Your Views: Letters to the Editor
Responding to A home-grown Liberal defeat
Mike Smithson is correct. I’m a Sturt voter who did not support the Liberals exactly because they are being manipulated yet further from the “middle ground” by the likes of Sen. Alex Antic. On this basis, the forthcoming state election will be a similar debacle for our Liberal GOP. – Damien Mugavin
I have been a member of the Liberal party since the age of 17, I am now 77. I remember well the John Olsen “tombstone “ election campaign. I also remember the friction between Brown and Olsen. The problem goes back to problems with Ren Degaras and Robin Milhouse. Is it time for the rural seats to transfer to the Nationals and the Liberals concentrate on forming policies more in line with metropolitan values? Remember, John Olsen is an old used car salesman from Kadina. – David Q Mahar
Olson is a disaster and needs to go! When he was premier, he decided to outsource government IT to a Texas company and happily sent Adelaide-based businesses into receivership. He destroyed my successful $5 million pa quality assured company and cost me half a million dollars. We did warn him but he did not care. – Jean Cannon
History tells me that it was Dean Brown, along with John Olsen and John Howard and the LNP who did all the damage to public housing. The Commonwealth Housing Agreement was slashed and the state governments at the time started selling off and dismantling public housing. Their thinking was that private rental was the way to go, and we know how well that all went. – Lynn Graham
Responding to Hastie rules himself out of race to replace Dutton
Every year between AFL seasons they hold a draft of new talent that will make a significant improvement in their list. Now we have a Party Political version. It seems for the Leader of the Opposition that there isn’t much to choose from. Two who have had numerous opportunities to shine but have been ‘underwhelmers’. And a third candidate who was only selected by the skin of his teeth. In contrast, on the Labor side, their new member for Sturt has an impressive CV of being motivated to achieve. If there was only one draft, my hunch is she would be taken very high but the 3 LOTO candidates wouldn’t get a look in. – David Anderson
Responding to We’re about to see who the Australian Labor party is
Stay informed, daily
The consolidation of the structural shift in Labor’s location in the political and policy spectrum raises the Liberals’ crisis to an existential level. The problem for the Liberals flowing from Labor’s electoral success is comprehensively existential. The problem for the country is practical. Labor’s economic and policy mandate limits will not deliver the scale and pace of improvements in productivity, sustainability, and inclusion that we urgently need. The next three years will be better for Australia and Australians than under a Dutton government. However, in 2028, there will be an opportunity to win an election with more ambitious policies to expand the scale and pace of change to the fundamentals of our underperforming status quo. Connecting to younger Australians and to the next three-year cohort of first-time voters will be decisive. – Stewart Sweeney
Responding to Federal thrashing bad news for state Liberals
In the recent SA leaders debate, Vincent Tarzia went to great lengths to insist that he was joined at the hip to Peter Dutton on the Liberals’ nuclear policy. Now it seems the Liberals’ entire nuclear folly will be as non-existent as the small reactor technology that the SA nuclear powered station was supposed to be based on. Mr. Tarzia has no choice but to backflip on those comments during the debate and the state Liberals’ position on nuclear energy. And he has a very short time to convince us that somehow there is yet another better solution than a combination of solar, wind, storage and gas, to meet South Australia’s energy needs. Or, on energy policy, the Liberals can just join the rest of us in the 21st century and we can all move forward together. – Michael Stone
