The Australian government will take heart from Ben Doherty’s enthusiastic account of a New South Wales refugee resettlement programme (30 June). A senior bureaucrat promotes the nation’s acceptance of more than 500,000 refugees since the second world war (that’s 82 years). Australia – a wealthy country – has benefited handsomely from their labour.
No mention of the shamefully small numbers of recently displaced Syrians settled and the long waiting times for even these lucky few. No mention of the bipartisan policy of indefinite detention of 821 refugees on Manus Island. Well, they are “free to leave” their prison – just not the island. Good news stories such as the programme in western Sydney should at the very least be placed in this context.
Margaret Jacobs
Aireys Inlet, Victoria, Australia
• Ben Doherty is an excellent journalist. But the good news story on Australia’s “can do” capital for refugees is not the one that needs to be told. The one that the world needs to know about is of defenceless people, refugees, human beings, being held hostage for years on the prison islands of Manus (part of Papua New Guinea) and Nauru, by the Australian government. That is apart from the thousands of asylum seekers being held in camps around Australia for months and years.
It is not easily to reconcile this with most people’s image of Australia as a friendly, sunny country. But it is true. Please do not take my word for it. Please check it with Amnesty International or the UN.
Please help us by shaming Australia, by making this story known.
Stephen Langford
Paddington, NSW, Australia
Britain and Brexit
A year ago following Brexit, I contacted my adult daughters in London recalling the anxious push, decades earlier, to gain entry to Europe. Little wonder, therefore, my fervent support for Jonathan Freedland’s rhetorical proposition, Can Brexit be stopped (30 June)?
The British electorate, a year ago, heeded false prophets (Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson) and false premises (an extra weekly £350m to the NHS). What is now clear is that as Britain leaves, Britain loses; from an already eroded sterling, lost trade, lost respect from Ireland and the Europeans, a potential Scottish succession, and geopolitical isolation.
Since the wafer-thin Brexit result a year ago not a step has been concluded, yet Britain is already significantly poorer and bereft. Then came last month’s spot-on general election. The voters, importantly younger voters, rallied to the cause.
Poleaxe hubris, pally-up to Merkel, Macron and Tusk, get Britain back on track, exit Brexit.
Robert Riddell
Helensville, New Zealand
• In your 9 June cover story, How US became a rogue state, Joseph Stiglitz says: “Donald Trump has thrown a hand grenade into the global economic architecture that was so painstakingly constructed in the years after the end of the second world war.”
Consider what the British government and her two prime ministers David Cameron and Theresa May have done. They have thrown a time bomb into the European Union, so painstakingly constructed in the years after the end of the second world war, which resulted in the deaths of millions of young people. Does this make Great Britain a “rogue state”?
SH Jayasena
Colombo, Sri Lanka
Trophy hunting must end
If the only value of African wildlife is as a boutique economic commodity for sale to wealthy humans, then Donald Trump doesn’t seem so much an aberration (Rewilding comes with a condition, 30 June). When you consider that the market for big-game hunting rests solely on a willingness to pay serious money on the gratification of killing the largest specimens of rare wild animals from a safe distance, it is clear that homo sapiens have more pressing problems than a love of lethal recreation.
After serious international lobbying, China has finally bowed to international moral and environmental pressure by curbing its ivory market. The world now needs to legislate to make trophy hunting too onerous for both “sportsmen” and the bent politicians in backward states who facilitate the industry.
John Hayward
Weegena, Tasmania, Australia
Briefly
• With reference to the article How Corbyn changed the rules of British politics (30 June), Gary Younge built a formidable retelling of the election with his observations at Harrow West. I echo his view that we have seen a narrow retraction from pundits who expected a different result. The brunt of austerity spread beyond the poorest and public sector workers. Voters followed their instincts to push for political change, no matter how remote that possibility seemed.
Stephen Banks
Birmingham, UK
• Your Eyewitnessed photo of French bus drivers in skirts (30 June) is similar to recent photos of English schoolboys also denied permission to wear shorts in hot weather and who engaged in protest. What is it that dictates such ridiculous dress codes? Going back over 50 years, boys, albeit below a certain age, were compelled to wear shorts to school. Nowadays boys, albeit above a certain age, are forbidden to wear shorts even on blisteringly hot days.
Maria Carter
Bedford, UK
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