Perth Voice Interactive

Tongue twisters
SOME recently published references to English language have suggested that it employs more obscenities than we find in any other tongue.
This is probably true enough, excepting that so many of our obsesnities either emerged from other languages or “proper” words in old history.
Certainly, the use of obscenities is widespread in today’s Australian language, which, incidentally, but at the same time, the volume of the language seems to have shrunk.
One modern publication put the average Australian vocabulary at something over 700 words, compared to the hundreds of thousands in the English language.
So what happened? Why the growing use of the ‘F’ and ‘C’ word, and others?
There is, if you’ll permit a pun of sorts, an awful lot shit about.
Michael Jardine
Mount Lawley

Open design
I THANK the mayor for responding to my letter regarding the secret meetings of Vincent council’s design advisory committee. However, there were key elements of my letter that he didn’t comment on (Voice Mail, June 20, 2015).
My main concern is meetings of the DAC and the other advisory committees are held behind closed doors—not even the minutes are available. Is this within the spirit of the WA local government act, which is to encourage openness and transparency, and community participation in local government decision-making?
The DAC has a significant role as it can make recommendations to council about whether variations to planning policies should be granted to developers. This may mean additional dwellings, greater height or increased plot ratio—potentially significant additional profit to the developer and negative impact on adjoining residents.
The secretive approach seems out of step with a council that claims to be committed to community consultation. That is, members of the community that are going to be affected by the development should be able to attend committee meetings to express their views about proposed and developments that might be occurring next door or in their street.
Anyone who understands the decision-making process will acknowledge participation in the early stage is where meaningful input can be made. In Vincent, members of the community can only make comment at the end of this process—there is little chance of changes being made to developer’s plans at this stage.
Other local governments with similar committees have decided they should be open to members of the public. If Vincent wants to be a leader in openness and transparency—as it was in the 1990s and 2000s—it should allow the public to attend all of its advisory committee meetings and place agendas and minutes on its website. If not, the city needs to explain why.
Andrew Main
Alfonso St, North Perth

Rallying cry
I AM a 50-year-old university-educated Australian and I attended last week’s Reclaim Australia rally. I did not intend to go but had accepted a lift to the Indonesian Family Christian church service in the morning and my mate wanted to go there afterwards.
In fact, I feel sorry for the “normal” Muslims in our society who are looked down upon because of the disgusting actions and pronouncements of ISIS and militant clerics here in Australia. So, my Indonesian wife and I were interested observers at the rally.
I was pleasantly surprised by the organised range of speeches and the attitude of the convenor of the rally. He encouraged everyone to ignore the noisy anti-racism group because they were just there to incite a confrontation. He said any person with racist sentiments or nazi tattoos was not welcome at the rally. And I learnt surprising information about the accepted violent behaviours of Muslims to women and girls in their home countries.
I was disappointed by the aggressive yelling, abuse and loud music from the anti-racist group who were just there to disrupt the rally and incite violence. One of their speakers even carried a huge MWU union flag and they chanted the union solidarity theme “we are united and will never be divided” even though the union movement had nothing to do with the rally.
Your article on the Reclaim Australia rally (Voice, July 25, 2015) stated there was a notable lack of indigenous Australians amongst the Reclaimers. That is incorrect. In fact an elder made an impromptu speech in support of the rally.
The police did a great job to keep the two groups of people apart. In a free Australia people are entitled to voice their opinion and inform others without being shouted down by others who don’t support the same opinion. If they want to voice their opinion in a rally they are welcome to do so and I for one will not go there to disrupt them.
Peter
Yokine

Harmonic on high
RESPECT for peaceful and private space should be legacy of everyone — that’s us. High-rise, high-density homes are recipe for tragedies. How many developers live thus? Into the complex where I abide will soon come four new sets of residents. Will these bring harmony or mayhem?
Heavy with foreboding in light of recent experience, I find myself preparing for any eventuality.
Is this an acceptable frame of reference to lead a satisfying life?
Diogenes Small
Wellington St, Perth