Please explain, Pauline, how you intend to create a monoculture (“One Nation leader’s press speech slammed”, June 19)? Will we see masked “ICE” agents, American-style, snatching up fast food deliverers off the streets and raiding houses to whisk people off for deportation? Will it be bye-bye to Greek, Italian, Vietnamese and Thai restaurants and the mandating of traditional English fare? If burqas, hijabs, Muslims, prayers and sermons in Arabic are out (as people need to speak English here so they can be understood), then what about Torahs, written in Hebrew, and non-English prayers in synagogues in Hebrew, Aramaic and Yiddish? And which particular Christian denomination will be the official religion? Surely, Latin and speaking in tongues won’t be allowed? It’s a shame that the Christian “golden rule” of “doing to others what you would have them do to you” seems to have no place in your plans and your ambitions revolve around xenophobia, hate and divisiveness, and unworkable populist drivel. Alan Marel, North Curl Curl
Monocultures lead to low yields through their vulnerability to disease, pest attack and in-breeding. Is that the vision Pauline has for the country she claims to love? David Hart, Junction Hill
The many reactions to Pauline Hanson’s appallingly offensive so-called speech at the National Press Club were mostly regarding her absurd delusions about enforcing a “monocultural Australia”. It’s beyond surreal that someone in public office can shamelessly vent such broadly discriminatory and judgmental vitriol, when, in truth, we’re surrounded by so many remarkable non-monocultural people. Perhaps the most acutely painful reminder of this was the profound grace shown by the parents who tragically lost their two children in the catastrophic accident in Cabramatta. Through unimaginable grief, somehow these young people simply stated that they forgive the driver of the car that took their precious children. No blame, no complaints, no judgment, just their arresting humanity. Through tears, I ask, are these the kind of beautiful people that Hanson believes don’t belong here? Robyn Dalziell, Kellyville
If Hanson can’t accept the diversity that is our national strength, she should depart.
Just leave. Michael Britt, MacMasters Beach
I’m sorry, but I have to take exception to your correspondent’s letter (Letters, June 19). In no way could Pauline Hanson’s address be called an oration. Margaret Grove, Concord
Will a future Hanson government reintroduce the “dictation test”? To restrict non-white European migration to Australia, the test, generally in English, was applied to those wishing to enter the country. Ridiculously, in 1934 the Lyons conservative UAP government attempted to ban the entry of Egon Kisch, a German communist then recently released from Nazi imprisonment. Kisch was on a speaking tour warning of the perils posed by Nazi Germany. The problem for the conservative government was that Kisch was multilingual. He was eventually tested in Scottish Gaelic, failed, appealed and won the right to continue his tour. Pauline Hanson would have us return to the 1930s, the dictation test and the White Australia policy. John Bailey, Canterbury
How many people who have moved their voting preference to One Nation, or are contemplating doing so, have taken the time to visualise the reality of living in Australia under the rule of this party? Hanson has been ranting her slogans for so long we have become numb to the cruel bias of what little there exists as far as policy goes and its effect on so many people. We should be trying to imagine the actuality of what we would become as a community under One Nation’s control. The possibilities are frightening. Nedra Orme, North Sydney
Sorry Pauline, monoculturalism ended in 1945 – “populate or perish” as they said. On the bright side, the food is better now. Andrew McDonald, Menangle
Strategy but no substance
James Massola reports (“Paralysed by Hanson: Taylor’s torture”, June 19), Hanson “makes things up”. I expect her strategy is that by repeating untruths often enough you may influence those seeking to punish the current unpopular establishment. Attacking journalists and refusing to answer questions should worry us all. As Massola says, her delivery at the Press Club was impressive but lacking in substance. PM material? I think not. Denis Suttling, Newport Beach
Backdown lacks backbone
The backdown by Albanese and Chalmers on the CGT changes is very disappointing (“PM backs down over budget tax changes”, June 19). They have meekly given in to the over the top whingeing and objecting by those relatively very few who may be impacted and would have had to pay tax on earnings in the same way as wage and salary earners do. Our wage and salary earners, the real backbone of our society, are fully taxed on their earnings and should they work overtime or receive any bonuses they are taxed on the full amount of those extra earnings. Why should those that receive income by capital gains only have to pay tax on half of the amounts earned? So disappointing that the proposal to correct this wrong has been reversed. Ken Butler, Mount Colah
At last the government looked to be decisive, applying tax reforms that would benefit the average person in the street and their family, even perhaps allow their kids to house themselves. Instead, the Coalition opposes, mostly for the sake of opposing, not based on consultation with their constituents but argued after listening to vested interests. The loudest voices, the lobbyists with vested interests, most of whom don’t represent the electorate, want changes that average person in the street can’t relate to and doesn’t necessarily understand – testamentary trusts, start-ups, tens of millions of dollars being talked about, none of which impacts that average person. Perhaps that average person has no interest in the machinations of politics, but hears snippets, or sees the Herald front page. Other examples: gambling laws, housing. Lots of political talk, no visible action, nothing tangible that average person can grasp. The simplicity of One Nation starts to sound appealing. There’s no apparent political obfuscation, the Canberra bubble stage management has a completely different tone and much more. We need to stop focusing on what policies Hanson and One Nation have and look at how the rest of politics fails to listen to that average person. Mark Tietjen, Redfern
Surely by now everyone has worked out that the only way you can reform the tax system in Australia is to come up with a set of reforms that will ensure that no individual, business, corporation or trust is required to pay one cent more tax than they are currently paying. With this as the starting point, we can then get on with it. Phil Peak, Dubbo
If the government was brave enough to introduce a gas tax, there would be no concerns about the decreased revenue from changes to the proposed capital gains tax reforms. Katriona Herborn, Blackheath
I am dismayed by how taxes have become so demonised, aided and abetted by the ″winner and loser″ mentality. All the services and amenities people want, such as Medicare, hospitals, schools, parks, playgrounds, roads, aged care, clean water and air, safety and security, just to name a few, are paid for by taxes. Taxes should be fair and equitable but they are the price we all pay for living in the sort of society we desire. Funding for services does not grow on trees. Judi LeVine, Manly
Revenge against sharks no solution
Although about 357 people drown in this country every year, this seldom evokes the reaction that three shark attacks do over the same time (“Brother of shark attack victim calls for lethal response”, June 19). The predictable atavistic reactions push aside reasonable solutions. “Cull the sharks!” is the predictable cry. How is this to be done? How are we to find the “guilty” shark and punish it? Do we tell it to “go back to where it came from”? Has anyone considered that the killing of apex predators has serious consequences? Does anyone remember that we stopped killing “guilty” humans a long time ago because it made the state itself complicit? Can we please stop giving oxygen to revenge “solutions”? John MacKay, Asquith
I’m not claiming to be expert, but when there is a call to cull sharks from a location, what comes to mind is the metaphor “bailing out the ocean with a bucket”. For all my life, thanks to a family instilling the value of human sanctity and a beholdenness to nature, my “heart” goes out to those who suffer accidental injury or are victims of human injustice and savagery. And, too, I grieve for the demise of the natural world. What triggered this letter was the use of the word “plagued”. Perpetual conflicts, dictatorial regimes, discrimination and inequity in resource allocation are plagues shadowing our journey into the future. As a species at the intellectual apex of the cognitive chain, we both revere and demonise that which is of the wild world. By not using our advanced intelligence to find logical, efficient and custodial means to live on this planet, then for us and the wild things, it will be a plague on both houses. Steve Dillon, Thirroul
It is generally accepted that rabbits, mice, cane toads, kangaroos, deer and brumbies must be routinely culled to protect habitats, native wildlife and, at times, humans. It seems illogical for a marine ecologist to claim that “an increase in shark populations does not necessarily correlate directly with shark bite risk”. Given the choice of jumping into a pool containing one shark or another containing 50 sharks, I’m pretty sure I know which one I’d select. If the targeted euthanasia of aggressive shark species can be conducted without endangering their numbers and has been effective in reducing shark attacks in other places, such as Reunion, then it definitely should be implemented alongside other measures. Col Burns, Lugarno
Humans are determined to destroy the environment and every living creature that lives in it. Sharks are our next victims but they belong in the water. When they’re gone, there’ll be something else more dangerous. Do we not learn? Jenny Greenwood, Hunters Hill
Talk up education
When will we learn indeed (“We talk down our world-class unis. When will we learn?” , June 19)? Funding to higher education has dropped and is dropping. When evidence tells us that education is at the core of a good life, it is a no-brainer that funding must be fairer, focused on where it does the most good for our nation. Similarly, let’s fund public education as it should be funded. It is only then that we can rightly celebrate our educational systems and institutions with taxpayer money spent wisely, equitably
and purposefully. Lisa Williams, Dulwich Hill
The vice chancellor of UNSW may well be gratified to learn that some of our tax-funded universities have climbed in the latest global rankings. However, that is cold comfort to a stronghold of “sessional staff” who helped to build those rankings. Casual academics are the backbone of the university workforce. If casual labour ceased tomorrow, universities would collapse. Casual academics are not rejoicing when job insecurity and wage theft are rife in the university sector. Meanwhile, the National Tertiary Education Union is urging an overhaul of excessive remuneration packages paid to university executives and consultants – vice chancellors’ salaries included. Gloating about their institutional rankings appears hypercritical when some of that commendable achievement has been hard won through the sweat and tears of exploited labour. Dr Liza Rybak, Bellevue Hill
A sorry state
After the aged care royal commission, it became problematic to prescribe any sort of psychotropic medication for dementia patients in residential care, even down to antidepressants for one of the commonest conditions to complicate their situation (“Man, 87, bashed by fellow resident in aged care home”, June 19). I hope this embargo has been relaxed somewhat to safeguard patients because staff cannot provide a bodyguard to every patient all the time in such a unit. I feel desperately sorry for both these poor gentlemen. Yes, both, because one man who has no longer any executive command over himself, and almost certainly now no memory of events, has been, incredibly, charged with a crime; and another is grievously injured and probably doesn’t know why. Jennifer Briggs, Kilaben Bay
Schools? Cool!
Future planning our public schools before development is essential (“Two new schools to be built to help ease crowding crisis”, June 19) and our education authorities and the state government are to be commended. Now, if we can ensure that the schools are built in time for the current generation, with generous fields, other playing areas and safe public transport easily accessible for all, life for young families could be improved. Who knows, young families may even feel secure enough to increase children in number? Janice Creenaune, Austinmer
Reality, meet promise
Despite being a “comfortable” retiree, looking back, I fully appreciate the struggles to make ends meet (“Does ‘cultural drift’ explain why we’re less happy?” , June 19). I also understand the ingenious ways each generation withholds the reality of happiness from its promise. In the 1970s, “It’s Time” became tangled in its own idealism. Later, greed turned out being far from good, and who foresaw the World Wide Web as a sticky trap? It doesn’t take a major academic paper to repeat Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (that people are driven to fulfil basic needs before moving on to more complex, self-actualising needs). Put another way, once our security needs are met, wealth, ambition and “likes” too often make us miserable as distractions from being relaxed with who we are. Peter Farmer, Northbridge
Trump unites, again
Everyone, be they commentators, letter writers or editorialists, is in furious agreement that Trump’s Iran settlement is a dud. As Michael Koziol reports, “the deal appears to have few genuine friends” (“Deal throws lifeline to regime US vowed to destroy”, June 19). One unmentioned but significant absentee from its supporters is Israel. Trump has explicitly called its intrusion into Lebanon and its military campaign against Hezbollah into question. But what he has not done, among the long list of his egregious failures, is to call Israel to account for its occupation of Gaza, its contempt for the so-called ceasefire there, its expansion of large-scale settlements in the West Bank, and its condoning of rogue settler attacks on Palestinian villagers, their homes, olive groves and livestock. It’s time he did. Tom Knowles, Parkville (Vic)
Donald Trump has just signed a memorandum of understanding with Iran, demonstrating his talent for being a total loser when it comes to the art of the deal. Trump’s war and MOU have achieved far less than President Obama’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Trump’s greatest motivation for terminating Obama’s achievement was Trump’s racist jealousy of a black man’s success. Obama achieved a 98 per cent reduction in Iran’s uranium stockpile, but Trump’s MOU doesn’t even mention that stockpile. It is estimated that the cost of Trump’s War is over $US2 trillion ($2.85 trillion) and has pushed the world to the brink of recession. Surely, even the Americans are now realising that putting a deplorable and ignorant person in power is not a wise thing. Michael Davis, Balmain East
Your editorial says that “Trump’s Middle East war has been a disaster” (“Strait shot proves to be an own goal”, June 19). But is there any other kind? Wars are started and fought for the glory of usually just one protagonist, in this case Trump – but you could replace him with Bush, Putin or Netanyahu. There is always a theoretical gain, whether social, economic or political, and the benefits, if any, to the populace on both sides are usually negligible, and, at worse, tragic, as is the case in Gaza and Lebanon. There are no good wars, only the infliction of misery on mostly innocent human populations. Lock the politicians and generals in a room and let them slug it out, winner takes nothing. Patrick McGrath, Potts Point
After two weeks being blank trying to remember the president’s name, out of the blue there it was. Now I wish I could forget it. Dementia has a weird sense of humour. Zuzu Burford, Heathcote
Tough times
I am not too sure about Kyle Sandilands, but I was moved by his efforts to pay the mortgages on his houses (“Kyle’s mansion sale on struggle street”, June 19). Most people have that problem and, out of simple empathy, may I suggest he sets up a Go Fund Me scheme. Maybe move the Rolls-Royce out of the photos, though, in case people fail to understand the grievous nature of his problems? Nola Tucker, Kiama
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