In Tom Wilson's article "NSW gays oppose witch hunt", GLW, June 5, there is a major inaccuracy and presumption of a supposed homogeneity of gay and lesbian opinion about the Royal Commission and its supposed homophobia. Most certainly, gay men and lesbian feminists fighting sexual assault are concerned about John Marsden who has been seriously challenged about pedophile activity and are questioning his influential links with solicitors such as Richard Cobden and ownership of the gay paper the Sydney Star Observer which supports his cause. Rationally, just because a man is openly gay does not mean that he is not a pedophile. There is tendency within the gay community to exonerate anyone simply because they are out.
The Royal Commission is not homophobic. As an openly gay man and a survivor of organised pedophile activity, I have been to the Royal Commission to give testimony and have sat in on many occasions. In particular, Assisting Counsel Paddy Bergin has been very supportive of my gayness and has specifically criticised homophobic attitudes of police. For example in an interview with ex-Detective Wells, 23rd May, she condemns his mention of a person's homosexuality when he should have described his criminal behaviour as a pedophile. Bergin is also not concerned about the legal age of consenting sex. She is concerned about young people being abused and their perpetrators not charged. Justice Wood began the inquiry into police corruption and pedophilia emphasising that there will be no homophobia and this has been strictly observed.
Gays and lesbians are doing ourselves a disservice by reacting to previous and present gay hatred to see the commission as homophobic. I also particularly hope the GLW seriously questions its political framework around class and homosexuality. There are many wealthy gay men (open and closed) exploiting working class gay men forced into prostitution.
John Stewart
Wollongong
Port Macquarie hospital
In the Port Macquarie News of 31.5.96 Ms Wendy Machin MP and the base hospital chief executive Mrs Marie Calwell claim that the repayments for Port Macquarie Base Hospital (PMBH) are no different to a normal home mortgage.
What an insult to the intelligence of the people in the Hastings district to expect us to believe that it is normal business to pay off your home mortgage for 20 years and still not be entitled to the deeds and home unless you purchase it again.
I feel that this claim does nothing for either of these ladies' integrity.
"The repayments by the New South Wales Government [through our taxes] for PMBH, the total amount to be paid will be $146.6 million over the 20-year contract. This does not include the NSW Health Department payment for a service charge for each public patient. The fee being equal to the top cover private hospital insurance rebate ($28.1 million in 94-95, 20% to 30% higher than health services at comparable public base hospital" — quote from Port Macquarie News 31.5.96.) At the end of this 20-year term, the hospital, the hospital land and the hospital licence is to be handed over to Health Care Australia (Mayne Nickless). (Financial Review 30.5.96.)
Seems to me, it was not all bad management by the Greiner Government, but worse!
Were there some parliamentarians with a pecuniary interest?
Heather Davies
Port Macquarie NSW
Blue Mountains action
Re Mr Barry Morris, former Liberal State member for the Blue Mountains, and his death threats to John Pascoe. The media say the issue was a scuffle at the opening of the Leura bridge.
The issue was the sale of Paul Sorenson's landscape garden nursery, in Leura, to build 172 home units. Paul Sorenson was world famous. The nursery was bought by a Liberal consortium. The gardens were bulldozed. Protests began. John Pascoe lived next door, and protested.
The gardens were in the water catchment area for the Valley of the Waters, one of the Blue Mountains' wonders of the world. So "hot" was this decision that, in a similar area in Epping, only 70 units had been approved. The plan said the "heritage component" of the gardens would be six black and white photos in the admin block.
Mr Morris stood to gain several millions of dollars from this vandalism. This is why he was so angry with John Pascoe, and made death threats.
The Blue Mountains Council mayor, Mr Ralph Williams, was the consulting engineer for the project. Whom did he consult? What did he engineer?
As the bulldozers clanked and whined in the dust of Paul Sorenson's memory, a Danish author arrived to launch Paul's biography.
Community protests finally stopped the "development".
Denis Kevans
Wentworth Falls NSW
Raymond Williams
I share Phil Shannon's enthusiasm for the work of Raymond Williams (GLW 234) and second his call that he should be studied by those who seek to advance the project of cultural, and political, revolution. Indeed, it must be said that Williams did a better job comprehending the cultural dimension of the struggle for human emancipation than many Marxists (or so they called themselves).
However, the ready stereotyping with which he treated the large body of Marxist cultural theory seems to me quite unwarranted. The Marxist tradition is a rich and various one which is currently being obscured by post modernist discourse and an easy reliance on the idealist excesses of the Frankfurt School — a school whose armchair theorists became the darlings of many of Williams' colleagues in the New Left Review.
I think Williams rises above this mumbo jumbo because he approaches culture so keenly as an exercise in history. His Culture and Society is sure to enrich any reader's comprehension of where our ideas come from. Unfortunately, like so many cultural theorists — especially the ones who wallow in their modernity and even call (or once called) themselves Marxist — Williams elevates theory above the realpolitik of going all out to change society. As someone once observed: academics have interpreted the world in various ways; the point is, however, to change it. And ideas alone can't do that.
Dave Riley
Northgate Qld