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QUARANTINE
Virus fight is not a game: every player a risk to us
First Australian footballers breached quarantine controls. Then some Indian cricketers breached quarantine in Melbourne. Now the team doesn’t want to play in Brisbane due to stricter controls.
Soon international tennis players will be arriving in Melbourne and undergoing two weeks specialised quarantine before the Australian Open. Tennis Australia apparently funded charter flights and hotel quarantine to enable these men and women to earn their significant keep. Love my tennis – but! Football, cricket, tennis are all games. COVID-19 is not a game, it is deadly.
Australians, Victorians in particular, have made a huge effort to ‘‘beat the virus’’. We have done so well because we care about the people around us, neighbour and stranger, and have abided by the rules to protect each other at considerable cost.
Every player allowed entry to Australia needs to understand they are the health risk to us, these are the rules they must follow and by the way, the rules may change, because yes this is a pandemic. A breach of quarantine or any other controls should see that person sent home, on their dollar.
Wendy Tanner, Footscray
Severe treatment for willing interstate returnees
My family travelled from Queensland to Victoria following the announcement of the NSW-Victoria border closure. Understanding if we did not leave we would be locked out of the state or required to enter hotel quarantine and pay the fees.
Our travel was along the Newell Highway through Green Zone areas on January 1. We have been tested for COVID-19 since arriving in Victoria and received negative results. We are now required to complete 14 days quarantine. Had this travel all been completed on December 31 or January 2 it would not trigger the need for 14 days quarantine. It appears travellers willing and able to follow Victorian government advice and return to Victoria on January 1 are being treated more severely than those who were not willing to.
Andrew Stephens, Castlemaine
Time to heed the holiday ‘at home’ advice
The summer holiday period this year is different because of coronavirus but holidaying families who travel interstate think that nothing has changed. We were told months ago to holiday in your own state or stay home.
Returning interstate travellers waste police and other state resources at the border and with testing which leads to large queues. Holidaying families get your act together.
Adrian Jackson, Middle Park
Bleak view from quarantine
I am one of the many looking out on a bleak Tullamarine car park who believed the official directive that when returning from a Red Zone before midnight on New Year’s Day home isolation was the mandatory requirement.
Apart from the shambles dealing with us I was shocked to see two distraught parents protesting against their 18-year-old daughter being quarantined alone for 14 days suddenly surrounded by police.
Susie Holt, ParkRoyal Hotel, Melbourne Airport
Health should not be sacrificed for tennis
The controversy over the Westin hotel quarantine arrangement (‘‘Row over hotel plan could hit Open’’, 4/1) throws into focus the precarious situation our government has signed up for in allowing the Australian Open to proceed.
Despite the mellifluous assurances issuing from Tennis Australia, only an extreme optimist could assume there will not be adverse events arising in relation to quarantine conformity and contagion. Hundreds of people will be here, most with little experience or sympathy with the level of restrictive discipline that is expected. Furthermore, it seems that our testing and tracing resources are already fully stretched.
The well-being of Victorians should not be sacrificed on the altar of elite sport and big money.
Terry Harrison, Mount Waverley
THE FORUM
Face-to-face learning plea
Year 12 students in 2020 did it tough. The mental health burden carried by this cohort is enormous, especially for those who felt isolated and alone during the height of the pandemic. Not only did these students miss out on graduations, formals and socialising; they were also locked out of their classrooms for most of the year.
Education delivered online is nowhere near as effective as face-to-face learning. It had to be done in 2020, but please, don’t allow it to happen for students in 2021 who are starting their tertiary education. Melbourne, Monash, Deakin, Latrobe … please think of the mental health of your students and make a COVID-safe plan to have all students attend at least some of their classes on campus.
Kate McCarthy, Canterbury
Act on emissions now
The report ‘‘‘Wrecking ball’ energy target likely by 2030’’ (4/1) demonstrates that the Morrison government either does not understand the need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions as much and as quickly as possible, or is wilfully ignoring it.
This is made clear by its inadequate commitment to a 26 to 28 per cent reduction in emissions, based on 2005 levels, by 2030 and by its ‘‘commitment’’ to net-zero emissions ‘‘some time in the second half of this century’’. At the same time the Morrison government commits to funding a new gas-fired power plant if industry declines to invest, and pouring $9million into an antiquated coal-fired power plant.
Meanwhile, leading climate scientists warn that Australia and the world must commit to net-zero emissions by 2030 if there is to be any hope of preventing Earth becoming a planetary hothouse.
Dr Douglas Mackenzie, Deakin, ACT
Rethink tree removal
Imagine the public outcry if a tollway cut through Melbourne’s Royal Botanic Gardens, bulldozed its 6000 mature trees (the lungs of the CBD) and then replaced them with seedlings (‘‘Ire grows as thousands of trees axed’’, 4/1).
The lungs of Melbourne’s north-east suburbs are to be destroyed by the bulldozing of 26,000 mature trees to make way for the North East Link road project (NEL). At the very least, the Andrews government should pause the NEL until these seedlings have grown into mature trees and also to take account of the rise in working from home post-lockdown.
Residents do remember that theoverall NEL benefit was assessed as only marginal before lockdown.
Helen Tsoutsouvas, Balwyn North
Address root cause
We wouldn’t have to remove thousands of trees if we didn’t need hundreds of transport projects, and we wouldn’t need hundreds of transport projects if we didn’t have tens of thousands of people moving to Melbourne every year as part of the plan to squash millions more into the city by 2050. We seem incapable of dealing with the underlying cause of our problems.
Chris Curtis, Hurstbridge
Time to concede
Gladys Berejiklian has not and is not handling the pandemic well (Letters, 4/1) but for her to now act in a responsible way could be interpreted as a concession that Daniel Andrews and Annastacia Palaszczuk were both measured and correct in their actions and that is not acceptable to either Gladys or ScoMo.
Gary Sayer, Warrnambool
One word changes nothing
Changing one word in the national anthem changes nothing. It is and always will be a colourless dirge. National anthems are supposed to stir up feelings of nationalist fervour.
I was born in Scotland. Watching the Scottish supporters and their teams accompanied by the bagpipes singing the Flower of Scotland at Wembley and being booed for it by the English makes me want to return to the land of my birth, and join in an anthem that urges the Scots to ‘‘send them homeward (the English armies) to think again’’. The Australian anthem makes me just want to have a good lie-down.
Brian Sanaghan, West Preston
Short-sighted view
Superannuation Minister Jane Hume’s injunction to superannuation funds to ‘‘ensure the best possible return on members’ retirement savings and not ‘to rebuild the economy’’’ is akin to encourage funds to starve the goose that lays the golden eggs. Investment returns in the longer term are invariably connected to the long-term health of the economy. The minister’s thinking represents not only a short-sighted view, but an approach which threatens the long-term wellbeing of us all.
Gary Heard, Jan Juc
Time to lead the way
The PM has taken great pride in changing our national anthem to include the words ‘‘one and free’’ to reflect his view of how we have ‘‘come together’’, particularly through the 2020 bushfires and COVID-19 crisis.
It seems to me that we are more divided than ever. We are not one nation and free, but states and territories, locked down within our individual borders. Hardly one and hardly free.
A national cabinet was established to coagulate the views of all states and act in Australia’s interest to rid us of this pestilence. A commendable initiative. However, such forward thinking ideas require strong, creative and decisive leadership. An ability to lead the way.
Changing the words of the national anthem contributes nothing. To paraphrase former PM John Howard – Mr Morrison needs to decide who is going to set the national rules to address this country’s COVID-19 challenge. Nero fiddled; Mr Morrison sells us slogans.
Barry O’Neill, Menzies Creek
Stop the policy drift
Given the scale of the crisis in the US, the UK and elsewhere there really needs to be radical changes to the political framing and policy drift that dominates in Australia. The federal government needs to stop the so-called tapering of JobKeeper and JobSeeker. Both programs need to be restored to full levels and extended till at least the end of June. The roll-out of the vaccine should begin immediately.
State public health officials need to agree on a common policy foundation for decisions regarding the management of borders and persuade the premiers to agree to them.
The wearing of masks should be normalised as a requirement. Alternatively, keep drifting and reap the full-blown coronavirus summer harvest.
Stewart Sweeney, North Adelaide, SA
HECS policy truly a fail
I was inspired reading Adam Carey’s delightful article ‘‘After fleeing terror, Abdul is now dux of Dandenong High’’ (3/1). It’s great that he’s hoping to study a bachelor of science, majoring in physics. Then I read that he’ll need a scholarship; but sadly, ‘‘His permanent resident visa prohibits him taking out a HECS loan’’.
Abdul Basit’s family, Pakistani Hazaras, fled persecution barely 2 years ago only to experience government-sponsored discrimination by a country that sings about being ‘‘one and free’’!
Fr Kevin Burke, Sandringham
We need people like Abdul
What a delight to read of Abdul Basit. When his family came here less than three years ago as refugees he had no English and he is now dux of Dandenong High with an ATAR of 97.15.
He is modest and charming in expressing gratitude for the great education he received with support from teachers and fellow students. He’s intelligent, hard-working and determined, so I really hope he gets the scholarship he needs to be able to study science at university.
As a quarter of his schoolmates were also refugees or asylum seekers, it makes you wonder why a particular group who arrived by boat, not plane, years ago continue to be treated so harshly, locked up indefinitely in camps or detention places, and denied education, employment or hope.
I bet many of them would also make terrific Australian citizens, just like Abdul will.
Marysia Green, Hawthorn East
Individual responsibility
A point overlooked by Leonie Wood (‘‘No plan for border closure pain’’, 4/1) is that the prime responsibility for the chaos lies with the multitude of Victorians who, just weeks after we had endured a lockdown precluding travelling more than five kilometres from home, jumped in their cars and rushed off interstate.
Regardless of whether there were any official warnings, common sense should have indicated the riskiness of this behaviour. The fact that supermarkets were still requiring hand sanitising and wearing masks should have been a sign.
The only way to avoid the current situation would have been to continue a ban on interstate travel.
Bill King, Camberwell
Holiday close to home
When travelling overseas in the past it was prudent to check that your desired destinations were safe. The same applies to travelling throughout Australia during these times of COVID-19.
Victorians were advised as early as December 18 to reconsider travelling to NSW. Obviously many Victorians took a chance.
They can still holiday in NSW, just closer to the border.
Julie Carrick, Leopold
Reclaim Indigenous names
Bronwen Murdoch (Letters, 4/1) has raised the prospect of renaming landmarks, such as Princess Margaret Rose caves. Can we include in the renaming the state of New South Wales. Now there is a silly name. That state looks nothing like south Wales, nor does it have any connection.
Perth is a city in Scotland and that city in Western Australia is another candidate, among many, for renaming.
The namings were made by homesick foreigners, or someone in an office in London in our colonial past and it’s time they were corrected. Reverting to the original Indigenous names would be appropriate.
Vincent Browne, Lara
AND ANOTHER THING …
Politics
The selectors should put Morrison in to open with Warner, he’s good at ducking and weaving and protecting the dead wood behind him.
Bob Whiteside, Warrandyte
You see, it’s like this, if we reduce the income of those on welfare we can easily increase the salaries of federal politicians.
Bruce Dudon, Woodend
We are one, means we are a team. Now all we need is a good captain.
John Rosenbrock, Mount Martha
Protect me from coronavirus, protect the climate, win my vote.
Malcolm Cameron, Camberwell
Coronavirus
Will a cricket Test lead to a COVID-19 test, separated by a patience test (while queuing)?
Wendy Knight, Little River
What is the equation that says that having spectators at a cricket match is so important that threatening the health and lives of Australians is justified?
Sam Bando, St Kilda East
Jeroen Weimar is asking ‘‘people to be patient’’ with the long queues all over Melbourne. The people are asking Weimar to be efficient and prepared.
Eric Kopp, Flinders
While NSW may or may not have ‘‘gold standard’’ contact tracing, there is no doubt that the rest of its responses to COVID-19 are ‘‘shambolic’’.
Philip West, Jan Juc
Haven’t nurses done enough? Now they are being asked to help out in testing sites.
Pauline Ashton, Maribyrnong
I wonder if Greg Hunt is aware of the irony in his statement that Victoria has a duty to find a way to get its residents home.
Jill Rosenberg, Caulfield South
Furthermore
While the PM is in the mood for changing the national anthem, could he also consider changing the verse ‘‘girt by sea’’ to ‘‘bound by sea’’.
Noel Miller, Ocean Grove
Finally
One last ride of the carousel for Gerry Marsden in the knowledge that he will never walk alone.
Allan Gibson, Cherrybrook, NSW
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