LETTERS
The Age
Friday March 4, 2011
Fertile farmland sacrificed for coalWHY would any halfway decent, rational, newly elected state government allow fertile farm land to be sacrificed to mine and export brown coal the dirtiest carbon-intensive fuel on earth ("Farmer worries mining company has him pegged", The Age, 3/2). Do farmers, nearby town dwellers and tourist operators have any say about turning precious farmland into a filthy quarry that emits noxious chemicals which will damage the health of local residents and blight the landscape?Food prices are rising around the world, courtesy of climate disasters. Victorian country folk have felt the devastation of losing houses and crops to floods. City dwellers have also felt the fury of storms and floods.Victoria has a vested interest in shouldering its fair share of the fight against global warming, which is set to bring us more devastating floods, drought and bushfires, and not in pandering to the greed of West Australian Liberal businessmen. Mr Baillieu, how about a new political slogan: no great new dirty coalmines, no dirty deals with mates, no more destruction of farmland.Lynne Holroyd, East HawthornUndermining rightsYET another mining company sneaks in an application to dig up prime farmland and people's homes without following due process. How is it possible for exploration licences to be granted without landholder approval? Yet Mantle Mining is "optimistic about prospects under the Coalition" to get a licence to dig up brown coal.How can the Coalition approve coal projects when it hasn't a plan to reduce the state's emissions and hit its legislated target?The polluters and those who feed them are using their might to bypass democracy, take our land, take our homes and take our future. We demand our elected leaders uphold democracy and stop them.Georgia Blomberg, RingwoodAll deserve freedomIN RAILING against the Howard-era ban on handing out Bibles and other holy books at citizenship ceremonies, Liberal senator Guy Barnett made the extraordinary claim that "there should be freedom of religion, not freedom from religion" (MPs attack Bible 'madness' , The Age, 2/3).Logic says people would not be truly free to practise their religious beliefs if they were not free from other people's beliefs. It is as if Barnett believes that some religious beliefs deserve to be more free than others. Or could it be he believes some people are less deserving of religious freedom than others?Eric Glare, ElwoodPrivatising profitsAILEEN Vening (Letters, 3/3), there is nothing unconstitutional about the government making provision for vital infrastructure. The problem is the fact that following the days of state-financed growth under Henry Bolte, the neo-liberal economic agenda has been so successful in promoting the idea that public borrowing is bad that governments feel it is electorally wise to enter into "public-private partnerships".This means the consumer must ultimately pay for the higher rates of interest that private corporations are levied compared with governments, the rake-off for the middlemen who set up the deal and the profits to the shareholders. Time to get over the debt fetish.Philip Shehan, BrunswickWe pay priceMARK Zirnsak writes that "the pokies industry has scored another win over the community" (Letters, 26/2). The Carlton Football Club has form in this area."Community facilities" were promised when Carlton recently redeveloped the $19.5 million Visy Park. Melbourne City Council contributed $2 million, with lord mayor Robert Doyle stating the new complex provided the "community with vital access to sporting and recreational facilities". The state and federal governments contributed about $9 million, with the then state sports minister saying the project "was a great example of helping to build more liveable Victorian communities". As far as I know, the "community facilities" at Visy Park consist of a small lecture theatre for school visits, a shop for selling club paraphernalia and a quiet coffee shop. All the rest is state-of-the-art facilities for players and administration, including a pool and a gym.North Melbourne Football Club received millions from taxpayers. However, there appears to be more genuine community involvement, with thousands of residents members of the club's gym, for example.Now, Carlton looks set to broaden its community involvement by becoming one of the largest pokie operators in the state. Have state and federal governments and the council ever asked themselves whether the community got its money's worth?Margot Rosenbloom, Princes HillPower of AFLPETER Costello is right to challenge the privileged idolatry position the AFL has come to occupy in Victoria (Comment, 2/3). It seems to have become unpatriotic and blasphemous to question this organisation. How else can one explain the deal between the police and the AFL, signed in August 2009, which gave the league extraordinary powers to investigate serious crimes within its own ranks such as domestic violence, drug use and sexual assault?This agreement even gave the AFL the right to gag the police in certain circumstances. The justification was "the very special status" the AFL has in our state. Although the agreement has expired, it is alarming that such a "deal" could ever have been done behind closed doors in a democratic society. We should all be concerned about the influence the AFL wields and ensure it remains accountable.Christina Cain, East MelbourneCrocodile tearsTHE National Party's crocodile tears about the dairy farmers' plight is a case of crying over spilt milk. About a decade ago, the party was at the forefront of the struggle to shut the dairy co-operatives that had served farmers so well for so long.Lured by the prospect of a quick overseas dollar to be made by the deregulation of the industry and urged on by their parliamentary representatives, farmers voted for the demutualisation of the co-operatives.What a short-sighted decision. The collective advantages they enjoyed have evaporated and left individual farmers at the mercy of manufacturers and the heavyweights in the grocery industry. The security and stability they enjoyed has been replaced by instability and insecurity.Many are struggling to keep their head above water in a world dominated by the needs of transnational and national corporations to make ever increasing profits for their major shareholders irrespective of the personal cost to individual farmers.Joseph Toscano, FitzroyRefuse to do testsWHY are parents not being informed of their right to refuse permission for their children to sit the NAPLAN tests? Why are schools not advising parents of this right? Why has the form regarding refusal of permission been removed from the NAPLAN booklet this year? While there is brief mention in the booklet of the right of parents to refuse permission for this testing, one has to wade through to the very last page to find contact information for the Test Administration Authority, to whom one must apply for the necessary form. It seems someone is making it as difficult as possible for parents to know, and act on their rights.Lorraine Wilson, North CarltonCommunity needs place for worshipTHE people of Collingwood need everyone to pray for the restoration of our beautiful Catholic church, St Joseph's, which was fire damaged in April 2007. Following that fire, instead of restoring St Joseph's, the archdiocese used the church insurance money to restore the presbytery. In doing so, it broke the promise, made a few years before by Archbishop Pell, that restoration of the presbytery would be paid for in full by the archdiocese.In the past three years the archdiocese has made more than $5 million from the sale of two residential properties in Clifton Hill alone. In 2010, it sold the former St Joseph's technical school site in Nicholson Street, Abbotsford, for millions more.The Collingwood community has been without a proper worship space for nigh on four years, and with the increased population and needs in this disadvantaged area, it is impossible to comprehend why the Catholic archdiocese will neither agree to nor listen to the need for our church and services to be properly restored.Helen Connors, Clifton Hill
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