Water use shortsighted
CALLS to route water reserved for environmental use to farmers are shortsighted and dangerous. Landscapes have been stripped bare of the plants and animals that have evolved to live in the Australian climate to make room for livestock that are extremely poorly suited. We should learn from this mistake and look to re-wild farmland. If even a tenth of the land we’re using for growing feed was diverted to crops for people, there would be more than enough to make up the difference, and we’d be so much more resilient to the inevitably worse droughts we’ll see.
Too narrow for cyclists
I AM very disappointed with the design of the Cambridge-Richmond Rd as implemented in the first stage of reconstruction. The rebuilt road is too narrow to enable a cyclist to be safely passed without the overtaking vehicle crossing the road’s centre line. There are very few places where a vehicle could safely stop at the side of the road and not partially block the road, forcing cyclists and other vehicles into the centre. The deep drains beside the road at many places are hazards for cyclists and motorists. All these considerations mean it is unlikely that the speed limit will ever be raised above 80km/h. Coal River Valley residents are likely to be very dissatisfied with the State Government’s effort. Hopefully the design of the next stage will more closely approximate expectations.
Not the solution
IN a series of emails last week, I wrote to the person I was discussing a problem with that I am not in favour of any of the solutions so far discussed and said that in my opinion the final solution is to leave out the disputed attachment altogether. I and scores of thousands would have often enough used the phrase after discussing solutions to some problem or other. The fact this phrase was used by the Third Reich in Germany in the 1940s in regard to their cruel views on Jewish citizens should not mean that when we use it in other contexts it is now a forbidden phrase. I don’t like Senator Fraser Anning’s Right-wing politics and I certainly don’t sympathise with his thinking on immigration. But that thinking is to keep certain immigrants out of Australia on racist grounds. Not exterminate them. I certainly don’t want to join in the demonisation of the Senator on the false grounds that to use the phrase “the final solution” is anti-Semitic no matter in what context.