Letters

Dan Tehan wearing his Education Minister hat was quick to announce the end of subsidies for childcare in July.

With $60 billion of the bipartisan supported $130 billion COVID-19 funds to be unspent, he has the capacity as our local member to lobby the Morrison government to allocate some of these funds for regional and suburban football and netball competitions support in 2020.

The mental and physical health of our young people is a factor along with contact sport permitted from July 20.

Its also probable that spectators will be able to attend regional and country sport by late July or August thereby returning a revenue stream.

Over to you Dan and Scomo.

Tony Delaney, Warrnambool

Is the Liberal party no longer the party that represents business? Roma Britnell (The Standard 30/5) says Victorians should be deeply concerned about Premier Daniel Andrews "secret dealings" with China. However, her federal colleagues negotiated the Australia-China Free Trade Agreement in secret so why is this any different? Does the Liberal Party no longer believe in commercial in confidence?

Britnell states that the Andrews government refuses to tell Victorians how much it will all cost but the contents of the Belt and Road Initiative memorandum of understanding were made public in November 2018 and nothing in it is legally binding.

The recent bungling by the federal Liberals of our relationship with China has been followed by Victorian farmers losing access to the Chinese barley market to American farmers and several abattoirs being banned from exporting to China.

Now Roma Britnell and the state Liberals say that if they form government they will withdraw from the BRI. Should Warrnambool City Council also withdraw from its sister city arrangement with Changchun? Should Midfield Meats sack all its Chinese workers? Does the Liberal Party want Australian producers to lose the massive Chinese dairy, wine, coal, iron ore markets?

It is the ham-fisted conduct of the Australian federal government that has hurt Australian farmers and businesses. The policies of the Victorian Liberal party and the baseless fear-mongering from Roma Britnell only make matters worse. Roma Britnell is right about one thing though. Victorians should be very concerned ... about her and her Liberal colleagues.

Peter Martina, Warrnambool

In answer to Graham Keith (The Standard, June 13), with respect to English pronunciation, the only useful thing I learnt in two years of English lectures in Toorak, in the 1960s, with respect to English pronunciation was "common usage" therefore Lie-big.

Tom Clapp, Warrnambool

I was deeply disturbed by the radical and barbaric destruction of property in marches across the world, and in Australia the confrontation of police, and dangerous disregard of distancing laws which put our citizens at risk. Their actions demonstrated a hatred of authority by some protesters, and collectively threaten our way of life.

If we don't speak up and refuse to be intimated, we run the risk of anarchy on our streets. There are ways of protesting which do not result in injury or danger to persons or damage to property.

Pauline Hanrahan, Warrnambool

It was with a sense of disbelief and deep disappointment that I read a letter to the editor in Saturday's paper from the Warrnambool City Council CEO Mr Peter Schneider and countersigned by his senior officers condemning a previous article in The Standard relating to a misspelt city sign and concerns over city parking.

In my 45 years of following the city council I have never witnessed such an extraordinary example of publicly endeavouring to control the city's media by the cities employees.

It is an absolute disgrace for these employees to have the gall to attempt to silence our media when all we seem to get from council media is drivel and spin and no in depth analysis of the running of our city, future opportunities or noteworthy achievements.

During my time as a councillor I was consistently contacted by the many arms of the media complaining of the difficulties in obtaining information on the most menial of subjects and recently everything seems to be directed to the media officer even when the information sourced was trifling and not complex or controversial.

We the citizens of our beautiful city are extremely fortunate as later in the year we will have our council elections where everyone will have the opportunity to correct this present unacceptable situation and once and for all stop the tail wagging the dog.

Peter Hulin, Warrnambool

Last Saturday the Warrnambool Council CEO, Peter Schneider wrote to support staff after criticisms over the misspelt street sign; and good for them too. I was one of those who engaged in this issue on social media but I did not criticise the council workers.

Then, as in the past, I pointed to the number of management positions that are vacant or filled temporarily. I have argued that this leads to staff becoming responsible for more than one function simultaneously, with all the attendant risks. I believe that this overstretched management situation has contributed to the faulty sign to being installed.

The CEO is not responsible to the public for this, he is responsible to the council and, as the need arises, they have a responsibility to ask the CEO for an explanation and, when appropriate, make their feelings known to him privately. The street sign is, however, emblematic of a much bigger issue.
This became clear in Katrina Lovell's article on our council's Asset Management Plan.

This plan revealed that council had suddenly discovered that it had been reserving funds sufficient to cover only 55 per cent of the cost of maintaining our draining works. It should have always known this. Why did it take legislation for our council to discover this huge funding gap? Why did our council not already have an asset management plan? This is why the street sign was important. It was the sign pointing to much bigger problems.

Jim Burke, Warrnambool

Warrnambool City Council CEO Peter Schneider seems to show deep passion for defending WCC employees in the area of misspelled street signs. He farewelled a council employee who misappropriated funds on a council credit card with a glowing endorsement. Where is his passion for ensuring our city's financial recovery from COVID-19? Corangamite and Moyne shires shared in millions of dollars of post-coronavirus government road grants while Warrnambool received somewhere in the vicinity of $400,000 - perhaps for want of asking.

Where was his passion for his employees' wellbeing in following up allegations of deep employee dissatisfaction and bullying? Perhaps Mr Schneider is too busy writing outraged letters to The Standard to bother with such trivial pursuits.

Siobhan Simper, Warrnambool

In response to the political scandal sweeping through this state's government, I am deeply disturbed as I know most of us must be, by the sheer audacity and disgusting nature of these 'power grab' actions. Those responsible for the continued assault and erosion of our democracy, must be brought to account. When people like this are allowed to rein in terror, it seems for years, at the expense of our democracy, it isn't any wonder that the people feel disengaged, disenfranchised and powerless. How dare the major political parties, in this case the Labor party, abuse us all in this underhand manner.

Genevieve Grant, Rosebrook

Please note: The Standard prefers letters to be less than 250 words. Preference is given to shorter contributions. Letters must include the author's name, address and contact phone number for verification purposes. Letters are published at standard.net.au and in print.