A cunning plan!
SOME words of solace and comfort for those anxious and miserable Dockers fans. There is some good news!
As we all know, Ross Lyons is an excellent coach and has built our team up to be one that is hard at it like a good Freo team should be and given it the respect we love.
Not only that, but we now go to the footy with real expectations whereas before it was merely hope in our hearts.
See, what Ross is doing is recognising that last year we took off like rockets but died in the backside at the business end of the year (as did Port in 2014). So, this year his plan is to start slowly and come home strong.
And it is working perfectly so far! Isn’t it?
Geoff Calder
Carnac St, Fremantle

Suffering Sufi
I WAS appalled to read of the wilfully ignorant views of the Liberal Party candidate, Sherry Sufi, published as a front page story in the Herald last weekend (April 9, 2016).
For a man who sees “Kevin Rudd’s apology to indigenous Australians as divisive”, how can he possibly believe his own outdated and poorly researched views would instead contribute to reconciliation? I was deeply ashamed the Noongar people living in the Melville area should be subjected to propaganda of this calibre.
Contrary to Sufi’s assertion that before European settlement hunter-gatherers lacked a “surplus of food”, indigenous groups knew their land intimately and “enjoyed a varied diet rich in nutrients” (The Diet of Aboriginal People Before European Contact: http://www.nt.gov.au/health).
They did not own the land — the land owned them, and it wasn’t until they were forced to become trespassers that they lost their livelihood and had no choice but to eat European food, the likes of which negatively impacted on their health.
When Sufi quotes the Myall Creek massacre of 1838, he fails to note this was the first and last time settlers were hanged for killing indigenous people and “instead of setting a precedent that Aboriginal people could be protected under the law it hardened settlers’ resolve to use whatever means were available to clear Aboriginal people from the land” (Australian Government: Australian Heritage Database).
Sufi also fails to mention WA’s Pinjarra Massacre, led by Governor James Stirling, or the blankets deliberately infected with smallpox handed to women and children, or the countless other massacres and murders that are all but forgotten.
As an Australian citizen, I acknowledge my comfortable way of life comes in the aftermath of the destruction of a rich and ancient culture. I am not afraid to stand up and say I am sorry for the suffering of Australia’s first people, not because I feel personally responsible, but out of the same respect I would give to any human being who has suffered a terrible and irreplaceable loss.
Dr Carol Ryles
Crest Ave, Mt Pleasant

Tunnel no vision
SO the WA chamber of commerce and Industry supports the benefits of the Perth Freight Link and the newly proposed tunnel to Canning Highway? Surely that puts to rest the last arguments of those opposing the link?
Well, actually, no! It’s a bonus for the government to have the CCI’s public support, but given the new CEO was formerly Premier Barnett’s chief of staff it’s hardly a surprise.
This freight link agenda is so much more about party politics and upcoming elections than WA’s best long-term interests.
An outer harbour at Kwinana is what is needed: it’s a viable alternative, having been planned for more than 20 years. The City of Kwinana has submitted a proposal for a new harbour and freight corridors and with the right support it could match the time in finalising the new highway across the river and through to Fremantle Port.
It really is a case of “turn the road south now” and overcome all of the congestion, safety, pollution, business impacts and liveable city damage this bad freight plan involves. If more than $2 billion is spent on the freight link, a budget for the outer harbour will fade into the never-never. Then the Commonwealth’s forecast tripling of current container volume from 0.75 million a year to more than two million a year by 2031/32 will become Perth’s sad road legacy.  But by then, the Barnett government will be long-gone and home-free.
Sue Booth
Angwin St, East Fremantle

People like us
TO those people who wrote into the Herald to complain about the City of Fremantle considering ending any contracts with companies which profit from abusing and torturing refugees (Herald, February 27, 2016) you really need to educate yourselves because you have clearly been brainwashed.
What we do to refugees in this country is wrong, immoral and unethical. This is not my opinion, it is fact.
The Australian government paid $1.2 billion to Transfield Services/Wilson security (in the financial year June 2014 ) to “manage” these two offshore detention centres and Christmas Island. On Transfield’s watch, men women and children are being raped. The rapists are not prosecuted, so great is the power differential between the imprisoned refugees and their tormentors. The only way you can let this fact pass without an uproar is when and if you don t see refugees as people like you and me.
It is wrong to incarcerate people who have committed no crime. It is even more wrong to treat people who have lived though hell, who have repeatedly had their lives threatened, people who have been tortured and have been persecuted from whoa to go in their homelands because of their ethnicity…a la the Tamil people in Sri Lanka, the Hazara people in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Rohingyan people in Burma etc.
I personally know many refugees: I know their stories of hell and I know how much they wish to live peacefully in their homelands and how they miss the beauty and rich culture of their home. They fled for their lives, leaving behind everything they know and love, not to shop at David Jones, but to live and not die at the hands of their persecutors.
Every human rights organisation and the UN has condemned Australia’s treatment of refguees. Their comments are not opinion – they are based on international law and international treaties.
So the City of Fremantle giving its money to a multinational that is taking part in this horror is not OK. I will repeat it — we are talking about men, women and children being raped and assaulted whilst in the “care” of these multinationals that care only about profit.
It is unconscionable what we are doing to refugees in this country.  Bravo to Fremantle for preparing to take a stand.
Andrea Callaghan
Collick St, Hilton

Out of sight…
A FEW remarks are in order about the article “Plastic not fantastic” (Herald, April 9, 2016).
Most sensible Western Australians would agree that air-conditioning makes life more pleasant in our sweltering summer weather.
As a bed-and-breakfast business, the former Tarantella nightclub building might well be catering to visitors to this state, not all of whom will relish our summer temperatures.
The new pipes are in a side alleyway, not on the charming facade of this old building. Anyone walking past would not even notice them. Those who want photographs would be more concerned with the frontage, not the service alleyways. The heritage debate loses credibility when unreasonable complaints occur.
Pauline Farley
Studley Rd, Attadale

A taxing thought
CONGRATULATIONS on your April Fool’s front page prank (“Freo traffic tax,” April 1, 2016).
It initially had me thinking how progressive our council is for trying new approaches to managing traffic in the CBD. A pinch and a punch.
The irony though is that in the same edition the Herald reported a cyclist going under the wheels of a 4WD on South Terrace, published a letter from a mum despairing at the lack of safety for her kids on bikes, and reported Corina Abraham’s story about how, despite life-threatening health issues, she is fighting to stop Roe 8 from damaging Whadjuk Noongar heritage.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a complete issue of the Herald without a letter of complaint about how the lack of parking in Fremantle means “we’ll all be rooned”.
But the utopian or dystopian vision of the Herald’s April Fool’s prank (depending on your perspective) is possibly trumped by what autonomous car technology will deliver for real in the next decade or so.
Telstra published a report last year that says the first autonomous cars will be on roads in Australia in four years’ time and 20 years after that all cars will be able to drive autonomously. Uber, Apple, Google and BMW, among others, are investing many billions in the technology as the race for a very big prize heats up.
So what? Well, the report says that with these cars governments can reduce road infrastructure spending by billions of dollars. So, it is time to fundamentally rethink the current approach to infrastructure planning. Locally, it means we must take seriously a realistic Roe 8 scenario (if it is approved) where it is obsolete before it is completed, with or without a new port, destroys a wetland for no reason and the taxpayer is left to pay for the lot as new efficient freight movement capability shuns Roe 8 altogether.
Other reports on the subject suggest that autonomous cars will drive a rational decision among consumers in which car ownership is the exception not the norm. It will be cheaper and more convenient to text for a car, even for long-haul trips (sleeping berths included in custom-designed vehicles for those trips).
Once again, the local implication is the new norm in a not-too distant future is electric cars gliding up South Terrace, dropping passengers right outside their preferred doors, before zipping silently way, sans emissions. Zero parking needed.
A big problem for Freo in that very real scenario will be what to do with all those never-used car bays. Bike lanes perhaps? Imagine then all those $10 vouchers flying about for cyclists, but with no parking fees nor fines to bankroll the scheme.
John Litchfield
Glyde St, East Fremantle

Pop the bubble
ALL residents are suffering from carrying the social cost of the state government’s preference for trucks rather than trains to move containers. That is why we need something better than Dean Nalder’s thought-bubble transport planning.
Spending $2 billion on a road-train freeway that doesn’t even reach the port would do more than just congest Leach Highway!  The Perth Freight Link is totally unnecessary because much cheaper, sustainable alternatives are available. That is why the region is festooned with placards, posters, banners and stickers demonstrating the widely felt and deeply felt opposition.
Barry Healy
Holland St, Fremantle

History rewritten
IS Sherry Sufi wanting to re-write Australian history by claiming there was no invasion of the Aboriginal people by Europeans? (“Not an invasion,” Herald, April 9, 2016).
The first Governor, Arthur Phillip, ordered his soldiers to shoot Aboriginal people to keep them from British settlements. The general conflict and claiming of land caused a battle for survival that, in some respects, still continues today.
Perhaps Mr Sufi also subscribes to the theory of terra nullius. The British, instead of admitting they were invading land that belonged to Aboriginal people, acted as if they had come across and settled an empty land.
Mr Sufi’s extraordinary claim comes on the 100th anniversary of the Easter rising of Irish men and women who fought the 700-year rule over their country by what I would call British invaders.
Aboriginal people have lived in Australia for around 40,000 years. They are members of an ancient and proud culture who, in my opinion, have been treated as second-class citizens for the past 238 years.
In this year’s federal election, I hope Mr Sufi finishes in the same spot (last) as he did when he contested a seat on Cockburn council.
Colin Svanberg
John St, Cottesloe

What’s the drill?
AFTER reading of the issues caused by just a few events at the new J Shed venue, I feel great sadness the Artillery Drill Hall remains empty.
I believe it would bring more culture to the city having 4-5 events per week, as originally proposed, rather than one larger event every three weeks.
Such a perfect venue space with parking and easy access! With the Fly having vacated more than a year ago, I wonder how long it will take to bring the space to life as intended and promised by Sunset Events.
Janie Davidson
Fothergill St, Fremantle