LOOKING FORWARD TO A BETTER TOMORROW

“LIFE can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards,’’ underpins Neale Daniher’s When All

Is Said & Done.

To say that the book is mandatory reading is to undersell it. An outstanding Australian, Daniher demonstrably shows how to stand up in a real world tackle far beyond the confines of the footy stadium.

Although statistically still a year out from the start of the next decade, as we close in on what has been, for the greater part, an underwhelming past 10 years, Neale’s aforementioned words apply also to these challenges for a better tomorrow:

IN shaky and expansionist times, despite the US alliance, Australasia requires, as a deterrent and fallback position, a nuclear capability;

BASE-LOAD power surety for industry and households requires a combination of clean coal, gas, portable nuclear, hydro and waste-burn generation. Reliance on renewables is folly;

THE gap between rich and poor continues to widen. Despite fuller employment, those with jobs in the main are working longer and harder for peanuts and change;

IF 1.3 million retail jobs are to be truly valued, a 35 per cent GST on all online transactions is essential, irrespective of how difficult implementation and oversight might be;

HARNESSING and redistricting northern Australian monsoonal runoff must be a federal priority, as should more competition in the supermarket and banking sectors;

A NATIONAL low-cost housing program would provide jobs in the construction phase and the only hope for many to attain unit/home ownership;

IF clean-green food bowls potential is to be fully tapped, genuine federal bipartisan support for primary producers, including a milk floor price for dairy farmers, must occur;

JAIL time/deportation consequences must flow from attacks on emergency services and law enforcement personnel, ditto for domestic violence offenders (including crimes against indigenous women, girls and babies) and for social media bullying and harassment; and,

FAR greater accountability to governance from well resourced and remunerated fire and parks personnel in terms of systematic annual fuel reduction programs etc.

Richard Worland, Manifold Heights