Our readers tell John Howard what he should do in his third term - Part 2

From: John Main
Sent: Tuesday, December 04, 2001 11:01 AM

What should be the first issue on the Howard government's third-term agenda?

Unemployment and underemployment.

One of the core issues central to the ever-widening social divide of this once-great nation, unemployment, especially youth unemployment, remains a massive problem. Unemployment causes family breakdown. Unemployment causes crime, and unemployment causes suicide. The statisticians cook the books these days and consider people with one hour of employment per week to be employed. Ignore this bureaucratic deception and we still have well over a million people unemployed, and youth unemployment running at about 25 per cent (15-24 age group).

If a young person should manage to get a job , it's probably what's called a McJob, with low hours and low wages. Not a real job, but one of those jobs you have while you wait to get a real job, hence the wages can be kept minimal. Successive Howard governments have said the following about unemployment:

"to fix unemployment we need a strong economy, because with a strong economy the jobs will start to flow".

That seems to be their entire policy for unemployment, apart from victimising the victims (remember some of Tony Abbott's comments). Successive Howard governments have also told us what incredibly good economic managers they are. THEY CAN'T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS !

If we've had a strong economy for all these years of Howard & Costello, then their unemployment policy is a miserable failure. Is it possible that the Federal Government actually wants a large pool of unemployed ? After all, unemployment helps keep wages down, which keeps their business backers happy. Their lack of action on this issue suggests the truth lies in this direction. Let them prove us wrong.

From: Ted Harris
Sent: Tuesday, December 04, 2001 11:12 AM

We live in a time when, rightly or wrongly the public feels increasingly alienated and out of the loop in matters political. We live in a time when communication has never been faster or easier but paradoxically people feel that their political leaders are out of touch with them.

It is my contention that the average politician and most Governments have made poor use of technology. I further contend that the 3rd Howard Government would do itself a lot of good by improving it's reach into the community.

Example. I had a matter of concern with a Government Minister's handling of existing legislation in regard to a matter of national significance. I spoke phone with senior Departmental staff and senior staff in his Ministerial Office. I wrote to the Minister seeking information. After two (2) months in one case and five (5) months and a call to the Office of a same party Senator in another I got a reply. The first reply gave general background information. The second reply said "The Minister is not prepared to debate individual cases with anyone who is not a party to the application".

This was not a one off case and my point is that in the era of high speed transmission of email and large Ministerial staff a letter that has no content of interest should not take 5 months to produce. It MUST be a case of 'If you can't outwit 'em, outwait 'em'.

Similarly should you go to the taxpayer funded Parliamentary web site you will find the email address for many, many Members and Senators. Not however for the Minister of Defence or the PM. Admittedly it is possible to go to the PM's page and email him from there with a fiddley little reply form that has no spell checker and is totally different from your normal email program. It is very time consuming. It is not possible to do so for the good Senator from South Australia.

Nothing drives home more clearly the thought that Canberra is a town filled with middle aged white males that have dismissed the technology age as irrelevant than this comparison.

I sent an email to Newt Gingrich the former Speaker of the House in the USA, the PM of Australia, the Government of New Zealand and the Minister for Vets Affairs. I couldn't find an email address for the new Minister of Defence. From Gingrich I got a credible email reply addressing the question in 48 hours. From our PM I got a 'thanks for your email' email in 48 hours and then silence. From the Kiwis I got, inside 14 days, two separate hard copy letters filled with detail from both the PM and the relevant Minister. From our relevant Minister a hard copy letter was received. The first one took two months and said little. The second on a different but related matter took five months and said nothing.

I support the Government. I hope it takes action on this failing. I just hope that they don't write to me about it in five months time.

From: Rosemary Lynch
Sent: Wednesday, December 05, 2001 5:32 AM

Although disinclined to support Mr. Howard in any way at all, the most obvious issue is one close to his family tree: the entitlements of employees to long service leave, holiday pay, and superannuation must be removed from the capacity of employers to pilfer in the hope of personal or proprietary gain, and protected by federal legislation immediately.

Immediately.

OK for a first try, I s'pose.

From: E.J.Thomas
Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2001 8:02 AM

One of the most pressing issues is Environmental issues.

Why are we having so much land cleared particularly in Queensland. Why is it so difficult to tell people not to clear?

From: Nigel Edwards
Sent: Saturday, December 08, 2001 3:30 PM

Without a doubt the first issue on the third Howard governments agenda has to be the economy, as it was for the previous two terms. Economic management is so vital to the well-being of the country that it has to remain at the top of the agenda. As has been proved repeatedly, you must first have economic health to pursue any social or other reforms, something Labor repeatedly underestimates

Without a healthy economy, nothing else matters.

From: Sarah Moles
Sent: Monday, December 10, 2001 1:21 PM

As someone who lives and works in rural Australia I regard the natural resource issues facing the country as particularly serious... If we don’t get our act together, particularly with vegetation and water management, we are heading for an ecological disaster...and can kiss goodbye to agricultural export earnings... The PM's Science and Innovation Council should be really pushing this if Howard doesn’t jump on it ... and he should be taking careful note of the wisdom offered by people like Prof Peter Cullen ...

On a completely different note ... Australia urgently needs a population policy ... until we have one, our immigration policy should have no net increase in population and priority should be given to asylum seekers/humanitarian reasons.

From: "Aronde Palmerosa"
Sent: Monday, December 10, 2001 8:34 PM

The first issue that should be addressed will be the least likely issue addressed because the things that are important but difficult are often the last tackled. This is because these things require guts, they require strength and they require the foresight to disagree with the majority. These are things the Howard government have shown they do not have the capacity nor stomach to do. The things, the issues of which I speak, are the social issues, the community issues, the things that will put food on the table and hope in the hearts of those who currently live without. The things I think should be tackled first require wealth in the community to be shifted from those who have plenty to those who have only debt.

From: E.J.Thomas
Sent: Friday, December 21, 2001 10:10 AM

I wrote in concern of the Environment and asked why is it that we are in need of so much clearing.

This applies particularly in my home state of Queensland.

In the North of the state we seem to have a anti green mentality where hundreds of hectares are cleared for no apparent reason.

In some Government media statements the reasons are given as "... need for Legislation to cover aspects of ..." and then refer to compensation.

What compensation can there possibly be when the land has never been cleared and never used for agricultural or any other purposes? I think that is a good question!

Is there a need to have more land cleared and if so for what reason.?

Well in my humble view there need for clearing any additional land should be subject to some criteria.

Perhaps these could be:

• need;
• adjacent areas;
• habitat;
• results of the clear;

and subject the "clearer" to an EIS for them to show exactly what will happen to the river system and other runoff when the clearing is in place.

Are their other views?  ok what are they.?

With clearing there appears to be a lack of Government will to step up and say "enough is enough"!