No trouble in the ranks at the Tasmanian Greens

Daniel Patman, Tasmanian Greens campaign director, writes: Re. “Tips and rumours” (Friday). The writer, regarding the Tasmanian Greens in Crikey, is not reading emails or speaking to colleagues, if indeed they are a branch officer. The party has already held its candidate debrief for the federal election, most branches have had local debriefs and a date is set for the full day debrief and analysis for all members involved in the campaign. National research regarding our election campaign has been commissioned as per usual and Tasmania is a full participant in it.

Ben Spies-Butcher, co-convener of the Australian Greens, writes: The Greens are in the middle of our regular election review. [On the weekend] representatives from every state and our MPs met to review our campaign. We will be discussing proposals to take to our members at our national conference in November. We go into the next parliament with a record number of MPs, but we also know we need to think carefully about what went right, and wrong, and how we can improve. Hearing from our members and supporters is an important part of us improving. I know our Tasmanian colleagues and [Greens Leader] Christine Milne welcome it too.

On Good Weekend‘s profile of Warren Mundine

Dylan Taylor writes: Re. “How deep to dig? Good Weekend‘s Mundine profile sparks debate” (Friday). Stuart Rintoul’s piece did not answer the main question — what did Mundine mean by saying  his former partner was “too Aboriginal”? Considering he is going to advise the PM on “Aboriginal advancement” it would be interesting to know what he meant. How much “Aboriginal” is too much?

Recognising social disadvantage when sentencing offenders

Peter Matters writes: Re. “If courts consider disadvantage, will Aboriginal offenders get a fair break?” (Friday). I suspect the High Court took Bugmy’s deprived background into consideration because all of us as a community are responsible for the social neglect resulting in the accused’s deprivation. The ‘Laura Norder’ mantra of politicians is a very expensive appeal to our ignorance and intolerance. In spite of recent rises, we still pay social workers grossly inadequate wages and we therefore grossly overwork them. If we paid them the wages they deserve and gave them better facilities to do their work properly, they would be able to rescue the majority of deprived kids before they fell through the safety net and thereby would be saving the tax payer a considerable multiple of the cost in court and prison expenses compared to the social workers’ own costs to the taxpayer.