Liberals need to rethink core values strategy
To submit a letter to The Age, email letters@theage.com.au. Please include your home address and telephone number. No attachments, please include your letter in the body of the email. See here for our rules and tips on getting your letter published.
Ross Gittins says women are the key to the Liberals' future (Comment, 7/5). Even more fundamentally, however, a ″core value″ of the Liberals is ″small government and lower taxes″ – as recently advocated by Gina Rinehart (' Rinehart calls on Liberal Party to move further to the right and adopt Trump policies ', 6/5). Yet it has been clearly shown in recent decades that ″trickle-down″ economics based on this core value doesn't work because an inevitable consequence is even greater gap between the wealthy and the poor. Thus economists now understand that governments must provide support, services, a tax regime, and a climate policy to shrink that gap so ″no one is left behind″. These policies are what will attract women voters. If the small government core value remains part of the Liberals' platform, they have much thinking to do way beyond the tactics employed in last weekend's election.
Ian Hopkins, Aireys Inlet
Punching for championship: climate change
The boxing analogy of the editorial (7/5) invites extension to an opportunity lying ahead for Australia, Anthony Albanese and Labor. If defeating Peter Dutton, Michael Sukkar, Max Chandler-Mather, Adam Bandt and Clive Palmer in one night is heroic the Foreman-like final touch, the heavyweight championship, now lies ahead. The ambitious and long-lasting reform that beckons could well be winning a decisive bout with climate change. The opportunity was spelt out in 2021 by John Hewson's Climate Targets Panel in its updating of the Climate Change Authority's 2014 emissions reduction targets. Its analysis aimed at determining Australia's fair share of global emission reductions consistent with a 1.5 degree temperature rise. The answer was not net zero by 2050 but rather net zero by 2035.
John Gare, Kew East
Time to catch up with the times
Ross Gittins (7/5) has got to the heart of the Liberals' problem – Australia has changed but they haven't. What is extraordinary is that in our parliamentary democracy, the MP is supposedly there to represent their electorate. Yet Liberal MPs have basically held steadfast against that purpose, and that includes even the ″progressive″ Liberals like Tim Wilson. If you think back 15 years, you have Tony Abbott , a committed monarchist, who bestowed a knighthood on Prince Phillip. Scott Morrison who was a divisive and unpopular PM. Malcolm Turnbull, a possible progressive, who was rejected by his own party. Peter Dutton expressed views on immigration, climate and Indigenous issues that some of his own party members disowned. All the Liberal heartland seats were stolen by teal women who espoused the policies that appealed to the shunned Liberal progressives. As Age columnist Peter Hartcher has advised them – catch up with the 21st century.
David Fry, Moonee Ponds
Introduce a conclave to elect leader
I would like to suggest the Liberal Party be creative, and have a conclave to elect their new leader. The suggested contenders do not inspire confidence and will guarantee the party will be in the wilderness for many years. If the entire remaining members were all candidates, they could vote in secret and come up with the brightest star, who may not be one of the spoken-of contenders.
Lyn Anderson, Surrey Hills
No advice cred in Credlin
Chip Le Grand hit multiple nails on the head (″ Lessons for the Liberals: do the opposite of what Peta Credlin says ″, 8/5). To his list of rules I would add, ″Be transparent″. The Albanese Labor government ran a couple of weeks short of full term. Yet the Liberals continually promised to release its policies ″soon″ and its costings ″soon″. When a party has almost a full term to prepare policies and costings this tactic suggests to the electorate they aren't prepared, are hiding something or their maths is dodgy.
And yes, definitely do the opposite of what Peta Credlin says.
Mick Hussey, Beaconsfield
THE FORUM
Voice must be heard
Anthony Albanese is determined to reassure Australians that he's not about to capitalise on his massive electoral victory by embarking on revolutionary change. It's steady as she goes. Those who see a golden opportunity for bold reform are being encouraged to dampen their expectations. This applies as much to foreign policy as to domestic issues.
On Gaza, for example, Rodger Shanahan's conclusion that the government's ″first-term handling of the issue has not cost it politically″ (″ Israeli offensive risks enmeshing troops in 'forever war' ″,8/5) implies that Australia is unlikely to offer more forthright criticism of Israel's conduct of its war. The imperative to speak out, however, will only intensify as Israel advances its campaign of bombardment, starvation, occupation and displacement of the people of Gaza. Australia's voice matters. It must speak out in loud and clear denunciation of this inhumanity.
Tom Knowles, Parkville
Reduce salmon stocks
In all that is being written about salmon farming in Tasmania, the one point seemingly missed is that, since it began back in the 1980s, the industry has been supplying fresh fish to Australian consumers and now contributes 75,000 tonnes of our annual marine protein. High in Omega-3 fatty acids, and important vitamins and minerals, salmon has become an integral part of the nutritional intake (' Something distinctly fishy about the way Labor romped home in Tasmania ', 8/5).
There is no doubting the fish in the pens are becoming stressed by warming water temperatures.
To save the industry for Australian consumers and to protect the Tasmanian environment, surely regulated stocking densities must be reduced to the safe numbers of earlier times. It may reduce output and increase costs, but the option is to lose a vital part of our fresh food supply.
John Mosig, Kew
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Sydney Morning Herald
8 hours ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
To defend itself, Australia mustn't kowtow to its rivals. Or its allies
Which is why Albanese left Canberra quite untroubled by the prospect of not meeting the US leader at all. And, if a meeting were to occur, Albanese had no intention of grovelling, no basket of delicacies to offer. Even though Trump tells us that he's open to extravagant gifts. When Ramaphosa said to Trump, 'I'm sorry I don't have a plane to give you,' the US president replied: 'I wish you did. I would take it.' Australia has had an offer on the table in an effort to persuade Trump to exempt the country from the tariffs he has imposed on every other nation and penguin colony (with notable exemptions for Russia, Belarus, North Korea and Cuba). Loading 'The ball is now in the US court,' Trade Minister Don Farrell told me five weeks ago. 'We have put our proposition to them, and it's open to them if they want to accept it.' It included an offer of setting up a reliable supply chain for critical minerals to help break China's stranglehold. The offer is still in the US court. Albanese is not going to plead. The Coalition is still demanding that the prime minister insist on an urgent meeting with Trump at any cost. Opposition defence spokesman Angus Taylor on Thursday said that Albanese must do 'whatever is necessary to meet with President Trump … as quickly as possible'. Maybe the opposition hasn't quite adjusted to the quiet patriotism that Australians feel about this. The country wants its leader to be on his feet dealing with Trump, not his knees. Or maybe the Liberals do get it, and they're trying to set Albanese up to fail. Loading In a poll published this week, non-partisan Pew Research found that, among 24 nations, Australia was one of the countries with the greatest distrust of Trump. Seventy-seven per cent of Aussies said they did not trust Trump to do the right thing in world affairs. This was identical with sentiment in Canada, yet Trump hasn't breathed a word about annexing Australia. The median distrust rating across all 24 countries was around six in 10. Australians have firm views about the US president. We will not reward a lickspittle leader. Does that mean we want to dump the AUKUS agreement with the US and Britain? From the news coverage this week of Trump's decision to review the deal, you could be forgiven for thinking that it's deeply unpopular. But a separate poll this week revealed that the opposite is true. The Lowy Institute survey poll found that 67 per cent of Australians support acquiring US nuclear-powered submarines, the first and most contentious element of the AUKUS pact. The poll of over 2100 people was conducted in March. When it was first announced, Lowy's poll found support at 70 per cent. 'Over the past four years, the Lowy Institute poll has shown that Australians' support for acquiring nuclear-powered submarines remains strong,' said Lowy's director, Michael Fullilove. The strident anti-AUKUS campaign led by Paul Keating and the Greens has made no real impact. The Australian electorate is discerning enough to judge Australia's national interests. And to tell the difference between distrust of Donald Trump on the one hand, and, on the other, an agreement between Australia and the country that Trump leads temporarily in order to acquire a national asset. (With Britain, of course, the third participant.) Australians have firm views about AUKUS. We will not reward a sellout leader. Which leads us to a key point largely overlooked in the week's frenzied coverage. America is not the point of AUKUS. The reason it exists is not out of love for the US. Or Britain. It came into being because of mutual fear of China. Beijing has built the world's biggest navy so that it can drive the US out of the Western Pacific and dominate the region. If it dominates Asia and the Pacific, it dominates the majority of the global economy. Which ultimately means it dominates the world. If you don't understand this, you haven't been listening to Xi Jinping. Or taking him seriously. Loading Australians understand the country's vulnerability. For years now, seven respondents in 10 have told Lowy's pollsters that they think China will pose a future military threat to Australia. The experts agree. The doyen of Australian defence strategy, Paul Dibb, says that Australia's navy and air force would not last a week in a confrontation with China. 'A few days' is all it would take for the People's Liberation Army to destroy Australia's forces. Not that Beijing wants to invade the continent. Australian strategists believe that China can more effectively and efficiently coerce the country by merely deploying some of the 300-plus vessels in its navy to Australia's northern approaches. Extended live fire drills, for example, would deter commercial shipping. Australia's supply lines, imports and exports, would be interrupted. The broad concept – cutting Australia off from the US and the world – is the same one that Imperial Japan was putting in place in World War II. Loading Knowing this vulnerability, an intelligent island continent would put a high priority on submarines to patrol our approaches. Unfortunately, successive Australian governments proved more complacent than intelligent. The six Collins Class submarines were supposed to be entering retirement about now. Which brings us to the second key point overlooked in the week's sound and fury. Journalists asked Defence Minister Richard Marles what would happen if the Trump administration review were to terminate AUKUS. What, they asked, reasonably enough, is Australia's Plan B? He answered that there was a plan, and we had to make it work. More pungently, Jennifer Parker of ANU's National Security College wrote in this masthead: 'Calls for a plan B overlook a blunt reality: AUKUS is already Plan C.' Remember Tony Abbott's Japanese subs and Malcolm Turnbull's French subs? Australia is becoming a byword for fecklessness. China's shipyards are producing two nuclear-powered submarines a year. Australia hasn't produced a single submarine since 2001. It's entirely possible that the Pentagon's AUKUS review, led by Elbridge Colby, complicates the plan. But an Australian with deep and long experience of dealing with Washington predicts that it will not scrap the three-nation treaty: 'I don't think he will recommend kyboshing the AUKUS agreement because, if he did, he'd be effectively ending the alliance. Not formally, but it would fundamentally change the equation.' Either way, with or without AUKUS, Australia's priority should be to prepare itself to stand on its own. AUKUS was supposed to add a serious new capability but not to be the be-all and end-all of Australian defence. 'Things have dramatically changed,' Paul Dibb tells me. 'With the Chinese navy on our doorstep doing live fire drills and the unreliability of our great ally, we now need to do much more to develop the independent capability to deal with contingencies in the South Pacific and relevant contingencies in the South China Sea, events where the US would have no interest in getting involved.' Australia needs to be able to stand on its feet, not its knees, in dealing with its ally. It needs to be able to do the same with its rivals.
The Age
8 hours ago
- The Age
To defend itself, Australia mustn't kowtow to its rivals. Or its allies
Which is why Albanese left Canberra quite untroubled by the prospect of not meeting the US leader at all. And, if a meeting were to occur, Albanese had no intention of grovelling, no basket of delicacies to offer. Even though Trump tells us that he's open to extravagant gifts. When Ramaphosa said to Trump, 'I'm sorry I don't have a plane to give you,' the US president replied: 'I wish you did. I would take it.' Australia has had an offer on the table in an effort to persuade Trump to exempt the country from the tariffs he has imposed on every other nation and penguin colony (with notable exemptions for Russia, Belarus, North Korea and Cuba). Loading 'The ball is now in the US court,' Trade Minister Don Farrell told me five weeks ago. 'We have put our proposition to them, and it's open to them if they want to accept it.' It included an offer of setting up a reliable supply chain for critical minerals to help break China's stranglehold. The offer is still in the US court. Albanese is not going to plead. The Coalition is still demanding that the prime minister insist on an urgent meeting with Trump at any cost. Opposition defence spokesman Angus Taylor on Thursday said that Albanese must do 'whatever is necessary to meet with President Trump … as quickly as possible'. Maybe the opposition hasn't quite adjusted to the quiet patriotism that Australians feel about this. The country wants its leader to be on his feet dealing with Trump, not his knees. Or maybe the Liberals do get it, and they're trying to set Albanese up to fail. Loading In a poll published this week, non-partisan Pew Research found that, among 24 nations, Australia was one of the countries with the greatest distrust of Trump. Seventy-seven per cent of Aussies said they did not trust Trump to do the right thing in world affairs. This was identical with sentiment in Canada, yet Trump hasn't breathed a word about annexing Australia. The median distrust rating across all 24 countries was around six in 10. Australians have firm views about the US president. We will not reward a lickspittle leader. Does that mean we want to dump the AUKUS agreement with the US and Britain? From the news coverage this week of Trump's decision to review the deal, you could be forgiven for thinking that it's deeply unpopular. But a separate poll this week revealed that the opposite is true. The Lowy Institute survey poll found that 67 per cent of Australians support acquiring US nuclear-powered submarines, the first and most contentious element of the AUKUS pact. The poll of over 2100 people was conducted in March. When it was first announced, Lowy's poll found support at 70 per cent. 'Over the past four years, the Lowy Institute poll has shown that Australians' support for acquiring nuclear-powered submarines remains strong,' said Lowy's director, Michael Fullilove. The strident anti-AUKUS campaign led by Paul Keating and the Greens has made no real impact. The Australian electorate is discerning enough to judge Australia's national interests. And to tell the difference between distrust of Donald Trump on the one hand, and, on the other, an agreement between Australia and the country that Trump leads temporarily in order to acquire a national asset. (With Britain, of course, the third participant.) Australians have firm views about AUKUS. We will not reward a sellout leader. Which leads us to a key point largely overlooked in the week's frenzied coverage. America is not the point of AUKUS. The reason it exists is not out of love for the US. Or Britain. It came into being because of mutual fear of China. Beijing has built the world's biggest navy so that it can drive the US out of the Western Pacific and dominate the region. If it dominates Asia and the Pacific, it dominates the majority of the global economy. Which ultimately means it dominates the world. If you don't understand this, you haven't been listening to Xi Jinping. Or taking him seriously. Loading Australians understand the country's vulnerability. For years now, seven respondents in 10 have told Lowy's pollsters that they think China will pose a future military threat to Australia. The experts agree. The doyen of Australian defence strategy, Paul Dibb, says that Australia's navy and air force would not last a week in a confrontation with China. 'A few days' is all it would take for the People's Liberation Army to destroy Australia's forces. Not that Beijing wants to invade the continent. Australian strategists believe that China can more effectively and efficiently coerce the country by merely deploying some of the 300-plus vessels in its navy to Australia's northern approaches. Extended live fire drills, for example, would deter commercial shipping. Australia's supply lines, imports and exports, would be interrupted. The broad concept – cutting Australia off from the US and the world – is the same one that Imperial Japan was putting in place in World War II. Loading Knowing this vulnerability, an intelligent island continent would put a high priority on submarines to patrol our approaches. Unfortunately, successive Australian governments proved more complacent than intelligent. The six Collins Class submarines were supposed to be entering retirement about now. Which brings us to the second key point overlooked in the week's sound and fury. Journalists asked Defence Minister Richard Marles what would happen if the Trump administration review were to terminate AUKUS. What, they asked, reasonably enough, is Australia's Plan B? He answered that there was a plan, and we had to make it work. More pungently, Jennifer Parker of ANU's National Security College wrote in this masthead: 'Calls for a plan B overlook a blunt reality: AUKUS is already Plan C.' Remember Tony Abbott's Japanese subs and Malcolm Turnbull's French subs? Australia is becoming a byword for fecklessness. China's shipyards are producing two nuclear-powered submarines a year. Australia hasn't produced a single submarine since 2001. It's entirely possible that the Pentagon's AUKUS review, led by Elbridge Colby, complicates the plan. But an Australian with deep and long experience of dealing with Washington predicts that it will not scrap the three-nation treaty: 'I don't think he will recommend kyboshing the AUKUS agreement because, if he did, he'd be effectively ending the alliance. Not formally, but it would fundamentally change the equation.' Either way, with or without AUKUS, Australia's priority should be to prepare itself to stand on its own. AUKUS was supposed to add a serious new capability but not to be the be-all and end-all of Australian defence. 'Things have dramatically changed,' Paul Dibb tells me. 'With the Chinese navy on our doorstep doing live fire drills and the unreliability of our great ally, we now need to do much more to develop the independent capability to deal with contingencies in the South Pacific and relevant contingencies in the South China Sea, events where the US would have no interest in getting involved.' Australia needs to be able to stand on its feet, not its knees, in dealing with its ally. It needs to be able to do the same with its rivals.
The Age
17 hours ago
- The Age
America is a society at war with itself
To submit a letter to The Age, email letters@ Please include your home address and telephone number below your letter. No attachments. See here for our rules and tips on getting your letter published. DEMOCRACY Overriding the authority of California Governor Gavin Newsom under the bogus claim of a national emergency, President Donald Trump has this week put 4000 armed National Guard troops and 700 US marines onto the streets of Los Angeles. The troops are deployed in response to civil protests against mass arrests by US government Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. The Trump administration has also 'warned it could send troops to other cities' for similar purposes (' LA unrest spreads across country ', 13/6). With the US federal and state governments now in open conflict over the deployment of active duty troops using force against civilians on home soil, America is effectively at war with itself. The US military is currently obeying illegal orders from the craziest commander-in-chief of any army since the Roman emperor Nero. The military is duty bound to uphold the US Constitution and stand behind the Congress, the courts and the rule of law. Presidential impeachment, or a declaration under the 25th amendment that due to mental impairment Trump is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, are both available options. A Pentagon order for the immediate return of troops to their barracks would be a good start to one of those constitutional processes. Lawrie Bradly, Surrey Hills US migrants taxes fund the National Guard According to several credible sources including Yale university and the US House of Representatives document depository, during the past financial year undocumented migrants in America paid more than $US100 billion in tax. Between them, IBM, Netflix, Amazon, General Motors, Nike and Tesla only paid $US30 billion. Putting aside the obvious distress and human rights issues associated with ICE's heavy-handed approach to mass deportation, just like the bizarre tariff policies, this latest venture makes no economic sense. A sad irony is that the law enforcement offices, the National Guard and now the marines charged with the duty of quelling the protests, receive their wage through the taxes paid by the undocumented migrants and those they have been ordered to subdue. Craig Jory, Albury, NSW Citizens become targets for elimination Barry Jones (Letters, 13/6) suggests media should be helping us to understand ″who we are as a species″. On the abundant evidence, ″we″ are trapped in an endless loop of killing. First, we define our enemies, then arm our soldiers with every conceivable weapon. This energises our capitalist systems as they rush to invest in profitable industries that, in turn, corrupt our governments. In response, those ″enemies″ see each and every one of us as either current, or future or past, members of the military. So, all of our citizens become legitimate targets for elimination. That mind-set justifies genocidal atrocities supported by nation-states. Thus, thermonuclear holocaust beckons us into the future of our own making. That's what we do, who we are. Trevor Kerr, Blackburn THE FORUM Self-interest reigns Self-interest is the biggest motivator for the lack of change that is occurring in trying to bridge the expanding divide between rich and poor. Our capitalist society ascribes success according to material wealth. The main factor in many people's lives is to expand their personal wealth almost at any cost. Therefore, there will always be winners and losers. Imagine if we measured a person's wealth by what they actually contributed to society. You might find that those with materialistic wealth are on the bottom of the heap and thus probably where they deserve to be. We don't honour enough those who are selfless, who don't seek power and status, but just want to do their bit to make the community a safe and an enjoyable place to be. Greg Tuck, Warragul AUKUS gamble Malcolm Turnbull provided information on ABC radio (12/6), that the AUKUS contract has a clause to the effect that before a single submarine, whether nuclear or not, could be released to Australia under that program the US president had to sign acknowledging it would not negatively impact on the US submarine capability. Firstly, why would Scott Morrison (even as a minister holding five portfolios) and his government have thought this was a reasonable basis on which to devote such a large Australian financial commitment, and secondly why would the subsequent Albanese government have followed suit? Given that we can now see how fragile once commonly held norms regarding contractual and legal agreements are under this Trump presidency, surely, on those grounds alone, we should remove Australia from the AUKUS agreement. We are now dealing with a gamble, not an enforceable contract. Jenny Callaghan, Hawthorn State Liberals' credibility What credibility can the Victorian Liberal opposition bring to government when at this very moment $2 million in conditional offers is on the table to save John Pesutto from bankruptcy and prevent a byelection? The first, an offer from Moira Deeming is subject to a guarantee that she will be pre-selected for the next state election. The second, from property developer Hilton Grugeon, requires that Pesutto does not challenge for leadership of the party within three years. This blatant and arrogant introduction of cash inducements to influence the outcomes of legitimate political processes and decision making should be called out immediately. Peter Randles, Pascoe Vale South
