In the afterglow of the federal budget, it is worth evaluating our position after 40 years of economic reforms under the rubric of economic rationalism and free market economics. Casualisation, part-time employment, job insecurity, wage disparity and the proportion of foreign workers have all dramatically increased putting a squeeze on wages and conditions. In the '70s, Australia had a robust public service and public utilities both of which have largely been privatised to our detriment. Manufacturing has declined and businesses have moved offshore while relatively unproductive industries such as welfare-to-work schemes have prospered. The house price to income ratio has dramatically increased, excluding young people but encouraging investors. Tertiary education, once practically free, is now prohibitively expensive. Despite the claims of agility, innovation and flexibility, these economic reforms are nothing less than class warfare. Unfortunately, many have been co-opted into voting against their own interests by the manipulative narratives of xenophobia, jingoism and aspiration. And while some have benefited greatly from these reforms, most of us have traded off job security, equity and a civil society for cheap techno-gadgets, clothes made in Asian sweatshops and the false promise of prosperity.
Tim Hartnett, Margaret River, WA
Illustration: Andrew Dyson
We must prepare for post-automation
There is no surprise about why your wages growth is in negative territory, just consult one of the thousands of robots that are doing your job for free. Once a robot is made and installed it is basically free to operate, therefore 100 robots and a maintenance mechanic will cost less than four or five human workers. So all hail to the tech revolution, the funny thing is, that as we earn less and less in wages we may solve our own problem of tech robots and gadgets, we won't have any money to buy them.
Unless Australia becomes a leader in the invention and manufacture of high-technology products and drives our wealth forward into the future we may prove the statement by Lee Kwan Yew, founding prime minister of Singapore, that "Australia will be the poor white trash of Asia". Let's start the process with a fundamental adjustment to our education system's vision for the future.
Roger Wolfe, Balwyn
Ideology a barrier to simple solutions
So wage growth is too slow and is bad for the economy? How about increasing award rates and leaving penalty rates alone. Sometimes the answer is very simple. Unfortunately it does not fit the government's ideology.
Barry Lizmore, Ocean Grove
Some earn, some acquire
Re "Jobs that pay the most" (17/5), at least neurosurgeons and ophthalmologists etc who have well-paid jobs actually earn their money by healing people. Which is more than you can say for the richest Australians who don't "earn" anything but "acquire" wealth by moving money from one pile to another pile.
Leigh Ackland, Deepdene
The fruits of a long-fought campaign
Concern by the government over the low rate of wage growth and the adverse impact this will have on the federal budget via lower taxation receipts and on consumer spending is a case of reap what you sow. Employers and the Liberal Party have long sought to minimise the wage increases, a policy assisted by largely successful attempts to weaken trade unions. Only this week, The Age reported that Coates Hire workers are threatened with termination of their workplace agreement unless they agree to slash new employees wages and conditions. The government is silent over such an abuse of workers, but cries crocodile tears over the effect low wages is having on the economy.
Garry Meller, Bentleigh
THE FORUM
Model flawed
Clearly there is something amiss in the proposed Gonski 2.0 funding model. It's bad enough that Melbourne's elite schools with very high socio-economic status ("Wealthy schools to reap big windfalls", 17/5) receive any public money given that they enrol fewer than 3 per cent of lowest SES children (scholarship kids cherry picked from public schools) and no Indigenous students. By enrolling families from Asian backgrounds where English is not the language spoken at home, but the children are born in Australia, these schools receive large amounts of additional public money. On average, each of the schools mentioned also received more than $4million in government capital grants. The flawed SES model adopted by John Howard is long past its use-by date.
David Zyngier, Frankston
A question of merit
Ross Gittins proposes a significant reinterpretation of the concept of equality in Australian school education (Comment, 17/5). Rather than "equality of opportunity", Gittins stresses "equality of outcome". In other words, rather than all students having an equal chance to start school, we ensure they all leave school with a decent education. This idea may come as a shock for people steeped in principles of equal opportunity and merit. These principles have become so ingrained in modern society that we forget they have been dominant at the same time that social and economic inequality have increased. They have sanctioned an attitude that says: "You had your chance and blew it. Now live with the consequences."
Rod Wise, Glen Iris
Not about equity
Ross Gittins highlighted the importance of better resourcing education for the lowest achievers and criticised Labor for not fully backing the government's schools funding initiative. The Coalition initiative is not intended to deliver the equity Gittins seeks. Its intent is to neutralise education funding sufficiently to get the Coalition re-elected. On the other hand, I have no doubt Labor and the Greens are fundamentally committed to redressing the balance as Gittins suggests and should be encouraged, not denigrated. The positive in the Coalition's policy is the principle of not funding the top end and in these times of tight budgets that makes sense.
Brewis Atkinson, Tyabb
Fix the system
I agree with Senator Hanson- Young that we need to fix the education funding model first. For far too long we have seen private schools grow their assets as well as their fees at government schools' expense. Even Catholic secondary school facilities are astonishing in my area where government schools are struggling to secure funds to maintain their 100-year-old buildings on crowded sites. No doubt these obvious advantages are reflected in staff numbers, class sizes, curriculum offerings and support within the schools. Let's get the system fixed, so from here on money can be directed where it is needed.
Susan Mahar, Fitzroy North
The hands of children
While reading the excellent piece by David Brooks ("The world in the hands of a child" (17/5), I couldn't help thinking how similar is the behaviour of some of our politicians here. The first to come to mind was Peter Dutton with his juvenile denial of facts that don't suit his agenda and his need for expenditure on empire building new offices. Then I thought of Tony Abbott, then the childish One Nation, such utter certainty of the righteousness of their position without any doubt whatsoever. We are all certainly in the hands of children.
Vaughan Greenberg, Chewton
Bring them here
What a splendid editorial on the reign and aspirations of our immigration tsar. The extravagance of the proposed new building for this empire, the utter waste of our money in incarcerating unfortunate men on Manus Island in inhumane and dangerous conditions, is a disgrace. Bring these refugees to Australia now. Let us accept our responsibilities.
Gael Barrett, North Balwyn
What fairness?
In recent times the Prime Minister has used the term "fairness" to describe his policies.
Recently The Age published a list of the properties owned by federal MPs, with some owning multiple. When so many of our population are struggling to own just one property, where is the fairness in that?
When so many of recently constructed dwellings now sit vacant, yet walk down Swanston Street and see so many homeless, or visit some of the outlying suburbs, where single parents struggle to put food on the table, after paying the rent, where is the fairness in that?
Bruce MacKenzie, South Kingsville
Too close for comfort
When you publish satire, such as today's "Putin's found his Trump card" (17/5), please label it as satire. It is satire, isn't it? I hope it's satire. Actually, you don't need satire to laugh at Donald Trump. His actual utterances do the job nicely. I haven't laughed so much since Tony Abbott was PM.
Wayne Robinson, Kingsley, WA
Get real people
Department general manager of integrity modernisation Jason McNamara's small concession that Centrelink has learnt from its mistakes post robo-debt debacle, is both disingenuous and an insult to the community's collective intelligence. ("DHS resists calls to restore staff to 'robo-debt' program in Senate hearing", 16/5).
The Centrelink automated debt recovery IT system was rolled out in full knowledge that the kinks had not been ironed out in the data analysis correlates and, as such, that debts would be raised against clients according to this flawed data.
The ensuing modification of Centrelink debt recovery letters to clients was a strategic exercise in organisational damage control.
What the community really wants is a face-to-face relationship with Centrelink staff, who are readily accessible, and responsive to client's concerns and online servicing for quick, throughput transactions only. Centrelink must uphold the "human" in its charter of service delivery.
John Fitzsimmons, Mornington
Look to Kiwi example
Peter Costello is right, Australians have become the victims of our banking systems ("Customers will be the ones hit", 17/5). Until the 1990s, Commonwealth Bank owned by the people kept the private banks honest. With the privatisation of the Commonwealth Bank, Australia lost the control of the banking system. It is time for Australia to establish a people's bank similar to Kiwibank in New Zealand. Kiwibank was established in 2002 when the Labour government found that the private banks served the interest of the shareholders and not the interest of the people. A 2007 study saw that Kiwibank achieved a new level of competition in banking, in terms of lower fees and customer satisfaction.
Bill Mathew, Parkville
Part of the plan
The bank levy is a carefully crafted tax on the Australian taxpayer. Turnbull and Morrison knew exactly what they were doing by imposing this levy on the banks; they knew full well it would be passed on to bank customers. They get the tax and we blame the banks, perfect!
Paul Foster, Kew
Winning the waste war
I watched the ABC's War against Waste and was stunned by the unbelievable amount of waste forced on farmers by the supermarkets. Dispatching such food to famine-ravaged countries such as South Sudan and Yemen could become a long-term foreign aid program. This would employ Australians at this end and the RAAF useful relief experience by flying weekly flights to those countries in desperate need. Food no longer goes to landfill, and methane emissions are cut substantially.
Ray Cas, Ashwood
Get on board
On Monday at 5pm I was waiting for a train at Camberwell station. An express service to Belgrave thundered past, each carriage packed. Then an Alamein train ambled into the station: only a handful of passengers in each carriage. If the state government and Metro are serious about dealing with Melbourne's chronic overcrowding on trains, shouldn't they be redirecting trains from boutique services to lines that are crying out for more trains?
Justin Shaw, Ringwood East
Hold the phone
Let me get this straight: Instead of improving the "detection" systems at airports, airlines are thinking of banning laptops from the cabin and putting them all in the hold, because they may have explosive devices inside them? I've seen enough episodes of NCIS to know you can trigger an explosive device using a mobile phone, so are they also going to ban mobiles as well?
Linsey Siede, Croydon
Polls apart
So Malcolm Turnbull believes the Senate should pass the budget because opinion polls show people support it. They also support same-sex marriage Mr Turnbull, as well as trying to prevent climate change. How about doing something about those as well ...
David Torr, Werribee
AND ANOTHER THING ...
Donald Trump
Joan Segrave, Healesville
If the world is in the hands of a child (David Brooks, 17/5), how do we describe the people who handed it to him?
Tom Pagonis, Richmond
Intelligence is not Trump's forte.
Greg Mason, Glen Iris
The only information that Trump can keep secret are his tax records.
Alan Inchley, Frankston
Peter Dutton
The government could save $250 million if they put Dutton's office on Manus Island where he belongs.
Perry Becker, Leopold
With the biggest government debt in history it defies belief that the Department of Immigration will spend $250 million on office upgrades (17/5).
Craig Cahill, Blessington, Tas
So Peter Dutton is going to spend $250million on an office upgrade having just cut penalty rates. How can that be justified? What's more, they are taxpayer dollars. Shame, Trumbull, shame.
Meredith Andrews, Seacliff, SA
Banks
My concern is that the banks will pass the levy on to their customers, with interest.
John Russell, Bonbeach
Decision time for the banks. Is their primary loyalty towards their customers or their shareholders? I think we know the answer.
Stephen Dinham, Surrey Hills
Furthermore
Is there anything more ridiculous than one politician blaming another for "playing politics"?
Steve Melzer, Hughesdale
Finally
I would bet that the bonus payments to CEOs and other top executives have not gone into negative territory.
Marie Nash, Balwyn