Some collected letters and quotes. A letter from the local newspaper regarding overdevelopment:
Lethal mix
Regarding “Our green-wedge blues” (the Leader, January 30), I think that for an estate agent and an Opposition spokesperson who do not live in this area to criticise the decision of State Government who has some foresight to leave some breathing space for our city is a negative approach to our quality of living.
I enjoy our low-density living, I enjoy our open spaces – something that in the future we will be most thankful for. Remember the schools that Mr. Kennett sold? The developers worked every square centimetre with narrow roads, large houses on very small blocks, no open space and perhaps the slums of the future.
Put an estate agent with a developer and we have the lethal mix of medium and high density living in an instant. And will it make housing cheaper? How can it? All we will get is more of the expensive housing we have now, without our open space – our breathing space.
Thank you Mr. Estate Agent and Mr. Opposition Planning Spokesman. We can do without the unbroken suburb-to-suburb housing sprawl. Let some of us have a quality lifestyle please and not feel crowded out.
– John Spragg, Dingley Village
Overpopulation: some comments that infuriated me (bolded), from an article in the Good Weekend magazine, an interview with some woman radio personality, Shannon Lush:
We retire to an outdoor table where she can smoke, and the conversation turns to the low national birth rate – another subject on which she has strong opinions. “This business with people not having kids – I’m sorry, I don’t understand it,” she says. “People are supposed to have children. It’s a biological directive.”
I make the point that being childless is not always a calculated decision. Sometimes the circumstances just aren’t right.
“I think it’s laziness, really,” says Lush, who has a daughter from each of her two marriages. “Laziness and greed.” Too many individuals simply have the wrong priorities: “ ‘I want money before I have children. I want this and I want that before I have children.’ ” She laughs. “What a lot of codswallop.”
She seems to be an Australian equvalent to Martha Stewart, though it’s the first I’ve heard of her! I wouldn’t be buying any of her products out of sheer disgust at those remarks. (Posted to Childfree Hardcore.)
A letter in today’s The Age about a little-publicized problem in East Timor: the lack of women’s rights, including access to abortion and contraception, as it is a predominantly Roman Catholic country.
Aid, not grenades
Instead of sending soldiers to East Timor we should give money for social welfare. East Timor is the poorest country in the world, and many of its people can barely feed themselves. The country’s biggest problem is its high rate of population growth.
At eight births per woman, East Timor has the highest birth rate in the world, and 42% of the population is under 15 years of age. With such statistics, and when everyday life is a struggle, civil conflict is likely to continue. The best way the Australian Government can help the people of East Timor is to provide family planning aid.
– Anna Payne, Boronia
