Letters

Sydney Morning Herald

Monday June 16, 2008

Compo reform and the heat on Della

I am a proud personal injury lawyer. Let me just say that the current Della Bosca discomfort is wonderful. No schadenfreude, just glee. As an architect of compensation reform he, Michael Egan and Bob Carr have a lot to answer for. The suggestions of cost-gouging by Keddies may cause some to say that there is still a lot more to do to curb our greed.

Over the past seven years since the insurance companies took a bath on September 11, 2001, state and federal governments have worked hard to ensure that the insurance companies' pockets are always full.

However, slashing of workers', motor accidents and malpractice compensation has not led to more affordable premiums and fairer compensation.

The Keddies furore will spur a further round of regulation of lawyers' costs. The undoubted effect of reform is the devastation of the vast majority of firms that do charge and work ethically.

Terence O'Riain Wodonga

For one week we had the media self-indulging in a row over a table being moved. This is rubbish. A good man has now been stood down and education in this state not helped, for what?

Shaun Catlin South Golden Beach

Sophie Mirabella is such a gentle lass that in her former life as Sophie Panopoulos she called Judi Moylan, Russell Broadbent, Petro Georgiou and Bruce Baird parliamentary terrorists for having the gall not to want to lock up child refugees any more. Methinks Sophie better think about those leopards and spots and a few pots calling kettles black before she gets too far up the ladder to that high horse.

Marilyn Shepherd Kensington

It's over a week already? Is the continued gloating over "Mr and Mrs Della Bosca at the Iguana" just an expression of the depth of feeling that has developed against state Labor?

Michele McKenzie Lilyfield

Flawed candidate

In her column ("The numbers Hillary didn't count on", June 14-15), Anne Summers gives a laundry list of excuses as to why Hillary Clinton lost the battle with Barack Obama to be the Democratic nominee for president: flawed strategy, flawed execution, flawed husband, incompetent advisers, and a talented opponent.

She left out the clincher: Hillary Clinton was a deeply flawed candidate who ran a despicable campaign and whom many, including myself, could not stomach.

As an American living in Australia, I would gladly vote for a principled and competent woman for president. I look forward to the day one runs.

John Hubby Newtown

Anne Summers is far too willing to forgive Hillary Clinton for her many mistakes. I lost any sympathy I might have had for her when she and her surrogates began a series of undisguised and barely disguised racist remarks. Many people, black and white, male and female, who were sympathetic to her reacted similarly.

In the end, she lost not through misogyny but, as Summers rightly notes, the incompetence and profligacy of her own campaign. Don't waste too many tears on Clinton.

Andrew Dunstan Apex, North Carolina (US)

Cock-eyed green subsidies

I thought there was a fund to support Australian innovative technology to produce an Australian vehicle that was economically affordable and would genuinely reduce greenhouse gas emissions. I did not think it was to support local manufacture of existing overseas technology vehicles with all profits going overseas, nor a fund to support "plug in" vehicles that would use our electricity, which is produced by our highest polluters - coal-fired power stations now on their last legs.

Sydney Mitchell Erina

Superheroes not required

Paul Byrnes's rant against the superhero movie genre in his review of The Incredible Hulk ("Underpants on the outside, rage within", Spectrum, June 14-15) was the most passionate and entertaining arts story I have read in many a Saturday. And so true - when your "climax" is two computer generated images fighting (and you know who is going to win), where could the drama possibly lie?

Christopher Johnson Redfern

UN role in Zimbabwe

Is the world going to turn a blind eye to the brutality and disregard for democratic process Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe is exhibiting before the June 27 second round election? Or is it going to give support to the United Nations to send in troops to ensure the election is held in an environment free of intimidation by the country's military and Mugabe's goons?

While the world piously sits on its hands over Zimbabwe it might also like to seriously look at the way the United States has turned the UN into a toothless tiger and what it is going to do to give the UN back its teeth.

Dallas Fraser Mudgeeraba (Qld)

Feeding off each other

Saturday's Herald carried two stories on religious extremism on adjacent pages ("Measuring the culture war", "For Christ's Sake"). One dealt with the rise of Islamic purist movements in Indonesia, while the other page carried a story on the Christian religion's subtle infiltration of the political system in the West, a far less obvious process but one that is just as dangerous.

The two stories are of course connected, the rise of religious Islamic fundamentalism is to a large extent driven by fear of the Western world's permissiveness, especially towards things like sex and alcohol. And in turn Christian fundamentalists point to the rise of extreme Islam to promote their own brand of hypocrisy. It's a growth industry and one that will leave both worlds the worse for it.

Don Owers Dudley

© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald

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