YOUR VIEWS
LET’S put the facts on the table on water infrastructure in Queensland (GCB, 18/6).
The Palaszczuk Government has invested $848 million into water infrastructure across this state since 2017, delivering more than 1600 jobs to regional Queensland.
It was the Premier who first called for the federal government on October 30 last year to work with her government on the Bradfield Scheme.
While the Palaszczuk government is investing, the federal LNP government is yet to provide any funding to start construction of new dams or weirs from its fouryear-old National Water Infrastructure Development Fund.
During the LNP’s three disastrous years in government in Queensland, their contribution to water infrastructure was to scrap the Connors River Dam, and then cut services, sack public servants and start selling Queenslanders’ assets. And they declared future dams should only be privately funded.
Let’s not forget, the LNP claimed to build 100 dams across the country. How many did they actually build? Zero.
Deb Frecklington has made $8.4 billion worth of unfunded promises. Given her time as Assistant Treasurer under Campbell Newman we need to know what will she cut, who will she sack and what will she sell to pay for her promises?
DR ANTHONY LYNHAM, NATURAL RESOURCES MINISTER
WE are continuously being told about the rise in drunken violence
on the Gold Coast and yet the Surfers Paradise Licensed Venues Association is once again lobbying to bring back 5am last drinks so we catch up the other states!
Why do some people need to keep drinking until 5am? Hallmark Group general manager Tammy Wood is reported as backing the return to 5am last drinks as “having an extra couple of hours would be great for the staff, the customers and help business”.
Where is the moral conscience in this thinking? No mention of the impact on the community of having drunks roaming the streets in the early daylight hours looking to stir up trouble after being given extra time to top up their alcohol levels.
It seems the almighty dollar is more important to nightclub owners than their responsibility to ensure people do not drink to excess. And how are our hard-working police, who are already exposed to daily physical and mental abuse, expected to cope with the flow on effect of this extra “couple of hours”.
It seems as though relaxation of the shutdown laws is only going to see a return of the same old image of the Gold Coast – i.e. a place to visit for drunks and drug addicts, certainly not a holiday destination for families.
G. MEYER, SURFERS PARADISE
IN Ken W’s misogynistic Chatroom comment (GCB, 18/6), he gives all women a backhander if they aspire to higher political office. I should remind him that the premier in his home state of NSW is a woman!
As for evoking memories of Newman and Petersen as “leaders of strength” that’s a joke! One lost with the biggest electoral turnaround margin in Australian political history and the other was tried for corruption and only got off because a member of the jury was a former Young National president.
JIM TAYLOR, MUDGEERABA
D.J. Fraser’s letter (GCB, 20/06) states “After all we are the only mob who stick to using the (shark) nets”.
Newcastle beaches, and beaches from Palm Beach in Sydney’s north to Wollongong still use shark nets, and have done since 1930.
C. CLAYTON, GOLD COAST
WHO and what are instagrammers (All That Glitters, GCB, 20/6) and influencers – can I suggest donothing nobodies?
TONY CAVUOTO, PALM BEACH
IN response to the recent letters from Shaun Cunneen including the one on Friday (GCB, 19/6), on one hand Shaun you state our borders must stay shut to stop COVID-19 killing us all, but then straight after you state that thousands of protesters in Brisbane are heroes for putting all of us at risk, because they are fighting for your cause! Hypocrisy, is it not?
The issue today is that radical lefties, greens and political activists are using George Floyd, and hence Aboriginal deaths in custody, to further their own narrative, to tear down the “dreadful” establishment and start a socialist movement, but
rather than advancing your cause by presenting a balanced view based on facts, your inflammatory remarks on racism, police etc and your actions (vandalism, rioting, killing, looting, tearing down statues) are divisive and not helping your cause one bit.
Australia has its own indigenous affairs department, hundreds of independent indigenous community aid groups and organisations, employment positions that are for indigenous persons only, billions and billions of dollars in indigenous aid each year, education spots at university, and many more efforts to assist the indigenous communities. I urge you to Google Jacinta Price, she is the indigenous leader and director of Indigenous Research at the Centre for Independent Studies. Watch Jacinta’s videos and read her articles Shaun. Jacinta finds recent rhetoric from the left side of politics about institutional racism “absurd”.
Jacinta says “People do not want to admit and recognise that we do accept violence culturally. It’s evident that Aboriginal people, we are committing crimes! If we want to lower the rates of black deaths in custody, and incarceration, then we’ve got to stop committing these crimes: it’s fairly simple.”
As for the police, Shaun we look forward to your views on who would replace the police in your “new world order”? Who would maintain law and order? Who do we phone if you, or me, or our neighbour or friend is being robbed, raped, assaulted or having their car hijacked at gunpoint?
T BRIEN, HOPE ISLAND