Caroline Miley, Heidelberg

Voting is a private matter

It is unclear how a civics and citizenship education program could help a young person who declares on Facebook, "I don't know who to vote for."

Voting is a personal matter and each voter is assumed to conduct their own research to determine how they will cast their vote.

As the May federal election demonstrated, voting behaviour is complex, even mysterious, with numerous factors influencing each person's vote. It is difficult to see how schools and teachers could help students in that process.

Objections would result if students were given simplistic introductions to party platforms such as, "Labor supports the working class, the Liberals are for business, and the Greens care for the environment." And how would One Nation be analysed?

While schools should improve their current patchy efforts in teaching the basic elements of how the voting system works, an individual's vote should remain private.

Rod Wise, Surrey Hills

The kids are up for it

Teaching political skills to year 8 students was great: 26 in the class, five parties, each self-named, policies, symbols, colours, publicity, banners, voting papers, public speeches at lunchtime, borrowed voting booths from the Electoral Office. All students were invited to vote during lunch, recess or after school. Scrutineers. Every student counted votes for the exhaustive preferential system.

They loved it. It was not hard.

Jill Bryant, Malvern East

Don't forget the other Cs

There is another educational update concerning civics and citizenship. What about some of the other Cs? There is a need for civility, charity, character, courage, creativity, capability and courtesy.

Don't worry about emphasising voting – they will still get politicians when they vote.

Dennis Fitzgerald, Box Hill

THE FORUM

Scrap this project

Like many others I rejoiced when the Andrews government was elected and immediately cancelled the East West Link project, despite the major cost of doing so. My joy was short-lived, now that the same government is pursuing an equally unsustainable and destructive project – the North East Link.

As an advocate of sustainable transport I have been appalled at the prospect of encouraging even more motorists onto our roads. As a Boroondara resident I have been painfully aware of the massively destructive impact on my own municipality, on both its sporting facilities and its parkland.

In the last week or so, thanks to your reporting, I have become aware of the massive negative impacts on the Bulleen community in terms of business closures and job losses, and most recently of serious concerns regarding potential damage to the wonderful Heide gallery ("Heide warns on Link impact", The Sunday Age, 14/7).

Perhaps my greatest concern with the North East Link is that by funnelling many extra motor vehicles onto the Eastern Freeway it will lead to a revival of the East West Link project.

I call upon the Andrews government to cancel this monstrous project and spend the money facilitating sustainable transport instead.

Julia Blunden, Hawthorn

Future depends on it

Trevor Graham's "How we lost our own voices" (The Sunday Age, 14/7) makes depressing but compelling reading. Anyone would think our own public broadcaster was afraid of letting the public hear and see these stories.

At a time when freedom of speech is being much debated, it's all the more important for such valuable documentaries of "song lines" of our shared history to be as widely accessible as possible. We must not allow commercial or political pressures to stifle such fundamental storytelling. The education and culture of future generations depend on it.

Jenifer Nicholls, Armadale

Not-so-fine dining

Like Matt Holden, on the few occasions I have been (accepted into?) a fine-dining establishment, it has been uncomfortable, rather than enjoyable ("A certain fine dining has its day. I won't miss it", The Sunday Age, 14/7).

From the quite frankly bizarre ritual of another person unfolding and laying a serviette into your lap to the exorbitant prices, I can think of better ways to spend my time and money.

The piece de resistance was the time when the maitre d explained in minute detail the name, the flavour, and the ingredients of each item on the dessert menu. He must have assumed we'd lost the ability to read. When I smirked at the ludicrousness of the lengthy, elaborate descriptions, he paused, gave me a death stare, and inquired, "Pray what exactly does madame find amusing?"

I was lucky not to be sent to the kitchen to scrub the pans.

Mary-Jane Boughen, Murrumbeena

We need leadership

It is true that Australia lacks the rational efficiency of Germany when it comes to making "a clean exit from coal" but it is not true that "there is no acceptance in Australia that coal has a limited future" (The Sunday Age, 14/7).

In fact, we have scientists, several states and the ACT, various businesses, environmental organisations, some local councils and many members of the public who urge an end to the use of fossil fuel. They need co-ordinating by a leader and if the government won't do that there must be some other option such as via the Australian Energy Market Operator or possibly COAG preferably minus the ineffective Minister for Energy Angus Taylor.

We must get going urgently with the climate science, policy and action.

Barbara Fraser, Burwood

We owe him this

It's remarkable how hindsight puts everything into sharper focus and we become very brave with the benefit of it.

This is particularly true in the shameful and destructive episode involving the relentless booing of AFL great Adam Goodes in 2015, which has been painfully and graphically documented in The Final Quarter shown on television last week.

A thousand apologies from the AFL hierarchy and repeated regrets from others that "we should have done more" will not bring Adam Goodes back or heal his hurt. He has had to move on in his life. It behoves everyone who believes in a fully inclusive and diverse society based on mutual respect to step up and call out racism the moment it raises its ugly head, and that could be at the footy this weekend, in the street or at work or school tomorrow.

We owe Adam Goodes that commitment. Not to do so is to accept that what happened to him is OK and part of sport. As it says at the Holocaust Memorial and the Kigali Genocide Memorial in Rwanda, "Never Again". Have we learnt our lesson?

Nick Toovey, Beaumaris

Look at the source

Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey make scathing comments about wind turbines.

These comments emanate from arguably Australia's worst ever prime minister and worst ever treasurer. I wonder whether these worthy gentlemen think an open-cut mine is a thing of beauty.

Tim Douglas, Blairgowrie

A dodgy business model

The southern states of America during the 19th century fought a war in support of an economic model built on the exploitation of a group of people whose wellbeing and freedom, it was maintained, were the prices to be paid for thriving industries like cotton and tobacco, and the profits that came with them.

In Melbourne today, the restaurant industry is very busy arguing that if they have to pay their employees a decent living wage that prices of meals and service will rise and a vibrant industry will be destroyed. It may be that instead of 10 new restaurants opening every week, and possibly one surviving a year, we will have less options and, yes, pay a bit more.

Any business model built on the exploitation of one group to meet the desires of another is unacceptable, no matter how vital it is that you can get a bespoke hamburger and hand-crafted negroni at 2am.

Mark Morrison, Kew

Those ugly words

"Go back to where you came from" is the voice of hate. It is the voice of intolerance. It is the voice of malice aforethought. It is the voice of the Holocaust. It is the voice of the pogrom. It is the voice of exclusion. It is the voice of racism. It is a reversion to the basest of base instincts turning us into vile reptiles.

Every time you hear those words a part of your soul dies.

Those words have no place in a civilised society, and it is up to each and every one of us to expunge them from our collective consciousness.

Jon Jovanovic, ​Lenah Valley, Tas

It's our only hope

Today I awoke from a cosmic slumber. I stepped out onto the porch. By some miracle I could breathe unaided. I came down some stairs, and with one small step placed my foot on solid ground.

Walking around I saw a dazzling array of life — plants of every description, insects crawling, birds flying, animals scurrying, some even communing with their human companions. The sky was blue and a gentle breeze blew shapely clouds overhead. I had landed once again, on Earth. It's 50 years since humans first set foot on the moon, and now we're planning to go to Mars and beyond, in search of a planet like our own, or one to remake in its likeness. But let's be clear: even as we race headlong to despoil the climate and destroy so much of life, Mother Earth remains our best and only hope. It's our one home in this vast universe, so let's stop trashing it.

Guy Abrahams, Richmond

A disturbing trend

Anne Summers ("Trump needs Pence", The Sunday Age, 14/7) canvasses the remarkable political clout now being exercised by US evangelicals, both in Donald Trump's US and internationally. Australia, as the widespread lobbying support for Israel Folau under the spurious guise of' "religious freedom" attests, is not immune.

It is worth noting here the recent decision by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, an evangelical, to explore further ways of extending abortion bans in other nations via restrictions on US foreign aid has a broader context.

African countries such as Uganda have, under intense lobbying by US evangelical groups, recently been engaged in a pernicious campaign aimed at their LGBTI communities.

The very real prospect of the zealous evangelical US Vice-President, Mike Pence, assuming the presidency would exacerbate this disturbing anti-secularist trend.

Jon McMillan, Mount Eliza

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