Jail a place for punishment, not pen pals

Prisons should not be too comfortable for inmates, writes Paul Murray

FOR the past couple of years people in jail in Victoria have been banned from writing letters to people they don’t know.

It followed a similar ban in New South Wales after serial killers were caught corresponding with strangers from behind bars.

The idea is obvious, jail is a place of punishment, and the only contact prisoners should have with the outside world is with family who visit them.

But the Andrews Government is thinking of getting rid of the ban after prisoner advocates and lawyers claimed the bans were unfair.

It should be in no government’s interests to make it comfortable for inmates who have lost their liberty by their own actions.

Victoria has huge problems with judges giving weak sentences, the parole board letting people out too early and uncontrolled gang violence in Melbourne.

Perhaps the state would be better served by a government focused on those problems than one even willing to entertain the idea of a pen pal for prisoners.

Queensland used State of Origin to hand its citizens a hospital pass

THE Queensland Government are cowards for the way they announced a plan to jack up water prices.

It chose to use this week’s State of Origin rugby league clash to hide a planned $90 hike for households over the next three years.

We all know politicians love to put bad news out on long weekends, or when, no matter the news, the front page will be a big event in sport or pop culture.

But to use the cover of a football game to hide an announcement that affects hundreds of thousands of people is a disgrace.

It’s just another hit to Queenslanders who, we learnt this week, are paying the most for petrol in the country and a billion dollars is being spent on a giant wind farm.

While renewables are all the rage with governments, they are just not up to doing the job coal-fired power stations have done for decades.

Buried in the announcement was the detail, that a billion dollars’ worth of wind farms will only add 3 per cent to Queensland’s power needs.

This is the bit always missing from those who claim renewables are the answer.

In the long run they may produce power for less cost than coal, but the billions needed to build enough wind farms and solar to power a state, let alone a country, is tens of billions. Who pays that? If companies decide to build wind farms first, customers pay with higher bills.

If governments force them to do it, the taxpayer will fund them with endless subsidies.

At the coming election Labor Leader Bill Shorten will travel the country long and wide saying we should get 50 per cent of our power from renewables by 2030.

He’ll say the cost of coal isn’t worth it.

I’d suggest billions to replace it without the reliability isn’t either.

Paul Murray is a broadcaster with Sky News. He can be seen on Paul Murray LIVE from 911pm AEST each Sunday to Thursday nights.