The forgotten sectors: Diminished vision for arts and universities

Actually, basic fairness – a much-touted Australian value – requires all people who paid taxes and lost their job through no fault of their own to be treated equitably with government financial help.

Judith Paphazy, Cape Schanck

Determining a spreadsheet colour code

How misguided was I to consider some of the billions from the JobKeeper blunder might now be redirected to those casuals, arts/entertainment people, visa holders, council and university workers previously excluded from assistance. Obviously they remain the wrong colour code on the Morrison/Frydenberg COVID-19 help spreadsheet.

Anne Hartley, Balwyn North

Withdrawal of unfunded empathy

I thought it was interesting that the $60 billion overestimate was regarded by Treasury and the Prime Minister not as money that could help unfortunate workers who had not yet received any assistance but as money that was now to be withdrawn from the original $130 billion touted as relief for those affected by COVID-19.

These are casual workers, people in the entertainment industry who were not eligible for JobKeeper or JobSeeker, those employed by universities and migrant workers who have had a couple of months living from hand to month. I think the PM and Treasurer feel that this "extra" money should not be spent on the poor and unemployed; they have "unfunded empathy" for such people who perhaps are not likely to be LNP voters.

Anne Findlay, Princes Hill

Spend the 'extra' $60 billion

Following the $60 billion mistake from Canberra, we all want to see this money going to worthwhile causes. Some for the ABC, the local film industry, and the arts who suffer endless funding cuts and are starved of support. Provide more for those really in need – casual workers and pensioners – more for education, including universities and TAFEs that are both crying out for more funds.

Ian Anderson, Surrey Hills

THE FORUM

MSO change needed

Thank you, Adele Ferguson ("Discord at the Melbourne Symphony," 23/5) and Charles Sowerwine (Letters, 26/5). Your articles say it all. Both the MSO board and senior management have not only failed the MSO organisation catastrophically but have achieved precisely the opposite of their supposed aims. They claim to be saving the MSO but instead their untold damage to this wonderful Victorian cultural icon is all but destroying its very core. When will they realise their actions are driving the MSO off a cliff and soon there will be nothing left to save. Change is needed now or the MSO music will be no more.

Chris Turpin, MSO timpanist 1981-2017

EPA effectively hobbled

Since its inception, the Victorian EPA has been hobbled by lack of funding, ineffective leadership and a lack of support by successive governments. A recent review of the EPA's handling of the storage of dangerous waste has highlighted gross failure to apply and enforce any existing regulation. The fact is the guidelines as to how and where this waste can go aren't properly enforced. So, cowboy operators hire a warehouse, charge a motza to take waste that no legitimate company can touch, and then disappear with the cash, leaving the warehouse owner with the problem. Governments must ensure the rules around acceptable disposal methods and locations are enforced, then genuine waste disposal operators can handle the product inside the law.

John Marks, Werribee

Pay rise decision query

I am curious to know the details as to how the Victorian Independent Remuneration Tribunal arrived at the decision to amend pay brackets ("Pay joy for top public servants", 23/5), effectively giving pay rises to senior state public servants. We need to see the reasoning and justification in order to understand how these determinations are made in light of the state's very real financial crisis. We also need assurances that the submissions to the tribunal are broad and encompass industry and consumer groups, not just government or semi-government departments putting their cases forward.

Mandy Morgan, Malvern

'Obscene' wage rises

The proposed pay rises for public servant bosses and the already awarded pay rises for politicians are disconnected from real world economics. I find it obscene that the remuneration tribunal can find any reason for the high wage rises when inflation is low and other public servants (police, teachers, nurses etc) are being paid peanuts. Don't forget that politicians and public service employees are here to serve and are employed in a non-commercial environment. Their wages should not be compared with private sector remuneration.

Lubor Novak, Rosanna

Selective advice

Jane Wright (Letters, 26/5) is correct in relation to carbon capture and storage and her likening of the government's response when compared with energy policy and climate change. What irks most is the federal government's willingness on one hand to trust and act on professional advice in relation to COVID-19 yet seemingly ignore similar professional advice when it comes to climate change. Thousands of lives were saved by acting on advice to lock down the country when COVID-19 surfaced. Thousands of lives have already been lost as a result of not acting on advice in relation to climate change.

Jack Morris, Bendigo

Short-term role for gas

There is a role for gas over the next 10 to 15 years to provide brief spurts of energy into the electricity grid at short notice. But even this is only until we have sufficient battery storage and pumped hydro in place. The Australian Energy Market Operator has stated that the grid could be upgraded within six years to accommodate 60 per cent renewables and that's where we should be directing our efforts. We don't need to muck around with carbon capture and storage. We should explore for commercial amounts of non-fracked gas in East Gippsland, preferably on shore, as we have the transmission infrastructure in Yallourn and Morwell where gas-fired turbines could be located.

Peter Barry, Marysville

A time for yelling

Amanda Vanstone's view that "yelling across the town square doesn't illuminate anything" does not make sense ("An outbreak of common sense", 26/5). Yelling across the town square is the first step people can take against a government, a democracy or dictatorship, to achieve what they want. What is happening in Hong Kong, people yelling and screaming in the street, is a sign that people still have hope. Only a dead society will take what is shoved down its throat without complaint. India's fight for freedom from British rule was another example; yelling and screaming across the town square was a significant part of their non-violent struggle against the foreign rulers. In fact, true democracy will last only as long as people yell and scream across the town square.

Bill Mathew, Parkville

Roadmap to nowhere

It is ironic that the Coalition uses the term roadmap for its ideas on our energy future because in terms of road use Australia faces rapidly sliding down the league ladder of motorcar emissions efficiency. We are way behind comparable nations in the promotion, subsidy and thus uptake of electric cars, and, worse still, our emissions standards for petrol and diesel cars are so poor that we risk becoming a dumping ground for cars which can't conform in more enlightened countries. We need a roadmap that works on the road.

Robbert Veerman, Buxton

Equal pay struggle goes on

In 1902 white Australian women were given the right to vote. That was 118 years ago. They were considered worthy of a vote back then. So why is it in 2020 that many women are still struggling to obtain equal pay? Last year according to the government's Workplace Gender Equality Agency women in full-time work on average were paid 13.9 per cent less than men in Australia. After all this time it's time to fix the gender pay gap.

Ian Scott, Hamlyn Heights

Moving outdoors

Will Bennett (Letters, 26/5) could be right about gyms not being high risk if they adhere to the protocols adopted by Fitness Australia. However, it is the patrons of the gym and some of the staff that is the problem. Patrons not wiping down equipment after use, pools of sweat that aren't mopped up and a staff member going around with a feather duster is hardly confidence building. The staff at my gym are lovely young people however when approached with my concerns I am told that the sweating, grunting, dropping of equipment is part of the territory. In the future I, for one, will be taking my exercise in the fresh air.

Peter Roche, Carlton

Gyms high risk

Gyms are high risk (Letters, 26/5). People tend to spend a long time there, breathing hard and using shared apparatus. Closing gyms affected me with the lockdown, and I'm missing my daily exercise fix there, but I'm not intending on returning for around a month after they reopen to see what happens. On the first day of the lockdown, I bought a spin bike, so I can cope until I return to my gym.

Wayne Robinson, Kingsley

AFL too powerful

The AFL has become far too influential in this city. I shuddered to learn that it will be restarting games soon, spread out over four days each week. Why can't it revert to playing all games on Saturday afternoons? It means not only will these games be broadcast on commercial stations but also on the ABC, interrupting usual programs that those of us not interested in sport would prefer to hear. Unfortunately this goes on for anything up to six months of the year, taken so seriously by commentators and people who would be better off getting some exercise themselves instead of watching these overpaid players.

Lorraine Bates, Surrey Hills

Don't squander legacy

It is unfortunate many young Australians have been forced to use their superannuation to traverse the financial crisis. But, conversely it is fortunate that they actually had a nest egg to access in these hard times. This pot of national savings, is a legacy of the Hawke-Keating government, who along with the ACTU and against the forces of the Liberal Party, created the national super schemefor workers. This unplanned spin-off from the scheme, is another gift from these visionary Australians.

Phillip Edwards, Churchill

Fee-free adds up

I read that after TAFE courses in Victoria were made fee free, there's been more than three times the number of enrolments in Certificate IV Accounting and Bookkeeping this year. Perhaps Mr Andrews could consider extending the free enrolment offer to the ACT, in particular to federal Treasury employees.

Ronald Burnstein, Heidelberg

Making a JobSlogan

"JobMaker" is the final scene in the promising but ultimately disappointing triptych of quick schemes conjured up by the Morrison government to inspire some hope. With a name like its siblings, "JobMaker" attempts to embody the labour that it seeks to carry out. But just as JobSeeker did not help people seek out jobs, and JobKeeper failed to keep jobs for the most disadvantaged groups, it seems unlikely that "JobMaker" will have the ability to make jobs. The only thing that seems concrete in this grand plan to fix vocational education is to nationally standardise subsidies. So, either more money will be spent in giving nationwide access to vocational education, or less money will be subsidised to individuals, creating more bureaucratic inequality through arbitrary criteria, as we are seeing with JobKeeper eligibility.

Leonardo Balsamo, Blackburn South

AND ANOTHER THING

Politics

Pretty sure Mr Morrison will tell us the Coalition is the greatest economic manager ever, look how it has been able to save us $60 billion.

Giuseppe Corda, Aspendale

Did The Age have someone impersonating Amanda Vanstone? An entire article and not once did the author bag the Labor Party.

Graeme Gardner, Reservoir

Scott Morrison adding "JobMaker" to the JobSeeker and JobKeeper programs is obviously concerned most naturally about keeping his own.

Francis Bainbridge, Fitzroy North

Morrison says the economy could take five years to recover. Based on the JobKeeper $60billion bungle that could be five, plus or minus 2.3years.

Greg Lee, Red Hill

The government blaming businesses for completing the JobKeeper form incorrectly is like students blaming the dog for eating their homework.

Sarah Russell, Northcote

Morrison has obviously studied Dr Seuss. Perhaps he could now spend time on numbers.

Joan Segrave, Healesville

Unfortunately Paul Custance (Letters, 26/5), the Treasury calculator is powered by coal.

Bryan Fraser, St Kilda

Angus Taylor desperately wants a carbon tax, but cannot bring himself to use the dreaded term for his policy.

Jon Smith, Leongatha

Will Mike Pompeo ("US steps back from Belt and Road remark by Pompeo", 25/5) and the US disconnect from Pine Gap?

Malcolm McDonald, Burwood

"You'll remember me when the west wind moves upon the fields of barley." Bit of a Sting, Scott Morrison.

Cynthia Humphreys, Toorak

Finally

Sew your club colours onto your pyjamas, thaw out your homemade sausage rolls and raid your hoarded supply of beer – footy is coming back!

Glenda Johnston, Queenscliff

*Sign up to editor Alex Lavelle's exclusive newsletter at: www.theage.com.au/editornote.