POLICY MADNESS
Dear Editor,
What will it take for our city-based, ideologically-driven politicians to wake up and understand the damage they are inflicting on Australian agriculture?
One would think if a leading Australian agriculture investor wants ‘out’ from the industry, stating “Labor and the Greens are hellbent on destroying Australian agriculture”, our politicians would take notice. But that’s unlikely.
Chris Corrigan has been a major player in the sector for many years. However, referring in particular to water buybacks which are destroying food producing communities for little or no gain, he says “you’re fighting constantly against people who want to destroy Australia’s agricultural capacity”.
Talking specifically about water buybacks, Corrigan says the policy is a greater threat to Australian agriculture than Donald Trump’s 10 per cent tariffs and buybacks are “a bit hard to understand for anyone with a commercial brain”.
He describes the buybacks as “insanity” and “it’s ridiculous; there’s no logic to it”.
Yet our Federal Government, supported by the Greens and Teals, barges ahead with water buybacks despite all the advice that they are the laziest and worst form of water recovery due to the taxpayer cost and the destruction of farms and rural communities.
During this election campaign, I urge everyone concerned about cost of living and the price of food at your supermarket to think about the future ramifications of water buybacks. This, and other anti-agriculture policies, are impacting the ability of our farmers to grow clean, green Aussie food. If we continue with this irrational, ideological approach the price of your food will continue to spiral, and despite what some politicians try and tell you, there will be little or no environmental benefit.
Yours faithfully
Shelley Scoullar
Speak Up Campaign Chair
LABOR’S LEGACY AND THE CONSERVATIVE LIE
According to Member for Nicholls, Sam Birrell (Adviser, 2/4), ‘Labor has the wrong priorities with wasteful and reckless spending keeping inflation and interest rates higher for longer.’ This rant, which is totally unsupported by any rational evidence whatsoever, is part of the conservative lie repeated ad nauseum election after election since the Great Depression that conservatives are the better economic managers.
As Ross Gittens, chief economics reporter for the Age wrote in an opinion piece last Wednesday, Peter Dutton’s recent silly question – are you better off today than three years ago? – ‘is seductive to people who don’t follow politics and the economy and don’t want to use their grey matter’.
All rich economies, he noted, ‘suffered the same inflation surge we did and responded with higher interest rates, and most suffered rising unemployment and even … a recession. But not us’. (Emphasis added.) Gittens subsequently made the following observation: ‘Our employment rate is higher than it’s ever been. Our rate of unemployment is still almost the lowest it’s been in 50 years. This has happened because the Albanese government and the Reserve Bank agreed to get inflation down without a recession.’
At this point, I might remind your readers that the Rudd Labor government was commended by the OECD for providing one of the world’s best economic responses to the GFC, and that our modern economy is owed to the economic reforms of the Hawke and Keating Labor governments.
In 1974, I became Australia’s (then) youngest ever Federal candidate, when I stood for Labor for the seat of Murray (now Nicholls). I heard the conservative economic credentials lie then. Later, I researched a doctorate in Australian political history, and can attest to the same lie throughout history. Birrell’s and Dutton’s uneconomic rants prove nothing has changed. The lie is alive and well.
Dr Dennis Dodd
Shepparton
CITIZEN’S SOLUTION TO HOUSING CRISIS
To whom it may concern,
I have ideas to solve the housing crisis in all of Australia. I think in a nice country like ours it is appalling the way people live in a tent by rivers, sleep on streets and other areas, and local and federal governments don’t seem to see what’s happening.
I have done some research and in Tatura, for example, there were 18 units being built of one, two and three bedrooms belonging to Beyond Housing. I confronted them for answers to see if it really was their organisation that owned them and found out it was and that each one-bedroom unit cost approximately $185,000 to build. This was confirmed by a builder I spoke to, and the two-and-three-bedroom units cost more – so roughly $3M was the total cost.
In my opinion, with this amount of money available, it could have been better spent and seen a quicker turnaround in income received, to build more residences. A single unit made from a shipping container costs approximately $25,000 including cost of container. It is also quicker to build with people moving in quickly, so money comes back quicker, and people are living in the units quicker. If you multiply that cost of $25,000 by eight, it equals $200,000, and for $3M, I could have built 120 one-bedroom units. If you charged $256 per fortnight for housing, you would receive $30,720 each fortnight, so that is already the cost of one container, and you’ve got your money back.
I also believe that the Department of Housing takes too long to generate a register number for people waiting for housing or independent living. To generate a number should be quicker with today’s modern technology, and when a housing department property is empty, they should put someone in quicker. For example, In Mooroopna I know of units public housing units where a police incident occurred and three people were sent to hospital. Their families have taken their relatives’ belongings from the property, yet these units have been vacant for four months now. This is why we have such a big backlog of people waiting a long time for housing.
Overseas a lot of countries are accommodating people in shipping containers built with one to three bedrooms. We need to start dropping the waiting time otherwise you will have a backlog of 3M people on waiting lists by 2030, this is why the saying is, “Wake up Australia, Tasmania flew away.”
I hope it does not fall on deaf ears. We are a lucky country, let’s keep it lucky.
Sincerely,
Michele Zaninello
Shepparton
THE SCARED NATURE OF FOOTBALLERS
Call a spade a spade not a diamond or heart or club, let alone some other ridiculous euphemism. What is going on with the football world when players are taking time off for ‘personal reasons,’ which is so far removed from the real reason it is a joke? I pity the player who honestly does require time off for personal reasons such as an illness in his family or the death of a close friend, perhaps even genuine mental health difficulties. Not issues brought about by their own illegal drug use.
Drug abuse is to my way of thinking a choice people make at some stage in their lives. Nathan Buckley drew a line in the sand saying one’s role is either a professional footballer or a drug user, the two are not compatible. What would happen to, let’s say a school teacher who turned up at their place of work obviously affected by drugs, there would be very few options available to the employer? Parents would justifiably be outraged, the person who is supposed to be a role model has engaged in illegal and unprofessional activities. Second chances would be very difficult to come by and for sound reasons.
Why are footballers given so much latitude rather than making them accountable for their actions? If a player is not playing because they have decided a fix is more to their liking, then let that be known, other forms of employment do not tolerate such appalling behaviour, yet footballers appear to be untouchable and constantly forgiven. Take Ben Cousins as an example. Maybe he has turned his life around but spare more than a few thoughts for his ex-partner and children who he has caused untold horrific damage to along the way.
Drug abuse is such an egocentric, self absorbed behaviour benefitting no one else but the user at that particular point in time. Let’s herald the real superstars all those people who volunteer their time to assist in the community, even assisting drug addicts to recover. Call a spade a spade for God’s sake instead of covering up illegal activity and letting players hide behind a bevy of euphemisms.
Paul Richardson
Shepparton
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