Letters

Sydney Morning Herald

Wednesday April 9, 2008

Phones confiscated to keep students safe

What a shame parents have chosen to criticise staff at Merrylands High for not allowing the students to use mobile phones in the aftermath of this disturbing event ("Machetes in the classroom", April 8).

In North America where, regrettably, shutdown procedures are enacted far too often, it is standard procedure to ban the use of mobile phones. This is because they present a significant safety hazard and a distraction from the main focus of teachers - keeping the students safe and calm. Instead of feeling angered by this inconvenience, parents should be praising the admirable actions of the teachers, who successfully protected their children.

They should also be thankful they live in a society where the right to carry more dangerous weapons is not tolerated. Otherwise the consequences could have been far more tragic - and the mobile phone issue treated with the disdain it deserves.

Aura Parsons Vancouver (Canada)

'Twas ever thus

John Gorton (Letters, April 8) and those older gentlemen he overheard must have short memories. They cite blatant cheap shots and continual violence as reasons for no longer following rugby league. This implies the game used to be clean. John, grab yourself a copy of the 1973 grand final. For blatant cheap shots and continual violence, that game makes today's players look like a bunch of purse-carrying nancy boys.

Robert Howe Austinmer

Silence on some matters

In his zeal to present the Maritime Union as a pariah, your editorial writer has glossed over a few facts ("A minute's silence? No, let's celebrate", April 8). At the time of the lockout the union was in negotiations with Patrick about a new agreement. This was being done under the industrial laws brought in by the Coalition government, with the help of the Democrats.

There were substantial financial penalties for illegal strikes, none of which the union participated in. Despite this, Patrick circumvented those negotiations by its lockout.

If the end justifies the means, as seems to be the editorial theme, why have industrial laws at all? The union was acting in strict accordance with the industrial laws of the day. As for working with employers to achieve aims, the recent dalliance with Work Choices showed how successful that could be. A fairer arrangement, and one that has stood the test of time in Australia, is to have an industrial system with an impartial arbitrator, not thugs in balaclavas with savage dogs.

Tom Duley Bronte

Two sets of rules

A mother takes explicit photographs of her daughters and emails them to a man in the US ("Mother forced child sex acts for man online", April 5-6). After describing the photographs as "stomach-churning" and the mother's actions as "vile", the (female) judge sentences her to a minimum of nine years' jail.

The NSW Crown prosecutor Patrick Power is caught with hundreds of child porn images on his computer. The (male) chief magistrate describes the images as "distressing and disheartening", with one video in the "worst category of child porn". He is sentenced to six months' jail.

The disparity raises many questions. What is the difference between supplying pornographic images of children and fuelling demand for them? How does the socioeconomic standing of the mother differ from Power's? To what extent does the gender of the judge and magistrate influence the sentencing? What would the woman's sentence have been had she, like Power, gathered 59 character references from "high-achievers"?

Sexual exploitation and abuse of children do not recognise social and gender divides. Neither should the subsequent punishment.

Anthony Johnsen Newtown

Indeed, Melissa Finch (Letters, April 7), we should feel repulsed and sickened. I wonder if you would feel as sympathetic to the perpetrator and question the imposition of a jail term if the headline had read "Father forced child sex acts for man online"?

Iain Martin Erskineville

What Olympic values?

Jacques Rogge says violence is "not compatible" with the values of the Olympic Games ("Protests spark torch relay chaos", April 8). Australians, unusually, have the benefit of a definitive judicial pronouncement on those values. As the unanimous High Court pointed out in 2004, in Zhu v NSW, "the Olympic Charter ... opens by stating in mystical terms some 'fundamental principles' about what is styled 'Olympism'. But chapter 1 [of the charter] then quickly moves to questions of power, property and money".

You can bet your bottom dollar that protests, violent or not, are not compatible with Dr Rogge's "values".

Richard Cobden Woolloomooloo

Growing concerns

Janine Kitson (Letters, April 8) alleges there are too many people in Sydney, all attributable to high immigration levels. She claims Ku-ring-gai is being destroyed and, due to heritage constraints, among other reasons, no more people should be allowed there.

The last time I drove through leafy, relatively sparsely populated Ku-ring-gai and Ms Kitson's suburb of Gordon, I did not see any black or Asian faces. What I did see were mainly white Anglo-Saxons with large numbers of children, living in huge homes and driving massive four-wheel-drives, with many other cars parked in driveways as well.

Ku-ring-gai is not being destroyed by immigration but by the breeding habits and rampant consumerism of its residents. Appeals for more heritage protection are increasingly morphing into covert racism.

Christine Hayward President, Society of Heritage Owners: NSW, Wollongong

Janine Kitson does not realise that what separates the living from the dead is growth, be it in a cell, plant, person or society. I'd love to see Sydney grow because with growth come employment, prosperity and profits. Profits raise taxes, which in turn fund health care, pensions, education and infrastructure. Sadly, common sense is so often sacrificed by extreme-green minorities, on a sacred mission to return suburbia to the 19th century.

Gary Green (Rockdale councillor), Brighton-le-Sands

© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald

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