Marked man
Colin Flegg writes: I agree with Western Australia’s Premier Mark McGowan: if you break it, you pay for it, and if you assault officers who are just doing their job there must be consequences (“‘Deliberately flouting law’: juvenile justice is bringing McGowan honeymoon to an end”). It’s easy for people who are removed from the front line to point the finger, but what is their answer to the problem?
Justin Palandri writes: When a government starts to believe it is untouchable, as evidenced by McGowan rejecting warnings about breaches of the law and convention as part of his execrable conduct relating to juvenile justice, I’m reminded of the saying “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. The lack of a viable opposition in the WA Parliament able to keep or restore the checks and balances so necessary to democracy is terrible — and has created an opportunity for McGowan and others to engage in increasingly autocratic conduct. Anyone who trusts the political class with relatively unfettered power and expects it to behave with integrity and decency has ignored history and is sleepwalking into a room that will be hard to exit. The notion that only the extreme left or extreme right of the political spectrum is ever guilty of totalitarian conduct is a fallacy.
Pain and suffering
Judy McKay writes: I am 67, live in regional Victoria, have osteoarthritis, and use no more than four Panadol Osteo daily to manage the pain (“Women, regional Australians ignored as public health lobby moves to curb pain relief”). My doctor is fully aware and supports this.
I believe this move by the Therapeutic Goods Administration has been motivated by a study that some teenage girls use paracetamol to self-harm. This is indeed very sad, but the proposal to restrict or ban sales of paracetamol seems to me to be a case of mistaken problem-solving. If the problem is some teenage girls feeling sufficiently distressed to overdose, surely the solution lies in more and better mental health services. I am very angry about this proposal. It negatively impacts people such as me, and I would be amazed if it did not represent a substantial increase in the cost of the drugs (i.e. smaller pack size will inevitably incur higher costs) let alone the attendant need for a prescription. Have any of these people ever attempted to get an appointment with a doctor in regional areas?
David Simpson writes: For 30-plus years, many of them as a runner, I managed lower back pain with Aspalgin, a mix of soluble aspirin and low-dose codeine. It worked perfectly with no adverse health effects. Now GPs won’t prescribe it and tell me to do Pilates classes. If I a) enjoyed doing Pilates, or b) it worked, I would have done so years ago. To quote commentators on another issue: “My body. My choice.”
Simon Davis writes: This is another ”do-gooder nanny state” power grab. It restricts choices for those people who definitely have pain and costs them more money to have to get prescriptions. I doubt it is saving any lives or restricting abuse. And it will waste doctors’ time with bureaucracy.
Marian Arnold writes: At 83, with chronic back pain and arthritis, I now have to bother a GP for a script for slow-release paracetamol 660mg for my four pain relief tablets a day, a deadly dangerous drug habit. Has the pharmacists’ guild got the government firmly in its grip? Mind-bogglingly stupid overreach.
Robert Harvey writes: I am 75, have osteoarthritis and have successfully managed my medication for 60 years. I find this push by “do-gooders” to limit my access to paracetamol insulting and disrespectful. ABC TV news today said the overdose problem was concentrated among teenage and younger females. They are not bulk-buying paracetamol; they’re taking it from home supplies. It would seem likely the problem is a mental health one, which the banning will not address.
Dan about town
Margaret Ludowyk writes: Bernard Keane’s commentary on Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews claims that he is stating the truth, much to the offence of people like me — “rusted-on Labor supporters” (“News Corp’s conspiracy theories help shield Andrews from legitimate scrutiny”). He refers to scandals, but Andrews has not been found guilty of any wrongdoing. No doubt Andrews has enemies, but why do we have an IBAC to investigate allegations of wrongdoing methodically and fairly if we can just delegate that job to the media? So smear and innuendo are all it is at the moment — until IBAC completes its inquiry.
I look forward to Crikey’s commentary on the investigation into the Victorian Liberals’ dodgy “Ditch Dan” fundraiser. I believe that won’t be completed before the election. Until you journalists treat both sides of politics equally in Victoria, we will remain infuriated.
Andrew Kruger writes: Our argument for intense scrutiny of any politician needs always to be tempered by balance and even-handedness. Branch stacking has always existed and will continue in some form. Why? It works. One way of avoiding it is by full public funding of elections and banning all political donations. That’s as likely as politicians volunteering to limit their pay rises to a creeping old age pension. Modern politicians are mostly insiders looking to feather their multiple nests, rather than advocates for a community in which everyone is entitled to a nest.
On balance, state voters get it right most of the time, despite the delusion of Murdoch’s attack media. The Victorian opposition includes an unelected foreigner named Murdoch trying to distract voters with puerile conspiracy theories, and failed politicians preoccupied with finger-pointing, navel-gazing and continued branch stacking by the lunatic religious right. All this simply reinforces the voters’ choice for a government that gets things done, rather than an opposition that has lunch with mobsters and unelected zealots. As for the economically conservative “wolves in sheeps’ clothing” teals, don’t get me started.
Peter Harkness writes: I think it is reasonable and sensible for Andrews to refrain from commenting on IBAC’s findings until its final report is released. Comments before this will encourage debate based on only half the story. Even to enlarge on what he meant by smear and innuendo would inevitably do the same.
Andrews is the most productive and progressive premier I can recall in the 50 years I have followed Victorian politics. In so many important ways he is transforming and modernising the state. Under the federal Coalition governments from Abbott through to Morrison, Victoria was starved of its proper share of federal funding, which is why its state debt per capita is higher than other states. The main criticism I have of Andrews is that he allows logging of our native forests to continue.
Peter Logan writes: It’s true that the right-wing media and the Liberal Party fail to hold Andrews to account because he’s playing their game and winning the politics. Take the F1 Grand Prix. After Andrews signed on for more state subsidies, he’s sitting on the annual report as he knows it is a lossmaking event. The auditor-general found it causes a net annual loss to the economy. He doesn’t want any attention paid to it as he’s used up all the Kennett propaganda such as passing off the TV audience for a whole season as if it watched his race.
Andrews uses Jeff Kennett’s style of “big projects” that actually don’t measure up against benchmarked alternatives. It’s clever, but has landed Victoria in the situation of having the worst deficit in Australia.
Alison Bussell writes: Sad to hear Andrews is allegedly endeavouring to cover up a donation regarding training of health workers. Good on the journalist who looked at this but was allegedly shut down by Andrews. Until such time as Victorians wake up to the untrue gutter trash dished up by Murdoch’s Herald Sun and the Seven Network, we will never truly have a strong and safe democracy in Victoria. It’s unclear why people still invest their hard-earned money into Murdoch newspapers, which peddle only news that is positive to an LNP government and loathe the working class.
Ross Eberhard writes: While I agree with Crikey that Andrews needs to be held to account by the media, the Murdoch and Nine media reporting highlights the personal not policy. Until both organisations move beyond that, personality will remain the key issue.
Waste of effort
Roger Clifton writes: Once again, the ideological sentiment of reduce-recycle-reuse has interfered with practicality. Remove it by incineration (“Breaking down climate barriers with an appetite for plastic”).
Beverley Cantle writes: My soft plastics are part of the Curby recycle program, so none go into my red bin.
Rough justice
Glen Davis writes: Bernard Collaery has too long been obliged to think as a defendant (“Morrison’s a hypocrite on secrecy, but attacks on him undermine transparency”). The spying by the Howard government on the government of Timor-Leste was illegal, was contrary to Australia’s diplomatic interests, and trashed the foreign aid legacy earned over two generations of hard work. The treaty that followed was made in criminal breach of the ACT laws of fraud. Why are the perpetrators not prosecuted?
Is it true that the evidence for which prosecutors sought secrecy in Collaery’s trial is the same evidence that would convict Howard, Downer and Brandis of conspiracy in the ACT to commit fraud? Was the Collaery prosecution no more than a Brandis device to gain court-ordered secrecy over the evidence needed to convict the Howard ministers? Yes, the prosecutions of Witness K and Collaery were vexatious. The secrecy sought for evidence is worse than immoral and puts at risk more than public trust in the courts.
It’s a numbers game
Jill Newton writes: The difficulty of teals taking seats in the March 2023 NSW election is that the election is based on optional preferential voting in contrast to mandatory preferential voting used in federal elections (“Liberal MP encircled by teals says party will be in for a fight as NSW teals surge in new polling”). Unless sufficient voters understand they should number all squares on the ballot paper instead of just voting 1 as directed by NLP notices and staffers at the polling booths, I fear the teals won’t be as successful as they should be.
Work experience
Matthew Plumb writes: Bernard Keane is spot-on with calling out the completely twisted frame of conversation around IR reform (“Industrial relations debate reveals class war, the Australian way”). A combination of decades of neoliberal politics and a media in thrall to the political right or corporate titans have mostly succeeded in conflating the broader economy with the interests of large corporations in the public’s mind. For a generation, the public has accepted a neoliberal view of what measures we use to determine the state of the economy, without asking how any of it actually benefits most people. Capitalism and its cheerleaders have more or less got everything they wanted for the past few decades; it’s well past time the pendulum swung the other way.
Labor is right to rush through its IR bill before the papers can ramp up their campaign of hysterics, hyperbole and outright lies. Having worked in the union movement in the past I have seen first-hand how difficult or nigh-impossible it is to effectively organise and bargain for decent pay rises in small- and medium-sized businesses, especially in the feminised industries. Sector-wide bargaining is crucial to allow these workers to secure something closer to a living wage. It still unfortunately leaves unfinished — yet again — the reform of the harshest anti-strike laws in the OECD.
King hit
Alexander (Donald) Marani-Binks writes: Far be it from me to contradict the opinion of a learned person who has of course done hours of research into his subject before ventilating it to a captivated audience (“So, now we owe allegiance to someone else. How embarrassing”). As far as I am concerned, Michael Bradley is welcome to it and lucky to live in a country where such an opinion may be given without any serious repercussions.
I don’t share his view. Perhaps I am long in the tooth, having been born in the latter years of the reign of King George VI. Loyalty and respect were two virtues that were instilled into us. Now we live in what we like to think are more enlightened times. But although I hear all this costly republican nonsense brought on by jingoistic nationalistic fervour, I am yet to find out what sort of republic might be instituted, how it will work in connection with sovereign states and, most importantly, how much it will cost.
Fistful of dollars
Patric Madison writes: In 2010, the US Supreme Court reversed campaign finance restrictions to allow corporations and wealthy donors a more transparent hand in buying political influence (“What does it take for a teal victory? Financial details give a hint”). In these latest midterms, federal and state spending was expected to exceed $16.7 billion, making them the most expensive midterms in the history of the US. Funny, when common Americans’ economic struggle was the hottest election topic. While US democracy ostensibly consists of “rule by the people” and all that good stuff, the system thwarts any approximation of actual popular control over anything. Citizens are, of course, permitted to periodically traipse to the ballot box to participate in the whole democratic charade and symbolically validate the continued tyranny of a bipartisan elite. Is Australia any different?
The going rate
Martin Sowerby writes: By Philip Lowe’s admission, upper-class and upper-middle-class Australians were best equipped to weather interest rate rises due to COVID restrictions imposed on us all (“The RBA knows so much about us — but what do we actually know about it?”) because they were unable to spend their large incomes for two years. Incidentally, not too many in that demographic lost their livelihoods. By Lowe’s admission, it is the same demographic that is now the major contributor to rapid inflation.
In layman’s terms, rising inflation and cost-of-living increases will not disadvantage those affluent Australians, but working-class citizens are under huge stress, paying the price for their wealthy neighbours’ indulgences. Well, not neighbours really. Most wouldn’t be caught dead in working-class neighbourhoods.
It’s only proper to drag these facts out from the shadows and pose questions to RBA executives, but their replies will be in a language the average Aussie will not understand and there’ll be no actual answer.
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