The importance of libraries
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Matt GoldingCredit: .
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Importance of libraries
The squabbling between the City of Greater Geelong Council and the Geelong Regional Library Corporation regarding funding for library services is a warning for all library users (″Libraries spared axe, but hours cut″, 21/5).
We must never lose sight of the importance of libraries in regard to their critical tangential benefits. They are: safe spaces for students whose families cannot afford out of school care, for people seeking respite from domestic violence and for the homeless and for overwhelmed caregivers.
They provide access to airconditioned spaces and to the internet for those who cannot afford home internet without which the marginalised are further marginalised.
Library staff provide a cheery welcome and presence and may keep someone safe from harm in a vulnerable moment. This cannot be measured in dollar terms. Cuts to library budgets may result in extra expenditure being required in other budget areas, for example, those related to social services such as health and wellbeing. Fund libraries and value them commensurate with the range of social, cultural and emotional capital they provide.
Christine Schulz, Lara
Soul of a place
It is quite unbelievable that Geelong West Library is on the death list. Geelong West is one of the most vibrant suburbs in the city. Removing its library would be like removing the soul of this place.
Margaret Skeen, Pt Lonsdale
At home with the blues
As a staunch Carlton supporter I expect no sympathy for the club’s plight from the footy masses , but I have now been through all the stages of grief and have arrived, somewhat earlier than expected at “acceptance”. I can now relax and watch, and support, with no expectations whatsoever of where the year might go. There is a type of zen-like bliss in just letting go. My sympathy is for some great players who must now endure another stagnant year without finals, though I fear the inevitable nuclear implosion that will occur at the club, with the predictability of the seasons, in this oft-repeated scenario.
Mark Morrison, Kew
New ways to lose
Fans are very happy that the AFL has scheduled so many prime-time games featuring Carlton this year. Everyone can enjoy them finding new and exciting ways to lose the unlosable.
Ken Richards, Elwood
Test of the nation
Some commentators have noted the hardening of attitudes among some of those who were previously undecided in relation to the Voice. Disturbingly, Peter Dutton’s critique, in invoking fears of race division due to the Voice proposal, is in itself inciting those Australians for whom Indigenous requests for a representative ″voice″ are being framed as, to put it bluntly, historically comparable to ″uppity″ US Southern blacks seeking civil rights in the 1960s.
The vicious tropes on line attest to this shift. It is not hyperbole now to argue that the Voice is morphing into a real test in 2023 of how far Australia has advanced or regressed in relation to racial attitudes.
Constitutional nitpicking is working in tandem with a nasty racist undercurrent to nobble the noble sentiments of the Uluru Statement from the Heart.
Jon McMillan, Mount Eliza
A step forwards
Critics of the Voice who claim that one group will have privilege over others in society are overlooking the salient point that this ″privileged″ group consists of the descendants of the original inhabitants of this country who were not even counted in Australia’s population until the 1967 referendum corrected that injustice.
The date January 26, 1788 certainly marked the day the universe changed for the Indigenous population.
From 1788 the Indigenous people, clearly, never have been a privileged group as they were driven off their land by the pioneers and treated as outcasts in their own country. They have shown remarkable patience in pressing their claims for justice.
The Voice represents a very small step in this direction and is well overdue.
Marcia Roche, Mill Park
Change the law
I turn 80 this year and I only have one fear about growing old.
Although I have made a Medical Advanced Care Plan which includes an assisted dying clause, I find that this wish is impossible to fulfil if I develop dementia.
Thank you Judith Aronovitch (“When dementia takes hold, who has final say on life and death?“, 21/5) for the description of your mother’s death.
If there was ever a case for a change in the law this is it.
Why would one’s wishes made before dementia not be valid?
Maggie Cross, Kew
ABC needs a ‘Voice’
After reading ″A network divided″ (27/5) about the ABC I believe the organisation needs to appoint its own Indigenous Voice that its executive must consult as an example to all media in Australia. This should be enshrined in the ABC’s charter.
Bruce Hart,
Bittern
Nuclear fears
Concern for the expansion of China is, I am sure, justified, but in my view dwindles into insignificance beside the news that Vladimir Putin is training combatants in the handling of nuclear weapons (″Nuclear arms moved to Belarus″, 27/5). This is terrifying news. The other news article of Russian revolution ″not impossible″ gives faint hope.
Jan Dwyer, Rosebud
Short memories
People were happy to accept all the financial assistance from the state government when the pandemic was causing havoc to the economy. Now it’s time to pay back that debt. We should be grateful. Budgets are not handouts. Short memories indeed.
Ian Clemens, Flora Hill
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