http://www.theage.com.au/comment/the-age-editorial/finding-sunshine-in-the-days-of-rain-20170414-gvl3m6.html
Contention: That we should look past the tensions in the world especially the conflict between North Korea and Syria and instead focus on the fact that we are living in better days.
Type: This is an editorial because it offers an opinion combined with reasonable arguments.

Opinion: Mental illness didn't wait until I was ready
http://www.theage.com.au/comment/mental-illness-didnt-wait-until-i-was-ready-20170319-gv1qka.html
Contention: That experiencing emotions that make us sad is better than not feeling at all.
Type: It offers opinions based on someone's perspective on the issue.

Letter to the Editor: US strikes on Syria: History offers word of caution on following US
http://www.theage.com.au/comment/the-age-letters/us-strikes-on-syria-history-offers-word-of-caution-on-following-us-20170409-gvh261.html
Contention: That Australia should have an independent voice on the conflict between Syria and the US instead of siding and following in the footsteps of the US.
Type: It is a letter to the editor as there are letters written in response to the issue.

Political Cartoon: http://theweek.com/cartoons/693940/political-cartoon-nuclear-weapons-north-korea-kim-jong-un-xi-jinping-china-trump-war
Contention: To mock the dispute between the leader of North Korea, Kim Jong Un, America, Donald Trump, and China (Xi Jinping) and the possible threat of war.

There is no room for racism anywhere in our community. We're a country of immigrants (and first Australians); our largely peaceful acceptance and celebration of difference and diversity is one of our great strengths. But a football game, watched and enjoyed at the ground and at home by fans of all ages, is one of the very worst places for this ugly, ignorant abuse.

Adelaide forward Eddie Betts, who was subjected to racist abuse at the weekend. 

What do we teach our children when we tolerate screeches of racist insults at the game? What are we saying to the nearly 30 per cent of Victorians born overseas? Or to those dreaming of one day making this country home?

The Age applauds the open letter this week by the AFL Players' Indigenous Advisory Board and we wholeheartedly back its sentiments:

"How long must we put up with this? Racial vilification has been part of our game for too long There's no room in our game for any form of vilification, whether it's based on race, gender, religion or sexual orientation. Anyone who thinks that this is an acceptable way to act is no football fan."

The frustrating, distressing truth is that this shameful behaviour keeps happening. It happened again just last weekend in Adelaide.

It was 22 years ago that Michael Long famously called football out on racism, making an official complaint about a racist sledge by Damian Monkhorst. This case and Nicky Winmar's famous jumper lift two years earlier proved turning points for race relations in football and led to the AFL's groundbreaking racial anti-vilification policy

But two decades on, and despite some impressive work by the AFL to address this issue, the taunts keep coming. It is only two seasons ago that Adam Goodes was racially bullied, and disgracefully forced off the ground.

The AFL has shown that there is a will and a commitment by many to improve its culture, and that genuine change is possible, for example with the introduction of the women's league.

So what is the answer? Education is clearly important, so that racism is not shrugged off as harmless barracking, and children watching at home today know where to draw the line when they come to the stadiums as adults. But the message is clearly not reaching everyone.

The Age supports calls for fines for racist taunts at the footy. We have seen the sting of a financial penalty work in many areas where behaviour change is needed. Think of speeding and red lights.

Some say racist taunts "just happen" on the spur of the moment, making the excuse that passionate footy fans "just get carried away". But if each hateful insult comes at a financial cost, chances are a lot more likely that fans would think twice. Defining taunts and abuse as racism is difficult but we would argue that it is not impossible. The AFL has been educating its players. Certain phrases and words – such as "ape" – are widely agreed to be offensive and yelling them at the football could be proscribed.

As Age sports reporter Greg Baum wrote recently, fines have helped to deal with another blight in sport, ground invasions. "When the penalty for ground invasion at the MCG, for instance, was in a multiple of tens of dollars, it was a bit of a lark, almost a weekly occurrence ... Now that it is in the thousands of dollars, ranging up to nearly $10,000, and fans are repeatedly warned about this, it almost never happens."

The AFL, Indigenous players and many others have for more than two decades worked in good faith at changing attitudes, but more needs to be done.

The Age supports the use of a financial stick to drive this important lesson home. We understand that real change takes time, but surely, enough is enough.

And yet it has proved difficult to get our healthcare workers – particularly doctors – to always wash their hands while treating patients.

One of the first defences against superbugs is hand washing.  

This is not unique to Australia – indeed, while the latest audit by Hand Hygiene Australia found that doctors were only washing their hands around 80 per cent of the time before conducting a procedure, and even less often afterwards, our record is actually better than that of the US or Britain.

For decades, hospitals and health scientists have tested multiple ways to nudge health professionals to improve their hand washing rates. There would not be a sink at any hospital that didn't have a sign above it prompting everyone to scrub up.

Indeed, in Australia the practice is overseen by its own organisation, the aforementioned Hand Hygiene Australia, which co-ordinates nationwide auditing of the practice.

Poor compliance rates feel even more worrying now that researchers are warning of a looming "post-antibiotic era" when superbugs become even more pervasive and deadly.

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Monday's edition of the Medical Journal of Australia featured a terrifying prediction from Professor Cheryl Jones, president of the Australasian Society for Infectious Diseases, about healthcare in a future where these antibiotic-resistant superbugs take root: "Simple childhood infections would once again be life-threatening events, major surgery would be associated with high mortality, chemotherapy for cancer and organ transplantation would no longer be possible."

This is alarming but not necessarily alarmist – in February, the World Health Organisation released a list of 12 superbugs they warned posed enormous risks to human health, and urged hospitals to focus on infection control.

In Australia, a nation with the highest per capita consumption of antibiotics in the world, the first defence against these threats is hand washing.

It seems extraordinary to advocate for something this basic 170 years after Hungarian doctor Ignaz Semmelweis recommended the practice as a way of preventing women dying of puerperal fever in maternity wards.

But while doctors are less likely to wash their hands than nurses and midwives (87 per cent compliance rate) or dentists and dental nurses (93 to 96 per cent), it would be wrong to infer that doctors care less than dentists about patients' wellbeing.

Indeed, one persistent finding from multiple hand-washing studies is that doctors are more likely to comply if the signs above the basins urged them to think about the impact on their patients' health rather than their own.

Another campaign, and one The Age endorses, asks hospitals to encourage patients to check. The movement to empower patients has had encouraging results for healthcare around the world – even when it's as simple, if awkward, as asking your doctors if they have washed their hands.

But the latest Australian audit also points to a bigger, more complex problem.

The worst compliance rates are in our overwhelmed emergency departments. It's understandable that the steady rituals of best practice are eroded when overworked staff are making life-and-death decisions. This workplace is a far cry from the orderly precision of the dentist's suite.

Shocking stories emerged last week of staff at our emergency departments being assaulted, held hostage and even sprayed deliberately with blood by violent patients and addicts in the grip of ice psychosis.

Without sufficient security, special wards or beds, some of theseviolent patients have been put into comas for 24 hours to keep them from harming themselves or others.

In scenes such as this, on the front lines of hospitals dealing with worst-case scenarios every day, it is little wonder that they sometimes forget to scrub up.

While behavioural nudges and campaigns and audits can go a long way towards improving our hand-washing rates, it turns out it isn't that cheap a fix after all. To protect us all, we need to increase funding for hospitals to make our emergency wards a place of greater safety for everyone.

Contention: That handwashing may be the simplest but it still the most effective in fighting germs
Text type: editorial we can tell this because it is written by a group of people, it has an authoritative tone of voice and gives people instruction on what to do

http://www.theage.com.au/comment/the-age-letters/schools-uniform-policies-hairstyles-dont-affect-students-education-20170330-gvahwy.html

Contention : that hairstyle doesn't affect your education
Text type: letter to the editor, we can tell because it offers arguments in defense of a point of view, very personal

http://www.theage.com.au/comment/why-nonscientists-need-to-join-the-march-for-science-20170419-gvnnbl.html

contention: that everyone should show take part in the march for science even if your not a scientist because science affects everyone
Text type: opinion piece we can tell this because it is written by one person with a public profile and with a good structure and writing style.

Contention: That China should use it’s connections to North Korea to stop the possible nuclear war.

Text Type: Editorial, because it is written by a group of people.

The brinkmanship stoking long-running tensions between China-backed North Korea and the US, South Korea and Japan has raised the spectre of nuclear strikes.

North Korea has been creeping towards intercontinental nuclear weapons capability for many years, in flagrant breach of its negotiated commitments and of international law. While the situation is opaque and unpredictable, it is at least clear the "strategic patience" long deployed by a US-led international community has failed to curb the rogue state's determination to become a nuclear power.

It would be in no one's interests, particularly the long-deprived North Korean population, were dynastic despot Kim Jong-un to take the final steps to achieving that goal. He appears close; North Korea has developed missiles and nuclear weapons and now only needs to put them together, something it is vowing to do. Mr Kim sees it as the best way to safeguard his regime.

"Strategic patience" meant doing nothing militarily provocative, while applying economic sanctions and hoping the North Korean dictatorship might conclude that the costs of developing nuclear arms outweigh any benefits.

The escalation of the conflict is the result of US President Donald Trump concluding the status quo is untenable. Given North Korea's recalcitrance and intransigence, that is understandable – and arguably necessary.

But the situation concerns the entire world, such are the potentially catastrophic implications of a nuclear conflict. Australia should encourage a global response managed by the United Nations. That's better than leaving the problem primarily in the hands of superpowers, the US and China, whose aims are not fully aligned, although, of course, they share a common interest in preventing a military conflict, above all one involving nuclear weapons.

The US wants to disarm North Korea and encourage regime change, while China wants North Korea to remain in place, so as to avoid a united, US-alligned Korea on its border. A UN response would take some time to implement, assuming one could be agreed, so, for now, China and the US are central.

And, it would seem a good time for the US to step back and for China to use its pivotal influence to push North Korea to abandon its current path. North Korea says it will launch all-out war should the US strike pre-emptively. The US says all options are on the table, but is being careful not to use unduly inflammatory language.

Its military forces off the Korean coast have anti-missile capabilities, which might well be used should the missile testing escalate as vowed. We would hope China leads and seeks to calm the situation – perhaps by giving North Korea permanent security cover under a nuclear umbrella.

That would give Mr Kim security, China the continuation of its preferred neighbour, and remove for the US and others an ugly threat.

Mr Kim is highly unpredictable. So, as we have lamented, is President Trump, who is looking trigger-happy after recent strikes in Syria and Afghanistan. But, in this case, that might actually work in the world's favour. It just might give Mr Kim pause and help shift the world from an alarming situation.

History tells us appeasement can be more dangerous than confrontation. The world has tried hard with North Korea, but it simply ignores UN Security Council resolutions, and dishonours commitments. And it has become an unacceptable risk.

It is an unfortunate sign of how ambivalent the world has become about the now six-year civil war in Syria that it takes such an atrocity to stir the global conscience. The attack on Tuesday is believed to have been the deadliest strike using chemical weapons in years, yet the grinding cost of the conflict has never truly let up. Dr Assad has been accused of using chlorine bombs against opponents and civilian populations in recent months, even if this latest attack is more brazen.
The World Health Organisation has reported the victims of the chemical attack have displayed symptoms consistent with reaction to a nerve agent. This stirs memories of the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, when sarin and mustard gas bombs were deployed with deadly consequences.

Russia has sought to blame Tuesday's crime on opponents of the regime, which suits Moscow's interest as a key supporter of Dr Assad. Russia claims the toxins leaked from a rebel chemical weapons dump struck by the Syrian military, whereas the United States claims the regime dropped bombs of sarin nerve gas. In war, especially a tangled conflict such as this one, the truth is almost always obscured. This only reinforces the need for a credible and independent investigation, which can only occur with genuine agreement for a ceasefire. It appears a forlorn hope.

But obstacles should not be allowed to become an excuse for inaction. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was right to condemn the attack as "a shocking war crime". Adding Australia's voice to the global outrage is only the start. While Australia is physically far from the battlefield, it is a participant in the broader conflict against Islamic State.

Australia, therefore, has an obligation to assist efforts to hold those guilty of war crimes in Syria to account. Responsibility for the attack on Tuesday is yet to be determined, but there is ample evidence of other crimes to support a case against Dr Assad in the International Criminal Court. Australia should back the drive to bring him and his henchmen to account.

Resolving the conflict is incredibly complicated, but there cannot be a lasting peace without justice. Although it began as a civil war, the conflict has grown into a proxy war involving major powers and the malignant threat of Islamist extremism. If the plight of millions of refugees fleeing the fighting was not enough to spur a resolution, this prospect of relentless chemical warfare should be horrifying enough to compel all the parties to return to the negotiating table.

Diplomatic pressure will be important, yet the initial reaction of US President Donald Trump to news of the attack was hardly encouraging. Instead of focusing his opprobrium on the culprits, he sought to score a cheap political point against his predecessor Barack Obama and suggest he carried a measure of responsibility for not ridding Syria of chemical threats while in office.

Mr Trump has long complained Mr Obama did not enforce a threat to bomb Syria in 2013 after it crossed a "red line" in the use of chemical weapons, instead striking an agreement to remove the then stockpile of the regime.

Mr Trump has the chance to do better. He has said this latest chemical attack "crosses many lines, beyond a red line, many many lines". The US alone will not stop this war. But the world should support leaders who are serious in finding a path to peace and justice.

 

Contention: Martin Luther King jnr was one of the most influential people in the world and Australian politicians should become more like him. 

Martin Luther King jnr shares his dream with 250,000 people at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington on August 28, 1963.  Photo: AP

Martin Luther King jnr, one of the most respected people who ever strode the earth, was slain by an assassin's bullet 49 years ago, on April 4.

He was only 39 years old, but his inspiring leadership on human rights had already made the world a better place, a reality reflected in his receipt of the Nobel peace prize four years earlier.

King's influence was amplified by his gift as a writer and speaker. His phrases soared. Anyone unfamiliar with his "I Have a Dream" speech should read it or, better still, listen to and watch it, and those who are familiar with it would do well to experience it anew.

His eloquence in that historic moment, and in the many other speeches he gave, uplifted millions, helping staunch the racism inherent in the segregation policies and general prejudice that so blighted the US, the supposed land of the free.

Prejudice lingers there, to be sure, but King's work and words have diminished the unfairness and lit a path Barack Obama walked to the pinnacle of politics.

The unimpeachable notions of freedom and justice were King's guiding principles. He was not an ideologue, and eschewed the shrillness, hackneyed language and lack of imagination of the "left/right" shouting match that has undermined politics in our nation. Rather, he rested his case for change on the shared values of humanity.

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This gentle black advocate, husband, father and pastor was persecuted by the white authorities, arrested many times and inappropriately jailed. Yet, informed by his biblical vocation, he employed the golden rule of Christianity and other religions – treating others as one would like to be treated. His peaceful protest methodology he took from Mahatma Gandhi, another revered social justice leader.

It would be a good thing were Australia's lawmakers to read or re-read some of Dr King's speeches, for debate in our nation is often tawdry. Most people enter politics to improve the world, but lose sight of that noble goal and so often end up engaged in tacky slanging that not only insults the parliamentary participants, but the entire community.

Curiously, our politicians continue their undignified and unedifying comportment even though they know most people hold it in disdain.

The idea of driving consensus based on first principles, rather than outmoded tribal politics, is even better suited to our times than it was to those of King.

Globalisation and technology have united people across national borders. Across the world, inequality and injustice are, at last, becoming mainstream concerns. Increasingly, people realise our interdependence; there can be no prosperous high streets without healthy backstreets.

And yet, what is the state of our polity? No Australian government has ever confronted a bigger crossbench in the Senate – a reflection of the decreased support for the major political parties – but the main political tactics seem to be combat, the squandering of taxpayers' money to buy legislative support, and sheer brinkmanship.

Our lawmakers squander, too, the option of building consensus on the many goals they share, in favour of the blood sport politics has become. Vested interests are pandered to.

Intrinsic to this sorry state of national affairs is the lack of unifying language. Ask yourself, if you will, when you last heard an inspiring political speech.

This brings us back to Martin Luther King, who said in the epochal speech cited above: "Many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realise that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realise that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone."

He is monstrous, but also pretty useful, it turns out.

He provides cover for Australian politicians – of all stripes – to dog-whistle on protectionism, to grand-stand on border protection, and even, in the case of Fred Nile, to grasp at relevance after years of political obscurity.

But while Australian politicians try to ape him, Trump seems indifferent to our interests. 

The US State Department sent us a "Happy Australia Day" message saying "the US has no better friend than Australia", but the reverse doesn't seem to be true. He has rejected the Trans-Pacific Partnership and he looks set to reject the refugee-swap deal negotiated with his predecessor.

Treasurer Scott Morrison didn't hesitate to filch the jingoism of Trump's inauguration speech, in which the Short-Fingered One declared "America First will be the major and over-riding theme of my administration".

The slogan has troublesome connotations – America First was the name of an anti-Semitic isolationist pressure group founded in 1940, which lobbied to keep the US out of World War II. One of its chapter leaders famously branded Winston Churchill "half Jew". He didn't mean it as a compliment.

But such historical unpleasantness didn't bother Trump, and nor did it trouble Morrison, who declared on Wednesday his government would pursue an "Australia first" economic agenda.

To be fair to the Treasurer, he used the phrase when explaining that Australia would continue to pursue open trade, the opposite of the protectionism espoused by Trump. 

So why did Morrison feel the need to mimic this nationalistic Trumpian phrase? Because the government is fully aware of its vulnerability to charges from Labor that our liberalised, de-regulated, globalised economy has left the little guy behind.

That little guy, Labor intimates, is not served by the Trans-Pacific Partnership the government is pushing, despite Trump's rejection of it. That little guy will, soon enough, be voting in the West Australian and Queensland elections, and both parties need to lure him away from the false promises of One Nation. Even if it means making some false promises of their own.

Which brings us neatly to Opposition leader Bill Shorten. Unlike Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, he has the luxury of being able to openly criticise Trump the man. Shorten has had the moral gumption to condemn Trump for his misogyny, calling him "unsuitable to be the leader of the free world", and "barking mad" and his comments "disgusting". Turnbull cannot go that far, although one suspects he wouldn't sit any woman he loves next to Trump at a state dinner (who would?).  

But Shorten has to be far more cautious when it comes to Trumpian jobs policy. The Labor party has a strong and proud history of protectionism. Parts of the labour movement have routinely failed their members by clinging on to the fiction that subsidising dying industries will stave off the forces of globalisation. This fiction is precisely what propelled Trump to the White House.

Trump's rhetoric about re-creating "real" jobs – by which he means male jobs, jobs making stuff you "can drop on your foot", in the words of economist Saul Eslake – provides the perfect environment for Shorten to champion the working rights of the blue-collar man who has traditionally voted Labor, but whose eye has lately been wandering.

In a speech on Wednesday night Shorten appealed to these voters by promising to uphold Sunday penalty rates. Shame he didn't say how he would be able to do so – but under the cover of a Trumpian eco-sphere, perhaps there is no longer any need.

Labor also condemned Trump's abortion "gag-order" decree on US foreign aid, the invidious and immoral stop on funds to organisations which provide the world's poorest women with reproductive choice. Labor "called upon" the Coalition to promise they wouldn't follow in Trump's footsteps, which was right-on, except no such thing has ever been threatened by the Turnbull government.

On Wednesday the US President issued an order for an "impassable physical barrier" to be built along the US/Mexico border. He said that Mexico would "absolutely, 100 per cent" reimburse the US for the wall. Mexico has repeatedly said it will do no such thing.

No matter – assertion is the new truth.

An aggressive stance on so-called border protection, of course, is the one area in which Trump can take his lead from Australian politicians. The Coalition government brought the word "illegals" into common usage in this country, Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has linked Lebanese Muslim migrants to terrorism, and our border protection policy is the practical equivalent of a giant wall, albeit one that we pay (dearly) for.

But while Trump is in lock-step with us on his rhetoric on refugees, he is not going to co-operate with us on the issue, and is unlikely to honour the refugee-swap deal our government negotiated with President Obama. 

As our federal politicians scrambled to adjust and readapt their messages to the new Trumpian order, there was one shining exception.  

Modest, unassuming Gladys Berejiklian is the ultimate Trump anti-matter. She is apparently devoid of ego or vaingloriousness. She is the daughter of immigrants. She couldn't speak English when she started school. She's a hard worker, not a big talker.

She is a pro-choice woman who, upon her elevation to Premier, was questioned on the emptiness of her own reproductive fruit bowl, so to speak.

On ABC Sydney radio this week, Richard Glover remarked to Berejiklian that she was made the 45th Premier of NSW a few days after Trump was inaugurated as the 45th President.

"That's where the similarities end … please stop … please stop," she begged him.

If only we could have some more of that. 

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/smh-editorial/the-hidden-costs-of-cash-in-hand-20170404-gvdu7p.html
Contention: The introduction of GST helped to encourage the avoidance of tax through cash in hand payments

 

The introduction of the goods and services tax almost two decades ago was meant to help end the cash economy. In John Howard's promise of 1998, it would "drag cheats into the net"; in Peter Costello's words the same year, "people trading in the cash economy and those who can afford expensive tax advice will all have to pay their fair share". Mr Costello even claimed in 2001 - a year after it began – that the GST and associated tools had "cracked down on the black economy".

Studies since then suggest the GST at best slowed the growth of the cash economy and at worst encouraged more cash-in-hand tax evasion. That's not an argument against the GST. A consumption tax offers many benefits if implemented efficiently and broadly, with lower direct tax rates and more spending on services as a trade-off that would reduce the incentive to avoid tax.

Rather, the cash economy's resilience in spite of the GST reflects the great Australian tax avoidance ethos.

The tax office's cash economy taskforce in 2003 noted something peculiar: what it called "an unreconciled gap between people's personal beliefs of the right thing to do and what they think others believe".

"While 72 per cent believe that they are personally honest," the taskforce said of Australians, "paradoxically, about the same number also believe that others are not."

Therein lies the problem with trying to stop Australians offering and accepting cash in hand to avoid paying tax. Citizens want to do the right thing and believe in paying tax – until they see others cheating, then all bets are off.

Such is the size of the problem that last November the Turnbull government created a new cash economy taskforce, which has now delivered its interim report. As a result the May budget is tipped to announce measures to claw back taxes on up to $10 billion that escapes tax due to the cash economy and up to $5 billion in welfare benefits wrongly paid to people who do not declare their cash-in-hand income.

Every year the tax office tries to do more, warning that the taxman is coming to get you, whether you are a tradie or an employer of casual staff or a piano teacher working from home or simply someone who reckons they can get a 10 per cent cheaper deal if they don't ask for a receipt and pay in cash or kind.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics estimates that the cash economy accounts for about 1.5 per cent of GDP, or about $21 billion.

Taskforce chief and Board of Tax chairman Michael Andrew told Fairfax Media this week that exploitation of vulnerable workers such as students and temporary visa holders was rife. Employers often pay in cash to avoid meeting superannuation or penalty rate obligations. Complex workplace awards also make it hard for staff and bosses to follow the rules.

Some aspects of the tax system indirectly encourage the cash economy, too. The 50 per cent capital gains tax discount on property investments, for instance, has created an industry of home renovation and sale for profit. Home renos at mates' rates are commonplace, and the tax office has struggled to cope as the proportion of Australians classed as "independent contractors" has ballooned. Labour hire firms are a particular source of frustration.

Mr Andrew called cash-only payments "almost a national sport", adding it would "take a significant amount of work to turn around societal attitudes".

While many would argue that's impossible, the taskforce report recommends more education programs aimed at helping the public better understand their tax obligations and less red tape. The taskforce has also considered phasing out the $100 note – which is implicated in many cash-in-hand deals – as well as making it illegal to make cash payments of, say, $1000.

But the key obstacle remains for the government. While 72 per cent of people might agree with the idea of cracking down on cash-in-hand payments, the same proportion of Australians will probably keep operating as they always have: cheating a bit because everyone else is doing it too.

Of course, that is no excuse. Paying your fair share of tax will bring benefits in terms of lower income tax rates, smaller budget deficits and hopefully better government services for all.

 

 

 

Research shows western parents want to be able to select gender, but all sex selection can offer is a child with certain sex chromosomes

‘If you play dolls with your son or football with your daughter, their brains will not explode.’ Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo

Thursday 20 April 2017 13.47 AEST

Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council

 has announced it will maintain its ban on non-medical sex selection. This is a good thing.

For almost all of us, the sex of our children is a matter of chance. But some people want a boy or a girl so badly that they are willing to pay thousands of dollars – sometimes even mortgaging their house – in order to choose the sex of their baby via embryo selection following IVF.

Sex selection can also be done by sperm sorting and using the batch with the desired chromosome to fertilise the egg, or by determining the sex of the foetus and aborting if it is not the desired sex.

Since sex selection technology has become available, several Asian and Eastern European countries have shown lower numbers of girls born compared with boys. For instance, India now has 110 boys born for every 100 girls, and China and Azerbaijan have 116 boys for every 100 girls.

These skewed sex ratios are resulting in higher rates of sexual abuse, bride kidnapping and human trafficking. As the situation worsens for women in these countries, the son preference becomes even more acute, and so the downward spiral continues.

Fears of skewed sex ratios are one of the arguments against allowing sex selection in a country like Australia. However, western countries do not show a strong son preference and requests for sex selection are usually for “gender balancing”. For instance, parents who already have one or more boys and now want a girl, or vice versa.

This is why Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council recently undertook a lengthy review of its guidelines on sex selection. Ultimately, in an announcement made on Thursday, the council decided to maintain the ban on non-medical sex selection, but encouraged further debate and highlighted that states and territories could nevertheless enact their own legislation to allow it.

Those opposed to sex selection argue that it plays on gender stereotypes that children may not be able to live up to, and that their autonomy could be impacted as a result.

In contrast, those in favour of allowing sex selection say that parents should have freedom of choice. But what exactly are parents after when they make that choice?

According to studies in western countries, the reasons why parents want to select the sex of their child centre around desiring a certain kind of parenting experience. For example, parents want a girl so that they can enjoy playing with dolls, shopping or dancing with their child. Or they want a son so they can play sport or go fishing together.

There are mothers who want a daughter in order to have a close mother-daughter bond, or fathers who want a father-son bond. Their aim in “gender balancing” is not to have a variety of sex chromosomes or genitalia among their children, but to have a child who will live up to their gender assumptions.

Yet sex and gender are two very different things. And according to the state of the evidence so far, there is no biological reason why parents can’t have the sort of bond and experiences they want with a child of any sex.

Despite more than 100 years of research, scientific studies have failed to provide good evidence to support the belief that babies are born with something like a “male brain” or a “female brain” which causes the gender traits parents have in mind.

This means that sex selection (or gender selection, as it is often erroneously called) does not “do what it says on the tin” so to speak. Parents want it to select gender but all it can do is select a child with certain sex chromosomes.

Ironically, coming to terms with the limitations of this technology is actually freeing, because if we have no good evidence for the belief that males are biologically drawn towards rugby and air guitar, and girls towards shopping and dancing, then parents should have the freedom to enjoy these activities with a child of any sex. If you play dolls with your son or football with your daughter, their brains will not explode.

We are already free – it’s the chains on our minds that limit us.

Francesca Cavallo and Elena Favilli

In fact, by playing into unfounded assumptions about gender, sex selection actually undermines parental autonomy rather than enhances it. It sends a message to society that the sexes are not interchangeable. But this message is harmful on a number of levels.

Parents could be depriving themselves and their children of enjoying a fulfilling relationship. On a societal level, these assumptions are also the root of sexism, for they are what keep men and women “in their places”.

So if policymakers are serious about gender equality, they should not uphold policies that undermine it. And if the medical profession wants to stand by evidence-based medicine, it should not offer technology that lacks sound evidence to support it.

After the bomb attack on buses in Syria it should be obvious such atrocities will not end while the war against Islamic State is seen as the West's problem. Until there is a coalition of Muslim countries prepared to co-operate in a war on this organisation and its ideology the perception will remain that it is IS versus the West and not IS versus the rest of the world. A strategy for the United Nations to develop?

It turned out to be a really, really stupid idea. 
Moderate Liberal voters deserted the party in droves. Members of Howard's own shadow ministry crossed the floor in protest. The idea that the leader of a major party, especially one that claimed to be the great champion of individual liberty, would sink to race-based politics drew well-deserved contempt from the media, the public and the Parliament.

Not only did Howard lose the election to the worn-out Labor government of Bob Hawke, but he was easily rolled as leader by Andrew Peacock within weeks of his loss. 

Almost 30 years later we have the Liberal prime minister under pressure from his conservative wing calling for tougher restrictions on immigration – specifically skilled migrant visas – with a particular emphasis on making it harder for migrants to come here from non-English speaking cultures.

And a lot of commentators seem to be awfully coy about calling this for what it is, so let's grasp the nettle: hoo boy, things have sure gotten racist around these parts.

Let's make one thing clear to start with: the changes to 457 visas have nothing to do with providing jobs for Australians first. 

One clue: the professions which would longer be covered by the visa is hardly going to put a dent in the joblessness figures, unless Australia has been enjoying a secret blacksmithing renaissance hitherto mysteriously open only to immigrants.

The other is that the visa requirements already demand that jobs be offered to Australian candidates first, so if there is a problem with jobs going to non-Australians first it's because the Immigration Department has been either unwilling or unable to police compliance over the past five years. 

That our Prime Minister – a cosmopolitan chap who has previously spoken out about the great success of multiculturalism in our immigrant nation – is spouting a new citizenship policy that appears based upon demands to speak English should be horrific, of course. But Malcolm Turnbull's now characteristic about-faces on supposed matters of principle have by now lost any power to shock.

However, this new zeal for fuzzy notions of what constitutes sufficient Australianess is motivated not by matters of principle, much less by concern over Australian jobs, but of electoral arithmetic: the same motivations that made xenophobia so attractive to Howard. 

The hard right of Australian conservatism are flocking to anti-immigration parties like Pauline Hanson's One Nation, and the Coalition fear being forced into some sort of super-coalition with them in order to form government. Hence this new nationalism is part of an attempt to woo the more cowardly elements of the right-wing community so the government doesn't ever have to pretend to take Malcolm Roberts seriously.

The problem with doing that is there are not actually all that many voters at the hard right. Or, for that matter, the hard left.

The overwhelming majority of Australian voters are clumped in the centre. If the Liberals pander too obviously to the bigot vote to win over One Nation fans their moderate base will, and history shows this, be disgusted and vote for Labor, according to ABC psephologist and national election-treasure Antony Green. 

"At every One Nation debut election, the party's vote was matched by a huge decline in first preference support for the Liberal and National parties," he explained in a piece ahead of the recent WA election in which the Liberals cut a preference deal with One Nation.

"Much of that change was a direct switch of first preference support from the Coalition to One Nation. Some was a switch of Labor voters to One Nation, but Labor's vote was bolstered by Coalition voters deserting to Labor."

The subsequent humiliating demolition of the Liberal WA government of Colin Barnett suggests this equation is still valid. Mainstream Australia, it would appear, aren't nearly as scared of foreigners as our shock jocks and immigration policies would have you assume. 

So the challenge for the Liberals has become how to appeal to racists while making racism seem reasonable to the mainstream voter. Hence statements that dog whistle to xenophobes while pretending that it's all really about jobs, you guys. Won't someone think of the blacksmiths?

In 1988 Liberal MPs were game to stand up against the craven, cynical race-baiting of their leadership. Let's see whether any have the courage or principles to do so in 2017.

One of the most important things we must try to do is help our young people build resilience, for everyone will encounter difficulties. A discussion between young people and their parents or carers about how growing up in today's world might differ from earlier times can be valuable and insightful. It is not so much a question of whether it is harder or easier, but of what has changed, and what has not.

The central role of technology in young people's lives, for example, means they are bombarded with troubling news. Technology can also be hugely positive for young people.

Another thing that has altered is our awareness of mental health. There is much more knowledge of it in the community, and that has significantly diminished the stigma that for so long has unduly been associated with mental health problems.

That is crucial, because mental illness is so widespread. It is a normal response to the tribulations we face – half of us will experience depression and/or anxiety at some stage in our lifetime.

As you read this, there are more people in Australia experiencing depression than there are suffering a common cold, and there are even more with clinical anxiety. That's some 4 million people. Young people are especially in need of support; one in four of them is currently experiencing a mental health issue.

Most people with mental ill-health do not seek treatment. Parents and carers must help change this, for it would prevent much suffering and even death. As many as nine in 10 young men, for example, do not seek support even when they know they need it.

A study released in recent days illuminates the extent of mental health problems facing young people, and thus is a valuable resource for the adults in their lives. It can inform conversations and help identify problems before they become crises.

The National Union of Students, in partnership with youth mental health organisation headspace, surveyed more than 2600 university and TAFE students. Seven out of 10 rated their mental health as merely "poor or fair".

One in three had considered self-harm or suicide in the previous 12 months. Two in three said they had suffered high or very high psychological distress in the past 12months. Almost 80 per cent had felt anxious, and more than half had experienced panic.

So, what do today's young people identify as the core causes of distress? In its most recent annual youth survey, Mission Australia found the top three listed as most important in Australia were alcohol and drugs, equity and discrimination, and, well, mental health – which was nominated for the first time in the 15-year history of reporting.

That is perhaps a sign of increasing awareness. As their top three issues of personal concern, the respondents identified dealing with stress, school or study problems and body image, while mental health issues were increasingly nominated as personal concerns for young people.

Adolescence will always be a potentially tough time, but awareness, discussion, early intervention and follow-up treatment can foster the joys and diminish the woes. Mental ill-health is treatable. Help is available.

 

"Today we are announcing that we are abolishing the 457 visas," he began on Tuesday. "We are ensuring that Australian jobs and Australian values are placed first."
Only several moments later did he reveal that he would be replacing 457 visas with two new types of visa that would do pretty much the same thing.

He isn't abolishing temporary worker visas at all. (That's what 457 visas are.) He is refining the conditions and changing the name.

When the change comes in, the visa terms will last for two years or four (instead of just four as at present), applicants will need at least two years' work experience (which most already have), they will need to speak English (which most already do) and it will be somewhat harder for them to transition to becoming permanent residents.

The number of occupations for which the visas are available will shrink from 651 to 435. But workers in many of the occupations being cut (turf growers, blacksmiths, deer farmers, auctioneers) don't use the scheme anyway.

In the year to May 2016 there were no imports of futures traders, funeral directors, archaeologists, or shoemakers either, at least none using the 457 visa scheme.

Like Hawke, Turnbull is keener to be seen to be doing something (the word "seen" appears in his transcript three times) than to actually do it. And with good reason. Temporary visa schemes have been and remain a lifeline for Australia.
At the peak of the mining boom we were importing 34,500 temporary workers every three months. Without them we wouldn't have been able to expand anything like as many mines simultaneously.

Only some of the new workers were employed in mines. But that doesn't mean the mining boom didn't create the need for them. Just as the 1850s Victorian gold rush created a shortage of teachers and lawyers in Melbourne, the West Australian iron ore rush created a shortage of cooks to work at McDonald's in Port Hedland.
The locals who would have once flipped burgers fled to the mines. The Education Department was unable to get cleaners in Karratha. There weren't enough obstetricians. During boom times, temporary migrants make things work.

When times are bad, fewer come. Just like that. What's not to like?

In recent times we haven't been granting that many 457 visas, because we haven't needed to. And skilled migrants have been less keen to come.

In the past financial year we granted just 85,611 of the soon-to-be-renamed 457 visas. They accounted for 0.7 per cent of the workforce. Which isn't to say they weren't important. Try finding Australian doctors who'll work in the outback.

Far more important, and just as flexible, are migrants from New Zealand who can come in on unlimited so-called 444 visas.

During 2015-2016 we granted an extraordinary 1.9 million 444 visas to migrants from New Zealand, which isn't bad for a country of 4.8 million. Many would have been multiple entries, and many would have been replacing earlier migrants who had left (as would many of the 457 visas granted).

During the boom, New Zealanders flooded here. Since then the tide has ebbed. During the year to June 2016 more Australians moved to New Zealand than the other way around.

Australians worried about population growth would be wise to examine total growth rather than the relatively tiny number of temporary workers on 457 visas.

At the peak of the first mining boom, population growth reached 2.2 per cent as immigrants on all sorts of visas made a beeline for Australia, and as Australians who would have otherwise left stayed at home. It's now a less-impressive 1.4 per cent as foreigners have become less keen to move and Australians more keen to leave.

So reliable is net migration as a barometer of economic health that the chief economist in the Department of Industry uses it as shorthand for how well things are going.

Right now they're not going that well. The populations of Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania are barely growing. NSW and Queensland are doing little better. But Victoria is racing ahead at a rate not seen for decades. In just the past year Victoria has gained an extra 127,500 residents. It has housed four out of every 10 new Australians.

Despite the fears of some, it hasn't cost Victoria jobs. Employment in Victoria is growing faster than in any other state. And not only employment – job vacancies are growing more quickly as well. The boom in jobs is both encouraging migrants and other Australians to move to Victoria (especially Melbourne) and creating (on the face of it) as many jobs as it fills.

It won't last, just as Western Australia's boom didn't last. But when it falters migration to Victoria will slow. That's how migration works. The skilled temporary 457 visas were migration at its most useful. That's why they're staying, in all but name.

Can you feel that electricity in the air, gentle reader? The sense that everything in NSW is now finally alright forever? That's because the state government have decided they will no longer support Safe Schools, that insidious social engineering program spreading its tentacles around our innocent pupils. 

Also, they're totally maintaining the current teaching of scripture in public schools, ignoring the report they commissioned from the Department of Education.

A rally in support of the Safe School program last year. Photo: Penny Stephens

Now, it's important to realise these two things are completely different. One teaches respect for the variety of human experience using carefully developed and transparent methods, and the other instils adherence to a particular set of arbitrary dictates via often untrained instructors. 

The first, obviously, is dangerous mind control and the second is a far better alternative than either teaching ethics or just letting kids get on with their schoolwork. 

"The NSW Department of Education is currently developing an updated anti-bullying strategy that will be a new resource available for teachers from the beginning of term three," NSW Education Minister Rob Stokes bravely announced in a statement he released while everyone was getting ready for a public holiday. 

"Students who are struggling in our schools, for whatever reason, need support and will continue to receive it in NSW public schools… Bullying will never be accepted in NSW public schools whether it be because someone is overweight, gay, based on the colour of their skin or for any other reason."

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And that's the most important thing, according to all those people who wisely and empathetically argue "b-b-but we should be doing something about all bullying, not just the huge amount connected with sexuality and gender identity!"

That's why our governments absolutely never focus on road safety campaigns, instead making clear that all accidents are equallyimportant and that trying to save lives on the road through anti-speeding initiatives would shamefully ignore the amount of crockery irretrievably cracked by people picking it up with soapy hands. #allaccidentsmatter!

Sure, only last year we had the heartbreaking sight of the mother of Tyrone Unsworth blaming homophobic schoolyard bullying for her gay son taking his own life, but as the old saying goes, you can't make an omelette without tacitly encouraging the open vilification of LGBTIQ kids at the most vulnerable time in their lives.

Meanwhile the NSW Department of Education has issued a bunch of recommendations about the current program of teaching scripture in public schools, such as offering the alternative of ethics classes. This, obviously, is unnecessary busywork – as would be wastefully calculating how many people participate – so the NSW government figures there's no need to bother with it. 

Unlike Safe Schools, letting religious groups into public schools is definitely not weird. Sure, the Anglican secondary special religious education curriculum reportedly promoted abstinence outside a "lifelong relationship" and female submission to their male partner, and the texts by evangelical publisher Christian Education Publications claim that girls who dress provocatively are "tempting their Christian brothers to lust", but since when was instructing women in sexual subservience any kind of "social engineering"? Never, that's when!

Oh, and describing homosexuality as "misplaced sexual desire" should send a positive message to non-straight kids, as would the message that "Homosexuality is one of the things that send people to hell," which was delivered to students at Lambton High School in Newcastle. 

And sure, it might look a little bit like the NSW government used the Easter break to quietly kill one school program while actively supporting another on grounds that are transparently ideological, but that suggestion of it being an expression of barefaced hypocrisy would be totally unfair and accurate, because it's important to recognise, as the NSW government do, that all bullying is unacceptable.

Unless, of course, it's Fred Nile using his vote in the Legislative Council to force the state government to fall into line or risk not passing their electricity privatisation legislation. Then it's actually laudable political negotiation. 

Which, as we all know, is more important than the lives of children. 

Thus almost 10 weeks ago my wife and I celebrated the arrival of James P Street, our son and favourite person on the planet, who is the light of our lives and currently winning what I assume is a deliberate war of psychological attrition against us both. 

Having a small life to take care of has made me acutely aware of certain things 

Any hack columnist can tell you that having kids changes your life and write a heartwarming tale about how sure, it's a struggle, man, but it's so rewarding.

And it is, obviously. Kids are great. Sleep is also great, of course, and at this point it's very much one or the other. 

This is me pretty much every day now. Photo: Taronga Zoo

But more importantly, having a small life to take care of has made me acutely aware of certain things that are perhaps less often talked about in columns about new fatherhood. For example:

There's a huge, unexamined lie that gets trotted out by people who are not traditionally among our best and brightest – Pauline Hanson being the most recent – to the effect that there are scads of unscrupulous single mothers out there deliberately getting themselves knocked up in order to sponge their way to easy street on all that sweet, sweet welfare cash and paid parental leave. 

And this is an odious falsehood which is so obviously nonsense that few people seem motivated to even bother calling it out, so apologies for stating the obvious – but there are zero circumstances in which having a kid is easier and more lucrative than not having one. Zero.

Kids, it turns out, are not just endlessly demanding and require constant attention, but also cost a whole lot of money.

They need stuff like cribs and prams which only get a couple of years' use at best. Clothes need replacing because a healthy baby grows insanely fast, and nappies are absolutely not an optional luxury. And then they need feeding and sheltering and educating and stuff, I'm reliably assured.

Anyone looking for a cruisy way to avoid working should forget about procreation and try something more profitable and less time consuming, like checking vending machines for uncollected change. 

On a related note…

I am a middle-class dude with a flexible job. My wife is a professional with maternity leave. We have one child – one! – and can handball care for our little chap to one another minute to minute and try to give each other time to do important things like sleep and eat and lie face down and motionless on the floor for a little while, and we're still hollowed-out people-husks at this point.

Anyone who does this solo, please know this: you're a goddamn superhero.

We absolutely, positively, passionately wanted to have James and adore every second we spend gazing at his goofy little face. Watching him recognise me and then break out into a mighty, gummy grin is a joy that is impossible to describe through any medium that doesn't rely heavily on punching the air in gleeful triumph.

My phone, which was once a repository of amusing shop signs and pictures of our cat, is now heaving under the weight of James photos. The cat is deeply insulted, and justifiably so.

For all of the aforementioned stresses James came into the world into the care of two people – and a huge extended family and network of friends – who are completely besotted with him. He is wildly loved, and for good reason: he's endlessly hilarious and adorable.

I can't wait to see what sort of person he turns out to be, because I think he's going to be a deeply interesting one.

And all this joy and optimism has made me powerfully aware that…

…and also we need to be teaching our children comprehensive sex and relationship education (including how to use contraception and that sex is not just about babies but also intimacy and pleasure) well before they're going out and actually doing It.

Why? Because every child deserves to come into the world being fervently loved and enthusiastically wanted. 

Not everyone wants to be a parent, and while many rise to the challenge it's too important a job not to be explicitly, deliberately, consciously opt-in. 

Saying "I am genuinely not ready to have a child at this point" isn't a cop out; it's a brave and responsible thing someone can do, because raising a child isn't something one can half-arse without risking horrific consequences. 

There are probably other lessons in there too, but now I just need to lie face down on the floor for a little while. Nudge me when the little guy wakes up.

It is understandable there will be a rush to support Trump's retaliatory airstrike. Unfortunately the strike may have more deadly long-term consequences than it seeks to prevent. The strike did not do anything about the chemical stockpiles that Assad obviously continues to possess. Nor is bombing the stockpiles feasible since that would spread chemical toxins even more widely. While Barack Obama is pilloried for not taking military action after the 2013  chemical attacks, he did reach an agreement with Russia in the Security Council that led to UN-supervised destruction of  1290 tonnes of Syria's declared chemical agents (SIPRI Yearbook, 2014). A better alternative to this strike would have been to re-engage Russia on further UN efforts to locate and eliminate Syria's continuing (but undeclared) chemical weapon facilities. There are no military solutions to this crisis. The strike will only make a negotiated end to the war more difficult. 

Peter Nash Fairlight

 

So spoke Mr Brocklehurst, governor of Lowood School in Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre. The braids worn by Bentleigh Secondary College students – twins, Grace and Tahbisa – are  neat, attractive, well looked-after and a suitable (and traditional) style for African hair.  The school ordered them to remove their braids as they breached its uniform policy (The Age, 31/3) but it has since backed down on this. If any expert can prove that their hair is affecting their education, please do so. Otherwise, let us move on. This is not the 1840s.
Linda Bowen and Peter Mitchell, Hampton

Just when Bashar al Assad – still the legal President  – looks like getting on top of both the US and Saudi-funded rebels and Islamic State, a gas attack is reported from the rebel-held zone. It is unlikely Assad's forces would even need to use gas at this stage. And in any event, no  independent body can show who used it. Russia clearly does not trust the UN Security Council to be the investigator for good historical reasons.  And the Western media seem to have just swallowed the Trump line. Vietnam, Korea, Libya and a number of other countries invaded or bombed by the US since World War II all had a "red line" incident as the precursor.  Australia should learn from history and so should our media.  We expect Malcolm Turnbull to be a servant of the US.  We don't expect our media to be the same. We need an independent media voice.


Attacks ignore more productive options

It is understandable there will be a rush to support Trump's retaliatory airstrike. Unfortunately the strike may have more deadly long-term consequences than it seeks to prevent. The strike did not do anything about the chemical stockpiles that Assad obviously continues to possess. Nor is bombing the stockpiles feasible since that would spread chemical toxins even more widely. While Barack Obama is pilloried for not taking military action after the 2013  chemical attacks, he did reach an agreement with Russia in the Security Council that led to UN-supervised destruction of  1290 tonnes of Syria's declared chemical agents (SIPRI Yearbook, 2014). A better alternative to this strike would have been to re-engage Russia on further UN efforts to locate and eliminate Syria's continuing (but undeclared) chemical weapon facilities. There are no military solutions to this crisis. The strike will only make a negotiated end to the war more difficult. 

Not withstanding the suffering this chemical attack has caused in Syria, am I being too cynical to think that Donald Trump's action is due more to his falling popularity, his domestic failures in achieving his agenda and has used this horrific event to arrest the perception of the inadequateness of his presidency? When America intervenes in the Middle East things usually get worse. 

Letters and articles have pleaded for something to be done about the despicable use of chemical weapons against defenceless Syrian civilians. Yet when Trump responded to punish the regime responsible for the outrage, the  left-wing anti-US response is quick to emerge. But if we take Trump at his word that he responded in disgust at Assad's use of chemical weapons, how do we square that with Trump's ban on refugees from the long-running Syrian conflict seeking asylum in the US? 

Some $US59 million of American taxpayers' money spent on "making America great again". At least now we know how "He who must not be named" wants to achieve that goal: more jobs in the war industry. 

A few things are now certain. The unrequited love affair betwixt Donald and Vladimir Putin is now formally over. The other is that Donald Trump is most definitely "a knee jerk" kind of guy, as if we needed more proof. The old two-up term of "come in spinner" comes to mind. This isolated chemical attack, albeit horrific, raised the question: Who and why? What does a tyrant like al-Assad hope to gain? Not quite literally, but "five minutes" after the US acceptance of the status quo in Syria, one horrific TV report has resulted in a 180 per cent shift in US foreign policy. I believe our worst fears may come to pass. 

The editorial ("US strike justified and humanitarian", 8/4) endorsed the US attack on the Assad regime's air base with a curious oxymoron: "humanitarian strike". This is not a concept known to international law. The missile attack may be a valid retributive action, but a humanitarian act it is not. Your editorial goes on to hope the "fall of Dr Assad" will "end the wretched tragedy in Syria". The unexplained conundrum is how to construct the former so it leads to the latter. The number of protagonists and proxies in the conflict makes this unmanageable. 

Is the human species terminally stupid? Since when has dropping bombs ever solved a problem? Worse, it is an act of supreme cowardice. The real heroes are the people like the doctors, nurses, the families and parents who have to endure Assad's  carnage. And then only to be sacrificed to appease Trump's domestic supporters. Tragic beyond imagining.

Trump has sent a clear message to Bashar al-Assad – stop using chemical weapons to kill and maim your citizens; go back to using conventional weapons. 

Watch one TV channel and see how society has progressed the understanding of the wonders of the universe; switch channels and witness society's progress in destroying itself.

Thank you, James Rowe,  for your gutsy article ("I found a safe space and beat heroin", 7/4), which touched some very raw nerves. We lost our 36-year-old son Paul in the middle of 2016 to a heroin overdose. He suffered from schizophrenia and had only been discharged a few weeks after a very long stay in hospital.  According to the police his body failed to cope with the "normal" heroin dose he self-administered after such a long absence from prohibited recreational drugs. We understand he procured the heroin from the Richmond area – to deal with his acute sense of "being lost and alone!" Surely, anything reasonable has to be better than this –including "a medically supervised injecting centre, staffed by medical and social service professionals".

Dr Rowe's experience with heroin use while maintaining a successful academic career helpfully counters the  "junkie" stereotype. His family's ultimate acceptance of his drug use was no doubt an important part of enabling his recovery. 

I think it is equally important to stop using such terminology as "beating" or "winning the battle" against drugs. Such vocabulary carries with it great stigma, making addicts feel like they are failures, and creating the perception among families and friends that their loved one is simply not trying hard enough. This creates further mental trauma for users. What we need is more understanding and acceptance of drug users: for a father to hug his son, tell him he is 100 per cent worthy and that he will support him whether or not he continues to use drugs.

Wendy Squires (Forum, 1/4)  recently had a terrifying interaction with the local "psychotic ice addict", Terry, or The Thing (also known as somebody's son). Based on this one interaction, Squires concluded that "the apocalypse is real" with "ice addicts roaming the streets". 

Despite talk of an epidemic in Australia, methamphetamine use has remained stable since 2007, with about 2 per cent using yearly. However, people are now more likely to use regularly, to use the crystal form of methamphetamine (ice), and to smoke the drug, delivering a fast and more addictive high.

While most people who try meth do so recreationally, heavier users experience the brunt of meth-related harms, which can include dependence, medical problems and psychotic symptoms. These are compounded by lack of accessible publicly funded evidence-based treatment options. Lost in the talk of "once humans" is that people addicted to methamphetamine have a diagnosable, treatable mental illness. Would it be considered appropriate to use dehumanising, stigmatising language to refer to people with a physical illness?

Generating panic does nothing to help those suffering from addiction or protect society from drug-related problems. 

As a junior doctor I am  troubled by both the number of doctors taking their own lives and the ensuing discourse. The focus seems to be on awareness, access to mental health services and the vulnerability of the types of people who pursue medicine. 

The elephant in the room is the intensity and hours of work expected of junior doctors. My friends and colleagues are no strangers to 10-hour shifts with no break and pulling back-to-back 70-hour weeks. We are all aware of mental illness and the much-touted employee assistance programs but how is one to squeeze a quick counselling session into a non-stop 13.5-hour shift when one's colleagues are just as overstretched? In this era of oversupply of medical graduates it is tragic that young doctors work themselves into their graves while Australia stands around wondering if they have ever heard of depression before.

I cannot claim to be a saint when it comes to embracing our Indigenous fellow Australians. But I despair that when they come to us and put their faith in us, as did the Wanambi family with their 11-year-old daughter Gabby, we let them down and so badly. 

Gabby's poor treatment lead to her death from septicaemia, after initially suffering a rolled ankle.  It matters not that it was a "remote" Northern Territory bush hospital; it matters more that a supposedly responsible doctor wasn't responsible or caring enough to  go and treat her. Was Gabby not important enough?

Interesting. She is a 28-year-old who is (in her own words) "smart, hard-working and extremely well-educated", hogs the spotlight and foists her opinions on others at every opportunity and, being an outspoken right-winger, almost certainly has no sympathy for anyone less fortunate than herself ("The Young and the Righteous", Good Weekend, 8/4) – and yet still lives at home with mummy and daddy. 

It was a timely reminder to coal proponents to be careful what they ask for. The Adani coal mine was granted unlimited water rights by the Queensland government. The next day, an unlimited water supply was delivered to the Bowen Basin next door by Cyclone Debbie. It caused Glencore, BMA and other coal mining companies to declare force majeure for "unforseen circumstances". The companies have reneged on their coal export contracts because flood damage to rail lines halted port deliveries. 

However, such circumstances were entirely foreseen by the rest of us. The coal companies have willingly contributed to such extreme weather by the mining and burning of coal in the Bowen Basin. Such "innocent bystander" denials do nothing to prevent more of the same.

The Adani mine will provide about 4800 jobs averaged over construction and operations if you believe Adani, or 1464 net jobs if you believe an expert (The Age, 6/4). Let's assume a mean of 3132 jobs. Here is an alternative. Get 3132 workers to stack rocks and then unstack them and pay them the average weekly wage of $1164. The wages bill would cost about $190million annually. Crazy idea? 

Yet the federal government is prepared to pay more towards the Adani mine and its railway line than our rock stackers would cost over five years, while the state Labor government is to give Adani whatever it wants of Queensland. The financial return in both cases is negligible. 

But the rock-stacking jobs would not wreck the Great Artesian Basin, the livelihood of Queensland's farmers or the 50,000-strong tourist industry alongside the Great Barrier Reef. And planet Earth and insurers might breathe a little easier. India won't care because it will be following China's lead in renewable energy developments. Which is the crazy idea?

Enticing foreign companies with a lure of providing a low-interest, $990 million infrastructure loan is surely a highly questionable contemporary economic practice?

However, when the company's core activity is an antiquated mining practice that's been scientifically proved to have the potential to wreak irreversible ecological damage to our fragile continent, the government's ulterior motives appear strangely bizarre.

That this political pantomime is staged on the proscenium of a global natural treasure, the Great Barrier Reef, of which we are the "supposed custodians", is beyond belief.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's government acting, unwillingly if effectively, via the puppet-string tugs of a former prime minister, smacks of short-term political desperation and long-term negligence.

Our country's international credibility is shaping to be one defined as an isolated pariah state led by climate change deniers desperate for the quick dollar, rather than one of an innovative, responsible and generous global citizen.

Letter to the Editor: The text is a letter to the Editor as it is a letter to the Editor of an issue of concern. It is also publicised.
Contention: The government is oblivious to global issues, and ignore such to in order to make as much money as possible.

Intense media focus on housing affordability has primarily focused on the story of the individual; the young person who can't afford a house. But in all of our focus on the individual, we are failing to recognise the greater problem – that when house prices do fall, and they will, they risk taking our banking system and the wider economy with them. We need to induce a "soft decline" before it is too late.

The myth that house prices must continue to rise, and that housing is somehow different to any other asset class, is a dangerous one. Like any other asset class, housing is subject to changes in demand, speculation, and increases and decreases in price. This is obvious when one looks to the house price reductions in the US and Europe during the global financial crisis, and house price declines in Australia in the early and late 1980s.

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What if inflation rises and wages don't?

Australia has more economic challenges than just Sydney and Melbourne housing prices, for example wages growth is stubbornly low and so is inflation. Michael Pascoe comments.

Are we in a bubble now? Pricing bubbles exist where price growth outstrips demand growth. Population growth has increased by less than 2 per cent per annum over the last five years, while housing prices have increased at an average of 7.5 per cet per annum. To back this up, in March ASIC made the unusually direct statement that the Sydney housing market is in a "bubble" scenario where asset prices are overvalued.

Systemic risk, or contagion risk, is the risk that difficulties in one asset class or institution spill over into others. The value of outstanding housing loans financed by Australian authorised deposit-taking institutions is about $1.6 trillion, roughly equal to our entire annual gross domestic product. The sheer size of the housing market means that declines pose a systemic risk to our financial system and to our economy. There is a very real risk that a sudden decline in house prices will cause defaults among overleveraged homeowners, leading to a vicious cycle of price reductions, lower spending and job losses.

·         'No smashed avo on toast, we just saved every dollar we could'

·         The new model of home ownership we should be focusing on

While prices do need to decline to make housing more affordable, we need to prevent this from happening in an uncontrolled manner by inducing a soft decline.

Policy proposals such as the removal of negative gearing or providing access to superannuation funds fail to address the single biggest cause of house price growth over the last decade; low interest rates. Borrowers tend to focus on the maximum value that they can borrow, rather than on the actual value of what they are purchasing. This has resulted in a meteoric increase in borrowings.

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To truly address the issue of access to cheap credit, we need to push for a tightening of lending criteria. The prudential regulator, APRA, has been reticent to dictate specific minimum standards for lending. However, in late 2014, APRA suggested that the investor portion of banks' loan books should grow at less than 10 per cent per annum. In March, APRA also limited banks to originating a maximum of 30 per cent of new loans as interest-only loans.

While these policies are aimed at slowing lending, APRA has not gone far enough because it has not yet addressed loan serviceability. APRA should mandate stricter lending criteria to address our national exposure to contagion risk.

Contention: The excessive amount of advertising on sports gambling (namely AFL) is a nuisance and unnecessary.

Congratulations Caroline Wilson for revealing the AFL's lobbying against the proposed federal bans on gambling ads during live sport ("Gambling ads 'win' for AFL", 21/4). The AFL's position is manifestly against the interests of problem gamblers, children and the football community. We are inundated with ads watching the game on TV/Foxtel. Going to the game is almost as bad. To top it off, on Friday I received an unsolicited email from "Draftstars" offering me $20 to start betting on the AFL-based platform. The AFL's  hobbling of much-needed but minimal reforms is shameful. We all deserve better than this.

Worryingly, though, we may not have heard about this story by reading the other paper, which relies on gambling ads in the sport pages. I had a quick count on Friday, and found six of the 13 ads in 18 sports pages directly promoted gambling, while odds were inserted in team lists for each game. Another two "articles" were based on sports betting, advertising odds of games and so on. News Limited is commercially linked to Foxtel, which is dominated by gambling promotion. By comparison, The Age sports pages ran no gambling ads.  

It seems AFL heads and media outlets embrace community values when it suits them, but when such values get in the way of money it is straight off to pressure the minister. The rich and powerful have direct access to decision makers, an avenue denied to those most affected by this scourge. Gambling addiction and even habitual gambling leads to financial hardship, domestic violence, family breakdown and other crime. For our noble sporting codes to tarnish themselves by getting down into the gutter to lobby for a share of this tainted cash is an abomination.  

The betting ads debate around AFL raises a much wider question – what is the raison d'etre of AFL and an Aussie rules national football competition? Is it to extract money from the masses, provide employment for lots of people, or to prop up sagging TV revenues? If it a money-making enterprise, then let's proceed down the make-as-much-money-as-you-can line, and hope the many thousands of fans don't vote with their feet. But there are no shareholders to force CEOs to make huge profits at the expense of the public good.

Or is it a vehicle for promoting health and sport in the community, as well as providing a great conversation starters? If so, gambling hardly fits into this. The game and the nation would be better off without it. Or  is it something in between? It is clearly time for an evaluation. Giving Gillon McLachlan and his unrepresentative board members free rein is a poor way to run an Australian icon. 

Advertising by online sports betting companies has reached saturation levels. Recent research has found that more than 90per cent of children can recall having seen a sports betting ad. Many children have a very detailed recall of the content of betting ads – including brand names, plot lines and "deals". A 2012 study found that 528 individual sports betting ads were  played some 20,000 times on free-to-air television, a figure that rose significantly on pay TV channels. More than one in six ads broadcast during AFL matches in 2016 were for gambling companies. Online gambling corporations spent between $230million and $330 million on advertising in Australia in 2015, up from $91 million in 2011. Let's hope federal cabinet acts in the community's interest and reins in this  bombardment. 

Mark Zirnsak, social justice spokesman, Uniting Church

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EDITORIAL

Contention: Safe Schools is not a program about political ideologies but a program that strives to educate the public about the LGBT+ community in support for the young non-cishet people who in the society of today.

It is ironic, and a touch pathetic, that those waging a hysterical campaign against the Safe Schools anti-bullying program on the grounds of a false claim it is ideological are doing so from a rampantly ideological perspective.

Safe Schools, designed during the Gillard government and then introduced without apparent concern by the Abbott government, simply gives schools resources to help students, parents, carers and teachers understand the discrimination and bullying experienced by non-heterosexual young people.

It has provoked an outcry by conservative ideologues who ignore evidence and claim the program is some form of radical social engineering because, in part, it recognises the reality that sexuality occurs along a normal spectrum, and is not strictly binary.

That is hardly radical; what's strange is that it has taken this long to develop this important adjunct to the curriculum. The Safe Schools website shows the program to be sensible, sober and decent. The central element is eight lessons for year 7 and year 8 students. It merely encourages them to imagine what it can be like to be attacked for being other than heterosexual. Safe Schools is about combating injustice by raising awareness.

Yet, amid the furore, NSW and Tasmania have moved away from it, and the Turnbull government is ending funding. Victoria, to its credit, has embraced it as appropriate for all schools, and has vowed to fill the funding gap. We urge Premier Daniel Andrews to maintain his resolve in the face of the silliness.

And there's indeed been much silliness. One media commentator ranted: "It was obvious that a program about sexual and gender diversity was never about bullying, only about ideological brainwashing with its roots in a sick Freudian-Marxist philosophy popular with German Green revolutionaries of the 1960s." Another denounced Safe Schools as part of a historic, existential threat to "the Western secular democratic state". Tony Abbott, whose ambition seems renewed and rampant, is now describing Safe Schools as "a social engineering program dressed up as anti-bullying".

Particularly staunch opposition to Safe Schools – and to marriage equality – has come from The Australian Christian Lobby, which says it wants Australia to become "more just and compassionate". Apparently, though, justice and compassion do not extend to the LGBTIQ community.

For evidence shows Safe Schools is needed, and the LGBTIQ  community is rightly alarmed by its axing in some states. Why? Because this is literally a matter of life and death. Queer young people are up to six times more likely to attempt suicide than heterosexual peers.

A study by the Young and Well Co-operative Research Centre, Growing Up Queer, estimated 16 per cent of queer young Australians had attempted suicide, while a third had harmed themselves. Why? Primarily because of homophobic harassment – two-thirds of them have been bullied about their sexual orientation. They suffer homophobic harassment and violence in schools, at work and at sporting events. It found 42 per cent had thought about self-harm or suicide.

This is what should be concerning people. The heightened risk to these young people compels a program focused on that risk. It complements, not undermines, the general anti-bullying programs available.

This is not an ideological issue; it's about fairness and decency, it's about the human condition and equality. It is not about "political correctness". It is about progressing from baseless, appalling prejudice towards a more enlightened society. Yet many are putting prejudice and politics ahead of the welfare of young people. That, not Safe Schools, is the shameful thing.

headspace on 1800 650 890

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OPINION PIECE

Contention: Donald Trump is a terrible presidental choice. Yet, he was the better candidate out of the two to hand over the victory to as Hillary Clinton is much worse alternative.

It’s hard to like Donald Trump. He is vain, hypocritical, vulgar and loose with the truth. He’s been on the golfing green far more than his presidential predecessors, who he publicly and routinely slammed for doing the same.

The US President has insisted on conducting government from his Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, at a reported cost to taxpayers of more than $US20 million ($26.5m) so far. His first 100 days in office have been marked more by a flurry of forgettable executive orders and unhinged tweets than any reform, despite Republicans having the majority in both houses of congress. The President’s family appears to be playing a role in government more befitting ­nations with lower standards of governance. Dropping a huge bomb on Afghanistan and launching airstrikes in Syria contradict his election promise to extricate the US from foreign entanglements, and look more like convenient distractions from his struggling domestic agenda. No president since WWII has been more unpopular in his first 100 days, according to Gallup.

Whatever his flaws, though, Trump’s remarkable election ­victory remains a better outcome than the alternative Clinton ­victory. There are two sets of ­reasons for this: the conventional and political.

First, Trump’s reform agenda conforms far more to what mainstream economists, including those more associated with the Democrats, have been recommending for almost a decade. The G20 group of countries, a font of conventional wisdom, has repeatedly advocated shifting taxes away from businesses on to consumption. Trump is proposing to slash the 35 per cent corporate tax rate to 15 per cent. His Republican allies in congress want to go even further and tear up the established rules of corporate taxation in a way that would give US firms an incentive to keep their production in the US. Their proposal, in effect a tax on US sales, looks very similar to a consumption tax. The G20 has also advocated greater deficit-financed infrastructure spending, to bolster lacklustre growth. Trump wants to spend $1 trillion on upgrading US roads, rail and airports. Even Larry Summers, ­intellectual gadfly of the Democrats, has conceded such spending would be a good idea.

Trump also emphasises deregulation. The US is a far less “free market” than thought, its hodgepodge of state and federal regulators and regulations — in ­financial services, for instance, there are more than four national regulators and then at least one in every state — being a major economic burden.

The Mercatus Centre, a Washington DC think tank, estimates that had US regulation been held at 1980 levels, the economy would have been almost a quarter larger by 2012, equivalent to about US$4 trillion of GDP. The number of pages of the Code of Federal Regulations has risen from about 90,000 to almost 180,000 since 1980. The US is ranked only the 17th freest economy in the world on the Heritage Foundation’s annual freedom index, far below Australia and Canada.

“The substantial expansion of government’s size and scope, ­increased regulatory and tax burdens, and the loss of confidence that has accompanied a growing perception of cronyism, elite privilege, and corruption have severely undermined America’s global competitiveness,” Heritage said.

Democrats said little about these issues. Regulations keep highly paid regulators in jobs and large businesses like complex regulation because it serves as a powerful barrier to competition.

The only area where Trump has flouted the G20 reform agenda is on trade. Here, it seems, the administration has been more talk than substance. It hasn’t, as promised, torn up major agreements or started a trade war with China. Cooler heads are likely to prevail.

Trump hasn’t made much progress, to be sure, but the ­possibility of agreement among Republicans and passage of major changes can’t be ruled out. He has a whole term left.

The political benefits of a Trump victory are manifold. It’s a salutary shock to the established political duopoly, which has regulated the lifeblood out of swaths of the economy and paid little attention to ordinary people’s incomes.

A Clinton victory would have saved the Democratic Party from a much needed period of introspection. The party is losing the lower-paid workers who once gravitated to it. Apart from losing the White House and congress, Democrats have seen their share of state governorships fall to 16 out of 50 states. The “blue wall” of states with high proportions of blue-collar workers that Democratic strategists counted on has crumbled. A younger Bernie ­Sanders (who rightly found identity politics, a favourite topic of the Democrats, irrelevant) would have been a more potent ­opponent to Donald Trump.

Like Australia’s Labor Party, Democrats have become too ­focused on the concerns of a well-paid urban sliver of voters who tend to dominate the media and universities. Their politicians and apparatchiks are drawn increasingly from the same high socio-economic background as their opponents. In time, the Republican party will have to search its own soul on this issue: its November victory was thanks to a man who was once a Democrat and who disagrees with much of the traditional Republican platform.

The most disappointing development in the Trump administration’s first 100 days is the apparent eclipse of Stephen Bannon, one of the President’s top advisers. Bannon has endured huge criticism from mainstream media for having helped found Breitbart news, an online anti-establishment news site.

But as Peggy Noonan pointed out in The Wall Street Journal last week, Bannon is brilliant and a force for good in the White House. Culturally an outsider, he rails against the cosy Washington DC-Wall Street consensus. His 2014 speech outlining his world view, easily accessible on the internet, is a tour de force, a blistering critique of crony capitalism, where government contacts and support rather than entrepreneurialism or effort become the path to riches.

“All the burdens (are) put on the working-class people who get none of the upside. All of the ­upside goes to the crony capitalists,” he said. “If you take out government spending, we’ve had negative growth on a real basis for over a decade”, suggesting growth and unemployment are far higher than official statistics suggest.

The President’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, scion of a rich New York real estate family and ­another of the President’s advisers, is apparently at loggerheads with Bannon. Their clash is a microcosm of a much bigger fight.

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CARTOONS

Threats to world peace
(illus. Peter Breolman)

Context: This drawing was posted on the 20th of April 2017 in response to the recent fuss in the media about Trump's plan on launching an attack on North Korea.

Argument: The contention is that both presidents of the US and North Korea are threats to world peace. If they decide to start a nucleic war, the world will be even more at risk.

Purpose and Positioning: The artists's overall purpose is to satire the ironic fact that Trump is labelling someone badly when he is no better. Broelman could have also intended to spread the news about Trump's plan.

Issue and Implications: The US president plans to wage war with North Korea, which could lead to danger for the rest of the world.

Text Type: A cartoon is chosen so that the creator could express himself visually. In this case, he wished to ridicule one party that is involved in this issue, Trump. Cartoons, namely political cartoons are usually made to mock.

Author and Audience: Peter Broelman is a cartoonist who is known to publish his work in Australian daily newspapers. He has somewhat interest in the subject of politics as many of his works are of that category.

Language Features: The emphasis on Trump's rockets cause the US president to appear agressive. The illustrator uses the US flags, along with Trump's clothing to ironically signify patriotism.

Stakeholders:

Drought does indeed hit this country hard. For Australians its worst effects are economic hardship, and personal and family tragedies. Family legacies built over generations can be ruined when marginal land no longer supports livestock or crops and yields no income. Towns die, and with them the hopes of those on farms nearby. Depression at its worst can bring family breakdown, even suicide. We know all that from experience, and it is bad enough – but it is not the worst that drought can do. Combined with other factors such as poverty, ignorance and war, drought can wreak the most appalling havoc.

As Wade reports, drought now threatens Somalia and nearby countries – Nigeria, South Sudan, and Yemen as well as parts of Kenya and Ethiopia. This drought has already lasted three years. Herds of livestock have been devastated, and prices of staples are rising. Famine threatens. People are leaving their homes in search of food. They have become in effect drought refugees. Wars in Somalia and South Sudan compound the misery and make dealing with the effects of drought formidably difficult.

The present drought in Somalia has followed quickly on a similar emergency, in 2011, when 260,000 died. For Australians, pictures and reports from famine-stricken regions can induce a feeling of helplessness. In the vast misery of such events, what can an individual do? Singly, perhaps we can achieve little. But as a community we could do a lot – and certainly more than we are doing now. Australia specifically gives aid to sub-Saharan Africa, including Somalia – about $34 million this year, out of a national aid budget worth $3.8 billion in total. That sum was cut in the last budget by $200 million below the level of the previous year.

Clearly the federal government has listened to those populist MPs for whom foreign aid is a favourite target. Charity begins at home and all that. This miserable attitude manages to be simultaneously self-interested and self-defeating. If we follow it, as we gaze fondly at our well-upholstered navels, the problems we choose to ignore overseas will build and build, producing not only staggering numbers of starving people, but also social breakdown, failing nations, wars, and millions of refugees.

It is time for Australia, one of the richest nations on earth, to resume the more generous, outward-looking stance it once adopted. In the May budget our government should restore the cuts it made to overseas aid, as a first step to raising its aid to the UN target of 1.7 per cent of gross national income. It should also adopt rational policies to combat climate change, and lobby actively for their adoption worldwide, before global warming becomes irreversible, and drought never-ending.

Nola Tucker Kiama

Many overseas inner-city schools, or those situated in extreme weather zones, struggle with similar problems of overcrowding. Some use neighbouring city buildings as "playgrounds" or gym spaces. Others build indoor running tracks, gyms and climbing areas to accommodate five months or more of snow. These schools perceive a problem, are given the necessary funding, and solve it. Here the problems are ignored and our children suffer.

Janice Creenaune Austinmer

Women have long suffered an acute shortage of toilets, so maybe the NSW government is just preparing girls for their lot in life. I wonder if the NSW Parliament works on the same toilet ratio as Chatswood Public School. And what do they want to do with the proceeds of selling the LPI? More stadiums. I wonder what the toilet ratio will be.

Tony Sullivan Adamstown Heights

Chatswood Public School has 1250 students, more than 40 per cent over-capacity. Twenty-two classrooms are in demountables, and there is no space for music, art or computer rooms, areas in which the school has achieved excellence. Playground use during recess and lunch is rostered, school hall use staggered to cope with limited space, and there is a serious shortage of toilets. There are concerns related to student health and wellbeing. With more high-rise apartments planned nearby, urgent capital works funding is needed to cope with student populations.

Lynne Saville Chatswood

Obviously the government and relevant departments don't look at the census results to gauge the class numbers required. Anyone can see Chatswood is a densely populated zone that has been growing rapidly. I have my doubts as to the usefulness of the census. Not only was it a shambles but it really didn't glean any more information than what is readily available via the ATO, Medicare, etc. All politicians and governments need to look at future growth as a certainty. Be bold, build big.The only schools with an empty classroom are in the deserted bush towns.

While it appears that Turnbull has been motivated to attract more Pauline Hanson voters with his new citizenship test requirements, he is attacking the wrong communication deficit.

We have a serious communication skills problem in Australia glued to a long standing fixture in Australian culture. If Turnbull wants to promote Australian values as they stand, then migrants will be taught to shut up, be stoic, take it like a man and repress expression; or if they have to express, to leave much information open to interpretation, shorten their words and beware of bigger words.

Yet stoicism is an Australian trait that continues to serve our national character well – it is our national spine calcified by solidity, toughness and a proud work ethic. But an underlying branch of stoicism needs to be addressed, the part that holds-in, internalises emotions and suppresses expression.

Stoicism through gritted teeth builds up tension cumulatively like a pressure cooker with two potential directions of concern; implosion or explosion. For many this is a gateway to domestic violence, violence, alcoholism, drug abuse, mental and physical illness and compromised national outcomes. It is particularly applicable to the Australian male (though not gender-exclusive) and may be a hangover from the British – the world champions of repressed emotion. It is most timely that Prince Harry has generously gone public about his struggles with emotional suppression after Princess Diana died.

Our education system should be training all of us with the necessary tools to manage, express and release tension. Australian values need to change to encourage expression and communication.

Another long standing Aussie value is suspicion of those who speak with openness, skill, confidence and clarity.

Waleed Aly is a child of immigrants who speaks Australian English better than most Australians. He communicates clearly, with exceptional fluency, panache, is prepared to use large words and exercise his intellect – all of which does not endear him to white bread Aussies. If we ignore the racism, part of the antipathy directed towards Aly is that he speaks too well.

The seesaw scale works this way: the worse you speak, the better you are liked and the better you speak the less you are trusted. Australia's suspicion of communication excellence can be traced to feelings about the British who were generally respected, but not liked or trusted.

Though it might appear counterintuitive, identifying shortfalls in Australian communication patterns is not demonstrating cultural cringe, neither does wanting the best for your country. Cultural cringe usually has an imperial model that suggests that the Australian culture is inferior to the British – a notion that is as flawed as Turnbull's new citizenship policy.

So it is pertinent to remind Turnbull that it is unacceptable to scapegoat any group; that picking on migrants should not be an Australian value. Instead he should be creating initiatives that train our fellow Australians to communicate better.

Contention- That the Safe Schools anti-bullying program critics are ignoring the evidence and claim that the program is ‘some form of radical social engineering’ as it apparently ‘recognizes the reality that sexuality occurs along a normal spectrum, and is not strictly binary.’  The child is depicted as a victim of the program due to their sexual orientation.

Context- This cartoon and text was created on the 22^nd of April 2017. It was created in response to the Safe Schools anti bullying program and the backlash it has received. Background knowledge would be required to understand the context the opinion piece is written in and the political cartoon behind and supporting it. 

Argument- ‘The Safe Schools website shows the program to be sensible, sober and decent. Safe Schools is about combating injustice by raising awareness. The heightened risk to these young people compels a program focused on that risk. It complements, not undermines, the general anti-bullying programs available.’ That ‘many are putting prejudice and politics ahead of the welfare of young people.’

Purpose and Positioning- The author’s purpose is to evoke an emotional appeal towards the children who are affected and understand the benefits the program has for them. With the use of rhetorical and guiding questions juxtaposed with evidence, the author’s stance is greatly biased and further enhances the argument. Thus, the audience is positioned to perceive the logical aspect due to incorporated quotes and evidence and side with the author. 

Issue and Implications- The general issue in this cartoon is to depict the targeted children who are affected by the ‘prejudice and politics’ as this issue is ‘literally a matter of life and death.’ The author then supports this claim with evidence and how the program is ‘about fairness and decency, about the human condition and equality.’ The wider ramifications that lead into this issue is the impact bullying and harassment can have on young people’s minds. 

Text type- This is a political cartoon supporting an opinion piece chosen to deliver a more graphic and striking way to provoke the audience’s emotion. The colors and the cross that is pictured only reasons with the audience and features that stand out are the reasons why this type of art is chosen. 

Author and Audience- Matt Davidson is the artist behind the political cartoon and can be seen showing vested interest within this subject due to the contrast of the rainbows at the forefront and background off the image and the visual cross. His identity may play as a factor towards this issue as it showcases his point of view on the issue. The audience that is targeted are mainly the critics of the program, those who put this plan into effect and anyone who may be impacted due to the placement of this program. 

Language Features- Language features are not apparent within the cartoon however are shown with the opinion piece. It includes rhetorical questions and much evidence juxtaposed with emotional appeals to induce the audience’s emotion and perception to this issue. Quotes are also used to support and highlight the main points the author wanted to showcase to persuade the audience. 

Stakeholders- Stakeholders within this text and cartoon are the schoolchildren who have little to no say of what program and how the program is implemented within their school. The critics and government can also be stakeholders due to their input and their stance on this issue. 

I supported Bentleigh Secondary College for insisting that two of its students follow its uniform policy. They were being treated the same way as other students there. The use of language such as "discrimination" and "attacking an African culture" wa an unacceptable attack on the school.

 It is time the Education Department took physical diversity into account in how people present themselves, rather than allowing such shaming. There is plenty of policy guidance from places such as South Africa.

Hairstyle together with the dress code is part of a school's enforcement of discipline. A school's function is not only to teach the three Rs, but also to shape young people to fit in with a disciplined society they move into when leaving school. The girls' school should have been supported for enforcing appropriate discipline, for the ultimate good of the students.

I wonder what type of schools Mary Barry is referring to when she writes about them insisting that girls only wear skirts or dresses (Comment, 29/3). Certainly in the 1960s girls could not wear long pants but every school I have been associated with in the past 30 years has had a pants option for them. Is she referring to the expensive private schools? Another reason to go public.

A change in school uniforms for girls is old news at Glen Eira College. Students can choose the uniform items they like on the day – pants or skirts. It is easier for any gender and Melbourne's four seasons in one day.

Tom Switzer

When I was The Australian's opinion editor, in the 2000s, I commissioned several writers to make the case against the Iraq war. It was a contrarian thing to do, given the Murdoch press' enthusiastic support for regime change in Baghdad. But in the lead-up to the 2003 invasion, The Australian published an ideologically diverse group of journalists, intellectuals, former diplomats and politicians, who subscribed to the foreign-policy school of deterrence.

The logic was simple. Preventive war was unnecessary, because even a nuclear Iraq could be contained as it had been since the 1991 Gulf War. Saddam Hussein was a brutal tyrant, but he was also a cynical calculator whose overriding concern was to hold onto power. Deterrence was working: if he used nuclear weapons against US interests, it would have guaranteed massive retaliation, perhaps obliteration. But if we attacked him, why expect him to go gently when he had nothing left to lose?

Not surprisingly, many hawks lambasted the "realists" as anything but realist. Everything after September 11, we were told, had changed. So much so that the containment doctrine that won the Cold War was futile against what George W. Bush termed the "axis of evil" (Iraq, Iran, North Korea).

I am reminded of those heady days as I listen to the debates about North Korea's nuclear ambitions. Once again, we are told that a rogue state is bent on developing nuclear weapons that threaten world peace and that either a preventive strike or regime change, or both, will disarm this strategic and moral threat.

But remember the realists were right about Iraq. Leave aside that Saddam's regime did not even possess serious weapons of mass destruction capacity. Regime change was always fraught with the danger of unintended consequences. Iran and its Shiite militias acquired new influence within Iraq and the broader region while parts of Iraq fell into the hands of Sunni jihadists, who were even more fanatical than al-Qaeda.

Although anguish over a nuclear North Korea is understandable, it's a fair bet the realists are also right today.

We are told Kim Jong-un is really a madman because he really has nuclear weapons. But although he is a nasty piece of work, the North Korean despot is not crazy. His primary goal is survival: the end of his regime means the end of Kim. From his perspective, it makes sense to develop nuclear weapons.

Why? Because nukes are the ultimate deterrent. North Korea is a minor power surrounded by three major powers – China, Japan, Russia – and with an outside power – the US – constantly threatening it with regime change. As Professor John Mearsheimer, the doyen of foreign-policy realism, told me recently, when Washington strikes Bashar al-Assad's Syria, or helps topple Saddam's Iraq or Colonel Gaddafi's Libya, it gives Pyongyang a very powerful incentive to keep its nuclear weapons.

We are told that Beijing must force North Korea into giving up its nukes or at least not develop an intercontinental ballistic missile that can hit California and Darwin. Chinese co-operation would be ideal and Beijing's leaders, as Malcolm Turnbull reiterated at the weekend, have some leverage with their communist comrade. But China also needs North Korea for geopolitical reasons. It is a vital strategic asset. Remember that China entered the Korean War in late 1950 when the Americans crossed the 38th Parallel. 

From Beijing's standpoint, the collapse of North Korea would create a refugee crisis and mean a reunified Korea under a US nuclear security umbrella. If you think Russia is overly sensitive about Ukraine being a western bulwark on its doorstep, imagine how China would respond to a western bulwark on its doorstep. As unfashionable as it is to say, great powers still have spheres of influence.

We are told that regime change is an option in dealing with the North Korean menace. But if there is any hope of discouraging Pyongyang from using nuclear weapons, the West will need to stop threatening regime change and try to reach an accommodation with the Hermit Kingdom. The only way North Korea will jettison its nukes is if it feels relatively secure and has the sense that relations with the West are improving.

Alas, Donald Trump sounds tougher with Pyongyang than even Bush and Barack Obama. At the weekend, Vice-President Mike Pence told the Prime Minister the US will not relent until the Korean peninsula is free of nuclear weapons. That could box in Trump, limit his options, and force him on a path that could push him into a preventive war.

The cold hard reality is there is no viable military option against North Korea. They have nuclear weapons, which they can respond with. They have formidable conventional artillery, which they can use to hit Seoul. A preventive strike may provoke the very action it is designed to prevent. As Bismarck warned, it is like committing suicide from fear of death.

A political settlement with Pyongyang is probably not plausible, so America and its allies have no choice but to contain North Korea as best we can. Deterrence and diplomacy have risks, to be sure, but the risks seem far lower than those involved in attacking or further isolating North Korea. Just think of Iraq.

Context - This cartoon was drawn on the 20th of April 2017, in response to Trump's handling of North Korea increasing its nuclear arsenal and Trump saying falsely that he was sending a carrier strike force to the Korean Gulf. Background knowledge of past nuclear scares and a loose idea of american politics is all that is necessary.

Argument - The point of view of this piece is that Trump's handling of the current events is very bard, especially considering that he has examples from the past that he can follow.

Purpose & Positioning - The illustrator's purpose is to point out the absurdity of what is happening by comparing it to past events. He is trying to position the audience in a place that they need to realise what is happening.

Issue & Implications - The issue explored in this cartoon is that Donald Trump is not taking the current nuclear threat serious enough, even misplacing billions of dollars in navel equipment, which could go on to very global affects that come with a nuclear fallout.

Text Type - This is a cartoon or an illustration and it was chosen for a clearer comparison.

Author & Audience - The illustrator of this cartoon is Jack Ohman. He has an interested in the issue talked about as he lives in the country that is being targeted by North Korea at the moment. The target audience is someone who would look at the cartoon section of a newspaper. It doesn't have much text in it so it is accessible to pretty much everyone.

Language Features - One of the only persuasive techniques used in this cartoon is the simplification text, making Trump sound like a little kid and J.F.Kennedy sound very mature.

Stakeholders - The stakeholders in this issue are most countries around North Korea and then could loose their way of living if the worst happens.

Context:

This cartoon was created on the 28^th of march 2014, and was created in response to the election in 2013 and the promises not followed through with. Background knowledge of the actions of the government is required.

 

Argument:

The contention of this cartoon is that the government has not delivered on its promises.

 

Purpose and positioning:

The authors purpose is to point out how the government has not delivered on their promises during the election period. The authors use of an attack supports this purpose.

 

Issue and implications:

The issue in this piece is the government not following through with promises. The implications of this issue are that the government in power could change.

 

Text type:

This text is a political cartoon, which the author used as it allows the author to quickly emphasise their point. Some interesting features of this text type is that it uses colour, drawing the attention of readers, and the use of exaggeration adding extra comedy or drama to the text.

 

Author and audience:

The author of this text is inkcinct cartoons and they don’t have a vested interest in the topic. The target audience of this text is eligible voters who voted for the party now in power. The audience is made apparent in the due to the fact that people who did not vote for the then current government would already be critical of their actions.

 

Language features:

Attack – This language feature has been chosen provides the author argument weight and causes the audience to be more trusting of the authors opinion than that of the victims. This supports the argument as it discredits the victim whilst agreeing with the author.

Humour – This language feature is used as it provides a more engaging tone. This causes the audience to view the piece even if they would generally be opposed to it if humour was not used.

 

Stakeholders:

The stakeholders in this text are both the liberal and labour government. The liberal government stands to lose seats in the next election, whilst the labour government stands to gain seats.

This political cartoon was made in 28^th June, 2012. It was in response to the sinking of several boats on the 28^th of June that lead to the death of dozens of refugees whilst on the way to Australia.

 

Argument: This political cartoon argues that the government are not doing all they can, instead stopping help from reaching refugees to wish to seek asylum in Australia 

 

Purpose: This political cartoon shows how politics was hindering the implementation of an effective asylum seekers policy that could be saving lives of many who are drowning at sea to reach Australia 

 

Positioning: This positions readers to feel anger and unjust for those who need help but aren’t getting any due to the political conflicts that prevent help from reaching to those in need.

 

Issue: The issue depicted in this cartoon is the lack of help the government is providing to the refugees who are drowning at sea trying to get to Australia.

 

Implication: Implications from this cartoon would be to help the asylum seekers seeking refugee in Australia and bring them to safety, making sure they don’t drown and receive proper treatment.

 

Text type: This piece is a political cartoon

 

Author: There wasn’t an author but it was found on a website containing many different comics of different genres and years. 

 

Audience: The audience of this piece would be the citizens of Australia so that they know what is happening to the refugees trying to seek asylum in Australia. It is also aimed to government, mocking them for trying to show they are trying to help, when they are not. It is also aimed towards migrants and other refugees living in Australia, to create a feeling of sympathy and anger towards the treatment of refugees as they can relate to coming from elsewhere and seeking for a home in Australia 

 

Language features: There are very few language features present in this piece as it is a cartoon, however there are two texts present one “asylum seekers lifeguard” to show who the person is and who he is trying to save. The other text is shown on the reel machine pulling the lifeguard back reading “politics”. The texts present is straightforward and shows the argument the author wants to convey to the audience. The simplicity of the text helps the audience focus on imagery present. The imagery evokes anger and unjust as it shows the lifeguard not being able to help the drowning people, even though he is trying his best because of all the political conflicts present. 

 

Stakeholder: The stakeholders in this issue concerning refugees are all the people living in Australia, the government, immigrants and refugees, those who already live in Australia and those who are trying to seek refuge in Australia.