Price does the Coalition no favours with her Trumpian rhetoric

If Jacinta Nampijinpa Price is the answer, what was the question (“Jacinta Price pledges to ‘make Australia great again’ ”, April 12)? She vowed to make Australia great again and then couldn’t remember saying it. Seriously? I haven’t seen the transcript of her full rant, but to say Anthony Albanese has personally destroyed this country is beyond the pale. So much for the discipline and party loyalty to Peter Dutton’s “inspired” leadership: first, that he allowed the rant, and second, that he then allowed questions. So much for Dutton winding back comparisons between Trump’s approach and his own, or distancing himself from Trumpian tendencies. Right-wing propagandist rhetoric is far from mainstream Australia. Does Dutton really plan to let loose Price on our public servants, and government expenditure generally? Hardly a sensible proposition. It’s also not a cogent, costed policy. But then, nothing Dutton has produced comes close to being a cogent, costed policy. Geoff Nilon, Mascot

Jacinta Nampijinpa Price says she wants to make Australia Great Again, does she? Well, she had the perfect opportunity to do just that with the Voice referendum. Instead, along with her buddy Warren Mundine, she chose to prosecute Peter Dutton’s fear campaign opposing it, which only served to make Australia look small and mean in the eyes of the world. Does Price know anything about the issues on which she passes judgment, particularly education, the environment and women’s reproductive health, or will she continue to lift straight from the Trump playbook? Meanwhile, Peter Dutton stands beside her like a stunned mullet grinning as she vents her right-wing, populist ideology. Dutton and the Coalition are without doubt Trump’s pick at this election. Please Australia don’t make them ours. Nicola O’Hanlon, Surry Hills

Note to Jacinta Price: Australia IS great. Like the rest of the world, we are all copping cost-of-living measures beyond our control. But it is still a great country. Maybe your version of “great” is you in power in government. We really don’t want to pay that price – pun intended. Barry Ffrench, Cronulla

Stable leadership

The prime ministership is not a ride on a merry-go-round, but already Michelle Grattan is raising the spectre of yet another group of pretenders lining up for their ride on the horse, undeserving or not. And this has come up even before Anthony Albanese has completed just one term (“Post-poll focus will be on succession”, April 12). Apparently there will “probably be pressure for a leadership change at some point during the next term. It is hard to see Albanese, 62, taking Labor into the ’28 election”. What? 62! Really? Who does not fume at the whole idea that prime ministers are obliged to get off the ride after so many times around so that someone else can have a turn? This is an appalling aspect of politics in both parties, and it must stop. The nation is entitled to have the best available person in that top job at all times – no matter how old they are or for how long they have served already. Chalmers, Burke, Marles, Plibersek, Bowen and others: take note. We’ve all had enough of thrusters pressuring someone who’s still good in the job to step aside just to accommodate personal ambition. Besides, 62 is not old, and chances are that Albanese will improve even more in the job as the next term rolls by. If that is so, then the nation demands he stay while ever he’s the best person for it. Wannabes stay away. Graeme Smith, Daceyville

Kudos to Chip Le Grand for his measured examination of Anthony Albanese (“Albanese may just have nailed the mood”, April 12). It was illuminating and refreshing to read about his political history, his political raison d’être and the tangibly successful outcomes of three years of government. In a chaotic world, turned upside down by unstable leaders, a world that has been lurching to the far right politically, it is gratifying and consoling to consider and appreciate a government with altruism at its core. Alex Bilash, Burwood

We know Dutton

One would think the Liberal Party, in “introducing” Peter Dutton to the electorate, would have better material to draw on than “Queensland police officer, small business owner and minister in the Howard government” (“Grievance politics failing Dutton”, April 12). His actual political record, for example? Dutton has been in politics for 24 years, under several PMs, and has held various ministries. Surely, he has policy achievements to mention that have improved the lives of Australians? We know he was voted worst health minister, joked about rising sea levels in the Pacific, took up the cudgel for white South African farmers, granted visas to au pairs in unusual circumstances, targeted the Muragappan family and blamed “African gangs” for terrifying Melburnians. But where are the nation-improving achievements? Perhaps that’s why he’s still being introduced as a Queensland cop. Alison Stewart, Riverview

With pre-polling stations opening in a matter of days, I agree with Peter Hartcher that Liberal Party spinmeisters have left it a little late with their ad campaign to “humanise” Peter Dutton. Many will have concluded long ago the kind of human Dutton is. His political career is littered with clues – his walkout on the apology, his false claims that Melburnians were too frightened to go out because of African gangs, his stoking fear of war with China, his then department wasting millions of dollars with a corrupt contractor on Nauru, his “joke” about rising sea waters, his being voted the worst health minister in 35 years by Australian doctors, his admiration for Trump, and more recently, hurrying down to Sydney for a $25,000-a-head fundraiser while Cyclone Alfred bore down on his home state. If the election was a job interview for the most important post in the land, Peter Dutton would fail a load of key performance indicators – no matter how slick the ads to humanise him. Nick Franklin, Katoomba

The unabashed bollocking of Peter Dutton in word and image, particularly in Saturday’s Herald, matches this masthead’s shameless promotion of the Voice. You may be repeating the folly of laying it on too thick. Peter Robinson, Ainslie (ACT)

Neglect health staff at our peril

Like many, I am angry at the treatment of medical professionals in NSW public hospitals (“We pay a big price as doctors. Pay us what we are worth”, April 11). It’s not just at the Dickensian conditions for those who study for years to help us, our ageing parents and our injured kids in life’s difficult moments, but also at the sheer stupidity of it. We do not want tired and under-resourced professionals striving unsupported to save our lives, or leaving hospitals even more short of skills as they head elsewhere. We pay vast taxes to Medicare for one reason only: to have fair access to medicine. This is a difficult but mathematically doable: X population means Y ward and beds required. These beds require a set number of doctors, nurses and other staff. If the government (or a private business) is not supplying, replacing or maintaining these staff in the required numbers, they are breaching the contract we have with them. And a public service department not paying them a living salary, or making them do unpaid overtime, is in dereliction of its duty of care. A plane cannot fly without pilots, engineers and control staff, a factory without trained operators, so why should we let a hospital run without enough medical staff? Allan Kreuiter, Roseville

Nurses and doctors are not the only health workers to receive a raw pay deal in NSW. Clinical coders work in the back corridors of both public and private hospital systems, analysing the medical records of every patient admitted to Australian hospitals, abstracting relevant documentation and assigning codes from national disease and procedure classifications. These codes, along with de-identified patient demographics, inform governments at all levels of the population’s health, providing a rich database for research and quality studies and, since 2012, forming the basis of activity-based funding of most NSW public hospitals. Without clinical coding, funding cannot occur. The profession is haemorrhaging skilled coders to the private health system and other states and is often unable to attract qualified and experienced applicants, often instead relying on private contracting companies whose hourly rates are eye-watering by comparison. A NSW Clinical Coders’ Award is overdue. Yes, there is a finite bucket of money for health, but something is wrong when health workers at many different levels are leaving the public health system. Catherine Muratore, Bomaderry

Developing concerns

As an 18-year-old looking to the future of our nation, I am distressed by the way our leaders address the housing crisis – with Band-Aid policies that propose no long-term vision for Australia. State governments announce more high-density living in suburbs that lack the supporting infrastructure, acknowledging they have no plan to improve it. They have only two aims: to acquire votes, and to claim the federal government’s $3 billion housing incentive. We deserve a nation in which cities expand with their populations, rather than bursting at capacity. The actions of state governments are short-sighted and selfish. Australia needs politicians who think beyond the next election and truly care of Australia’s future. Alexandra Cuthell, Lindfield

Dutton has announced that first buyers of new homes will be able to deduct their interest payments from taxable income (“Dutton promises tax-deductible mortgage interest repayments”, April 13). This seems grossly unfair to the many first-time buyers who purchase secondhand properties, which generally supply the lower end of the market. And does a wealthy young person buying a $10 million home get this break too? Toni Lorentzen, Fennell Bay

Labor’s latest thought bubble to give struggling home buyers a leg up by dropping the required deposit to 5 per cent will just condemn these low-income earners to a long period of much higher mortgage rates, due to the higher financial risk to the banks and very much larger lenders mortgage insurance costs, plus longer repayment cycles. These unnecessary extra costs are both large, as much as $100,000 over 30 years, and very profitable for the banks. All this at the expense of these Aussie battlers. Buyer beware. Tony Hors, Taree

I note a Labor policy is to allow first home buyers to pay only 5 per cent deposit. How is this possible? Property and conveyancing are governed by state-based laws, not federal. There is no jurisdiction for such an intervention by the Commonwealth. The Labor Party is aware of this. It is misleading to proffer such a policy. Dennis Bluth, Cammeray

She’s no chicken

Congratulations to the indefatigable Kate McClymont for unravelling the Gordian knot of dodgy businesses and characters assembled by messrs Petroulias and Faraj (“The crypto coin, the chicken shop and the missing millions”, April 12). One wonders what could be achieved if those great business minds put similar effort into legitimate businesses rather than allegedly seeking schemes to rip people off. Tim Parker, Balmain

Whatever the Herald’s Kate McClymont is paid, it’s not enough. Col Shephard, Yamba

Trading tales

Richard Glover’s column about how much less we had in the old days took me back (“Trump’s trade vision? Been there. Wore the saggy undies”, April 12). With the cost of living on everyone’s minds at present, I’d like to share with Millennials what life was like in the 1940s and ’50s. My school shoes were also my best shoes, my sister and I had no overcoat and one best cardigan each. One day, going out, I borrowed hers and wore it back-to-front under mine so that I had a twin set. A hamburger and milkshake was an occasion, and hot milk on bread was a treat. I sat on a plank outside a shop to watch TV. Later I rented a black-and-white TV and put two shillings in the slot to watch it. We spent 10 years without going to movies. As parents, we went once to a drive-in and had to leave before the end of the movie. Fancy thinking our kids would fall asleep on the back seat. Judy Nicholas, Kambah (ACT)

Join the queue

We’ve just completed another Melbourne to Wollongong drive in our Hyundai electric car and want to send a warning to other EV drivers that with too many chargers unavailable or broken, the charging desert between Yass and Albury is vast and wide. Gundagai, Holbrook, Jugiong – all broken. Only Tarcutta’s two Evie networks struggle on. We lost an hour waiting our turn there and suspect that Easter will bring trouble to Tarcutta. Early adopters of EV charging such as the NRMA seem to have dropped the ball on this one, as we allow vast banks of Tesla chargers to stand idle while fighting over the non-Tesla scraps. There needs to be some greater oversight of this industry if the government rightly wants to see more electric cars on the road. Denise Young, Thirroul

Excusez-moi, mes amis

While we’re grinding our teeth wondering what to do next with the Joker in the White House, why not cut our losses on AUKUS (Letters, April 12), say “bonjour mes amis” to our old French friends, and have a good look at the German unmanned subs? We could both build some new-era networks and save some money to rebuild our public education and TAFE systems. Tom Mangan, Woy Woy

Alco-poll

I write from the Galapagos Islands in Ecuador. Today is the presidential election and, since democracy returned to the country in 1979, the sale of alcohol has been banned for the two days before and the day after election day. Whatever happens on May 3, at least Australians can celebrate or commiserate with a beer. Michael Thomas, Cheltenham

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