Current asylum seeker policy was born from the now-discredited reporting of the "Children overboard" incident in 2004. Nonetheless, the narrative based on the vilification of people seeking asylum lives on and has been reinforced by the media and politicians. The success of this propaganda ties our politicians to partaking in the nastiest of behaviours – blaming the victim. Both political parties believe that to do otherwise would cost them electoral victory. Throughout history, governments have created for their own promotion narratives based on lies. Inevitably, the treatment of the targeted group gets harsher and harsher as the enforcers try to convince themselves they are doing the right thing while knowing in their hearts they are not.
The relentless hardening of the official stance continues, the most recent being the withdrawal of access to musical instruments to those detained in a Melbourne detention centre. How can we justify such punishment of people whose only crime is to seek asylum? How can we credibly promote our "solution" on the world stage, when it is based on such cruelty? Neither party leader invented this repugnant narrative, so why don't they agree to change it and restore some truth and decency to our country?
Susan Cranage, East Malvern
Cruel new rules on gifts
Visitors to the Broadmeadows detention centre are no longer allowed to take gifts to asylum seekers, many of whom have been in detention for years. Instead a detainee must give us a written request for a specified item; for example, a book, a packet of coriander, a new T-shirt, a warm jacket and so on. This request must be submitted for approval by Border Force and/or Serco employees. If the request is approved, the item must be delivered between 9.30am and 11.30am on three specified days of the week. These times do not coincide with visiting hours, which are later in the day, making it very difficult for visitors to bring gifts, especially for visitors who travel long distances. These new rules are cruel, senseless and shameful.
Helen Stagoll, Alphington
Children held in gulag conditions
Pronouncements about stopping boats are one thing, but how does that policy translate into reality? The reality is that children held in detention by Australian authorities on Nauru are being deprived of clean drinking water and adequate health care, and are being abused through the illegal use of corporal punishment ("Get the detainee children out", 8/10). These are crimes against humanity that surely none of us could find acceptable. It's time to remove the political point-scoring; restore humanity to our immigration system, ditch the name "Border Force" with its implications of military muscle; and bring perspective and our compassion back to this nation and to the things done in our name. When conditions that children are being held in resemble conditions once attributed to concentration camps and gulags, we have got it very wrong. Enough.
Pauline Hopkins, Beaconsfield
Weasel words mask obscene actions
When the Nazis sent innocent people to Auschwitz to be murdered, they obscenely masked their actions with welcoming orchestras and an inspirational slogan – "Arbeit macht frei". When the Immigration Department sends innocent, suffering asylum seekers to indefinite offshore incarceration, to live alongside dangerous criminals, it obscenely masks its actions with weasel words: "Careful and appropriate consideration is given to the placement of all people ... Detainees are placed in facilities that will best meet their needs and ensure the safe, secure management of detention facilities" ("I see no hope for the future", 28/9).
Colin Smith, St Kilda
THE FORUM
We are being done over
I wonder whether our governments are afraid to limit the acquisition of houses by foreigners because it would expose the fact that there is little else keeping the economy churning. While the cycle of demolition and construction keeps builders and white goods salespeople happy, it's also shutting out of home ownership younger generations.
If we collected the billions in taxes we should expect from fantastically rich corporations such as Chevron, there'd be no need for this miserable sell-off of our future, or any other belt tightening. Just as with the mining boom, we are letting ourselves be done over like a bunch of hicks.
Meg Williams, Alphington
Loss of common wealth
In 2014, every Norwegian became a theoretical millionaire thanks to their government's sovereign wealth fund, established in 1990. What does Australia have to show for taxpayer largesse to the mining industry, much of which sends its profits off-shore?
Federal and state subsidies average $7billion annually, plus there is federal funding of rail and port infrastructure. An estimated 60per cent of Queensland's royalties are returned to miners. In 2013-14, donations from resource and energy companies totalled $1.8million to the LNP, $453,000 to Labor and $114,000 to the Nationals.
The sector is awash with employees on 457 visas, with local workers reportedly missing out on jobs. Fly-in-fly-out arrangements attract tax breaks for mining companies despite high social costs. In Australia, "mining is money" (The Age, 17/9). But whose money, when policies appear to socialise costs while privatising gains? And at what loss to our common wealth?
Barbara Chapman, Hawthorn
Devotion inspiring
The article on the Fryer family's experience with the power outage, where two sons with Duchenne muscular dystrophy are so dependent on power, was not only alarming but a sobering insight into the world of those who care for people with severe disabilities (The Age, 12/10). Jenny Fryer's devotion to her sons was inspiring and a wake-up call to those of us who moan over minor inconveniences. Jenny, you are extraordinary.
Diana Yallop, Surrey Hills
State owes the Valley
The Latrobe Valley community has paid the price of supplying Victoria's electricity for the past 90 years. With the impending closure of Hazelwood, what have our state and federal governments done to ensure a just transition for the community? Itis extraordinary to hear Tony Abbott state that "coal is good for humanity" when communities living around coal mines are some of the most socially disadvantaged, with high unemployment rates. Latrobe Valley unemployment is about 10.7per cent. The future of our energy requires government to make sure there is an orderly transition. And transition is not just about technology but about the community.
Wendy Farmer, Newborough
Futility of new fleet
The Bureau of Meteorology was last year hacked by foreign spies, according to a cyber security report (The Age, 12/10). Now that foreign powers appear able to hack government computers with impunity, it is entirely possible that an enemy could hack Defence Department computers to pinpoint submarine locations. A submarine that is not invisible is a death trap for its hapless crew. Notwithstanding the rapid development of new technologies – including small, cheap submersibles – that will inevitably make submarine invisibility a thing of the past, cyber hacking ensures that submarine warfare is already obsolete. So the proposed $50 billion to be spent on a new submarine fleet will be wasted before the first rivet is fastened. Far better to spend that money on cyber security and on training a new generation of military hackers in the art of cyber warfare, for that is how future conflicts will be fought.
Charles Shepherd, Brighton
Dreading aged 'care'
As one who witnessed horrific neglect of a frail man in a "high-end" nursing home more than a decade ago, I am still filled with horror, as a fit 70-year-old, at the prospect of ever needing to go into such care. The man called repeatedly for a pan to relieve himself, while surrounded by meal dishes left uncollected for hours. I felt bound to relieve his anguish, but when I reported the issue to the nurses' station, I was told he would have to wait until the change of shift, whenever that was. He was dead when I visited my mother the next day. Little wonder she also feared being in that aged-care facility, a circumstance I had no control over. Frail old age is an inescapable prospect for all of us and we must unite to demand an overhaul of the aged-care system.
Kaye Kibblewhite, Frankston South
Bring complaints to us
It is concerning to see letters raising serious issues about the quality of aged-care services. Iencourage anyone with concerns to come to us, or seek the assistance of an aged-care advocate. Both services are free.
Due to our new independence and higher visibility, we are receiving an increasing number of complaints, and that is to be encouraged. We work with both sides of a complaint to identify what has gone wrong and try to resolve it to improve care for the person and others. Where there are concerns that an older person is at risk, or there may be a systemic issue, we refer the matter to agencies that are better placed to take urgent action.
Raising concerns directly with service providers will often ensure quick and appropriate resolution. If people feel they can't do this, or are unhappy with the result, they should contact us. Ifthey are still unhappy with the outcome, they can seek a review or contact the Commonwealth Ombudsman.
Rae Lamb, Aged Care Complaints Commissioner; 1800550552 (free call); www.agedcarecomplaints.gov.au
Window into despair
Donald Trump is not the problem. Granted, tomes of unflattering assessments of his style and character could be written, but that would not lessen the incongruity of a (thankfully unlikely) Trump presidency. Trump is merely a window into the soul of an evidently deeply distressed population. We should be asking how utterly despairing must be the lives of his supporters that they see him as their salvation?
History is littered with examples of restless citizenries' blind devotion to unanswerable leadership, often with devastating consequences for targeted minorities, and Trump's words and actions appear straight from the despot's playbook. Be not alarmed by Trump, the man, but by the social disquiet that has elevated him to potential-president status.
George Petrides, Belgrave
Still hope for America
They have allowed Trump and his followers to degrade a political process that was already puzzling to many of us: their attitude to gun control confounds and appals us; their legal system seems fixated on individual rights at the expense of public probity; their education system graduates millions who are ignorant of geography and contemptuous of history; and they have flooded the world with a culture that accepts substance abuse and glorifies trash-celebrities. To the extent that America sets the agenda for the Western world, it is our business.
It seems there is much wrong with America. And yet, on that terrible September day when the Twin Towers came down, 403 firefighters, police officers, medics and Port Authority personnel numbered among the dead. Dozens, probably hundreds, of others went to help and survived. Stories abound of ordinary people who died helping others out of the buildings, or going back in to try. Any society that produces so many members willing to walk into fire to help strangers is sound at its core.
Maurice Ryan, Malvern
The chosen few
We read of private schools that are flush with cash, the best way to find outfits to wear for each day of the racing season and of the "Cape Grim scotch fillet with oyster emulsion" to be fed to guests ("Top chefs serve up Caulfield winners", 8/10).
And then we read of the homelessness filling the city streets, with most of the mayoral candidates ignoring the topic. We read of the lack of support for families, the underfunding of government schools and and how too many people are being squeezed out of the housing market.
We are a country of the haves and the have-nots: those with the Cape Grim scotch specially handpicked for them, and those whose dinner was chosen because it had a discount sticker on it as it neared the end of its life at the local supermarket.
Donna Lancaster, Inverloch
Snail mail indeed
Australia Post has certainly lived up to its friendly nickname lately. Take these examples: A card sent from Mt Barker in SA, on March 20, was delivered in Ballarat on May 10; a letter sent from Wentworth in NSW on August 30 was delivered in Euroa on September 26; and a second letter sent from Wentworth on August 30, was delivered in Balwyn on September 27. Time to buy your Christmas cards and send them off, I suggest.
Barbara Dean, Soldiers Hill
AND ANOTHER THING . . .
US politics
The Big Top election will be a Wirthless Circus, featuring Trumpeter the apprentice clown and Thrillary the animal trainer.
Paul Drakeford, Kew
The Republicans have to stop putting up cartoon characters as candidates.
Peter Bear, Mitcham
US elections: a B-grade horror movie.
Richard Boydell, Rowville
With his sexual urges, it appears Trump hasn't grown out of early adolescence.
John Wolstenholme, Balnarring
Could the media, particularly TV, occasionally give us a Trump-free day. The exposure the man gets is sickening.
Gert Silver, South Yarra
The nation
Were the banners "Bob Brown's Bitch" and "Ditch the Witch" under which Coalition MPs protested locker room talk?
John Uren, Blackburn
Tony Abbott must be very pleased now that his plan to block same-sex marriage has seemingly succeeded exactly as he intended.
Garry Meller, Bentleigh
Australia must be the laughing stock of the world's more progressive countries.
Jen Gladstones, Heidelberg
It's time the Libs changed their name to the UCP: Ultra Conservative Party.
Jennifer Young, Lower Templestowe
One Nation declares war on the ABC.
Malcolm McDonald, Burwood
Senator Brian Burston, there is already a patriotic broadcasting corporation: in North Korea.
Thos Puckett, Ashgrove, Qld
NSW politics
Amazing that the greyhound "industry" has more clout than the car industry.
Raymond Kenyon, Camberwell
In the "greyhound" race, Mike Baird's principles run second to his political aspirations.
Paul Fuller, Richmond
When will Alan Jones detail the rest of his legislative program for the year?
John Walsh, Watsonia