Our small world

It’s sad to watch the changes that the pandemic is making to our national psyche. We used to bemoan our insularity and do everything we could to break down our isolation and improve our communication with the wider world. Suddenly in a global pandemic we’ve become grateful for the sense of security conferred by our island status: distance is no longer seen as a tyranny, but rather as a lucky protection. There are dangers when this attitude spreads to other areas, such as the government’s policy approach to dealing with climate change and with refugee resettlement. Your editorial put the problem neatly: “the cruelty of a country that works hard to pretend that there is no world beyond its shores” (“Cruel to the end”, August 21-27). Isolation is no recipe for progress, creatively, scientifically, economically or spiritually. The government must remove its selfish blinkers and learn to live in the real world.

– Jenifer Nicholls, Armadale, Vic