LETTERS
Spelling it out ... TAFE art students make their point. Photo: Robert Peet
It was heartening to see Elizabeth Farrelly's excellent piece on the O'Farrell government's withdrawal of funding from art education in TAFE (''The colour of money is ruining art'', December 27). The 2010 Australia Council Report Do You Really Expect to Get Paid described Australian artists as generally living in permanent insecurity, underpaid and underemployed. The O'Farrell government evidently seeks to ensure that they are also under-trained.
At least three times since the cuts were announced in September - at Sculpture by the Sea, the Premier's Literary Awards Dinner and the Anish Kapoor exhibition - Barry O'Farrell has proclaimed the importance of the arts to society. Yet his government is precipitating a cultural crisis by cutting funds to the institution that trains 70 per cent of the state's artists. He and the Minister for Education, Adrian Piccoli, have refused to meet with the representatives of the 27,000 people who signed a petition calling on him to reconsider. Junior minister Victor Dominello recently told a group of affected art students that he was powerless to influence the decision. Senior public servants told a similar group that there had been no consultation. The government has refused to disclose the statistics it claims show poor completion rates and poor employment prospects (claims that are not borne out by available figures).
Farrelly remarks that forcing the arts to justify themselves on the basis of economics is like talking to the Inquisition in glossolalia. Having the O'Farrell government give an honest account of itself would be like witnessing walking on water.
Illustration: John Shakespeare
Jonathan Shaw Marrickville
Labor sins in forests are even more risky
The criticism of the government's kowtowing to the shooters' party in Parliament rings a little hollow when it is not matched by calls to repeal Labor's similar move to allow shooting in state forests (''Premier warned of hunt plan backlash'', December 28). Probably more lives were put at risk by allowing shooting in state forests than national parks.
Both governments have been wrong to allow fringe groups such as the shooters and the Greens to dictate policy and both oppositions have been wrong to force them to do so by being unwilling to negotiate outcomes that reflect the wishes of their constituents.
David Cromarty Lavington
NSW national parks and nature reserves are huge harbour areas for pigs, goats, deer, horses, dogs, cats, rabbits, the list goes on. If there were no feral animals in national parks there would be no need of hunters to hunt in them.
We know the National Parks and Wildlife Service recognises the need to remove feral animals but the area under its management is too large for its available resources. The huge number of small-area nature reserves gifted to the NPWS by then premier Bob Carr without increasing its resources to manage them was a poisoned chalice.
Allowing recreational shooting in national parks could be a win-win solution for the NPWS. Rather than the Game Council, it could issue and control licences for individual hunting events, earning income and reducing the feral animal population.
Feral animals in national parks and nature reserves need to be dealt with. With sensible discussion and management this move will benefit the people of NSW.
Allan Lehepuu Tinderry
The leaked risk assessment about the consequences of allowing hunters into NSW national parks brings to mind the final stanza of Tom Lehrer's The Hunting Song: And there's ten stuffed heads in my trophy room right now/Two game wardens, seven hunters, and a pure-bred Guernsey cow.
Thos Puckett Ashgrove
I hike in remote areas of the Kosciuszko National Park every year, early summer or late autumn, and wear dun-coloured clothing to blend in with the scenery and be unobtrusive.
I will not hike there after the new laws on shooting in national parks are introduced in March; I don't want to be the victim of a high-powered rifle.
Thank you, Barry O'Farrell, for taking away a simple pleasure.
Charmain Williams Forster
Good news about the final eradication of rabbits and rats from Macquarie Island (''Not so much as a nibble: sun setting on wildlife paradise's rabbit war'', December 28).
The fact that it's an island, yet it has taken a team of dedicated professionals decades to achieve this goal, makes Barry O'Farrell's assertion that allowing weekend shooters access to national parks will help control ferals an insult to our intelligence.
There can be no denying what this decision always was, a cheap political bribe to win the support of a few individuals who happen to enjoy killing animals.
Rod Hughes Epping
Spot on, Brian Wood (Letters, December 28), except for the comparison between the government and street walkers.
Unlike street walkers, who are open and honest about the way they conduct their business, the Liberal Party made firm commitments to the electorate about no shooting in national parks before the election. Liars, liars, liars.
Paul Parramore Sawtell
While I was visiting a friend's new small property just outside Dungog there were shots being fired close by on a Sunday. I asked if those responsible were target shooting? My friend did not know, but hoped so.
I mentioned that when I was in the bush around Inverell decades ago I knew that the old service .303 Lee Enfields could go for miles and even a .22 Hornet was a worry for range.
Now we are to have shooting in national parks. Are they serious? Has Barry O'Farrell never left the northern line?
David Kennedy Newport
Obsession with maxi yachts spoils Sydney to Hobart
Such an iconic yacht race. But sadly the one-dimensional media coverage of the Sydney to Hobart yacht race is fixated on Wild Oates XI and its sponsor Channel 7 (''Wild Oats XI beats itself to set a Sydney-Hobart race record'' , December 28). This is a race in which the majority of the 70-plus yachts and their crew sail to a handicap. The privileged owners of maxi yachts compete for line honours but this race is not for them only.
Bob Tyrrell Megalong Valley
What riveting stuff. Like watching a Ferrari racing a Nissan Cedric … and then bragging about winning.
Rad Lewis Moss Vale
Police Minister must be held to account
Cameron Murphy's criticism of the Police Commissioner's lack of concern for victims of police misconduct, while justified, is too narrowly focused (Letters, December 28).
The people of NSW are entitled to a minister who will ensure the NSW police act in a highly professional manner and, at the same time, ensure the public are protected from the few police who abuse their powers. To date, the minister has been silent on his role of protecting the public.
The Minister for Police, Mike Gallacher, must be held accountable for police misconduct and the failure of the commissioner to respond appropriately.
The minister appears to be sitting on his hands while magistrates and coroners are scathing in their criticism of police evidence and police conduct in recent cases of police shootings, excessive force and bashings Almost all the police involved are going about their business as usual and some have even been promoted.
Mike Gallacher could start by publicly stating that he will ensure that the police implement the coroner's recommendations in the case of the Brazilian student Roberto Laudisio Curti and that he will establish an independent mechanism to investigate cases in which police conduct results in death or serious injury.
John Landau Birchgrove
On Friday we had the usual bellyache from the Council of Civil Liberties. The council just doesn't get it. It lionises a couple of victims of alleged police violence. I have far more compassion for the victims of mindless violence meted out by the thugs roaming our streets or masquerading as bouncers.
I applaud the police for trying, with one hand tied behind their backs thanks to Parliament and the judiciary, to stamp out the appalling crimes committed against innocent people.
Alastair Browne Cromer Heights
Fiscal terrorism
Can Australia list the US Congress as a terrorist organisation (''Little sense of urgency despite nearness of 'fiscal cliff' disaster'', December 28)?
John Tuckfield Abbotsford
It's actually a faecal cliff the Americans are on. And if suddenly they're off it, they're in it.
David Baird Burradoo
Media is too free with MPs' errors
Malcolm Turnbull's comments about politicians, the media and fact-checking at the Woodford Folk Festival are timely and refreshing (''Lying is easy: Turnbull calls for less spin'', December 28).
In their frenzied attempts to throw dirt at each other, politicians make the most rudimentary and atrocious errors of fact. These errors are reported, without analysis, by the media and become entrenched as urban myth. The hyperbole for and against climate change springs to mind. Australia needs a robust and independent media to report the facts, without the preferred political spin of the proprietor.
We absolutely need conviction politicians like Malcolm Turnbull.
Robert Barnes Wedderburn
Help Aussie hostage
As the husband of a Filipino woman, I call on the Australian government to take whatever action possible and necessary to secure the release of Warren Rodwell in the Philippines (''Hostage gaunt and dispirited but watchers say deal possible'', December 28).
To let this go on for more than 12 months is tantamount to our government participating in the long-term mental torture of our poor Aussie countryman.
Bob Carr should show some gumption, employ his high-level negotiating skills and show us he is worth the money we paying him to be Australian Foreign Affairs Minister. Pay the ransom money if this is necessary.
Gary Doherty Forster
Tries hard but can't seem to get it right
Oh dear, there must be numerous politicians and political commentators out there feeling enormous disappointment at missing out on a mention in Gerard Henderson's annual hyperbole hits of the year (''Turns out Mayans weren't alone in getting carried away about 2012'', December 28.)
Poor old Tony Abbott must be feeling worst of all. Then there's Christopher Pyne and Barnaby Joyce. And what about Andrew Bolt, Miranda Devine, Piers Ackerman and Henderson's own Fairfax colleague Paul Sheehan? His failure to include the recently sacked host of Channel Ten's breakfast show Paul Henry is inexplicable. If Henderson's approach to this annual exercise has taught me one thing it's this: don't be a passenger in a vehicle he's driving. He can't or won't look to the right.
John Lees Castlecrag
How could Gerard Henderson's list of hyperbole and prophecy during 2012 omit Tony Abbott's prediction that Whyalla would be wiped of the map after the introduction of the carbon tax? Not prophecy, just scaremongering I suppose.
Tony Brookes West Pennant Hills
Gerard Henderson might have added to his list of memorable 2012 events Tony Abbott predicting that Whyalla would disappear, Craig Emerson singing about Whyalla disappearing, and Whyallans wishing that Whyalla had succeeded in disappearing before Emerson began singing.
John Dorman Toowoomba (Qld)
Success after death
Musicians don't have to be famous while alive to achieve success and have their work celebrated (''Life after death - artists need only walk towards great white spotlight'', December 28). The most famous example of this is the blues singer Robert Johnson who recorded just 29 songs about 75 years ago and died two years later aged 27 in 1938. While alive he was just an itinerant muso playing in the Mississippi Delta region of the USA. His fame only gained momentum from the early 1960s onwards when his recordings were rediscovered and has since been acknowledged as a major influence of many rock artists from Eric Clapton to the Rolling Stones who also recorded his songs. Of course, there is the myth surrounding Johnson that he sold his soul to the devil so he could be remembered as a blues giant.
Con Vaitsas Ashbury
Indigenous example
So the senior campus at Dubbo College that was set for closure by the previous NSW Labor government has turned out to be a success, particularly for indigenous students (''Dubbo principal guides indigenous students into lifetime of learning'', December 28). If it works for Dubbo, then why not for Griffith, Leeton, Nowra, Coffs Harbour, Armidale and other localities with large indigenous school populations? And more importantly, how long will those communities have to wait for an initiative that will expand opportunities for their youth? This is one educational innovation that country NSW can well do with - let's not let it slip away in bureaucratic and budgetary hocus-pocus.
Perce Butterworth Annandale
Living with racism
Greg James demands the Greens produce a policy on population (Letters, December 28). I ask: what policies does any party concerned about population have to address the racism which population debates unleash on non-white Australians?
While debates about the size of our population are not necessarily racist, good intentions offer little protection to those who have to deal with consequences of the rhetoric that accompanies them on a day-to-day level.
I was a Chinese high school student when Pauline Hanson was making extraordinary claims and being met with rather muted challenges. Parents, teachers, students and some of my own Caucasian relatives became much more openly racist towards Asians. When I challenged them the response was: ''I'm not talking about you.''
The fact that someone else saying the same things probably was, simply did not occur to them. Then they wondered why some immigrants don't want to integrate with them.
Samantha Chung Newtown
The ABC of politics
So what has the year in state and federal politics thrown up ? Well, we've had barrelling-on Barry O, egregious but elusive Eddie O, junked and jettisoned Jenkins, slippery (slimy?) Slipper, cagey Craig T, choral clown Craig E.
Then there was tactically tax -talking Tony, jumping for the jugular Julia and Julie, bob-up-everywhere Bob C, baffling Bob K, pleasantly potty C. Palmer and bumbling bellicose Barnaby.
More of the same in 2013 ?
Joan Brown Orange
Please, a close shave
Not to detract one moment from Michael Clarke's superb innings on Thursday, but looking at the triumphant photograph on the front page of the Herald on Friday, I couldn't shake the image of a dirty child playing mud cakes, because of his facial hair (''Clarke a force of nature with a fine repertoire'', December 28).
It's a disease out there, this grubby look. Charlie Pickering on The Project, looks like an axe murderer! Can we call it quits with the unshaven already?
It also says nothing for the male sense of individualism. Lemming like, ''The Boys'' fall in and follow. It's all so 2000. Let's decide to make 2013 the fresh-faced year at New Year's resolution time. Axe the Flax!
Michael Shrimpton Hunters Hill
GFC reality cheque
Colin Kennedy's hairline must be adversely affected by his strenuous efforts to transform facts into rations, proportions of GDP, or whatever else best suits his favoured political leaning (Letters, December 28).
Let's try some simple facts. The Rudd-Swan government inherited an enormous surplus. Not a proportion of whatever, but actual money in the bank. Five years later, we now have a massive debt. That is the most basic supporting fact which Mr Kennedy is asking for.
Commentators are fond of pointing out that Australia survived the GFC in better shape than other Western economies, I don't often see reference to the fact that we went into the crisis in better shape than anyone else, which is the real reason we weathered the storm.
The next financial crisis will be bigger and more devastating than the last. And we have nothing in the kitty to fight it with.
David Knowles Chittaway Bay
Just missed the brain
If ever there was an example of stupidity in transport planning it is the proposal to force commuters from northern Sydney to change trains twice to get to their offices in the city (''Minister faces resident backlash over changes to train services'', December 28). It is up there with the idiocy of the aborted metro plan of the previous government.
How these revolving-door ministers of transport get to be where they are is one of the great mysteries of life.
Trying to sell the attractiveness of two changes of trains where none is presently required seems to me the equivalent of the policy of allowing hunters to shoot anything that moves in national parks so that the state can offload its electrical generators.
Where is Alice, I think I'm in Wonderland.
Lance Dover Pretty Beach
ALP should look in the mirror
Moving the Labor Party campaign office to Melbourne will only change the scenery (''ALP shifts office to avoid NSW taint - MPs'', December 28). The party apparatchiks are still in denial. To confront the real problem they should look in the mirror.
Bruce Spence Balmain
The ALP is in such a discredited condition nationwide that the only workable decision is to move its headquarters to Macquarie Island, where, according to the Herald report, all the rats and rabbits have been eliminated (''Not so much as a nibble: sun setting on wildlife paradise rabbit war'', December 28).
James Prior Sylvania Waters
In its search for suitable campaign headquarters I'm surprised Labor hasn't considered Christmas Island. It has the dual advantages of being well removed from the electorate and being populated by people who, it would appear, are similarly unwanted.
Bill Carpenter Bowral
Traffic hams
The seasonal delays with traffic bottlenecks on the Pacific Highway are the result of years of indecision by politicians on all sides (''Drivers in the hot seat as bypass backlogs create the coastal creep'', December 28). It's been like a three-ring circus, clowns to the left and jokers to the right, and motorists have been stuck in the middle.
Allan Gibson Cherrybrook
The Bulahdelah bypass is due to open in March. Halle-bloody-lujah.
Don Easter Balgowlah
We are the whingers
I agree with Anne Roberts (Letters, December 28): we have become a nation of whingers rather than doers.
I remember vaguely, while growing up, we had a name for people who complained about everything and everyone: ''Pommies.''
I suppose we are the new Pommies now.
Robert Yen Bradbury
Postscript
Editing the letters page can be such a fast and furious exercise that each day can go by in a blur, so it is fascinating to look back over a year of letters - thousands of them - and see the sweep of the issues that fired up readers of the Herald this year.
The controversial Alan Jones speech generated by far the biggest immediate reaction.
It happened to coincide with my co-editor Marc McEvoy's first day in the chair. Amazingly, he's still here, although enjoying a well-deserved Christmas break.
The Julia Gillard misogyny speech also meant an intense few days on letters, although letter writers were no quicker than the media in general in picking up on the game-changing nature of the speech. I updated the page late that night and the initial reactions mainly lamented the state of political discourse in general and Tony Abbott's behaviour.
Only the next day did people, particularly women, write in to express how deeply the speech touched them and to take the media to task for missing its historic importance.
Did the Olympics only last two weeks? It seemed like an eternity on letters, each day delivering a new opportunity for Australia to question its quest for gold.
The surprise resignation of Mark Arbib caused a big spike in the inbox, after days of discussion (and despair) about Labor's leadership woes. Child sex abuse by the clergy and asylum seeker policy also kept keyboards busy.
Of course, Fairfax Media generated a few letters itself after announcing big job losses and the move to a new, compact form for the Herald, slated for next year.
There was an outpouring of affection for the paper and departing reporters and much angst about the future of quality journalism, including the role of the letters page.
I can assure readers there will be a letters section in the new-look Herald, and there will be plenty of room for your wit and wisdom in that section. As for quality, that is in your hands, dear readers. See you in the new year.
Julie Lewis letters co-editor
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