Letters
The Age
Friday November 8, 2002
Victory for trees, but more is needed
Premier Bracks' pledge to protect the Otway forests and phase out woodchipping in the Midlands is a major step forward in bringing Labor's forest policy in line with majority public opinion, which strongly opposes the woodchipping of our native forests.
However, most of Victoria's biodiversity and wilderness values are located in the forests of eastern Victoria, the north-eastern Alps and east Gippsland, and in Melbourne's water catchments, which are still being logged despite our worst-ever drought.
The protection of the Otways is a popular announcement that deserves applause - but to protect the state's most ecologically significant forests, both the major parties should commit to the protection of old-growth forests and Melbourne's water-supply catchments.
Gavan McFadzean, Victorian campaigns manager, Wilderness Society, Melbourne
Easy harvest of urban greenies
Warm praise for The Age's coverage of Steve Bracks' logging pledge in the Otways and Wombat forests, exposing it for what it really is - little more than an easy harvest of urban environmentalist votes.
The policy targets a section of our community that either possesses good intentions but is largely ignorant of the real issues facing the Victorian bush, or prefers to misrepresent its own selfish aesthetic as environmental concern.
The Bracks Government appears to have no regard for communities such as Trentham that have the misfortune to be close to the haunts of the weekend rural latte set.
If those who posture concern for the environment were genuine, then they would find their interests closely ally with rural Victoria. Thus, I'd unhesitatingly vote for any party that placed reformation of DNRE and protection/repair of environmentally devastated areas such as the Alpine National Park near Licola on its agenda.
Instead, the Greens and the major parties choose soft targets that have little merit.
Andrew Barnham, North Carlton
Desperate signs
Steve Bracks recently signed an agreement with the Federal Government to set in concrete the forest industry's access to the very forests he is now going to close to logging.
He is showing all the signs of political desperation: break any promise necessary to get yourself re-elected.
Oliver Raymond, member, Institute of Foresters of Australia, Tyers
Promises, promises
Bracks' promise to stop logging in six years is just like his promise to build the Scoresby Freeway, his promise to have a four-year term of government, his promise to reduce unemployment to 5 per cent, and his promise to not introduce legal prostitution areas. They're just on show for the election.
Michael Josem, Glen Iris
Lest we forget
Whether it is just politically expedient or not, the State Government's decision to protect the Otways and Wombat state forests is a win for the environment and the community.
We must not forget, however, the thousands of people who campaigned long and hard over many years on this issue, vilified and harassed by timber workers and police for their trouble.
I was not one of them, but I salute their efforts.
Rob Buttrose, Port Melbourne
Doleful decision
Dear Mr Bracks, I always thought Labor was for the worker. But after your announcement about the Otways, I'm not sure. I have decided that I'll quit work, grow dreads, have mega kids and let the government provide for me, OK? See you in the dole queue.
Brian Edwards, Gellibrand
Who's fooling who?
I wonder whether the global rainforests, unlike the Greens, are thanking Steve Bracks for closing down sustainably managed logging in the Otway. All this will do is reduce the couple of minutes that it takes to destroy - not sustainably harvest - a rainforest the size of the MCG somewhere on our planet to satisfy the lefties' appetite for wood and wood-based products.
And do not be fooled about plantations saving the day.They use heaps of our most valuable resource: water.
David Flinn, Templestowe
Liberals' dead-end transport plan
The Liberals have come up with a public transport policy without having a policy.
I wonder how many people will take up the chance to use their cheaper tickets when they still have to drive half an hour to the closest station through peak-hour traffic, fight for a park at a station and ride in packed trains?
Perhaps if we saw some genuine investment in the public transport system in the form of new lines - including lines crossing the city-centric spokes pattern, like a second city loop - we could say that the Liberals have a policy, not a cynical vote-grabber.
Rohan Sharp, Carlton North
Electoral zones
If a Liberal government is going to extend Metcard zone 2 to the south-east as far as Stony Point, will they go as far in the south-west?
Perhaps there are too few Liberal held seats in that direction - although I would have thought they fancied their chances of winning the three Geelong seats they lost last time.
Brian Burbage, Inverleigh
A man who listens?
I laughed when I read Robert Ray's ``Balanced Bracks a man who listens" (Opinion, 6/11). I don't know who Bracks is listening to, but it's certainly not his electorate. I suppose having a healthy majority of the vote makes you a little cavalier in your attitude, doesn't it?
Sheryl Enright, Spotswood
Motorbikes are green machines
Whatever people may think of motorcycling, one fact that cannot be ignored: they can be extremely efficient and environmentally friendly means of transport.
Imagine my surprise and disappointment, then, when I saw correspondence between the Greens and motorcycling groups where they refuse to acknowledge this. Rather, it seems that the Greens are following in Labor's footsteps by refusing to adopt motorcycle-friendly policies - especially those that would encourage the use of motor scooters in car-infested inner suburbia.
There is more to the environment than just trees.
M. Taylor, Traralgon.
Junk mail at our expense
The unnecessary early state election campaign has been in progress for only four days, and already letterboxes are inundated with preposterous promises.
As this material is consigned to its rightful place, the wastepaper basket, it is worth considering where the finance is coming from.
Under a cosy arrangement agreed to by the three major parties and opposed only by the independents, taxpayers' money has been misappropriated to pay for the election propaganda of what are essentially private organisations.
Constituents who feel strongly about this misuse of public money should consider casting their first preference votes away from the major parties.
Maxwell Spence, Montmorency
Something fishy
I recently renewed my fishing licence in Sorrento and was given a copy of the Victorian Recreational Fishing Guide. This week I received in the mail another copy of the guide - together with a letter from Natural Resources Minister Candy Broad espousing what the Bracks Government has done for recreational fishing.
William Holmes, Sorrento
Tell Indonesia where to get off
The Indonesian response to recent ASIO ``raids" is astounding. A major terrorist activity occurs in their own country, causing untold sadness and misery to many Australians, among others, and they have the temerity to criticise efforts to help identify possible associates who may be located here (The Age, 7/11)?
I'm sure the majority of Australians join with me in saying to our government: do whatever has to be done to ensure the perpetrators are caught and there is no repeat in this country. If that means standing on a few toes, just do it.
To those who don't like these actions, you have a choice to go home - something many Australians murdered in Bali can't do.
Rob Chandler, Lysterfield
Dr Mahathir stirs the pot
Malaysia's Dr Mahathir, evidently, is a theatrical stirrer who calculatedly insures his opinion aggravates a given situation - especially when it comes to Australia.
If he believes Australia is ``unsafe" for Muslims to live in, I have three equally calculatedly theatrically stirring options he might like to consider:
• Arrange immigration of all 280,000 Australian Muslims en masse to a ``safer country" - Malaysia.
• Enlighten the Muslim community, of which he is a leader, as to why the rest of the world feels unsafe and uncomfortable with Muslims, any Muslims around.
• Take a bit of useful advice: ``If you don't have something constructive to contribute, keep your bloody mouth shut."
George Thakur, Rowville
Not being nice to the neighbours
Gerard Henderson (Opinion, 5/11) and Craig Emerson (Opinion, 6/11) have documented many of the ``anti-Asian" activities of the Howard Government.
They could have added funding cuts to Radio Australia, sale of transmitters, privatisation and eventual closure of Australian-Asian TV, termination of funding to the National Asian Languages program, and the post-Tampa, post-Bali megaphone diplomacy with Indonesia.
If we have lost precious good will in our region, it is the price we pay for insular policies that treat our neighbors with disdain.
Peter Rutherford, Pakenham
Asia-phobia
What a shame Labor frontbencher Craig Emerson has been distanced by his colleagues for speaking of John Howard's lukewarm approach to our Asian neighbours. All Emerson has done is tell it how it is and has been under a PM who has spent more time travelling outside the region than inside it.
Dallas Fraser, Mudgeeraba, Qld.
The problem is not Islam, but religion
True, Muslims should not be judged guilty by association, but the defence mounted by Yusuf Zaman (Opinion, 7/11) raises more questions than it answers.
He rightly refers to all the strife around the world caused by non-Muslim religionists, for example in Sri Lanka and Northern Ireland. But he overlooks an important difference: those disputes have a nationalist as well as religious character and their targets are focused, while the Muslim extremists have declared their target to be any non-Muslim, anywhere.
Surely the response should not be to focus on Islam but to look at religion in general? There is a common feature to all religious violence: it is perpetrated by those who believe that their particular religious dogma is the ``one true faith".
Hope lies in striving to overcome the persistent delusions of the past and embracing the concept that we humans alone determine our destiny.
John L Perkins, St Kilda
Funny, you don't look Jewish
Your review of my friend Tony Sher's superb autiobiography Beside Myself (Saturday Extra, 2/11) expresses astonishment that the author should confess in its pages to having been jealous of me. I was astonished, too - though not more so than being described in your review as ``a fellow Jewish South-African"!
I would gladly - proudly - be either of these things, or both, but I hope not to cause too much disappointment by formally coming out as a Roman Catholic from South London.
On the other hand, like Sir Anthony, I am gay, short, flat-footed, and tone-deaf, so perhaps we have more in common than not - though he confesses to being in love with a 400-year-old man (William Shakespeare) whereas the object of my affections is a mere 180 (Charles Dickens). He's so competitive!
Simon Callow, Melbourne
© 2002 The Age
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