Letters
Letters to
the editor
Reverse osmosis
Jason Koutsoukis is wrong in asserting that the Advance campaign did not contribute to the Greens loss of seats (“Inside story: Advance ‘siphoned’ Liberal resources”, May 31–June 6). They contributed to the Liberals’ poor vote, dropping them out of the top two candidates, which enabled Labor candidates to beat Greens on Liberal preferences. Had the Liberals finished in the top two in those seats, instead of Labor, the Greens would have won on Labor preferences.
– Denny Meadows, Hawthorn, Vic
Pay up
Another informative article by Mike Seccombe (“Super heroes and villains”, May 31–June 6), this time debunking the claims of unfairness made by some wealthy superannuants. The generous tax concessions for super are there to help people provide for a decent retirement and to reduce the need for pension payments. We need a pool of tax money to pay for the things we expect the government to provide. If I am granted a concession, that shortfall has to be paid by someone else. We pay a lot of attention to people trying to avoid paying tax. They rely on others (usually nowhere near as wealthy) to subsidise them. Perhaps we should pay more attention to those who pay their taxes and contribute to the community.
– Catherine Crittenden, Summer Hill, NSW
Losing strategy
John Hewson rightly states that the real value of education lies in how the trained minds of students contribute to wider society (“How to fix university funding”, May 31–June 6). However, as a former tertiary student, I can assure him that the notion of a university education turning one into a well-rounded individual no longer applies. If paying for a person on a Zoom lecture to play YouTube videos generated by AI means we have a higher education industry of international significance, then I will stand corrected. But I do not see how prompting a computer to write an essay for me makes me well-rounded. I have it on good authority that the international experience is similar. If only AI could be used to weed out the bad actors! But sadly, it seems like the baddies are winning.
– Mitchell Thomas, Ashfield, NSW
Join the fight
Albanese has mistaken Labor’s so-called landslide victory as a popular vote for him, and for whatever right-wing, neoliberal, planet-destroying actions take his fancy. The approval of Woodside Energy’s North West Shelf project – Murray Watt’s “horrible little pig-nosed decision” – is a devastating expression of that dangerous hubris (Editorial, “An oink of pure greed”, May 31–June 6). The courageous Anjali Sharma (“An inconvenient youth”, May 31–June 6) argues that young people, who are almost half the voting population, won’t buy such destruction. How are they to fight back? How can we help?
– Bronwyn Davies, Potts Point, NSW
No mandate
Your editorial places the decision for Woodside’s gas expansion into the context of the government’s earlier dumping of the proposed “nature positive” laws. These were strangled at birth following a word to the prime minister from Western Australia’s Premier Roger Cook. Parading the new minister, Murray Watt, as someone who was yet to decide was a sop to environmentalists that turned sour when the background and electoral dynamics revealed his assent as a foregone conclusion. There was no mandate for this decision. The government’s huge majority was built on Greens and teal preferences, and their voters would have been bitterly opposed to it. Best of all in your editorial was the title, with its subtle allusion to Orwell’s Animal Farm. In our democracy, all “animals” are supposedly equal. But some, Western Australians and fossil fuel corporate donors, are more equal than others.
– Jock Churchman, Campbelltown, SA
Misplaced criticism
Grace Roodenrys’ scathing review of Hannah Kent’s Always Home, Always Homesick (Books, May 31–June 6) cannot go without critique of its own. Of course, it is dubious to criticise an intimate memoir of childhood with such zeal, but the review’s real downfall is to admonish the book for not being “literary” enough. Roodenrys is clearly uncomfortable about airing this bias, as she justifies her assertion by stating the book evokes a feeling of YA. As a children’s author myself of some 30 books, it is concerning that any reviewer should consider children’s or young adult literature to be an inferior literary field in and of itself. This kind of unfounded snobbery between genres only illustrates an ignorance of the extraordinary work consistently produced by Australian children’s authors. If Hannah Kent’s memoir evokes a sense of writing for the adolescent, perhaps that is a good thing.
– Kate Temple, Rozelle, NSW
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This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on June 7, 2025.
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