Private education: Clash of objectives part of the school equation

Charlie Butcher, Singapore

Don't tar us all with same brush

Julie Szego has only served to emphasise her bias. My son was one of the "elite white men" to whom she referred as having attended Trinity Grammar. However, he has grown up in a single-parent household where he watched his mother work long hours so he could have an education in what she claimed was an "Etonian-style" school.

Many of the parents whose children attend Trinity work incredibly hard sacrificing other things to give their sons the opportunity of what until now had been an exceptionally broad, well-rounded education that emphasised teaching these boys to be caring, accepting and educated members of our broader community. The students at Trinity are not all rich, indulged, white males living in affluent suburbs. Don't tar us all with the same brush. If you met him and some of his school friends you might actually understand how far off the mark you were in both your assumptions and your generalisations. By the way, his closest friends from Trinity are Vietnamese, Greek, Sri Lankan and a couple of "White Aussies". They are caring, accepting, broad-minded and kind, and yes they were taught by Rohan Brown. He did make them tuck their shirts in and wear their uniform with pride. He did teach them to value their school and each other. If that is "Etonian" then bring it on.

Kate Rogers, North Carlton

Distribution of funds raises anger

Julie Szego "hates" talking angrily about private school privilege. So do I. But as long as the government continues with its manifestly unjust distribution of funds to schools that don't need them, and ignoring those that do, anger is the only appropriate feeling.

Tony Haydon, Mentone

FORUM

Breaking the cycle

I write in relation to the article "Why can't Sunrise apologise for stupidity?" (The Sunday Age, 18/3). After seeing the heartbreaking isolation of Aboriginal children from their country and their people, Mollie, the daughter of the famous and intrepid Marge Tucker and author of If Everyone Cared, put her all into abolishing the humiliating practice of fostering and adopting Aboriginal children out to the so-called more capable and respectable white families.

Like in most cases of adoption and fostering sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't. If the government had built top-class orphanages for the care and education of Aboriginal children, similar to the boarding schools popular with the rich, upper classes and paid similar wages to the tutors and carers, the story would be different.

Will we ever break this vicious recycling of humiliation and condescension?

June Ryan, East Geelong

The living dead

Peter Dutton's description of some reputable news agencies as "crazy lefties" reminds me of Hillary Clinton's infamous description of Trump supporters as "deplorables". It is a sign of a politician who has put himself above those who disagree with him and who cannot listen to dissent. In saying how "dead they are to me" about his critics, Mr Dutton has chosen to close himself off to a large portion of Australians for whom he has been elected to represent, and whose opinions matter.

Jackie Smith, North Fitzroy

Race to ruin

Sam Duncan's unconvincing defence of the millions of tax dollars squandered on the Melbourne grand prix (Comment, 24/3) was nicely skewered by Greg Baum's "smoke and mirrors" column ("All hail the grandiose prix", 24/3). If people want to run a car race in the city, let them finance it themselves, and compensate the city for the disruption and noise.

David Mitchell, Moe

No apology needed

Why has the AFL involved itself in "apologising" to Richmond for what it perceives as two umpiring errors in Thursday's game at the MCG ("Mistakes were made on penalties", The Age, 24/3)? Apart from the fact that it is arguable whether they were wrong decisions, can we expect the AFL to apologise for every mistake made by an umpire when a club feels itself aggrieved?

Alan Bright, Neerim South

Some good news

At last something to make us proud. Congratulations to the Labor for Refugees group ("ALP left to push for refugee lift", The Age, 23/3). May they advocate strongly at the triennial conference for "real difference" and make the party's policies more "humane". At last, something to cheer.

Aline Burgess, Hastings

Net worth

It seems a bit obvious, but why don't police use nets to quell individuals (Naked City, 24/3)? They can be portable and easy to use, and can be made in various weights. I believe in close encounters, they would be more effective than sprays and less lethal than firearms.

Properly used, a net could quickly render a person ineffective, armed or not. Of course, if large enough, a net could encompass more than one individual.

Raymond Reaburn, Melbourne

Waste solutions

I have been reading with increasing alarm about the situation regarding kerbside recycling. Since China has decided to no longer accept our waste, we are forced to currently stock pile, or possibly in the future send to landfill our recyclable materials. Stockpiling, as we have seen from recent fires in Melbourne, is a dangerous solution (and only a temporary one at that). Landfill is also not a solution. There is an expectation that somehow the government will step in with a monetary solution.

This is another situation in Australia where we have privatised the profits, but we have socialised the problems of this wealth generation, in this case waste disposal. Companies that create products find it convenient and cheap to use single use containers, which for some reason falls to the community to find a way to dispose or recycle this endless waste.

Rather than scrabbling for solutions at the end of the chain – I suggest that we tackle the problem from the front. Stopping the creation of single-use waste, or at least beginning to make companies that produce it in some way responsible for covering the cost that we as a nation are currently paying for waste disposal. This could be done in many ways. Perhaps a levy on plastic or glass as it comes into the country. Perhaps incentives for those that make products here from recycled materials.

I do think that allowing companies to continue to package things in a cheap convenient way for them, that has no consideration for the end of life of that packaging cannot continue. It is also unreasonable to make small local governments pay for the disposal of waste generated by large multinational companies.

Josephine Woods, Brunswick

Rural bliss

I was delighted and intrigued to see that Benalla was mentioned in an article by Anson Cameron (Spectrum, 24/3). Reading further, I saw that he was extolling the virtues of town hopping in rural Victoria, as opposed to the often dubious advantages of overseas travel. I couldn't agree more. Some navel gazing in the Main Street is a fun way to spend an idle moment, then coffee and scones in a local cafe complete an idyllic morning. Who says rural life is dull?

Helen Scheller, Benalla

Classical blast

Insofar as classical music played on 105.9 FM is concerned, the new programming is a miserable failure. Your correspondent has got it right (Letters, 22/3). The majority of listeners not only want more music, they want music that they can relate to, music that gives them some enjoyment – not the cacophonous stuff that someone has dredged out of the archives. Who is the programmer targeting? Certainly not the ageing members of the community who just like to hear the music which they recognise as classical.

Victor Moll, Mt Waverley

Protect sea life

So now the Turnbull government wants to massively reduce our marine sanctuaries in order to increase commercial and recreational fishing, mining, and eco (!) tourism, and hence profits ("Marine areas to lose shield", The Age, 21/3).

Scientifically, this would be tragically wrong in that sea animals and plants are already suffering from climate change-caused heat and acidity, and the animals need the sanctuaries for safe rest and breeding. We should be extending these protected places for them and ultimately also for our own good as part of Earth's essential interconnected web of life.

In addition, humans should feel compassion for the various amazing sea life forms. These are recently revealed on TV in David Attenborough's latest brilliant film, Blue Planet II. Who can forget the sequences of dolphins surfing waves, and the grieving dolphin mother clutching her newly born dead baby?

For enlightenment, politicians especially, should watch that film's crucial concluding episodes.

Barbara Fraser, Burwood

Please, grow up

I only have a small number of shares so the proposed changes to tax credits has no effect on me. What does have an effect is the continued imbecilic behaviour of our politicians, who prefer to sling mud at each other rather than evaluate the true situation and the best ways to handle it.

We didn't vote them in to indulge in childish games, but to find solutions that benefit all of us. So come on, grow up.

Jan Newmarch, Oakleigh

Sleepwalking

The report ("Big companies fail on climate risk reporting", The Age, 14/3) is bleak reading. It would seem that the LNP's resistance to any real world action in compelling businesses to consider climate change in their investment strategies or to report their own commitment to containing emissions, has resulted in a "see-no-evil" attitude on the part of these entities.

Australia is sleepwalking to disaster in its appalling lack of structural commitment to climate change strategies. It seems that unless a big stick is used by governments, businesses will only consider their bottom line. These same people are almost assured of a reduction in company tax, which of course, is not tied to any responsible action on climate change.

Chris Butler, Frankston