Letters & Emails

The Sunday Age

Sunday July 1, 2007

Words have the power to make or break

The term "blacks" has often been employed in newspaper headlines in reference to Australia's indigenous population. In The Sunday Age (24/6), the headline read "Black aid plan could do more harm than good".

I understand that writing page one headlines is not easy, because one needs to tell a story in a very short space. Yet the linguistic portrayal of Australia's indigenous population has been and remains mainly negative and stereotypical.

Such a categorisation of Australia's indigenous population owes more to racial stereotyping than ethnology, as it categorises indigenous Australians with other black peoples of Asia and Africa, despite the relationships only being ones of very distant shared ancestry.

Though it is conceded that some indigenous Australians may prefer being collectively referred to as "blacks" and although this categorisation may not be offensive to the entire population, it seems clear that it is a less appropriate method of referring to Australia's indigenous population.

Aboriginal people define themselves, both collectively and individually, by their culture and not the colour of their skin. It is also important to be aware that terms which Aboriginal people may use to describe themselves may not be appropriate for non-Aboriginal people to use.

Terminology influences the perceptions of readers; consequently, language that emphasises the physical differences between groups of people can be seen in this light as discriminatory.

Considering the historical context of the way in which the word "blacks" has been used, there needs to be a greater understanding of the sensitivities in defining Aboriginality before such careless headlines are published.

DION FACTOR, Hawthorn

Bad plan, Mr Howard

The first report regarding abuse in Aboriginal communities during the time John Howard has been in Parliament was tabled in 1977. The most recent recommendation, from the AMA in May this year, was to pour more than $400 million into Aboriginal health.

Aboriginal abuse, paternalism, disease and genocide have been facts of Australian life since European settlement, but Howard thinks a six-month, unfunded, unwritten stunt will fix it. I tell you what, Mr Howard, go to the nearest pub and find yourself a habitual drunk and tell him he will be forced to quit tomorrow, or send a strange doctor to the local women's shelter to "examine" an abused kid, or tell a clinically depressed mum that she must bath her kids, and tell us how far you get.

Having been a victim of abuse for six years, abuse which ended in 1965, I can tell you for free, Mr Howard, that your plan is crap, will always be crap and will not work.

Every person in Australia will support genuine efforts to stop child abuse but give us the Royal Commission now, Mr Howard, and let us see just how serious you are. Alternatively, give us the $400 million in health care the AMA has been screaming for.

Mr Howard, the neglect people have been reporting to you for 33 years and the mind-numbing, grinding hopelessness of our first people that has been shown over and over and over without a trace of humanity from you could be helped along with one word.

Sorry. Mr Howard, you could finally say "Sorry".

MARILYN SHEPHERD, Kensington, SA

Diabetics need labels . . .

I read with concern (Sunday Age, 24/6) that the Victorian Competition and Efficiency Commission wants Food Standards Australia to drop mandatory food-labelling requirements.

I am a Type 2 diabetic who has had the benefits of a Diabetes Australia healthy supermarket shopping tour, in which a qualified dietitian explained the skill of reading labels. Like many other diabetics, this has meant controlling my diabetes without resorting to medications with their concomitant side effects.

This not only has benefited us personally but has relieved the Commonwealth of a drain on our national health scheme.

When so much rightful media emphasis is being put on sensible eating, surely the proposed recommendations to food regulations is a retrograde step.

DOROTHY J. WHEELER, Darley

. . . so do many others

We, too, find horrifying the proposal that mandatory food labelling be scrapped (24/6). People with Prader-Willi Syndrome are a group that need to know exactly what they are eating. Therefore, it is very important for their families and carers to know how many kilojoules are in particular food. It is also important to identify the source, whether from fats, sugars or other ingredients. There would certainly be worse health outcomes for people with PWS, and more stress for their carers, if nutritional information was not on food packaging.

It is essential that all consumers be given more detailed nutritional and additive information on food labels, not less.

JAMES O'BRIEN, Prader-Willi, Syndrome Association of Victoria

Cost is no excuse

If labelling foods with their contents and origins costs the food industry $34 million per year, the solution is not to scrap the labelling but to find out what is the gross inefficiency that makes it cost so much, and stop it.

One solution is for every food manufacturer/distributor not wanting the expense of proper labelling of ingredients and country of origin to simply have to carry instead two very large labels (stickers would do until labels are reprinted): "Ingredients Unknown" and "Origins Unknown" - and let the buyers judge what they want to buy.

VALERIE YULE, Mount Waverley

Good art has no price

What a joy to come to the last page of the Guggenheim Collection brochure and read Steve Waldon's refreshingly honest opinions of what can be a branch of the arts so full of cant. I feel that the struggle not to say "my kids could do that" would be too much for me.

When a painting is declared worthy because of the ridiculously high price it has been valued at, something is not right. It's like awarding the Booker Prize to Noddy.

Consider Picasso, who has owned up to fooling some of the people some of the time: "People who make art their business are mostly impostor and have lured the wealthy to desire the peculiar, eccentric and scandalous in today's art. I have fed these fellows what they wanted and satisfied the critics . . . the less they understand, the more they admire me."

Part of the art is the mastery of a skill - sadly lacking in many works today; so many artists try to represent lack of talent as aesthetic daring. As has been said, what we get is pretentious, self-indulgent, craftless tat.

PAMELA CROSTHWAITE, Beechworth

We didn't mean it, but...

Michael Coulter lists some of the great "but" sentences of our time (Postscript, 24/6). I am not a racist but . . . I am not anti-Semitic but . . . I am not anti-feminist but . . . .

There is another sentence he should have mentioned. It goes like this: Everyone has the right to courtesy and respect but journalists, authors and cartoonists are allowed to offend, vilify and spread misinformation.

It is called freedom of speech and it is one of the most popular "but" sentences of our time.

JIM GROUTSCH, Carlton

A cross we bear

"Powerful conflation of old and new, people and trains, structure and light" (The Sunday Age, 24/6), but, alas, not of form and function, a mixture of wasted open space and people crammed/jammed into narrow escalators or microscopic lifts, nightmares for the agoraphobic and/or claustrophobic.

The silver "cheerful, wavy roof" can surely only be seen by those in low-flying planes or high-rise buildings; all we see is the gloomy underside and struts. Loos have been removed from platforms into some distant exterior, giving anyone changing trains an extra tour of this award-winning facility.

And what if there is a power failure or some emergency? How do people get off escalators, out of lifts, and ultimately out of Spencer Street, oops, Southern Cross Station?

BRENDA LINANE, Altona

Water gums, not city

The Goulburn River pipeline will take water out of the Murray-Darling Basin and give it to Melbourne, when the savings that are made should go to the floodplain wetlands and forests, as part of the Murray Darling Basin Commission's Living Murray project.

For several years, states involved in The Living Murray have been trying to find water savings to restore flooding regimes to iconic red gum wetlands along the Murray. How disappointing that now the Victorian Government has such a project, Steve Bracks is giving the first share of water, a third, to Melbourne.

The water from the infrastructure upgrade should go to the wetland forests that have had no true floods for 10 years.

The emergency environmental flows have not been enough. These ecosystems are facing collapse.

The financial commitment to this infrastructure project should not be linked to a third of the water going to Melbourne. This is not sustainable, Mr Bracks. Do the upgrades, but give the water to the environment.

DR JACQUIE KELLY, Swan Hill

It's all about votes

Policies should be considered on merit, apparently, except Howard Government policies, which we are cynically told are solely aimed to gain votes. How dare Howard help Aborigines or provide jobs? Had Rudd come up with the same policy, it would be positive, bold. One would have you believe the ALP's clever (by half) populist policies are not aimed solely at getting the ALP elected.

ED HERWEYNEN, Warranwood

Pedal off the metal

Please get it right, Ted Baillieu! It is not the proliferation of speed cameras that are to blame for motorists getting speeding and other fines, it is the bad driving habits of 49,000 Victorians. Getting caught speeding is a completely voluntary action, as is being fined for doing so. Personally, I believe that if these nearly 50,000 clearly careless drivers were off the road, I would feel much safer. Lift that right foot a little and keep your licence.

SANDRA WELLER, Mount Helen

Bad driving, bad idea

I read in The Sunday Age ( 24/6) that Wayne Cattach, the chief executive of V8 Supercars Australia, has urged drivers to behave more like controversial sportsmen, as the current spectacle is too boring.

Surely, the last thing we need is drivers setting a poor example, on or off the track. If the sport cannot survive in its current form, then it might be time to consider another format. If we can have entertainment instead of a procession of cars that only vaguely resemble Commodores and Falcons, I would welcome it.

BRUCE LANKFORD, Heidelberg

Support staff vital

I just wanted to congratulate both Emma Quayle and Martin Boulton on the excellent articles they both wrote in The Sunday Age (24/6) about the support staff at the St Kilda Football Club.

In today's modern football environment, where players and coaches often receive too much recognition, it is the support staff at all levels of football who provide hundreds of hours of volunteer labour and often go about their roles without any fanfare.

As someone who is on the support staff at a VFL club, I believe it's about time that people such as statisticians and trainers be given greater recognition because they are the lifeline of football clubs. People often forget that an AFL or VFL football club is made up of more than just the CEO/general manager, coaches and playing list.

BEN CARBONARO, Sunbury

Generic depression

People's shopping habits at the supermarket made very interesting reading last week and the rise and rise of the generic brand has long been a concern of mine.

Journalist Danielle Teutsch suggests that this trend is set to continue unless there is a "consumer backlash". How, may I ask, are we able to stage such a backlash? Home brands are increasingly at "eye level" and invariably cheaper, and management appears deaf to any concerns. Little wonder, then, at their proliferation.

I guess I can only bemoan the fact and face the inevitability of change as the Safeway Select cat food section grows bigger and the Dine selection disappears. Convincing the cat of this fact, however, is another matter entirely.

PETER ELLIOTT, Brunswick East

sunday@theage.com.au

© 2007 The Sunday Age

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