A waste of money
In response to protests about refugee children being returned to Nauru, some people suggest Australia's needy should be our first priority.
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These responses are usually linked to where our money should be spent. After a lifetime of concern about disadvantage in Australia, I believe we can better address both needs. According to the National Commission of Audit, it costs $400,000 per detainee per year on Manus and Nauru.
Detention centres onshore cost $239,000 per detainee per year. Community detention costs approximately $40,000 per person per year.
The difference then between keeping one child in the community in Australia and sending him or her to Nauru is $399,960 per year. Multiply this figure by 72 children.
What or who else could this saving be spent on?
Di O'Neil, Bendigo
Premier shows compassion
Bravo to Premier Daniel Andrews for making the offer to the Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, to accept refugees due to be returned to Nauru in Victoria.
Unlike his federal Labor colleagues, the Premier - like so many Victorians - would appear to be guided by a strong sense of compassion and morality.
No compassionate or moral person could possibly send a baby or child, and their parents, back to the horror that is Nauru.
Christina Hill, Woodend
Bendigo displays heart
How heartwarming it is to see the groundswell of compassion for those 267 people who came to Australia asking for help and who instead met further persecution.
Sick and injured, in many cases as a direct result of the appalling conditions on Nauru, they were brought to Australia for treatment and now await return to that dreadful place. Men, women, children, tiny babies. Some of them born in Australia.
Conditions for detention of people seeking asylum have been deliberately made so hellish and soul-destroying that people fleeing war zones or torture are supposed to decide they are better off staying where they are rather than facing the horrors that could await them if they come to Australia. Yet there is a clear alternative.
We need to fund UN assessment centres in Indonesia and Malaysia to process claims quickly so that people no longer feel they have no choice but to get on a boat. But first, we need to get children and their parents out of detention.
Australians are increasingly making it clear they have had enough of the brutality of our off-shore detention centres and of the international shame and UN condemnation they bring down on us. Not to mention the billion dollars a year they cost.
I was proud and uplifted to be part of a great crowd of Bendigo people demonstrating at Rosalind Park on Monday night.
We were from all age groups, all walks of life but united by a love for our fellow human beings who suffer and an indignation at their cruel treatment by our government.
The government will have to respond eventually to what is fast becoming mainstream horror and indignation at their shameful policies.
Rosemary Glaisher, Greens candidate, Bendigo
Discovery donation leaves a bad taste
Congratulations to the Discovery Science and Technology Centre on its partnership with Amicus to make the centre more inclusive. Such an important tourist attraction to our city should be enjoyed by everyone who chooses to visit it.
Just a shame that the funds used in the development are from gaming machines. The same gaming machines that are expected to strip in excess of $50m from our community this financial year.
A feel good story that leaves a bad taste in your mouth.