ABC staff or audience says more about their views than any lack of balance in reporting.Philip Cooney Wentworth FallsTanks for nothingTim Reid's praise for Defence's procurement of the Abrams tanks (Letters, March 10) was well merited but for one detail - the tanks were secondhand. So they did a deal for secondhand vehicles, and collected the right vehicles at the agreed price on the agreed date. Well, bully for them, but hardly cause for congratulations and champagne all round.Peter Leonard GriffithIn the wrong placeAt least six large, paramilitary-style transit officers have patrolled the turnstiles at Central each morning this week. This is a common occurrence. They cannot be everywhere of course, but perhaps if a few were rostered to patrol suburban trains and stations at night, dreadful assaults such as the one at Mount Druitt might be avoided ("Teens held over attack on man in wheelchair", March 11).Robert Wheeler ErmingtonHigh-speed railcould take offI suspect the main objections to any high-speed rail proposal will not come from minority groups worried about swamps or forests, but from other fauna (Letters, March 11). I imagine the keepers of the great metal birds owned by Qantas and Virgin Blue would be whingeing loudest.The only profitable Amtrak rail sector in the US is reportedly the Washington DC-New York-Boston corridor. I certainly found it faster and more comfortable than flying, and it delivered me to the centre of New York for the same price as a discount airfare.Given the popularity of the Sydney-Melbourne air corridor, I would have thought the economics stack up here as well. Maybe the airlines should jump the gun and invest in the technology. It's all part of the transport business, isn't it?Alex Varley Dulwich HillBagging PeterWatching shoppers' continuing addiction to plastic bags, I'm reminded of the Environment Minister's promise to reduce their use. How about it, Peter? You have certainly got time on your hands.David Crommelin StrathfieldA fare go for allAndrew Dalton (Letters, March 11) asks "who and where is this 'reasonable person' on whom the law places so much reliance"? My 1970s legal studies tell me he is on the Clapham omnibus in (I think) 1940s London. Not sure that this fellow really has much idea of what is or is not child pornography in Australia in 2010, but the law deems him "the reasonable man" on whom all this is predicated.Apart from anything else I wonder where "the reasonable woman" is?Chris McKimm Karangi
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