Let the children be children
When I saw the school children marching on two occasions, it was the anger on their faces that really concerned me, as I recalled events that happened when I was in Sydney in May 1997.
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I was standing outside Sydney Town Hall, when hundreds of students in school uniforms surged onto the roadway. En mass they sat down in the street disrupting traffic, before marching onto the Prime Minister's office, burning a coffin to protest school fee changes.
Pamphlets were distributed to students and onlookers depicting Pauline Hanson as a rat with the word "vermin' and advertising future protests regarding human rights violations overseas.
Earlier that day I saw people selling anti-Pauline Hanson newspapers. I was alarmed to think this was happening in Australia, and more shocked to see in July two-thousand angry students from 60 schools across Sydney marching with signs "One Nation, One Brain Cell" and chanting "Howard, Hanson racist cowards".
Racist, sexist and homophobic, screamed the youth of Sydney while members of the 'Resistance Movement' distributed pamphlets and signed up new members.
This should make us realise that we need to vote carefully about who we elect into positions of power. I see Australian children being used to participate in protests when they are too young to understand the meaning of them.
Let children be children and let adults clean up the problems they have created.
Judith Law, Gunnedah
Mental health
I write on behalf of the not-for-profit Mental Illness Fellowship of Australia to urge readers in your area who may have issues with mental health to reach out and get the very real help that is out there.
230,000 people have schizophrenia. Together with their families, a million Australians are affected by Schizophrenia.
Psychosis is costing our society over $4 billion annually.
The reality is people with schizophrenia can and do recover. It's a myth to believe people with schizophrenia are violent. They are no more likely to be violent than anybody else.
Readers should be aware that if someone is experiencing changes in mood or rapid mood changes, unusual behaviour or they are withdrawing and isolating themselves from others, this may be an early warning sign of poor mental health.
It is shameful that the average life expectancy of people with schizophrenia in Australia right now is just 54 years old.
There is so much stigma around mental health. Research shows less than 50 per cent of people with schizophrenia are getting clinical or recovery assistance.
Our message is reach out. Readers can call our free phone number on 1800 985 944 or go to www.minetworks.org.au.
That service will aim to put readers in touch with local services that may be able to assist them.
The Mental Illness Fellowship of Australia passionately believes we need to talk about mental health more - and offer more support to people affected.
Tony Stevenson, CEO - Mental Illness Fellowship of Australia.
