Moving account reminds us of our good fortune

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Aubrey Perry's moving account of her family's online citizenship ceremony (Comment, 25/5) captured the privilege of being an Australian, especially in this tumultuous COVID-19 era.

Notwithstanding the reservations some of us have about the quality of this nation's political decision-making, we have been spared thankfully the corrosive damage being wrought by self-aggrandising populist leaders like Donald Trump, Boris Johnson and Jair Bolsonaro. We have, for the most part, heeded the epidemiological advice of our public health officials and valued the lives of our fellow citizens.

Thank you, Aubrey, for reminding us of our good fortune and enjoy being an Australian.

Jon McMillan, Mount Eliza

Reconsider opening the gyms

When the Prime Minister announced the national roadmap just over two weeks ago he specifically said gyms would open before clubs, pubs, etc due to the positive exercise and health outcomes. Despite investigations indicating the Ruby Princess outbreak started in the kitchens and spread via food handlers, Victoria has self-determined that cafes, bars and hotels are safer.

What is even more confounding is why beauty salons, camping, and 20-in-home gatherings have been permitted after June 1, when gyms, which were also included in this stage as equal risk, will remain shut.

Gyms are not high risk if they adopt and adhere to the protocols developed by Fitness Australia. No doubt the health of the population has been affected through increased alcohol consumption, decreased physical activity and lack of resistance training as a form of maintaining good mental health and pain management.

If the Premier is truly concerned about physical and mental health he will reconsider gyms opening as part of stage 2 on June 1.

Will Bennett, South Melbourne

A positive to take from this crisis

If there are any positives to take out of the coronavirus crisis then it's the resurgence of families playing in parks. Weekdays from 3.30-6pm are no longer the domain of swimming lessons, ballet classes or soccer practice – go to any park and you'll see kids running, jumping, laughing and learning ... with no rules and no coach.

With organised sport soon to return, I hope the modern parent reflects on the value unstructured play has for our kids and keeps it on the weekly family menu.

Paul Jepson, Hawthorn

Put yourself in their place

Your correspondent expresses her antagonism to premiers who are dragging their feet over opening their states' borders to travellers because of the consequent economic and heightened mental health problems caused by the loss of tourist dollars and increased unemployment (Letters, 22/5). These are strong arguments, with which I suspect all premiers sympathise.

The other side, however, is the threat of further outbreaks of a life-threatening disease which can leave survivors with terrible lifetime and life-shortening conditions. Evidence about this threat is highly varied, and wrong decisions could trigger their own economic and mental health issues.

Any decision involves options' financial, non-financial and political costs, many of which are not genuinely quantifiable, and all require identifying an acceptable number of deaths. Rather than bleating about too much caution, put yourself in the premiers' skins, or shoes if you're squeamish, and start with this important question: how many deaths can you live with? Be honest, think of the fact those deaths could be your closest loved ones. Premiers opening their borders should be required to provide a detailed explanation of their decision, including their answer to this question.

Lex Borthwick, Burwood

THE FORUM

The board has to go

Just as she has done with corporate miscreants, Adele Ferguson has nailed the failings of the MSO board ("Discord at the Melbourne Symphony", Business, 23/5).

The contrast with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra is revealing. The board failed players, subscribers, donors and the whole Victorian community, standing down the players and keeping most admin staff. The board reacted as accountants and bankers.

They discarded the employees/players without even consulting them, let alone discussing their offer to take a 50 per cent pay cut or seeking to change the federal government's indifference to the arts. The board members should resign and clear the way for a truly representative board.

Michael Ullmer, the chairman says, "I'm not a quitter". I have news for Mr Ullmer. It's not about him. It's about restoring the MSO's joyous music-making, restoring the subscribers' faith, and attracting a conductor to succeed Sir Andrew Davis, a task made nearly impossible by the board's actions.

Who would want to take on the position now with players alienated and demoralised, subscribers and donors disillusioned? Only a new board can begin to repair the damage.

Charles Sowerwine, Moonee Ponds

A better use of our money

Imagine a government that managed the pandemic by taking advice from mask manufacturers rather than medical experts. Imagine that its strategy made little effort to limit infection spread, but rather waited for a vaccine.

This is the approach taken by our government in its energy policy and proposed fossil-fuel gas-led recovery, which includes carbon capture. I am more confident of an effective vaccine for COVID-19 than the delivery of large-scale carbon capture, the technology for which is undeveloped.

It would be better to invest taxpayer money in energy storage technology to regulate the renewable energy supply. We should be reducing the burning of fossil fuels and they should be reserved for an energy source of last resort.

Jane Wright, Malvern East

Hung out to dry

The Liberal/National Coalition has whittled away our workplace laws with the goal of providing more flexibility for employers, and ostensibly more jobs. The rapidly increasing casual workforce in the new gig economy is the result.

Yet, instead of supporting the new casual workforce and its employers with JobKeeper, the Coalition has hung them out to dry. So who now wants to be part of the new gig economy?

Carl Prowse, Ivanhoe

We must work together

When the virus stormed into our lives the mammoth task of looking after the community looked daunting. There was so much uncertainty of what the immediate future held.

Government stepped in quickly and on a state and federal level worked quickly to keep the population in a ready state to move forward. Nobody could have predicted the outcome and the fact that the $60 billion will not have to be used is a good thing.

It is a time to keep moving forward and to work together, not waste time and money on mistakes made in uncharted times.

Sharyn Bhalla, Ferntree Gully

It was there from the start

Nev Power's perceived conflict of interest on the National COVID-19 Coordination Commission existed from the very start. He is advising the government, in part, on energy policy involving gas while also having a material interest in the gas energy sector.

The meaning of conflict of interest has been distorted ever since John Howard equated it with proven corruption in order to save several of his ministers' political skins: without corruption there could be no conflict.

Time to return to its actual meaning. Power's conflict of interest (without any suggestion of corruption) is not settled by his being an expert in the field or by his "stepping back" from Strike Energy's chairmanship but would be resolved if he gave up his NCCC position.

Peter Fullerton, Fitzroy North

Where's the logic?

So a business becomes unviable (Target) and David Littleproud's response/suggestion/solution is that consumers should boycott the business and its owners.

What possible benefit could this be to anybody? I would like to know the logic behind this, because in my opinion there is none.

Andrew McNicoll, Kew

We need more, not less

Steven Kolber urges less class time for students (Education, The Age, 25/5). A recent report by the Australian Council of Learned Academies (ACOLA) examined Australia's shortcomings in STEM education. The OECD average percentage of students entering engineering courses is nearly twice Australia's. In tertiary mathematics it is 2.5 per cent to Australia's 0.4. "Many countries are improving STEM provision," ACOLA reports and notes that success in STEM is "due less to talent than hard work". In China, Russia and some European countries maths is compulsory to year 12. Australia must find time for schools to improve STEM literacy and achievement and that will not happen at playtime.

Neil Lennie, Box Hill North

Unrealistic expectations

How does anyone "lose" one, two or three weeks of knowledge and skills? Learning is not akin to filling up a vessel. There are no set times in the school calendar when specific teaching of numeracy or reading occurs (last week, long division, tomorrow prepositions).

Such comments from "experts" and many who have no expertise in education, create anxiety in and unrealistic expectations of our children and our teachers.

Children learn in different ways and at different times depending on their different levels of cognitive, physical and emotional development.

The challenges to teachers thus require a deep understanding of how children learn so they can provide programs to meet the needs of their students. Often a class will have many learning groups, as well as many individual learning plans.

The role of the teacher is like an orchestra's conductor, bringing many different participants on a learning journey together.

What a challenge. What a joy.

Nancy Zamprogno, Doncaster

It's not a guessing game

Scott Morrison had better keep away from my housekeeping money. If the JobKeeper estimate has gone from $130 billion to $70 billion, that's a mere 54 per cent of the original figure. That's equivalent to his house-building estimate going from $350,000 to $188,000, not $250,000 as in his analogy ("Morrison looks beyond JobKeeper", 25/5).

This is not a guessing game: people's livelihoods are at risk.

Jenifer Nicholls, Armadale

Not the voice of experience

Prime Minister Scott Morrison's explanation that the shortfall in cost of the JobKeeper program was similar to a housing contractor originally quoting $350,000 to build a new home but then saying "things have changed and it's only going to cost you $250,000", suggests that he has little if any personal experience with the building industry and clearly he has not learnt the two iron rules of building, namely that the work invariably takes longer and costs more than the original quote.

Maurice Critchley, Kenthurst, NSW

Remember these people

The coronavirus pandemic being responsible for people's isolation also unfortunately led to the loneliness and neglect of many.

Fortunately there is now hope for a gradual return to normal life, however for asylum seekers and refugees in Australian detention centres there is no hope for a better future. We must ask ourselves why innocent people legitimately seeking freedom from persecution in their homelands are continued to be isolated and denied human rights.

It is time for these people, and others outside of detention but living precariously without support, to be given hope for a better future.

Kathy Murphy, Winton

Show us your plan

Victorian shadow treasurer Louise Staley tells us what the Andrews government should not be doing to help the economy recover, but she provides little indication of what it should (Comment, 25/5).

Given that Staley prefers a business-led recovery, presumably the government does not have to do much at all. Her praise for the ingenuity and creativity of small and medium-sized businesses suggests the ideas, investment and jobs will come from the private, not public sector.

Yet despite this, Staley says the government is moving too slowly. Rather than vague statements about the need for a plan, the shadow treasurer owes it to Victorians to clearly describe just what an O'Brien government would do differently.

Rod Wise, Surrey Hills

A little bit of sympathy

You have to feel some sympathy for Josh Frydenberg working to get all the numbers right every time. As John Kenneth Galbraith has been quoted as saying: "The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable."

Surprisingly I found nothing in the stars this week that would be helpful to the Treasurer.

Les Lambert, Wangaratta

They won't forget this

I totally agree with Dean Wotherspoon (Letters, 25/5) that the government should help out our artistic community, now that the budget is $60 billion better off.

The government has already indicated its utter disdain for the arts and its role in our society's well-being and to the economy, first by abolishing the arts department, and then by its complete abandonment of our artists during the pandemic crisis. What the government seems to forget is that a very large proportion of the patrons who attend plays, concerts, opera, ballet, art galleries, are in fact elderly and statistically likely to vote for it.

When deprived of their leisure activities and the joys of introducing their grandchildren to an artistic experience, they will remember who let the arts community wither in our country come the next election.

Olivia Manor, Coburg

AND ANOTHER THING

The JobKeeper billions

No, Barnaby Joyce, it is not about buying more junk, it is about giving Australian workers money for food and rent ("Coalition divided over $60b 'windfall"', 24/5).

Krystyn Hendrickson, East Melbourne

And I'd always thought that the Bungle Bungles were located in WA.

Jim Pilmer, Camberwell

Did Anthony Albanese see this from space and say nothing about it? Or is he just exercising his magnificent retrospectoscope?

Dick Danckert, Torquay

If a builder overestimated my quarter-million-dollar house by a hundred grand or so, then turned up weeks later and proudly told me of my savings, I'd, uh, get another builder. I mean, you'd have to assume the bloke didn't know what he was doing ...

John McCallum, St Helens, Tas

Memo to Treasury: change the batteries in your calculator.

Paul Custance, Highett

Imagine the hullabaloo if Labor had been at the helm when this "accounting error" occurred. No more cheap shots about "poor fiscal management" please.

Claire Merry, Wantirna

Climate change

At least the federal government's climate Technology Roadmap shows that Scott Morrison has a sense of humour.

Mark Bennett, Manifold Heights

Life in lockdown

This virus has a lot to answer for. I have this strange man hanging about the house. He says he lives here.

Catherine Price, Camberwell

As a retiree in iso I'm finding there aren't enough hours in the day for me to do next door to nothing.

Peter Schiller, Camberwell.

Mike Pompeo

Mike Pompeo threatens that the US could "disconnect" from Australia. Pine Gap would be a good start.

Rob Butler, Shoreham

Finally

Carbon has already been captured in the ground, it's called coal – best just leave it in there

Brent Baigent, Richmond

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