One of the real challenges for authorities monitoring water usage (Four Corners, 24/7) is the difficulty in preventing tampering with water meters and the need to enter distant properties to check readings. Surely in this day and age, this data can be collected remotely. With each water meter, a small solar panel and battery could provide power and a telematics link using mobile phone links, satellite or even high frequency radio could provide real time data and an immediate alert if the data link fails in any way. The cost compared to the cost and consequences of massive water theft would be minimal.
Geoff Payne, Mornington
Out of sight, trust is betrayed
The ABC investigation of alleged water theft in the Murray Darling Basin is a frightening expose on what can happen far from sight. These include faulty water meters, lack of record-keeping and an apparent sense of entitlement of some landowners and developers and the impact on towns and farmers who have for years expected water to flow, who then find that others appear to have effectively re-routed the river to benefit their own interests.
To discover that the authority that is meant to manage this valuable resource on behalf of all Australians appears to be siding with big business is the ultimate betrayal of trust.
Pieter van Wessem, Balwyn
It's all our money being 'creamed' off
The money that is being "creamed" off by the dealings of certain big irrigators in the Murray Darling scheme is my money and that of every other law-abiding taxpayer, not to mention the appalling exploitation of the country and the complete disregard for the people and towns along the rivers.
I am ashamed to belong to a country, some of whose inhabitants behave in this seemingly illegal and immoral manner.
Marie Rogers, Kew
Establish a national authority
The Four Corners program highlights the urgent need for an independent national water authority. It could be based on the model of the Reserve Bank. We accept the need for a national monetary manager but seem blind to the fact that we need water much more than we need money. The unprincipled greed and arrogance of corporations being allowed to destroy an entire ecosystem is heartbreaking and shows the multitude of problems created by state bodies responding to short-term vested interests.
This is a national issue that affects all of us, not just the communities along the rivers.
Having travelled and camped in many of the areas affected I can attest to the enormous environmental damage. What were once flowing rivers are now stagnant drains and camping in the Menindee Lakes area was like being in a nuclear devastated landscape of grey death. The land itself seemed to be silent with grief.
April Baragwanath, Geelong
Federal intervention is needed, now
In 2016 the Darling River in NSW was turned into a dry sandpit hundreds of kilometres long because of the extraction (some illegal) of enormous amounts of water by cotton growers.
It's time the federal government intervened in the management of the Murray Darling river system to ensure that water meant for the river stays in the river, and that irrigators found stealing water are held accountable.
Bill O'Connor, Beechworth
FORUM
Rights and wrongs
How can Julie Bishop have the effrontery to go on seeking a seat for Australia on the UN Human Rights Council at the same time as Peter Dutton is refusing to recognise the UNHCR's claims for vulnerable refugees to be resettled in Australia?
Reg Murray, Glen Iris
Hard lesson
When will UNHCR learn that unless it is signed, witnessed and notarised, nothing is a core promise by the Australian government?
Jerry Koliha, South Melbourne
Heeding freedoms
If this Christian school was the only one available in Melton for this little boy from a Sikh family to attend then there might be an argument for him to be accepted wearing his patka. But there is an excellent state school available so the father's preference for a good education for his son is actually satisfied.
What remains is the freedom of a peaceful, law-abiding religious school (that is inclusive of students of other religious persuasions) to operate autonomously without state interference. By protecting this Christian school's freedom, we protect every other religious minority in our democratic pluralist society.
Edwina Vance, Bonbeach
Terms of adjustment
So a practising "traditional Sikh" man wants to enroll his son in a Christian school and then complains that the school is "discriminating against his son" for not permitting him to wear his patka within the school; "an essential part of his religious practice", The Age reports.
It is entirely reasonable for a Christian school to ask students to conform to its Christian ethos and standards. The father must accept that he is, by his own choice, compromising his traditional beliefs by sending his son to a Christian school, and therefore, it is for him to adjust, not the school. Replace, "my right" with "my entitlement" and you have a truer reflection of the matter.
Ben Manning, Frankston South
Young beliefs
Sagardeep Singh Arora argues that the Melton Christian College is breaching the Equal Opportunity Act and is discriminating against his son by not allowing him to wear the traditional Sikh turban. He may be right and the lawyers can argue over that.
Where Mr Arora is wrong is in his assertion that his son is being prevented from practising his religious beliefs.
I think the indoctrination and subsequent religious identification of children who are not yet old enough to have formed their own world view is a more serious breach of human rights that not being allowed to wear the headwear of their parents' religion.
Richard Aspland, Rosanna
A failed war
The article "Prescription Painkillers' Deadly Toll" (The Age, 24/7) refers to the doubling of opioid-related death rates since 2007 and quotes the CEO of Scriptwise, a non-profit group aiming to reduce prescription misuse, saying "for some reason [politicians] keep diverting funds ... to illicit drugs". Of course they do. What a shameless coveting that is of political survival in the stead of any human one.
And just in case you are under any misapprehension regarding the bona fides of our government's stance on drug abuse in general, of the 38 recommendations in the 252 pages of the current report of the National Ice Taskforce, not one addresses harm reduction or decriminalisation. Despite its dismal failure the Nixonian war on drugs continues.
Aliki Pavlou, Albert Park
Legalise the next step
As an increasingly secularised, educated and self-determining society we are used to making choices that were once shaped by the church, the workplace, and the older generation. Medical science has interfered with nature's processes in such a way that death has become increasingly protracted.
We live longer but we do not necessarily live well. If we accept the advancements that have made this possible, surely legalising the choice to step off the medical treadmill and die when we choose becomes part of the science.
Sally Dammery, Malvern East
Out of touch
It is one thing when the government promulgates its own generally business-friendly policies with spin and lies. We are told tax cuts are required for big business to provide trickle down benefits for the workers; the demise of manufacturing is encouraged to support free market ideologies; the sale of vital (and profitable) government-owned infrastructure continues to be undertaken in the search for greater efficiencies and reduced costs that have never previously eventuated.
It is another to disparage and dismiss a proposition from Labor that the growing inequality in society needs to be addressed through meaningful tax reform and other measures ('Shorten playing 'politics of envy' with taxes, The Age, 25/7). Scott Morrison, who squibbed serious tax reform and any measures to improve home affordability in his last budget, again shows how out of touch he is with the big issues facing the average voter and those who believe in a fair society.
Peter Thomson, Brunswick
On the nose
Coalition MP Andrew Laming in criticising Bill Shorten's "nasty egalitarianism", said "inequality is looking over your neighbour's fence and noticing he has a jet ski and you don't have one". Doesn't that perfectly sum up the "let them eat cake" politics of the Coalition in this country. Is it any wonder they are on the nose with most fair-minded Australians.
Jack Wajntraub, South Melbourne
It could be sorted
The government proposal to waste a possible $500million on a same-sex marriage plebiscite makes further mockery of the "debt and deficit disaster" spruiked ad nauseam. How could this possibly take priority over the housing crisis, the disgraceful number of people living in poverty, dental care, hospitals, schools, lack of prison housing, domestic violence and refugees?
It could be sorted by a free vote in Parliament in 10 minutes.
Julie Conquest, Brighton
Not Russian to answer
Memory lapse in older folk giving evidence is not unheard of, but it is sad to learn of someone Jared Kushner's age forgetting meeting Russian officials on four occasions.
James Ogilvie, Kew
Four years too long
The Age's argument (Editorial, 25/7) on fixed parliamentary terms makes sense. What does not make sense is the coupling with a four-year term. Clearly the politicians want a four-year term and that is likely to be the trade-off we are offered.
Four years of a bad government can be crippling for or society and our economy. The politicians need to demonstrate a dramatic increase in governing for the good of the people before I would support reducing our opportunities to throw them out.
Brewis Atkinson, Tyabb
Pardon me boys
If Donald Trump is already considering pardons for some people – prior to charges being laid, prior to cases been heard, prior to convictions – then it would appear he has already presumed their guilt. Another example perhaps of disdain for legal principles.
Peter Morris, Torquay
Ducking the issue
A pelican is left for dead with multiple breaks to its wings and ribs ("Pelican put down after vicious attack", The Age, 25/7). The Environment Department calls this "illegal and alarming".
Yet thousands of waterbirds suffer similar injuries and are left for dead when shotgun pellets blast their bodies during duck hunting season.
But that's legal, so not to worry.
Joan Reilly, Surrey Hills
Head to Kings Cross
Instead of spending taxpayer money on a study tour of Europe and North America, why doesn't Assistant Commissioner Rick Nugent and the group of MPs simply go to Kings Cross in NSW where a successful safe injecting room has operated for a decade?
Joe Wilder, Caulfield North
Mateship goes bush
Watching Four Corners and listening to allegations of systemic rorting of water resources of the Murray-Darling created a feeling of despair. The nature of the allegations and their magnitude strikes at the heart of my interpretation of our national character.
Water is a precious resource and will become more vital for rural existence and food production. After presumed agreement on fair distribution of this resource we apparently have an allocation method that is chronically unsupervised and subject to complete distortion favouring upper reaches of the system. Billions of taxpayer funds have effectively been stolen.
So much for rural "mateship".
Russell Harrison, Sandringham
AND ANOTHER THING
Water
The Murray River: a great example of trickle-down economics.
John Kelly, Mirboo North
No one can survive without water. Four Corners revealed that some landholders regard cotton as more important than people.
Lance Cranage, Mount Waverley
Drug deaths
Use the $400,000 to employ four drug and alcohol counsellors. The best monument would be saving lives.
Trefor John, Elevated Plains
It might just be monumentally inspired, especially if it provokes a medically driven solution.
Peter McNicol, Masefield
Inequality
If Scott Morrison lived in the real world, he might understand the meaning of inequality.
Annie Wilson, Inverloch
Inequality is not having a fence to stare over, never mind the jet ski.
Jenny Smithers, Ashburton
Trump
If Donald Trump is innocent and it is all fake news, why is there a need for him to pardon himself?
David Seal, Balwyn North
Magpies
Underperforming Collingwood. Garry Pert, gone. Nathan Buckley, going. Eddie McGuire, genius.
Graham Cadd, Dromana
It seems it was kinder to be a spouse of Henry VIII than an official or coach of Collingwood – the "chop" was dealt with expeditiously.
Margaret Skeen, Point Lonsdale
Other matters
Memorandum of Understanding is beginning to sound like the cricket equivalent of military intelligence.
John McCulloch, Cheltenham
Melton Christian College forgets, or more disturbingly, ignores that fundamental Christian tenet: Love thy neighbour.
Peter Batson, Albury