Men and behaviour: Change has to start, and education is the key

I grew up in very the toxic masculinity so well described by Steve Biddulph. As well as playing our own roles, perhaps we can request some honest men in the AFL media world to step up and remove those who so obviously perpetuate this outdated toxic culture.

Sam Evans, Thornbury

Be a man: brave, courageous, protective

I am haunted by the sound of the voice of an ABC radio announcer recently reading a message saying, "I am sick of the man-bashing, get over it." This was a response to the brutal rape and murder of an innocent young woman. Such a response is at best moronic, but really subhuman. There is much more to being "a man" than having a penis. Anyone who perpetrates violence against another person they know to be less strong than they are, is a coward. To be "a real man" one must be brave, courageous and protect society.

Garry Nolan, Kew

The attitudes and behaviour need to alter

Dealing with violence in society should not be trivialised as a party-political problem. Premier Daniel Andrews has got it right: men need to change their attitudes and behaviour.

Jenifer Nicholls, Armadale

It's a conversation about respect

Why does it take another criminal act to realise we need a significant cultural change in our society and men must be included in that conversation about respect and entitlement.

I will not be intimidated by anyone to stop running safely around the Botanic Gardens or any public park. That's my right as a female.

We must remain vigilant but not alarmed by these random acts of violence and make our city inclusive and safe for everyone.

Pamela Papadopoulos, South Yarra

FORUM

No vision

My family would like to lend their support to Phoenix Andrews ("Fury as deaf students put off doing VCE", The Sunday Age, 10/6). Our son Ignatius, who is very hard of hearing and had a very late diagnosis, attended the Victorian College for the Deaf in 2017 for three terms after attending the exemplar deaf preschool facility at Aurora in Blackburn.

We were full of hope and optimism and committed to the Auslan language. It was a difficult and ultimately unsuccessful transfer due to their lack of facilities, resources and vision.

John Cartwright, Hampton East

Complex illness

Joel Feren is spot on about further conversations and investigation into mental health (Letters, 10/6).

As someone who has experienced depression and lost a parent through this scourge, it is a complex and varied illness brought about by differing factors and experienced at differing levels, which will inevitably have different outcomes.

This was highlighted by the late Anthony Bourdain who conceded his life was at a satisfactory point at the time of his death. Depression is an illness analogous to a cancer – it can go into remission for many years but also rear its head at some other least expected time.

Name and address supplied

More facts please

While the letter from Francis Moore (Church responds, 10/6) picked up two minor inaccuracies in the previous Sunday Age editorial, it failed to respond, with facts, to the main issue. Speaking as a lawyer with some insights and based on media reports of specific events and statements made to the royal commission, it can be argued the institutional church has spent many, many tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars in Australia on the defence of its paedophile clergy over the past five decades.

While Moore complains it is unfair and unsubstantiated to claim the church has spent far more money protecting its clergy and employees than on adequately compensating the victims and their families, the charge remains unrefuted. It can only be addressed when the bishops of Australia demonstrate transparency and their accountability to the church as a whole, by which I mean the laity and the clergy, by a comprehensive report to the people of Australia on the funds spent protecting abusers and the funds spent in compensation.

That might start genuine renewal, of which there has been much talk but limited action.

Michael Kennedy, Eltham

What crisis?

Attorney-General Christian Porter claims that the integrity of the five forthcoming byelections is threatened by foreign interference unless the Coalition's new security laws are passed urgently. Bill Shorten says that the intelligence briefings have not advised any threat.

As Julian Burnside has highlighted in Border Politics, politicians know well that if they can make voters afraid of something and then take steps to protect the voters against what they are now afraid of, then the politicians will win votes.

As the article ("Parliament target for cyber strike", The Sunday Age, 10/6) makes clear, should the Coalition do well in these five byelections they could call an early general election. This "intelligence crisis" could be a strategy to begin such a campaign.

It seems clear that the claimed security danger is not so much a security crisis as a political opportunity.

Chris Young, Surrey Hills

A pronounced error

The article in Domain in The Sunday Age regarding "say it like a local" reminded me of the time my youngest son came to live in Melbourne, and we were travelling through Mordialloc. Without hesitation, he pronounced it as MORE-DYE-A-LOCK. We still rag him about it!

Anne Atkinson, Alexandra

Not a fair isle

Martin Flanagan ("China hearts Tassie, a worrying development", The Sunday Age, 10/6) writes of Tasmanian Premier Will Hodgman in 2015 announcing, "In China and Tasmania, governments at all levels are collaborating actively."

By 2016, this collaboration has led to Australia's biggest dairy farm, which is in Tasmania, being sold to a Chinese company. By 2017, 23.4 per cent of Tasmanian agricultural land is foreign owned, and in 2018, a Chinese-funded Cambria mega-development is proposed for Swansea.

Governments at all levels "collaborating actively" to an increasing number must feel more like a form of collaborative betrayal and dispossession.

Deborah Morrison, Malvern East

Protect the rat

If we accept the logic applied by NSW Environment Minister Gabrielle Upton for granting heritage status to the wild brumbies in Kosciuszko National Park ("Ecologist warns of unbridled disaster", The Sunday Age, 10/6), we should set about righting another historical injustice. The common black rat is thought to have accompanied our sailors on the First Fleet and colonised Australia along with the crew members of that fleet. Surely, they are deserving of heritage status as well, being a living connection to those who arrived in Sydney in 1788.

Robert Labuc, Heidelberg

We must act now

US climate change campaigner Bill McKibben is so right to urge strong climate action especially since clean energy technology and strong public demand both already exist ("Racing to rescue the planet", The Sunday Age, 10/6).

It is also true and very concerning that the planet is at risk of passing any or all the major climate tipping points while various governments here and overseas irresponsibly ignore increasingly dire warnings.

Another American, climate science expert James Hansen, also adds that stronger climate action every year from now on could achieve the crucial reduction of atmospheric greenhouse gases down to 350 ppm by the end of this century. Our planet is still so mostly beautiful we must do our utmost.

Barbara Fraser, Burwood

Keating's legacy

Ross Gittins (Comment, 11/6), I can tell you why I took economics subjects in the 1990s. Thanks to one P.J. Keating, economics was sexy. Fancy a J curve anyone? What we need is a treasurer who can carry off a double-breasted Armani suit and watch the enrolments at the local economics departments soar.

Merrilyn Gates, Northcote

Cruel and cynical

Bravo to Julian Burnside ("Treatment of refugees bordering on criminal, says top QC, The Age, 14/6). Yet again he articulates how the human rights of people seeking asylum in Australia, have been pitted against shameful political opportunism by both Labour and Liberal governments. He rightly states that "it is something about which they (the public) have been misled for so long". One wonders if one day we will no longer be a signature member of the International Criminal Court( ICC) given the outstanding possible indictments of criminal offences, that have been committed under Australian Law, ie, the right to seek asylum.

Also bravo to Michael Kirby ("Summit silent on human rights", The Age, 14/6). Yet again another example where the most obscene denial of human rights in North Korea, is also pitted against political opportunism. While not denying the threat of a nuclear confrontation on the Korean Peninsula, it is hard not to acquiesce to cynicism regarding the motives of either Donald Trump or Kim Jong-un. So little of real substance to their meeting has as yet been articulated.

Judith Morrison, Mt Waverley

Water myths

It would appear that Adani may be given substantially unfettered rights to water use. Of even greater concern is the fact that the coal seam they propose to mine lies below the water aquifers. Of necessity, these water aquifers will be destroyed forever resulting in a permanent adverse effect on subterranean water flow over an enormous area.

Any claim that the land can be restored to its former state after mining has ceased should be classified as "porcine aviation".

Philip Bunn, Beechworth

Defence moves

Perhaps the Victoria Police could run self-defence martial arts classes for women on a regular basis all throughout Victoria and distribute free whistles. This does not excuse violent offenders from responsibility for their crimes, but it might help women defend themselves.

Di Cousens, Mt Waverley