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Fifty years ago, my grandmother, then in her 70s, warned me against developing golden-age syndrome, especially the belief that today’s younger generation are going to hell and high water. Given the current debate about today’s youth (“ ‘Protect the unprotected’: Motorcyclist’s death prompts friend’s call for youth crime reform ”, 12/8), her warning still strongly resonates. As well as careers as a teacher, youth worker (in juvenile justice) and lawyer, I have a PhD in history – an obsession since primary school.
Today’s debate is not new. You see it in contemporary sources throughout the ages. The earliest I have seen was by a 3000BCE Egyptian scribe, who lamented that youths have no respect for their teachers, their elders, or authority in general, and who idle their days away lounging around the marketplace looking for trouble.
(Sound familiar?) Today’s older generation might do well to read some of the comments made about them as they were growing up in the ’60s. Yes, there are, and always have been, problem youth – some presenting very serious problems. But here’s a newspaper headline you will never read: Last week, 4 million Australian kids went to school, committed no crimes, and didn’t abuse or threaten anyone.
Dennis Dodd, Shepparton Find an alternative How refreshing to read Neil Mitchell’s thoughts on addressing youth crime (“ How a ‘Dad’s Army’ of experts could help Victoria’s youth crime problem ”, 12/8). Demonstrably, incarceration has not and does not work. So why not try an alternative? His suggestion of an expert panel of committed capable and willing persons to examine and come up with solutions to show us a meaningful way forward to address our youth “crisis” is commendable.
Brian Marshall, Ashburton Lateral thinking Neil Mitchell suggests an enlightened pathway to address the rise in youth crime. Lateral thinking is the only way forward to address this problem. Nothing the Allan government has proposed is working.
Will it take note of his suggestion? Christine Baker, Rosanna Open our minds and ears Neil Mitchell suggests a “think tank” of older people to combat youth crime. Surely the best people to offer solutions to youth crime are young people. They have the relevant experience to make a genuine contribution to this debate and to come up with some creative solutions.
Rather than a ‘Dad’s Army’ of older people telling young people what to do, let’s start listening to young people. We may be surprised by what we hear. Sarah Russell, Mount Martha Generational shift Neil Mitchell writes of the rise of juvenile crime.
When I was of that age, more than 50 years ago, I was quite unaware of the behaviours he describes. I question whether my age group were more occupied with group activity. In particular, my memory of friendships developed while a member of the local scout group had us engaged in productive events and games.
Scouting is now in decline and efforts to reinvigorate the movement may lead to a reduction in the adverse public behaviour described by Mitchell. Bruce Love, East Melbourne Does prison help? Some in the state Labor cabinet are worried about their future commitment to raise the age of criminal responsibility from 12 to 14. But what would these children, upon release from prison, say of their experience? Quite possibly that they were concerned for their safety when incarcerated with older teens.
How would prison help them change? Has it given them more educational or vocational tools to face their futures? What of returning to parents who have often lost control of them? Of returning to their old associates, some of whom are also offenders. Recidivism is a feature of our jails. The answers to offending are complex and expensive.
MPs should not bow to simplistic and ineffective solutions. Jan Marshall, Brighton Medal calculations Now that the Paris Games are over, it is instructive to look at the medal table against the population of each country. Australia came in seventh with a medal count of 2 per 1 million of population, behind New Zealand in fourth place and Jamaica in sixth place.
Grenada, Dominica and Saint Lucia fill the first three places with medal counts of 15.85, 13.69 and 11.
10 respectively. The US came in 43rd, China in 68th, Japan in 45th and France in 22nd. I think this puts our medal tally in a different perspective.
Keith Hoffman, Ormond Elite performers It’s been a good fortnight for Australian elite athletes, and many of us have a warm inner glow about being Australian. I don’t want to be churlish, but those 53 medals were bought with private and government funding to support elite athletes. The end of the Games would have offered the perfect opportunity for our prime minister to announce something along the lines of: “Australian athletes have done so well in Paris.
I’d like to announce that taxpayers will continue to fund Australian elite athletes, but we will also fund – to similar levels – our elite scientists. We plan to have 53 medal-winning scientists on the world stage in 2028.” Ah, dreams.
Pam Cupper, Dimboola Money managers It seems those polled prefer the Coalition and Dutton as prime minister (“ Dutton in front as Labor pegged back on the economy ”, 12/8). Acknowledging that Labor has some key areas to remedy, one wonders why the Coalition is seen as a viable and preferred alternative. It has no real policies, except for nuclear power, which is dismissed by credible experts in the field, and unspecified budget cuts accompanied by an increase in productivity (read keeping wages down) along with restoring tax cuts to those earning $180,000-plus.
Bill Pimm, Mentone Limited benefits The Age Resolve Political Monitor survey indicates that respondents considered the LNP better financial/economic managers than the ALP. Has not this always been the case for the past 80 years? As the party of small and large business the LNP attracts voter support on economic and tax issues, no matter how bad it has historically been on both. What these surveys reflect is the general ignorance of most people on macroeconomic matters and the role of government in running an economy.
This has not been helped by the dominance of neoliberalism and its almost uniform support by recent governments, the media and many business economists. The reality is that the LNP have historically treated Australia as a giant mine and farm, narrowing down considerably the kinds of products we could potentially have made. Consider the Abbott government allowing car manufacturing to leave Australia in 2014.
In addition, there is the long-held conviction that housing should be an investment as well as a place for people to live. This has meant much capital has gone into land speculation that could have gone into more productive uses. Demonstrating the narrowness of the LNP on economic management is easy.
Turning around the beliefs of the general public is much more difficult. Greg Bailey, St Andrews Damaging confusion Your article: “ Calls not to catastrophise the impact of menopause ” ( Sunday Age , 11/8), reinforces my concern about the damaging confusion surrounding this important issue. I strongly believe what I have previously published in medical journal Australian Journal of General Practice: “Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) phobia is one of the most common causes of unnecessary suffering.
” This phobia allows unscrupulous industry to capitalise on women’s lack of understanding of menopause/ovarian failure, which is the commonest endocrine disorder. The profit from the pseudo-health industries wouldn’t occur if symptomatic post-menopausal women were on correctly managed estrogen replacement. My 54 years of gynaecology practice gave me the opportunity to see all aspects of this subject, including following up patients on oestrogen replacement, some for over 40 years.
From the employment point of view, there shouldn’t be any difference between a healthy 60-year-old man and a healthy 60-year-old woman on appropriate oestrogen replacement. Graeme Dennerstein, Essendon Inevitable decline It is good to see that some buyers of big 4WD utes are at long last making sane choices. Sales are in decline (“ Big utes are starting to falter, particularly the top dog ”, Drive, 9/8).
I will wager that in a decade’s time, when EVs rule, the owners of these vehicles will be selling them for a song. Most of the young, urban cowboy drivers of these vehicles drive them aggressively on the road. Recently, I was one of a few people who stopped and watched with amusement, as the owner of a 4WD monster truck, struggled to park their vehicle in a car space of a local suburban shopping centre.
Words that spring to mind when describing these vehicles are expensive, impractical, cumbersome, gas-guzzler. Carefully crafted ads portray these vehicles as lifestyle and macho symbols, and as weekend escape machines. But most stay coddled in their suburban garages during weekends rather than being damaged and destroyed on rutted, distant, 4WD trails.
Most buyers are suckered into buying an expensive dream. In my opinion, the marketing behaviour of vehicle manufacturers is unconscionable. Geoff Black, Frankston We need a mix The debate continues to rage about how best to address the housing crisis.
No one suggests for a minute that the crisis isn’t real. And yet public land that could be used to help address the crisis is once again being sold to a private developer (“ Public housing land to go to private developer ”, 11/8). The outcome will be a windfall for the developer (they aren’t in the game for charity), and at best it may return 10 per cent for “affordable housing”.
This seems to be a standard formula the government is using to make such arrangements appear acceptable. It isn’t working. We don’t want ghettos, but we do want real attempts at social mix, and that’s not 10 per cent.
And we want a fair outcome for taxpayers and for people in desperate need of housing, for the use of public land. Jenny Macmillan, Clifton Hill Safety net Your correspondent ( Letters , 12/8) is not alone in heartfelt despair over the government’s neglect of its social justice principles on housing policy. As a community worker during the 1980s and ’90s, I too witnessed many positive outcomes for public housing residents who would otherwise have perished on the streets or in far more precarious situations.
These included women and children fleeing domestic violence, ex-prisoners, newly arrived migrant families, and ordinary people who had Buckley’s hope getting secure, affordable housing otherwise. We cannot allow the dispassionate and inhumane direction of this or any government to continue, especially when it comes to the treatment of our most powerless and vulnerable members. Our precious government land should not be sold at any price.
More public housing is a priority. Annie Mullarvey, Brunswick East Important points Your correspondents fail to acknowledge important points in their criticisms of Israel’s war against Hamas (“Wong needs to call out Israel’s bombing raids”, Letters, 12/8). The latest report by the main UN-linked food security organisation found that “the available evidence does not indicate that famine is currently occurring”, contradicting its earlier predictions, which under-estimated the amount of food that would be getting into Gaza.
In response to the question, “how many innocent deaths are excused by the IDF to justify the death of one militant”, a number of studies have found the civilian to combatant death ratio in Gaza is historically low for urban warfare. This is despite Hamas’ human shield strategy. Geoff Feren, St Kilda East A straight kick Young players are taught that “kicking straight” wins matches, something Collingwood, Essendon and the Brisbane Lions supporters will reflect on this week.
All three teams lost on the weekend, despite having more scoring shots than their opponents. Collingwood and Essendon lost by three and five points – the proverbial kick – when wins would have kept their hopes of making the finals alive. Oh, for straight kicking! Maurice Critchley, Mangrove Mountain, NSW Living language A living language cannot stay the same, otherwise we’d all be still speaking and writing the same way as our grandparents did.
Shakespeare invented hundreds of new words and combinations. Nowadays, in Australia, the preponderance of new words and usages comes from social media, texting and sports commentators. In their rush to compact their commentaries, they’ve come up with phrases like “he soccered that one” and “she’s a good kick”.
Moreover, so as not to appear too clever, they’ve ditched adverbs altogether thus providing gems like “move quick” and “did good”. Even the road safety authorities urge us to “Drive slow”. Tony Davies, Berwick Upstart linguists All those who are mortified by the use of “to medal”, must feel particularly irked by an upstart from Stratford-upon-Avon who dabbled in writing at the turn of the 17th century.
Presumably these correspondents are still waging war on the verbs to yelp, to gossip and to hurry which were all first used (or at least written down) by William Shakespeare. I wonder if they all have a problem with another of WS’s created verbs: to rant. Dan Robinson, Parkdale Credit: Matt Golding Paris 2024 The Olympics closing ceremony went from class to crass the moment the flag was handed to the Americans.
Doug White, Strathmore A beautiful and creative ending to the Olympics with the highlight being the spectacular history of the Games presented through dance and music. Mary Fenelon, Doncaster East No bombs, no terrorist attacks; these Games have shown we can get along as a global community, if only for a short time. Let’s hope that spirit lives on, but let’s pause also and remember all those who are fighting and dying in countries around the world.
Vive la France! Margaret Collings, Anglesea It surprised me how few medals the US picked up in the shooting program. I thought they would have swept the floor in those events. Andrew Barnes, Ringwood I agree with your correspondent (Letters, 12/8) that it’s great the Australian women are being recognised for their amazing contributions to our team’s success.
Perhaps as Australian men we should also encourage recognition of their contributions to our Australian society in general. Greg Sly, Ocean Grove The gold medal for Olympic Games advertisements goes to AAMI with their children’s “events” around the home. Especially the breaststroke in the bath, it has me laughing every time I see it.
Jenny Callaghan, Hawthorn Furthermore It seems “weird” the Trump campaign chose to play a song from Titanic at a recent rally, (much to Celine Dion’s chagrin), or is this an admission that his tilt at the presidency is in danger of becoming a shipwreck. Ross Chadderton, Mount Waverley Thank you, Sean Kelly (“ The price of life? Don’t tell me ”, 12/8). It was a thought-provoking piece with an engaging philosophical tone I did not expect from a former political adviser.
Sally Davis, Malvern East Finally Two weeks from finals, want to pick this year’s premiership team? Toss a coin. David Cayzer, Clifton Hill T he Opinion newsletter is a weekly wrap of views that will challenge, champion and inform your own. Sign up here .
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