The power of Bob and Paul:

David Lodge writes: Re. “Risk management, $100b and Question Time bingo” (yesterday, item 10). I shouldn’t have to point this out to any self respecting, Canberra-based journalist but I’m sorry Bernard Keane, Bob Hawke and Paul Keating did not act unilaterally in deregulating the financial sector, and comparing those two political giants to Tin Tin and his piss-weak cabinet could not be more insulting to such a good government (we’ll go with Hawke as PM and Keating as treasurer here).

The irony here is that Hawke and Keating had to make tough decisions for Australia to join the rest of the Western world as opposed to simply angling for global trade on its own where Rudd has wanted to act unilaterally either for a kind Newspoll, or more attention on the international stage.

Your analogy is also poor, being that Rudd wants to cause massive economical change in a time where we have shown ourselves to have the most resilient economy (nurtured by Hawke, Keating and Howard) whereas Hawke and Keating needed to tear down the old model for a more successful one. Arguing that an ETS is a step forward was silly three months ago, and after Copenhagen, is downright stupid.

The most charismatic of politicians could not sell an ETS now and being that Rudd is more intent on talking about policy rather than explaining actual practical courses of action as the previous Labor government did, the public will not listen with any genuine intent.

Tough decision-making involves facing sectional interests from both sides of the political spectrum. Rudd Labor lacks both the vision, policies or balls to do either.

Save the sick, not the terminal:

Denise Marcos writes: Re. “The politics of ageing: Wayne Swan gets Intergenerational” (yesterday, item 1). There is one obvious means of reigning in the burgeoning cost of an ageing population’s health care. The major medical and hospitalisation expenses of an elderly person occur in the final weeks of their life.

If voluntary euthanasia was legal, an unnecessary drain on resources could be prevented and those hospital beds made available to Australians who have a realistic chance of recovery. One wonders how soon before governments will be profoundly grateful for sickly citizens (of all ages) who opt not to be parasites on our over-burdened, collapsing, money-guzzling health systems.

Governments are fixated on the bottom line despite their feigned indignant bleating to the contrary. Let the volunteers go quietly; channel resources to the sick, not the terminal. And nobody gets hurt.

Taking on the Big Four:

Rob McMahon writes: Re. “AussieBank: the Government thinks it’s a good idea – does Ahmed Fahour?” (29 January, item 1). Apart from the recent successful “Peoples Bank of NZ”, hasn’t anyone heard of the Reconstruction Bank of then West Germany, post WW 2, initially lending to small and medium business on favourable terms, mentored by those fathers of modern West Germany, Konrad Adenauer etc.?

Just wondering whether Rudd/Swan or for that matter Abbott and Co, have the proverbials to take on the Big Four. Sadly history tells us not.

Anger at angry dads:

Samantha Kennedy writes: I had to respond to Chris Lehmann and Neil Pentecost (yesterday, comments) “And I’m sorry to burst the bubble of the hysterical feminists who equate male with being violent and ascribe positive child rearing only to females/mothers” wrote Chris Lehmann. Who is actually being hysterical here?

“I’m sure there are some bad fathers, just as I’m equally sure there are bad mothers; drive out to Campbelltown or Deer Park to see the professional “mothers” who start having kids at 14-15 and live off our taxes,” wrote Neil Pentecost. Hate being generically judged but believe they have every right to do it to others.

I actually wouldn’t have any problems with either of these two men’s comments if they stuck to the facts instead of their own, extremely obvious, angry opinions. The only thing I feel capable of comment on in both cases is: they both got married and had children, they and their wives decided they didn’t like each other and/or couldn’t stand living with each other. The kids suffer.

I don’t give a rat’s about what either of these two men believe they are hard done by. Their anger helps no one and achieves nothing and last year kids were killed by their fathers because of this belief of hard done by and anger plus being able to gain access to their kids because of Howard’s law changes.

No law is going to be perfect because both parties believe they are the victims. To me the only victims are the kids.

Yes, poor Crikey can’t tell its pores from its pours:

Jim Hart writes: Re. (Crikey editorial, yesterday) You may be cheap, you may be wonky. You also expect your readers to pour over AEC records. But pour what — wine, ketchup, scorn and derision? So it fell through the spell checker — sorry, that’s no excuse. Homonyms abound.

Crikey Correction:

Crikey website editor Ruth Brown writes: The item in yesterday’s Media Briefs titled “The OZ exposed climate change flaws, but the Sunday Times helped” was erroneously attributed to me, and contained the incorrect assertion that The Australian had engaged in “cut-and-paste” journalism, when in fact, it had slightly (and humorously) edited a syndicated article from the UK’s Sunday Times.

The online version of the article has been edited to contain the item actually penned by me.