A task for Titans

IT IS now almost unwatchable. The ultimate cliffhanger. But the financial crisis is also a fascinating display of human psychology and the catastrophic consequences of mistrust. I was struck by yesterday's quote from WJB Capital Group spokesman Scott Fullman in response to the co-ordinated rate cut by seven central banks: "A co-ordinated effort is showing that everybody out there is trying to fight this thing, and that should bring some confidence back to the market."

Read that again. Fight this thing. There is a very real sense that the force behind the decimation of markets is a living being a creeping organic mass with a will of its own. The "thing" that is wreaking havoc is fairly pedestrian: a lack of trust and an over-abundance of fear.

The events that have led to this are now known. Speculation, inflated property prices, a chronic failure to properly gauge debt risks. Greed. What remains unknown is whether global governments and central banks have the faith of market participants and their citizens.

Since at least the Cold War, citizens of the West have grown to perceive governments merely as service providers collectors of taxes and uneven distributors of wealth. In an instant, governments have been recast as defenders of economies and owners of enterprises previously sloughed off. They must quickly gain the confidence of markets and citizens in these new roles.

It is time not only to rethink regulation. It is time to reconsider the role of government in a new global economy. It will be important to do this as our own Federal Government prepares to revitalise our economy through the development of significant infrastructure. I hope that we are equal to the task.

Laura Smyth, Melbourne

A job for a monkey

WHEN bank customers have questioned the obscenely high salaries paid to CEOs and other senior bank officials over the past decade we have always been answered by the old cliche that if you pay peanuts you get monkeys. The world-wide collapse of the banking system suggests we have had monkeys in charge of most of the world's banks despite not paying peanuts. The junk loans that brought down the American banks and the involvement of Australian banks in poor American loans suggests that these were very greedy and not very competent monkeys.

People all over the capitalist world will lose jobs, homes and small businesses as a result of the bank failures, but I bet none of the highly paid monkeys will be offering to repay their unjustified salaries to bank customers or even bank shareholders.

Dave Nadel, Ascot Vale

Off with their heads

WATCHING the global financial system meltdown is bad enough but no one is admitting that it's because of the rampant free-market philosophy of Western democracies and the policy of "greed is good". Is anyone advocating a return to regulated financial markets? Do the major political parties anywhere in the world intend to govern for the people that elected them rather than corporations? Will the perpetrators of this disaster be punished or will toadying politicians just smile and hand them more money - our money?

Before the French Revolution, France was brought to the verge of bankruptcy and a popular uprising saw the ruling class guillotined. It would be too much to hope that the idiots that caused this mess should suffer the same consequence but we need to chop the head off the current financial regulatory system and bring back common sense. I see no signs that it will happen.

Paul Worden, Portland

Tabcorp responds

THE story "Gaming giant accused of bid to pay off rival" (The Age, 9/10) may leave readers with the impression that Tabcorp has been involved in anti-competitive conduct in its dealings with Clubs Victoria. The article is based on allegations in a statement of claim issued by Clubs Victoria against its former president, Leon Wiegard, and other parties.

Tabcorp is not a party to the proceedings and is unable to comment on the matters in issue between the parties or their motives. However, the article and the statement of claim seriously misrepresent certain arrangements that Tabcorp proposed to Clubs Victoria earlier this year.

Tabcorp has a range of commercial arrangements with various representative bodies. In particular, it has had long-standing sponsorship arrangements with Clubs Victoria, which it proposed earlier this year to extend for a 10-year period. Tabcorp's proposal did not require Clubs Victoria to refrain from participating in the bidding process for gaming licences.

Tabcorp strongly rejects any suggestion that it has contravened the Trade Practices Act or acted improperly in any way.

Elmer Funke Kupper, CEO, Tabcorp Holdings Ltd, Melbourne

It's a gamble

DOES interfering in a tender bid make Tabcorp executives "fit and proper" persons (The Age, 9/10)? Not in my opinion! Will the Victorian Commission for Gambling Regulation take away Tabcorp's licence if it is eventually proven that its people acted in a manner that - if not illegal - is certainly not the actions of fit and proper persons? We can only dream!

For businesses that complain long, loud and often about how "heavily regulated" they are, gaming machine operators seem to get away with actions that no other businesses could.

Sue Pinkerton, president, Duty of Care Inc, problem gambling research consultant, Para Hills, SA

My right to know

AS A 26-year-old donor-conceived person I am very concerned about the hurried passing of the Assisted Reproductive Technologies Bill (2008) without proper insight into the consequences. The bill will not amend birth certificates to reflect the truth about a donor-conceived person's genetic origins, as is done for every other Victorian.

The bill also does not address issues for donor-conceived people such as myself, who were born prior to legislation, whose rightful information about their heritage remains locked up and only accessible to a privileged few.

I have no problem with gay and lesbian people raising children. My problem is that the Victorian Law Reform Commission was only concerned with the wants and so-called rights of adults to have children. Nowhere in the terms of reference was there mention of improving the already flawed legislation to make all donor-conceived people equal.

This is not good enough and if this legislation is passed as it is, we will be failing children born through donor conception.

Narelle Grech, Brunswick West

Trust a bank

I'VE just received my credit card statement. Westpac has clawed back 10 days of credit, requiring payment of the account within 15 days rather than the previous 25. As well as reducing its borrowing costs, it will of course receive the added bonus of millions of dollars of penalty fees as people pay late, not realising the terms of their accounts have changed. And their CEOs will pocket the cash. Be warned!

Chris Gymer, Ivanhoe East

The art of innocence

AS the so-called scandal about Bill Henson's pictures took place in Australia in May 2007, I was at Vienna's Museum of Modern Art looking at the work of the Austrian painter Egon Schiele, who in 1910 was prosecuted by the authorities for "violations of decency and morality" as he also portrayed children in what could be interpreted as an erotic manner. And what fantastic paintings they are.

The hysteria of society's moral standards, which today are both oversexed and totally repressed, targets the artist who by definition has a duty to explore all facets of human behaviour. The puritan overreaction to the depiction of partly clothed children is misguided and misdirected, as once again, the media are having a field day stirring up the so-called scandal while various politicians add their uninformed and populist comments.

Bill Henson is a great contemporary artist, as Schiele was in 1910. I, myself, will continue to be awed by the haunting beauty of their work.

Karen Standke, artist, Richmond

Principle, not profit

COULD I gently point out to Ciara Redmond (Letters, 9/10) that the difference between school children being scouted for a Blood Bank ad and being scouted by Bill Henson for (potentially) nude photography is that the former is in aid of the public good, whereas the second is for the personal profit of Bill Henson.

If we allow every Tom, Dick or Harry into schools to select children to use for whatever personal profit scheme they might dream up, there will be precious little time left for education. Hardly what many parents have in mind when they hand their children over, compulsorily, to the care of the state, to be educated.

Don Gillies, Canterbury

Paying for it

KENNETH Davidson (Comment & Debate, 9/10) could have included Australia's foreign debt ($700 billion) in his analysis. The interest on this, at $80billion this year, is four times the budget surplus our boffins have put so much store in.

Frank Hainsworth, Gold Coast

Canary calling

JANE Goodall's assessment of our planet as a mess is chillingly correct! Even for people not interested in the planet's fauna and flora, the loss of so many species has grave implications for our future. Even iconic and emblem species such as the northern hairy-nosed wombat and the Tasmanian devil are going down the extinction trail.

Our biodiversity is a system where all the species interact and co-depend. The fact that they are dying, even in their own habitat, is the canary in the coalmine. Our planet as we know it is dying, too. There are too many stresses to keep our ecology working. Climate change is more than just regulating greenhouse gas emissions. It is also about maintaining a functioning ecosystem that supports all life.

Vivienne Ortega, Heidelberg Heights

Singing out of tune

RICHARD Hickox's unfortunate letter (The Age, 6/10) concerning the great Australian bass Bruce Martin cannot be allowed to go unchallenged. The attitude in his letter is one that many of Australia's finest singers and conductors are daily confronted with when they try to find a performing place in their own country in what is supposedly our own national company.

My experiences with Opera Australia are simple and unsavoury. Having conducted 150 different operas and making a goodly contribution to opera in Melbourne, after the merger, I was advised by general manager Adrian Collette that I would be leaving Opera Australia in 2001, and since that time there has not been one phone call offering any form of work.

As an experienced and dedicated Australian, my treatment pales in comparison to what the local singers receive from the company and I strongly protest against the climate of nepotism and artistic favouritism that reigns within Opera Australia. Being in receipt of enormous amounts of federal funds, this company is artistically and administratively out of control and I call for immediate government intervention into its entire activities.

Professor Richard Divall, Parkville

Opera inquiry call PAGE 15

Water solutions

THE article by Dr David Jones (Comment & Debate, 7/10) highlights the foolishness of the plans of the Brumby Government and the Opposition to ensure Melbourne's future water supplies. There's not much point in pumping water out of rivers that are drying up, nor in damming them.

We don't have to move to the Government's horror scenario of recycling sewage for drinking, which would require the treated effluent to be pumped uphill to the existing storages anyway, but it's time we undertook serious local recycling of water and harvesting of storm water. Both these strategies could be used to green Melbourne's parks, playing fields and household gardens, and to revive the Yarra. Low-tech, local action could save for domestic use millions of litres of water from the dams we already have.

Bob Morrow, Oakleigh South

Battling for bikes

EACH year the number of people choosing to regularly ride a bike into the city increases by the thousands. Unfortunately, it appears nothing is being done to manage the increasing interactions between riders and other road users on even one of Melbourne's busiest routes, St Kilda Road.

Only a short time after a fatality on Swanston Street, we saw three or four tour buses at a time parked directly over bike lanes outside the Arts Centre. This means riders are forced to move onto traffic lanes, directly into bottleneck points where cars and buses are competing for space.

St Kilda Road has been designed to have a modest, dedicated bike lane. Time and again this lane becomes unavailable for that use as others take over. How many more accidents will go ignored before action is taken to implement proper safety for bike riding? Melbourne's growing number of bike riders deserve to have the little existing infrastructure properly maintained.

Callum Cheyne, Elsternwick