Serious issues
My initial disappointment that fewer copies of Eureka Street are to be published each year has been mitigated by the first fortnightly editorial update! Andrew Hamilton’s timely and thought-provoking approach to the current relationships between Australians and their government (‘Laying down the law’, Editorial Comment, eurekastreet.com.au, posted 16 November 2005) raises serious issues, not least of which is the widening gap between New Testament values and values promoted by the Howard Government.
Positive human relationships are, more than anything else, founded on trust. Sadly and too frequently in the last decade the electorate has been fed a diet of misinformation. Even sadder is the fact that the community at large has accepted such dishonesty as part of life, whether it be the distinction made between promises and core promises, the blatant untruth that children had been thrown overboard, or the failure to take far-reaching IR changes to the electorate in the months preceding the 2004 election.
This most recent deceit has been compounded by giving too little time for parliamentary scrutiny and debate of a policy which has the potential to seriously lower the living standards of the most vulnerable members of our community.
David Dyer
Ballarat, VIC
Guiding principles
Thank you, Andrew Hamilton (‘Laying down the law’), for becoming an informed web voice challenging the attitude displayed by the Government in recent legislation, and for clearly outlining the guiding principles that are presently missing from the proposed legislation. By providing a forum that offers Australians the opportunity for comment, involvement and debate, you are encouraging the building of the sense of solidarity, community and co-operation that respects human dignity and that the Government is failing to recognise as essential for human flourishing.
Margaret Smith
via email
Leadership lacking
Our Government is showing little genuine moral leadership on this issue (‘Beneath the trapdoor’/‘The face of moral judgment’, Editorial Comment, posted 30 November 2005). But what can one expect when Howard et al are prepared to allow David Hicks to languish in intolerable conditions in Guantánamo Bay, where none of the usual legal protections seem to apply to our ‘allies’ in the way they deal with their prisoners, in this case one who is a citizen of our country? I find that situation even more puzzling, frustrating and hypocritical than the Nguyen case, if not as tragic, as [Hicks] is not yet on death row.
Bill Versteegh
Woodforde, SA
Response to our fortnightly editorial update at www.eurekastreet.com.au has been overwhelmingly positive. If