Letters & Emails

The Sunday Age

Sunday November 30, 2008

THE BIG ISSUE

MOTHERHOOD

Time to give us a real choice

I AGREE wholeheartedly with Elizabeth Broderick ("Maternity leave scheme is a must", 23/11) about paid maternity leave. As a mother of three daughters, I am concerned they will be faced with the difficult choice I had to make between my career and caring for them. Like many women with postgraduate qualifications, I waited to have children and then chose to dedicate myself to their upbringing. Paid maternity leave would have helped me to keep those vital ties with my career while figuring out how to best manage their care.

Flexible work hours would have enabled me to fit the responsibilities of a full-time professional career into my family commitments, not the reverse. The distraction of a full-time career is too great to enable parenting that is responsive to the ever-changing needs of children as they grow to adults in a complex world. As Ms Broderick pointed out, business is only concerned with the bottom line.

Women need the support of government initiatives that assist and encourage employers to take advantage of the untapped pool of talent among those who choose to have children. I want change to occur before my daughters decide it is time to have a family. I want them to have a real choice.

JO ROBERTSON, Armadale

Mums have the brains but not the back-up

WELL said Editor and Elizabeth Broderick. It would be a sorely missed opportunity if the Rudd Government overlooked a national paid maternity scheme simply because the economy had hit a short-term speed hump.

It is a sad irony to see Australian women ranked number one for educational achievement but 41 for workforce participation. A national paid maternity leave scheme will not blow the budget, but further savings could be achieved by scrapping the Liberals' poorly thought-out baby bonus.

The baby bonus (no doubt inspired by the 1912 mother's allowance first paid by Labor PM Andrew Fisher) is a two-edged sword that discourages female workforce participation; to receive the full bonus, a new mother must stay out of the workforce for five years, until her newborn reaches school age.

A paid maternity leave scheme tied to workforce participation, in lieu of the baby bonus, would strike the right work-family balance. New mothers could raise a family without jeopardising their careers. This is a win-win situation, and it also suits the Rudd Government's productivity agenda.

PAUL ROMAS, Reservoir

Bonus a bummer for babies

WHY do people have babies if they do not like them? Babies are getting terrible press these days. Articles about maternity leave are usually illustrated with unclad mum's tums (Sunday Age, 23/11, pages 26 and 27), not images of the live babies to be cared for. Articles published on baby care are mainly by desperate, martyred young mums, not by more experienced people with clues on coping happily.

News items tell about avalanches of unwanted children left at American hospitals, child protection notifications increasing faster than the birth rate, and 30,000 Australian children needing foster care. Photographs of parents holding babies show the infants clutched like soft toys or bags from the supermarket, often held through the crotch, rather than cuddling in. Sleep clinics teach babies the hard way to put up with being alone. Andrew Weldon illustrates a norm for what people feel about screaming babies in his cartoon of a self-pitying, helpless dad with his yelling and obviously unhappy baby lying uncomforted across his knees.

Why pay a baby bonus to people who don't want, care nor can tolerate extra offspring after they have had a trial of two? We are paying for extra trouble.

VALERIE YULE, Mount Waverley

Think shelter

THE cruel, senseless over-breeding of puppies must stop. The Victorian Government should allow only licensed breeders to sell them.

The community must take responsibility too - as Barack Obama knows, shelter dogs make wonderful pets!

CAITLIN EVANS, Northcote

Intolerable cruelty

WHAT a bloody disgrace. Your article on puppy farming made me sick to my stomach. How any politician of any persuasion can ignore such cruelty is beyond me.

My friends think I am mad for putting my pets before people ... it's things like this that convince me I am right. For goodness' sake, surely both major political parties can unite on this matter and act now.

DAVID SOMERFIELD, Strathalbyn, SA

Sad reflection

THE fact that many people see puppies as simply another accessory is a sad reflection on our obsession with consumerism and how we use "goods" to bolster our status in the eyes of others. A dog is a friend for life and if there is no demand for these dogs, supply will dwindle. I implore those looking for a new family member to visit a dog shelter or the RSPCA, where staff can help you choose a fully immunised, desexed dog for at least half the price of a dog from a puppy factory.

Give these cruel, unlicensed puppy dealers a wide berth and let them earn their money in a regular job, not off the back of a suffering, permanently pregnant dog.

MALCOLM PACEY, Richmond

Easy rider

RE: "BORN to be mild" (The Sunday Age, 23/11), solutions exist to bicycle-seat induced men's pain in sensitive areas. I, too, used to go numb after about 30 minutes in the saddle. If you Google "alternative bicycle seats" you will find a range of options where the pain-causing pointy bit has been eliminated. With such a seat, today I can spend a day riding in comfort similar to sitting at home on a sofa.

TIM FORCEY, Sandringham

How's this for a bald fact?

FAST approaching 60, I still have a predominantly full head of hair, so I feel sorry for a younger, balding Michael Bachelard (Sunday Age Opinion, 23/11). But I feel a whole lot sorrier for my 14-year-old daughter, who really is, as his article has it, "follically challenged". She has alopecia, which means that she not only has almost no hair on her head, but has no eyebrows or eyelashes either.

Alopecia is an auto-immune disorder whereby the body turns against its own hair follicles, not allowing hair to regrow. There is no known cause, nor totally effective cure. People with alopecia are often mistakenly pitied as cancer sufferers, but the condition has no side effects - unless you include emotional trauma, loss of self-esteem and social rejection.

However, most with alopecia turn out to be made of tougher stuff, often getting together in support groups such as Victoria's Alopecia Areata Support Association (home.vicnet.net.au/~aasa).

DAVID JOHNSTON, Healesville

Forgotten victims

ROB Hulls' review on domestic violence may have some merit, but there is one glaring issue that is not mentioned. There seems to be a different quality assigned to violence. Supposedly we condemn violence by men against women and children; but what of violence by women against children and men and of violence by men against men?

How can we properly address the issue of violence when it is implicit that some violence is less wrong than other violence, or even acceptable?

The message that needs to be sent out is that violence is unacceptable, not just against women and children, but against anyone. All violence needs to be stamped out to make society safer.

DOUGLAS POTTER, Surrey Hills

Marketers stumped

GIDEON Haigh ("Curtains for Tests?" 23/11) bemoans the potential decline of Test cricket. While the dominance of Australia and the cultural appeal of the underdog in this country has much to do with this, I believe there is more to it. Marketers can get people to do almost anything: e.g. get tens of thousands to attend a venue four times in one week, pay $50 each time to stand around drinking overpriced alcohol and watch sport they have no understanding of or interest in (think spring racing carnival).

It makes financial sense to have cricket matches played over three hours to packed stadiums. Marketers also understand that this type of major event appeals to younger people: there's lots of colour and movement, perhaps even the chance to socialise with attractive people. You can value-add your product with some exclusive dance parties after the cricket show (racing folk have excelled at this with their corporate tents and celebrity attractions).

Test cricket will die if marketers fail to find an angle to increase the turnover.

JOHN WILSON, Carlton

Entitled to an opinion

JENNY Goldie (Letters, 23/11) fails to appreciate that letters sections in newspapers are forums for people to express views on whichever topics they find exciting.

Surely, people with views that are contrary to conventional wisdom - in this case, David Davies (Letters, 16/11) - are entitled to express an opinion without having to satisfy some editorially appointed "scientifically literate journalist or panel".

I am not arguing that Davies' views are right, but if Australia is still a democracy, he is allowed to be wrong.

Those who think that climate change is a matter of absolute fact are right in one sense, because the Earth's climate has been changing for 4billion years. Whether recent changes have been caused by industrialisation and whether we can do anything about it is less certain.

One stone cold fact is that whatever your view on anything, there is an "expert" in a university somewhere who will "prove" your case.

AL MORRIS, Mount Waverley

Not quite healthy

IT IS interesting to see a public outcry over one situation while a similar, and much farther reaching, one goes completely unremarked.

In "Taskforce tainted, say health groups" (The Sunday Age, 23/11), leading public health figures - including Rosanna Capolingua, president of the Australian Medical Association - are critical of the inclusion of Kate Carnell, head of the Australian Food and Grocery Council, on the federal taskforce on obesity, binge drinking and smoking. They perceive a conflict of interest.

One wonders what such people make of the appointment of a high-profile member of the private health insurance industry as the chairwoman of Mr Rudd's National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission. I speak of Dr Christine Bennett, the chief medical officer of one of Australia's largest private health funds, MBF.

Of course, one would not expect Dr Capolingua to be opposed to Dr Bennett's role and therefore be selective in her outrage. As head of the AMA, one of the primary concerns of which has always been the protection of medical incomes, Dr Capolingua must be delighted by the fact the private health lobby is at the helm of the NH&HRC.

We in Tasmania have recently been treated to a Labor insider's view that our State Government should not bother with a public health system at all and simply buy private health insurance for the Tasmanian population. Tasmania's most recent health consultant is also an active member of the private health insurance industry. Just what are these Labor governments up to?

PATRICIA DASIC,

Dysart, Tasmania

Some of us care

JAMES Kirby, I appreciate that your article ("Hands up if you like your finance adviser", 23/11) was having a crack at a segment of the financial planning market that deserves all the criticism it gets. But for those planners who see their role as helping clients to achieve the futures they want (rather than just invest their money), the past 12 months have been a draining experience.

This is partly due to declining income but more because the expectations of the clients they care about may need to adjust if current market conditions persist or deteriorate.

It is times like these that true financial planning, rather than investment product flogging, is most valued. Our clients expect us to provide reassurance, a longer term perspective, discipline and ongoing focus on those things that they can control or influence.

This, to us, is the essence of true financial planning. It bears little relationship to the "financial planning" you clearly had in mind.

JOHN LESKE, Mosman, NSW

Words worth what?

MISSED out again at the Walkleys!

He has published 5000 letters to the editor in 24 excellent, grateful newspapers over 21 years.

Half-a-billion words (including those in 10,000 rejects), and not a mention.

Well, that's that!

Maybe a Sunday Age sponsored pen with his name on it?

FRANK HAINSWORTH, Gold Coast, Qld

sunday@theage.com.au

Earn his keep? Not with Roy's profile

FORMER Victorian wicket-keeper Darren Berry rightly claimed that Queensland all-rounder Andrew Symonds "should have been made to earn his Test place" (Sport, 23/11), but the man simply had to be rushed back into the Australian XI because he features in so many commercials.

BRENDA LINANE, Altona

© 2008 The Sunday Age

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