The suggestion to move carers off benefits to the paid workforce shows a lack of awareness of the reality of their lives, and the needs of the people they care for. I am the parent of a child with autism and an intellectual disability. I have struggled to participate in the paid workforce and faced many obstacles.
There is a severe shortage of services for people with disabilities, which adds to the caring load, and a paucity of after-school care and specialist school holiday programs. Many teenagers and adults with disabilities cannot be left alone. And despite the rhetoric of "family friendly workplaces", many employers are reluctant to show the flexibility needed. Expecting carers, who are often on-call 24hours a day, to participate in an unwelcoming employment market – where jobs are scarce – is a brutal approach to people who do much, much more than their fair share of work.
Catriona Knothe, Gembrook
Tackle the root cause of welfare dependency
The government's "revolutionary change" aimed at cutting the cost of welfare dependency would be more convincing if it tackled the cause: the shrinking availability of adequately paid, non-casual, full-time and part-time work. The government carries much of the blame for this. It has been leaching jobs out of the economy through its loose allocation of 457 visas. These visas have exploited untrained foreign workers at low pay rates while also undercutting trained Australian workers who are competing for similar jobs.
The China-Australia Free Trade Agreement allows Chinese companies to bring in their own workforce without the requirement that jobs be offered to local workers first. Also, the Coalition government has underspent on new national infrastructure. Large engineering infrastructure projects are outstanding job-making investments, as they generate many additional jobs through the economic multiplier effect.
The government needs to correct the employment abuses allowed under 457 visas and the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement, and invest more money into long-term infrastructure projects using Australian contractors. Otherwise, Social Services Minister Christian Porter's new "investment approach" will be little more than an attempt to change the behaviour of our desperate underclass, particularly single parents, while doing nothing to tackle the graver reasons for their under-employment.
Peter Gerrand, West Melbourne
Carers and mothers are the easy targets
Christian Porter's speech on the "welfare trap" revisited the myths of welfare dependency. He included the usual scary statistics, characterising young carers and mothers as a likely lifetime drag on the economy while ignoring their contribution to the health and happiness, and to the raising, of the next generation of Australians. He implied that care recipients and children left bereft by people taking up (non-existent) jobs could move into nursing homes or childcare centres. A nice thought – and are these free of economic cost? One final point: Mr Porter claims the welfare bill is rising by 6per cent per year. Meanwhile, each year the already-massive salaries of executive rise by at least 10per cent. Those guys are not a drag on our economy, are they?
William Puls, Mentone
How can young carers be financial burdens?
Was it really necessary for the government to group 11,000 young carers with the unemployed and single mothers as being burdens on the taxpayer – and all for the paltry sum of $120 per fortnight caring for a parent who is disabled or has a chronic illness? Bloody disgraceful.
Rosalie Watson, Scottsdale, Tas
Such a "slack" carer
My mother died two years ago and my father died a year go. When they were alive, I used to get them out of bed, help them to bathe, wash their soiled sheets and remake their bed. Then I dressed, fed and medicated them, placed them on their recliners and turned on the television or read a book to them until lunchtime. Now, somehow, I feel I was a burden on society.
Mark Mocicka, St Kilda East
Raise the income threshold
As an active early baby boomer, Iam not a "learner". However, Ihave been discouraged from participating in the workforce as a qualified, experienced disability carer by punitive income rules. Like many of my generation, I have little superannuation so I must work while I am able to. However, if I earn more than $414 a fortnight, my pension is reduced by 50cents for every dollar. No experienced adult is happy to work for $13per hour.
Now that the National Disability Insurance Scheme has been introduced, experienced disability carers must be encouraged to stay in the industry. I have done my "lifting" – working, employing staff, paying taxes and raising a family – for nearly 50years. The income threshold of seniors who are working should be increased to at least $500 a week, without affecting their pension entitlements.
Alistair Glass, Heidelberg
An immoral attitude
The Age's Money supplement (21/9) included a query, addressed to financial advisor Noel Whittaker, from someone with a superannuation balance of $2million. The reader was worried about losing the Commonwealth Seniors' Health Card (due to the recent changes), describing such as loss as "morally wrong". Noel gave a serious response to the question. I am still lifting my jaw from the table.
Ranee Mischlewski, Box Hill
Hands off our super
The Big Banks need to be kept far away from our superannuation ("Revolutionary plan to shake up super funds", 21/9). Time and time again they have shown they are unable to act honestly and transparently, or in the interest of their customers. The financial welfare of Australians comes a distance forth behind: add-on sales, earning bonuses and driving share prices and dividends. Banks' testosterone-driven culture and risk-taking behaviour show that while they are happy to bump along the boundary of compliance or legitimacy, their actions and values are out of sync with community expectations. They need to earn the right to go near our super by demonstrating they put their customers' welfare first.
Peter Topping, North Melbourne
Vital health warnings
In an episode of the British comedy, Outnumbered, where the daughter tells of her teacher's claims to be a witch who can cast spells on the class, the father sighs: "What a bloody waste of time the enlightenment was".
I know how he feels. The saga of conwoman Belle Gibson, who seems to have convinced people she cured herself of cancer ("Penguin was warned on Gibson con, 21/9), continues. It is interesting to note that there has been a furious backlash by readers, angry that publisher Penguin did not practise due diligence before printing her book.
The Castlemaine Local and International Film Festival's organisers would be well advised to warn attendees that the director and co-writer of Vaxxed (The Age, 21/9) was responsible for the discredited 1998 study that suggested a link between autism and measles, mumps and rubella vaccinations. When it comes to our health, the price can be high.
Vivienne Bond, Warburton
Why was she believed?
I find it incredible that anyone would have believed Belle Gibson's story from the outset. To claim to be suffering from terminal brain cancer and then miraculously survive from diet modification alone would have gained the attention of the medical profession. Yet as far as I know, no health professional contributed to her story. Surely Penguin should have investigated these unsubstantiated claims. It is equally responsible for the hoax, and the staff who signed off on the book should be named and shamed.
Debora Mendelson, Toorak
The power of art
Love of life, joy and exuberance can all be found in John Olsen's work (Arts, 21/9). Viewed over many years, his paintings still have the power to delight and surprise. Perhaps that is art's raison d'être.
Barbara Chivers, Box Hill North
Make motorists pay
Ross Gittins makes important points about road-use costs and charges (Comment, 21/9) but understates the costs that private vehicles impose on society.
As well as the costs of building, maintaining and operating roads, there are the costs of policing them, costs to the justice and prison system when infringements occur, costs from accidents and pollution-induced illnesses (the resultant health care), lost income and welfare payments. There is also the loss of local amenity from the noise and danger of traffic, and the way it acts as a barrier between neighbourhoods.
All but a very small fraction of these costs are directly attributable to private motor vehicle use. We would be doing well if we required motorists to meet these costs, let alone – as Gittins reasonably advocates – using revenue from motorists to cover additional government costs.
Robert Salter, Clifton Hill
The ALP's hypocrisy
I grew up in a fiercely Labor household, going back to my grandfather who was Attorney-General in the Scullin government. If you wanted social change, fairness in the workplace, a voice against profligacy, then you went to Labor. It was the party of the underdog and truly a "broad church".
However, you cannot selectively be a party for the underdog, and that is why Labor's position on refugees in detention stinks of hypocrisy. Bill Shorten, Tanya Plibersek, Penny Wong and all the rest, you are basically good people. What the hell are you doing holding a policy which, when implemented, is increasingly being regarded as a crime against humanity? You have to do better if you want to hold your heads up and be called leaders of the great Labor Party.
Chris Brennan, Gladysdale
The Coalition's shame
For the past three years, the government, aided and abetted by a weak opposition, has trumpeted its asylum seeker policy. The "stop the boats" mantra is wearing thin, whilst refugees languish behind bars, increasing their suffering and vulnerability. Now Malcolm Turnbull and Peter Dutton have the audacity to "lecture" world leaders about how to handle the refugee crisis. We can only hope that sensible and humane leaders will ignore them and continue their efforts to help refugees. And let us not forget the veil of secrecy that surrounds the plight of asylum seekers. What was that about democracy, Mr Turnbull?
Irene Goldwasser, St Kilda
Refugees are people
Malcolm Turnbull, take a little time out from your gilded, privileged life and spend a day listening to an asylum seeker. This may help you realise that some of those who need humanitarian aid the most have actually been incarcerated indefinitely by the Australian government.
Jenny Dexter, The Patch
Our forgotten people
All the clever people, rightfully, are concerned about the grave and sad plight of refugees. However, when I am on my way to the supermarket, I am struck by the number of our own people who are sleeping rough. We wring our hands and avert our eyes, or give them a donation, but do we really embrace their difficulty and march/act/whatever in solidarity with them? I guess the refugee issue is more appealing.
Helen Donnellan, Richmond
Dreamers, weepers
Andrew Dowling (Letters 21/9) is deluding himself. No event has hurt the Melbourne Football Club more than its 1958 grand final loss to Collingwood. The Magpies not only stopped Melbourne winning four premierships in a row, they probably would have won six. But they did not because some clubs do and some clubs just dream (and weep a little). The Hawks now join the Demons in the latter category.
Ron Wilson, Mont Albert
Verbal child abuse
I overheard this exchange on Saturday. Mother shouting to two white-faced toddlers: "Just shut up. Don't move, I tell ya. D'ya hear me?". Then, from Dad, when one child shows him a purse: "So ya got your own bloody money, have ya? Come tryin' to scunge more off me, are ya? You been spendin' too much time with ya f---ing mother". I wonder, what must it be like for tiny girls to grow up in an environment like this and where will they be when they are 16.
Gabrielle Gardner, Montmorency
AND ANOTHER THING
Politics
Turnbull neglects to mention that the only option his government offers to refugees is offshore detention.
Chris Burgess, Port Melbourne
If Turnbull thinks we have the answer on refugees and border protection, I'd hate to see the question.
Con O'Brien, Malvern
Dear world, please don't follow our refugee example.
Loy Lichtman, Carnegie
You may not like Turnbull but he's doing a great job for Australia. Paradoxically, he's more popular overseas than he is at home.
John Mark, Kew
I can't say what I think of Dutton without being defamatory. My tongue is sore from the biting.
Rowan Forster, Surrey Hills
Can Bernardi stay in the US? We don't want him or his far right views.
Meredith Andrews, Seacliff, SA
I listened, spellbound, to Theresa May's brilliant UN speech. Why can't the US produce a candidate like her?
Roger Mendelson, Toorak
Does Hanson know there's a guy with a weird ethnic name running Sky News Australia?
Pamela Papadopoulos, South Yarra
Hang on, Colin Reeves (21/9). I was born the same year as John Howard but I'm not approaching "the end" of my life. It's all just beginning.
Elaine Hurst, Ocean Grove
Furthermore
Magda Szubanski, you are more than equal to all of us.
David Pahl, Beechworth
And country and western music proves God hates us, Barney Zwartz (Comment, 20/9).
Barry White, South Melbourne
When I attended the funeral of someone who died of alcoholism, his AA supporter said the only way is abstinence. Hinch is fooling himself.
Neville Wright, Kilcunda