Letters to
the editor

Public good

As a teacher at a public school, I read your education coverage with interest, including Julie Hare’s article “Million-dollar principals” (December 13-19) about the over-inflated salaries of our publicly funded “private” schools. She spoke to a Radford College parent, who identified the sacrifices parents make to afford fees because they “really believe in having a private education for their kids”. Respectfully, I’d ask any parent who thinks along these lines to question what it is that they really believe? Richard Denniss is spot on: more and more flock to private schools because of status, without regard for the deleterious effects on our society. If you want social cohesion as part of your children’s future in this country, enrol them at your local public school. If it’s not up to scratch, consider donating what you would’ve spent on private school fees to help make up the disgraceful shortfall in government funding.

– Marian Corbet, Campbells Creek, Vic

Less gas, not more

Ed Husic’s article (“Our gas, our prices”, December 13-19) addresses the wrong problem. The major gas problem is emissions generation causing the climate crisis. Availability and cost of local gas supply is a distraction. Suggesting investment in east coast gas terminals when we are phasing out gas use is as damaging and unnecessary as the push to open more gas supply, which Husic rightly criticises. Before his Christmas discussion, Husic could read the Australian Energy Market Operator draft 2026 Integrated System Plan. It is the blueprint for transition of Australia’s grid from fossil fuels to renewables and storage. A gas transition from coal can largely be avoided. Over-encouraging a gas transition is kowtowing to gas multinationals. The likelihood is that multinational companies will still have influence over an essential service as the renewables and electrification transition happens. More Australian investment and control for generation and pricing would be beneficial.

– Tom Maher, Aspendale, Vic

Getting away with it

Ed Husic’s comment is bang on the money. As with the AUKUS fiasco, internationally Australia is being exploited. What’s wrong with our elected representatives? They are proving so inept on the international stage. Japan has been blatantly onselling more gas than it imports for its own use for the past four years. Surely, our politicians are aware of this? When the lack of action for this robbery is placed in the same basket as the robodebt scandal, which has still not been resolved, the question has to be asked, do our elected representatives really care about ordinary Australians?

– E. N. Whitehead, Queens Park, WA

Creeping contempt

One wonders what society is becoming after reading about the “reorganisation” of State Library Victoria (Carolyn Fraser, “The trashing of the state library”, December 13-19). When a board chair refers to their library as a “temple of engagement”, when staff training involves the management of Post-it notes and the forecourt is used to advertise cars, we see that we are well and truly along the road of Americanisation. The core business of libraries as places to store and disseminate knowledge and culture is debased as an unthinking managerialism takes hold. This creeping contempt for civil society, much in evidence overseas, should be resisted; and thus far it has but in part only. We should heed Fraser’s warning to safeguard libraries as an accessible public good lest we end up in an uncivilised dystopia.

– Gil Anaf, Norwood, SA

Quit coal

Michelle Manook (Letters, December 13-19) seeks to justify an ongoing role for coal in power generation. The International Energy Agency has made it clear that no new coal-fired power stations are required. We can debate the cost difference between clean forms of energy and fossil fuels, but the most important cost to consider is the massive human, environmental and economic cost of unmitigated climate change. The scientific advice is clear – to avoid the worst consequences of the heating planet, fossil fuels must be rapidly phased out.

– Ken Russell, Redcliffe, Qld

Deny, delay, delude

Presumably if “principles must operate in the real world”, then coal chief executives will be prosecuted and held accountable for their decades-long campaign of deny, delay and now, apparently, delude – because in the real world, company executives should be legally liable for the harms their products cause. There is zero mention of climate change in Michelle Manook’s disingenuous diatribe of delusion, the observable reality of fossil fuel-driven extreme weather events getting worse in the real world are impossible to ignore; unless of course you are paid by the coal industry to do so.

– Chris Roylance, Paddington, Qld