Democrats, like the Liberals, lacked a real vision for the future

January 3, 2008

Does Laura Chipp have the same publicist as Brendan Nelson ("Poor democracy without Democrats", January 1)? Both insist there was nothing wrong with their party's policies before the last election, they just weren't sold properly. Neither is doing their party any favours.

The Democrats have traditionally done best when there is a change of government - 1983 and 1996 were bumper years for independents and third-party candidates federally, as was 1988 in NSW, and the Democrats were among the main beneficiaries. The bastards in office were discredited and the bastards in opposition were untested.

The Democrats lost their Senators at this election for much the same reason as the Liberals lost government: a focus on the past and no real vision for the future.

There were two clearly identifiable groups that should have voted Democrat. It is an indictment of their party and its leaders that the Democrats showed no sign that they even recognised these groups, let alone courted them.

Senate committees can be dull affairs, but Democrats had shown why they were important.

Occasionally they would uncover something that attracted the best kind of publicity: positive and free. But in recent years the Democrats have stopped doing this. In the last term of Parliament the heroes of Senate committees were Labor's John Faulkner and Penny Wong.

Moderate Liberals had worked hard over many years to keep the Howard government in office. In return, Howard only scolded them. If Liberal moderates joined the Democrats en masse it would transform both parties and reshape Australian politics.

Nor did the Democrats capture swinging voters. Look at all those seats in NSW and Queensland that Labor won by small majorities, and in South Australia and Western Australia that Labor lost narrowly. These voters would have voted Democrat in the Senate, if only there was something to vote for.

Labor and the Liberals spent last year scrambling for the middle ground, so it is silly for Laura Chipp to say her party is responsible for moderating extremes. Even more so when she claims the difference between governments is their "hue": why vote for people to squabble over a "hue"?

At a time when federation is about to undergo great change, and when services are delivered at state level, why does she propose her party contest only federal and local elections?

Don Chipp's daughter has no more perspective on her party than Kim Beazley's son or Alec Downer's boy had on theirs. Democrats should stop making excuses for failure and start thinking about what they would like government to do.

The Democrats have a free hand, which is both a blessing and a curse, but they have greater scope for reform of their party than the Liberals. They have clear constituencies to which they can credibly appeal, and nothing further to lose.

Andrew Elder Eastwood

Whinger-longa Max - are you havin' a larf?

Max Bygraves bemoans the fall in standards in spoken English on television, in particular The Catherine Tate Show (Letters, January 2). Mr Bygraves protests too much. As a child of eight I was taken to see him at the Victoria Palace in London, where he was appearing with the Black and White Minstrels.

Mr Bygraves did an extensive selection of material from the comedian Max Miller that would have done well at a "men's smoko" and was not thought suitable for young audiences - my parents were most disturbed.

I particularly remember the joke about the dilemma of the man who passes an attractive woman on a bridge. I am sure Mr Bygraves could give us the punchline, or does he not remember his more humble beginnings?

Stephen Carroll Peelwood

Come on, Max, aren't you being a bit precious? After all, some of your stuff in the 1960s went pretty close.

Would the yarn about the driver who ran down punk rockers and the priest get a run today?

What about the two old ladies feeding the ducks in the park when suddenly a streaker appears? One had a stroke, while the other couldn't quite reach …

Joe Dwyer Rose Bay

To Max Bygraves, in defence of the hilarious Catherine Tate Show, how dare you, how very, very dare you!

Tom Dolan Narraweena

Living proof that the past is a foreign country, Max Bygraves wants us all to know that Catherine Tate's show would be censored if the same standards and values applying in his day were superimposed on the present.

What a liberty!

While the geriatric pensioner

Mrs Taylor drops the occasional obscenity when talking to her unemployed nephew, this is entirely in accordance with everyday experience in 2008.

If Max recalled the days when he was still a Londoner who loved London Town he would also recall that it was not only the BBC that had less swearing - so too did shopping centres, schoolyards and even police stations.

Wayne Cooper Lindfield

The letter from Max Bygraves certainly hit the spot. It would appear that we have bred a generation of purveyors of filth when it comes to everyday language and their "appreciation" of comedy.

A couple of years ago we saw Alan Davies doing his stand-up routine from a London theatre on TV and the material was that dirty we turned it off.

It would appear that today's audience demands a comedian to be filthy or they don't think it is funny. Great comics such as Morecambe and Wise, Ronnie Barker, George Wallace and Dave Allen must be spinning in their graves.

Dennis Robinson Rathmines

Am I bothered?

Derek Harvey Clayfield (Qld)

Here's a plan: ignore the self-appointed experts

"The cars that ate Sydney" (January 2) demonstrates why we shouldn't be listening to self-appointed experts when it come to Sydney's planning. Ten years ago they thought the Toaster and lack of trams were the city's biggest planning disasters. Now they think neither is a problem.

What's changed? Nothing, but fashion and "group think" have moved on. To underline the shallowness of the panel, Edmond Capon sneers at the lives and hopes of the 99 per cent of Sydney's population that doesn't live in one or two postal codes in the eastern suburbs when he says "the suburbs are best passed through as quickly as possible … I think it's the monotony of aspiration".

Apart from being grossly offensive to millions of people who are working hard to bring up their families, can't he see the hypocrisy? Is he not aspirational? Does he live in more or less the same place and circumstances that he was born in? I doubt it.

Matt Pralija Neutral Bay

Take a ferry to Manly or Watsons Bay and you can count on one hand the truly visionary harbourside houses. It is striking that the default aesthetic is so consistently unimaginative. These are the people with the wealth to do anything they want, yet their unswerving aggression in pursuit of the dollar shrinks instantly to unquestioning timidity in the realm of architecture.

Then again, when one realises that some of these people are the developers responsible for the charmless apartment blocks and shopping malls that blight our less-desirable suburbs, it starts to make sense.

Lloyd Swanton Wentworth Falls

You'd have to be crackers

On New Year's Eve I watched the fireworks from a public vantage point. I saw backpackers sending text messages to their friends urging them to come to Sydney. That is, the few million dollars spent on the event will result in many millions worth of tourism.

Yet every year there are letters from people insisting we cancel the fireworks because of (take your pick) global warming, war, poverty, bushfires or the expense.

I saw young children amazed, I saw grown-ups holding hands and I saw thousands of Australians having a fantastic time. It really takes a special kind of killjoy to want to cancel that.

Daniel Lewis Rushcutters Bay

I always like to see the traditional January 2 letters page bemoaning the excesses of New Year.

Can I make a admission? Terrible, I know, but each year I feel vaguely disappointed when there is not some malfunction that causes the fireworks display to culminate with the Harbour Bridge gently subsiding into the water.

David Markham Latham (ACT)

Much-needed museum

I strongly support Paul McCartan's call for a museum of Oceanic and Aboriginal art for Sydney (Letters, January 2). The Australian Museum holds 60,000 items from the Pacific, most of which have not been on display since 1988. Last year, one had to visit St Louis, Paris or Berlin to see a handful of pieces from the museum in an exhibition of art from New Ireland (Papua New Guinea). Yet the Torres Strait mask, the only Pacific piece on permanent display at the museum, is its most popular item.

Adelaide, Melbourne and Launceston have permanent exhibitions of Oceanic material. There are or will be similar displays in Paris, San Francisco and several German cities. Such a museum in Sydney should be a priority for state and federal governments.

Marina Garlick Balmain

Failure indicates success

Twenty per cent failing a test is by no means significant ("Future of citizenship test in doubt", January 2). What is more important is how many of those 20 per cent are failing because of the core values as opposed to not knowing a sportsperson's averages.

If people fail, they can undertake education and try again - determination to succeed is another core value that we should rate. Citizenship is not a right. If there was a 100 per cent pass rate that would indicate that the test was worthless.

Brian Kelly Carlingford

Flights of frustration

The mooted talks on opening up the Pacific air route to more competition cannot come soon enough.

Not only are Qantas fares appreciably higher than for longer routes to Europe, but it charges $250 for each date change on economy tickets, despite allowing passengers to book only up to nine months in advance on a 12-month return ticket.

While Qantas made me fly American Airlines from Los Angeles to Toronto, and charged top dollar for my economy fare, it won't allow me to claim frequent flyer points for this flight. That Air Canada has been denied access to the Toronto-LA-Sydney route only adds to my frustration.

Simon Parker Toronto (Canada)

Fish mongrels

Popular fishing spots can be easily picked (Letters, January 2). Just look for discarded drink bottles and cans, fag packets, butts, food cartons and stinking leftover bait in non-biodegradable wrappings. Let's not forget the trailing fishing lines, lead weights and rusting hooks left for unwary beachgoers' feet or unsuspecting wildlife.

Fishing seems to be a licence to litter otherwise beautiful beaches, headlands and neighbourhoods. From years of clearing up after them, I reckon the majority of fishers are selfish louts and deserve no sympathy.

Diana Simmonds Paddington

Rough deal for dogs

The west is not the only area of Sydney where dog owners suffer if they wish to properly exercise and socialise their animals ("Dogs hounded from the local park", January 2).

In the Ryde Council area, there are 8800 dogs (its figures) with only one fenced off-leash area. If there were a ratio of off-leash areas to numbers, more dogs would be exercised safely and there would be fewer bored, yapping dogs in backyards.

Louise Laz Putney

Internet idiocy

I agree with Ian Semmel (Letters, January 2), but his prognostications for a world with government censors controlling the internet do not go far enough. Let's pray that the internet service providers don't exploit this idiotic idea and make us pay for a filter-free connection, so that we retain the right to uncensored access, but must pay through the nose for it.

Pierre Mol Pymble

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