Credit:Illustration: Cathy Wilcox

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Market intervention
Spot on, Peter Hartcher (“Shirt-fronting vested interests”, The Age, 17/12). Finally we have a prime minister who will take on big business to act in the national interest. The hyperbole of Woodside chief executive Meg O’Neill and Santos chief executive Kevin Gallagher, who referred to Albanese’s intervention in the gas market as “Soviet-style policy”, illustrates their lack of a genuine argument and their determination to continue to rake in record profits, and bonuses, while Australian households continue to suffer.

Their determination to profit from a war is obscene and, sadly, like many multimillion-dollar businesses, they expect government handouts when times are tough but no political interference when it’s raining money.
Craig Jory, Glenroy, NSW

Market has no conscience
The large fossil fuel lobby is furious at the intervention of the government resulting in capping the price of gas (“PM backs intervention when free market fails”, 17/12). It is not surprising. These conglomerates acknowledge only the free market as their way of operating so that profits become their overriding concern. The great trouble with this is that the ideology of the free market has no conscience. The free market does not concern itself with how its operations affect the vast majority of people who are not shareholders – people who are citizens for whom the government is responsible. In short, the government acts as the conscience of the nation when the people’s welfare is threatened.

Big business has to come to terms with the balance that is required between profits and affordability by the general populace. The prime minister is correct in asserting the right of the government to intervene.
Bob Northey, Melbourne

Subsidies when it suits
Good to hear that companies don’t like government intervention in the marketplace. I will be happy to see them not accept assistance packages next time there is a crisis like COVID, or even turn down the billions of dollars in annual subsidies to fossil fuel companies.
Phil Labrum, Flemington

Duty to ensure reasonable rates
The outcry from large international firms exploiting Australian gas is predictable and sort of delicious. It is a duty of our government to ensure we pay reasonable commercial rates for our own resources. Such a reserve and cap policy has been in place for years in WA, with no impact on investment in that state. In fact, it is the large gas companies that have broken their contracts by failing to capture and sequester their vast and increasing greenhouse gas emissions as promised.
Peter Barry, Marysville

Reds in their heads
Santos warns of Soviet-style nationalisation. Last time I looked, there were no commies under my bed. We should be more concerned about energy monopolisation for profits.
Denis Liubinas, Blairgowrie

Chronicle of industry death foretold
Remember the early ’90s? The gold industry was forecasting the death of its industry; bankruptcy, significant job losses, future investment and exploration was threatened. Why? Because the government dared to take away a tax exemption in an industry that was booming. The same arguments were rife when the Rudd government tried to impose a minerals resource rent tax. One could be forgiven if one became cynical about their prophecies and predictions of doom and gloom.
Bob Zanker, Leopold

Royalty treatment
My heart bleeds for Santos and other outraged Australian gas producers. Their options for relocation are limited. Qatar exports almost as much LPG as Australia – but this other “Soviet satellite” is expected to collect $26.6 billion in gas royalties in 2021, Australia less than $1.2 billion.
Norman Huon, Port Melbourne

THE FORUM

Warning from the past
One hopes the Labor government has learnt from the Rudd-Gillard disaster and holds firm in relation to intervention in gas pricing. No doubt the powerful gas lobby will endeavour to destabilise Labour by pushing Tanya Plibersek as a threat to Anthony Albanese. But unlike Julia Gillard I don’t think Plibersek would cave into the gas lobby demands if she were to become prime minister any time soon.
Paul Chivers, Box Hill North

Unifying approach
From David Crowe’s revealing interview of our PM we learn that he is proudest of his “foreign policy initiatives” in China, the Pacific and “action on climate change”. Albanese is wise, caring, trustworthy, calming and unifying. He is the true national leader for these critical times. He should never again refer to feeling “underestimated”.
Barbara Fraser, Burwood

Inflated notions
Anthony Albanese thinks he’s been underestimated for 28 years in parliament (“PM backs intervention when free market fails”, 17/12). Yet he’s been living off the public purse and not achieved anything till now.

He has an inflated idea that he’s running the show when it’s quite obvious the unions and the Greens hold the power and put him there.
Jill French, Hervey Bay

Man of substance
Thank you, David Crowe, for expanding my understanding of Albanese’s character. I’m pleased that Australia was not dudded with another show-bag prime minister: shiny on the outside, nothing of substance on the inside.
Graham Cadd, Dromana

History lesson
Jon Faine (“Time to confront the past”, Sunday Age, 18/12) rightly emphasises the vital need for Australians to learn more about Indigenous injustices committed by whites since early colonisation. A seminal reference should be the research project now in its eighth year and led by the University of Newcastle emeritus historian Professor Lyndall Ryan. The project has an online map and database that documents meticulously more than 400 massacres and estimates that more than 10,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander lives were lost.

Massacres in the 1860 to 1930 period especially showed a more quasi-military strategy of targeting Aboriginal corroboree gatherings, for example. Armed colonists acted in a premeditated fashion, treating Indigenous lives as expendable in the manner of hunting for vermin. As late as 1928 in the Northern Territory several hundred Warlpiri, Anmatyerre and Kaytetye people were killed in reprisal for having killed a dingo trapper. There is now no excuse for white Australians to plead ignorance of this genocidal history.
Jon McMillan, Mount Eliza

Overcoming ignorance
Jon Faine is to be congratulated on his article concerning truth telling. However, it will be interesting to see how our society handles the truth. Growing up and going to school in the ’50s, the history of Australia was nonexistent. We learnt about the tilling of medieval fields in England and the gallantry of our troops at Gallipoli. First Nations people were never mentioned and we had little interactions with First Nations people. The truth about the stealing of children, land and systematic abuse was never mentioned.

Such was my ignorance of their history and the government’s treatment of them, I did not know that until the ’60s they were not even allowed to have a bank account in their name. So the question will be asked: “Can we handle the truth?”
Peter Roche, Carlton

Listen to real fans, not mob
How appalling to see the obviously well-planned pitch invasion by a mob who came prepared to cause as much damage as they could (“Player, ref injured in ugly pitch invasion”, 18/12). Dressed to blend in with security, their plans could have been thwarted. Australia does not need flare-wielding malcontents – bag inspections would have prevented this.

Football Australia also needs to be more receptive to needs of the real fans; its remoteness from reality has allowed the sport to be placed in disrepute.
Doris LeRoy, Altona

Bag checks
The soccer violence was premeditated. How did flares get through security? Even the opera audience had a bag check at the Palais the other night.
Christine Hinton, Glen Huntly

Sporting choices
There is a whiff of hypocrisy over the opposition to the A-League final being awarded to Sydney. Melbourne has the AFL grand final, the Australian GP and the Australian Tennis Open all tied up for the foreseeable future.
Stephen Dinham, Metung

Fine journalism
Thank you so much for your front page report by Cameron Houston and Chris Vedelago regarding the Pratt family’s illegal get-together during lockdown (“Police crash Pratt lockdown event”, 17/12). Journalism at its best.

Whether you agreed in the harsh lockdowns or not is irrelevant, it must be consistently applied. I look forward to further developments.
Tony Miller, Ulverstone, Tas

Pay up
Since the Pratt family have surpassed the statute of limitations for breaking COVID rules in 2021 (“No fine for Pratts over lockdown gathering”, 18/12), it would nevertheless seem appropriate that they find some loose change from behind the couch and stump up the close to $30,000 avoided in fines.
Alan Inchley, Frankston

Cash inequity
The fact that the Pratt family could not be fined for breaking COVID restrictions is irrelevant. Any fine, for people of considerable wealth, would be pocket change and the fine itself has little bearing on whether the person decides to comply with the law.

This shows the inequity in our legal system. For some people on low incomes even a minor fine can mean the difference between buying food, or paying rent.

Finland has had since 1920 a system of fines proportional to income. The higher your income, the greater the fine paid. This is fair and equitable and should be adopted in Australia.
Barry Lizmore, Ocean Grove

Sudden shock
Star ratings for aged care homes, similar to ratings for holiday accommodation options, are to be expected, given that the Albanese government’s approach to aged care reform is to work with its “business partners” (“Experts sceptical over the new star ratings for aged care homes”, Sunday Age, 18/12).

Of most significance to each of us when we consider using aged care services is not so much “how well the home is run”, but the frightening consequences of handing ourselves over to a very minimally trained aged care workforce.

Australia has very globally high training standards for medical and allied health practitioners, but unbelievably poor training standards for aged care workers.

This results in a very high quality of life for Australians from their birth all the way through to whatever advanced age their mobility and cognition remain sufficient for independence, but a sudden, shocking drop in quality of life and standard of care, with consequent loss of dignity and respect, once aged care services are needed.
Ruth Farr, Blackburn South

Annual cruelty
It’s high time we considered the suffering of lobsters cooked for Christmas revelry (“Dear lobster, your death will be humane. We’re not monsters”, 18/12). But with the Game Management Authority already calling for submissions about the 2023 duck season, it’s also high time to consider the suffering of native waterbirds shot for “recreation” next autumn.

Bleeding, crippled ducks left behind by shooters expose the lie that this “sport” is humane. I have seen video evidence of shooters inflicting further torture on retrieved birds: windmilling (twirling through the air) in a vain attempt to kill them, or shoving the wounded birds, still flapping, into their belts or boxes.

Very few Victorians (0.2 per cent of us) shoot ducks but tens of thousands of feathered victims are left wounded each year. Most states have outlawed this annual shooting madness. What part of cruelty does our premier not understand?
Joan Reilly, Surrey Hills

Spud carve-up
If there is a potato shortage, because of adverse weather conditions, a solution is to reduce the quantity of chips on a plate, particularly in cafes, pubs and clubs. Do we really need or want plates of food with chips overflowing onto the table or floor? There is too much unnecessary food waste in these businesses so portion control, by the chef, needs to be more realistic. Most popular fast-food businesses have sensible portion control of chips in those tiny paper bags.
Adrian Jackson, Middle Park

Old Melbourne town
Nicholas Reece (“The birth of our great city”, 17/12) gives elevated status to the meeting of Melbourne’s town council on December 1, 1842. At that time Melbourne was not a city because “city” was a title bestowed by the sovereign to towns that were the seat of a Church of England bishop. Melbourne did not become a city until the installation of Bishop Charles Perry in January 1848.
Irwin Faris, Torquay

Spirit of the season
The celebration of the birth of a baby “wrapped in rags and lying in a feedbox” is kind of quaint. But serious consideration of his words – as in the Sermon on the Mount – and his innocent death seems more relevant this year.
Glenda Addicott, Ringwood East

And another thing

Spinach recall
“It must have been the spinach” will be the explanation given to explain lamentable office party behaviour.
Bryan Fraser, St Kilda West

Toxic spinach? Popeye and Olive Oyl must be turning in their graves.
Myra Fisher, Brighton East

Anthony Albanese
Nice to hear Mr Albanese feels he has been underestimated for years, (17/12), he can join the ranks of women who feel the same.
Meg Biggs, Kew East

“PM backs intervention when free market fails” has big business wailing, “this Soviet-style policy is a form of nationalism”. Many of us say “indeed comrade, bring it on.”
Bill Albon, Docklands

Never underestimate Albanese. At least in comparison to Morrison and Dutton.
Malcolm Cameron, Camberwell

Cricket
There’s a lot of Neil Harvey from the Bradman era in Travis Head’s batting. Those glorious cover drives.
Nick Toovey, Beaumaris

Front page, Saturday 17/12, Cummins: “I don’t think we are as abrasive”. Will the Australians be using a finer grade of sandpaper?
Peter Wein, St Kilda East

Good to see that T20 has advanced the standard of cricket back to the depths plumbed by my Balwyn under 14s and 16s 50 years ago. We were regularly dismissed for totals like 15 too!
Ken Richards, Elwood

Ukraine war
Imagine living in freezing conditions with no power or water (“Major Russian attack cuts power in cities”, 17/12). All that every Ukrainian wants for Christmas is peace.
Vera Lubczenko, Geelong West

Hell is depicted as a fiery place. I hope Putin’s hell is freezing cold and he’s got no clothes.
John Walsh, Watsonia

Finally
No fine for the Pratts is not good enough. I suggest a huge donation to the charity of their choosing.
Jan Hasnie, Doncaster

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