The crossbench is more than mere inconvenience

You need to bring the best team to the job of getting Australia back on track, and this isn’t how to do it.
Belinda Burke, Hawthorn

A mean and nasty decision
Anthony Albanese’s decision to cut funding for Independents to employ staff is mean and nasty. If it was about saving money there would be cuts across the board. Better still he could have made the cuts to Labor MPs who don’t need staff to analyse legislation, they always vote the way they are told, either that or they will lose their jobs.

Albanese should revisit this decision. The Australian people voted these independents into parliament and expect them to be treated equally.
Pauline Ashton, Maribyrnong

And now for the lobbyists
Congratulations to our new federal government for reducing the waste and disruption of personal political staff. MPs have plenty of assistance available from professional and neutral public servants.

The rise of the personal political staff system has been a cancer on democracy and an impediment to properly representing voters. This is a good start and I hope to see them all removed soon. Next stop – lobbyists.
Mark Freeman, Macleod

Why all the whingeing?
From 1987 to 1990 I worked for a senator, I spent most sitting weeks in Canberra and the rest in Adelaide. We were a minor party and had three electorate officers, no internet, the old house library was sparse and the new house library required a cut lunch and water bottle to get to from the senate offices.

Why are people today whingeing about four electorate officers and one parliamentary adviser, when Zoom, full internet connectivity and a vast library of reports are available at the click of a mouse?
Marilyn Shepherd, Angaston, SA

THE FORUM

Grateful for the choice
Even in a country where abortion is legal, a pregnant woman can feel criminalised. When I realised I was pregnant I went to my GP, who openly told me his Catholic faith prevented him from providing any information on termination options. He gave me a pamphlet for a major Melbourne hospital.

Luckily, I had a caring friend who shared her experience of a termination at an inner-city clinic. She held my hand, we cried and talked. She drove me to the clinic. The compassion, kindness and thorough counselling I received helped me make a decision I live with daily.

It was hard, sometimes I feel sad and wonder what life would have been like with my child, but ultimately I’m comfortable with my choice. I was fortunate to have private health insurance to cover the costs.

I will never forget the feeling of scorn and shame when protesters tried to block my path to the clinic. I had not told anyone about it other than my friend. It was a lonely day. I’m grateful for choice. I now have children, a career and I’m grateful those were choices I made.

It is with a heavy heart I reflect on the American women who now have their pregnancies criminalised.
Name withheld

Locked in to a promise
Your correspondent (“Revisit negative gearing”, Letters, 26/6) blames the wrong people for not ending negative gearing.

The Labor Party did take a good policy, with adequate grandfathering, to the 2019 election. It was rejected by voters. They made a bad choice. Just as they made a bad choice when they rejected Julia Gillard’s effective carbon emissions reduction policy in 2013.

We all pay the price of bad choices. Elections matter and governments keeping their promises also matters. Labor promised to do nothing about negative gearing at the recent election. They won. That is why Anthony Albanese cannot and should not attempt to change negative gearing in this term.

However Labor should be prepared to take a new proposal on negative gearing to the next election. Voters can then make another choice.
Graeme Henchel, Yarra Glen

A complicated issue
Most people laugh as nonsense the notion that the Greens are transphobic, and they are right (“Dumped Green defiant in trans furore”, The Age, 25/6).

In my experience, the Greens, of which I am an ordinary member, support and welcome diversity like no other party.

The Greens are also very compassionate and perhaps this is their vulnerability. When complex issues arise, like most people, they find it difficult to speak up against those who are suffering and emotion can threaten to decide an issue.

Thanks to smart, clear-thinking and fair-minded members like Linda Gale, I think they usually manage it exceptionally well, and are able to articulate complex issues to arrive at thoughtful, well-informed policies.

But this freedom of speech and trans respect issue is complicated. The Greens, like most of the community, are divided on the best approach. Respectful listening and discussion is the best way forward.

Those who resort to the social media mob, effectively reducing these most profound issues to soundbites, are inflaming division and are not helping anyone, particularly the trans community.
Ann Birrell, St Kilda West

We need her courage
I have been an active member of greens parties since 1990.

Never have I encountered such a level of vindictive governance, poor leadership and moral failure as was displayed in the attack on Linda Gale.

The day before the last state conference I received a phone call asking “would I support getting rid of Linda Gale? They had the numbers”. That night an email informed me that Samantha Ratnam had approved overturning Linda’s appointment utilising an obscure rule apparently unearthed that day. I wondered if anyone was interested in buying a large bridge.

At the meeting I listened to a pile-on from disaffected faction members and elected politicians but there was no formal move to seriously question the circumstances of the coup.

Linda has suffered very serious wrongs but I hope she has the resilience to stand again. We need people of her experience and courage.

Some senior members should consider their position in the party.
Tom Tabart, Drysdale

Politics over performance
I was impressed at the speed with which the new Labor government acted on wages and childcare. This, I thought to myself, is what I voted for.

How disappointing then to read of staffing cuts to independent members because independents are “not a member of the government, opposition or the Australian Greens” (“Crossbench fury over cuts to staff”, The Age, 25/6).

This smacks of a return to politics over performance and pure bastardry, trying to nobble them rather than work with them for the betterment of the country.

My advice to the PM is to stop listening to your political advisers and start listening to the electorate. They chose a record number of independents for a reason, namely disillusionment with the major parties. They trounced one major party, don’t make Labor the next.
Stephen Farrelly, Donvale

They made a promise
Notwithstanding that our parliamentarians may or may not need the staffing levels that they desire, I thought that they were meant to vote on the worth and appropriateness of proposed legislation.

Their threat to vote against government bills as a bargaining tool for higher staffing levels (“Furious crossbench threatens legislation”, The Sunday Age, 26/6) seems to fly in the face of this promise that they all made to the electors.
Graeme Gardner, Reservoir

Our rights at risk
The overturning of Roe v Wade in the United States is a resounding alert to women in Australia not to take their reproductive human rights for granted.

As pro-choice activist Jane Caro incisively observes, “in comparison to men, our rights are always equivocal”. In other words, women’s rights are not a sure thing (“What overturning Roe v Wade means for Australia”, online, The Age, 25/6).

Moreover, as Daile Kelleher, chief executive of Children by Choice astutely points out “abortion rights and access” is not embedded in the health system which means that it is “easier to overturn”.

So while we may hope that the game-changing US Supreme Court decision has no direct bearing here, it emboldens the “forced birthers” to seek to achieve the same result in Australia.

The women of Australia must be ever vigilant recognising, as Caro says, that women’s rights are “up for debate and they can be taken off us” given antipathetic forces.
Jelena Rosic, Mornington

The way forward
The current energy crisis has encouraged many to install solar systems (“Demand heats up for solar and home batteries”, The Age, 25/6).

his is a positive outcome but some may be surprised to discover that a hybrid system isolating the installation from the mains grid is required to safeguard from blackouts.

Community batteries and solar gardens, for those who don’t have the infrastructure or capital needed for their own systems, are clearly the way forward and must receive government priority for a more equitable and greener Melbourne.
Ray Peck, Hawthorn

An exclusive index
As sure as night following day, when the annual Global Liveability Index is released it is pounced upon by incorrectly formed opinions due the wide misrepresentation of what this index really means.

This award is sponsored by the Economist Intelligence Unit, an organisation that offers global market intelligence on which city is the most liveable for executive level professionals seeking work overseas.

It is targeted for the well heeled, not for the vast majority of the population, who know how liveable their city really is.
Paul Miller, Box Hill South

Disappointing words
It was disappointing to read of ACTU secretary Sally McManus resorting to joining the Baby Boomer bashing club last week in her “total Boomer fantasy” response to the Reserve Bank of Australia’s view that wage increases should be kept to 3.5 per cent to help lower inflation.

While her colourful phrase won her a headline, it also fed the divisive use of caricatures of different age cohorts to divide us rather than unite us against embedded inequalities and injustices.

The last time I looked at the evidence, those born in the 1946 to 1964 period were as embedded in poverty, inequalities and injustices as all other age cohorts.

However, the Boomers were distinguished from different age cohorts by a higher level of union membership.

“Baby Boomers of the world unite with all the other age cohorts around shared interests and challenges” might be a better call for an ACTU secretary to make, or is that perhaps my Baby Boomer fantasy.
Stewart Sweeney, Adelaide, SA

The $15 billion question
The take away $15 billion question from David Crowe’s piece (“Let’s find out if we can make it”, Comment, 24/6 ) is can the new finance minister, Katy Gallagher and the new industry minister, Ed Husic, transform into successful business people and make astute decisions in renewing Australian manufacturing by wisely investing money from the National Reconstruction Fund in commercial enterprises when words have been their trade?

There will have to be stringent, and new, safeguards in place for open public and parliamentary scrutiny of business plans between private companies and government investment in joint enterprises with a significant media role in the process at the outset.

A brief look at the history of car manufacturing in Australia will show that government money is at high risk.
Des Files, Brunswick

Target trusts
If we do have to give the legislated tax cuts to the wealthy, then let us seriously look at trusts and how they are also used by the wealthy to further minimise their tax bill.
Lou Ferrari, Richmond

AND ANOTHER THING

Politics
Apparently attempting to avoid friction in caucus, Victorian Labor’s selection of the new deputy premier and ministers involved a fraction too much faction for my liking.
Lawrie Bradly, Surrey Hills

Dan Andrews’ way or no way. Dangerous, I think.
Glenise Michaelson, Montmorency

Jacqui Lambie was spot on when asking why Anthony Albanese would slash staff funding to independent senators when he needs their support.
Peter Randles, Pascoe Vale South

Anthony Albanese, you have just undone all the goodwill you have generated by alienating the crossbench and the Greens. Very disappointed.
Bob Greaves, Mount Eliza

It’s clear that Jacinta Allan has done the hard yards and her ascension to the deputy leadership of the state Labor Party was based on merit. For that she should be congratulated.
Phil Alexander, Eltham

What do all the departing ministers know about the government that we don’t know?
Phil Lipshut, Elsternwick

The United States
America grows more conservative with each passing week. What’s next, prohibition?
John Page, Glenroy

Suddenly The Handmaid’s Tale looks less an adaptation of a dystopian novel than an insightful documentary on American society.
Matt Dunn, Leongatha

Furthermore
Privatisation: short-term gain for governments, long-term pain for consumers.
Arthur Pritchard, Ascot Vale

Finally
Congratulations to Geelong and Richmond for a scintillating game on Saturday. AFL footy at its zenith. Enthralling right throughout the contest down to the last minute. A just outcome would have been a draw.
Martin Newington, Aspendale

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