Michael Leunig
A VERY humble but incredibly astute social commentator and satirist. “Artists must never shrink from confrontation with society or the state”.
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Great to have him visit, and be so well received, in Launceston. A national treasure.
Andrew Saint, Trevallyn.
Albert Namatjira’s legacy
IT may have taken 35 years, but at last compensation has been served to the grandchildren of legendary Australian Aboriginal artist Albert Namatjira.
In 1987 the Northern Territory Public Trustee shamefully sold the artist's copyright to a publishing company without the knowledge of Namatjira's immediate family.
Although copyright itself was returned to the family in October last year there was no mention of compensation to his family.
The recent undisclosed settlement to the painters grandchildren says one important thing. The NT government's acknowledgement, of a total lack of respect to what should have been a wonderful legacy left to his family for their enjoyment, and displayed as they had seen fit.
Justice well overdue I say.
Robert Lee, Summerhill.
Bikies Colours
BANNING the bikies from wearing their colors is a no brainer to me. How do we now distinguish a bikie from the ordinary motorcyclist?
Banning their colours will not make them go away. I would have thought that they would be covered by the same laws that I have to abide by.
Bruce Cassidy, Norwood.
Road Rage
I THINK we are back at the age of the man on the horse looking down on the pedestrian.
I was traveling the back roads of Victoria to Tullamarine airport crossing a single lane bridge in an every day type car.
When I was about three-quarters the way across I noticed a vehicle coming towards me. In fact he was speeding up to further close the gap.
We both braked heavily and ended up nose to nose. Bewildered, I reversed the much larger distance back realising I had encountered intimidation, possible road rage from somebody out for a fight.
He was driving a big ugly ute sitting at twice my height. There are a lot of these type of vehicles on the road.
Beware this comes out of nowhere.
Peter Gutteridge, Windermere.
Refugee camps
I applaud Brenda Luies letter (The Examiner, August 28) she is spot on and factual. It was an area of brutal invading conquering of most Countries throughout the whole world.
The strongest and more powerful country won the day. It was a shameful cruel part of our history, which no-one could be proud of. But today we should not be made feel guilty and we should never ever be held responsible or accountable. And those who constantly refer to it, bring ill feeling and division, with no possibility of healing.
Dwell in the present and not the past and embrace together our magnificent future of this wonderful country.
Let us pray that sanity and values will never let it happen again.
Peter Doddy, Trevallyn.
Morrison Ministry
I LOOK at the front bench and of course Scott Morrison had to use some of the group who politically destroyed an elected Prime Minister.
Some very talented people were in the group who implemented the coup.
I am glad Peter Dutton retained the Home Affairs portfolio albeit in a slightly diminished form.
He is a very able and experienced minister.
I am sorry to see Julie Bishop go she was always controlled, very able and I will miss her smile.
I guess it will be a case of forgive and forget, with the aim of trying to close the chasm of the great factional divide, but will it be enough?
After the death of Joseph Lyons in 1939, Sir Earle Page served for 19 days as Australia’s 11th prime minister.
Could it be that Scott Morrison may not beat that record but become the next shortest duration holder of the office?
Malcolm Scott , Newstead.
Split the Liberal Party
THE recent traumatic events within the Liberal party have finally brought things to a head.
Not even Eric Abetz can smooth the bitter factional divisions by claiming the Party is a “broad church”.
The divisions are now terminal.
The factional divisions, which started in the 1980s, have now reached the point where separation between the hard right and the moderate centre is the only legitimate outcome.
It is no longer acceptable for the hard right or the centre to try to assert dominance over the other faction and claim it will result in party unity.
The Australian people deserve to know what philosophy a political party follows and will be its guiding belief in the formation of its policies.
Anything less is lying to the electorate.
The time has now come for the Liberal party to split.
The hard right can then determine its own policies and test those policies at a general election.
But more importantly, the Liberal moderates can give representation to the vast majority of the Australian people who are comfortable in the middle of the political spectrum.
Forming a major new political party is a momentous step.
But giving the vast majority of average Australians the political representation they deserve requires nothing less.