Taking a stand on truancy
I wish to lend my support to Brauer College principal Jane Boyle for taking a stand on community supported truancy (The Standard, March 27). Education is one of the most precious gifts as adults we can give our children. For nearly 20 years in Victoria no action has been taken by the State to enforce the requirement for compulsory education. This is a sad indictment on education in Victoria.
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Educational outcomes in south-west Victoria are at some of the lowest rates in Victoria, and this is not a record our communities should be proud of. At a time when spending on educational infrastructure has been at record highs, some of our south-west communities are seeing huge rates of non-attendance by school age students at both primary and secondary level. Right across south-west Victoria, we have fantastic job and business opportunities, so much so that we have some of the lowest unemployment rates in Australia, so the question must be being asked: Are we taking this situation for granted and so by doing limiting the lifelong learning opportunities of our children?
School attendance is not just the job of our schools. Parents, grandparents and our community at large have a responsibility to ensure students are at school every day. Some families may need extra support, but far too many are taking the easy option, and I fear our community is becoming accepting of students not being in class. As a whole community we need to turn this trend around. We need parents and families to acknowledge attending school is not a lifestyle option, but a social and personal obligation.
Richard Riordan, Member for Polwarth
CFA station upgrade questioned
Daniel Andrews has sold out to the unions and the planned extension of the Warrnambool Fire Station is the perfect example of it. This is a station that is one-year-old and cost $8 million to build – it was fully funded and met the needs of the brigade. But now the number of paid staff is to increase and who knows how much more money will be spent adding bedrooms and expanding the gym, day room and admininstration areas. This is not about a better and more efficient fire services and protection for our community; it’s about featherbedding the demands of the United Firefighters Union. Since coming to power Daniel Andrews has collected an extra $55.5 million from the Fire Service Levy. That money, collected from taxpayers, is being used to pay for these deals made with the unions. Where is the evidence Warrnambool needs 10 paid firefighters per shift? Has there been an increase in call outs? Has property loss and damage due to fire increased? And why are people on nightshift being provided a bedroom for each individual? And how can we justify four more? I worked many a nightshift as a nurse and never had a bedroom provided. There is a need to have emergency services on standby and ready to respond, but surely there are other tasks they could be doing – just like police, ambulance officers and nurses are expected to. I’m sure the police, or ambulance services, who have man many more call outs, would love an increase to their staff numbers, but unfortunately for them, the government isn’t beholden to their unions. Daniel Andrews has sold his government to the United Firefighters Union and the result is a disgraceful waste of taxpayers’ money to expand a building that has only been in use for 12 months.
Roma Britnell, Member for South West Coast
Cost of living clarification
I am writing in response to the article (The Standard, March, 29), about the rising costs of living. My concern about the $300 proposed electricity rise was about the unfair extra financial burden on many families who simply can't afford it. It was not about the closure of Hazelwood Power Plant. I am a strong advocate for renewable sustainable energy
ES Warmuth, Rosebrook
Conservation work applause
Going Native at Naringal (The Standard, March 25) is a welcome glimpse of what conservationists do (or used to do).
Just for the record, I'd like to expand on references to its’ beginnings. The concern about a loss of bush in 1973 led to a meeting in the Town Hall attended by 80 people at which a group was formed charged with aiming to protect suitable examples from the bulldozer. The group, Warrnambool Nature Reserves Society, still exists but time is against its’ members.
The Naringal land became available just after the purchase of Doug Fenwick Reserve and members had not recovered from that fundraising effort, so all tribute goes to Bill Quinlan, who suggested forming a co-operative, a novel idea which solved the fundraising issue.
Shirley Duffield, Naringal East
Open and honest debate needed
Anne Young’s opinion article (The Standard, March 16) – No place for politics of fear and paranoia – criticises Pauline Hanson for having made unwise statements without any evidentiary basis on a number of topics—statements, according to Young, that have falsely alarmed people and won them to Hanson’s cause. Most would agree that Hanson has made some unwise statements, but not all would agree that her motives were simply to scare people into voting for her; rather she is seen as someone who is genuinely patriotic, determined to do something about the things she believes need to be addressed, and who has the courage to say, albeit without finesse, what the sophisticated will not say. Hanson is definitely not politically correct, and that, I suspect, is the key to her widening appeal. Perhaps it takes a non-sophisticate to say the politically unsayable. And of course she upsets people—the sophisticates despise her, the readily offended duly take offense at her often raw and simple phraseology, but the people who see that their political leaders are really not saying anything at all on matters they have every reason to be concerned about—worse, tell them with monotonous regularity that the latest atrocity has nothing to do with Islam and that we must at all costs shield the Muslim community from "Islamaphobia," when everybody knows that it is not the majority of Muslims who are the problem anyway—are delighted that there is someone who will voice their concerns and can do it publicly and in parliament. With respect to Young’s assertion that Section 116 of the Australian Constitution will ensure that Sharia Law never gets a run in this country; it’s already happening. We have laws prohibiting polygamy, but not a few Muslim men in this land have taken more than one wife (up to four is permissible under Sharia) since the days when Billy Snedden was Attorney General. And supermarket customers have been paying a little extra for food items for years because they are Halal certified. You don’t have to incorporate Sharia into Australian Law to have a little bit of Sharia; you only have to turn a blind eye. By the way, Section 116, like the US First Amendment, was intended to ensure the free exercise of religion without government interference and to prevent the government from designating a particular religion (read Christian denomination) as the State religion; but, unlike the First Amendment, it applies only to the Commonwealth government and leaves the states free to legislate on religion if they so choose. But, that aside, the issue is one of religion, and anyone who has studied Islam (which means submission) knows that, even for the moderates, the premise holds that Islam is to assert itself wherever it gathers sufficient numbers to make its presence felt. A pause in Muslim immigration may not be the answer, but an open and honest debate on the issues is way past time.
Alexander Witham, Warrnambool