Dear Eds,
Where are our new-found feminists? I found the decision of Federal Health Minister Tony Abbott to keep the anti-cervical cancer drug, Gardasil, off the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) greater cause for alarm, than that unfortunate reference to "uncovered meat" and "cats". The latter saw a frenzy of outcries from all spectrum of politics, and from media commentators, playing to the populace in a defence of Australian women.
I see no equivalent energy from many of these so-called defenders, targeting Tony Abbot and the government, and honing-in on a far more real battle advancing the cause of women, i.e. preventing the deaths of 270 women each year.
Has our civic conscience been sapped of its energy, or are we blinkered as to what is, or is not, considered the good fight? We should be careful about being whipped into emotive "cultural" battles about religion, values, and race, when the real battle ground is the receding territory of public services, in not only (women's) health, but also in education and skills training, the environment and alternative energies, safeguards to civil and human rights, and support to small business.
S. Partoredjo, NSW