Federal Politics


Pace of British trains set the speed standard

Who wants a very fast train? I don't. I just want an ordinary fast train. I would love to be able to travel between Sydney and Wauchope (here insert your favourite town) in less than 6½ hours.

This country is just so backward with its rail travel and technology. The last major rail addition in Australia was between Alice Springs and Darwin in about 2005. It was the Howard government's major infrastructure set piece but it was 1940s technology.

Steady ... British train travel was a delight in the '70s.
Steady ... British train travel was a delight in the '70s. Photo: Reuters

In 1977 - yes, the Queen's Silver Jubilee year - I stayed in Reading, about 64 kilometres out of London.

The first train that came along was a bullet-nosed express, a Bristol-to-Paddington flyer. White-coated waiters moved through the train offering tea and coffee, a pot in each hand. Your selected beverage stayed in the cup without sloshing into the saucer, a beautiful smooth ride. It was fast, but ordinary fast, and we pulled into Paddington 29 minutes later.

I remarked to the driver who was leaning out of his cabin: "That was a pretty fast trip. Forty miles in 29 minutes. What speeds do you get up to in this train?"

"A bit slow today, mate. We only got up to 96 miles per hour. We do go up as high as 130 miles per hour." It was 1977 and that was an ordinary fast train, a commuter train in England.


So all of you commuters at Penrith, 64 kilometres from Central, imagine getting on a train at Penrith and being at Central in 29 minutes. They were doing those times in Britain 35 years ago.

But to solve a lot of the problems in Australia, you have to solve the pensioners express travel, free travel syndrome. On my last trip Wauchope to Sydney, I think I was the only one on board paying full fare.

We need more engineers in Parliament and fewer lawyers. You can't build a country with lawyers. To build anything, you need engineers.

Allen Kavanagh Lilli Pilli

Meaning is found also in the mystery

In a world that's constantly changing, we often ask the question, ''how can I be sure'' about life and its meaning. Your Easter editorial, ''The great shock of Easter'' (April 6) provides a timely reminder of not just the shock but the sheer mystery of Easter and the Christian faith.

Whatever your faith, belief or non belief, your human fragile mind may never be able to fully understand this mystery. Yet for those of us who hold to the faith in the one whose life, death and resurrection we celebrate, Easter provides fresh hope and understanding.

Allan Gibson Cherrybrook

''We cannot eat meat on Good Friday'' my brother-in-law proclaimed when he came for his Easter visit, so out he went, bought some mullet, repaired the crab pots, and hopped on the kayak and put the two crab pots in the broadwater.

Next morning, out he went at 7am to retrieve his catch. He was feeling virtuous as he was following the church's teaching of no meat on Good Friday. Just as he was putting the last of the five crabs into a bucket a boat pulled up beside him. The result: pots confiscated, crabs thrown back in the water and a $500 fine. It was the fisheries department and he didn't have a fishing licence. He had two pots, only one allowed, and he didn't have a marker on the pots with his name and address.

He will be happy to have steak each year from now on.

Lyn McGrath Bilambil Heights

I agree with most of your report ''From a wasteland to anything goes'' (April 6). My issue is with the kangaroos handing out Easter eggs on Good Friday. No. No. No. No. Eggs are a sign of new life. They are an Easter thing. An Easter Sunday thing. Hand out unleavened bread and cheese if you must. But keep the good news for the Sunday.

David Neilson Invergowrie

Before we get too concerned about the prospect of Good Friday losing its potency consider for a moment Japan where secularism and the religions of Buddhism and Shinto are happily entwined.

Last week, I attended a festival at one of Tokyo's oldest and most venerated shrines. A burlesque show was about to open in that city and, in search of blessings for its opening night, a chorus line of beautiful ladies in tights, spangles and feathers performed a high-kicking routine in the courtyard.

All this to bump and grind music pumping out of the shrine's PA system. I suspect I was the only person in an appreciative crowd who saw anything incongruous in this marriage of the sacred and profane.

Garth Clarke North Sydney

Aren't they wonderful, our religious leaders? They pop up like colourful little Easter bunnies at this time of year with their words of wisdom. I don't mind any plea for mining companies to share their wealth but it would carry a tad more heft if various bloated religious coffers were also shared about a bit more generously.

Bruce Hulbert Lilyfield

Are chocolate Easter eggs recycled? Judging by the hundreds of eggs on the shelves in my local shop, there must be thousands of unsold eggs in stores every Easter.

Carolyn Wills Cremorne

A wish for the new as it was for the old, minus the wars

''What's the future, baby?'' (April 6-8) made me think about my new grandchild born last year. My late father-in-law, great-grandfather of that grandchild, was born in 1911.

My father-in-law lived through two World Wars, the Great Depression, the Korean War and the Vietnam War but also saw man walk on the moon, and knew cheap international travel and the computer age.

I hope my grandchild will not encounter any world wars but will enjoy the long and healthy life, the long and interesting career and the long and happy marriage my father-in-law experienced.

Robyn Lewis Raglan

The ultimate greens

What an excellent idea. Changing humans sounds a lot easier than trying to stop us from changing

the climate (''Final frontier of climate policy - remake humans'', April 6-8).

But let's not stop at making humans smaller. Have you ever wondered why aliens are always described as ''little green men''? Not only are they small, they are green. If we could get a gene from plants that makes us green then we could get our energy directly from the sun, too.

Think how much that would save on our energy bills. It might even reduce the risk of skin cancer.

Ted Nettle Marsfield

Since we all know that it's methane gas produced by cows that causes global warming, and methane can be reduced by adding garlic to cow feed, why do we have to tamper with human genetics when a simpler solution is at hand.

George Fishman Vaucluse

Risky gene tamper

Before the geneticists get carried away with their project of engineering smaller and more eco-friendly humans to save the planet perhaps they should have a chat with their physicist colleagues.

These scientists are convinced that our universe arose from nothing, and there is every likelihood that one day it will return to nothing (''No argument against God, just another view about origins of the cosmos'', April 6-8).

One cannot help but feel that tampering with human nature would take away the sensation of the unfathomable mystery of life.

Sam Nona Burradoo

What is it about scientists that even when they address the public, they seemingly speak another

language? Apparently, the word "nothing" means something different to scientists to what it means to the rest of us.

Yet again we have a physicist saying that our universe "could have - and plausibly did - arise out of absolutely nothing", and then going on to discuss the very something from which the universe was created.

Lawrence Krauss says that the universe "is not empty after all", "it is a boiling bubbling brew of virtual particles that pop in and out of existence".

Presumably, this is the matter from which the universe was made. The cosmic void may give rise to matter, but the cosmic void is no more empty than a quantum vacuum - it is most definitely something, not nothing.

He claims to point out "how much more fascinating it is than the universe of myth and fairytales", but resorts to magic rather than science to explain his thesis.

No matter what theory of origins one prefers, something out of absolutely nothing is not science.

Perhaps Krauss would like to express that process in a mathematical equation? I would offer that the best he could do would be abracadabra, poof, or hey presto.

Wayne Talbot Kelso

Call to account

Who were the auditors who signed off on the annual union accounts (''MP may be spared, but heat on union'', April 6-8)?

They should refund their fees.

Raymond Adams Ashmore (Qld)

Abused for belting up

As a medical student I was a part-time taxi driver when the seat belt law and the exemption for taxi drivers were introduced in 1971 (''Toll sparks review of cabby belt exemption'', April 6-8).

I suffered abuse from other drivers when I chose to wear mine. It was some sort of irrational ''status symbol'' which I guess I was seen to be undermining.

This inane and irrational exemption should stop.

Andrew Berry High Range

South-west gone west

The north-west rail line is going ahead in leaps and bounds (''New rail link to swallow 90 houses, businesses'', April 6-8). Meanwhile, we in the south-west are the forgotten ones of the Sydney network.

In the dying days of the last government, the then premier announced five new services a day for the Southern line. The Central Coast has two services an hour, one an express train. The north shore has always had a good service.

Since the then transport minister, Michael Costa, slashed our services, they are 50 per cent worse than they were 20 years ago, slower and with only three through services a day. And they lock us in, only releasing us when the train stops. Surely this is an occupational health and safety disaster; one hopes there is never an accident.

Susan Spear Welby

Judges, not jocks

Erin Petersen's idea of justice (Letters, April 6-8) seems more akin to vengeance. I would prefer the criminality of an offender be determined by legally trained professionals rather than publicity-seeking media personalities.

Furthermore, I would hardly class Woolloomooloo as a ''relatively crime-free area''. Relative to Point Piper, perhaps.

Matt Kwan Sydney

Show telling

I used to to love pork, beef and woollen jumpers. But times have changed and we now know how our food and goods are produced and it is evident that humans do not have a good track record when it comes to animal welfare.

This was all too clear as I walked around the animal pavilions at the Sydney Royal Easter show. What have we done to these poor creatures?

Pigs and cattle bred to excessive size, overburdened and under stress from their own weight; merino sheep peering out from their woollen jackets now so massive and dense their load seems unmanageable in our hot weather.

This is a complex problem of supply and demand: farmers need better returns, animals need better treatment and the environment needs to be preserved.

Farming and dietary practices are unsustainable with 70 per cent of all arable land in use for animal production.

Perhaps the Royal Easter Show needs to tell city dwellers the real story of animal production and agriculture - the difficulties that the farmers and the livestock face, and why so many farmers are forced to intensively farm and increase yield at any cost. Only then we will really start to value the produce.

Meanwhile the display in the fruit and vegetable pavilion is looking good.

Christine Hannan Gladesville

O'Farrell's folly

Apart from passing a bill through Parliament in an attempt to silence one person being an abuse of process, over and above a vindictive admission of defeat, if the one at whom it was aimed chose to give up her other pursuits, and spend the few days she has thus missed in the bear pit, wouldn't the whole point of the exercise be counterproductive (''Ban on dual roles passed'', April 3)?

Christopher May Balgowlah

Just a minute …

I would have no problem with Schapelle Corby being released from prison immediately provided she agreed to certain strict conditions (''Corby closer to freedom with mental health plea'', April 5). These include a sworn statement that she will never write a book, she will never appear on 60 Minutes, her face will not be seen on a magazine cover proclaiming an exclusive story and her name is never mentioned in the same sentence as that of publicity agent Max Markson.

In addition she must agree to never collaborate in the production of a movie or television mini-series about her life.

Phil Peak Dubbo

Other problems, too

''She's a victim… This happened because she was inadequately treated,'' says your highlighted quote from Carmen Fernando, the mother of Shamin who shot her father dead in 2010 in Glebe, because of her paranoid delusions (''A father killed, a daughter lost'', April 6-8). Your article focuses on the problems with gun club rules and the gun laws in NSW which permitted Shamin to borrow a gun. They certainly need to be fixed but the treatment problems remain.

My son has a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia and despite it

I have twice had my reports of his bizarre behaviour and need for treatment met with inappropriate disclosure, as had Carmen, and also suspicion by young psychiatric registrars.

I've been told: ''in my country parents have no rights at all'' and ''you're not your son's carer'' because he hasn't annually signed, or even been asked to sign, the requisite bit of paper. He wouldn't have signed anyway, being paranoid about his parents.

Both occasions resulted in no treatment for my son, for years in one instance, months in the other. The results have included severe psychosis, a court appearance, years of estrangement, the destruction of a life, months in acute hospital beds instead of less expensive community treatment options, and a family living in stress, grief and fear.

When will we learn?

The core problem is the way the laws are being applied within the mental health system, especially by inexperienced registrars. Many unnecessary homicides are committed by the mentally ill who have been ''inadequately treated''. It's not only money that's needed, it's culture change within the system and more legislated rights for parents. I never read about either.

Patients' rights have correctly been the focus, but with the unintended contrary effect of denying their basic right to appropriate and effective treatment. We could stop the carnage and waste right now.

Name withheld

Prized reputation badly tarnished

Having just watched the ABC program Australia on Trial , the character J.F.Archibald, after whom the art prize is named, is revealed as a rabid racist and sexist who peddled his views in The Bulletin. In today's world, such a person would be universally condemned, and be unlikely to find employment in any form of media.

So why are we perpetuating the memory of this man in the title of a prestigious award?

Surely it is time to either rename this award, or simply dispense with it altogether.

Victor Medianik Glenbrook

Choice not an option

I congratulate ACON on the report We're Family Too as described in the article "Insults, shame and family violence all form part of a gay Arab's life, says report" (April 6-8). I have one small comment to make, on her use of "sexual preference"; it is much more accurate to speak of "sexual orientation".

The word ''preference'' implies choice, and as is made abundantly clear in the article, gay people have no choice in their orientation. The only choice they have is to either ''come out'' or to hide their basic feelings, with all the ramifications either way.

John Greenway Wentworth Falls

On the right track

Michael Deeth's enjoyment of Timelines (Letters, April 5) could lie in that he's one vowel away from nominative determinism.

Guy Morgan Roseville Chase

Salute to humility

What a fabulous Easter gift (''Love is a battlefield'', April 6-8). I have never before read such a humble and generous apology for one person's realisation of how little he knows of a subject for which he is internationally lauded.

Thank you Bob Carr. Your elegantly written and edited essay astounded me. The details of your cousin's research and memory are so imposing I wonder that he has not been inducted to the Barry Jones Hall of Fame as a Master.

Peter Kaukas Redfern


Justice is always being sought on the letters page. But the focus was keen this week, thanks to a few contributions from outside the letters microcosm.

The Supreme Court Justice Peter McClellan suggested the tabloid media be taken into account as part of community views on sentencing and the Foreign Affairs Minister, Bob Carr, joined a call for drug law reform (a newsworthy act for the former premier who owed his career in state politics to law and order campaigns). Lively debates ensued.

Writers also held a candle for political virtue. They showed a faith in our MPs' potential that made those who believe in tomorrow's Resurrection seem like a sub-chapter of the Australian Skeptics.

Barry O'Farrell felt the heat for not volunteering to appear at an inquiry that had heard the Premier wanted to ''smash'' the Star casino. Craig Thomson's credit card returned to the spotlight when Fair Work Australia finished its report and announced that the Labor MP had probably not committed a crime. The report was not released, a move that some writers found fair. Others smelt a rat.

Some pointed out that the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, had every reason to want the saga to extend beyond the next election, given the impact on her government if Thomson left Parliament. Some alleged an abuse of executive power.

The NSW Liberal Party was also guilty of this, others claimed, after O'Farrell legislated to force the Lord Mayor, Clover Moore, along with representatives from any council in the state, to give up her seat as an independent MP.

With Passover and Easter falling this weekend, perhaps we'll start next week redeemed.

Catharine Munro, letters co-editor